American Monsters

  She found Gregory Buxton’s number, and pressed dial. Her first attempt rang out. So did her second. On her third, the call was answered, and Buxton’s deep voice came on over the speaker. “You said you wouldn’t call.”

  “I know what we said,” Milo responded, “but things have changed.”

  “That right?” said Buxton. “Is Amber with you? I’m going to take it that she is. So, Amber, have you changed, or are you still Astaroth’s representative?”

  She hesitated.

  “Yeah,” Buxton continued, “that’s what I thought. Listen, I was fine about helping you out when we all had the same problem, that problem being the Shining Demon, but you’re taking your orders from him now. You are a danger to me. You’re a threat.”

  “I won’t go after you,” Amber said. “I promise.”

  “It may get to the point where you no longer have the choice,” Buxton replied. “I like you, Amber, I do, but there’s no way in hell that I’m helping you help Astaroth.”

  “Well, that’s the thing,” Milo interjected. “This isn’t about helping Astaroth. In fact, it’s about hurting him. Possibly destroying him.”

  There was silence from the other end.

  “We want to trap him,” said Amber. “Trap him, wrap him in chains, and drag him out of his castle. Bring him back here, where he’ll be killed.”

  Buxton grunted. “You’re going to do all that, are you?”

  “We need your help,” said Milo, “but yes.”

  “What you’re proposing is suicide. It’ll never work.”

  They stopped at traffic lights. “But there’s a precedent,” said Milo. “The mayor of Desolation Hill trapped Astaroth’s brother in a cell. He’s bound by chains that sap his power.”

  “Well, there you go,” Buxton said. “You don’t even need my help. Just go back to Desolation Hill and take a peek at those chains.”

  “We wouldn’t know what to do with that information,” Milo responded. “Those chains are custom-made. We can’t make more.”

  “You think I can?”

  “You studied this stuff.”

  “I am a layman, you understand that? Not an expert. I wouldn’t know where to begin.”

  “You know more than us,” said Milo.

  “Wouldn’t be hard,” said Buxton, “but that’s not enough. I can’t help, I’m afraid.”

  The lights turned green, and Milo accelerated. “What about the people who helped you? The people you went to for advice? Could we talk to them?”

  Amber could practically feel Buxton shaking his head. “If they knew I’d passed their names around, they’d be sending people out to kill me. It’s not going to happen. Although …”

  Amber straightened. “Yes?”

  “You already know someone who could probably help,” Buxton said. “Course, she might need something in return.”

  “Abigail,” said Milo.

  “That’s the one,” said Buxton. “I mean, as creepy little girls go, she’s one of the creepiest, but she knows her stuff. If anyone can help you get your hands on more of those magic chains, it’s her. But do me a favour – do not tell her it was my suggestion.”

  “We won’t,” said Amber, slouching back in her seat.

  “I gotta go,” Buxton said. “Don’t contact me again until Amber quits her damn job. Even then, think twice about it.”

  He hung up.

  “Do we have Abigail’s number?” Amber asked.

  Milo shook his head. “The Dark Stair is a bar without a phone. We’ll have to ask her in person.”

  “How far?”

  “We’ll make it there tonight.”

  “Then okay, let’s go.”

  He nodded. “You got it.”

  She didn’t want to sleep, didn’t want to dream, but exhaustion pulled her down with every mile, tugged her into the car seat, and she plunged, stepping through the front door of her home in Orlando.

  Music played. That song, ‘Turn! Turn! Turn!’ by … someone. Herman’s Hermits? No, the Byrds. She was pretty sure it was the Byrds. Imelda had used to listen to sixties music all the time.

  Amber walked in. The table in the living room was covered in blood that seeped from the birthday cake at its centre. Only one person sat at the table. Her sister, Carolyn. She was singing along, softly, to the record.

  “Hi,” said Amber. She realised she was crying. “You’re my sister. Hi. I’m Amber.”

  Carolyn looked up and smiled. “Pleased to meet you. They’re going to kill me.”

  “I’ll help you,” said Amber. “Come with me. I’ll help you, I promise.”

  “Thank you,” said Carolyn. “That’s awfully nice of you, but I couldn’t impose. Just let them kill me. It’s quite all right.”

  Amber took her hand, pulled her to her feet. “We can run. The both of us.”

  Carolyn smiled and shook her head. “They’ll be back soon. You’re better off letting them kill me. Just like you let them kill Kelly.”

  Amber let go of her hand. “Kelly’s not dead.”

  “She will be soon, though, won’t she? I mean, one way or the other she’ll abandon you. She’ll either walk away of her own free will or she’ll be carried away, a lifeless husk. Isn’t that right?”

  “I won’t … I won’t let that happen.”

  “Do you have much of a choice?”

  The door was flung open, and a woman strode in, slight of frame, with grey hair. Maybe sixty-five or seventy years old, but moving like someone fifteen years younger.

  “Molly,” said Carolyn, turning to her with a smile, “I was telling Amber here that there’s really no point in me running. My parents are going to kill me just like they’re going to kill Kelly.”

  “Kelly’s not dead yet,” said Molly, the same Molly James had helped all those years before, “and neither are you. Come on now.” She took Carolyn’s hand.

  “But I don’t wish to be a burden,” said Carolyn.

  “You stop that talk right this minute!” Molly said. “They’ve taught you to be like this! They’ve taught you not to make a fuss! Well, you know what, young lady? Now is the time to rebel.”

  “Oh, I couldn’t.”

  “Oh, you damn well will,” said Molly, and dragged Carolyn to the door. “And you!” she said, pointing with her free hand at Amber. “You do not stop fighting, you hear me?”

  Then they were gone, and the door slammed shut behind them and Amber woke to fir trees and white-capped mountains and the rumble of the Charger.

  “You okay?” Milo asked.

  “Fine,” she responded, straightening up. She wasn’t about to stop fighting. Not yet. She had Kelly to rescue, and her parents to deliver, and Astaroth to cheat.

  She had a long way to go before she could stop fighting.

  THEY GOT TO SALT Lake City at a little past eleven, only to find that The Dark Stair bar closed early on a Sunday night.

  “Early?” Amber raged, kicking the locked door. “Early? It’s a bar on the Demon Road, for Christ’s sake! The only people that drink in it are monsters and killers and frikkin’ weirdos! Why the hell does it close early on Sundays?”

  Milo scratched the stubble on his chin. “Beats me.”

  “We drove all day for this! We’re in a goddamn hurry! Now what do we do?”

  “We find somewhere to sleep,” Milo said, walking back to the Charger.

  “Sleep?” said Amber. “We can’t sleep! We have six days to get Astaroth!”

  “I need to rest, Amber,” said Milo. “So do you.”

  “We don’t have time!”

  “We don’t have a choice,” Milo said. “We have to wait for the bar to open. We may as well wait in a motel and catch some shut-eye while we can. Listen to me – you’re angry, you’re upset, I get that. But depriving yourself of sleep will lead to sloppiness, and we can’t afford to make any mistakes from this moment on, can we?”

  Amber clutched her hair in big, angry bunches. “No,” she said through gritted teeth. “No,
we can’t.”

  She got in to the Charger, grabbed for the seat belt, but it snagged. “Oh, for Christ’s sake,” she snapped, tugging harder.

  “Be nice to her,” said Milo, slipping into the driver’s seat.

  “It’s a car!” she roared, slamming her fist on to the dash. “It’s a stupid goddamn car! It doesn’t have any goddamn feelings!”

  Milo looked at her, waited for her to calm down, and Amber threw herself heavily back into the seat. “Whatever,” she mumbled. She went for the seat belt again, and this time it flowed smoothly into the buckle. She felt a ridiculous urge to apologise to the Charger, but ignored it as the engine came to life and they pulled away from the kerb.

  They found the nearest motel. It was small and crummy, and only had one room available. It was a twin room, at least, so Amber grabbed the key and stormed off while Milo paid. She dumped her bag by the bed nearest the window, sat down and flicked on the TV just for something to do.

  She shifted and lay down. She was calmer like this. Her insides didn’t tie themselves into as many knots when she was horned up. She was still in a bad mood, though. Her heart was still beating fast. She changed the channel, caught the end of a news report on the police chief’s missing kid. They reckoned a serial killer had snatched him away, the same serial killer the police chief had been investigating. Bad crap happening in New York. Bad crap happening everywhere.

  Another press of the button and another channel. A rerun of When Strikes the Shroud. Amber watched a young Virgil Abernathy kick evil’s ass and grinned.

  Milo came in.

  “Hey,” she said.

  He looked at her for a moment before saying, “Hi.”

  She changed the channel. Commercials. “Something wrong?” she asked.

  “Not a thing,” Milo said, draping his jacket over the chair. “There a reason you’re wearing your red skin?”

  She raised an eyebrow. “What, I’m not allowed to horn up in the privacy of my own motel room?”

  “Just wondering why, that’s all.”

  She kept her eyes on the TV. “I like being like this.”

  “So it’s a comfort thing?”

  “Yep.” She glanced at him. “Though you look like you don’t believe me.”

  “And you talk like you want an argument.”

  Amber shrugged. “You’re the one acting strange, not me.”

  He sat on his bed. “How are you feeling?”

  “Peachy.”

  “And how were you feeling before you shifted?”

  “What’s that got to do with anything?”

  “Were you thinking about Kelly? Were you worried about her? Or Clarissa? Were you thinking of Linda and Ronnie and Warrick?”

  “You sure know how to kill a good mood.”

  “Well, that’s just it, Amber. You shouldn’t be in a good mood. Your friends have been murdered. That’s a lot for anyone to handle. That’s too much, even. Some people might turn to the bottle after something like that. Some people might turn to drugs.”

  “Dear God,” she said, sitting up, “what is your point?”

  “When you shift, you care a little less, don’t you?”

  She glared at him. “You think you’re so smart.”

  “I’m not blaming you.”

  “You’re not? Oh, that’s nice.” She swung her legs off the bed and perched there, on the edge.

  “But you’re going to have to deal with what you’re feeling sooner or later,” Milo said.

  She laughed. “Seriously? You are lecturing me about feelings? You?”

  “It does strike me as ironic.”

  “How about hypocritical?”

  Milo shrugged. “I’m just pointing it out.”

  “I appreciate you sharing these thoughts with me,” she said, “I really do, but maybe next time you could keep them to yourself, seeing as how you don’t know what the hell you’re talking about?”

  “Sure thing.”

  She got up. “You know what? I’m gonna go for a walk.”

  “You’re going out like that?”

  “That’s a very dad thing to say, Milo. May I remind you that A, you are not my dad, and B, you wouldn’t want to be.”

  “I just meant the horns, Amber.”

  “I know what you meant,” she said, and walked out.

  A voice in the back of her mind yelled at her, demanded that she revert, that she only go out in public as plain old Amber Lamont with all of her many flaws and shortcomings there for all to see. But she ignored the voice, drowning it out with the thrill that came from walking down a sidewalk in full demonic form. Cars passed. Some of them honked their horns.

  She waved.

  It was bullshit what Milo had said. Pure bullshit. She wasn’t running from anything. She was ready to take on the world and its cousin. It was everyone else that was running from her. She grinned at the revelation.

  Because they should run, and that’s what Milo was refusing to understand. They should all run from her.

  They certainly wouldn’t run from the other Amber, the old Amber, the plain old dumb Amber whose clothes she was still wearing. Why would they? There was nothing fierce there. There was nothing formidable. There was only a pathetic need to both fit in to her surroundings and fade into the background.

  She stopped outside a weird gothic boutique, eyes drawn to the mannequin in the window. Everything she’d heard about Salt Lake City being a conservative town, and here she was looking at tiny skirts and plastic horns.

  Scales formed over her fist and she smashed the glass. No alarm sounded. She pulled the tartan skirt and Little Devil T-shirt off the mannequin, and changed clothes in the shadow of a squat building. She left her jeans and Dark Places hoody there, along with her sneakers and socks. They didn’t go with her new look.

  She went walking. Barefoot. It was nice, being out in the open like this with her horns on. Liberating. She didn’t mind the slight nip in the air on her bare arms and legs. She didn’t mind the cold at all.

  She heard laughter and was drawn towards it. A few guys and a girl, all in their early twenties, chatting outside a cafe. The girl was cute. She had a pixie cut.

  “Hey there,” Amber said, walking up to her.

  Pixie-cut laughed. “Wow. Nice costume!”

  Amber grinned. “Thanks. There’s a costume party somewhere around here, but I went for a walk and got lost.” She shrugged. “What you gonna do?”

  “I know what you could do,” said one of the guys, trying to wrap an arm round her waist.

  Amber pushed his hand away, focused on Pixie-cut. “You from here? This is my first time in …” She laughed. “Okay, I don’t even know where I am!”

  Pixie-cut giggled. “How drunk are you?”

  “Like, very,” said Amber, and joined in her giggles. “Am I in Salt Lake City? I think I’m in Salt Lake City.”

  “You are,” Pixie-cut reassured her. “But don’t worry, I’m not from here, either.”

  Amber laughed. “I heard this was a boring-ass town. Please tell me there are places to dance.”

  “Oh, there are,” another one of the guys said. “Listen, I don’t know about your costume party, but we’re headed to a club, and we can get both of you lovely ladies in. Spencer’s friendly with one of the bouncers.”

  “I don’t know,” said Pixie-cut, “I’m already pretty wasted.”

  “I’ll take care of you,” Amber said.

  Pixie-cut laughed again. Such a pretty laugh. “Sure,” she said. “I’m in.”

  The guys led them down the street and round the corner. The next block over there was a line of people outside a club.

  One of the guys fell into step beside Amber. “That is some amazing make-up, by the way. Could I try the horns?”

  “The horns stay on,” Amber said.

  “No problem,” the guy said. “I’m Leon, by the way.”

  “Leon, you sure you can get us in? I don’t have any ID.”

  “I don’t have any
ID, either,” said Pixie-cut.

  “Relax,” Leon said. “Spencer, you can get them in, right?”

  “Without a doubt,” said the tall guy with the crappy goatee. “Of course, they’re gonna owe me for all the effort I’ll have to go to. Calling in favours is not something I do lightly.”

  “Understood,” said Leon. “I’m sure the girls would be willing to pay you back somehow, if only there was a way …”

  Amber turned. “I’m going to stop you right there, before your imaginations get you into trouble,” she said. “We’re not going to be paying you back. In any way. Seriously, you can wipe the grins off your faces.”

  “We weren’t being totally serious about that,” Leon said, still smiling.

  “I must have missed the joke,” Amber replied. “Thanks for showing us where the club is. We’ll get in by ourselves.”

  Spencer looked distraught. “But … but I know the bouncer.”

  “Be sure to say hi to him from the back of the line,” Amber said. “We’re cutting straight to the front.”

  She took Pixie-cut’s hand and carried on to the nightclub, leaving Leon and his friends behind.

  “We don’t have IDs,” Pixie-cut reminded her.

  “We don’t need them,” said Amber. “Have you seen me?”

  AMBER GAVE THE BOUNCERS a smile and they parted for her, and she led Pixie-cut straight through to the hot, heaving crowds and the music that reverberated up through the floor. An idiot reached for her horns, tried to yank them from her head. She caught his wrist and squeezed, then shoved him away and left him there, shrieking.

  She lost Pixie-cut in all the confusion, but found the dance floor, and she danced.

  She’d never danced before, not really. She’d been to a few school dances, had moved awkwardly to music while trying to look indifferent, but the only time she’d let herself go like this was in front of the mirror in her bedroom. Back then, she fought to ignore how she looked. Now she didn’t have to.

  Amber watched herself in the mirrors that lined the far side of the dance floor. There were boys around her, men, each of them trying to be the one she locked eyes with. She ignored them. The girls on the floor separated into two groups – those who glared at her, and those who tried to outdo her. She ignored them all, all but the blonde.