The Flock of Fury

by Tom Sniegoski

  Artemus brought the evil worm closer to his face. “And you used our poor Owlboy to do it.”

  “That was my greatest achievement,” the worm chortled. “Once I was able to enter his ear, his body became mine.”

  “I’m disappointed in myself,” the old goblin said, shaking his head. “I should have put two and two together; the Brain Worm was one of the villains Preston was hunting when he disappeared,” Artemus said sadly. “Guess this shows what kind of a sidekick I was.”

  Percy put his arm around his friend, and Saul patted him on the back.

  Victoria stood before the dangling Brain Worm, hands on her hips, looking it right in the eyes.

  “Now, who would want to do something so mean?” Victoria asked it. “What did the old Owlboy ever do to you?”

  “He had what I could never have,” the Brain Worm answered.

  “Arms and legs?” Victoria suggested.

  “No,” the Worm barked. “A city that loved him.”

  “Oh,” Victoria said, nodding.

  “I always wanted to be a hero, even as a larva, but everybody laughed at me. They said I was too small . . . too ugly . . .”

  “Too wormy?” Victoria suggested.

  She was all about helping.

  “Yes, too wormy,” the Brain Worm went on. “And I swore that I would have my revenge on all those who said that I could never be a superhero . . . that I would make them want me. I would show them what a fantastic hero I could be.”

  “But you were a bad guy?”

  “For a time . . . I needed to show them how much they needed me . . . how this new Owlboy was a failure.”

  “Hey!” Billy cried. “I’m not a failure. I think I’m doing pretty good. Stopped you, didn’t I?”

  Victoria giggled. “Billy’s a great big failure,” she said, starting one of her crazy dances.

  Billy had almost started to feel bad for the Brain Worm too.

  Almost.

  He turned around to see where the chief and his men were. They seemed to have things under control. Some of the officers were monitoring the crowds, while others were getting the Monarch’s villains ready for their journey back to Beelzebub.

  “Hey, Chief, I’ve got another one for you,” Billy said, taking the tweezers from Artemus.

  Bloodwart’s rocky body stomped over to Billy and extended a hand that looked as though it had been carved from granite.

  “With pleasure, Owlboy,” Chief Bloodwart said, taking the tweezers from him. “Ugly little beastie, ain’t he?”

  “Why don’t you put me a little bit closer to your ear and I’ll show you how ugly I am,” the Brain Worm suggested.

  “I’ve got enough things inside my head right now,” the chief answered, carrying the worm to a transport bus that had just pulled up to take the villains back to prison. “But I’m sure the nice folks over at Beelzebub will have a comfy cell in the shape of a skull that you can crawl up into.”

  Billy breathed a sigh of relief as he watched the worm get carried off; this had been the wildest adventure in Monstros yet. He turned back to his friends to see that Artemus and the other old goblins were helping Preston Stickwell up.

  “Where am I?” the old man asked, looking around. “I’m still in Monstros City, right?”

  “That you are,” Artemus said. “You’ve been away for a little while, but now you’re back.”

  Preston slowly brought a hand to his chin. “No,” he said. “I haven’t been away. . . . I’ve been here all along . . . and I’ve done some horrible things!” His face crumpled.

  Billy couldn’t stand to see the old man look so sad.

  “It wasn’t you, sir,” Billy said. “It was the Brain Worm. The Brain Worm did these things, not you.”

  The former hero looked down at Billy, surprised. “You’re . . . you’re Owlboy too?” he asked.

  “Yes sir,” Billy said. “I took over after you’d been gone for quite some time.”

  “And he’s doing a bang- up job, I might add,” Artemus said.

  Halifax and Archebold beamed proudly.

  “It was nothing, really,” Archebold said. “I just needed to whip him into shape.”

  “I think he’s gonna work out fine,” Halifax added.

  Walter the firefly stuck his head out from Archebold’s pocket.

  “And I agree,” the bug said.

  Billy didn’t believe it—even Walter thought he was doing a good job?

  Preston removed one of his gloves and touched his own face. “I’ve been gone for a very long time,” the older man said, the tips of his fingers tracing his wrinkles. “I’m glad they found somebody to take my place.” He smiled. “Somebody to protect the city that I love.”

  And then Billy had the most terrible thought: the only reason he’d been recruited as the new Owlboy was that Preston had gone missing, and now that the original Owlboy had returned . . .

  Preston extended his hand to Billy.

  “Thank you,” the old Owlboy said as the two shook hands.

  “I guess you’re gonna want your job back, right?” Billy asked, doing everything he could to keep his voice from cracking with disappointment.

  Preston managed a small, sad smile.

  “Oh, no,” the old man said with a shake of his head. “I’m too old for this kind of work. From what my friends say, you’re doing a most excellent job, and I have a lot of catching up to do. Being evil really cramped my style.”

  Billy felt an enormous weight lifted from his shoulders. He didn’t know what he would have done if he couldn’t be Owlboy anymore.

  “See, Billy,” Victoria said. “You’re not a great big failure after all.” She giggled evilly, and again Billy wondered if the small child might be possessed by the devil.

  “Thanks, Destructo Lass,” he said.

  “I am not Destructo Lass,” she said with an angry scowl. “I’m Destructo—”

  “What’s that, Destructo Lass?” he asked, cutting her off and putting a hand to his ear. “I couldn’t hear you, Destructo Lass.”

  She looked as though she just might blow a gasket. Billy was about to apologize, tell her to calm down and maybe promise to play grocery store when they got back to Bradbury, when she raised one of her legs, preparing to bring it down in a stomp that could send devastating tremors through downtown Monstros.

  “Don’t stomp your foot and I’ll buy you that fairy princess tiara that’s in the window of the Hero’s Hovel!”

  The words seemed to just spill from Billy’s mouth, surprising him. The fairy princess tiara had accidentally been sent to the Hovel in an order of action figures, and Cole had never gotten around to sending it back. Eventually, he’d stuck it in the window, hoping that a sucker would come along someday and buy it.

  Victoria had seen it not too long ago and had been bugging Billy about it since.

  “You will?” she asked with a smile, balancing on one foot.

  Billy couldn’t believe it, but knew that this was a simple way to avoid a big-time problem. “Only if you don’t use your Destructo powers and stamp your foot,” he said.

  “You got yourself a deal, bro!” she squealed happily.

  As she gently brought her sneakered foot down to the street, a powerful tremor that Billy felt in his teeth shook the street to its very bedrock.

  “I didn’t do it!” Victoria yelled, throwing her hands on her head.

  The ground shook again violently. Billy watched as a section of street bulged upward, the pavement splitting open as something huge and monstrous emerged.

  It was just one of those nights.

  Mother Sassafras looked very angry.

  The giant troll woman pulled her body up through the hole she had torn in the city street from the sewer tunnels below.

  “Oh man, I thought we took care of her,” Billy said, stumbling back from the awful sight of the Sassafras Siblings’ mother.

  “Me too,” Archebold squeaked. “Guess they weren’t as down for the count as we thought
they were.”

  She crawled up onto the street on her hands and knees, her face and flower- print dress stained with a variety of foulness from the Monstros City sewer system. Her hair looked like the head of a mop that had been used to clean up an oil spill.

  “Where are they?” the troll mother bellowed, climbing to her feet and wobbling on tree-trunk-thick legs. “Where are the monsters that did this to me?”

  Sigmund and Sireena emerged behind their mother, covered in sewer scum and carrying their massively destructive weapons.

  “Here’s your gun, Mother,” Sigmund said, handing his mother a pistol dripping with sludge.

  Her ugly face wrinkled in disgust as she took the weapon from her son.

  “Is this what I have been reduced to?” she screamed again. “Using weapons covered in filth?” She stared at the gun and the thick stream that slowly oozed from the barrel.

  “This is all because of you,” she scolded, her beady eyes scrutinizing the heroes standing before her. “You couldn’t leave well enough alone. Monstros was doing perfectly fine without an Owlboy, but you had to come along and foul everything up for my poor children.”

  Sireena and Sigmund now stood on either side of their monstrous parent.

  “All we wanted was to be king and queen of Monstros,” Sireena roared. “But no, Mr. ‘I’m Owlboy and I have to protect the innocent from harm’ has to come along and spoil everything my brother and I worked so hard for.”

  “All we wanted was to strike terror in the hearts of the citizens of Monstros. Is that too much to ask?” Sigmund demanded, his voice cracking with emotion.

  “There, there, my sweets,” Mother Sassafras said, patting her son’s and daughter’s backs. “Mother will make certain that all your dreams come true. It’s what a good mommy does for her children.”

  The Sassafrases opened fire, their energy weapons blowing away huge chunks of street and building as Billy and the other heroes tried to duck for cover.

  “I’m tired of being Destructo Ballerina,” Victoria complained.

  Halifax had scooped the child up and was running in a zigzag as Sireena tried to blow them away.

  The streets were again in total panic. Citizens ran around screaming at the tops of their lungs. Peeking out over the top of the car he’d jumped behind for cover, Billy saw that his team was trapped, pinned down by the Sassafrases’ rapid gunfire.

  They needed a distraction if they were ever going to reach the villainous family and take them out.

  Billy gulped, ready to do something that might be considered very dumb, but he didn’t see a choice. He was the leader of this team, and he had to lead by example.

  He got ready to jump up from his cover, hoping that somebody would have the good sense to take the Sassafrases down while he was risking his life.

  He really would hate getting killed for nothing.

  “No, let me,” said a voice.

  Billy turned to see Preston Stickwell standing beside him.

  He started to object, but the former Owlboy silenced him with a gesture.

  “I’ve got some things to make up for,” the older man said, and with a smile stepped out from behind the car and into the Sassafrases’ line of sight.

  “Oh, look, an old bird,” Sireena cackled.

  “Two Owlboys in one day,” Sigmund said, amused. “Monstros will be afraid of us forever.”

  “Enough with the chatter, you two,” Mother Sassafras said.

  And just as she was about to fire, the old Owlboy produced something from one of his pouches and aimed it at the trigger- happy threesome. A beam of yellow light pulsed from the device, striking Mother Sassafras first then spreading to the others.

  All three suddenly drifted up from the ground, the victims of a sudden loss of gravity.

  “This again?” Sireena complained, trying to keep from twirling around.

  “I thought this was a Monarch trick,” Sigmund said as he tumbled through the air.

  “Doesn’t mean the technology can’t be put to good use,” the former Owlboy said, watching the trolls float above the city street.

  “Put us down this instant!” Mother Sassafras commanded.

  “Or you’ll what?” Preston asked with a chuckle. “You’re in no position to make demands.”

  Mother Sassafras became enraged, shoving her pistol down the front of her dress as she reached out to snatch her daughter’s bigger, and nastier, rifle.

  “Mister Shooty!” Sireena cried as she was relieved of her favorite weapon.

  “You were warned,” Mother Sassafras said with a snarl as she fired Mister Shooty at the former Owlboy.

  The recoil of the weapon threw the weightless troll backward into her daughter, sending them both cannon-balling through the air toward one of Monstros’s taller buildings. They hit the building with the force of a wrecking ball, punching a huge hole in the side.

  Villains are as dumb as a bag of rocks, the comic book Owlboy had said in the second issue of his monthly comic, and Billy had to agree.

  Sigmund did the only thing that made sense to his pea-sized brain: he fired his weapon too. . . .

  And launched himself into orbit. Well, maybe not into orbit, but high enough that those on the ground lost sight of the Sassafras sibling.

  “Well, that takes care of that,” Preston said with a smile, handing the antigravity weapon to Billy. “You can have this if you like.”

  “Thanks,” Billy said as he took the device, certain that it would come in handy in his war against evil.

  “Let me have that,” Victoria said, attempting to take the antigrav weapon from his hand. “I want to float like a balloon too.”

  Billy looked down at the five-year-old and considered the image of her floating off into space, never to bother him again. The prospect brought an evil smile to his face.

  “No way,” he said, pushing her away and hiding the device in one of the pouches on his utility belt. “I can only imagine the trouble you’d cause with it.”

  She looked as though she was about to have another tantrum, so Billy used his secret weapon again. “There’s a certain fairy princess tiara that’s gonna stay in the window of a certain store if a certain somebody isn’t good,” he warned.

  Victoria crossed her arms and scowled.

  The citizens of Monstros were emerging from their hiding places. Billy noticed Sammy over by his store, waving to him.

  “We should probably give Sammy a hand and then think about getting back to the Roost,” Billy said as he waved back.

  Halifax and Archebold were looking over the octocraft.

  “How are we gonna get this back to the Roost?” Halifax asked, stroking his hairy chin in thought.

  “I always wanted my very own robotic octopus,” Archebold said, clapping his hands together gleefully.

  The sound of screeching tires and brakes alerted Billy to another potential danger. “What now?” he said, exasperatedly throwing his hands up into the air.

  A long black limousine was making its way down Mortis Street, its horn beeping for citizens to get out of the way.

  “Who the heck could this be?” Artemus asked.

  Billy shook his head. He didn’t have a clue.

  The back door of the vehicle opened and the mayor of Monstros scrambled out, his rat face twitching excitedly.

  “Oh no,” Billy heard Halifax say behind him. “I better hide or he’s gonna yell at me some more for filling his house with vomit.”

  The mayor slammed the door closed and smiled. . . . At least, Billy thought it was a smile. It was hard to tell with rats.

  “There’s my favorite superhero,” the mayor said, clasping his hands.

  “Favorite hero?” Billy asked. “Didn’t sound like that on the news the other night.”

  “Oh, that?” the mayor said dismissively. “They took me completely out of context.” He threw his arm around Billy’s shoulders.

  Photographers and cameramen from the various newspapers and television news c
hannels scrambled around them as the mayor smiled happily.

  “We’re a great team, aren’t we, Owlboy?” the mayor said, his long rat teeth protruding over his thin lips as he beamed for the cameras.

  “Y’think?” Billy asked.

  “Oh brother,” Artemus said as he tossed his head back. “This guy is shoveling it on pretty darn thick. He wouldn’t happen to be running for reelection any time soon, would he?”

  Victoria jumped in front of them.

  “I want to be in the picture,” she said, waving at the television cameras.

  “Go away!” the mayor barked, trying to shoo her away with his furry, rat hands.

  “No, she stays,” Billy said, staring into the rat’s beady eyes.

  The mayor looked as if he was about to get angry, but Billy stared really, really hard.

  “In fact, I want all of my team in the pictures,” he demanded.

  As the mayor seemed to realize that he wasn’t going to win this one, his ratty face broke into an enormous smile. “Of course! The more the merrier,” he agreed with an uncomfortable chuckle, gesturing for them all to get into the picture.

  And they all took their positions; Archebold, Halifax and Victoria on one side: Preston Stickwell, Artemus, Saul, Percy and Morty on the other.

  “Great shot,” said the photographer, whose head was one giant eyeball, as he aimed his camera. “This is gonna be prime front-page material.”

  Billy smiled mightily as the bulb’s flash caused tiny fireworks displays to dance in front of his eyes.

  “Is that really gonna be on the front page?” Billy asked the eyeball.

  “Most likely,” he answered.

  “Well, I’ve got the perfect headline if you’re interested,” Billy said.

  The eyeball set his camera down on the ground and took a notebook from one of his pants pockets. “All right, let’s have it.”

  “Heroes send supervillains packing,” Billy said with a grin. “Monstros City under the protection of new superhero team.”

  The eyeball smiled as he wrote. “That’s good,” he said, reading the headline back. “Does this new team have a name?”