Monster Madness

by Dean Lorey

  “Go now!” Charlie yelled. “We’re out of time!”

  Still a little unsure, Theodore and Violet ran back toward the frightened boy as Pinch responded to an incoming attack by a Netherbat with a furious flurry of strokes from his sickle. Charlie joined in and soon they were engaged in desperate combat with several of the flying Nethercreatures.

  Theodore, meanwhile, was focusing on opening a portal back to the Nightmare Academy while Violet’s ax rose and fell against the Darkling and Netherstalkers that threatened to eat the little boy.

  “How’s that portal?” she shouted as the petrified child wrapped his arms around her waist, weeping heavily.

  “Here it comes!”

  Theodore’s portal popped open right in front of them. Through it, they could see the sandy beach in front of the Nightmare Academy.

  “Perfect!” Violet said. “Follow me!” She and the little boy rushed into the portal, followed by Theodore.

  As soon as they were on the other side, Theodore turned back to Charlie. “We made it!” he shouted. “Everything’s cool here!”

  “Great!” Charlie yelled as he and Pinch killed the last of the attacking Netherbats. “Now close the portal before anything else gets through!”

  “Wait!” Violet shouted, eyes wide. She began to back away from the child they had just rescued. “Uh, Charlie? You better take a look at this.”

  Charlie turned and, looking through the portal, saw the little boy standing on the beach, shaking violently. At first, he thought that the kid was just so scared that he couldn’t stop trembling, but then Charlie noticed something odd—

  The boy’s face began to droop and then it actually melted, running off his skull like hot candle wax.

  “Do you remember what I said about being as unchanging as the rock I burrow through?” the boy cackled with a crazy, distorted grin. “I lied.”

  Oh no, Charlie thought. It can’t be.

  The rest of the child’s skin slid away to reveal a wormlike creature underneath. Around its middle was a blackly glittering Artifact of the Nether.

  “Slagguron,” Charlie gasped.

  “Told you we’d meet again,” the Third Named replied with a laugh.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  SLAGGURON THE CHANGELING

  “He’s a Changeling!” Violet exclaimed as Slagguron started growing. Soon, he was nearly half the size of the Nightmare Academy itself.

  “What’s a Changeling?” Theodore asked, backing away from the morphing creature.

  “They’re like Mimics, but instead of turning into a copy of something, they can turn into anything they want—but only for short periods of time.”

  “All very true,” Slagguron boomed. “You thought you had outsmarted me in the Hydra cave, but who is the smart one now? As soon as you said you were planning to rescue stranded children, I knew your pathetic human desire to ‘do good’ would lead to my victory!”

  “And he accused me of being sly,” Charlie muttered, as he and Pinch watched Slagguron’s transformation from their vantage point in the Nether.

  “Well, he certainly fooled us,” Pinch said darkly. “I had no idea that this was his true nature. We thought no one had ever laid eyes on Slagguron, but who knows how many times we saw him and just didn’t know it?”

  “Charlie, what do we do?” Violet yelled through the portal, but before he could answer, it snapped closed, leaving Violet and Theodore at the Nightmare Academy while Charlie and Pinch remained in the Nether.

  “Should we go back and help them?” Pinch asked.

  Charlie shook his head. “No. To help them, we have to go forward.”

  He turned to see a flood of monsters coming toward them now that the distraction of Slagguron was gone.

  “You ready to do this, Pinch?”

  “Oh, I’m ready,” Pinch replied. “Are you?”

  “Definitely.”

  Charlie rushed toward the attacking Class 5s, weapon raised. Pinch followed, only steps behind. They closed the distance between themselves and the BT Graveyard in a blur of swinging steel, sticky black ichor, and flying monster parts. As they fought, Charlie glanced over at Pinch and was shocked to see how elegantly the boy (man, he stubbornly corrected himself) banished his share of Nethercreatures. He was awesomely good, and Charlie was struck once again by what a crime it was that the Nightmare Division had tried to destroy such an astonishing talent.

  Soon, almost without realizing it, Charlie and Pinch found themselves safe in the BT Graveyard, leaving behind a trail of dead, bleeding monsters.

  “Quite remarkable,” Pinch said, glancing back at their handiwork. “We did all that?”

  Charlie nodded. “Not bad for a thirteen-year-old and a guy who looks like a thirteen-year-old.”

  Pinch laughed, and for just a moment Charlie could see the boy he must once have been—the boy who had only wanted to do good and be liked.

  But then Pinch grew serious again. “Where’s the Guardian?”

  “This way,” Charlie replied. Running through the maze of wrecked ships, he led Pinch toward the one where the Guardian made its home.

  I wonder what’s going on back at the Nightmare Academy, Charlie thought with dread, weaving through the towering hulks of boats that would never again see an ocean. Has Slagguron started his attack? Are my friends even still alive?

  The students of the Nightmare Academy rushed out onto all the available decks, catwalks, and branches, staring in silent awe at the Lord of the Nether. Brooke watched from the pirate ship at the very top with Geoff by her side.

  “Wow,” she said. “I can promise you one thing: This wouldn’t have happened if I’d gone with them.”

  “Riiiight,” Geoff replied skeptically.

  “The Guardian is dead,” Slagguron roared. “Or close to it. The crippling effects of its aura are now no more than a tickle. I have waited many long years to come to Earth and start my destruction.”

  “Well, you know what they say?” Theodore yelled up to him, still standing on the beach. “The bigger they are, the harder they fall!”

  “They also say something else,” Slagguron thundered in reply. “Might makes right—which makes me very, very right.”

  “Hey, you!” a voice shouted in a thick southern twang.

  Slagguron swiveled his head to see Mama Rose standing on the deck of the Academy’s galley. Food for lunch was laid out carefully on worn, wooden tables.

  “That’s right, I’m talking to you, fella! Now, I know you’re a big dang deal and all, but these are just kids around here—kids who should be inside and not out gawking at the giant monster!” She directed that last part at the students behind her. They scattered, disappearing into the ships of the Academy like frightened mice. She turned back to Slagguron. “Now, I know you wanna do some killin’, but you gotta take it somewhere else. I’m sure even a big ol’ Lord of the Nether like you don’t wanna be hurtin’ children!”

  “That,” Slagguron said, “is where you’re wrong.”

  Then, with the force of a thousand wrecking balls, he reared back and slammed his body into the trunk of the banyan tree.

  Charlie was pretty sure he had never seen anything as close to death as the Guardian. The frail creature was now a sickly yellow. Its chest rose and fell in shallow, wheezing gasps. Its big eyes were glassy and unfocused, and its cracked skin wept a thin, puslike fluid.

  “Oh no,” Charlie said. “Are we too late?”

  “It’s still breathing,” Pinch replied.

  Just then, the Headmaster entered behind Charlie and Pinch. “I’m sorry I wasn’t here when you first arrived,” she said. “I had to banish some Acidspitters that had drawn too close.”

  With a quick snap of her wrist, she collapsed her metal staff, now black with monster blood, to the size of a small rod and put it away in a fold of her dress.

  “Who is this?” she said, glancing at Pinch.

  “It’s me, Edward,” he replied. “Edward Pinch.”

  The Headm
aster’s eyes widened. “I see. I see…. This must mean that you got the milk, then?”

  Charlie nodded. “Here you go.”

  He handed the Chapstick tube to the Headmaster.

  She took it from him gratefully, breathing a sigh of relief. “Thank you very much, Mr. Benjamin…and Mr. Pinch. I’m sure you both have many interesting adventures to speak of, and I would like to hear them all—as soon as the Guardian has recovered, of course. As you can see, he is feeling poorly.”

  “Please, give it to him,” Charlie said. “We need him strong. Right away.”

  The Headmaster held Charlie’s gaze. “Why do I have the feeling that you have something…unfortunate to tell me, Mr. Benjamin?”

  “I do. And I will. After you give the Guardian the milk.”

  Suddenly, a horrible shriek ripped through the Nether. It was so close that the glass windows of the warship shattered from the vibration.

  “Tyrannus draws near,” the Headmaster said. “He knows the Guardian will soon be dead.”

  She removed the cap from the tube and, careful not to touch the creature, poured the last of the elixir into the dying Guardian’s mouth.

  The impact was astonishing.

  The sheer force of Slagguron’s assault caused the great tree to rock violently. Two boats—a clipper ship where Mama Rose stood that served as the Academy’s galley and a small sloop that was home to the laundry—were ripped from the branches on which they rested. The people inside screamed as they plunged to the ground.

  Theodore, acting purely on instinct, lashed out with his right hand, instantly creating a large portal beneath the falling vessels. They sailed through it and into the 1st Ring of the Nether—a hundred feet in the air.

  Without thinking, Theodore leaped into the portal after them.

  As he fell through the Nether alongside the spiraling ships, he closed the portal above him and then opened a new one below, causing the boats to plummet through that portal and straight into the ocean in front of the Nightmare Academy, where they landed in a great explosion of water. The impact was rough, but not nearly as devastating as it would have been if the ships had slammed into solid ground.

  After plunging into the warm ocean himself, Theodore surfaced and started to help the injured people escape from the sinking vessels. The first one he came to was Mama Rose.

  “Well, look at you, boy,” she said with a smile as Theodore pulled her free. “You may just have a future at this Nethermancy thing after all.”

  “Imagine that,” Theodore said, smiling back.

  As he continued to rescue the victims of Slagguron’s first attack, Violet—blind with rage—raced toward the Named beast, ax at the ready. She grabbed on to the lowest of his centipedelike legs and, using them as a ladder, began to climb up them toward his massive head.

  “What do you think you’re doing?” Slagguron said, noticing her the way a horse might notice a fly. With one quick shake of his body, he sent Violet soaring. She tumbled wildly through the air, toward the Nightmare Academy, and slammed hard into the rough-hewn railing of the pirate ship. She tried to grab on to it but missed and started to tumble to the ground far below, when she heard a familiar voice—

  “Got you!”

  Brooke snatched Violet by the arm. With one strong yank, she pulled the young Banisher up onto the deck of the ship.

  “Thanks,” Violet said, out of breath. “If you hadn’t been here…”

  “Don’t mention it.” Brooke smiled warmly.

  Violet turned and jumped onto one of the Nightmare Academy’s elevatorlike dinghies. She swung it back and forth on its long rope like a pendulum. Then, using all her strength, she leaped from the dinghy and onto Slagguron’s buglike face, where his thousands of short, waving arms couldn’t reach.

  “Get off me, human!” he roared.

  Without a word, Violet raised her ax and sank it deep into the great beast’s left eye.

  He screamed in pain so loudly that the ground trembled.

  “Now, you die!” he thundered, then reared back to slam Violet into the Academy’s massive trunk.

  “No!” Theodore yelled. “Violet!”

  But just before Slagguron could smear Violet against the side of the great tree, the Named beast screamed in agony and collapsed to the ground with the force of an asteroid hitting the Earth. Violet rode him all the way down, using the meat of his body to cushion the enormous impact of the fall.

  “Unbelievable!” Theodore said, racing up to her. “Did you do that to him?”

  Violet shook her head. “No way.”

  Slagguron tried to rise before collapsing, once again, to the ground.

  “What’s wrong with him?” Theodore asked.

  “Charlie and Pinch must have revived the Guardian!” Violet exclaimed happily. She slid down the side of the huge creature and landed on the sand with catlike agility. “The Academy’s defenses are back up.”

  “Wow, look how strong the Guardian’s aura is! Even all the way out here, it’s still totally crippling.”

  Hard plates slammed down over Slagguron’s face, creating a point like a drill bit. Violet realized that she had seen him do this once before. “He’s getting ready to escape!” she shouted.

  “Uh-oh, I think you’re right.”

  Without another word, Theodore opened a portal to the 1st Ring of the Nether.

  “What in the world are you doing?”

  “You’ll see,” he said, and ran through.

  The Guardian’s recovery was astonishing.

  Moments after he drank the Hydra milk, the sickly orange color of his skin faded, replaced by a green that looked vibrant and healthy. His cloudy eyes became clear, and even though he was not a large creature, his body seemed to fill out and strengthen.

  “All right!” Charlie exclaimed. “He’s getting better!”

  Then, from all around them, they heard screams of pain.

  Charlie ran out on the deck to see the many beasts of the Nether retreating in agony as the aura of the Guardian flowed out across the graveyard of ships. The loudest shriek of all came from above, as Tyrannus tumbled violently out of the sky to crash into the harsh ground in an explosion of mustard-colored crystals.

  “TREACHERY!” he screamed, staggering to his feet, his bat wings twisted comically beneath him. “Unfair! Unfair! The Guardian should be DEAD so I can paint the ground RED with blood from your HEAD!”

  “Actually,” Charlie said, turning to Pinch, “Theodore came up with the last part of that rhyme.”

  The Headmaster walked out to join them. “As you can see, the Guardian is strong once again. Come, we must now return to the Nightmare Academy.”

  “If it’s still there,” Charlie muttered.

  “What was that, Mr. Benjamin?”

  “I said I can’t wait to get there.”

  She walked past them, away from the portal-dampening effect of the great, red Anomaly up above. Charlie turned to follow until he heard a small, soft voice behind him.

  “Hold me,” the Guardian said, standing in the doorway of the ship it called home. “It’s so cold here in the Nether, and so lonely….”

  He’s right. It is lonely in the Nether, Charlie thought, staring into the pleading eyes of the gentle creature. What a sad, miserable life it leads—he can’t touch anything here, and no humans can touch him.

  “Sorry, Hank,” Charlie said softly. “You know I can’t do that. I have to go now. Good luck to you.”

  Tearing his eyes away from the frail, needy creature, Charlie turned and ran after the Headmaster. After all this time in the Nether, he was desperate to get back to his friends.

  As Charlie and Pinch arrived at the Nightmare Academy through a portal made by the Headmaster, Slagguron, still in terrible pain, rose up into the air. With all his remaining strength, he dived headfirst into the ground. There was a great explosion of sand and soon he was gone from view, leaving behind an enormous tunnel that snaked into the dark depths of the Earth.

&nbs
p; “Slagguron,” the Headmaster said.

  Charlie glanced nervously at her. “That’s what I wanted to tell you about, actually. He, um…well, he escaped from the Nether.”

  “I would say he did.”

  “It’s a long story.”

  “I would expect it is.”

  “Well, that’s that,” Pinch said, running a hand wearily across his boyish face. Charlie still couldn’t get used to the fact that he now looked like a thirteen-year-old. “We’ve lost him.”

  “No, actually, we haven’t.”

  They turned to see Theodore standing next to his still-open portal.

  “What do you mean, Mr. Dagget?” the Headmaster asked, walking over.

  “Well, just before Slagguron left, when he was lying there all crippled, I opened this portal.”

  Charlie looked through it and was surprised to see a familiar sight: his equipment closet on the 1st ring of the Nether. “Hey, that’s where I keep all my Banishing gear!”

  Theodore nodded. “I remembered. You had the battery in there for attracting Gremlins, and some spare rapiers, and I also noticed that you had a handful of interesting little things on the top shelf.”

  He held up a small, metal object.

  “A tracking device,” Charlie said.

  “Yup. I attached one of them to Slagguron’s belt just before he left.” Theodore smiled so widely that Charlie was afraid his head would split in two. “Go on, tell me I’m a supergenius.”

  “You, sir, are a super-duper genius.”

  “Yes, that’s quite clever,” the Headmaster agreed. “I commend you on your quick thinking, Mr. Dagget. As always, we are now facing a mixture of good and bad. Slagguron has escaped to Earth, which is quite clearly bad; but he will now possibly lead us to the new lair of Barakkas and Verminion, which is potentially quite good. Also, as a result of your extraordinary efforts to get the Hydra milk to save the Guardian, Tyrannus remains stranded in the Nether—again, very good. All in all, well done.”