by Brandon Mull
Page 29
And then she was no longer moving. Kendra and her escorts hovered above the treetops, watching the others plunge toward the Forgotten Chapel. Kendra tried to recover from the thrill of flying and digest what was happening below.
Four winged creatures were rising to meet the fairies.
The huge gargoyles were at least ten feet tall, with razor claws and horns like rams. A few fairies broke off from the main group to intercept them. The winged beasts clawed at their smaller opponents, but the fairies adroitly evaded the blows and slashed off their wings, sending the gargoyles hurtling to the ground.
Something flashed in Kendra's eyes. The sun was peeking over the horizon. Let's go, Kendra said to her escorts.
The fairies dove. Kendra felt her stomach rise to her throat as they plunged toward the church. Human-sized imps were spilling out of the front doorway, shaking their fists and hissing at the incoming fairies. Many of the fairies cast their weapons aside and soared straight at the imps, catching them in vicious embraces and kissing them on the mouth. In radiant bursts of sparks, every imp that was kissed transformed into a human-sized fairy!
Kendra saw the silver fairy with blue hair plant a kiss on an obese imp. The imp instantly metamorphosed into a plump fairy with coppery wings. As the silver fairy glided away, the plump fairy tackled another imp, forced a kiss, and in a flash the imp became a thin, Asian-looking fairy with hummingbird wings.
The fairies streamed into the church. Most did not bother with the door. They glided through windows or smashed through the corroded roof.
Kendra's escorts held her over a gap in the roof. She saw fairies kissing imps. Other fairies drove back a variety of foul beasts. One fairy used a golden lash to send a toad-like monstrosity crashing through the wall. Another fairy grasped a scabby beast by its mane of white hair and hurled it through a window. A gray fairy with mothlike wings chased a brawny minotaur out the front door with a scalding blast of steam from the end of her rod. Many of the unsavory creatures voluntarily fled before the terrible onslaught.
Others fought back.
A demonic dwarf with a hide of black scales bounded around the room wreaking havoc with a pair of knives. A rampaging atrocity that looked like a cross between a bear and an octopus battered fairies with its thrashing tentacles.
A greasy creature coughed globs of slime into the air. It had the general appearance of a large tortoise without a shell, its body an amoeboid puddle beneath a long neck. Several fairies crashed to the church floor, wings snarled in the goopy substance.
The undaunted fairies counterattacked. The bottom half of the dwarf was turned to stone. Tentacles severed, the octobear retreated. A torrent of water flushed away the greasy creature. Some fairies attended their fallen comrades, healing injuries and washing away slime.
As the room cleared, fairies charged through the door to the basement.
Take me to the basement! Kendra said. Her escorts immediately responded, nearly giving Kendra whiplash as they plummeted into the church and glided to the basement door. The fairies had to tuck in their wings to descend the stairs, so Kendra ran down beside the furry fairy and the albino.
The basement had expanded. A massive excavation and renovation had occurred. It was deeper, broader, and longer. The alcove at the far side had grown as well, now completely unfettered by knotted ropes.
The basement was not lighted as brightly as before, although the fairies carried their own luminescence with them. Hideous carvings sneered from the walls. One corner was piled with strange treasures-jade idols, spiked scepters, and jeweled masks.
Kendra scanned the room for her family. The easiest to spot was Seth. He was inside an enormous jar with breathing holes punched in the lid. There were some leaves and branches in it with him. He had grown no taller, but he looked a hundred years old. Saggy wrinkles creased his face, and he had only a few wisps of white hair left atop his head.
He placed a pruned palm against the glass.
Kendra guessed that the orangutan chained to the wall was Grandpa. The large catfish swimming in the tank beside him was probably Lena. She saw no sign of Grandma.
Flanked by her fairy escorts, Kendra dashed toward her family. Scores of hideous imps scuffled with fairies. Those fights did not last long as kisses transformed the imps back into their original forms.
Kendra reached the gigantic jar. Are you all right, Seth?
Her elderly brother nodded feebly. His smile showed that he had no teeth.
A snarling imp pounced at Kendra. The blue, furry fairy caught the creature in midflight, pinning its arms to its sides. It resembled the same imp that had apprehended her brother earlier. The albino fairy flew up and gave the imp a kiss on the mouth, and it became a striking fairy with fiery red hair and iridescent dragonfly wings.
Seth began tapping on the glass. He was pointing excitedly at the fairy. Kendra realized that it was the fairy he had unwittingly transformed.
The redheaded fairy approached the jar, shaking a scolding finger at Seth. I'm sorry, Seth mouthed from inside the container. He clasped his hands and made pleading motions. The fairy regarded him through narrowed eyes. Then she snapped her fingers, and the jar shattered.
She leaned forward and kissed Seth on the forehead. His wrinkles smoothed and his hair filled in until he promptly looked like himself again.
Kendra pulled the bottle of milk from her pocket and handed it to Seth. Save some for Grandma and Grandpa.
But I can see- An earsplitting roar shook the room. A creature who could only have been Bahumat emerged from the alcove.
The loathsome demon stood three times as tall as a man and had the head of a dragon crowned by three horns. The demon walked upright, possessing three arms, three legs, and three tails. Oily black scales bristling with barbed spikes covered its grotesque body. Malevolent eyes gleamed with wicked intelligence.
To one side of Bahumat floated the spectral woman Kendra had seen outside her window on Midsummer Eve.
Her ebony wrappings flowed unnaturally, as if she were underwater. The unearthly apparition made Kendra think of a negative photograph.
At the other side of Bahumat stood Muriel, now clad in a gown as black as midnight. She leered at the fairies and glanced confidently at the towering demon.
No imps remained in the room. A crowd of shining fairies faced these final opponents.
Bahumat crouched. Inky darkness gathered around him. The demon sprang forward with a roar like a thousand cannons firing together. A black wall of shadow flowed from Bahumat like a wave of tar. Total darkness engulfed the room. Kendra felt like she had been struck blind. Even with her hands over her ears, the prolonged bellowing of the demon was practically deafening.
There seemed to be no substance to the shadow Bahumat had emitted. It was just darkness. Where were the fairies? Where was their light?
The ground rumbled, and a sound like an avalanche overpowered the demon's roar. Suddenly daylight flooded the room. Looking up, Kendra beheld a blue sky. The slanted rays of the rising sun fell into the basement. The entire church had been hurled aside!
Descending from above, and charging from all directions, fairies swarmed Bahumat. The demon slashed a fairy with one of its tails, raked another with an impossibly quick swipe of its claws. Jaws snapping, the creature swallowed a yellow fairy whole. Many fairies were falling.
While the majority attacked, other fairies laid hands on the injured, curing most of them rapidly.
Muriel stood in a theatrical pose chanting spidery words. A pair of fairies near her turned to glass and shattered. She extended a contorted hand, and another fairy turned to ash and disintegrated in a gray cloud.
Long streamers of ebony fabric flowed from the spectral woman, entangling nearby fairies. The ensnared fairies began to lose their luster and wither. The silver fairy appeared, slicing through the fabric with her ax of fire.
Other fairies joined her, usi
ng gleaming swords to sever the black material.
The fairies swirling around Bahumat now held ropes.
They looked like the ropes that had crisscrossed the front of the alcove, except now they appeared to be woven out of gold. Bahumat kept roaring and swinging and biting, but the ropes were beginning to tangle him up. Knots were forming in them. The draconic creature was slowing down.
His great jaws clamped shut, tearing off the gauzy wing of a fairy with markings like a ladybug.
The spectral woman turned and drifted away, her ethereal wrappings no longer quite as flowing. The fairies ignored her departure. A pair of fairies had taken hold of Muriel, and they flung her at Bahumat. Soon she was bound to the demon by flaxen cords. She screeched as her body shriveled with age and her gown turned to rags.
Three fairies alighted atop the demon's head. They each grabbed a horn and tore it out. The demon wailed.
Dozens of fairies seized the ropes binding the demon and hurled Bahumat back into the alcove. Busily the fairies began threading knotted ropes back and forth over the entrance.
Kendra turned. The blue, furry fairy gestured toward the orangutan, and the shackles binding it to the wall fell apart. Another gesture and a burst of light changed the orangutan into Grandpa Sorenson.
The albino fairy pulled the convulsing catfish from the aquarium and changed her back into Lena. Where's my Grandma? Kendra cried.
The red-haired fairy who had freed Seth approached the aquarium. She lifted out a small, putrid slug that had been clinging to the side above the water and changed it back into Grandma.
Grandma Sorenson massaged her temples. And I thought my mind was muddy as a chicken, she muttered.
Grandpa hurried over and embraced her.
Do you need milk? Kendra asked, holding out the bottle to her grandfather.
He shook his head. We have not slept, and so the veil has not yet covered our eyes.
A group of fairies gathered near the alcove, extending their arms, palms downward. Soil, clay, and stone began flowing together and piling up until Hugo was reborn. The golem stretched and let out a groan to rival the roars of the banished demon.
The fairies busily healed one another, mending wings and closing wounds. One circle of fairies spread their arms, and fragments of glass skittered together, took the form of a pair of fairies, and came back to life. Several other fairies joined hands and started humming. Particles of ash swirled loosely in their midst, but refused to coalesce. The fairies released one another, and the ash dissipated. Some fairies, it seemed, were beyond rescue.
Several fairies took hold of Hugo and lifted him out of the basement. Others did the same for Grandpa, Grandma, Lena, Seth, and Kendra. Airborne again, Kendra had a view of the destroyed church. The wreckage spread across the clearing for a couple hundred yards. The Forgotten Chapel had not simply been flung aside-it had been obliterated.
The fairies set them down a good distance from the wreckage and the basement. All except Lena. Two fairies were carrying her away. The former naiad was having harsh words with them in a foreign tongue, struggling in their grasp.
Kendra touched Grandpa Sorenson's arm and nodded toward the commotion.
Nothing to be done about it, he sighed as the fairies hauled Lena away. He had an arm around Grandma, holding her close.
Hey! Kendra shouted. Bring Lena back here! The fairies holding Lena paid her no heed, passing out of sight into the woods.
The remainder of the fairies assembled above the basement, floating in an enormous ring. They had more than tripled their numbers with all the imps they had reclaimed.
Kendra had seen many fairies fall during the battle, but most had been revived and healed by the magic of their comrades.
The radiant fairies raised their arms together and started singing. The music sounded impromptu, full of hundreds of interweaving melodies with almost no harmonies.
As they sang, the ground in the clearing began to undulate. The wreckage from the church slid across the field, clattering into the open basement. The ground began to quake. The walls of the basement crumbled. The surrounding area folded in and swallowed it up. The field heaved like a stormy sea.
As the undulations subsided, the basement had been replaced by a low hill. The fairy choir became more shrill.
Wildflowers and fruit trees began sprouting throughout the clearing and on the hill, coming to full bloom in a matter of seconds. Flowers blossomed all over Hugo, who offered no reaction. When the singing finally ceased, a cheery hill covered by a fragrant array of brilliant blossoms and mature fruit trees had replaced the Forgotten Chapel.
They made Hugo look all fruity, Seth complained.
The legion of fairies glided toward them, scooped them up, and carried them on a breakneck flight for home.
Kendra relished being part of the mercurial procession, overjoyed at the fortunate ending to the terrible night.
Seth whooped the whole way, as if he were riding the coolest roller coaster on the planet.
Finally the fairies deposited them in the yard, where Dale stood waiting. Now I've seen everything, he said as Grandpa and Grandma Sorenson were set down beside him.
The fairy with short blue hair and silver wings stood before Kendra. Thank you, Kendra said. You did wonderfully.
We can never repay you.
The silver fairy gave a single nod, eyes glittering.
As if responding to a signal, the fairies crowded Kendra, each in turn giving her a quick kiss. As each kiss was bestowed, the fairy reverted to her former size amid dazzling sparks and darted away. The rapid succession of kisses brought overpowering sensations. Again Kendra smelled the earthy aromas of the Fairy Queen-rich soil and young blossoms. She tasted honey and fruit and berries, all sweet beyond comparison. She heard the music of rainfall, the cry of the wind, and the roar of the sea. She felt as if the warmth of the sun were embracing her, flowing through her. The fairies kissed her eyes, her cheeks, her ears, her brow.
When the last of more than three hundred fairies kissed her, Kendra stumbled backwards and sat down hard on the grass. She felt no pain. In fact, she was mildly surprised that she did not float away, she felt so light and drowsy.
Grandpa and Dale helped Kendra to her feet. I would wager that this young lady has quite a story to tell, Grandpa said. And I would also wager that now is not the time. Hugo, attend to your labors.
