Dread pulsed through Celia. “Without you here, all the Littles, won’t they . . .”
Daisy’s checkerboard face went serious. “Celia’s right. One of them will snap. They won’t mean to, but they’re already on edge with having to smell her lovely scent all night. I’m even feeling unsteady.”
Demetri shook his head. “Every Big will still be hunting you out there, Celia.”
“Bigs can’t turn me into a monster. I want to come with you,” Celia said, and then ate a big spoonful of porridge. It burned the roof of her mouth. “Besides, I have to decide something today.”
She thought about the mural in the graffiti flats, and how it had both her name and Demetri’s in it. “What if I miss out on my chance to do what I have to?”
Demetri sighed. “That’s not how prophecies work.”
Daisy shrugged. “Nobody really knows how they work. Also, I’m coming too.”
Demetri glared at the world. “If you come, Celia, you promise to do everything I tell you, even if you don’t want to? For safety.”
Celia nodded.
Demetri closed his eyes and took a piece of smooth driftwood from his pocket. He placed it between them. The air turned electric, and Celia realized he was making a spell.
“I’ll listen to you; you don’t have to—”
Demetri opened his eyes. “Yes. You will listen. Sorry. I can’t take any chances.” Green light pulsed out from him.
The spell fell over her and crawled across her skin like a thousand wriggling ants. It lasted for a couple of seconds, then faded away.
“What’d you give up for that?” she asked.
“The smell of bananas,” Demetri said. “I’ve always hated bananas. I can’t remember why. Anyway, let’s get gone.”
29
Obsessed With You
As they headed toward the hole that led out of the warehouse, Daisy ran over to a wooden filing cabinet and took out a box. She handed it to Demetri. He popped it open and took out a gray mushroom about the size of his fist. Soltminer’s heart, Daisy told Celia. It pulsed and throbbed as Demetri put it into his bag. Daisy, then Celia, and finally Demetri slipped into the dark hole that led down to the underground tunnels.
Daisy turned on her flashlight. “Wonder what Solty knows. Wonder why he can only say it in person.”
No one answered. Demetri led the way, taking them on a route through different tunnels than they’d come in on, as far as Celia could tell.
The darkness pressed in from all sides. Celia shivered, not because it was cold, but because of the memory of cold.
Daisy began singing about a bonny lass in a faraway field, and the people who lived underneath the hill. Her voice echoed back through the tunnels. At first it sounded like a song about fairies, but then the lyrics got stranger and stranger and it became about monsters who lured kids to their doom by disguising themselves as fairies.
They walked through a slimy tunnel for a long time before they came to a metal door blocking their way. It was covered with knuckles of rust and had a combination lock on it.
Daisy spun the dial.
“Freedom. That’s the combination for all our locks, if you ever need it,” Demetri whispered.
They walked through the door and up into an alley. Daisy held out her arms and spun around as she stared up at the blue-gray sky. Then she pulled the hood of her sweatshirt over her head and put gloves on, hiding her checkered skin and black-and-white hair. Demetri covered his horns with his hat. They looked like the homeless kids who hung out in packs and dressed like there were no new clothes left in the world and they had to patch and pin together everything that they wore.
“This way,” Demetri said, and headed out of the alley. They walked by drifts of snakeskins and black garbage bags nailed to telephone poles with signs above them that read, Skins.
Celia checked her cell phone. She knew it wouldn’t work, but she checked anyway. It was all the way dead now.
No one paid attention to Celia and the Littles as they turned down a street full of restaurants with writing on their cracked windows advertising the catch of the day next to drawings of happy-looking shellfish. The air smelled fishy and salty. Men and women stood out on the cracked sidewalks drinking coffee and talking to each other about how the port looked like it was going to be closed again today, because no boats could get in or out. A woman in an apron walked down the middle of the road carrying a wicker basket full of long loaves of bread.
When she passed Celia and her friends, the woman crossed herself and spit on the ground. The Littles hurried on.
“She can see you? She knows what you are?” Celia whispered.
“She senses us. She was probably attacked by a monster when she was young,” Daisy said.
Demetri led them to a green door covered with a picture of a grinning crab sitting in a pot of boiling water. Inside, chairs lay thrown around the room and tables sat tipped on their sides. The walls were covered in pictures of cartoon crustaceans with forks sticking out of their heads as they sprayed lemon juice on themselves. It looked like the restaurant hadn’t been opened since the earthquake.
“Soltminer?” Demetri called as they stepped inside. “You here?”
Something crashed and groaned from the back room.
They walked toward the sound, weaving in between the scattered chairs. A garlic-and-fish scent sat in the air.
“Solty?” Demetri repeated as they came to the windowless and dark back room.
A snarl erupted from a corner and something bared its teeth and hissed. Celia peered in, but all she could make out was something big and lumpy.
“You called us here,” Demetri snapped. “Come out and tell me why.” He pulled out the gray mushroom heart and squeezed it.
A groan came from the back of the dark room.
Demetri turned, righted a round table, and grabbed a chair. Celia found another and sat across from him. Daisy grabbed a stool, but instead of sitting on it, she started ripping off its legs.
“Daisy,” Demetri warned.
The Little growled, “It helps. I can’t stand being around them.” She tore off the last of the legs, threw it on the ground, then sat down on a different stool.
The floor thudded as something lumbered out from the back room. A hunched-over beast, nine feet tall and covered in warts dripping green pus, emerged. He wore dusty jeans and a flannel shirt soaked through with his ooze.
“You brought the doom girl,” he said in an oily voice as he licked his lips with a tongue covered in more warts. One of his eyes was swollen over, and he scratched at red welts around the collar of his shirt. He staggered to the table, sat down, and sneered. His rotten-meat scent filled the air.
“Talk,” Demetri ordered. He held the mushroom heart in both hands and his black claws tightened around it.
The beast flinched and coughed. He spit up a chunk of blue, claylike phlegm onto the table. The bad-meat smell grew stronger. Soltminer started poking and shaping the spittle with his warty fingers as he leaned toward Celia and grinned. “Good to finally see you, doom girl. Clever spell you wear. No wonder no one can find you.” He laughed and his hot, foul breath hit her.
Celia leaned away from him.
Demetri squeezed the heart harder. “Speak now, Soltminer, or I end you.”
“As you command, Little master.” He snarled and coughed up more chunks of phlegm. His pocked hands kneaded and sculpted it as he scraped his own face to add pus to the mass. He worked on it until it resembled a snake coiled and ready to strike.
“Krawl’s looking for the doom girl,” the monster whispered. His hands let go of the phlegm snake, and it moved on its own as it slithered across the table toward Celia.
Celia jerked back from the table.
Soltminer laughed as his snake reared back and made a striking motion in Celia’s direction.
“We know,” Demetri growled. He squeezed the heart tighter. Blood bubbled up from the top of the mushroom and dripped down his knuckles.
The monster gasped and shivered.
“What does Krawl want with Celia?”
“She needs the doom girl to get you. The two of you are connected, but Krawl knows she can’t find you. It’s you your maker is obsessed with, Demetri. Always has been.” Soltminer spoke in a grumble as he grabbed his phlegm snake and started kneading it in his hands again, spitting and rubbing more pus into it. “After all these years and decades gone, she’s more powerful than most of us rolled together, and all she cares about is one stubborn Little? You worry her, Demetri. One of us shouldn’t ever be so concerned about one of you.” He coughed some more.
Demetri scowled and squeezed the heart mushroom. “You aren’t telling us anything helpful. Why did you call me here? The truth this time.”
The monster played with his phlegm ball as he talked. “Most of us don’t care about a few Little ones getting free. We got our own hungers and desires to contend with.” He licked his lips and fixed his gaze on Celia. “But Krawl? She thinks your pathetic resistance is changing the natural order of things.” His hands let go of the phlegm. A hundred tiny gelatinous snakes slithered toward Demetri. “She’s worried you’re going to hurt all us Bigs.”
Celia stared at the snakes, and the longer she looked, the more the snakes grew detailed and real.
“Parlor tricks. Look away,” Daisy whispered, and kicked Celia’s shin beneath the table.
“What’s she planning with her big spell? Tell me something useful and specific, or I end you.” Demetri poked the mushroom heart with a sharp black claw.
The monster yelped.
Soltminer rubbed his swollen eye. “Fine. Here’s the truth of it.” His hands grabbed the mass of phlegm and his fingers moved fast, kneading and sculpting the rubbery snakes. When he let go of it, he’d sculpted it into an image of himself in miniature—tied down, bleeding, and screaming. It was so realistic Celia leaned toward it to see the details. Soltminer whispered, “Krawl told me I had to lure you here and trap you, else she would kill me.”
With a sudden motion, the beast’s tail whipped up from behind him and snatched the heart from Demetri’s hands.
Demetri and Daisy froze for half a second as Soltminer stumbled away from them, laughing and showing off rotten teeth.
Daisy’s lips peeled back in a grin as she pulled a knife out of her pocket and jumped to her feet. She danced toward the monster.
Demetri reached into his pocket and threw something at the monster’s face.
Soltminer roared as white light exploded and danced across his eyes. His eyelids snapped shut and he didn’t seem to be able to open them again.
Celia got up too. She didn’t have any weapons. She threw the nearest chair at him.
“Celia. You have to leave. Now,” Demetri called out. He kept his eyes on the monster but pointed at her and then the door. Celia grabbed another chair and threw it, even as her feet started to back toward the door. She wanted to yell at Demetri that she would stay and fight, but her body responded without her will, helpless to do anything but obey Demetri’s binding spell. Her muscles and bones made her walk away. She clenched her teeth and growled with frustration.
“Leave and don’t come back,” Demetri ordered. His words snapped through her spine and quickened her feet. She turned toward the door.
Something smashed to the ground behind her. Daisy yelped with pain.
Celia wanted to turn around and at least make sure she was okay, but Demetri’s spell pulled her forward.
“This will be the end of you!” Demetri yelled at the monster.
Something else crashed.
The monster roared. “Don’t count on it. Madame Krawl will be here soon enough!”
“Let her come,” Demetri growled, and then yelled, “Run, Celia!”
The spell jerked her forward. Celia opened the door and ran.
30
Like Flying
There’s a way of running that’s so fast it’s like flying, with feet just accidentally hitting the ground. Celia flew down the road while her mind reached back toward the empty restaurant where Demetri and Daisy fought. She ran one block, and then two more, before she was able to slow down and look behind her. If she concentrated and clenched all her muscles, she could force herself to walk, not jog.
I need to go back to them, she thought. Demetri and Daisy were trapped. Krawl was coming for them. But no matter how she gritted her teeth and stomped her feet into the ground, she couldn’t make her body turn around. The spell dragged her forward and away from them.
The streets were mostly empty around this part of Finney Port, but an old woman in dark glasses hobbled down the road. She paused and leaned on her white cane as Celia passed. “Are you troubled, child? Do you need help?” she asked with a watery voice.
Celia didn’t know how to answer that as she hurried on. From somewhere many blocks behind her, a scream pierced the air. Was it Demetri? Daisy? Or, hopefully, the monster?
Another block gone, and she tried with all her will to turn around again. And for half a second she stopped walking, but then her body propelled her forward.
The frigid morning air seeped through her clothes, and Celia drew the soft hood of her Little sweatshirt over her head. Where should she go now? The safest place was probably back to the Littles’ warehouse. She laughed. The safest place was the one full of Littles who could turn her into a monster with one touch? Great.
Or there was the cathedral. The hunters would show up there eventually. But would they help her or hurt her? Maybe, since she’d escaped the Bigs, they would be nice again. Or maybe they’d force her to eat their spelled sleeping coin.
So that left one place to go. Celia walked fast—she couldn’t help it. She went out of the port neighborhood and through a fancy, hilly neighborhood called Green Slopes and then through downtown. Celia felt tiny as she walked between the giant office towers where scattered shards of mirrored glass littered the ground. The roads were buckled and curved. Celia passed blocks of ruined roads clotted with white snakeskins. She walked until she stood in front of her apartment building.
She looked up at the windows of her living room. Someone had pulled the curtains closed. She knew she’d left them open.
What if Celia’s parents had found a way home? What if they were up there right now waiting for her, and when she opened the door she could get to be a kid again? She could tell them everything, and they would help her figure out the right things to do. They’d figure out a way to keep everyone safe.
Celia ran up the seven flights of stairs until she stood, breathless, in front of her door. It was open a crack, and that had to be good. Except . . . the dead bolt was busted and the door was tilted off its frame. Maybe her parents lost their keys and had to force their way in?
“Mom? Dad?” Hope fluttered in her chest as she pushed the door open. Unease gnawed at her belly. What if it wasn’t them?
“Celia!” said a familiar voice. “You’re back!”
31
Silent Words
Ruby jumped up from the couch and faced Celia.
Amber walked out from the kitchen, holding a dish in her hands.
Celia’s hands curled into fists as she stepped away from the hunters. She looked for something she could grab and fight them off with.
Both girls came closer.
Celia looked around for her parents. They weren’t here. Of course not. She’d wanted to see them so bad.
“I thought I’d never see you again,” Ruby whispered, and ran a hand through her purple hair. She bit her lip and shook her head.
“I thought you’d died. I thought the Bigs had taken you and killed you in some awful way,” Amber said, and burst into tears. “I feel so guilty, Celia. I’m sorry. We’ve been waiting for you all night and day and we were both sure you weren’t coming back, but we couldn’t leave because that would mean giving up hope.” Amber put down the plate and took off her glasses. She mopped her wet face with the back of her sleeve.
&nb
sp; “You should feel guilty forever,” Celia said. She folded her hands over her chest. “Liars. Traitors.”
“We deserve that,” Ruby said. “That and way more. But we’ve changed. The Council of Elders didn’t like hearing that if we found you again, we wouldn’t hurt you, no matter what. But that’s what we told them.”
“That’s so nice of you to not be willing to put me in a coma for a second time,” Celia said. Whatever they said to her, how could she even trust they were telling the truth? “Leave. Both of you.”
Neither girl moved.
“The Elders kicked us out of the hunters. They said real hunters do whatever is necessary. But we said no. We couldn’t hurt you,” Amber said.
“You would have, if the monsters hadn’t broken down the door and attacked us.”
Amber hung her head. “Maybe. I’m sorry.”
Celia walked past them and sat down on the couch. She folded her arms over her chest and wished they would go away.
Both girls came to stand in front of her.
“You don’t believe us, do you?” Amber asked. She pushed up her glasses and rubbed the scars on her arm. “I get it, since we lied about the other stuff.”
“From here on out, I don’t lie to you anymore. And I’m never hurting a kid for them, ever again,” Ruby said.
Celia didn’t have any magic spells or secret way of seeing if they were telling the truth. “If I told you to go away and never come back, would you?”
They nodded.
They’d cleaned her apartment while she’d been gone. Pictures were hung back on the wall, all the broken things were picked up, and they’d put every book back on the bookshelf. But everything was in the wrong place, and even if it had been the exact same, nothing would ever be normal again.
Celia closed her eyes and thought about Demetri and Daisy fighting Soltminer and Krawl. What was happening with the two Littles? Had the fight ended by now? Who had won? She wanted to run and retrace every step back to the restaurant, but just thinking that made the binding spell lock her joints and stiffen her muscles.
Little Apocalypse Page 17