by Bryan Chick
“I brought you here,” Charlie said. “For him.”
Noah suddenly realized something. Charlie was no longer wearing the outfit that looked like DeGraff’s. He had on his usual security guard uniform.
“Guys …” Noah said, his tone heavy with concern. “Where is—?”
Before Noah could get his question out, he had his answer. A tall man emerged from the same door Charlie had come through. He wore a fedora hat and a flowing trench coat.
DeGraff. The Shadowist. For real, this time.
Sam took a step forward and raised his arms out to the height of his waist, shielding the other Crossers with a wall of silver feathers.
DeGraff found a spot beside Charlie. He stared up the hall, his face cloaked in the shadow of his wide-brimmed hat. His trench coat, draped around his feet, was as dark and featureless as the shadows around him. He wore black, pointed-toe boots and sleek leather gloves. His arms dangled at his sides, and his hands were closed into fists.
For a long time, no one said a word. The two groups simply faced off from opposite ends of the long hallway. The overhead bulbs cast cones of light along the walls and floor. Richie stared out with wide eyes through his oversized glasses. Ella hid behind Solana, peering around the Descender’s quill-covered arm. Megan stood sideways, looking poised to jump in any direction. Noah felt something strike his heels, and he looked down to see Tameron’s tail twining through the Crossers’ feet.
“DeGraff,” Sam said at last. “That is your real name, isn’t it?”
For a long time it seemed the man wouldn’t answer. Then his hat bobbed up and down in a yes response.
“What do you want?” Sam said.
After a long pause, DeGraff spoke for the first time: “Everything.” His voice gurgled out, as if his throat was coated in phlegm. He sounded human, but barely alive. He slowly lifted his arm and pointed a gloved finger at Sam. “But I’ll start with you.”
The Shadowist suddenly jumped forward and swung his arm over his head with unexpected agility. His hand struck a dangling fixture and sent it into a wild swing. Beams of light carved through the darkness. He took several long strides and smacked a second fixture, which reeled in all directions, casting light across the walls, the floor, the ceiling.
What happened next was impossible. DeGraff disappeared. One second he was there, and the next he was not.
“Where is he?” Tameron shouted.
Noah quickly recalled the stories he’d heard of Jonathan DeGraff, the legends and the half-truths. It was said he could walk into the shadows, move among them, become them.
The bulbs continued to swing around and around, striping the walls with light. The shadows in the hallway seemed to come alive.
Noah wondered if they had.
There was a muffled scream, and then one of Sam’s wings swept across the group. DeGraff had appeared behind Sam, his hand covering the teenager’s mouth. The Shadowist had something in his grasp—a piece of velvet, like that in the curtains and the Descenders’ clothes.
Sam struggled for a second, then his expression fell flat, his body limp. Whatever was in the cloth—a chemical? the magic itself?—had rendered him unconscious. Sam toppled over, his wings dusting the walls. His head bounced on the dirt floor, and an instant later DeGraff grabbed his arms and dragged him toward Charlie Red, flashes of light revealing the horrifying scene in fragments, like a movie with frames missing. As the two of them moved into a shadow, they vanished and immediately appeared in the dim light at the end of the hall. It was as if they’d fallen into the darkness—as if DeGraff had taken Sam there. Then DeGraff dragged the Descender’s limp body through the open doorway that he and Charlie had stepped through. It all happened so quickly—two, maybe three seconds.
The fixtures continued to swing, making it feel as though a flash of lightning had somehow become trapped in the narrow cavity of the hall.
Hannah was the first to react, screaming out Sam’s name and charging up the hallway. After a few steps, her body swung violently to one side and she banged into the wall. DeGraff was behind her, his hand pressed to her face, the piece of velvet covering her nose and mouth. Hannah struggled for a few seconds. Then her body went limp, and DeGraff seized her wrists and the two of them disappeared into the darkness left by a flash of light. A second later she was being dragged into the same room as Sam. Charlie stood at the end of the hall, smiling. Then he turned and walked into the room—his work was done here; DeGraff would manage the rest.
Tameron looked at Solana. “The scouts—get them out of here!”
Solana didn’t hesitate. She grabbed Megan’s and Ella’s shoulders, spun them around, and pushed them toward the exit, yelling “Go!” in a half-trembling voice. Richie followed. As Solana yanked Noah ahead of herself, Noah’s gaze landed on one wall and he realized bugs were climbing on it—big bugs, the kind from distant lands. He saw plump-bodied spiders, giant cockroaches, and spiny-legged things with shiny shells. At first Noah had no idea where they were coming from, but then he figured it out.
Him. DeGraff. Somehow the Shadowist was leaving a trail of bugs. If was as if the insects were falling out of his body.
As the scouts headed for the exit, Noah heard a struggle behind him and realized Tameron was being taken down. He glanced over his shoulder to see the Descender’s enormous tail sweeping through the air and banging against the walls. Then it dropped to the ground and lay there like the tail of a dead dinosaur.
Noah ran—he ran as fast as he ever had. He chased the scouts across the cellar and up the stairs to the maintenance room. But as he reached the top step, he heard a muffled cry behind him and glanced over his shoulder again. DeGraff had moved in behind Solana and was now pressing his velvet to her face. The Descender was staring straight ahead, her eyes bulging with terror. With one arm extended and fingers splayed, she was reaching for help.
Noah stopped. It took only a second for DeGraff to choke the consciousness out of his friend. Her knees buckled, and her body dropped to the hard ground. Dozens of her quills were embedded in the front of DeGraff, but they didn’t seem to hurt him. Noah didn’t know what was protecting DeGraff, his leather jacket or his magic.
Noah turned toward his friends, but they’d already charged out of the maintenance room and into the school hall. He swung his head back. Solana still lay on the ground, her long hair spilled out around her, her lips coated in dirt. As DeGraff hoisted her legs and began to drag her down the hall by her ankles, pictures of Solana flashed in Noah’s mind; he saw her standing in Metr-APE-olis on their first encounter, walking through Koala Kastle, and sitting so close to him on the bench in the Forest of Flight. Something ignited in his chest and his entire body flushed with heat—a heat which burned away all fear. A second later he felt the soles of his feet pounding the steps, and then he was running up the hall after Solana. A swinging shadow passed over DeGraff and he stepped twenty feet through it into the light at the end of the hall, dragging his captive.
“No!” Noah heard himself yell. But his words weren’t really coming from him—they were coming from a place inside of him, a place full of unspent emotions and untold secrets—a place full of power.
As DeGraff dragged Solana into the room where he’d taken the others, Noah charged across the cellar, adrenaline coursing through his body. He raced past the first room, the second, the third, insects bursting beneath his feet. At the end of the hall, he turned into the room. Small, it had concrete walls, a dirt floor, and pipes along the ceiling. DeGraff was headed to a place along the far side, the sight of which stopped Noah in his tracks.
The outside wall had a hole big enough to fit two side-by-side adults. On the floor was a dusty pile of rubble—jagged concrete pieces that had once been a part of the wall. Bunched to one side of the opening was a velvet curtain, the kind used in the portals of the Secret Zoo. Beyond it, a dark tunnel descended steeply into the ground, tree roots and clumps of earth dangling from its walls and ceiling.
The Sh
adowist stopped at the mouth of the tunnel. He turned his head—and what Noah saw terrified him. DeGraff didn’t have a nose, just two holes in his face. The better part of his chin was missing. His top lip and the flesh above it were gone, exposing a black gum line and rotten teeth. The rest of his face was still intact, except for a wide tear along his cheek that exposed a strip of white bone. His skin looked rubbery and strange, as if it weren’t skin at all, but an elastic material wrapped around his head, something to keep his flesh from spilling out. Noah remembered something Sam had once said: “Others say DeGraff is part shadow and part human—rotting flesh held together by the shadows’ magic.” DeGraff had been alive over a hundred years; what remained of his body was barely more than a corpse. The only part of DeGraff that Noah couldn’t see were his eyes; beneath the brim of his fedora hat, they stayed hidden.
DeGraff tipped his head to one side to size up Noah. As he did, a large centipede crawled out from the gash in his cheek and disappeared into the collar of his trench coat. He reached up and casually scratched the skin below the wound, as if the centipede’s legs had tickled. The skin along the bottom of his mouth curled upward, and Noah realized in a sickening way that DeGraff was smiling. The Shadowist made a deep, guttural sound almost like a croak and then started to step backward into the tunnel, dragging his captive along.
Just as Solana was about to be pulled into the tunnel, Noah felt his feet moving again and he realized he was charging straight at the hole in the wall. In the edges of his vision, the room blurred, and just before he would have trampled Solana, he dove into the air with so much force that it felt like he was flying. He plowed his shoulder into DeGraff’s gut, buckling him and freeing Solana from his grasp. The two of them crashed down the steep tunnel and went into a roll, DeGraff’s knees and elbows knocking against Noah, and the flaps of his open jacket slapping Noah’s face. As Noah came to a stop about ten feet from the mouth of the tunnel, he spun onto his back and stared across his body to see DeGraff farther below. About fifty feet behind DeGraff, a sasquatch was dragging Tameron into the black, hidden depths.
Bugs, by the hundreds, were swarming on the dirt walls—spiders and beetles and other unnamable things. Only once had Noah seen so many insects—in the Secret Creepy Critters when he and Podgy had brought down the portal to Gator Falls.
DeGraff lifted his head to stare at Noah. His fedora hat was still in place, still masking his eyes. Noah could see that the two holes where his nose should have been were now packed with dirt. And spiders were pouring out of the wound in his cheek and skittering across his face, some disappearing beneath the flaps of his loose flesh.
With his insides churning with revulsion, Noah spun over onto his stomach and began to crawl up the steep incline, his feet occasionally slipping in the dirt. He glanced back to see that DeGraff was following. Just as Noah clapped down one hand on the hard dirt floor of the cellar, he felt something squeeze his left ankle, and he realized DeGraff had him in his clutches. Noah’s fingers slipped through the dirt as he was pulled down. He turned onto his back and thought of the Descenders—Sam, Hannah, and Tameron. What fate waited for them at the end of this tunnel? Whatever it was, it wasn’t going to be Noah’s or Solana’s.
He hoisted his right knee all the way up to his chest and then brought it down with all the strength he had. The sole of his boot landed squarely on DeGraff’s cheek, whose head rocked back as his hat tumbled off. As DeGraff put both hands to his injured face, Noah dove through the mouth of the tunnel and landed beside Solana. He knew what he needed to do next—in the tunnel beneath Gator Falls, he’d seen what happened to a gateway once it was stripped of its magic curtain.
Noah got to his knees. As he reached up for the curtain, he caught sight of DeGraff again. The gash in his cheek was larger, and his face was dotted with the guts of spiders. He had short, unruly hair with bald patches, and his eyes … his eyes were gone. What remained were two black sockets as dark as the skull cavities of his nose. The Shadowist sprang off his knees toward the mouth of the tunnel and Noah yanked on the curtain, pulling it free from its rod. As more than a dozen gold rings clinked down on the floor, the chunks of concrete around Noah began to shift and shake. Then, all at once, they jumped into the air and fit into their previous spots in the wall, like pieces of a puzzle. They closed the hole and sealed its cracks. DeGraff and the portal were gone.
Noah leaned over Solana, calling her name. He lightly shook her shoulders. “Wake up!”
When she didn’t respond, he slapped her cheek, hard. Solana closed her open mouth and then pursed her lips when she felt the dirt on them. She scrunched up her face and slowly opened her eyes to peer at Noah.
Three figures appeared at the door—Noah’s friends, their eyes full of fright. They charged into the room and dropped down to their knees by Solana.
“We got halfway down the hall and realized you weren’t with us,” Megan said. “What happened?”
Noah ignored his sister and kept his attention on Solana, saying, “You okay?”
Solana shifted her gaze and took in the room. Her eyes quickly filled with awareness and life, and she propped herself up on her elbows. “Wha—?” she said. “DeGraff …”
“Gone.” Noah lifted one end of the curtain toward Solana and said, “A portal.” He helped her to a seated position. “You okay?” he asked again.
Solana nodded as she rubbed her eyes.
“Portal?” Richie asked. “How—”
Noah shook his head. “I don’t know.”
A noise suddenly invaded the room from above—a shrill, pulsating wail muffled by dirt and concrete. It was the sound of sirens—police sirens.
Noah raised his gaze toward the ceiling. “Blizzard and Little Big …” he said. “No …”
He hooked his arm under Solana’s and, with Ella’s help, hoisted her up. Solana swayed on her feet and then quickly found her balance. “C’mon—we got to go,” Noah urged.
As he headed for the door, Solana stopped him, saying, “Wait!”
“Huh?”
She pointed to the curtain on the floor.
“Oh.” Noah turned back and balled the curtain up under his arm. “Right.”
He led the charge out of the room and down the hall, where the gooey remains of dead bugs were spread along the floor like spatterings of paint. As he went, he kept glancing over his shoulder to ensure Solana was stable on her feet—Ella was still helping her a bit.
As Noah made his way up the stairs, he said, “C’mon, we got to help Blizzard and Little Big.”
“No!” Solana said.
Noah stopped and peered back. Solana now looked as strong as she ever had, and Noah guessed the effects of the velvet had already worn off.
“We can’t. You have to let them go. It’s part of what they’re willing to do—it’s part of what they want to do.”
But Noah would not stand by while Blizzard and Little Bighorn were made sacrifices.
“It’s not what I want to do,” he said.
And he charged the rest of the way up the stairs, the rest of the group following.
CHAPTER 61
THE FALL OF FRIENDS
Outside the maintenance room, Noah headed down the hall between the media center and the cafeteria, Solana quietly calling out twice for him to stop. In the dark distance, he saw two police officers charge across an intersecting hallway and head left, their voices and footfalls quickly fading.
“Where are they going?” Richie asked from just behind him.
As they reached the new hall seconds later, Noah pointed to the floor, where two faint sets of dusty animal footprints headed in the same direction the officers had gone. One had three stubby toes; the other had five round toe prints and a wide sole. Little Bighorn and Blizzard, no doubt. As Noah turned to follow them, he saw the two officers bang through the double doors of the gym. Through the walls came the muffled sounds of people yelling and footfalls thumping on bleachers. And Noah heard something else. Animals—animal
s growling and grunting.
Noah slowed down at the gym entrance and eased open one of the double doors.
“Noah!” Solana said. “We can’t—”
Before she could finish, Noah slipped through the crack.
Near the stage at the far side of the gym were Blizzard and Little Bighorn. They were backed against each other, their rumps almost touching. As many as a dozen officers were posted along the two sets of bleachers, their guns aimed at the animals. They were hollering questions and commands at one another, spewing profanities that echoed in the open gym. A man with a faint mustache was struggling to steady his gun. A woman was repeatedly shouting, “Animal Control—Where’s Animal Control?” into a walkie-talkie. A hulking man was holding his stare down the barrel of a rifle while saying, “I got the shot! I got the shot!” and asking if he should take it.
Blizzard, his back arched high, was snarling and swinging his long neck from side to side. Against the brown basketball court, his fur was startlingly white. Little Bighorn had his head dropped low and his huge horn raised like a weapon. His unblinking eyes kept shifting around the room.
The officers crept along the bleachers toward the stage. They walked behind their weapons. Blizzard and Little Bighorn were in their sights.
Solana and the other scouts had slipped into the gym and joined Noah. Beside the bleachers, they were mostly hidden from view. Ella said, “What do we do?”
Solana, her Descender gear back inside her clothes, said, “Nothing. The animals are doing what needs to be done.” She seized Ella’s arm and pulled her back. “C’mon, we got to go. You want to spend the night in a cop station? Besides …” Her voice trailed off. Then she turned to her trapped animal friends and finished her thought. “We don’t want to see this.”
Ella yanked her arm away. “We can’t just leave them!”
“We don’t have—”
A voice rang out over the noise: “Bobby, take the shot!”
“Roger,” said the brawny officer. He set his face against the rifle, his fat cheek bulging over the stock. Noah saw how his neck was nearly as thick as his head, rigid with muscles and corded with veins.
