The Monsters in Your Neighborhood (9 page)

Natalie’s eyes went wide. “What?”

“He’s in the city?” Alec repeated.

Igor smiled. “See, told you I could get things done.”

Natalie looked at Alec. “Is this okay?” she whispered.

He seemed to ponder that for a moment. “I guess it has to be, if he’s the only one who could help me. It’s our only choice.”

Natalie rubbed her eyes. “Yeah. And I’m sure Hyde will love that we’re in a corner. Like prey.”

9

It had been a long time since Alec had been at the old Jekyll and Hyde apartment. Six months, to be precise: the night Jekyll had been murdered and Hyde had bolted off into the city, intent on the destruction of everyone and everything he could hurt. Since then, Hyde had been curiously quiet. If he had committed murders, rapes, robberies, mob hits, whatever, he’d done it all quite discreetly.

Now they were back, with Igor in tow, and Alec couldn’t help but feel nervous about the prospect of facing Hyde again. The other man’s uncontrolled, pure emotion had always been disconcerting.

The doorman in the lobby signed them in and cleared them past the bulletproof glass partition. As they got into the elevator for the penthouse, Igor whistled.

“Some digs, huh?”

Natalie chewed her lip like she always did when she was anxious.

“Yeah,” she breathed. “Jekyll and Hyde had . . .
have
a fortune. This place is a museum, you’ll see.”

The elevator glided open and there at the end of the hallway was Hyde, standing by his open door. He was dressed in one of the designer suits he’d always been so proud of, his hair slicked back like an eighties stockbroker’s. He was smiling.

“Oh, shit, he’s Hannibal Lecter,” Natalie muttered. “Look at him.”

Normally Alec would have laughed at the Lecter reference, but right now he couldn’t. He felt like he was being dragged forward, compelled to go to Hyde. To find out why he was feeling so . . . wrong.

“Good afternoon,” their host said as he stepped back to let them pass into the apartment.

Alec hesitated. He didn’t really want Hyde behind him; that was how people ended up with silver bullets in their backs. But he doubted Hyde would go first, since it would probably be considered beneath him. He swallowed his instincts and walked past the cocksure figure.

Once inside the apartment, he skidded to a halt. The once-marble halls and impeccable furniture that Jekyll had no doubt carefully picked out had been replaced. The walls were painted blood-red. The furniture was black, leather, hard, and comprised of angles and edges. Even the art was now sexual and disturbing.

“It seems when you take over a place, you truly take over,” Natalie murmured.

“Indeed,” Hyde said with a Cheshire Cat smile. He glanced at Igor dismissively. “Igor. It has been a long time.”

“Yes,” the buggy man said with a deferent bow. “It’s a pleasure, sir.”

“Go into the kitchen,” Hyde said with a wave of his hand. “My manservant is there and I’m sure he can find some task for you to perform.”

Alec raised both eyebrows, but to his surprise, Igor did exactly what he was told, with only a quick glance back at them.

Natalie put her hands on her hips. “What the hell, Hyde?”

“He’s a servant,” Hyde said with a sniff. “He doesn’t belong in the living room.”

Alec shook his head. “Dude, he hasn’t been a servant for centuries.”

“We cannot change our nature,” Hyde said with a quick smile. “As I’ve heard you are discovering, Wolf. So did you come here for me to examine you, or to discuss the intricacies of class warfare?”

“Wait, just wait,” Natalie said with a raised hand. She moved toward Hyde, examining him closely. “Where have you been?”

“Around,” Hyde said, terse. “Here in the city, off in my country place upstate. Even back to Europe for a few weeks. But don’t worry, I’ve been keeping up with the group.”

Alec stared at him. “You were watching us?”

“Of course. Did you think I had forgotten you? Forgotten everything that happened? I simply had things to attend to. Tasks to be performed.”

“What did you do, Hyde?” Natalie whispered. “I never saw anything in the morgue reports that made me think you were on a rampage.”

He stared at her evenly, and Alec was struck by how dead and lifeless his eyes were. His monster abilities had once been the strange bio-psychic connection to Jekyll—their ability to meld bodies and minds. But Hyde also had other strengths: super speed, heightened emotions, hyper-intelligence, and a propensity toward violence that only Jekyll had been able to control. And when he committed that violence? He warped into a twisted, huge beast of a man capable of tearing someone in half. As strong as any Creature.

“You know that I can be discreet,” Hyde finally answered. “Especially so now.”

“What do you mean?” Alec asked.

“Jekyll’s thoughts have been fully integrated into me since his death,” Hyde explained.

“And what about his goodness, his control?”

Hyde laughed. “No. I do not want those attributes. My body has rejected them like an organ recipient rejects a new kidney. But I have been able to cover my more . . . unsavory aspects more easily, I find. When it suits my purposes.”

Natalie shivered, but pressed forward. “And what about Jekyll’s medical training?”

“I always had that, my dear.”

“So you’re qualified to examine Alec?” she asked.

Alec shot her a look from the corner of his eye. With all this, she was worried that he wasn’t going to get proper medical care or something? It was a bit adorable, actually.

Hyde’s cold gaze slipped from Natalie and settled onto Alec. A slow, sinister smile eased onto his face. “I believe I am the most qualified person you’ll find anywhere.”

Alec rolled his eyes. “Modest as always. Look, can we do this? Just examine me and tell me why I’m missing time.”

Hyde motioned him over to a chair in the middle of the room. He took a place across from Alec and began to look him over. He shone a light into Alec’s eyes that made him flinch and then ran his hands over Alec’s head, feeling the skull.

Hyde pressed his fingers hard into the flesh and Alec grunted in discomfort. “Are you doing that for medical purposes or just because you like hurting me?” he snapped.

“Why can’t I have both?” Hyde moved behind him and continued to look at his skull, his head, his neck. He picked up a stethoscope from the coffee table and listened to Alec’s heart, took his pulse. Finally, he returned to the chair across from him.

“Explain the symptoms,” he said.

Alec rolled his eyes. He really didn’t want to tell the entire troubling, horrifying story again, especially not to someone he did not trust. But what choice did he have? Quickly, he recapped the past few days as best he could.

Hyde leaned back. “So you have no recollection after this phone call in Drake’s home? Have you checked your cell history?”

He nodded. “As soon as I realized I was missing time. But it’s been wiped clean.”

Hyde nodded. “I see. I must tell you, Wolf, I see nothing out of the ordinary when I examine you. No injury to your head, no difference in respiration or heart rate or anything else that would lead me to believe you have been physically tampered with.”

Alec’s lips parted in surprise, which was quickly followed by dismay. “Nothing?” he asked in a tone laced with more panic than he wished to show to Hyde.

Hyde leaned back in his chair. “No.”

“There must be
something
causing this,” Natalie burst out from her place behind his couch.

Hyde gave her a dismissive look, then he shifted his attention back to Alec.

“Perhaps you did something you do not wish to remember,” he suggested, and his smug smile told Alec how much he was enjoying this. “A psychological explanation is just as likely as something physical.”

A phone began to buzz on the console table next to Natalie. Picking it up reflexively, she handed it to Hyde.

The “good” doctor stood up and snatched it from her, hitting a button to silence it before he shoved it in his pocket. “I would thank you not to touch my things.”

She shook her head. “Sorry. But look, he’s been exhibiting signs of his wolf transformation even when it isn’t close to a full moon. Surely you can’t tell me
that
is psychological!”

Hyde paced away and picked up a bottle of hand sanitizer from the same table where he had retrieved the stethoscope. As he generously doused his hands, he shrugged.

“I don’t see why not. Alec knows that any behavior may be excused when he is in his ‘wolf’ state. Perhaps he wants
you,
and even himself, to believe that what he has done was caused by powers outside of his control.”

“So you’re saying I went off and did something I would regret and covered it up myself by faking some kind of amnesia?” Alec asked.

He could scarcely believe he was saying that. That it would be true. But if there wasn’t some big physical sign that blinked off and on reading
YOU GOT FUCKED OVER
, what other explanation was there?

“Now I’ve done what you asked, at great inconvenience to myself. If there’s nothing more . . .” Hyde motioned for the door.

Natalie blinked in disbelief. “That’s it? That’s all you’re going to say?”

He stared at her. “My dear girl, what else is there to say? In my opinion there is no medical cause for Alec’s behavior. Now I’d like to return to my life.”

Natalie squeezed her eyes shut and Alec could read her well enough to tell that she was trying to sort herself out, calm herself down. She was about to lose it and it was his fault.

“Hyde, since we are here, you should know that the Van Helsing family has increased its efforts against us,” she said, her voice trembling ever so slightly.

“Are you trying to imply Alec’s current state is caused by them?” Hyde laughed, the sound ugly and hollow. “My dear, they aren’t smart enough to figure something out of that nature.”

Alec shook his head. “I think she’s trying to warn you. They are coming for us.”

“I am well aware,” Hyde sniffed. “Trust me.”

“Then why don’t you come back to the group?” Natalie asked. “We could—”

Hyde moved on her swiftly, coming around the couch before Alec even guessed his movements. He leaned in close to Natalie. He was taller than she was and towered over her in a clear display of power. Not that Natalie reacted to the implied threat. She just stared at him, hatred bleeding off of her.

“Perhaps I’m not making myself clear,” Hyde hissed. “I do not want, nor do I need, your help. I did you this favor. Now leave.”

Natalie swallowed hard, but then nodded. “Fine. Igor,” she called out toward the kitchen. “Come on.”

Alec pushed past Hyde and into the hallway without waiting for Natalie. He leaned against the smooth, cool wall, pressing his forehead into the material so that he would know, for certain, that he was awake, alive, and aware of everything around him.

He heard Natalie and Igor step into the hallway, he heard Hyde snap the door shut behind them, but he refused to look at them. Refused to look at
her,
really. After all, she was the one who could leave, who had every reason to abandon him.

And for once, he actually gave a damn if someone did that.

“So what happened? Is he okay?” Igor asked in hushed tones, like they were talking about the dead.

Alec pivoted. “
He
is crazy, apparently. Hyde says it’s all in my head.”

“He’s wrong,” Natalie insisted, but once again her hesitation was back. Her wariness of his words, his explanations . . . just him.

“What do you want to do, Nat, get a second opinion?” he asked, sharper than he intended.

“He’s lying,” she insisted. “Alec, when his phone rang I saw the caller ID. It said Linda.”

He stared at her. At this moment, she wanted to talk to him about the Swamp Dweller?

“So?”

She sighed. “
So,
Linda never said she was in contact with him and we’ve been asking for months if anyone had heard anything.”

“It doesn’t fucking matter, Natalie,” he snapped, his head throbbing. “Don’t you get it? Linda is the least important person in the universe to me. She has nothing to do with whatever is wrong with my head.”

Natalie’s face fell and he saw brief hurt flicker there before she wiped it away and left stoic stoniness.

“Okay,” she finally said. “Well, we’ll figure it out. Now come on, let’s get out of this mausoleum. Let’s go home.”

Alec followed her, always her faithful companion, but in his heart he knew that they might never “figure it out.” Because if it was all in his head, if it was all something he had created, that meant nothing good for him.

Or for them.

10

Natalie didn’t want to get ready for work, but she had very little choice in the matter. Igor had muttered something to her about sightseeing and left the apartment very suddenly. She might have taken the opportunity to spend some time with Alec, but he kept saying he wanted to be alone. Staying was only going to agitate him, and he was agitated enough right now. So she was going to leave in a couple of hours and give him his space, whatever that meant.

It gave her time to ponder Hyde’s words, anyway.

All in his head
.

Could that be? Was it possible she had to go back to the idea that Alec had done something really
wrong
and was just trying to protect himself by lying or forgetting it?

And did the
something wrong
have to do with some twenty-three-year-old slut in a sparkly tank top and red lipstick?

She rubbed her eyes. After decades, centuries actually, of being alone, in the last six months she’d really gotten used to having someone to depend on. If Alec had done something that betrayed their relationship . . . well, that Creature in the park, whoever he was, wasn’t going to have anything on her once she started her rampage.

She shook her head as she applied a thin layer of mascara. She was about to start curling her eyelashes when there was a pounding on the front door. Not a knock. A pounding.

She froze as what Alec called her “pitchfork nightmares” ran through her head briefly. It took everything in her to shake off those thoughts and head out of the bathroom toward the front door. Alec was coming from the bedroom and they met in the hall, as wary of each other as much as they were of whatever was outside.

“You expecting anyone?” he asked.

She shook her head as she leaned forward to the peephole.

“It’s Kai and Rehu,” she said, wrinkling her brow in confusion.

“Fuck, didn’t we see enough of them?” Alec asked, but he nudged her aside and opened the door anyway. “What?” he snapped, his tone not anything like his usual joking jovial self.

Natalie frowned. She had told him he was annoying sometimes, but now she missed his normal self. He was the jelly to her peanut butter. The bacon to her eggs. The—

Kai pushed inside and Natalie was smooshed against the wall. Seriously, was she invisible?

“What did you do?” Kai asked.

Actually,
asked
was too limp a word. Her tone was high-pitched, shrill, and filled with . . . fear. Natalie stared as Alec moved away from Kai and Rehu into the living room. They followed, almost on his heels, and Natalie sighed. This was going to be super-fun, she could already tell.

“Hi, everyone, nice to see you, yes, please come in.” She shut the door and locked it, then trotted into the living room so she wouldn’t miss whatever was going on.

“What did you do?” Kai repeated. “Tell us!”

Alec flopped onto the couch and glared at Kai and Rehu. “I don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about. And I don’t care.”

Rehu lunged at him, but Kai put up her arm to block him. “Fine, you want to play games,” she snapped. “Then let’s play.”

She spun toward the TV and grabbed the remote from on top. She turned it on and flipped through the channels before she got to some headline news show. A vapid, large-toothed blond woman was staring out at them with a flawlessly perfected I-am-sympathetic-but-fun! smile.

“And now to a story we’ve been following all day here,” she said. “The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City has been the victim of a very strange robbery. Now look at this video and see for yourself.”

The screen switched to a slightly blurry surveillance video from inside the museum. It was dimly lit, obviously past closing time, and the gallery was hard to discern, even though it was one of Natalie’s favorite places in the city.

“Now watch,” the woman reporter’s voice continued, tense with exhilaration. “A figure will dart from the shadows right . . . now!”

On cue, a person moved from the shadows and into the main room. Except he wasn’t quite a person. He was very hairy, partially hunched over like he wasn’t quite comfortable on his legs. He was wearing clothing, but it hung on him in a strange fashion. Like his body wasn’t made for it.

Natalie staggered back as all the pieces of the puzzle became clear. She recognized that T-shirt, that jacket with the torn pocket she was never allowed to fix, she recognized the gait of the person as he moved across the gallery, stopped at a glass case covering a pedestal, and smashed the glass.

She recognized him . . . because
he
was Alec.

Alec wanted to scream. He wanted to break things. He wanted to howl as he watched that thing, that
wolf
in
his
clothing, steal whatever was inside the glass case. The alarm began to screech in the video and the wolf howled once and ran, just as the night guards raced into the gallery, guns drawn.

He hated that wolf sometimes. All the time. And never more than this moment.

“Oh, Alec,” Natalie said from across the room.

He dared to look at her, and she was staring at him like she didn’t recognize him. He’d seen that look before. From his parents hundreds of years ago when they’d learned he’d been changed, from women he’d dared to care for in the old days, from “friends” just before they loaded up the shotguns.

“Alec,” she whispered as she took the remote and muted the television so they wouldn’t have to listen to the reporter prattle on about the scene they’d just witnessed. “What did you do?”

It was the same question Kai had asked when she barged into the apartment, but there was none of the anger to Natalie’s tone. No judgment. Just sadness and understanding and fear.

“I—I don’t know,” he admitted.

“So you aren’t going to deny it was you,” Rehu said, his fists lifted and clenched so hard that the knuckles were white. “You aren’t even going to try?”

“Why should I?” Alec asked. He got to his feet because he figured there was going to be a fight at some point. “It’s obvious that’s me in my wolf form. I can tell you that and also know it doesn’t make sense. It’s not the full moon, I shouldn’t be able to change.” His head began to throb as he tried to think, to summon up some moment of that night on the screen. “I can’t
remember
changing or doing any of the things in that video.”

“Yeah, right,” Kai burst out through clenched teeth.

Natalie stepped forward, the voice of calm, as always. “Okay, look, before we freak out, what exactly did Alec take?”

“A book, Natalie,” Kai said, her voice becoming softer. “He took a book.”

“O . . . kay . . .” Natalie said, folding her arms. “What book?”

“The book that can kill us both,” Rehu said. “The
Book of the Dead
. The ancient tome that contains the spells that can wake the dead, and return them to their slumber. It was on display in the Egyptian gallery in the Met. Until Friday night.”

Natalie covered her mouth. “So someone just has to read that spell and—”

“No,” Kai interrupted. “There’s a whole thing you have to do, a ceremony. It requires some artifacts, but as Rehu well knows, it’s easy to obtain those things on the black market. For all we know, someone already has them. So, tell us, Wolf—where’s the fucking book?”

“I don’t know,” Alec snapped. Normally he could control this itchy agitation, but right now it was overwhelming him. Taking over in a way he’d never felt. “
I
didn’t take it.”

“Hard to believe, when we just saw you on the TV,” Rehu said, and his tone was low and filled with menace.

Alec rubbed his eyes. “The wolf isn’t me,” he explained. How many times had he said that? “He’s like another thing that steals my body. He puts me, the real me, to sleep, inaccessible. Then he does what he does. I don’t remember doing anything when I’m in that state.”

“Bullshit,” Rehu spat. “Where is it? Where is the book?”

“I don’t know!” Alec insisted, hating that he sounded like he was pleading. “Seriously, I don’t remember.”

“Your ‘amnesia’ is pretty damn convenient in this case, isn’t it?” Kai bit out.

“It’s true,” Natalie said, moving forward, moving . . .
toward
him. “He never remembers. And I’ve never known him to want to steal during his moon cycle. That’s too . . . organized for the wolf part of him. He certainly didn’t have a book with him when he got home.”

“Oh, please, you’re his bitch, Natalie.” Rehu laughed. “You’d say anything to protect him, even if you knew he had done something wrong. You probably fucking walked him over to the Met and waited outside.”

Alec twitched as a rage so pure that it was terrifying rushed through him. He got to his feet without thinking, lunged forward, then swung on Rehu with all his might. He connected right with the jaw of the mummy, who staggered back and fell, smashing into Natalie’s favorite chair and flipping it over. Kai rushed to Rehu’s side as he sat up, testing his jaw.

Alec stared at the two of them in shock. He and Rehu had always been pretty evenly matched in the strength department, but right now the mummy looked stunned. And hurt.

Alec’s gaze slipped to his hand. He’d hit Rehu so hard he’d split the skin on one knuckle and the rest of them were already getting purple from the force of the punch. He only had that kind of strength in his other form.

“I—” he began. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to—”

“Shut up,” Kai said, her voice deceptively soft as she got Rehu to his feet. “Just shut up.”

“Kai,” Natalie said, moving toward the two mummies.

Kai lifted a hand. “You shut up, too. Neither one of you can be trusted. Not now. In fact, I think Linda was right. I think this group has played itself out.”

Natalie followed Kai as she and Rehu moved toward the door. “What are you saying? Kai, stop!”

But Kai didn’t stop. She didn’t even slow down. “You know what I’m saying,” she said as they got to the door. She unlocked it and turned toward Natalie. “It’s over. We’re over. It’s every monster for himself now. And if you get in our way, if you try to hurt us, it will be monster-on-monster violence like there hasn’t been seen since the nineteenth century. Do you understand?”

Natalie’s jaw tightened and Alec could see she wanted to argue. Instead, she nodded. “Fine. But you know you’re just playing into ‘their’ hands.”

Kai glared. “I’m not sure who ‘they’ are anymore. Good-bye.”

Kai and Rehu stepped into the hallway and slammed the door behind them. For a long moment, Natalie stood at the door, staring at where their friends . . . former friends . . . had been. When she turned, she looked exhausted, defeated.

“Do you feel the same way, Natalie?” Alec asked, uncertain he actually wanted to hear the answer after all.

“What way?” she said with a sigh.

“Like maybe we should just break this whole thing apart, all of us go our own way. Because I wouldn’t blame you. Seems like I’m dangerous now, especially if I’m wolfing out off schedule and breaking and entering into major museums.”

Natalie stared at him, just stared with an unreadable expression in her dark eyes. “Do you not get it, you stupid mutt? I love you, okay? I’m not going anywhere.”

He drew back, stunned by this confession. Love him? That was . . . weird. No one had done that in a looooooong time. So long he could hardly remember it. But Natalie didn’t say things she didn’t mean, so there it was. She loved him.

“Do I take your silence to mean that you are freaked out by my saying that? That you’re trying to find a way to run screaming from the apartment, never to return?” she asked, sinking her teeth into her lip.

He shook his head and moved toward her. “Not at all, Natalie. What you told me . . . it’s just so amazing.” He reached out to take her hands. “I want you to know that I—”

Before he could finish, a massive, acute pain rushed through his body. He cried out at the heat of it, the focus, wrenching away from her as he fell to his knees in the middle of the living room. It was like his mind was exploding and he couldn’t do anything to stop it.

“What is it?” Natalie grabbed for his shoulder. “Alec!”

He could hear her, he wanted to answer her, he wanted to beg her to find someone to assist him, to hold on to him, to help him, but he couldn’t. He couldn’t because his body was no longer in his control. Deep in his chest, he felt something beginning to take over. A wildness he recognized all too well, that wolf. That wolf, and the wolf was howling at him to hurt Natalie.

Hurt Natalie.

Hurt Natalie.

“No,” he tried to say, but the word wasn’t a word when it escaped his lips. It was a snarl. A growl. Something inhuman.

The last of his resistance, the last of his humanity, clung to control, but it was a useless battle. With one last burst of horrible pain, Alec was torn away and spiraled into darkness and emptiness.

Leaving Natalie alone with a monster.