And someone did. That someone was Tobias, who took a yeti fist to the top of the head. I was about twenty feet away, but I could still see the whites of his eyes as they rolled back into his head.
“Awesome!” I gave the yeti two thumbs up, and he shuffled his feet like he didn’t know how to take a compliment. “Just keep an eye on him, okay, big guy?”
Then the she-yeti and I systematically released the liger, a unicorn with a glittery horn, a cockatrice about the size of a housecat, and an ill-tempered cerberus. The cerberus tried to bite off my right arm, my left foot, and my head all at the same time, until the she-yeti growled and it backed away.
“Is that everyone?” I asked. The she-yeti gestured toward the building where the dragon had disappeared. I nodded. Maybe I could train it not to spit fire and then my parents would let me keep it—how cool would that be? I’d name it Kate, because I had never missed an opportunity to mess with my sister, and I wasn’t about to start now.
I cautiously stepped over Tobias’s prone body and then realized that a nice guy would check to see if he was breathing. I was a nice guy, so I did, and he was. Then I stepped on his hand on my way inside because I may be nice, but I’m not a total pushover.
Inside was chaos. The building had probably been a lab at some point—I could see all kinds of machinery that would have made my future-doctor sister squeal with delight. Unfortunately, most of the machines were scattered all over the floor in bits and pieces. Tables were overturned and papers were flung all over the place. A can of Mountain Dew had spilled on the floor, and I practically got down on my hands and knees to lick up the sticky liquid. I was thirsty after all my adventuring.
About five feet from the spilled Mountain Dew was Kate the dragon. I didn’t have to get any closer to know that she was dead.
My poor dragon had been crushed under a paperweight shaped like a giant donut. I dropped to my knees and started to cry. Maybe that was a little wussy of me, but she didn’t have to die. She’d saved my life.
I was just wiping the snot off my face when the air exploded with howls and screeches. I scrambled to my feet, sprinted for the door, and promptly tripped over Tobias.
CHAPTER 9
From my spot facedown in the dirt, I watched as the clearing erupted into chaos. A semi trailer blocked the driveway, and a phalanx of guys in mirrored shades, black jackets, and uncomfortably tight uniform pants were battling with the mythological creatures. (And if a LARPer says someone’s pants are tight, that’s pretty bad.)
Part of me was astounded that Tobias hadn’t hallucinated his buyer, but I wasn’t all that surprised. The money for this operation had to come from somewhere. Most of what my sister told me went in one ear and out the other, but I still had a pretty good idea of how much the average scientific study cost. Tobias had to have sponsors with a lot of bank to pull off genetic engineering. And now those sponsors were attacking my new friends with shock sticks.
But the creatures were holding their own. As I watched, the liger pounced on a bad guy from behind. (He had shock-sticked himself, the idiot.) Both yeti were picking up random villains and tossing them into the trees. It was working really well until the she-yeti got mobbed by four guys at once and went down. The he-yeti waded into the fray to save her.
The unicorn was dancing around just out of reach of a pair of evil twins. She was faster than both of them put together. I couldn’t see the cockatrice anywhere, but the cerberus was gnawing on two different guys at the same time while the third head kept a lookout.
One guy, however, was heading right toward me. Part of me wanted to lie there and play dead. It would be the smart thing to do, after all. Sir Tal always said that it was stupid to enter a battle you couldn’t win. Much better to retreat and live to fight the next one. But I was tired of trying to be like him. I was Jonah Grable, and I was pissed that these guys thought it was okay to cage all these fantastical creatures that the rest of us only got to dream about. I wasn’t going to let them get away with it.
So I swallowed the lump of fear in my throat and rushed him.
The guy hadn’t really expected that kind of reaction from a scrawny kid like me. He was too busy watching over his shoulder for a random mythological creature attack. So I took him totally by surprise, knocking him to the ground. Then I wrenched the shock stick from his hand and whacked him with it. He went limp.
“Yeah!” I shouted, jumping to my feet and pumping my fist. “How you like them apples?”
The assorted creatures stopped and stared at me like I’d lost my mind, but I didn’t care. I just grinned at them proudly. We had won the battle.
#
It took about a half hour to put the bad guys in the semi and lock the doors behind them. I’d searched Tobias’s pockets for the cell I’d seen him use earlier with no luck, so I figured I’d head back to the camp. I was certain the girls had already contacted the cops; I just knew they’d come through.
“Let’s get out of here,” I said to the menagerie of beasties. “We’ll make sure these guys never cage yeti again. Or … uh … the rest of you.”
I wanted to ride the liger, because when was I ever going to get a chance to do that again? But every time I took a step toward it, it shied away. So I ended up clambering onto the back of the sparkly unicorn. So emasculating.
The yeti led the way; they seemed to have an unerring sense of direction. So that’s how I found myself on the back of a unicorn, following a pair of hand-holding yeti and flanked by a liger and a cerberus. I still hadn’t seen the cockatrice, but when I’d asked the she-yeti about it, she’d pointed to a random bush, so I assumed it was just one of those super-stealthy cockatrices. Maybe in a cockatrice world, it would be like a ranger cockatrice or something. Which would be awesome. As if this hadn’t already been the most awesome day of my life.
We got back to the Scout camp way too fast; I wanted to stay in this parade forever. But I had to admit that I was chilly without my shirt, and it was way past lunchtime. I needed a Dew before the caffeine headache made it completely impossible for me to function. It was time to return to the real world, if that was even possible when traveling in this company.
We stopped at the edge of the clearing and watched as the girls argued with one of the apathetic chaperones. Either the guy didn’t care that I was missing or he hadn’t caught that bit yet, because all three girls kept talking at the same time. The fact that they brought up monsters probably didn’t help; if I’d been him, I probably would have assumed this was some gaming thing too.
I eyed the liger again, and it returned an unblinking topaz gaze. I didn’t need the power of telepathy to get the message. No way was I riding it.
Well, fine. I’d make my shirtless entrance on the back of a unicorn, and what I’d lose in guy points, I’d make up with the rest of the entourage. I sat as straight as I could and tried to puff out my chest a little; my weightlifting regimen hadn’t started to take effect yet. But just as I got ready to order the animals forward, I stopped.
The herd was watching me intently. I knew they’d follow me wherever I went, because I’d promised them safety. It would be so awesome to charge into the camp with them, do all the news interviews, and be known as That Creature Guy. I wouldn’t be just another freshman gamer geek ever again. I had this great mental picture of me sweeping into the camp with a menagerie of mythical creatures. Everyone would be astounded, and I would sweep the nearest girl into a kiss. Except that there were three girls and I couldn’t kiss all three of them, so how was I going to handle that?
It was pretty ridiculous, but I had to admit it: I could handle mad scientists and their flunkies, but I couldn’t manage to sort out my feelings about a trio of girls. (And that was without bringing Kiki into the equation.) Each one of them brought something to the table. Europa was sweet, Calamity was dangerous, and Amethyst was smart. And those labels didn’t even begin to scratch the surface.
I couldn’t work out my feelings about them, because I cared about
all of them. And if I couldn’t choose, I had to let them go. Just like the menagerie. It was the honorable thing to do.
It took every ounce of willpower I had, but I slid off the back of the unicorn. The she-yeti shuffled uncertainly. The cerberus nosed at my pant leg.
I turned to face the animals. “You shouldn’t come into the camp,” I said. “They’ll just cage you again. They’ll say it’s for your own protection, and they’ll give you fancier accommodations, but it’ll still be a cage. You’ll never be free if you come with me.”
The unicorn nuzzled my shoulder, and I petted her silky nose.
“Can you hunt?” I looked around the circle. “There’s plenty of land out here. This forest is big enough that you could go unnoticed if you’re careful, but I need to know that you’re going to be okay. I’m not sure how often I can get out here until I get my driver’s license.”
The he-yeti whuffed in my direction, nodding and urging me forward as if to say not to worry. But of course I was worried. They were my responsibility now, weren’t they? Was I just wussing out, or was I doing the right thing?
Sir Tal would say to follow my heart. So I clapped the yeti on their shoulders, scratched the heads of the cerberus, patted the unicorn one last time, and kept my hands off the liger because he wouldn’t let me touch him anyway. And then I turned my back on them. I’d come to check on them as often as I could, but I’d never tell a soul about them. I’d report the bad guys, of course, but as far as I was concerned, they’d been doing all their illegal testing on dogs. The kind with one head.
“Bye,” I said. “I’ll miss you guys.”
I didn’t need to be That Creature Guy. Part of being a hero is not bragging about the stuff you’ve done. I knew, and that was enough. And the girls knew too. Really, three girls were too much to handle, so it was probably for the best.
I made my way out of the underbrush and into the edges of Nightdark Camp. Behind me, I heard the faint cracking of branches as the menagerie rolled out. In a few seconds the animals were gone. My eyes welled up a little and it took me a minute to collect myself, but finally I did.
“Hey, guys!” I called. “I’m back! Those Apples tried to cage me, but I used my dragon’s-breath potion, and … it was the awesomest thing I think I’ve ever done.” I sighed happily as the girls rushed to smother me in hugs, squealing.
What can I say? Girls love a hero.
Carrie Harris is a geek-of-all-trades and proud of it. She’s always been a bit of a brain, so she wrote a zombie book—Bad Taste in Boys. And she has hair, so she wrote a werewolf book next—Bad Hair Day. Luckily, she won’t be running out of body parts anytime soon. Carrie lives in Michigan with her ninja-doctor husband and three monster-obsessed children. Learn more about her at carrieharrisbooks.com.
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