Page 18 of Monsters of Mayhem

“It’s not the water we gave you,” Hurgud said. “It’s what we put in the water.”

“What was it?” Ratchet licked his lips. “I can still taste some of it on my tongue. It’s not a flavor I mind, even though it’s a little bit bitter.”

“It’s the essence of the frost berry. The bush grows on the pinnacle of the highest precipice of the frost giant land.” Hurgud explained

“You have a precipice?” I asked. It seemed highly unlikely considering they were living in the compound.

“This compound is much larger than you imagine and it has all sorts of things growing in it. Just because our world is different from yours does not mean things don’t grow here. They just don’t grow exactly as you imagine them to grow.”

“It’s what healed me?” Ratchet asked.

“It’s what made it possible for you to heal yourself,” Hurgud explained.

Ratchet licked his lips, a hunger in his eyes. “I like the way it tastes. Where can I get some more?”

I looked at Ratchet sideways. “You don’t need anymore. You’re healed.”

“Am I?” Ratchet said. “If it’s done this much for me in such a short amount of time, imagine what it can do for me in a longer amount of time.”

I brought in my arms over my chest. I was dubious, to say the least.

“Is this normal?” I asked Hurgud. The last thing I needed was for Ratchet to form a dependence on this frozen berry.

“It’s not unusual,” the frost giant said. “He’s going to need a little bit of it to sustain him as he travels with you. So, I recommend you go and get some from the field where the flowers grow. From up there you’ll also be able to see the rift and identify the area where the monster runes were used. You won’t be able to miss it.”

Ratchet got to his feet and stretched, his bones cracking as his muscles stretched out his body.

“You sure you’re up to this?” I asked Ratchet.

“You bet!” He grinned, and before I knew what he was doing he had wrapped some heavy furs around himself and was standing by the front door of the hut. “It’s been a while since you and I have had this kind of an adventure.”

“What are you talking about,” I said. “We’re on an adventure every single time I turn around.”

“I don’t call slaying monsters an adventure. It’s just something we have to get done. It’s called a job. This, on the other hand, is something fun. We’re going to go find some flowers up on the mountain side. I like the sound of it.”

As I listened my heart cringed. There was no way to contact Furlan to find out what was happening. It was one of the challenges of being a monster hunter. A lot of places we ended up in were incommunicable.

My heart yearned for Caroline. I pushed the feeling down like I’d done so many times before in my life. There was no point in worrying about her right now. I had to leave her in the hands of the demigods, if they were even doing anything about her.

As Ratchet and I moved out into the snow of the frost giants’ village, the knowledge Vina was the president of the DGC wasn’t something I missed. She had gotten that position by giving up the love of her life. She was quite easily the most cold-blooded woman I had ever met. It was only the transaction of me fighting for the DGC that gave me hope she had sent at least one person to Alameda to help guard Caroline.

“Come on, let’s get this over with,” I said. “We need to get you home.” Inside I knew, and Ratchet knew, my main reason for going home was to see how Caroline was doing.

Chapter 12

I sat on the shelf all night. I dozed but it felt like my body was frozen, painless and invisible. Some people came into the shop but fortunately no one touched me. They just looked at me. Eunice had placed a large “Do not touch” sign in front of me and Bale. I watched one kid pretty carefully and I wanted to say leave me alone, but instead Eunice came over and shooed the kid out of the store. I had always wanted to have kids, but at forty-five I knew it was too late for me. It was never going to happen.

A lot of my life had not panned out the way I had hoped it would. Yes, I was a doctor. Yes, I was a research scientist, but now at forty-five, here I sat frozen in time, present in a wooden statue on a shelf. It was an analogy for my life. I’d been sitting on the shelf for three years waiting for Ryder to come back… At least that’s what I could admit to myself now in the cool dark of the evening. Eunice had given me a brief goodbye and told me she should be back before I transform back into my human self.

It gave me all night to ponder. The pondering was a dark place for me sometimes.

What did I want? When I had run away from the satyrs, it had been specifically to return to my old life, but now in the quiet darkness of the night…What was I looking for in my old life? Was I looking to be a hero?

Saving the world one cancer patient at a time.

There was a dismal chance of that happening. Cases of cancer were on the rise and all of my research had amounted to very, very little against the rising tide. It was like shaking a fist at the ocean; it wasn’t going to stop the waves. It wasn’t going to stop people from dying.

I thought of my mom. Her battle with cancer had been brief; it had only lasted two months. Or it had only lasted two months after she told us about it. Apparently, she’d been taking a radioactive pill for three years for blood cancer, but she hadn’t explained it like that and somehow, I hadn’t asked other questions. I’d been too caught up in school at the time. Doing my premed, I hadn’t even thought about doing cancer research. When she came home to live with me it had been an inconvenience. Then when she was in pain, I had taken her to the doctor, ostensibly to get her pain medicine. I’d thought she could get some Vicodin or something else that would take away the aches and pains and help her to heal.

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