Redheaded beast takes me to a big room with stadium seating that reminds me of an old, indoor colosseum, with stone benches that encircle the floor in the middle. Torches on the walls illuminate the space with an intimate vibe. Completely out of place.
“I was expecting us to be alone for this,” I say, watching a crowd of beasts file in. “Why such a big audience?”
“History is subjective, so in order to gain an accurate picture of key events, several will listen to your story. We will each make our own record.”
“Each guy is going to write down what I say?” It’s a damned history cult.
“They are not guys. They are scholars. And yes.”
I look around at all the furry wolf faces. It’s standing room only. This is more than a few.
He points to a spot on the floor at the center. “Please stand there and begin.”
I’m supposed to tell this room of naked men with wolf heads about the sex I just had with Gabrio and Bard? I feel sick to my stomach.
I sigh in surrender because, honestly, I’ve been through worse. “Sure. Why not?” Anything to save my world.
The painful process is over in an hour, including their Q and A at the very end. They really went into detail, too, wanting to know approximately how much blood I drank from Gabrio and how long his “ejaculatory efforts” lasted.
The only thing I kept thinking was that these are the weirdest, most perverted “scholars” I’ve ever met. I expect some serious detail when my turn comes to interview their oldest scholar who, according to the redhead, knows the most about the wall and the bridges.
As for my other two topics—the addresses and my fake pregnancy—the redhead tells me along the way that there are zero records of a Blood woman giving birth.
“It has never happened once in our history,” he says.
The pregnancy was only a red herring, but hearing that is still a relief. As for the speeches, there were only three rulers since the Proxy Vow. Alwar’s father, Alwar, and Benicio. He read off all three speeches for me, and guess what? No help at all. They basically said they would kill anyone who defies them. Coming here just for that was a complete waste of time, so let’s hope my other reason for being here isn’t.
“Here we are,” says the redhead. “Wait for the Wall Scholar. Do not touch anything.”
I nod and enter the small room with shelved walls stuffed with yellowing scrolls. There are two stuffed armchairs and a table with a candle in the middle.
I take a seat, and my mind drifts back to seeing Grandma Rain in the tunnel. What did my hallucination mean? Gabrio said the poison in the thorns makes you see your worst nightmare. I suppose her telling me that I was worthless qualifies as a nightmare.
As a child, I remember always worrying about her turning on me. She was quick to hate anyone who crossed her because she didn’t need them. She only needed her hate to survive. It wasn’t the same for me. She was the only family I had left. Bard was always just some adult in the background I didn’t know or pay attention to.
When I got older, that changed. For me. Not for him. He always did the honorable thing and ignored the fuck out of me—the needy girl who had so many holes in her heart she would do anything to fill them.
When I finally went away to college, I realized that my fascination with him wasn’t so abnormal. In an environment where I was deprived of TV, the internet, and a robust social life, Bard was the equivalent of my teen idol, the rockstar of my sexual fantasies.
I never really shook my feeling for him, but I think that’s normal too. I mean, my best friend since college, Sunnie, still has an obsession with Liam Hemsworth that started in high school. Sure, she eventually accepted they weren’t going to get married and run away to Spain, but the lust never really died.
Damn, I miss her. What she must be going through. I was supposed to go to her house last Christmas and never showed up.
I run my hands through my hair and whoosh out a breath. “God, what month is it anyway?”
“March, by your calendar.”
A naked man covered in tattoos like mine enters the room. Like the other masterbeasts here, he’s half wolflike creature on the top, human male on the bottom. He’s shaved most of his upper torso but left the long mane and the fur all over his snout.
“Hello, I am the Wall Scholar. How may I be of assistance, my queen?”
I’m surprised by his politeness. “Why do you have those symbols all over your body?”
“We have record takers and record keepers. I am a keeper.”
I point to my arm covered in black geometric symbols. “So I’m not the only one with these?”
“Before we had paper or hide to write on, the creatures with a fascination for learning had to be resourceful. We used our bodies.”
“But you have paper now.”
“Paper can be burned or ruined. When I die, these records will find a new scholar. Just as the vows you keep will find the next ruler.”
So, basically, we’re both living thumb drives. “Okay, well, I want to know about the wall. Specifically, the doorways. How did they get there?”
He closes his eyes, and one of the symbols on his skin starts to glow red. The symbol then expands into a stream of words I can’t read.
“What do they say?” I ask.
“It is our origin story. It tells of a great storm thousands of years ago, and with it brought many creatures.”
“From where?”
“A hole in the sky.”
“So according to your records, the creatures who live here in Monsterland today came from a hole in the sky thousands of years ago?”
“Yes,” he replies.
I’m so confused. It sounds way too similar to the story Alwar told me about my own world, where the monsters crossed through one of the doorways now housed inside the wall, thousands of years ago. They attacked humans, and we somehow ran them out. After that, the wall was built to prevent more monsters from coming over.
The Monsterland origin story and Alwar’s story are eerily similar.
“Where did these creatures from your origin story come from?” I ask. Is there some planet out there filled with monsters that just goes around opening portals and dumping them in different worlds?
“The story does not say.”
“Okay, then who told this story? Who was here to see the hole open up?” Maybe I can find more information.
He closes his eyes, and I watch as more symbols glow red.
“A human.”
I don’t understand. A human was living here in Monsterland first, and then one day, the creatures just showed up? “What human?”
“I do not know. This record comes from a story passed down through many generations before we recorded it. Since then, the records have been passed between many scholars, which means it is quite old.”
So what if this story and the story of my world being invaded are connected somehow? Both supposedly happened thousands of years ago. Both have doorways opening up and monsters flooding in.
I need more to go on if I’m going to seal the doorways.
“What else do the records say?” I ask. “Is there anything about who created the doorways or why?”
“No. There is only a reference that the humans who once occupied these lands were many.”
I scratch my head. “Where did they all go?” Probably eaten.
“Perhaps they never left. Many of our creatures here are related to humans.”
I think of the War People and their legends, of how they believe they were once my size, humans who fled my world after monsters invaded. Once here, only the largest and strongest survived the constant attacks from the creatures. Over time, the War People just got bigger and bigger. Evolution at work. That’s what their folklore says, anyway.
Then there are the creatures like the one I’m talking to. They look half human. That means we might be genetically related. And what about the Mountain People? From what I can tell, they look human.
My mind feels like it’s right on the edge of something big. If I were to gather up everything known about these kingdoms’ histories, I might be able to create a more complete picture of what really happened. When, how, why did the doorway open? If I can figure that out, I might be able to close it.
“If you wish to find out more about the fate of the humans who once lived in Monsterland, I suggest asking your own people. Many are quite old, and though they do not share openly with outsiders, they will not deny you this information. You are the Blood Queen.”
Oh crap. The Blood People. My mind’s about to explode with a massive epiphany. “The Blood People can’t have children. They can only be created by taking a person and giving them their blood, right?”
He nods. “This is my understanding.”
“So what were they before being turned? Mountain People?”
“Not to my knowledge. The Blood People feel the Mountain People are inferior and only see them as food, not good enough to be vampires.”
That’s what I suspected. Everyone hates the Mountain People. They’re viewed as weak traitors, outsiders, and easy targets for food.
So could the Blood People be the same humans who lived here before the other creatures showed up? They live forever. That’s what General Rool said.
Also, wouldn’t it stand to reason that if humans could evolve into giants, that they could also evolve into something else? Say, a nocturnal bloodsucker. I mean, hell, look at all the plants and trees here. They glow neon during the day and drink what little moisture there is from the air. I’ve even met some that talk, like the Fern People. Who’s to say that those original humans didn’t adapt and become all sorts of creatures, one of them being a Blood Person who then spread their venom around.
My mind instantly thinks of Rool. He said he was over five hundred years old. So where was he born? What was he before he became a vampire?
I can’t believe it never occurred to me to ask where all these vampires came from to begin with. But now that I’m asking, I’m praying they’ll hold the answers to my questions.