“Oh.” Joey gulped as an army of Gravens formed a circle around him and his friends, leaving them nowhere to go and no choice but to fight. “I guess we’re doing this.”
“We gave you a chance to leave,” the indigo Secreteer said. “You should have taken it.”
The Secreteer and his partner retreated into the forest as the Gravens trudged forward. They were bigger than before—more menacing and more disgusting. The ground was wet in this area of the forest, and the Gravens contained a higher percentage of muddy brown goop and sludge. Earthworms and other creepy crawlies moved in and out of their eyes and mouths, a sight that made Joey want to throw up. His friends seemed equally nauseated, but Jack, Skerren, and Allegra didn’t react except to prepare for battle. Skerren stood ready to take the Gravens on with his magic swords. Allegra morphed one hand into a blade and the other into a shield. Jack went into his pocket and took out a pair of black gloves lined with golden circuitry.
“We haven’t had to fight these things in a while,” Skerren said.
“Eh,” Jack replied, unconcerned. “It’s like riding a bike.”
“I don’t suppose you could just wave them away with your magic wand?” Allegra asked Joey.
“No. He’s used it too much already,” Shazad said, answering for him.
“I know I shouldn’t,” Joey agreed. “But I might have to.”
“No, we’re fine,” Jack said. “We got this.” He strapped on the gloves and bumped his knuckles together, causing them to light up and crackle with energy. “I’ve been looking for an excuse to try these out.”
Janelle raised an eyebrow. “What are those?”
“These are one of my favorite inventions,” Jack said with pride. “Nuclear Knuckles. Don’t worry. They’re safe to be around. There’s no harmful radiation. I just call them ‘nuclear’ because they’re powered by atomic energy. Each glove is made from artificial atoms with discrete energy states that I control. The science behind them is actually quite fascinating.”
Skerren rolled his eyes. “Here we go.”
“Right now every atom in each glove is absorbing photons and making hundreds of successive quantum jumps,” Jack went on, ignoring Skerren. “That means—”
“That means millions of electrons are entering an energetically excited state,” Janelle said, following Jack’s logic without difficulty.
“Exactly,” Jack said, smiling. “See? She gets it.” He waved his hands around. They were enveloped by halos of white light so intense Joey had to squint to look at them. “Pretty cool, right? These used to be way clunkier. The Mark-1 design used big metal gauntlets and looked like some kind of a steampunk contraption. For this one I used synthetic fibers in the gloves to re-create the reaction at one-quarter of the size. After all, why do the gloves have to be big when the atoms are so small?”
“That’s what I said!” Janelle said. “I built a mini supercollider in my school basement based on the same exact theory.”
“Really?” Jack said, clearly impressed. “That’s amazing. Did it work?”
Janelle made a face. “Well… it did, and it didn’t.”
“I hate to interrupt, but can you two talk shop later?” Allegra asked Jack in a sharp tone as the Gravens closed in. “Right now, hit something!”
“I like her,” Leanora said, getting ready to charge her firestone.
“Sorry. I get carried away talking about this stuff.” Jack swung his fist around like a comet. It connected with a Graven and knocked its upper body clean off its lower body. An abandoned pair of legs stood upright for a brief second before collapsing in a muddy mess.
“That’s more like it,” Skerren cheered. “Actions speak louder than words, I say.” Skerren let his blades do the talking for him. He stood his ground, never moving more than a few steps in either direction, slicing away as he spoke. Skerren didn’t chase his targets. He let the Gravens come to him. When they got too close, he cut them to pieces. Whirling, slashing, and stabbing in constant motion, he made it look easy.
Allegra did the same, stretching her right arm to strike at oncoming attackers while shielding herself and her friends with her left. Allegra’s elastic body enabled her to cover lots of ground, and her blade arm ran through Gravens like a farmer culling a field. As aggressive as she was on offense, she was every bit as effective on defense, guarding the others against attacks. Joey noticed she seemed especially protective of Jack.
Working together, they formed a loose perimeter around Joey, Shazad, Leanora, and Janelle. They were polished fighters, and it was obvious they had been in situations like this before. Maybe even worse situations. None of them seemed the least bit overwhelmed by the moment. They were professionals doing a job, and they made short work of any Graven that came near them. For a second it looked to Joey as if they could take on the whole army themselves, but for every Graven they took out, three more climbed out of the ground. Joey looked deep into the trees in every direction. An endless army of zombies made of soil and stone was marching on their position. As impressive as Jack, Skerren, and Allegra were, it was too much even for them.
“We’d better do our part if we want to get out of this,” Shazad said, pulling off his cape.
Leanora didn’t need anyone to tell her that. She had already stepped up to join the fray. Swinging a fist of fire to match Jack’s Nuclear Knuckles, she blasted a Graven apart and moved forward to fill a gap in the perimeter. Standing in between Skerren and Jack, she shouted at Joey and the others. “What are you waiting for? Don’t just stand there! Fight!”
“Coming!” Shazad called back. “Just give me a second to get changed.” He handed his cape to Joey. “A little help?”
“I got you.” Joey took the cape and shook it out. Suddenly, it was the size of a picnic blanket.
“Take good care of that,” Shazad told him. “I’m going to need you to change me back when this is over.”
“Let’s just make sure we’re still aboveground when this is over,” Joey replied. “Any requests?”
“Yes. Don’t use the wand again.”
“I mean requests with this,” Joey said, holding up the cape.
Shazad shook his head. “Surprise me.”
Joey threw the cape over Shazad, covering him completely. When he pulled the cape away, Shazad was gone. In his place was a twelve-hundred-pound grizzly bear. He reared up on two legs, standing ten feet tall, and roared loud enough to grind everything to a halt. Even the Gravens paused to take notice.
“Brurggh?” an approaching Graven sputtered just before Shazad brought his full weight down on top of it, turning the creature back into a pile of muck. After that, he was off and running. Shazad charged into the horde of Gravens, mauling them with the ferocity of a wild animal and the tenacity of a soldier looking out for his brothers-in-arms.
“There’s something you don’t see every day,” Jack said, watching him go.
“You’ve been away from Jersey too long,” Janelle said, whipping the Staff of Sorcero around. “All of this is something you don’t see every day.” She moved like a martial arts master with a bo staff. Joey watched her cut a Graven at the knees, then jab the end of the staff into its forehead, causing it to explode in a muddy mess. The Graven slid apart, and she was on to her next target in seconds, sweeping the staff around through several more Gravens, taking them out.
“Not bad,” Skerren complimented her.
“You think these things would go easier on us if I told them I’m a committed environmentalist?” Janelle asked.
“You could try,” Skerren said, stomping at a Graven that was crawling toward his feet. “But I don’t think they care.”
Joey stood in the center of the circle, the only one not directly involved in the fight. As the Gravens continued to rise like zombies and pour in by the dozen, it was getting harder and harder for him not to use the wand. He knew he couldn’t risk it after using such a massive expenditure of magic energy with the Secreteer spell, but he felt helpless and useless
. If only he hadn’t lost that bag of tricks outside DeMayne’s office, he would have been able to do his part. Jack spotted Joey out of the corner of his eye and noticed he was late to the party. He quickly put two and two together.
“You don’t have anything besides the wand to fight with?” Joey shook his head no. Jack peeled the glove off his right hand and tossed it to Joey. “Take this!”
Joey caught the glove. Jack had just cut his own ability to defend himself in half. He had done it without a moment’s hesitation. “You sure?”
“Totally sure. I’m a lefty!”
He went back to the fight without another word. As before, there was no time for talking it over. There was only time for action. Joey tucked the wand away and put the glove on. The Nuclear Knuckles hummed with energy, and a warm, buzzing sensation ran up Joey’s arm past his elbow.
“How does it feel?” Leanora asked, checking up on Joey.
“Like the firestone,” Joey said. As he spoke, he saw a Graven appear behind Leanora while her back was briefly turned. Joey lunged forward to deliver an atomic punch and splatter it across the battlefield. “Whoa,” he said, looking down at his fist afterward. “A lot like the firestone.”
“Nice of you to join us!” Skerren shouted. “It’s about time. I can’t do this all by myself, you know.” Joey didn’t even get a chance to respond to Skerren’s snark before he turned around and went back to the fight. “Well, I could, but it would take much longer.” Skerren swung his swords wild and free, nearly giving Joey a haircut.
“Ignore him.” Allegra pushed back a throng of Gravens with two hands shaped like large crowd control barriers. “There, that’s your ground,” she said, clearing a space for Joey to fight and defend. “We all fight back-to-back. Nothing gets past you. Nothing gets past any of us. Got it?”
“Got it!”
Joey filled in the gap in the perimeter, completing a tight circle of defenders. With Shazad rampaging around the group in the form of a grizzly bear, they mounted a strong defense against the Gravens. Every now and then a hand would claw its way out of the ground and clutch at their ankles, but they were quickly kicked free and swatted away with a power glove or stabbed with the business end of a sword. Finding their rhythm as a team, they took down anything that got too close, but it was like shoveling sand against the tide. No matter how many Gravens they defeated, there were always more behind them, ready to take their place.
“They just keep coming!” Leanora said. “When do they stop?”
“I don’t think they do stop,” Allegra said. “We ran the first time we faced these things. After that, we’ve always had Jack’s sonic weapon.”
“Can you fix it?” Janelle asked Jack.
“Not without my tools,” Jack said. “I think we might be in trouble.”
“Trouble?” Joey said. “I thought you said we were fine!”
“I know what I said! But does this look fine to you?”
“So we run,” Janelle suggested. “I’m fine with that.”
“Run where?” Skerren asked. “Do you have any idea how big this forest is? There’s nowhere to go!” He had started this fight as a blur of blades, but he was slowing down. They all were. Meanwhile, the Gravens were everywhere. The children were outnumbered, surrounded, and if Joey didn’t do something, they would soon be overrun. “We tried doing it the old-fashioned way. It’s not working,” Joey told the others. “I’m going to use the wand.”
“Don’t you dare!” Leanora said. “We can take them!”
“For how long?” Joey asked. “We can’t keep this up forever. There’s too many of them!” He went to pull the wand out of his sleeve. It was not an action he took lightly. Joey was more concerned than anyone about how much he had used the wand in the last few hours, but he saw no other way out of the Secreteer’s death trap. Then he saw his breath appear as a white cloud in front of his face and felt the temperature in the forest drop rapidly. Joey looked at the ground as a layer of frost ran over it like a wave running into the shore. It reached the Gravens’ feet and quickly traveled up their legs, freezing them in place. They looked like mutant snowmen.
No sooner had they stopped moving than an oversize wolfman came bounding into the clearing to tear them apart. Frozen chunks of earth flew through the air as the snarling creature pounced, swiping at defenseless Gravens. Unlike before, no fresh Gravens emerged to replace the fallen. The ground was frozen solid.
“What’s going on?” Leanora asked. “Where’d this ice come from?”
“Where did he come from?” Allegra asked, nodding toward the wolfman.
“Who cares?” Skerren replied. “We’re saved.”
“No we’re not.” Joey noticed the wolfman was very well dressed. Or at least, he had been. His clothes were torn at the seams by his bulging muscles, no doubt the result of his transformation into wolf form. Joey had seen it before. He had seen that outfit before too. The wolfman was wearing a white dress shirt and vest. He had a small pouch at his waist, attached to a gold chain.
“Perhaps we can be of assistance?” Ledger DeMayne said, stepping into sight. Wielding the Sword of Storms, he decimated any frozen Gravens that were still standing. Hurricane-force winds poured out of the broken sword once known as Excalibur. DeMayne struggled to hold and control it, gripping the hilt with both hands to direct the raging winds that obliterated the Gravens, reducing them to particles of frozen granules. He didn’t stop until the field was clear of hostiles. Only then, and only with great effort, did he “turn off” the storm and lower his sword.
After the winds died down, the werewolf calmed down and reached into his own mouth to pull out a fang and regain his natural form. As Mr. Ivory once again lamented the ruined state of his clothes, his friend Mr. Clear came in shivering and rubbing his arms for warmth. He looked just as cold and sickly as ever, but Joey and his friends were about to be colder. Mr. Clear raised a shaky hand, and the crystal on the bracelet he wore lit up. The children all cried out in shock as a miniature iceberg formed behind them in the center of their circle. Its edges grew to encase their feet and hands, trapping them. Shazad, who was still in bear form, had been frozen from head to toe.
“What the—” Jack said, struggling to free himself. The light in his left hand flickered on and off. The same thing was happening with Joey’s right hand. Evidently, the Nuclear Knuckles didn’t respond well to extreme cold. “Who are these guys all of a sudden?”
“These are the people we told you about,” Joey said. “Ledger DeMayne and the Invisible Hand.”
DeMayne took a bow. “Guilty as charged.” He walked up to Joey with a smug smile on his face, thoroughly enjoying the moment. “Hello, Joey. Wonderful to see you again.”
16 Let’s Make a Deal
Jack’s malfunctioning glove lit up and stayed lit up. There was a loud crack as his hand busted loose. He swung his fist around to pound the block of ice behind him, freeing himself and Skerren. Allegra slithered out of her bonds, ready to fight. It would take more than ice to hold her liquid metal form. Joey tried again to get his power glove working, but nothing happened. He was about to ask Jack to use his powers to fix it when he felt something sharp jab him in the neck.
“Hold it right there,” Ledger DeMayne told Jack, Skerren, and Allegra. “Stop or I’ll blow his head off—literally.” He held the Sword of Storms at Joey’s jugular. “Of course, I don’t even need to use magic to end you, do I?” Joey held his breath as the jagged edge of the broken blade poked at his throat.
“Nobody move,” Janelle said. “Don’t do anything.”
“That’s good advice,” DeMayne said, his eyes darting around to keep tabs on everyone. “Believe it or not, we aren’t here for you. Not the way you think. We could waste a lot of time fighting each other, but what would that accomplish? Mr. Clear freezes you. You break free. He does it again, you break free again. Mr. Ivory changes into something exciting to match blows with your grizzly friend over there.… I’m forced to make an example out of y
oung Kopecky here.…” DeMayne pressed the blade into the soft, meaty part of Joey’s neck, but not hard enough to break the skin. Just hard enough to scare him. DeMayne twisted his lips, showing his distaste for the scenario he described. “It’s all very messy, and worse than that, it gains us nothing. Meanwhile, the true enemy roams this forest, waiting to pick us apart and keep us from achieving our common goal.”
“What common goal is that?” Leanora asked, sounding very suspicious.
DeMayne lowered his hand, taking the blade away from Joey’s neck. “Let’s talk about that. Are you willing to talk? Can I trust you to behave?”
DeMayne motioned with the Sword of Storms as he spoke. Joey’s eyes followed the pointy end of the broken blade, still within striking distance. Still deadly. He knew Ledger DeMayne was up to something. It was in the man’s nature. Things couldn’t be otherwise. But Joey decided he would rather hear about DeMayne’s scheme without a weapon mere inches away from his neck. “All right. Let’s talk.”
A short while later, Joey and the others had been released from the ice, and Shazad was back in human form. The ground was still frozen so the Gravens could not renew their attack, and everyone stood around shivering, waiting for DeMayne to make his pitch. Oddly enough, Mr. Clear seemed more bothered by the cold than anyone else.
“Make it colder,” DeMayne said, ignoring his discomfort. “I don’t want these things waking up.” Mr. Clear gave a weary nod, and the temperature dropped another ten degrees. When he was finished, he put on a winter hat and gloves, but he still looked like he was freezing. “What I’m about to say will no doubt surprise you,” Ledger DeMayne continued, turning to Joey. “I propose we form an alliance.”
Joey scrunched up his face. “An alliance? What?”
“How could we have an alliance?” Leanora asked.
“I seem to remember you promising to kill us,” Shazad said.
“You said you’d kill us twice,” Janelle added.
The New World Page 16
