Sweet Venom
Page 75

“It’s our legacy as descendants of Medusa. We are the huntresses who keep the monsters in their realm and out of ours.”
Greer leans forward across the table. “No, you’re a huntress,” she says, looking only at Gretchen. “Grace and I are obviously sweet, normal girls.”
I want to take offense, but I’m thrilled that she’s found something to connect us. “But we took down that serpent crea—” I glance at Gretchen. “That sea dracaena the other night. We are huntresses.”
Greer glares at me.
Gretchen gives me a tight smile. “You’re working on it.”
“When we fought that sea whatever,” Greer says, gesturing at me, “it disappeared. One moment it was there, the next it was gone. What happened?”
“I bit it,” I explain, jumping at the chance to explain something. Glancing quickly around to make sure no one is watching, I focus on my teeth and slide my fangs down into view. I’ve been practicing. “We have fangs,” I whisper. “They inject a sweet venom that sends the monsters back to their realm.”
Greer looks like I said we cut off their heads and fry them up for breakfast. Her lips move, and I know she’s licking her tongue along her front teeth to make sure she didn’t suddenly sprout fangs.
“They’re instinctive,” I explain. “They’ll come out when you need them.”
“The venom is a one-way ticket back to their realm,” Gretchen says. “Some kind of supernatural express train.”
“That,” Greer says with a sneer, “is one of the most disgusting things I have ever heard.”
“It’s not that bad,” I say, though who am I to say? I’ve only bitten one beastie. I’d been so full of fear and adrenaline, it could have tasted like burned garbage and I wouldn’t have noticed.
Gretchen adds, “You learn to deal.”
From the look on Greer’s face, she doesn’t want to learn to deal. She wants to wake up from this terrible nightmare and pretend none of this is true. Totally understandable. It’s not as if this news is easy to digest.
“How many are there?” she asks.
“What? Monsters?” Gretchen shrugs again. “Who knows? Hundreds. Thousands. Hundreds of thousands. Your guess is as good as mine.”
“Hundreds of thousands?” Greer echoes. “Here in the city?”
“Oh no,” I hurry to say. Gretchen may be keen on scaring Greer away, but I’d like to keep her from bolting. “Not all at once. They used to get out only one at a time.” I glance at Gretchen. “But that’s changing too.”
“Everything is changing,” Gretchen says. “None of the old rules seem to apply anymore.”
“Why?” Greer asks.
“Because we’re reunited,” I say. “I moved to the city and now things are weird.”
Gretchen may not have said it out loud, but I’m sure she thinks that too. And after what Ursula told me, I must be right.
“But some of them live here?” Greer asks. “In this . . . realm. Right?”
“No,” Gretchen replies. “They can only be here temporarily.”
“But what about Harold?”
“Who’s Harold?” I ask.
“The janitor at my school,” Greer explains. “He used to be normal, or at least I used to see him as normal. Today, when I looked, he was a giant spider. And I think he always has been, and I just couldn’t see it before.”
“That makes no sense,” Gretchen says. “Haven’t you always been able to see monsters?”
Greer’s face shutters, like she’s blocking something out. “I— Just once,” she says, shaking her head. “When I was a child. But then not again until you two knocked on my door. Now it’s like nonstop monstervision.”
“That’s weird,” I say. I get the feeling she’s not telling us something. “Maybe some of them have been released. If they can get out permanently as a reward for bringing us in, then maybe they can get granted release for other things too.”
Gretchen shakes her head. “I just can’t believe I haven’t seen any of those long-term visitors before this week.”
“Maybe they stayed away from you,” I suggest, giving her a sympathetic smile. “You do have a killer reputation for monster hunting.”
The look on Gretchen’s face makes it clear she thinks the idea is ridiculous. Hey, it could happen.
“Why doesn’t anyone else see them?” Greer asks.
“We’re special that way,” Gretchen retorts.
“Monsters create a false appearance, an illusion when they’re in this realm,” I explain, throwing Gretchen a you’re-not-helping look. “Ordinary humans see them as human.”
Greer scowls. “And we’re not human?”
Right then the waitress returns with a tray of food. As she sets down plates and bowls, we sit there in silence. When we’ve assured her that everything looks great, she leaves and I let out a huge breath. I’m as eager to hear this answer as Greer is, I think.
“We are human,” Gretchen explains, stabbing a piece of broccoli tempura with her fork. “We’re just not ordinary.”
“We are descendants of Medusa and her human husband,” I add, repeating the information from the book that led me to finding Greer. “They had three half-human daughters. They in turn had three daughters, and so on until now.”