The Cryptid Keeper

by Lija Fisher

  It was a very serene, lazy-summer-day kind of scene, but still, something felt off.

  Then Clivo saw it. At the far corner of the lawn sat an older teenage boy with spiky red hair. His eyes were definitely trained on Clivo’s group, and his face was set in a knowing grin as his fingers viciously pulled the heads off dandelions.

  Who was he? Had someone from the evil resistance found them? The kid was young, but Lana from Luxembourg was Clivo’s age and had ended up being a much better fighter than him. Were they suddenly in danger?”

  “Clivo?” Stephanie asked, gently tugging on Clivo’s sleeve. “You ready to go in?”

  “Huh? Yeah, let’s just all stay together, okay?” None of the Blasters knew how to fight, so warning them that they were being watched wouldn’t do anything except frighten them, and Clivo wanted them focused on the task at hand.

  The group walked up some stairs to the second floor and into a large marble foyer with a gold-plated dome roof and tile floor. The happy chattering of Adam and Charles echoed through the cavern.

  They headed down a hallway into Bates Hall, the library’s main reading room, with its rows of tables illuminated by brass reading lamps. Bookcases nestled between pillars lining each side of the giant room. There were just a few people studying at the tables, and they all shushed Adam and Charles as they walked by.

  “Do you think Nosferatu will rise up and kill the head vampire guy?” Charles asked, pointing to the comic book cradled in Adam’s arms.

  “Dude! He can’t be killed! Remember the last edition, where they put a stake through his heart, doused him with holy water, threw garlic at him, and he still didn’t go down?” That loud exclamation earned Adam another shushing from a nearby table.

  Amelia turned to them. “Do you guys think you can behave yourselves while I hop into the rare-book collection?”

  Charles groaned and flopped into a wooden chair, its legs making a horrible squeaking sound on the tile floor. “This has just been a ‘day of don’t’ for us.”

  “Come on, dude, let’s crack open this baby,” Adam said, sitting next to Charles and pulling the comic book out of its plastic sheath.

  Hernando sat down across from them. “I’m going to sit and quietly contemplate life for a bit.”

  “Clivo, do you want to join us in the rare-book collection?” Stephanie asked, pointing to a room off one end of the hall.

  Clivo kept his eyes trained on the entrance to the reading room. “No, you guys go ahead. I’ll stay out here.”

  Everyone went about their respective tasks as Clivo traveled back toward the entryway, keeping his eyes peeled. Within moments he saw the kid with the spiky hair turn the corner. Clivo quickly darted behind a pillar and waited for the kid to walk by, but he never did.

  Clivo peered around the corner in confusion and realized the kid had disappeared. “Shoot,” he mumbled to himself.

  He kept watch until he saw a flash of red. The kid was on the near side of the room, walking stealthily, as if stalking prey.

  Clivo ducked and followed as the kid wove his way around the bookcases and big pillars. Chairs squeaked on the tiles, and from his hiding place behind a row of bookshelves, Clivo noticed the other readers leaving the room, obviously annoyed by the occasional loud laughs and snorts coming from Charles and Adam as they read their comic.

  The redheaded kid kept moving forward, and it had become obvious that he was heading toward the Blaster boys. Clivo slowly parted two books for a better view as the kid walked past, and he noticed something silver and shiny clutched in the boy’s hand. Was it a knife?

  The kid eventually stopped behind a bookcase just next to Adam and Charles. He tapped the silver thing on his leg as if he was gearing up to spring.

  Clivo sprang first. He jumped forward and pinned the kid’s arms behind his back, slamming him chest first onto the table directly in front of Adam and Charles.

  Hernando jumped up and promptly tripped on his feet, falling over, as the redheaded kid began to yell, “Excalibur! Excalibur!”

  “Is that your safe word?” Clivo yelled, his breath coming in gasps.

  Adam tilted his head to look at the kid, whose face was smooshed against the wooden tabletop. “McConaughey?”

  “Hey, Adam, whatcha guys up to?” McConaughey asked casually, even though his nose was pressed painfully against the table.

  “You know this guy?” Clivo asked, his body still flooded with adrenaline.

  “Unfortunately,” Charles said, rolling his eyes. “He’s a fellow cryptozoologist, from Vermont. We told you about him last summer.”

  “What are you doing here?” Adam asked, pulling his comic away from McConaughey’s face. “You’re always all up in our business!”

  “My dad is here for work and I just happened to see you guys!” McConaughey said, squirming against Clivo’s grip. “Hey, how many times do I have to say my safe word before you’ll let me go?”

  Clivo grabbed the silver item out of McConaughey’s hand and released him, then tossed the object onto the table. “He was stalking you guys and carrying this. I wasn’t sure if he was dangerous or not.”

  Charles scoffed. “Dangerous? As if!” He picked up the metal item. “It’s just a flash drive, and a crappy one at that.”

  “So what are you guys doing here?” McConaughey asked, rubbing his shoulder. “And why are you traveling with a bodyguard?”

  “We’re researching, as always,” Adam said, kicking his feet up on the desk.

  “Oh yeah? What are you guys researching?” McConaughey asked excitedly, taking a seat at the table.

  Charles snorted. “There’s no sitting with us!”

  McConaughey stood up with a groan. “Guys, it would be so much more fun if we could just combine forces once in a while! I have stuff to offer, seriously!”

  Adam was about to say something when Clivo interrupted. “What can you offer?”

  Charles and Adam looked at Clivo in disgust, but the cryptid catcher put his hand up to give McConaughey a chance to speak. Things were picking up speed in their search for the immortal and the other cryptids, and if someone could offer some information, like the Oracles, he was ready to take it. As the Blasters had said, every possible answer, no matter how far out there, needed to be explored.

  McConaughey jumped up and down excitedly a few times and blew air through his lips as if preparing to run a race. “Okay, get this. Do you guys know that the cryptids are disappearing? Like, nobody’s seen at least a dozen of them for a while!”

  Charles snorted, but Clivo encouraged McConaughey to continue. “We know that. Anything else?”

  McConaughey seemed crestfallen for a moment, but continued. “Oh, okay. So ANYWAY! Either they’re dying off, which would be a massive bummer. OR they’re all being corralled together, and that can only mean one thing!”

  “What’s that?” Clivo asked.

  McConaughey put his hands on the table and looked everyone in the eye in turn. “Someone is forming a cryptid army, fellas.”

  Adam looked as though he was about to say something, but stopped. He dropped his feet off the table and leaned forward. “Go on.”

  “May I sit?” McConaughey asked.

  “You can sit next to me,” Hernando said, offering the chair next to him.

  “Thanks, Hernando,” McConaughey said, eagerly taking a seat. “Okay, so picture this. We don’t know what special powers the cryptids have, but they must have something. You don’t live to be thousands of years old without learning how to do some pretty cool stuff. If I lived that long I’d absolutely learn how to shoot lasers out of my eyeballs.”

  “You’re losing us,” Charles said in a singsong voice.

  “Okay, okay, sorry, you know how excited I get about this stuff.” McConaughey wiped his hand across his face, which had begun dripping sweat. “Anyway, so if someone could bring a bunch of cryptids together and chain them to, like, a chariot with spiked wheels, that someone could take over the world with an army of fea
red creatures who shoot lasers or spit acid or whatever cool stuff they’ve learned how to do!”

  Charles groaned. “Dude! This is what you always do! You start with a great idea and then you totally spoil it! What are we supposed to do with that hypothesis?”

  McConaughey bounced on his chair a few times as if to calm himself down. “Okay, maybe the chariot thing went too far. But listen, if we can find the enslaved cryptids, then we can stop them from being used for world domination!”

  Adam laid his forearms on the table. “Now take this slow … How do we find the enslaved cryptids?”

  McConaughey plucked the flash drive from Adam’s hand. “With this.”

  “What is it?” Clivo asked, taking a seat next to McConaughey.

  “This, my friend, is the next revolution in cryptid finding,” McConaughey said, beginning to bounce on his chair again. “Every person emits heat and energy—that’s why infrared goggles work in finding people, right? What if it’s the same for cryptids? What if they emit some kind of unique electromagnetic signature that can be traced?”

  Adam pushed his glasses up on his nose. “You are starting to sound really awesome, so don’t ruin it. Go on.”

  McConaughey tapped the flash drive on the table. “This, gentlemen, holds the basic schematics for a crypto-thermal reader.”

  “You are sounding even more awesome,” Charles agreed, leaning forward as well. “You have our attention. Don’t lose it.”

  “Okay, okay,” McConaughey said excitedly, obviously thrilled to be the center of their focus. “So, this device will be able to read a cryptid’s electromagnetic emissions. You use the device anywhere in the world, and you can find where the cryptids are hiding.”

  “How does it work?” Clivo asked, intrigued.

  McConaughey ran his hands over his face a couple of times. “Okay, so it’s a super-cool pair of goggles that you put on. Big goggles, like a space helmet. Once you put them on, the real world vanishes and all you see is the energy emitted by the cryptids. It’s like you’ve stepped into a totally awesome secret world, the world of myth and legend, instead of just the boring stuff that’s all around us.”

  “Neat,” Hernando agreed.

  “Thank you, Hernando,” McConaughey said, catching his breath after the exciting presentation.

  “And you’ve built this crypto-thermal reader and it works?” Adam asked, his eyebrows raised in challenge.

  McConaughey swallowed. “Well, no. I just came up with the idea and designed the goggles. But I figure that if you guys wanted to go in on this with me, I’d give you the design and you can, you know, figure out how it actually works.”

  Adam was staring off into the distance, and Clivo could actually see the wheels of thought spinning in his eyes. “McConaughey, I never thought I’d say this, but you are a genius,” Adam said.

  “I am?” McConaughey asked, surprised. “I mean, yeah, I know I am.”

  Adam leaned over and whispered something to Charles, who nodded. Charles stood up. “Listen, man, your ideas are getting better. Like, a lot better. Just do some more research on how this crypto-thermal reader might actually work, and we’ll consider bringing you in.”

  “You will?” McConaughey asked, jumping to his feet. “I mean, yeah, sure, that’d be great. I’d be happy to share my research. Thanks, guys, thanks a lot!”

  Clivo noticed Stephanie and Amelia coming out of the rare-book collection. Time to go. He turned to McConaughey, who shifted his eyes nervously under Clivo’s penetrating gaze. “I don’t know you, but I’m going to make the assumption that you’re one of the good guys. Am I wrong to assume this?”

  McConaughey’s face melted in disbelief. “Yes, I’m one of the good guys! My mom would kill me if I tried to take over the world!”

  Clivo smiled. “Then you’re already on our team. Just make sure you stay there.”

  McConaughey waved as the Blasters hurried away. “Bye, guys! Thanks! I’ll be in touch!”

  “Was that McConaughey?” Stephanie asked as they exited the library. “What’s he doing here?”

  “He wants us to help him build a cryptid-finding device,” Adam said distractedly.

  “Do you think it’ll work?” Stephanie asked.

  “It’s actually a solid hypothesis, for once,” Adam replied, still staring off into the distance. “If we had more time, we could explore it. But here’s the main thing—all of McConaughey’s chatter gave me another idea about how to find the cryptids.”

  “Nice,” Amelia said. “And I’m maybe closer to finding the immortal. I’ve been working on something for a while and needed to check a source I couldn’t find online. This place had exactly what I needed.”

  “High fives, Blasters!” Charles said. “Let’s hope that crazy pilot doesn’t crash on the way home, so we can get to work!”

  X

  They arrived home in one piece on Sunday morning after what turned out to be an overnight flight back home. The trip had been pretty uneventful, save for a few unintentional descents when Alex drifted off now and then, and a tire that popped as they landed, causing the plane to come to a stop on the wheel’s rim in a shower of sparks.

  But everyone had managed to catch some shuteye on the flight, and when they reached their mountain home they were ready to get back to their research.

  “Hernando and Charles, I’ll need your help checking this hypothesis I have about how to find the missing cryptids,” Adam said, walking up the driveway toward the house. “Amelia and Stephanie, you keep working on who the immortal is.”

  “Careful of the rope!” Clivo yelled a split second too late.

  Adam took one more step, and instantly the rope lasso tightened around his leg with a snap, whipping him off the ground and upside down and sending his glasses flying.

  “I’m coming, buddy!” Charles yelled, darting forward to help Adam. But just when he was almost to him, another snap sounded and Charles had just a moment to scream in surprise as a punching bag came flying through the air, knocking him on his back with a brutal thwack.

  Jerry came running out of the house and began slapping his leg and laughing. “Whoa! Sorry, guys, I didn’t hear you coming! As you can see, I added a few more traps while you were gone.”

  “Yeah, we noticed,” Clivo said over Adam’s overdramatic yelling. “Are we safe to move?”

  “Sure, just make sure you skip the third step here,” Jerry said.

  Clivo slowly lowered Adam to the ground, and Hernando helped Charles to his feet, brushing pine needles out of his puffy hair. Charles was a bit wobbly and had to be supported by Hernando, who struggled to keep him upright.

  Adam was not pleased. “Dude! Your traps keep attacking the wrong people!”

  “Well, if you’d tell me when you’re coming back instead of just taking off without me, I could plan better!” Jerry retorted. “Am I part of this team or what?”

  “Yeah, yeah,” Adam said, climbing the steps to go inside.

  “Watch the third step, man,” Jerry reminded him.

  Adam stopped. “The third step up or the third step down?”

  Jerry screwed up his face and scratched his chin. “Good question. Skip both, just to be safe.”

  Adam rolled his eyes and used the banister to help him climb over the booby-trapped steps. Everyone else followed, being careful to avoid those steps as well.

  They descended to the basement, with the Blasters going to work on their individual tasks while Clivo filled Jerry in on everything.

  “So two comic-book nerds and a random guy in the Boston Public Library helped you guys figure stuff out?” Jerry asked.

  “Don’t ask me how, but it seems like everyone is suddenly onto something,” Clivo replied, watching as the Blasters huddled in corners, talking to each other about their discoveries.

  Jerry looked down at his hands, which were busy tying a rope into knots. “You guys just took off on me yesterday morning. I showed up and only Pearl was here. I had to pet her cats for an hou
r before she let me get to work.”

  “Huh?” Clivo asked, bringing his attention back to Jerry. “Oh, geez, I’m sorry, Coops. It totally slipped my mind to tell you we were going out of town.”

  “That’s the thing,” Jerry began. “It never even occurred to you to take me with you. If I’m not part of the team, Wren, then just tell me. But don’t ignore me, hoping that I’ll go away. Friends don’t do that to each other.”

  Jerry’s words shocked Clivo. Clivo didn’t feel any of those things, but when he really thought about it, he could totally understand why Jerry thought he did. “Coops, that’s not it at all. Having you on the team is the best. Yes, your booby traps have made coming in and out a little unpredictable, but I asked you to design them. I didn’t ask you along to Boston because, I don’t know, I’m just trying to protect everyone, and the easiest way I can do that is to keep you here. Believe me, I would have left half of the Blasters behind if they had let me; they just make more noise about it than you do.”

  Jerry eyed Clivo carefully. “Truth?”

  Clivo nodded. “Total truth.”

  “Okay, then I’m going to say this once and only once. By leaving me behind, you’re leaving the one person out who can actually protect you.” Clivo started to say something, but Jerry cut him off. “Listen, Wrenmaster, the evil resistance isn’t coming after me, they’re coming after you. You need protecting, and it’s my choice if I want to do it or not. You can’t be the only person in danger—others of us need to shoulder the risk. Leaving me behind to keep me safe isn’t going to cut it anymore.”

  In a smooth motion, Jerry slipped the rope around Clivo’s wrists and yanked it tight so Clivo’s hands were stuck in a rope handcuff. Jerry flashed him a wide smile. “I got skills, man, you know I do. And you need ’em.”