Angor Reborn

by Richard Ashley Hamilton

  Thunder rumbled overhead. So, yes, as much as Jim needed to defend his friends, he needed to find a way to defend them. His eyes returned to the canal and glimpsed a stray piece of paper float beneath the bridge. It was a brochure for the Museum of Arcadia.

  And just like that, a new resolve overtook Jim. It was now time for the Trollhunter to hunt once again.

  CHAPTER 12

  NIGHTMARE ALLEY

  Claire opened her eyes, yet all she saw was more blackness. She felt a chill, even though her purple armor, and clutched her staff, willing it to open a portal back to Arcadia.

  “Help!” shouted Claire, her breath fogging in the cold, dead space. “Jim, are you out there? Can you hear me? Please, hear me! I . . . I feel like we just met—like we just found each other—not that long ago. I don’t want to lose you! I don’t want to be lost! Not here! Not again! Not all by myself!”

  She tried and tried again, but no portal came. Her tears crystallized into ice. And Claire remained stuck in the Shadow Realm.

  Toby wasn’t doing that well either. In his mind, he was six years old again, visiting his parents’ graves. Nana stood behind him, drying her eyes with a lace handkerchief, while a younger version of Jim put his arm around Toby’s shoulders.

  “I never got to say good-bye,” Toby sobbed. “Not to my parents. Not even to you, Jimbo.”

  Now a teenager in armor again, Toby looked to the side, but his best friend was gone, as was Nana. He searched the gloomy cemetery with his eyes and called, “Jimbo?”

  Toby accidentally backed into a third tombstone and wailed when he read the name engraved upon its marble surface: James Lake Junior.

  Meanwhile, the Changeling originally named Waltolemew Stricklander dropped onto one knee. Never feeling so certain about anything else in his long, deceitful life, Strickler reached into his coat pocket, pulled out a small box, and opened it. A brilliant diamond ring shone from within, and he presented it to the woman before him: Barbara.

  “I know I wasn’t completely honest with you when we first met, but that’s changed now,” Strickler proposed. “I’ve changed, Barbara. All because of you.”

  Rather than accept the ring, Barbara laughed. Strickler watched as her face grew long and twisted until she looked like a reptile. In the blink of an eye, Barbara Lake revealed herself as a Changeling. She laughed again at Strickler’s shocked face and said, “Oh, poor, foolish Walt. You of all people should’ve known that everything I ever felt for you was a lie.”

  Strickler wept, heartbroken. And nearby, another Changeling cried too. NotEnrique’s wide, yellow eyes streamed with tears from inside a pet carrier. On the other side of the cage, he saw his surrogate family: Ophelia and Javier Nuñez, along with their daughter, Claire, and their true son, Enrique. The little blond baby blew a raspberry at NotEnrique, and Javier asked, “Are you sure it’s okay to return him to the orphanage?”

  “Please!” begged NotEnrique. “Gimme a second chance! I’ll show ya I’m good! I’ll show ya I can deserve yer love!”

  “As city councilwoman, I can rewrite the laws,” said Ophelia. “Not that it matters. I mean, who’s ever going to adopt him?”

  NotEnrique curled into a ball and gave up hope. That hopelessness crept over to Gnome Chompsky. The pint-sized warrior staggered out of the smashed remains of Toby’s dollhouse carrying Sally-Go-Back’s broken body in his arms. Her acrylic helmet was cracked, her articulated waist snapped in twain, exposing the empty plastic mold designed by her manufacturer. But to Chompsky, Sally wasn’t just another girl who was made in Hong Kong. She was the love of his life. And she was gone forever.

  Eli rifled through his bulletin board filled with grainy UFO photos, crude sketches of monsters with stone for skin, and other scraps of purported paranormal phenomena.

  “Where is it?” Eli said. “Where’s the one piece of evidence that links it all together?”

  But he stopped searching when he heard his mother call to him from downstairs, “Eli, are you up there pretending to be important again?”

  “It’s not make-believe, Mother!” Eli yelled back. “It’s true! It has to be. It needs to be! I need to be a Creepslayer!”

  “Well, the newsman on the TV just said it’s all fake,” nagged Mrs. Pepperjack without even a trace of sympathy. “Trolls, aliens, wizards, you name it. They’re all part of a giant hoax, and you’re the only one who ever fell for that bunk. Oh well . . . now you can go back to always being the understudy in drama club!”

  “Nooooo!” Eli screamed to the heavens.

  Steve thought he heard Eli’s muted scream through one of the lockers behind him. He didn’t know how or why, but Steve found himself back at Arcadia Oaks High School. And across the soccer field, Steve saw a blond, powerfully built man turn his back and walk away.

  “Pop?” Steve called out to the man. “Pop, where are you going?”

  He raced after the faceless figure, but his father always remained just out of earshot, just out of reach. Exhausted, Steve tripped and fell onto the field, begging, “Pop, don’t go! I’ll do better at the next game! I’ll score more points! I promise I’ll make you a proud papa!”

  • • •

  Doctor Barbara Lake tried shaking the sobbing Steve awake, just as she’d tried with the others. But they were all too far under the Pixies’ spell to even respond. Barbara ran over to Merlin, who stood calmly with his back to her in the center of the alley, and said, “Merlin, we’ve got to do something to help the others. I can’t explain it, but you and I seem to be the only ones who’re immune to the—”

  She stopped when the wizard turned and gazed at her with wide, haunted eyes. He grabbed Barbara’s arms and said, “You see them, don’t you? Don’t you?! They’ve occupied my nightmares since the days of Avalon!”

  “What, the Pixies?” asked Barbara.

  “No!” whispered Merlin before staring into the distance. “Dolls . . .”

  “ ‘Dolls’?” Barbara repeated. “Merlin the Wizard is afraid of dolls?”

  “Not just any dolls!” Merlin exclaimed hoarsely. “Little porcelain girl dolls, with their chipped faces, strange eyes, and horrible little voices that repeat the word ‘papa’—”

  “PAPA!” Steve shrieked randomly behind Barbara.

  “Always ‘papa’ . . . until the end of time!” Merlin finished.

  “This . . . explains a lot,” Barbara said as she released the wizard and watched him collapse on the alley floor. “But it also means you’re suffering from the same mass hysteria that’s affecting everyone else. And I have absolutely no idea how to stop it. . . .”

  CHAPTER 13

  REPEAT OFFENDER

  As much as the horns made his head feel heavy and awkward, Jim couldn’t deny how helpful his other new attributes had become. The extra pounds of muscle on his body allowed him to run into town in record time—all while carrying a wolf. And his larger, more clawlike hands and feet let Jim scale the walls of the Museum of Arcadia like a spider.

  Jim’s first impulse was to let his friends and family know he was alive, but he wasn’t quite ready to face them. He didn’t want to see their expressions as they processed his Trollish appearance. Besides, Jim still had a score to settle with Angor Rot before he could ever allow himself to return home. If only the Trollhunter knew how close his loved ones were at the moment—trapped in their nightmarish alley exactly one block away from the museum.

  Reaching the roof, Jim and Sir Barks-a-Lot looked through a wide skylight. His long, sharp fingernails scored one of the windowpanes, carving a hole in the glass. Jim reached inside, unlocked the skylight, and swung it open. He then patted his hands on his knees, signaling Sir Barks to jump into his arms.

  “Going down. Next floor—sporting goods, pet supplies, and rocks and minerals,” Jim joked before he jumped them into the museum.

  Jim landed like a cat and set the wolf pup down on the floor. He looked at the rock show around them. The last time he’d been there, Jim stopped a hungry Gruesome
with sacks of flour, and some help from Toby, Claire, and the Creepslayerz. Of course, no patrons toured the closed exhibit at this late hour. And fortunately for Jim, there weren’t any security guards in sight either.

  “I’ve really gotta stop breaking in here,” he whispered. “ ‘Repeat offender’ won’t exactly look great on my college applications. If they even accept semi-Trolls at Arcadia U . . .”

  Jim walked over to a large geode on display. He sniffed around its pedestal and smelled ozone. He narrowed his mutated eyes and noticed thin red lines crisscrossing around the valuable crystal. Jim took a breath and steadied his hand. He reached between the beams, careful not to trigger the high-tech alarm system.

  Jim successfully extracted the crystal from the invisible web, then repeated the process with five more rocks and gems. As Sir Barks kept silent vigil, the Trollhunter arranged the various stones on one of the museum benches. Vivianite, amethyst, fire opal, wulfenite, peacock coal, and obsidian all glittered in an iridescent rainbow before Jim, and he said, “Please, Vendel, guide my hand. Wherever you are . . .”

  Recalling the lessons the old, white Troll had once taught him, Jim dug his fingers into the gemstones. Vendel had always used chiseling tools, but those weren’t an option on this night. Thankfully, Jim’s new nails did the trick, cleaving the crystals along their facets.

  You humans cut stones to unlock their beauty, Jim remembered Vendel telling him. But Trolls cut stones to unlock their power.

  As the Trollhunter chipped at the rocks, he wondered if the same could now be said of him. In cutting away his last ties to his old life, his humanity, hadn’t Jim unlocked new power inside himself—Troll power?

  Jim finished and wiped the sweat off his horned brow. He marveled at the six carved gems twinkling back at him. Jim pulled the Amulet from his torn jeans and loaded the reshaped stones into the empty chambers in its back. Closing the device’s rear compartment, he watched a full spectrum of colors wash over its surface and the incantation dial start to spin. When it stopped, the Amulet presented Jim with a new order of words.

  The Trollhunter’s eyes set with determination as he read, “ ‘For the pursuit of Angor, Moonlight is mine to command.’ ”

  Merlin’s Amulet activated in Jim’s hands, firing off more orbs of energy, only these burned black and white. They orbited rapidly around him like a tornado, and the winds they generated blew back Sir Barks’s whiskers. The wolf pup was forced to turn his head away. But when the cyclone stopped and the exhibit hall went quiet again, Sir Barks looked back and raised his ears in surprise.

  Jim stood before him in an all-new suit of Moonlight Armor. Varying shades of light and dark gray swatches camouflaged its plates, and the Amulet shone like a full moon over Jim’s breast. A fanged smile spread across the Trollhunter’s face. He flexed in the sleek, lightweight armor and said, “These new rocks ROCK!”

  Sir Barks growled softly, and Jim saw flashlights sweeping across the corridor in front of them. He and his little lookout instinctively backed toward the other corridor behind them. They stopped short when they heard footsteps approach from that direction too. With their only two exits blocked by patrolling security guards, Jim took Sir Barks back into his arms, unsure of which way to go. But once he felt raindrops patter against his head, he realized they had one other option.

  The skylight remained open about two stories above them. Even with his upgraded Troll strength, Jim wasn’t sure he could make that kind of vertical leap.

  How the heck am I supposed to get up there? thought Jim as the museum guards neared.

  The Moonlight Armor suddenly shifted under him, and Jim’s boots lifted off the ground. He looked down and saw that he now stood on a pair of curved metal arcs, each one about two feet in length and painted in the same gray-on-gray pattern. They reminded Jim of the jogging stilts he’d seen cutting-edge athletes and acrobats use in extreme sports competitions.

  “Those’ll do,” whispered a very impressed Jim.

  He bent his legs and jumped, the stilts vaulting the Trollhunter and Sir Barks through the skylight—and about another ten yards beyond that. By the time the guards reached the raided exhibit, all they found was a puddle of rainwater on the floor and the crystalline crumbs that crunched under their shoes.

  CHAPTER 14

  FATA MORGANA

  “You can do this,” Doctor Barbara Lake said to herself.

  As the rest of Team Trollhunters confronted their worst fears along the alley, it reminded her of the virtual reality programs her hospital used to help patients deal with anxiety. Only these waking terrors seemed much more convincing than anything experienced through a headset. They seemed almost like . . .

  “Fever dreams,” Barbara realized, noticing the sweat beading on everyone’s faces. “They have fevers. And those I know how to treat. I just need to diagnose the source of the infection.”

  She looked at the Pixies again. Their hundred-watt bodies burned brighter every time someone cried out in fright. Occasionally, one of the Pixies would break from the rest to nip at the open pouch of Grave Sand, then speedily return to the flock.

  “Okay, the Pixies are the virus,” said Barbara as she recalled her medical training. “And that black sand stuff is the host medium. So, to make an antivirus . . .”

  Barbara got down on her hands and knees and feigned illness. She tried to replicate the same symptoms the others had, groaning in torment, all while crawling closer to the Grave Sand. Barbara inched over, hoping the Pixies wouldn’t notice. She wondered again why she wasn’t afflicted with hallucinations, with delusions, with . . .

  Fata Morgana, she thought, the words popping into her head for the first time in decades.

  Barbara had first heard them when she studied painting in Rome during a college semester abroad. She may not have learned how to cook like Italians do, but Barbara somehow remembered their term for “mirage.”

  Making it to the Grave Sand, she waited, never taking her eyes from the pouch. As soon as another Pixie landed there to feed, Barbara cinched it shut around the unsuspecting critter.

  “Gotcha!” said Barbara, feeling the Pixie bounce around inside the sack. “Now, if you like that stuff so much, why don’t you eat all of it?”

  She shook the Grave Sand pouch and saw the Pixie brighten from within its folds. Giving it a few more shakes, Barbara loosened the pull strings and peeked inside. A swollen Pixie lay at the bottom. It had eaten all the Grave Sand. Its tiny, bloated body thrummed. Its glow shifted from yellow to white-hot. Barbara grabbed the Pixie and said, “Oh, no you don’t! Don’t go critical just yet!”

  She held on to it and climbed halfway up the alley’s fire escape. Barbara reached out to the other Pixies, who were floating inches away, and said, “Not until they get their medicine too.”

  She shut her eyes and opened her hand. The overstuffed Pixie burst in her palm. The miniature blast triggered a chain reaction, as Barbara hoped it might. Getting hit by the shockwave, the next Pixie over quickly went supernova and blew up too. In turn, the Pixie next to that detonated, as did the one next to that, and the one next to that. Most of the Pixies exploded over Barbara’s head, while the ones in the periphery dropped to the ground.

  The alley changed back to its usual nighttime appearance, and Team Trollhunters abruptly snapped out of the spell that had haunted them. What was left of the Pixies rained down upon Claire, Toby, Strickler, Merlin, NotEnrique, Chompsky, and the Creepslayerz like smoldering confetti. Merlin shook the fog from his head. He noticed Barbara climbing down the fire escape and said, “You did it. But how could a mere mortal woman best a foe that I, the world’s mightiest wizard, could not?”

  “ ‘Mere mortal woman’?” Claire echoed in outrage.

  “Not cool, dude,” Toby said to Merlin as they got to his feet. “For a guy who just woke up from a thousand-year nap, that wasn’t a very woke thing to say.”

  “Even I wouldn’t cross that line, beard-o,” said NotEnrique.

&nbs
p; “Neep,” Chompsky concurred.

  “Eh, he’s just jealous,” Barbara said of the wizard with a wink.

  She dusted the Pixie bits off her hands and started to help the others up. After she’d assisted the Creepslayerz, Eli said to his teammate, “I had no idea Jim’s mom was so . . . so . . .”

  “Hardcore,” Steve finished for him.

  Barbara then pulled Strickler off the ground, who said, “Why, thank you, Doctor. You cured us all, even if the source of your immunity remains a mystery.”

  “It’s no mystery at all, Walt,” she explained. “I’m sure the Pixies tried to mess with my head too. Only what they didn’t realize is that I’m already living my worst fear. Ever since the day he was born, I’ve worried about losing Jim. I just hope my nightmare ends soon.”

  That’s when Gunmar’s remaining Stalklings landed at each end of the alley. And Barbara knew that her nightmare was nowhere near over.

  CHAPTER 15

  FEARFUL SYMMETRY

  Angor Rot dipped his fingers into the mud and used them to draw dark lines across his pockmarked face. The war paint made him look even more gaunt. But Angor Rot did not care. This was tradition. This was ritual. This was what the hunters of old did before they claimed their final kill.

  He stared at the lake and the smoldering remains of the bonfire on the shore. He awaited the inevitable. Angor Rot chose this location for a reason, wanting to end the night’s battle where it began. The symmetry of burying the Trollhunter where he had been reborn pleased him.

  Snap.

  His yellow eye darted to the side, scanning the woods. The sound had come from there, as Angor Rot predicted. He touched the pouch of gemstones secured around his neck and said, “I knew you would return, my not-so-human hunter. And to tread so closely before giving yourself away! It would seem Merlin’s final champion has finally mastered the element of—”