The Monsters in Your Neighborhood (8 page)

Kai pursed her lips. “Hope that stays true. No offense, but if you’re seen, especially in daylight, it’s going to cause us even more trouble than we’re already in.”

Pat’s tentacles around his face fluttered, like he was letting air out in frustration. Natalie stepped forward. There was no avoiding this.

“I’m sure Pat was very careful.” She rubbed her eyes. “Look, can we just sit down? I think we have bigger things to discuss.”

Kai rolled her eyes, but her face softened as she took a seat next to Rehu on the couch. Natalie all but glared at them. She could admit it, she used to have who’s-the-better-couple matches in her head between her and Alec and Rehu and Kai. She and Alec always won. Now she wasn’t so sure.

“So you lost thirty-six hours of time . . . supposedly,” Rehu said, with another knowing smile for Alec.

“
There’s nothing supposed about it,
” Alec growled. “It happened, goddamn it.”

Natalie could feel the tension coming off of him, the wolfish anger he couldn’t control when the moon was waxing. Except right now it wasn’t.

“Can we assume for the moment that Alec really
did
lose time?” she said softly.

Kai shook her head and her expression said she felt
sorry
for Natalie. Natalie tensed, her teeth clenched so hard she worried her jaw would shatter.

“That’s the worst-case scenario, isn’t it?” she continued to explain. “That Alec isn’t full of shit and something happened to him? If so,
that’s
what we have to deal with.”

Drake paced the room slowly. “Natalie is correct. Especially when the murder in the park and my injuries are taken into account, the fact that Alec claims to have lost a good chunk of time is not a good thing for any of us. It all reeks of Van Helsing.”

Natalie could have kissed the old man, but she didn’t. She just smiled at him slightly and kept up her refusal to look at Alec.

“How could it have happened if it did truly happen?” Pat asked.

Alec shrugged. “Sometimes I lose time during my moon cycles.”

Linda snorted out a laugh and Natalie glared at her. “Is something funny here, Fish Sticks?”

Her smile fell at the derogatory nickname and she folded her arms. “Aside from the fact that your boyfriend sounds like an ad for ‘that time of the month,’ no. But you could pick up some Pamprin, Wolfie, maybe that will help?”

Normally Alec would have shot back a sarcastic, pointed reply to Linda and shut her up. But to Natalie’s surprise, he growled at the Swamp Dweller. Not a cute growl, not even a slightly warning growl. No, the sound that escaped his lips was utterly terrifying, utterly threatening, and absolutely out of character.

She moved toward him without thinking about it. This was Alec,
her
Alec. Part of their “thing” was that she could calm him, or at least control him, if he lost it thanks to the moon . . . or whatever.

“Alec,” she said.

His bright and golden eyes were focused on Linda and his pupils were dilated. She recognized the look, she recognized all of it. Carefully, she reached out a hand and pressed it to his forearm. He flinched and his gaze jerked toward her in pure rage.

But as he looked at her, recognized her, that rage faded. The wolf faded and Alec returned.

“It’s okay,” she soothed softly.

“It’s not okay,” Linda whined.

Alec looked past Natalie toward Linda. “I—I’m sorry,” he said. “I—I don’t know what’s happening. I don’t know why any of this is happening.”

Natalie sat down on the couch next to him. Everyone was watching her, but she didn’t care. Something was wrong with him and she wanted to fix it.

“I believe you that you lost time,” she said, touching his stubbly cheek with the flat of her palm. “I believe you that something happened that you can’t remember. And Drake is right, the only explanation that makes sense in all of this is that it has to do with our war with the Van Helsings.”

Alec’s face softened with relief that she believed him. That
anyone
believed him. And honestly, the more she saw his behavior, the more she
did
believe him. He wasn’t acting guilty, he was acting scared. And crazy. There was something wrong with him, and it wasn’t that he’d gone off to sleep around on her.

“I’m beginning to agree,” Rehu said, rising to tilt his head and examine Alec more closely. “I’ve seen you as a wolf before and there is no reason for it to come out early, as it appears to be doing now.”

“What if I’m just losing control?” Alec asked, looking from Natalie to Rehu and back again. “What if I won’t be able to control my wolf form anymore?”

Kai sniffed as she got to her feet. “Don’t be ridiculous. I’ve never seen a Wolf Man in any story or true monster record who lost his moon sickness and had it replaced by a complete loss of control. If it’s not in the records for the last several hundred years, then it doesn’t happen.”

Kai’s tone was dismissive and snotty, but Natalie could have hugged her, because relief washed over Alec’s scruffy face.

“I guess you’re right,” he said.

“Someone’s fucking with you. Plain and simple.” Kai shrugged one shoulder.

“With
us,
” Pat corrected quietly. “If they fuck with one of us, then they fuck with all of us, is that not correct?”

Natalie smiled. “That’s the truth.” She squeezed Alec’s arm gently. “So let’s go over the events.”

“There’s the attack on the man in the park and the subsequent video,” Kai said, ticking it off on one manicured finger.

Natalie nodded. “And we
know
the Van Helsings are behind its posting and spread, because they admitted it.”

Alec jerked his face toward her. “They admitted it?”

She nodded. “It happened while you were missing. It’s a new world, baby, and a new war.”

“I guess.” Alec shivered.

“And then there was the attack on me,” Drake added to the list. “The person who attacked me was aiming for the heart. I can’t believe my old enemy would miss.”

“But Van Helsing has all these new family members working for him,” Natalie pointed out. “Some of them were accountants and whatever before. They weren’t killers; your attack could have been a shoddy first attempt at a monster war party.”

“Seriously, you lose thirty-six hours with this group and it’s like you wake up in Wonderland,” Alec said, rubbing his temples. “Is there an alien as president, too?”

“Nope, just a bunch of new Van Helsings not in the record,” Kai said. “I’m sure Natalie can fill you in on their smarmy awesomeness on the way home, since you two are talking again.”

“And then there is Alec losing time,” Pat said with a sigh. “To add to our list of terror.”

“Three events, all of which affect monsters, but in different ways.” Rehu stroked his chin. “Could there be multiple culprits?”

Drake looked toward Linda, who was still curled up on his couch, and stared at her for a moment. “You’ve been awfully quiet, for a person who normally is the first to panic and jump to the worst of conclusions.”

Natalie wrinkled her brow. Linda
was
awfully calm under the circumstances. She wasn’t even crying. Just staring at them.

“Are you accusing me of something?” she asked, her tone calm and cold. She pushed to her feet. “Because I can go if you want to be rude.”

“Is there something to accuse you of?” Drake asked.

Linda shook her head. “You are all so smug. You treat me like a doormat, you don’t listen to me, you shove me around all these years and bitch about the way I react to situations, then the minute I keep it together, you accuse me of something. You know what? I’m done. I quit the group. You can figure out your war and your issues on your own.”

She pivoted on her heel (high heels, which shocked the hell out of Natalie) and stalked from the room. They heard the door slam hard enough that a couple of pictures reverberated. For a moment, everyone was quiet.

“Has she
ever
walked away from drama before?” Natalie asked.

Pat cleared his throat. “I have only known the young woman for a short time, but it seems you find her behavior out of the ordinary. Could it be that she is just finally accepting herself? It does take some longer than others.”

Alec got up and walked to the window. He didn’t lift the shade, not wanting to kill Drake and all, but he stared like he could see through it to the city outside.

“I don’t know what to think anymore. A couple of months ago, I would have figured Linda was the least dangerous of us all. But with everything that has happened in the past few days, now any change makes me . . . nervous.”

“Are we saying Linda, a monster, would turn on her own kind and actually have something to do with this bullshit?” Rehu asked.

“Well, when you put it that way, it sounds ludicrous,” Natalie admitted. “And we’re falling into the Van Helsing trap.”

“What do you mean?” Kai asked.

“They create this chaos. A physical attack here, an attack on our anonymity there. They want us to panic, to turn on each other. To fear everything and anything around us that we don’t know. To herd us toward whatever end they have in mind. I doubt they thought
Linda
was the way to freak us out—”

“I doubt they think of Linda at all,” Alec added.

“Who does?” Kai muttered. “Unless they have to.”

Natalie nodded. “But if we start to fear each other, we’re screwed.”

“Natalie has a point,” Pat said. “I have seen monsters turn on each other in fear. Reveal another just to protect themselves. If we begin that . . . it is a dirty road to travel and the destination is never pleasant.”

“Then what do we do?” Rehu asked.

“I want someone to check out Alec,” Natalie said. He flinched, but she shook her head so he’d know there was no way she was backing down on this one. “Dude, something happened to you.”

“But who?” Kai asked. “Jekyll was the only doctor we could trust, and he’s dead.”

“Hyde,” Rehu offered. “He shared a psyche with Jekyll, he has the other man’s thoughts and knowledge inside his head. And
he’s
not dead.”

“That we know of,” Natalie added. “He’s been gone for six months, doing God knows what. We’ve searched for him everywhere.”

Igor, who had just been watching the entire process with great interest, perked up. “You say Hyde is missing?”

Natalie stared at him. “Um . . . yeah. What about it?”

“I know where he is,” Igor said with a shrug.

“
What?
” Alec asked, eyes going wide. “Why didn’t you tell us this?”

“You never said you were looking for him.” Igor looked at Natalie. “You know Jekyll, Hyde, and your father were friends once upon a two or three hundred years ago. After your father’s death, Jekyll sometimes spoke to me. Or maybe it was Hyde. Or . . . whoever. They have . . . or I suppose
he
has, since Jekyll is dead and there’s no ‘they’ anymore . . . a summer place upstate. I can call him if you’d like. I’m sure he’d be willing to come down if asked properly.”

“You are just a plethora of information, aren’t you?” Kai smirked.

Igor glanced at her. “I’m an assistant. It’s what I do. Assist.”

“Call him,” Alec snapped. “Crazy, violent, or not, if he can help me, I’ll take the chance.”

“Good, we’ll do that and keep researching the rest.” Drake sighed. “Now I grow tired. I’m not up during the day often and my wound is still healing. I must ask you to leave me so that I may feed and sleep.”

Everyone started getting up from chairs and couches, gathering coats, pulling up hoodies, and saying good-bye. Drake walked them all to the door, and one by one they moved into the hallway. Pat was the first to go, heading toward the servants’ elevator at the opposite end of the hallway.

“Cross your fingers no one gets nosy,” he mumbled as he disappeared around the corner.

Igor shook his head. “You have to admire his balls. I’m not sure I would be able to head out like that and just hope it would be okay.”

Kai pursed her lips. “I still say he’s going to be the death of us all.”

Natalie glanced at the Mummy Girl as they all walked down the hallway together.

“I can’t imagine how hard it is for him,” Natalie offered. “To be trapped alone in the sewers. I don’t blame him for wanting to come out, to join us. Shit, I don’t even like wearing short sleeves, and I’m just scarred to hell thanks to my body part . . .
issues
.”

Kai stepped into the elevator and pressed the lobby floor once everyone else had joined her. “Look, I know you’re all ‘all for one and one for all’ about this, Natalie, but Rehu and I have survived all these years by watching out for ourselves.”

Natalie glanced at Alec, then at Rehu. “And?”

Rehu cleared his throat. “I think what Kai is saying is that if we end up being threatened because of everyone else, this kumbaya shit you’re so fond of, it’s going out the window.”

The elevator dinged and they stepped out into the lobby.

“You would really blow off our group?” Alec asked. “Even though we’ve all been together for so long? Even after everything we’ve been through?”

Kai’s lips pursed and Natalie could see that the Mummy Girl didn’t really like the idea. Was it Rehu driving this?

“If I have to,” Kai answered after a long pause, “I would. But we’re not there yet, okay? We’ll talk about it later. Come on, Rehu.”

She grabbed the other mummy’s arm and the two of them left the building. Alec and Natalie looked at each other, their expressions twins of concern. But the mood was broken as Igor stepped between them.

“Mummies . . . always such worriers.” He smiled at the two of them cluelessly. “Well, what should we do with the rest of our day?”

Natalie arched a brow. “We’re all going back to the apartment. I want you to call Hyde and get him here right away.” She gazed at the street where Rehu and Kai had disappeared. “In a moment filled with irony, it seems like he might be the only way to keep us all together.”

“Actually,” Igor said, flipping open his phone, “I texted him from Drake’s apartment and I just got a response. Hyde is in the city and he’ll meet with you today.”