Bryan and Oz walked to the gate at the end of the Middletons’ drive. It was at least ten feet tall and topped with black spikes. Bryan thought maybe he could get over it if he was careful, but he was sure Oz would skewer himself like a campfire marshmallow. So instead he pressed the button on the intercom. It was at least twenty seconds before anyone answered.
“Who is it?” It sounded like Missy’s voice, or one of her clones’. Bryan thought about lying, using the name of one of the more popular kids, but he had no way of knowing who was already there and who wasn’t. Besides, he shouldn’t have to lie. He had been invited.
“Bryan Biggins,” he said, then looked at Oz. “And guest.”
He heard an audible groan through the speaker. Then some conversation. Someone laughed. There was another voice, a guy’s voice saying, “Whatever.” Then the intercom abruptly shut off.
“I don’t think they’re going to let us in, R2,” Oz said, staring at the gate. “Should I try to call my sister and get her to turn around and come get us?” But before Oz could even get to his phone, the electronic latch on the gate released and it swung open, revealing a long, curving road leading up to Missy Middleton’s mansion.
Bryan started up the driveway, Oz right beside him, looking even more out of place. He had at least thought to put on a jacket to cover the armpit stains. The party was in full swing. The air was crisp, the grass still damp. The temperature had dipped, but that didn’t stop a few dozen Mount Comforters from congregating outside, cups and plates in hand, laughing and teasing, or pointing and looking disgusted. It was already dark out, which was good. Maybe he and Oz could just sneak in and find her without drawing too much attention to themselves. That’s what Kerran Nightstalker would have done. Infiltration. Subterfuge. Stealth.
Except Bryan was no Kerran Nightstalker. This wasn’t Sovereign of Darkness. Just one of those crazy, once-in-a-lifetime days where almost anything could happen.
“I don’t think this is a good idea,” Oz said, his hands tucked into his jacket pockets, nervously shuffling his feet up the blacktop.
“I have to do this,” Bryan whispered. “If I don’t do it today, I don’t think I’ll ever do it at all. And besides. You still owe me for saving your life.” Oz didn’t argue with that. He and Bryan made their way up the drive. Scattered across the lawn, the few groups of kids turned their heads and stared. Bryan could feel their eyes. He looked around for Jess, but he knew he wouldn’t find her. She was here—he was certain of it. But she was inside the house that looked almost like a castle, or big enough to be one, at least.
They made it halfway to the house before they were stopped.
It was Zach Rollins, from the baseball diamond, and three of his buddies, standing shoulder to shoulder. A wall of muscle, blocking the way.
“That’s far enough, Bryan,” Zach said.
They actually used his real name, Bryan thought. That was a first.
“I’m just here to see Jess. Then I’ll leave. I promise.”
The four boys looked at one another, then back at Bryan. He could feel Oz tensing beside him. The gate at the bottom of the drive was already shut and locked again.
“Who says she wants to see you?” Zach said.
“I just want to talk to her. Five minutes.” Zach had his thick brown arms crossed, but Bryan noticed none of the four boys moved any closer. Surely, they weren’t scared of him. “If you want me to leave, you’re going to have to throw me out,” Bryan said. Oz glanced at him with a worried expression.
“We can probably manage that,” Zach said, then nodded to his friends, the cue for all four of them to advance, spreading out so that they could get on both sides.
Oz leaned in close and whispered in Bryan’s ear: “Told you, man. I’ve got this.”
“Oz?” Bryan hissed back in warning. “Whatever you are about to do—” He didn’t get a chance to finish the thought.
“You might want to stand back,” Oz interrupted, then he suddenly leaped forward, pulling both hands out of his jacket pockets. Each of them held a small black device, slightly curved, with metal prongs—like rounded fangs—jutting out from the end. Bryan had seen enough action movies to know what they were.
“Do not take another step!” Oz bellowed.
Zach and his friends froze.
“What,” Bryan whispered, taking a step away from Oz as well, “are you doing with those?”
“They’re my mom’s,” Oz said out of the corner of his mouth, clutching a stun gun in each hand. “She’s deathly afraid of parking lots at night. She keeps one in the car and another in her purse. Now listen, when I charge, you break for the house. Got it?”
“What do you mean, when you charge?” Bryan said through clenched teeth, glancing nervously at Rollins and his posse, then back to the stun guns in Oz’s hands, but his best friend ignored him. Oz raised both hands high into the air, and suddenly two arcs of blue electricity erupted from them, piercing the evening sky, illuminating Oz’s wide, wild eyes.
“Behold,” he boomed. “It is I! Oz, the great and terrible! Tremble at my power and kneel before me!” His voice carried across the lawn, getting the attention of almost everyone outside. Bryan stared for a moment at his friend, silhouetted against the night sky, face bathed in the blue glow of the electric arcs that crackled from his fingertips.
Then Oz charged the group of boys, the stun guns still sparking and zapping from both fists like cracked lightning. Zach Rollins grabbed the shirt of one of his friends and spun him around, all four of them scattering as Oz chased after them, letting out a war cry.
“I said ‘tremble’!”
Bryan stood stupefied and watched the Wizard of Elmhurst Park amble across the lawn, electricity dancing in his palms, scattering the crowd like a charging rhino escaped from the zoo. He considered chasing after him, afraid he might electrocute someone—himself, most likely—but then he looked at the house again.
She was in there somewhere. Waiting for him.
“Thanks, Oz,” Bryan whispered, then ran up the rest of the drive to the house. He paused at the door for a moment, feeling in his jeans pocket.
He still had one continue left.
8:16 p.m.
The Final Confrontation
There were bodies everywhere. Furniture—expensive and uncomfortable-looking—had been pushed aside to make room to dance on the hardwood floors, though nobody bothered. Instead they stood around, stuffing their faces and shouting at one another to be heard over the boppy pop music that pulsed out of Missy Middleton’s speakers. The whole place reeked of queso and body spray. Bryan wasn’t a huge fan of either. He felt completely out of place.
He pushed his way into the crowd and was immediately jostled aside, nearly falling into a potted cactus that stood guard by the front door. He scanned the room, but it was impossible to pick out a single face from the herd, even a face as unforgettable as Jessica Alcorn’s. She had to be here somewhere. He felt a tap on his shoulder.
“How did you get in here?”
It was the host of the party. The keeper of the castle. Wearing too much makeup and not enough fabric to cover half of her body, hair held chemically in place. Apparently, she had not approved the opening of the gate. She scowled at Bryan through her glittery lip gloss. Not that he cared. Maybe this morning it would have mattered what Missy Middleton thought of him, but not so much anymore.
“Where’s Jess?” he asked.
“Excuse me?” Missy said.
“I said, where . . . is . . . Jess?” Bryan repeated, shouting to be heard over the din. “I need to talk to her.”
Missy didn’t say a word, but her eyes flashed to the long, winding staircase at the back of the room. Bryan turned to go but felt Missy’s claw digging into his arm.
“Don’t you dare go up there!” she screeched, grabbing hold with her other talon, but at that same moment someone stuffed his head in the front door and yelled something about a lunatic running around on the lawn with a stun gun, claim
ing to be the reincarnation of Thor.
Oz. The god of thunder. Coming to the rescue again.
The sudden outflow of bodies wanting to go and see was more than enough distraction for Bryan to pull away from Missy and make his way toward the stairs, except now he was working against the tide, a horde of kids threatening to trample him, spilling the contents of their cups on his shoes, driving him backward. He leaped onto a couch to get clear of the crowd, nearly slamming his head against a low-hanging chandelier. He jumped to a leather recliner and then to a coffee table covered with magazines—Boating World and Food & Wine—feet sliding on their slick covers, nearly losing his balance and falling into the pack. He didn’t see any way to get across the sea of bodies. He was about to just dive into the crowd when a girl he didn’t recognize yelled that she had dropped her phone, and three people bent over to try and find it, falling to their hands and knees, creating a path of arched backs leading straight to the staircase. He only needed to hop across without falling.
Easier than crossing the street after school, at least, Bryan thought, and leaped from the coffee table onto the back of the first girl, then one-footed it from back to back, ignoring the shouts of the people he stepped on, and used the cushion of an ottoman as a trampoline to leap up and grab hold of the banister. One hand slipped, too sweaty, but he held on with the other. With a grunt he hauled himself over and onto the staircase, thanking Mr. Gladspell for making him do pull-ups in gym class. He’d made it across. He climbed to a group of kids milling on the landing at the top.
“Jess Alcorn?”
A boy pointed to the door at the end of the hall. “Balcony, I think.”
Balcony.
Where else?
Bryan pushed past another gaggle of Mount Comfort students waddling down the hall to see what the commotion was about, and squeezed through the door and into an empty room that looked like an office, with a rolltop desk and dusty shelves. On the far side was a sliding glass door leading out to the balcony that wrapped halfway around Missy Middleton’s second story, overlooking her backyard and the guesthouse, where, supposedly, her parents were bunkered, hopefully oblivious to what was going on outside. He worried for Oz, but there was nothing he could do about that now except not waste the moment he’d been given.
Bryan hesitated at the door, though, legs locked, hands shaking. He could see the full moon through the glass, as well as his own reflection in it. The bump on his forehead was clearly visible now. There was a crack in his bottom lip. Mud on his pants. Dark rings around his eyes. He was a wreck. He couldn’t go out and talk to her looking like this, could he?
Then, suddenly, inexplicably, Bryan became gorgeous. Staring at his shimmering image in the glass door, he transformed into someone tall and handsome, with snow-white teeth and perfect hair, a silk complexion and beaming, bright eyes. Bryan blinked once, mesmerized, thinking of fairy godmothers and magic wands, before he realized what he was looking at.
The door slid open and Landon Prince stood there, chin to nose with Bryan.
He didn’t look too happy.
“Biggins,” he said, sounding not at all surprised. Bryan took a step back.
“Prince,” he murmured.
Downstairs the music suddenly shifted, the party pop fading out, replaced with the singular heartbeat of a bass line that Bryan could feel pulsing through the floorboards. Landon Prince stood in the door, blocking the way, his letter jacket draped over his shoulder. One final obstacle. Bryan tensed, eyes narrowing. His heartbeat slammed against his chest. He waited for the walls to shake and the floor to split beneath them. He waited for the overhead lamp to explode in a shower of sparks. He waited for the tumbleweed to come bouncing along the carpet. He could see it all so clearly in his head. He knew what had to happen now.
Prince drew his sword and pointed it at Bryan’s chest. “En garde,” he said.
Or maybe . . .
Prince’s right hand dropped to the revolver at his side. “This balcony’s not big enough for the both of us,” he said.
Or possibly . . .
Prince’s muscles bulged, tearing through his shirt, buttons pinging off the walls, as his body grew to twice its normal size and turned a sickly green, the color of pureed peas. “Grawrarrr,” he said.
Even . . .
Prince’s face melted, revealing the red leather skin and curved black horns of the Demon King beneath. “Wattly,” he said.
Bryan shook his head, clearing the images that had piled up there. “Huh?”
Landon Prince pointed at Bryan’s face. “Wattly,” he repeated. “Did he do that?” He was pointing to the scrapes and bruises and bumps.
Honestly, Bryan couldn’t remember. He self-consciously sucked on his split lower lip. “Mostly,” he said. He was still waiting for Landon’s face to melt. It wasn’t melting. It was just as handsome as ever. Landon Prince shook his head.
“I heard you laid him out pretty good, though. He was asking for it. The guy’s kind of a jerk.” Landon paused, glanced behind him. “I suppose you’re looking for Jess.”
Bryan nodded.
Landon nodded.
They both just stood there in the awkward silence, nodding at each other. Maybe there wasn’t going to be a sword fight, but wasn’t Landon going to push him, at least? Tell him to bug off? Call him names? Grab him by his shirt and throw him off the balcony? Bryan had been prepared for any of these—save maybe the being thrown off the balcony part. He wasn’t prepared for this, though. He wasn’t ready for nothing to happen. He wasn’t ready for Landon just to let him go.
Maybe Oz was right. Everybody thinks everybody is out to get them, but that’s not true. Sometimes a Prince is just a Prince.
Landon ran a fork of fingers through his hair, which fell right back into place, unmussed, then stepped past Bryan without a shoulder shove or a hip check or even a word. No headlocks. No body slams. No challenge. Bryan turned and watched him head for the hallway, waiting for the sneak attack, but Landon simply paused in the doorframe and looked back at Bryan standing by the sliding glass with the dark sky beyond.
“She talks about you sometimes, you know,” he said; then he vanished down the hall.
Bryan stared at the empty space he’d left for a while. She talks about me? he thought.
He turned back to the balcony. With one hand in his pocket he stepped through.
8:23 p.m.
The Last Coin
She stood alone—at last alone—wearing a new pair of jeans and one of those shirts that made one think of pirates or peasants, Bryan wasn’t sure which, frilly and billowy and embroidered along the sleeves. She was staring out over the backyard, down at the lights reflected in the swimming pool that hadn’t been covered yet, spotted with leaves that gathered in clumps by the edges. Rows of pale-pink rosebushes lined the fence. Out in the front yard Oz was probably still pretending to shoot bolts of lightning from his fingertips, but here in the back it was peaceful, picturesque, like something from the cover of a magazine.
The cute girl you’re smitten with stands up on the balcony, bathed in moonlight.
Bryan couldn’t remember his line. Something about softly breaking a window. He would need to improvise. He felt in his pocket for his last coin. His last continue. He cleared his throat and held it up where she could see it.
“Penny for your thoughts.”
Jess turned abruptly, eyes squinting, skeptical, as if she didn’t believe what she was seeing, as if maybe Bryan was just a figment of her imagination. “What are you doing here?”
She didn’t sound angry or defensive or even surprised. She sounded curious, as if she had an answer in mind and wanted to see if he could guess it. “You invited me,” he said.
“I thought you had baseball practice?”
“Canceled,” Bryan said. On account of it not really existing in the first place. “I might have made it up,” he confessed. “Because I’m kind of an idiot. And I was nervous. I don’t get invited to a lot of these.” He stre
tched his arms to indicate the house, the party, all of it.
“I see you got over it, though,” she prodded.
“I had to work my way up to it,” Bryan said. Believe me. He took a deep breath and stepped farther out onto the balcony and up to the railing, so that he was directly across from her, now only a few feet away. Missy Middleton’s backyard was a carefully sculpted paradise—stone benches and a vine-covered gazebo and several gardens in various stages of blossom and shed, nothing like his little patch of green at home with its one tire swing and overgrown ivy.
“It’s really pretty up here.” He avoided looking at her when he said it—in case she got the right idea.
“It’s perfect,” she replied. “If you like that sort of thing.” That same frustrating strand of black hair had come loose again, but she didn’t bother to tuck it away this time. She looked at him sideways along the ledge, leaning on her elbows, the moonlight catching half of her face. Suddenly she looked concerned. Beautiful but concerned. She was looking at the bruise on his forehead. “Is that from this afternoon?” Jess reached over and touched it gingerly with the tip of one finger, just barely, but Bryan still felt a kind of electric shock. “Does it hurt?” she asked.
Bryan tried not to wince. “Not really,” he lied. “I mean, yeah. Kind of. A lot. When you touch it.”
Jess jerked her hand back.
“No. I’m kidding. It’s all right,” he said. “I’m all right. It’s not that bad.”
“It was stupid,” she said. “I can’t believe you even did that.”
Did that. She meant got in a fight with Wattly, but the same could have been said for half a dozen things Bryan had done today, most of which he could barely believe himself. “I know,” he said. “I figured that’s why you asked me to walk you home this afternoon. You know—to get me out of it.” It hadn’t worked, of course, but that was hardly her fault.
“That’s not why I asked,” she said. “I just wanted you to walk me home.”
Insert Coin to Continue Page 18
