Battle of the Beasts

by Chris Columbus

  But the sound that followed wasn’t music.

  It was a heartbeat—but very, very slow, as if a human heart had been slowed by a factor of fifty. It sounded like a cross between interstellar static and a giant’s footsteps. Fat Jagger’s footsteps! Eleanor thought, suddenly missing the brave and simpleminded colossus the Walkers had met in their last adventure. If only Fat Jagger were here, he would get us out of this. He was my friend.

  As the slowed-down heartbeat played, a mist came out of nowhere—like the water on our car in the morning, thought Eleanor. It filled the room, from the air around Eleanor’s fingers to the space between the portraits of the old Bohemian Club members. And as it drifted around the room, the heartbeat began to get faster, just a tiny bit. Hayes and Kristoff started chanting.

  “Diablo tan-tun-ka.” “Diablo tan-tun-ka.”

  They reached for each other across the table. Their fingertips were just able to touch. They moved their arms back and forth in a fluid ellipse, almost as if they were dancing.

  “Diablo tan-tun-ka.” “Diablo tan-tun-ka.”

  The heartbeat got faster, like the heart of someone who had just run a marathon. And it wasn’t stopping. It galloped ahead, quicker and quicker, as the light from the candles began to change.

  “Diablo tan-TUN-ka!” “Diablo tan-TUN-ka!”

  The candles were bloodred. The mist became red too, looking as if it had soaked up the spray of a battlefield. Eleanor heard a scratching sound and turned—that stuffed falcon she had noticed? It was alive! Scraping its talons against the glass that trapped it, twitching its eyes—

  Eleanor screamed, but Brendan covered her mouth. Will elbowed Brendan and Eleanor, pointing to the wall behind them. Two swords mounted there were twisting back and forth, like scissors. Drops of blood beaded up on the metal to plop fatly on the floor.

  “Spirits of our brothers!” called Hayes. “We summon you!”

  “Diablo tan-TUN-ka!” Kristoff said. “Diablo tan-TUN-ka!”

  “We wish to speak to one departed! We seek . . . Dahlia Kristoff!”

  A great groan came from the ceiling, and when Brendan, Eleanor, and Will looked up, they couldn’t believe what they were seeing.

  The Bohemian Club portraits were coming alive. Teddy Roosevelt, Richard Nixon, and several other stern-looking men were moving, moaning and rolling their jaws, as if to test that their mouths still worked.

  “Brothers, help us!” Hayes implored from the table below. The red candles flickered around him. The cloud of mist above obscured the portraits—until Richard Nixon leaned out of his frame, puffed out his cheeks, and blew down a gust of air.

  The mist drifted to the sides of the room. Hayes and Kristoff looked up at portraits that now twitched and harrumphed in their frames. Along with Roosevelt and Nixon, with their names engraved in gold in each frame, were nineteenth-century satirist Ambrose Bierce; National Review founder William F. Buckley Jr.; President Dwight D. Eisenhower; Joseph Coors of the Coors Brewing Company; Mark Twain; Call of the Wild author Jack London; “most trusted man in America” Walter Cronkite; and President Herbert Hoover.

  “How da-aaare you dist-urrrb us?” Richard Nixon asked, his jowls shaking as he drew out the question. He climbed out of his portrait and sat on the edge of the frame, his legs dangling, revealing bright yellow socks. He glared down at Hayes. “We’re all perfectly happy being dead! It’s relaxing! Why would you wake us? It had better be important!”

  “I know you seek peace, brothers, and I truly do hate disturbing you,” Hayes said. “But perhaps you can answer a question?”

  “What question?”

  “Where is Dahlia Kristoff?”

  “Who?” President Eisenhower asked. “Who is he talking about?”

  “Dahlia Kristoff,” Hayes repeated. “Of San Francisco. Daughter of our esteemed club member Denver Kristoff. It is vital that we find out if her spirit is among the dead.”

  “Vital to whom?” Nixon said. “I could care less about a missing girl. She’s probably gone off to some debauched hippie commune—”

  “Shut your mouth!” Denver Kristoff interrupted, leaping onto the table. “Do you know whom you’re talking to? Aldrich Hayes built this place. None of you would have achieved wealth and fame if it weren’t for the Bohemian Club and the Lorekeepers.”

  The faces in the portraits glanced at one another.

  “That’s right! Nixon, how do you think an unattractive dolt like you with a lousy personality, foul breath, and yellow socks could ever be elected president? Because of the Lorekeepers!”

  Nixon reached down and pulled at the bottom of his cuffed trousers, trying to hide his yellow socks.

  “And Eisenhower?” shouted Kristoff. “Who do you think is really responsible for all of your military victories?”

  “The Lorekeepers,” muttered an embarrassed Eisenhower.

  “And Teddy Roosevelt?” barked Kristoff. “Do you think it’s just a coincidence that a mean-spirited lush like you won the Nobel Prize? Now, as a fellow Lorekeeper, I implore you . . . help me find my daughter. Help me find out if she’s alive or dead.”

  “Never,” said Herbert Hoover. “Not after the way you spoke to us.”

  “Usually, when we’re disturbed,” said Teddy Roosevelt, “it’s an extremely serious situation. An event that threatens the Bohemian Club itself.”

  “And I don’t know about you fellas, but I don’t appreciate these insults,” said Nixon. “If I wanted to be treated like this, I’d move back into the White House. I’m going back to being dead.” Nixon began to return to his frame.

  “No!” Kristoff grabbed Hayes’s hand and cranked up the record player. He began pulling Hayes in a circle, repeating their earlier movements, chanting “Diablo tan-TUN-ka!”

  “Will you stop that?” Teddy Roosevelt said.

  Kristoff ignored them all and bellowed, “Spirits of San Francisco! Come do what the Lorekeepers cannot! Show yourselves in our time of need!”

  Up on the balcony, a plink hit Eleanor’s back. It was as if a thumbtack had fallen on her. She turned to look up—but Brendan held her still, trying to keep her quiet. She looked to her side and saw a human tooth on the ground! Eleanor couldn’t believe it, but before she could grab it—

  Kerrrrrash!—the skylight above the portraits shattered into a million tiny pieces!

  Hayes and Kristoff were dusted with falling glass. As they shook themselves off, there was an otherworldly whoosh . . .

  And a horde of ghosts entered the Bohemian Club.

  Eleanor had never seen ghosts before, but she knew what she was looking at. Their bodies were long and made of mist. They had howling faces with mouths that stretched into distorted ovals. They flew around like a tornado, streaking past Kristoff and Hayes and swirling on the balcony. They seemed to fly through Eleanor, Brendan, and Will, who clutched one another in terror.

  The room was overrun with spirits.

  “I’m looking for Dahlia Kristoff!” Denver yelled to the ghosts. “Dahlia, if you are among the spirits . . . reveal yourself to me!”

  Now Eleanor could see the ghosts more closely. Their colorless hair floated behind them as if they were underwater. Some wore bonnets and dresses from the nineteenth century; others had snazzy three-piece suits with wide lapels from the eighties.

  What are they going to do to us?

  The tooth was still sitting next to Eleanor, but as she watched, a hippie ghost in a flower-print dress kicked it away. I didn’t know ghosts could kick things. The spirits peered in nooks and crannies, making faint moans; the Bohemian Club almost sounded as if it were hosting a party. After a few minutes it became clear that the ghosts weren’t going to kill anyone.

  “Did anyone see that tooth?” Eleanor whispered to Brendan and Will.

  “What tooth?” Brendan responded. “I’m looking at that guy!”

  Everyone turned to see the ghost of Jerry Garcia, in tan shorts, flip-flops, and a tie-dyed shirt, strumming an acoustic guitar. His spectral
beard buzzed and snapped as if it were made of baby eels. His eyes were spinning green neon spirals.

  “‘What’s all this ’bout a missing girl? Ain’t nobody missing in this world . . . ,’” Jerry sang.

  “Who is that?” Aldrich Hayes asked.

  “It’s Jerry Garcia, even I know that,” Kristoff told him.

  “The guy from the Ben and Jerry’s flavor?” Eleanor whispered.

  “‘I’m just lookin’ for peace, ya hear, for finding some girl who I know is near . . .’”

  Jerry Garcia looked up. Eleanor looked with him, directly above her, and saw where the tooth had come from.

  Clinging to a wooden beam of the Bohemian Club’s ceiling was someone who was not a ghost. It was a teenage girl, scared and shivering, who looked like the traumatized survivor of a war.

  It was Cordelia Walker.

  “There’s your girl,” Jerry Garcia said, pointing. “Dahlia Kristoff.”

  “No!” Eleanor yelled.

  Cordelia unhooked her limbs from the beam and jumped down.

  “There!” yelled Denver Kristoff from below, grinning. “I knew if I captured one Walker, the others would appear. And look, they’ve brought a friend!” He pointed to Will.

  “You idiot,” said Hayes, “you’ve compromised our club even further. And how is this going to get you your daughter?”

  “Look closely,” said Kristoff. “That’s not Cordelia Walker up there, not by a long shot.”

  It appeared that Kristoff was correct, because the skinny girl who had jumped down from the ceiling in front of Brendan, Eleanor, and Will hardly resembled Cordelia. She was crouched on her hindquarters, snarling like a wild animal who had just emerged from an underground cave.

  “Deal?” asked Brendan. “What’s wrong with you?”

  He reached out his hand to her. Cordelia swiped at it, scratching her brother’s wrist. Eyes wide and murderous, she madly glanced back and forth from her siblings to Will, growling.

  “Brendan,” asked Eleanor, “why is she acting like this?”

  “She’s certainly not herself,” said Will, trying to make a joke that no one found funny.

  “You were right, Hayes,” said Kristoff from below. “These ghosts have given me an answer, but not the one you expected. Dahlia’s spirit is here—in the body of Cordelia Walker.”

  “What? How do you know?” asked Hayes.

  “Because the little one claimed she banished my daughter to ‘the worst place ever.’ You tell me: Is there any place worse, any place more isolated and treacherous . . . than the heart of a teenager?”

  Kristoff didn’t give Hayes a chance to answer. With a victorious laugh, he grabbed the vinyl off the record player and blew out one of the bloodred candles. “Ite, omnes!” he yelled to the spirits. “You are no longer needed!”

  With one candle blown out, all the others extinguished in an elegant wave. The spell was broken. The ghosts rushed backward toward the skylight, caterwauling and reaching for the animated portraits, who were busy climbing back inside their picture frames. Then the portraits went still and lifeless as the ghosts spiraled out of the Bohemian Club in a wispy jet over San Francisco.

  “Now join me in my moment of triumph!” Kristoff told Hayes, hoisting the older man onto his back.

  Meanwhile, on the balcony, Brendan, Eleanor, and Will circled the thing that looked like Cordelia Walker. It was a broken thing, on all fours, darting its head back and forth, running forward on its hands and feet, then dashing back. It looked at Brendan, and for a moment he could see the sharp eyes of his real sister, and the thing said, “Brr . . . ?”

  But then it shuddered and slapped at the ground.

  “Cordelia, it’s us!” Will yelled, sounding desperate.

  Cordelia lunged forward. Brendan pulled Will back. Cordelia snapped her teeth—even though most of them were gone, the canines were still intact, giving her the mouth of a bat.

  “All of you stand back!” Denver Kristoff bellowed.

  He was at the top of the stairs, holding Hayes on his back, with Hayes’s wig sticking up behind his head. Kristoff put Hayes down gently.

  “Brendan, you horrid little brat,” he said. “You will pay dearly for sneaking in here. And you!” he told Eleanor. “You had the chance to leave safely. Unfortunately for you—”

  But now even Kristoff had to stop midsentence.

  Because Cordelia Walker was screaming at the ceiling in a painful, high-pitched wail.

  “Leave her alone!” Kristoff yelled. “Don’t touch her! That’s not your sister! That’s my daughter, Dahlia, who has been inside her body these last six weeks! You thought you could get rid of her with your childish wish, but she was stronger than you! The Kristoffs have always been stronger than the Walkers!”

  Brendan shuddered. He couldn’t take his eyes off Cordelia, and he couldn’t shake the growing horror in his heart. Cordelia was still screaming like a wild beast—but now something worse was happening—something that reminded Brendan of a thing he’d seen on TV. It was from a show called Deep Deadly Creatures, on the Discovery Channel.

  She was doing what the sea slugs did.

  Brendan had seen sea slugs on this show—and even though they were already gross looking, the grossest thing about them was that they would push their stomachs out of their mouths to eat. Literally, they would turn inside out, and now . . . Brendan couldn’t believe it . . . Cordelia was doing the same thing, pushing something out of her mouth, but it wasn’t her stomach—

  It was another person.

  As it moved from inside her, Cordelia’s own mouth hinged back, like a snake dislocating its jaw to consume an egg. There was a tremendous crack.

  “Stop!” Brendan cried. He surged forward—and heard a sizzling, zapping sound, followed by a burning sensation that shot through his chest. He looked down and saw that his T-shirt was blackened and smoking. Kristoff had blasted him with a bit of blue lightning to keep him away from Cordelia.

  “Can’t you see she’s dying?” Brendan yelled, tears streaming down his face. “Please, let me help her!”

  “You can’t help her,” Kristoff said coldly. He was looking at Cordelia as if she were a fascinating experiment.

  Now Cordelia’s mouth was stretched unimaginably wide, nearly the size of a basketball hoop. She was facing the ceiling, her screams muffled by the size of the person coming out of her.

  Kristoff recognized his daughter immediately. Brendan didn’t take much longer. The first thing he saw was an old, crooked mouth with thin lips and gnarled, yellow teeth. A pinched nose, grayish skin, a mottled bald head . . .

  The Wind Witch.

  “No!” Eleanor yelled.

  But there was no stopping her now. The Wind Witch pushed through Cordelia. There was no blood, only the sound of bones cracking. The Wind Witch slid out of Cordelia’s body as if she were wiggling out of a worn dress. Cordelia’s arms and legs lost all of their rigidity, becoming a sad, discarded pile of skin on the floor. The Cordelia Walker that Brendan loved was now something like an exoskeleton, with dead eyes.

  “Ahhhhhh,” said the Wind Witch as she stretched out luxuriously, unfurling her wings. She wrapped them around her body and cracked her neck. She smiled as she stepped away from Cordelia’s husk.

  “Did you miss me?”

  “Dahlia!”

  Denver Kristoff smiled. Even the side of his mouth that curved down seemed to temporarily twist upward. It was a smile Brendan knew from his own father, when Bren would correctly spell a word or solve a math problem and Dr. Walker would say, “Your daddy’s proud of you.” Unfortunately, it had been a long time since Brendan’s father had given Brendan much praise. Or much attention at all.

  “My darling daughter, I thought you were gone forever,” Kristoff said, holding his arms out to the Wind Witch. “How did you manage it?”

  “I’ve inhabited several bodies in my time, but hers was the most difficult,” said the Wind Witch. “What a nightmare! Her palms were always wet. H
er face was constantly breaking out in patches of acne. So many petty thoughts about student elections and what to wear!”

  “How did you manage to get out?” asked Kristoff.

  “Every day, I took gradual control of Cordelia’s body. Bit by bit, piece by piece. And I started to grow more powerful. Until finally—ahhhhh”—the Wind Witched stretched her back—“I could break free.”

  Eleanor wasn’t listening. As she had seen Cordelia transform into the Wind Witch, she had become numb. It simply wasn’t something she could handle. Cordelia was the person she looked up to, almost more than her mother. Cordelia was who she wanted to be when she grew up. And now Cordelia was gone—except . . .

  The husk on the floor was moving.

  Will didn’t see. He had closed his eyes. His heart was in a million pieces. But now he felt a hand tugging on his sleeve.

  “Look!” Eleanor whispered.

  Cordelia’s body was beginning to regain its shape.

  It started with the tips of her feet, which still were attached to her shoes. The feet puffed outward to fill the shoes, sticking out straight, like the feet of a doll propped against a wall.

  “Bloody hell—” Will said.

  “Are we seeing things?” Eleanor asked.

  “Deal!” Brendan yelled.

  Now Cordelia’s waist and body were taking shape. It was as if someone had attached a blow-dryer to her deflated shell and were pumping it full of air—and of life. Cordelia’s fingers popped back up, one through ten, pop-pop-pop-pop-pop. Her arms inflated back to their normal size. Her neck returned. And then, like Dracula waking up from his casket, Cordelia’s face rose, her cheeks expanded, her nose snapped outward. Cordelia’s eyes rolled down from their sockets; her thin lips became full; her mouth returned to its normal size; and her teeth . . . her teeth grew back completely intact. Whiter than usual, in fact.

  “Wuh . . . ?” she asked.

  “Deal!” Eleanor yelled, bursting into tears as she rushed up to her sister. “You’re alive!”