Demoneater

by Royce Buckingham

  But its strength couldn’t protect it now, and its new home was not safe. Wedge feared few things, but the thing burrowing furiously through the earth behind it scared the demon crack.

  Sewer lines crisscrossed Wedge’s subterranean path. In its haste it forced its way into the decaying metal of one of the main pipes and wrenched it apart.

  Above, dozens of kids in soccer uniforms were in the middle of ordering burgers at the Dick’s Drive-In restaurant. Suddenly, a fountain of sewer water erupted from the floor, blasting two midfielders and a goalie head over heels into the milkshake machine. They lay in a stunned pile, instantly covered with chocolate ice cream and raw sewage as the rest of the team ran screaming out the door, only slightly behind their frightened coaches.

  Wedge surfaced through the crack the water had made, but it had no time to enjoy the confusion it had created. The thing following Wedge was not a doe-eyed young Keeper. It was something ancient and hungry, and instinct told Wedge to keep moving and avoid the mysterious pursuer at all costs. Keepers were bad enough, the way they captured and controlled chaos. But there existed things worse than Keepers—much worse.

  Wedge crossed the street, ripping a sudden rent in the sidewalk and sending a cyclist flying into a nearby dumpster. It felt the pursuing thing strongly now. Wedge tore through the pavement like a snake through grass, speeding off toward the towering Space Needle.

  Nat, Richie, and Lilli stood on the observation deck of the Space Needle, looking out over the city and the waters of Puget Sound. Nik cowered, scared of heights, while Pernicious danced on the edge of the platform’s rail, smiling down at the sidewalk hundreds of feet below.

  “Nice view, but what are we looking for?” Lilli asked.

  Nat scanned the buildings and streets. “Disruptions in structures, fissures in the earth. If Wedge has gone underground, it’s safe and practically untouchable. We need to look for signs to see if it has surfaced.”

  “How are we supposed to see a crack in the ground from up here?” Richie mumbled. He launched a huge glob of spit out into space and watched it tumble earthward.

  “Hey, what’s going on over there?” Nat said.

  “It’s just a bunch of kids running out of a restaurant,” Richie said. “Looks like a soccer team. They’re all probably trying to get the shotgun seat in the minivan.”

  Lilli touched Nat’s arm. “Isn’t there a way to harmonize with this misguided crack? Understand it?”

  “It lives to cause disharmony,” Nat said, “and I can’t let it unleash its full potential in the middle of Seattle.”

  “Yeah,” Richie said, “we’re looking to drive it outta the ground and kick its butt, not commune with it.”

  At that moment, Richie’s spit hit the earth.

  Ba-woom!

  A sudden, violent tremor shook the Space Needle and threw all three of them to the deck. When the shaking stopped, they glanced at each other.

  “Did I do that?” Richie said.

  “No,” Nat said. “Look!”

  At the base of the Space Needle, the huge Experience Music Project building was still shuddering.

  The misshapen, multicolored, and metallic EMP building looked like a massive blob of Technicolor vomit next to the slender, elegant Space Needle under the best of circumstances, but now it was undulating, its joints groaning. Its exterior walls began to fold in on themselves, and patrons poured out of its doors, but it was too late. The entire structure lurched and imploded in a mass of twisted metal and ill-chosen pigments.

  Craaaaash!

  “It’s Wedge!” Nat affirmed. “Sandy was right. It’s here on the fault line.”

  There were still people inside the collapsed building, and Nat winced as the broken structure settled among the clouds of dust, screams, and sounds of crashing metal.

  “That’s why we don’t try to reason with it,” he said to Lilli.

  “We . . . we have to get down,” she stammered.

  “Why would we want to be down there?” said Richie, watching the destruction with a certain fascination.

  Even as they spoke, Wedge ripped through the pavement toward the base of the Space Needle and cracked a support pillar.

  “Because Wedge is coming up!” Lilli said.

  “What?” Richie exclaimed. “It’s attacking? Does it recognize us? I thought it wanted to stay safely underground!”

  “This thing isn’t like the creatures I see,” Lilli said, wide-eyed. “Not at all.”

  “You see the beauty in chaos,” Nat said. “This is the other side.”

  But Lilli was already edging back, terrified, and as soon as Nat and Richie looked away, she turned and ran for the elevator.

  “We’ll meet Wedge up here,” Nat declared. “Pernicious, bring me the box.”

  Pernicious bounded to Nat’s nearby pack and retrieved the demon puzzle box. Nat took it from his little minion, keeping his eyes trained on the support structure below.

  “If I can get close enough, I’ll suck Wedge into the box,” he said.

  The Space Needle shook as Wedge split one of its legs. The crack shot up through the metal beam, rising toward them. People inside the rotating restaurant now realized that something was dreadfully wrong, and when the entire building swayed drunkenly, they too began to scream.

  Nat shouted instructions. “Nik! If Wedge gets into a piece of the building you can break loose, rip it off and isolate it. Richie, go to the north side and tell me if Wedge comes from that direction!”

  “What am I, just a lookout?”

  “You’re my apprentice. Now go north! Pernicious, go to the west side.”

  Pernicious leaped to do Nat’s bidding. Richie pouted but did as he was told.

  “Lilli . . . ?” Nat called, but there was no answer. “Lilli! I need you on the south side!” It was no use. She was gone.

  Wedge rose up the Needle, cracking the structure’s east leg so that it swayed wildly in the strengthening winds swirling in from the bay. Nat felt the observation deck move and saw the entire city shift beneath him. The tower leaned until it seemed that it would topple over, and then it snapped back, gaining momentum.

  Richie clung to the rail, watching from his vantage on the north side of the deck. “Here it comes! It’s moving west!”

  Nat yelled into the wind, “Pernicious! Follow it!”

  Pernicious scurried along the rail, tracking Wedge. The demon crack circled the rotating restaurant on top of the Space Needle just below the observation deck, breaking windows. Terrified diners huddled inside, too scared to make for the overloaded elevator. Pernicious stopped and extended his rubbery arm ten feet to point out where Wedge was going next—the south side.

  “Dang it!” Nat snapped. “There’s no one over there. I can’t see where it went!”

  Wedge was somewhere beneath the deck, tearing the Needle’s restaurant apart a crack at a time. Nat could hear it below him. More than that, Nat could feel it below him, but he couldn’t reach Wedge from atop the building.

  Nat didn’t stop to think. If he had, he wouldn’t have done what he did, because it was simply too horrifying. He ran and hurled himself over the rail and out into the safety net constructed to keep jumpers from committing suicide.

  Nat found himself hanging in a rope web six hundred feet above the ground. He looked earthward and had to fight a sudden overwhelming queasiness. He was tangled and couldn’t move, but it didn’t matter. Wedge came to him.

  The destructive crack shot out into the strut holding the net up, snapping it.

  Crack!

  The net dipped, and the ground lurched five feet closer. Nat scrambled to open the box, his fingers fumbling, one foot hanging through the ropes in the empty air with nothing between it and the distant ground.

  Nat thrust the box upward, holding it near a weak spot in the strut, and when Wedge tore through it, Nat slammed the box against the metal bar. The box wheezed and drew Wedge toward it through the metal. Wedge squirmed, but, strangely, seemed to give
up. The box sucked the animated crack inside easily, and Nat quickly twisted the lid shut.

  A horrible groan and squeal made Nat gasp. The damaged strut holding the net was failing. It bent. The net sagged. Suddenly, Nik appeared above Nat. The muscular little demon grabbed the strut and held it in place while Pernicious stretched an arm eight feet down to help pull Nat back up onto the observation deck.

  Nat grabbed Pernicious’s elastic hand and yanked himself upright. He untangled his limbs from the ropes and then scrambled up the net just as Nik could no longer hold the failing strut. The net fell out from under Nat as he caught hold of the railing. The heavy broken beam and the net tumbled earthward without him, leaving Nat hanging by his fingertips.

  “A little help?” he gasped.

  Pernicious secured his grip on Nat’s wrist, looping his arm around it twice, and Nik hauled Pernicious backward. Richie grabbed on as Nat’s arms cleared the rail, and the three of them yanked Nat over into a tangled pile of demons and Keepers on the observation deck of the Space Needle.

  Richie and Nat rode down the elevator, calm among the other shaken survivors of the swaying tower, who cried and whimpered all around them. Pernicious peeked from Richie’s pocket while Nik hid in Nat’s backpack.

  “I understand why she ran,” Nat said.

  “That’s so weak,” said Richie.

  “She’s not used to seeing their bad side,” Nat explained.

  “Still weak.”

  “You don’t understand. She views them a whole different way.”

  “I repeat,” Richie said, “weak-ass.”

  “That’s enough.”

  “Hey, I thought she was cool at first too,” Richie persisted, “but just because you got the painfully obvious hots for her doesn’t make her . . . ”

  “Maybe you should shut up now,” Nat snapped.

  Richie scowled. “When we’re off the clock, you don’t tell me what to do.” He paused and then added, “Sandy doesn’t run when things get ugly.”

  Nat fumed, but there wasn’t time to argue. “Charr is next,” he said. “I’ll need help, even if my help has a bad attitude. Are you ready?”

  “I’m ready to kick some more demon butt, if that’s what you mean,” Richie said.

  “No kicking. Just some help.”

  The elevator door opened. A wall of reporters stood before them, gathered around the fallen net and beam.

  “Don’t let them take your picture,” Nat said, covering his own face.

  But Richie was already mugging for a shot. Nat grabbed Richie to haul him away as the reporters advanced on them, and he pointed skyward. “Look out, everyone! Another beam is loose up there!”

  The crowd glanced up and then edged backward like nervous cattle. Only one stood his ground.

  “No, it isn’t,” the note-taking man said knowingly. He looked up from his pad with a grin. It was Calamitous. Nat began to hustle Richie off in the other direction. Calamitous gave chase.

  “That’s a fabrication, an exaggeration, a lie,” Calamitous tittered.

  “Lay off, man,” Richie spat without thinking. “We were up there when all this stuff came down.”

  “Aha!” Calamitous clapped his misshapen hands. “I thought so! You’re involved. I knew it when I saw the crunchy female come down earlier.”

  “Crunchy?” Nat said.

  “The granola girl. The earthy, organic, mussy-haired one. She’s always near when there is chaos. And you are always near her, yes? Aren’t you? You know what did this, don’t you? Did you see it? Where is it? Is it still up there?” Calamitous took notes as quickly as he talked, stopping only to sniff the air.

  Nat brushed past him, dragging Richie along. “Don’t follow us,” he warned.

  “Unnecessary. Don’t need to,” Calamitous said, and he smiled toward a fire engine that screamed past. “I already know where you’re going next.”

  CHAPTER 17

  CHARR

  Sandy drove Nat and Richie through stop-and-go Seattle traffic toward Pioneer Square, which swarmed with fire engines.

  “I’ve been translating the DK Journal,” Sandy said, “and waiting by the phone. I’m glad you called.”

  “You were right about Wedge,” Nat admitted. “We found it on the fault line.”

  “Yes!” Sandy pumped her fist. “I knew it!”

  “You were right about a lot of things,” Nat said apologetically. “I’m sorry we left you behind. I’d like your help with Charr.”

  “Where’s the flower child?” Sandy asked, her eyes narrowing.

  “I don’t know,” Nat said, “but something’s weird.”

  “Yeah. She is.”

  “No. I mean it’s weird that Wedge came right to us. It left the ground and shot straight up the highest structure it could find, almost like it was trying to get away from something.”

  “What scares a crack?” Richie said from the backseat.

  “Open water?” Nat suggested. “Liquid can’t be broken. But that wasn’t it.” Nat puzzled over the mystery for a moment and then gave up. “And that’s not our only problem. There’s that reporter investigating the existence of demons. He suspects us.”

  “Yeah,” Richie agreed. “He kept sniffing like he thought we’d just farted in the elevator and wanted to catch us in the act.”

  “Did you?” Nat asked.

  “Maybe,” Richie said.

  “Least of our problems, boys,” Sandy interrupted with a disgusted look. “Time to focus on Charr.” She turned on the radio.

  KOMO Radio News blared from her Volvo’s dashboard. “Multiple fires continue to pop up in different locations around downtown Seattle, starting primarily in basements. But the fires mysteriously move on by the time firefighters arrive.”

  “That’s our clue,” Sandy said.

  “Huh? What clue?” Richie said.

  “Basements,” Sandy declared.

  “Basements?” Nat didn’t understand either. “So we start by going through everyone’s cellar?” he asked.

  “Close,” Sandy said. “But it’s deeper than that.”

  “Wait! I know!” Richie bounced up and down in the back seat, excited. “This time I know!”

  “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?” Sandy grinned.

  “Wanna let me in on this?” Nat said.

  “The Seattle Underground,” Richie said smugly.

  “Yep,” Sandy agreed. “After downtown Seattle was destroyed by the massive fire in 1889, modern Seattle was built right on top of it.”

  “And part of the old city is still down there beneath the streets,” Richie explained.

  “That’s where Charr must be,” Sandy added. “It’s accessing different buildings from underneath.”

  “They give tours of the old underground,” Richie said. “A friend of mine named Sneakers used to beg for money at the entrance.”

  Sandy pulled a U-turn in the Volvo, bumped up over the curb onto the sidewalk, and clipped a peanut vendor cart, scattering a carpet of roasted nuts across the street.

  Richie stuck his head out the window to see if the vendor was hurt. Luckily, he’d escaped injury, but he was hopping up and down and shouting his opinion of Sandy’s driving in a foreign language sprinkled with American curses.

  “Sorry!” Richie yelled. “We gotta go save the city!”

  Minutes later, they approached the entrance to the Seattle Underground.

  “The ruins of old Seattle are right down there.” Sandy pointed to the Underground Tour sign, which hung over a door and a shop window.

  “It’s closed,” Richie said.

  “Perfect,” Nat said, peering in the window. “Nobody will be around. But I wonder where the tour guide is.”

  The door was locked. Richie pulled Pernicious from his pocket. The little demon popped out, glancing around and taking stock of where he was.

  “Can you get us in?” Nat asked his minion.

  “Yee-hee-hee-hee!” The little demon laughed and flattened himself into
a two-dimensional sheet to slide under the door. Once he got inside, he popped back into three dimensions and unlocked the bolt from the inside.

  “What about Nik?” asked Richie.

  “He’s no good with fire,” Nat said. “I’m sticking him in the demon box with Wedge.”

  Nat took the lead and strode through the gift shop to a set of stairs that led down. He hesitated. He’d almost died just an hour earlier. Worse, innocent people actually had died.

  “You sure you want to come?” he said to the others. “There were casualties at the EMP building under the Space Needle.”

  Sandy heard the shake in his voice. She put a gentle hand on his shoulder. “Nat, you’re the one trying to protect people and chaos from each other. You’re not responsible for the harm they cause, and you can’t save everyone.”

  “No,” he said, “not everyone. But Dhaliwahl said that if I have the chance to save anyone, I should try, because you don’t have the choice to go back and do it later.” With that, Nat turned and started down the stairs.

  The underground was lit by bare bulbs strung on wire. Hundred-year-old storefronts still stood in places, and portions of the former street were visible. The three of them slunk along, growing quiet. Without a chattering tour guide, the underground felt more like a tomb than a tourist attraction. Nat could see the underside of modern Seattle propped above them, held up by steel I-beams and brick archways. There were even thick glass blocks sunk in the modern sidewalk above, and the dim glow of the overcast day filtered down through them to send eerie slivers of light stabbing through the dimness.

  Some of the bricks were scorched, but it was impossible to tell whether they had been burned by the fire that had destroyed downtown Seattle a century ago or by something more recent.

  Sandy opened her laptop.

  “Now that’s nerdy.” Richie smirked.

  “I brought it to run the Journal’s entries through a translation program. Turns out it’s surprisingly useful,” Sandy snapped back. “What did you bring?”