MonsterVille

He walked.

But his legs and his brain had different ideas of ‘away’. He was over the distracted monster and before he could stop himself, before he could second guess or talk himself out of it River kicked the man in the face, hard. His boot impacted with a meaty smack and the man fell to his back with a gush of green mucus splashing from his nose. River didn’t know who was more surprised the monster, the crowd or River himself. What had he just done?

Princess looked up at him and he saw the gratitude, saw the relief and saw the knowledge that all he had done was trade places with her. Maybe not literally, he wouldn’t be on all fours, but he was about to become the evening’s spectacle as the man/monster rose to his feet. Princess flashed him another look before she scurried away, racing towards Delphine who was sitting on a lawn chair and sipping a martini.

She looked pleased as the cat that ate the canary as she gently soothed Princess with a hand absently patting her while she took in the show.

The man touched his broken nose, came away with a flab of skin and proceeded to simply tear the appendage from his face leaving a section of dark green reptilian scale in the midst of all that pink human flesh. He cracked his head, raised his hands and turned to the crowd who roared their approval. As he turned back to River he smiled with serrated teeth and River swallowed hard at the sight.

“Come little human, dance with me,” he taunted.

His quivering membrane still hanging out for the world to see. He saw where River’s eyes had fallen and he stroked one hand down the barbed surface which prompted his body to stand harder at attention. The man raised his hand to show his own fleshy fingers had been cut by the barbs razor edges. If he had actually… River couldn’t think about it, maybe he was about to be ripped apart and eaten on the beach, maybe Princess had survived worse fates, but he was damn glad he had tried.

He would die with a sliver of his conscience intact, it wasn’t much but it was something. The monster took a step forwards and he was displaced by a woman in flowing white, her dress moved in a wind all of her own making as she simply appeared where the monster had been standing and he was shoved back a step. Rage flashed across his face as the Bacchii turned glazed dilated eyes on him and he reluctantly took a step back.

A second Bacchii appeared, followed by a third and fourth and a fifth. The crowd dispersed back to their party and the monster slunk away into the darkness leaving River standing in a circle of crazed worshippers of Bacchus, women who he had read made a habit of tearing men apart with their bare hands and feasting on their entrails in honour of their ‘god’. Their ‘god’ may have just been a powerful monster and not a divine being but that didn’t really change the outcome for River.

The Bacchii directly in front of River stood poised with one hand on her hip and her ample cleavage displayed as she thrust out her chest. The cool wind coming off the lake swept her raven black hair to one side and her olive complexion gleamed in the light of the flickering torches, in her free hand she held a thyrsus wedged into the earth.

Her eyes fixed on him and he swallowed hard, they were glazed with the bacchic frenzy that gripped the others but there was more to her, a coherence peering through those glazed eyes as she stared him down.

“You have broken the neutrality of this place, this is not permitted. Where is your Master?” Her voice was grating, nearly a screech and River haphazardly touched his ear expecting blood to be trickling out, he was surprised when he found it wasn’t.

“I, uh, I mean—”

The edge of her thyrsus tapped against the soft indent of his throat, he swallowed again and the hardened wood pierced his skin. “Speak or suffer your fate. Where is your master?” She pressed lightly on the staff and drew a line of blood across his throat, “Speak human or I shall rip the tongue from your head and leave you in eternal silence as we slice open your belly, sup from the entrails of your own body and tear your limbs away while you flail as a fish out of water.”

Ominous dark clouds rolled in overhead, the tremendous sounds of rumbling thunder filled the night sky and a pure stream of liquid lightning spilled from the heavens to scorch the earth not five feet from him. His entire body tingled from the proximity of the blast, his hair was raised and he had to fight the impulse to simply lunge onto that wickedly edged staff and end his own life before the monsters did it for him. He shouldn’t have left the house, not without Mellie, twice he had made that mistake and that was one time too many it seemed.

“Speak!” the Bacchii roared and a second bolt of lightning split the sky and scorched the earth to the other side of him.

A wisp of smoky shadow displaced the thyrsus and the Bacchii stumbled back, her surprise evident as she regained her footing and her cohorts took a simple step towards her, closing the distance as they frothed at the mouth to unleash all their pent up violence.

The wisp of shadows became a woman standing between River and the Bacchii, her finger on the tip of the pointed thyrsus—casually brushing it aside. The same wind that stirred the Bacchii didn’t touch Katie-Cam, she stood immune to the elements as her shadow stretched out. There, she stood there looking perfectly innocent with that staff pointed out at her, but her shadow loomed larger than life over her.

It bent and twisted in ways the light couldn’t explain, couldn’t justify and yet she continued to stand there perfectly at peace just waiting as her shadow grew longer in the night. It was impossible but River could have sworn the other shadows moved out of its way, it must have just been a trick of the light but still… Where her shadow fell across his River drew in a deep gasping breath, it was like fingers scraping through his insides, it should have hurt but it didn’t, it wasn’t pleasant by any stretch of the imagination but standing in the protection of that looming shadow River felt safe, more than that he felt the stirring of something within himself, something primal, something hungry.

“Asharai,” Katie-Cam said. It sounded like another language but he realised it must have been the bacchii’s name. “Are you happy to see me?” she tapped the edge of the staff, “Or do you just get it up for every girl who crosses your path?”

“He is not yours. You have no ground upon which to stand.” Asharai the Bacchii announced.

Katie tapped her foot lightly on the sand and bounced up and down ever so slightly, “It would seem I’m standing upon the same ground as you are my frenzied little friend.”

Asharai narrowed her gaze and as one the Bacchii at her back spread into a semi-circle enclosing the two of them. Katie-Cam glanced around the circle of crazed looking women as they gnashed their teeth and beat their breasts—she looked bored by their theatrics. She mock yawned and the thyrsus plunged towards her throat, it never touched her. Katie didn’t appear to move, didn’t appear to do anything but as the thyrsus pulled away she was still standing there entirely unfazed by the attempt to murder her.

The gathered monsters on the other hand oohed and aahed, they crept closer to the excitement and whispered amongst themselves, whispered of blood and bets. From the sounds of it the party goers were nearly equally split on what was to happen. River had seen Katie-Cam fight, or rather he had seen her kill since the rats had never had the chance to fight back but that had been in Mellie’s house, he didn’t really think she would fight for him out there on the beach when she had nothing to gain and potentially everything to lose. The bacchii hissed and Katie smiled. River saw it a moment later, just the slightest tremble in the staff, the slightest quiver in Asharai’s hand. She was afraid. Even through the glaze of the bacchic frenzy she was still afraid of Katie.

A sigh fell across the gathered monsters and the bacchii parted, or rather they fell to their knees in adulation as a man appeared. Like Katie’s appearance there was no sense of movement, just an empty space suddenly occupied by the man’s presence. He wore a simple toga that did little to conceal his ripped musculature. He was built like a statue given life, his chest was dense, his abs carved by the gods, his jaw was chiselled and his features perfectly symmetrical. In his hair he wore a small wreath of mistletoe and upon his face was an indecipherable expression.

The bacchii scurried about him on all fours and even River could figure out he was their leader, the one whose spirit supposedly possessed them to allow them to perform their superhuman feats of monstrous carnage.

There was a timeless quality to the man as he stood there, a sense that he had watched Empires rise and fall over the course of untold millennia. He had watched the world crumble to ashes and rise again and he had remained the eternal constant. River blinked and the awe receded enough that he could think again. The man’s appearance had been so intense that a number of the monsters surrounding them also looked dazed by it, a few of them had shucked their mortal visages in favour of the comfort their natural bodies provided or perhaps his presence had simply broken their ability to maintain their masks.

Of everyone on that beach only Katie-Cam stood entirely immune to him, once again she yawned with a snap of her teeth and a shake of her head, her hair flicking out wildly.

“Wendigo.” He said, his voice reverberating across the beach. It wasn’t painful, not like the woman’s voice had been when it grated along him, but it was powerful. Entrancing. His voice was like music rolling through River’s veins trying to enthral him, trying to carry him away on his voice. It made him want to take to bended knee and beg forgiveness for all his sins.

“Bacchus,” Katie-Cam replied with that same singular energy, only hers was mocking his sombre tone, not that he seemed to notice or care if he did notice.

“Blood has been spilled in violence this night,” he rumbled, his deep honey spun tone echoing with the thunder of the clouds above, “Such an act is expressly forbidden on penalty of death.”

That was one way to maintain a neutral location, River thought with a gulp, anyone who broke the rule could be torn limb from limb by the Bacchii. A fate most would seek to avoid, at least it would prevent them from taking to violence in the Bacchii territory at any rate.

Katie-Cam pressed a finger to her lips, “Oops.”

“Blood has been spilled. Blood must be paid.”

“He was going to rape her!” River blurted out. From the expressions that snapped towards him it was apparently unthinkable that he would dare to speak in the presence of Bacchus, let alone directly to him, but hey he was only human. “He was going to rape her.” River said again in a determined morally righteous tone.

Bacchus looked at him. It sounded simple but it wasn’t. Those ancient eyes pierced his soul and stripped him bare. “Human blood is irrelevant. Humans are property, their value is as such.” There was a sharp intake of breath from the party going monsters, they couldn’t believe Bacchus would lower himself to speak directly to a human.

“So if he had tried to rape another monster he would have been in the wrong?” River demanded.

“Human life is irrelevant. Human action is irrelevant.” Bacchus stated, not really answering the question.

“If human action is irrelevant,” Katie-Cam interjected in a sweet voice, “than how could a lowly human have broken your rules?” she pointed out.

“Monster blood was spilled.”

“By an irrelevant human, isn’t that kind of like a night walker making a porno? You only see the other monster getting off all on their own.” Bacchus either didn’t understand Katie’s teasing analogy or he didn’t think it related.

Bacchus sighed. It wasn’t a human sigh. It was a breath that stirred the trees, rippled the water and excited the Bacchii to a fevered level of frenzy. “Bacchii.” He commanded, “Tear the human apart and feast on his flesh, scatter his blood and bone to the four corners and let this be done.”

Katie-Cam met Bacchus eyes, she was resolute, uncompromising. An exchange passed between the two monsters that was for them and them alone, a pressure of competing wills that caused the bacchii to pause as they prepared to leap for River’s throat.

“What is your interest in this Wendigo?” Bacchus asked, “He is not your human, not your possession, he is not your responsibility. If you wish his flesh for yourself take it here and now, my will shall be done and all shall be appeased.” It was a compromise of sorts and the balance between the two Apex Monsters shifted ever so slightly. He was willing to compromise; it was a tangible if faint sign of weakness and Katie-Cam seized upon it because there was nothing about her that suggested she would concede or compromise, nothing that suggested she was willing to back down now that she had taken a stand.

“How about you and your little girls crawl back into the hole you were belched from and you leave the real monsters in peace.” Katie-Cam suggested with a rapacious grin.

Bacchus showed no sign of being insulted, no sign of anything, his expression didn’t change one iota.

“What is your interest in this human?” he asked again.

Katie-Cam shrugged, “Maybe I’m just bored.”

A decision was made in that moment, a course was set and the two monsters faced off against one another. Thunder boomed, rain pelted down and smashed across the lake without ever touching the two apex monsters on the beach. Everyone else, even the bacchii, were instantly saturated in the downpour but Katie and Bacchus stood there as if it was a warm summer’s evening and they were just having a friendly chat. River didn’t know what it was exactly but he knew the two monsters had reached a point where they were about to go head to head.

The party going monsters were backing off, putting as much distance between themselves and what was to come as they possibly could. Several of them retreated back into the water and disappeared beneath the surface. It was about to get very bloody on that beach.

The tension was thick enough to cut, lightning crackled through the air and a wash of heat collided with an ice cold wind flowing off Katie. She was still smiling, still waiting patiently, but that ever present ravenous expression of hers was directed at Bacchus now and she looked ready to eat up every last morsel of his being. The bacchii screamed their frenzy, beat their chests, leapt about like cheerleaders psyching up their team and Katie-Cam… she just stood there with River as her wing man, her one man cheer squad who couldn’t get up so much as a peep.

River was waiting for the fight to break out, waiting for all hell to turn that beach into a war zone when everything stopped. The tension vanished, the lightning and thunder abated, even the breeze stilled itself and as one Katie-Cam, Bacchus and every other monster on that beach looked towards the rise above them. River was a little slow in following their example but when he did he was awe struck.

A woman stood above them, she was little more than a silhouette against the vibrant moon glowing behind her but she held them all captivated. Shadows fell away from her like discarded cloth and low and behold she was revealed. She was beautiful like all of the monsters he had seen in their human guises but that wasn’t it exactly, she was captivating as she exuded an aura of control, of dominion. The monsters stared up at that young woman and it was like they were the moths to her flame, captivated and consumed.

She smiled, her pearly white teeth shining through the darkness and her eyes, they were the deepest golden brown like the rich autumn foliage as it fell from the trees. Her hair was cut short, bangs hanging above her eyes as she descended towards them. Every movement a rippling regal step. She wore a sleek purple and black suit that hugged her figure. River couldn’t think clearly as he beheld her, nobody could. Even the bacchii fell to bended knee before her, a reverence he wouldn’t have expected to see them give to anyone but Bacchus himself. Speaking of the man he inclined his head towards the newcomer, it was the smallest gesture but it was an acknowledgement. Katie-Cam, River wasn’t sure what she did exactly but the shadows that loomed over her retreated, fell into place as if they were nothing but regular shadows flickering in the torch light. It seemed like nothing but it was as much a gesture of respect as Bacchus’ nod.

“Children,” she said.

A one word chastisement that sent ripples of fear and embarrassment across the gathered monsters.

“Mayor Lloyd,” Bacchus greeted civilly, his spun honey voice soothing his jittery bacchii.

“Miss Elyse,” Katie-Cam greeted less formally as she flicked a smile at Bacchus.

“Two of the apex quibbling like school girls,” she said softly, “I am disappointed.” With the word came a resonance, her disappointment was a palpable thing that sent shudders through all of them. River in particular felt it like she had reached into his chest and wrapped her slender fingers around his heart. A disquieting sensation he couldn’t shake, as if at any moment she would squeeze down and he would die simply because she had willed it so.

The Mayor, Elyse, stepped past the two monsters and addressed the party goers.

“A night of festivities ended over a child’s tantrum, a pet that should have been schooled better,” she spoke to the monsters but the words seemed like more of a reflection for herself. “All of you should leave now.”

Her voice was light and lilting but the monsters dispersed with inhuman speed, they fled through water, air and the woods as if the devil himself hounded their steps. The Mayor glanced towards the bacchii and they wilted, whatever frenzy, whatever spirit possessed them fled their bodies and returned to Bacchus in a rush of unearthly wind. The five women collapsed to the sand, their strings effectively cut, for all River knew they were dead. And suddenly the only living, breathing people on that beach were Katie, Bacchus, the Mayor and little old River… it was not a good place for a human to be even with Katie shielding him.

“You demand neutrality within your territory,” the Mayor said softly. “You throw your wild bacchanalia’s with the express desire to release inhibition, to share in blood, flesh and sex and then you would punish those who give into the urges you create.” Bacchus inclined his head, “Do you not see the contradiction?”

He remained silent.

“I applaud your machinations my friend, I do not however believe foolishness should be rewarded. Your attempt to take this boy as your own was ill conceived.”

“He did not need to rise to the young woman’s defence,” Bacchus pointed out.

“True.” The Mayor conceded, “But a young man new to this world who saw a woman in peril? You counted on his morality to influence him. Had it not you would have found another way to stir him to action,” once again Bacchus simply inclined his head. “Theft of another’s property, especially in their absence is cowardly Bacchus and I expect more from one such as you. Your bacchii are hence forth stripped from you as punishment and the mortal flesh they inhabited will be feasted upon at the Great Celebrations.” A glimmer passed through Bacchus, an instant of anger, of desire to argue but River watched him quash it. If Bacchus was an apex and the apex were the most dangerous monsters in town, what was the Mayor?

“You may leave now Bacchus.” He had been scolded and dismissed like a school boy who had stepped out of line but he bowed his head graciously and was gone as abruptly as he had arrived. Which just left Katie-Cam and River alone with the Mayor.

“Katherine-Cameron Beauchamp,” the Mayor said softly, her tone was different with Katie, friendlier than she had been with Bacchus, and yet the same disappointment resonated through her voice. “Why did you intervene in this boy’s fate?”

Katie-Cam shrugged nonchalantly, “I brought him here. It seemed the polite thing to do.”

“You took him from his Master’s home, brought him to a party full of monsters, did you wish this to happen?”

“No,” Katie replied, “I was just having a little fun. It was the Bacchii who created the problem.”

“It is their territory,” the Mayor stated.

“I thought the town was your territory?” Katie retorted.

“Now is not the time to be cute with me Katie-Cameron, you brought another’s property into a dangerous situation and if I were to ask her would she have known you were doing this?” Katie’s silence was all the answer the Mayor needed, “I doubt she would have minded, you are after all apt protection for any being and I applaud your devotion to your friend in protecting both her, and her property but you have complicated this night.”

“If I have inconvenienced you, for that I apologise.” Katie-Cam replied sincerely, it might have been the most genuine thing River had ever heard her say. “It was not my intention.”

“Regardless,” the Mayor said, “I have punished Bacchus for his part in events. It may be many years before he can procure new humans to serve as his Bacchii. I must also impose punishment upon you lest I show nepotism.”

Katie-Cam bowed her head slightly. River wanted to interject on her behalf but given he was the cause of the problem and being human and all his opinion meant absolutely nothing, he wisely chose to keep his mouth shut. Who said he couldn’t learn?

“For your indiscretion you will be banished from the town, the woods, the lakes, you will leave this territory and return to your own until such time as Bacchus has replenished his Bacchii.” The Mayor didn’t sound pleased to be handing down the punishment but Katie-Cam inclined her head at the words, accepting the mantle of her punishment with graciousness.

“May I be permitted to return the human to his master’s home before I leave?” Katie-Cam asked quietly.

The Mayor nodded sadly, “Return him and make your goodbyes.” She touched Katie’s shoulder for a moment before she returned the way she had come, striding up the sandy dune with the same measured stride that had brought her down. She vanished over the top and the spell that had transfixed River broke and he sagged. The force that had gripped his heart vanished and he rubbed his chest as he knelt in the sand and fought to catch his breath.

“Who-who was that?” he gasped out.

Katie-Cam ran her fingers down his cheek, her thumb parting his lip before she leant in to kiss him. It wasn’t rushed, it wasn’t frenzied or burning, it was just a soft press of lips, innocent, kind and so very sad.

“Human’s fear monsters,” she whispered, “but have you ever wondered what monster’s fear?”