The Cryptid Catcher

by Lija Fisher

  “Speaking of which, do you want to tell us any secrets he passed down to you?” Thomas said, darting his head out from behind the tree.

  “Not a chance,” Clivo said.

  “Fair enough.” Thomas shrugged.

  “So how did you track me?” Clivo asked. “How did I mess up?”

  “May I?” Lana asked, pointing to Clivo’s backpack. Clivo nodded. She walked over to his pack, unzipped a pocket, and pulled out what looked to be a small coin about the size of a dime. “It’s a rather simple tracking device. Nothing fancy. Someone just had to get close enough to plant this and, voilà! We found your hidden lair.”

  Clivo looked at the device, his mind clicking through who could have planted it. Who had been close enough to him to have put it in his bag? His stomach lurched when he wondered if he had led them to the Myth Blasters. He’d never forgive himself if he had.

  But his heartbeat settled when he realized the obvious. The person who had planted that device was someone he had met after visiting the Myth Blasters.

  “Blirgenbach Schnauss,” Clivo growled, picturing the small, mustached Luxembourger.

  “Yes?” Thomas said, poking his head out from behind the tree.

  Lana groaned. “Thomas! You just blew it!”

  “Huh?” Thomas asked, confused. “Oh, shoot! Sorry, Lana, but I warned you that disguising myself as different people was bound to confuse me!”

  Now it was Clivo’s turn to be totally confused. He looked at Thomas, all bundled up in his snow gear, the goggles obscuring his face. He pictured Thomas with slicked-back hair, a pencil-thin mustache, and no glasses. It suddenly hit Clivo why Thomas had felt so familiar to him. “Wait, you’re Blirgenbach Schnauss?”

  Thomas stepped out from behind the tree and took a fighting stance that Clivo immediately recognized. “Yes, but you can call me Thomas. Blirgenbach was my alter ego meant to terrify and intimidate you into giving us all your information.”

  “Obviously that didn’t work very well,” Clivo said, angry with himself for not picking up on Thomas’s disguise. The man’s petite size should have given him away. “How’s your face after I made you eat that tree?”

  Thomas’s expression melted into a scowl, but Lana put out a hand to stop him from charging forward. “It really doesn’t matter who we are, Clivo,” she said, her British accent morphing into a Luxembourgian one. “We’re still the bad guys, and we’re still going to get the immortal.”

  “So, you Luxembourgers are the terrible evil resistance I’m supposed to be so frightened of?” Clivo asked, his hands shaking with anger at how he had been duped so easily.

  “We’re one of the evil resistances,” Lana said with a smile. “There are many out there, but we’re the only ones good enough to find you.”

  “High-five, Lana!” Thomas said.

  Clivo’s eyes scanned his surroundings for some means of escape. “From what I heard, you guys were tipped off about my whereabouts to test me, to make sure I didn’t crack under pressure. You were chosen because in the cryptid-catching world you’re seen as a joke.”

  “There’s no need to be insulting, chief!” Thomas complained.

  Lana narrowed her eyes. “Last chance, Clivo. Either give us the map, or we’ll be forced to take it from you.”

  Lana and Thomas spread out in front of him. Clivo exhaled slowly, focusing his mind on the dual threat about to attack. “Like I said, looks like it’s time to fight.”

  XXI

  Clivo dropped into a fighting crouch, and Lana and Thomas did the same.

  The Luxembourgers looked like they were getting ready to coordinate their attack, which gave Clivo the split second he needed to charge first. His dad had always taught him that the best way to win a fight was not through strength, but through smarts, and attacking first was something they obviously weren’t expecting.

  Lana and Thomas froze in shock when they saw Clivo barreling toward them. Clivo leaped into the air and pushed himself off Lana’s chest with one foot, propelling himself toward Thomas, whom he tackled. They did a somersault in the snow and Clivo ripped off Thomas’s goggles, leaving him half blind in the piercingly bright air.

  With Thomas temporarily disabled, Clivo turned his attention to Lana, who was picking herself up off the snow. “Well, now that that little element of surprise is over, shall we get down to it?” she asked, straightening the hat on her head.

  “Ladies first,” Clivo responded.

  Lana smirked and ran at him, unleashing a flurry of kicks and punches. But this time Clivo was ready for her. He blocked and deflected her blows and was even able to grab a high-kicked foot and throw her into the snow.

  “Oh, so all of a sudden you think you know my moves,” Lana said, once again dragging herself to standing.

  “Yep, it’s taijutsu,” Clivo said, catching his breath. “I didn’t recognize it when you attacked me at my house. Too bad you showed me your skills when it didn’t matter, because it gave me time to figure out exactly which technique you were using.”

  “It doesn’t really matter what technique it is,” Lana replied with a taunting smile. “I’m a better fighter than you and you know it.”

  “That may be true, but why don’t we test it anyway?”

  Lana and Clivo went at it again, but this time Clivo was able to deliver some kicks and strikes of his own. Lana expertly blocked them, but bit by bit she fell back. She stopped striking and just focused on blocking the kicks and punches that Clivo delivered. He was able to identify her weaknesses and exploit them, slowly moving her back even more.

  In his peripheral vision, he saw Thomas running at him, the Luxembourger’s eyes squinting with the cold. Clivo turned to face him and immediately stepped aside, once again throwing Thomas headfirst into a tree.

  Lana doubled her kicks and punches, her breath coming in gasps and grunts. But Clivo knew her pattern now. She was strong and had good technique, but she repeated the same moves with predictable precision. If Clivo could get ahead of her pattern, he could throw her off just a little bit and take advantage of an opening.

  After a few more punches, Clivo found his opportunity. He ducked a high kick and got behind Lana, then grabbed her jacket and pulled it over her head, trapping her arms and face inside. He tied up her coat sleeves, leaving her helplessly bundled as her muffled shouts pierced through the jacket.

  Clivo was about to grab his stuff and jump on a snowmobile when he heard an ominous click. He whirled around to find Thomas sitting with his back against the tree and his nose bloody, aiming a silver handgun at him.

  “The map, please,” Thomas said, wobbling to his feet.

  Clivo looked at the gun and knew he was sunk. Even if he could somehow destroy the map, they could still force him to lead them to the Otterman. He looked around, once again searching for a way to escape, but no good options presented themselves.

  Clivo held his hands up and exhaled in defeat. He looked behind himself at the cliff; it dropped into a narrow valley, but it was too far down to jump.

  “Fine, you guys win,” Clivo said. “The map is in my backpack. I’ll just grab it.”

  “Don’t do anything stupid,” Thomas warned. “I hate violence, but I will shoot you in a hot second.”

  “Do you want the map or not?” Clivo asked.

  Thomas motioned with his gun for Clivo to go ahead and open his backpack.

  “Hang on, I need to take my gloves off to open the zipper,” Clivo said. He made a show of trying to take off his gloves and getting them stuck in the sleeves of his jacket. “Ugh, hang on.”

  Clivo took off his jacket and immediately shivered from the cold. His plan had better work, or he’d be in danger of freezing to death—or shot. Neither one sounded very pleasant.

  He took a deep breath and grabbed his backpack with one hand, his jacket with the other. Just to his left was the steel-claw bear trap. He hoped the spring wasn’t totally rusted over, or his plan would turn out to be a very bad idea. But seeing as he was o
ut of options, even a bad idea was better than nothing.

  Clivo looked up and pretended to see something off in the distance. He furrowed his brow as if trying to understand what he was seeing, then opened his eyes wide. “OTTERMAN!”

  Thomas whirled around, giving Clivo the opening he needed. He shoved a heavy water bottle into his jacket pocket, sprang up, and swung the jacket downward as hard as he could onto the steel trap. The trap burst to life and snapped its jaws around the jacket’s sleeve, snow and ice spraying with its force. Clivo gripped his jacket in one hand and his backpack in the other, and as fast as he could, he ran toward the edge of the cliff.

  “Whoa, chief!” Thomas yelled, spinning back around. “I think jumping off a cliff qualifies as being stupid!”

  Before Clivo’s rational mind could take over, he hurled himself over the cliff, his hand desperately holding on to the jacket, which was still clamped tightly in the bear trap. He fell, listening to the trap chain as it quickly unfurled. He realized a moment too late that he didn’t know how long the chain was, and that he could very well hit the ground before it stopped his descent. But there was nothing he could do about it now. He barreled toward the ground, the cold air slicing through him like sharp icicles.

  Just when he thought he was a goner, the chain pulled tight, and he jerked to a stop right above the ground, his arm almost yanking out of its socket as he dangled from the jacket clutched tightly in his hand.

  With a glorious tearing sound, a chunk of his sleeve ripped off, and he dropped harmlessly to the ground. Clivo quickly put his jacket on before he froze into a block of ice. He tried to take a moment to gather himself, but the snowy ground next to him shot up in a spray as a bullet ricocheted off it.

  Clivo grabbed his backpack and ran along the wall of ice, bullets narrowly missing him as he sprinted toward a cluster of trees.

  * * *

  Clivo traveled for an hour, trudging his way up a steep slope in knee-deep snow. He had heard the Luxembourgers revving their snowmobile engines, but there was no way they could take them through the thick forest. Clivo did his best to cover his tracks as his dad had taught him, but found it impossible with how deep the snow was. His only hope was that the Luxembourgers took off hiking in the wrong direction. But if they were on his trail and he did find the immortal, what then? He had lost them for the moment, but maybe not forever. Clivo pulled out his satellite phone and began talking as soon as Douglas answered.

  “Mr. Chancery, I’m close to the immortal!” Clivo said, his breath coming in gasps as he trudged up the hill. His lungs were burning so much they felt like they were about to explode. “But two evil Luxembourgers are on my trail!”

  “Luxembourgers?” Douglas roared, turning down the sitar music that had been playing loudly in the background. “Why did you allow those fools to follow you?”

  “I didn’t! You’re the one who told them I was at Loch Ness, and they’ve been tracking me ever since!”

  Douglas’s voice got low and angry. “Well, that wasn’t very smart of me, now was it?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Don’t agree with me!”

  “Yes, sir.” Clivo gulped a deep breath, the steam from his exhale freezing in mid-air. “So can you send reinforcements or something? If I find the immortal and they find me, we could be in a lot of trouble.”

  “No problem, kid, I’ve got a Navy SEAL team on standby.”

  Clivo stopped in his tracks. “You do?”

  “NO!” Douglas yelled, making Clivo wince. “Just hold them off as long as you can; I’ll see what I can pull together. Was there anything else?”

  Clivo sputtered, “Apart from being close to the elixir of life while being in mortal danger? Nope, that about covers it.”

  “Drama, drama, all the time with you kids. Just put a little bit of effort into not being killed by those morons and I’ll see what I can do.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Chancery—” But Douglas had already hung up.

  Clivo grunted in exasperation and was tempted to throw the phone in a snowbank. He should have known Douglas wouldn’t be much help in an emergency.

  After another half hour of constantly checking his map and compass to make sure he was going the right way, Clivo came to a large, snowy meadow with thick forest on all sides. In the center was what looked to be a huge, ice-covered rock.

  Clivo ran toward the structure, scraped away some ice, and looked straight into an airplane’s cockpit. The Myth Blasters’ map had been exactly right about where the plane carrying the Otterman had crashed.

  Clivo circled the plane and found many small cages lying in the snow—obviously the ones used to relocate the otters. Their doors were open and the inhabitants long gone. But one stood out among the rest. Its bars were bent and snapped, as if the creature inside had torn them open like a tin can. Clivo shuddered at the thought of how strong the Otterman must have been to do that.

  Clivo looked at the map again and noticed a lake nearby, so he trudged even farther into the forest. After a short time the trees opened to a majestic sight: a frozen mountain lake nestled against a towering range of snow-covered peaks. A small stream emptied out of the lake, gurgling water bursting through the ice in spots. Scurrying over the tundra and snow were hundreds of otters playing in the sun.

  “Well, this should be easy,” Clivo mumbled, his heart sinking at the number of critters splashing about.

  He put down his backpack and grabbed some pinecones from a tree. He sat on a rock and observed the otters, looking for one that might be different from the others. He figured that if one of them was able to morph into a wereotter, it must be distinct somehow.

  But after a good half hour where he couldn’t tell one from the other, he gave up and decided to do it the hard way.

  “I’m really sorry about this, guys.”

  He had to threaten the otters, to make them feel like they were in danger so the one he was looking for would shape-shift to protect itself. He picked out the closest otter and tossed a pinecone directly at it. The pinecone splashed harmlessly in the water and the otter looked at him curiously, then went on with its playing.

  Clivo tossed more and more pinecones, even bonking a few critters right on the head, but they still just went about their activities.

  The sun was beginning to set and the temperature was dropping. Clivo decided he needed to hurry up and get out of there before he froze to death, so he opted for a more direct approach.

  He took a deep breath and began running at the otters with a yell, feeling rather silly as he waved his arms in a menacing fashion. The otters squeaked and ran off, hiding in the brush or diving into the water.

  He splashed sticks around, threw rocks in the water, and in general did his best to frighten the poor creatures. They seemed scared all right, but none of them turned into a furry man and ran after him.

  Clivo stopped and caught his breath. Maybe the Otterman had fled the area. There must be loads of lakes and streams in the mountain range; perhaps it had roamed about, trying to find its way back home.

  A memory flashed through Clivo’s mind.

  “It’s not here, Russell,” Clivo said, peering through the trees, looking for the deer he had been tracking for well over an hour.

  “The deer caught your scent, C, so it’s hiding. Now it’s watching you. Don’t look for where it was, look for where it retreated to.” His dad’s hand was on his shoulder, covered in a bandage that supposedly concealed a scratch from an archaeological digging tool. But Clivo had no idea what kind of tool would leave such a large wound.

  Clivo turned his eyes from where the deer had been heading and focused on the areas off to the side, where the trees were thicker. He looked for something out of place. A movement, a different color, a shape. Within seconds he spotted the deer, kneeling behind a bush, staring directly at him.

  “There it is, Dad!” Clivo whispered, pointing to the deer. He was so excited he had completely forgotten to call his dad Russell, something he had
started doing out of anger and hurt because he didn’t understand why his dad traveled away from home so much.

  His dad patted him on the shoulder, a joyful smile lighting his face at being called Dad, which meant that Clivo’s anger toward him was thawing. “Good job, C. Remember, don’t look for where they should be, look for where they go to hide.”

  Clivo turned his attention from the stream, where the otter should be, and slowly walked toward the trees. He squatted by a rock and used his senses to locate something out of place. He listened, he watched, he even smelled the air. He figured something called the Otterman must have a distinctive smell to it.

  Where would I go to watch me? Clivo wondered. He glanced up toward the lake, which sat on a slight hill. In terms of attack positions—and he assumed the Otterman would be preparing to attack—being uphill would offer the greatest advantage.

  He pivoted slightly to get a better view of the scene and instantly saw it. Crouching by a tree was the biggest otter he had ever seen, with a gray, furry body and a white face, its black eyes staring right at him with a look that was unnervingly human.

  “Okay, it’s showtime,” Clivo said, willing his legs to move even though they suddenly didn’t want to. He picked up a rock and rose to standing. His intention was to toss the rock just to the side of the creature to scare it, but his shaking hand threw it off target and it bounced right off the otter’s nose. “Yikes! I totally didn’t mean to do that!” he yelled.

  The otter shook its head and glared menacingly at Clivo. Its weasel-like body instantly began to shape-shift, the fat otter growing even wider and taller. The limbs stretched out and became arms and legs, the body ballooned into a huge mass, and the tiny face expanded into a large, hairy head. Bones groaned as they morphed and elongated until a creature that indeed looked like a man-shaped otter, down to the triangular black nose, took form. But this was no cuddly creature; this was a huge beast that, judging by the look on its scowling face, was very, very angry.