Minerva Wakes

by Holly Lisle

  “Sure.” The dragon finished the Budweiser with one long gulp and crushed the can into a metal sphere the size of a marble. He flicked that across the room into the trash can, where it rattled noisily. He grinned. “Two points.” He immediately popped the top on another beer, sipped appreciatively, and leaned back on the bed. “Hey, I just had a great idea. I have this way-cool car and the afternoon off. And babes just love my wheels. Let’s go cruise chicks.”

  “Let’s not. I want to find my wife.”

  “Find her? She isn’t lost. Look — she’s right there.” The dragon pointed at the full-length mirror.

  Darryl looked in the mirror. He couldn’t see Minerva.

  What he could see was a replica of Stonehenge, fixed up like new. Then the view tilted crazily, and he could see what seemed to be Minerva’s own view of her body — stark naked. The curves were familiar, and he recognized the mole on her right breast.

  The dragon whistled appreciatively. “Ooomph! You got some babe there, pal. She could scratch my scales any day.”

  Darryl glared, but decided not to comment on the dragon’s rudeness. “What about my kids, then? Where are they?”

  The dragon nodded sagely. “You have a problem there, all right. The Weirds have them. They intend to use them for bait to catch you and the tomato, I imagine.”

  Darryl let out his breath in a short whoosh. “And if, ah — the Weirds? — the Weirds catch us?”

  “Then they reduce you to your component atoms and destroy the atoms.” The dragon slurped his beer, then arched an eye-ridge and popped the can into his mouth. He crunched vigorously, swallowed once, then sighed. “Hell, I didn’t know these were so tasty. I would have been eating them and tossing the Wheaties.”

  Things weren’t coming together the way Darryl would have liked. Instead of making progressively more sense, events seemed to be making progressively less. Not only did he have a lecherous, beer-swilling dragon lounging on his bed but the kids were gone and Minerva was back in the mirror, and something wanted him dead.

  “Can you take me to Minerva?” he asked the dragon.

  “Nope.”

  “Can you help me get my kids back?”

  “Not right this minute. But I can give you a beer. You look like you could use one.” The dragon grinned again.

  There were some creatures that should never smile, Darryl thought. Dragons fit into that category. Entirely too many teeth. He took a deep breath and turned his back on the bouncing reflection of the spruced-up Stonehenge. He didn’t have any idea what to do next. Getting stupendously, overwhelmingly drunk, though, seemed like a promising start.

  “Right,” he said. “Give me a beer.”

  * * *

  A thump followed by a loud crash brought all three children awake and off the floor.

  The ambush had worked. Its victim lay sprawled on the stone floor, with a thin trickle of blood oozing from the cut on her forehead.

  Jamie, Carol, and Barney grabbed hold of the makeshift rope and edged warily up to the fallen figure. Murp skulked along just behind them, hackles raised.

  “What is it?” Carol asked.

  Barney couldn’t even imagine. He was certain that the creature was one of the monsters he’d sensed. She was a girl monster, though — and even with the example of his sister to the contrary, he’d never really considered that monsters might come in boys and girls.

  Her eyes were closed, her mouth partway open. She had long, sharp teeth. Not like Dracula’s, he thought. More like Murp’s — but bigger. Her ears stuck out, curly and furry at the edges like the flowers his mother called cockscombs. Her hair was kind of brushy and stuck up. It was plain old brown, except for a black stripe that ran right down the middle. Her hands were big, and her fingers had sharp claws at the ends of them.

  Jamie took a walking stick he found propped up against one wall and poked her with it. She didn’t move.

  “Maybe she’s dead,” he said, sounding both scared and a little bit hopeful.

  Carol said, “No, she isn’t. She’s still breathing.”

  Jamie studied the fallen monster, then nodded. “Yes, she is. You’re right. Should we leave her here like this, or should we tie her up?”

  “Tie her up,” Carol said

  Barney nodded. “Before she wakes up.”

  Jamie nodded again, looking thoughtful. “Yeah. I think so, too.”

  They took the twisted sheet, pulled her hands behind her, wrapped the sheet around both wrists a number of times, then tied one huge knot.

  “Feet, too?” Carol had the other sheet ready.

  “Feet, too.”

  All three of them worked at tying her feet.

  When they were done, Jamie studied the unconscious monster, then pulled a huge dagger out of the sheath she wore on her belt. He grinned at his brother and sister, and raised the knife skyward with both hands. “Heeeee-yah!” he whispered, and tucked the knife into his belt.

  Secret Agents Jeevus, Renskie, and Equator did high-fives.

  “Now what do we do?” Renskie asked.

  Secret Agent Jeevus crossed his arms over his chest. “We have two choices. We can try to escape, or we can fight.”

  “Fight?” Carol looked horrified. “We’re kids! They’re monsters!”

  “Yeah, but if we run, we have to get past the castle defenses. If we fight, we might win.”

  Equator hooked his thumbs under his tunic into the top of his pants. “If we lose, they might eat us.”

  Secret Agent Jeevus frowned. “Then we’d better not lose. Look.” He hunkered down and stared into the eyes of his two cohorts. “This place is made to be defended — and we are in the best location to launch a counterattack. The very best place to attack is from behind.”

  “We don’t have any guns.”

  “We don’t need them. We’re in a castle keep.” Jamie traced an imaginary diagram on the stone floor with his finger. “We’re at the top of a hill. If you look out the window, you can see the wall of the inner bailey below, and outside of that, the wall of the outer bailey. Look out the door, Renskie — but be careful. Tell me what you see.”

  Carol went over and peeked out the door, then closed it behind her. She reported back. “Just stairs, sir. They go around and around and around — with a big hole in the middle.”

  “Perfect. If more monsters come after us, we can drop stuff on their heads.”

  On the floor beside them, their captive groaned softly and opened her eyes. She looked up at the three children, her expression bewildered. She tried to get up, and discovered her hands and feet tied together. “Wha—?!” The monster twisted around, fighting to free herself.

  Jamie grabbed up the walking stick again and brandished it over her head. “Don’t move or you’re a goner,” he growled. Then he looked at his brother and sister. “The President has asked us to inter... um— interrogate this prisoner. Secret Agent Renskie, take your position.”

  Carol frowned, her face questioning. Jamie pointed behind the monster. Carol nodded. She glared fiercely at the creature on the floor and walked around behind it.

  “Don’t move.” She made her voice as tough as she could.

  Barney looked at his older brother. “You have to hold the secret weapon, Secret Agent Equator,” the unflappable Jeevus said.

  Barney picked up the cat, and Jeevus nodded gravely.

  “Very good, Equator.”

  Then Jeevus spoke into the air. “Yes, Mr. President,” he said solemnly. “We’ll get her to confess, sir.” He saluted, and Equator, who was trying to keep the “secret weapon” from struggling too much, saluted too.

  Jeevus, still clutching the stick, knelt just out of the monster’s range and took a deep breath. Then he said, “Give me your name, rank, and serial number, monster. The Geneva convention prohibits torture, but we will do what we have to do to complete our mission.”

  “Are you children crazy?” the monster asked.

  “We are not children,” Jeevus said, and narr
owed his eyes in an impressively spylike manner. Equator liked the expression well enough he tried it out himself. “We have captured you, and you will tell us what we want to know.”

  “Are you going to untie me?”

  “We make no promises, monster. But if you cooperate, we will... um... we will take that into account.”

  Barney recognized the lines from the cartoon “Dan Steed, Kid Detective.” After Dan Steed said that, the bad guy, who’d been holding a kid and her father prisoner until they told him where to find the buried treasure, had sneered, and said “I’ll never tell you nothin’, you rotten kid.”

  But this captive just sighed. “Right,” she said. “My name is Ergrawll. My personal identification credit number is 505-2-10347-21. I don’t have a serial number, so that will just have to do. My rank is Childsitter, First Class.” She pulled her lips back in a terrible smile that showed all of her teeth to best advantage. “And as your Childsitter, I have to tell you — you’re in big trouble.”

  Jeevus laughed coldly. “So your name is Ergrawll, is it? Hah! A likely story,” he sneered.

  Equator thought his big brother’s answer that time was pretty good, too. He imitated the sneer and the cold laugh, and said, “Yeah. A likely story.”

  Renskie maintained her fierce silence.

  “Now we want the truth. What is the secret password? Where have you hidden the treasure? How many of you are there? Who is your leader? Why do you want to take over the world?” Jeevus glowered down at the prisoner and tapped his foot.

  Dan Steed always tapped his foot.

  “Those are silly questions — and my head hurts. Untie me.” The monster glared at Jeevus.

  Jeevus glared back. “Right, then. Renskie — torture the prisoner.”

  Renskie looked panicked. She shrugged at her older brother and spread her arms wide. “How?” she mouthed.

  Jeevus rolled his eyes and sighed. “Do I have to do everything?” He walked around the downed monster, being careful to keep his distance. When he drew even with her rump, he lifted his stick.

  Thwack! Jeevus smacked her once with the stick. “What is the password?” Thwack! “Where are the secret passages?” He lilted the stick a third time, and brought it down with an especially vigorous stroke. “Who is your leader, and where is he hiding?”

  “Little boy,” the monster said, and her eyes glowed incredibly green, “I’m about to get angry. You wouldn’t like me when I’m angry.”

  Barney froze. Those words were straight out of The Incredible Hulk. Of course, the Incredible Hulk started out as David Banner — who was a wimp. Secret Agent Equator thought hard. After David Banner was a wimp, though, he became the Hulk, who was great if he was on your side... but not too good if he was coming after you.

  Jamie gave the monster another smack on the rear.

  The monster looked really angry.

  Murp, in Barney’s arms, hissed. The monster was not a wimp like David Banner. Did that mean she would become something worse than the Hulk? He shivered and stared at her. Barney had known some bad feelings in his short life — the one he got at that moment made the rest of them seem like nothing.

  The monster started to shift and twist — Barney was pretty sure she was going to turn into the Hulk, sort of, but really bad. He dropped the cat and picked up the heaviest thing he could find that he could pick up — a stone doorstop — and dropped it on her head.

  The prisoner’s face slammed into the floor, and her eyes closed.

  “Shit!” Jamie yelled. “What did you do that for, poopface?! She was gonna talk.”

  “She was gonna turn into the Hulk, moron.”

  Jamie put his hands on his hips. “Yeah, right. Asshole.”

  Carol’s mouth dropped open. She stared at Jamie. “Awww — I’m telling. Mom is gonna kill you when she finds out you said that, Jamie.”

  Jamie’s cheeks turned red, and he glared at his sister. “How’s she gonna find out, huh, shrimp? Yon better not tell.”

  Barney was unruffled by his brother’s insults. “I told you about the ghost, didn’t I? If you hid in the closet with Batman and me, it wouldn’t have got you.”

  Jamie shut up.

  Barney loved it when Jamie shut up.

  Carol, however, gave Barney a disbelieving look, then turned to Jamie, the former enemy. “He thinks Batman lives in your closet?”

  “He thinks a lot of things,” Jamie muttered. The older boy shrugged. “He was right about the ghost coming for us, though. And it didn’t touch him till after he came out of the closet.”

  Jamie knelt beside the still form of the monster. “She’s going to be trouble when she wakes up. We need to lock her in here and find someplace else for us.”

  Barney picked up Murp and asked Jamie, “Do you think she was really our baby-sitter?”

  Jamie frowned. “Probably not. But if she was, she couldn’t have been much worse than Louise Simmons.”

  All three children lifted first and fourth fingers and touched their noses, a gesture Jamie once told them was supposed to ward off evil. Most of the kids in the neighborhood did it every time they saw Louise — it made her crazy, which was why they did it. Not even Barney really believed that she was going to turn into a witch on her eighteenth birthday and eat the neighborhood children. At least, he didn’t believe it very much.

  “Grab her legs,” Jamie said.

  Barney and Carol grabbed the monster’s legs and started tugging; Jamie pulled on her arms. The stone floor was smooth — they slid her away from the door without too much difficulty.

  “Get the bedspread.”

  The two smaller children dragged it over, and all three of them spread it out on the floor, then rolled her up in it like a mummy.

  “That ought to slow her down.” Jamie’s voice changed — suddenly he was Jeevus again, brushing imaginary lint off his shirt and plotting the overthrow of monsters.

  “Now, men,” he told them, “we reconnoiter the lower regions of the castle. Keep quiet, keep close to me, and watch out for booby traps and ambushes.”

  Renskie and Equator lined up behind him. Equator carried the secret weapon, who had calmed down.

  They skulked out the door onto the landing. A massive stone staircase curved around and down — it had no railing and the center was a straight drop to the ground. Barney made the mistake of looking, then backed against the wall so fast he slammed his head on the stone. Jeevus was still staring down over the edge.

  “Man — if we only had supplies, we could hold this place forever.” They closed the door to the tower room, then all three of them together dropped the big wooden bar into the brackets set in the stone.

  “Onward,” Secret Agent Jeevus said, his whisper sounding small and scared in the dark, echoey tower.

  “Onward,” Secret Agent Renskie repeated.

  “Onward,” Secret Agent Equator said, and clutched the cat tighter.

  CHAPTER 4

  Minerva stared at the string of gemlike moons strung across the sky and wrapped her arms around herself. She shivered violently, but this time not from cold. Wherever she was felt infinitely far from home. Her way back had vanished, and her children were nowhere in sight.

  She walked into the circle of standing stones and brushed her fingers over the nearest menhir. The coarse rock felt very solid and very real. She braced herself and pushed as hand as she could, and the standing stone didn’t topple or vanish.

  Minerva shoved her glasses up her nose and studied the henge. She licked her lips thoughtfully.

  “Okay,” she said. Her voice shook, and her hands trembled. “Okay. Okay. I understand this. The kids vanished into another universe.” Her rational mind scoffed— Another universe. Really, Minerva, don’t be ridiculous. But the animal brain was not to be denied its truth. “When I followed the dragon, I came through after them,” she whispered “It’s like Alice through the looking glass — but no. Not really. She was just dreaming.”

  “True — and you aren’t,�
� said a masculine voice from just behind her.

  Minerva jumped and shrieked and turned pretty much in a single action — and the speaker stepped away from the menhir that had hidden him.

  Her first sight of him left Minerva speechless — and frantically aware of her nakedness. She tried to cover herself with her hands. She didn’t have enough hands. “Oh, God!” she wailed, and looked for someplace to hide from the stranger — the creature. He — the creature was definitely male — was more terrifying to her than the dragon had been — for where the dragon had been a monster, this... this thing... was somewhat human. Enough to make him frightening, she thought. Not enough to make him safe.

  From the tips of his pointed ears to his sharply cloven hooves, he was a rich cinnamon-brown. He stood upright on two slender goatish legs — broad-shouldered, lean—

  Well-hung, her startled subconscious whispered.

  Lean, she told herself nervously. His features were sharp, his point-tipped ears swiveled slightly to follow sounds, his four-fingered hands were long and fine-boned and heavy-nailed. He wore a knife belt and carried a duffel bag slung over one shoulder and a wooden flute in one hand.

  “Hello, Minerva Kiakra. My name is Talleos,” he said. “I’m here to help you.” He grinned at her — he had broad square teeth, very white, in a smile that curled devilishly. Eyebrow arched, he murmured, “I knew I got the better end of the deal.” His gaze wandered up and down her body with overt appreciation and his voice oozed sexiness.

  Minerva could have died of embarrassment for being caught without clothes on. She was furious that the creature dared leer at her. But mostly she was frightened. This Talleos-creature knew who she was. By name. He’d been expecting her arrival — he knew enough about what had happened to her that he knew to wait for her near the circle of standing stones. That meant the magic that brought her there — and the magic that stole her children from their beds in the middle of the night — was no surprise to him. Her fear became anger. She stared at him and clenched her hands into fists. “Do you know where my kids are?” she asked.