Délon City: Book Two of the Oz Chronicles

by R. W. Ridley

  “Please,” Lou said disgusted. “I had to beg you to help.”

  “Whatever,” Gordy barked. “Who helped you get that thing in the freezer?”

  “You shut the door. I put it in the freezer.”

  “Is that where you got that welt?” I asked trying to sit up.

  Lou put her hand on my shoulder and gently pushed me back down. “Stay down.”

  “The point is,” Gordy said. “I didn’t want to get any marks on me, because then I’d have some explaining to do to the general at dinner. How’re you going to explain your face and your hand, little miss smarty pants?”

  “Hand?” I scanned for Lou’s hand, but she kept it hidden under a towel. “Let me see.”

  “It’s not that bad,” she said.

  “Let me see,” I insisted.

  She hesitated and pulled the towel back. Her hand was swollen to twice its size and it was fire red. “It doesn’t hurt that much.” I could tell she was lying.

  I sat up without any difficulty this time. “Gordy, go in the kitchen and get a pack of frozen peas or corn or something. There’s a bunch of frozen food on the floor.”

  “The kitchen? Why me?” His voice was beginning to grate on me like fingernails on a chalkboard. “That thing’s in there.”

  “It’s dead in the freezer,” I said. “Go now!”

  He could tell by my tone the next request would come with a fist to the face. “All right, but I’m getting tired of people bossing me around.” He stomped off toward the kitchen.

  I carefully took Lou’s swollen hand in mine. “What happened?”

  “Shunter’s have stingers you want to try to avoid.” She smiled. “I tried.” She cringed as I examined the hand.

  “What happened? I mean after I blacked out?”

  “The shunter leapt off the counter and lashed its tail like a whip. That’s where I got this.” She pointed to the welt on her face. “I caught it before it hit you, and stuffed it in the freezer. Gordy helped a little.” She smiled.

  I smiled back. “I know him better than that.” Something in my stomach quivered as I discovered I liked holding Lou’s hand in mine. It made me feel uneasy and happy at the same time.

  Gordy burst back into the living room holding a melting bag of peas. “It ain’t exactly frozen.” He tossed it on the coffee table. I picked it up and placed it on Lou’s swollen hand.

  “Keep this on it for the next twenty minutes or so,” I said. She nodded, biting her lip. The pain was getting worse. I stood up. “Your turn to lie down.” I helped her to the couch.

  “What about me?” Gordy asked. “When do I get to rest?

  “Shut up, Gordon,” I said. I grabbed him by the collar and pulled him into the dining room. “You’re working on my last nerve.”

  “Relax, Oz. Relax.” His eyes were open wide, and sweat was forming on his forehead.

  “What do you know about the shunter’s sting?”

  “Me? Nothing... I don’t know nothing.”

  I tossed him backward and he fell onto a chair. “What do you know?”

  “What makes you think I know anything?”

  “Because you knew how to kill it. You seem to know an awful lot that you’re not telling me. Now, I’m going to ask you one more time. What do you know about the shunter’s sting?”

  He sat up in the chair, and straightened his collar. “It hurts like a mother,” he said.

  “Tell me something I don’t know.” I rushed him.

  He shouted. “Wait! Wait! Wait!”

  I stopped.

  He lowered his voice. “She’ll be dead in three days – maybe four.”

  “What?” I had to fight the urge to punch him repeatedly. “That’s not true. Tell me that’s not true.”

  “You asked me what I know. That’s what I know.” His voice started to squeak.

  My heart stopped. I plopped down on the chair next to him. My mouth went dry, and my eyes started to burn. “It’s not true,” I whispered. I felt ashamed for ever doubting her loyalty to me. I turned away from Gordy so he couldn’t see the tears roll out of my eyes. “Is there a cure?”

  Gordy snickered. “The Délons aren’t big on curing things, Oz. They prefer it when things just die.”

  “Then we’ll treat it like a snake bite,” I said, a little bit of hope seeping into my voice.

  “This ain’t no snake bite,” Gordy responded. “That poison hit her brain about two seconds after that thing stung her. I seen it before. Maggie Capp – you remember – from Camp Summer Tree – she got stung when them solifipods and shunters started showing up around Tullahoma. A little purple jellyfish face hatched from a slimy solifipod. Didn’t none of us know what it was at the time. She tried to pet it. Can you believe that? The girl actually tried to pet the ugly mess.” His gaze drifted off like he was actually standing next to Maggie Capp, reliving the entire episode. “Anyway that little bag of jelly whipped out its stinger and stung her quicker than a dart hits its target. Her pop thought the same thing you did, treat it like a snakebite. He took out his pocketknife, sliced a little ‘x’ over the bite and started sucking.” Gordy stopped telling the story, but continued to stare off into space.

  “Well?” I said.

  “Hmmm?” He focused back on me. “Oh, she died three days later.” He stood up. “Her old man died two days after that. The docs said both their brains just liquefied.”

  This time my heart shattered into a million little pieces. I swallowed the lump that was forming in my throat. I didn’t want to believe what Gordy was telling me. Maybe he was the ‘G’ I wasn’t supposed to trust after all. Maybe, just maybe, he was trying to demoralize me so I couldn’t go on.

  “That sucked,” Gordy said. “I mean, Maggie dying and all. I kind of liked her. Did I ever tell you that she and I french kissed the last time we were at Camp Summer Tree?”

  I managed a chuckle. “Only about a million times. I don’t think there’s a kid in our class you didn’t tell.”

  He smiled. “Man, she was pretty.” He put his hand on my shoulder. “If I’d been you, I probably would have found a way to save her.”

  Shocked by his confidence in me, I turned to see that tears were rolling down his cheek. I nodded and stood. Before heading to the dining room door I said, “Thanks.”

  “For what?” he asked.

  “For being somebody I can trust.” I exited the room.

  FOURTEEN

  I was not going to let Lou die, and I wasn’t going to save her by hanging out in the penthouse condo, so I told Gordy to keep an eye on her, and I left in search of... what I don’t know. I just knew there had to be answers somewhere on the streets of Délon City.

  When I stepped out the front door of the building, the crawling Délons took notice of me. My movement was being recorded and passed on from Délon to Délon. General Roy probably already knew I was no longer resting up for dinner in the comfort of the penthouse. I wondered if he cared.

  I should have been worried for my safety, but I wasn’t. Somehow I knew no harm would come to me. After all, General Roy needed me. He wasn’t going to let his underlings hurt me. I just hoped they were all on the same wavelength.

  A Délon approached. “General Roy would like to know if you require an escort.” The purple pile of puss was not familiar to me at all. I didn’t know him when he was human. Spider leg tentacles covered his head and half his face.

  “I’m fine.”

  He waved his hand to a group of Délons on the street corner. One broke away from the pack, and within minutes returned with Chubby.

  “You’re under the general’s protection,” the Délon said. “We’ll be watching you.”

  I didn’t know if that was a friendly gesture or a threat. I mounted Chubby, and tried to accept the fact that General Roy would know my every move. He couldn’t know that Lou was stung by my now dead shunter. He would feed her to the skinners for stuffing it in the freezer. I had to do the impossible. I had to operate in secret in plain view
of my enemy.

  Chubby plodded down the street seemingly as nervous as I was. The flow of Délons crawling all over each other went back and forth from us to the general’s headquarters. They were literally reporting on our every move. Ahead of us, the dead eyes of thousands of Délons bore holes into our backs as we traveled from block to block.

  As I turned the corner on Peachtree Avenue to Peachtree Lane, a mass of Délons broke off from the horde and turned up the street. A series of grunts and roars filled the blackened air. A familiar chill traveled through my body. I had to fight Chubby to keep moving forward.

  Ahead of us, the group of Délons who broke away from the collective, squatted and prepared for an attack. The ground shook, and a sinkhole formed just in front of the Délons. Five Takers emerged from the hole, claws out, snarls across their massive jaws.

  The Délons struck without hesitation. They outnumbered the Takers five to one, but each Taker was more than twice the size of a single Délon, so the Takers were able to hold their own. I watched with unexpected delight as Délon after Délon fell.

  Chubby stopped about twenty feet away from the action. He nervously shifted his weight from left to right. He fought the urge to turn and run. My attention was divided between the battle in front of us and Chubby’s obvious agitation.

  “Whoa, boy, it’s all right. Calm down.”

  He whinnied, raised up on his back legs, and came back down. “Keep it together, Chubs!”

  He whinnied and jerked up. This time I fell to the concrete

  road flat on my back. The fall forced the air out of my lungs. I couldn’t catch my breath. I felt the ground rumble beneath me. A cracking noise faintly made its way into my consciousness. Chubby galloped back down the street, away from the chaos. Just as I was regaining my ability to breathe, the street beneath me gave way and I fell down a massive sinkhole. I heard the Délons squeal and sound out the alarm. A Taker’s clawed hand swooped in and grabbed me by my face and dragged me down a homemade tunnel.

  ***

  I don’t know how long I was dragged. I struggled to free myself from the Taker’s vise-like grip with no success. The tunnel closed in as we passed through so it was impossible for the Délons to follow.

  This was it. I was one dead kid. Forget about seeing my fifteenth birthday. The Takers were going to have their revenge. I knew now that the attack of the five Takers was a distraction to get to me. They were going to tear me limb from limb. All I could think of while the slimy Greasywhopper was dragging me through the tunnel was that I’d failed Lou. She was going to die because I allowed myself to get killed.

  We reached an opening to the tunnel. I found myself lying on concrete again. The smell of car fumes and gasoline lingered in the air. The Taker let go of me. I surveyed the area and discovered that being dragged by the face gives you a sore neck.

  The Taker had brought me to an underground parking garage. I stood on uneasy legs. It towered over me. It snapped its massive jaws and lightly shoved me back. It began to chatter, a noise I had heard too many times in my life. It shoved me again.

  “What do you want? Eat me, if you’re going to eat me!” It shoved me again.

  “What?”

  Frustrated, it gave me a harder shove. I realized then that it

  wanted me to turn around. I complied and almost jumped for joy when I saw Wes’s van.

  “They’re here! They made it!” I ran to the van, but much to my disappointment, it was empty.

  “Where are they?” I turned to interrogate the Taker, but it was gone.

  “They’re safe.” The unknown voice bounced off the concrete walls of the parking garage.

  “Who’s there?”

  “I am Newell.” A Délon like I had never seen before stepped out of the darkness. Its skin was jet black and its eyes were purple. Its spider leg tentacles were hidden underneath a white cloak. “The second Keeper.”

  “A good guy, right?” I backed away as it approached me.

  “There is no good or bad. There is only that which should be.”

  “Okay, then let me put it this way, you’re not going to eat me, kill me, or turn me into something that looks like you, are you?”

  He smiled, and I didn’t get the creepy vibe I got from a typical Délon smile. “No. That’s not my plan, but you could do worse than look like me. The ladies really dig this white robe.”

  “It’s not the robe I’m worried about.” I slowly felt at ease. “Where are my friends?”

  “They are farther underground.”

  “I want to see them.

  “There’s no time. The Délons are already on their way.” He removed his hood and revealed a thick main of white spider leg tentacles.

  “Why did you bring me here?” I asked.

  “To tell you to get out.” He circled me as he spoke. “This isn’t your fight. This time belongs to my warrior.”

  I scratched my head. “Gee, if I remember correctly your warrior was captured by our friends the Takers back there.” I motioned toward a group of the slimy monsters standing in the shadows. “Then when I... when the Délons took over, they kept him under lock and key.”

  “It doesn’t concern you.” He raised his voice. “The rules must be observed. And the rules say you are not the warrior for this time, this world! Leave this city!”

  “Doesn’t concern me?” It was my turn to raise my voice. “Are you mental? This is my planet, Newell. You freaks are the ones who have to go. I can’t help it if your boy warrior got himself caught. I did my part, and I’ll step up to the plate again.” I was being a little cockier than I normally would have been, but I was tired of the “rules” line.

  He breathed deeply, calmed himself, and spoke in much softer tones. “If you interfere, you will disrupt the balance. My warrior must defeat the Délons.”

  “How’s he going to do that from prison?” I asked.

  “It is a matter of faith, young Oz.” Newell’s spider leg hair bristled, and his insect mandibles made their first appearance as he opened his mouth. They snapped wildly. He was clearly nervous.

  “What?”

  “The Délons are near,” he said. “You must go from here, from this city. Go back to Tullahoma.”

  “What do you think I’ll be going back to? My parents are gone. Everyone is... I have no choice but to fight this fight.”

  A total look of exasperation washed over his face. “You will fail, and Lou will die.”

  My heart jumped at the mention of Lou’s name. “Do you know how to save her?”

  He started to slink back in the darkness. “I must have your word that you will not interfere with this battle. For this promise, I will tell you how to save Lou.”

  I thought it over. I shouldn’t have hesitated. It should have been an easy choice for me to make, but it was hard for me to let go of the fight. I wanted the Délons gone, and I wasn’t at all confident that Newell’s warrior was up to the task.

  I heard the clatter of Délons approaching. I had to make a decision. “Okay,” I shouted. “Deal!”

  “A second sting will save her,” he said. “Either from the same shunter or from a shunter in the same line.” With that he disappeared into the darkness, and a group of Takers stepped forward. They hunched down and growled like rabid dogs. When the Délons arrived, the Takers lunged for me, but the Délons were on them before they could touch me. It was a show. The Takers were completing the ruse that they had kidnapped me to kill me. They were sacrificing themselves to make it look legitimate. They were giving their lives for the greater good. I had not expected that from Takers. I had no idea they were capable of such nobility.

  In contrast, I felt like I had sacrificed the world to save Lou. As I made my way back to street level with my Délon escorts, I tried to decide if that was noble or not. Lou herself had told me to do whatever it takes to defeat the Délons, and I caved at the first sign of trouble.

  As a Délon met me at the curb holding onto Chubby’s reigns, I decided it didn’t
matter. All that mattered was that I was going to save Lou’s life. I didn’t care if that was smart or not. There was no way I was ever going to let her die.

  I kicked Chubby in the ribs and raced back to the general’s headquarters to save my friend.

  FIFTEEN

  The general’s huge dining table took up most of the lobby of the condominium. Reya and the Royal Council, five Délons dressed in overly decorated black robes, were seated when Gordy and I arrived. I had the shabbily repaired backpack that housed my now dead shunter draped over my shoulder. The center of the table was crawling with screamers, no serving platters, just thousands of the high-pitched worms wriggling in the middle of the table.

  “Dude,” Gordy whispered. “I’m telling you right now if that’s dinner then I’m just going to start puking now to save some time.”

  A Taker entered the room carrying a plate of moldy bread and small containers of chocolate pudding.

  “So much for filling up on the bread,” I said. “At least there’s pudding.”

  “Oh man, I hope that’s pudding,” Gordy said wide-eyed.

  We took our seats, and I placed the backpack on the floor next to me. The Royal Council looked uneasy to be sitting at a dinner table with two human guests. My guess is that they were used to the humans being one of the courses.

  “The girl,” Reya said. “Where is she?”

  “Tired,” I said. “We had a rough trip.”

  A member of the Royal Council to my left groaned. “Insolence. She was invited to dine with the general. She should be here.” My blood boiled. “She’s not feeling well.”

  The Royal Councilman continued. “Not feeling well... appalling. She should be disciplined.”

  “Hey,” I shouted. “Spidey-doo, leave it alone. She’s not here. Deal with it!”

  I didn’t have to look at Gordy to know that he was shaking.

  The Royal Councilman didn’t respond. He sat still and seethed. He wanted my head on a stick, but he knew the general needed me. He finally faked a smile and said, “A discussion for another time, perhaps.”

  It was a small, false victory because as soon as they determined I didn’t have the information they needed, they would kill me. But for the time being, it felt good watching the purple puke back down.