Chapter Eleven
“Technically,”I said, “it’s an ocean monster because seas are smaller bodies of water partially surrounded by land.”
“What is it doing here?” he asked, a little too loudly.
Sea monsters—ocean monsters—never came to Ordinary.
Was this beast here to become a citizen of the town? If so, why hadn’t it come in some sort of disguise? People must have seen it by now. It was massive. And angry.
I mean, everyone had a cell phone. Anyone could snap a photo of that monstrosity.
Or livestream a video.
Shit.
Someone might even be doing that right now.
“No, no, no!” I opened the door and ran out onto the beach.
The weather was worse. Wind and rain mixed with saltwater and sand lashed at my exposed skin until it was red and stinging.
The only good thing about this weather was that no one was stupid enough to be down on the beach.
Except for us. We were the stupid ones.
I could just make out the shapes of Myra and Bathin, Jean and Hogan, and Crow, all of them a couple hundred yards away on the tide’s edge.
I ran across the hard sand toward them, the smell of kelp, salt and deeper, meatier things sharp in my nose, my boot prints filling with water instantly after each step.
The ocean crashed in my ears, and that monster roared like multiple, smaller, stormier oceans. My heartbeat settled into the run.
Running was good. This motion, this Zen of my body falling into my running stride cleared my thoughts. Logic snicked into place.
Yes, there was a monster in the ocean.
Yes, it looked like a super-sized cross between a giant squid and a multi-headed Loch Ness monster. Yep, there were lots of brownish-red tentacles sprouting around three long-necked plesiosaur heads, all of them sporting huge, filmy yellow eyes and massive, jagged teeth.
Yes, it was probably being caught on film right this minute and uploaded to some cloud storage somewhere.
But it hadn’t come ashore yet. Hadn’t destroyed any buildings or eaten anyone.
Which, really, was a point in the “good” column.
I had no idea how to talk to it, or get rid of it, or kill it (an image of an exploding, rotted whale flashed behind my eyes), but my sisters were both already facing off against that huge monster. Myra with a spell book in her hand. Jean with a bullhorn and mallet.
Crow was there too, hands on his hips, head tipped up, scowling at the beast.
Then, even as I closed the distance, blinking away the stinging rain and sand, I saw Bathin, who was a demon, next to Myra, nodding as she read out of the book. Hogan, Jean’s boyfriend, who was part Jinn, had his arm looped around her waist, an anchor, holding her tight.
I was almost there, my heart in each footstep, my thoughts a mantra:please let them stay, please don’t let them be hurt, please let me get to them in time.
Then: motion.
Coming down the cliff side, over layered basalt ridges and tough knolls of sea grass, were dozens of people. No, not people, werewolves and vampires.
The entire Rossi clan flowed over that cliff like a wave of black, Old Rossi in the lead, his lean, blade-thin body cutting through the wind like the edge of midnight against a liquid dawn.
Rumbling right behind the vamps was a mob of muscle. At least three dozen werewolves powered across the rock and sand. Granny Wolfe, small and quick and way too old to be moving that fast, led the charge.
