Destroy All Monsters

by Sam J. Miller

  “Solomon, your aunt called Child Protective Services to report you as missing.”

  His eyes opened, wide with sudden startling fear.

  “She had to— Otherwise she could get charged with child negligence. She could go to jail, Solomon. She protected you for as long as she could.”

  Solomon nodded, but the terror did not go out of his eyes.

  “This doesn’t have to be a bad thing,” I said. “Come home with me tonight, shower and eat and get some rest and feel better, and then tomorrow we can go to the department of social services and talk to them. Would you do that?”

  He looked at his feet for a long, long time. “I can’t,” he said finally.

  “Why not?”

  “What if they want to lock me up?” he whispered.

  “They’re not going to lock you up after one visit!” I said, almost laughing.

  “They wouldn’t lock you up, Ash.”

  They’d locked up Solomon’s mother, hadn’t they? Why would he think it would be any different for him?

  I took his hand. Took his other hand. Held them both, hard. Waited for them to stop shaking, but they would not. I breathed slow and deep, trying my best to be calm, to clear my mind, to find some peace and send it Solomon’s way.

  “Solomon, you need to see a doctor,” I said. “Would you do that? For me? Please? I’m scared for you— They say the sooner you get treated, the better your chances are.”

  He pulled his hands away from mine, turned away. Took a step, then another.

  And then . . . Solomon screamed. Howled. The force of it doubled him over, and when he screamed again, he fell to his knees. He kept screaming. I’d never imagined a sound so big coming out of him.

  “Hey,” I said, reaching out to touch his shoulder.

  Solomon reacted on raw, unthinking instinct. When he felt my hand, he flinched. Twisted his body and pushed me away.

  I fell. My butt hit the ground, hard.

  He wasn’t trying to hurt me. I know that.

  Fourteen

  Solomon

  Connor and I sat on the floor of Radha’s hut, drawing. He burned shapes and images into pieces of paper with his finger-fire, and I colored them in.

  “The flames should be blue,” Connor said.

  “Of course,” I said.

  Physically, I felt fully recovered from my latest freak-out. My throat hurt, like I’d been screaming, which was weird because Radha swore up and down that I never made a sound, but otherwise I was fine. Physically.

  Mentally, not so much. I remembered all the awful things I said to Ash before everything went bad, and that was painful enough, but I couldn’t ignore the suspicious timing of it all. Ash’s nine soldier-guards were going to use some scary, painful method to shock Ash’s power out into the open—and the very next day, Ash was sedated. Magically restrained. Subdued into a near-coma.

  Coincidence, I told myself, but I was unconvincing.

  “You’re outside the lines,” Connor said, snatching the crayon out of my hand.

  “Sorry, brother.”

  Normally, Connor would have been at the Narwhal . . . but the place was locked up tight, and no one had seen Quang. Radha had asked me to stick around, help watch Connor, and I’d been very happy to agree—especially when I saw how worried she clearly was about the possibility that Quang had disappeared, among so many others.

  A knock from outside. Radha was in the kitchen making dinner, so I went to answer the door.

  “Hello, Solomon,” said Niv.

  “What the hell,” I said. “What are you doing here?”

  “We need a place to hide,” he said, his smile embarrassed and adorable. And that’s when I noticed the woman behind him, wearing a hijab, who I’d initially assumed to be another Underbridge loiterer.

  “Ash,” I said, even before she turned around and I saw her face.

  “Solomon,” she said, her eyes unfocused, her voice tiny and far away.

  I pushed past Niv, to hug her. Her arms stayed at her sides. Part of her was still somewhere else. Somewhere terrifying.

  I glanced past the two of them. They were alone. “You’re alone?”

  “Had to get out fast.” Niv’s eyes darted left and right, scanning for threat in his periphery.

  I tried my best to smile for Ash, but fear froze my mouth in a frown. This was so, so bad. Niv’s sense of duty to the Crown was all-consuming. To abandon his post, to essentially kidnap Ash—when we all knew that putting a member of the royal family in danger was treason? What could have happened, to push Niv to such drastic action?

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t know where else to go. Can we come in?”

  “What happened?” I asked.

  Ash looked up at me. Made eye contact. Handed me something. Like a coin, but flatter. And misshapen. Like a penny that had been stomped on by a titanosaur.

  “I found that in her hand,” Niv said. “It wasn’t in there before. She said you gave it to her. After it was run over by a train. She said the two of you were down by the train tracks today. You were screaming.”

  And when he said that? I did remember. I remembered handing it to her. How it held the heat of the sun and warmed my palm. A whole host of other memories seemed to glimmer ahead of me, just out of reach. She could help me unlock them. I could help her. We could make each other whole again.

  “The spell they have her under, she’s been fighting it more and more,” Niv said. “And if they don’t know where she is, it’ll be a lot harder for them to strengthen the spell, and sedate her all over again.” His eyes told me he had more to say, but didn’t want to say it in front of Ash. I nodded, to show that I got it, that we could talk about it soon.

  “They’re going to lose their minds, when they find out she’s gone,” I said. “They’ll pull out all the stops to try to find her. Turn this city upside down.”

  He nodded. “I know. If I had any sense, I’d bring her back now. But this feels . . . important.”

  “You’re right,” I said. “Of course, you’re right. Come inside, I’ll see if Radha can put you up. It’s crowded, but she’s a miracle worker.”

  Radha emerged from the kitchen with water dripping from her hands. Connor came running to see the strangers.

  “This is Niv,” I said. “He’s . . . my colleague at the Clarion. And this—”

  I was scrambling for a story, about to say that she was his sister, Ananka. But Radha had already dropped to her knees. “Your Highness,” she said.

  I was surprised, and impressed, that she could recognize Ash without her royal trappings. But Radha adored the queen, and maybe she recognized some of Ash’s mother’s face and regal bearing in the young woman who stood before her. Ash inclined her head slightly and I swear I never saw Radha smile so deeply.

  Niv stepped forward, stuck out his hand. “I’m deeply sorry to have brought her here. I know that it comes with a great risk. And I promise you, it will be a very short stay. We need to find a safer place where our presence doesn’t put anyone else in danger.”

  “This is the safest place in the city for the othersider princess,” Radha said. She looked like she was about to cry from happiness. “I’ll protect her with my life, and so will everyone else in the Underbridge.”

  “Thank you, Radha,” I said.

  She bowed again, and went to prepare a pallet on the floor of the bedroom where Connor and I slept.

  “Look what I can do!” Connor said, extending his fingers in front of him, until a ball of fire began to burn in the air. Ash laughed, and then he laughed, and the ball became a long, coiled dragon made of flame.

  Ash smiled, held out her palm. It balanced above it, inches away, close enough to warm her without risking burning her.

  The flames made her features seem so fierce, so solid. The old Ash was in there, all right. The angry, beautiful princess who would defy her mother and half the city if she thought it was the right thing to do. Politics and pragmatism be damned. I grabbed my ca
mera off the table and took a picture. The burning dragon, the smiling princess.

  “Can I talk to you?” Niv asked.

  I nodded, and we stepped into the kitchen. “You asked me to find out what I could, about the ultramarine graffiti? About the armbands? Turns out, Palace intelligence is spooked. This is big, Solomon. These people—they call themselves the Destroyers—”

  “As in, ‘Destroy All Monsters.’ Except monsters doesn’t just mean monsters. It means othersiders, too. It means us.”

  “Exactly. They want to eradicate magic from Darkside altogether. Their leader calls himself the Shield, says he’s here to protect Darkside’s citizens from the menace of the othersiders. But the big thing, the thing that has the queen really scared, is that he’s got the support of the whole Darkside Police Department on the down low. Half of the cops are members of the Destroyers. Including Commissioner Bahrr himself.”

  I stared at him, my mouth hanging open. Every othersider knew the cops weren’t friends. But this was something organized, something aggressive, something much, much worse.

  “Police Commissioner Bahrr made the Shield into what he is. For years, he’s been funneling weapons and intel to the Shield. The movement’s grown ever since the Night of Red Diamonds.”

  I thought of Cass, the questions she would ask. “Is there anyone who will go on the record about all this?”

  “You know there’s not.”

  I nodded. “It’s helpful, though. Thank you.”

  “I know you don’t like me,” he said, apparently out of nowhere. “I just don’t know why.”

  Well. I gave him credit, at least, for not being afraid to say the difficult thing.

  My camera was still around my neck. I raised it, and he smiled. The shadows danced across his face. I took the picture.

  “I can’t explain it,” I said to him. “I’ve just always been suspicious of you. Like . . . I’ve always felt like you had an agenda I didn’t understand. I—I’m sorry.”

  He smiled. Kindly, sadly. Looked into the fire. “Everybody has an agenda.”

  “Tell me about yours.”

  “Some other time,” he said.

  His face looked so sad. I wanted to kiss him, but I would not let myself.

  Fifteen

  Ash

  “My throat hurts,” Solomon said.

  “Of course it does. You were screaming for what felt like forever.”

  “I’m sorry, about that freak-out.”

  “I know. It’s okay. We’re okay.”

  We walked. It was almost all the way dark, already. Without my realizing it, we’d followed the train tracks back into town. We made our way to my house, through the twilight streets. The evening smelled like woodsmoke.

  “You fell,” he said, when we got to my front door. “I remembered. That day. You fell.”

  “Out of your treehouse,” I said, because suddenly I was remembering too.

  “Connor’s,” he said.

  “You were living there too, then.”

  We waited for more to come, but none did. We went inside.

  The walk had taken longer than I’d thought it would. Dad would be home soon. I couldn’t say that to Solomon, or he’d leave.

  And go where? And do what? Hungry, still smelling, would he head back for that bar or the bridge he sometimes slept under? I led him upstairs. We would take our chances. If my dad had something to say, he could take it up with me.

  Solomon took a long time showering. I didn’t blame him. He had always loved how hot our water got. When he came out, towel around his waist and wet hair dripping, I couldn’t help but smile. From pride. Admiration. He had become such a beautiful man.

  He turned on my radio. Ms. Jackson, our favorite DJ. The Graveyard Shift: Weird Songs for Weird Wonderful People.

  “One day she’s going to be playing my songs,” he said, and smiled, and I knew with complete certainty that he was right.

  Then he picked up his dirty T-shirt and I snatched it out of his hand.

  “You can’t put this filthy thing back on, idiot,” I said. “I’ll wash it for you.”

  “What am I supposed to wear in the meantime?”

  “Not that towel,” I said. “It wouldn’t be safe for you to walk down the street. Everyone would want a piece of you.”

  He smiled. Blushed. I pulled a backpack out from under my bed and tossed it to him.

  “These are my clothes,” he said. “Where did you get these?”

  “From your aunt,” I said. “She dropped them off a couple months ago. Said you would probably come by here more often than there. And anyway, she had bought a bunch of new stuff for you, in case you did come by her place. Those might be a little small.”

  He dressed in front of me, utterly unashamed.

  “She’s worried about you,” I said.

  “I know. It’s just so crowded there, and she works so much so she’s hardly ever even home. And her boyfriend is . . . not so fond of gay people.”

  “Sounds like she needs a new boyfriend.”

  He smiled, like he wished it was that simple.

  Downstairs, the door slammed. Solomon flinched. “Your dad?”

  “Probably,” I said.

  But it was both of them. I could hear my mother and father heading for the kitchen, arguing about something.

  “It’s okay,” I said, seeing how Solomon’s breathing had sped up.

  “I want to go,” he said.

  “Wait. I know you’re hungry,” I said. “Stay for dinner. He won’t say anything. I’ll make sure of it.”

  “I want to go,” he said, and his voice sounded smaller this time.

  “Okay,” I said. “I’ll go downstairs first, and make sure the coast is clear.”

  I tiptoed down the stairs, and checked to make sure Dad was in the kitchen. I beckoned to Solomon, and he descended.

  I knew we were caught by the way Solomon came down the stairs. His tread was so heavy, and the steps were old creaky wood.

  “Solomon?” my father said, coming fast out of the kitchen.

  “Sir,” Solomon said, without turning around.

  “Ash, you know you’re not allowed to have boys over when no one is home,” he said.

  “Solomon is my friend, Dad.” You fucking idiot, I added, in-brain only.

  “Have a good night, Solomon,” my father said. He moved to open the front door.

  They hadn’t always been like this. Dad had no problem with Solomon, back when we were little. I couldn’t understand what had changed.

  “Wait! Stay for dinner, Solomon!” Mom called from behind Dad. “We brought home spaghetti from the church fund-raiser over at Grace Abounding. There’s plenty!”

  “No,” Solomon said, and hurried outside.

  “Solomon, wait,” I called out the door. I grabbed one of the Styrofoam spaghetti containers, and a metal fork, and some napkins, and brought them outside and handed them to him. My dad reached out his hand to stop me, but I swatted it away.

  “Thanks,” Solomon said, standing there awkwardly in clothes that were slightly too small for him. He shifted the food into one hand, to wave goodbye. I tried not to think about him eating it by himself in the dark somewhere, down by the train tracks or on the bumper of someone’s pickup truck.

  There’s a photograph of the two of us. Taken when we were ten. It’s on the table by my bed. Two frowning kids, fully clothed, in a bathtub. Look at it and you’ll think you’re seeing a pair of miserable refugees. You can’t see the adventure Solomon was taking us on, narrating a whole complicated, amazing story where we were infiltrating an evil kingdom, and defeating their army of ghosts. You can’t see that this is the happiest we’ll ever be. All of that is unphotographable.

  Going back in, I closed the door behind me as quietly as I could. Mom was using her soothing voice on Dad, which, like always, was having no effect.

  “You can’t be mad at that poor boy for what his mother did,” she said.

  “George is a friend
of mine,” Dad argued. George, aka Mr. Barrett; Solomon’s stepfather and Connor’s father. “He’s a good man. And the awful things that woman did . . .”

  He trailed off when he saw me.

  “What did she do?” I asked, stepping into the kitchen.

  Mom turned toward me, deer-in-headlights style. Dad turned away. “Nothing, sweetheart. Nothing you need to worry about.”

  “What did Solomon’s mother do to Connor’s dad?” I asked.

  “You’re too young to know the details,” Dad said, his voice firm in that way that meant he would not be changing his mind.

  “Anyway, what does it matter what she did? It has nothing to do with Solomon. What do you have against him?” I asked. “He’s not my boyfriend. And I mean, you know he’s gay, right?”

  “Solomon is confused,” Dad said. “And he’s sick. Who’s to say what he is?”

  I groaned. “He’s my best friend. You can’t seriously believe he would hurt me.”

  “I’m not saying he would hurt you on purpose.”

  “This isn’t Of Mice and Men, Dad,” I said.

  “Ash, he’s delusional. And he has persecution fantasies. So who’s to say he won’t suddenly decide that you’re the one persecuting him, and do something terrible to you?”

  I stared at him, the silence stretching between us. “What makes you say that?” I asked.

  “I’m eating dinner in my office,” he said, taking his plate and going.

  I skipped dinner altogether. Instead, I paced back and forth in my room. I read old interviews with Diane Arbus, on the internet. I did laundry.

  I did not wash Solomon’s T-shirt. I put it in a pillowcase under my bed. It smelled bad, but it smelled like him.

  Ms. Jackson was still playing in my room. Her cigarette-scratchy voice sounded ancient, impossibly wise.

  “Temperature’s dropping tonight, beloveds,” she said. “Better find a good book or a warm body to curl up with by the fire.”

  I put my headphones on, tuned out everything else. But no matter how loud I turned up my music, I couldn’t drown out the remembered sound of Solomon screaming.