Welcome to Monsterbucks, Chapter Three

[vampyreofdeath]

Chapter three of Welcome to Monsterbucks! Which is over 11,000 words. Jesus Christ, this fucker got long. >>;

Title: Welcome to Monsterbucks
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: ~ 11,000
Genre: Supernatural/Humor
Summary: When monster take over the world, everything goes to hell and nobody knows what to do. Except Jared Ahlers. He's going to open a coffee shop.
Warnings: Unbeta'd
Notes: Um. Long.

--

Agni does not want to go back to the child’s room. In fact, he wants to forget that the child even exists and never speak of him again, because the little brat managed to best him twice, which is completely inconceivable, especially given that when most children are confronted with a monster, they’re too terrified to do anything besides wet their pants.

Unfortunately for him, however, the Underworld Council has decreed that since human belief in monsters has been declining far too rapidly as of late, all capable monsters will be assigned a child to frighten during the night for the duration of at least a year, preferably longer. And as Agni is far too stubborn and ashamed to ask for a transfer (because it would mean having to admit that he was bested by a fucking seven-year-old), he has a problem.

When he goes back on the forth night, he goes early so he can confront the boy as soon as his parents are done tucking him in for the night. He hides in the shadows for a long time before the child actually comes to bed; he sees his feet and hears him shift under the covers before settling down, and then a deep, male voice from the hall says, “Goodnight, son.”

“Goodnight, dad,” the boy answers. Then the door closes, and the room is plunged into darkness. Agni is a little surprised at the shortness of the bedtime exchange, but shrugs it off as the father being a typical show-no-emotion male and slithers up, coming to sit at the end of the bed.

“Alright, child,” he says, and notes with a bit of glee the way the boy bolts upright in shock, “I am calling a truce.”

The blond takes a moment to recover from his sudden appearance before he raises an eyebrow. “A truce?” he repeats.

“Yes.” Agni crosses his arms and glares at him, still extremely pissed that such a small, weak thing managed to find out two of his major weakness by luck and trickery. “You see, the Underworld Council-”

“The what?”

“Underworld Council,” Agni says. “It’s part of the government. Now, they have decreed-”

“Monsters have a government?” the boy asks incredulously, and Agni glares harder at him.

“Stop interrupting and let me finish! You can ask questions later!” he snaps, and the boy shuts his mouth. “Now then, as I was saying, the Underworld Council has decreed that since belief in monsters has been in rapid decline as of late, every capable monster needs to spend at least a year haunting a child during the night. That is why I am here.”

The boy blinks. “But I’m not scared of you,” he says, and Agni grits his teeth at the very unnecessary reminder.

“I know,” he hisses slowly. “But seeing as asking for a transfer to another child would heap upon me untold amounts of embarrassment and shame because it would mean having to admit that I was bested by a seven-year-old-”

“I’ll be eight in about a month,” the boy interjects cheerfully.

“Whatever! The point is, I have been bested by a child. And stop smirking!” Because he can very clearly see the way one corner of the boy’s mouth is starting to curl upwards. “So I am going to make you a deal. If you let me keep coming to your room a few times a week, I will just sit in the corner and not bother you.”

The boy’s brow furrows. “That... sounds okay,” he says slowly, like he’s still considering it. “But won’t you get bored?”

“I’d rather be bored than shame my reputation,” he answers easily. “Do we have a deal?”

The boy doesn’t say anything for a moment. Then...

“No.”

Agni stares at him. “No?”

The boy shakes his head. “No. I don’t think it’s a very fair deal.”

“Not fair?!” Agni screeches, and lunges forward, pinning the boy to the mattress with ease and grinning when he smells the sudden fear in the air. “How can I make it any more fair, child?”

The boy stares up at him in shock for a moment before his eyes narrow and he says, “You know, I rubbed garlic on my skin before I went to bed tonight.”

Agni blinks, and suddenly it registers in his mind that his hands are starting to burn like crazy, and he hisses and pulls away. His palms have become an angry pink and he rubs them furiously across the sheets, trying to get the sticky garlic residue off, all the while wanting to throw himself in front of a hearse because the child has just bested him. Again.

“What I meant was,” the boy continues as though nothing happened, although Agni thinks he can detect a slightly relieved note in his voice, “is that since I’m doing something for you, you ought to do something for me in return. Nothing big,” he adds hastily when Agni’s eyes narrow dangerously. “Just a little favor.”

Agni continues to glare but says, “What kind of favor?”

He thinks he sees the boy’s cheeks flush slightly. He reaches for something on his nightstand and picks it up before holding it out to Agni. He smiles nervously. “Will you read me a story?”

There is a very long, very heavy pause.

“A story,” Agni repeats.

The boy nods; his smile is still there, but the monster can see it’s slowly beginning to fade. He frowns, raising an eyebrow.

“Why a story?” he asks finally, and the boy’s cheeks flush darker.

“Well, it’s just... My parents are too busy working to ever stay and read to me before bed,” he explains softly, like he’s saying something he’d not quite sure he ought to. Suddenly the father’s less than warm goodnight seems a little more significant. “And I know they’re just trying to make things better and provide for us and stuff, but...” He drops his gaze to the blankets. “It’d just be nice to have one, I guess.”

Agni studies him for a long moment, not quite sure what to make of the odd request; on the one hand, he thinks it’s absolutely ludicrous and he will not demean himself by reading bedtime stories to a child he is supposed to be scaring out of his wits, but on the other, he thinks that it’s really not so much to ask, especially if his parents are too busy to be bothered with it. “Are you so not frightened of me that you actually want me to read you a story?” he asks finally.

The boy looks up and smiles, just a little. “You’re still scary,” he admits, “but not as much.”

“Why?”

He shrugs. “I know you can talk and think like me,” he says. “That makes you seem more... I dunno, like a person?”

Ah. So it’s the show of intelligence. Interesting. Agni sighs, and knows, in the back of his mind, that he really ought to say no, and find some other way of terrifying the child, but honestly, as much as Agni loves the taste and smell of fear and the thrilling rush that comes with it, he’s not all that fond of doing it to children; stupid drunken teenagers are more his thing. And this boy is... Intriguing. Agni has never met a child that hasn’t been scared of him before.

So he sighs. And slumps his shoulder in defeat. “Alright,” he says. “It’s a deal.”

The boy smiles brightly. “Really?” he says, like he can’t quite believe it.

“Really,” Agni says, then moves up the length of the bed to perch next to the boy. “What would you like me to read?”

“This.” He holds out a book, which Agni takes and looks at. The cover says The Bad Beginning; it’s paperback and too thick to be a quick read. He frowns.

“This is a chapter book,” he says. “I thought I only had to do this for one night.”

“You do,” the boy says. “I just want you to read a chapter.”

“Oh.” He opens the book to the place where it’s been bookmarked. “Have you read this far by yourself?” he asks, curious.

The boy beams, nodding. “I read at a sixth grade level,” he says proudly.

Well that explains the uncanny shows of intelligence for a child, at least. Agni opens his mouth to begin reading when the child touches his arm. He jumps slightly at the sudden contact. “What?”

The boy’s cheek flush again. “Could you... Maybe light your hair on fire again?” he says quietly. “That was really cool.”

Agni blinks. Sighs. Closes his eyes. Concentrates.

He hears the boy gasp when the tar-like strands ignite, and opens his eyes to find blue eyes looking up at him in awe. He feels the corner of his mouth twitch, but squashes the urge to smile and reminds himself that he’s only doing this so he won’t have to make a fool of himself by getting transferred. Then he begins to read.

“Klaus stayed up all night reading, which was normally something he loved to do...”

--

Agni does not go back to the boy’s room for another few days, even though he kind of wants to. He’s not really sure why, and tries to chalk it up to being rather interested in the book the boy had him read, because it was actually quite depressing and rather delightful, but he knows that’s not it. It’s the child. He’s...

Interesting.

The monster doesn’t really know what else to call him; intelligent, perhaps, but that doesn’t encompass all of him. Brave might be part of it, if the fact that the child is not scared of him is anything to go by, but that isn’t quite it either. It settles obnoxiously in his mind and even though Agni tries not to think about him, he can’t help it.

Eccentric, he decides after two whole days of his thoughts always wandering back to the child. A random collection of the quirks that make people who they are, compiled in one small child that makes him something unlike anything Agni has ever seen before, and being as old as he is, that’s saying quite a lot.

On the fourth day, he decides to go back.

The first thing he notices in the room when he breaks free of the shadows is that, despite the late hour, there’s still a small amount of light; he guesses that the child is up reading, or, possibly, waiting for someone. Him, perhaps. Slowly, he climbs up the shadows against the wall, materializing as he does so, eyes landing almost immediately on the small blond, who is propped against his headboard, book in hand.

Agni makes a soft cough, and the boy jumps in surprise.

“You came back,” he says, voice surprised.

“I said I would, didn’t I?” Agni retorts, but it comes off as far less biting than he would like it to be.

“Well, yeah, but you didn’t show up for a few days, so I thought... Maybe you had decided to switch kids after all.”

Letting out a loud snort, Agni shifts his body and lands cross-legged on the end of the bed. “And let the entire Underworld know that I was bested by a human child? Not likely.” He glares at the boy. He doesn’t even flinch. It’s rather unnerving.

“So... What are you going to do all night?” he asks, and Agni sighs.

“Probably sit here and watch you until you fall asleep,” he admits, and can’t help the small smile the tugs at his lips when the boy recoils, just a little.

“That kind of creepy,” he says.

“Do you have any better suggestions?”

“Well...” The boy looks around, and Agni follows his gaze. The room is small, and doesn’t have a lot in it; a dresser against the opposite wall, a nightstand next to the bed, a small bookcase next to that. He sees some clothes piled up in a corner and a few toys scattered about the floor, one a stuffed animal, one an action figure, and one a box for a children’s science experiment kit. It looks surprisingly sparse for a child’s room, and he can’t help but turn to look at the boy again, one eyebrow raised.

The boy meets his gaze before flushing and looks down. “My mom makes me clean my room every week,” he says by way of explanation. “And I like reading better than I like toys.”

“I see.” His eyes find their way to the book currently resting against the boy’s lap. “What are you reading now?”

“What? Oh.” The boy picks up the book and holds it out, showing the cover to him. The Reptile Room, it says. “It’s the next in the Series of Unfortunate Events.” Agni stares at him blankly. “The sequel to the one you were reading to me the other night,” he explains.

“Oh.” A pause. Then, “There are more of those?”

“Yeah. Thirteen in all.”

“Really?”

“Uh-huh.” There’s another small pause, and then the boy’s cheeks go pink again. “You could... Maybe you could read to me again? Since, you know, you don’t have anything else to do?”

Agni blinks.

He shouldn’t. He knows he shouldn’t, because if he reads to the child again, he might read the next night, and the night after that, and eventually, unfathomably, even become attached to the thing. If anyone ever found out, Agni’s reputation would be ruined forever.

But at the same time, the look on the boy’s face is, in some odd way, kind of heart-breaking, and it really was quite an interesting book.

So he sighs. And moves forward until he’s sitting next to the boy. “Give me the book,” he grumbles, and has to work very, very hard to keep his face expressionless when the boy’s face lights up like Christmas tree and he smiles.

“What’s your name?” he asks, and Agni blinks again.

“Why?” he responds.

“Well, if you’re gonna be here for a whole year, you could at least tell me your name,” the blond says, very matter-of-fact. “Or do you not have one?”

Agni doesn’t answer right away, debating internally the merits of staying nameless and having the boy do the same (because really, once names get involved, there’s no going back), or conceding that he has a point. Not that he has a problem with him just remaining ‘the boy’, but he has to admit, it probably would get rather old after awhile.

So he gives in, because he’s been doing a lot of that lately; why break the streak now? “It’s Agni,” he says.

The boy grins. “Jared,” he replies. “Agni?”

“What?”

“Thanks for reading to me.” He ducks his head a little and though he can’t see for sure, Agni imagines that he’s probably flushing again. “No one’s ever really done it for me before.”

“Not even your parents?” the monster asks, before he can stop himself.

“They did a little when I was younger,” Jared answers, “but they don’t have time now. Too busy with work.”

It seems like he should say something, but while Agni is apparently somewhat more spineless than he had previously thought, he draws the line at being comforting. Monsters just don’t do that sort of thing. So instead he makes a noncommittal noise and opens the book. “Where should I begin?” he asks.

“I just started the first chapter,” Jared replies. “So we can read from the beginning.”

Agni does, and ends up reading through four chapters before he registers a heavy weight against his side and looks down to see that the boy has fallen asleep, curled up next to him, looking peaceful and content.

It really ought to make Agni feel disgusted, which is does, kind of, but not nearly as much as it ought to, which is very, very unnerving.

And also, in the most odd way that he has ever felt, kind of nice.

He sighs.

He thinks he’ll kill some poor unsuspecting puppy on the way home to make up for it.

--

The rest of the week passes uneasily. As much as Jared would (somewhat) like to dismiss the idea that a global monster takeover is in the works, he can’t help thinking that there may be a higher chance of it happening than not.

On Tuesday, he goes to the normal grocery store to pick up cereal and sandwich fixings; while he’s there, he passes by a very poorly disguised crocodile-bird hybrid that vaguely resembles Killer Croc pushing an entire cart full of various raw meat products toward the checkout. He has to do a double take, partly because he’s never seen a monster buy their meat before, and partly because what the hell kind of idiot forgets to hide their tail?

Wednesday is relatively uneventful, apart from a call from Jess asking if he’s free this weekend because they have a local job. He accepts, and spends the rest of the day making lattes and frappucinos, and nothing really happens except he notices that the glass doll that sometimes comes by seems quite a bit more cheerful than normal (or not; he’s assuming so because she orders a venti mocha instead of a tall, but honestly, he doesn’t know. It’s very hard to read the emotions of a doll).

Thursday is just plain weird. He works the early shift that day and decides to spend some time in the park afterwards, but once he gets there, there’s an entire congregation of were-people listening to a make-shift concert being done by a siren. It’s extremely disconcerting, and for several minutes all Jared can do is stare at them, slack-jawed, until a were-cat finally demands to know what his problems is, to which Jared demands to know what the hell they’re all doing out of the Underworld. The were-cat is stunned, but the were-mole next to her just grins at him evilly and hisses that he’ll find out.

Jared leaves hastily after that. Were-moles always creep him out.

--

On Friday he has to work another early shift, but once he’s done he heads over to Jeepers Creepers, Inc. Jess nearly pounces on him once he arrives.

“You’re not gonna believe this one,” she almost squeals as she drags him into her office. Donnie and Ruth, another team member, are already starting to haul equipment to the van, both smiling and nodding at Jared as they pass. He makes an attempt to ask how they are, but Jess pulls him away before he can, shoving him into her office and closing the door loudly behind her. Jared’s never seen her so excited.

“What’s going on?” he asks.

“This.” She picks up a small recording device on her desk and hits the play button. For a minute or so, there’s nothing but static. Then-

“We’re coming!”

Jared starts so badly he hits the wall behind him. The recording keeps playing, the words repeating over and over, getting softer each time they do so, and always under a layer of static, but Jesus Christ. He’s never heard a sound so clearly on a recording before.

“Who... Who gave you that?” he asks warily, staring at the device like he’s not quite sure he can trust it. Which he’s not.

“Mrs. Jennifer Fitzgerald.” Sitting down at her desk, Jess begins clicking away madly at her computer. “She said that last week she noticed some odd activity happening in their attic-moved boxes, unusually cold, oppressive feeling in the shoulders, the whole shebang. So she called me to set up an appointment and I told her to set that-” she points at the recorder “-up in the attic overnight. When she played it back the next day, that was on it.”

Jared raises an eyebrow. “And you’re sure it wasn’t one of her kids or something?”

“She says she didn’t tell anyone else what she was doing because she was afraid of scaring her kids and her husband is a major skeptic,” she replies smoothly.

“... Okay, but that doesn’t-”

“Yeah, I know, it sounds like it’s a fake, but Jared, I am telling you-this woman was terrified when she called me.” She leans back in her chair and smiles, half smug, half sympathetic. “She said she’s even had a paranormal experience herself-apparently she used to be into this kind of thing back in college-but it wasn’t anything like this. This... This could be it.”

Jared frowns. “Was there any reason for a ghost to be in the attic?” he asks.

“Not that they know of.” She leans forward, scrolling down the computer screen. “The house is only about twenty years old and they’re only the second owners. The first ones moved to California about six years back.”

An unpleasant feeling settles between Jared’s shoulder blades. If the recording isn’t a fake and there’s no reason for a ghost to be in the house, that means it’s something much more malevolent. Probably a wraith or spectre, more monster than spirit. Jared always hates dealing with those. They’re not harmless like ghosts and they don’t give him the same respect that most of the monsters do.

“Sounds promising,” he manages to force out, not wanting to burst Jess’s bubble. He knows how long she’s been waiting for something like this to happen.

“I know,” she replies wistfully. “So we’re supposed to set up on Sunday night and come back on Monday afternoon; the house is just in one of the suburbs outside the city. You still in?”

He’s not quite sure why they need him; three people is plenty for setting up. But he doesn’t say anything because he suspects that she’s just trying to share the experience with him, and he wants to check out the house and see if it is indeed something more malicious than a ghost, because if it is he’s sure as hell not leaving it there to torment that poor family.

“Yeah,” he says. “I’m in.”

--

It’s not a wraith. Or a spectre. Or even a ghost.

Actually, that could be a lie. It’s just that Jared doesn’t know what the hell it is, because it won’t come out of hiding.

He knows it’s there. As they set up the recorders and the video cameras, he can feel the familiar tingles running up and down his spine and the weight that seems to settle in his chest; he can even hear a faint whispering that comes from nowhere and everywhere. But he can’t actually see the damn thing because it’s point blank refusing to let him.

“Come on,” he hisses out of the corner of his mouth as he takes a horribly long amount of time setting up a camera in the corner. “Look, I don’t care what you are, or what the hell you’re doing here, or why you’ve chosen to haunt this family. I’m not even going to ask you to appear on camera. Just let me see you.”

It giggles maliciously. Wait and see, little human it whispers against his ear, and Jared has to grit his teeth against the urge to scream in frustration, because that’s the only thing it’s been saying all damn night and he’s starting to get royally pissed.

“Fuck you,” he growls back at it, and it just giggles again.

“Jared?”

He jumps and whips around to see Jess standing just a few feet behind him, looking rather concerned. “Everything okay here?” she asks warily.

“What? Y-yeah, fine, just...” He makes a vague gesture at the camera, cheeks turning faintly pink at having been caught. “Stupid fucker wasn’t working right. I had to do some adjusting.”

“Oh.” She smiles a little. “Well, everything else is set up already.” A shiver visibly runs through her, and it just makes her smile more. “Can you feel it?” she breathes, looking around the room in a sort of awe.

The entity giggles again. Jared swears he’s going to kill himself just so he can come back and punch its stupid lights out. “Yeah,” he answers, trying hard to keep the annoyance from his voice. “Think this might be the one, Jess?”

She shivers again. “We can only hope,” she says softly.

--

Downstairs, Mrs. Fitzgerald, the client, is filling out the standard paperwork. Her husband is sitting in an armchair, pretending to read a newspaper but really glaring at each of them for several minutes at a time before moving on to the next person. Apparently he thinks his wife needs to be committed.

One of the their two daughters, Laura, is sitting next to her mother, clutching a large stuffed cat. She looks scared, and keeps glancing up at her mother, opening her mouth, then closing it and looking down at the ground. According to Mrs. Fitzgerald, she was in the attic when an unseen hand grabbed her from behind.

He frowns. Poor kid. She must be terrified.

“What kind of results can we expect this screening to bring?” Mrs. Fitzgerald asks once she’s done, handing the documents over to Ruth.

“Well, this is just a standard screening, so all we’ll be searching for at this point is proof that there are really ghosts here. Not that we don’t believe you,” Jess says quickly at the woman’s affronted look. “This is just standard procedure. What we’ll be looking for in your case is more what kind of spirit might be inhabiting your house.”

“I think it’s pretty obvious that it’s malevolent,” Mrs. Fitzgerald says, and Laura makes a small, frightened noise. Jess smiles reassuringly.

“You’d think so, but not necessarily. Often times spirits that seem malevolent are really just trying to get your attention because they have something they want to tell you. In this case, it’s very possible that something happened in the house or possibly the land it was built on that’s caused a disturbance, and the ghost just wants to make its presence known.”

Mrs. Fitzgerald frowns. “I hardly think that a spirit that just wanted attention would shout ‘We’re coming!’”

Donnie chuckles. “With all due respect, Mrs. Fitzgerald, we are professionals. I think we’d know a little bit more about this than you would.”

“Still, if you feel unsafe, then I would recommend simply staying out of the attic,” Jess says. “You said there hadn’t been any activity anywhere else in the house, correct?” The woman shakes her head. “Then you should be safe.” She pauses, then adds, “Are you religious at all?”

“We try,” Mrs. Fitzgerald says. “My job sometimes makes it difficult, though.”

“That’s alright. Just as long as you’re a believer. Many times people have said that they’ve been able to repel malevolent ghosts by calling on the power of their Lord, so if for whatever reason you feel unsafe, I recommend saying a prayer.”

“What kind of prayer?” Laura pipes up.

“Any kind; just let God know that you’d like some help.” Jess smiles at her. “I know lots of children like to keep a picture of Jesus near their bed so they can feel better when they go to sleep.”

Laura’s eyes go wide and she tugs at her mother’s sleeve. “Can we do that, mommy? Please?”

Her mother smiles. “Of course, sweetie. We’ll do whatever it takes to make you feel safe.”

Laura beams at her.

“Is there anything else you’d like to discuss before we leave?” Jess asks.

Mrs. Fitzgerald frowns, but after a moment, she shakes her head. “No, I think that’s enough for now.” She smiles hesitantly. “Thank you so much for doing this.”

All the teams members smile at her. “It’s our pleasure,” Ruth says.

They leave soon after, Jess nearly quivering in excitement next to him on the ride back. “This is the one,” she says softly. “I can feel it, Jared; this is going to be our big break!”

“Yeah,” he agrees, trying to sound enthusiastic. Really, he feels ill.

--

The problem as Agni sees it, is that for some reason, monsters seem to think that he is an excellent Haunter, when he really isn’t at all.

Actually, that’s a lie. Monsters think Agni is an excellent Haunter because he managed to Haunt the same person for ten years, which labels him as a master, because surely only the scariest, most dedicated monsters are able to stick with someone for that long.

Agni counts his lucky stars that his status and the general aura of fear and authority he emits has kept anyone from looking too closely at his records, because if they did, they’d see that he never actually managed to bring in any fear, because his child was never actually scared of him. And seeing as Agni has a reputation to keep, that would be a very bad thing indeed.

On the other hand, he kind of wishes they would look at his records, because then they wouldn’t think he was such an excellent Haunter anymore and they would stop bothering him while he’s trying to work.

“For the last time, no!” he snaps at the terrified looking messenger from the Council, who looks as if he might wet himself in terror at any given moment,

“But sir-” he squeaks, and Agni growls.

“No,” he says firmly. “I don’t care how much the Council is willing to pay, or how much vacation time I’ll get, or how big a promotion I’ll get, or how much it will boost public morale, I am not doing it. I stayed with my original child as long as I did because I could, but right now, I’m up to my neck in paperwork and riots and I don’t have time to haunt a fucking child!”

“But-”

“Out!” he roars, and hurls a paperweight at the messenger, who shrieks in terror and flees.

Agni stills for a minute, resisting the urge to blow his desk up and taking deep, calming breaths. It doesn’t really work, but after pinching the bridge of his nose and convincing himself that yes, murdering the Council is in fact a crime and no, it will not give him any real satisfaction, he sighs and goes back to his paperwork.

A few hours later, there’s a tentative knock on his office door. “Go away,” he growls without looking up.

There’s a muffled squeak, and the door open to reveal Gretel, his secretary.

He sighs. “Gretel, I told you, I don’t want anyone bothering me today.”

“Yes, I know sir, it’s just...” She squeaks again. “I didn’t think it would be very wise to turn away a Council member.”

Agni raises an eyebrow. “A Council member,” he says.

“Um, yes sir.”

“Which one?”

“Augustus Diabolo, sir.”

“Jesus Christ,” Agni breaths. “Alright, fine. Send him in.”

Gretel squeaks and leaves, coming back a few minuets later with a tea tray and a tall, proud looking vampire following her.

“Mr. Ravana,” the vampire says, smile broad and charming. “How nice to-”

“I’m not doing it,” Agni says flatly, and Diabolo’s face falls instantly. Gretel sets down the tea tray and leaves hurriedly. Agni looks at it. Diabolo has tea. He has Goblin Brandy disguised as tea. Hecate bless that girl.

“Now, Mr. Ravana,” Diabolo says, taking a seat. “I know you’re not keen on our proposal-”

“Really.” He takes a gulp of brandy, relishing in the burn.

“-but the Council really feels that your Haunting could help the current state of affairs-”

“You mean the rampant anarchy?”

Diabolo frowns. “If that’s the way you see it.”

Agni rolls his eyes. “Why can’t you just drop this?” he asks. “I’ve already made it very clear to the Council my feelings on the matter.”

“We know,” Diabolo says, sounding weary. “And we also still believe you are wrong-”

“Because all those riots have obviously been completely random and isolated incidents,” he counters, voice dripping with sarcasm.

Diabolo frowns. “The riots haven’t been that bad-”

“That bad?!” Agni shrieks. “That bad?! We had to subdue the entire fucking city of Duhollow last week! For Jack’s sake, I had to arrest Anton Nachzehrer, do you have any idea how fucking hard that was?!”

Diabolo opens with mouth, then blinks. “Really? Anton Nachzehrer?”

“Yes, and I almost lost my arm in the process,” he snaps, holding up the appendage. Stitches run around the entire circumference, securing it in place; the nerves still haven’t fully reconnected, so he can’t do much with it besides wiggle his fingers. It’s highly annoying.

Diabolo winces. “Yes, uh... That looks very painful. But I assume you’ve been put on desk duty until you heal properly, and as Haunting doesn’t require-”

“I am not doing any Haunting!” he yells. “Mother of Hecate, why can’t you idiots get that through your heads?!”

“But you were such a good-”

“I wasn’t good!” he snaps. “You want to know a secret? I only managed to stay with my child as long as I did because he was mentally unstable!” It’s not strictly a lie; Jared wasn’t exactly the most sane person in the world.

“It doesn’t matter!” Diabolo insists. “The public thinks you’re amazing, and if you just take it up again-”

“No.”

“Agni.” Diabolo sounds like he’s halfway between blowing up and having a nervous breakdown. “Please. The more public figures that help us, the better the chances are of calming the public down.”

“It’s not going to work.”

“I know,” Diabolo says, and Agni raises an eyebrow. He was under the impression the Council was still in denial. “I know, and the Council knows, but we have to do everything we can to stop it anyway because that’s our job. And we need all the help we can get. Look, I know you don’t want money, or a vacation, or a promotion, but we’re prepared to give you whatever you want. Just please. Do this.” He swallows thickly, looking pained. “We’re begging you.”

Agni’s eyebrows shoot up and he stares a little. He’s never heard a monster with any pride left beg for something. Which means the Council doesn’t.

Diabolo continues to look at him, and eventually, Agni sighs and pinches the bridge of his nose, unable to believe he’s about to do this. “We need more police,” he says finally. “There aren’t going to be enough when this rebellion happens and we won’t be able to control the masses. The humans will be overrun before we can help them.”

A sliver of a smile appears on Diabolo’s face. “How many?”

“At least another fifty for each unit. Preferably as many as a hundred.”

The vampire smiles slowly. “Done.” He stands, then pauses. “Thank you.”

Agni shakes his head. “Just get those damn troops ready,” he says irritably, and Diabolo nods and leaves.

As soon as he leaves, Agni groans and presses the heels of his palms over his eyes. “Jesus Christ,” he hisses and grabs the brandy, downing the rest of it in one go.

--

“I need you to cover my shift this afternoon,” he tells Meredith on Monday morning.

“Why?”

“Because that case we had over the weekend? We got results. Scary results.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean that the damn things actually showed up on the recording this time. And the video. In a tangible form.”

He can see her frowning in his mind’s eye. “I thought you said they didn’t do that.”

“They don’t. That’s why I need to be there.”

He hears her sigh. “You owe me for this,” she says, and he smiles.

“Lunch is on me next time?”

“Deal.”

--

The thing is, Agni really, really doesn’t want to take up child haunting again. Because the last time he did, it ended so badly that he spent an entire week locked in his apartment, drowning his sorrows in cheap booze, and when he finally did decide to return to the world of the unliving, he refused to say more than ten words at a time to anyone and glared so much that his brow just stuck that way. For over a year.

Granted he knows the chances of landing another kid like Jared are near impossible, but still. It’s not an experience he wants to repeat.

But he also doesn’t want to lose his job, and since he has never and will never tell anyone exactly what transpired with Jared, ever, he can’t use it as a viable excuse for coping out, so he’s pretty much screwed. Because he really doesn’t want to scare a kid, mostly because if the invasion is going to happen (which it is, whatever the Council may try to tell the masses), they really should be getting humans used to the idea of living with ghouls as their neighbors, not trying to scare the living crap out of them in a pointless endeavor to delay the inevitable. It’s really not fair to the children.

Actually, he thinks that he could probably use that excuse and have a chance of getting away with it, but that would also involve admitting that he is not, in fact, a giant dick and that he actually does care about the well-being of children, and there’s just no way in hell that’s happening. And he wasn’t lying when he said they needed those troops. So yeah. Still screwed.

Moping about it, however, isn’t going to help. So even though he would really rather just stay home and spend the evening reading Coraline for the hundredth time, the Friday following his meeting with the Diabolo, he forces himself to put on a neutral face and go to the International Haunters Association Regional Headquarters to receive his assignment.

“American child, female, eight years old,” the secretary at the front desk tells him. “She hates spiders and worms, feels overshadowed by her older sister and thinks geese are evil. There’s no real record of her fears because they didn’t spend a lot of time on observation, so you’ll just have to make it up as you go.”

“Didn’t know there was protocol to follow for scaring,” he comments idly, taking the folder she hands him and pretending to read what’s inside.

“Things have changed since your last assignment,” she explains, two eyes roving to look at him while the other four stay focused on her paperwork. “Scaring them as much as possible is top priority. Kids don’t scare as easily nowadays with whatever their parents expose them to over there, so focusing in on their biggest phobias is the only way to keep the fear potent enough. Ideally we like to have as much information on them as possible so we can personalize the experience, but with the riots and the new Haunters coming in so fast, there hasn’t been time.”

“Mmm.” He flips the folder closed. “Well, she’s only eight. Shouldn’t be too difficult.”

She snorts a little; it makes a disgusting, mucus-filled noise. “That’s what they all say,” she mutters quietly, then gives him a fake smile. “Good luck.”

He nods before walking away from the desk and towards the portal wing of the building, noting that it’s much busier than it was when he first started haunting Jared. He hands a tired looking assistant his folder, and she directs him to the far end of the hall. There, he has to wait for a slime monster and a harpy to go through before it’s his turn.

“Have fun,” says the warlock manning the portal as he shifts it for Agni’s child, and the monster just nods.

--

It looks much like a typical young girl’s room; he can tell that just looking out from under the bed. Pale wood furniture, brightly colored pastel walls (green, he thinks), white molding, stuffed animals on a book shelf that is surprisingly packed. He allows himself to slither up from the depths and take form, kneeling at the base of the bed before peaking over the edge.

The girl is asleep, but she seems to sense something is in the room because even as he watches, her brow furrows and she mumbles something indistinct. Her arm curls around a worn looking stuffed rabbit at her side, and Agni feels himself frown.

He really doesn’t want to do this, not only because he can’t see the point but because it just doesn’t seem fair anymore. And what’s more, other monsters may need their scare fix, but Agni is a member of the UPD; he manages to scare more than enough people in the few brief forays to earth he inevitably has to make every year to catch rogue criminals. There really isn’t any good reason for him to be here.

But he can’t back out now. So he sighs, moves onto the mattress and leans over, fingers curling around a shoulder and gently shaking her awake.

Slowly, she begins to stir, eyes blinking groggily as she mumbles some unintelligible noise. Her eyes move toward Agni, and for a moment, they settle on him with an odd kind of curiosity, like she can’t decide if what she’s seeing is real or not. Then, suddenly, they snap wide open with horror.

It is at this point that Agni decides he’s sick of this bullshit and the Council can go fuck itself on a pike.

“Hello,” he says pleasantly, though avoids smiling because he knows that will just add insult to injury. “My name is Agni Ravana, and I will be haunting you for the next few months or so due to an unfortunate decision made by my government. I realize that you are probably terrified of me, which is to be expected-I have been known to make grown men soil themselves in fear, after all-but rest assured I am not here to hurt you. Point in fact, beyond causing involuntary terror via what must seem to you like my grotesque appearance, I don’t even want to scare you.” He snaps his fingers and a pile of paper materializes next to him. “So if you’ll allow me, I think I’ll just sit at your desk and do paperwork all night.”

The girl just stares at him in shock for a moment. Then she makes some horrible, high-pitched shrieking noise, screams, “Mommy!” and jumps from the bed, running into the hallway.

Agni watches her go, then shrugs and settles down at the desk to start in on his paperwork.

The girl and her mother return a few minutes later, the younger pointing at the desk and babbling, “Look, look, it’s right there, it’s got grey icky skin and yellow eyes and, and-”

“Abby, for the last time, there is nothing there,” the mother says tiredly. “Monsters don’t exist, and even if they did I highly doubt they would have to do paperwork.” She sighs and drags the unwilling girl back into her room. “Now, go back to sleep. Mommy has an important meeting in the morning and she needs her rest.”

“But, but-”

“No buts, Abby. If you feel scared, just bury yourself under the covers. Monsters can’t get you if you’re under the covers.”

“But-”

“Abby,” the mother says sternly, glaring at her. “Go. To. Sleep.”

And she stalks off, leaving the poor, terrified girl in the middle of her bedroom, quaking in fear. She stares at Agni for a few moments, eyes still wide in fear before bursting into tears and diving for the cover of her blankets, burrowing into them as much as she can. Her muffled sobs echo quietly through the room.

Agni sighs, shakes his head, and begins working on the arrest warrants.

--

“This is insane,” Donnie says as they sit in the Fitzgerald’s living room, watching the video recording from the attic for the fifth time. Black, smokey shapes have been moving in and out of the frame for the past several hours of playback. Jared doesn’t even want to think about what’s on the sound recording that’s still up there. “I’ve never seen anything like this before.”

“I know.” He can hear the excitement in Jess’s voice. “Jesus-Look at that!”

Something moves across the screen, and for a split second, Jared thinks he might see a grinning face, which makes him extremely nervous. It’s definitely some kind of spectre, and if they don’t get rid of it soon, chances are it’ll start physically attacking the family.

“What do you think it is?” Mrs. Fitzgerald asks. She stands behind them, looking tired and scared.

“We don’t know; we’ve never encountered a spirit this like before.” Jess turns back to look at her, smiling. “But we’re going to ask around, contact some other agencies, do some research, and hopefully we’ll get an answer.”

Mrs. Fitzgerald smiles weakly in response. “What should we do in the meantime?” she asks. “My girls-well, Laura’s terrified, anyway.”

“I would just stay out of the attic for now. On the very off chance that something does happen, you might consider carrying a cross with you; just a small one.” Jess turns back and looks at Jared. “Can you go get the rest of the equipment while Donnie packs up what we’ve already got? I just want to ask Mrs. Fitzgerald a few more questions.”

“Yeah, sure.” He gets up, shoulders feeling heavy with the weight of knowledge he can’t share. On the way up the stairs, he folds his fingers over the homemade garlic mace in his pocket (he carries it in case some rogue monster decides to attack; one good squirt to the face is all it takes to send them screaming into the night), feeling comforted by its presence. He knows that ghosts are in a different class than monsters, but spectres are somewhere in between; he hopes that this will help.

When he gets to the attic, he starts spritzing everywhere; over the boxes and on the window panes, on the walls and over the floor. He grabs the remaining equipment and sets it in a pile by the door while he works, banking on Jess taking a long time with her questions for this not to look too suspicious.

He’s just finished when a voice from behind asks, “What are you doing?”

He starts, whipping around. A girl is standing in the doorway, staring at him like he’s crazy. She looks similar to Laura, but younger and much less frightened. Jared flushes.

“I’m, um... Spritzing the area with garlic spray,” he says. Telling the truth to a child doesn’t hurt near as much as telling it to an adult.

She makes a face. “Why?”

“To make your sister feel better. I know she’s been kind of scared about what’s been happening up here and whenever I was scared as a kid, I was told that garlic kept the monsters away.”

He smiles, walking toward her, but she continues to look at him like he’s an idiot. It’s very demeaning.

“But monsters aren’t real,” she says as he begins picking up the equipment. “Laura’s just being dumb. And so is my mom.”

Jared smiles. “Are you sure?”

“Uh, duh.” She glares at him. “What kind of idiot believes in monsters? They’re just stories that adults make up to scare kids into behaving.”

He chuckles. She kind of reminds him of himself, back when he had to pretend monsters didn’t exist. “Oh, I don’t know,” he says, playing along. “It’s kind of hard not to believe in monsters when you’ve seen them for yourself.”

She gives him a look that says she thinks he’s full of crap. “I’ve seen ghost hunting shows on TV,” she says. “All that stuff is made up.”

“Oh, I’m not talking about ghosts.” He turns to look at her, putting on a serious face. “I used to have a monster under my bed.”

Another raised eyebrow and a ‘you’re-full-of-crap’ look. “Really?”

“Oh yeah.” He stands up, smiling. “His name was Agni; we had lots of fun together.”

The eyebrow drops quite suddenly and her eyes get really wide, like she’s just seen something she’s not supposed to believe, and she opens her mouth but at the same second, Jess calls from downstairs. “Jared?”

“Coming!” he shouts back, then grins at the girl. “Amazing, isn’t it? Think about that next time you don’t believe.”

He goes back downstairs, feeling a bit better than he did when he came up. It’s always fun to tell kids what he could never tell adults. “Ready to go?” Jess asks when she sees him, and he grins.

“Let’s get back and bust this thing wide open,” he says, and she laughs.

--

The worst of encounters happens when Jared’s walking home that Monday night. He stayed late at Jeepers Creepers, Inc. to help go over the video and sound recordings (those screeches are going to haunt his nightmares), but in the end, they couldn’t make much of them besides the fact that there’s definitely something there and it was coming; for what, the others could only guess at and Jared could only half hope was true and half hope it wasn’t. Jess sent them all home after eleven, declaring that they’d have to take another look at it tomorrow.

It’s late, so it’s quiet, which makes the scream he hears pierce though the night like a Siren’s call. For a moment he can only whip around wildly, wondering if he actually heard anything or if it was only in his head, and then it sounds again, closer this time. He swears and runs toward where he thinks it’s coming from, not entirely sure what he’s doing.

It only takes a few moments for the screaming girl, running like mad, to cross his path. He opens his mouth to say something, but before he can a large figure, black and white and fanged pounces on her from above. She falls to the ground, still screaming, and the thing laughs wickedly and Jared barely has time to think before he’s whipping out his homemade garlic mace and running toward them.

“Hey!” he yells, and the thing-a vampire, he guesses-looks up and bares its fangs and Jared presses the little spray nozzle and the next moment the thing is screaming, rolling off the girl and writhing on the ground. The blond hovers over him, spraying again and again and it keeps screaming, its horrible cries echoing in the empty night, until finally Jared steps back and it flees, holding its face, melted flesh dripping through its fingers, the horrible smell of burning skin lingering in the air.

Jared stares after it, jaw slack. “Jesus Christ,” he whispers. “What the fuck is going on?”

Behind him, something whimpers, and he turns back to see the girl still on the ground but sitting up, eyes wide and terrified. “That... That was...” She swallows thickly, trembling. “I... I was at bar and he asked to buy me a drink and... And...”

Jared coughs, cheeks flushing because he knows what he’s about to do is really mean, but what girl needs memories of the blood-crazed vampire attacking her in the middle of the night? “Um, yeah. Some guys are just jerks aren’t they?” He laughs nervously and helps her up, brushing the dirt off her clothes. “My friend Meredith has bastards coming after her all the time; they just don’t know how to take no for an answer.”

She turns to look at him sharply. “But that wasn’t... I mean, he wasn’t human! ... Was he?”

She sounds uncertain and terrified, and Jared feels really guilty. “Looked pretty human to me,” he says, trying to sound nonchalant. “But you know, sometimes guys will slip things into your drinks to make you more, um... Agreeable. And you said he bought you a drink, right? So that’s probably what happened.”

She looks at him, then looks back at where the vampire fled into the night. “But...”

“Look, you’re obviously terrified,” he says. “And people tend to see things when they’re scared, and you could be drugged. So believe me when I say that was a totally normal guy. I mean, apart from the fact that he was a giant dick that wanted to... Yeah.” He clears his throat loudly. “So, um. I’ll call a taxi, and uh, you... You can go home and just... Just sleep it off. Okay?”

She doesn’t answer right away, still staring out into the night, but after a moment she shakes her head and smiles at him shakily. “Yeah,” she agrees. “I... Thank you. For saving me.”

He smiles back. “My pleasure.”

He calls a taxi, and pays for the fare when it comes. He can’t really afford it but the poor girl’s been through enough tonight; he’s not going to make her foot the bill.

The rest of the walk back to his apartment seems to take forever, and by the time he opens his front door, he’s exhausted. He barely manages to kick off his shoes and make it into his bedroom without collapsing, and he only bothers taking off his shirt before climbing under the covers and settling down.

His last thought before he falls asleep is, God I hope this crap blows over soon.

His last subconscious thought is, God I hope this is really happening.

--

Several months have passed since Jared agreed to let Agni stay in exchange for bedtime stories, and the monster thinks he might be growing rather attached to the blond, which makes him simultaneously happy and disgusted with himself, because becoming attached to the child you are supposed to be terrifying beyond their wits on a nightly basis is, quite frankly, unheard of. And Agni, who is supposed to be a horrifying monster that can make grown men tremble and wet themselves, does have a reputation to uphold, and he tells himself this quite often, usually as he’s passing through the shadows and making his way to Jared’s room.

He finds, however, that as soon as he crosses the threshold and sees the small blond smile at him and hold out a book, that he doesn’t really care. Because Jared is, if nothing else, intelligent and funny in a wonderfully sarcastic way and completely warped. He makes Agni laugh involuntarily with some of the comments that he makes (he thinks his favorite to date is, “So, if monsters eat people, do they eat anybody or do they have to eat the people no one would miss so people don’t get suspicious? I mean, have you ever eaten a hobo? I bet that would taste awful.”), and lately, seeing Jared happy has been making Agni feel happy as well. He even keeps his hair lit with the blue flames constantly now because the blond likes it so much.

He thinks it’s a very good thing that he isn’t really close enough to anybody he knows for them to find out about this, because he’s pretty sure he’d have to kill himself to avoid the embarrassment if they did.

Jared doesn’t seem to mind, though. Point in fact, he’s warmed up to Agni considerably, even going so far as to curl up against him while Agni reads, which the monster can’t quite get used to because he’s never, in the four hundred years of his life, heard of a human child willing to get close to a monster the way Jared does to him. And like the first time it happened all those months ago, he thinks he really ought to be disgusted, but he isn’t anymore. Not even a little.

It scares him.

“The mud banks are still there today. They are called the ‘Looking Back at Mother’ banks,” he finishes, reading from a book about dragon myths. Next to him, Jared makes a small snort.

“Why would you swallow a pearl if you didn’t want robbers to get it?” he says. “That’s just stupid! How would you get it back?”

“Puke it up, I suppose,” Agni answers, and Jared snorts again.

“Your stomach acid would probably dissolve it first,” he mutters, and Agni feels himself smile.

“It’s just a story, Jared,” he says as he reaches over, setting the book down on the nightstand. “And I don’t think the ancient Chinese cared much about stomach acid and what it could and couldn’t dissolve.”

Jared pouts. “It was still a stupid idea,” he says. Agni can’t help but chuckle.

“You think all fairy tales have stupid ideas,” he says, which is mostly true. He tried reading Hansel and Gretel to the blond once and as soon as they reached the part about the bread trail, he went on a five minute rant about what kind of idiot didn’t think that birds would pick up the bread, and how Hansel obviously didn’t have the basic instincts needed to survive and according to the laws of Darwinism, he was just being weeded out. Agni just wants to know where the hell an eight-year-old learned about Darwinism.

“That’s because they are,” Jared insists. “I don’t know why I bother having you read them to me.” He frowns and looks up at the monster. “Do monsters have fairly tales? I bet those are better than the ones humans have.”

Agni hesitates. “We do,” he says after a minute. “But they aren’t very... Human-appropriate. If you really want to hear some interesting fairy tales, though, we could try the original fairy tale book complied by the brothers Grimm.”

Jared wrinkles his nose in distaste. “But I don’t like fairy tales,” he says. “That’s the whole point.”

“Really?” Agni smirks. “Not even if I told you in order to get their feet to fit inside the glass slippers, Cinderella’s step-sisters cut off their toes and heels?”

“... Really?”

“Oh yes.”

“... Are they all like that?”

He chuckles. “Many of them. People weren’t quite so adverse to a little blood and death back then.”

Pursing his lips, Jared pretends to be deciding, even though Agni can see by the excitement in his eyes that he’s already made up his mind. “Okay,” he says after a minute. “I will allow you to try and sway my opinion.”

And Agni can’t help but laugh. “You’ve been listening to the BBC again, haven’t you?” he asks, and Jared grins back.

“I can’t help it; Dad always has it on,” he explains, then yawns. Agni looks at his alarm clock, which reads ten-thirty, and feels a twinge of guilt; he always keeps the boy up late. “I absorb it subconis... subcounch... sub...”

“Subconsciously.”

“Yeah, that.” He yawns again, and leans back against the headboard, rubbing his eyes. “‘M getting tired,” he mumbles.

“Alright.” Agni carefully maneuvers his way off the bed, stopping to stand at its side as Jared settles down, cuddling into the covers. He offers the monster a lazy smile.

“Agni?”

“Yes?”

“Thank you for being my friend.”

Agni blinks. Stares. Tries very hard to ignore that weird, warm, curling feeling in his stomach and fails miserably. “Are we friends?” he asks, trying to make it sound light and casual, but it comes out much more like he can’t believe he’s saying it, which is, of course, very true.

Jared giggles. “Of course we’re friends,” he says. “You read to me whenever you come, don’t you? And we talk about stuff and you tease me and I call you names. That’s what friends do.” The smile fades off his face and little. “Haven’t you ever had a friend before?”

He wants to say yes, of course he was, which is actually just stupid because monsters, at least the ones where he comes from, don’t usually have friends unless said friends have benefits or can get you free food. “A few,” he admits. “But not many. I’m not the kind of monster that really has friends.”

“Oh.” He’s frowning, pouting just a little, but then a second later it’s replaced with a happy smile. “So I guess I’m pretty special then, huh?”

He can’t help the twitch of his lips. “Yes, I suppose you are.”

“Awesome.” He looks like he might want to say something else, but then a yawn overcomes him and he blinks tiredly. Agni sighs and reaches over to adjust the covers so they’re a little higher over his shoulder.

“Goodnight, Jared,” he says.

“Goodnight, Agni.”

Agni goes home that night with the weird, warm feeling still in his stomach, marveling at the fact that he reads bedtime stories to a human child, that he gives said child advice when he asks for it and teases him about things, when what he should be doing is trying to bite his legs off and scare him out of his mind.

He has, against all odds, become his friend.

The thought makes him vaguely nauseous.

--

Jared wakes up on Tuesday about five hours earlier than he would like to, thanks to his cellphone.

Groaning, he rolls over and ignores it, thinking that whoever is calling will just leave a message. When the ringing stops he sighs in relief, but about fifteen seconds later it starts again and he swears, shooting an arm out and groping blindly for the offending object. By the time he manages to grab it the ringing has stopped again, so he puts it back on the nightstand, but when it starts up again in ten seconds, he has no choice but to answer it.

“What?” he grumbles into the speaker.

“Jared?” It’s Jess.

“No, it’s the fucking Tooth Fairy.” The noise from outside is especially loud this morning, he notes in the back of his mind. He can hear people screaming; he wonder if Mrs. Polster and Mr. Howard are at it again. He hates having such thin walls.

“Jared! Oh my God, you’re alive!”

Jared frowns. “Why wouldn’t I be alive?” he asks.

There a pause on the other end. “You... Haven’t you been outside this morning?” Jess asks, hesitantly, like she’s not sure it’s the right question.

“No.” The noise is really loud. He dimly hears the screeching of tires and wonders if there’s been an accident.

“But don’t you have to work?”

“It’s Tuesday,” Jared says. “I have Tuesdays off.”

“And you haven’t... Been awake before now?”

“I usually don’t get up until noon on Tuesdays.”

“Oh.”

It’s a very unusual sounding ‘oh’; like she’s just had a horrible revelation and is terrified of speaking above a whisper lest someone hear. Jared’s frown deepens. “What?” he asks, getting the distinct feeling that he’s missing something.

Jess doesn’t answer right away, and there’s a long, heavy pause. He hears a crash from outside and some more screaming and thinks that there’s probably been a car accident. “Jared,” she says finally, slowly, like she’s afraid of startling him. “I think you need to go look outside your window.”

He raises an eyebrow at the strange request, but sighs and pulls the covers off, gets up, takes the necessary few steps toward his window and grabs the string, pulling the blinds open.

And is greeted with the sight of several gremlins standing on the ledge, grinning at him with their sharp teeth and beady eyes.

Jared blinks. Gremlins don’t come out during the day. And they don’t stand on window sills. Especially not ones that face the main street, where someone could very easily spot them. Which means something is wrong.

‘Move,’ he mouths to them, making a shooing gesture with his hand. They giggle and obligingly do so, and Jared knows in that instant that something is very, very wrong because the Gremlins never listen to him, ever.

He peers out the window.

Two cars have crashed into the side of the apartment building across the street. At first Jared thinks that the gremlins are so happy because they caused the crash, but then he sees something moving out of the corner of his eye, so he squints to look at it more closely. It’s a woman, and she’s running and possibly screaming and, he realizes, being chased by a giant wolf.

Jared blinks again. Leans closer to the window so he’s pressing his nose against it. And sees that yes, that is definitely a giant wolf. And a troll. And a few vampires. Huh.

He guesses that global monster takeover is happening after all.

“So?” he says.

“So?!” she shrieks. “Monsters have taken over the world, Jared! Monsters! Vampires, werewolves, trolls, medusas?! And all you have to say is so?!”

“Agni always said it would happen sooner or later,” he says, closing the blinds and walking back over the bed.

“Who the hell is Agni?!”

“The monster who was under my bed when I was kid.”

“What?! You had a monster under your bed?!”

“Sure.” He gets back into bed and pulls the covers up. “Nice guy, up until the end. We kind of had a falling out.” He yawns and settles down, relishing the way his pillow cushions his head just right. “Just don’t invite them into wherever you happen to be, and don’t go into any kid’s bedrooms. They can’t come in unless you invite them except through under a bed, and they can’t leave the room of the kid they’re supposed to be haunting.”

“What kind of stupid advice is that?!” Jess demands, sounding extremely hysterical. Jared rolls his eyes.

“The right kind,” he says. “Trust me on this, Jess. I talk to the hag that shops at the Indian grocery store whenever I see her; I know what I’m talking about.”

“Jared, how can you possibly-”

He hangs up, then turns the phone off for good measure, because he’s really tired and he honestly doesn't give a shit that monsters have taken over the world. He places the phone back on the nightstand, closes his eyes, allows himself a brief moment of thought in which he celebrates the fact that he can no longer be labeled as crazy for believing in monsters, and drifts back to sleep.

--

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