The One Who Eats Monsters (Wind and Shadow, #1)

by Casey Matthews

“In the Long Ago, in the time before the gods wore human flesh, I lived apart from the warmth of a beating heart. In those times I was made from wind and shadow, and I danced beneath the lesser lights across a dark earth. The moon and the stars were my roof and the depths of the seas were my cellar. I traveled the world from horizon to horizon and loved everything that I touched. “But then Man came. Man changed everything.”

“They will hurt you! They’re monsters!” It climbed to its feet. “I am the one who eats monsters.”

Though she disliked mortals as a rule, Aina had the clean scent of rain on her skin—free of the stink that oozed out the pores of the species.

“No. Not in hands. No one’s hands. No one holds me.”

They lived like a man forced to walk, never stopping, until he died.

Ryn hated elevators. They reminded her that humans didn’t enjoy the feeling of their hearts beating inside their chests. Sometimes she wondered if they enjoyed being alive at all.

“You should pass the word around. I am not like other deva. I have few rules. But I do not tolerate the stink of torture, rape, and murder, the screams of the innocent weak, or the arrogance of the evil strong. I am the monster who eats monsters, and this city is mine now. My territory, my hunting grounds.”

But they saw things in words that weren’t there, like shamans who smoked herb and stared into the sky, imagining shapes in clouds.

“I will forgive the confusion because we are not the same species. But this word. ‘No.’ You understand it?” “Uhnn.” “Remember it.”

Naomi’s fear was different. She fled the asura and trailed the musk of terror chemicals on car hoods and concrete. It wasn’t a right smell. It was ripe-things-turned-rotten, like a rain shower filled with heavy oil. It was profane.

“Tell me again what to do. I dare you.”

but made acutely aware she was an outsider; that she lived in the dark, and was only meant to watch from beyond the light’s reach.

“Nothing will harm you here.” Ryn approached carefully as the girl’s heart slowed, but fear still overwhelmed her scent. As though she were that cornered rabbit, Ryn set a hand on her shoulder and stroked it with her thumb. Not knowing any other comforting gestures, she tried some human words: “I have no interest in eating you.”

Her scent bloomed into a more acidic flavor, typical of horror-fear—familiar to Ryn from all the ways she’d taken men apart. It didn’t belong on Naomi.

Look now at me. The dark is terrible, surrounds you, and is never empty as it seems. Though monsters lurk, know this: none is hungrier than me.

I’m an unstoppable force so don’t even try to avoid it.”

In that moment, gravity didn’t own her.

This one was a monster. Which made him food.

“You okay?” Naomi asked. “Was that a frown?” “I guess.” “I don’t like them.”

“Break a rule because you understand it, though, and you are no longer a cog. You become a god.”

“O-kay.” She seemed to suck on the idea. “What do you call it when you’re halfway between a cog and god?” “Humanity.”

Maybe she doesn’t get you because you don’t fit. You’re not from her world. You’re the thing she never expected.”

“Someday she’ll figure it out, though. It’s going to be awkward and, I admit, I really want to see her face if you kiss her. It’ll be a disaster—at best, a beautiful disaster.”

Ryn didn’t know what to say or do around children. They were stuck in between being monkeys and people.

“Her soul isn’t just heavy as worlds, it’s large too. It spills onto her face. It’s in her scent and eyes and face; it cannot be ignored.”

“Let me tell you something a monster might not know. I’ve been in men and women, straights and gays, closeted and open, and everything in between. From where I’ve been sitting, you’d be surprised who wants what. Some people play their desires close as a hand of poker, and some won’t even look at their own cards. Bring her by sometime and I’ll have a closer look. Maybe she’s more interested than you know. Maybe I’ll see something you can’t.”

Ryn glared. “Hey. Relax. I’d be respectful.” The glare continued. “Well. Respectful-ish.”

“I think the point of dangerous things is to protect people who aren’t.”

Gods and beasts and alien bullets could not bow her, but one look at Naomi stole all her strength.

She’s still here. Still here, and I don’t need to fight her God to take her back.

“As you told me before… the only one who will touch you is me.”

She’d never put words to it, but she believed most humans wanted laws—to feel safe from people with the wrong amount of money, the wrong color skin, the wrong religion or thoughts or words, and so they begged for them.

“I missed one. It stood in the lightless parking deck with you. It moves through your home’s dark passages. It stands here now looking at you.” “I don’t understand.” “Yes you do.”

She wiped melted snow from her cheeks, where it seemed to have gathered, its taste too salty.

She made the girl into a living ghost—into a gaping hole in the world.

“Do you have, like, a physical list of reasons you’re not gay, because it’ll be faster if you just give me the piece of paper.”

“I want to see it all. Your eyes and your teeth.”

“You’ll run. It’s instinct, burned into your species from the time I first hunted your kind.” Swallowing, Naomi inched closer, almost to the point of touching. “Then hold me still.”

“I smell your fear.” “What else do you smell?”

“You really are both,” Naomi managed to say. “Goddess and monster.”

“Come closer. It’s okay.” She didn’t at first. “Mortals don’t do this. They flee. If I let go of you, so would you.” Heart in a vise, Naomi lifted one hand and carefully—oh so carefully—stroked Ryn’s cheek. “Then don’t let go.”

“There is a chance… a small one… that I may be slightly less straight than I thought.”

She stifled the next yawn. “It feels like the new moon. Strange.” Her face nuzzled into Naomi’s shoulder, voice muffled: “It feels right, though.”

“…out here, away from concrete… the weather obeys my heart…”

She said the weather obeys her feelings, Naomi remembered. That’s… a lot of feelings.

Ms. Cross hugged them both too and she wondered if that was family. If it was, it still tasted funny in her mouth. But maybe not completely, entirely bad.

Naomi reached for her glasses, sliding them off, and Ryn’s gaze chased her back to the headboard.