Carefully—slowly—he reached into the messenger bag on his hip, hoping to find a diamond dagger of dismemberment or, at the very least, his lucky penknife. Instead, his hand closed around his pencil case. He cursed inwardly. This just had to happen on a school day, didn’t it?
Quick as a flash, the vines came. They flew out of the woods, racing through the air and across the ground toward Max. The first wrapped itself around his right ankle, knocking him onto his back. The next whipped him across the face before binding itself to his left wrist. A third darted forward like a cobra, stabbing at his other leg before coiling around his thigh. Max cried out, the grip of each vine like iron.
His right hand emerged from the satchel accompanied by a shower of pens and pencils that scattered across the bridge. Grasping a number two pencil, he stabbed the vine on his left wrist, thick sap oozing as it released its hold instantly. The vine on his right ankle took a ballpoint pen through its body, which sent it flopping off the bridge. The one around his thigh took a few more blows—he had to strike with the stationery compass five times before the vine finally relinquished its grip and slithered back up the bank, weeping sap all the way.
That left only the original vine, bound tightly around the Chopper’s cog, a tremor rippling along its length. The protractor slashed down, the semicircular plastic blade scything through the vine like a guillotine. The severed tendril flailed wildly, oozing green fluid into the air with a sound not unlike a deflating whoopee cushion. Max leaped onto the Chopper, back-heeled the kickstand, and stamped hard on the pedal.
He felt rather pleased until a new vine lashed around his neck and tugged him—hard. The Chopper lurched forward, disappearing off the bridge as Max was yanked backward through the air. He landed with a thump on the rocks, fingers finding the noose, flush to his throat and tightening all the time. He turned, scrambling off his knees and slipping among the dead leaves. He looped the vine around his right arm once, twice, three times for good measure, winding it in until it went taut. Max placed a sneaker against a rock and braced himself. His eyes bulged, a snot bubble threatening to burst from his nose as the vine squeezed his windpipe.
“Don’t be shy,” he spat through gritted teeth.
Max pulled hard, every muscle in his body straining like never before. The noose loosened from his throat, his opponent clearly surprised by the switching focus of the fight. Through the rain Max could see movement between the trees and among the brambles, as something thrashed about, drawing closer. The young monster hunter hauled his foe in, hand over hand, gathering the vine like a length of rope. He was a fisherman, reeling in his catch: was it a guppy or a great white on the end of the line? The bushes parted.
The creature loomed above Max, teetering on two spindly, goatlike legs, cloven hooves clattering on the rocks. It shared its features with the trees around it, bark skin covered in knotholes and moss. Crooked arms ended in long, curling claws, the severed and squirming vines retracting like tentacles into puckered, pulsing palms. An overlarge head was held aloft by a withered neck. Erupting from the top of this crude, faceless skull, a collection of gnarled and twisted branches rose like antlers. The towering terror was perhaps fifteen feet tall, twenty including the wooden horns. Slowly, its face split, sharp splinters appearing where a mouth should have been.
It didn’t happen often, but Max was lost for words.
The tendril around his arm tightened like a hungry python. It was the monster’s turn to play tug-of-war now. The vine withdrew into the creature’s limb, disappearing like an emerald tongue, dragging Max inexorably closer. It spun the boy, wrapping him up further, pinning his arms to either side of his body. An inhuman shriek tore forth from its jagged jaws as it ripped its arm back, lifting Max off his feet and up the rocks to where it stood.
The grotesque mouth creaked open further. Centipedes and woodlice scuttled from within, making room for the approaching monster hunter. As Max readied himself, three words kept ringing in his head.
Worst. Birthday. Ever.
ELEVEN
xxx
BROTHER IN ARMS
Max had come to terms with his grisly fate. As teenage warriors went, he reckoned he had enjoyed a few good innings. He had thought he’d gotten a good handle on all the spooky, scary secrets that were hidden in the world’s dark places. Sadly, it seemed he’d transformed into a monster magnet.
“Get it over with, branch breath,” he spluttered as the woodland spirit lifted him toward its jaws, grubs spilling from between its terrible teeth.
Even over the din of the rain and sound of the blood thundering through his asphyxiating head, Max recognized the sharp twang of a bow. An arrow flashed out of nowhere, tearing into the thick vine around his torso. Sticky sap sprayed his face as violently as an arterial eruption. The tendril instantly released its grip, flailing free, stuck with a black arrow. Max tumbled to the mulch, snatching lungfuls of air as more arrows whistled past. They peppered the tentacled horror, striking its bloated head and bark-skinned body. Max counted five more missiles striking home, each one hissing where it quivered in the monster’s flesh, green smoke curling from each weeping wound. The creature went down in a thrashing heap, its life quickly ebbing away.
Max peered into the woods, in the direction from which the arrow attack had come. He blinked, wiping sweat and rain from his vision. Slowly, a silhouette disengaged from shadows, pacing forward. Two legs, two arms, torso, and head; that hardly narrowed things down. But there were plenty of humanoid monsters out there. The way it moved reminded Max of a big cat, a black jaguar stalking its prey. Was he next? The way the morning had gone, it wouldn’t surprise him one bit if this devil wanted the kill for itself.
“Well, if it isn’t Max Helsing!”
His accent was English, upper class; Max had Jed’s fondness for period drama to thank for that knowledge. He’d endured enough episodes of Downton Abbey to recognize a posh voice when he heard one. Young, too, unless Max was mistaken.
“Where?” said Max, rising unsteadily, face masked in mud and hair full of twigs. While he let the stranger think he was punch-drunk, Max was already weighing every aspect of the surrounding terrain for potential weapons.
“Funnyman, eh?” said the young Englishman as he stepped out of the woods. “I like that. It’s good to see the humorous side, especially in this line of work.”
A mountain of a youth, probably in his late teens, emerged from the trees. With shoulders as broad as an ox yoke, he wore battered bike leathers and a pair of enormous, steel-toed boots. A bow was slung across the youth’s shoulder, and a quiver hung from his hip, bristling with arrow flights. He had a wild head of hair that put Max in mind of the latest invading British boy band. No doubt the girls went wild for that look. And his tanned skin and deep brown eyes. They probably really dug his dazzling white teeth, too. And the accent. Max hated him instantly. The giant held open his jacket, revealing a host of shining weapons within: knives, knuckle-dusters, and other grisly tools of the trade. He placed a glass-stoppered vial in an inside breast pocket, letting it fall back into place.
He grinned. “Concentrated sulphuric acid, Max. Always find it tremendously helpful to dip the arrowheads when there’s time. Takes the blighters down that bit quicker. I take it you’ve never faced a forest guardian before. Nasty beggars, aren’t they? It’s the tentacles that get you every time. Ordinarily they attack only those who’d harm their woodland. Looks like you got his roots in a bunch!” He reached behind his shoulder and unhitched a long-handled ax from his back. Giving it a twirl, he spied Max regarding the weapon warily. “You appear scared, Max.”
“Not scared,” said Max, getting a good look at the wicked blade as the older youth approached. “Just intrigued.”
“How so?”
“You seem to know me, yet I don’t know you,” said Max, glancing down the gulch toward the bridge. He could see his Chopper in the streambed, and his messeng
er bag abandoned on the bridge. There’d be no swift getaway today. “Did you Google me? I wouldn’t believe half the things you’ve read on my Wiki page. And I’m not dating Selena Gomez, no matter what she or Twitter says.”
“You’re quick with the jokes,” said the stranger, smiling as he stepped ever closer, boots squelching through mud. “Father said the Van Helsings were unpredictable. I’d assumed he meant you were, what do you Americans say . . . badass? I never imagined he meant comedians.”
“Just one of our many talents,” said Max, his eyes settling on a fallen branch by his feet. It was better than nothing, he supposed; might prolong his life against the giant for all of two seconds. “You should see me tap-dance!”
The bigger teen ran a thumb along the edge of the ax head. “This is the Woodsman’s Ax. It dates back to fourteenth-century Germany, and as well as doing a sterling job of chopping down trees, it’s jolly nifty at cutting werewolves into tiny little pieces.”
“You borrow it from Red Riding Hood?”
The other laughed. “Funny you should mention her. I’m told this very ax was used to slay the lycanthrope in that instance. After all, you know as well as I that the Brothers Grimm didn’t peddle fairy tales. They were writing a historical document, a warning for future generations to stay out of the dark places, keep out of the woods.” He waggled the ax in Max’s direction. “Perhaps you should’ve taken their advice this morning, eh?”
If he was planning on killing Max, the giant teen was taking his merry time. Max could grab the branch, get one good swing in, and then be on the run. He just needed to keep this rich boy talking. Keep him distracted.
“What can I say?” Max shrugged, the forest guardian thrashing feebly at his back in its final death throes. “I like the wild side of life.”
“Don’t we all?” replied the stranger, now just ten feet from Max. “My name’s Abel Archer,” he went on, bowing as if he’d just walked out of a fairy tale of his own. He straightened, sending a crisp white card Max’s way with a flick of the wrist. “Your father used to work with mine. His name was Archibald.”
Max caught the card, reading the embossed details in fancy script: “Abel Archer, Fiend Fighter. No beast too big to butcher.” Wow, thought Max. Bloodthirsty and alliterative.
“Archibald Archer?” said Max, pocketing the business card. “For real? Dad’s never mentioned anyone by that name. And I’d have remembered, because—let’s face it, Abel—it’s kinda corny.”
Archer smiled politely. “I’ll let you have that one, as I rather agree; it’s a ridiculous name. However, let’s not play silly games, Maxwell. Your father’s told you nothing. He’s been dead for a decade. Murdered by a vampire, wasn’t he? You’re on your own, Max Helsing, barring that crippled custodian you keep in the attic.”
Max winced. So it appeared Archer knew plenty about him, then.
“Now that’s not nice,” said Max, struggling to keep a lid on his anger while playing along with Archer’s game. “Don’t talk about Jed like that. If you want us to be friends, you need to work on those manners.”
“I’m sorry,” said Archer. “Truly I am. Because I do so want to be your friend, Max. I get frustrated seeing you held back by that old man, when you could be learning so much more by coming under my wing.”
“You have wings? Cool! Let’s see ’em!”
“I’d like to make you an offer, Max. I want to take you on as my apprentice.”
Max didn’t even try to stifle his laugh. “An apprenticeship? How old are you?”
“Eighteen.”
“And you think you’re qualified to teach me? This is a joke, right?”
“No joke, Max. You turned thirteen today. I’ve waited until now to approach you, given your old friend a bit more time. But you’re a man now—”
“I’m a teenager!”
Archer snorted. “That’s a man in our game, Max. You’re a monster hunter, just like your father before you. He was taking down the big boys at your age.”
“Thanks, but I think I’ll stick with the mentor I already have. Better the crazy you know, so they say. Jed knows where it’s at.”
“Does he? When was the last time that toothless old boxer went toe-to-toe with a tentacled terror? I’m surprised he can make it up and down all those stairs without falling over, let alone swing a punch.”
“Jed’s just fine—thanks for your concern.” He wasn’t about to let this clown bad-mouth his friend. Jed was all the family he had. “Thanks for the offer, but I’m good. And not all monsters are bad. Maybe I could teach you a thing or two, like tolerance.”
Abel Archer closed the distance in one gargantuan stride. The Englishman’s huge hands squeezed the ax haft, his words angry and passionate, his cool composure gone.
“In eighteen years I’ve put more horrors back in the dirt than you’ve had hot dinners. I’ve seen a world of weird that you could only dream of. You think Gallows Hill’s the center of the monster universe? You’re not even close. They’re everywhere, lurking in the shadows of every nook and cranny, hiding under every rock and floorboard across the planet. The whole damn lot of them are vermin, and we’re the exterminators. There’s no room for tolerance. Without people like my father and me, they’d take over!”
Max could see the veins bulging on Archer’s neck, straining like cords of steel rope, his eyes wild. He scared Max more than any monster.
“I’ll take your word for it,” said Max with a passive smile. “Thanks, Abel, but no.” He patted Archer’s lapel. Even through the leather biker jacket, his chest felt like iron.
The Woodsman’s Ax went up over Archer’s head, quick as a whip-crack. Max ducked for the branch, but the weapon was already descending. He expected to feel it break his back apart in one savage swing. Instead, Archer released it from his grasp, sending it spinning through the air over Max. The Helsing boy looked around as the ax struck fast and hard into the forest guardian’s enormous head where it had risen quietly behind him. The bulbous wooden skull tore in two, an explosion of splinters, sap, and grubs filling the air. The twisting antlers went their separate ways as the butchered tree-being collapsed into the mud.
Archer strode over to the twitching corpse. He reached down, tearing the ax out of the forest guardian’s ruined face. Flicking green gore from the blade, he turned back to Max.
“You will join me, Max. Perhaps not today, but it’ll happen. You’ll be begging for my help before too long. That old cripple has taken you as far as he can. You need me to take you the rest of the way.”
The Englishman snapped the ax into the holster on his back and disappeared into the dark forest, leaving a slightly stunned and very confused Max at the top of the gulch. He ran onto the bridge and grabbed his bag up from the boards before slipping down the incline and scrambling under the bridge to manhandle his Chopper back out of the stream. He shook his head all the while, questions rattling through his mind. That Archer knew so much about Max’s family history was alarming enough. But knowing today was Max’s thirteenth birthday—who could’ve told Archer about that?
TWELVE
xxx
THE HUNTER IN HIDING
“I bet he sounded like Hugh Grant,” said Syd, pausing from her task at the woodwork bench to inspect the rival monster hunter’s business card. She clasped her hands in mock breathlessness. “A real dreamboat.”
“If your idea of a dreamboat is a well-bred, muscle-headed psychopath, then you’d have been in heaven.” Max sighed as the girl grinned, returning her attention to the crossbow she was tinkering with. She’d already hammered the Chopper’s front wheel back into shape that afternoon. “The guy was a maniac. He really went to town on the forest guardian. I’d rather have just left it in peace; Abel Archer left it in pieces.”
Max had finally limped home to a quiet Helsing House. Jed had been out running errands, Wing had been studying, Syd was still
at school, and Eightball had the run of the attic. In no hurry to rekindle hostilities with the hellhound, Max had let himself into the garage and found a spot to shelter from the rain. Curling up on a dusty old sofa, he’d drifted off into a troubled sleep, featuring guest appearances from his favorite night terrors. He’d finally awoken when Jed and Syd entered the garage a little after six, surprised and relieved to find Max snoring on the battered chaise longue.
“So come on, Jed,” said Max, curled up on the sofa beneath a blanket. His yo-yo lay unraveled in his lap, his mood listless and dispirited. “Who’s Abel Archer, and how does he know so much about me?”
Jed stood by the garage door, holding the plastic blinds apart, peering through a dirty pane of glass into the rain-swept evening. He turned to face Max, his brow furrowed, and let the blinds fall back into place.
“The boy’s father, Archie, fought alongside your dad years ago. Brute of a guy, built like a brick outhouse.”
Max realized Archer had the same look as the man who’d posed in that old photo with his dad and Jed wearing desert robes and turbans, and carrying scimitars. As the last of the Van Helsings had inherited his dimple from Conrad, so Abel must have inherited his gorilla arms from Archie.
Jed limped to the worktable, picking up the business card and giving it a once-over. His look was disapproving. “Like your father, Archie came from a long and distinguished line of monster hunters over in England. But he was what you’d call ‘old school.’”
The Thirteenth Curse Page 7
