Monster Exchange Program

by Mark Albany

“How much do you remember from last night?” I asked, running my thumb lightly over where I’d kissed.

  “Enough,” she replied with a small smirk as her hand slid lightly over my chest. “More than enough, in fact.”

  “Want to talk about it?” I didn’t want to seem pushy but was curious to know how she felt about what happened the night before.

  “Later,” she grumbled. “When my head isn’t pounding like a bunch of tiny demons are pounding on it from the inside.

  Interesting choice of words. “Sure,” I replied, and squeezed her in another hug before letting her go her way while I went mine.

  Suddenly, the PDA in my pocket began buzzing. I pulled it out and inspected the screen. My heart leaped when I saw that the tracker appeared to be working again. The red dot was visible and moving across campus, but it wasn’t the right time to hunt the demon down. Nope, I’d give the beast enough room to reach its final destination and then I’d come calling.

  In the interim, I decided to head over to Frat Row again. There were numerous piles of evidence that the after-party cleanup was ongoing, mostly in the form of large black trash bags containing the telltale red plastic cups leftover from the various keggers. The sole exception was the building at the far end of the row, which I’d learned was usually left empty until one of the houses needed the surplus space for their new prospects.

  I headed toward it at a casual pace to avoid drawing suspicion but kept an eye on the PDA. My afternoon classes would have to wait while I chased down this lead.

  If my newly-formed suspicions were correct, there was no better place to hide the missing girls. As I reached around to find my pistol, more out of instinct than any visible threat, I suddenly felt like someone was watching me. Impossibly, the eyes were nearby. I hadn’t heard anyone approach. No human was that quiet. Even when they tried, their footsteps and breathing betrayed them. I didn’t think that trolls were any quieter—quite the opposite. Nor could I think of any other races on Earth that moved without a sound.

  But, this one had moved in too close, too quickly, and far too quietly.

  She was tall and lean, with a perfect hourglass shape. Bright red lips, pale white skin, and short dark hair—I’d seen her before, although she wore jeans and a red shirt this time instead of the short skirt from last night.

  “What are you doing?” she asked.

  “That depends on what you think this looks like.” I’d been taught a lot about how to keep a conversation moving without divulging any information.

  “It looks like a potential frat recruit is stalking someone,” she said with a grin and walked over to me, hips swaying hypnotically. “Who you’re stalking will help me decide whether or not to call campus security.”

  “If that’s the case, then this is not what it looks like,” I replied.

  “Well, I would stalk TKE if they expressed interest in having me.” She came closer and tilted her head as she ran a single finger over my right pectoral. “I’m Ruby, by the way.”

  “Nice to meet you, Ruby. I’m Nate. Why do you think TKE is considering me?”

  “My guess is that they noticed you at the party last night and liked what they saw.”

  “They have good taste,” I replied.

  She grinned. “I’m going to ask you this one more time, Nate. What are you doing?”

  “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”

  “Try me.”

  “Looking for the missing girls,” I said.

  “Why are you looking for them?” she whispered while moving close enough to kiss me. A picture of Ruby on her knees in front of me flashed through my mind.

  “I’m a concerned citizen,” I said.

  “And a shitty liar.”

  She grabbed my dick, and I tensed. “Be careful,” I said. “Don’t start something you can’t finish.”

  “I can finish, Nate. The only question is whether you’d be able to keep up.”

  She squeezed my dick, and then I broke her grip. She moved to do it again, and I blocked her hands. Laughing, she spun and then stopped.

  “Did you see them last night?” she asked, her back to me.

  “What?”

  Slowly, she turned around. “The demons, silly.”

  I froze in response to both her question and a nearly imperceptible flicker in her expression. Then her eyes turned yellow, her skin color changed to the hue of river sediment, and a pair of short horns sprouted from the crown of her head. “What are you, Ruby?”

  She grinned, flashing a blindingly-white smile. “I’m the girl who’s going to help you save the day.”

  11

  Ruby refused to tell me anything more about who or what she was, and why she was suddenly interested in helping me. Whether she was a monster girl or some kind of succubus, the fact that she had horns and was aware that demons had infiltrated campus meant that she was either in league with them or hunting them. The only way I’d figure out whose side she was on was to let her tag along.

  Whether she was actually interested in helping me or trying to draw me into a trap, I didn’t know. If it was the latter, she would soon become intimately familiar with the barrel of my service weapon. If it was the former, someone else would become familiar with the same projectiles.

  “How are you tracking them?” she asked after I mentioned having the ability to track the movements of the one demon. “It can’t be easy to know what a demon is doing or where it is at all times.”

  “It isn’t,” I replied. “I have a tracker that sends back coordinates to this little beauty,” I added, flashing the PDA.

  “That doesn’t look like something you picked up in Best Buy.”

  “I helped build it,” I replied.

  “Seriously?”

  I nodded.

  “Who do you really work for, Mister Concerned Citizen?”

  “A government agency.”

  “Which kind?”

  “The three-letter kind. You?”

  She chuckled. “I guess you could say I’m in private practice.”

  We stopped and I scanned the PDA. I swiped the screen with my index finger and routed and rerouted the information gathered the night before.

  Striking off across campus, we followed the path taken by the demon I’d planted the tracker on. The bastard had weaved his way across campus, slithering past fountains and statues, curling around the library and study halls.

  “Great,” Ruby said. “You put a tracker on the most active demon in the history of the world.”

  We crested a rise that overlooked a section of student housing. “Down there,” I said, pointing. “His trail stops down there.”

  She nodded. I grabbed her wrist. “How did you know the demons were on campus?”

  “I can smell them.”

  “You’ve seen them?”

  “I’ve seen signs of them, yes.”

  “They might have taken another girl last night.”

  “They did.”

  “You were watching?”

  “I was in the vicinity.”

  “Thanks a bunch for helping.”

  She shrugged. “I didn’t exactly have a dog in that fight.”

  “Then why are you helping me now?”

  “I’m helping you to help myself. There’s something else happening, Nate. Something much bigger than a few missing girls.”

  “Care to share?”

  She shrugged off my hand. “At the appropriate time, yes.”

  We checked out the extra house first but found nothing, so made our way down a decline and left the campus by way of a side street. Then we cut across several other streets that were crowded with students. Half a block down was an old rowhouse that had seen better days. The PDA reflected that the demon had entered and exited the structure three times the prior night—toward the end, the one at the corner.

  “That’s it,” I said, pointing to the house in question.

  We cut around so that we wouldn’t approach the house from the front. A coupl
e of young guys stood there, acting like they were simply hanging out and perusing their phones, but the way they watched the street made me believe something else was going on. One of them looked up. His bright yellow eyes gave him away. Ruby saw them, too.

  “Methinks there be demons here,” she whispered.

  I nodded. We continued on our path, staying quiet. The way that Ruby moved—glided might be a better word—put me to shame. I seemed like a blundering idiot in comparison. We worked our way toward the side of the building, avoiding the two demonic goons standing watch out front.

  We were ten feet from the dwelling when the hairs on my arms and the back of my neck stood at attention. Ruby grabbed my arm and stopped me, then pointed to a barely-noticeable runnel of inky black liquid on the ground. The tiny channel stretched east and west and seemed to encircle the house.

  Ruby arched an eyebrow, “You know what that is?”

  “Oil?”

  “A spell. My gut tells me it’s not one that would work on mortals, but likely would interfere with people like you and me.”

  “How do you know?”

  “It’s like porn, Nate. I know spells when I see ‘em.”

  “I’m not scared of a little spell.”

  I squared my shoulders and walked forward. I didn’t make it far before an invisible force knocked me back on my ass.

  Ruby looked down at me. “Scared now?”

  I reached up. She grabbed my hand and hauled me to my feet. Then she began softly muttering in some ancient tongue. Little wisps of blue flame curled around the ends of her fingers.

  “What are you doing?”

  “What do you think?” she replied and closed her eyes. “Fighting magic with magic.”

  A length of blue light that resembled a blade shot out from the end of her index finger. She mimed cutting an opening in an invisible wall. “Try it now.”

  I braced myself and walked forward, able to slip through the invisible barrier. She smiled and softly clapped her hands as the blue light vanished. Then she stepped through the opening and we moved up against the house, fighting to remain as inconspicuous as possible.

  We neared a tinfoil-covered window. I pressed my hands to the glass and felt a vibration. “Definitely something going on inside,” I said.

  “Just figured that out, huh?”

  She slipped past me, moving to the next window, then turned to face me. “We need to get inside, Nate.”

  “I’m ready when you are.”

  “But you need to know something.”

  “I’m all ears.”

  “They come here for these girls for a very specific reason.”

  “They like blondes and brunettes?”

  She glared at me. “I really need you to focus.”

  I nodded.

  “If my information is correct, they’re trying to bring about the Unnatural.”

  “What the hell is that?”

  “A powerful spell, the kind that only a High Adept can unleash, that unwinds Creation itself and brings darkness back across the face of the deep.”

  “That is literally the worst thing I’ve ever heard.”

  “It’s more terrifying than you can imagine.”

  “How do we stop it?”

  “Getting those girls is a step in the right direction.”

  She threw out her hands, and the nearest window rose enough for us to slip inside. I dropped into the basement, careful to mask the sound of my feet hitting the concrete. Reaching up, I grabbed Ruby by her tight waist and helped her down. We inspected the room, one of several I guessed in this basement that had been set up with corridors and whatnot. The current room was empty aside from some bundles of old clothes, cans of paint, and some cleaning supplies.

  I pulled my gun out, ready for anything, and led the way forward. We entered a hallway and tiptoed toward the sound coming from one of the rooms at the other end of the hall.

  Something creaked overhead. We stopped to listen. Someone was walking across the floor directly above us. Ruby pointed, and I nodded. We could’ve bolted, but we were so close. Continuing on, we reached the door at the end of the hall. I used the barrel of my gun to nudge it open.

  The room on the other side was darkened, illuminated only by a battery of medical machines that glowed and beeped in recurring patterns. It took a few seconds for my eyes to adjust to the murkiness, but then I saw the girls.

  They were lying on the floor on their backs, head to head, feet positioned out, and cocooned inside a webbing of wires and conduit—IV drips and the like—that ran to the machines. In between their legs, strange symbols and words were scrawled on the concrete in what looked like white chalk.

  “Blood spell,” Ruby whispered in my ear. “They’re arranging the girls to call forth the Unnamed.”

  “Who?”

  “The Ancient One who will bring the darkness back.”

  “Oh, that Ancient One,” Ruby replied.

  I looked from her to the girls. “We need to call this in.”

  “Call who?”

  “The FBI.”

  “This is a little beyond their jurisdiction, don’t you think, Nate?”

  I opened my mouth but quickly shut it again. The Myths and Monsters Branch was still being kept under wraps. People in the upper echelons—or those in the know, anyway—of government wanted to make sure that it would be effective before letting people know about it. Ruby was clearly a supernatural creature, or a monster, meaning that she needed to be kept in the dark, too.

  “It doesn’t matter who handles it,” I hissed, pulling my phone out. “We need to get those girls to safety. We can’t leave them here.”

  “Well, at least we agree on that,” Ruby replied. “Call whoever you need to. I’m going to deal with some demons in human suits.”

  I took a step into the room, and a wall of violet light sprang up. Energy radiated from it in waves.

  “Another spell,” Ruby gasped. “More powerful than the first.”

  “Can you break through it?”

  She didn’t answer. She was too busy pointing up. The patter of bare feet echoed on the floor above us. Lots of bare feet. “They’re coming!”

  “I’m not leaving without the girls!”

  Head down, I raced forward. A blast of white light catapulted me sideways into the wall. Literally. I was stuck halfway through the sheetrock and was only able to extricate myself by pushing against a pair of wooden studs.

  When I reemerged, Ruby had her hands up, and the air around her was fringed with green and red light. She muttered something and swiped her hands, and whatever spell had been there broke.

  I raced over and briefly assessed them, ripped away the wires and whatnot form monitor electrodes first, but then realizing I needed to get them out, ASAP. I commenced by pulling the tubes out of the girls, who slowly began to wake.

  “They were under a sleep spell,” Ruby said.

  The first two kidnapped girls were off to the right. I recognized one of them from my vision and from the footage. I didn’t recognize the third. The fourth was the one from last night. Ruby was kneeling beside the one that had been missing the longest, checking her beyond what the softly-beeping machine next to her could tell.

  “What are you looking for?” I asked.

  “Trying to find out what they want with these girls,” she whispered. “I was right, though. They need three more.”

  I wanted to know how she knew that, but before I could ask, the house filled with soulless shrieks. The girls did their best to scramble out of the room in their groggy states while I covered the rear, backing down the hall and holding my gun in a two-handed grip.

  That’s When the first demon, in the guise of a tall, red-headed woman, stepped into sight at the other end of the hall, grinning wickedly. “You’re trespassing,” she said.

  “We were just leaving,” I replied.

  She peered into the room and her eyes went wide. “You’ve also stolen from us.”

  “I’m pret
ty sure it’s impossible to steal from a thief.”

  Smoke rose from the demon’s nostrils. Her eyes pinched to focus. “You’re not even a man, are you?”

  “I’m half-troll.”

  “Which half?”

  “The good one.”

  She dragged her talon-like fingers along the wall, carving a trench in it. “Do you know what we do to thieves, troll?” She opened her mouth to reveal a maw filled with teeth sharpened to points. “We devour their souls. How does that sound?”

  “Not particularly pleasant.”

  “Would you like us to do that to you?”

  “I’ll take a rain check.”

  I fired my gun and she vanished. I swear to you, the fucking demonic woman just disappeared as if she’d never existed.

  “Run!” Ruby shouted, grabbed my shoulder, and pulled me back.

  We did, swinging around, plunging down the hall as the sound of laughter filled the house. Ruby entered the last room and headed toward the window.

  I turned back and spied one of the men from outside charging down the hall. This dude didn’t disappear when I squeezed off a shot. It caught him in the shoulder. There was a burst of yellow blood and the impact knocked the guy back against the wall.

  Ruby and I helped the girls climb out through the window as more of the demons guarding the house came for us. The girls ran in the other direction. Ruby and I put ourselves between them and the goons, ready to follow the girls out the window.

  I was worried about using my gun outside, so I secreted it near the small of my back and cracked my knuckles, ready to brawl old-school-style if the guards caught up with us. Then we heard a sound accompanied by a vibration in the air as if a hundred tuning forks had been plucked all at once.

  “Shit,” Ruby muttered.

  She pointed. I looked back to see the floor tremble and quiver as if an earthquake was happening. I grabbed her, intent on pushing her through the window—and the floor fell out from underneath us.

  12

  We fell screaming into the darkness and landed with a thud in some lower chamber in the house, kicking up a massive cloud of dust. I lay on top of Ruby, which wasn’t the worst thing in the world, although I was dizzy and disoriented.