by Nina D'Aleo
“I followed you, Master Eli. Please forgive me if this was wrong.”
“It wasn’t wrong,” Eli said. “But please don’t call me ‘master’ – as I said before, we’re equals …”
“Equals,” Flintlock repeated. She processed the word for a few moments before kneeling down and pressing her forehead to the ground in the gargantuan-breed manner of submission. “You freed me. You are my master and I am your wife …”
Eli opened his mouth, then snapped it shut as her words hit him – wife. Realization sank in – the chains, the attack – in searching for a way to save Jude he’d inadvertently intervened in a Corámorán betrothal rite, entered into a challenge and, somehow, won …
Eli thought about arguing the point, but then he noticed the enormity of her biceps, the spiked club at her side and the oversized electrifier strapped to her waist, and he decided that straight-out refusing a woman of this girth was potentially life-threatening.
“And I’m extremely pleased to have you …” he stammered instead. “But you really don’t have to be my wife if you don’t want to.”
Flintlock raised her head. She asked with some timidity, “And if I should want to?”
“Well …” The physical logistics were somewhat mind-boggling. “Then I’d have to buy myself a really sturdy bed … or ladder … or something …” As he said the words he realized they sounded a lot ruder than he’d intended. “I have a situation at the moment,” he told her. “I’m not turning you away – I just – I have to focus on this …”
“I understand,” Flintlock said. “Tell me what to do and I will do it.”
The air beside them blackened and shivered; it zapped with electricity. Eli stumbled back and Flintlock stepped protectively in front of him. He peered around her legs as Luther materialized. Sunbeams hit his shadowy form and it sizzled. He grimaced and lurched sideways into the shade. Usually Midnight Men could only appear at mid-dark, but being a half-breed clearly gave Luther some scope to play with. Eli felt a rush of emotion at seeing him and Moses. He came forward and might have even hugged them, if he didn’t think Luther might accidently bite him in half. Moses licked Eli’s fingers and whined softly. He sensed Flintlock keeping close behind him.
“Someone’s taken the commander,” Eli told Luther, and saying the words aloud stirred the panic inside him. “Diega and Silho, too …”
Luther’s eyes hardened with the news. He gesture-wrote in the air, “I want to help you find them.”
Eli nodded. “I know a man who knows everything. It’s a place to start.”
Luther looked past Eli to Flintlock and narrowed his eyes. Flintlock was studying him with equal suspicion.
“My friend, Luther. My … wife … Flintlock …” Eli introduced them quickly before one of them attacked.
Luther’s eyes darted to Eli and then back, and then he attempted the most awkwardly savage and inappropriately timed smile Eli had ever witnessed. It was just plain weird – even for Eli, who most of the time felt like the definition of the word – but Flintlock didn’t appear to mind. She gave a grunted Corámorán greeting, then held one hand out to pat Moses.
Wings whirred behind Luther, and a Greer, late to the unwelcoming, zoomed in with a rogue grin and a squishy dye bomb ready in one hand. Luther flared up to a monstrous shadow and Flintlock roared, showing her dagger incisors. The Greer splattered the balloon over his own head and flew past with a look of horror frozen on his face. It made Eli wish he’d known these two when he was in school. It would have made life a whole lot easier. Still it was never too late to have two truly terrifying friends – especially now that he was faced with trying to save the rest of the team alone. A sob broke from his throat and Eli slumped to the ground, his legs giving up. He couldn’t do this. He had nothing left.
Flintlock grabbed him by his wings and hoisted him onto her shoulder, where he perched like a particularly uncomfortable featherless bird. The shock of it shook him out of his breakdown. He was too nervous of offending her to refuse the offer, so instead he just said with restrained over-politeness, “Straight on. Many thanks.”
Luther stepped back into the shadows, and as Flintlock started off, the impact of her footsteps shaking the ground, Eli thought of an appendix to his gran’ma’s saying – “When you can’t carry on, the Khaiti God provides … an enormous woman to carry you.” He was quite sure she wouldn’t approve of this addition, but he thought it had a nice ring to it.
He now sensed many eyes watching them from the shadows and from behind curtains. The news would spread like the plague. They headed down Firefly Avenue, passing a whole street of sweet shops smelling of warm candy floss and chocolate of every flavor, then another lot of game and trick stores, which instead of stairs to enter had bouncy slides and mirror-maze doors. Overhead an empty rollercoaster zoomed through the town. All the colors, sounds and smells were so overwhelming that Eli realized he must have been away for too long. Before it had just been normal, but now the whole place looked to him like someone had taken a load of happy pills, smoked a whole heap of funny grass, then decided to build a city level – which, incidentally, was a pretty accurate description of the founding history of Ufftown and all the other imp-breed suburbs.
In the town center, they finally found some Greers out and about – their skin dyed all different colors, their hair-dos strange and clothes mismatching by Urigin standards. Every person who saw them coming crossed the street or ducked into a shop to stare as they passed. They came to the corner of Woodworm Street and Eli tapped on Flintlock’s head. She stopped in front of a narrow alleyway. On the other side was Bellbeater’s Antique Bookshop. There was no way Flintlock would be fitting through, so Eli leaped down off her shoulder and said, “I’ll be back in a second.”
His new Corámorán companion nodded. She crossed her arms across her chest and turned to stand in front of the alleyway, as though to guard it. Eli raced between the two buildings, conscious that anything could get dumped over his head at any moment. He broke through on the other side and skidded to a stop. His gasp was so loud it startled a flock of brightly colored parrots feeding nearby. They took to the air and Eli’s heart gave five echoing thuds before his breath rushed back to him. The street where Bellbeater’s shop had stood, plus the next five streets behind, had been bomb-flattened. There was nothing left but rubble, scattered with hundreds of shimmering Khaiti green diamonds laid down for the dead. Eli scrambled up into the wreckage, searching frantically for the remains of Bellbeater’s shop. He spotted the shop’s sign, cracked and broken beneath a chunk of stone wall. Two diamonds had been placed nearby. Making sure not to touch them, Eli got in as close as he could to read the names etched into the gems –
Beatlebee Bellbeater I
Beatlebee “Swifty” Bellbeater IV
Tears rushed to Eli’s eyes. Swifty had been one of his best friends when they were young – they had been roommates when they first moved out of home into a tiny apartment above a popped corn store. The store’s machinery had regularly suffered malfunctions, flooding their apartment with oceans of popped corn. They’d also gotten their first “legal” job together, stacking books for Mr Bellbeater, Swifty’s great-great-great grandfather. They’d then taken separate paths, and never properly said goodbye.
Eli lowered his head and cried for them, whispering the Khaiti blessing for the passed. He stayed there until something stirred behind him and he heard a quark. Eli looked over his shoulder to see a blackbird sitting on a pile of bricks. The poor thing had obviously been in some trouble – its feathers uneven and dirty, one wing hanging askew. Eli assumed it was a lost pet, maybe belonging to someone who had been killed.
He sniffed and wiped a hand over his eyes, then stood carefully.
“Hey there,” he said, his voice thick with grief. He moved toward the crow with an outstretched hand. “It’s okay. Are you hungry?”
He came right close to the bird and it climbed onto his arm, digging sharp claws into the skin. It stared
into his eyes with a shiny blue gaze, then lunged forward and pecked him on the nose. Nelly darted out of his pocket chattering, scolding, and the blackbird flew upward. Eli grabbed his throbbing nose – it was a sharp reminder.
“The book!” he yelled. “Bellbeater’s book on dark magics!”
Eli buzzed his wings and shot up into the air after the blackbird. It saw him coming and took off, leading him on a speeding chase through Ufftown. It darted through windows and out doors, up along buildings and down tiny winding streets. It crashed through one apartment, where Eli got tangled in the curtains and fell down onto a bed, on top of a person who was lying in it. He apologized profusely and tried to move away as fast as he could, only to realize the person, a girl with an extremely cheeky smile, was dragging him back in. He managed to evade her clutching hands and escape out the window, where the blackbird was resting on the ledge. It took off again, Eli just behind it, grabbing at it, his hands clapping empty each time. He just couldn’t get hold. Something dark crashed in from his left, slamming into the bird and trapping it in shadowy hands. Eli touched down on the ground as Luther materialized with the squirming crow in his grasp. The bird gave one last indignant squawk and morphed into the book.
“Good work, Luther!” Eli said. He reached for the book, but was shunted to one side as someone else ploughed into him. He hit the pavement and looked up to see the imp-breed girl from the bed straddling his chest. She had a very pointy, keenly inquisitive face, bright eyes, and bouncing blonde curls covered with way, way too many bows.
“Hello!” she grinned into his face.
Eli tried to maneuver her off but she kept rolling back on, grappling with him and giggling hysterically.
“Sorry … Sorry … oh, sorry,” she kept saying. Luther watched on, his eyes darting, not sure what he was seeing or what to do about it.
“Okay, okay, okay!” Eli said, shoving her off him and scrambling up.
The girl continued grinning, beyond oblivious. She came at him again, trying to hug.
“Enough!” Eli shouted. “This is not a game! I am not playing!”
The small Greer’s face was sober for a micro-second and then she was laughing and grabbing at him again. Her hands went downward toward his pants.
“Hey!” Eli fended her off.
“You have one too!” Her eyes shimmered with childlike excitement.
“One what?” Eli backed away, confused and unnerved.
“A slinky minx!” She rifled in her pocket and dragged out a small and shiny black slinky minx, smallest of the animal cat-breeds. It meowed at Eli with the tiniest of voices.
“This is Mr Nimbles. What’s yours called? Your slinky minx – I see it there. In your pocket,” the girl said.
“She’s not a slinky minx, she’s a miniature freshwater otter,” Eli said, finally realizing what she was talking about.
“Ooh, I had a great-great aunt on my mother’s mother’s side who knew someone who knew someone else who had an otter,” the girl told him, then started bouncing up and down in front of him saying wee – weeee – weeeee. Eli stared, incredulous that anyone could actually be this hyperactive, then he realized he’d been this and more when he’d first met Copernicus. The thought of the commander sent pain lancing through his chest.
The girl Greer stopped bouncing as suddenly as she’d started and said, “I’m Diamond LeSwer – and you, you are Eli Anklebiter. I know seventeen of your cousins.” She held up one hand and started listing, “Sem Swish; Nehemya Hooperhopper; Samsmall; Samtall; and Tallsmall Spidersleg —”
“That’s – that’s great,” Eli cut in. “Look I don’t have time to talk right now, so —”
“Did you see, we’re the same,” she interrupted him. “Look – look – lookey – look – look.” She held up her arm marked with the bloodlines of both Glee and Greer. “You and me,” she grinned and raised her eyebrows. She started singing a song featuring the lyrics “you and me”, which Eli had never heard and highly suspected she was just making up now.
“Great. Excellent. Awesome,” he said with forced restraint. “It was nice meeting you. Now I’m going this way – you go that way – and good luck to you.”
Eli turned and marched with Luther to the end of the street, where he stopped and took the book from the Midnight Man. The last time he’d had this book it had opened for him by itself, but this time it just lay there unresponsive, so with caution he flipped it open, searching the first few pages for a table of contents. Someone started breathing right behind him. He looked over his shoulder and Diamond LeSwer was there, with her wide, shining eyes and over-eager expression. Eli realized, this one was going to be extremely difficult to shake. First he’d try ignoring. He turned his back on her again and found the contents pages of the book. He scanned down the Ps. If he could figure out how to reopen the portal the commander and the others had gone through there was a chance to get them back. Diamond leaned over his shoulder, eating strawberry sour chews. Some saliva dripped on his neck. His heart leaped as he found the entry for Portal and the page number – 784. He flicked fast with trembling hands.
He opened it to 782, flicked over the page – but it was 785. He checked again. The page was missing – ripped out.
“Nooo.” Eli clenched his fists, his panic surging back in. It blurred his thoughts in a way he’d never experienced before. He could barely breathe or think. He felt himself passing out and started counting back from forty-six, while his unwanted new best friend tried to force-feed a sour chew up his left nostril and pickpocket him at the same time.
Veins convulsed in his temples – one in his neck felt just about to burst.
“Go away!” he yelled at her. “Seriously!”
She regarded him with confusion. “To where?”
“I. Don’t. Care!”
“Why?”
“Because you’re aggravating me!”
“How?”
“By being here.”
“Who’s that – what’s his name?” She looked at Luther.
“It doesn’t matter. Just —”
“Shh. Wait. Listen.” She cut him off. Eli paused, waiting, wondering if she’d heard something ominous.
“Listen,” she repeated. “Closer, closer – closer.” He moved nearer and, in the silence of their listening, Diamond released a squeaky toot of gas. Immediately a noxious odor engulfed Eli’s senses. He couldn’t believe it. He had no words at all. The girl was laughing uproariously, rolling around on the ground, until she stopped suddenly, looked up at him from her sprawled position, and said with all seriousness, “I love you. Marry me.”
Eli saw a flash of an image of him and this girl, with her all-too-revealing pink tutu, standing at the altar. He stifled his first response of hysterical laughter and instead said, “Look! Ice-cream craft!” He pointed to the end of the street.
“Ice-cream!” the girl shrieked, leaping up and flying wildly away, falling for the very oldest trick in the book.
“Quick!” Eli said to Luther. He clutched the book against his chest and the two of them ran, winding their way back out of Ufftown to where Eli had parked the Gypsy Rose. The craft’s exterior was unfinished, but the engine was running well enough to fly. Eli approached it, lost in a hurricane of thoughts, not registering the person standing near the Gypsy until Luther halted beside him and Moses released a rippling growl. Eli looked up and saw Smudge K-Ruz and her black panther standing in the shadows. He stared at the stunning pair – Smudge, lean and aloof, with glowing eyes and small dark marks all over her face and body. For him, she defined beauty, and under any other circumstances, finding her waiting here would have made him melt into a sticky mess on the ground, but today, with everything he was facing, he managed to just stand there looking vaguely constipated. He noticed that Smudge’s eyes were bloodshot, her face tearstained. Inski pawed restlessly at the ground.
“I want to speak with Kane,” Smudge said.
“The commander …” Eli struggled with the words. “He’s
gone …”
“The Fen?” Smudge asked.
“Gone too.”
“The Ar Antarian?”
Eli shook his head. “It’s just me left.”
Smudge looked him up and down, her anxiety showing in the whites of her eyes, desperation crumbling her usually cool exterior.
“No,” she murmured.
Eli spoke quickly. “I think they’ve all been taken through a portal by the people who attacked us, but I’m working on a way to get them back. I will get them back.”
Smudge shook her head, and he could see she was still in shock.
“They’re already fighting to replace him …” Her voice was detached, “Julio will win. He’s not Caesar. He has no control. He will have war with the machines until Scorpia is nothing but ash.”
“I’ll find them. I’ll bring Caesar back,” Eli tried to reassure her.
She looked into his eyes, and for a moment they were connected, then her gaze shifted to something behind him. Eli glanced back, then did a double-take – Luther was grinning at her with eyes like knives. He was staring and then looking away and all around in a staccato way. The ground started to tremble as Flintlock ran up to them – she started to roar, but Eli jumped to intervene.
“No – no – no, Flintlock – this is – this is …” Eli’s mind went blank.
“Smudge,” Smudge said and Inski flicked her tail in annoyance.
“I don’t know – I mean I know that – I know who you are – definitely – completely,” Eli said, then a giggle escaped him. His eye twitched and a dye bomb exploded over his head, drenching him in purple goo. Diamond LeSwer flew past, laughing and farting.
Smudge’s expression was a mix of disgust and disbelief.
“I should never have come here!” she growled and ran away.
“I’ll be touching you … I mean, getting in touch,” Eli called after her.
To say the moment had been ruined was perhaps the grandest understatement ever uttered, but it really was the least of his worries, unless embarrassment suddenly became fatal. He used the flash-key to open the Gypsy Rose and climbed aboard. He put Bellbeater’s book of dark magics into Nelly’s carry cage and shut it, in case it morphed back into a blackbird. Flintlock and Luther stood waiting outside the craft.