The Monsters in Your Neighborhood

by Jesse Petersen

  Linda shifted Rehu’s weight and refused to look at any of them. “Yeah, well, I’m still a moron and I still betrayed you. I’m sure the others will hate me for what I’ve done.”

  Natalie pursed her lips. If Igor had been triggered down in the sewer alone with Drake, Alec, and Pat . . . if Igor had possessed Alec’s trigger while under Hyde’s control . . .

  Well, she just hoped there were “others” for them to find at all.

  17

  Alec paced the small circular room, letting Igor’s confessions sink into his consciousness. He was . . . well, there were a lot of emotions. He felt furious, sad, frustrated, even a little afraid. And he could scarcely express them all, let alone look Igor in the eye.

  “I suppose the fact that I’m sorry doesn’t mean much, huh?” Igor asked, feeling the back of his head just like Alec had been doing over and over again since he’d learned of his own chip. Once again, Alec felt the pity he was trying to push away for the assistant.

  “Maybe it would mean more if you hadn’t been in control of yourself when you got involved in this,” Alec said with a sigh. “But when you started helping Hyde, you weren’t under the control of the chip. You knew he was coming after us and you went along with it. And when you got to New York, you could have told us the truth at any time.”

  Igor pursed his lips. “Yes, true on all accounts. But it’s hard for a thing like me to fight my nature. To decide to do what’s right and not just what I’m told.”

  Alec shook his head as he paced away. It was hard to look at Igor—who looked so damn human—and remember that he had been altered and made into a form of monster by Natalie’s father. Could they really blame him for the nature that had been ingrained in him? He just didn’t know.

  And he didn’t have any time to think about it because Pat said his name. “Hey, come here. Our friends are coming up the pipe.”

  Alec rushed over and watched the screens as Natalie and Linda came up the passageway toward Pat’s secret door. They were all but hauling Kai and Rehu.

  “Oh shit, that doesn’t look good,” Alec muttered. “Open the door for them.”

  Pat depressed a button and the big door rattled, then swung out to allow them entry. Alec rushed outside to meet them. When Natalie’s eyes lit up with relief and joy, he wanted to kiss her right there.

  But he couldn’t. Instead, he grabbed for Rehu and supported the bigger man.

  “What happened?” he asked as he dragged Rehu inside.

  Once they were all clear, Pat shut the door and hurried over to help. He and Alec eased Rehu onto a couch. The normally robust mummy was pale and sickly and he had a huge bruise on his forehead.

  “I have a chip in me, apparently, and I got triggered,” Linda said with a shiver. “And . . . and I shot him.”

  Alec backed away from Linda in three long steps.

  “You?” he said, unable to keep utter disbelief from his voice. “But why is he hurt? A bullet shouldn’t be able to stop him.”

  “It’s a long story,” Natalie said as she eased Kai into a chair. “And I’ll tell you all about it later, but right now, where is Igor? He’s got a chip and Alec’s remote—”

  “We know,” Drake said with a sigh as he motioned to the disarray in Pat’s home. “And he wasn’t able to use the remote, so stop looking so terrified.”

  Pat shifted with discomfort. “This place was much nicer when we got here. I keep a very tidy home, I assure you.”

  “Where is he?” Natalie said, clenching her fists at her sides.

  Igor stepped out from the back room and stared at Natalie with a sheepish expression. “I’m sorry, Natalie,” he murmured.

  “You asshole!” She moved on him with pounding, long steps straight out of a Frankenstein movie. “You could have told us the truth at any time and kept this from happening. I knew I shouldn’t have trusted someone so close to my father.”

  Igor didn’t step away from her, even as she ran up on him like a charging bull. “I know. I know. And if you want to kill me, then go ahead.”

  “Don’t tempt me,” Natalie growled, low and angry enough that Alec stepped toward her to stop her just in case. She drew a few deep breaths before she spoke again. “Hyde said you assisted him with surgery, is that right?”

  Igor nodded yes, clearly fearful of what that answer might mean vis-à-vis violence to his body.

  “Then we might need you,” Natalie said, much to Igor’s obvious surprise and relief. And Alec’s. “Once we see what the Van Helsings do to remove the chip from Alec’s brain, we’re going to have to repeat that on everyone who has a chip in them. Linda; the Creature, if we can get him out; and, eventually, you.”

  “Wait,” Kai said, her voice weak as she straightened up from her slumped position. “So that’s still your plan? To confront the Van Helsings?”

  “Of course,” Natalie said. “Nothing has changed.”

  “Everything has changed,” Rehu croaked. “Before, you would have had Kai and me as backup if things went bad. But right now, because of the spells that were spoken, we’re mortal. We can’t risk coming up there to help.”

  Alec stared. “You’re mortal?”

  Kai sighed. “Yeah, like Natalie said, it’s a looooong story. It will be over tomorrow, but don’t go testing it out, okay? And talk some sense into your girl. She’s all crazypants if she thinks she can face the Van Helsings alone.”

  “If it’s over tomorrow, why not just wait?” Alec asked, staring at Natalie.

  She shook her head. “No. No more waiting. The Van Helsings will get word of what’s happened if we wait until tomorrow. You know they will, especially if the window breaking and gunfire at one of the city’s best hotels hits the news. Which it will. Our element of surprise will be gone.”

  There was silence in the room as that set in.

  “Natalie will not be alone if we go tonight,” Pat said, flying over to stand beside her. “I will help her.”

  “And I’ll still come,” Drake said. “They are my oldest enemy.”

  “I’ll help, too,” Igor swore, though very quietly.

  “And can I trust you?” Natalie snapped, spearing the smaller man with a deadly glare. “Even if Hyde no longer has your triggers?”

  “You have no choice.” Igor folded his arms.

  “I want to help, too,” Linda said. “I owe it to you all.”

  “No, you stay here,” Natalie said. “Someone needs to stand by with the mummies and protect them, since they can be harmed by normal means.”

  “But if you try anything, I’ll still destroy you,” Kai growled.

  Linda sighed. “Yes, Kai. I understand. Roar and all that badassery. Okay, fine. I’ll take care of the pleasant twins. I guess I deserve it.”

  Natalie nodded and looked at Kai and Rehu. “See, it will be fine.”

  Kai rubbed her eyes and looked at Alec. “You know this is a suicide mission.”

  Alec handed the mummy the triggering mechanism for himself, which she looked at it in surprise, staring at the engraved A on its plastic surface.

  “Kai, it’s never been anything but a suicide mission. But since I don’t want to be beholden to whoever holds that little trigger, even if it’s a friend, I have to try. And I trust Natalie and her master plan.”

  Natalie reached out and took his hand. He felt the scar on her palm, just one of many from her creation, and the warmth of her skin, and that touch soothed him. He smiled at her. What he had said was totally true. He did trust her with his life.

  A big leap for a lone wolf.

  “All right, it’s getting close to dawn and we don’t want Drake exploding in the light, so let’s get moving,” Natalie said with a squeeze of his hand before she let him go and made for the door, holding the book. “Move out, troops. We’ve got Van Helsing to hunt.”

  For all her bravado, Natalie was shaking as she and Alec trailed Pat, Drake, and Igor through the smelly sewers toward the Van Helsing residence.

  “Hey, you’re fin
e,” Alec said as he draped an arm around her shoulder like the hero out of some fifties movie with James Dean. She glanced at him. Actually, he’d make a pretty good bad-boy-with-a-heart-of-gold.

  “I hope we’re all fine,” she murmured. “Kai is probably right that this is a massively stupid idea.”

  “So why are you doing it?” Alec laughed.

  She looked at him briefly as they walked. “Because I’m sick and tired of hiding. And running. And fearing. And I also would like to save you because, I think I mentioned before, I kind of like you.”

  “Aw, I’ve taken a downgrade,” Alec said, with a dramatic hand on the heart. “From love to kind of like.”

  “It’s all the same.” Natalie chuckled, despite the circumstances.

  “Well, it means a lot to me,” he said, and now his voice was serious.

  “We’re going to save you.” Natalie took his hand. “We’re going to save all of us.”

  “I have faith in nothing less,” he said, then stopped talking. Up ahead Pat was pointing to a sewer grate above them.

  “This is the one.”

  Natalie let go and moved toward the stairs. “How can you be sure? It looks like fifty others we’ve passed.”

  Pat laughed. “I may not know much, but I know my sewers. This is it.”

  “Then up we go,” Natalie said with a sigh as she moved up the ladder first. At the top, she encountered the sealed sewer cap, but it didn’t take much monster strength for her to pop it off.

  The night air outside was cold and crisp, but she barely felt it as she pushed herself out and looked around. Sure enough, they were at the back alley behind the Van Helsing brownstone.

  “Nice, Pat,” she said with a grin as she grabbed his hand and pulled him up. Although they were in the alley, he yanked his big hood over his head to hide his face. Natalie frowned and helped Drake up next, followed by Igor, and finally Alec.

  Once they were assembled in the alley, Alec looked around, and she could see him making his plans, setting up his escape routes.

  “Igor should come with Natalie and me, to observe whatever surgery is performed,” he murmured.

  Natalie shifted. She didn’t trust Igor, but right now it didn’t matter. If he could help, she had to swallow that shit down and pretend like it didn’t exist. Hope she wouldn’t be proven right by him.

  “The three of us will go to the front door while you two stay out here and be ready for our attack,” Alec continued, with a glance at the other two monsters. “Drake, you have good monster ears, right?”

  Drake pursed his lips. “I don’t call them that, but, yes, my hearing is of higher quality than a human’s.”

  “Be ready to burst in.” Natalie smiled at the two of them and began to turn toward the door, but Pat caught her sleeve.

  “Will we have a secret word to know when to come in?”

  She blinked as she stared at him. “What?”

  “A secret word—you know, so that we can burst in at just the right time.” Pat nodded. “You see it in the movies all the time.”

  Natalie glanced at Alec. “What do you suggest?”

  “Rutabaga,” Pat said without hesitation.

  Alec laughed. “You sound like you’ve thought of this for a long time.”

  “Oh, I have,” Pat said with a vigorous nod of his head that sent his tentacles dancing around his face.

  Drake rubbed his eyes. “This conversation is less than sophisticated and our nighttime hours are fading. I hate to mention again the fact that I’ll explode if sunlight hits me, but . . .”

  Natalie waved a hand. “I know, I know. Pat, you know what . . . yes. We’ll do the rutabaga thing. Drake, listen for the word rutabaga, and that’s how you’ll know to come in.”

  She couldn’t tell if Pat was smiling under all those tentacles, but his eyes were definitely lit up with excitement and happiness. She couldn’t help a warm grin as she, Alec, and Igor left the two of them standing in the alley, ready to press against a window and listen for rutabaga so they’d know to burst through a side door at just the right time.

  “That was nice of you,” Igor said as they climbed up the marble steps to the front door.

  Natalie spared him a quick glance, the first one since he had admitted he fucked her over. “Thanks.”

  “I mean it,” Igor insisted. “You could have said he was being silly and left it at that. Drake would have figured out the right time.”

  “Aw, I doubt Pat gets to have much fun, stuck all alone. If rutabaga makes him happy, who am I to tell him no?” She stared up at the menacing carved door. “Besides, everything in this room, in this house, in the next hour or so, is going to be no fun at all.”

  18

  Alec could hardly breathe as they were taken to the end of the hallway to the huge office where the Van Helsing family was gathered. In the corner, the Creature they controlled stood by, a collar around his neck chaining him to a wall. He stared forward, unblinking. Alec saw Natalie flinch as she stared at him.

  “Are you sure you all aren’t vampires yourselves?” Alec asked the family as the snotty butler closed them into the room. “The hours you keep make me wonder.”

  The elderly Van Helsing wheeled his chair forward. “You keep the same hours as what you kill if you are to be a decent hunter.”

  “Interesting that you use the word decent when you and your family are anything but,” Natalie said with a purse of her lips that was the only visible betrayal of her rage and fear.

  Alec had to hand it to her, she was putting on a poker face for sure.

  Her pointed, chilly words garnered no reaction from Van Helsing or any of his grandchildren. They just stood there, a stone-faced, murdering wall of judgment.

  “You brought someone new,” Lydia Van Helsing said, breaking the silence as she pointed toward Igor.

  In response, he smiled, all fake Southern charm as he held out a hand toward her. “That’s right, we haven’t met. I’m Igor, assistant. Nice to meet you.” He looked around. “The place is a tad dark. I could give you some pointers on brightening it up a bit when this is all over.”

  Lydia pursed her lips and ignored him, continuing to direct her comments to Natalie and Alec, who could barely contain a giggle at how perturbed Igor made the group.

  “We told you to come alone.”

  Igor stepped back. “So that’s a no on the interior design tips, then?”

  Lydia speared him with a withering glance and then looked back toward Alec expectantly.

  Alec shook his head. “Sorry, we don’t take orders. We wanted someone to assist you in the surgery, and that’s sort of Igor’s thing.”

  “That wasn’t our arrangement,” Gemma said, and Alec was beginning to realize how much the four Van Helsing grandchildren looked alike. Were they siblings? Cousins? Clones? Whatever. Didn’t matter. He had to focus.

  “New rules,” Natalie all but spat. “You know how it is. Igor is nonnegotiable, I’m afraid. Deal with it.”

  The five of them exchanged looks and the younger Van Helsings muttered to each other in tones that couldn’t be understood. Finally, the old man broke the tension with a slap of his hand on the armrest of his wheelchair.

  “Enough of this foolishness,” he snapped. “Get moving, Desmond, I grow weary.”

  Lips thin from irritation, Desmond Van Helsing stepped forward, past his grandfather, and held out one thin, soft hand. “The book, please, Mr. Dunham.”

  Alec stared at him. The elder Van Helsing looked so small in his wheelchair, so wizened and harmless. But he ruled the roost and it irked the younger, stronger man to no end; anyone with eyes could see it.

  “When Granddaddy bites the big one . . . or gets the big bite by one of us, I guess, depending on your version of our war . . . does that mean you get to take over, Desi?” he asked. “That must be exciting for you, the idea of not being his lapdog anymore. Want me to help you along?”

  Desmond’s eyebrow twitched just a fraction with anger, though Alec
wasn’t certain if it was because of his implication about the older Van Helsing’s demise, the nickname, or if he’d hit on something else.

  “You are unable to hope, even for a moment, that the war will end if my grandfather dies,” Desmond said, his hand still extended. “We’re stronger than ever and more determined to destroy you than you could possibly understand.”

  “You’re right about that, I’ll never understand your continued focus on our demise,” Natalie interrupted. “In the old days, yes, you got money galore for your ‘extermination’ services. But people today don’t want us dead. They wouldn’t pay you for it, that’s for sure.”

  “Are you sure?” Lydia repeated. “You really need to check your stats online. There is a very, very popular hashtag on Twitter called #killthemonsters that sprang up after the original one, #monstersinnewyork.”

  “And you didn’t have anything to do with that, I’m sure,” Natalie sneered, though she was annoyed they’d somehow missed that one.

  Lydia straightened her glasses. “I give the people what they want; they make it trend. So I wouldn’t rule out those mobs you fear so much. Or the moneymaking possibilities once your identities are totally revealed.”

  Her smile made Alec’s skin cold. “Such as?”

  “First we sell the exposure rights to the media, then we sell our monster-controlling technology to the government. You don’t think they might consider monster soldiers, ones they can control? Or monster ‘assistants’ ”—she shot a cold look toward Igor, who flinched—“we could sell to families all across the country? Buy your monster butler from the Van Helsing Corporation, just five easy installments of nine hundred ninety-nine dollars. We’ll clone, market, and civilize your kind yet.”

  Alec’s stomach turned with every word, every suggestion. He’d been around a long time. Lydia’s plans for product marketing were exactly the things he feared most.

  “Book,” Desmond barked. “Now.”

  Natalie shook her head and pushed herself squarely between Alec and the angry Van Helsing grandson. “Let me say this slowly and clearly so that you’re sure to understand. Fuck. Yourself. Asshole.”