Magic monsters and me, p.39
Magic, Monsters, and Me, page 39
I finished eating. Sheesh, that wouldn’t happen. I was a terrible person in my head. Alone, I was a monster. I was worse than a Po’auco, an Àzmadu or an M’ma. At least they were monsters. I was the Boy Next Door. I was supposed to be perfect, flawless, athletic, intellectual, beautiful inside and out. That was all a lie. Like the lyrics to “Don’t Cry Out Loud.” I almost had it all.
If I traveled to La Biscayne to reunite with Áurmiddo, I would end up ruining things with him exactly like I did with Austin. I should stop touching people, or they might catch my disease. My illness. I destroyed things I loved—Boxey and, now, Austin.
I sat on the sand for a long while, watching the two boys surf and laugh and kiss. The red gulls circle overhead. Àmàxas Cérallen, the red gulls of Minerva.
I could stay here, in the selvana behind me, fall off the grid, live alone, build a hut in the jungle and never return to Earth. Eat from the branches of X’natcha and Pl’zme. I could be alone. Maybe being alone was my natural state—alone with my thoughts, ignoring everything wrong with me. Simply being alone, knowing that I could never hurt another person again because of the darkness that lived deep inside me.
The sun began to slip behind the canopy of the selvana, shadows lengthened and the air cooled. The boys swam to shore, their longboards floating out of the water after them while they talked, laughed, and pulled on tanks. They walked hand in hand as their longboards floated beside them. Propelled by magic powered by their love, two Encantreinos in love.
“Tobo Àqel Importa veo Minerva es Amora.” Why wasn’t that the mantra of Earth? The three moons of Old Earth rose in the west, colored pink, red, and yellow. Named for the Têrso Empras or Three Sprite Queens—Amistala, Balama and Catarańa—who created the first Áuqala to rule over all of Minerva and all seven dimensions with love and justice. God, Old Earth was paradise. I turned my head, examining the darkening Selvana. I could easily build a little hut and a hammock to sleep in. I could just live here forever and forget all about my troubles.
An explosion rocked the Avipro X suspended in the air several yards away. I looked at Cassiopeia burning bright overhead. Gleaming like diamonds. So close I could almost reach out and grab each star and pull it down and bury it deep inside me to fight the darkness. A light to burn inside my soul and illuminate the Excelà inside me. Banish the gloom within. Destroy the walls I was hiding behind.
Eureka! That was what the parrots and cherubs at home had meant! I could metaphorically tear down the walls that Bono sang of in his song “Where The Streets Have No Name.” I could lower my walls and open my heart up. Fight the darkness and, most importantly, fix things with Austin.
The Avipro X rocked again as sparks of flame shot out the hatch on the underside, lighting up the sand nearby. I hurried to my feet, waved goodbye to Pl’zme and X’natcha, and ran to the Avipro X. I jumped into the air, my hands catching the bottom of the smooth, cold steel rung of the ladder that lead up into the Avipro X. I made my way slowly up the smooth rungs and climbed back to Earth.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
The Half Moon
STEPPING OUT INTO a clearing in the trees, I emerged from the cave. Green light flashed over the sides of the steep canyon rising high above. I hiked up a path along the side of the mountain until I was in a large plateau, filled with tall grass waving in the silver light of the half moon. My eyes widened.
Devlina flew overhead, summoning bolts of black lightning from clouds aloft. She hurled the lightning toward the ground in apparent anger.
“Devlina?” I cupped my mouth and called to her.
She didn’t respond, too busy screaming in the Dark Language, fighting some unseen enemy. “Zuscoe aresta ven momentens instanctuo.” I hurriedly translated into English. She was muttering a spell or incantation of some sort. Two blocky creatures made of granite or sandstone twenty feet tall lifted and hurled large boulders at her. The half moon rose higher in the sky, settling behind Homer’s Peak.
Zuscoe meant “Henge” in the Dark Language, a creature made of gray granite or sandstone with ruby red eyes. They acted as the elite guardians of Zid’dra and the nobility of the Gloom. A granite boulder streaked with veins of red and yellow slammed down near me. The earth trembled.
“Devlina!” I cupped my mouth with my hands again. “What’s happening?”
Devlina flew over me and looked down. “Oh, hiya, Elijah! Out for a constitutional? It’s lovely tonight. Moody, mostly dark—” A huge boulder crashed into her body. She plummeted toward the earth, the force of which then sent her body sinking into a crater in the grass.
“Devlina!” I called out to her.
“Oh, for crying out loud!” she shouted from the crater. Flames licked along the sides and smoke rose from the center. Devlina emerged a moment later, stepping gingerly up onto the grass. She paused to wipe dirt off her miniskirt and lament over a tear in her fishnet stockings.
“Vus desae esuferat pro acracicibo deva!” she shouted and waved a fist at the Zuscoe circling her like boxers in the ring. She warned them that if they came closer they would suffer.
The two Zuscoe paused, their faces contorted, and a strange rumbling sound emanated from their mouths as if they were laughing. They picked up boulders and flung them at Devlina, who jumped into the air and used one of her stilettos to kick it back at the Zuscoe. They ducked. The boulder smashed into the side of the mountain, exploding into watermelon-sized rocks that fell around me.
“Devlina! Please, what’s happening?”
“Well, hon,” Devlina said, “let me tell you after I take care of these a-holes.” She lifted her arms, summoning red balls of flame, then assumed a pitcher’s stance and hurled the balls at each of the Zusqoe. The balls of flame shot across the meadow and crashed into each Zusqoe, who toppled back from the force of the balls of flame, stumbled, and exploded into a shower of flaming rocks.
“And yer outta here!” Devlina shouted in a voice reminiscent of Vin Scully, longtime announcer at Dodger Stadium.
Devlina cheered, flying down to me, landing softly on the grass. “So Ziddy made me mad,” she began, sitting on a cracked boulder, flames licking up the sides of the stone. Devlina took off one of her stilettos, rubbing her foot with her hand.
“But why are you battling Zusqoe? They are guardians to you and Zid’dra,” I asked.
“I was busy rampaging through the Gloom, destroying various covens who had pissed me off. I was so mad,” Devlina said. “Ziddy has put me in an impossible position, you know? He found out what I was doing, and he appeared in a flaming chariot pulled by the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse and begged me to stop.” Devlina paused to crack a smile. “Of course, I told him off. He didn’t like that, and so we had a fight.”
“A fight?”
“More like a blitzkrieg,” Devlina said. “I summoned all the forces of darkness to rain hellfire on him. He returned the favor by conjuring legions of hellions to lay siege to me.”
“Yeah?”
“Yes, Elijah,” Devlina said. “We lay waste to countless monsters. It was brutal. He captured me and had me drawn and quartered. I reanimated and got him in a headlock and had him dragged through the River Styx—”
“What form was he in? I thought he was an inverted black hole?”
“Oh no, he was wearing his half goat-half man costume,” Devlina said waving a hand to create an image of a devil with red skin, red horns and eyes, and furry legs with cloven feet that danced on the palm of her other hand.
“That’s scary.”
“It’s ridiculous,” Devlina said, clapping her hands together to extinguish the devil. “I always told him that costume is so unoriginal and sad, but he loves it. He’s obtuse, you know?”
“I guess you would know.”
“Yes, I would,” Devlina said. “Anyway we were gripped in the throes of destruction. One of us would destroy the other and destroy the universe along with it.”
“Sheesh, Devlina, that’s very scary.”
“Not really. I’m a survivor, Elijah. From when I was almost burned at the stake back in Du Vel, France, to being locked up underwater in Minerva by a certain red-haired boy.”
“Served you right—you were mean.”
“How dare you?” Devlina thundered. Clouds shrouded the stars and moon. The earth trembled.
“You know it’s true,” I said firmly, holding on to a boulder near me as the ground quaked.
“Perhaps you’re right,” Devlina said. “Anyway, Zid’dra broke! He begged for a truce.” Devlina smiled broadly. “So I won.”
“Okay, but why were you being attacked by your own guards?”
“So Ziddy begged me to make him a nice dinner. No sushi or gross Shimmering food.” She leaned back on a smoldering boulder, flames dancing close to her fingers. “I cooked him a nice dinner of flaming hell bat with a fresh blood reduction and boiled eyeballs, and he barely ate, complained about the lack of salt, then told me he’s thinking I need to spend more time focusing on him and stop raising hell or trying to destroy the universe. He says he’s in charge. I should simply support him.”
Shit. Freaking stupid Zid’dra. “Wait.” I paused. “You cook? And clean?”
Devlina grunted. “Yes,” she said, “for that a-hole. Love sucks. I laid waste to so many coacubenas, concubines, and errant covens at his command. I cooked for him, and he said it was bland! Amoret est deafacile.”
“What?”
“Love is hard, babe.” She looked at me. Like she was peering into my soul. She must see the darkness, the Excelà. The void.
I turned away and stared hard at my running shoes. I’d kill to cook for Austin right now. Hear his deep, guttural happy laugh. See the amused smile of his. Feel his strong hands holding mine. Take in his sweet smell of eucalyptus and citrus and bask in the sunshine of his never-ending contentment.
“What’s going on with you, babe?” Devlina’s right hand was burning, smoke curling up into the night sky. She didn’t seem to notice, or if she did, she didn’t care.
“I broke up with Austin.”
Devlina exploded. I mean, she literally burst into flames, screaming so loud the cells in my entire body trembled. She reappeared—forty feet tall, looking like an old X-ray image of the human body with a pulsing black light quivering around her. “How dare you, fucking asshole!” she shouted.
Puxhàredo. Malevolents such as Devlina had terrible tempers. She returned to her normal state and floated back to me, her face filled with anger and hatred. “Why the hell did you do that? What is wrong with you?”
Dad, Mom, and me, I wanted to say. The Còngréhassa sie Estàntus.
“No, no, no,” Devlina shouted. “That’s all BS.” She looked over at her arm, which was burning, opened her mouth, and ingested the flames. “Elijah, Austin is good for you. He loves you and you love him. Why did you break up with him?”
“Devlina, I couldn’t help it. Boys don’t kiss boys.”
Devlina’s face contorted. Her eyes turned blood red. “How the hell can you say that?!”
“That’s how it is here on Earth,” I said, hanging my head.
“Eff Earth,” Devlina screamed. “Eff civilization and rules and more rules and mores and norms which hurt and destroy and cause pain and suffering.”
Devlina’s face turned inside out, popped, and floated back onto the white skull under it. She readjusted it with her hands. “What’s Ziddy’s First Order?”
“Ziddy?”
“Shut up,” Devlina said. “Answer my question!”
“Be true to yourself,” I whispered, looking at the glowing neon grass stretching across the meadow.
“Why the eff do you think I cook and clean for Zid’dra, the ungrateful inverted blackhole? He isn’t perfect, but I love him. Ever since he came for me that day on the fields long ago.” She flew over my head. “I was nothing until I met him. I was just some lousy goddess tending to the crops, but after him I became someone. I became the Queen of the Gloom!”
“How can you love a monster like Zid’dra? He hurts people!”
“Because when you’re a monster like me, you love guys like him.”
“Not sure you’re a monster.”
Devlina laughed. “Says the Encantreino. The Delomary. The descendant of the Áuqala, the Queen of Queens who hates Malevolents like me.”
“It’s complicated.”
Devlina smirked “Tell me about it.” She floated down to the grass, then passed her hand over it. A huge baguette grew off the end of one strand and a blob of butter off another. She pulled the bread apart, smearing the butter on the roll with a knife she summoned out of the air, then handed me a half. “We broke bread, Elijah,” she said. “Mazel tov.”
“What?”
Devlina rolled her eyes. “You’re such a jerk.” She stared at me. “Look, you need to talk to your mom. She can help you with what you’re going through.”
“What am I going through?”
“Growing pains.”
“What?”
“Jesus, do you listen?” she complained. “Elijah, you are growing up and you are dealing with a lot, you know. Your family, I hate to tell you, isn’t perfect. They mean well, but you haven’t had it easy.”
“Tell me.”
“I’m not saying this to comfort you but rather so you understand that you can make things right with Austin.”
“How?”
“You need your mom.”
“I do?”
“Maybe she needs to learn to become a mom.”
“And then what?”
“Help you,” Devlina said. “That’s what parents do. They care for their kids and support them and help them grow up.”
I laughed. “You’re funny, Devlina. My mom and dad will never be like that.”
“You’d be surprised.”
“When pigs fly,” I said. “The thing is, Devlina, there’s this darkness inside me, growing stronger every day, and I don’t know how to fix it.”
“Growing pains,” Devlina said. “You’ll get better. I know it.”
“How?”
“I am the Queen of the Gloom!” she shouted. The earth trembled underneath me, and a cascade of rocks tumbled down the side of the canyon.
“Devlina!”
“I wish I had kids,” she said a moment later. “But Zid’dra says he had already spawned enough monsters to fill the entire universe before he met me. Right after the Big Bang. Selfish prick.”
Devlina finished the bread, then summoned a white handkerchief to wipe the sides of her mouth, being careful to avoid her bloodred lipstick. “If I had children, I would want a son and daughter. Diabolico for the boy, Devlinina for the girl. I’d listen to their problems, and we’d solve them together. And if that didn’t work, I’d march right out there into the world—no, the universe—and rampage and destroy anything that hurt my children. I’d kill anyone who dared touch my offspring.”
“Maybe it’s good you don’t have kids,” I said. “I can already see a trail of bodies from anyone who even looked at your kids the wrong way.”
Devlina threw her head back, laughing. “You know it, baby,” she said. “I’d be a Mama Bear.”
Suddenly several Zusqoe shot up out of a glowing fissure nearby and into the night sky, hollering and shouting.
“Oh, for crying out loud,” Devlina said. “Stay down there, Elijah, behind the boulders while I deal with these asshats.” She leapt into the air, throwing her hands up to summon lightning and send waves of thunder to knock the Zusqoe over.
“What exactly are they going to do with you?” I shouted up to her.
Devlina shot beams of red light into one Zusqo, which exploded and sent a shower of rocks raining down on the grass. “Lock me up behind the gates of the Gloom guarded by the Shadow Monster, Tartáuranno. Torture me by making me listen to love songs from Luther Vandross and Cher.” She rolled her eyes. “I got sorta mad, Elijah. After he said my food was bland, I returned to my rampage. Restarted our war. I accidentally took out half his army of Zusqoe,” she said. “And I partially reverted him. Which gave him terrible gas.”
“Devlina! You need to calm down. Watch your temper.”
Devlina laughed and laughed. “Says the boy who breaks up with the world’s most perfect boy.”
Her words hit me hard. My stomach churned. I felt nauseous. “What do I do?” I whispered as I watched her shadow fly across the heavens above me.
“I told you already,” she shouted back.
An explosion rippled behind her, sending Devlina flying toward the Valley.
“Elijah!” she screamed, “watch out for—”
I looked up and saw an enormous black mass headed straight toward me. I waved my hands instinctively. Nothing. Nada. Rien. Puxhàredo. No. No. No. I closed my eyes, thinking of Austin and bracing myself for impact.
An instant later, I opened my eyes, and I was with Austin sitting on a large rock formation in Joshua Tree National Park staring up at the Milky Way, glowing high in the night sky. My phone vibrated. I took it out and glanced at it. “Hi, Elijah. I’ll be by to style you soon. The boy next door has to look good for the Teen Choice Awards!” I showed the message to Austin. He looked at me and he smiled and then he mouthed the words, “my perfect boy next door.” He was filled with love, as always. I reached for him. And watched in horror as my hand dissolved, falling like sand onto the rock below.
“Austin,” I screamed, “help me!”
Austin turned toward me, only his face had changed, and, instead, Dad sat next to me, laughing and badmouthing people and holding a glass of beer with spit floating on top.
“Drink up, kiddo.” He laughed. “Simply tip it back and accept defeat like I did long ago.” He laughed again. His face dissolved off his neck and fell like paint onto his body, and the sky ripped into two before powerful winds began to suck up everything—Dad’s headless body, the sand, the Joshua trees, the mountains, and even the stars that flickered high above.
