The Monster’s Corner: Stories Through Inhuman Eyes

way it held its head that she recognized; the jawline that both he and Ash had, the color of those eyes …

When the creature saw the soldiers around its feet, it leaned down and roared. Della thought it sounded like a cry for help rather than an attacking scream, but the military clearly thought otherwise. One of the troopers nearest to her raised his rifle, and the monster picked him up between two enormous fingers and tossed him away. She watched the body fly through the air and hit a tree, and cringed when she heard a sharp cracking sound — either the tree trunk or the soldier’s bones. The monster roared again, and this time its force was such that she was blown off her feet. Another soldier rushed to help her up. She got to her feet and shook him off, then ran out toward the creature.

“Glen!” she yelled. “Glen, it’s me, Della.”

The aberration went to swipe her out of the way, but stopped. It lowered its huge head and stared at her. Then, after a pause of a few seconds that felt like forever, it leaned back and crashed down onto its backside, the force of impact like an earthquake. Della’s armed guard held back, more out of fear than anything else, though what difference a couple of meters would make was debatable in the circumstances.

“I just want to know why, Glen,” she said, still walking closer, not sure whether it could hear or understand her. “All those people killed, and for what? I know you must have been scared, in pain even, but why …?”

The monster stared at her, eyes squinting, trying to focus, massive pupils dilating and constricting. Then it lifted its head to the skies and roared louder than ever.

On the ground a single figure ran through the trees. Cress-well weaved around the soldiers who stood frozen to the spot, staring up at the massive creature, and grabbed Della.

“Come with me, Della,” he said, trying to drag her away. “That’s not Glen anymore. Damn thing can’t understand you. Stay here and it’ll kill you. You’ve got Ash and me to think about and — ”

He stopped talking when he realized the Chambers creature was looking straight at him, glowering down. He began to back away, cowering in fear, but there was no escape. A single massive hand wrapped around him and tightened, its grip so strong that every scrap of oxygen was forced from his body. The monster lifted him up and held its arm back as if it were about to throw the doctor into the distance.

“Dad! Dad, don’t!”

Glen stopped.

Had he just imagined that? For a second he swore he’d heard Ash’s voice, but how could it have been? He pulled his long arm back again, ready to hurl Cresswell out of his life forever. Out of all of their lives …

“No, Dad, please.”

Glen looked down and saw his son standing in front of him. And suddenly, nothing else mattered. He stretched out and dropped Cresswell far enough away not to have to think about him, then carefully moved Della and the remaining soldiers out of the way, too. Ash stood in front of his dad, completely alone and looking impossibly small.

“Hello, Big Man,” Glen wanted to say but couldn’t. “I’m sorry, Ash, I didn’t mean for any of this to happen. I didn’t want anyone to get hurt.”

“You okay, Dad?”

“Not really,” he didn’t say as he gently picked his son up and held him close to his face. Ash sat down cross-legged on the palm of his father’s hand.

“I’ve been worried about you.”

“Me too, Ash.”

“They’ve been saying all kinds of things about you,” Ash said, pausing to choose his next words carefully. Glen’s heart seemed to pause, too. “But I don’t believe them. I mean, I know you are a monster now, anyone can see that, but I know you didn’t want to be one. I don’t think you wanted to hurt them all. I kept trying to tell the man that you didn’t mean for any of it to happen. I told him to try and imagine how you must be feeling. You’re big and strong and everything, but I bet you’re scared.”

“I am.”

“I said they should leave you alone. I said they should find you somewhere big to rest, maybe build a big house or something like that, then let the doctors work out how they’re going to get you back to normal again.”

“I don’t think that’s going to happen, sunshine. I think it’s too late now.”

“I miss you, Dad. I’ve been really scared.”

“I’ve missed you, too.”

“They said you were coming back here to kill everyone, and I told them that was crap. I said you were coming to see me. Was I right, Dad?”

“You were right, son. I just wanted to see you again. Just one more time …”

Glen Chambers sat in the park with his son in his hand and listened to him talking until his massively engorged, broken heart could no longer keep him alive.

RAKSHASI by Kelley Armstrong

FOR TWO HUNDRED YEARS, I have done penance for my crimes as a human. After twenty, I had saved more lives than I had taken. After fifty, I had helped more people than I had wronged. I understand that my punishment should not end with an even accounting. Yet now, after two hundred years, that balance has long passed equilibrium. And I have come to realize that this life is no different than my old one. If I want something, I cannot rely on others to provide it.

I waited in the car while Jonathan checked the house. Jonathan. There is something ridiculous about calling your master by his given name. It’s an affectation of the modern age. In the early years, I was to refer to them as Master or Isha. When the family moved West, it became Sir, then Mr. Roy.

My current master does not particularly care for this familiarity. He pretends otherwise, but the fact that I must refer to him by his full name, where his wife and others use “Jon,” says much.

He called my cell phone.

“Amrita?” he said, as if someone else might be answering my phone. My name is not Amrita. My name is not important. Or, perhaps, too important. I have never given it to my masters. They call me Amrita, the eternal one.

“The coast is clear.” He paused. “I mean — ”

“I understand American idiom very well,” I said. “I have been living here since before you were born.”

He mumbled something unintelligible, then gave me my instructions, as if I hadn’t been doing this, too, since before he was born.

I got out of the car and headed for the house.

As Jonathan promised, there was an open window on the second floor. I found a quiet place away from the road, then shifted to my secondary form: a raven. Fly to the bedroom window. Squeeze through. Shift back.

There wasn’t even an alarm on the window to alert the occupant to my intrusion. Quite disappointing. These jobs always are. I long for the old days, when I would do bloody battle against power-mad English sahibs and crazed Kshatriyas. Then came the murderers and whoremasters, the Mob, the drug dealers. It was the last that made the Roys rethink their strategy. On the streets, drug dealers always came with well-armed friends. I may be immortal, but I can be injured, and while my personal comfort is not a concern, my income-earning potential is. They tried targeting the dealers at home, but there they were often surrounded by relative innocents. So, in this last decade, the Roys have concentrated on a new source of evil. A dull, weak, mewling source that bores me immeasurably. But my opinion, like my comfort, is of little consequence.

I took a moment to primp in the mirror. I am eternally young. Beautiful, too. More beautiful than when I was alive, which was not to say I was ugly then, but when I look in the mirror now, I imagine what my husband, Daman, would say. Imagine his smile. His laugh. His kiss. I have not seen him in two hundred years, yet when I primp for my target, it is still Daman I ready myself for.

I found the target — Morrison — in the study, talking on his speakerphone while working on his laptop. I