Monster in My Closet

by R. L. Naquin

  I thought he would take us out there, but before we hit the glass doors, he made a left into a side room I hadn’t noticed. Andrew came around the corner, saw where I was headed and fell into step without a word.

  I didn’t make it through the door before my amulet shot ice down my shirt and nearly freezer-burned my chest with a permanent mark. I yanked it out and tucked it over my collar while it bit at my fingers. Any last hope I had that Sebastian wasn’t in the next room was gone. The metal was so cold it gave off wisps of condensation from the front of my blouse.

  The scene inside the little room made me want to vomit. It was probably a good thing I hadn’t had time to eat since breakfast.

  Sara was pressed up against the wall in the far corner, her legs wrapped around Sebastian’s waist. Her once-perfect hair was soaked with sweat and stuck to the sides of her face. She was ashen and her blue eyes were unfocused, staring off at some vague point on the opposite wall. One shoe lay on the floor, forgotten, and the other hung from a bobbing foot. Tears burned my eyes, and my breath caught in my chest.

  Somehow, I’d come to the mistaken conclusion he didn’t have physical intercourse with his victims. I’d assumed wrong. What was going on in that small, stuffy room was not what I’d witnessed in my dreams. He wasn’t relegating himself to stroking her thigh or kissing her neck, though there was plenty of that going on as well.

  His prissy, ironed jeans were down around his ankles. I wanted to avert my eyes, but I couldn’t look away. It wasn’t any kind of sex I’d ever had, that was for sure.

  He was lit up like a road flare, and she was gray and barely moving. Her eyelids fluttered, and if he hadn’t been holding her legs around him, I doubt she would have had the strength to keep them there.

  Fortunately, we were spared the sight of his scrawny ass pumping into my friend. He hadn’t bothered to remove his coat and it hung down to his thighs.

  Andrew put his hand on my shoulder. “She doesn’t have long, Zoey. There’s barely a spark left in her aura. It’s so close to her body there isn’t much left of it.”

  Riley glanced at his watch and stepped aside. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I can’t help.”

  There was no sign that Sebastian had noticed he had company.

  “Hey, asshat,” I said.

  His rhythmic hip movements stopped. He looked over his shoulder at me and grinned. “Dream Girl, how wonderful! I was just finishing up here.”

  “You’re finished now. Get off her.”

  “I do hate to leave food on my plate when there are starving orphans all over the world. This will only take a second. I tried to make her last longer, but it seems I’m a bit of a glutton. I’ve enjoyed her so much over the last few weeks. She has so much of you in her, I can’t help myself.” He made an attempt at looking contrite before resuming his motions.

  So he was the reason she was so exhausted. She wasn’t sick at all. He’d been killing her a little at a time for weeks. My fists clenched at my sides.

  Sara’s eyes flashed open and a weak moan escaped from her lips.

  Come on, Zoey. Pull your head out. You’ve learned things. You have tools. Use them, and use them quick.

  A picture of Molly’s irate husband danced across my vision. That was something I could use.

  In my mind, I formed a solid glass bell and dropped it over Sara. I sealed it tight, cutting her off from all external contact. It wasn’t an easy thing to create with him touching her. Determined, I focused on separating them with my barrier. I shoved the glass between them and willed it to conform around her, pushing him away.

  Sara needed me. I had to be stronger than Sebastian. The glass bell was my construct, and I held my concentration to keep it from shattering at his touch. He’d have to come after me first to reach her again.

  “Oh, now that’s just unfair,” Sebastian said. His hips twitched a few last times for good measure, perhaps testing the strength of the barrier I’d put up. He gave a dramatic sigh and bent over, pulling up his pants. I looked away as he did it. His dangly bits were not a memory I wanted seared into my consciousness.

  He turned to face me. His jeans were buttoned up, but his fancy pirate shirt flapped in the breeze. The lyrics to “Blowin’ in the Wind” ran through my mind and I had to squelch them.

  Fear often sends my mind to babbling.

  For the first time, Sebastian noticed I wasn’t the only intruder in the room. He dropped his head to Riley in an archaic show of respect. “Grave digger. Glad to see you’re on the job. I trust you won’t be interfering again today.”

  Riley said nothing. He looked at his watch and waited.

  The demon turned his attention to Andrew. His brows rose in surprise. “Oh my. You brought me someone new to play with. How thoughtful. Normally, I prefer women, but at the end of the day, they all taste the same. They taste like you, Dream Girl.”

  I was confused. I looked from Sebastian to Andrew and my breath caught in my throat. I’d forgotten that Andrew was gay. His eyes were already glassy as Sebastian approached him.

  “Oh, hell no,” I said, stepping in front of my friend. I heard the breath whoosh out of Andrew from behind me. Apparently, I’d broken the connection for the moment.

  That was the last straw. I was small and weak. I felt so terrified in that moment I was afraid my bladder would let go, and I’d pee all over the floor. But more importantly, I was furious.

  I threw open my mental shutters and opened myself up to Sebastian’s emotions.

  Hunger.

  Need.

  Hunger.

  He moved toward me. I focused a beam of his own emotions at him with all the mental force I could muster. He took a step backward, confusion lining his face.

  “That’s a new trick,” he said. “A little disconcerting, actually.” He stepped forward. “What else do you have?”

  I gathered my fear and worry, and most of all, my anger, and hurled it into the beam, willing it to punch him in his smarmy face.

  He stopped moving and closed his eyes. His body shuddered, as if in ecstasy. “Oh, Dream Girl, that was incredible.” He ran his fingers down his chest and to his stomach. “I had no idea you could do that. Do it again.” His eyes opened and the green had turned crimson. “I’m starving.”

  It wasn’t enough. No matter how emotional I was at that moment, all I was doing was feeding him. I reached out to Andrew and grasped for any emotions he could give me. Andrew, unlike the rest of the world, kept himself sealed. There was nothing in him I could reach.

  I stretched my mind toward Riley. I wasn’t sure I wanted to know what he had, and honestly, as detached as he had to be, I wasn’t sure there’d be any emotion there at all. I was wrong. Underneath the cold veneer of Death, he was as big a wreck as I was.

  Fear. Hatred. Worry.

  I gathered them up, added them to mine and let them fly. Sebastian jerked and smiled. I kept the stream connecting me to Riley open.

  Fury. Love. Love? I did not want to know about that right now.

  Everything I collected channeled through me and out at Sebastian. But his smile widened, and his hands skimmed over his chest. He was enjoying it. All I was doing was keeping him distracted.

  Andrew’s hand was on my shoulder again. “I’m open,” he said. “Take what you need.”

  Andrew’s emotions were much the same as mine and Riley’s. I opened up a line connecting Andrew to the flow, and it knocked Sebastian back another step.

  Still, it wasn’t enough.

  Sara was out cold on the floor underneath my protective barrier. Besides, she had nothing to offer that wouldn’t kill her. I turned my head toward Andrew without taking my eyes off Sebastian. “Open the doors,” I said in a low voice. “The ones outside, too.”

  I heard the door open behind me and he was gone. In his absence, I
lost my concentration and my stream of Andrew-energy.

  Sebastian regained momentum and came for me, his hand outstretched. My skin crawled at the idea of his flesh touching me. I stepped away, but I was too slow. His fingers brushed my arm.

  I moaned and fell to my knees. Watching him touch those women, seeing with my eyes the effect he had on them, in no way prepared me for what really happened when he was serious about feeding. When he’d touched me under the pier, he’d been toying with me.

  There was heat and moisture between my legs before my brain had time to process it. The orgasm that slammed into me was nothing like anything anyone should ever experience. There was no lead-up, and it was not as pleasurable as one might expect. It burned—not like acid, but more like an acetylene torch had been ignited inside of me. This, while every nerve ending in my body fired, and every muscle contracted. The orgasm was there, but so was the pain. God help me, I liked it. And I craved more.

  There was a part of my brain whispering, frantic to be heard through the blood pumping in my ears. The chill of my amulet seared through my blouse, yet it was so far removed from my attention, it might have been the sound of the ocean in the distance. I couldn’t imagine why I’d been fighting this for so long. I should have let him have me the day I met him. Sebastian loved me. At that moment, I would have given him every ounce of myself.

  It stopped as quickly as it had started.

  I was on the floor and I didn’t remember how I got there. Sebastian was holding my arm and looking irritated.

  Riley held my other arm.

  “Come on, Reaper ,” Sebastian said, pulling his hand away. “You know better than to interfere. I’ll have you up on charges. I cry foul!”

  Riley ignored him and pulled me to my feet. His eyes clouded with worry, and he pulled me closer, his arm around my waist.

  It was a nice place to be. If only I could have a chance to enjoy it.

  Andrew reappeared on my other side. “It’s all open out to the gardens,” he said. He noted the possessive way Riley held on to me. “Glad you decided to join the game,” he said.

  Sebastian stretched his arms out to me, as if willing me to run into them like a scared child. His ego did not give up. “Dream Girl, why do you play with boys when you can have a real man? They don’t appreciate you like I do.”

  I wanted to have a snappy retort, really I did. I was going to have to accept who I was and quit wishing I were someone else. I was not a kick-ass judo chick with guns, knives and crossbows. On the other hand, I was not the clumsy, love-struck heroine who sat around waiting for someone else to finish off the bad guy for her.

  And I wasn’t the wise-cracking comedienne who always had a witty last word before plunging a knife into the villain’s chest.

  We do what we can with what we’re given.

  I reconnected my channels to the two men by my side, but I kept the emotions inside myself. Feeling outward to the crowd of revelers, I gathered up the flood of good feelings pooling in the gardens. The energy of the guests collected in one enormous river and poured into me. I let it all swirl and crash together, mixing with Andrew and Riley and with me.

  I was overflowing with emotional energy, but I owned it. I could feel myself expanding to hold it all. I felt like the sun, a bright beacon glowing from the inside.

  At long last, Sebastian looked nervous. I looked down at my hands and saw it wasn’t in my imagination—my body was throbbing with white light.

  Here was my chance for that witty closing retort. I gathered all that energy and light into a solid ball.

  Nope. I wasn’t going to get to be the witty heroine.

  “Asshole,” I said.

  I hurled everything I had at him in one enormous wave. It spattered over him like bacon grease and absorbed into his chest. His face convulsed in pain. He flung his arms out to the sides and bellowed. Light consumed him and he shattered into thousands of prismatic shards.

  And then he was gone.

  The three of us stood like that for several minutes. I was out of breath, my head hurt, and I wasn’t entirely sure he was gone for good.

  “You know,” I said, “I really didn’t think that was going to work.”

  There was a burnt spot on the carpet where Sebastian had been standing. I wondered if snooty Margaret would make me pay for it.

  Riley moved first. Despite being in shock, I felt like a horrible friend. Sara lay collapsed on the floor, unconscious. Riley knelt beside her and felt for a pulse.

  “It’s weak,” he said. “But she’s still here for the moment.”

  “I’ll call an ambulance,” I said. By some miracle, I had my bag with me. I dug around for my phone, my hands shaking. I cursed myself for not bringing the purse Molly had made for me.

  Riley shook his head. “It’s not physical. There isn’t much they’d be able to do.”

  I supposed he would know that better than anybody.

  Andrew touched my arm. “You’re running hot, Zoey.”

  He was right. I hadn’t shut off the channels I was bringing in from the party guests. I snapped it off at the source. I could still feel the energy I’d collected surging inside of me.

  I moved to her side.

  “Guys, can you turn your backs for a sec?” They shifted for me, and I straightened Sara’s skirt, tucking her ruined underwear into my bag for later disposal.

  I closed my eyes and lifted the mental wall of protection I’d dropped over her. I didn’t know if it would help, but she was drained, and I was overflowing. I prodded at her with a gentle touch of my mind. I made the beam small and tight; I didn’t want to overwhelm her. She felt so weak.

  I fed her in a slow, steady stream.

  “Andrew, I can’t see. You have to be my eyes.”

  It trickled into her, and Andrew watched. “It’s like watching a fishbowl fill up,” he said. “I think it’s working.”

  It was a slow, agonizing process. I once owned a waterbed when I was in my early twenties. That took forever to fill, too.

  After about a half hour, the color in Sara’s cheeks was more to my liking—more like a human and less like a bowl of oatmeal. I had no idea what I was going to say to her if—when—she woke up.

  I didn’t have long to contemplate it. Not long after I started to worry about an explanation, she stirred, and her eyes fluttered open.

  “Shit,” she said, sitting up and patting at her hair. “This doesn’t look very professional. I have got to get more sleep.”

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  The mind is a resilient thing. Self-preservation is its top priority.

  Sara was mortified to have fallen asleep during the Dickson-Strauss wedding. I used her embarrassment to convince her to take a vacation and get some much-needed rest.

  The incubus had been robbing her of psychic energy, but there was a physical toll, too. Her eyes were still bloodshot with dark bags beneath them, and she was moving slower than the Sara I knew.

  She had no memory of the dark lover who had been keeping her up nights. There’s no way to know if that was more parlor tricks of the human mind or the supernatural erasing of all signs of Sebastian’s visit to our world. Frankly, I didn’t care, as long as Sara wasn’t going to need therapy—or explanations.

  The reception had gone well in our absence. Brad had stepped up and performed like the professional schmoozer he was. The toasts were performed in the right order, the DJ was set up properly and, apparently, Brad had a previously undiscovered talent at cake cutting. I still owed him a big one. So far, he’d left me alone about it, but I knew I’d have to pay up soon. I certainly couldn’t afford to send my ex-husband to college, or wherever it was he had in mind, but when he finally got around to telling me his plans, I’d help him. After all—helping was kind of my thing.

  The only
thing that had gone wrong had me slapping myself in the forehead. Those stupid birdseed favors, the bane of my existence for the past two weeks, had been left in the storage room without being passed out.

  Gail hadn’t even noticed.

  We made it out alive with our reputations intact and our fees paid in full. That was far more than I could have hoped for. The photos in the paper were gorgeous, and Alma was even quoted, praising Happily Ever After for creating and coordinating her daughter’s flawless day.

  The minute I could get away from the reception, I sped home and flew through the front door.

  Maurice was sitting on the couch, feet up, reading the paper. He glanced up at me. “Hey, how’d it go?”

  “Could have been worse,” I said. “You’re not looking for Molly. Where are the kids?”

  “Molly came and got them.”

  “And went where? Please tell me she didn’t go back to her husband.” My heart would break if he said yes.

  “She’s been talking to him. But no, she didn’t go back to him.” He folded up the paper and stood up. “Come see.”

  He led me out the front door and around the side till we were behind the house. Toward the back of the property, but still well within the invisible fairy line, was the most enormous mushroom I’d ever seen. It came up to my hip and was a bright green trimmed with yellow.

  Molly must’ve seen us approach through a window, because she came flying out a small door in the stem.

  “Welcome home, Zoey. Surprise!”

  “Surprise?”

  “You have been so kind to us. I could not take advantage of you forever. I have a house now. Surprise!”

  “It’s lovely,” I said. And it was. “You know, you were welcome to stay as long as you wanted, Molly.”

  “I know that. This is best. We are nearby but not underfoot.”

  “Well, welcome home, then.” I would have to think of some sort of housewarming gift for her. “We should have a party.”