The Beast (23 page)

Her dinner was Sandra's lasagna, Sandra's yellow bean casserole, and burgers.

"It's not as good as Sandra's," she said when everyone had a mouthful. "Everything tasted so… special when she made it."

We nodded.

Jessica worked overtime to carry the somber party. She refilled cups and brought out a fresh bottle. "So, Jade made the movie playlist for tonight. Sandra really loved romantic comedies, didn't she?"

Jack laughed. "When we first started dating, I thought it was like a first date thing, but it was an every date thing. Anytime I saw a trailer for a new one, I knew we were going. Some of them weren't so bad, but most of them are pretty awful."

"She read a lot of romance, too," I said.

"She was… She was going to be the best wife," Jack said. There were tears in his eyes and he gulped down the entire glass of wine. "She could be ridiculous, but really… she was the best. There was one time when she got mad at me for something and then she just says 'I thought you loved me!' and runs off. We were in a park and I chased after her. I found her on a little bridge looking down at the water, and you know what she says?"

I closed my open mouth and said, "I love you, you know. You know me so well!"

Jack turned to me and laughed. "How did you know?"

"She did the exact same thing to me when we were like fifteen!"

“Yeah, but did you know what movie that was from?” he asked with a sly smile.

I took another gulp of wine and shook my head. “Not a clue. That’s probably why she agreed to marry you. I never had the patience for most of those movies.”

Everyone laughed then and when we calmed down it was time for another refill and we moved to the couch. It was Sandra's couch and Sandra's TV, and I felt the familiar calmness I always got from that couch. It was laced with guilt at being happy without her, even though I knew it would be what she wanted.

Jessica started the movie and topped off everyone's drinks before sitting between Jack and Cole. I sat between Jack and Simon, and we all ignored the little bit of extra space that remained between us all, the space that Sandra should have occupied.

I started to feel strange. I had felt strange all night, but it wasn't just the mingling happiness, guilt, and sadness over Sandra anymore. Something was wrong with me. I leaned against Simon.

I don't feel right.

Yeah, me too.

Jack snored. We laughed.

"I guess you refilled a little too fast," I tried to joke. It didn't come out right. It came out like "I gosh fill ast."

I looked up to see Simon swimming in rippling water, and then everything went black.
 

chapter 25

I came to in the darkness. I pushed a blanket off of my body that I hadn’t put there. Jack and Cole looked almost lifeless under another blanket.

"Jack?" I shook him, but there was no response.

"Cole?" I picked up his hand and watched it hit the floor with a thud. Both were still breathing, but this wasn’t normal. We’d had dozens of sleepovers with Sandra. They weren’t asleep, and even in a drunken stupor they should have mumbled something, rolled over, or something before passing out again. It all felt very wrong.

I couldn’t feel the presence of Jessica and Simon. My instincts kicked into overdrive. Something told me that I needed to find them. I picked up my phone, but the same feeling told me not to call. The chain around my neck vibrated and danced on my chest, hummed into my bones. I reached out with my mind to touch Simon's. It felt like he tried to push me away, but it was no use. I wasn’t that easy to get rid of. I pushed through and saw what he saw. I felt how groggy and uncoordinated he was- just like me. He saw beige. Dry grass. There was dirt, a stinkbug, a tree trunk.

I threw the door open and ran out. I was seeing with both of our eyes and some other sense, the humming silver and bones, was telling me when I was going the right way. I bowled over a few trash cans, almost got hit by a car, but I kept going.

Through Simon's eyes I saw a hooded figure standing enormously tall next to a monster. I can't describe the Beast any other way. It was a shadow, but its skin looked wrong, like it was falling off in places and mismatched in others. The hooded figure bent over Simon and the hood tilted to one side. The figure backed away.

When I got into the hills, the pictures in my double vision got closer to matching. I smelled Simon in the air and went toward it, down into a valley. The smells that mingled with his broke my heart. There was smoke, and fire, and something much worse.

I saw him, struggling to stand. He was in bad shape. He could sense my presence, but the figure didn't.

Slowly, like a dream, just like when I saw the ghost of Sandra, the figure started to raise a hand, pointing a finger at Simon.

The Beast lunged for him, but I was faster.

"No!" I screamed, slamming myself against the solid side of the animal. It fell, but recovered quickly. I felt another scream escape me and felt my leg bones crack. Pain bolted through me like lightning even as the night started to grow brighter. The hooded figure was no stranger, and no immensely tall serial killer. The Beast was not a strange beast at all. But I was.

I roared and lunged at The Beast again. He ran away from me and from the fire, making its way toward us. I swiped a clawed hand toward the little hooded figure, child-sized compared to my monster body. The fire danced and reflected in her wide green eyes.

Simon, as full of rage and covered in fur as me, projected to me that if I wanted to eat Sandra's killer alive, this was my chance.

Beefcakes was long gone, he ran away after I attacked him, but Jessica was right there, in the middle of the growing fire that she’d set. She raised a pistol. I ran toward her with inhuman speed and bounced back like I'd charged a wall.

The necklace. The damn coffin nails.

I don't know a way around it,
Simon thought back.

The gun shivered in Jessica’s trembling hand, and the fire crept closer.

I think I know a way.
I only hoped it could work. I looked at my claws, willing them to go away. I willed the grey fur back to wherever it came from and for all of me to go back to normal. I willed it as though my life depended on it. My life, Simon’s life, Jessica’s life, we all depended on it. Simon retreated.

Parts that had just painfully grown, painfully shrank as my bones and hair and skin shifted back into place. I fell to my knees.

“Jessica," I called out weakly, holding my hands up to her. "Please don't shoot."

She hesitated. I rose shakily to my feet and approached her slowly. I couldn't move quickly if I'd wanted to. All the energy was gone from me. She held her open arms to me.

"Jade. I'm so sorry." Her hair gleamed and danced like fire, clung to the clean paths her tears made on her sooty face. Her hands still shook. “I didn’t want this.”

I reached out for her and grabbed the cross from around her neck. I didn't have the strength left to pull, I just held on tightly as I stumbled and fell. The cross came with me.

I had to trust that Simon understood the rest of the plan. 

Something large crashed through the burning brush and heat from the fire licked my bare skin. I forced my hands to pull me forward, to claw my way through the dirt, disoriented, trying to find the way back to the road, back to Simon, back to safety. I couldn’t die now. I wouldn’t. 

The thrumming pendant took over. It guided me and I followed without question. It seemed to give me extra strength, enough to stand, enough to run. I couldn't outrun the fire that raced up the hill, but if I stayed on the wide packed dirt path, I wouldn’t have to. The fire grew larger, too large. By miracle or magic, I escaped the flames that leapt across the trail. I found the road, crawled under the guard rail and rolled across the street.

I woke up naked, wrapped in a wool blanket and looked up into the face of a helmeted fireman.

I tried to ask where Simon and Jessica were. I tried to tell him to let me go. I tried, but my mouth wouldn't open. My mouth was too dry and my body was too exhausted to cooperate.

I woke up in a hospital bed, with an IV in my arm, dripping quickly.

Simon, wearing sweatpants and an oversized T-shirt, stood up from the chair in the corner.

"Where is-."

"Sh," he touched a finger to my forehead.
This is easier.

Where is she?

In police custody.

And Beefcakes?

They found him, too. I don't think he's going to survive this ordeal, though. They were talking about opening him up to look for human remains.

And if they don't find any, she'll walk away.

We won’t let her get far.

"Oh, you're up," a nurse said. "That's good. You've been through quite the ordeal today. As soon as you feel well enough, the police want to talk to you. There's a lot of media here too, outside. You're already a celebrity. The only survivor of The Beast."

I looked at Simon. He shrugged.
Like I would tell the police you saved me.

I smiled at him and nodded at the nurse. "I can talk to the police now."

She motioned to Kubretzki and his new partner, a man named Lamb.

"Well, Jade, when we thought you were involved, we never hoped that it would be like this," Kubretzki said in a friendly tone.

"Didn’t hope I'd make it through?" My throat was dry.

He handed me a cup of water. "I hoped that you wouldn't be attacked at all."

"Sorry," I croaked. "You just always catch me on the worst days."

He smiled gently at that and started to ask questions about the attack. Simon fed me the answers and I spoke them out loud. Kubretzki and Lamb left, apparently satisfied.

I felt Jessica close by.

She's in police custody, but she isn't well enough to leave,
Simon explained.
I wasn't sure if you were going to rush over and… you know, eat her.

I smiled. "No, I won't."

I swallowed the cup of water and called to the nurse. "Excuse me, I have to use the restroom."

She came over and showed me how to hold the tubes and the IV stand so that I could walk around freely.

"Am I allowed to leave the room?" I asked. "Are there vending machines or anything?"

"Of course," she smiled. "Right at the end of the hall. It will be good for you to get a little walk in, but don’t overdo it."

I smiled back and left the room. Someone had put non-slip socks on my feet.

"Jade," Simon warned.
What are you doing?

I ignored him.

Two officers sitting outside of one of the rooms marked it as Jessica's. They stood when I got too close.

"I'm her sister," I said.

They looked at me like I was crazy.

"Jade," Jessica whispered. "I didn't want to hurt you."

She looked so small and broken. Ash and black soot made her hair dark and smudged her skin. The only evidence of her own pale skin were the lines carved by tears or rubbed by tubing. Simon stood behind me.

"They already told me they have all the evidence they need," Jessica rasped. "I told them that I'm ready to tell them everything. Now they're just nursing me back to health so they can kill me. I told them that they're wasting time and money, I'm guilty. Of all of them and more. And I hurt you. I don’t deserve to live.”

Simon pressed a handkerchief into my palm. It was soft cotton, plain white. No markings.

What’s this?

You’re crying, Jade.

I squeezed the handkerchief, ignored my tears.

“Why, Jessica?”

“I never wanted to be guilty of hurting you, Jade. I only wanted you to love me best. I wanted you to love me only. You’re the only person who ever cared about what was inside of me. I loved you, Jade. I'm so sorry."

“You killed my best friend,” I growled. “I didn’t
know
what was inside of you.”

“Jade,” she moaned. Then she screamed in pain, “Jade!”

"We're going to have to ask you to go," one of the officers said. A nurse rushed into the room.

I nodded and went back to my own room. My reflection in the mirror showed my own tears. I wiped them away and smeared the ash, dirt and soot with the clean white handkerchief. My hair was a mess scattered with oak leaves. I smiled at the image.

"What?" Simon asked.

"Nothing," I said. "This just brings back memories."

Epilogue

The Simon-beast leapt from one rooftop to the next, and I followed. Children pointed up at us, but I didn't care. They would never know what we really were; we wouldn't be in Greece long enough for them to catch us.

My life had become a never ending adventure. I could change on command, and it took a lot out of me to do it, but I could do it. I had Simon and he had me. We kept moving, running from country to country. He would run and I would chase him or I would run and he would chase me. When we were running, we would eat sheep or cows or whatever we could catch and when we were caught we would change back into humans and make love.

Whenever a human was in trouble, Simon had to help. I never inherited that trait. Maybe that really was a fancy purebred thing. We went wherever the most unrest was. And we rarely had trouble with the local vampires. We were a pair, not a pack, so we were always watched but rarely hunted.

I caught a glimpse of Simon as he dropped out of sight between two buildings.  I followed suit and tailed him from the rooftops, reaching out with my mind to find him. I caught him and as soon as I hit the ground, and then he was inside me.

Afterwards, I slipped into a thin cotton dress and he put on matching pants. Sometimes we planned ahead and wore a bag with some clothes when we transformed so that we wouldn't be naked. This was one of those times. We slept in the warm night air in an alley.

When I woke up, Simon was gone. I reached out to try to find him. I couldn't even feel him. On the ground near me were drops of dried blood. I didn't smell them until I saw them. They had the taint of vampire. Now that I was a werewolf, all of them smelled the same, and they all smelled like death. There would never be another Harold or Charles for me, no beautiful lies wrapped in dead bodies smelling of summer and love.

He was hurt,
I thought lazily. He had gotten hurt and I'd slept through it all. After changing in and out of wolf form it was no surprise that a fight could have happened over my head. A bomb could have gone off over my head without waking me.

I still had my bag and all my limbs, which meant that Simon won. But he would need healing. I tried to think of how he'd gotten healed before. He'd mentioned Peru. So I would go and find him. I picked my bag up and dreamily walked toward the main street. Two men blocked my path. I couldn't understand the words, but I was glad that they hadn't arrived when I was still unconscious. Their kind existed everywhere there were humans. All I was to them was an easy target with no underwear on.

Let them try.

They learned their lesson the hard way when I charged them both and took all the cash they had. At the airport, I ate at a "by the pound" buffet until I was full. It cost all of my stolen cash, but it was worth it.