Sweet Shadows

“The bounty?” Nick asks. “You mentioned it last night, but you weren’t exactly in the mood to answer questions.”

“Yeah,” I reply, swirling my glass so the ice inside starts to spin. “A few of the beasties I’ve hunted lately mentioned it. They get a one-way ticket to freedom if they bring one of us back.”

“Another argument for Zeus then.” Nick rips apart his chopsticks and uses them to dig out an ice cube from his glass. “He is probably the only god with the power to grant eleftheria—freedom.”

“What’s so great about our world anyway?” I ask. “We’ve got pollution and traffic and lots of stress. Why is all of monsterkind so eager to visit our sunny shores?”

Nick freezes, ice cube halfway to his mouth. “You’ve clearly never been in the abyss.”

“No,” I say, “and I’m not especially interested in visiting. Have you?”

His entire face shadows. “I have.”

“Oh,” I say quietly. I feel that I should apologize, but I’m not sure for what.

“It’s”—he looks up at the ceiling and shudders—“horrible.”

“But it’s where monsters belong,” I insist. “It’s their home. It must be livable.”

“There is a world of difference between livable and desirable.” Nick drops the ice cube back into his glass. “But to answer your question, there are two main reasons that monsters want access to the human realm. First, because access to the human realm means access to humans.”

“And humans mean tasty life force for beasties to feed on.” I take a swig of root beer.

Nick nods. “And second, because monsters in the human realm are immortal.”

“Immortal?” I cough, choking on a root beer bubble that goes down the wrong way. “I knew my venom didn’t kill them, but I didn’t know they were immortal.”

“Only an Olympian weapon can kill a monster in this realm.” Nick gives me a wry smile. “You can see why they might want to spend time here.”

“I guess so,” I say, still in shock.

“And there are some monsters,” he adds with a twist of a smile, “that would just rather hang out in the world of trees and sunshine. Endless black can get so monotonous.”

I ignore his sarcastic comment.

“So that faction, they think they’re protecting the world by keeping the Key Generation from breaking the seal?”

Nick nods again, digs out another ice cube, and pops it into his mouth. While he crunches, I swirl.

I’m still mad that they’re trying to kill us, but if they’re doing it for what they think are the right reasons? Well, that makes it easier to understand, anyway. Not that I’m going to let them succeed.

“What about the other side?” I ask. “The ones who want us to open the door?”

Nick takes so long to finish crunching his ice that I wonder if he’s buying time. With every bite, his cheek and jaw muscles tighten, showing off the chiseled lines of his face.... Snap out of it! The last thing I need to be thinking about is Nick’s chiseled face.

“Oh, they want you dead too,” he finally says. “But not until after the door is open. In the meantime they are amassing an army to overpower you and your allies when the gates swing wide.”

Great. Win-win.

The waitress arrives with our appetizer, a variety of pajeon pancakes. As soon as she walks away, I grab my fork to spear a piece of kimchee and pop it in my mouth. I savor the burning feeling that lingers after the bite of spicy pickled cabbage is gone.

“So, we have allies?” I ask. “It’s nice to know at least someone is on our side.”

Grace said Sthenno insisted we weren’t alone. I guess this is confirmation.

“I am,” he says quietly.

So quietly I can’t help but believe him. I’m usually a pretty solid lie detector, and I don’t detect anything but sincerity from him right now. He’s lied and kept things from me in the past, but not now. He’s finally being honest.

“Anyone else?”

“A few, yes,” he answers. “The Gorgons, of course.”

I roll my eyes at that statement of the obvious.

“There are others. A number of minor deities,” he explains. “Even some Olympians would like to see the prophecy fulfilled. Balance restored.”

“What does that mean?” I ask. “Balance restored?”

“The two realms—that of man and that of monster—were not meant to be so divided,” he says. I can see a true longing in his eyes, like he’s lost in some distant memory. “Creatures of all kinds were meant to move in and out between the two. That is how the world began.” His eyes clear, and I sense him returning to the present. “That is how the world should be. In balance.”

That makes sense. Light and dark, yin and yang, man and monster. Those dichotomies are supposed to coexist, not be divided.

Still, the idea of monsters drifting in and out of our world is not exactly appealing. Monsters might be immortal in this realm, but humans aren’t. And most monsters are more than happy to kill a few of us to get the extra surge of life-force energy.

“You’re not convinced,” Nick says, guessing my thoughts. “You think the realms should remain divided.”

“Well, why not?” I ask. “Why should we let monsters free in this world to hunt and cause havoc?