Page 89 of Of Monsters Of Kings

I kicked at the wooden boards. I screamed and wailed at the top of my lungs. I even cried and sobbed in the middle of the racket when the real emotions of being in this shaft caught up.

My ears caught the hollow drum of her footsteps in the outer hall. My hearing was quite good now.

I fell silent, smirking out the tiny hole to the bedroom.

Wait. My monstrous instinct told me to wait.

The front door creaked. “Who’s there?” A mutter. “Why’s this door open?”

Footsteps.

Slow. Hesitant.

Wait.

“Law agents are on their way!” She coughed her wet cough.

I didn’t peep a sound as she checked the far side of the apartment. A flicker of candlelight announced her movement through the hall, and her footsteps stopped as she arrived in the bedroom.

“That little bitch,” the landlady spat out.

She didn’t like my renovations.

“You better not be in there,” she hollered. “I’ll have you for this.”

The landlady crossed the room, muttering to herself. She lowered her candlelight and struggled down to her knees. I felt a pause in her before she looked through the hole—a human pause, and one born of a fear of looking in dark places.

The landlady pushed her candle into the elevator shaft first.

Then she hunched to squint inside.

And looked straight at me.

“Rent is due,” I said.

Her mind caught up with her eyes. The landlady’s scream filled the shaft as she reared back. She hit her head on the top of the small hole, then screamed again and managed to extract herself.

I blew out her candle, then laughed. Goodness, her screams were the most wonderful music.

I blinked out of the elevator shaft. Blink, blink, blink. I turned in the entrance of my old bedroom to block her in.

The landlady had staggered to her feet and was stumbling back from the shaft. She thumped into my body and bounced forward, screaming again.

I gripped her shoulders tight and whispered in her ear, “Don’t be late.”

The landlady pooled into a heap at my feet.

I nudged her with a foot, then pouted. “She’s fainted.”

And I’d just been getting started. My, there was a level of finesse to this fright business. I’d frightened the landlady all at once and a lot. The next time I scared a human, I should scare them a little and for a long time. I might like that better.

When I exited the building, having left the fainted landlady inside the elevator shaft, I scanned the space for Huckery. He’d really opened a whole new corridor in my mind tonight, and I had to thank him. I’d spent monsterdom deprived of this joy, and deprived of sharing this joy with other monsters, and could only mourn the lost time.

“Prince Huckery, did you see her terror?” I called, then laughed. Goodness, I couldn’t wait to share this delight.

Except the werebeast didn’t prowl from the shadows to join me.

I called him again to no avail, and disappointment flooded away some of my delight. I’d anticipated reliving the memory with him for a time. What if he’d missed the whole thing?

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