Page 17 of Monsters of Mayhem

“Thank you, Eunice,” Tony said, turning back to the satyrs who were crowded behind him at the front entrance of the store. “Come on, guys. Let’s go find her.”

Once they were gone. I suddenly didn’t want to be wooden anymore. I wanted to leave. I wanted to go home. I wanted to find Laney and figure out how to get my normal life back, but it wasn’t possible because I had agreed to become wood for twenty-four hours. Now all I could do was think about what they had said.

Chapter 11

“Is he better yet?” I asked first thing in the morning when I stepped outside of the bedroom where I was staying at Hurgud’s place. She had her back to me with her long hair hanging down her back. As she turned, my eyes widened.

“Who the hell are you?” I asked, looking at her in surprise. Her features were smooth and delicately pointed. Gone was the old lady who I had been watching the last few days care for ratchet. Now in her place was a youthful maiden. Surely it was still Hurgud.

“What happened to you?” I asked.

“The moon is new,” she said. “I go through rebirth at this time. I age with the moon cycles, so I go from youth to middle age to old age within one month. You happened to come here at the end of the month when I was at my oldest.”

“Is it a curse? “I asked. I had never known much about frost giants. They kept to themselves in their compounds, rarely coming out to talk to others about what their lives were like. Now as I stood before her, watching her, still in my beast form, which was the only way I could stay warm in this climate, I realized there were so many things in the world I knew absolutely nothing about. To my surprise the frost giants were a lot more complex than I had realized.

“Back when the world was young,” Hurgud said, her voice melodious instead of the dry crackle I’d gotten used to in the last twenty-four hours. “The frost giants were born of Ymir. He was a drop of water that came down from ice at the time when heaven and earth and the other realms were primordial lands of fire and ice. It was a long, long time before the humans came.”

“You sound like the monsters,” I said.

“Only difference is we were born of Earth. We belong here,” Hurgud said. “You do not. You are not of this place.”

“I am half of this place,” I said fiercely. It always drove me crazy when people said I was not meant to belong on Earth. My mother was human. My father had given her immortality for birthing him sons, but it did not make her less human.

“If your kind are allowed to journey into this realm, we shall perish,” Hurgud sighed. “Even the monsters will perish for coming here.”

“I want to see where the runes were placed in the ice,” I said. “The runes Jaq found. I believe there will be some indication there of the monster who’s doing these things. He must be highly evolved and capable of accessing deep monster magic.”

“There is only one monster known on earth who can do that,” Hurgud said. Her gaze penetrated me.

“Considering I’m the one who is stopping all the monsters from coming onto the planet, I hardly think that’s necessary talk, don’t you agree?” I asked. “Clearly I’m not the one trying to let the monsters stay if I nearly killed my best friend trying to keep the monsters out.”

“Stranger things have happened,” Hurgud countered.

“How’s he doing?” I queried.

“I’d be doing a lot better if you guys would shut up and let me get more rest,” Ratchet muttered from the ice cot where he lay.

“You’ve been laying there for twenty-four hours,” I shot back. “I think it’s time we headed out.”

“He’s not ready to go anywhere,” Hurgud insisted.

“Whatever medicine you were giving me,” Ratchet said. “It’s doing wonders. I feel amazing.”

“It’s not the medicine,” Hurgud pointed out. “I have magic like every other creature, but my magic makes me cycle through the aging process every month.

“Do you die?” Ratchet asked curiously.

“Of course, we die,” Hurgud said. “Usually, it’s by blunt force trauma or some drunken brawl. We have the immunity of the gods in our system, just like that monster friend of yours.”

“If you’re too sick to come with me to the field, I’ll go alone,” I decided. “I need to go and find the place where Jaq got the runes from. There may be something in this frozen wasteland I will recognize.”

Ratchet pulled himself up to a sitting position and took a deep breath. His skin, which was gray the day before, was looking much healthier now. It was almost its normal pink tone. If anything, he was slightly white but I assumed that was because he’d been sitting with his ass on ice for the entire day.

“You know I’m a demon, right?” Ratchet rolled his eyes.

“Yes, I’m aware,” I crossed my arms over my chest and stared at him. “What’s your point?”

“Fire is extinguished by water. What no one realizes is, water also heals. I was able to get great healing from the frost giants. There was a soothing of my system.”

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