by Jon Skovron
I turned back to Henri. “What’s going on over there?”
“Where,” asked Henri, squinting his eyes.
“Liel and Claire. They’re like buddies now.”
“Ah, you see, most of Claire’s hostility toward Liel was that she viewed her as a threat. As competition. Ex-girlfriends can be dangerous like that. But now she knows there’s no way in hell you two will ever get back together again. So they can be friends.”
“That makes no sense,” I said.
“It could be that I am drunk,” said Henri.
And so the evening went. At one point, I looked around and realized we were the last ones in the bar. Claire and Bakru were sitting over in the corner talking. There was some cheesy club music playing and Henri was dancing in the aisle with a couple of dryads. I’d never seen them actually hang out with people in the bar before. It was interesting to see them cut loose a little, drinking wine, laughing at Henri as he tried to woo them with what he clearly thought was some sexy dancing.
Liel sat down next to me.
“Hey,” she said.
“Hey.”
“You okay?”
“Sure. No. I don’t know.”
She smiled. “Been there.”
“Okay, I have to ask.”
“Yeah?”
“So when we were together . . . was all of it just . . . fake?”
“No, Boy. I’ve always cared about you. Just . . . not in the way you wanted. I tried for a little while, but . . .” She shook her head. “I didn’t really know what I was doing back then. And I know I hurt you while I was trying to figure it out. I’m not going to apologize for that, though.”
I sighed. “Of course not. Because you never apologize to anyone.”
“No, because it was an accident and I don’t apologize when I didn’t do anything wrong. But I do want to thank you.”
“Thank me?”
“There were lots of times when we were together that you could have just got up and left. Abandoned me in Queens or Jersey or wherever. But you never did. You stuck by me even in the worst moments.” She put her hand on my shoulder. “You are the most loyal son of a bitch I know.”
She glanced over at Bakru, who was talking intensely to Claire about something. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, it looks like I need to save Claire from one of my girlfriend’s extended lectures on why Doctor Who is the most important show on television.”
I don’t know how long the evening went on like that. Finally, Charon came and told us it was time to “shut up and go to bed.” So we slowly started to make our way down to the lower lobby.
“Hey, where are you staying, Henri?” asked Liel. “With Boy’s parents?”
Henri shook his head, leaning on Meadow so much that it looked like he might fall if she moved. “No, no, no. I am staying in a hotel down the street. In fact, I am not allowed to spend the night in the theater. Apparently, I make too tempting a target or something.”
“Ah.” Liel nodded, her eyes sleepy. “Well, good night then. Get there safe.” She and Bakru headed for the stairs that led down to the trowe caverns.
“Are you okay getting back to the hotel?” I asked Henri.
“Oh, yes.” He tried to put his coat on and failed. “Hmmm . . .”
Sequoia appeared at his other side and helped him get his arms through the sleeves.
“Are you sure?” I asked.
“Of course, of course!” He waved vaguely toward the front door. “It is just down the street! Can’t miss it!”
“Boy . . .” said Claire.
“Yeah,” I said. “Maybe I should—”
“You guys look like you’re ready for bed, too,” said Iris. “We’ll get him there safely.”
“You know where to go?” I asked. Something seemed a little off about this, but in my drunken haze, I couldn’t quite put my finger on it.
“Don’t worry about a thing,” said Meadow, still shouldering most of his weight. “We’ve got it under control.”
“Trust us,” said Sequoia. “We’re professionals.”
“Thanks, ladies,” I said. “I guess I owe you one.”
Liel and Bakru had already gone. Claire tugged me in the direction of our room. Then I heard Henri muttering something to the three dryads, and they all giggled. The dryads looked a little different for some reason. Their eyes were brighter, their smiles were wider, and their hair was a lot messier than they usually let it get. Something wasn’t quite—
“Hey,” said Claire, her lips brushing my ear. “Are you going to put me to bed, or what?”
What was I worried about? They were only harmless dryads. So I let Claire lead me by the hand back to our room.
It wasn’t until the next day that I found out just how wrong I was.
8
Not My Best Day
WHEN I WOKE up the next morning, my first thought was that an elephant must be sitting on my head. Then I thought, No, that’s ridiculous. How could an elephant get in here? So I decided it must be an ogre sitting on my head.
I opened my eyes, expecting to see nothing but ogre butt. However, there was no ogre, only a stabbing glare from the one light in the bedroom. That’s when I realized that I was just really hungover.
“Oh, god,” I groaned.
“Must you shout?” asked Claire next to me.
“I don’t think I was.”
“Right. Well, we’re in bad shape, then.”
“I feel like I could die,” I said.
“That’s just wishful thinking.”
“Why did you turn that light on?”
“I didn’t turn on any light. I haven’t even opened my eyes yet. I’m afraid they’ll crumble to dust when exposed to air.”
“Well, someone turned on a light.” I started to drag myself toward the small table where the light was coming from, but then I looked down. We were lying on a stack of blankets on the floor.
“Hey, what happened to our bed?”
“We never had one,” she said. “I failed to get one for us yesterday. You said it was fine. You said we’d sleep on the ground like we were out traveling.”
“I have no memory of it.”
“I’m not surprised. You were so drunk you passed out in mid kiss.”
“Sorry.”
“It would have been one or the other of us. Let’s just be grateful we’re not lying in a pool of sick.”
“What is that light?” I said. “Now it’s flashing.”
I finally made it over to the table. I reached one hand up and groped around until I felt a small metal-and-glass rectangle.
“Oh, it’s Vi.”
“Don’t answer it. I can’t handle that much perkiness and sparkles right now.”
“She’s clearly trying to get our attention. What if something’s wrong?”
“She’s a big-girl, super-intelligent digital consciousness. I think whatever it is, she can handle it on her own.”
I ignored that and unlocked the phone.
“Hey, Vi,” I said.
“I’m really worried about Henri.” Her eyes were perfect circles and her mouth was shaped like an upside-down V.
“Why?”
“He’s not picking up his phone in his hotel room.”
“Maybe he’s still sleeping,” I said. “We all had a little too much to drink last night.”
“And those three dryads never came back.”
“Oh. Uh, maybe . . .” I turned to Claire. “Do dryads . . . you know, hook up with humans?”
“Dunno,” she said, her eyes still closed.
I turned back to Vi. “Look, he was pretty wasted. So he might have made some . . . bad decisions last night. And he’s probably still sleeping it off right now. I’m not feeling great myself, honestly. Give it, like, another hour. Or two. Then we
’ll try him again.”
“Boy, please, I’m really worried about him. I just know something is wrong!” A single, oversized tear hung from one of her big anime eyes.
“Okay. Fine. Let me at least take a shower.”
“Oh, thank you, Boy! You’re the best!” Her eyes changed to star shapes and she showed a smile of white teeth that lit up the screen so bright I had to squint.
“Sure, sure.” I turned to Claire. “I guess I’m going to go check in on Henri. See how he’s doing.”
“Um.”
“Are you coming?”
“For the sake of all those I would encounter, no.”
AFTER A SHOWER, I felt slightly more functional. Vi had apparently co-opted the ringtone into a way for her to continue talking even when the phone was locked, and she kept blabbering on as I pulled on jeans and a T-shirt. At first I tried to calm her down, but it was clear nothing short of finding Henri was going to do that. Eventually, I just switched the phone to vibrate so I didn’t have to listen to her anymore. It continued to buzz in my pocket as I made my way over to the lobby.
“How’re you feeling today?” said Charon from the box office window. He had a big smirk on his brown, leathery face. “A little delicate, maybe?”
“Yeah, yeah.” I waved at him. “No need to rub it in.”
“I hope you’ve learned your lesson,” he said.
“The lesson seems to be ongoing,” I said as I walked over to Ruthven’s office and knocked on the door.
“Yes?” came Ruthven’s voice.
“It’s Boy.”
“Come in.”
Ruthven was at his desk as usual, writing in an old-fashioned finance ledger.
“You know, we could get that all in a spreadsheet,” I said.
“I’m sure you could,” he said, not looking up. “Now what can I do for you?”
“Vi is worried about Henri. He’s not picking up his phone at the hotel.”
“Mmm-hmmm,” he said, still not looking up from his ledger. “Not surprising, given what Charon told me about your little soirée at the Cantina last night. It’s amazing you’ve managed to drag yourself out of bed before noon.”
“I guess a couple of dryads are missing, too.”
He stopped writing and looked up for the first time. “Dryads?”
“Yeah, I wasn’t sure Henri would be able to make it back to the hotel on his own, and three of the dryads offered to take him.”
“They left the theater?” His expression was stony.
“Well, they’d been drinking, too, and I was wondering, you know, if they might have—”
“I’m sorry,” said Ruthven, his eyes now pulsing red. “Did you say the dryads had been drinking?”
“I thought that was weird, too. I’d never seen them drink before. And they looked a little messy. For them. You know, usually they’re so put together.”
Ruthven picked up the old corded phone on his desk and punched in a number. After a moment he said, “It’s Ruthven. I need to talk to Hazel. Now.”
“So . . .” I began. But then he held up a finger and I shut up.
“Hazel, are you missing anyone?” He listened for a moment. “Why didn’t you tell me immediately? I see. . . . No, we’ll handle it. But Hazel? This conversation is far from over. You assured me this would not be a problem. If anything happens to our guest, I will hold you responsible.” He pushed down on the receiver to hang up, muttering to himself, “I wish Mozart was still here. . . .” Then he punched in another number. “Charon, I need Claire and Liel in my office. Immediately. No excuses.” He hung up the phone and looked at me. His eyes were glowing a solid red now. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d seen that.
“I’m guessing this is bad,” I said.
“Do you know what happens to nymphs when they drink?”
“Uhhh . . .”
“Obviously you don’t, or you would never have let them take Henri home last night. A nymph—any nymph—who gets drunk becomes a maenad.”
“Maenads? Wait, like the crazy, feral nymphs who like to rip apart live animals with their bare hands and eat them raw?”
“Yes. And when they are in a frenzy, they don’t always make a distinction between animal and human.”
“All right then,” I said, and turned to leave.
“Wait, Boy, where are you going?”
“To the hotel, obviously. Henri is my responsibility. I’m not going to let him get torn to pieces by bloodthirsty nymphs.”
“Wait until Liel and Claire get here.”
“Why?”
“You have no idea how dangerous maenads can be. You’ll need the extra muscle. I’d come myself, but it’s too damn sunny today for me to go outside. Liel will have to put on glamour, obviously, but they both have experience with being out among humans, and Liel should be able follow Henri’s scent if they’ve taken him somewhere else.”
I shook my head. “I’m not waiting for all that. They can catch up. I’m going now.”
Ruthven called after me, but I was already across the lobby and through the front doors. I could feel the anger surging through my limbs as I sprinted down the sidewalk. I was ready for anything those maenads threw at me.
WHEN I GOT to the hotel, I headed straight to the front desk.
“I need the room number for Henri Frankenstein.”
The guy at the counter gave me a hard look. I realized I probably looked sketchy. A big guy with stitches wearing nothing but jeans and a T-shirt in the dead of winter comes barging in, demanding to know a room number. I probably wouldn’t have trusted me, either.
“I’m sorry, sir. We don’t give out the room numbers for guests. I can call up if you like.”
I felt a buzz in my pocket.
“Don’t bother.” I stepped away from the desk and took out the phone.
There was no cute Vi picture now. Instead, it was just a random collage of shapes and colors. “Room 13-M,” she said tersely.
“Got it.”
I slipped her back into my pocket and looked at the guy at the front desk. He was still eyeing me suspiciously.
“Uh, he just called me and told me his room number,” I said.
I didn’t have the time or patience to mess around with an elevator, so I took the stairs. As I pounded up thirteen flights, I felt my pulse rising. But rather than getting tired, I felt myself growing stronger, faster, like my body was waking up after a long sleep. By the time I reached the thirteenth floor, blood was pounding in my ears and I was so amped up I accidentally ripped the metal door right off the hinges. Those maenads were in deep shit.
“There you are!”
I turned and saw Claire and Liel, running up behind me. It threw me for a second to see Liel in her human glamour. Blonde hair, pale blue eyes, tan skin. A memory of our life together living in New York fluttered through my mind like a bit of gauze, but it was quickly burned away by my rage.
“What kept you?” I said, and continued down the hallway.
“Well,” said Claire, “since we had no idea what room Henri was in or where you were going, Liel had to follow your scent the whole way. Now slow down a second, will you?”
I stopped and turned back. “Ruthven told you what the dryads have turned into. We have to get him out of there now.”
“Of course we do, but I think we should make a plan first.”
“The plan is simple. Smash and grab.”
“What are you, the bloody Incredible Hulk now?”
“Just don’t get in my way.”
Then I heard a piercing, high-pitched wail that yanked me into a full sprint for the room. I didn’t even break stride when I went through the door.
Except I didn’t see anyone in there. No one alive, that is. It was one of those big penthouse suites. And the whole thing seemed to be covered in
blood. It ran down the walls in streaks and dripped from the ceiling. The furniture was broken, the TV smashed. There were shards of dark glass covering the carpet, maybe from wine bottles. And scattered all over the room were human body parts.
“Oh, shite . . .” said Claire.
I started searching through the body parts. It wasn’t always easy to tell what they were. Some were clearly legs or arms. But others were so mauled they just looked like chunks of meat and tendon, or else bones stripped of everything but a few strands of flesh. I couldn’t tell if Henri had been among them.
Then I heard the sound again, from the bathroom.
It was a big bathroom with a deep Jacuzzi-style tub. Henri lay in the tub, naked, his eyes glazed over, his mouth slack, sloshing around in a pool of blood. All the maenads were naked as well, blood smeared on their bodies and caked in their wild hair. One was straddling him. Another was holding down a quivering, screaming man as the third ripped flesh from his body and shoved it into Henri’s mouth.
All three turned to me and smiled in unison.
“Welcome!” they said as one. “To the birth of a new Dionysus! Bow down to the Mad One! The Bringer of Ecstasy! The—”
I grabbed the one straddling Henri by the throat and threw her against the wall. Dimly, I was aware that I was roaring unintelligibly, like a beast. But the sight of blood, the maenads grinning like maniacs, the torn-open guy screaming, Henri’s eyes empty and raw human flesh spilling out of his mouth drowned out all thought. I smashed into the grinning, blood-drenched faces and I felt them break. But I didn’t stop.
“That’s enough, Boy! You’ll kill them!” Claire shouted.
She grabbed one arm and Liel grabbed the other. But I knocked them both back. Then I turned to the maenads again. They were bruised and broken but still grinning, clawing at me weakly with torn fingernails, raving about Dionysus. I lifted both my fists over my head. I would crush them. I would reduce them to pulp. I would—
“Boy,” came a soft, familiar voice.
A cool hand touched the back of my hot, sweating neck.
A scent like cotton blowing in the breeze cut through the stink of blood and filth.
“Boy, it’s okay. You’re done now.”
