Monster - A. Lee Martinez [14]
“It’s the haze,” said Chester. “Most human minds cannot process magic into their conscious long-term memory. It has to do with a nerve cluster at the base of the—”
“It doesn’t really matter,” interrupted Monster. “There’s no point in explaining it because you’ll just forget it all once we’re gone. Where’s the bogey?”
She led him to her bedroom and pointed to her closet. She’d jammed a chair under the knob to keep the thing contained. “It’s in there. I woke up this afternoon, and there it was. In my closet. Thought something had died in there at first. Because of that odor.”
The moist odor of fresh crap and decaying flesh hung in the bedroom air. She pinched her nose. “Is it supposed to smell like that?”
Monster sniffed. “I don’t smell anything.”
“How can you not smell that?” She suppressed a gag. “Like wet burning dog hair covered in Tabasco sauce.”
Nodding, Monster removed his color code book from his pocket and scrawled Purple: Can’t smell. It would explain why Liz’s leftover spaghetti had tasted so bland this morning.
“Can you describe it, miss?” asked Chester.
“I really didn’t see it very well. Kind of looked like a monkey, but with a big head and covered in green hair.”
“Troll,” said Monster. “No big deal. We’ll grab some stuff out of the van and—”
The closet crypto pounded against the door. Stubby, clawed fingertips felt along under the doorjamb.
“It’s not going to get out, is it?” Judy asked. “Trolls prefer the dark. I’ll just get some bait and take care of this.”
Chester went to fetch the bait while Monster laid down the piece of cardboard and began drawing his magic circle on it, checking his rune dictionary occasionally.
“You’re purple,” she said. “I am?” He made a show of looking at his hand. “Wow, thanks for letting me know.”
“Weren’t you blue yesterday?” She dragged the reluctant memory to the surface. “Yeah, you were blue. So why are you purple today?”
“It changes whenever I wake up.”
If there was any further explanation, he didn’t offer it to her, and she was less concerned with the colors than the creature in her closet.
“Is this normal?” she asked. “I mean, this kind of thing with the sasquatches—”
“Yetis.”
“Yeah, that. And now this thing in my closet. Is that normal?”
“Nothing’s normal,” said Monster. “Normalcy is just a word people made up.”
“Says the purple guy,” replied Judy.
Chester reappeared with a bag of jelly beans. Monster laid his magic circle next to the closet, poured a few jelly beans on the cardboard, and removed the chair from the door.
“Give it a minute,” said Monster.
The closet door opened and a long crooked nose protruded from it. The large, dripping nostrils flared as the nose sniffed curiously.
Monster tossed a jelly bean beside the closet. It landed far enough away that the troll had to stretch out its arm to reach for it. The limb was even more crooked than the nose, and the fingers were thick and wart-covered. The troll snatched up the candy, shut the closet, and slurped it down noisily.
The door opened again and the troll’s arm protruded farther, probing for more candy.
“Come on, you little bastard,” said Monster. “I don’t have all day.”
The troll stumbled into the light.
Judy grimaced. “God, it’s ugly.”
The beast looked like a chimpanzee with a rat’s face. Its entire body was bent and strangely shaped. Its torso appeared about three inches misaligned with its pelvis. Both its arms were twisted, but the right arm was significantly longer than the left. And its mouth was wide enough to nearly split its head open.
The troll pounced on the jelly beans, shoving them down its mouth. The magic circle beneath it flashed, and the crypto was transmogrified into a small green lump.
“Works like a charm.”
“Uh, boss,” said Chester. “Looks like we’ve got another one.”
A new troll loped forward from the back of the closet. It was a little bigger than the last one. Its nose twitched, and its beady eyes darted around the room. This one didn’t smell any better either.
“I got it.” Chester poured some more jelly beans on the circle. The troll quickly