When I entered the dark storage room, the first thing that hit me was the smell of fresh fruit. My mouth watered at all the food Stitch and his crew had managed to plunder. I found a bag of bargle berries near the back of the room. I found something else too.
The image of a rocketboard had been burned into my mind since Pequod’s tentacle zapped me onto that beach. And now here it was in a storage room, staring me right in the snout. The bag of bargle berries fell to the floor. Why was the rocketboard in a food-storage room? Was it loot from one of Stitch’s earlier voyages?
I picked up the rocketboard and inspected it closely. It was old, covered in dust and seriously in need of a tune-up. I put it on the ground and gave it a push. It barely moved. The wheels were seized. It was useless. Why had Pequod put an image of it in my head?
A cool wind blew against my ankles. I looked down and saw a goblin-sized hole in the bottom part of the wall. The rocketboard had been blocking the hole. Suddenly I knew why I’d seen the board in Pequod’s visions.
I tossed the board aside, dropped to my knees and crawled through the hole. On the other side was a full-sized tunnel, tall enough for an ogre. A set of wooden steps in front of me led deeper underground. Looking behind me, I saw that the hole I had just crawled through was actually in a bricked-over doorway. Someone didn’t want anybody to come this way. But Pequod definitely did, and that was good enough for me. Hoping Guznik would forget about the bargle berries, I made my way down the stairs.
They led me deep under the foundation of Stitch’s mansion. The walls became bedrock, hacked away to form a tunnel. I crept slowly along the tunnel, hoping it would lead me to more than just the pirate king’s secret wine cellar. When I heard voices, I froze. They were coming from farther down the tunnel.
“This ends now, Captain Stitch.”
It was a woman’s voice. It sounded familiar, but I couldn’t place it.
“You’re wrong about that.” The second person laughed. It was Stitch, no doubt about it. “It’s only the beginning. If you tell your guards to stand down, I’ll show you.”
Guards? My mind raced. Was Stitch being arrested? Were we too late to bust the mutthead? I moved as quickly as I dared toward the voices. Farther along, the tunnel opened onto a large cavern. Another set of stairs led to the cavern floor. I didn’t take them. Instead, I scurried into a shallow crevice to watch the two monsters at the foot of the stairs.
Stitch stood with his back to the steps, speaking to someone I could not see. What I could see was the row of SlurpCo security guards on the far side of the cavern. I nearly fell off the ledge. What was SlurpCo doing here? Who had led them here, so far from Rockfall Mountain? Stitch stepped aside, and I had my answer. Mirella Ballaworth’s tiny eyes burned into Stitch.
“My guards will not stand down,” the SlurpCo executive said. “We tracked you all the way here to get what is ours.”
“Tracked me?” Stitch chuckled. “My dear Mirella, we’ve been expecting you. Why do you think you made it all the way to Hilsa’s laboratory without a struggle? We’re even preparing a big feast in your honor.”
“I’m not here to feast with you, Stitch,” Mirella snapped. “I’m here to arrest you, by the authority of Mayor Grimlock himself.”
“Can he even do that?” Stitch chuckled. “We’re a bit out of his jurisdiction, aren’t we?”
Mirella buzzed right up to Stitch’s furry face. “Never underestimate what Mayor Grimlock can do.”
Stitch stumbled back, his paws raised in mock defense. “No need to get upset.”
“I’m not upset.” Mirella’s words oozed sweetness that quickly turned sour. “I’m livid! You have stolen from SlurpCo Industries. No one does that and keeps their tail.”
“You should be thanking me, Mirella.” Stitch prowled around the little blaze fairy. “Because of me, your precious cargo destined for department stores will now let you control Slick City and the rest of that pathetic mountain you call home.” The kobold grinned, showing sharp teeth from ear to ear. “And you’ll make SlurpCo Industries a dragon’s hoard of money in the process.”
Mirella buzzed to a stop. “Did you say money?”
“Lots of money.”
“Now I’m intrigued.” Mirella resumed her route. “Continue.”
Stitch’s tail wagged like it was trying to escape his butt. I’d never seen the pirate king so happy. Not even when he was stuffing his face with grilled slabberjacks after a long nap.
“Hilsa!” Stitch called toward somewhere deeper in the cave. “It’s showtime!”
The far wall of the cavern slid to one side.
My claws dug into the rocky ledge. My brain struggled to take in what I was seeing. Sitting in front of me were the shipping containers from the deck of the Wave Dancer. This was where they had ended up after Hilsa made them vanish. The appliances sitting on the pedestals must have been the contents of the containers. And I’d bet a month’s supply of choco-slug cookies that the goblins standing next to the pedestals were from Fishers Hollow. But what really gripped my scales were the three cloaked figures next to Hilsa. Was one of them Gwena? Were the other two her father and brother?
Captain Stitch grinned like a game-show host. “Before you, Ms. Ballaworth, is a selection of SlurpCo Industries’ finest products for the home.” Stitch held up a tiny, dark square no bigger than a coin. “Inside each of these products we have installed one of these amazing computer chips. Designed by my chief wizard, Hilsa, this little chip promises to unlock a world of wealth and power for your company.”
Mirella eyed the captain with skepticism. “This I’d like to see.”
“You will.” Stitch passed the computer chip to Hilsa.
Hilsa placed the chip on the pedestal in front of the three cloaked monsters.
“Right now that is an ordinary computer chip,” the wizard said. “A piece of simple technology found in everyday devices like your appliances. But when you combine this tech with magic, you can turn those devices into money-making machines for SlurpCo.”
“Impossible,” Mirella scoffed. “Our labs have worked on combining magic and technology for years. The results were nothing but explosions and disaster. In fact, we very nearly blew up all of Rockfall Mountain before we shut down all the research.”
“Yes, but the brilliant Hilsa has found a way,” Stitch said. “Watch.”
Hilsa raised his staff over his head and uttered words of magic. Light streamed from the wizard’s staff, engulfed the cloaked monsters in front of him and flowed into the chip on the pedestal. The chip briefly glowed before the magic light faded. Hilsa lowered his staff. The three cloaked monsters collapsed to the ground.
“The process is quite a drain on the conduits,” Hilsa said. “What is important, however, is the end result.”
“As you can see, the chip has been transformed.” Stitch held up the chip for Mirella to see. It now sparkled with the purple light that could only mean one thing.
“Magic!” Mirella gasped. “You successfully mixed technology with magic?”
“We did.” Stitch beamed. “We call it MagTech! One of these magically enhanced chips has been installed into each of these household devices.”
“Why?” Mirella asked. “Whatever for?”
“Officially, it will make the devices more energy efficient. Unofficially, it does something much better. Watch and see.” Stitch turned to face the goblins standing next to the appliances. “Get to work, you layabouts!”
The goblins began using the devices. The poor monsters were clearly too terrified to disobey the pirate captain. One goblin turned on the vacuum cleaner and began pushing it back and forth on the cavern floor. Another popped slices of bread into the toaster and began making toast. Mirella watched them all with growing confusion.
“This is your plan to make SlurpCo money?”
“No. This is.” Stitch held in his hands a small metal box the size of a TV remote. The box had a short antenna and a microphone. The pirate captain spoke in
to the microphone. “Stop.”
Immediately the goblins froze in place. They stood as still as statues.
“Turn and face me,” Stitch said.
The goblins spun to face him.
“Raise your right arm over your head,” he commanded.
The goblins obeyed.
“Is this meant to impress me?” Mirella scowled. “Your mage has them under a spell. Simple wizardry.”
“It is wizardry, but it is not simple.” Stitch waved a paw toward the SlurpCo guards lining the wall. “See for yourself.”
A second group of goblins with more appliances stood near the guards. I’d been too focused on Hilsa and Stitch to see them arrive. The goblins stood with their right arms raised. And they weren’t alone. The SlurpCo guards also stood motionless, right arms raised over their heads.
“Put your arms down!” Mirella buzzed furiously. The guards didn’t move. The blaze fairy turned on Stitch. “What have you done to them?”
“We’ve turned them into obedient consumers of SlurpCo products,” Stitch said. “Inside each appliance is a MagTech chip loaded with a command spell.” The pirate captain held up the box with the microphone. “With this little controller, you can activate that spell and control the actions of anyone within range of a SlurpCo device containing a MagTech chip. Launching a new gizmo and want to ensure it’s a hit? Simply use this box to command your customers to buy it, whether they need it or not. They will dutifully obey and make your sales soar.”
Mirella looked down her tiny nose at Stitch. “And what happens when the spell wears off and they return their unwanted products?”
“They won’t,” Hilsa answered. “I’ve designed the command spell to ensure there is no buyer’s remorse. Customers will remain convinced they need your product and simply not bother to return it.”
“You’ll never have a failed product launch again, Mirella,” Stitch said. “Every new SlurpCo toaster, TV or washing machine will be a smash hit! Just tell your customers to go out and buy, buy, buy, and watch SlurpCo’s profits grow, grow, grow.”
“It’ll never work.” Mirella shook her tiny head. “Combining magic and technology is illegal. We would never be able to sell our appliances if monsters knew what was inside. And if we didn’t tell folks about the chips, it wouldn’t be long before some tinkering troll found one in their toaster and started asking questions. There’s no way your plan will work while combining magic and technology is against the law.”
“Then change the law.” Stitch grinned. “If a SlurpCo blender can tell a customer what to buy, it can tell a citizen who to vote for. The perfect gift for the politician in your pocket, er, life.”
Mirella buzzed around in a tight circle, thinking. “Mayor Grimlock could use this to help him win the next election.”
“All he’d have to do is change the law.” Stitch stepped closer to the blaze fairy, looking like a dragon ready to pounce. “And, as you said, never underestimate what Mayor Grimlock can do.”
“Why do this for SlurpCo, Captain Stitch?” Mirella asked. “I thought pirates only looked out for themselves.”
“We do, Mirella,” Stitch said. “Our original plan was to do all this without telling SlurpCo. My crew would have made millions by commanding those fools in Slick City to hand over their life savings. By the time the MagTech chips were discovered, we would have been long gone. But since you found our little operation so quickly, I decided to cut you in on the action. Take the appliances and use the MagTech chips to make SlurpCo’s sales soar. You’ll get all the credit. Who knows? You could be promoted and running the company within a few years.” The pirate captain licked his snout. “In return, you drop the charges of theft against us and give us a slice of the profits.”
The blaze fairy buzzed around the cavern, inspecting the appliances closely. After a minute she stopped in front of Stitch.
“Very well.” Mirella’s eyes burned into Stitch. “But if you breathe a word of this to anyone, you and your crew of furballs will take the blame for it all.”
“We have a deal!” Stitch clapped his paws in delight. “This calls for a celebratory feast!”
I was numb from snout to tail. Stitch had just confessed to stealing the ships, yet he was going to get away with it. Not only that, but he had just made a deal worth a lot of money with the monsters he’d stolen from! Mirella might be willing to let Stitch go for piles of cash, but I definitely wasn’t. My heart pounded at the injustice of it all. My friend Gwena and the rest of the villagers were still held captive. And back home, Tank’s mom was still out of her job as harbor master. Stitch and SlurpCo might think the case was closed, but for this detective, it was still wide open.
The rest of the day was a blur.
After Chef Gunzik nearly pulled my scales off for taking so long with the bargle berries, I scrubbed dishes and mopped floors until the evening shift took over. The whole time, my mind ran in circles trying to figure out a way to stop Stitch and Mirella and free Gwena and the other goblins. At the end of the day, I was still a detective without a plan. I filled in Tank and Aleetha as I forced down another bowl of watery gruel.
“So when SlurpCo found out Stitch’s plan, he cut them in on the action and invited Mirella to be the guest of honor at tonight’s feast,” Tank said when I had finished bringing them up to speed. “He’s a quick thinker. I’ll give the mutthead that much.”
“Mirella will be sitting with Stitch and Hilsa in the rooftop dining room.” I had overheard the dinner details from Gunzik in the kitchen. “Apparently, it provides an excellent view of the bay.”
Aleetha rolled her eyes. “That’s good to know.”
Tank dunked a chunk of rock-hard bread into her lukewarm soup. “Why don’t we find Mirella and tell her how Stitch is holding us all prisoner? She’ll remember us from the harbor master’s office.”
“Mirella doesn’t care about any of that,” I said. “She’s only interested in making more money for SlurpCo. Even if it means lying, cheating and breaking the law.”
“That’s the only way you become an executive in a company like that,” Aleetha said. “Besides, if Mirella did see us, she definitely wouldn’t want us returning to Slick City to expose their plan to secretly put MagTech chips in new SlurpCo products.”
Tank swallowed her bread. “So we stick to our original plan and search for the door we saw in our dreams?”
“And hope it leads us back to Fang Harbor,” I said. “It’s a long shot, but it’s the only shot we have.”
After dinner Aleetha led us through the tunnels under Stitch’s mansion. The big feast was just getting started, so the tunnels were empty. All the kobolds were up top with their captain. The only kobolds we saw were ones late for the party, and they were too focused on getting up to the roof in time to stuff their snouts to bother us. After a short while Aleetha stopped at a spot where tunnels branched off in three directions.
“I passed this way earlier today,” she said. “Look familiar?”
One tunnel climbed upward, and another sloped downward. Between them a third tunnel stayed level and continued straight ahead.
“This is where my dream began,” I said. “I was facing three tunnels just like this.”
Aleetha’s eyes brightened. “That’s what I was hoping you’d say. My dream started here too.”
“And mine,” Tank said. “I walked down the middle tunnel.”
“So did I,” I said.
“That makes three of us.” The lava elf marched down the middle passage. “Let’s go find this door!”
I hurried after her with a spring in my step. But by the time we’d passed the tenth door without a match from our shared dream, my steps had become pretty much free of any bounce, and I had lost hope.
“This is crazy,” I said. “I don’t remember walking this far in my dream.”
“It was a dream, Fizz.” Tank sighed. “I don’t think it’s going to be an exact match. But I agree, we have walked a long way.”
Just
a little farther.
I moaned. “Okay, Aleetha, whatever you say. I’ll go a little farther.”
Aleetha’s eyes narrowed. “I didn’t say that. I thought you did.”
“I heard that too,” Tank said. “But it was in my head.”
A little farther. Hurry.
“There it is again!” I said.
The words echoed in my mind, but each of us heard it as if the speaker were next to us.
“It’s the voice from the dream.” Aleetha looked down the tunnel. “We must be getting close.”
Aleetha ran ahead, Tank close on her heels. My friends clearly didn’t think it was strange we’d all heard a voice in our heads—at the same time! My tail twinged with doubt. Who was behind the voice? Was it a message from home, like the news reports we’d watched in the lighthouse? Was it one of Hilsa’s tricks? Before I could voice my doubts, Aleetha’s voice rang out from around the corner.
“We found it!”
I rushed to catch up with my friends, letting my doubts fall away.
The door slammed closed behind us. We weren’t in Fang Harbor. We were still in Howler’s Bay and still in big trouble.
Another large cavern opened around us. Rough stone walls on either side stretched off into darkness. The cavern ceiling was high overhead. There was enough room in here for a dragon to land. Tables, some covered in thick books, tools and sharp blades, dotted the room. The place looked like another one of Hilsa’s demented workshops. Looming in front of us was the subject of the wizard’s experiments, the source of all our strife and the reason we weren’t in Slick City anymore.
The giant ship-stealing meglohydra Gwena called Pequod floated in a glass tank the size of city hall. A pair of monstrous eyes stared out from behind the glass. The creature’s gaze didn’t fill me with terror as I had expected. There was something else in those eyes.
“It looks sad,” Aleetha said.
“Or hungry.” Tank worked the handle of the door without luck. “And the door is locked.”
“Of course it is,” I moaned. “We shouldn’t have come here.”
The Case of the Tentacle Terror Page 6