Page 19 of Monster's Enemy

“Who? Yes. I mean, who?” I didn’t want to say the wrong thing, but I obviously didn’t know whotheywere.

His chair creaked as he leaned back and said, “Oh, so they thought it skipped a generation.”

“Sir?”

“Your parents, of course. Your father, the wizard and heir to the Easternwind family trade and business. Your mother, the succubus he met and brought back to school with him when he was in what the human realm considered graduate school. Convinced he had found a way to perfect the defensive strategies for her species, she was both his graduate thesis and the love of his life.” He said all that like it should not shock me to my very core, but it did. All the times my father was tired came rolling back to me. “It was a secret then, but—”

“My mother is human. Plain, old fashioned human being.” I stood up and shook my head no.

“You take a couple weeks in your room, without Maxine or Patrick. See how you feel about your… academic abilities without them to draw from. The dome… even the school, everything around you is prey if you choose to see it that way. You are the first real enemy of our student body who identify as monsters. You are the first real enemy of the school.”

“Then why am I here?”

“The headmistress was curious. I believe she was right.” He nodded. “You inherited a great deal of Easternwind magic, but you are capable of amplifying that magic to unprecedented levels because of your mother’s talent which only activated when it could no longer resist the urge to feed.” He scribbled something on magical paper and then said, “We’ll meet again in two weeks. See where we are at with the situation.”

“The situation?”

“You. You are the situation. You will either be able to use this power for the good of the realm, of the academy, of your family and friends, or… you will have to be expelled to the realm from whence she originated as if you are a danger to us, surely, you would be the monster should you return to them.” He smiled at me and said, “I suggest meditation. Chapter three.”

I gulped and left the office. I was stunned, shocked, and now that he said it, and things began to filter through my mind, make more sense, I… could see it. The faint splash of color reaching out and essentially sipping from magical things.

Here, all this time I was worried about dating a monster, how my parents would react to that. And all along, it was me. I’m the monster, it’s me!

I ran up the flights of stairs to my dorm room and slammed the door behind me. I flopped down face first onto my bed and cried for what had to be an hour before Maxine arrived.

“Hey. You okay?” she asked as she sat on the bed next to me and pushed at my hair.

“No. I’m a monster.” I pushed up and then away from her. “Stay back. I’m… probably stealing all your powers as we speak.”

She snorted a laugh and said, “I don’t think so.”

“It’s true.” I could hardly believe it, but she didn’t at all.

“Well, then. Take them. Fat lot of good they did me anyway. I went into the forest and you know what I found? Myself.” She groaned and moved to her bed.

“Aren’t you supposed to move to anther room?” I asked.

“I told you already, I’m not leaving you here alone to deal with whatever crap they have you thinking. If you were bad for us, you would have turned them into worse creatures instead of babies. I mean, come on. It’s not a stretch to think of a group of men roughhousing as a bunch of babies.” She seemed to think that was an obvious call. “If they had just stayed by their clothing or held onto their pants like some of them did.” She rolled her eyes. “Then when they popped back into adulthood they wouldn’t have mooned half the school.”

“I feel really bad about it.” I did. Mostly.

“After that ridiculous conversation with myself, walking out to that sight was… the best thing that happened to me all day. I mean, I was worried at first. Especially when people kept running out of there, screaming and being so dramatic and all. Then, I got this sense of calm. This sense of… courage that reminded me that I am Maxine mutherfucking Mayhem. Anything in there had better be more worried about me than me about it.”

She was removing her shoes as she said that so Case, being the loyal luggage that it was, made clapping noises with its drawers. She smiled at it and said, “Exactly.”

I made a conscious effort to look for my streams, see if I was taking from them. Even Case. But I didn’t see anything. I began to relax, settle, and listen to Maxine jabber on about the rumors and gossip and how the administration was trying to spin the whole thing as some sort of glitch in the dome or something.

The dome had been working since they allowed the sport to be played. Currently, the sport was on pause pending further review. I may have cost some of those guys their future in professional… entertaining? I still didn’t like the idea of them hunting each other for sport, even if it was just a sport here in this realm.

A tap at the window and I was even more concerned. I… turned him into a two year old. An adorable two year old who just got his bell rung by one of his buddies two seconds before becoming a two year old, but that was the straw that broke this… succubi’s back. Was that the right way to say it? Refer to myself?

Maxine snorted a sound and got out of the bed and said, “Come on Case. You’re too young to be a part of this groveling session for sure.”

“What? Am I supposed to grovel?” I looked at the window and the man on the other side of it wide eyed and wondering why I had not gotten up to open it if I was reading his expression correctly.

She laughed as she went to the window and said, “I’m heading to the showers and then to the cafeteria for a bit. They are supposed to be serving up something extra special for dessert.”

She winked at me and said, “Take this out of the door if it’s clear.”

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