by Dean Lorey
“It was just a token. A small gift from me to you.”
A gift?
Charlie could barely speak. It wasn’t as if he cared about the Mother Hydra—after all, she had just tried to eat him—but that was only after he had messed with her babies and stolen her milk. She had a right to be at least a little angry, didn’t she?
But now she was dead.
Even worse, they had lost the opportunity to ever get her restorative milk again…or maybe that was Slagguron’s plan all along.
“I…I don’t know what to say.”
“Help me now and I will protect you, Charlie Benjamin. You have my word. My word, like me, is unchanging.”
Charlie didn’t know how to respond. It had clearly come to the point where he had to make a choice, but all of his options seemed terrible.
He could try to portal away with his friends, but after seeing the sheer speed of Slagguron, he knew they couldn’t do it in time. The only other option was to do as Slagguron asked and bring him to Earth—but that was madness, wasn’t it? After his failure with Barakkas there was no way Charlie was going to be responsible for bringing another Lord of the Nether into the world, even to save his own life.
But was that a choice he could make for his friends? If he had a chance to save them, even a slight one, shouldn’t he take it?
“Let’s just kill him!” Theodore shouted from across the cavern, his eyes filled with manic energy. “We got the DT on our side, not to mention Ms. Ax Attack. Plus I can sling a portal with the best of them, and then there’s Pinch, who can do…well, whatever it is that Pinch does. Trust me, that big worm doesn’t stand a chance!”
“Does your brain ever communicate with your mouth?” Violet asked incredulously.
“Hey, is it my fault I’m feeling confident? I’m just tired of being bullied by these big bad boys. Let’s do this thing! Let’s kill this sucker!”
“No,” Charlie said. The word echoed across the cavern with calm finality.
“What do you mean, no?” Theodore asked. “What else are we gonna do? I mean, you’re definitely not gonna portal him to Earth, are you?”
“Actually,” Charlie said, “that’s exactly what I’m going to do.”
“What?” Violet shouted.
“You can’t be serious,” Pinch added.
“I’m deadly serious.”
Charlie closed his eyes. Brilliant purple fire raced across him, and he opened a portal just large enough for Slagguron to slither through. On the other side was Death Valley: a flat, featureless desert with only some cactus and a lone rattlesnake curled up under a rock to break the terrible monotony.
“There,” he said to Slagguron. “I didn’t know where you wanted to go, exactly, but the desert is pretty open. You should be able to get underground in no time.”
Slagguron stared at the portal suspiciously. “I…did not expect you to do as I asked.”
“Then why did you?”
“I have been following you for some time, Charlie Benjamin. Tracking you by the vibration of your footfalls—they are unique. Specific. I wanted to gain your trust.”
“And now you have and I’ve done what you wanted, so go on through.” Charlie gestured toward the open portal. “Earth awaits.”
Slagguron stared at the fiery gateway but made no move to enter it.
“No,” he said finally. “This is a trap. You mean to close it on me. Cut me in half, like you once did to Barakkas’s arm.”
“Look, you wanted my trust,” Charlie said, “and I gave it to you. Now you won’t trust me in return? Why don’t you just kill me if you don’t believe me? Kill all of us.”
“Charlie!” Violet cried out, horrified.
“You are sly,” Slagguron replied. “Deceitful, like Verminion.”
“Only a liar believes everyone is lying to them.”
“Are you calling me a liar?” Slagguron thundered, rising to his full height, his voice deepening with barely controlled rage. “I am unchanging—”
“Like the rock you burrow through. Yeah, yeah, I’ve heard you sing that song before.” Charlie shook his head impatiently. “Look, you gonna go through the portal or you gonna kill me? Just pick one already. I’m getting bored.”
Slagguron stared at Charlie with his large black eyes. Finally, he shook his great head. “We will meet again.”
He leaped into the air like a swimmer off the high dive as hard, protective panels snapped across his face, creating a point like a drill bit. With amazing ease, he burrowed back into the ground, leaving behind a giant tunnel that snaked away into the dark recesses of the Nether.
Within moments, he was gone.
“Wow,” Theodore said, his jaw hanging open in astonishment.
“I can’t believe that just happened,” Violet seconded.
Pinch, however, was focused on something else. The adult Hydras were closing in on them, mouths widening, teeth glistening with drool. “I think it might be wise for us to make a hasty exit.”
“You may be right,” Violet agreed, glancing around at the monsters as they prepared to avenge the death of their Queen.
Suddenly, one of the Hydras leaped out of the pool next to Charlie and lunged at him, snapping furiously. Instinctively, Charlie drew his rapier and lopped off two of the beast’s heads. The instant he did, the giant portal to Death Valley slammed shut—a stark reminder that not even a Double-Threat could Nethermance and Banish at the same time.
“Theodore! Open a portal!” Charlie yelled, running to join the group as he fended off the remaining heads of the Hydra. “We need to get outa here, pronto!”
Theodore worked on making a portal as Charlie and Violet—back to back—frantically swung their weapons, creating a heap of Hydra heads.
“Duck!” Pinch shouted.
They did, narrowly avoiding a tail swipe from the nearest beast.
“Get ready,” Theodore yelled. “Here it comes!”
His portal snapped open.
The four of them leaped through it, followed by another Hydra. Theodore quickly closed the portal behind them, slicing the pursuing creature in two, forcing it to suffer the same terrible fate that Slagguron had so recently feared for himself.
Several students crowded around Charlie, Pinch, Violet, and Theodore, checking out the slaughtered Hydra that lay on the warm sand of the beach in front of the Nightmare Academy.
“Take a good look!” Theodore said proudly. “That critter just got NM’d—Nethermanced! That’s a Theodore Dagget specialty.”
He pronounced it spesh-ee-al-it-ee.
“Why did you do it?” Violet asked, pulling Charlie away from the group, while Theodore continued to regale the crowd with his accomplishments. “Why did you open that portal for Slagguron?”
“To kill him. I meant to close it on him, just like he said. I guess I wasn’t clever enough.”
“Indeed,” Pinch said, walking up. “And what if you hadn’t been fast enough, either, allowing him to escape to Earth, unharmed?”
“He didn’t.”
“He could have. That was quite a gamble, young man.”
“Isn’t everything? Besides, if I hadn’t opened the portal, he would have killed us anyway. It put him on the defensive. I thought keeping him off balance was our best chance for survival.”
“Well, it worked,” Violet said. “I gotta give you credit for that, although I still don’t know why Slagguron just left like he did.”
“Because it was a stalemate,” Charlie replied. “He didn’t trust the portal I made but he also didn’t want to kill me, because only the Headmaster and I can make a portal big enough for him to escape through and he wanted to keep that option open in the future.”
“But why? Why would he ever trust another portal from you if he didn’t trust this one?”
“Gosh, I don’t know, Violet,” Charlie replied with a sudden flash of anger. “Unfortunately, he forgot to invite me to his ‘Escape from the Nether’ planning party.”
“
Hey, relax! Don’t be such a smart aleck. I’m trying to figure all this out just like you.”
“Sorry,” Charlie said, chagrined. “I guess I’m just frustrated because I know he’s up to something but I don’t know what.”
“Maybe this was just plan A? Maybe he was just trying his luck with you, seeing if you’d panic and open a portal that he could escape through—but once he saw how tough you were, he knew he couldn’t bully you, so he moved on to plan B.”
“Which is?”
“I don’t know,” Violet said with a sigh. “Maybe plan B has nothing to do with you. Maybe he’ll just try to escape through the Anomaly if the Guardian dies.”
“But how would he get up to it?”
Violet pursed her lips, thinking. “Tyrannus? Do you think Tyrannus is strong enough to carry him there?”
Charlie shrugged. “Could be. But none of that will matter, as long as the Guardian stays healthy, which reminds me”—he turned to Pinch—“do you have the milk?”
Pinch held up the Chapstick container. “Indeed I do.”
“Excellent. We better get it to the Headmaster right away. It’s supposed to restore anyone who drinks it to when they were most powerful. I sure hope that’s true.”
“So do I,” Pinch said.
Then, to everyone’s astonishment, he took the cap off the Chapstick container and, licking his lips, drank the milk of the Mother Hydra.
CHAPTER TWELVE
PINCH THE POWERFUL
“What…what did you just do?” Charlie cried out, numb with shock.
“Simply what was necessary,” Pinch replied. “We can’t very well give something as important as this to the Guardian without testing it first, now, can we?”
“But you drank all of it!”
“Not all of it. Just one sip, in fact. There’s another one left, see?” He showed them the tiny container. There was, in fact, a little bit of the Hydra milk left in it.
“You thief!” Charlie shouted. “The Mother Hydra is dead. If that’s not enough to save the Guardian, we can’t get any more!”
“Hey, guys,” Theodore said cheerfully, walking over to them, oblivious of what had just happened. He was still basking in the glow of the attention from the other students over his Hydra kill. “You know, this Nethermancy thing isn’t half bad. See, you just have to figure out how to use it for offense. I mean, it’s true that you can’t win without a good defense but, you know, everyone likes to score sometimes.” He eyed Charlie and Violet curiously. “What’s wrong? You guys look like you just saw an Acidspitter in your cornflakes.”
“What’s wrong,” Violet said, “is that Pinch drank the Hydra milk.”
“What?” Theodore cried out, turning to him. “Are you deranged?”
“Just a sip,” Pinch replied.
“Just a—” Unable to contain his rage, Theodore stormed toward the man, rolling his sleeves up over his skinny arms as if readying for battle. “After all we went through just to get that stupid stuff, you decided to take some yourself? I don’t care if you are an adult—I’m gonna knock your head clean off!”
“Wait!” Charlie yelled.
“What?”
“Look.”
Something was happening to Pinch. His face was contorted in pain, and all his muscles were tensed as if he’d just been zapped with a cattle prod. He began to shake violently. Charlie, scared the man was going to spill the remaining milk, rushed over and took the container from him, capping it immediately.
“What’s wrong?” Violet asked.
“I…I don’t know…,” the bearded man groaned. He dropped to his knees, closed his eyes tightly, and cried out in agony. “Oh, it hurts!”
“Something’s gone wrong,” Charlie said. “Somebody get somebody! Get Mama Rose!”
But before anyone could move, a curious thing happened—
All the hair in Pinch’s beard fell out of his face and dropped to the sand below. It was a shocking sight—he looked so different now that he was clean shaven, so much younger.
And that’s when Charlie realized that it wasn’t just the lack of beard that was making him look younger. He actually was younger. The wrinkles around his mouth and eyes had smoothed out, the few extra pounds he carried around his middle had melted away, and he had begun to shrink, losing one inch off his height, then two, then more.
“What’s happening?” Violet whispered.
Charlie shook his head. “I really don’t know.”
The wrinkles, inches, and pounds continued to fall off Pinch until his gray suit hung on him so loosely that he looked like a child playing dress-up in Daddy’s clothes. The skin of his face was unblemished, and the whites of his eyes were clear and strong.
“Absolutely incredible,” Pinch said, and Charlie was shocked to hear that he now sounded like a teenager. “It worked! The elixir actually worked—it returned me to when I was most powerful!”
Charlie stared in awe at the thirteen-year-old boy who stood in front of him: the thirteen-year-old boy who used to be Pinch.
He had become a kid again.
“NP,” Theodore muttered in disbelief. “Not possible.”
Violet shook her head. “I don’t believe it.”
“I wonder,” Pinch said in that strange, prepubescent voice of his, “if the Gift has returned, along with my youth.”
He held out his right hand and closed his eyes. Purple fire crackled across him, and in the long shadow of the Nightmare Academy, a large portal snapped open, leading to the darkness of the Nether.
They all looked through it, astonished.
“You did it,” Theodore exclaimed. “You actually opened a portal!”
“You got the Gift back,” Charlie said. “You really did!”
“I did, didn’t I?” Pinch replied, and then began to weep with happiness.
That’s truly bizarre, Charlie thought, as he watched Pinch wearing the jeans and red t-shirt he’d just loaned him. They fit well. The boy (man, Charlie reminded himself) was about his size and weight, but that’s where the similarities ended—Pinch’s hair was dark, as were his eyes, and his complexion was as pale as a flounder’s belly.
“Here it is,” Pinch said, pulling a weathered case out from under the hammock where he slept. His cabin in the Nightmare Academy was small and spare—there were no pictures, no personal effects, no comforts of home. He brushed the dust off the case, then opened it with something like reverence.
Inside lay a shiny weapon with a sharp, curved blade and a beautifully detailed handle made of onyx.
“My sickle,” Pinch said with an almost gleeful grin, lifting it. The moment his hand touched it, the weapon glowed with a cold blue fire. “I haven’t picked this up since…” He let his voice trail off. “Well, since a long time ago.”
“Pinch,” Charlie prodded gently.
“Yes?”
“We need to leave. The Headmaster is waiting for the milk.”
“Indeed.” Pinch stood, still gripping the sickle.
“Do you want to portal us there,” Charlie asked, “or—”
“You do it. I’m a bit out of practice.”
“Okay.” Charlie turned to Violet and Theodore. “Get ready. We’re going to be heading straight into the 5th Ring, as close to the BT Graveyard as I can get us. There’s gonna be monsters there—maybe a ton.”
“Do you have the milk?” Violet asked.
Charlie nodded. “Sure do.” He checked his pocket anyway. The elixir was there, safe and sound. “Okay, here we go.” Purple flames crackled across him as he began to open a portal.
The 5th Ring was crawling with monsters. Charlie was dismayed to see that the vicious beasts had gotten much closer to where the Guardian was holed up—some of them had managed to get near enough to touch the ruined ships on the outskirts of the BT Graveyard.
“Oh, dear,” Pinch said. “They’ve advanced significantly. The Guardian must be very weak. His aura is waning. I hope we’re not too late.”
“We h
ave to hurry.” Charlie drew his rapier. “I wish I had a great plan to tell you—something smart and clever—but it looks like we’re just gonna have to fight our way to the graveyard.”
“That’s pretty far,” Violet said, eyeing the many monster-filled yards they would have to travel.
“True, but we’ve got one more Banisher with us now.”
“Indeed you do.” Pinch raised his curved sickle. It glowed with a blue brilliance, clearly a far finer weapon than the ones Charlie and Violet carried.
“Theodore?” Charlie said.
“That’s my name, don’t wear it out.”
“You just be ready to portal us out in case things go bad, okay?”
“Yeah, sure. I guess that’s all I’m good for since I’m not a Banisher like the rest of you.”
Normally, Charlie would have tried to lift his pal’s spirits, but there was just no time. In the scant few seconds that the portal had been open, the power of the Guardian had diminished even further, and the monsters of the Nether were beginning to make their way into the heart of the BT Graveyard.
“Here we go,” Charlie said. Rapier raised high, he rushed through the portal and into the Nether, followed by the others.
It wasn’t long before the first attack.
Two Class-5 Dangeroos plummeted out of the sky to land in front of them with a thud. The monsters bared their fangs and growled, acting nothing like the friendly animals that they vaguely resembled. Wasting no time, Charlie, Violet, and Pinch waded in, weapons flying.
He’s good, Charlie thought as he watched Pinch wield his sickle. Even though it had been years since Pinch had used his powers, the weapon flashed and twisted expertly under his command.
“First one’s down!” Violet yelled, and then they all turned their attention to the second Dangeroo. Deadly as the creature was, the three skilled Banishers cut it down to size in a matter of moments.
And that was when they heard the small voice from behind them:
“Help me…”
Charlie turned to see a little boy about seven years old standing with his back to the tangled, mustard-colored crystals of the 5th Ring. He was crying, his eyes wild with panic.
