Falcon Quinn and the Crimson Vapor
Page 25
Cygnus turned to the crowd. He spoke with Count Manson’s voice.
“Vait,” said the creature.
“Cygnus?” said Miss Bloodstone.
“I am not Cygnus,” said the man.
“You are not Count Manson,” said Mrs. Redflint. “Although you sound like him.”
“I am neither of these,” he said. Then his voice changed, and he sounded once more like the guardian leader. “Or perhaps I should say—I am both. I am—Count Cygnus!”
“What did you do to him?” said Mortlock, returning once more, his face covered with blood.
“Vhat has been done to me,” said Count Cygnus, “I have done to myself.” He looked at the gathered warriors, at the guardian lieutenants and the monster instructors, the fledglings and the young monsters. “I did not see before.” He shook his head. “But now I see. Ve must learn to live as vun.”
His body shook, and the voice changed back to Cygnus’s. “Disgusting as that may sound!” he added.
Then his Count Manson side took over again. “Indeed, the prospect seems—rewolting. But the truth so often is.”
The Crofton sisters swept past the gathered crowd. The elementals—of wind, and water, and fire—combined to quell the flames that had roared from the rooftops of the buildings. The guardians and the monsters watched as Megan and Dahlia and Maeve brought the flames under control. The fires died down and smoldered and then went out with a hiss.
There was a clanking, clattering sound from the Hall of Boxing Robot Presidents, and a burnt, smoldering robot Abraham Lincoln walked gravely out of the main doors. Everyone fell silent as the smoking Lincoln eyed them somberly. “Werp,” he said, and then cleared his throat.
“With malice toward none,” said the smoking robot president, “with charity for all, let us—werp—strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation’s wounds.”
“Whoa,” said Max. “That is so true.”
The guardians looked at Mortlock and Miss Bloodstone, who in turn looked back at Count Cygnus. “Is this truly your wish?” said Mortlock.
“It is,” said Cygnus’s voice, and then in the count’s, “it is our vish.”
“Fine,” said Mortlock, but it was clear he wasn’t happy about it. “Have it your way. Let’s get all the hurt people together and see if we can’t help them out. I guess we’ll meet up with our new”—he shuddered—“comrades—again, on a future date, I am sure. Maybe then we can talk a little bit about”—his fingers traced the scar upon his neck—“redressing our grievances.”
The guardians began to withdraw. Gyra and Sam and Celeste gathered around Falcon. “Nice job, man,” said Sam, clapping him on the shoulder. “Sticking your count inside Cygnus’s brain. I mean, whoa. Didn’t see that comin’.”
“Indeed,” said Celeste. “You have turned things inside out.”
Gyra took Falcon by the arm. “Listen,” she said. “I’m sorry I didn’t come with you and Jonny when you asked. I wasn’t ready.”
“It’s all right,” said Falcon. “You had to do what you had to do.”
“Why did you trust me?” said Gyra. “Before you knew me?”
The wind blew through Falcon’s hair. “I don’t know,” he said. “You reminded me of someone I used to know, I guess.”
“I say,” said a voice, and they turned to see a strange, gooey-looking creature approaching them. “Bully! Seem to have found myself in a sticky situation, as it were.”
“Colonel?”
“Rather,” said the creature. “The whirling blades of that infernal machine have—I do say!—stretched me rather thin. Reminds me of the time back in eighty-four when I faced the ice platypus of Greenland. No—wait. It was eighty-three. Same year I had the frostbite. Well, there I was—”
Chandler, back from the place he’d been thrown by Mortlock’s flail, appeared at the colonel’s side. “My mommy was right,” he said. “I am brave!”
“Quite,” said the colonel.
“Come along, fledglings,” said Miss Bloodstone. “Let’s head back to the ship. We have repairs to make.”
The guardians retreated toward the harbor, leaving Hematoma Boulevard in the hands of the monsters.
“Dude,” said Max to Falcon. “You did it.”
“You used the amulet,” said Pearl. “To cause the enemy captains to meld with each other! How exceptionally ingenious! And yet it is no surprise that such an action should come from your hands, Falcon Quinn! The hands of an angel! And my sworn companion!”
“Boy,” said Max. “What a mess. This place is totaled!”
“Monster Island will be rebuilt,” said Mr. Trunkanelli, surveying the damage. “Bigger and better than ever.” He trumpeted. “I’ve been meaning to make some improvements, actually. Bring in some clowns.”
“Please!” shouted Pearl. “No clowns! This is the one thing that, indeed, most freezes my heart with fear!”
“Okay, no clowns,” said Mr. Trunkanelli.
“Well, well, Falcon Quinn,” said Merideath. “Looks like you saved the day again.” She was walking toward them now with Muffy and Dominique and Jonny Frankenstein. Her skin seemed slightly green, as if she was not well.
“Of course he did,” said Muffy with contempt. “He’s a little angel!”
“Hey, man,” said Max. “Maybe you guys should have a nice big glass of shut up.”
“Fine,” said Dominique. “We never speak to our inferiors if we can avoid it, anyway!”
“Ugh,” said Merideath, holding her stomach. “I need to lie down.”
“Jonny,” said Falcon, rushing up to his friend, who looked strangely pale.
Merideath walked away unsteadily, her hands clutching her stomach. Muffy and Dominique followed in her wake.
“What’s wrong with Merideath?” said Destynee. “Is she okay?”
“Oh, she’ll be all right,” said Jonny. “She just bit something that disagreed with her.”
From high in the air, they heard a voice, singing.
“Would you like to ride in my beautiful balloon? Way up in the air in my beautiful balloon? Thank you, Monster Island, thank you!”
They looked up, and there they saw Quimby’s head, floating along on the breeze. “Boy,” said Quimby. “Do I have this—deflated feeling.”
Quimby began to hiss, and he shrank smaller and smaller as he let his air escape. He was just about the size of a bowling ball when a pair of hands reached out and grabbed him. “Hey,” said Quimby. “Put me down.”
But the hands that held him were his own. Quimby’s headless body, which had been stumbling around Hematoma Boulevard for most of the battle, at last took hold of its head and placed it back upon its neck.
“My body,” said Quimby. “I’ve got my body back!” He looked at himself critically. “Heavens, I’ve put on weight. Be honest, Falcon. Do you think this body makes me look fat?”
“You look fine, Quimby,” said Falcon.
Falcon felt a breeze blow through his hair. He turned to his right, and there, flickering in and out, was Megan. She reached toward him with one translucent, wavering hand.
“Falcon,” she said gently. “It was you who rescued me from that windmill, wasn’t it? Not Jonny.”
“I don’t know,” said Falcon. “We did it together, I guess.”
“Listen. Remember when we were up in the tower, last spring?” said Megan. “That night Quimby got loose?’
Megan blew toward him gently, a soft, circling force. With one gusting hand she reached out toward him.
“Yeah,” said Falcon. “I remember.”
“I just wanted to tell you that night,” she said. “I was trying to tell you that I . . .”
Their faces drew slowly, slowly together.
“That you what?”
Falcon could feel the breeze against his cheeks, and in his hair.
“That I—”
Then there was a soft whoosh, and she was gone again.
Falcon looked around. “Megan?” he sa
id. “Hello?”
Chapter 25
Bite Me in St. Louis
A day later, the Destynee II sailed back toward Shadow Island, bearing its crew of Chupakabras, Sasquatches, zombies, and ghouls. At the bow, looking at the horizon and considering the days ahead, were Jonny Frankenstein and Falcon Quinn.
“So it’s back to the Academy?” said Jonny. “You sure this is the right move?”
“For now,” said Falcon. “Anyway, Count Cygnus said there were going to be exchanges in the future. So maybe Gyra and Sam and Celeste will spend a semester at the Academy.”
“Hope that works out,” said Jonny, who still looked more than a little pale. “I got a feeling not everybody’s on board with the whole peace and love thing.”
“What about you?” said Falcon. “You on board?”
“For now,” said Jonny.
Sparkbolt, who sat amidships with his back against the mast, writing in his “Poetry Book of Rhyming Poems,” growled to himself. “Rrrr. Poem belong dead.”
“What’s wrong?” said Weems. “Still trying to find a rhyme for ‘orange’?”
“Found rhyme,” said Sparkbolt. “‘Porridge’! ‘Door hinge’! ‘Forage’! Many rhyme ‘orange’. But many rhyme—bad. Destroy.”
“I don’t see why you keep writing poems,” said Destynee. “If you hate it so much.”
“Monster write,” said Sparkbolt. “Express feeling.” He moaned.
“Upon what cursed text have you been working?” said Ankh-hoptet.
“It song from musical. ‘Scream, Scream, Scream Went the Human.’”
“You’re writing a musical?” said Weems. “How macabre. What is the name of this musical of yours?”
“Bite Me in St. Louis.” Sparkbolt blushed. “It need work,” he said.
Quagmire boiled on the deck. A series of bubbles rose from his glop, floating in the air. As each one burst, it released an unpleasant odor.
“Whoa,” said Ankh-hoptet, waving her bandaged hands in front of her face.
“Who died?” Lincoln Pugh roared.
“Die?” said Weems excitedly. “Did someone die?”
In the middle of the deck, Quimby’s body stood, trying to grasp its own head, which had detached itself again and was now floating just out of reach of its hands.
“One’s head should always exceed one’s body’s grasp,” said Quimby. “Or what’s a heaven for?”
“Rrrr,” said Sparkbolt.
Falcon and Jonny Frankenstein walked over to the place where the others were standing.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” said Quimby. “Falcon Quinn.”
“Hello, Quimby,” said Falcon. “How about a new fortune? Now that the war’s finally over? I don’t think I’m going to be torn in half anymore.”
“A new fortune?” said Quimby, looking momentarily perplexed. “Oh, all right. Let me see. How’s this? Falcon Quinn, his wings so grand, finds enemies new in a northern land.”
There was a moment’s silence.
“What??” said Falcon.
“Oh no,” said Destynee.
“Another satisfied customer!” said Quimby.
“Hey,” said Max. “Am I interrupting something?”
“Señor,” said Pearl, who buzzed over the Sasquatch’s shoulder. “Perhaps we should withdraw! Our companions seem to be in a most agitated condition!”
“It’s fine,” said Falcon. “Quimby’s just telling fortunes again.”
“Always the life of the party,” said Quimby. His hands reached up and placed his head upon his shoulders once more. “Jonny,” said Mortia. One of her eyeballs was hanging in its socket by a single muscle. “You don’t look good!”
“I’ll be all right,” said Jonny. “Merideath bit me. I’m down a couple pints.”
“But surely this does not mean you have joined the vampire peoples!” said Pearl. “With their fussy sleeping arrangements and their dislike of garlic! Because I for one would find this most peculiar!”
“I said I’m fine,” snapped Jonny. But what Pearl said was true. He did not seem quite himself.
“My friends,” said Pearl, “it appears that each of us returns to the Academy in a state of injury or of loss! It is my hope that we shall all return to our same selves with the passing of days!”
The sails of the ship luffed for a moment, and then a wind blew among them, and Falcon felt Megan’s presence. Then the sails of the Destynee II filled once more, and the ship hurtled headlong once more through the Sea of Dragons.
“I kind of miss Megan having a body and stuff,” said Max. “Is that bad of me to say? I mean, I know she likes being the wind. It’s just hard to have a conversation with somebody who’s all—not there.”
“I miss her too,” said Falcon.
“Perhaps she shall learn,” said Pearl. “Upon our return to the Academy! A more dependable way of occupying both her corporeal and elemental selves!”
“I could play a tune to cheer us up,” said Mortia. She played a chord on her guitar. “You all want to hear a song?”
“Who needs cheering up?” said Max, and roared. “I feel great!”
Falcon looked at the faces of his friends. There were Destynee and Weems, Lincoln Pugh and Ankh-hoptet, Sparkbolt and Pearl and Max and Jonny Frankenstein and Mortia. And Megan Crofton, free once more, was filling the sails and blowing all around.
Mortia started to sing “I Wish They All Could Be Zombie Mutants,” and Falcon’s friends sang along.
Well, the Sasquatch girls are hip,
I love their fur all splotched with crud;
And the vampire girls, with the way they bite,
They knock me out when they suck my blood.
Max threw back his head and roared. “Our lives,” he said, “are unbelievably, amazingly great!”
Falcon smiled. “You know what, Max?” he said. “You’re right.”
The Destynee II, bearing its crew of Sasquatches and Chupakabras, friends and lovers, zombies and an angel, sailed on across the Sea of Dragons, toward Shadow Island, and home.
About the Author
JENNIFER FINNEY BOYLAN is the author of more than a dozen books, including a bestselling memoir, a collection of short stories entitled REMIND ME TO MURDER YOU LATER, and three novels for adults. Her novel GETTING IN won the Alex Award from the American Library Association in 1998 for an adult novel with special appeal to young adult readers. Since 1988 she has been a professor of English at Colby College.
Jenny Boylan lives at the end of a dirt road in Maine with a Sasquatch, a wind elemental, two weredogs, and a leprechaun. To learn more about Jenny and Falcon and to find a wide range of bonus material associated with this story, visit www.falconquinn.com.
Visit www.AuthorTracker.com for exclusive information on your favorite HarperCollins authors.
Credits
Jacket art © 2011 by Brandon Dorman
Jacket design by Amy Ryan
Copyright
Falcon Quinn and the Crimson Vapor
Copyright © 2011 by Jennifer Finney Boylan
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Boylan, Jennifer Finney, date.
Falcon Quinn and the crimson vapor / Jennifer Finney Boylan. — 1st ed.
p. cm.
Sequel to: Falcon Quinn and the black mirror
Summary: Born in the reality stream but with both the heart of a monster and the heart of a guardian, thirteen-year-old Falcon Qu
inn is not sure what path to follow until he fastens an amulet with a red jewel around his neck.
ISBN 978-0-06-172835-8 (trade bdg.)
[1. Monsters—Fiction. 2. Animals, Mythical—Fiction. 3. Angels—Fiction. 4. Junior high schools—Fiction. 5. Schools—Fiction. 6. Friendship—Fiction. 7. Identity—Fiction. 8. Fantasy.] I. Title.
PZ7.B696415Fac 2011
[Fic]—dc22
2010024717
CIP
AC
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EPub Edition © 2011 ISBN: 9780062077042
11 12 13 14 15 LP/RRDB 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
First Edition
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