Liberty Creek under attack? What else can go wrong?
“Tell Luka I’m on my way!”
“I’ll do it!” he said. “By the way, have you heard the reports from Grigg’s Landing? You’re from there, right?”
“Please tell me it’s good news!” she pleaded.
“I wish I could. It’s the Hoods—they’ve taken over the town. There’s been a report of more deaths. I’m sorry to break it to you like this.”
“Who?!”
“I don’t know. I just heard that things have gone bad—real fast. It has to be the conjurer. She’s behind all of this. Parts of the town are on fire. It’s burning to the ground.”
Two faces flashed in Opal’s head. Sugar and Jupiter–are they okay?
“Anyway, I have to go!” The scout turned and ran down the hall. He yelled back over his shoulder. “I’ll tell Luka you’re coming! Be safe out there, Opal. Things are very dangerous right now!”
Opal felt her heart beating like a hammer. She didn’t have the Agama Stone, and danger and death were closing in from every side.
Luka needs me, she thought. I have to go to him.
But Sugar and Jupiter were in danger.
Who will help them?
Opal ran toward the rift tunnels.
97
If I can get to the new Feratu cave, I’ll find Amina.
The Ranger was rushing through the forest. Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, he came upon the strange grove of trees that had marked the location of the Feratu colony.
The trees here were great landmarks, because they looked like Feratu: thin, twisted trunks—long, bifurcated limbs stripped of all their leaves. The ground in this part of the Ozarks seemed infected by an aquifer of dark magic—a perfect place for wereboars to hide, or vampire creatures to roost.
He crept from tree to tree, along Blanchard’s Creek, toward the mouth of the cave. It was a portal to hell as far as he was concerned. But he was ready to go anywhere and do anything to get rid of Amina’s witchcraft.
In the mist, which seemed to pour from the cave, he saw something eerie.
Sanura Windfar floated toward him. She called his name. From another direction, she appeared again. The one Sanura was now two. Three became four. His wife appeared from every angle, whispering loving words to him in haunting echoes.
He wanted to reach out and hold her. But there was something sinister about her—Sanura was tainted.
“The necklace, my love. I’ve missed it so. Bring it to mmmmeeeeeeeee!”
The Ranger backed away. He remembered how Sanura had loved the Agama Stone. She was obsessed with it.
Jakob Prismore had encouraged Sanura to study its mysteries, to believe she could master it. But it had been a great disappointment to her.
After months of careful study, the necklace hung on her chest mocking her with its impotence. She felt like a failure. He told her to give it up, but she wouldn’t listen. The stone became a wedge between them. Then, one week before he left for his last Protectorate mission, the necklace finally started to respond. To Sanura, it had been a miracle. She was overjoyed.
Now he saw things clearly. Sanura hadn’t activated the necklace—it was the child growing within her.
“The sssssstone!”
Sanura’s voice hissed in a seductive slither.
He yelled at the ghost, but the thing continued to advance. He drew his bow.
“The hunter has become the hunted!” growled Foxkiller from the darkness.
The Ranger recognized the voice immediately. Other wereboar howls erupted behind the images of Sanura. His wife’s illusory images dissolved in the fog, revealing the real danger.
“I’m scared, he’s got a weapon,” mocked Redboar. His crazy laugh echoed in the shadows. “Look out boys, he might have some silver!”
“He’s finally come to die,” snorted Brokentusk.
The ghostly illusions vanished completely, and the Ranger found himself surrounded by wereboars.
98
Starlight.
It was not what Opal expected to see as she came through the rift tunnel underneath Oliver’s General Store. The structure that had once been the heart of her hometown (and her much needed escape route) was gone.
Thick clouds of smoke passed over her, making it difficult to see.
Were the Olivers dead? Would the Hoods have gone that far?
Opal wrapped herself in a crystal-beaded hiding cloak. It shimmered with magic and her form disappeared. She sidestepped up what was left of the cellar stairs and hopped out into the alley. Then she climbed up a ladder leaning against the back of the half burnt surveyor’s office to get a better view of the town.
Underneath her a lone Hood patrolled the street; he was armed with a rifle and a pistol that dangled against his thigh in a floppy holster.
The horns gave the man a fearsome and intimidating appearance, that is until a well-placed rock from Opal’s slingshot knocked him down and he started screaming like a little girl. A swarm of Hoods poured out from their hiding places.
“It’s Nick. He’s hurt!” one yelled.
“My eye!” Nick wailed. “I’ve been shot—oh gawd!” He ripped off his mask, revealing a trail of blood streaming down the right side of his face.
“Hold your ground, boys! Let’s see what we got here.”
A short, stumpy looking Hood sauntered up. His horns were askew, and he was trying to spin a pistol in each hand. He looked like a goofy adolescent demon pretending to be a cowboy. When his hood came off, Opal could see it was Percy Elkins. He seemed to be in charge.
“Whoowee! Dang, Nicky—that eye is swollen like a tick on a hound. Your bleeding, but you ain’t been shot you, or you’d be dead! Now get up!” Percy said, kicking the man.
Opal fired several more stones into the cluster of Hoods. Some of the men were hit and fell down. Others dove for cover. Percy spun around in the center of it all.
“Holy moly!” Percy exclaimed. “I think we’ve finally got ourselves a genuine shootout!”
The little dictator fired wildly into the surrounding darkness. His men followed suit. Opal shot back, but it did no good. She was outmatched by their firepower.
“Go tell the preacher his trap has just sprung!” Percy yelled to a group of men. They ran to a pack of horses at the end of the street, mounted up, and galloped away.
Opal noticed the sheriff’s star on Percy’s chest. She was shocked that this snake, with a heart as black as a kettle in hell, would be in charge of anything. He was prancing around, laughing at his wounded soldiers, and occasionally firing a pistol at nothing in particular. Where would a sadistic twit playing at being a lawman take her friends? She needed to find them as quickly as possible and get to Liberty Creek.
A mental gear clicked into place. Check the jail. She began to move along the rooftops, sprinting from one hiding place to the next.
“There, look! Up there, someone’s on the roof.”
A Hood with red horns saw Opal as she leapt between buildings. The magic of her garment was more suited to hiding than running. The man had a shotgun and blew a hole in an awning about two feet below where Opal had just been.
“Well, well—if it isn’t my old friend. I see you up there jumping around like a crazy squirrel. Ain’t it my lucky night. I’m finally going to get you, rummer! You hear me?” Percy ran toward her with a posse of Hoods in tow. He began shouting more insults and pointing out positions for his men to take.
She vaulted onto to the roof of the last building on Main Street, slid down the waterspout fixed to the back of the Tailor’s shop, and sprinted from one tree to the next on the ground. She dove into a cluster of honeysuckle vines at the edge of Rambrey Park.
Opal reached into her bag, searching for another stone. She pulled something else out. It was a crystal-tipped arrowhead; it glimmered and filled with starlight. Perfect, she thought.
She put it in her slingshot, pulled back with as much might as possible, and fired.
The crystal arrowhead whizzed toward the statue at the center of the town park, slamming into the stone chest of Cornelius Rambrey, the intrepid explorer who first settled Grigg’s Landing.
Cornelius exploded in a wash of magical green light. The fireworks caught the attention of Percy and the Hoods, and they all ran toward the statue to investigate.
Opal ran the other direction.
99
Opal cautiously slinked up to the back of the jail. It was unguarded and the door was slightly ajar.
An oil lamp filled the front room with flickering straw-colored light. In the cellblocks, she could see familiar faces, which was a major relief. Most of the prisoners were turned to the front of the building, wondering what in the heck was going on in the street. Two Hoods were positioned at the front windows with their rifles pointed through broken windowpanes. They shifted back and forth, arguing about what had caused the commotion at Rambrey Park and which one of them should go and investigate.
Opal wrapped herself in her hiding cloak and slipped past the cells into the front room. Next to the sheriff’s desk were two rifles the deputies had set aside as backup. Opal took one gun and retreated behind the doorjamb leading to the hallway.
“Hey boys!” she called from the back of the room.
The deputies didn’t even turn around.
“Shut the heck up. How many times do I have to say that? One of you is going to get a bullet.”
Opal recognized the man. It was Pitt Elkins.
“Hey Pitt! What if I don’t shut up? Are you going to start crying like you did when that big, bad lizard chased you?” Opal said in her most scathing tone.
Pitt turned to face the cellblock with its prisoners.
“Who the heck said that? How would you even know?”
“I said it you big sissy!” Opal yelled. She lowered her hood and her form reappeared.
She was aiming the rifle straight at Pitt’s head. “It’s a bit embarrassing to tell you this boys, but I’m a horrible shot. Can’t shoot straight to save my life. If either of you move an inch, I might blow your whole head off.”
“You damn rummer!” he said, raising his hands in surrender.
It only took a minute for Opal to persuade Pitt to unlock the prisoners. She shoved Pitt into one cell and Rufus Farley into the next.
Then the reunion began.
The prisoners poured out of the cells. There was Nan Oliver, Mattie Riggs, Ethel Johnson, Jenny Bursten, and many others. The little sea of people parted and Jupiter Johnson walked through and wrapped Opal up in a giant bear hug.
“Mercy, girl! I’ve never been so happy to see someone in my whole life!” he said.
Opal hugged them all but resisted getting caught in the emotion of the moment.
Nan Oliver explained that the women and older folks were in the jail. Most of the men had been locked up in the church.
“Thomas is there. I heard they beat him bad, Opal. I’m just praying he’s okay,” she said.
“Jupiter, where’s Sugar?”
“I’m worried for her, girl. When they took me away, they were locking her up in her own cottage.”
Percy and his men could be heard yelling outside on the street. They were sweeping every building now and closing in on the jail.
“Opal, you’ve to get out of here. They’ve been hunting you—they’re saying the preacher’s gone mad and wants to kill you,” Mattie said.
“That’s for dang sure! You’re a dead woman!” Pitt said venomously.
Jupiter, who now had a rifle, slammed the butt of it into Pitt’s kidney, and the boy dropped to the floor in a groan. He reached in, ripped the Deputy badge off the boy, and pinned it to his own chest.
“This looks a whole lot better on me than you, boy!” Jupiter said.
Opal couldn’t help but smile. It seemed even old Jupiter still had a bit of fight left in him.
“The Hoods are the least of my worries. We need to get y’all out of here and away from the town. If I can draw the Hoods back to the Worthingtons’, can you get the men out of the church?”
Nan looked up at Jupiter. Both nodded, and others joined in discussing the plan.
“Okay, give me a few minutes before you leave, then get out of here as fast as you can.”
Opal gave Jupiter one last hug. She handed him the rifle she’d been holding.
“I guess you get to be a lawman after all, Jupiter. Hey Pitt, Sheriff Johnson is running things now. I’d be quiet as a mouse if I were you.”
Jupiter flashed a proud smile. Opal gave Jupiter a wink, and in a flash of magical energy, she disappeared into the shadows of the alley.
A few minutes later, Opal ran along the Worthington’s fence praying that her friends had escaped the jail without incident. The estate looked apocalyptic. The blue bottle tree was burning, and the fire had spread to the entire apple grove. The barn was swarming with Hoods. The servant cottages were on fire.
Oh no, please let her be okay.
Opal slipped through the gate and raced toward Sugar’s cottage.
She kicked open the steaming door. Flames and smoke rolled out in a great cloud. Opal hacked and coughed as she jumped through the flames. Sparks from the burning trusses fell, singeing her arm. She swept the room for her friend.
“Sugar? Sugar? Where are you?” Opal called frantically.
Sugar Trotter lay face down next to her bed. Opal hopped over a burning table and turned the frail woman over.
“Sugar, can you hear me? Sugar, wake up!” she pleaded.
She wished she had the Agama Stone. She could barely lift the old woman, but she managed to stumble out of the burning cottage. She trudged forward, as far from the burning grove as possible. When she couldn’t go any further, she collapsed into the grass.
Sugar began to move her head. Her eyes fluttered open.
“Opal? Is that you?”
Opal opened her mouth to respond, but then everything went starry. As she fell over, she saw Percy Elkins hovering over her, raising the butt of his shotgun for another swing.
100
“The witch’s prize awakes!” Abner screeched in a maniacal voice.
Opal opened her eyes to see Abner Worthington staring over her. Percy and his Hoods were circled around the crazy man.
Opal was tied to one of the horse stalls. Nearby, a shallow grave had been freshly dug from the dirt of the barn floor.
The preacher spun in a circle like a drunken saloon girl, muttering to himself. Opal began pulling at her ropes and kicking at the wood slates, trying her best to break free.
Percy stood next to a group of his men with the gravedigger’s shovel. His crew laughed at the pastor’s performance.
“He’s insane, can’t you see that?” said Opal, scornfully.
“Who cares?” Percy said, “It’s a good show! And it’s about to get better!”
Abner grabbed Opal by a clump of her hair and jerked her head back to align her eyes with the corpse of his dead wife.
“You killed her, witch. See your work—see it now!” he wailed. “You will pay for what you’ve done.”
Abner shoved Opal back into the hay and signaled Percy. Percy tossed a small oil lamp into the hay a few feet from Opal. It began to smolder and then burst into flames.
Percy and the Hoods backed up as white smoke began filling the barn. Through the haze, Opal could see Percy watching her with a smirk. She began pulling at her ropes more frantically.
“You brought evil to this town, Opal Summerfield! You are a curse to these mountains. Now we’ll cleanse these hills and burn away all your godforsaken mischief,” preached Abner.
“Bye-bye little rummer,” Percy winked at Opal.
Abner stared at his wife’s body, then back at Opal. He began to weep just as he did every Sunday, on cue, two-thirds of the way through his dramatic sermons. But something had shifted in the crazy man’s soul.
For the first time, maybe ever, Opal saw the real Abner Worthington emerge from behind his myriad
of masks. It seemed his sanity, momentarily, returned.
“Everything is lost,” he said solemnly.
The words seemed unnaturally amplified, and they echoed through the barn.
Percy and the Hoods looked around nervously. Everything seemed to slow down and shift, as if the energy of hate and death was being pulled out of one world into another.
A young girl’s voice spoke from beyond.
“Not everything Daddy!”
Everyone turned, searching for the source of the disembodied voice, but nothing was there.
Then the shadows, from every corner of the barn, pulled toward each other. They began to knit themselves together into a small human shape.
The strange figure continued to coalesce as it floated above the flames. It stopped a few feet in front of Abner Worthington.
No one was watching Opal anymore. She managed one more strong kick and broke through the stall slat holding her ropes. She rolled over and furiously began untying herself.
Abner stepped toward the strange shape. The shadows had sealed the figure in an otherworldly chrysalis. Slowly, strips of thick magic pealed away, and a young girl the color of moonlight emerged. It lowered itself to the ground.
Crystals of ice broke out like spider webs from the ghostly girl’s feet and spread across every part of the barn. The temperature dropped so rapidly that the flames crawling along the hay seemed to freeze in place, and what heat remained disappeared in a burst of frosty vapor.
Opal began to shiver. Even her ropes burned with the sting of frostbite.
Two strands of red ribbon came alive. One slipped from Beatrice’s corpse. The other twirled itself loose from Abner’s pocket-watch. Both floated through the air and mended themselves into one length, which elegantly tied itself around the hair of the moon-colored child.
“Daddy, I’m finally home,” it said.
Abner fell to his knees to worship the miracle. Opal was stunned as well. The girl was horrifically changed, and her voice was like the sound of the sea in a conch shell, but it was undoubtedly her childhood friend, Abigail Worthington.
Opal Summerfield and The Battle of Fallmoon Gap Page 28
