Of Humans and Monsters

by Candace Blevins

  Adonis handed a large picnic basket to Mordecai, who sat with it, opened it, and began handing out plates and silverware. I sat without asking questions, and watched as Adonis extracted containers of hard boiled eggs, raw veggies, and garden burgers with all the fixin’s.

  Cora, Nathan, and I had eaten my egg salad at Bran’s house, before we’d gone to the cabin, and the boiled eggs reminded me of our camaraderie as we’d sat on Bran’s glassed-in patio to eat egg salad and pickles with some fancy bread one of his people had also placed on our table.

  I was anything but comfortable as we silently loaded our plates and passed the condiments around for our burgers. Once we started eating, Adonis talked between bites.

  “Various belief systems have the law of three. The Christian Bible says ‘Where three or more are gathered in my name, there am I in the midst of them.’ And Wicca requires three people for many things. There was even a television show about witches who needed the Power of Three.”

  I wondered if he’d given away more than he intended by letting me know he was familiar with recent television programming, but I didn’t mention it.

  “You’ve been told Mordecai and I were once worshiped as gods,” he continued with a nonchalant shrug. “Being worshiped as a god doesn’t make you one, though where humans are concerned, I can see why they think so. Considering the energy we gain from their worship and attention...” He shrugged again. “We’re different things in different realms, but the point is, we can leave this reality and go to others. We aren’t constrained by space or time, though while in certain realms we must follow laws about traveling through time.”

  Mordecai had once told me he’d gone back to the library of Alexandria to look something up, so I’d already known he could go back in time, and Adonis made it sound as if they could go both directions. I’d ask later about the rules — meanwhile, I thought I’d figured out the nothingness.

  “The place Mordecai takes me — we step outside of this realm into a place between realms, right? I thought of it as the static between stations on the radio, but it’s just a big nothingness between universes or realms or whatever, right?”

  Adonis looked at Mordecai in surprise, but my teacher only smiled as if to say ‘I told you so.’

  Adonis leaned towards me, looked as if he was considering touching my arm, but didn’t.

  “Your analogy is accurate enough. It’s a reality no one’s created anything in yet. The important point here is that Mordecai took a chance by taking you there. Most humans lose their sanity in that place when taken while conscious, even when they’re held so they can’t get lost. None can survive on their own without being anchored by one of us. Even if you aren’t one of us, you fit enough of the parameters for us to treat you like one of our race.”

  Despite my attraction to Adonis, I wasn’t comfortable with him so close, and I scooted a few inches away from him as I asked, “Can I go there on my own?”

  “That’s a longer conversation for another day,” said Mordecai. “The short answer is that if you figure out how, you should only do so in an emergency.”

  “If others like us find out about you,” said Adonis, “you’ll likely be captured and studied.”

  “We aren’t going to tell them,” said Mordecai. “It isn’t an issue yet, but the fault lines are approaching critical. First, we’ll get a feel for this one and glue it together, then we’ll move to White Oak Mountain to focus on allowing the fault line there to gently relieve the stress recently placed on it. We’ll do this for all the major fault lines around this area, as the quakes have been aimed at stressing them in such a way to set off the main one running through the valley.

  I didn’t feel right about doing it, but I didn’t believe Mordecai was interested in creating a nuclear meltdown. He seemed to be trying to help, and Aaron held him in high regard. Still, I told him, “I’m trusting your word that we aren’t screwing with something we have no business fucking with.”

  “Back to the power of three thing,” Adonis said, as if I hadn’t just voiced a concern. “When we work together as one, we’ll be more than the sum of our parts. If we can blend together correctly, the three of us will have the energy of twenty-seven of our race working individually. We can do this.”

  “Twenty-seven? That’s, what... three cubed?”

  “Yes.”

  “How do we blend?” And did I really want to? If I could pull it off, would it be yet one more mark against me being a human? But, if I didn’t and there was a nuclear meltdown, I wouldn’t be able to live with myself.

  “What do you know about your brain?” Adonis asked, pulling me out of my thoughts. “Specifically, about the different parts of your brain and what they’re responsible for?”

  Damn, but Adonis’s voice was fucking sexy. If we were all women, or if I were a man, we’d be focused on the job at hand and not on our attraction to each other. I forced myself to stop noticing the way the ancient god’s voice stroked every nerve ending in my body, or the way his muscles seemed to glide under his silky looking skin.

  “More than most. I learned a lot through meditation, but I’ve also learned which parts of my brain work when I paint versus when I struggle getting a computer to do what I want. Also, I’m a juggler, so my brain rewired itself to look like that of someone who meditates long before I started meditating.”

  That seemed to surprise him. “Juggling did that?”

  Surely I wasn’t telling a former god something he hadn’t already known? “Yeah, there isn’t enough time for the corpus callosum to translate between the two halves, so they have to wire themselves for direct communication. Juggling makes you whole brained, if you take it far enough.”

  “Fascinating,” said Adonis.

  Mordecai crossed his arms and gave Adonis a pointed look.

  “We’ll have to discuss that later,” said Adonis, clearly trying to force himself back on track. “Since you’re aware of your corpus callosum, I want you to try to touch my corpus callosum with yours. Don’t ask how, don’t think about it, just... DO.”

  I instinctively knew he was right, and if I thought about this I’d screw it up.

  I made contact with the part of my brain between the two hemispheres, reached out to Adonis as I felt for the part of his brain that matched up, and it was almost too easy. As I found it and our connection formed, he reached out for Mordecai and I sensed Mordecai reaching towards me.

  We formed a circle, attached by the center of our brains. My instincts told me this was wrong — if we used brain energy to work with the Earth, we’d surely screw something up.

  Mordecai answered me telepathically. Yes, we’ll use our hearts to work, but we won’t join directly by our hearts. Reach out with your arms and we’ll form a circle to connect our heart energy physically with our hands, but without the intimacy of joining our heart chakras.

  We joined hands and I noted both men resituated into a semi-lotus. I did the same, thankful it wasn’t a full lotus as I heard Adonis in my head.

  Ground yourself, we’re about to blend.

  I extended my root chakra into the ground, opened my heart more, and endeavored to empty my mind and stop thinking.

  Blending was a good word. We weren’t one — not like a hive mind. We were still our own personalities, but we’d also joined into another being. A stronger unit.

  As a unit, our senses sank into the ground and we imagined the two plates below us sticking together and holding tight. We envisioned this piece of land as stable and true, and my heart rejoiced when the land seemed more firm.

  Once again, as almost a single entity, we faded into the nothingness and came back into this reality near Mahan Gap. We visualized this area relaxing and languidly moving where it needed to go. We imagined it well-oiled, lubricated, and moving smoothly and slowly while humans above barely felt the movement.

  As we moved to the Sequatchie Valley through the nothingness, I could feel the men concentrating on the map we’d studied. When we’d gone
to Mahan Gap, I realized they’d used my memory.

  We traveled to more than a dozen sites, and finally moved back to the campsite and... unblended, I guess. We disconnected our heart chakras first, and then pulled away from each other’s corpus callosums.

  We all took deep breaths and shook our hands for a second, getting used to being a single individual once again. I’d been able to think on my own while we’d been joined, but I’d also been able to think as a third of our joined unit.

  Adonis looked at his watch and grimaced before giving me an apologetic look. “I know we need to talk. You have questions, and I owe you answers. When we have time, I promise to answer your questions — if not all of them, most of them.”

  “But we’re on a timetable and Adonis has preparations to oversee for tonight,” Mordecai explained, “and I need to get you to Abbott’s coterie house so they can get you ready to meet Adonis tonight.”

  “Speaking of which,” said Adonis, “will it be easier for you to pretend we haven’t met if we get along swimmingly, or if I tick you off the first time I open my mouth?”

  “You two are the experts. What do you think?”

  They looked at each other and Adonis said, “Let’s play it by ear. I’ll act as if I’m just meeting you, and you react accordingly. Just know that the way I greet you will not be how I’d choose to act towards you now that I’ve met you. I have respect for who you are, and if the situation were different I wouldn’t treat you as I’ll need to tonight for appearance’s sake.”

  I smiled. “I’ve already been coached that I shouldn’t try to kill you because it’s likely you can’t be killed, and it’d just piss you off.”

  His eyes practically twinkled when he laughed, and once again I understood how his beauty had found its way into our legends and mythologies.

  “Indeed,” he said with a little flourish of his arm. “I will see you this evening. I look forward to finally meeting you.”

  It was no wonder most women fell for him, but I didn’t have time in my life for a beautiful god. Besides, if I worried Abbott took advantage of me because of our age difference, what might Adonis be able to pull without my realizing?

  Several hours later, Kendra was putting makeup on me while someone else added extensions to my hair, giving me long luxurious tresses in five shades varying from strawberry blond to a deep burgundy, but it looked natural.

  Cora sat in a chair beside me, applying her own makeup while someone worked on her hair. Kendra’s hair and makeup were already immaculate, and we all wore luxurious robes.

  Once my hair, face and nails were done with an artistic flair I’d never pull off, I removed my robe so the guy who’d done my hair could rub shimmery lotion on my arms, legs, and the parts of my torso that would show while wearing the dress. I was worried it would come off on my clothes, but once it dried it seemed to be on without the threat of rubbing off. I double-checked my wrist to be sure it hadn’t messed with the makeup covering my demon marks, and was relieved it hadn’t.

  I finally slid into the dress and looked at myself in the mirror. It wasn’t me, and yet — it was. The dress played up my good points, downplayed the parts of my body I’m not happy with, and made me look a lot better than I really look. I mean, I don’t look bad usually, but this dress made me look spectacular. It wasn’t me though. I couldn’t look like this every day. I wouldn’t want to look like this every day. Real people have flaws, and I didn’t look real.

  Kendra stepped behind me and met my gaze in the mirror. “You’re going to have to fight them off tonight. They all drool over you when you’re wearing jeans and those horrible Crocs you like so much. When they see you in this we may see the first documented case of supernatural heart failure.”

  I grinned at her. “You and your little team are miracle workers, but this doesn’t look like me. I don’t know who the person in the mirror is.”

  “Tonight, the person in the mirror is you.” She shook her head. “It’s too bad you didn’t meet Adonis in your usual get-up, before he sees you like this.”

  “Why?”

  “Because he’s Adonis. No mortal woman can turn him down once he sets his sights on them. Or so the saying goes.”

  “Seriously?”

  “Yes. Seriously.”

  Oh, fuck no. I looked around the room. “Everyone out but Kendra and Cora, please.”

  Kendra would be answering the questions, but I needed moral support from Cora. I walked to the desk, pulled a piece of paper and a pen out of little cubbies, and wrote:

  So if I turned him down, that would be proof I’m

  I paused a few seconds before writing the rest, I’d just have to trust her.

  not completely human?

  I showed it to them, and Kendra nodded, her eyes big at the implication. I ignored her shock and wrote my next question.

  I need to find a way to turn him down without giving anything away. I’m human, but there’s no way in hell I’m going to fall all over the man. If I can keep from it, how do we keep the rumors from going crazy?

  Kendra took the pen.

  You’d turn down a god? Adonis?

  “I enter relationships based on who people are. Not what they are,” I told her, figuring it was safe to say that much aloud.

  She shook her head. “It wouldn’t be a relationship. It’d just be a week or two of the most fantastic sex you can imagine. I’ve never known him to stick around more than three weeks for any female, but it’s usually less.”

  My eyebrows shot up. “You’ve been with him?”

  She grinned. “Yeah, but it was centuries ago. Second best lay I’ve ever had, and I’ve had some doozies.”

  I opened my mouth to ask who the best was, but she responded before I could ask. “I won’t tell you, so don’t bother asking.”

  I tore the paper into tiny pieces and flushed it, shaking my head. “I think I’ve just been seriously set up. I need to talk to Mordecai — any idea where he is?”

  I’d said it during the noise of the flush, and had kept my voice low so only the two women would hear.

  “I’ll see what I can do, but first I have to present you to Abbott.”

  “Right.” I looked at myself in the mirror again. “I’m actually a bit nervous about that.”

  She laughed. “As well you should be — he may not let you out of the house. Do you have any idea how hard it is for him to take you to Adonis, knowing the beautiful god of legend will likely take an interest in you and you won’t be able to resist? But, there’s no way for him to refuse this, at least not in the current climate. And in truth, Adonis can keep you safe. Aquila and his people won’t go near you when you’re with him, and it would give us a few weeks to try to neutralize the threat.”

  Which was why Ryan was for them sending me to him — Ryan’s only objective was to keep me alive.

  “Is that why Abbott wanted to dress me like a prude? I mean, not that the outfit was prudish under normal circumstances, but now that I know the expected kind of dress, it kinda was.”

  She looked uncomfortable, and I sighed as I internally kicked myself. “Don’t answer that. Your loyalties lie with Abbott and it wasn’t a fair question. I take it back.”

  “It isn’t that. I learned long ago not to try to guess his motives. You’d be wise to do the same. You may be right, or it could be he started the way he did so you’d feel better about the dress you ended up with. Or, it could be something else entirely.”

  I’m careful not to speak ill of Randall around Cora, and I’m usually careful to only say positive things to Abbott’s people about their Master, but I’ve started seeing Kendra as a friend and I forgot. I appreciated her blowing it off, but I needed to be more careful in the future. I gave her a smile and told her, “Thanks for the insight. I’m ready for Abbott, and then I need Mordecai.”

  We walked into the downstairs great room, and I slowed as I approached Abbott. A few vampires I recognized but didn’t know by name were with him, but Abbott was the only on
e dressed up. He wore black dress pants with a solid white poet’s shirt with lots of ruffles.

  “What, the women have to show skin and the men get away with dressing normal? How sexist is that?” I asked with a smile.

  He turned around and my smile shifted into something between a grin and a smirk because the back of his outfit was entirely see-through. I could see his back, waist, ass, the backs of his legs — bare skin under wide mesh all the way down to his boots. From the back he may as well have been naked. Fuck, I’d forgotten how nice his ass is.

  “Ah. My bad,” I said with a chuckle. “It’s a good look for you.”

  He pulled a cloak on as he turned to face me, and I smirked. It looked just like a vampire cloak, high collar and all. Major stereotype thing going on, but it’d keep him from getting arrested for indecent exposure.

  “Carena, you are stunning. More than stunning. I don’t want to let you out of the house.”

  “I need to talk to Mordecai before we go, is he still here?” Best not to dialogue with the Master Vampire to give him the idea he might have the authority to keep me from leaving.

  “I believe he’s waiting for us in the upstairs parlor.”

  Any chance he and I can talk in the second floor office? I need a private conversation with him.

  Of course, though I wish you could let me know what’s going on.

  So do I, Abbott. So do I.

  He squeezed my hand and I told him, I don’t want to get called out for being rude again, but I haven’t learned when the telepathic thing’s okay and when it isn’t. I’m telling you and Nathan, and I told Cora and Kendra earlier, but I’m not telling Mordecai — if I take an earring out and put it back in, I need help. Or even if I just take it out and don’t put it back in.

  He squeezed my hand in response as we entered the parlor. I didn’t see Mordecai, and asked the room if someone could let him know I needed to talk to him.