“Headed the same way,” said Jared. “Right into Jack Junior’s path.”
“Nick, you’ve got to be right. The giants are converging on something.” Mallory started running. “Come on!”
They ran through the rain until Nick felt like he was underwater again. Their shoes squelched with each step. Nick’s clothes hung on him like weights. He selfishly wished that Jules could have been with them. It’s easier being brave with your older brother by your side, being braver.
Eventually, as they passed dark, desolate streets, Nick slowed to a jog. Laurie looked over at him and smiled. She seemed tired, but it was enough to make him pick up his pace.
The old, abandoned mall squatted in the center of a vast parking lot. A newer mall with a better food court and fancier everything had been built about five years ago, closer to the highway. This one closed for renovations soon after.
Now, in the rain and dark, as they crossed the lot and headed for the treeline on the other side, the empty building seemed to flicker with ominous light.
They passed it and saw, to their horror, that the back half was collapsed and burning, even in the heavy rain. The bodies of two giants draped across the remains. Their skin slowly crumbled into stone.
“This is bad,” Simon said.
“Do you want to turn back?” Mallory asked.
“No,” said Simon softly. “I’m just pointing out the obvious.”
No one else spoke as they entered the mangrove forest behind the mall. Their shoes sank into the thick mud.
It was the noise that first made Nick think something might be close by. There was a booming sound, like thunder. Then the whole world lit up with fire.
In the new light Nick saw three giants, staggering backward, pursued by something that should have been impossible.
Enormous dragons were caught together in a single hydra. Dozens of heads wove hypnoti- cally as it moved in a sickening roll toward the semicircle of six giants surrounding it. A giant approached, trying to grab one of the hydra’s heads, but more heads darted and tore at the giant’s flesh. It fell back moaning.
The monster converged on the giant so that more and more dragon maws rent the giant’s stony flesh until the giant disintegrated into the mud right before their eyes. The giant was dead.
Laurie and Nick ran in the other direction as Simon stared openmouthed.
“Hydra,” Simon said softly. “Wyrm king.”
The creature seemed to hear him, several pointed heads fixing their pale gaze on him. It slithered forward and the air turned heavy.
“Simon!” Nick yelled, moving backward as fast as he could. Laurie was beside him.
The hydra breathed in the direction of the Grace kids, its many mouths opening and closing. Jared pulled at Simon’s arm, like he was urging him to run before they both sagged and fell. Mallory pulled out the machete and threw it toward where Nick and Laurie stood.
It landed in front of Nick, point sticking in the earth and handle in the air, at the same moment Mallory dropped to the ground and went still.
Nick grabbed the machete.
Chapter Nine
IN WHICH Nick Finally Decides What He Wants
Nick grabbed the machete as the giants shuffled back from the enormous hydra. The hydra roiled and seethed, moving across the earth on its hundreds of tiny legs, dozens of maws opening to show thousands of glittering teeth. Terrible black eyes opened and closed, as though deciding which prey to devour first. Lightning flashed overhead and lit those eyes with a glowing greenish light.
This monster had lived for longer than he could imagine, slumbering under the earth, waiting for some instinct to awaken it so it could slake its appetite with everything it came across.
Jared and Mallory and Simon lay uncon- scious in the dirt, far too close to the hydra. Nick spotted Jack Jr. across the clearing, cradling his leg and slumped against a tree, his face shadowed. His motor- cycle was lying on its side, one of the tires as empty as a popped balloon. Nick wasn’t sure if Jack Jr. was awake or not.
“Can we drag them?” Laurie asked. “They’re going to get stepped on.”
“We’re going to get stepped on.”
As Nick took a step toward the limp bodies of the Grace kids, he saw Jack Jr. shift his weight and start to stand. The man looked over at them, and his mouth opened in surprise and horror.
“Nick! Laurie!” Jack Jr. shouted, waving his arms. “Get out of here.” He pushed himself to his feet, and Nick could see there was something wrong with his leg. He limped toward the Grace children. “I’ll protect them. You go!”
One by one, Jack Jr. dragged Jared, Simon, and Mallory beneath the tree. Nick could hear one of them cough as they got out of direct exposure to the methane, but they stayed prone. Jack Jr. knelt beside them, sword out to guard them against the giants looming nearby.
“Run!” Jack Jr. called to Nick.
Nick wondered if his dad and Charlene and Jules would have enough time to get out of the area before this thing and its offspring razed the earth. He looked over at Laurie, but she was staring at the hydra as though hypnotized.
“I’m sorry,” he told her. That seemed to sum him up pretty well. Sorry.
“We have to do something,” Laurie said.
But there was nothing to do. Despite all of Jack’s lessons, neither one of them was a warrior like Mallory. And even Mallory hadn’t lasted more than a minute. Laurie couldn’t even keep her sneakers tied. The laces flopped in the mud as she stepped toward him and put her hand on his arm. And he—he was the most pathetic of all. He couldn’t do anything but make models and come up with stupid ideas.
He closed his eyes.
“Nick!” said Laurie. “We really have to do something.”
That’s what they’d thought. They’d figured that Jack Jr. could use their help and that they’d be able to do something. But Jack Jr. had been right. They were just kids.
Nick opened his eyes again and found himself looking at Laurie’s untied shoes. And he had another stupid idea—so stupid that he couldn’t help smiling, because it might work.
“How long can you hold your breath?” Nick asked.
“I don’t know,” she said.
“We have to untangle the knot.” He held up the machete. “Chop them apart. They’ve been like that a long time—they won’t even know what to do without one another.”
“How can we do that?” she asked.
“We have to get in the middle of them somehow.”
“Wait,” she said. “You want us to run into the hydra?”
“No,” he said impatiently. “Look, wherever there have been sinkholes, there have been these tunnels. The dragons tunneled up from wherever they were, tunneled out into the sinkholes. We can crawl through the tunnels too.”
“How are we going to breathe?”
“I don’t know,” Nick said. “There are only two things we have going for us: We’re small and have thumbs.”
“Nick!”
“We can do what the giants can’t do— separate them.” Nick swallowed. “If we can get to the center of the hydra where the knotting starts, we can hack it away. Like hitting a tree at its roots. I know it’s crazy, but I think we can do it.”
Laurie took his hand and gave it a single squeeze. “If we get out of this, I am going to be nice to you for a whole week.”
“If we get out of this,” Nick said, “you can have any future bedroom of mine. Seriously.”
“Now I know we’re going to die,” Laurie said, rolling her eyes.
They had to move fast, as two more giants had lumbered into view.
“Stick close to the trees,” Laurie said. “The giants are coming from that way, so the sinkhole must be in the direction they’re headed.”
Nick and Laurie slunk close to the trees, letting the fight rage on behind them. When they found the sinkhole, the edges were slick with mud and the bottom was seething with fat dragons.
“Hold your breath,” Nick said, and jumped.
The dragons turned to bite at him. He waved Mallory’s machete at them as he scrambled into the largest tunnel.
The hole was a tight fit, and as dirt crumbled down all around him, he imagined the walls closing in, the hole collapsing. He tried to take a deep breath, but he inhaled powdered soil and methane-thinned air. Tiny ants ran over his fingers and roots tangled in his hair. The passageway seemed to narrow as it veered downward.
He imagined Jared, Simon, and Mallory never getting up. He pictured Jules and Cindy unable to get away in time. He imagined the hydra moving toward Cindy’s house, toward the place where his dad and Charlene waited. If he didn’t stop the hydra—what would?
Forcing himself to crawl deeper into the tunnel, he looked at the handle of the machete in his hand. He remembered laughing at Laurie for paying attention to Noseeum Jack’s giant-killing lessons. He remembered he was only good at video games, not at real life.
Where the tunnel dipped down lowest, the methane got too thick to get a breath at all. He stopped.
Laurie touched his ankle. He jerked involuntarily, startled. “Ow,” she said.
“Go back,” he said, voice strained, and they both shuffled back until he could gulp air again. “You stay here.”
“You can’t go up there alone,” said Laurie.
He couldn’t see her expression in the dark. “There’s only one machete. No point in you taking a risk. If I don’t come back in ten minutes, get out of here.”
“I’m not going to leave you,” she said.
He thought he should argue, but at least she was waiting where it was mostly safe.
He forced hims elf onward.
Scuttling deeper, he forced himself onward until he could feel the tunnel curving upward. And then he was sucking in his breath and sticking his head up out of the hole.
He had expected to wait for the hydra to roll toward him, but it was right there. Its glistening bodies wove like water in the moonlight and for a moment Nick was too awed to move. He could see the knot of connective tissue that joined the dragons together, a mass of vines and clumps of no-longer-recognizable matter. He chopped hard, wildly. Black blood spattered his face. Above him he could hear screeching, and then his lungs ached and he dropped back down.
But when he tried to breathe, he couldn’t. His head swam and he gasped. He felt hands drag him backward until suddenly there was air again.
“Aren’t you glad I never listen to you?” asked Laurie.
“It didn’t work,” he managed to say. “Not enough air.”
“It was a good plan,” said Laurie.
“I just needed more time. I know I can do this. If I could just hold my breath longer—”
“Wait!” Laurie said. “The merfolk’s cap! If it let you breathe underwater then maybe . . .”
“Maybe I could breathe in the tunnel.” He rummaged through his pockets and pulled out the sea grass cap he’d gotten from the merfolk. It was worth a try.
He put it on his head and took back the machete. Then he crawled back up through the hole.
He could breathe. He could worm his way through the tunnels, closer and closer to where the hydra writhed. He could come up nearly underneath it, climbing through its coils with the sea grass cap on his head and the machete in his hand.
Like he was some kind of hero.
Except this was nothing like playing a character in a video game.
He was terrified. He was dirty and he probably smelled awful. Sweat stung his eyes. There were no second chances or high scores or cheats that he could look up online.
This was real and awful, and he had no idea what he was doing but he was doing it anyway.
He cut into the middle of the hydra, chopping at the accumulated roots and dirt and filth that bound them together, chopping at the scales. He chopped with all the grief in him, all the fear and the anger. All the things he’d sucked down and swallowed to make himself into someone who wouldn’t bother anyone or bother with anything. He hacked up the dirt and the filth and the roots that held the dragons together like he was hacking apart every bit of his strained relationship with his dad, the loss of his mom, his fear of losing everyone all over again.
As the hydra moved, the dragons pulled apart, howling.
One knocked him to the ground. The machete nearly flew out of his hand, and he sprawled on his back. The dragon crawled over his body, its jaws close to his neck. Nick pressed the machete against its skin, but it bore down on him.
This was the end.
This was the end.
He thought about his mother and whether he would see her face, like he had when he was drowning. He hoped he would. He closed his eyes.
Then the weight was gone from his chest. He looked up in time to see a giant throwing one of the dragons against the dirt and then stomping on its back. Then flame exploded in the air in front of him.
All around him giants were closing in as the dragons moved chaotically, independently for the first time in centuries. Nick flattened himself against the wall of the sinkhole and watched as five hundred years of nature ripped itself apart.
The emergency room of the hospital was crowded with people as they all limped in, covered with mud. Nick’s hair was singed, his skin felt sunburned, and he had a gash on his head, but he had never been happier. Laurie slumped into one of the waiting room chairs. She looked shaky, and both her knees were scraped up. A nurse brought a wheelchair for Jules. Jules got into it gingerly so he could elevate his leg. Cindy, whose parents had driven all of them over, immediately sat in his lap.
Nick guessed they weren’t breaking up.
The Grace kids didn’t look much better. Jared had a bruise over one eye. Simon had twisted his ankle, and it had swelled up so that his foot no longer quite fit in his shoe. Mallory had a gash on her cheek that she told them she hoped might heal to look like a dueling scar. All three of them seemed like they were about to fall asleep where they stood.
Jack Jr. was using a large plank of wood as a walking stick. He leaned against the doorway, talking on a cell phone. When one of the nurses tried to get his information, he waved her off.
“Time for me to head out,” he said when he hung up.
“Your leg looks really bad,” Laurie said. “Don’t you think you should get someone to check it?”
“I will,” Jack Jr. said with a grin. “I think I should take myself and my sword out of here before someone sees me and starts to distrust lawyers more than ever. I just wanted to make sure you kids were safe. Dad wasn’t happy we had to let some of the giants live, you know.”
“Yeah,” Nick said. “We let them live. That’s one way to look at what happened.”
“That’s my dad for you.” Jack Jr. shook his head. “He also wanted me to tell you that you were a bunch of real heroes, like in the old days.”
“Really?” Laurie asked.
“Really,” said Jack Jr. “And he’s right.”
“Nick’s the hero,” Mallory said, smiling. Nick could feel his cheeks get hot.
Jack reached into his coat, but this time he brought out nothing more than a business card. He placed it in Nick’s hand. “Stay in touch.”
He started toward the door, then turned back to tell Mallory to keep training. She promised she would.
They each got checked and bandaged in turn. Mallory called her dad. Jared taught them how to play gin rummy, which he’d learned from his aunt Lucy, and they played a few rounds before they realized that the hospital deck was missing a few cards.
“So, we’re going back to Maine really soon,” Simon said to Laurie.
“We can e-mail one another, though, right?” she asked.
“I’ll e-mail you,” he said, “but Jared’s really bad at writing people back.”
“I’d write you back,” Jared said to Laurie.
Laurie smiled.
“Oh,” said Mallory with a grin, leaning back in the waiting room chair, “I’m sure we’ll all see each other again. Probably sooner than we think.”
She looked startled but began to pet him automatically.
“Is that your cat?” asked one of the nurses. “Pets aren’t allowed in the hospital.”
“I’ll take him outside,” said Laurie. She stood up.
“I’ll go with you,” said Nick.
They walked outside and sat on one of the benches under the overhang so they wouldn’t get rained on. Nick wondered if Sandspur had made himself look like a cat or if the nurse had the Sight. The spriggan looked small and mostly harmless curled up on Laurie’s lap. It was hard to imagine him swollen up so large that he could eat Nick.
“We can’t keep him,” Nick said.
“It doesn’t matter,” said Laurie. “It’s not like you’re going to live with us.”
“I might. I mean, we might all live together again.”
“Maybe we shouldn’t,” Laurie said, petting the spriggan. His three-toed feet twitched with pleasure.
Nick frowned. “What do you mean?”
“It’s worse to have a dad and brothers and then lose them than not have them at all. If I’m going to lose you guys, then I just want to start getting used to it.”
Nick took a deep breath. “Whatever happens with our parents, I will be your brother. Forever. I promise.”
Laurie’s face softened. “And I promise to be your sister.” Laurie stuck out her pinkie, and they linked fingers to swear on it.
The rain ebbed as they watched the stream of people go in and out of the emergency room. By the time Charlene and Nick’s dad arrived, the mud had dried on Nick’s skin, and he was trying without success to wipe his face on his shirt without making his face dirtier.
Charlene and Nick’s dad walked close together, his dad’s arm slung over Charlene’s shoulder. They sprang apart when they saw the kids.
“We were so worried,” Charlene said, sweeping Nick and Laurie into the same crushing hug.
The Wyrm King Page 7