The group stopped. Ungo gestured to a ledge of mossy rock that they’d come to, and muttered something to the others that Donny couldn’t hear. But Donny saw what he was talking about. Across the face of the ledge, about six feet high, three long slashes had been cut through the moss, revealing the rock beneath.
When the group started moving again, Donny walked closer to Angela. “What was Ungo talking about? Did the monster do that?” he asked.
Angela nodded. “They found an imp there. Partially eaten. Well, technically, mostly eaten.”
Donny’s throat constricted. He coughed to loosen it. His head swiveled from right to left, and since he was at the end of the line, he turned to look back every few seconds in case something was creeping up from behind. “You know, maybe we should have brought a weapon for me,” he said. “Like a machine gun or something.”
Angela laughed. “Modern weapons aren’t popular down here, you know. They’re considered vulgar.”
“Okay, but I’m feeling kind of vulnerable right now. Can I borrow something?”
“I just brought the sword, Cricket.”
Great, Donny thought.
The sound of the falls grew to a deafening roar as they passed beneath an arch of stone. The water tumbled to the ground right in front of them, pounding into a deep pool. Plumes of mist shot into the air and collected into hundreds of puddles and ponds around the foot of the falls. The water that overflowed the pool spilled into a deep channel that disappeared into the maze of rocks.
“They’ve looked in every cave and every crevice, but they just can’t find this monster,” Angela said. “It must be hiding somewhere.”
Donny’s gaze swept over the formations again. “Could there be a cave where the opening is covered with moss, so you can’t see it?”
“Interesting theory,” Angela said. “Hold on. Ungo wants to talk.”
Angela joined Ungo and his chessmen as they stepped behind a tall moss-clad rock to shield themselves from the noise of the falls. Donny kept turning in a circle to keep an eye on every direction. His teeth hurt. He realized he’d been grinding them together. He rubbed his jaw and shook his arms to loosen his nerves. Whatever. Stay calm, he told himself. He took a moment to glance straight up to where the waterfall emerged from the stone ceiling almost a thousand feet overhead. It was a stunning sight: a vast column of water dropping out of a black hole. He would have stared for hours, but he didn’t dare to take his eyes off his surroundings for long. Not with a vicious monster in the vicinity.
Angela finally came back from their huddle. “I have a fabulous idea!” she shouted to be heard over the thundering falls.
“I hope it’s ‘Angela takes Donny home’!” he shouted back.
CHAPTER 11
We’ll use you as a lookout!” Angela called into his ear. “You can stay in a safe spot and signal us if this beastie turns up!”
Donny looked around again. “There’s a safe spot?” he shouted back. If there was, he didn’t see it.
Angela pointed to a tall spire of rock close to the falls. “Right up there!”
Donny squinted at the formation. It was thirty feet high and shaped like a crooked traffic cone with a small flat top. “How am I supposed to get there?”
“Ungo said there was a way up. Around the other side, I guess. Come on. Let’s see.” She tugged him by the arm.
On the other side of the cone, opposite the falls, Donny saw what Ungo meant. There were narrow stairs etched into the side. Each step was maybe a hand’s width across. It looked like treacherous footing.
“Here’s what we’re gonna do,” Angela said. She dug into her satchel, pulled out a pair of bright yellow walkie-talkies, flipped them on, and handed one to Donny. “You go up there and keep a lookout. If you see anything, hit this button once. If you’re in real trouble, hit the button twice.”
Donny had an awful feeling about the plan. He frowned and hit the button twice. Angela’s walkie-talkie beeped in reply.
“Funny, Cricket,” she said. “Don’t do that again unless you’re really in trouble. I’ll be nearby, and I’ll get here quick if that thing shows up.”
“This is a terrible idea. First off, I might break my neck climbing up there.”
“Come on. Don’t be such a poltroon.”
“Did you say poltroon? There’s no way anyone uses that word anymore. I don’t even know what it means.”
“It means fraidy-cat.”
“And I haven’t heard fraidy-cat since kindergarten.”
She pointed to the peak. “Quit stalling. Start climbing.”
Donny held both hands up. “Just a minute, okay? I’m feeling really weird about this. Can’t I stay with you?”
Her eyebrows darted down, and the smile left her face. It was like a thundercloud blotting out the sun. “This is the plan, Donny. Up you go.”
“But—”
“Listen, Donald,” she snapped. “We’re friends and all, but remember how all this started. I saved you from a crispy death, and you said you’d do what I asked.”
“But that didn’t mean—”
She stepped closer, putting her nose an inch from his. “Do. What. I. Asked.”
Every word was a hammer. Donny felt the hairs stand up on his neck. Shivers rushed down his arms. He staggered back and hugged himself, trying to catch the breath that had deserted his lungs. The pace of his heartbeat had suddenly doubled, and he felt it pulsing in his ears. “Did you . . . did you just use your fear-beam on me?”
He’d watched her use that psychological weapon on many others, from his own father to that obnoxious guy in Milwaukee. But now, for the first time, he was the target of one of her focused waves of terror.
Her expression shifted quickly. For a moment her bottom lip trembled, as if she’d regretted what she’d done. Then her eyes narrowed and her jaw jutted and she lowered her head. “Enough, already. Climb up there. Right now.”
Donny sniffed. He stuffed the walkie-talkie into his pocket and started up the stairs, glad at least that Angela wouldn’t see his reddened face and watery eyes. Each step was covered with slick wet moss, making the ascent that much more dangerous. He turned his feet sideways for better traction, and sunk his fingers deep into the growth on either side. Gravity was the enemy, trying to tug his feet off the steps with every move.
When he was halfway to the top, he glanced down. Angela was right below, watching his progress. She was either waiting to catch him if he fell or checking to make sure he did what he was told. Step by step, moving slowly all the way, he made it to the flat peak, which was the size of a picnic table. He stood and peered down at Angela. She was already moving away, toward the others.
Donny looked at the gleaming white imps below. “Great plan. You guys stick out like sore thumbs,” he said aloud. It’s not like they could hear him. Ungo gave a signal and the group scattered, disappearing behind the tall moss-clad formations.
“The heck with all of you,” Donny grumbled. He let out a deep breath and looked around. The thundering falls were right in front of him. It was a little dizzying to stand at the peak with no railing to keep him safe, so he sat and folded his legs underneath him. Then he dug the walkie-talkie out of his pocket and positioned his thumb over the button.
Every ten seconds or so, he turned to face a different direction. Once in a while he whirled to look another way, in case the monster was watching him and timing his movements. But there wasn’t a living creature in sight except for the occasional small flying imp high overhead.
The first half hour was tense, and then it was tension mixed with boredom for the next hour. After that it got purely boring. His shirt and shorts were soaked from the mist of the falls. For the first time in Sulfur, he started to feel a chill.
He looked at the walkie-talkie in his hand. He’d seen ones like it before. Families used them to keep track of one another at amusement parks and cruise ships, and on hikes. He hoped Angela wasn’t venturing too far away, because the range wasn’t
always great with those things. Especially with all those weird stone things in the way, he thought. Did she even know that? Her knowledge about human stuff tended to be spotty.
There was the button he could use to send a beep, like she’d instructed him. But there was also the main button. You used that one to have a conversation. He thought about it for a while, almost pushed it twice, and finally did. “Angela?”
Her voice crackled back a few seconds later, hard to hear over the roar of the falls. “No talking. Just the beeps, and only if you see something. Don’t do that again.”
Donny gritted his teeth and came very close to hurling the walkie-talkie as far as he could. He decided that the formation he’d climbed wasn’t shaped like a traffic cone. It was shaped like a dunce cap, and he was an idiot for being here. “Stuck on Dunce Cap Hill,” he muttered, giving the cursed formation a name.
Something moved to his right. A shape passed between two of the formations. Donny’s heartbeat raced again, but then he took a deep breath to calm himself. It was a flash of white. Probably just one of the pawns.
Another half hour passed, and nothing else moved. It occurred to Donny that, if there was any more detail to this master plan to catch the beast, he was completely unaware of it. Would he be up here for hours? Days? He was starting to shiver. This was getting old.
The only upside to this adventure was the sight of the falls in front of him. He looked again at where it emerged from the cavern ceiling, and followed it all the way down until it slammed into the pool. The swirling sheets of mist at its foot were hypnotic.
Tatters of the clouds of illumination drifted by, not far overhead. They cast the blurry shadow of a stalactite over the falls for a moment. Then the shadow moved as the cloud passed.
Donny squinted at the falls. The shadow had moved, but some darkness had remained behind, where the falls hammered the pool. The darkness flowed toward him, just under the rippling, frothing surface of the pool. A pair of dark round spheres, big as softballs and a foot apart, rose from the water, dark and glistening. They moved toward him, trailing a long dark shape behind. Every muscle in Donny’s body clenched at once.
The spheres were froggy eyes. They rose from the pool as the monster stood.
It was close to ten feet tall, with arms that dangled low to the ground. It turned right, revealing its profile, and Donny could make out a long wolfish snout, still dripping water. The snout rose and fell. Then the thing turned to the left, and the snout moved again. Sniffing, Donny realized. He sucked in a sharp breath as the monster turned toward him, hunched over, and walked out of the mist, coming into sharper focus with every step.
Donny jolted. He’d been so transfixed by the appearance that he’d forgotten the walkie-talkie. He found the button and pushed it once.
When he looked up again, he nearly screamed. The monster was coming directly toward him. It was stalking him, moving swiftly through the knee-deep water. Its skin was dark and sleek, like an eel’s. And the teeth in those gaping jaws looked like a drawer full of steak knives.
CHAPTER 12
With his heart drumming madly, Donny hit the button twice, calling for help.
Those froggy eyes were looking right at him. As soon as the monster reached the edge of the pool, it burst into a sprint across the moss-covered stone, directly at Dunce Cap Hill.
Donny hit the button twice again. And again. “Come on, Angela; come on!” He saw a frothy tongue inside that awful mouth, and the webbing between the long toes and claws. Water monster, he thought.
The hill was thirty feet tall, but the long arms of this thing would reach halfway up. “Safe place, my butt!” Donny shouted. He nearly crushed the talk button with his thumb and screamed into the walkie-talkie. “Angela! It’s here, it came from under the water, and it’s gonna kill me!”
The monster bounded across the terrain, gaining yards with every step. When it reached Dunce Cap Hill, it leaped and raked at the moss to get a grip. The moss tore into ribbons under its claws, and it slid back to the ground.
Donny didn’t even bother with the walkie-talkie anymore. “Help!” he shouted. “Angela! Anybody! Chess guys! That thing is right here!”
The monster sprang again, and this time its claws found a crevice to hold under the moss. Its feet scratched at the hillside, and before Donny could even think of heading back down the treacherous stairs, the horrible face with its googly frog eyes rose in front of him. The mouth opened and the head reared back to strike. Its rotten breath washed over him. He stared into a nightmare of jagged teeth, frothy tongue, and quivering throat.
Barely aware of what he was doing, he flung the walkie-talkie into the jaws. It hit the roof of the mouth and tumbled into the throat.
The monster hacked and gagged and turned its head to the side, expelling the device like a spitball. Donny used that moment to lower himself over the edge, feeling for the top step with his foot. He found it, and sought the next one with his other foot, but he was moving too fast and shaking too much. Both feet slipped at once. He struck his chin on the edge and heard his teeth clack together. As he slid, he felt the top step brush past his stomach. He reached for it, gripping the moss with both hands. The moss peeled away from the rock with a sound like tearing fabric. He held on tight, because it was the only thing that kept him from a free fall. His feet stabbed at the hill as he dropped, searching blindly for the steps. He finally found one and came to an unsteady stop.
Something splattered on his shoulder. When he looked up, the monster was on top of the formation, staring down, drool pouring from its jaws. It leaped off the top and landed in a crouch on the stony ground. When it stood, Donny was within easy reach, and the terrible claws at the end of those long arms came for him.
A whorl of orange light swept between Donny and the beast. Angela was there, leaping through the air. She whipped her flaming sword in a circle so fast, it looked like a propeller. The monster took a step back and hissed at her. Its arms darted high and low, searching for a way to reach her, past that spinning blade.
Donny heard cracking sounds. Whips wrapped around one of the monster’s arms, then another. There was a large chessman wielding each whip. The monster yanked one of the whips hard, tugging the white imp with it, and the imp smashed into one of the formations, sending bits of the white enamel flying. Two more whips wrapped around the same arm at the wrist and the elbow. The chessmen hauled the whips back, spreading the arms of the monster wide. Arrows flew, piercing the monster’s legs. More chessmen burst from the shadows, tackling the monster from behind and dropping it to its knees. A third whip wrapped around its neck, and they tugged the thing down. Ungo raced forward with a glass bottle and smashed it into the monster’s jaw. A burst of vapor came from the broken bottle, and the monster made one more weak attempt to break free of the whips, before it fell senseless with a final twitch of its claws.
“Nighty-night,” Angela said to the thing. She looked at Donny, still clinging to the hillside. “Come on down! You look like a kitten up a tree.”
By the time Donny made it to the ground, the others had gathered around the creature in a circle, staring and prodding. Angela lifted the monster’s enormous hand and examined the webbing that spanned from knuckle to knuckle. “What do you know? It was a great water imp,” she said. “I thought the last of these died a while ago.”
“I have never seen such a beast before,” Ungo said.
“It c-came from under the f-falls,” Donny said. He folded his trembling arms tight across his chest, his hands in the opposite armpits. He had been quaking from the cold, but now he shivered because his nerves were shot. “Th-that’s why you couldn’t find it. There must be a cave under the water, or something.”
Ungo gave him a sour sideways glance. Then he nodded at Angela. A nasty smile bent his mouth. “Well done,” Ungo said. “Thank you for bringing the boy.”
Donny stiffened. Why would Ungo thank Angela for bringing him? It was pretty obvious that the craggy archdemon hated mortal
s. Donny stared at Angela, trying to read her expression, but she just smiled back at Ungo. “My pleasure,” she told him.
The chessmen were busy tying ropes around the water imp’s ankles and wrists. “Take the creature to the dungeon,” Ungo told them. “Then we celebrate.”
As they walked back toward the Pillar Cataracta, winding through the moss-clad formations, Donny jogged up beside Angela. “What was that about? Why did Ungo thank you for bringing me?”
“Not now,” she told him.
“But—”
She wagged a finger close to his mouth. “Just cork it and hang back while I finish up here, okay? I’ll talk to you later.”
Donny waited outside the pillar, sitting on the bottom step, watched once again by the pair of red imps on the pedestals. What are you guys, checkers pieces? he wanted to say, but didn’t dare. The more he thought about what had happened, the angrier he got. The celebratory sounds coming from inside the pillar, including Angela’s raucous laugh, poisoned his mood even more. He thumped the step with his fist until it nearly started to bleed.
Angela finally emerged, laughing and grinning. She waved good-bye to Ungo and trotted lightly down the stairs, almost dancing. “Mission accomplished, Cricket! Let’s go home.”
She tousled his hair as she went by, humming to herself. Donny sighed and got to his feet and followed her.
“I was the bait, wasn’t I?” he said as they walked toward the ramp that led to the fire-portal.
She stopped humming to say, “Sorry, what?”
“You brought me along because you wanted me to be the bait.”
She hid a smile with her fingers. “Oh. You figured that out, huh?”
“Yeah. That’s why Ungo thanked you for bringing me. You used me to lure that monster out.”
She stopped and put both hands in the air. “Okay. You got me. See, a lot of these nasty giant imps have a craving for mortal flesh. They go crazy for the stuff, probably because it’s so rare down here, and they can smell it a mile away. So I figured, if I brought you along, that might help us catch it, and if we caught it, Ungo might be grateful enough to join the council. And it worked!”
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