Clash of the Worlds

by Chris Columbus

  “The first thing we need to do is get to Fat Jagger,” Eleanor said, not able to get the image of the dead frost beast from her head. She kept envisioning Fat Jagger on TV instead of the frost beast, his giant body riddled with bullet holes. “He’s our friend, and we have to help him first. We need to make sure he knows that he needs to get away from the city and stay hidden until we figure this out.”

  “We will, Nell,” Cordelia assured her.

  But she also knew that would merely be treating one of the symptoms of the problem, not actually fixing the cause of the problem itself. Dr. Walker had explained the theory behind practicing medicine to Cordelia when she was ten years old and had spent the day at the hospital with him.

  “The key to curing people,” he’d explained, “is as simple as keeping your mind focused on the underlying cause. Don’t try to fix the symptoms, instead fix the issue causing the symptoms. Sometimes they don’t even seem related. Like, if your leg hurts all of the time, you can’t just take aspirin every day for the rest of your life. Instead, you have to figure out what’s causing the pain and fix that. Leg pain can be caused by a number of ailments not occurring in your leg at all, like back issues or a neurological disorder. That’s why we strive to treat the underlying problem or cause, not just the symptoms themselves.”

  It was important to keep Fat Jagger safe, but Cordelia knew they couldn’t merely ask him to hide in the ocean for the rest of his life. They would eventually need to find out how to get him back home. She knew nobody else was coming to help; the only other person alive who even knew the book world existed at all was the Wind Witch, which meant it was up to the three Walker children to somehow save the world.

  “If only there was a way we could talk to dead people,” Cordelia speculated aloud.

  “What are you talking about?” Brendan asked, holding up three fingers in front of her face again. “Are you sure you don’t have a concussion?”

  “I’m talking about Denver Kristoff,” Cordelia said, pushing his hand away again. “If he were alive, he might be able to tell us what to do. How to fix this.”

  “That old monster wouldn’t help us even if we could somehow talk to his ghost,” Brendan said. “He’d probably want his creations to exist in real life. What writer wouldn’t?”

  “Are you so sure about that?” Cordelia asked, pointing at the TV still showing images of the dead frost beast. “I mean, if his characters crossed over, many of them would probably end up getting killed. People shoot first and ask questions later. Would Kristoff really want to see his characters getting massacred? Or destroying the city he loved?”

  “This is a ridiculous conversation,” Brendan said. “Kristoff’s dead. Unless you have a Ouija board and psychic abilities, we won’t get a single word out of that stiff!”

  “That’s it!” Cordelia shouted. “You’re brilliant, Bren!”

  “Now you’re calling me brilliant?” Brendan asked. “I think we need to get you a CAT scan.”

  “No, remember what happened at the Bohemian Club when we saw Aldrich Hayes and Denver raise the spirits of dead Lorekeepers with a simple spell?”

  Brendan nodded, already not liking where this was headed.

  “I don’t see why their own spirits can’t be summoned as well,” Cordelia said.

  “What are you saying?” Eleanor asked nervously.

  “We’re going to resurrect the spirit of the Storm King!”

  “But we have to help Fat Jagger first!” Eleanor nearly yelled. “I already have a plan and everything.”

  “We will help him, Nell. I promise,” Cordelia assured her. “But we also need to find a way to fix this for good. And Denver Kristoff is probably the only one who can tell us how to do that. Brendan, do you still remember that spell?”

  Brendan had an incredible memory. He could remember the smallest details years later after only having heard or seen something once—as long as it was something that interested him, like sports statistics, or cryptic spells that summoned real ghosts.

  He nodded reluctantly—remembering that horrifying experience all too well.

  “Good, so you get the job of trying to summon the Storm King’s spirit,” Cordelia said. “Nell and I will try to help Fat Jagger.”

  “This is never going to work,” Brendan said.

  “We have to try something,” Cordelia said.

  “Last time we snuck into the Bohemian Club we almost got killed,” Brendan said. “So where exactly am I supposed to hold this charade of a séance? In our living room? Or how about a random street corner? Larkin and Bay sounds kind of magical. . . .”

  “Start with the cemetery,” Cordelia suggested, ignoring his sarcasm. “Where the old fart is buried. Use your brain, Bren. I can’t always be the one with all of the ideas!”

  Brendan didn’t really have a strong desire to raise the dead alone in a cemetery. But it’d be in broad daylight. He could handle that. Plus, he didn’t want to look like a complete wuss in front of his sisters. So he nodded, pretending it was no big deal.

  “Yeah, cool,” Brendan said, raising his chin to look confident. “But when are we going to do this? We have school tomorrow. Are we going to call in sick, or just wait until the bell rings?”

  “We can’t wait that long,” Cordelia said, shaking her head. “Even as we speak, more creatures from Denver’s books might be streaming into the real world! We have to do it now.”

  “Now?” Brendan asked, his voice cracking.

  “Yes!” Eleanor said, her eyes glowing. “Poor Fat Jagger’s probably getting tired of hanging out under all that water. He’s all alone and scared!”

  “He’s all alone and scared?” Brendan asked, completely dropping his thin facade of bravery. “What about me? Your brother! I’m the one going to a cemetery alone in the middle of the night! The place is probably filled with San Francisco’s weirdest creeps and lurkers. . . .”

  “You’ve faced a lot tougher stuff than a graveyard at night,” Cordelia said. “You can do this, Bren.”

  She put a reassuring hand on her brother’s shoulder and smiled. Brendan turned to Eleanor. His little sister nodded at him, the look in her eyes reflecting back just how much she really did look up to him.

  “We believe in you, Bren,” she said.

  Brendan couldn’t back down now. His sisters could be a royal pain sometimes. But at moments like this, when he needed a burst of strength or confidence, they always provided it.

  He smiled and nodded back.

  “Okay,” Brendan said. “Let’s do this.”

  To any regular bystander, Cordelia and Eleanor Walker must have looked completely insane. After all, it’s hard to imagine why an eight- and a fifteen-year-old would be standing near the shore of the San Francisco Bay at two thirty a.m. throwing pounds and pounds of raw meat into a huge pile. They had created a meat tower of steaks, ground hamburger, pork shoulders, chicken thighs, and cheap fish fillets. The pile was almost as big as the two of them put together.

  It had taken nearly all of the three Walker children’s saved-up allowances and birthday and holiday money to amass such an impressive supply of meat. But Eleanor was still worried it wouldn’t be enough. After all, even though the pile could feed a whole army of human beings, to Fat Jagger it was only the equivalent of a small chunk of beef jerky.

  They’d all snuck out of the apartment and taken a late-night bus to a twenty-four-hour Safeway to get their stockpile. Brendan had helped them haul it out to Torpedo Wharf and then departed for Fernwood Cemetery, where Denver Kristoff was buried under a fake name.

  It was three in the morning, cold, damp, and nearly pitch-black by the time the Walker sisters arrived at Torpedo Wharf, cut open all the packages of meat, and dumped them into a massive pile at the edge of the concrete pier. They shivered miserably while they stood and waited.

  “Now what?” Cordelia asked her little sister. “We’ve been here almost twenty minutes.”

  “I don’t know,” Eleanor said. “This was
the end of my plan. I guess I just thought he’d be hungry enough to smell the meat.”

  It definitely smelled. Cordelia held a hand over her nose to fight off the stench. But maybe the odor simply wasn’t enough? The wind was blowing in from the bay, after all, carrying the shoreline scents away from where Fat Jagger lurked. And it would certainly be even more difficult, if not impossible, for him to smell anything underwater. There had to be something they could do to intensify the smell.

  Cordelia was torn from her thoughts by a shrill squawk. A white seagull plopped down on top of their four-hundred-dollar pile of meat and greedily gobbled up several chunks into its gullet.

  “Shoo!” Cordelia yelled, swatting at the bird with her hand.

  The seagull flapped its wings a few times and hovered above the meat for several seconds, before settling down again on the other side of the pile. Several other pilfering white birds descended out of nowhere, squawking greedily.

  “Nell, I need your help here,” Cordelia said desperately as she removed her jacket.

  She swung it in wide circles near the growing group of seagulls feasting on the pile of meat. As the jacket neared them, they quickly hopped away or took flight. But each time it passed them by, they dove back in for another helping.

  “Go away!” Eleanor yelled, charging in at the birds. “This is Fat Jagger’s!”

  The birds must have sensed her frantic energy, because they fled for cover as she neared. But then, one after another, they circled back hungrily.

  Cordelia looked at Eleanor desperately.

  “We need to do something fast,” Cordelia said to her little sister. “Or else pretty soon there’s not going to be anything left!”

  Meanwhile, seven miles away, across the Golden Gate Bridge, Brendan paid the cab driver and stepped out of the car into the dark night. He had no idea how he was going to get home. The number forty bus stopped running at eight p.m., and he’d had to spend all of his remaining money on the cab ride there. Thankfully, his driver didn’t speak English very well, and didn’t even bother asking why a twelve-year-old kid was taking a cab to a cemetery at two thirty in the morning on a school night. Brendan supposed this was a benefit of living in a big city like San Francisco. Nothing seemed weird there.

  He was surprised to see that Fernwood Cemetery did not have a perimeter fence. He’d been fairly certain he was going to have to climb a ten-foot-tall iron fence with impaling spikes at the top. But the huge cemetery, surrounded by woods and built on a gently sloping hill, seemed almost welcoming to late-night trespassers.

  It was dark; the only light was from several streetlights nearby and a few faded stars in the black sky.

  Brendan braced himself with several deep breaths as he stared into the blackness of the cemetery, trying to tell himself that facing Savage Warriors, bloodthirsty pirates, Roman gladiators, hungry lions, and a vicious wolf the size of a horse had all been way more terrifying than this. There was no reason for him to be afraid.

  His mind drifted toward the time when he was nine and had snuck into the living room late at night to watch Night of the Living Dead On Demand. He might as well have been a delicious brain sitting on a dinner platter. Brendan would have laughed at the image of his brain sitting neatly on a silver platter flanked by sides of braised kale and mashed potatoes if he were less petrified.

  He tried to ignore his fear and instead focus on what he was there to do. First things first: he had to somehow find Denver Kristoff’s tomb.

  Brendan switched on his phone’s flashlight and made his way into the cemetery, weaving past most of the headstones. It actually took far less time to find it than he’d suspected, given the cemetery’s size. But his gut instinct to start by checking the larger, more expensive mausoleums paid off. After jogging to four or five of the newer-looking mausoleums, Brendan found the one labeled Houston, for Marlton Houston, the false name reported by the news in the days following Denver Kristoff and Aldrich Hayes being killed by a city bus downtown.

  Kristoff’s mausoleum was a grand affair. It was roughly the size of a large tool shed, but all similarities ended there. It was constructed of white marble and had three steps leading up to a set of bronze double doors covered in intricate carvings of hooded figures and mythical beasts. Two marble columns flanked the doors beneath a peaked roof containing a large carved symbol Brendan didn’t recognize.

  He stood in front of the steps and took a few deep breaths, cleared his throat, and thought back to the horrifying experience of watching Denver and Aldrich summon the spirits of past Lorekeepers inside the Bohemian Club with a simple spell.

  “Diablo tan-tun-ka,” Brendan said, softly at first. “Diablo tan-tun-ka.” His voice grew louder as he chanted the spell several more times. “Diablo TAN-tun-ka! Diablo tan-tun-KA!”

  Nothing seemed to be happening. Brendan continued anyway, recalling words the two Lorekeepers had spoken, but not quite remembering the inflections.

  “Diablo TAN-tun-ka, spirit of my . . . uh, great-great-great-grandfather, um, I think,” Brendan said. “I summon you! I wish to speak to the one departed called Denver Kristoff!”

  Brendan raised his arms toward the sky, as if he were literally trying to lift up the dead spirit of the Storm King from his resting place. He stopped and waited, his arms still raised into the air like he was signaling a touchdown.

  Only silence greeted him. He lowered his arms and realized how ridiculous it was to think he could possibly raise the spirit of a dead Lorekeeper . . . or anyone for that matter.

  A chill went up his spine as a breeze whipped across his neck and face.

  Then a twig snapped behind him.

  Brendan spun around, raised his phone’s flashlight; his heart lodged firmly his throat. And then he screamed loud enough to wake the dead.

  Back on Torpedo Wharf, Eleanor realized that Cordelia was right. They needed to do something fast or else the growing pack of seagulls would eat all of Fat Jagger’s bait.

  Eleanor looked around desperately. Her eyes rested on a nearby metal trash can full of newspapers and plastic bottles and Styrofoam coffee cups. A snoring homeless man in tattered clothing lay next to it. It was obvious he had just passed out because the still-smoldering butt of a cigarette dangled loosely from his fingers.

  Eleanor glanced at Cordelia, who was still waving her jacket at the flock of seagulls. It was chaotic, and getting louder as more birds cawed along with Cordelia’s screams.

  Eleanor knew there was no time to waste. She didn’t always need her older sister’s approval or supervision; Cordelia wasn’t the only smart one in the family!

  So Eleanor pushed away the fear and marched right up to the man. She knelt down beside him and gently and carefully plucked the cigarette from his fingers. She stood up, a triumphant smile spread across her face.

  A hand grabbed her leg.

  “Gimme back my smoke!” the man growled.

  She quickly shook the man’s hand from her leg and ran around toward the other side of the trash can.

  “Get back here you little brat!” he screamed, trying to get to his feet. But he wobbled unsteadily, having unusual difficulty standing up.

  “Nell, what are you doing?” Cordelia yelled, swatting at several seagulls that were dive-bombing her, apparently tired of being hit by her jacket. “Stop torturing that poor man and help me!”

  Eleanor didn’t answer, carefully cradling the burning cigarette in her cupped hands so it wouldn’t burn out. She knew that smoke and heat traveled upward. That’s what the firefighter who came and spoke to her class about fire safety had said. She crouched down near the bottom of the mesh trash can.

  “Get back here, kid!” shouted the man, who was finally on his feet and stumbling toward Eleanor.

  “Nell, let go of that disgusting thing! What are you doing?” Cordelia asked as she swatted at another seagull.

  “You’ll see,” Eleanor said as she touched the red ash of the cigarette to the bottom of the garbage.

  She h
ad no idea what the wadded-up newspapers at the bottom had been soaked in, but the whole thing ignited much quicker than she’d expected. After just a few seconds, the entire trash can was engulfed in flames that leaped several feet into the air, sending sparks floating into the night sky.

  The vagrant grabbed Eleanor by the back of the collar and lifted her up.

  “Gimme my smoke!” he shouted.

  Eleanor held out the still-lit cigarette. He grabbed it and set her back down.

  “Thanks, mister,” she said.

  “You really should respect other people’s property, kid,” he said, and then slumped back down to the ground.

  “Nell, will you please tell me what’s going on?” Cordelia shouted.

  Eleanor ran toward the hungry seagulls, waved them off, and scooped up an entire armload of raw meat. She held her breath and reminded herself that she was doing this for Fat Jagger. She’d take an earthworm bath if that’s what it took to save him.

  She ran over and tossed the meat inside the blazing trash can. The fire crackled and popped as the fat seared instantly in the heat. The aroma of cooking steaks and poultry was almost immediate and far more intense than the mound of raw meat.

  Eleanor ran back for another armload.

  Cordelia marveled at how clever Eleanor was as she grabbed an armload of meat herself. Fat Jagger would be much more likely to smell cooking meat the next time he resurfaced for air. Together, they ran back and forth, dumping loads of meat into the burning trash.

  The smell of searing meats was so powerful that both Cordelia and Eleanor covered their faces with their shirts. They stood next to the makeshift barbecue and looked out into the dark bay. Cordelia draped an arm around her little sister’s shoulders.

  “Do you think he’ll come up for air soon?” Eleanor asked.

  “I hope so,” Cordelia said. “But either way, I’m proud of you. That was really risky what you did, but it was a smart idea, Nell.”