by E. G. Foley
Their plan was simple, really. Jake was to lasso Nuckalavee and hold him in place just long enough for Maddox to plunge the spear into his side.
Of course, things rarely went according to plan—unless you were Archie and tested it a hundred times in advance, working out the flaws. Jake’s style ran more along the lines of flying by the seat of his trousers, but it usually worked for him.
He hoped it worked tonight. After finding out he may have just singlehandedly started a war between the Dark Druids and the Order, he did not think he could take another disaster.
“I don’t see him,” Jake whispered, scanning the flowing current through the night vision lens of his telescope.
He squinted, trying to find the outline of those long, horse-like ears he had spotted before amid the reeds.
Og sniffed the air, trying to scent the beast. “Oh, Nuckalavee, where are you?” he rumbled in a low-toned singsong.
His acute Guardian senses on high alert, Maddox cocked his head, hearing a ripple of water that did not quite fit with the river’s blend of soft, steady rhythms.
Jake shook his head. “Maybe we’re too—”
“Shh! I hear something.” Maddox paused. Jake listened, straining his ears. “It could be just one of the naiads splashing but I’m not—”
A trumpeting roar cut off his words as Nuckalavee suddenly charged.
His glistening bulk rose out of the current and barreled toward them, churning the river into whitewater as he came.
“Steady!” Maddox bellowed, dropping to one knee and bringing up his crossbow with a smooth motion.
Jake’s pulse slammed in his ears. The cry of fright died on his lips. Nixie had said the water-horse was horrible, but her warnings fell short of the sheer horror of the monster charging at them.
Skinless Nuckalavee was a nightmare, twelve feet long and as tall as Jake at the withers.
Its open mouth was huge, maybe two feet wide, its jaws unhinged in a most unnatural manner; its legs as thick as tree trunks as it came crashing up the muddy bank straight at Jake; its small, piggish eyes gleaming scarlet in the darkness. The moonlight flashed on its vicious-looking tusks as it stampeded toward him.
Still, what left Jake standing there frozen in shock for a split-second was the impossible horror of a creature living without skin. Despite the darkness, the scarlet hue of Nuckalavee’s exposed, pulsating flesh and striated sinews was obvious.
Jake felt queasy, staring at it.
“Rope, Jake, rope!” Maddox shouted, letting fly an arrow and hitting Nuckalavee squarely in the side.
The beast hardly seemed to feel it. It did not slow down but turned slightly toward Maddox with an angry snort.
Jake hurled the lasso, already sure the effort would fail. Even if he got the rope around Nuckalavee’s neck, he could no more stop the charge of that demonic water-bull-horse-hippo-thing than he could have stopped a train.
He tried, anyway, throwing the loop of rope at the beast.
Unfortunately, Jake was no cowboy and had not made the loop wide enough. Instead of falling neatly around Nuckalavee’s neck, the rope only just slipped over the beast’s wide-open mouth.
Jake pulled the lasso, snapping Nuckalavee’s jaws shut. The jolt nearly ripped his arms from their sockets when the monster shook his head in fury.
“Little help!” Jake yelped.
“Og, get the rope!” Maddox bellowed.
The half-troll was suddenly there, leaping to Jake’s side and taking up the rope in both of his huge gray hands. While Jake’s muscles were no match for the wrath of Nuckalavee, Og’s brute strength was another matter.
He pulled backward with all his might, skidding down onto his haunches in a mighty tug-of-war with the beast. Monster versus monster.
Given that Nuckalavee now seemed intent on rushing at Maddox, eager to gore him, Jake was suddenly grateful to have the half-troll on their side.
Og stopped Nuckalavee several feet away from Maddox, who had just set his crossbow aside in favor of the javelin.
Nuckalavee shook his head in rage, as if a bee had got into his ear. Maddox blinked off the fleeting shock of surely seeing his life pass before his eyes, then threw his spear at the beast.
Of course, his aim was true. He was a Guardian, after all. With a wicked zing, the spear sliced through the air and plunged into the flank of Nuckalavee, who let out another roar, only slightly muffled by the lasso around his snout.
The beast’s bellow loosened the lasso a bit. Nuckalavee still could not unhinge his jaws like before, but he was working to be able to open his mouth wider.
“Hold him, Og,” Maddox ordered. “Steady!”
The boys backed away as they watched the creature swing his horrid, skinless head about and take the handle of the spear into his mouth, pulling the blade out of his own side.
“That’s not good,” Maddox murmured.
With one stomp of his front foot, Nuckalavee cracked the spear like a twig.
“Hey, you!” Og yanked on the rope to get control of the beast—but to the horror of all three, the rope snapped.
Jake gasped.
Maddox uttered a curse as Nuckalavee looked at him again, his red eyes glowing with wrath. The frayed end of the rope now dangled from his head like horse reins dropped by a clumsy rider.
Steam fairly came from his nostrils as Nuckalavee homed in on Maddox.
To his credit, he did not look anywhere near as terrified as Jake felt in that moment. Maddox glanced down to check his footing as he took another cautious step backward, reaching down slowly for his crossbow.
Nuckalavee lowered his head and pawed the ground like a bull getting ready to charge.
Jake feared his ally was doomed if he didn’t do something quick. He spotted a large boulder at the river’s edge and was suddenly inspired, levitating it from several feet away.
Moving slowly, wary of the black-haired boy with all the sharp objects, Nuckalavee cornered Maddox by the base of the bridge.
Though still unarmed, Maddox stood his ground, his hand inching toward his crossbow. Obviously, he was afraid of making any sudden movements with the creature so near.
But the second Nuckalavee roared at Maddox, Jake sent the boulder flying.
It hit Nuckalavee in the back.
Trumpeting another furious bellow at the interruption, the bogey-beast whirled around, forgetting about Maddox for a moment. Instead, those glowing, piggish, malevolent eyes focused on Jake.
Nuckalavee charged. The earth shook as the water-horse stampeded toward Jake like he wanted to pound him into dust beneath his thick, webbed hoofs.
Jake flung a bolt of telekinesis at him, but Nuckalavee was four thousand pounds of furious Scottish legend.
The monster broke right through the wall of telekinetic energy Jake flung up with both hands. If it had been built of brick, he doubted it would have held.
I’m going to die, he thought as Nuckalavee’s massive bulk bore down on him.
But suddenly, Og leaped onto the beast’s back and grabbed the trailing end of the rope, yanking Nuckalavee’s head to the side, like a horse under bridle.
“Hold on, Og!” Maddox shouted.
Og did. Astride the water-horse, the half-troll clung to Nuckalavee with his knees and one over-long arm. With his other hand, Og clutched the single rein and refused to budge as Nuckalavee began bucking with redoubled fury.
Jake and Maddox watched in open-mouthed shock as Og attempted to break Nuckalavee like one of Tex’s mad cowboy friends in a hideous monster rodeo.
“Yee-haw,” Jake breathed.
But Nuckalavee had no plans of giving up anytime soon. Before they could think what to do to help, the skinless wild bronco bolted off across the fields with Ogden holding on for dear life.
That quickly, they were gone, swallowed up by the darkness far across the fields.
The girls came running down to the waterside with Archie, having seen them bolt past.
“Is anybody hurt?” Isa
belle shouted.
“We’re fine! Did you see that?” Jake exclaimed.
Archie’s head bobbed. “Og rode off on Nuckalavee!”
“Come on, we need to go after him.” Maddox shouldered his crossbow and started marching up the slope.
“Are you daft?” Jake retorted. Maddox stopped and turned in surprise. “We’re never going to catch them! We don’t even know which direction they went. And even if we could, what then, exactly? Your weapons had no effect. My telekinesis was practically useless. If Og hadn’t been there, we would both be dead. Our only hope is for Og to stay on the beast’s back long enough to tire him out. Breaking Nuckalavee might be the only way.”
“Breaking Nuckalavee?” Nixie cried.
“Well, he’s a water-horse, isn’t he?” Jake shot back.
“He’d better not fall off,” Maddox said uncertainly. “Because if he does, that beast will flatten him.”
“Are you two sure you’re all right?” Isabelle insisted, glancing from Maddox to Jake and back again.
The boys nodded.
“I still think we should try to help him. We can’t leave him out there to face Nuckalavee alone,” Maddox said.
“He did better against the beast than we did,” Jake answered with a shrug.
While they all stood peering into the darkness, their backs to the water, trying to spot Og and Nuckalavee, nobody noticed the three-foot whirlpool that began turning in the river.
Maddox was the first to glance over his shoulder, feeling a prickle of danger on his nape. “Everybody,” he said calmly, “get away from the water.”
They did as he said, rushing back from the bank, even as Dani asked him why.
He didn’t have to answer. For at that moment, Jenny Greenteeth rose straight up out of the river, standing atop a waterspout.
This was the first time most of them had beheld the drenched, gray-haired hag with her muddy gown, gleaming eyes, and long, tiger-like fangs dripping with algae.
“Oh, dear little witch, how we’ve missed you!” she hissed at Nixie. “Enjoy your journey through the paintings? I hope so. It’ll be the last trip you ever take!”
Nixie started to lift her arm to throw the potion, but Jake reached over and stopped her discreetly. “Not yet. You can’t throw that in the river. It’ll poison the naiads,” he whispered. “Wait till she comes up onto the land.”
“Well, look at you with all your pretty friends. Why wasn’t I invited to the party?”
“They’re not my friends,” Nixie started to say automatically.
“Oh, yes we are,” Jake declared, moving in front of Nixie, bristling.
Maddox did the same.
“I warned you about this.” The hag floated forward atop her spinning column of water. “Their deaths will be on your head.”
Just then, a whimper from inside Archie’s contraption made Jenny Greenteeth look over toward the drive. When she saw the Boneless in the cage, she let out a shriek of furious disbelief.
Leaping off her waterspout onto the bank, Jenny Greenteeth zoomed past them, moving with the same weird, supernatural speed Jake remembered from the art gallery. In the blink of an eye, she was up on the graveled drive beside the cage.
“Oh, my poor Boneless, what have these horrible children done to you? You’re all dried out! Hold on, I’ll have you out of there in a trice!”
They ran after the hag as she reached for the door of the cage to free the Boneless.
“Get away from there!” Archie warned. “Don’t touch my invent—”
“Aaaiiee!”
Jenny Greenteeth screeched, flung backward by a large electrical shock upon touching the Faraday cage.
Unfortunately, it did not kill her, but only made her furious as it threw her to the ground. Though she looked like a crone, she jumped up like a gymnast, and in her wrath over the capture of her pet, she curled her claw-like fingers, and a bright green ball of energy appeared in her hand.
She hurled it at the cage. The whole contraption toppled over, handcart and all. But when the cage struck the ground, the dried-out Boneless shattered into a hundred pieces, destroyed.
Jenny Greenteeth recoiled at what she had done.
Archie clapped his hands to his head. “You’ve killed it! Oh, what did you do that for? We weren’t going to hurt it. We were just going to study it!”
Jenny Greenteeth was aghast. “L-look what you made me do, you horrible monsters! This is all your fault!” Her frightening stare homed in on Nixie. “Wasn’t it enough that you killed the MacGools? Now you’re responsible for killing Boneless, too!”
“I didn’t kill those people and you know it!” Nixie cried.
“Indirectly you did, you little murderess. You banished us from the castle and stopped us from protecting them, and they died! It’s your fault, horrid girl!” Jenny Greenteeth flew at Nixie from across the grass.
“Oh, no, you don’t!” Dani bellowed, hurling the first poison globe at her.
Jolted out of her frozen state of terror, Nixie threw hers, too.
Both vials hit the hag and broke open, splashing the deadly potion all over her.
The hag let out a howl.
“It’s working!” Archie cried.
Nixie faltered, amazed to see this was so.
“Hit her again!” Dani shouted. “Come on, everybody!”
They reacted swiftly, everyone grabbing vials of potion out of Nixie’s black bag. Jake and Maddox, Archie and Isabelle all pelted Jenny Greenteeth without mercy.
She tried to block them from hitting her, but as the potion started to work, smoke began rising off her everywhere. The hag threw back her head, convulsing, and roared at the night sky.
But when Jake reached to get another globe, Nixie’s black bag was empty. The fanged, old bogart witch had been hit with their full arsenal, and not a one had missed. Jenny Greenteeth seemed to be getting smaller, melting down into herself.
“I’ll get you for this, Nixie!” she hissed. “You’re never getting rid of me!”
“That’s quite enough of your threats!” Archie stepped forward, taking up his lady’s cause. “Now look here, madam. The fact of the matter is, you don’t even exist. So go away and don’t come back!”
“How dare you!”
“You will leave Miss Valentine alone, do you understand? Try coming back again, and you’re going to get even worse!”
Jake and Maddox glanced at each other in surprise as the boy genius gave Jenny Greenteeth what-for.
“You’re nothing but a glorified nursery bogey, and for your information, we all left the nursery long ago. We are not afraid of you. Not one bit!”
“Ah, but she is, my fine young gent.” Hunching down in pain, Jenny Greenteeth sent Nixie a knowing evil eye.
“No, I’m not!” Nixie shouted, but she wasn’t very convincing.
Jenny Greenteeth cackled even as she melted smaller. “I’ll be back.”
“Oh, shove off, you nasty old thing!” Archie snapped, taking a step toward her, quite fed up.
“Only if you come with me, dearie!” With that, Jenny Greenteeth grabbed the boy genius and whooshed up the road a few yards, dragging Archie with her. She plunged over the side of the bridge and disappeared underwater.
“Archie!” Jake shouted as they all raced back down to the river’s edge.
“Get back, it’s a trap!” Maddox roared at the girls, tearing off his coat. “Back away, Jake. I’ll get him.”
“I’m not going anywhere. He’s my best friend!” Ignoring the warning, Jake rushed into the dark river, searching frantically for his cousin, Maddox just a few steps behind him.
“Archie! Archie!”
Both boys waded out until they were waist-deep in the river, feeling around below the opaque current for any sign of their friend. At the edge of the water, the girls were half-hysterical, calling his name.
Nixie’s patience snapped, though only a minute or so had passed. She headed for the water. “I’m going in. This is my f
ault—”
“No, Nixie!” Despite her own panic, Isabelle somehow managed to hold her back. “It’s you she wants!”
Dani suddenly had an idea. “I’ll go get the naiads!”
She bolted off toward the water nymphs upstream for help. A few minutes later, hearing the girl’s panicked screams, a few of them came swimming at top speed to find out what on earth was wrong. When Dani told them, they sped off under the bridge and joined the hunt for Archie and the hag.
The swift, fierce naiads found them, too, and attacked Jenny Greenteeth. Baring their claws and taking swipes at the hag underwater, they were able to distract her long enough for Archie to lunge up once out of the water, glasses gone.
Jake rushed toward him, splashing wildly with every stride, but his cousin only had time to gasp for air before Jenny Greenteeth pulled him under again.
She, too, surfaced, but only long enough to hurl her green energy spheres at the naiads zooming around her. They were hit one by one. Struck by the same explosive blasts of magic that had thrown Jake and Nixie into the foxhunt painting, the naiads were knocked unconscious. Two floated away, carried off by the current, while one was actually tossed up onto the banks and hit her head against a rock.
Jenny Greenteeth submerged again with a cruel cackle.
Then the water went calm.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
Nixie’s Nightmare
Nixie felt her whole world crashing in. Her worst fears were coming true before her eyes, and in that terrible silence, terror overtook her, freezing her where she stood. This was eons worse than the hag drowning her cat. She couldn’t believe she had caused this, had brought about the death of the first boy who had ever noticed her.
Possibly the kindest human being she had ever met.
She felt like she couldn’t breathe.
“I can’t find him,” Jake said, turning to them in despair. He suddenly punched the water and screamed at the river, “Give him back!”
Isabelle was sobbing.
“Help me,” a soft voice rasped nearby. “Can’t…breathe.” The injured naiad had woken up and was unable to reach the water by herself. Her head was bleeding, and the gills along her ribcage strained to breathe. Dani ran over and helped to roll her back into the river, while Maddox, hating inaction, refused to give up. He took a deep breath and dove in to search underwater.
