by Ryan Calejo
“VIOLET!” I shouted, starting toward her, but at that same moment, the Okpe whirled, giving the chain another powerful yank, and the box came arching back around. It screamed past me, the chain looping around my shoulders once, twice, three times and pinning my arms painfully against my sides before the Okpe caught the box with his other hand.
He pulled. The chains tightened around me. The breath exploded out of my lungs in a gasping cry.
I flailed and kicked and struggled, but the chains only got tighter, squeezing me, crushing me. I could feel my bones beginning to bend in the wrong direction, could feel my spine creaking and cracking under the incredible pressure.
I heard Violet shout, “CHARLIE!”
But what could she do? This thing was literally invulnerable. Even if she still had the sword—even if she had a rocket launcher—there wasn’t any way she could hurt this monster. No way she could penetrate his rocky armor.
Okpes didn’t have any weak spots—
Except… they did.
And remembering the legends, remembering exactly where that weak spot was, I opened my mouth to shout, “V, go for its heel!” but all that came out was a strangled wheezy squeak. In my panic, my eyes frantically scanned the ground for a weapon. And I spotted one! Violet’s dagger! It was right there, not five inches away, resting on a hump of bone between the ogre’s massive armored feet.
Just one little problem: My arms were currently being crushed into my sides, so reaching out for it was going to be more or less impossible.
Just then a movement caught my eye. Something was flicking near my left leg. A… tail?
No, my tail!
Desperate, pain lighting up my entire body like a Christmas tree, I reached out with it, clumsily at first, until I’d wrapped the fluffy end tightly around the sword’s hilt. Then I spun it around and drove it, pointy end first, into the soft pinkish flesh at the back of the Okpe’s foot.
As it turned out, I learned two very interesting things: a) the stories about Okpe’s having weak heels were much more fact than fiction, and b) basajauns might’ve been the most talented woodsmiths on the planet, because I hadn’t exactly gotten a lot of power behind my poke, but the razor-tipped hunk of wood still sank in like a fork into freshly baked flan. And as pretty much everyone knows, when someone drives something sharp and pointy into your foot, you usually scream. Okpe were no exception to this rule. The rock-encased piggy let out a squeal that could’ve probably been heard all the way to downtown Fort Lauderdale. He stumbled backward, releasing the box or cage or whatever, and the chains immediately fell away.
Gasping for air, I dropped to a knee, watching as the giant ogre began hopping around on one foot, clutching the other between his two rock-plated hands and shouting, “¡Mi talón! ¡Mi talón!”
“What’d you do to it?” Violet shouted as she ran up beside me.
“Nothing it enjoyed,” I said, grinning.
“Did you stab its foot?”
“Basically. The heel’s their weak spot. Just gave it a little poke.”
“Nice!”
“Yeah, I think he got the point.…”
V had to laugh at that (though she tried not to). Then she asked, “But will it, like, put him out of commission?”
I thought back to the stories and shook my head. In the ones I remembered, the tribespeople always defeated the monster by pushing it off a cliff; that was usually what it took to crack an Okpe’s armor. And now, as the ogre skipped and hopped dangerously close to the edge of the hallway, I saw my chance.
Dragging in one last gulp of air, I charged the Okpe, dropping my shoulder at the last moment, and slammed into the side of his leg like an angry billy goat.
I hit with a loud smack!
My head banged against his hip, and I just sort of bounced right off him, feeling like I’d run into a, well, a massive ogre leg encased in rocky armor.…
But it was enough. If just barely.
The Okpe tipped, tilted, tottered—and then, like Humpty Dumpty before him, had a great fall. He tumbled backward into empty space, huge arms and legs flailing, but finding nothing to grab on to.
Watching him fall, I had a sudden urge to shout, “Hasta la vista, bebe!” So I did. I mean, the thing had just tried to squash us.
But as I turned back to Violet with this big stupid grin spreading across my face, I felt the weirdest thing: Something had tightened across the front of my legs.
Something hard and cold and metallic-feeling.
I frowned, realizing what it was even before its loud jangling clatter reached my ears.
Jump! was the first thought that screamed through my mind. And I didn’t get a chance for a second before the chain swept through, spilling over the edge along with the box and taking me with it.
CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED FIVE
I plummeted, tumbling through the cold, stale air, turning over once, twice, the wind whooshing and roaring in my ears as the ground rushed up to kiss me good-bye. There was no time to scream, only to think, so as what I fully expected to be my final act on this side of things, I thought, Wings! I didn’t really expect anything to happen—it just seemed like a much nicer thought than picturing myself going splat surrounded by a swarm of dead things.
I felt a tingle down my spine. A rush of heat. And then something was pushing its way up through the skin and muscle of my back! I had another split second to think, No way! And next thing I knew wings were exploding out the back of my T-shirt with a great flappy, tearing sound! Now, I didn’t have a ton of flight hours logged with these bad boys. But I remembered enough from my little aerial scrum with La Cuca to instinctively stretch them out as wide as they would go—you know, to avoid making my very own Charlie Crater in the middle of the bony floor. Fortunately for me—and also for the zombie or two that I would’ve pancaked—it worked! Immediately the air caught me, and I soared up, up, up above the main altar, where the battle was still raging. Below, I could see what looked like a rolling carpet of scraggly, lumbering, desiccated bodies pressing mindlessly forward while a blur of claws and teeth and bursts of bright light tried to drive them back. Which, from the looks of it, seemed like a fairly impossible task.
There were just too many. Plus, those things couldn’t even die!
We needed to hurry.
Violet had just leaned out to peer down over the edge as I flew up toward it, and we almost knocked heads.
“Oh my gosh!” she breathed as we caught each other in big bear hugs, her eyes huge and wild. “I thought you were…”
I smiled. “Not yet. But c’mon—we have to find La Mano!”
We made it maybe halfway around the next bend when another familiar creature suddenly appeared in our path—the fox-serpent, El Nguruvilu! Standing on its rear legs with that strange tooth-lined tail curled up underneath itself like a coil, it looked like the result of some secret government experiment gone horribly wrong. Its dark foxy eyes were fixed on mine. The witch light glistened off the matrix of reptilian scales that ran along its long, slender body.
“Ah, if it isssn’t the captainsss of the two leassst impresssive boatsss I’ve ever had the pleasssure of capsssizing!” it hissed, grinning evilly.
“Charlie, what’s it talking about?” V asked me.
“It tried to drown us in Chile…,” I said as it hit me. “It caused the waves and the whirlpools! That’s what that thing does!”
El Nguruvilu nodded proudly. “Esss verdad… and sssoon I’ll make you wisssh that I’d sssucceeded!”
The fox-serpent’s sleek serpentine tail had begun to swell up like a balloon. Now its jaw came unhinged, and my heart stopped as a torrent of water spewed out from its mouth, slamming into us and knocking us onto our butts. The current was so strong, it carried us, kicking and screaming, down the center of the hallway and back around the bend. Before the wave of water had even fully died away, I saw El Nguruvilu come slithering rapidly into view, its scaly, slender tail already swelling up again.
“Violet
, watch out!” I shouted, scrambling awkwardly up, my feet slipping and sliding on the smooth and now soaked bones.
But it was too late. The creature opened its foxy fang-lined mouth again, and another powerful blast of water gushed toward us.
It raced along the ground, bubbling and foaming, and swept Violet and me right off our feet, sending us crashing against the wall with enough force to snap my head back. My right shoulder hit hard. One of my wings got twisted underneath me; pain shot down my side. I cried out, sucked in a mouthful of silty water, and started to choke.
As the force of the water ran out underneath us, Violet, who was lying a couple of feet away, rolled over, wiping hair out of her face, and shouted, “Charlie, how do you beat that thing?”
I was still coughing up water but managed, “Huh?”
“I’m talking about like in the legends!”
Great question. “I—I think you have to capture it! Hold its mouth shut like those alligator wrestlers in the Everglades do in the shows!”
“Seems like that might be difficult.”
“Seems like it?” Impossible was probably closer to the truth. How were we even supposed to get within five yards of the thing without being Super Soaker’d, much less hold its mouth shut?
V pushed unsteadily to her feet. “We’re gonna have to find a way to get close to it.” And she was right; problem was, the floor was so slick now that we might as well have been standing on a Slip ’N Slide covered in banana peels.
I could’ve probably slid for half a mile on th—
“I have an idea!” I shouted.
“I’m all ears,” V said, but before she could say anything else, I took off down the hall, using my wings like two extra limbs to keep from falling over. With perfect timing this might actually work; but we didn’t have time for perfect timing, which meant I was just going to have to “wing” it. (Pun intended.)
Nearing the bend in the hall, I leapt forward, feetfirst, throwing myself into a baseball slide just as El Nguruvilu slithered around the corner.
Its black eyes flashed as it caught movement in its peripheral vision, but it was too late. I popped to my feet, flicking my wings out like an overturned beetle, and wrapped my arms around the creature’s head, clamping its mouth shut.
It wriggled and writhed and hissed, but its slender snakelike body wasn’t all that strong, so it wasn’t going to be able to shake me off. Behind us, its strange tooth-lined tail had swelled up to about the size of a beach ball and was quivering angrily now.
“V, I got it!” I shouted.
A second later she came sliding around the bend, hands out at her sides like she was just learning to ice-skate. When her eyes found mine, she grinned. When she saw me in full gator wrestling pose, her face broke into a huge smile. But then her gaze drifted past me, up the hall, and her smile instantly evaporated. “CHARLIE, LOOK OUT!” she screamed.
I snapped my head around and thought, Uh-oh. Mario and Santi were standing less than twenty yards away, eyeing me with mischievous little grins on their mischievous little faces. Their eyes burned brighter than any torch, and I could see the trail of charred, smoky footprints their tiny fiery feet had left as they’d come running around the corner.
“¡Agárralo!” Mario shouted, and they both burst into fireballs. I blinked, and they were already sizzling through the air toward us, huge tongues of orange-yellow flames licking at the walls, the ceiling. I swallowed—hard—and because I didn’t have a whole lot of options, I did the first thing that popped into my brain: I whipped El Nguruvilu’s head around to face them and stomped on its swollen tail at the exact moment I let go of its mouth. A jet of super-pressurized water gushed out, crashing into the anchimayen. The water hissed and boiled, dousing them in an instant and sending up puffs of white-hot steam. The pair of anchimayen went flying backward, knocking their heads against the wall, then slumping to the floor, side by side, unconscious.
“BULL’S-EYE!” Violet shouted, pumping her fist in the air.
Grinning, feeling pretty good about it myself, I said, “Thought they looked a little hot under the collar.…” Which, in my mind, was probably the best burn I’d dealt out all day.
But apparently El Nguruvilu disagreed, because it craned its long, slim neck around to hiss: “That hasss to be the lamessst one-liner I’ve EVER heard!”
And since I couldn’t think of anything better to do (I didn’t have any other “lame” burns in my back pocket), I just slammed its head against the wall, felt it go limp, and called it a day.
“How’s that for a one-liner?” I said.
CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED SIX
I was about to ask Violet if she had her phone handy so I could take a selfie with El Nguruvilu (you know, the way fishermen do when they catch a huge marlin or whatever)—when another thought filled my mind—no, not a thought exactly… but a message: Charlie, hurry! ¡Apúrate!
It had come from El Cadejo. I knew it like I knew the sound of my own voice.
I hear you, I thought back (though I had no idea if he could hear me through thoughts) and said, “V, c’mon! We gotta find the hand already!”
As we flew up the spiraling hallways of bone, rising higher and higher into the dark castle, Violet said, “So we took care of water and fire—Saci, that dirty little traitor, is obviously wind—who’s left?”
“Earth, right? Those giant Minhocão things?”
“You don’t think there’s one of those in here, do you?”
“I sincerely hope not.”
We rounded another bend and came to a skidding stop as a figure appeared before us, tall and curvy, with a mass of writhing purple vines for hair.
“Madremonte!” I shouted. “Thank God! You have to help us find La Mano Peluda.… It’s around here somewhere.”
She stretched her buff, green-skinned arms out at her sides, and beneath us the jigsaw puzzle of bones that made up the floor began to buckle and crack as skinny twiglike branches pushed their way up through it. The branches grew branches themselves, thickening as they did, budding thorns as well as leaves. They twisted and twined, rising up on either side of her like a hedge.
One of the thorns pricked the back of my hand, and I flinched as blood ran warm down my index finger. “Madremonte, what are you doing?” I shouted. “We have get through—we have to stop La Mano!”
The mass of vines that grew out of her head began to change color, turning from a pale green to a dark reddish orange. Her voice was oddly cold as she said, “Perdóname, but I’m afraid this I cannot let you do…”
“What? Why not?” Violet snapped.
“Because she’s the traitor,” I said as it dawned on me. I watched a slow smile begin to tug at the corners of Madremonte’s lips as her glowing yellow eyes narrowed on mine. “You’re the one who told the vampire where the coffins were hidden.… It was you who kidnapped Joanna.” Which explained all the splattered plant guts we’d seen in the queen’s study. And also explained how an evil sombra had gotten past all the wards and spells that protected La Provencia.
And that explained all the slimy green plant guts we’d seen splattered over the furniture and floor in Joanna’s study.
“Eventuality is like a tsunami,” Madremonte replied calmly. “Either you embrace it or are crushed by it. The time of La Liga has passed. I have chosen to accept that. Will you?”
“So you’re the reason the forests are dying,” Violet said beside me. “Because you’re changing.… You’re turning evil.” Whipping around, she gripped my arm tightly. “Charlie, you can do this!” she rasped. “I know you can!”
“Wait, wait, wait. Do what, V? What are you talking about?” Because she couldn’t possibly be implying what it sounded like she was.
“Charlie, I believe in you! You got this!”
“Have you gone cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs? Listen to what you’re saying!”
“No, you listen to me! You can take her, Charlie. You can! You can beat Madremonte!” Violet paused for a moment, frowning. “
Okay, now that the words actually came out of my mouth, I’m not feeling so good about this anymore.…”
“Thank you! Now what are we gonna do?”
She glanced briefly toward Madremonte. “I’ll tell you exactly what we’re going to do. You’re going to give your lucky pair of underwear another rub, morph something SPECTACULAR, and just take her out!” She paused again, making a sad face. “Yeah, I gotta stop saying that out loud.… It’s just making things worse.”
“You think I got any chance?” I whispered.
“Not really. But I’ll be trying to come up with a plan before she kills you.”
Now, there was an idea! “I like it!”
“Go buy us some time.”
“It’s what I do best!” Giving my wings a quick flap, I turned back to Madremonte and smiled, hoping maybe she’d take it easy on me. Surprisingly, she smiled back, a sort of regretful smile, and raised one hand in my direction. She said, “Hasta luego, Charlie.…”
In the next instant something whistled out of the thorny hedge to her left. It streaked through the air, a greenish-brownish blur and, before I could react, pierced my chest like an arrow.
At first I didn’t feel anything. Not fear. Not pain. I just stared numbly at the skinny, ruler-length thorn sticking out of the front of my T-shirt. It looked so odd there—so out of place—and it felt wrong too. Like when you get sand stuck between your fingers or toes.
In what felt like slow motion, my eyes rose to meet Violet’s, and suddenly all the energy drained from my body and I collapsed at her feet.
I hadn’t even closed my eyes before the world went completely black.
CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED SEVEN
When I opened my eyes again, I was sitting in a familiar room, on a familiar red-and-yellow carpet, staring at a familiar television set with a familiar show playing on it: SpongeBob SquarePants. A familiar episode, too—when SpongeBob meets Jack M. Crazyfish and tries to save a lady who got tied to the railroad tracks. All around me, scattered over the Spanish-tile floors, were hand-drawn sketches of sombras: basajauns, chupacabras, acalicas. Some had been colored messily with crayons; others had been scribbled over with markers and had pencil holes punched through their faces. I realized I was sitting cross-legged on the floor, wearing my absolute favorite pair of pj’s, my Power Rangers pj’s—the ones I hadn’t been able to fit into since I was eight.