The Last Garden

by J C Gilbert

  “Um, speaking of your mom,” said Lilly, looking over my shoulder. Once again, she was looking at the gate. There were still dozens of the squirrel warriors pouring forth into the city, but there was something else with them now. Towering over the furry creatures were what at first glance appeared to be giants. They were lanky things with pale white skin and were wearing long black robes.

  My mouth dropped, and my heart sank as I realized in horror that one of these monsters was my mom. She leered at me.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  “Mom?” I asked.

  She looked at me, mockingly. The giants were not like the squirrels, their faces were not empty.

  “Oh my goodness, Alex. I’m so sorry,” said Lilly.

  There was no time to say anything in reply. Mom and the other giants strode quickly toward us. I found that I was frozen, and Hank had taken over completely. Lilly was more together than I, and used the Rose of the Raven to form purple ropes. She began trying to send the ropes toward the giants who were apparently also the museum staff.

  Soon Mom was upon us. She dodged the ropes easily, picked up Lilly from the ground, and flung her down the street. This snapped me out of my daze. I teleported as quickly as I could toward where Lilly was going to land. But I needn’t have worried. Long before she hit the ground, Lilly had unfurled her large black wings. She hovered for a moment flapping them in wide arcs before hurrying back toward the battlefield.

  I teleported quickly after her. My mom was somewhere inside that giant, and I needed to get her out of it.

  She saw me when I was close. “Mom!” I called.

  “Yes, dear,” sneered the giant. It didn’t sound at all like my mom, and I was almost certain that this was just some creature talking with her mouth.

  “You have to snap out of it.”

  She picked up a trash can and hurled it at me, rubbish flying everywhere. I summoned the fire shield as quickly as I could, deflecting the blow just in time. The scent of burning trash surrounded me.

  “You were working at the museum, and then something happened to you. You have to try and remember what that was.”

  The giant did not heed me. She grabbed for me, picked me up, held me up to her face, and looked at me. Her eyes were wicked.

  “Mom,” I said.

  She said nothing but tried to fling me into the ground. I used The Library’s magic just-in-time before my face would have collided with the concrete. I landed instead a few feet away, crouching as if I’d just landed in a book. I teleported up to her face and slapped her as hard as I could. She grabbed for me but not quick enough. I teleported again to the other side of her face and struck her again. “Wake up, would you!”

  The giant only seemed to get angrier. Chaos was all around me. The squirrel soldiers had seized dozens of people and were carrying them into the museum grounds. Every so often, I caught a glimpse of a grotesque tentacle slide out of a building and grab one of the people that were being carried away. Darcy was doing his best to stay out of sight, though I wished he would commit fully to the fight.

  Lilly had elected not to land and was fighting with a pair of giants. One of them appeared to be wearing spectacles.

  I landed on the ground in front of my mom. She curled her fingers into fists and screamed at me. I was at a complete loss as to what to do. I didn’t want to hurt her, but I didn’t want her to hurt other people either. She grabbed for me again, catching me off my guard. I tried to form flame in my hands, but she held my hands tight and prevented the fire from catching.

  “I think you are one for eating,” said the giant as she brought me up to her face. “I’ll put the rest in the basket for jam.”

  I cried out and tried to teleport away, but realized I’d dropped my book. “Lilly!” I yelled. I couldn’t see her anywhere. I was alone, and my mother was about to kill me.

  There was a flash of gunmetal gray, and the giant toppled to the ground. I hit the pavement hard on my side and winced in pain. I got quickly to my feet, trying to ascertain what had happened. I soon saw that there was something on top of the giant.

  The thing looked like some sort of mechanical cat but on a larger scale. The giant threw the mech from her. It collided with a garage door with a loud thud. The mech quickly recovered, and before the giant was properly on her feet, it had tackled her once more to the ground. The giant’s head whacked hard into the curb. It did not get up after that.

  “Mom!” I said, running to her side. “Mom are you OK?”

  She wasn’t moving. I looked at the mechanical cat. “What have you done? What are you?”

  A hatch opened on the side of the mech to reveal a familiar face. “Mom will be OK,” said Jonny. He was piloting the mech lying lengthwise with his face toward the ground.

  “What are you doing in there?” I demanded, completely baffled as to why my brother had what appeared to be a weaponized toy.

  “You wouldn’t give me a ride,” he said.

  “So you decided to take your mechanical cat out for a spin?”

  “Yes.”

  “I see.” I looked back to Mom. “You sure she’s all right?”

  “Yeah, her vitals are still fine. What on earth happened to her?”

  “We are still trying to figure that out. I only hope that we can also figure out how to turn her back.”

  I looked around and noticed that there were significantly fewer of the squirrel soldiers now. The giants too were starting to retreat.

  Lilly landed next to me and folded her wings. Jonny raised one eyebrow and shut the hatch to his mech. He stalked off into the streets.

  “What was that?” asked Lilly

  “I have no clue, honestly. What even is today.”

  “They all seemed to be going back, but we haven’t stopped them from taking people,” said Lilly. “This just isn’t going to work. We are not going to get anywhere if we keep fighting these things. We have to find Daniel and incapacitate him.”

  Darcy came jogging up to us and sheathed his sword. His shirt seemed to have disappeared, though he was still wearing his denim jacket.

  “Getting a bit too warm for you, cowboy?” asked Lilly, appraising Darcy’s new look.

  “Something like that,” he said. “I couldn’t stop them, Alex. If I had to guess, they made off with at least a hundred people.”

  “Does that mean a hundred more giants?” I asked.

  “I don’t know,” said Darcy. He looked down at the giant next to us. “This your mom?” he asked.

  “Yeah, though she seemed to be in a bad mood.”

  “I always liked your mom, Alex. I mean, you know, when she isn’t trying to kill you,” said Lilly.

  “Were you able to get through to her at all?” asked Darcy, “we might stand a chance if–”

  “No, it was like she wasn’t even in there.” My heart swelled with grief as I said that, as at that moment, I contemplated the idea that my mom might really be lost forever. I shook the thought from my mind.

  “I’m sorry,” said Darcy. “If we can save her, we will.”

  “In the meantime, I’ll take her to the other place,” said Lilly.

  “Is The Library really the right place to take her? I mean, isn’t it possible that Daniel might be able to use that somehow?”

  “I mean the other other place,” said Lilly.

  Lilly bent down and touched Mom on the shoulder. She seemed to stir at Lilly’s touch but didn’t wake. There was a pop, and a sudden sucking of air as Lilly and the giant disappeared.

  “What the –?” said Darcy, jumping back.

  “She does that sometimes,” I said.

  “I see,” said Darcy. “Why do I get the feeling that this is not the only secret that she has kept from me?”

  “You are one to talk,” I said little too sharply, or more sharply than I meant to.

  Lilly popped into existence again in the same spot from where she left.

  “I will have to c
heck on her now and then, but remember that time will be moving much faster there. She will probably wake up and wreck the place within the next few minutes.”

  Overhead, the sound of propellers filled the sky as a dozen military helicopters flew towards the museum and the towering fortress.

  “This won’t end well,” said Darcy.

  “You’re weak Sasuke.. you lack seasoning,” said Lilly.

  “Who is Sasuke?” asked Darcy.

  “A Japanese dish,” said Lilly.

  “Kind of works,” I said.

  Daniel was still high overhead as the helicopters approached. A series of missiles launched from each of the helicopters and arced towards the lone figure. Every single one of them was right on the mark, and there was an explosion in the sky so bright that the rest of the world seemed dark by comparison.

  I shielded my eyes from the light with an arm. Though I was reasonably sure that this would not hurt the boy, I looked on with interest as the smoke cleared from the point of impact. At first, it was difficult to see anything at all, but soon I saw that Daniel was still hovering in place, apparently unmoved.

  “Get out of there,” said Darcy, trying to will the helicopters into retreat.

  A couple of them might have heeded his warning, as they started to move off. But they could not move away fast enough. With a few quick movements, Daniel had launched a dozen white beams at a dozen helicopters. The beams pierced right through them, setting them ablaze. There was a moment where it seemed like they would burn up as they hovered, but then, one by one, they tilted and began plummeting towards the earth on a dozen different angles.

  “I should go talk to him,” I heard myself say.

  “No, Alex. It is too dangerous. Trust me. I only just got out alive,” said Darcy.

  “I can do this, Darcy. I have The Library, remember. I can get away if I need to.”

  Darcy shook his head. “He is fast, and I wouldn’t be able to say whether he was faster than your teleport. If there is another way, then we need to find it.”

  “Hey, guys, I think you need to see this,” said Lilly. She was frowning through her glasses and looking down the street, away from the museum. At first, I could not see anything at all, but then my eyebrows raised up in surprise.

  The ground shook with a thud, thud, thud, as a figure ran up the road. Lightning crackled all over its body, arcing off and striking buildings. His armor was unmistakable, as was his helmet, as was his ax.

  “Shoot,” said Darcy, “someone has released Eric.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  The Viking rumbled quickly past us, leaped over the iron fence, and then thundered into the sky to confront Daniel.

  “Well, at least he seems to be fighting on our side,” said Lilly.

  “Just a hunch,” said Darcy, “but I think that whoever it is that controls him has significant real estate holdings in the city.”

  “Self-interest wins the day,” said Lilly.

  I found that I was smiling. As far as I knew, Eric was a force of nature. I had faced Eric before, if only briefly, and his power had overwhelmed me. I felt a glimmer of hope spark.

  It was hard to see exactly what was happening, but it seemed like Eric was preparing to strike the lone figure with that terrible ax of his.

  Lightning cracked all around him, drawing power to him. There was a terrible roll of thunder as Eric’s ax collided with Daniel. The ground shook, and several windows in the adjacent buildings burst. My hope turned to a sinking feeling, as I remembered the fate of the helicopters.

  Eric was swinging his ax furiously now, and thunder filled the air. But all this did not seem to be making any difference at all to the figure that, to my eyes, remained unmoving. At length, it seemed that Eric was beginning to tire.

  “I knew this was too good to be true,” said Darcy.

  The figure seemed to move, it was hard to tell exactly what was happening, but then, quite suddenly, Eric rocketed from his place in the sky, toward the earth someplace in the distance. The ground rumbled again as he impacted several miles off.

  As if to punctuate the victory over the Viking, Daniel let loose several more of his beams toward the taller buildings of the city.

  My heart cried out as I imagined the fear of all the people within those buildings. “I’ve waited long enough,” I said.

  “Alex, no!” said Darcy.

  But my mind was made up. I began rapidly jumping between this world and The Library, so rapidly that it felt like I was now floating. With all my heart, I tried to summon my determination as power, and it came forth as flame. I was soon surrounded in a hot ball of fire, dancing in the breeze. I flew over the destruction, the overturned cars, the iron fence, and the wreckage that Daniel had inflicted on the museum grounds. I flew over it all and soon found myself face-to-face with him.

  I didn’t know what I expected, but he looked just the same as he ever had. He wasn’t even dressed differently. I didn’t know Daniel well, or at all really. He was just the guy that walked around the school with Carl, just as Carl was the guy who walked around the school with Daniel. He looked at me with impatience.

  “What?” he asked.

  “You have to stop killing people,” I said, “why are you killing people?” My rapid shifting in and out of The Library gave the illusion of flight. It was tiring, but I just had to talk to him.

  He raised his eyebrows incredulously. “You’re acting like this is my fault,” he said. “All I was doing was building, all I wanted to do was build.”

  “You turned my mom into a monster.”

  “I wouldn’t have had to if people just left me alone. I wasn’t harming her or anything.”

  “What about the people in those buildings that you have been firing at. They haven’t been doing anything to you. They are not even close to here.”

  “You don’t understand anything, do you. It’s all connected, you know. The people in those buildings, they pay taxes, they elect governments, and who do you think enforces their violence? The army of course. I have been watching the news reports. I knew those helicopters were coming. I wasn’t harming individuals, you know. I’m not a monster. I was just trying to make a point for the political collective.”

  “That’s ridiculous, actually ridiculous.”

  Daniel shrugged. “People really don’t think things through to the logical conclusion, do they?”

  “I’m going to stop you,” I said.

  “I recognize you,” said Daniel. “Is it Alexandra? If this had been any other day, I’d be wondering how it is that you can fly. But so much has been revealed to me now. With the power of Beelzebub coursing through me, I can do things beyond anything that I’ve ever dreamed. I can finally create the perfect nation modeled on logic and inevitability.”

  “Beelzebub?”

  “That’s right. Who knew the local museum held the scrolls I needed for the summoning? I must say, they have been spending the tax dollars rather better than I had expected.”

  “I know that name from somewhere. Beelzebub is a demon, right?”

  “Yes, I suppose you could say that he is a demon.”

  “And he is literally the demon that is known for offering unlimited power and then betraying the one that he gives it to, right?”

  “Yes.”

  “And you don’t have any concerns?”

  Daniel just laughed and shook his head. “Trust me, Alex. I can handle him. And you know what? I can handle you too.”

  He moved fast, too fast for me. One minute he was standing in front of me, next minute he was slapping me right across the cheek. For a brief moment, I had an awareness of the blow before everything went black.

  When I came to, I was still flying through the air. At first, I did not know what had happened. I blinked, my head throbbing, and then I realized I was falling, and falling fast. The ground was racing up quickly toward me. I had a vague idea that there was something I was supposed to do, some way
that I could prevent myself from crashing into the ground, but I couldn’t quite remember what it was. I closed my eyes, and everything went dark.

  And then everything was light.

  I opened my eyes, and I was skidding across the floor of The Library, coming to a stop at the base of the bookshelf with a whack. My head had struck the bookshelf hard. A few volumes fell down from the upper shelves, landing on me with a series of thuds.

  Gingerly, I pulled myself up and touched my head where I had banged it. I registered that I was in The Library, I was safe.

  That’s when I noticed the two figures before me. The hulking figure of the Librarian, black-furred and muscled, was pushed up against another nearby shelf. Standing close to her, with a hand around the gorilla’s throat was Elaine.

  She looked over to me, opened her mouth, and then closed it again.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  Elaine looked to the Librarian, looked back to me, then looked back to the Librarian. She let go of the Librarian’s throat.

  “Get away, Alex. She has come for you,” said the Librarian, her voice husky.

  “Alex, thank the gods,” said Elaine.

  “What are you doing here?” I asked. The blow to my head had left me feeling groggy, and seeing Elaine here in The Library after the day I had was just about the last straw. It was all getting a bit too much for me.

  “Well, there are a couple of answers to that,” said Elaine.

  The Librarian looked confused, apparently trying to figure out why Elaine hadn’t yet attacked me yet.

  “I thought you were going to stay with your sister?” I asked.

  “That is the question most easily answered,” said Elaine. “There was only so much I could take, you know? I mean, don’t get me wrong, I wish her all the best, but I can kinda see why I turned her into a parrot. She doesn’t shut up. She kept going on about great responsibilities and violated trust, and honorable this and dishonorable that. I couldn’t stand it. I was there half a day before I left to follow after you.”

  “You broke out?”