Steve Cole Middle Fiction 4

by Steve Cole

  Sorry, I must stick to the tale in hand.

  Soz.

  Sozzo!

  *ahem*

  The poultry-geists scratched the floor as they bobbed closer, their metal-edged wings catching the moonlight. With those square scrying glasses they wore, the evil bird-beasts could see us all as plainly as I see you now! (Yes, I’m hovering just behind you. Don’t look up from the page – we’re getting to a ‘well cool’ bit.)

  All three of the beasts were heading for Noah’s manacled body.

  Ever heroic, and rather stupid, Sir Guy stepped forward to face them. The poultry-geists might be after Noah, but they most certainly desired to do us harm, too. Sorry, that sounds somewhat undramatic. Well, then! They wished . . . to bust a cap in our butts! And not the sort of cap you wear on your head, oh, no! For in this instance ‘cap’ actually relates to the ignition cap at the base of a cartridge for a gun! Imagine!

  Now, where was I?

  Sir Guy swung his sword at the nearest poultry-geist. But the monster brought up its wing and deflected the blow, knocked the weapon from Sir Guy’s grip. Maloney – well-trained as ever – put on his tin-can horseshoes and galloped over. SCRUNCH!! SQUAWWWRK!! He trampled two of the beasts to the floor, yo! However, the third flapped its wings and jumped in the air, its metallic claws crunching down on the pony’s back. Maloney neighed with agony, legs buckling beneath him.

  “Get off him, foul beast!” Sir Guy picked up his sword and threw it like a missile, striking the ugly beast just above the beak. With a squawk, it went tumbling backwards and the scrying glasses fell from its face.

  What was I doing all this while, you may ask? Well, I was not standing idle, if that’s what you were thinking! This was not the first time I had faced poultry-geists. For many years in the early twentieth century, Sir Guy, Maloney and I had been forced to run and hide from the vile creatures all around the world, each time barely giving them the slip.

  But though the beasts had not bothered us for many decades, and Seerblight had forgotten all about us (so I thought), I believe in being prepared. This was my manor (quite literally!). Home turf! My streets, my rulez, you get me?

  I dashed to a metal cabinet in the corner and, from within, pulled out two specially prepared glass phials in metal holders. In each was a most noxious mixture of chemicals, prepared in my old laboratory at great personal expense (I can only handle my instruments using an old chain-mail glove, and even then not for very long at a time). And, as Sir Guy battled on, I took my chance – as you may witness here in this series of fine engravings:

  And lo, it came to pass that the poultry-geists became inedible roast dinners. Go me, right? Respect is due!

  “What happened?” Noah said, woken by the blast.

  “Do not be afeared, lad!” boomed Sir Guy. “Milady was wrong to call them poultry-geists! Why, they were only chickens escaped from a farmer’s field!”

  “I’m not a five-year-old,” Noah complained. “Just tell me, what’s a poultry-geist?”

  “Well, the name is of my own invention,” I said, “a play on words with ‘poltergeist’, which is a sort of invisible ghost, and ‘poultry’ meaning domestic fowl such as chickens—”

  “I know what poultry is!” Noah shouted. “But what were they?”

  “Seerblight’s sinister fusion of metal, flesh and magic,” I explained. “They stride the divide between the real world and ours with three desires only: to peck, claw and murder us!”

  “Four desires if you count the egg-chucking,” Noah said.

  Sir Guy surveyed the fried chicken bodies. “We have stopped these three, but more will come. While the boy stays here, we are targets once again!”

  “Or Noah is, at any rate,” I said. “Well, it seems to me we have two choices here. Either we hand Noah over to Seerblight—”

  “WHAT?” Noah gasped.

  “And we cannot do that, of course,” I added quickly. “So the only way to protect ourselves . . .”

  “Is to take the fight to him!” boomed Sir Guy. “We ATTACK! WE WAGE WAR!”

  I grimaced. “Er, actually, I was going to say, ‘the only way to protect ourselves is to run away’.”

  “I’d love to run away,” said Noah, “but I can’t. Seerblight’s got my mum prisoner. And Mum was working on a way to reverse what pow-powder does. If we ever want to be normal again – we’ve got to get her out!”

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  The Trojan Chicken

  I’d like to thank Lady J for stepping up to tell that part of the tale. But now I’m back! And things were getting serious. Yes, even more serious than a fight with giant chicken-monsters.

  “Right, then,” I said. “We can either hide in here and wait for the next poultry-geist attack, or we can DO something.” I sighed, staring round at the battered chicken-beasts. “For a start, we can drag these things outside so we don’t have to look at them.”

  “Good idea.” Jem marched over to one of the poultry-geists. “You should be able to touch their metal tails, Noah . . .”

  I tried to grab hold of the buckled (or buk-bukkled) metal and this time my hand actually closed round it! It was so exciting to be able to touch something again. Unfortunately, the dead poultry-geist was so heavy I could hardly shift it.

  “I shall help you, mon brave!” Sir Guy declared heroically.

  “I wonder how these things got here,” I said. “I mean, did they just walk through town?”

  “No doubt Seerblight transported them by magical means,” said Jem, dragging her poultry-geist along. “And, if they still lived, doubtless they would depart that way as well—GOODNESS!”

  She jumped away as a ball of flickering green light appeared around the poultry-geist. It grew stronger, brighter.

  “What’s happening?” I demanded.

  “I’m not sure,” said Jem, “but it’s happening to your poultry-geist, too. Get back!”

  But I couldn’t let go. The green light was engulfing me, too – and Sir Guy.

  “Sorcery!” he cried, unable to release the tin tail feathers of the horrible monster. “What is happening?”

  “I’ve seen this sickly green magic before,” Jem twittered. “I fear Seerblight is recalling his servants, to see what has befallen them!”

  I stared out at her through the green fog. “And . . . we’re being taken with them?” I joined Sir Guy in struggling to get free, but it seemed we were powerless. Suddenly we all shot away, whooshing up through the ruined ceiling and the gloomy upstairs rooms and out into the porridgy-grey morning. So fast! It was horrible – at least twice the speed of the fastest theme-park ride ever . . . It felt like my stomach had exploded.

  “Courage, jeune homme!” bellowed Sir Guy, as we bounced around inside the orb of light. “You said you wanted to do something to help your maman! Perhaps being transported magically alongside a dead chicken-monster is good?”

  “How could it EVER be good?”

  “If the poultry-geist is being taken back to Seerblight’s camp, and if we are hitching a ride – hurrah!” Sir Guy cheered. “We are being taken straight to where your kin is . . . in the heart of our enemy’s lair!”

  I was so scared, I didn’t know what to think. Everything was happening so fast – literally. The town and countryside streaked below me as if they were a TV advert and we were fast-forwarding through it. Ahead of me, through the first pink-gold streaks of dawn, I could make out an ultra-modern skyscraper I’d never seen before. It was a mountain of steel and glass, with a neon sign on top flashing: SEERBLIGHT SOLUTIONS. It was as if the landscape was an egg and the skyscraper was the beak of a ma-hoosive creature breaking through (er, with a neon sign on top).

  I stared. “I never noticed this place when Mum drove me to Asda for the annual baked bean buy-up.”

  “Seerblight has built many lairs in many places,” said Sir Guy. “Perhaps this one is new, as he has not long since arrived.”

  Speaking of arrivals, ours seemed imminent. I screamed as we dipped d
own from the sky and accelerated further, and Sir Guy joined in with a loud squeal as we shot at speed towards the ground floor, which was covered in gleaming metal shutters.

  At the last second, there was a flash of light, the shutters opened up and we were in. WHANG! Our steaming poultry-geist flew down a kind of round steel tunnel, while Sir Guy and I hung on to its tail, until—

  WHUMPF! We fell painlessly to the straw-covered floor beside it, in a dimly lit coop, with walls not of wood but of metal. From the lumps of rotting meat lying about and the size of the droppings scattered all around, I was quite glad I couldn’t smell anything in my invisible state. The sounds of clucking and scuffling told me the horrible truth – we were surrounded by poultry-geists!

  And, since we couldn’t pass through metal, we were trapped.

  “So far, so good, eh?” said Sir Guy.

  Then the other two dead poultry-geists whizzed down the steel tube behind us and squashed us both with the scorched remains of their metal tails and claws.

  “Yes, this is really nice,” I mumbled.

  The next moment, an electric light snapped on and a door rattled, as Mr Butt stepped into the coop.

  “He’ll see us!” I hissed.

  “No one can see us!” Sir Guy reminded me. “Not without the scrying glasses.”

  “What about the other poultry-geists?” I wondered.

  “BUUUUUUKKKKK!” said one close by.

  “Ah, yes! They are bred to sniff us out,” Sir Guy said. “So hold still and stay undercover.”

  “Got it.” I have never been so happy to be sat on by a dead, half-roasted chicken-devil beast.

  “So!” Mr Butt’s familiar voice rasped out into the room. “That’s what happened to them. Dead as a dinosaur’s bum, all three of them.”

  “Lady Jemima Smyth and her nitwit of a knight are more resourceful than I thought,” came a cold and sinister voice. A voice like a spade scraping through frozen earth. I knew straight away that it could only belong to one person.

  SEERBLIGHT.

  Half buried in poultry-geist, I couldn’t see him clearly. He was tall and thin, and seemed to shimmer somehow. His face was in shadow, but his eyes shone the palest glassy blue.

  “I must capture the boy,” Seerblight rasped. “His mother, Professor Deer, holds the secret of how to make Salt of Igneous by the ton – I sense it . . . AND she is close to reversing its invisible effects. But, without persuasion, she works half-heartedly.”

  Mr Butt smiled. “When her loving son is in your power, she’ll do the job faster . . .”

  “She must,” Seerblight agreed. “All has to be ready for my glorious 1000th birthday celebrations.” He gave a scary, shivery laugh. “As Venus and Jupiter come into conjunction, their shared light searing the evening heavens, I shall start my second thousand years on this world . . . as its MASTER!”

  “I’ll get the boy for you, master,” said Mr Butt, “don’t you worry! I’ll see the job is done! Ooooooooh, yes. Just wait!”

  “I will not wait long.” Seerblight’s voice grew its iciest yet. “Dispose of these bodies. I must return to Professor Deer and . . . encourage her.”

  Oh, Mum! I thought, with a shiver. I couldn’t resist lifting my head to see Seerblight properly, as he turned and walked from the coop with Mr Butt.

  And, as I did, I gasped. Parts of Seerblight – his left arm, his right leg, even bits of his hair – were glowing pale and translucent and just plain GHOSTLY . . . like us!

  “Pow-powder,” I breathed, as the hairs on the back of my neck prickled like mad. “Seerblight’s been exposed to it, too!”

  “What say you, lad?” Sir Guy stuck his transparent head through the poultry-geist for a better look.

  “Mon Dieu! So this is how Seerblight knew that his victims became untouchable and invisible. Half of him is going the same way. Just wait till I tell Lady Jemima!”

  “First, we should follow Seerblight,” I said. “He’s not wearing scrying glasses, so he won’t see us. And he’ll lead us straight to my mum!”

  “Yes!” cheered Sir Guy. “What care we for highly dangerous magical traps left for the unwary at every turn?!”

  “Er,” I began. “Well, actually—”

  “What caution should we show when intruding upon the fortress of the most powerful and evil sorcerer in the world?” Sir Guy boomed.

  “All right, calm down!” I chewed my lip, worried for Mum, worried for me, worried for the world! And then worry turned to all-out, potentially pant-wetting panic . . .

  Because the other poultry-geists had heard us, or sniffed us, or something. They were closing in, sniffing and snorting and saying “BUUUUUUUK!” in a really creepy way.

  I looked up at Sir Guy. “What do we do?”

  “Fight!” Sir Guy said stoutly. “Fight to the death!”

  “What with?”

  “Um . . . STRAW!” Sir Guy held up a small clump of wet stalks. “Ha! Yes, I think I see fear in their eyes now!”

  I covered my own eyes with my hand as the poultry-geists snarled and snapped and raised their claws. “We are so doomed.”

  And just then, as if to confirm it, Mr Butt re-entered the coop with a large whip. “Oi!” He cracked his whip, and the birds about to bite us backed away. “What’s got you going, you rotten, rubbish lot? Get lost, so I can reach those bodies . . .”

  I thought quickly. “He can’t see us, and he can’t hear us, and he won’t feel us if we run through him, right?”

  “This is true!”

  “Then come on!” I charged for the door, passing right through Mr Butt, and Sir Guy came after me.

  And the poultry-geists came after us.

  And they trampled Mr Butt into the ground as they went!

  I grabbed hold of the coop door’s metal handle, slammed it shut and turned the key in the lock. Mr Butt would know now he had intruders to deal with – arrrrgh! But at least we were outside, in a deserted yard beside the great tower (nice to know the poultry-geists were free range, huh?). It was time for a daring escape. . .

  Or not.

  “Oh, NO.” I took in the six-metre-tall chain-link fences all around me. “They’re made of metal; we can’t pass through them.”

  “We can climb them!” Sir Guy declared. He ran up to the fence – and massive blue-and-white sparks burst through his body. Poor Sir Guy was sent flying backwards through the air – straight into another fence, which zapped him again. He staggered over to me and fell to the ground, eyes shut.

  “Or perhaps we can’t,” I said.

  “Intruders!” yelled Mr Butt from the coop behind us. “Get after them, you great flapping flip-wits!” BANG! BOOM! The poultry-geists were well trained, and the metal door to the coop was bulging and straining as the chicken-monsters fought to smash it down.

  “Sir Guy, wake up!” I slapped his cheeks and shook him by the beard, but his eyes stayed shut. “I . . . I don’t know what to do. We’re totally trapped – and we’re about to die!”

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  A Team is Born

  (and a Book is Named!)

  I knelt over the figure of this king-sized knight in his oversized underwear, listening to the coop door being bashed off its hinges, convinced I was about to be killed by a sorcerer’s pet devil-chickens, when suddenly I heard something that put fresh hope in my heart.

  It was a fast-approaching “NEIGHHHHH!”

  Next moment, Maloney came leaping heroically over the high fence, snickering in the face of gravity. Of course, Jem had said that the human mind kept our feet on the ground – but clearly an everlasting horse was a different matter!

  Maloney landed beside me, then stooped to lick his master’s ghostly face, nudging him awake.

  “You found us!” I cried. “Good boy, Maloney.”

  “I told you, lad,” Sir Guy said groggily. “His nose can sniff out pow-powder over long distances. And, thanks to your maman’s work in that building, he smelled it here!”

  I didn’t much care
how he’d found us – I loved the old horse to bits for turning up at all.

  Sir Guy got back to his feet and lifted me onto Maloney – just as the poultry-geists burst their way out of the coop, Mr Butt close on their iron tail feathers.

  “Away, Maloney!” Sir Guy jumped onto his horse and dug his ghostly heels into the pony’s ghostly sides. “Away!”

  Maloney galloped towards the fence, chased by twenty giant chicken-monsters. At the last moment, he leapt . . .

  WHOOOOOSH! Over the fence we went, our cheers drowning out the angry BUK – BUK – BUK of our pursuers, and the raspberry blown by Mr Butt.

  Maloney’s jump was epic, and he landed in the shadows of the street beside the yard.

  Someone stepped out in front of us – luckily, it was just Lady Jem.

  “I’m so glad to find you!” She beamed up at us. “What happened? What did you learn?”

  “Maybe we could tell you back at the house?” I said, the distant bukking of the poultry-geists still too close for comfort.

  Jem jumped up behind me onto Maloney and the pony shot away into the night.

  We soon arrived back at Jem’s stately home (or her in-a-stately home, at any rate). I marvelled again at how I wasn’t out of breath, at how we’d galloped through traffic and buildings like they weren’t there. It had been scary at first, just sort of passing through everything. But after a while it felt more like . . . well, like having a superpower.

  I felt unstoppable!

  But if only I could stop feeling unstoppable and turn normal again when I wanted to. Which was now. Oh, Mum! Thinking of her, alone in Seerblight’s tower . . . But it sounded like she was standing up to him and not doing the work he wanted. She was tough, my mum.

  “Now, then,” Jem said primly in her wreck of a living room. “Tell me of your adventures. What did you learn?”

  “I learned that magic fences are not very nice,” offered Sir Guy.