I don't know how, but I talked to her, and she understood. Laid down right beside me, her dying breaths blowing my dirty hair aside, and passed away next to me. They found me with my face buried in her blood-matted fur, sobbing.
The hospital patched me up, but within twenty-four hours, I was back on the street, hiding from the newfound celebrity. The bounty hunters found me less than a week later, and only chance threw me into gentler arms, saved me from government interest. Nikolai Kuznetsov paid over two hundred thousand dollars for me, and put me in the arena with his beast, the Drakon, and won the Blood Pits. Charles Goodnight's agent, Mason Kincaid, bought me for two million, two years ago, to handle Derecho. We're undefeated.
The Blue Hurricane was the first celebrity Kaiju. Derecho, eight Blood Pits removed from her predecessor, is the latest.
Derecho's hooves shred the hard-packed earth as she charges her victim. The crowd is deathly silent as the slime-thing spits poisonous goo, but it doesn't slow Derecho a bit, and her gleaming tusks bite deep into the thing's belly, ripping it open. Steaming green guts gush to the arena floor, and Derecho roars her victory.
~
Back in the catacombs—the Goodnight Arena's monster-holding area—Derecho slumps to the straw with a weary sigh. Whatever her opponent spat was caustic, and she has burns all over her back and haunches. I can feel her pain like a vague burning at the back of my mind, and it annoys me. The monsters are dangerous, but there is no need to make them suffer for our enjoyment.
I have two boys helping me, scarred young street rats who will risk their lives for a warm meal and a roof over their heads. They already have the tub of ointment waiting, painter's poles for the hard-to-reach areas, and softer brushes to clean the wounds. I put my hand on Derecho's snout and lull her into complacence while the boys start cleaning and mending.
I am exhausted when I leave her, wracked with pain and the ashy collapse of adrenaline. I don't know how many more of these fights I have in me. She may be a beast, slow and dull, clouded with the fumes of rage, but how much of that is her captivity, her fear? And, too, there is the darker bitterness against those who sit in their boxes and feed on the misery below, the slow wearing of their bloodthirsty glee.
I am not so far removed from the creatures I shepherd. I didn't come from wealth, didn't learn fine manners. I taught myself to read, to write. I have no grace, no charm, no beauty worth a man's money. No gifts to buy myself out of their pits. Would they revel in my pain, too, if my mutations were visible? Treat me like the gladiators of Rome, goading me with cattle prods and whips, feeding me the barely-dead meat of my horrible cousins?
Why do I ask myself these questions? I am certainly too tired.
“What do monsters fear?” my captor asked me, the night before he sold me to Kusnetsov. We were sitting in a seedy motel room, eating cheap take-out food with lukewarm beer. He had been one of Hellcat's hunters, the first to see me, and he'd saved me from the bounty hunters. My gifts didn't work on him, and I was tired of running. It was a relief to be sitting there, eating my first real meal since the hospital. “How do you make them obey you?”
I didn't know. I still don't, but maybe I am starting to understand.
The door to my hotel room is locked, but I can smell him, waiting. A monster waits for me, a monster I have called, wished for, lusted after, invited through my door. He knows what I am, and does not fear me. There is comfort in that.
I am still locking the door behind me when his breath touches my neck.
~
The next day, her burns freshly crusted with scabs and healing skin, Derecho paces restlessly in her huge pen. She stops, occasionally, to root through the dirt with her tusks, some dim, racial memory maybe of when her kind ate roots and leaves. Dust clings to the drying blood along her mouth. I hope they did not feed her yesterday's kill, it was poisoned beyond use, but they do not always have sense. If she falls ill, I will flay their minds myself. Derecho has become precious to me.
I let myself into her cage, and she comes to me, snuffling concern. The top of my head comes barely to her knee, yet she comes to me and lowers her giant's head to look me in the eye. I hope no one is watching, it should not be known that the animals love, not fear, me.
She thinks she is protecting me, a mother sow defending her child.
A few minutes to calm her, then it is time to gild myself in my garish costume—the purple and gold of Goodnight Industrial, low-cut and tasteless—to take my place beside the other Shepherd. I don't even know who we're fighting. I had more important things to think about last night.
My assistant kneels in front of me to begin buttoning my dress and, for a moment, I am overcome with a memory of the night before. The bruises on my neck ache, although they don't show, and my back aches with the weight of the monster I called.
He is like me, invisible in his mutations. If the people around us knew, would they pick up torches and pitchforks?
I was the first of many, but we are sheep in wolves' clothing, as unlike the others as they are unlike the Silent. (We call them that, because they have no voice except the crude one in their throats, ungainly and unlovely, unlike the smooth-flowing stream of our own communication.)
The assistant finishes the last button and crisply adjusts the gold lace over my breasts, lays the heavy gold-and-amethyst chain of Bond around my neck. It is a circus, and I am the invisible ringmaster, dressed the part of the clown.
The contempt in the girl's eyes is palpable, and I nearly reach into her to squeeze that smug superiority out of her, but the crowd roars, and I can feel Derecho's fear seeping into me.
Of course they would pick up pitchforks and torches if they knew about me. After all, they burned my kind in the Middle Ages, didn't they?
And those unfortunates couldn't do half of what I can barely refrain from doing with every breath.
~
Another battle, nearly over.
This Shepherd was too weak to repel me, and as Derecho savaged the hurtful thing, I toyed with him. He is a Balm, meant to keep his charge passive. He doesn't understand the sharp, bitter joy of killing, but he watched his beast's desperate battle with a half-smile, enjoying the pain it suffered, and so I took his limp little mind in hand and chained him to his beast while Derecho broke its legs, bringing it to the ground.
His scream should not have pleased me so much. I was not wounded enough last night, not brought to heel. I hope it is that, rather than my greater fear that my bloodlust is growing, that I will lose myself in the need for death. There is too much to do still, too many things to protect, too many delicate manipulations necessary.
And Shepherds die all the time. They are weak. The weak do not deserve to live.
Derecho crushes the other beast's chest, and the joy of the Shepherd's death tears through me like an orgasm.
~
Again, I have barely closed the door before rough hands have locked my wrists in front of me.
“You killed him.” His breath is hot and dry. He is not as huge as my young memories painted him, but his compact power easily dwarfs my wiry strength. Struggle is pointless. “You killed the Shepherd for pleasure. You are losing control.”
Reflexively, I poke at his mind, try to prod him into the actions I want, but I fail, as always. Somehow, I cannot get into his soul to twist and tear and destroy. I have never met another—man, beast, or monster—capable of withstanding me. He is my refuge, the one who knows what I am, who can stop me if I can't stop myself. He kept me safe from the bounty hunters that night in Vegas, delivered me safe to a place that would protect me for my monetary value, if nothing else, and I still sometimes indulge myself in his protection.
I cannot touch his mind, but he can pull my soul out and sate it with violence and the knife-edged pleasure of being helpless again, of not worrying over the powerless, deadly beasts who speak in my dreams every time I sleep.
~
It is the semi-finals. My costume is more transparent than before, the
thin silks clinging to my legs, heavy with golden beads that provide more concealment than the cloth. I am maskless, a brag by the barons that they have the money to filter the air sufficiently, even with all these people. I loathe these costumes, flimsy and fragile, and expensive.
I am a free woman in name, but I would never have achieved that if I hadn't struck a deal with Goodnight Industrial: freedom in name, so long as I signed away my life in service to their sport. They couldn't breed or sell me, but neither could I leave, and I could never work for anyone else even if the Goodnights retired me.
It isn't much but it is better than many people have, these days, regardless of skin color or gender.
I should have specified the right to choose my own costumes.
Derecho is wearying. She will have a full day between this bout and the next—there is no question that we will win and move on to the finals, Goodnight Industrial doesn't keep me for nothing—but she must have some rest.
Derecho's tusks will be gilded on Saturday, for the finals, but today, they gleam a soft, waxen cream under the harsh lights. We groomed her well, and showed her affection, bolstered her flagging spirits. She does not understand, but she will fight.
Her opponent is alien, I'm sure of it. I haven't seen her, but in my head, she's sleek and sharp as a razorblade. Doesn't need a Shepherd, probably can't actually be held by one but restrains herself so she can torment him. Poor kid. He is real proud of himself, how easily he tamed her when she was found. Sociopathic fuck. Just waiting for him to get boring. The doctors probably can't explain what is eating his body and mind, turning him into a puppet. Not all monsters are worthy of my pity, but I do appreciate the irony. I will not abide competition though, and this one...
...this one's angular white head flies across the arena, torn whole from her neck. Derecho is wounded, badly, raining blood and panting in exhaustion, but I am glad of her victory. The alien beast is not something I want in my head anymore.
I finger the chain around my neck, disguising my disgust as nerves. Two more days. One more fight.
~
“You should be committed.”
My punished body is limp and quieted, but he has not, for some reason, left. We have played this deadly game for four years, since I was old enough to want a man in my bed, and he has always left as soon as possible.
“Whatever are you talking about, Hunter?” I stretch languidly, but he growls and grabs my jaw, dragging me up face him.
“I hate this world as much as you do, but you are mad to think you can change it.”
Ahh. That. The playfulness flees, bloodlust nibbling the corners of my mind again.
In the aftermath of the apocalypse, those few fortunates who maintained control of the most necessary resources—oil, steel, guns, copper, food—leveraged their power to turn themselves into fat parasites on the broken backs of humanity. I'd lost count of how many soldiers I saw wandering the streets those few times I was allowed out, missing arms, legs, souls. How many broken hovels housed how many families, how many slaves powered the dawning age.
“It is a madness worth indulging, if it changes.”
“You would alert them that our kind exists.”
“Maybe that's the plan. We've hidden behind our cousins long enough, made them suffer while we stayed safe. We're not much better than the barons.”
His powerful hand tightens even more. He is making speech difficult. “It wouldn't end for them, just because you put us in harm's way. You think you'd be a free woman if they knew? Think you'd have those beautiful gowns and the luxury of choosing your bedmate?”
I envy my bestial cousins. Some of them can spit fire, and I would dearly love to melt him right now. “Maybe they won't be around to threaten us.”
I beat my fist into the bed and sit up, heat burning in my eyes. “I hate this life, hate making the beasts kill and die for someone's momentary pleasure.”
He holds me for a minute longer, before pulling me into his lap and kissing me deeply. “What can I do?”
~
My gown today is cloth-of-gold in an outlandish style, the sheer bodice beaded with purple and pearl, my hair caught in a net of gold wire, a filigree of gold covering my face. The weather reports are good, the wind blowing any contamination away from us. Today only, the roof will be drawn back, the public will be welcomed into the cheap seats, and I will shine in the hot sun like the vengeful goddess I am. My hunter stands in the shadows, protecting me in case I miss a few dangers, ready to bolster me if I encounter unexpected resistance. He is no longer my escape, but my consort and right hand. He fears that I am not prepared for what I will unleash, but he will stand with me.
Derecho senses my turmoil. Her tusks gleam as brightly as my dress, her little eyes squinting, dazzled by the sun she hasn't seen since her capture. Perhaps she knows that she will not be the one on display today.
The band is lively, the crowds eager to see the monsters. Charlie Goodnight takes my hand and leads me onto the platform, facing the crowd, and introduces me. His smart cream suit and burgundy ascot do nothing for his doughy face, and I can only imagine how awful our costumes must look next to my fellow Shepherd, who wears the yellow and green of Hercules Oil.
I am briefly annoyed, as Melusine, the HO monster, is a beautiful, draconian beast, but devilishly hard to manage, as I recall. I would have preferred Emma Innismoth's privately-owned beast, a tentacled, horrific monstrosity who struck fear into human and monster alike, but was relatively stupid and tractable. Ah, well. Melusine's beauty next to Derecho's terrible, raw strength would play well on the news, when my plan was finished, and I had handled worse.
The brass band strikes up, the introductions must be done. I am already deep in the other Shepherd's head, although she doesn't seem to know it yet. I am similarly curled beneath the waking minds of every luminary in the crowd. The commoners may or may not survive, I really don't care. It is the bright and beautiful I will collect today. Peasants die all the time. I should know, I was one. I would be sorry for them, but they had chosen to be here, to revel in the sickness.
“What do monsters fear?” my hunter asked me that day, sitting next to me in Nikolai's office. My lip had been split a few days, and was oozing again, and he'd wiped it away, gently, and given me water. I realize now that he wasn't much older than I was, making a living, hiding as best he could in plain sight, the hunted masquerading as the Hunter, comforting the monstrous queen in the garb of the slave. Looking back, I can appreciate what brought us together.
“Monsters fear nothing,” I'd said, but now I knew better.
The stage is set. I step away from Charlie, a strange, thrilling certainty stringing through me.
They fear the greater evil, and today, that evil is not tentacled horror from the depths, or blood-stained hell-pig, or beautiful, mythological monster.
In each mind, I stretch. This is the first time I have unfurled my full power. Even I do not know what I am capable of, or what other monsters are hiding in plain sight. I relish the possibilities.
Monsters fear waking to something worse leaning over their beds, reaching from between the stairs to grasp their ankles, pulling that one critical tile from their empire.
They struggle, no more to my power than wiggling worms on a hook. One by one, they rise from their seats. Melusine's handler opens the cage door, as does Derecho's. Melusine will not hold for long, she is slippery and fractious. Derecho is curious, the fog of battle cleared from her mind. This is what I was made for.
Perhaps it is the most fearful who scrabble the most power to themselves, creating shells and buttressed walls of influence and wealth. Perhaps they forget that this armor is a thing outside themselves, but they never forget that empty space just a breath below their feet.
I puppet-march the kings and queens of the world to the killing floor for my kindred to feed on, and in their blood is painted retribution, and revolution.
Monsters fear what we all fear: that someday, they will find they
are not the sharpest teeth, the greatest hunger, or the most dreadful nightmare.
Heartland
Shane Berryhill
“Carol, let’s talk about this, honey.”
Carol Blevins stood in her kitchen doorway, keeping her distance as she aimed her husband’s Glock at his chest. The gun felt light in her hands and smelled of fresh oil. Joe had always been meticulous in the upkeep of his police-issue sidearm.
“There’s nothing more to say, Joe. Now, pick those up off the counter, and cuff yourself to the hinge of the refrigerator door.”
“Carol.”
“Now.”
“Carol…!”
The Glock barked, and a spot of tile next to Joe’s feet vanished as the bite of gunsmoke filled the air, overpowering mingling scents of cleaner and disinfectant.
Joe hurled curses at his wife, but Carol didn’t care. He was moving now, doing what she wanted. What she needed.
“Good and snug,” she said.
“What is it you think you’re going to do?” Joe snapped a cuff around his left wrist. “Take the kids and run? Where are you going to run to? There’s no way you’ll escape us. None.”
Carol knew who her husband meant by us—Joe’s fellow policemen, the sheriff and his other deputies. But her problems were even bigger. The entire town of Heartland itself was her enemy, now.
“Lock the other cuff on that top hinge.”
“Carol—”
“Do it!”
Joe obeyed, and then Carol was down the hall and into their bedroom. The Glock went into the back of her jeans, and her husband’s duffle bag came out onto the bed. Entire drawers of clothing quickly followed. As Carol packed, she attempted to block out the sound of Joe’s grunts and swears as he repeatedly tried and failed to pull the refrigerator from its resting place between kitchen counter and wall.
She moved into Janie’s bedroom, and her husband’s voice came thundering down the hall.
Kaiju Rising: Age of Monsters Page 19
