The Seeking Serum

by Frank L. Cole

  Iris smiled. “From time to time, I hear it too. Your ghost, walking across the floor.”

  “My house isn’t haunted,” Gordy said. If there was walking, it meant someone else was there.

  “Then it’s a critter. Or poorly constructed floorboards. We found a snake in one of the compartments in your lab a few weeks ago. Big fellow with an uneasy temperament. Perhaps he had a brother we missed.”

  Gordy’s mom had only ever had one snake; she used his shed skin for potions. The thought of a rogue python slinking through the rooms while everyone slept gave him the shivers.

  “There’s no one up there,” she insisted. “I was there earlier, and I assure you, we are alone.”

  Gordy needed to see for himself. Taking one of his last remaining Torpor Tonics from his satchel, he ascended the steps and peered down the dark hallway.

  “If you see the snake,” Iris called out in a hushed whisper from the foot of the stairs, “I’d leave it be.”

  First, Gordy checked his bedroom and found it in the same condition as it had been when he’d left a month ago. A search through each of the twins’ rooms came up mostly empty, though Gordy discovered a pillowcase stuffed with last year’s Halloween candy crammed under Jessica’s bed. Gordy figured Max would find something edible amid the rock-hard taffies. There was no one in the bathroom or hiding in the hall closet.

  Then, heart pounding in his ears, Gordy pulled off the comforter from his parents’ bed and threw open their closet doors. He found more blankets and photo albums, a box full of his dad’s spare refrigerator filters, but no snake, no intruder, and certainly no ghost.

  Gordy was about to return to the living room when something tucked in the back of the closet, hidden behind his mother’s shoe caddy, caught his attention. The uneven edges of crinkled paper poked out from the leather binding, and Gordy recognized it at once. It was his grandfather’s potion journal.

  The last time Gordy had handled the journal had been months ago when Max and Adilene had come for a brewing session during dinner. They had spent the evening in the lab trying to see if Gordy’s friends could make potions on their own. The journal had been on the top shelf next to a collection of his mother’s various recipe manuals. Gordy had assumed it had been taken by B.R.E.W. along with everything else, but it would seem his mother had wanted to keep it safe.

  Gordy thumbed it open to the middle page and scanned the ingredients for a potion his grandfather had named Pitter-Patter. There were drawings of skulls and bones and creepy puppets with marionette strings scribbled on the paper. Suspecting this potion had led to Doll’s creation and not wanting to think about the skeleton while alone in his possibly haunted house, Gordy snapped the journal closed and tucked it into the bottom of his satchel.

  “Did you find it?” Iris was sitting on the couch when Gordy returned, her crutch leaning against the armrest. Both Adilene and Sasha were awake as well and seated on the carpet, laying out Sasha’s potions in a row.

  “Find what?” Max asked, yawning.

  “Nothing,” Gordy answered. He tossed the pillowcase of candy at Max. The bag struck his friend across the face before landing in his lap.

  “Ouch!” Max rubbed his cheek. “Why did you do that?” Then he noticed the Tootsie Rolls spilling from the opening, and his mouth dropped open with excitement. “Dude, it’s the mother lode!”

  “We should probably go,” Gordy announced.

  “I have three Fire Rockets, two Torpor Tonics, a Vintreet Trap,” Sasha said, listing off her inventory, “a Dunka Draught, some Heliudrops, a Spinnerak Net, and a handful of Blitzen Beads. I’d say this, along with whatever you have left in your satchel, should be enough to fend off a small army.”

  “‘Blitzen Beads’?” Max asked through a mouthful of stale gummy bears. “Sounds like reindeer droppings.”

  “Far from it,” Sasha said. “When you throw them, they explode with blinding light. If you don’t shield your eyes, you won’t be able to see for at least three minutes.”

  “Sweet!” Max said enthusiastically. “Make sure that goes in my grab bag.”

  “Will Estelle drive us there?” Adilene asked, standing up.

  “That’s the plan,” Gordy said. “But we can’t all go.”

  Sasha’s head snapped up from counting potions. “Going alone is a dumb idea, even for you, Stitser.”

  “I know,” Gordy said. “That’s why we should split up.”

  “This is how it starts,” Max muttered while chomping on his candy. “The beginning of the end for everyone.”

  Gordy held up his hands. “Just hear me out. We can’t leave Mrs. Glass by herself, and she’s in no shape to ride on Estelle.”

  “I’m afraid he’s right. I’ll only slow you down.” Iris reached over and, with one snapping motion, yanked the pillowcase from Max’s grip. He dove for the candy, but despite her injury, Mrs. Glass had impressive speed. “You’re going to make yourself sick, young man. Show some restraint.”

  Max licked his fingers. “It’s not like it’s the good candy anyways. What are the teams?” he asked. “Or is it obvious? Gordy and me—and Tweedledum and Tweedledee.”

  “Actually, I think it needs to be Sasha and me,” Gordy said.

  Adilene’s head cocked to one side, eyebrows knitting into a stern expression.

  “My thought exactly.” Sasha gathered up her potions and snapped them into the compartments of her satchel. Then she moved over to stand by Gordy.

  “Why does it have to be you two?” Adilene asked, looking noticeably unhappy.

  “We need to lure the insects to our location and infect them with the wardbreaker solution,” Gordy explained. “There are a few steps remaining to the potion, and if something goes wrong, we need to be able to brew a backup.” He looked apologetically at Adilene, hoping she would understand. There was no easy way to say this, and he worried it would hurt her feelings. “It has to be done by Elixirists.”

  “And we’re not.” Adilene folded her arms and nodded. “I get it. So Max and I will stay here and keep Mrs. Glass company.”

  “I’m eager to get to know you better,” Iris said. “We’ll hunker down and be ready for when our two heroes come back to rescue us.”

  This seemed to agitate Adilene even more. “That’s great! What do you think, Maxwell? Are you okay with being a damsel in distress?”

  Max, too busy smacking his lips and staring longingly at the candy sack, didn’t seem to be paying any attention.

  Sasha squeezed her arms around Gordy’s waist as Estelle darted down the road. This section of the city looked completely deserted, and the scooter whizzed along the empty streets, undeterred. Estelle started purring again about a mile away from their destination.

  Gordy couldn’t tell if Estelle was happy or agitated. The purring happened sporadically, making it difficult to figure out her mood. Twelve sharp bursts, then she fell silent once more.

  “Hey, I think you made the right choice,” Sasha said. “Picking me to come with you, I mean. I know it was hard to break it to Adilene, but she just doesn’t know when to quit. She doesn’t understand what it’s like to be different, you know? Special.”

  Estelle began to slow, sputtering as she neared the force field. Gordy clung to the handlebars, digging his knees into the side of the scooter as they came to a complete stop in the identical spot as the previous evening.

  “We’re not special,” Gordy said once Estelle’s engine died down to a low rumble. Up ahead, the haze of Mezzarix’s Distractor ward shimmered in the air, distorting the images beyond. “No more special than Adilene or Max.” He glanced back at Sasha. “And every time you say something like that, you just sound mean.”

  Sasha batted her long eyelashes, feigning innocence. “Oh, please,” she scoffed. “I’m just trying to be realistic. You’re not doing them any favors by stringing them along. Sooner o
r later you’re going to have to cut them loose.”

  Gordy climbed off Estelle. “They’re my best friends, and they’ve helped me more than any Elixirist. Definitely more than you.”

  Sasha curled her lower lip and pouted. “You don’t like it when I tease your girlfriend?”

  “She’s not my girlfriend!” Gordy raised his voice. “Why do you keeping saying that?”

  “Come on,” Sasha groaned. “Maybe you don’t think it, but she sure does. I mean, you are a highly-skilled Dram. You can do things she can only dream of.”

  “Let’s just get this over with and get back to the house.”

  With Estelle rooted to the asphalt, facing the glowing lights beyond the barrier, Gordy poured an ampoule of ogon oil into a pile of brush gathered in the gravel. The oil instantly gave off heat, and Gordy held the vial of Bug Magnet—it was the best name he and Max could come up with on such short notice—over the rising fumes with a pair of metal tongs. Within a few seconds, the mixture began to sizzle. When steam started to build beneath the cork, Gordy tossed the bottle a short distance away between two crooked trees just off the highway. A tiny plume of smoke drifted up from where the potion landed and dissipated in the cool night air.

  “How long do we have to wait before we know it—” Sasha started, but Gordy held up a finger to silence her.

  He could already hear scurrying noises coming from the woods. Like millions of chattering teeth, the sound grew louder, and the taller weeds began to dip and sway. A black mass, chittering with the calls of crickets and beetles and who knew what other sorts of insects, convened upon the syrupy goop puddled on the ground.

  Sasha yelped as a colony of ants—black ones and red ones and enormous silver ones—marched past her feet. Gordy could see the glinting of wings on the backs of flies and locusts and could smell the sour scent of earthworms burrowing up from beneath the ground, which seemed to shift beneath their scuttling feet as a tremendous screeching filled Gordy’s ears.

  “What kind of insects are those?” Sasha shrieked, pointing at the large black things circling above them.

  Gordy had never seen bugs that big before and doubted they were indigenous to Ohio. And then, as the winged creatures began dive-bombing the insects gathered around the potion, he realized they weren’t bugs at all.

  “Crows!” Gordy exclaimed as an enormous bird whizzed past his shoulder and scooped up a mouthful of bugs. Several more followed, enjoying an easy meal. There were at least a dozen crows flying close, their dislodged feathers landing on his sleeves. Gordy grabbed his satchel and swung it at the crows like a mace.

  Shielding her hair from both the kamikaze birds and the bugs showering down from their beaks, Sasha dove to her knees and opened her satchel. She scanned through a few potions as Gordy continued to swing wildly at the crows, missing by a wide margin each time.

  “Cover your eyes!” Sasha commanded.

  “Do what?” Gordy asked. But before he could obey, Sasha smashed something on the ground, and he was blinded by the brightest light he had ever seen.

  Gordy stumbled backward, his eyes watering. “I can’t see anything!”

  Wind blew against the back of his neck as the cawing crows flapped their wings. Gordy buried his face in the crook of his elbow. The shrieking grew distant as they flew away from Sasha’s Blitzen Bead.

  “I told you to cover your eyes!” Sasha shouted over the still-chittering mass of insects.

  “Well, maybe next time you’ll give me two seconds to think about it first.” Gordy didn’t have anything in his satchel that could restore his eyesight, which meant he’d be blind for the next three minutes. All he could see was a painfully bright, white backdrop. “You’re going to have to do the next step by yourself,” he instructed.

  “Already on it,” Sasha said. “I’m going to assume the bugs are done gathering. In any case, this looks like more than enough for the job.”

  Gordy heard her move off the road, gagging and groaning as insects crunched beneath her feet.

  “I’m going to pour the wardbreaker potion next to the Bug Magnet,” she called out. “Just hang tight. There’s a lot in this bottle.”

  Gordy wasn’t going anywhere. The Blitzen Bead had disoriented him, and he didn’t want to accidentally trip and fall into a pile of fire ants.

  The sound of clicking insects suddenly grew quiet as Sasha emptied the potion. Gordy heard liquid splashing from the bottle, and then the unmistakable sound of slurping. The crickets and the ants and the beetles and the worms were lapping up the potion as though it were maple syrup glistening on a pile of pancakes.

  “It’s working!” Sasha shouted. “They’re taking turns and waiting in line. It’s seriously weird.”

  “Do you know what to do next?” Gordy asked. He had never concocted a wardbreaker before. Come to think of it, he had never made a Blitzen Bead either. He would have to swap recipes with Sasha after they got back.

  “Yeah, Iris wrote it down for me in my notebook. I just have to—” She grunted and fell silent.

  “Just have to what?” Gordy asked.

  Sasha didn’t respond.

  “What are the bugs doing?”

  Gordy felt a wave of heat in front of him as though he had approached a blazing oven, and he could smell an awful stench, like burning hair. The strobing white wall began to dissipate from behind his eyelids. As he blinked, splotches of gray began to take shape, and he could make out the trees up ahead. Stumbling forward, he brushed past something metal and bulky and growling.

  “What is it?” Gordy asked, putting his hand on Estelle. “What’s wrong?”

  As his vision returned, Gordy discovered the reason for the scooter’s irritation. The bugs they had lured from the forest had all been set on fire. Orange flames danced across the millions upon millions of crackling insect carcasses.

  “What happened?” Gordy demanded, turning toward Sasha.

  And then he realized why she had gone silent.

  Zelda Morphata stood next to Sasha, a hand covering her mouth.

  Sasha looked like she was hardly breathing.

  Zelda was at least a foot and a half shorter than Sasha, but Gordy knew why his friend wasn’t moving.

  The traitor held a Decocting Wand to Sasha’s throat.

  “Sorry about your bugs. I do hope they weren’t pets.” Zelda peered over her shoulder at the bonfire of beetles. All Gordy and Sasha’s work had literally gone up in smoke. There was no way they could lure more bugs now.

  “Lucky for me, I was taking a stroll when I saw the light. Though I wasn’t expecting to come across the likes of Gordy Stitser and Sasha Brexil. Very convenient, I must say. Ah, don’t move, please.” Zelda raised the wand closer to Sasha’s forehead, and she stiffened.

  Gordy had accidently taken a step toward her. His eyesight had returned, and it threw off his balance.

  “Please don’t ExSponge me,” Sasha pleaded.

  “So you know what this is, then?” Zelda swished the wand through the air with a flourish. “You must have had an excellent trainer. Do you know what happens to someone when they’re ExSponged?”

  Sasha began to whimper.

  “Of course you do, dear Sasha. Your poor mother.” Zelda tipped her head. “Let me guess—it’s as though she’s numb to the world now.” She gazed upon the wand, relishing its power. “The ExSpongement removes the portion of your brain that controls your potion-making ability.”

  Gordy didn’t know what to do. He couldn’t reach for his satchel or make a run for it. Any sudden movement and Sasha could end up ExSponged. “Let us go, and we’ll disappear,” he said. “You’ve burned up all our bugs. You don’t have to do this.”

  “Oh, I know. In fact, I suspect should any harm come to you specifically, your grandfather might lose his mind. But Mezzarix put me in charge here. And he knew the risks of such a choi
ce. I warned him of what could happen. To you and your family. To your friends.” Zelda’s green hair jiggled as she nodded toward Sasha.

  “Please!” Sasha begged.

  Zelda’s eyes snapped open wider. “I hated your mother. Talia Brexil was a tyrant. Unsympathetic to anyone with an opinion different from hers. And you are just like her, Sasha. You think position gives you the right to make decisions. But you’re wrong.” Zelda raised the wand toward Sasha. “Power gives you the right. And this is true power.”

  “I know where the final Chamber member is hiding!” Gordy blurted. “And you need all of them to make Mezzarix’s plan work.”

  It took a second for Zelda to respond. Then she snickered, lowering her hand from her target. “Come now, Gordy, that’s nonsense. You’re clever, but unfortunately, lying doesn’t fit you very well. You wear it like a poorly measured suit jacket.”

  “Iris Glass is hiding in my house,” Gordy said. “I can take you there.”

  “Take me there?” Zelda scoffed. “I’ve had tea in your home on a number of occasions. I know the way.”

  “But you can’t get in without me,” Gordy reasoned. “You’re not part of B.R.E.W. anymore. The wards will turn you away. Guaranteed.”

  “If you can wrangle a million bugs, what do you think I can do?” Zelda chuckled, her voice squeaking hideously. “So desperate. It’s quite amusing. I think I will allow you to go free, unscathed. I’d like to keep my status with Mezzarix as long as he is in power, and ExSponging his precious grandson might end up being a poor decision.” She winked at Gordy and then raised the Decocting Wand, touching it to Sasha’s forehead. “But I cannot offer her the same deal.”

  “No!” Gordy shouted.

  Sasha fell to her knees, sobbing uncontrollably, but Zelda kept the wand pressed against her.

  Dropping to the ground, Gordy yanked opened his satchel. He felt nauseous and dizzy, which may have been from the lingering effects of the Blitzen Bead, but that wasn’t all. His next move would determine Sasha’s fate. He only had a handful of potions, and though effective if thrown, he knew they wouldn’t work in time.