Page 10 of Veil of Monsters

Posy’s fingers are covered in my blood, and I frown, touching where she did, and I can feel the fingernail grooves from Louie. “Louie is in this world now, he’s destroyed our city, and apparently, when he is in this world, he can hurt me. He can kill me in my dreams, Posy.” I suck in some air. “He said something about Nerelyth. I think she is in danger.”

Posy rises to her feet, crossing her arms. “You’re not going to sleep again, and call me a bitch, but you need to focus on keeping yourself alive before trying to save anyone else. Nerelyth is smart and strong. If Louie has her, he will keep her alive to get to you. One problem at a time,” she snarls. “Louie. He isn’t that annoying boy anymore; he is a very dangerous male. Maybe even the most dangerous male in this world. When you’re with him, you must defend yourself. He is not that boy you love.”

I shake my head. “I know he is still in there. Deep down, but he’s there. He has to be, and I can’t—”

“You can,” she interrupts me, her voice softer than usual, like she’s trying not to hurt me. “Wouldn’t you want to die if someone took over your mind and body, forcing you to be a monster? Death can be kind.” I don’t agree with her. I won’t hurt him myself or let anyone kill him. He is my Louie. I promised to protect him. “Anyway, my magic finally worked, and the bat is passed out. I’ve been taking some oxygen from him slowly for hours to make him sleep.”

My pulse quickens. “He’s still breathing, though, right?”

She sighs, nodding at the sofa where Lorenzo is fast asleep, his chest moving. “I wouldn’t kill him so nicely.”

I actually believe her. I quickly stand up and follow her into the single bedroom, where there’s one large double bed with no sheets but a pile at the end that smell freshly washed. Posy shuts the door behind me, and she doesn’t wait before making a portal appear out of thin air. Thick, mist-like air spins around on itself again and again until there is a blurred room on the other side. The portal is silent, but I still look back at the door once. Posy touches my shoulder once before she steps through the portal. I follow her, trusting her with my life. Even when she was a bat, I trusted her crazy ass.

Stepping through the portal feels like a cold breeze blowing against my body for a second before I’m in what looks like a temple. It’s freezing here; cold wind whips around me. But what is more impressive is the flowing streams of what looks like rainbow butterflies trapped in air bubbles, flying in air passages above our heads. It’s quite beautiful, actually. Cracked, dark marble floor stretches as far as I can see, with matching marble columns leading down towards a pair of massive doors. Posy’s shoulders seem to relax. “This is where I was born. My mother is the air goddess of legends, and I didn’t tell you until now because I wasn’t sure you’d trust her with what her brother did to you. To us.”

I tense. “You would be right. I’m done with the gods.”

Posy is quick to answer. “But my mother’s not like that. I wouldn’t bring you here if she was. Come on.”

I don’t follow her. I’m frozen to the spot in shock. “You’re a child of a goddess?” I’ve had a goddess’s child living in my shitty apartment for years? “Does that make you a goddess too?”

She huffs, crossing her arms. “No, I mean, I’m half one. There are no others like me alive now, and my cousins were once called demigods. Something that’s half mortal, half not. My father was mortal.”

So much makes sense now. “That’s why the witches wanted you, because you have the power of the goddess in you.”

Posy’s eyes darken. “Yes. It means that I can be masked as a mortal, but I’m not. I’m immortal and I have senses very much like the fae and Wyerns. My powers come from air, but I’m very untrained in them. I do not know the full scope of my powers due to being a bat for so long, and before that, the witches kept me drained so I couldn’t escape. They wanted to feed off my power and then breed me for it. I was cursed because they damn well knew I’d kill myself either way after what happened when I killed a male witch. I’m a monster but I’m determined to make sure you live at the end of all this madness. I have to do something good. I have to be good, or I’ll be that same girl who wanted to die.”

My voice is soft. “Posy… you don’t feel like that now, do you?”

“No.” Her voice is firm, but she quickly changes the subject. “That was the witch’s joke, turning me into a creature that flies when I’m the daughter of an air goddess.”

My heart pangs. “It’s not a very good joke. Cruel, even.”

“I agree. Come on. My mother is known for being fair. She’s kind and sweet, despite being locked in here for so many years. I haven’t seen her in so long. When I was a child, she would use her power to send me visions of her, memories for me to keep. I used to send images back and whispers sometimes when the literal air spoke to me. All that stopped when I was turned into a bat,” she explains as I make my feet work and walk alongside her.

“How did she meet your father?”

Posy smiles. “That’s a long story. So, mortals can come in here just as the sea god can invite mortals in for his tests. My father was an adventurer.” Her voice is wistful. “He was climbing every mountain he could find in the world. He didn’t let his mortal body ever stop him before he tumbled in here by accident and found my mother. He was injured in the fall, and my mother cared for him. They fell in love, and they had me. My father insisted I meet his family, his sisters and mother. So, when I was only a baby, he took me to go see my aunts and other family that I have in Ethereal City.” Clearing her throat, she corrects herself. “Had in the city. They will be long dead by now, I’d bet. I hoped to find them.”

I remember the dream all too vividly, along with all the faces of the people I’ve known for so many years in the city, all the lives I saved as a monster hunter. All the children. All the innocents. Oh Louie, what have you done?

“There is a good chance that they are dead. I don’t know how many have made it to the Wyerns, but I’m not counting on seeing them,” she says.

I understand how she feels, even if it’s not family to me. I will feel better when I’ve seen some of the survivors, at least to know that our city hasn’t completely vanished. The people are alive, and the city can’t die. Posy blinks, remembering what we were talking about. “My father, I don’t remember him, but my mother showed me so many of her memories with him. The witches found him and me. They killed him. I don’t know how they knew what I was or how to find us, but they did. They locked me up for most of my life after that. There weren’t many who were kind to me, and if they were kind for too long, I never saw them again.”

I touch her arm. “I’m sorry about your father. I’m sorry about the witches.”

“People can be cruel for power,” she replies, her voice like ice. As we get to the doors, they open on their own with a swift blow of a cold breeze. On the other side is a small room with a towering fireplace covered in ivy. A fire crackles in it, and on a small, cozy red chair is a tiny plump woman. She’s not what I thought an air goddess would look like. She’s quite round, and she’s got short, spiky white hair, and if I met her in the street, I wouldn’t think her anything but mortal. Her eyes are bright and exactly the same shade as Posy’s, and when she looks at me, time seems to stop. All I can feel is the bitter cold wind, the turning of the planet, the way the earth needs the air as much as it needs everything else.

She is timeless and her power slams hard into my chest, cutting me deep, pausing everything. I can only breathe, only move, when she looks away. Posy must have got her dark hair from her father, and probably most of her looks, because I see little similarity between them both other than her eyes. The air goddess’s eyes widen, and she is out of the chair in a second, running across the room. Posy opens her arms, holding her mother tightly when she barges into her. I look away, giving them a private moment even as I hear them talk.

“Finally, you came to me,” the air goddess breathes out, her voice old and her accent strange. “I sensed the magic had broken its hold on you and knew it would only be time that kept you from returning to me.” The goddess is crying, and the wind seems to whip around all the room continuously with her every breath. Out of the corner of my eye, I see her cup Posy’s cheeks and kiss her forehead. “My only daughter, how tall you have grown. You are the image of your father, my beloved.”

“I have your eyes, mother,” she replies with a laugh of joy. Posy and joy were not two things I believed worked together, but right now, they do. Posy is happy, back with her mother, and a part of me pangs for that familiarity that I will never have.

“I’m so glad you’re here and safe.” She looks over at me, and I can feel her gaze before I face her, careful not to look in her eyes. “And who is this?”

There’s no mistaking the tension in her words. She wants to know who Posy’s brought with her and whether I’m keeping her daughter captured or something sinister along those lines. “This is my friend, Calliophe Sprite. She is a mortal turned fae. When she was a mortal, she found me in my bat form, and she healed me. She looked after me, fed me, generally protected me, and kept me alive for all those years, even when I was bitter and cruel to her. Even when I had given up all hope, she promised to save me. Then, as a fae, she made a deal with the sea god to save all of her friends for a price that she did not know at the time, and that broke the curse on me. So, all in all, this is Calli, the fae who saved my life and who I owe everything to. She is family to me.” Posy touches her mother’s shoulder. “Calli, this is my mother. Even I do not know her name.”

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