Kingdom of Monsters by John Schneider (microsoft ebook reader .TXT) 📗

her mother and step-father's house, and had been looking forward to being old enough not to need the fake ID at Susie's Bar, where she danced five nights a week.

Lily still didn't know where her mother had been on KT-day, or what happened to her – they hadn't spoken in months.  Lily had just been showing up for work.

Where were you when the world ended?  Swinging her legs around a pole.

It was also, doubtless, what saved her life, because her friends were there.  Susie's Bar was a place where Lily found more visible concern and guidance than she ever had at home.

And she had been an eager enough ear that she hadn't overly questioned the motives of this sage council.

On the other hand, she really didn't have to.  There were witches and then there were DARK witches – those that made no bones about embracing the wild power of destruction.

It was actually an easy sell to the young and angry.  It wasn't hard to convince a kicked-around LA-kid the world was a bad place.  And if the world was bad, it would only stand to reason any move against it would be a virtue.  It was practically built-in scripture, justifying almost any anti-social acting-out you cared to imagine.

The perspective was really quite freeing – throw in a little yin-yang, moral-relativity rationalizing, among a willful community-base, with a few issues of their own – and presto – you had yourself a completely self-enabling ideology.

Lily had never really thought of herself as a 'bad girl' – but it was funny how you got drawn in.   One day, you were just in it.

And she had indeed been in it.

She couldn't say she hadn't done things before the end of the world that weren't... questionable.

But she'd never done human sacrifice before.

Although, she was pretty sure the Coven had.

Again, surprisingly not as hard a sell as one might think – they-had-it-coming was usually enough.  Gang initiations were often worse – and ALL the girls at Susie's Bar belonged.  Most were not much more than Lily's age.

Ginger and Luna, however, were older – they were the generals.

And when necessary, Michelle and Christine were muscle.

Michelle was a leggy dancer who could sail her seven-inch clear-heels a quarter inch over a customer's drink, and could just as easily sail that heel into your knee, or your gut, or your face.

Of all of them, Michelle seemed to thrive on the apocalypse.  She had been their warrior, cutting quite a vision, with her hair tied back, carrying a spear.  And lots of knives.

Christine was more practical.  She packed a gun.

As elders, however, Luna and Ginger called the shots.  And Lily knew she had fallen out of their favor.

Mark, the young man in the woods, the one chased by the dragon – he was to have been her first.

Lily had liked Mark.  But she'd led him to the slaughter anyway.

One thing had nothing to do with the other.  No different than a female spider – something else the girls at Susie's Bar had taught her.

Both Ginger and Luna had greatly approved of her selection.  Mark was perfect – young and strapping, and already targeted by a rex.

But in the end, he had brought them to this debasement at the Mount – the Arc Project – breeding stock.

Granted, it wasn't because of anything Lily had done, but in matters of witchcraft, the actions of the fates were incriminating.

But now the fates had delivered something else entirely.

Shrinker called it 'Otto'.

Lily had been entranced right away by the little lizard in the cage – perhaps as the chipmunk is charmed by the snake.  She had taken to feeding him crackers and was delighted the first time it spoke back her name – in her own voice! – only to be quickly scolded by Shrinker.

It wasn't until later she began to perceive what this little creature really was.

Before they had been taken into the Mount, Lily had adopted a wounded rex hatchling, who she named Junior – and Otto in his cage reminded her of how helpless the little rex had looked, his cracked shin splinted with a makeshift cast.

Never mind that Ginger had been the one who broke the leg, getting him to scream for his five-ton mother to come eat the live sacrifice they'd laid out for her.

Details.

Lilly still felt bad about the leg.

Otto, she assumed, was some sort of test animal, like a hamster – probably eventually to be euthanized – certainly experimented on.

One night when she was cleaning up, Lily had let the latch loose on the little lizard's cage, just to give the little guy a fighting chance.

Then the next day, when she found Otto still in his cage with the door once again latched, she had taken a bolder step.

Shrinker often kept the cage covered – apparently, to keep it from constantly mimicking every sound – and Lily had opened the cage and slipped the little lizard into her cleaning bag.

Once back on the maintenance floor, she had pushed a ventilation grating open in the wall and let him loose.

The next day, however, Otto was in his cage, as usual.

Shrinker had noted her thunderstruck face.

“Something wrong, Lily?”

On the desk, Otto had repeated, “Something wrong, Lily?”

Lily had shaken her head, numbly, quickly gathering up her trays, and following her armed escort to the elevator.

The next day, she had tried again.

And again, the next morning the little lizard was back in his cage.

When she had returned to the maintenance level that day, she had pulled the ventilation screen open and held out a box of crackers.

“Polly want a cracker?” she called softly into the echoing corridors.

She was rewarded by the sound of skittering feet.

The pipe was narrow, but Lilly could see at least half-a-dozen of them, their eyes blinking back the light like little sparking fireflies.

She remembered the first time she had shown them to the Coven.

They had all gathered round – all of them – summoned by the Elders, after Lily had gone straight to Ginger.

Lily had opened up the