“What good is parkour going to do against a yeti?” Theo said. “Are you going to backflip it to death?”
“We don’t have to kill it. We just need to get around it so we can snag the Helm.” The snowman swatted at Parker. But the seventh grader somersaulted out of the way. “It’s big, and it’s strong. I wouldn’t call it fast, though…” The snow beast leaped. Parker ducked to the side and watched the yeti hit the ice and slide on its face. “…and I’ve fought smarter monsters. Reese, you and Theo go in and grab the Helm.” He grinned. “I’ll keep Icy here busy.”
Theo rolled his eyes. Of course Parker was playing the hero.
“On three,” Reese said. “One. Two. Three!” She took off for the mouth of the cave with Theo right behind her. The thing scrambled to its feet and lunged after them. Theo and Reese were running as fast as they could but the gear made it hard to move. If Parker couldn’t distract the monster, they would be yeti food.
“Hey, Bigfoot!” The yeti turned its pink eyes to Parker Quarry. “Come and get me!” The beast bared its crooked fangs and charged. Parker bounced to the yeti’s left and used his leg to push off the side of the mountain. Shaking with rage, the snowman clawed the air where the seventh grader was supposed to be. Parker was already gone, a bright red blur against the white snow, as Reese and Theo vanished into the black maw of the cave.
The walls were lined with ice and Reese’s flashlight made the whole space glitter like it was filled with diamonds. She pulled her face mask down and was assaulted by the stench of wet yeti.
“Wow,” she said. “It’s even worse than Maks.”
Theo’s flashlight picked up bones piled in a heap against a wall of the cave. “I hope those are bear bones and not…” He let the sentence trail off.
Reese took a quick look. “Not unless bears have horns. I’d say the yeti eats yaks.” Her light lingered on what looked like a torn ski parka. “Well, mainly yaks.”
“Um, I think I found the piece of the Helm.”
“Great! Where?”
Theo pointed his light. High up and well out of reach was a dark piece of metal embedded in the frozen cave wall.
Reese screwed up her face. “I’ll rock-paper-scissors you for it.”
Theo shrugged. “We’d have to take off our mittens and I’d just lose anyway.” Theo squatted down and made a step for Reese with his hands. “Try not to step on my head.”
The yeti was getting really, really frustrated. Why wouldn’t this meat thing just stand still and get eaten like all the others? The beast brought a hairy claw down but its prey rolled away.
“Is that all you got, Snow Face?”
If the snowman couldn’t kill the thing in red, maybe it could at least get the creature to stop making so much noise. The yeti took aim and brought both of its arms down like a massive club. It missed and knocked a new hole in the ice.
In the force field, Fon-Rahm watched his master’s antics with dismay. The snow beast was built for the cold and the thin air. Parker was not. He was for the moment the most skilled parkour athlete in the world, but he was also still just a twelve-year-old used to a less hostile climate. New Hampshire wasn’t Los Angeles but it was certainly warmer than this.
Fon-Rahm turned to Maks. “You created this thing. You must hold the key to its destruction.”
Maks scratched the top of his head. “What do you want from me? It was four hundred years ago!”
Fon-Rahm glared at Maks.
“Okay, okay, I’ll give it a shot.” Maks stuck his flask back into his pocket and cracked his neck from side to side. He narrowed his eyes and concentrated. Then he let out a deep breath and thrust his hands toward the monster with a low grunt.
The yeti didn’t even flinch.
Maks looked at his hands and scowled. “I could have sworn that was the right spell.” The ground started to quake. A low rumble that he felt in his stomach rather than heard came from above. Maks and Fon-Rahm looked up the mountain to see a wall of snow bearing down on them. “Oops.”
“Avalanche!” Fon-Rahm’s urge to protect Parker overrode anything else in his mind. He dropped the force field and used every bit of magic power he had to create a crackling net of blue energy to catch the rampaging onslaught of snow and ice. The force of the avalanche actually pushed Fon-Rahm back, but his shield held. Snow slammed down all around them, obliterating everything else on the mountain.
“Nicely done, friend,” Maks said.
Fon-Rahm looked down to see the disheveled wizard holding him tight around the waist. “You don’t mind, do you?” said Maks. “I’d rather not freeze to death up here.”
As he struggled to hold his ground, the genie hoped against hope that Reese and Theo would shake a leg.
Theo was sure his knees were going to give out any second.
“Just a couple more hits should do it!” Reese said. She had been perched on Theo’s shoulders, using her ice pick to hack away at the frozen cave wall for what seemed like hours. “This thing is really in there.”
Every blow of the pick sent a shock that ran through Theo’s entire frozen body. With one last jab, the ice finally surrendered the last piece of the Elicuum Helm to Reese.
“Yes!” She dropped off of Theo’s shoulders, the Helm clutched in one of her giant mittens.
“Awesome!” said Theo, his shoulders throbbing. “Next time I’m getting on your shoulders.”
Parker jumped a chasm right in front of the yeti and made it by the skin of his teeth. He was fading fast.
“Fon-Rahm! I can’t hold this thing off much longer!”
“I cannot come to your aid!” Holding back tons of ice and snow was taking its toll on the genie. Although the air around him was well below zero, the pain in Fon-Rahm’s arm was as hot as a pizza oven. The crisscrossing web of blue-black bruises reached up his neck and to the bottom of his jaw. “My injury worsens.”
Parker could feel the yeti bearing down on him for one last attempt at dinner. The twelve-year-old was out of breath and completely spent. He didn’t think he would survive much longer. “Fon-Rahm! When I tell you, drop the shield!”
The genie shook his head. “I cannot put you in such great danger.”
“I’m already in danger!”
“He’s right about that,” muttered Maks.
“I command you to drop the shield…” Parker waited for the snow beast’s charge. “…now!”
Fon-Rahm had no choice. He let his hands fall to his side, letting tons of frozen rock and ice charge down the mountain.
Parker timed the avalanche and used every ounce of strength he had left to rush the snow beast, ducking under its swinging claws and climbing the yeti with carefully placed steps and handholds. As the snowman lashed out, Parker stomped on the very top of its head and launched himself onto the side of the mountain and to safety.
The confused yeti turned just in time to be buried by the freight train of snow.
Reese and Theo ran out of the cave with the final shard of the Helm. “We got it!” Reese shouted. But the landscape had changed. Everything was covered with a fresh flood of ice. There was no sign at all of Maks or Fon-Rahm, and Parker was gone.
“Parker?” Theo asked.
“Up here,” he said. Reese and Theo looked up to see Parker clinging to the mountain high above them.
“What happened?”
“Oh, we almost got wiped off the world’s tallest mountain.” Parker climbed wearily down from his perch and collapsed melodramatically onto the ice. “You know. The usual.”
Theo searched the desolate landscape. “Where’s Fon-Rahm? Where’s Maks?”
He heard a loud hissssssss and jumped aside as a steaming sinkhole melted itself into the ice. Fon-Rahm rose stoically through the steam and floated above the new hole. Maks was cradled in his arms. “That is an experience I do not wish to repeat,” the genie said.
“Me either,” said Maks, climbing gingerly down to the snow. “I almost lost my flask!”
As Fon-Rahm
rescued the Camry from the tons of ice that had covered it during the avalanche, Reese, Parker, and Theo took one last look at the mountain. “Well, Parker was right about us remembering this for the rest of our lives,” Reese said. “We battled the abominable snowman on the top of Mount Everest!”
“Yeah. Good times,” said Parker. “I’m gonna be sore for a month.”
Fon-Rahm whirled on his master and spat his words. “Your plight is your own doing. Only a half-wit would take such foolish risks.”
They all stared at the genie.
“That’s a little harsh, don’t you think?” said Theo.
“I am sorry.” Fon-Rahm blinked, trying to clear his head. “I did not mean to lash out like that.”
“You’re just tired, buddy,” Parker said, looking at the snow. “It’s okay.”
“I am not sure what came over me.”
Theo snorted. “Don’t worry about it. Parker’s enough to make anybody lose his cool.”
“We’re all wiped. I think we should—” Reese stopped. Something was shaking in the ground beneath her. “Guys?”
The yeti burst from the ice right in front of her. As she stared in terror, it rose to its full height and bellowed at the top of its lungs. Just before it brought down a claw to tear Reese’s head from her body, the snowman was hit from behind. Parker pulled Reese out of the way just as the yeti fell like a dropped redwood onto the ice. Its back was smoldering with embers and ash.
Reese and Parker looked to Theo. He was holding a glass trinket from his bag. It was so hot he dropped it and it melted its way deep into the snow.
“Not bad!” Maks nodded in approval. “For someone so young.”
Theo felt a wave of relief wash over him. He could control his magic. All he had to do was have faith in himself.
They all climbed back into the car and lifted off. Before they left Mount Everest behind for good, Reese looked out the window and saw the yeti stumble to its feet and lumber back to its cave to lick its wounds. It would have to find something else for dinner.
25
WHILE MAKS PLAYED WITH THE projector cube on the workbench, Fon-Rahm, Parker, Reese, Theo, and the professor stared at the final shard of the Elicuum Helm.
They were in the Merritts’ barn. By a stroke of sheer luck, both Theo’s and Parker’s parents had been called to the school for a hastily arranged parent-teacher conference. A little shuffling of papers on Fon-Rahm’s part might have had something to do with the revised schedule.
The third piece of the Helm was encased in a glass box atop the tractor’s rusty engine cover. The professor had commissioned the glass case in advance. She didn’t want anyone touching the Helm unless it was absolutely necessary. “It wants to be used,” she said. “It wants to reach out and it needs to meld with someone’s mind to do it. If it can, it will suck the life right out of you.”
“I can vouch for that,” said Parker. “I can still feel that thing wriggling around in my brain.”
“If we can’t use it, what are we supposed to do with it?” Reese asked.
Ellison sat primly on the tractor’s seat and looked over the group. “We’re going to use it as bait.”
“Bait?” asked Theo. “Bait for who?”
“Vesiroth.” Fon-Rahm crossed his arms over his broad chest. “The professor is suggesting we use the Helm to attract Vesiroth.”
The kids looked to Professor Ellison in the hopes that she would tell Fon-Rahm he was wrong. She did no such thing.
“You’re going to try to lure Vesiroth here?” asked Theo. “That’s insane. We live here!”
“Not here, Theo,” the professor said. “We’re going to lure him to my house.”
Theo let out a humorless laugh. “Oh, well, in that case…”
Maks hit a button on the projector and a startlingly realistic life-sized hologram of a high-stakes chariot race suddenly filled the barn. Theo actually jumped out of the way before he was run over. Parker smiled.
“Lady Pembrook-Pendleton,” Maks muttered. He pushed the button once more and the scene collapsed into a single blue dot that faded away into nothingness. “She was always a bit off.”
Reese ignored him. “I don’t get it. Even if we do manage to get Vesiroth to Cahill, what then? Are we going to try to kill him?”
“Can he even be killed?” Theo asked. “It seems like the guy’s not even human anymore.”
“You don’t want to kill him, do you, Professor?” said Parker. “You want to capture him. That’s what you’ve been working on. Some kind of wizard trap.”
“It’s tricky,” Professor Ellison said, shifting her weight on the tractor. “But I believe it can be done. Vesiroth is not without weaknesses. He’s vain. He’s impulsive. He’s insane. I know for a fact he’s prone to hallucinations.”
“Hallucinations?” Reese asked. “Really?”
“He sometimes sees his dead wife and daughters.” Reese blanched at Ellison’s words. “Seeing your family slaughtered is enough to drive anyone over the edge, dear. So I’m told.”
“Well, I can’t believe we’re even talking about this.” Theo paced by the old apple press. “He almost gutted you guys in the catacombs and now he’s got two pieces of the Helm and he absorbed the strength of the wasp genie, right? That means he’s even more powerful.”
“No one ever said life was without risk, dear one.”
“I don’t know.” Theo sulked. “This seems like a really bad idea.”
Parker said, “She may be right, buddy. We all know we’re going to have to fight him sooner or later. We’re better off doing it on our turf. At least we’ll have the home-field advantage.” He looked to his genie. “What do you think, Fon-Rahm?”
The genie thought for a moment. “It will be difficult. Vesiroth must be enticed to come to us before he has regained his full strength. The allure of the Helm may prove irresistible to him…”
“It will,” said Professor Ellison. “The Helm is his key to world domination and Vesiroth was never one to deny himself.”
“If we succeed in drawing him here, he will not come alone. He will bring the Path with him.”
“And that other lamp he stole from Professor Ellison.” Theo shook his head. “For all we know, he has all the other lamps.”
Ellison shrugged. “That’s a risk I’m afraid we’ll have to take.”
“So.” Parker leaned against the wall of the barn. “It’ll be three kids, one genie, and one, um…”
“Enchantress, dear. Today I feel like an enchantress.”
“Enchantress against Vesiroth and the Path and whoever else he decides to bring with him. I like the odds.”
“And Maks,” said Theo, hopefully eying the sloppy wizard.
“Me?” Maks leaned against the workbench. “A fight with the most powerfully evil wizard the world has ever known is tempting, but you’ll have to do it without me. I have other responsibilities.”
“Like drinking until you pass out?” asked Reese, disdain burning in her eyes.
“Like saving my own skin.” Maks clunked the projector onto the bench. “I may look like I’m in prime physical condition but the truth is, I’m not quite as strong as I once was. I know my own limitations.”
“Or maybe you’re just scared,” said Theo.
“Of course I’m scared. If you had any sense you’d be scared, too.” He walked over to Professor Ellison. “I did my part. Do you have something for me?”
The professor retrieved a small velvet purse from her Louis Vuitton bag and tossed it to the grimy wizard. Maks snapped it out of the air, loosed the purse’s strings, and peered inside. “Yes,” he murmured. “Yes, this will do quite nicely.”
Theo peeked over his shoulder in an effort to see what was in the bag, but Maks yanked it away. “Not for you, I’m afraid.” He stuck the purse into his pocket and winked at Professor Ellison. “Always a pleasure doing business with you, my dear.”
“Until next time, Maks,” she said.
Maks snorted. �
��Let’s hope there is a next time.” He straightened his filthy suit jacket, opened the door to the barn, and walked away.
“We’re really going to do this, aren’t we?” wondered Reese out loud after a moment’s silence. “We’re really going to bring Vesiroth here.”
Parker said, “And we’ll be ready for him. I don’t care if we’re outnumbered and I don’t care if we’re outmatched. I would bet on us against anybody, anytime. If there’s any team in the world that can stop Vesiroth, it’s us!”
The projector fell off the edge of the workbench. When it hit the ground, it sprang to life and spat out a hologram of two steam trains smashing into each other headfirst at full speed. The carnage when they hit was brutal.
“I don’t think that’s a great sign,” said Theo.
Later, when everyone had left, Parker and Theo straightened up the barn. They didn’t want any evidence of the meeting left behind.
“I don’t know why I even bother to say anything to her,” said Theo. He boosted himself onto the workbench while Parker gave the barn floor a once-over. “She never listens to a word of it. I mean, would it kill her to ask me for my opinion once in a while? I feel like I’m as invisible as Fon-Rahm.”
“Yeah, I don’t envy you, Theo. If I had to spend a lot of time with her I’d—”
“You’d go insane, is what you’d do. I could count the number of nice things she’s ever said to me on one hand. She—”
“Theo, what is this?”
Parker held up a brick-red stone the size of a nine-volt battery. Theo jumped off the workbench and grabbed it from Parker’s hand.
“Weird,” he said, turning the stone over in his hand. “It’s made out of clay. These markings look like letters. You know, this looks familiar to me. When I was going through all those stupid books in Professor Ellison’s library I saw—” He stopped mid-sentence.
“What? Theo, what is it?”
Finders Keepers Page 14
