Sweet Venom

I can’t remember how long we sat in that diner, me asking questions and her answering. It felt like years. Sometimes her answers were cryptic; some questions she refused to answer at all, promising all would be revealed in time.

As she explained about my heritage, about my destiny to keep the human world safe from the kind of monsters most people think exist only in ancient myths, I was scared. Fine, terrified. How could I, a lone twelve- year-old girl, stop all these awful things from prowling the streets?

She smiled at me, her gray eyes full of caring and compassion—two emotions that had been in short supply when she found me living on the street—and said, “You are stronger than you think.”

“But what if they surround me?” I asked. “What if a bunch of them gang up on me? I could never win.”

She reached out with her elegantly wrinkled hand and gently patted mine. “Millennia ago, when your ancient ancestor Medusa was slain, the doorway to the abyss was left inadequately guarded and the world faced the great danger of being overrun by monsters. The gods convened a council to decide how to proceed.”

The gods. Like the ones in action movies and old myths. She said it like they were real, like they were sitting around somewhere deciding people’s fates. And, as crazy as it sounded, I somehow knew she was telling me the truth.

“Some wished to see that realm sealed completely,” she continued, “though doing so would have caused the death of every creature inside.”

“What’s wrong with that?” Didn’t seem like such a bad plan to me, considering the kind of nasty beasts I’d seen prowling the streets. “The monsters are bad. Why shouldn’t they die?”

Slowly shaking her head, she said, “Things are not that simple.” She let out a small sigh. “Others thought the gateway should be thrown open, allowing monsters of all varieties to walk free among humans.”

What morons thought that was a good idea?

“To appease all sides, the gods left a gap.” Ursula smiled at me. “A tiny and ever-moving window that allows but a single monster at a time to leave their realm. The gods knew there would always be one of our kind on hand to defend the opening.”

I sighed with relief. That was somewhat reassuring. One at a time seemed a lot more manageable than all at once. For the first time, I believed that I could actually do this, I could actually be the huntress. For the last four years, Ursula has been right. The rules have remained in effect, and I’ve never seen more than one creature per night. Ever.

Until tonight.

“Something’s out of whack.” First Ursula takes off out of cell phone range without leaving a note. Now two monsters are prowling the same club at the same time. “Something is definitely—”

“Gretchen!”

For the love of Medusa. I’d forgotten number three on my list of out-of-the-ordinary. Nick. The boy who won’t leave me alone.

At least this one doesn’t have anything to do with myth.

My first instinct is to ignore him. Any normal male would read that as a neon sign saying Go away!, but Nick has proven himself incapable of common male normalcy. If I ignore him and get on with my fight, he’ll probably follow me out into the courtyard and wind up getting himself killed.

I need to throw him off the scent once and for all so I can go about my business in peace. Direct orders don’t seem to work. Instead, I try for disdain.

“What do you want?”

“Nice to see you too,” he teases, unfazed by my verbal venom. “Funny running into you here. I didn’t know you—”

“Yeah, it’s a riot.” I jab my fists to my hips. “Look, I was just—”

“Can I get you a drink?”

My brain screams. Nothing works with this boy.

“Are you deficient?” I ask, throwing off all pretense of any kind and being as straightforward as I can without telling him my secret. “What about me has ever said, ‘Yes, please keep hitting on me’?”

A slow, suggestive smile spreads across his frustrating lips.

“Your mouth may not say that,” he says, stepping close. “But your eyes . . . well, they’re saying something else altogether.”

I roll those eyes behind my sunglasses, resisting the urge to knock him out with a solid punch to the left temple and be done with him. “You can’t even see my eyes.”

“Can’t I?”

“No, you—” Then it hits me like a thunderbolt. My eyes.

I am such an idiot. I can’t believe I haven’t thought to use my hypno powers on him. That only proves the boy messes with my brain. He needs to be gone, now, before something terrible happens.

In a heartbeat, I flick my shades up, stare deep into Nick’s dark gaze, and say, “You have somewhere else to be.”

His brows fall and he gets a blank look on his face. Success! Finally he’ll be out from underfoot. What good is having superhypnotic power if I don’t use it for my own benefit every now and again? Consider Nick a memory.

As I turn away, ready to forget him and figure out how to face the pair of monsters outside, Nick grabs my arm.

“Nope,” he says with that annoying smile on his utterly unhypnotized face. “I think I’m exactly where I need to be.”

You have got to be kidding me. The one guy who won’t take the hint that I’m not interested, and he’s the one person immune to my hypno-eyes? Something is not right about that.

I add it to the list of recent abnormalities and then file it away. No time to dwell on that at the moment. Right now, I have a pair of beasties with hungry eyes outside playing with their party-girl food. I need to take care of them before they decide they’re ready for their meal. And Nick needs to be gone before I do.

Pushing him away doesn’t work, and knocking him out would draw too much attention, so I’m left with only one option.

“Fine,” I say with a sigh, as if I’m giving in to his advances. “You can get me a drink.” I try to think of something that will take the most time, giving me the biggest window to send my unwelcome friends back to where they belong. “A virgin strawberry daiquiri.”

Surely the mixing and the blending will take more than half a second.

With a wink, he’s gone, and I’m heading through the court-yard door.

Thanks to my hesitation at seeing double, the pair of monsters has now bracketed the two drunk girls, and the critters are practically salivating at the prospect of a juicy snack. There are quite a few other people out in the courtyard, which means strategy is going to be critical. I evaluate my targets and quickly decide that, between the two, the serpent thing—Ophis pterotus is its official name, I think—will be the easier fight. No limbs or claws to fight back with. Fangs, of course, but I’ve got a pair of my own.

What I don’t need is a bunch of teen party hounds thinking they need to break up a fight. Or, worse, stepping in to defend me. Now is not the time to let the ordinary humans think for themselves, so I fold my sunglasses into a cargo pocket and walk over to the nearest group.

“Hey guys,” I say with a bright smile. Scanning my gaze over the several pairs of eyes now looking at me, I instruct, “Whatever you see going on over there”—I gesture toward the beastie-occupied picnic table—“you don’t need to get involved. We’ll just be playing around.”

Their blank faces nod, and I hurry on to do the same to the handful of groups scattered around the courtyard.

As I move to the last, a gaggle of giggling girls in the far corner, my heart begins to race, not out of fear but out of anticipation. This is going to be a good fight.

Not that I’m thrilled about the sudden change of rules, but monster hunting has become pretty routine lately. Sniff, find, fight, bite. Go home and take a shower. Repeat.

This fight should present a welcome challenge.

Everything will be fine as long as I follow the two carved-in-stone commandments of monster fighting.

First rule, never let them bite the right wrist, or the superhealing powers of the blood in that artery will give