The Monsters in Your Neighborhood

by Jesse Petersen

  “It’s Kai and Rehu,” she said, wrinkling her brow in confusion.

  “Fuck, didn’t we see enough of them?” Alec asked, but he nudged her aside and opened the door anyway. “What?” he snapped, his tone not anything like his usual joking jovial self.

  Natalie frowned. She had told him he was annoying sometimes, but now she missed his normal self. He was the jelly to her peanut butter. The bacon to her eggs. The—

  Kai pushed inside and Natalie was smooshed against the wall. Seriously, was she invisible?

  “What did you do?” Kai asked.

  Actually, asked was too limp a word. Her tone was high-pitched, shrill, and filled with . . . fear. Natalie stared as Alec moved away from Kai and Rehu into the living room. They followed, almost on his heels, and Natalie sighed. This was going to be super-fun, she could already tell.

  “Hi, everyone, nice to see you, yes, please come in.” She shut the door and locked it, then trotted into the living room so she wouldn’t miss whatever was going on.

  “What did you do?” Kai repeated. “Tell us!”

  Alec flopped onto the couch and glared at Kai and Rehu. “I don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about. And I don’t care.”

  Rehu lunged at him, but Kai put up her arm to block him. “Fine, you want to play games,” she snapped. “Then let’s play.”

  She spun toward the TV and grabbed the remote from on top. She turned it on and flipped through the channels before she got to some headline news show. A vapid, large-toothed blond woman was staring out at them with a flawlessly perfected I-am-sympathetic-but-fun! smile.

  “And now to a story we’ve been following all day here,” she said. “The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City has been the victim of a very strange robbery. Now look at this video and see for yourself.”

  The screen switched to a slightly blurry surveillance video from inside the museum. It was dimly lit, obviously past closing time, and the gallery was hard to discern, even though it was one of Natalie’s favorite places in the city.

  “Now watch,” the woman reporter’s voice continued, tense with exhilaration. “A figure will dart from the shadows right . . . now!”

  On cue, a person moved from the shadows and into the main room. Except he wasn’t quite a person. He was very hairy, partially hunched over like he wasn’t quite comfortable on his legs. He was wearing clothing, but it hung on him in a strange fashion. Like his body wasn’t made for it.

  Natalie staggered back as all the pieces of the puzzle became clear. She recognized that T-shirt, that jacket with the torn pocket she was never allowed to fix, she recognized the gait of the person as he moved across the gallery, stopped at a glass case covering a pedestal, and smashed the glass.

  She recognized him . . . because he was Alec.

  Alec wanted to scream. He wanted to break things. He wanted to howl as he watched that thing, that wolf in his clothing, steal whatever was inside the glass case. The alarm began to screech in the video and the wolf howled once and ran, just as the night guards raced into the gallery, guns drawn.

  He hated that wolf sometimes. All the time. And never more than this moment.

  “Oh, Alec,” Natalie said from across the room.

  He dared to look at her, and she was staring at him like she didn’t recognize him. He’d seen that look before. From his parents hundreds of years ago when they’d learned he’d been changed, from women he’d dared to care for in the old days, from “friends” just before they loaded up the shotguns.

  “Alec,” she whispered as she took the remote and muted the television so they wouldn’t have to listen to the reporter prattle on about the scene they’d just witnessed. “What did you do?”

  It was the same question Kai had asked when she barged into the apartment, but there was none of the anger to Natalie’s tone. No judgment. Just sadness and understanding and fear.

  “I—I don’t know,” he admitted.

  “So you aren’t going to deny it was you,” Rehu said, his fists lifted and clenched so hard that the knuckles were white. “You aren’t even going to try?”

  “Why should I?” Alec asked. He got to his feet because he figured there was going to be a fight at some point. “It’s obvious that’s me in my wolf form. I can tell you that and also know it doesn’t make sense. It’s not the full moon, I shouldn’t be able to change.” His head began to throb as he tried to think, to summon up some moment of that night on the screen. “I can’t remember changing or doing any of the things in that video.”

  “Yeah, right,” Kai burst out through clenched teeth.

  Natalie stepped forward, the voice of calm, as always. “Okay, look, before we freak out, what exactly did Alec take?”

  “A book, Natalie,” Kai said, her voice becoming softer. “He took a book.”

  “O . . . kay . . .” Natalie said, folding her arms. “What book?”

  “The book that can kill us both,” Rehu said. “The Book of the Dead. The ancient tome that contains the spells that can wake the dead, and return them to their slumber. It was on display in the Egyptian gallery in the Met. Until Friday night.”

  Natalie covered her mouth. “So someone just has to read that spell and—”

  “No,” Kai interrupted. “There’s a whole thing you have to do, a ceremony. It requires some artifacts, but as Rehu well knows, it’s easy to obtain those things on the black market. For all we know, someone already has them. So, tell us, Wolf—where’s the fucking book?”

  “I don’t know,” Alec snapped. Normally he could control this itchy agitation, but right now it was overwhelming him. Taking over in a way he’d never felt. “I didn’t take it.”

  “Hard to believe, when we just saw you on the TV,” Rehu said, and his tone was low and filled with menace.

  Alec rubbed his eyes. “The wolf isn’t me,” he explained. How many times had he said that? “He’s like another thing that steals my body. He puts me, the real me, to sleep, inaccessible. Then he does what he does. I don’t remember doing anything when I’m in that state.”

  “Bullshit,” Rehu spat. “Where is it? Where is the book?”

  “I don’t know!” Alec insisted, hating that he sounded like he was pleading. “Seriously, I don’t remember.”

  “Your ‘amnesia’ is pretty damn convenient in this case, isn’t it?” Kai bit out.

  “It’s true,” Natalie said, moving forward, moving . . . toward him. “He never remembers. And I’ve never known him to want to steal during his moon cycle. That’s too . . . organized for the wolf part of him. He certainly didn’t have a book with him when he got home.”

  “Oh, please, you’re his bitch, Natalie.” Rehu laughed. “You’d say anything to protect him, even if you knew he had done something wrong. You probably fucking walked him over to the Met and waited outside.”

  Alec twitched as a rage so pure that it was terrifying rushed through him. He got to his feet without thinking, lunged forward, then swung on Rehu with all his might. He connected right with the jaw of the mummy, who staggered back and fell, smashing into Natalie’s favorite chair and flipping it over. Kai rushed to Rehu’s side as he sat up, testing his jaw.

  Alec stared at the two of them in shock. He and Rehu had always been pretty evenly matched in the strength department, but right now the mummy looked stunned. And hurt.

  Alec’s gaze slipped to his hand. He’d hit Rehu so hard he’d split the skin on one knuckle and the rest of them were already getting purple from the force of the punch. He only had that kind of strength in his other form.

  “I—” he began. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to—”

  “Shut up,” Kai said, her voice deceptively soft as she got Rehu to his feet. “Just shut up.”

  “Kai,” Natalie said, moving toward the two mummies.

  Kai lifted a hand. “You shut up, too. Neither one of you can be trusted. Not now. In fact, I think Linda was right. I think this group has played itself out.”

  Natalie fol
lowed Kai as she and Rehu moved toward the door. “What are you saying? Kai, stop!”

  But Kai didn’t stop. She didn’t even slow down. “You know what I’m saying,” she said as they got to the door. She unlocked it and turned toward Natalie. “It’s over. We’re over. It’s every monster for himself now. And if you get in our way, if you try to hurt us, it will be monster-on-monster violence like there hasn’t been seen since the nineteenth century. Do you understand?”

  Natalie’s jaw tightened and Alec could see she wanted to argue. Instead, she nodded. “Fine. But you know you’re just playing into ‘their’ hands.”

  Kai glared. “I’m not sure who ‘they’ are anymore. Good-bye.”

  Kai and Rehu stepped into the hallway and slammed the door behind them. For a long moment, Natalie stood at the door, staring at where their friends . . . former friends . . . had been. When she turned, she looked exhausted, defeated.

  “Do you feel the same way, Natalie?” Alec asked, uncertain he actually wanted to hear the answer after all.

  “What way?” she said with a sigh.

  “Like maybe we should just break this whole thing apart, all of us go our own way. Because I wouldn’t blame you. Seems like I’m dangerous now, especially if I’m wolfing out off schedule and breaking and entering into major museums.”

  Natalie stared at him, just stared with an unreadable expression in her dark eyes. “Do you not get it, you stupid mutt? I love you, okay? I’m not going anywhere.”

  He drew back, stunned by this confession. Love him? That was . . . weird. No one had done that in a looooooong time. So long he could hardly remember it. But Natalie didn’t say things she didn’t mean, so there it was. She loved him.

  “Do I take your silence to mean that you are freaked out by my saying that? That you’re trying to find a way to run screaming from the apartment, never to return?” she asked, sinking her teeth into her lip.

  He shook his head and moved toward her. “Not at all, Natalie. What you told me . . . it’s just so amazing.” He reached out to take her hands. “I want you to know that I—”

  Before he could finish, a massive, acute pain rushed through his body. He cried out at the heat of it, the focus, wrenching away from her as he fell to his knees in the middle of the living room. It was like his mind was exploding and he couldn’t do anything to stop it.

  “What is it?” Natalie grabbed for his shoulder. “Alec!”

  He could hear her, he wanted to answer her, he wanted to beg her to find someone to assist him, to hold on to him, to help him, but he couldn’t. He couldn’t because his body was no longer in his control. Deep in his chest, he felt something beginning to take over. A wildness he recognized all too well, that wolf. That wolf, and the wolf was howling at him to hurt Natalie.

  Hurt Natalie.

  Hurt Natalie.

  “No,” he tried to say, but the word wasn’t a word when it escaped his lips. It was a snarl. A growl. Something inhuman.

  The last of his resistance, the last of his humanity, clung to control, but it was a useless battle. With one last burst of horrible pain, Alec was torn away and spiraled into darkness and emptiness.

  Leaving Natalie alone with a monster.

  11

  Natalie had seen Alec’s wolf form six times since they’d started dating. It wasn’t like she liked it, but it was part of him, so she accepted it. When he turned, he got bigger, his face elongated into that of a canine, his teeth grew, and he became covered in hair. He traded off between walking on his hind legs and walking on all fours. His strength multiplied, but she could manage him, especially since they tied him down with special chains when the cycle began.

  Mostly he just growled and howled and thrashed. But she never felt totally threatened, even if he managed to get an arm free to slash at her or something.

  When he spun around to stare up at her from his crouched position on the floor, she recognized this was not that kind of wolf change and the thing staring up at her wasn’t Alec, either. This was something else.

  His face had mangled into a half-man/half-wolf hybrid, something twisted and ugly. Hair covered his skin in patches, rather than a thick coat. His fangs were distended, but his eyes hadn’t changed entirely. One was still Alec’s, staring at her in something akin to an apology; the other was bloodshot, pupil dilated and empty of all emotion or humanity.

  He grumbled, growled, and the only thing on his face was hate.

  “Dear God,” she whispered as she backed away slowly. “What the fuck did they do to you, Alec?”

  He tilted his head to stare at her. Prey, that’s all she was. And even though they had tussled a little bit when he was a wolf before, she could already see this was going to be different. Whatever Alec was at this moment, he had intent. And his intent seemed to be to kill her.

  He lunged forward and hit her, flipping her onto her back as they skidded across the floor together. She pressed up against his broad chest and he leaned forward with all his might, smashing his teeth toward her in an attempt to rip her face off..

  She managed to get him off of her just enough that she could throw a punch, and held nothing back as she connected squarely with his lupine nose.

  He yelped like a dog and she flipped him off of her, leaping to her feet. They had managed to slide out of the living room and into the foyer. She backed up until she bumped against the console table. Reaching behind her, she slid her hand along its laminate until she felt the heavy lead candlestick from her father’s old mansion. She was about to grab it, but Alec had already gotten up, shaken his head, and reached for her again.

  Taking her shoulders this time, he flung her. She flew away from the table and the possibility of weapons that the candlesticks represented. She hit the wall next to the kitchen doorway and felt her shoulder pop out of place. She jammed it back into its socket and turned around.

  “Alec,” she said, rubbing her shoulder. “I know you’re in there. You need to look at me and remember who I am.”

  Her words seemed to do nothing for the Alec-monster. He still slammed toward her in flat-footed rage, slashing his hands at her and snapping his teeth. He swung and she ducked. He hit the wall, ripping claw marks in the drywall that she was very glad were not on her face. There were lots of things she could replace on herself, but if you had to get a new nose, it was really hard to match skin tone. People tended to notice that.

  She dove into the kitchen to avoid the second slashing of his claws and immediately regretted it. This was New York City. Her kitchen was ridiculously tiny and she had very few options on where to go. Especially since Alec had already come into the kitchen doorway, blocking her escape.

  She flattened against the wall and looked at him. He stared back and then his half-wolf face broke into a . . . smile. Not a friendly smile, not a smart-ass Alec smile, but a hungry smile. A violent smile.

  He lunged, and she grabbed for the first thing in her reach. A frying pan that had been soaking in the sink since morning. She swung it as he came at her, and—at the same moment he slashed, leaving a deep cut on her arm and dragging her to the floor—she smashed the frying pan down on his head.

  He yelped in pain and slumped down on her, pushing her into the kitchen wall even further with his weight. She flinched as blood began to ooze from the cuts on her arm, but she set the pain aside and stared at Alec.

  When he woke up, he could very well still want to kill her. She pushed at him, trying to move his deadweight so she could get into a better position just in case.

  He groaned in response and flopped onto his back. Looking down at him, she let out a sigh. He was no longer in the twisted half-wolf form.

  “Alec?” she whispered.

  He looked up at her, his golden eyes clear and back to the man she knew.

  “What happened?” he grunted. “Why does my head hurt?”

  “I hit you with a pan,” she explained, helping him sit up. “You . . . well, I wouldn’t call it wolfing out. You turned into . . . som
ething else, something horrible, and attacked me.”

  He stared at her, and then his gaze slipped to the slices on her arm.

  “Oh shit, did I do that?” he asked as he grabbed for a dish towel from the stove handle behind him and began to wrap up her arm to slow the bleeding.

  They both knew the wound would close within a few hours, though she was pretty sure those cuts were deep enough to leave scars.

  “You did,” she said. “Ouch, not so tight.”

  “Sorry.” He shook his head. “I’m so sorry, Natalie.”

  “It wasn’t you, not really you,” she said. “Not even wolf you. Alec, we were standing there just having a conversation and you turned into this thing. And you wanted to kill me. Do you remember any of it?”

  He shook his head. “No . . . I remember us talking, and then it’s just gone. But my head hurts like a motherfucker.”

  She smiled. “Hitting you in the head brought you back, so if you’re looking for an apology . . .”

  “I’m not,” he assured her. “And yeah, it does hurt with a my-girlfriend-hit-me-with-a-pan pain. But something else, too. Something deeper. Something from the inside.”

  Natalie bit her lip. “That doesn’t sound good.”

  He looked around at the apartment. Chairs were broken, tables flipped over, there was blood on the floor. It looked like World War III had been fought in their living room and kitchen. “Yeah, it doesn’t look great, either.”

  He put a hand on the counter and slowly pushed to his feet. She leapt up to steady him as he staggered slightly.

  “What is going on?” she whispered.

  Before he could say anything there was a knock on the door.

  “That’s probably Igor.” Natalie sighed. “I’m sure he’ll have a ton to say about our redecorating.”

  She left Alec to steady himself on the kitchen counter and went to the front door. She looked out the peephole and was surprised not to see her father’s old assistant outside after all. In fact, she saw no one.

  Slowly, she opened the door. There was no one there. Just a note, folded neatly in front of the door. She took it and locked the door behind her.