The Might of Monsters, page 29
“I know. But it’s not about her. It’s about me.” Recadat groans as she rights herself into a sitting position. “I just wanted to close this chapter of my life as cleanly as possible, for once. A little bit of vomit is worth the freedom from guilt.”
“No, I get it. Lord knows how many terrible people I carried water for, all because they got me out of cages, metaphorical or no.”
“And Olesya is not one of them.” This isn’t a question or an accusation, but a statement recited for Recadat’s own sake, a reminder that vengeance upon Olesya Hua for her trespasses against Dallas is both unwelcome and unnecessary. That Dallas deserves better is left unsaid.
Dallas hears it in Recadat’s voice, though. “I appreciate your concern for me, friend. I—it’s been a long time since I had someone like you on my side.” There is a reason that a grouping of tigers is called an ambush, Dallas thinks: short-lived, focused on the target, easily dissolved. This thing that has formed between them is inchoate yet, but there is real loyalty here, real love. “Please take my word that I am raw but healing, and that I have enough self-respect to know when I should leave.”
“I’m proud of you.” When Dallas jerks her head up, Recadat weakly shrugs. “Is that the wrong thing to say? You’re something like ten times older than me. But you’ve shared with me the general contours of your relationship with the demon Yves”—neither has ever overtly acknowledged that in Nuawa’s visions, Recadat witnessed the breaking point of that relationship, but the fact rests heavy on the conversation—“and it seems to me that you’re doing things right this time. Not trying to force healing, taking it at your own speed. It is a healthy and mature step for you to take.”
“It still feels like shit,” Dallas mutters. “I’ll be on edge and paranoid for a good while yet. But I love her, and she loves me. Leaving feels like it would be an unnecessary punishment, for us both. It’s… complicated.”
“Healing does feel like shit. Sometimes love does, too. Take it from someone whose bones will probably never set right.”
Dallas stands. “Take a shower and clean up. I’ve got something I want to show you.”
Recadat looks suspicious. “It’s four in the morning.”
“Oh, don’t complain,” Dallas teases. “Panthers are supposed to be nocturnal hunters. And anyways, by the time we get where I want to take you, it’ll be six—even eight or nine, if you don’t hurry and we hit morning traffic.”
♦
Dallas’ car again, another wait. Recadat has a false memory of doing this with Thannarat, too; the strange, cursed gift of the Melusine’s influence. The dream has not so easily dissipated. Her brain refuses to distinguish between the true and the false.
“I did some digging,” Dallas says slowly, as if trying to calm a wounded animal. Perhaps she is. A peculiar skill set for a tiger to have, but then again, she has lived a long time. “The name on the lease is yours. Rent paid out of a bank account automatically, so it’s just been… sitting here.”
“Could be a trap,” Recadat suggests.
“Even if it is, you have to know, right?” Recadat appreciates that in this moment, it is not we, only you; some pains cannot be shared, are for you to know alone.
Or maybe not. “I’d like it if you came up with me,” she admits. “Just in case.” The possibility, always, of being on the precipice. She knows Dallas will have her back, will pull her away from the edge.
It doesn’t feel like coming home, but of course Recadat has never been to this apartment building before. Or rather, she retains no memory of ever having done so. For some reason she didn’t even think she lived in Singapore—but then again, this city was where she woke up, shorn of self and recollection.
There are no cobwebs on the exterior of the door, no standing dust. Not a sign of entry in itself; this is a nice apartment in a nice part of the city, there will have been cleaning crews coming by to regularly sweep. Still, Recadat tenses, approaches the door like she is about to burst into a crime den. Instinctively, she even reaches for the gun that is no longer holstered at her hip—
The door is warded. And then she relaxes, turns, looks out over the landing at the cityscape beyond. Breath in, breath out. “They’re my wards,” Recadat clarifies. “Unbroken. Pre-Cecilie, even—even if I don’t remember making them, I know the texture of my magic.”
Dallas volunteers her services opening the apartment—no ward or lock can keep her out for long—and Recadat waves her away. But she doesn’t turn back to the door, either; she’s still looking at the skyline. She laughs, a scoff. “Down there is the park Dr. Leung found me in. I made it so close to home, and yet.”
“Home is where you make it,” Dallas says, and Recadat understands her meaning: that they can leave, that whatever is on the other side of this door changes nothing, that she can make of her life a completely new shape and a new home elsewhere.
“Thank you,” Recadat says, and opens the door.
It’s… an apartment. A normal apartment. Past-her had good taste in decor; the leather couch looks both classy and comfortable, the art that adorns the walls was chosen with a skilled aesthetic eye. Minimalist without being sterile. But she might as well be walking through a museum exhibit, for how little she recalls.
On the wall is a little shrine, incense long turned to ash and flowers wilted to brown stalks; a photo of an older lady, smiling. “I think that is my mother. At least now I know what happened to her.”
Dallas motions to more photos on the walls. “Looks like you had a bit of a sentimental streak.”
“I should tear out your throat for that,” Recadat jokes; humor is still unnatural to her, but she’s trying it on. And she can’t dispute it: there’s a photo of her at some sort of graduation, another of her and her mother; a celebration, with her and—
Her heart seizes. The colors are faded, but the person is unmistakable—long shaggy hair, tall and densely built, that wolfish grin. “This was my old partner,” she says.
Dallas leans over and whistles. “I think I’d have liked her.”
“Oh, you’d have crushed on her, hard. I did, only to find out that she was married and frustratingly monogamous. And gods, the drama that woman went through—her wife was haunted by this kitsune spirit, and…” Recadat trails off, touches her face to find it wet with tears, her smile almost painful. “Huh, I guess I remembered something new.”
A last cursory look around. The bed is made, everything carefully put away; Recadat wonders if she had a sense of what was coming and sealed this place up as a time capsule to herself. If so, she’s been shorn of most of the vocabulary necessary to interpret its signs, to read its portents. Newspapers clippings, unearthed decades later, referencing events that have no meaning or relevance to the present.
“I think I’m done,” she finally announces.
“You don’t want to… move back in?” Dallas’ tone is carefully neutral.
“You said home is where you make it, tiger. This isn’t my home anymore, and I’m not interested in making it my home again. At least not right now.”
She pauses at the door. Mail has built up in a pile—no overdue notices, she realizes; past-her must have been meticulous with the autopay. Small blessings. Responsible, independent. Probably she had to be both exactly because she was so alone.
And there, slipped between the spam and the utility bills, is a postcard—bright and festive, a skyline she does not recognize, pierced by a tall observation tower. Johannesburg, South Africa, apparently. She checks the postmark—sent only two weeks ago—reads the message on the back, then hurriedly checks the postmark again.
R, the postcard reads,
Business took me to South Africa—you know what they say, I always get my man. Decided to make a vacation of it. Offer still stands, if you ever want to join me. Wife says hi, says she still owes you for your help “with that one thing the one time.”
Heard some bad things about your job. Thanks for supporting my decision to quit when I did. Worried about you. Please let me know you’re okay, usual ways. I want you to be well.
- T
Recadat stares and stares, trying to parse what she is reading. Finally, she turns to Dallas. “Do you think the Melusine could have really changed the past?”
Dallas shrugs. “Probably. But how the fuck would we know? It’s all in the past.”
Recadat smiles, then laughs, at the tiger’s practicality. She shrugs too, slips the postcard into her pocket, and then closes the door on that chapter of her life.
♦
Xinfang awakes to emptiness, darkness upon the face of the deep. This is a surprise: she should be dead.
Senses return; light separates from darkness. Above the firmament, and beneath the land.
No, not quite land. Stone—concrete. Debris.
With a gasp, Xinfang sits up: she is back on the roof of the Sentosa resort. It is dark, still in ruins; starlight twinkles down on a quiet, unlit scene of carnage.
“I’ve politely asked the first responders to give us some privacy,” a voice says. A tiny flame flickers—the candle beneath a butter warmer—and Xinfang makes out a rough outline, a hint of purple limned with silver.
“This may come as a surprise,” the speaker continues, “but I’ve never had crab before.” A sharp crack as a leg is snapped in two; in the glow of candlelight, Xinfang catches sight of strong fingers, expertly freeing the succulent meat within
“Why am I here?” she asks. She died, fell apart; has now, impossibly, been reconstituted. It must be for a reason.
“The muscle memory on how to eat it is there, but the flavor of it? Its texture? No idea. It’s very strange, what I retain from my constituent parts.” A hmph of annoyance. “There’s less in these shells than you might think. Unrewarding, for the effort. Are pistachios the same way? I’ll have to investigate.”
“Why the fuck—”
“Yes, yes, I heard you the first time,” Chun Hyang complains, still focusing on their meal. “You’re skipping past the fun stuff, like the how. It took me a considerable amount of—”
Xinfang summons her magic to her—a sputter compared to what she could muster when empowered by Nuawa, but still enough to threaten the mage in front of her.
“Enough of that. I’m trying to have a pleasant dinner.” The mage lifts one butter-stained hand and rolls the wrist; the gathering magic immediately dissipates. “You’re anchored to me now. I’m not the limitless battery your old patron was, but I can power you for long enough.”
Xinfang holds her tongue after that, waiting them out.
Annoyed that their meal has stopped fighting back, Chun Hyang turns away from the crab. “You’re here because I wanted to ask you a question.” Their voice is as mellifluous as ever, but Xinfang can see the pinch around their eyes, the tightness that clenches their jaw. “I was pulled into the dreamscapes you crafted. You know what I saw; I need to know why you showed it to me.”
“I—” Xinfang is confused when she searches her memory and finds no recollection of Chun Hyang’s ambitions, their innermost hopes. “I don’t, actually. That one must have been all Nuawa.”
Chun Hyang draws a sharp intake of air through their teeth, and then gasps a strangled, abortive laugh. “Of course, of course. It could never be that easy.”
Xinfang tests her fingers, stretches out her arms—she is here, as solid as her ephemeral body of light can be, if reduced in luminance. “Well, you went through all the trouble of bringing me back. You could at least tell me what you saw. I’m, quite literally, a captive audience.”
“Nuawa, it would seem, showed me a perfect world. No pestilence or famine, no war. And this was not one of those dystopian perfect worlds, all dependent on a beaten child or an annual bloodletting. This, I could tell, was More’s promised no place, pristine and truly perfect. And—and I wasn’t in it.”
“Excuse me?”
They continue, distress creeping into their voice. “Every name rectified in accordance with its purpose and identity, every person content in the fullness of their lives. And with the absolute certainty of a dream, I knew that I was not in that world. So I summoned you back into existence to ask why.”
For someone like Chun Hyang, Xinfang realizes, this must have been the ultimate nightmare. Forged from the stuff of two paramount mages, certitude and power the life breathed into their quicksilver body, their entire worldview predicated on the belief that they are worthy, that they matter. That through them, and through them alone, can the world be made complete. And to see a world that was complete without them—
—well, Xinfang could empathize. What use does the world have for a third Hua sister?
Still, she can’t help herself. “Oh, you don’t need Nuawa to explain that one, Chun Hyang. It means you’re a piece of shit and no one likes you.”
A snort, a murderous glare. “I could very well say the same about you.”
“The difference between us is that I know what I am.”
“Well, it was a pleasure to finally make your acquaintance, Melusine, but—” They lift their hand. “I think it’s time you go away again.”
This time, it is Xinfang who reaches out; Chun Hyang’s fingers flick open and closed, and then their hand slams against the table. They stare down at their traitor limb in shock.
“Looks like the connection goes both ways, motherfucker,” Xinfang taunts. “You won’t get to banish me that easily.”
“Ah.” A pause, and then Chun Hyang snaps open another crab leg. “It would appear, then, that I have deeply and royally fucked up, and we are now at an impasse. I might as well keep eating.”
Xinfang stands and looks the city over—jewels of light as far as the eye can see, as numerous and as beautiful as the heaven above. Somewhere among those precious treasures is her family—her sisters’ estates, their lovers, people that she is shocked to find she might care for after all. What a feeling to be born back to.
They won’t love her, not the way the specter of her mother did. They won’t understand her, and they won’t forgive her. Better, then, to keep her distance, to chart her own path. And how many experiences there are to be had, to be made hers—hers, as her own person, not an image of Xinlan.
Xinfang sits across from Chun Hyang, and the candle of a second butter warmer flickers to life. “I’ve never had crab, either,” she says, and begins to break limbs.
♦
Viveca is relieved, upon her return to the mortal realm, that she has been gone for only a couple months. Time flows differently between here and there: there was every chance she could have been gone for a year and more.
It’s good to be home again. None of the security measures in her tower have been breached; every tripwire alarm has gone untriggered. Servitors, demonic and otherwise, report that nothing untoward has occurred, save two mistaken food deliveries, and those were chased off without event.
She stretches as she comes into her suite—it will be a delight in itself to sleep in her own bed again, enjoy these fine sheets the color of antique gold. She usually picks indigo or black, but Yves has had some say in decorating decisions recently, and the demon favors warmer tones. A few desk lamps, too, have shades of similar colors now. Previously Viveca was a creature of solitude, but she loves this: that Yves is coming to leave personal touches on their shared residence. The demon is even learning to cook, just for her. She likes licking sauces and morsels off Yves’ fingers.
Soon she’s going to have to contact her sister, share with her what she obtained in the other world. For now, though, she wants to take off her clothes and have a good bath. Yves is running one for her, the noise of the taps turning. A smile tugs at her mouth. Domestic bliss with a demon; what a concept.
Her wife is waiting for her in the bathroom, the tub full and steaming. Yves’ mouth crooks, just a glimpse of teeth and hunger. “Shall I join you, Ms. Hua?”
They fought well together, in the tournament that won them the grimoire that once belonged to Elizaveta Hua. Some residual excitement has lingered. Viveca pretends to think it over. “Oh, I don’t know. Do you think it’s big enough for the two of us?”
Yves raises an eyebrow. “If you wish to focus on ablutions, then of course I shall not bother you and leave you to your soap and shampoo.”
She mock-pouts. “Of course not. Can you bring us something cold? Doesn’t have to be alcohol. Imagine the warlock of her age getting drunk and drowning in her bath.”
“I’d never allow that,” her wife murmurs as the inky smoke of her clothes seeps away, leaving her chosen form gloriously naked. Viveca can’t get enough of the sight—the sculpted bulk, the small perfect breasts, the curl of wiry hair between powerful thighs.
When Yves slides into the bath with her, she is warm, corporeal; Viveca leans into her and sighs, relaxing entirely against her demon’s chest, the fine hard muscles of her demon’s stomach. As much easy strength as tenderness, and shown to her alone. Or nearly alone, but she’s not one to be jealous about the tiger. Faintly she wonders how Olesya and Dallas have been making house in these two months. Well, she will catch up shortly.
A second Yves, clothed, walks in with a tray of iced grapefruit tea. When she kneels to serve it, she also leans in to kiss Viveca on the mouth while the other body finger-combs her hair. Hands knead at her shoulders and hips, soothing away tension.
“You could,” Viveca purrs, “touch other places too.”
“Ms. Hua,” says Yves, in stereo, “your libido could put a succubus to shame.”
“I have kept a succubus around, you know, not that anything interesting ever happened. She was more of a secretary.” She wiggles a little, guiding her wife’s hand to her breast. “Besides, in real-world time, I haven’t had you for two months. You can’t blame me for being hungry.”
At this, Yves does kiss the back of her neck, and also the front. Arousal is instantaneous. Viveca loves it most when her wife takes her with two bodies. There’s so much more possibility then, so much new ground to cover. Her imagination gets ahead of itself. She thinks of asking whether Yves can split into three bodies.
