Monster - A. Lee Martinez [92]
“How did this make our situation any better?” asked Chester as flaming pieces of ceiling pelted them.
Pendragon, the size of a bus in his true form, turned his shiny red eyes on Monster. The dragon snorted but made no attempt to swallow them in his cavernous maw or roast them alive. A thankful purr rolled from his throat.
Monster put a hand on Pendragon’s snout. “Don’t mention it.”
Pendragon’s lips pulled away to reveal a toothy grin. He reared up, smashing his way through the ceiling. With a flap of his powerful wings, he soared into the night sky, but not before an accidental swish of his tail brought the whole house crashing down. The good news was that the rubble smothered the fire.
Ten minutes later, Chester crawled his way to the surface. The climb left him ripped and ragged, but his body was still holding together.
“Boss! Boss!” He started clearing away debris. “Monster, are you in there?”
A blue hand pushed its way free and waved. It took fifteen minutes of hard work to dig Monster free.
“You had me worried for a second there,” said Chester.
“I’m fine. I’m invulnerable when I’m blue.”
Monster slipped in his effort to climb down the small mountain of debris, tumbled and fell onto his front lawn.
“It’s all right.” Monster dusted himself off and sneezed. “Blue. Invulnerable.”
“Since when can you change colors at will?”
“A guy can’t help but pick up a few things when he’s one with the universe.” Monster stood on the lawn and surveyed the rubble that used to be his home. “Man, am I glad my name isn’t on that lease.”
“An apartment and two houses in two days,” said Chester. “That has to be a record.”
“The apartment really wasn’t my fault.” Monster shifted to goldenrod and took off.
Chester folded into bird and soared after him on tattered wings. “Slow down.”
“No time.” Monster doubled back and scooped up Chester.
The paper gnome folded into a monkey and wrapped his arms around Monster’s neck. “What’s the rush?”
“We have to save Judy.”
“I thought you didn’t care about her.”
“She’s okay, but if we don’t stop Lotus, she’ll use Judy to destroy the human race.”
“Hmm,” said Chester. “That is bad. I guess.”
“If she succeeds, I won’t be around anymore, and you’ll be out of a job.”
Chester tucked himself into Monster’s shirt to avoid the wind shear. “Pick up the pace.”
23
“It’s all about Lotus and Judy,” shouted Monster above the rush of wind.
“What? Judy? The cryptos?”
“Everything,” replied Monster. “The entire universe is just a reaction by the stone to Lotus’s parasitic presence. Because that’s what the old hag is. She’s a leech. And the stone created the universe in order to get rid of her. The whole thing is like a giant immune system. It’s a billions-year-old struggle between the stone and Lotus. Older than this universe. Lotus isn’t as powerful, and all the power she does have is borrowed. But she’s smarter in the short run. That is her advantage. But the stone thinks long term. It’s slow to adapt, a little dumb if you get right down to it. But it moves in ways too large for anyone, even her, to grasp.”
“You’re losing me.”
“Sorry. It’s not easy to explain. The stone was first, but until Lotus came along, it didn’t do anything. It wasn’t even a stone. It was all potential, but without motivation. Then Lotus found it, was drawn to it. She’s not human or parahuman. She’s not anything like that. And as long as she draws power from the stone, there’s no way to stop her.”
“Then why are we trying?”
“Because it was what Judy was made to do. It’s like in biochemistry when an antibody defeats a virus by preventing its ability to bond with other cells.”
“Since when did you know anything about—?”
“Universe bond,” said Monster.
“Right. I keep forgetting about that. Let me see if I understand this. Your entire universe is merely a by-product of a battle of wills between a negligibly intelligent primeval power source and an ancient cosmic parasite.”
“Yes.”
“And Judy is the ultimate goal of this process.”
“Yes.”
“You do realize how crazy that sounds, right?