Curse of the Spider King (40 page)

Jett screamed.

“Fight, Jett!!” yelled Mr. Spero as Mr. Green slumped unconscious to the ground. “FIGHT BACK!!”

Jett abruptly stopped screaming and squirming. He grabbed at the barky finger constricting around his midsection and ripped at it with a might he had never known before.

Jett tore a chunk of hard flesh away.

A deep, rasping howl rang out, and the hand dropped Jett immediately. He saw his mother. She was shaking, her back against the double doors of the study.

“Ma!” Jett yelled. “Get into the basement! Call the police!”

“But, baby!”

“Go, Ma! Now!” His mother moved tentatively at first, but then raced for the basement.

Jett turned just in time to witness two dark figures leaping through the window. Just seeing them sent a wild, paralyzing chill blowing through Jett. Shrouds of whirling white hair. Cruel blades extending from each fist. And the eyes—
the eyes
—heartless pupils of ice, floating in seas of depthless darkness.

“Drefids!!” shouted Mr. Spero. Jett watched his teacher charge, producing a pair of hand axes from beneath his long coat as he dove at one of the creatures. The other Drefid came at Jett.

“Come to me,
Violet
!” the creature hissed.

The Drefid reached at Jett with both clawed hands.

Jett jumped backward, destroying an end table.

Again and again, the Drefid stabbed at Jett. Each time, Jett dodged or ducked out of the way. Then he drove at Jett so hard he embedded his bony blades into the living room wall.

Seeing the Drefid momentarily trapped, Jett balled his fist, pulled back his arm, and unleashed a crushing punch. Jett hit the creature square in his pale jaw, so hard that the creature's head snapped sideways and his body twisted so awkwardly that his trapped arm snapped. The Drefid slumped to the ground and was still.

“Call me Violet!” Jett growled. The whole room shook. The tree thing had both its twisted hands inside the torn ceiling and ripped free a ragged section, tossing it out into the night. Where once there had been ceiling, there now was dark sky and an even darker shadow bending down and reaching into the room.

Axes meeting bony blades, Mr. Spero and the Drefid still sparred. But the tree creature swept down its fist. It slammed into Mr. Spero, sending his axes clattering to the floor and knocking the teacher onto one of the ruined couches to Jett's right. He rolled off the couch and rose unsteadily to his feet.

The tree's grasping hands and the other Drefid closed in on Jett and the now weaponless teacher. Their backs to a pair of high bookcases, Jett and Mr. Spero had nowhere to go.

The dark, gnarled hands reached forward, and the Drefid sprang.

A blast rang out.

The Drefid fell backward as if he'd been pulled on a string. The tree creature roared and started to jerk upright. It struggled in vain to twist, to reach around its trunk as if something was attacking it from behind.

“Finish 'em off,” said Mrs. Green. She held a shotgun and stood in the doorway to the living room.

Just then, the tree beast spasmed and fell, head, shoulders, arms, and upper limbs into the living room. Mr. Spero charged for his axes, found only one, and leaped on top of the tree creature. The wide blade bit deeply into the beast's timber flesh, and soon its roaring stopped, and the living room was covered in a sticky, black liquid.

The gunshot had only stunned the Drefid. He regained his feet and turned just in time to meet Jett's round kick. The creature staggered backward toward the window.

Unleashing a barrage of heavy punches, Jett went to work on the creature's midsection. The moment the Drefid doubled over, Jett lifted a violent knee under the creature's chin, and he flew back, out of the window from whence he had come. Wanting to make sure, Jett went to the window.

“He's not getting up again, Son,” said Mr. Green from down below in the lawn. Holding Mr. Spero's other axe, he stood over the dead Drefid.

“Dad, how did you—?”

“Take more than a knock on the head to keep me from helpin' my boy. I woke, saw you havin' trouble with that tree thing, so I took one of the axes outside and went to work on its trunk. Go figure. Thing fell just like a regular tree.”

“If I hadn't seen these creatures with my own eyes . . .” said Mr. Green. He stood in the doorway to the study and motioned to the wrecked living room and the dead. “. . . I never would have believed you. I mean, you could've faked the ears, but those things . . .”

“I still can't believe it,” said Mrs. Green. She rocked slowly in a desk chair. The shotgun was at her side, leaning against a tower of CDs and DVDs.

“I'm really an Elf?” asked Jett, rubbing the scars on top of his ears.

“Yes, Jett,” said Mr. Spero. “You really are. And I've traveled between worlds to find you.”

“What do we do now?” asked Mr. Green, sitting on a stool next to his wife. “We can't leave these things here.”

“No,” said Mr. Spero. “That would be unwise. Your nearest neighbors are close to a mile away, and you've got a large piece of property here. I'd suggest burying these creatures where they'll never be found.”

“Bury them? That'd be some serious work. Why?”

“Mr. Green, can you imagine what would happen if the people of Earth learn of another world beyond their own?”

Jett's dad shook his head and whistled. “It could change everything.”

“It
would
change everything,” said Mr. Spero. “Now, Mr. and Mrs. Green . . . we've won a small victory here tonight, but there are more Drefids and more tree creatures—Cragons we call them—out there. As long as Jett is here, your home will not be safe. They will not stop until your son is dead. And, as you saw here tonight, they are prepared—even eager—to kill all who stand in their way.” He turned and looked into Jett's violet eyes. “I need to take Jett back to Allyra.”

Mrs. Green lowered her head to her husband's shoulder and wept quietly. Jett's father was very still. His eyes took on a frozen, faraway look. “He's . . . he's our son.”

“Yes,” said Mr. Spero. “You adopted Jett and have raised him well. Even with his immense strength, it took a lot of heart for him to go after those horrific creatures. You are good parents and good people. I will not take Jett against your will . . . or his. But you must know this: Jett was born in Berinfell, the capital city of the Elves. He was stolen from his birth parents and abandoned here on Earth. If Jett and the other six lords do not return to Allyra, the Spider King will destroy the Elven race.”

“W-will he ever come back?” asked Mrs. Green.

“If Ellos . . . if God wills it,” replied Mr. Spero.

Mr. Green took his wife's hand and rubbed it. Then he stood and went to Jett. “Son,” he said. “I don't see how I can let you go . . .” A long silence followed. Mr. Green hastily wiped his eye. “. . . But I don't see how I can rightfully make you stay, either.”

“Austin!” Mrs. Green objected. “Oh, Austin . . .”

“Hazel,” he said, “this is beyond us. Even if he'd been born our . . . our natural son, he's God's property, loaned to us . . . for a time.” He turned back to his son. “Jett, Mr. Spero says he won't take you if you aren't willing. And where you'd be going is a dangerous place, is that right?”

Mr. Spero nodded.

“So, what you need to decide,” Mr. Green continued, “is if you are willing to step out there, in spite of the danger, in spite of the unknown, in spite of what you . . . what you're leaving behind.”

Jett didn't answer right away. He went to his mother, hugged her fiercely, and whispered something in her ear. Then he went to his father. “Dad, if I can help save . . . I mean, there are a lot of peo—Elves who will die if I don't. There must be a reason I survived that bike wreck; there must be a reason I have this kind of strength. So I guess what I'm saying is, I'll go.”

Mr. Spero's nod spoke infinite respect. “Jett, you should go change—those stains will attract attention. Oh, and wear all cotton.”

“Why?”

“When we travel between worlds, only organic materials will pass through.”

Jett scrunched his brow. Then he realized the meaning. “Right, wouldn't want to show up in a new world in nothing but my birthday suit.”

When Jett left, Mr. Spero turned to the parents. “Mr. and Mrs. Green, I pledge to you, I will protect your son with my life. I . . . my people are grateful for your sacrifice.” The teacher glanced over his shoulder at the living room and then said, “Now I have one more thing to ask of you. Please do not report Jett missing right away. Give us two days.”

“Report Jett missing?” Mr. Green asked.

“You have to,” said Mr. Spero. “You will tell them that I took Jett on a trip to the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, D.C. I'll give you a permission slip to sign and leave it on my desk as evidence.”

“But the cops will think you kidnapped him,” said Mr. Green.

“It's for the best,” said Mr. Spero. “If the police do not have a legitimate lead, they will suspect the parents. It'll be hard to explain the damage to your house as it is.”

“No, I'll take care of that,” said Mr. Green. “I've been meaning to cut down that dead oak in the front yard. I'll just let part of it fall the wrong way . . . into our living room.”

38

Convergence

AFTER A quick stop at the school to plant the permission slip, Mr. Spero drove Jett out of Greenville and looked for the interstate.

“Route 95 North?” Jett noted the sign at the exit. “Is that how we get to Allyra?” he asked.

Mr. Spero tried to frown, but laughed anyway. “No, Route 95 takes us to Baltimore/Washington International Airport. We're going to catch a flight to Scotland.”

“Scotland?”

“The Drefids have closed every portal in the U.S. If we are to get home to Allyra, we must go to the last open portal in Scotland. Other Sentinels and those of your lineage wait for us in Baltimore.”

Mrs. Galdarro closed her cell phone. “I've now heard back from everyone except Nelly,” she said.

“That's unlike her,” said Gabriel Sandow, a Sentinel who had just arrived from Virginia. “With two of the seven in one place, it may be that the Drefids and Cragons concentrated there.”

“I fear this also,” said Mrs. Galdarro. She looked at the faces gathered in the hangar's waiting area. The group was made up of Sentinels and Dreadnaughts . . . and, of course, Tommy. “But . . . if anyone can take care of her wards, it's Nelly.”

Later, Mrs. Galdarro found Tommy at the soda machine again. “But isn't that your fourth?”

“Free soda,” Tommy said with a grin.

“But all that caffeine. . . . doesn't that it you jittery?”

“Not at all,” Tommy replied, purposely blinking like crazy. “It has no effect on me whatsoever.” They both laughed. “I can't wait to meet the others. Do you know anything about them?” he asked.