Délon City: Book Two of the Oz Chronicles (10 page)

I was the one who couldn’t be trusted. I would betray my friends. Mrs. Dayton knew it. I wanted what they wanted, the Délons...

“No,” I whispered. I refused to believe it. How had Lou put it? “A future.” It was a possibility, not the only possibility. I could change it. I could take a different path... A hopeless thought crept into my head. I had no idea what path led me to that future. How could I change the mistakes that would lead me there if I didn’t know what the mistakes were?

When I reached highway 55, I began to notice a presence, a whisper of an apparition hiding in the wind. Shadows from the half-moon lit sky seemed to chase me as I rode past a cemetery. I could feel someone or something watching me.

Instinctively, I reached for my weapon, J.J., even though I had not seen it in days (or months, according to Lou). It was lost... A sudden rush of relief came over me. It was lost. J.J. was gone. I couldn’t kill Lou with J.J. if I didn’t have the sword.

My relief was momentary. A sound drifted in from the darkness. It was a rattling or a low steady... chatter. The Takers’ calling card. They were back. A massive creature crept over the sloping hills of the cemetery. It plodded toward me. I gave Chubby a kick to send him into a speedy getaway, but he reared instead. Ahead of us, a second mass of darkness approached. Its silhouette was unmistakable, the pointed ears, the long dangling arms, the ridiculous wide expanse of the shoulders. It was a Taker.

I pulled Chubby’s reigns to the left to make our escape and saw two more Takers appear from the thicket of trees and shrubs that bordered the northbound side of the highway. I looked to the rear and saw another dozen or so Takers advancing. We were surrounded.

“I know it doesn’t look good, boy,” I told Chubby, “but we’ve got to pick a direction.”

As if he understood me, Chubby lurched forward and sped south toward Manchester. Not only was it the direction of our final destination, it left us with only one Taker to elude. I was beginning to believe that Chubby was a lot smarter than your average horse.

The Taker crouched as we drew closer. It extended its arms and flashed its ruddy eyes. Thirty feet away, I could see its sprawling toothy mouth set in a frightening smile. It shook its head violently.

I looked over my shoulder to see if the others were following. They were and ever faster.

“Okay, Chub,” I said. “Time to kick it into high gear!” The tiger horse responded. I could feel his muscles tighten as he ran faster than he ever had before.

The Taker in front of us snarled as we came within mere feet of it. Chubby deftly shifted to the right just outside the grasp of the Taker’s razor sharp claws. The slobbering beast wheeled on the balls of its enormous feet and gave pursuit. Its long, thumping stride shook the ground. In a saliva spraying fit, the Taker released a gurgled roar.

Chubby ran harder, but not faster. The horse was working itself up into a foamy lather. I could feel its heart pounding through the saddle. A sense of panic soared through me, as Chubby snorted and panted toward Manchester.

The Taker we passed was gaining on us too easily. In another step or two, it could leap on Chubby’s back and start ripping me to shreds with its meaty hands.

“C’mon, Chub-boy, c’mon!” The old horse gave me one more burst of energy. We were flying across the pitted pavement. Ahead of us to the right was the shopping center with the mattress store. “Just a little more, boy. Just a little more.”

Of course, I didn’t know what we were going to do once we reached the mattress store. The Taker wouldn’t disappear just because we reached where we were going. He wasn’t an escort to make sure we made it to our final destination safely. He was a hunter looking for food, and we were the food.

Chubby dipped into the parking lot. The Kroger’s grocery store that made up most of the shopping center was dark. It was closed for the night, and the employees had long since vacated the premises. The little mattress store at the end wasn’t just closed for the night. It was boarded up, out of business. Wes’s VW bus was nowhere to be seen. We were running to nothing.

I looked over my shoulder. The Taker was gone. I stared back in anguished disbelief. Anguished because my horse and I had been driven to near coronaries over the thought of what the greasy monster might do to us if it caught us, and the damn thing didn’t even have the decency to keep up its pursuit. It had a duty as a creature of the night to keep on our heels and drive us to either incredible feats of bravery or cowardice. That’s what monsters do.

I gently pulled back on Chubby’s reigns. The exhausted horse didn’t want to slow down at first. Eventually he slipped into a gallop and then a trot until his aching legs gave way to a traipsing walk.

I jumped off his back and fought the urge to throw up. I had not run an inch, yet I was so short of breath I thought I might pass out.

Why were the Takers here? I had killed the queen. That was supposed to be the end of them.

I heard a whacking sound, as if a wooden pole had fallen to the concrete surface of the parking lot. It came from the direction of the mattress store.

“Wes?” I cried between heaving breaths.

Chubby whinnied and snorted.

“Wes?”

Nothing.

I inched forward, keeping my eyes on the mattress shop. I thought I could hear the sputtering of the little VW engine coming from the poorly lit corner of the shopping center. It was Wes. It had to be.

Slowly, I pulled Chubby toward the entrance of the mattress shop. He protested and thrashed his head back. “C’mon, boy. We can’t stand here all night, and I’m sure as heck not going back the way we came.”

The horse snorted one last exasperated sigh and unenthusiastically let me guide him toward the sound of the sputtering.

As we got closer, the sputtering didn’t seem to sound like sputtering anymore. It sounded amazingly similar to chattering. I swallowed. My throat was dry, and my eyes were watery. My ears closed up and all I could hear was the thump-thump-thump of my overtaxed heart. Each step I took was a huge effort. It pained me each time it was necessary for me to take another.

At the door, I dropped Chubby’s reigns. “If anything should happen, Chubs, run.” I looked into his big brown eyes and could tell that would not be a problem.

As I passed the mattress shop, I peered in the window and saw my reflection. I was white as a ghost. My hair was ratty and my slim frame was barely imposing enough to cast a reflection.

Chubby shrieked and reared. I turned to him. “What’s wrong?”

Looking back in the window I saw Chubby’s front hooves touch back down on the ground. Just nerves. The steed was understandably jumpy. After all we had just had a run in with a... Taker.

In the window, I could see a line of Takers behind me. Twenty or so, all crouched down on their haunches, teeth bared, claws foreword. Standing fully erect, they would range in height from eight to fifteen feet. I slowly turned. Only the sounds of their snapping jaws interrupted the incessant chattering. Chubby reared and kicked his front feet. This seemed to confuse the Takers. That’s when I remembered that Takers could only see humans. They couldn’t see animals. Chubby was safe.

I was not, however. There was no point in me running. They would be on top of me before I could get ten feet. Killed by Takers. That was one way to make sure I did not betray my friends and become the Délon king. I stepped forward. Chubby moved in front of me.

“Get back, boy.”

The spotted tiger horse paid no attention to me. He stomped toward the line of Takers. He seemed to realize they couldn’t see him. They blindly stepped back.

“Chubby,” I yelled. “Get out of here!”

The horse refused. He turned and side-stepped toward the Takers. The monsters flailed their arms and growled.

A pack of dogs bounded from the corner of the mattress store. Their barks shrieked through the night. The lead dog was Kimball. Eight dogs similar in size and stature followed him. They varied in color from white to blonde to black and every imaginable combination of those colors.

Instead of bolting in fear, the Takers calmed and stood at attention. The dogs circled, barking and nipping at the great beasts. They weren’t attacking them. They were wrangling them.

“Get ‘em up, dogs!” I heard a familiar voice shout. Wes stepped out from behind the mattress store.

“Wes?”

He smiled at me. “Got them Greasywhoppers just where I want ‘em, kid.” He whistled and the pack of dogs moved the herd of Takers through the parking lot and behind the mattress store.

“Them things is dumb as washboards,” Wes laughed. “Can’t for the life of me remember why we was so damned scared of ‘em.” He stepped toward me, his smile a mile wide. “Damn fine to see ya’, son.” He bent down and picked me up in a smothering bear hug.

“What’s going on?” I asked between labored breaths.

“C’mon,” he said putting me down. “There’s some folks who want to see you.”

***

When we entered the back of the mattress store, I heard the playful prattling of children. The sound of a girl giggling wildly struck me as odd given the place and circumstances.

I heard a young boy cry out, “No fair, Val! You can’t use both hands!”

Tucked away in the front corner of the store, sitting behind a musky smelling display mattress, a young boy and girl thumb wrestled.

“Valerie? Tyrone?”

They turned in my direction. “Oz!” they screamed in unison and bolted toward me.

The youngest of my warriors were now a year older and about four inches taller between them.

“It’s you,” I said. “It’s really you.” We locked in a three-way hug in the middle of the store.

“Ozzie, my man,” Tyrone said in a voice that was much deeper than I remembered. “Wes said you were alive, but we didn’t believe him.”

“I did,” Valerie insisted. “I knew nothing could kill Oz.”

“You’re such a liar,” Tyrone grunted.

“I’m not...”

“Hush up,” Wes barked. “Don’t you two start your squabbling again. You’ll drive a body crazy with that nonsense.”

They curbed their inclination to bicker, and took a seat on a nearby mattress. I couldn’t stop looking at them. The last time I had seen them was at Zoo Atlanta. They were frightened, but brave. We all were.

I heard a bark just seconds before a hundred pound German shepherd tackled me. He covered my face with wet doggie kisses. “Kimball,” I laughed. “Down, boy.”

I sat up on my elbows and surveyed the lot of them. They were all here. I wouldn’t have dared to let myself believe it if I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes, but there they were. “Is this real?” I heard myself asking.

“Real as real can be,” Wes said.

“But... how?” I climbed up on a nearby mattress.

“Well, things got a little hairy after you killed the Taker Queen,” Wes said. “The Délons swooped down on us quicker than a hiccup. They got Miles and Devlin right off. There weren’t nothing we could do to help ‘em. Old Doc Hollis was next, and then I seen Pepper take four of those purple boogers out before they dragged him off.”

“What about you guys?”

“Well, they would of got us for sure if hadn’t been for the big guy.” Wes motioned over his shoulder to the back of the room.

Stepping out of the shadows was an enormous beast, similar to the Takers except it had white hair. The monster stooped over to keep from hitting its head on the ceiling.

“Tarak?”

“Son of Zareh,” the white beast said.

Stepping out from behind the creature’s left leg, his tiny hands gripping tightly to Tarak’s white hair, was a drooling toddler.

My heart stopped. “Nate?”

SEVEN

I found myself not being able to believe where I was, what I was seeing, who was sitting around me. It was a hallucination, a trick of some kind. My army, my warriors, minus a soldier or two, sat staring at me, waiting for me to speak. But what do you say to ghosts? That’s what they had to be.

Kimball licked my hand, and I pulled back, startled. I tentatively touched him.

“He’s real,” Tarak said, his voice as intimidating and unsettling as ever. His massive frame was nearly crushing the bed he was sitting on. “We all are.”

“I know,” I said not knowing if I really believed it. “It’s just that...” I hesitated and scanned the faces of everybody in the room. “How?”

“I told ya’,” Wes said. “Tarak here saved our butts.”

I looked at Tarak. “I thought you said this was our war to fight.”

He sighed. “It was. And you won, but the war with the Délons is for a different warrior and a different Keeper. You’ve done your part.”

“What do you mean a different warrior?”

“There are seven Storytellers. That means seven stories with seven sets of warriors, seven Keepers, and seven races of destroyers.”

“Destroyers?” I said. “What is this? Who made up these rules?”

Tarak thought about the question. “I don’t know. They have always been.”

“Are you telling me that there is another band of warriors out there who are going through what we went through last time?”

“I am.”

“Who is it? Where are they?”

Tarak’s expression soured. “You cannot know.”

“What? Why?”

“Because those are the rules?”

“Stop with the rules,” I shouted. “I know how to beat the Délons... I mean I think I do. I have to find these other warriors to let them know what I know.”

“It is not allowed.” Tarak said.

“Allowed...” The word shot out of my mouth with little control. I was tired of people (and mythical creatures) telling me what was and was not allowed. I was the Délon king, but I couldn’t rule the Délons because I was still human. I was a warrior, but I couldn’t fight this fight because it was another warrior’s battle. I was tired of not having any power.

I was about to not so calmly explain to Tarak why I would fight this battle, and there was nothing he or the other Keepers could do to stop me, when I felt a tug on my jeans around my knees. I looked down and saw the almond-shaped eyes of Nate looking back at me. I was stunned at first. He was no bigger than a loaf of bread the last time I saw him. Now he was walking, albeit with a great deal of difficulty.