The Monsters in Your Neighborhood (13 page)

Natalie could feel sweat beads rolling down her neck as she stalled for time by asking for paper and pens. She said she had a plan more detailed than the one Kai had been all snotty about. And she was certain she would come up with one. She had to.

She shot a glance at Alec. He was standing on the outside edges of the group, watching her with those wolfie eyes that said he knew she was full of shit and he was just choosing not to call her out on it because he . . . well, he loved her, apparently. Which was weird, but good.

“Okay, Natalie,” Kai said, pulling a nail file from her purse to work at her nails. “What’s the plan?”

Natalie sucked in a breath. Scenarios were racing through her mind. It was hella loud in there.

“We’ll break into two groups . . .” she began. “One set of us will have to go to Hyde’s and retrieve that book he stole, as well as see if we can get any info on his surgery and grab the controller for Alec.”

“Right,” Alec said. “And we’ll have to be careful, because he can trigger me at any time.”

Natalie turned to stare at him. “Um, you can’t go.”

He shook his head and she could see all the argument in him, the anger that pulsed below the surface like a super-mega PMS.

“Fuck that!”

She folded her arms. “And you just gave the exact reason why, Alec. Hyde could trigger you at any time. I assume you have to be within a certain range for him to do it—radio waves and whatnot—so we can’t let you anywhere near him.”

“But—” he began.

Igor raised a hand. “She’s right and you know it, might as well not argue. Anyway, you two don’t have to be attached at the hip, do you?”

“Most of the time,” Kai cracked, and Rehu snickered.

“Like you two should talk,” Natalie snapped. “Alec, you know he’s right, you know I’m right. Don’t get all moon cycle on me.”

“Oh, nice, bring up the moon cycle.” He folded his arms.

Kai dug around in her purse. “Shit, Linda is right. You may need some feminine product for that attitude, Wolfie.”

“Shut it,” Alec said, but he was smiling, just a little. Natalie breathed a sigh of relief. “So, okay, you say I can’t go to Hyde’s, where do you want me to be?”

“Pat, you said you have access to sewer info?” she said. “Will you take Alec with you? And Igor and Drake?”

“Sure. But why, Natalie?”

“I’ll get to it in a minute.” She took a deep breath. “Okay, so Linda, Kai, and Rehu, that means the four of us will be going to Hyde’s to retrieve everything we need.”

Linda shivered. “I don’t know. He’s . . . he’ll be furious.”

“Honey,” Igor said, “like a very famous book once said, he’s just not that into you. So be strong. Channel your inner Carrie and dump Mr. Big.”

“What?” Linda said, her face utterly blank.

Igor rolled his eyes. “Okay, when this is over, I say I’m going to have a marathon with you.”

“Of what?”

“
SITC!
”

“He’s talking about a TV show,” Natalie explained with a heavy sigh. “And we’re so far off topic that it makes my head hurt. The bottom line is, we need you with us.”

“Why?” Linda whimpered.

Natalie shut her eyes. “Because you know where Hyde is, and, I assume, he doesn’t know you ratted him out yet. So he’ll let you in, presuming you’re still an accomplice to all this.”

Linda’s face was whitefish-pale, even under her bright green scales. “Natalie—” she began, her voice no more than a weak whisper.

Natalie fought for empathy, for kindness. It wasn’t the first thing on her mind at the moment, but she was trying.

“Look, Linda, I get it. You’re going to have to face him and he’s going to be super-pissed and probably violent, and I’d guess you’re going to break up—but he’s done some really bad things here.”

To her credit, her eyes didn’t start leaking like usual, but Linda’s mouth did turn down and she sniffled. “Okay.”

Natalie took a breath and wrapped an arm around the Swamp Dweller. “But you know it’s for the best and we’ll all be with you, okay? You want to fix what you did, right? You said you did.”

Linda deepened her frown. “Yes. Yes, okay. I’ll come with you.”

“Great. While we’re doing that, Alec will go with Igor, Drake, and Pat down to the sewers. Protect him, do you hear me? Igor, you know a little about monster surgery, right? Check him out as best you can, wrap his head in tinfoil if you think it’ll help block Hyde’s signal. Drake, use your mind control to help. Whatever—just protect him.”

“What happens if he does turn, if Hyde triggers him and the signal can transport to him?” Pat asked.

“Hit him in the head with something,” Natalie said. “Really hard.”

“Hey!” Alec burst out. “Um, I’m right here.”

“Sorry, honey, but it works. Just try not to damage him too badly. Or his face.”

“Oh, thanks for that.” Alec rolled his eyes. “See how you like being hit in the head with a pan.”

“Mutter on your own time,” Rehu said with a shake of his head. “We’ve still got a lot to cover. What happens then? If we get the book and Alec isn’t triggered in the process, I’m still confused about us bringing the book to Van Helsing. When Kai and I show up in their living room, I’m guessing they’re going to figure out we’re not there for a peaceful social call.”

She swallowed. “Well, you won’t. We’ll meet Pat, Igor, Drake, and Alec down in the sewer system and head over to the closest exit to the Van Helsings’. Alec and I will go up, but you’ll all wait.”

“Wait,” Kai breathed. “No way. You could double-cross us!”

Natalie turned to stare at her group member and sometime friend. “But I won’t, Kai. I swear to you on everything important in my life, on my stolen body parts, on whatever has meaning to you, that I will not betray you. Please, I’m asking you to trust me. To trust
us
.”

Kai stared at her, unblinking, for what seemed like forever. Then she shook her head.

“I’m going to fucking regret this . . .”

“Thank you,” Natalie breathed. “And no, you won’t. Alec, you and I will go in, but we’re going to demand they fix you
before
we turn over anything to them.”

“And if they refuse?” Alec asked.

She hesitated. She didn’t want to think about if they refused. Leaving Alec so vulnerable? Or taking a chance that the thing in his head would somehow hurt him? Just the thought made her stomach queasy and her hands shake.

“If they refuse, then . . . then I guess we turn back,” she whispered. “I swore to Kai and Rehu I wouldn’t put them in danger, and I won’t. But I think they’ll do whatever we ask. They want the book. I assume there are tons of pretty awful spells in there.”

Kai hesitated and then nodded. “Yeah. They could probably make an army if they wanted to.”

Natalie smiled, though she wasn’t feeling very happy about being right. “See. They want the book. So they’ll operate and once they do, we haul ass out of there, with the book and with the Creature.”

Rehu arched a brow. “You think they’re going to let you do that?”

“Well, they’re not going to ‘let’ me do anything. But once the rest of you come bursting in to fight them, we’ll be in control, with our monster powers and the element of surprise on our side.”

Kai pondered what she’d said for a moment. “So you’re saying we’ll leave there with our heads intact, the book in our possession, and Alec and our other monster friend in tow.”

“Yes,” Natalie said. “If everything works out, that’s the plan.”

“It’s a shitty plan, Natalie,” Kai said with a laugh. “With massive danger and failure lurking around every corner. The likelihood is that we’re all going to end up dead or in jail by the time we’re done with this.”

“So you’re out,” Natalie said matter-of-factly to call her bluff, even though her heart was sinking rapidly into the very base of her turning stomach.

“No, I’m in,” Kai promised. “I’m so in, it’s not even funny.”

“Yup,” Rehu agreed. “Isn’t everyone?”

Natalie held her breath as she looked around the room. Everyone was nodding, even if some of them looked pretty reluctant about it.

“Good, okay.” She sighed. “Good. Then let’s get going, we want to get this over with as soon as possible.”

Everyone started getting to their feet, splitting off into the two groups, but Alec stayed just where he was. Natalie moved over to him and took his hand.

“Are you okay?” she asked, softly enough that no one else would hear.

“I don’t like this splitting-up thing,” he admitted. “I hate that I’m not going to know you’re okay until you’re done with Hyde.”

“I’ll text if I can,” she promised. “And you do the same. I’m worried about you, too.”

He nodded, then cupped the back of her head and drew her in for a long kiss that made the rest of the group groan. When he pulled away, he said, “If you have to protect yourself, Natalie, do it. Think of yourself first and everything else second. Promise me.”

She opened her mouth, but she couldn’t say it. She couldn’t say that she would abandon her efforts to help him in order to save her own ass.

“Say it,” he repeated, and there was a wolfishness to his voice that she realized had nothing to do with Hyde’s chip.

“Okay,” she said. “I promise. Now go, go with Igor and Pat and stay safe.”

He nodded and followed the other two out the door. But as he disappeared from her sight, Natalie knew she had just lied to Alec. And she hoped it would be for the last time.

15

Hyde wasn’t staying at his townhouse anymore. He had moved to a suite at the posh Viceroy Hotel in the heart of Manhattan’s East Side, near the UN. It was an older hotel, which had catered to kings and ambassadors over the hundred years it had been open. Seeing it rise up above her, with all its promise of wealth and diplomacy, made Natalie sick with anger. How dare Hyde place himself in the same company as men and women who tried to better their world?

“You look a bit stabby,” Kai whispered close to her ear. “Tone it down or Fish Sticks might not let us get near loverboy.”

Natalie glanced at the Swamp Dweller. Linda was worrying her lip until dark green showed through her newly reapplied makeup, and she kept casting quick glances at Natalie as they walked across the street toward the hotel.

“You think she would protect him, even after everything?” Natalie whispered.

Kai raised a brow. “I think matters of the heart are way more complicated than just ‘good or evil’ and ‘yes or no,’ don’t you?”

“Yeah,” Natalie agreed, but she was having a hard time keeping it together enough to talk at all. If Linda betrayed them . . . well, their entire plan was going to be a hundred times more complicated and dangerous.

“Still with us, Linda?” Kai asked, her tone filled with false brightness.

“S-sure,” Linda stammered, clenching her hands in and out of fists at her sides. “Just nervous.”

To Natalie’s surprise, it was Rehu who offered a soothing word of comfort to a woman she knew he despised. “Of course you are. But we’re here and we will be there for you.”

“Has he been reading self-help books or something?” Natalie whispered.

Kai grinned. “Something like that. He’s been reminded, multiple times, that he’d do better to try a little harder rather than go around smashing things and threatening people. We’ll see how long it lasts.”

“I can hear you, you know,” Rehu grunted, and Kai’s grin turned to laughter.

They reached the door to the hotel and Linda smiled nervously at the doorman. “Hi, Charlie.”

The doorman tipped his hat even though it was clear he had no idea who she was, and let them in. Being an older hotel, the Viceroy didn’t have the sprawling lobbies of some of the Times Square hotels, but it had a class and charm that the big-name chains might kill for. Women in fur coats and men in tuxedos loitered about on the massively expensive furniture, chatting about totally “the 1 percent” kind of stuff. It was all posh and elegance.

“Come on,” Linda muttered, keeping her eyes down as they went to the elevator. She pushed the button for the penthouse and up they went.

“Wow, so he obviously isn’t hurting for money,” Rehu said with a shake of his head. “Being a psycho is lucrative.”

“He’s a lot of things, not
just
a psycho,” Linda said in faint defense of her “man.”

The door opened and Linda sighed. “He’s going to look through the peephole when I knock, okay? So stay back a little, otherwise he will find a way to escape.”

“We’re fifty floors up,” Kai said. “How is he going to escape?”

“Probably go all monstered out, climb out the window, and King Kong it up the side of the building,” Linda said with a roll of her eyes. “How else would he do it? Just stay back, I know what I’m doing.”

Kai leaned back in surprise, but nodded. “O-kay.”

As Linda moved in front of the door, took a deep breath, and raised her hand to knock, Kai whispered to Natalie, “Um, ‘King Kong it up the side of the building’?”

Natalie shrugged. “He was already crazy-powerful when he monstered out, and he got all of Jekyll’s benefits, too. I assume that means twice the strength or whatever it takes to wall climb up the side of a building at this height.”

She couldn’t say more because the door opened and Hyde’s voice came from within.

“About time you got here,” he drawled, a cruel twist to his tone. “What do you have to report?”

There was a moment’s beat when Linda just stared at him, and Hyde cursed before he started to slam the door. Luckily Rehu was on top of things and jumped forward, wedging himself into the space and forcing his way into the room.

Natalie and Kai pushed inside; Natalie grabbed Linda and hauled her in with them, then slammed the door behind them. Natalie watched in pure hatred as Rehu hauled Hyde over to the couch and threw him down.

“Stay there,” he growled, his eyes containing a sudden, disconcerting red tint.

But Hyde wasn’t a normal human who could be pushed around. He growled and got bigger, his hair growing, his muscles straining, his fangs distending ever so slightly.

“Bitch,” he spat toward Linda in a garbled, angry voice as he shrugged out of his straining jacket. “You brought them here?”

Linda shifted and refused to look at him. “I—I had to, Hyde. This has gone too far.”

Hyde stared at her, eyes bright and animal in the lights of the hotel room. “You don’t know how far I can go, little girl. Not even half of it.”

He pushed toward Linda in a menacing fashion, but Rehu slapped a palm on Hyde’s chest and thrust him back down onto the couch.

“I said
sit
.” He leaned in close to Hyde. “And while I respect your strength, Edward, recall that there are four monsters in this room to just one of you. So don’t make me rip your arms and legs off.”

Hyde glared, but settled back on the couch with a preternatural calm, smoothing his straining dress shirt as if he weren’t half monstered out, adrenalized, and surrounded by old friends who were ready to kill him.

His gaze slipped to Natalie. “How’s your boyfriend, sweetheart?”

She folded her arms. “Where were you when you triggered him to attack me in the apartment?”

He smiled. “Figured it all out, did you? Are you so certain?”

“Where were you?”

He shook his head. “Not yet. I don’t think that’s what you really want to talk about, but I’ll tell you . . . later.”

She wanted to go off on him. To make herself that horrifying Creature authors and directors had been creating for hundreds of years. She wanted to show him that her strength could overpower his in a heartbeat and destroy him.

But tonight she couldn’t use brute means to get what she wanted. She had to use brains.

“You know why we’re here,” she whispered.

“That silly book and the trigger mechanism for Alec, I suppose.” He arched a brow, tone and face filled with humor. “So what’s your big plan, Natalie? To control Alec all his life with that thing and hope the chip inside him doesn’t malfunction or the remote doesn’t fall into the wrong hands?”

She swallowed. He was reciting her greatest fears, but she could not respond. “If it came to that, yes. That’s what I would do.”

“Interesting.” Hyde looked at Linda, and the expression wasn’t the cruel and calculating abuser he had shown even a moment before. “Linda, love, why don’t you run and fetch the items? You know where they are in the bedroom.”

Linda hesitated, but then scurried down the hallway to the bedroom. Natalie shifted. Why wouldn’t the Swamp Dweller look at her?

She stepped up to Hyde. “Why did you do this? Why attack us, why work alongside Van Helsing? You’re a monster, for God’s sake. You’re turning on your own kind.”

“You sound like Jekyll.” Hyde laughed. But then his smile fell. “He used to say that to me. Now he’s in my head, like an echo, but I can’t ever see him, can’t ever catch him.”

Natalie frowned. She had never had a psychic connection with anyone like Hyde once had with Jekyll, but she could well imagine that its loss would be very hard. And she didn’t doubt Hyde truly felt it. A fact that would have made her feel very sorry for him if he hadn’t, you know, tried to
kill
everyone she cared for.

“But why turn on us?” she pressed, this time softer.

He glared at her. “Jekyll was the only one who ever kept me from destroying you all in the first place. Do you think I wanted to go to that pathetic fucking group every week? To sit in that disgusting basement and talk about ‘feelings’ and hear you whine about your little problems? If you had been monsters—real monsters—it might have been one thing, but you all want to be human.”

“And you want to kill humans,” Kai finished softly.

He shrugged. “Most of the time. Especially since they killed my brother. Any one of you could have prevented that. Any one of you could have saved him.”

“How?” Natalie asked. “We were trying as hard as we could to figure out who was attacking us. If I had known, I would have done anything in the world to stop her even earlier.”

“Ah, that’s right, your little investigation. Instead of just attacking the person who was following us.” Hyde shook his head in disgust.

“So you hate me,” Natalie said. “Fine. But why go after Alec and Kai and Rehu, and why work with the Van Helsings?”

“Because it’s easier to kill all those birds with one stone, my dear. The Van Helsings will be easy to take care of when I’m ready.”

“Even with the Creature they control?” Natalie asked.

He smiled. “You don’t think I have ways to alter that control? Other remotes, timers, a dozen other plans?”

Hyde pushed to his feet and when Rehu moved on him he wagged his finger back and forth. “I wouldn’t do that if I were you.”

Slowly he pointed behind them. Natalie turned and gasped. Linda was standing in the entryway to the room with a basket containing a thick, ancient book and a small white controller in one hand, and a gun in the other. A gun trained on everyone and anyone in the room except Hyde.

“Linda, what are you doing?” Natalie asked, backing away, as if being slightly farther from the bullet would help.

Shoot her and she’d definitely hurt, hopefully heal, but hit the right places and she
would
die. Judging from Hyde’s wide grin, he knew all the right places.

“Fucking bitch,” Rehu spat as he glared at Linda. “Was this your plan all along?”

“Rehu, dear,” Kai said, voice strained. “This may not be the time to go all rage-face, okay? Linda, honey, why don’t you come over here and point the gun at the bad guy, okay?
Hyde
.”

“Don’t condescend to me,” Linda whispered as she nudged ever closer to Hyde’s side. The gun didn’t shake even if her voice did.

“We’re not trying to,” Natalie reassured her with a quick glare for the mummies. Seriously, did they
like
getting shot? “We just want to understand what’s going on right now.”

“Are you the stupid one, Natalie?” Linda asked with a half laugh. “It seems pretty clear what’s happening.”

Natalie forced herself not to call her a name and to remain calm. “When we were together earlier, you told us how you knew Hyde wasn’t good for you. You said you were sorry and wanted to help us.”

Linda blinked like it was hard to think, and that was when everything became clear to Natalie.

“Do you have a chip in you, too?”

Linda squirmed, and now she did begin to shake. “I don’t know. Yes?”

“Aw, come on,” Kai said on a long sigh. “Seriously. Being around you people is exhausting.”

“Linda was willing to go so far thanks to the best . . . or was it the
only
 . . . sex in her life, but not all the way,” Hyde explained as he pulled another remote from his pocket. It was engraved with an
L
on the back, but otherwise looked identical to the one in Linda’s basket and to the one Desmond Van Helsing had used to control the Creature in his house.

“Now hold your gun on them, my dear, while I offer them their choice,” Hyde continued, patting her head like she was a dog before he slipped the basket from her hands. “You lot only get to have one. Which do you pick? A remote or the book.”

Natalie’s lips parted. “No. We’re not leaving here without both.”

“Suit yourself.”

He smiled, utterly cold, then pressed a button on Linda’s remote. She jolted, twisting and turning as if an electric current ran through her. She hissed like a lizard before she stiffened, eyes blank, and turned the gun to fire a bullet into Rehu’s skull. He gasped and immediately slumped into a pile on the floor.

“No!” Kai screamed, dropping to her knees beside him. She smoothed a hand over his forehead gently and glared at Hyde. “You can’t kill him that way, you know it.”

“Well, you’re right.” Hyde smiled. “Normally I can’t kill him that way, only hurt him, but if I read the right spell from this book . . .”

Natalie watched in horror as he made a big show of flipping around in the book. Then he opened it to a page where he’d placed a bookmark.

“Ah, yes, here we are.”

He narrowed his eyes and began reading in the Demotic version of ancient Egyptian. As the words flowed from his mouth, Rehu began to bleed from his wound and his eyes began to dim. Kai seemed frozen, her own skin pale with the effect of the words.

Natalie rushed forward, willing to take a bullet if it meant saving them. But Hyde didn’t have Linda shoot this time. Instead, he lifted the controller in the basket and pressed a button.

Natalie skidded to a stop and stared at him, stared at the controller.

“You—you just triggered Alec,” she whispered, her heart sinking as she thought of Pat and Igor, trapped with him in the sewer. She could only pray that the thing in Hyde’s hand had a limited range. It was their only hope.

“Alec?” Hyde chuckled as he turned the controller over to show her the letter engraved on the back. An
I
, not an
A
. “No. This one isn’t for Alec. It’s for Igor.
He
has Alec’s trigger, not me.”