Chapter 26 Heart of the Monster
Heart of the Monster
Afamiliar scratching at my door has me up before I even think about it. The black cat streaks in from the cold the second I open the door an inch.
"Hey there, cat," I murmur, shutting the door. As the cat shakes off the snow covering its body, I head over to the cabinet. I’m back to having to pick if I’m going to eat or if the cat gets my meal when it comes scratching. But there are two cans tonight. One for cat, one for me.
It’s been five days since I warned Shadow that I would destroy him, but instead of recoiling like he should have, he murmured against my lips, "Then we shall be destroyed together."
His darkness wrapped around us like a cloak, a shield, a promise.
His fangs cut my lips and the metallic taste of my blood mingled with his complicated, yet elegant tongue.
I bit his until a slippery, coppery substance joined mine.
It tasted darker, smokier. He bleeds too. I love and hate that I know that now.
It was a vow, a sentence, a salvation. If one of us burns, we burn together. We sealed it with blood and sex.
Though my monster did not find release, even though I begged him to use my body, he put his entire focus on wringing me out of orgasm after orgasm. Taunting me with the promise that he’d turn me into a monster like him.
A shiver races down my spine at the memory. If I could live inside any moment, it would be that one. A mixture of heaven and hell. It’s more than I deserve.
But he still holds me at bay. He insists I am to cling to my humanity. I don’t want it anymore. I don’t need it. Making him see that feels impossible.
A little paw bats at my ankle and I look down into the calm yet expectant golden eyes of my unexpected ally. I can’t help the smile that springs to my lips or the warmth that spreads through my chest.
"Have I thanked you yet for saving my life?" I say to my little furry friend. Not surprisingly, the cat gave me a wide berth after battling the red crab monster from under my bed. I actually never expected the feline to return. Warmth resonates from the center of my chest. Affection.
I don’t feel it often, and it’s almost too much. My body feels full and uncomfortable.
My wrist never quits torquing on the can opener as I know my thank you will be better received in consumable fishy form.
I set down the can and the cat immediately starts chowing down with loud, wide smacks of its chops. The desire to sit down and pet my hero is strong, but I don’t like to be bothered while I’m eating.
Instead, I make myself a cup of tea and head over to the couch and pull a blanket over my legs.
The thermostat is not acting up tonight, which means I feel the chill of the dark winter night.
But I welcome it in my bones. There is something about being surrounded by cold and being able to cozy up in a blanket with a nice horror novel.
I open my current read, a classic Stephen King. The pages are wrinkled with water stains from the previous owner, but for less than a dollar as a garage sale I now own one of my favorites. Someone might find me perverse for finding comfort in killer clowns, but I find it so very soothing.
Soft paws ascend into my lap. "Oh, hello." I raise the book over my head in surprise, making room. The cat tucks its legs under itself, forming a kitten loaf on my blankets before it looks up at me and meows, showing off its sharp little fangs.
The cat loves back scratches but until now, we’ve maintained a respectful distance from each other. It has never crawled onto me like this before. I swallow down something lumpy in my throat and lower my fingers to stroke the soft fur.
The purring immediately kicks up, like a little engine. If I want, I could raise my book in one hand and resume reading, but I set it down, open on the couch arm to hold my place. Warmth spreads out along my lap from my friend’s body.
I trace along the bony spine and ribs that stick out a little too much. Just like mine actually. "I don’t know who you are staying with when you aren’t with me, but I don’t think they are feeding you enough."
The cat gives me a slow heavy-lidded blink, enjoying my attention.
"I think you may need the other can of tuna before you go.
" I pause. "It feels weird to talk to you.
Nice, but weird. The only one I ever talked to before was Shadow.
With Miguel, I listened more than spoke.
Comfortably though," I rush to qualify, as if the cat has any idea or cares that I might have unintentionally spoken poorly about Miguel.
Bringing up my friend, who is in the hospital because of me, makes my heart swell with discomfort.
"He doesn’t deserve this," I say after a beat. The backs of my eyes sting with tears, but I blink them back. I don’t get to feel sorry for myself. Not even to a cat. I don’t get to do that. I’m not the victim. I’m the one destroying other people’s lives.
The cat remains unconcerned about my or Miguel’s affairs. Suddenly, I feel like an idiot. Don’t people do this all the time? Talk to pets, or friends, or family? Am I just bad at it?
Suddenly the cat is up, hackles raised and hissing. Not at me, but in the direction of my bedroom.
"What is it?" I murmur stupidly, as if the cat can answer.
The cat leaps off my lap and races toward the front door.
Shit, is there another monster coming?
I open the door so the cat can slink out to safety, but I'm not an idiot. I shove my feet into my boots and grab my coat. I have it halfway on when the shadows in my apartment darken. I pause my mad rush to get out the door.
"Evie." My name travels into the living room on a monstrous growl from the bedroom. It’s Shadow.
I barely make him out in the darkness, his form obscured but his presence unmistakable.
I almost peel the coat back off, but something stops me. My heart beats in my temples and causes the hair on the nape of my neck to rise like needles.
Fear. Fear is stopping me. Something in his tone of voice is off. I know him too well.
Tendrils of shadow slither around and grip the edges of my bedroom doorframe. My heart races and my palms are slick with sweat. Every part of my body is telling me to run like hell, that I’m in danger. But why do I feel this way? I’ve never been in danger from Shadow.
Still, some part of me knows better, simply from the hue of the darkness, from the crackling energy in the room. It feels… hungry.
The shadows in the room twist and writhe like living things, a macabre dance I find both beautiful and terrifying.
"Evie." As Shadow’s deep, guttural growl fills the air again, I can't help but feel like prey caught in the gaze of a predator. The fear is tangible, a cold hand gripping my heart.
It's Shadow, but not.
"What’s wrong?" I ask, one arm still in my coat. I’m rooted to the spot, my survival instincts screaming at me to flee, yet transfixed by the hypnotic movement of the shadows.
"I can smell you." The words are drawn out, almost slurred. "You smell delicious."
It’s almost as if I can tell he is licking his chops in the darkness. I still can’t see his eyes, or his body. Tendrils of shadow extend further into the room, the feelers of my dark, otherworldly beast. They move with purpose, slinking across the floor, climbing the walls.
"Do you need me to go out and get you a heart from the butcher?" I offer. Something tells me Shadow is hungry. Hungry past the point of reason.
"No." His snarl snaps through the air with a cruelty I’ve never heard before. "The livestock will not sate me."
My heart pounds harder in my chest, a frantic rhythm that echoes the growing sense of dread.
I know Shadow, but this part of him—this feral, predatory side—is something new, something dangerous.
I caught a glimpse of it in that restaurant after he consumed the monster’s heart, after his horns elongated.
I can feel the shift in the air as the shadows draw near, a static charge that makes my skin crawl. There's a hunger in the darkness, a craving that feels both foreign and intimately familiar.
Shadow looms in the doorway, his form a grotesque exaggeration of the creature I once knew.
The horns that crown his head have grown even more, twisting back into exaggerated wicked spirals, casting elongated shadows across the room.
I expected his eyes to be blood-red, but they are hard orbs of obsidian, burning with a feral light.
The wildness of him sends a shiver of primal fear through me.
"Shadow, what's happening to you?" My voice is barely a whisper, drowned out by the sound of my own heartbeat. The fear is overwhelming. Every part of me is acutely aware I'm in the presence of a true predator. A hungry, out of control predator.
He doesn't answer with words. Instead, there's a low, rumbling sound that vibrates through the room. The sound speaks of a hunger that's barely contained.
"Tell me," I demand, though I’m afraid to push him in this state.
"I’ve been doing what I must to survive," he finally answers in that same drawn-out slur I barely recognize. "Consuming the hearts of my brethren. To grow strong, unconquerable." Fangs appear in the darkness, his forked tongue flicking out.
Shock slaps me cold in the face. "You’ve been deliberately eating the hearts of other monsters?" Should he do that? Is that normal?
Judging by his change in appearance and mood, I’m going to go with no.
"The Guard will not capture me. I will not return to the Pit. I will rip every other monster limb from limb and lick out their hearts and entrails." His voice booms through the room, but I resist covering my ears to protect them from the onslaught. I can’t show weakness to whoever… whatever this is. The silence coming from the wall between me and Elijah Cohen tells me my neighbors aren’t home.
"But I smelled you, Evie. I smelled you from across the boundary and I couldn’t stay away." His voice suddenly tremors as if he’s come back to himself. As if he is doing everything he can to hold himself from whatever impulse is tempting him to act.
"Evie." He draws my name out this time like it is the most delectable treat to roll across his tongue.
"I want you. I can’t stop wanting you. You fill my head, my senses.
I want to consume you." Every word he says is harder to understand, as if his primal monstrous nature is devouring the bits of his humanity, or whatever it is that makes him humanoid.
"I can feel your heart beating," Shadow continues, a note of despair in his voice as he tilts his head and closes his eyes. God, his horns are massive now. "It’s all I hear, all I want. Your scent, your warmth… they’re driving me mad.
I want to plunge into your chest, tear out your heart and consume it.
It's an urge stronger than I've ever known. "
I believe him.
The shadows don't recede. Instead, they press closer, a tangible manifestation of Shadow's inner turmoil. In this moment, I am both the object of his deepest affection and the focus of his most basic, vicious instincts.
"Evie, you need to run." When he opens his eyes, there’s a glimmer of the creature I know, a plea for me to escape his monstrous desires.
I hesitate, rooted to the spot, my heart racing with a mix of fear and a desperate hope. "Shadow, you won’t hurt me. You can’t…"
"You don’t understand," he hisses. "I’m losing myself, Evie. The hunger… It’s consuming me. You’re like a siren’s call. I can’t resist you." The doorframe crunches under his claws, as if it’s all he can do to hold himself back.
The monster before me is on the edge, teetering between the remnants of his control and the need to rip out my heart. The shadows are now mere inches from me, their cold tendrils caressing and snapping at the air around my body.
I continue to stand there, frozen, caught between the instinct to flee or stay and try to save his sanity.
"Please, Shadow," I plead, my voice trembling. "Don't do this."
"Please, run," he urges, his voice strained as if the words themselves are a battle. "I can’t hold back much longer. You’re beyond temptation, beyond control. I don’t want to kill you, Evie, but I’m not sure I can stop myself.
You need to run." The doorframe crunches more under his grip, the tension in the room nearly choking me.
I still hesitate.
"Run, Evie!" he roars.
All of the shadows in the room snap into his body, leaving only the hard muscled cuts and long horns of a very real monster who can’t resist his nature another second.
My muscles unfreeze. I yank the door open and flee.