MonsterVille
Forty One

The screams of the dying surrounded her. The stench of blood saturated the air. Men and monsters fought for their very lives, and Mellie? Couldn’t have cared less. She looked through a red haze of vision, looked over River’s mutilated and partially devoured body—looked at what her teeth and claws had done to his poor frail human condition.

She closed her eyes and tried to make the world go away.

Nicodemus had been right. In some corner of her soul she had already known that—she just hadn’t imagined it would be so soon. One mortal wound and she had killed him, ripped him apart and eaten him just like any other monster.

It was a strange fusion of monstrosity and humanity. She knew that elements of herself, of the Mellie she had been had faded away with the taste of his flesh, just as she knew the thing she had become on occasion wasn’t all there either. She wasn’t her, her wasn’t she. A blending of two natures. The one thing they had in common? They were both pissed off. Anger was their medium, rage their bridge. Mellie had liked River, had cared for him, the monster had cared for what was hers.

He was dead… nothing she could do for him now.

Mellie’s all-consuming red eyes turned to Nicodemus. He simply smiled, and her gaze moved to the slaughter taking place around her. River’s friends were trying so hard to save him that they had missed his death. That rage boiling inside of her found its outlet. Her mother was on the ground. Beaten, broken, bleeding. Indreas stood over her triumphantly, his fists stained with blood.

A god damn Apex who thought he could do whatever he wanted. A fucking Apex, top of the food chain. The thing to fear the most, the darkness in the night, the terror in the soul. He still wore his handsome human visage, his shell of humanity concealing what he truly was.

Mellie was going to flay the visage from him, one strip of flesh at a time.

A salivating bipedal rat stumbled into Mellie’s path. With one absent motion she plucked a rib from its body—the beast squeaked and collapsed—and she flung it at Indreas’ descending hand. It impaled his wrist, not that that appeared to bother him.

Storm-ridden eyes turned on her. Mellie smiled.

“Stay the hell away from my mother.”

“You’re supposed to be dead!” Indreas exclaimed. He sounded quite surprised. “You’re barely more than human.”

“Appearances can be deceiving.” Mellie retorted, she gave a little spin as an added flourish, “But as you can see I am quite alive.”

He took a step towards her, “That can be rectified.”

“Why?” The question caught him off guard. “If your entire issue with me was my humanity weakening my mother, than why kill me now? I’ve obviously forsaken it.” She didn’t look back at River. She couldn’t. Not again.

Indreas pondered the question, his head quirked to one side before he finally said, “Because I feel like it.”

“Or, is it because you’re such a fucking douche bag that nobody can love anyone but you?” her smile grew wicked, “That’s it right? You like to play the cool laid back card but honestly you’re a dick, and my mother could only have eyes for you? How petty and human is t—”

The air rippled in waves of heat as he moved and he miraculously appeared in front of her in the same wash of surreal motion she hadn’t seen the first time. The bloody stump of his arm limply smacked into her chest.

Indreas looked confused.

“Missing something?” Mellie asked politely, offering the remains of his arm back to him. His eyes widened, flicking between the bleeding stump and the severed limb, like he couldn’t quite comprehend what had just happened.

“You’re so fast Indreas, and so stupid to use the same move twice.”

“You—”

“Yep. Funny thing about Apex monsters, most of you like to hide what you are, who you are, because knowledge is power right? But Indreas is basically Andreas, a very Greek name. So I think Greek and I think Bacchus—” he looked confused, it might have been the blood loss, “—anyway, as we all know the Romans just ripped off the Greek gods and rebranded them, so in traditional mythology Bacchus is Dionysus. Now if we can have a monster running around with the name of an old Greek god, well why can’t we have another one? So I assume in ye olde days you probably went by Mercury or Hermes, am I right or am I right?”

“This—” he gurgled on his own blood, “—this, isn’t possible.”

“Sure it is.” Mellie mocked, “It’s possible because you are a trumped up, egotistical, narcissistic asshole whose spark is about as bright as wet tinder.”

It was Mellie’s turn to taste a monster’s blood. She slowly ran her tongue over the severed remnant of his arm. He didn’t taste half bad actually. Faster than she could think she lunged forward and sunk her teeth into that thick throat, ripped a chunk of flesh free and guzzled the blood splashing across her face. She chewed his tender meat and sighed contently.

The slaughter raging around her had drawn to a halt—frozen—as monster and humans alike took in the sight of a dead Apex. Dead at the hands of a pathetic, all too human, girl.

“Did you truly discern his nature based on one experience and a similarity in names?” Nicodemus asked wryly.

Mellie shrugged, “Sure, that. And Analyn may have let it slip when I was a kid—probably didn’t think I’d remember.”

Nicodemus laughed. It wasn’t a pleasant sound.

“River—” Madelina called out. Finally seeing his body on the ground. Her cry was closely followed by the sound of her neck breaking.

Mellie turned in a whirl of motion to see the Rat-Bitch, her hands still on Madelina’s corpse.

“Tut, tut, tut, should never turn your back.” Rat-Bitch chided. She didn’t appear the least bit concerned that Mellie had just killed an Apex.

“Do we really have to do this? Can’t we just call it a day?” Mellie asked.

“Why? The fun’s just getting started.”

The rats were still swarming the clearing, although there were clearly areas where various monsters had carved out bloody little niches to watch the rest of the festivities. Mellie noted one such area was occupied by a half dozen berserkers, she hadn’t even seen them arrive, but at their front was the big berserker casually playing whack-a-mole with any rat that strayed too close. On another side of the clearing Elyse sat upon her throne, looking contemplatively over the mayhem. Then of course there was Bacchus and Aysilu, both of whom had sauntered up to point’s equal distance from Mellie and the Rat-Bitch.

Bacchus was flanked by his Bacchii on either side. Aysilu stood alone, but her gaze was intent. Eager for what was to come next, and of course Nicodemus was still sitting at the table—Aura’s body spread out and squirming before him.

“She killed Indreas.” Aysilu stated.

Mellie had to resist the temptation to make a snide remark. She had killed an Apex—no need to get cocky, not when she was currently surrounded by them.

“I never really liked him anyway,” Bacchus remarked. His attention turned to the Rat-Queen. “I’m also not overly fond of a monster that brings a horde to dinner, rather uncivilised.”

“Her human killed one of mine.”

“And how many monsters have your children slain this day?” Aysilu pointed out.

“Oh let’s not point fingers,” Nicodemus added, a gravel to his voice, a hint of levity. “The Feast has always been an event of chaos, a place of shifting powers,” he looked towards Mellie, “we try not to hold grudges for what transpires here. In fact, it’s one of the rare occasions new Apex can rise beneath the auspices of all eyes watching.”

“What they’re dancing around saying honey,” Rat-Bitch added, “is that I’m going to rip you apart and my children are going to fuck the pieces.” Said children were swarming into place behind her.

Feet dragging in dirt, the heavy pants of an injured woman sounded behind Mellie but she didn’t break eye contact with the Rat. Not even as her mother painstakingly took a place behind Mellie—she wanted to cry, but couldn’t afford the luxury. Her mother was standing behind her, figuratively and literally. It was the boldest declaration of love she could have ever imagined—aside from the part where Analyn had hurled herself at an Apex she couldn’t possibly defeat to avenge her daughter. That had been pretty damn cool too.

“Are we choosing sides now?” the big berserker rumbled as he pushed through the mass of rats to reach Mellie. A number of ragtag, bleeding, berserker’s behind him. He smacked his fists together and cracked his neck, “Little Berserker.” He nodded happily.

“Oh fuck me,” Danny moaned. He was looking rather dishevelled. “You killed River, didn’t you?”

“I’m sorry,” Mellie offered.

“Yeah,” Danny agreed. “You will be.” He dragged himself towards the table where he took a seat a respectful distance from Nicodemus.

“If the formalities are out of the way,” Rat-Bitch asked, “shall we begin?”

The Rat Bitch took a half step towards Mellie when the damndest thing happened, her shadow moved. A flicker in the wrong direction, a tweak of one shadow followed by another. Every shadow cast from every being in that clearing bent towards the table before they snapped back into place.

Mellie’s heart soared.

There was only one monster she knew that bent shadow; that twisted darkness to her will. Mellie’s gaze turned to the table and there she was, sitting calmly beside Nicodemus. The beautiful, the exotic, the one filled with such ravenous insatiable hunger broken only by the soft curve of her dark smile.

Katie-Cam.