"Do you know what this place is?" Faben whispered.
"Some kinda cathedral?" said Chuggie. "Or maybe the Gooch's workshop. This is where we'll find what we're after… if we're going to find it at all."
"I don't like this," Faben planted her feet wide as if she didn't want to take another step.
"What's to like? Just get ready to summon something. I'll go ahead."
Chuggie crouched down and crept into the chamber. The loose bones underfoot clacked and clattered. As he looked back to check Faben's progress, a gurgling, malicious snicker filled the chamber.
◊ ◊ ◊
Kale drew a deep breath as he stepped through the front door of his house. What horrible mess had the orphan created today? Kale pushed down his annoyance and smiled. It wouldn't be much longer now, and he'd be free of the brat.
Olin sat on the floor in Kale's study with paper and coloring sticks spread all around him. He drew pictures of animals on Kale's linen rag letterhead. The embossing alone was worth as much as anything that putrid kid or his whole extended family ever owned. Kale bit back his rage. He could feel it building up in his stomach and shoulder muscles.
"You're not allowed in here," Kale choked out the words. He would have rather snatched up his letter opener and cut out the little bastard's heart, but he remained calm. Soon enough.
"I couldn't find any paper anywhere else." Olin smiled but didn't look up from his work.
"Come on," Kale grabbed Olin's arm and lifted him to his feet. "I don't want you in here. Let's take the drawings and the pencils and go to the kitchen."
"Okay." Olin picked up his things and followed Kale. As he climbed up in a chair, he asked, "Am I in trouble?"
Kale forced his face into a smile. "Of course not, boy! You know, tonight is a very big night for you."
"Really?" said Olin. "What are we doing?"
"Tonight you get the surprise I've been telling you about." Kale tousled the boy's hair. It took a great deal of restraint not to yank out a handful.
"I can't wait," Olin said.
"How is your face feeling?" Kale made his voice sound sympathetic and fatherly.
Olin's hand slid to the tortugy mask hanging from his waistband. "It's okay. The ice cream helps."
"Then let's get you some more ice cream."
Tonight there'd be no loose ends, no meetings, no interruptions — no drunken drifters to interfere with his plans. As soon as it got dark, all of Kale's hard work and planning would finally pay off. He couldn't wait for the sun to go down.
◊ ◊ ◊
"Light, Faben! Now!" Chuggie hollered.
Across the chamber, the Desecration's tyrant pounded heavy fists into the bony floor. Fragments shot out in all directions, and dirt fell from above.
"Light!" Faben shouted. Her voice wavered with anxiety.
A pinprick of blue flashed and expanded. It burst, spraying gobs of liquid light that clung to the walls and dripped down.
In the dim blue glow, a colossal pile of darkness, nearly large enough to fill cathedral-like space, crawled across the bone-littered floor. The creature pulled itself up onto squatty, bowed legs. Its bulbous head bobbled atop its wide, round body, giving it the appearance of a shadowy infant almost twenty feet tall. One huge hand held onto the wall as if to balance itself, and the other clawed at the air. Its gurgling wet laughter decayed into a wail of rage.
All around it, a swarm of decayed abominations climbed to their feet. In the dim light, their silhouettes looked like warped and gnarled human bodies fused with animal parts. Their grotesque, unnatural shadows bleated and bellowed and moaned at Chuggie.
"Are you seein' this, Faben?" Chuggie hollered.
"I'm seeing it," Faben called back. "Is it… a baby?"
"Biggest one I ever saw." Chuggie fought for solid footing.
The gurgling, hiccupping laughter stopped. The giant baby roared as though someone had taken his oversized, fetid pacifier. "Who… invade?"
The Gooch lurched into the light. A hideous quilt-work of dead flesh and horrified faces comprised its body. A matted fur sash hung across its chest. From it hung skulls, pelvic bones, and spines, along with daggers and helmets. And — a purse with the face of a goat.
"I see it!" Chuggie waved to Faben as he yelled. "I see the purse! He's got it strapped to his chest with a bunch of other shit. Get me a clear run, and I'll rob this baby blind."
Faben swung her arms like a conductor leading an orchestra. "Not long now," she called.
"That's a good thing, Faben." Chuggie's mouth fell open.
The Gooch grunted and groaned as he pushed a rotting deer, antlers and all, out of the opening between his legs. When the mock-childbirth was over, the Gooch picked up the thrashing, desecrated animal and licked it.
Behind Faben, a little creature like a rabbit crossed with an owl hopped out of the shadows. It darted around, sniffing Faben's leg and chirping with alarm at the Gooch. It latched onto her calf, screeching like a monkey and clawing like a cat.
Chuggie glanced at Faben and did a double-take. "What the hell is that little thing supposed to do?"
Faben grimaced as the little owlish rabbit creature's claws pinched her. She re-situated it and gave it a swat on the nose. "It's a binder."
Still holding the squirming deer monstrosity like a slimy teddy bear, the Gooch's hulking hand flailed until it grasped a handful of what looked like dead vultures. It stuffed them into its gaping maw, cramming them deep down its throat. Choking and snorting, it swallowed them. The Gooch unleashed a sound, half belch and half roar. It echoed off the walls of the chamber.
Chuggie whirled his anchor over his head as the Gooch's shadowy horde stalked toward him. The smaller minions were able to climb over the bones with more speed. The larger ones had to wade through, often tripping and stumbling.
As soon as the first one came within range, Chuggie flung the anchor and pulverized it. It tumbled backwards, limp as a dead fish.
Chuggie trudged through the skulls and the bones in a constant struggle to keep his footing. A girl with a rotting cow udder for a head crawled at him on all fours. Scapula bones stuck out like a duck bill from the place her mouth should have been. Chuggie hacked at her neck with his hatchet, and black grease squirted from the wound. The hatchet slipped from his grip and sailed into the shadows. He drew the other hatchet, chopped the rest of her head off, and stomped it until it broke open.
The Gooch dropped the desecrated deer, and it flailed its hooves until it got its feet on the floor. Its dead gaze bored into Chuggie from eyeless sockets. As if on a signal from the Gooch, it charged past its lumbering comrades, somehow surefooted atop the bones.
Chuggie swung. His anchor smashed into its skull, crushing its head into its rib cage with a spray of stringy slime. The deer's broken body tumbled back, landing in a twitching pile.
"How's that coming, Faben?" Chuggie shouted.
"It's… done!"
The binder whimpered and dug its claws into Faben's leg.
A dark cloud formed above Faben and churned like a sack of hungry wolves. The cloud puffed apart, leaving a seam of light in the air like frozen lightning.
With a deafening crack, the Moon Dreg burst forth. It howled like a nightmare hound and clawed at its own flesh. Spines and spikes protruded from its metallic black skin. A row of leathery wings down its back beat at the air. A long, forked tail lashed behind. Beneath its beady, deep-set eyes, nostrils flared in its short snout. It gnashed and snarled with teeth so large and plentiful that it couldn't close its mouth.
"Do my bidding, and earn your freedom!" Faben hollered. "By the ghost of my father, Aono Brassline, I command you! Attack my enemy!"
The Moon Dreg bellowed like an ox on fire and flew up to the ceiling.
"What are these… new toys?" asked the Gooch.
Chuggie hurled his remaining hatchet at a donkey-thing that loped toward him on bony, stilt-like legs. The hatchet stuck in its neck causing it to trip and crash face first into a
stony point jutting from the bones. He quickly retrieved the hatchet and gave the stilted ass a flurry of chops to the face.
"I come for that goat-face purse." Chuggie pointed to the Gooch's belt. "How about you just give it to me?"
"Mine!" said the Gooch. His giant baby hand, covered in the rancid black sludge of desecration, clapped over the purse.
Hearing the demonic roar overhead, Chuggie looked up to see Faben's demon swoop into a savage dive.
The Moon Dreg smashed into the Gooch like a demonic missile. The two of them crashed into the wall. The Dreg's many wings stabbed and clawed at the Gooch's body. Their mighty arms hammered and tore at one another. Deafening roars filled the cave. Rocks and boulders sprayed in all directions.
The titanic wrestling match between the Moon Dreg and the Gooch raged on as Chuggie crept in close. The Dreg dove behind the Gooch, wrapping its arms around his neck. The Gooch clawed at the Moon Dreg's arm and spat slime as he screamed. The roaring Gooch slammed backward into the wall over and over. The Dreg held on, swiping at the Gooch with the talons on its feet. The Gooch kept pounding backward. Dust and gravel tumbled from the ceiling with each impact. Even their roars seemed to do battle, amplifying the chaos of the moment.
"This place is coming down!" Chuggie charged at the Gooch with all the drunken determination he could muster.
Stones and dust crumbled down from the ceiling. A boulder crashed into a pile of bones, pulverizing them in a blast of fragments.
Chuggie's trophy, the goat-face purse, hung just feet away on the Gooch's sash. He scaled the putrid baby leg, but it was like climbing a bucking ox. He pushed off the Gooch's thigh and lunged at the sash. He wrapped his fingers around the braided tendon and human scalps and whacked it with his hatchet. The blade wouldn't slice through the sash. Shola's freedom was in his hands. He hacked away, but he couldn't cut it free.
He held on as the Gooch heaved backwards against the Moon Dreg. The Moon Dreg, in turn, choked the Gooch even harder while gnawing on the back of his head.
Dangling from the sash right next to the goat-face purse, Chuggie saw an ancient-looking dagger carved from bone. He lurched for it. He managed to cling to the Gooch's stinking chest by snatching at the tendon sash. In his flailing, he grabbed the bone dagger. Touching it sent a jolt of energy up his arm. He wrapped his hand around its hilt and forgot all about the hatchet. The dagger pumped vitality and clarity into his core. He flicked the blade at the Gooch's sash. His free hand shot out and snatched the goat-face purse.
He had his prize, right there in his hand! Shouldn't there be a flash of golden light to mark his success? Or perhaps a triumphant horn sounding from on high?
Instead, Chuggie's mouth filled with blood.
The Gooch slammed his baby fist into the Dreg and wailed as his tendon sash slipped. He snatched up the loose end of the sash. At close range, Chuggie looked into the Gooch's eyes — slime-covered skulls peering out between leathery lids. A chill shot through him as cold as the grave of an unwanted bastard left to die in the woods. The Gooch was hell-forged and malevolent as any creature Chuggie had ever encountered.
Chuggie leapt away. With the dagger in hand, his mind was clear, quick, even sharp. Thanks to his new found clarity, the reason for this was obvious: this dagger had power. It gave him not just simple acuity of thought and razor-edged wits. Chuggie felt fast. He felt dangerous. And he felt something else he couldn't quite put his finger on.
Retreating from the Gooch with the purse and the dagger, Chuggie found he could see how things connected. Invisible geometry tied everything to everything else. He saw how a tumbling stone was about to bounce. He saw the air tremble each time the Gooch slammed the Dreg into the wall. He wound the chain's slack around his left forearm, providing a bit of armor. The anchor dangled from his hand by the last couple chain links, ready to club his opposition.
Faben's demon released its grip on the Gooch. The Moon Dreg soared into the air and circled for another diving strike. In that instant, the Gooch flung an armload of bony spikes at Chuggie.
He saw how the spikes would fly through the air. He saw where they would hit. He ducked and shielded himself with the chain on his arm.
"Get down, Faben!" he yelled. Blood poured from his mouth.
As Faben's podium sliced off the head of a desecrated monstrosity, the spikes flew into her. They pierced her and knocked her back. She screamed as the Moon Dreg crashed once more into the Gooch. The Gooch's howl drowned out her wail of pain.
An instant later, every fissure and crack in the chamber came alive. The Gooch's desecrated army poured in. Revolting abominations lurched and crawled over the bones like deformed, decayed insects. A group of rotting goat-men raced to their master's aid. Swarms of the needle-mouthed creatures skittered from the shadows and charged.
Chuggie, with the goat-face purse around his neck, scrambled toward Faben. As though she didn't feel pain, she yanked the bone spikes out of her shoulder and stomach. Chuggie skidded to Faben's side. "Gotta get up, gotta get up! We got what we came for. We gotta roll out."
"What took so long?" Faben asked, hunched over. She slung the book over her shoulder and used her podium to get back to her feet. As she pulled an especially long bone spike from her stomach, the binder demon screeched and hopped away. It ducked into a shadow and vanished.
The Moon Dreg took immediate notice, released its hold on the Gooch, and turned toward Faben. It fell from the air as it ripped its wings off. With leaps and savage bounds, it roared and plundered through the Gooch's minions. Any of them that got in the way were stomped, skewered, or slashed to pieces. As it tore its way to Faben, the demon chomped bites as large as coffins out of itself from one arm, then the other. In its charge, it flung blood in all directions. Meat and gristle flew as it ripped off and consumed its own legs.. The Moon Dreg flopped down beside Faben in a quivering, twitching pile of gore. It continued to devour itself until the only thing left was a trail of bloody meat and bone with a snarling head on one end.
"My blade!" boomed the Gooch.
"It's mine now," Chuggie shouted. "Go back to sleep."
"You steal the Bleeding Jaws of Glughu! It is mine!" The Gooch wailed so loud the room shook. It stomped toward them, spraying bones and skulls with each massive step.
Chuggie and Faben rushed back the way they'd come. The firebugs took flight and blazed a trail up the tunnel.
"Went better than I expected," Chuggie said through the blood pouring from his mouth. "How bad are you hurt?"
"A scratch." Faben moved with astonishing speed up the winding tunnel. Were it not for the dagger in his hand, Chuggie doubted he could have kept up with the wounded summoner.
The Gooch's roar echoed after them, along with the ear-splitting footsteps of his charging soldiers.
They met no resistance during their ascent, though Chuggie'd been ready for it. With his left arm wrapped in his chain and the Bleeding Jaws of Glughu in his right hand, he was ready to devastate.
They reached the open air atop the pyramid. Chuggie peered over the side as he searched for more desecrated attackers.
"You're injured," Faben said, staring at the blood bubbling from Chuggie's mouth.
He swiped the back of his hand across his lips. "Nah. It's this dagger here. Makes blood run outta my mouth."
Faben gave him a curt nod and got back to business. She set up her podium and opened her book. Just like before, she conducted an invisible orchestra, muttering things Chuggie couldn't make out. She reached into her satchel and produced a pouch of salt. She emptied it into her hand and threw it into the air. A rattling sound came from somewhere. The air in front of Faben split apart, and her summoned creature slid down to the temple top.
A short, fat lizard-man wearing a little suit of burlap stomped his feet and rattled out curses at the top of his lungs. He wore little black goggles over his eyes and snarled up at Faben with his fangs exposed. On his shoulder, he carried a wooden barrel with a cartoonish flaming skull painted on it.
Chuggie studied Faben as she conjured. Back in the Gooch's altar-chamber, he'd thought she was hurt bad. It looked like that bone spike went all the way through her. Then she'd sprinted up the tunnel like a wolf after sheep. Now, as she summoned a new creature, she didn't act injured in the least. Deciding she must be fine, he regarded the angry little lizard-man. "What is that, Faben?"
"It's a tentahk," she said. "It goes boom."
"I'm gonna touch it." Chuggie put a finger out and moved toward it. The little lizard-man rattled and hissed the closer he got.
"No, you're not." Faben put a hand on Chuggie's wrist to stop him.
"Fine," he grumbled.
To the tentahk, she said, "Go down that tunnel. The first thing you meet…" She pointed to the barrel. "Understand?"
It rattled, snarled, and ran down the tunnel.
"We have to go." Faben grabbed Chuggie's arm and darted to the stairway on the side of the temple. Chuggie, half running and half sliding, followed.
By the time they reached the bottom, they'd built up too much speed to stop. Faben used her podium to vault over the slime pool. She swung the podium with a flourish as she turned. Having no staff of his own, Chuggie barreled into the muck. A sheet of black ooze soared over Faben's head, hovered there, then dropped.
"We made it," Chuggie said. "Can't believe how covered in sludge I got!"
Faben wiped the slime out of her eyes and scowled at Chuggie. "We should —."
An explosion from within the desecrated temple shook the ground. One section after another of the structure caved in. A rising moan sounded from everywhere, as if the blast wounded the Desecration itself.
Without another word, Chuggie and Faben ran into the fog.
They stopped a ways from the temple, but thanks to the mist, they couldn't tell how far. Chuggie wiped the blood from his chin and spat into the dust as Faben leaned up against a post.
Chuggie and the Desecration of Stagwater Page 18