I sighed. Sesha was awful, that much we both knew. And I also knew how monstrous the serpent king had been to my moon mother when they were together, turning her first seven children into snakes, forcing her to send me into hiding in a different dimension with adoptive parents. And I understood why Neel thought Sesha might be being the same way to his mom.
But I couldn’t forget what I knew of the Queen too, as someone with a less-than-perfect moral compass. Plus, she had looked so happy on that video report by Twinkle Chakraborty. Anyway, the Demon Queen was a tough cookie, unlike my delicate moon mother, and more than capable of taking care of herself.
“I think we should abort the mission,” Neel muttered from behind his beard. “I don’t think this is going to work.”
“Chill,” I said to Neel in an easy tone as some more guards strolled by to our right. “You’re making me nervous.”
“You’re making us nervous too!” It was one of the rakkhosh from inside the horse. Without a word, I banged on the side of the clay animal.
A voice I recognized as Priya’s said from inside the horse, “I’m not nervous!”
“I am!” burbled Tuni again, earning himself a stern look from me.
“I don’t have a good feeling about this, Kiran,” Neel mumbled, chewing on his fingernail.
I couldn’t help it, but I almost laughed at how much our roles had reversed. When I’d first met Neel, I’d known nothing of what it took to be a hero, and I’d been downright allergic to taking risks or standing out. But learning about myself, and where I was from, had changed me. Now I was more than willing to see this pre-wedding invasion through until the end. The problem was, the end came a lot sooner than I thought.
The twisting line of dancing, singing, ululating guests had slowly made its way toward the palace. We walked in past the outdoor guards easily. They waved us on with good-humored jokes about the size of the horse and whether or not it would take off into the sky when we weren’t looking.
“We’re in!” I whispered to the hidden rakkhosh inside the horse as soon as we were in the grand marble courtyard of the palace. Musicians played from every corner, and everything was decorated with yellow flowers—mostly thick marigold garlands that draped richly, in strands of three, six, twelve, and more in every possible direction. In addition to the flowers, which made the air sweet with their heady smells, there were delicate white alpona designs everywhere, along with silk tapestries and rows of colorful flags waving in the breeze.
“You see?” I poked Neel in the ribs with a sharp elbow. “You were worrying for nothing.”
“Oh, really?” Neel was looking around the decorated marble courtyard. “We’re still not in the inner courtyard, and if anything happens here, we’re absolute sitting ducks!”
“I don’t wanna be a roasted chickadee!” moaned Tuni.
I followed Neel’s gaze and realized he was right. I’d forgotten that the Raja’s palace had not just one courtyard. We’d made it into the outer courtyard but still had to pass through more sets of guards before we made it to one of the inner ones. And unlike when we had been outside in the square, here, we were trapped in on all sides by the prettily decorated balconies and breezeways. Now, none of this would have been an actual problem had each of those balconies and breezeways not been populated by a whole mess of guards. Then there was the serious problem of the guard at the front of the courtyard.
“Uh-oh,” I whispered, not wanting to believe what I was seeing. At the front of the tottho line, checking each and every gift that went through the gates of the palace, was Stheno—back from the dead!
“I can’t believe it!” I breathed. “It’s my principal! I knew that fink Ned didn’t really kill her!”
“What?” Neel’s eyes darted this way and that. “Your undead middle school principal is here? Are you sure about that?”
“She’s not really my principal!” I hissed. “She’s a Gorgon! And yes, I’m sure!”
“Your middle school principal is a Gorgon?” chirped Tuni, his voice high and taught with fright. “That has got to be against the teachers’ union rules!”
Neel’s hand reached for his sword, but of course we’d both put our weapons inside the horse with our friends, where we could get to them later. Which meant we had no way of getting to them now.
“Let’s go, Princess. Let’s get outa here!” The bird on my shoulder was squawking and losing tail feathers in his agitation.
I couldn’t help but agree with Tuni this time. I was already wheeling the horse in the opposite direction, trying to look inconspicuous. Word to the wise: It’s really hard to look inconspicuous while wheeling around a ten-foot-tall horse filled with rakkhosh in the middle of a crowded palace courtyard.
“Stop that horse!” I heard Stheno shriek.
“Don’t stop!” muttered Neel, now pushing the horse on the other side. I noticed his fake beard was kind of falling off, but there was no time to fix it now. We were both doing that fast-walking thing like when neighborhood moms want to exercise but are afraid they’ll look silly running. Only we weren’t afraid to look silly. We were just trying to pretend that we weren’t getting the heck out of there as fast as we could.
The act only lasted so long. By the time Stheno yelled, “It’s a trick! I know this story! Stop that Trojan horse!” we were flat-out bolting.
“Get them out of there! No point in trying to hide now!” I yelled to Neel as I ripped off my face scarf.
I grabbed a shehnai from a musician to the side of me. Ignoring the man’s protests, I flung the long metal horn at the clay horse. A little hole formed. Neel didn’t bother with stealing an instrument but just shoved his fist through the hole I’d made in the clay, ripping it wider. I saw Priya’s taloned hands and a few others helping him from the inside too. And then the hole was big enough, and our rakkhosh friends came pouring out of the horse.
“Get them! Get those monsters!” shrieked my monster of an ex-principal.
The same musician whose instrument I’d stolen made a grab for me, but Priya whirled on him, fire lashing from her mouth. In her full rakkhoshi form, she shrieked, “Wedding yellows ain’t so mellow! Get lost, you creep, or I’ll eat your feet!”
All around us the other rakkhosh who had been inside the horse began to emerge in their full demonic forms.
“Back off or your throats we’ll tear! And make you soil your underwear!” screeched one rakkhoshi.
“From horse’s belly we are born! We’ll kick your butts, then toot a horn!” yelled another.
“Get them! Stop them!” shrieked Stheno. Her hair tentacles and teeth tentacles had come unhinged and each was chasing our demon friends.
“Any more fire clan with you?” I yelled to Priya. “She hates fire!”
Priya and another fire rakkhosh started blasting flames out of their mouths at the Gorgon. Unfortunately, unlike the time we were behind my middle school, Stheno had a lot of help here at the palace. At her cries, supervillains from a bunch of mythological traditions and stories came rushing out into the courtyard. There were horse-men and selkie women, card soldiers, wicked witches, orcs and goblins, Rodents of Very Big Size, and bankers in business suits. None of them belonged in the Kingdom Beyond, but here they all were.
“What are all these storybook baddies doing in my house?” yelled Neel. “This is seriously not cool!”
“My fellow members of the Anti-Chaos Committee—get them!” shrieked Stheno.
When the evil flying monkeys started dive-bombing us, I knew we were in trouble.
“Outnumbered we are, Princess, ma’am!” shouted one of the water rakkhosh who’d been in the horse. “We need a new plan—we’d better scram!”
I was firing off arrows as fast as I could, trying to hit Stheno’s tentacle hair and teeth. The only problem was, as quick as I hit one of the tentacle things, two more seemed to grow back in its place.
“Sssissster!” I heard the voice coming from behind me. Without even thinking, I whirled and shot at Na
ga. My seven-headed snake brother was such a jerk. Also, a ridiculous glutton for punishment. No matter how mean our father was to him, Naga never seemed to get the message.
“Ugh, Naga, why don’t you get a life already?” I snapped, firing at his ugly head. “How’d you manage to untie yourself after Ai-Ma tied you up?”
“You can’t be into this idea of our parents getting married!” Neel said, his attention somewhat occupied in a sword fight with three different guards.
“Dad can marry whoever he wantsss!” Naga whined, all seven of his tongues shooting out at me. “He said I could be best snake!”
“That’s not even a thing, you loser!” I snapped, shooting two arrows into a couple of his heads at the same time.
Stheno, on seeing my face, was yelling bloody murder. “You meddling middle schooler! I’ll get you for this, my pretty!”
Neel, suddenly free of enemies, swung around to help me with Naga. I kept shooting arrows at his seven heads as Neel slashed at Naga’s tail.
“Ow!” yelled Naga. “Butt-brain! I’m gonna tell Daddy you’re hanging out with the cute prince again!” The seven-headed snake slithered up a banister and disappeared down an upstairs breezeway.
“Cute prince, huh?” Neel seemed way too pleased at this. And while it was nice to see some of his old confidence restored, this was really not the time.
“Let’s scram before Sesha gets here!” I yelled.
Neel turned, his sword whirling so fast now I could hardly see it. His back was up against mine, and he was working hard, trying not to injure but rather disarm the pack of human guards attacking him. In the meantime, I started shooting arrows at the flying monkeys dive-bombing us yet again. Man, were those exploding bananas they were lobbing down at us?
“Now would be a good time to fly out of here!” Neel called, slicing mercilessly into a disgusting, smelly-furred and yet kind of mechanical-looking Rodent of Very Big Size.
“Where are the air clan rakkhosh?” I looked desperately to Priya, who was still keeping Stheno at bay with buckets of fire-vomit. The rakkhoshi shook her head no. “Didn’t you think to bring any fliers so we had an escape plan?”
“Fire clan and air clan don’t get along!” Priya yelled, whirling around to fire-blast a charging orc with a cudgel. “They always beat us in the rickets league! I wouldn’t ask those guys for any favors!”
“Now you tell me!” I shrieked, shooting off two, three, and now four arrows at a time at some drooling goblins. I could not believe we didn’t have an escape plan because fire and air clans were enemies in rakkhosh cricket!
“We’re goners! Absolute goners!” Tuni squealed as he flew around, pecking at the eyes of the vicious monkeys, flapping in the faces of the green witches. There were so many evildoers from so many different story traditions, I felt like an entire fairy-tale library had been blended up and dumped over us.
I looked desperately around. We were hemmed in from all sides. Now there were white-sheeted and chain-clanking ghosts, long-toothed vampires, ratty zombies, and green-skinned Frankensteins coming out of the woodwork. The Raja’s courtyard looked like some deadly, out-of-season Halloween party store. None of these creatures belonged in the stories from the Kingdom Beyond, and yet, here they all were. This was a serious problem.
“Not to be a downer or anything,” said Neel, now fighting what looked like a family of trolls, “but we might be in a little bit of trouble, Kiran. Unless you have some kind of secret weapon you haven’t told me about.”
Neel’s words made a light bulb go off in my head. “Priya, do you have that Lola Morgana thermos with you still?” I demanded as I dove right to avoid an evil-looking clown with a chain saw.
“Oh, yeah, I do!” Priya pulled out the thermos from some hidden pocket in her pink cape. “Take this, ya second-rate villains! Get a load of what a real ghost is like!”
The rakkhoshi unscrewed the lid to the Star Travels thermos and released the terrible bhoot who had captured Lal and taken over his identity, fooling all of us for so long.
Unlike ghosts from other cultures, bhoot from the Kingdom Beyond are seriously powerful creatures, and the bhoot-formerly-known-as-Lal was no exception. It whooshed shriekingly from its container and flew right at the Halloween villains that were chasing us.
“Go back to your own stories, you interlopers!” yelled the bhoot. “I’ll toast up your liver and eat it like a crumpet! I’ll make a thorkari with your thyroid! I’ll use your toes to flavor my morning tea!”
“You bought us a little time with these baddies, but there are more where those came from,” Priya muttered, pulling at my arm. “Not to mention the ghost himself! We better get out of here before good ol’ Bhoot-Baba-ji remembers it was you who put him in that thermos!”
“But how? We’ve still got no rides!” said Neel, sounding seriously worried.
And then I felt him, Tiktiki One, clambering up my leg.
“What are you doing here?” As I grabbed the little gecko and put him on my shoulder, I saw who was flying through the air toward us.
“Naya!” I yelled with delight. “And you brought more air clan with you!”
“Hang on!” Naya’s black wings were beating strongly in the wind, and for the first time, I realized what a beautiful sight they were. Or maybe I was just grateful my friend was there saving our butts. She grabbed me under the armpits, and the other flying rakkhosh grabbed the rest of our team.
“I should have realized someone else would know the Trojan horse story!” I yelled to Naya. “Thank goodness you came for us! How did you know we were here?”
“I guessed …” Naya began, but then she choked out a little scream and she and I started to spiral unevenly through the air.
“Naya!” I yelled. I realized that one of the flying monkeys had punctured her wing with an arrow, making a giant gaping hole in the middle! We spun through the air, dropping down a few dozen feet. Naya’s usually happy-go-lucky face was twisted in pain, and when she gasped, she brought up a frothy mouthful of blood! “Help! Somebody help us!” I screamed.
I’m not sure anyone heard me, or even knew we were in trouble. Priya and the other fire rakkhosh, riding on the backs of two air clan, were still shooting flames in the direction of our pursuers. Two land clan rakkhosh, hanging on to the legs of their air clan rescuers, were throwing spears down to our enemies. From the back of his ride, Neel was beating off some green-faced witches who were trying to chase us on their brooms. The air was dark with smoke, as our enemies on the ground were sending up flaming arrows. I could still hear Stheno’s evil voice, shrieking for my meddling middle-school head.
But Naya and I were lurching through the air, her injured wing making it more and more impossible for her to fly. “Hang in there, Your Princessness,” gasped my sweet friend, worried about me even when it was she who was so badly hurt.
“We need help! Naya’s been shot!” I yelled as loud as I could. It was finally Neel who heard me. He turned his head, his eyes widening as he took in our plight. He shouted something I couldn’t hear, and within seconds, two flying rakkhosh swooped up next to Naya. One—a fierce green-skinned fellow with a scar splitting his face in two—grabbed me out of her hands, and the other—a rakkhoshi with needlelike black teeth—put a strong arm around a flailing Naya’s shoulder.
I yelped as I saw the needle-toothed rakkhoshi slap Naya’s almost-unconscious face with a merciless hand. Her words were equally strong and fierce. “Sister, we must flee and fly! Lean on me! I won’t let you die!”
It was chaos, with the shrieking villains below us and the flying villains behind us, but the entire time we were escaping, the only thing I could think was: If anything happened to Naya, it was entirely my fault!
I don’t know how the air clan rescue party lost the flying monkeys, green-faced witches, and other supervillains who were chasing us. But somehow they did. Back at PSS headquarters, we got a now-unconscious Naya in with the one physician Mati had found willing to treat hurt rakkhosh, Dr. J
humpa Ahmed. Dangerously sick, my friend was rushed into surgery. The rest of us paced and fretted outside. Bunty, on hearing about what happened, let out an earsplitting roar. The accusing look the tiger gave me made me want to shrivel up and disappear. Bunty then planted themself outside of the surgery door, refusing to leave. Naya’s fellow clan members, the ones who had risked their own lives to come and get us, didn’t spare me any sympathy either.
“If our sister dies, it is on your head!” snapped the rakkhosh who had flown me home. “I really wish it was you instead!”
I shrank back from his snarling face, but I couldn’t blame him at all. “Whoa, whoa, whoa there,” Neel said, standing protectively next to me. “Let’s just all take a big breath and calm down, shall we?”
I felt a warm rush of gratitude for my friend. Neel and I might fight sometimes, but when the going got tough, he always had my back.
“Humans are selfish, with hearts like dumpsters!” barked the black-toothed rakkhoshi. “They hurt us and then call us monsters!”
“Slow your roll, you flighty fliers!” Priya snapped, getting in between me, Neel, and Naya’s air clan friends.
“Hothead flamies, burping fire!” roared another air clan member. “We fliers from the resistance retire!”
“No! Please!” It was Mati, rushing into the room with a few other PSS on her heels. When she saw the furious faces of Naya’s clan members, she fell on her knees, her hands in a pleading namaskar. “The resistance needs you, air clan! We can’t afford to lose you!”
“All our stories are connected, you stupid airheads!” Priya said angrily. She tried to get Mati to stand up, but my cousin stayed where she was, her head bowed in humility.
“The multiplicity of the multiverse must be protected!” Bunty said from their spot near the surgery door. “It’s what Naya would want!”
Neel was looking furious, his fists balled at his sides. From the looks on his and Priya’s faces, I could tell that neither of them was ready to apologize to the air clan. But then Mati looked desperately at me, and I realized what I had to do. I couldn’t stop thinking of Naya in the operating room, maybe losing her wing, maybe even dying because of something stupid that I’d done. I felt tears stinging my eyes, and instead of trying to stop them, I let them fall in honor of my hurt friend. Naya’s clanspeople were furious at us for good reason. I slid to my knees next to Mati.
The Chaos Curse Page 17
