American Monsters

  Amber smiled up at her. “I fed you his brother, Mom. I went back to Desolation Hill and fetched Naberius for you, instead. Do you think you’ve got room for dessert?”

  “You dare enter my castle?” Astaroth roared, coming forward. “You dare sit atop my throne?”

  “They’re here to take your place!” Amber shouted, retreating to the doors. “They’re here to kill you!”

  Bill launched himself at Astaroth, but the Shining Demon merely batted him aside. Betty charged, her talons slashing the Demon’s chest. He snarled and grabbed her, slammed her into the floor.

  Bill plunged his claws into Astaroth’s back, and Astaroth roared again, but whether it was with anger or pain Amber couldn’t be sure. Bill hit him, though, and Astaroth stumbled.

  He stumbled.

  The Shining Demon was as shocked as Amber, and almost as shocked as Bill himself.

  Astaroth’s hands closed around Bill’s head, and Bill screamed as his skin started to blister and boil. Betty tore some meat from the back of Astaroth’s leg, and Astaroth released Bill and swiped at her. She ducked under his arm and hit him and Astaroth stumbled again, his injured leg buckling beneath him.

  Astaroth snarled, reappraising his foes, and then he shifted, transforming into something huge and monstrous and blinding. Amber had to turn her head from the brilliant light, but she glimpsed her parents leaping into it, talons slashing. Giant shadows danced on the walls and then, as quickly as they’d appeared, they were gone. Amber looked back, saw Betty rolling across the floor, saw Bill on his knees and Astaroth standing over him.

  A quarter of Astaroth’s head was missing. Sliced off, by the looks of it. Liquid light ran from his wound, splashing to the ground.

  He wobbled, and stumbled against Bill. He reached his hands down, took hold of Bill’s head.

  Betty got to her feet. Fell to one knee. “No,” she said. “Please.”

  Astaroth wrenched Bill’s head to one side, then tore it from his shoulders.

  Betty screamed and fell and screamed again, and Amber watched her father’s body crumple.

  The Shining Demon dropped the head, and walked unsteadily towards Betty.

  But then something shifted in the room, something Amber couldn’t quite see, and there was a robed man behind Astaroth.

  “This is disappointing,” said the priest, the one Amber had met in the palace of the Blood-dimmed King.

  Astaroth turned. “My Lord,” he mumbled. Missing a piece of his head was obviously slowing him down, and not just physically.

  The priest, in his tattered robes. “Your insistence on playing games meant you were always vulnerable to those who played them better,” he said. “I gave you power and this is how you chose to wield it. Your brother was treacherous, but you … you are foolish.”

  “My apologies, my King,” said Astaroth, and dropped to one knee before him, his head down. “I shall strive to … to prove worthy.”

  “Your time for striving is over,” said the priest, who was the Blood-dimmed King, who was many names and many faces.

  Demoriel, the Whispering Demon, stepped from the darkness with his spear in his hand, and Astaroth looked up, watched him come.

  “My King,” said Astaroth, “what is the meaning of this?”

  “Your time is at an end,” said the priest.

  “No, my Lord,” Astaroth said, struggling to stand. “I can still be of use.”

  “Only as target practice,” said the Whispering Demon, and plunged his spear through what remained of Astaroth’s head. Astaroth staggered back three steps and collapsed, and the wondrous light that burned beneath his skin stopped burning and turned grey, and the Shining Demon stopped shining.

  The priest stepped over Astaroth’s body and walked slowly to Amber. “You don’t belong here,” he said.

  “No,” she responded, her voice tiny.

  The priest touched her cheek with one cold, slender finger. “Go now,” he said. “Before you are locked in here forever.”

  She nodded, stepped back, turned and ran.

  Amber passed a room, a room she’d seen before, and she turned left and then right. The sweat was streaming down her face as she entered the room where Bigmouth hung from chains.

  She shifted, she had to in order to reach up and take his weight, and she freed him from the chains and carried him.

  “It’s okay,” she said. “You’re coming back with me. Like I promised.”

  Bigmouth whimpered.

  She got back to the chamber with the tapestries, with the circle of fire, and she stepped into it, and right before she stamped out the flames she saw her mother sprinting towards her, hatred burning in her eyes. But the flames went out and Amber was in Florida again, on her front lawn, in a different kind of heat and a different kind of night, and the thing that had once been Bigmouth, that had once been Edgar Spurrier, fell to pieces in her arms and dropped to the ground.

  She reverted, and Kelly ran into her arms and Amber hugged her, hugged her tight, and closed her eyes and cried.

  “You okay?” Kelly whispered in her ear. “You okay?”

  Amber could only nod into Kelly’s shoulder.

  Milo and Glen joined them.

  “Is that it?” Glen asked. “Is it over?”

  Amber would have told him yes, it was all over, were it not for the circle of flames that appeared behind him, and her mother lunging from it.

  BETTY LAMONT POWERED THROUGH Glen and Milo and tossed Kelly to one side like she wasn’t even there. She grabbed Amber and took her off her feet, screaming all the while, then threw her. Amber shifted at the last moment, black scales covering her body an instant before she smashed through the front window of their house, and she landed in the living room, wrapped in torn curtains and struggling to get her bearings.

  Betty jumped through the window after her.

  “You ungrateful wretch,” Betty said. “You ungrateful little wretch.”

  She hurled Amber into the far wall, grabbed her as she staggered and shoved her through the doorway into the kitchen.

  Amber rolled over, watching Betty follow her in even as she got to her feet.

  “What did you expect, Betty?” she asked. “Did you expect loyalty? Love?”

  “We are your parents!”

  “You tried to kill me.”

  Still brimming with Naberius’s power, Betty struck Amber and Amber went sliding across the floor.

  “I’m through having this conversation with you,” Betty said. “Now I understand, now I finally understand all those other parents and their complaints about the sullen teenager who never listens, who thinks it’s their lot in life to rebel against the people who’ve nurtured them.”

  “That’s what I am?” Amber asked as she got back up. “A sullen teenager? This is my fault?”

  “This is all your fault!” Betty screamed. “We gave you life! We owned you! Why couldn’t you have just died when you were supposed to?”

  Amber grabbed a kitchen knife, held it before her. “Your mind is so warped, Betty, that it’s pointless explaining just how warped it is.”

  “You led us into a trap,” Betty said. “You got your father …” She couldn’t bring herself to say it.

  So Amber did, instead. “Killed?”

  Betty snarled. “You betrayed us.”

  “I betrayed Astaroth, too,” said Amber. “Everyone who thought they could tell me what to do. Who thought they could order me around. Who thought they could control me or diminish me. Hey, wow, I guess you’re right, Betty. I guess I am the typical rebellious teenager.” She smiled. “How clichéd.”

  Betty charged, sent Amber crashing through the door behind her in an explosion of splinters, the knife spinning from her grip.

  “You think this is funny?” Betty roared. “You think this is something to laugh about? Bill is dead! He was the love of my life and you got him killed!”

  Amber groaned as she stood up. “That’s what you get for putting all your eggs in one baske
t.”

  Betty kicked and pain exploded and Amber went tumbling.

  “You’re a little fool,” Betty said. “You let your hurt feelings get in the way of true power. We were offering you a place by our side in Hell.”

  “I’ve been to Hell,” Amber managed to say, “and I’ve been at your side. Got no interest in either.”

  Betty watched her as she got to her hands and knees. “You’re so sure, aren’t you? So self-righteous. But of course you are. You’re young. You’re a child. To a child, everything is simple. It’s when you grow up that you realise that life is complicated. You can be sure of nothing except, if you’re lucky, the person you fall in love with. And you’ve taken that from me.”

  Amber stood, dusted herself down, and said, “Boo-frikkin’-hoo.”

  Betty lunged and Amber ducked under her. Her mother turned, but stood on a bit of wood that slid out from beneath her. She fell, and Amber laughed.

  “Don’t laugh at me!” Betty screeched.

  This made Amber laugh harder.

  Betty scrambled up and dived at her so fast that Amber didn’t have a chance to dodge out of the way. Betty’s hand closed round her throat and she smashed Amber into one wall, then hurled her against the other, then tossed her into her own bedroom.

  Amber straightened up, coughing but still laughing. “You’re a joke,” she said.

  “I’ll kill you,” Betty said. “And then I’ll kill all your friends.”

  The laughter stopped. Amber’s hand went to the vial in her pocket. Still intact. Still full of Astaroth’s blood.

  “Mr Sebastian …” said Betty, walking in to the bedroom, “I’m going to tear his arms and legs off. The vampire boy … I’ll take his head. But the cute little redhead? I’ll carve my name into her face and then I’ll rip out her heart.”

  Amber pulled the stopper and brought the vial to her lips, but Betty smacked it out of her hand, and it smashed against the Dark Places poster on the wall, and with it went any chance Amber had of living through this.

  Betty’s first punch knocked out teeth. The second broke her jaw. Amber tried to push Betty away, but her mom snapped her arm like it was kindling. More punches came down, punches that scattered the scales that tried, in vain, to protect her. They fell like confetti.

  Betty took hold of one of Amber’s horns, the left one, with both hands, and dragged her across the floor. Every time Amber tried to push herself up with her good arm, Betty kicked that arm out. Then she twisted, and Amber cried out, feeling the tendons in her neck about to tear. But Betty wasn’t trying to break her neck.

  There was a pain unlike any Amber had felt before, and Betty was stumbling away and blood was running down Amber’s face and she went to clasp her horn protectively, but there was nothing there to clasp. Her mother held up Amber’s horn for her to see, and tossed it aside.

  Breathing fast through clenched teeth, Amber started to get up, and Betty brought her foot down on Amber’s leg. The bone snapped and Amber’s skin bulged, and Amber toppled against her bed and lay in a broken heap.

  Betty wiped tears from her eyes. “I wish he was here to see this,” she said. “I wish your father was here to watch you die. He would have loved it. He would have …”

  Betty broke down in sobs, and a distant part of Amber’s mind, the part not clouded with pain, thought, What a dick.

  But then, incredibly, she heard footsteps behind them, in a house with a blood barrier keeping everyone else out.

  Betty whirled. “Bill?”

  Sutton stepped into Amber’s bedroom, gun in hand, and Betty froze.

  “Molly Harper says hello,” he said, and fired.

  The bullets drove Betty backwards, despite the scales rising on her body. Sutton emptied his gun, but before Betty could recover he’d rammed in another magazine and he was firing again. Some of the bullets hit the scales on Betty’s head and she spun, her knees buckling under her. She stumbled against Amber’s desk, fell to the floor.

  The smell of gunpowder filled the air and the shooting stopped. Amber’s ears rang.

  Sutton stood there, looking at Betty, and Betty sat there, looking at Sutton.

  “Who?” Betty said at last.

  “Never you mind,” Sutton said. “You can die anytime now.”

  But Betty got to her feet. Her scales retracted, revealing her red-skinned beauty once again. “You thought you were going to come in here and save the day? You thought you’d be the one to put me down?” Her hands turned into claws. “Not you, I’m afraid.”

  Betty strode forward and Sutton backed off and Amber threw herself on to Betty and plunged her severed horn into her mother’s throat.

  “Well, how about me, Mom?” she asked as blood gushed.

  SOME OF THE BLOOD splashed against Amber’s face. She swallowed it, her body becoming warm, shockingly so. Wounds started to heal as Betty fell slowly sideways to the wall, Amber still clinging on. She pulled the horn out and Betty tried stopping the flow of blood with her hands.

  Amber fell, jarring her broken bones.

  Betty slid down the wall, gasping, gurgling, hands at her throat.

  She had fear in her eyes – real, genuine fear – and her red skin was losing its lustre. She tried to get up, and collapsed again.

  She stopped trying to stem the blood flow.

  One hand fell into her lap.

  The other fell to the floor, fingers curling.

  Amber crawled forward. She took her mother’s blood-slicked hand and held it so that she wouldn’t be alone in her final moments.

  Betty squeezed her hand in return.

  It took her another four minutes to die.

  SUTTON LEFT THEM, AND Amber did what she had to do in order to heal her injuries. When she was done, she reverted, moaning at the pain. In the bathroom, she washed the blood from her face and hands, then limped through the wreckage of her home, out into the night. Her leg was back in one piece. Her arm was tender, and she held it close, flexing her fingers. Her jaw was no longer broken, but it was still sore. Her whole body ached, and yet beneath the aches she buzzed, even as she cried for her mother.

  After everything that had happened, she was crying for her mother.

  Kelly hurried over. “You okay?”

  Amber nodded, and closed her eyes as Kelly hugged her. When she opened them, Milo and Glen were there.

  “You did it,” Milo said.

  She managed a smile. “You don’t look surprised.”

  He shrugged. “You never gave me a reason to doubt you.”

  “Is that it?” Glen asked. “Is it over?”

  “Not quite,” said Byrd, walking over with Sutton. She glanced at her partner, almost nervously, before looking away. “The Foundation of Light was set up by Molly Harper as a direct result of Betty and Bill Lamont and who they were. Amber, the fact that we were able to help you, in some way, to stop your parents … I think that’s everything Molly could have hoped for.”

  Amber nodded, and did her best to stand on her own.

  “Of course,” Byrd continued, “the Foundation has expanded over the years. It’s not just about demons, anymore. Now we tackle whatever monsters we find. And we draw in recruits from all over the globe. People who’ve seen the darkness. People who know that there is true evil in the world. I’m one of those people. My parents and my brother were murdered when I was a kid. I’ve been hunting for their killer ever since. It’s why I joined. It’s why all of us join.”

  Glen frowned. “Are you offering us a job?”

  She looked at him, quite blankly. “No,” she said. “I just wanted you all to understand why.” Then she raised her arm and she was holding her gun and she shot Milo three times in the chest.

  Amber screamed and Sutton lunged, knocking Byrd to the ground while Glen caught Milo as he fell. Glen laid him on the ground and Amber dropped to her knees beside him.

  “I’m sorry, Amber,” Byrd said as Sutton cuffed her hands behind her back.

  “Milo,” said Amb
er, tears already spilling down her cheeks. “Milo, please. Please don’t die. Please, we’ll, we’ll get you into the Charger, it’ll be fine, it’ll be fine.”

  “The Charger can’t heal him anymore,” Glen said softly.

  “It will!” Amber shouted. “It’s not going to let him just die! You hear that, Milo? The Charger won’t let you die. I won’t let you die.”

  “I’m sorry,” said Byrd.

  Amber hated her with every ounce of her soul.

  “He killed them,” Byrd continued. “He ran us off the road. I was the only one who survived. I remember his red eyes. I remember his car. He murdered my family.”

  Sutton, pale and shaking, picked his partner up off the ground and led her away.

  Amber leaned closer, speaking into Milo’s ear. “You’re not him anymore. I know you’re not. The Ghost of the Highway was a different person. You’re a good man, Milo Sebastian. A good man.”

  “Amber …” Kelly said gently.

  Amber shook her hand off. “Milo, get up,” she ordered. “I’m paying you a goddamn salary, and you get up right this minute and earn your pay. Please get up, Milo. Please.”

  “Amber,” said Glen, “he’s dead.”

  “No. No, he’s not. Help me get him to the Charger.”

  “He’s not a demon anymore, Amber, it won’t—”

  “Help me.”

  They helped her. They carried Milo’s body to the Charger, laid him across the front seats and closed the doors. Amber sank to her knees and cried. Kelly stayed with her arms around her. Glen stood nearby.

  Sutton came back. He tried to talk, but couldn’t. His partner sat in their car with her head down.

  Ten minutes later, Sutton left, taking Byrd with him.

  A half-hour before sunrise, Glen left. He kissed the top of Amber’s head, and then he was gone.

  Only Kelly stayed with her until morning. Only she was there to help her stand, and only she was there to watch Amber open the door of the Charger and start to cry all over again.

  AMBER DRANK HER SPRITE and looked out of the window and thought about stuff.