I Kill Monsters: The Revenants (Book 2) by Tony Monchinski

turning this over in his
mind, thinking maybe he’d pass the job off to Yuri or Marquis.
    “Serious like a heart attack, nigga.”
    “Damn.”
    Caprice waited a few beats, said “Gotcha!” He
leaned over the couch, high-fiving Terry, both boys laughing.
Ronald looked puzzled, asking “For real?” because he’d been for
real about his Uncle Darryl that time.
    “Oh no, you didn’t,” Luke realizing they’d
been messing with him, starting to relax himself. “That was good.”
Luke smiled but did not look happy. “That was good, Caprice, I give
you that.” He didn’t like to be made the butt of a joke.
    DeAndre put the pitcher of Kool Aid back in
the fridge, very interested in the scene.
    “Cryin’ wolf motherfucker,” Luke said it with
a smile, not saying it like he was mad, but DeAndre imagined he
was. “You watch. That shit gonna come back and haunt you one of
these days. Pass me that cheeba.”
    Caprice and Terry still laughing.
    “This Chinese food alright.” Ronald poked
around in the white container with his fork, looking for bits of
pork and other holdouts. Ronald saying it like it was okay, not
great. DeAndre passed through the room with his sandwich and drink,
tempted to tell Ronald maybe next time he should buy his own
instead of eatin’ other peoples’. Deciding it wasn’t worth it.
Nothing got through Ronald’s fat head unless it went in his
gullet.
    “Hey, shorty.” Ronald’s nose sniffed out the
grilled cheese. “Let me get a bite of that, huh?”
    “No,” said DeAndre, stepping into his room,
closing the door.
    He set his plate on the bed and sat with his
back to the wall. The metronome ticked off its beats as he ate his
sandwich. DeAndre Watkins in his room, on his bed.
    tic tic tic
    Tamarek on the wall at Kar Dap-Salam,
guarding against the Northland invasion.
    tic tic tic
    Because they were coming, the Northlanders.
Mazalan’s orcs and trolls.
    Indubitably.

 
Friday
16 October 1998

 
11.
9:17 A.M.
     
    “I am going to remove your gag,” The vampire
that said its name was Colson said to him, “but if you carry on as
you were with the Dark Lord I will immediately replace it.”
    “Don’t worry.” The gag had come out and Boone
worked his mouth. “I don’t know you fags—” He saw how the one vamp,
Pomeroy, reacted ever so slightly to the dig, confirming his
suspicions “—good enough to hate you like I hate him. Not yet I
don’t.”
    “Not yet.” Halstead was suiting up in
traditional Japanese style clothing: Kendo Bogu including a jacket
and hakama separated in the middle to form two trouser legs.
Most of the floor of the room was padded with thick mats, reminding
Boone of when he wrestled in high school.
    “Colson, Halstead, and Pomeroy.” Boone looked
the three of them over. “What are you guys, some kind of British
royalty?”
    “You don’t think Rainford is his real name.”
Halstead slipped on his Men , the helmet with a metal grill.
Boone took note of the hard leather and fabric flap that protected
the vamp’s neck.
    “What are you two?” Boone asked, Pomeroy
already similarly decked out. “Bee keepers?” He thought he heard
Pomeroy laugh.
    “Let us—” Colson ignored Boone’s taunts
“—catalog your wounds in a one week period. A broken nose, broken
back, disemboweled—” the vampire extending a finger and tapping it
in his palm for each injury, counting them out “—cast out of an
automobile window, shot multiple times—” until it ran out of
fingers. “You survived not one but two encounters
with Kreshnik—” here Pomeroy and Halstead turned their helmeted
heads to give each other a look—“and yet here you are, looking as
though you’d prefer nothing better than to burst your fetters and
have a go at the three of us at once. Does that sound about
right?”
    Boone strained against his bounds again,
testing them. “You got it.”
    “You’re going to be going into situations
where that bull-headed approach will not serve you