Délon City: Book Two of the Oz Chronicles (18 page)

Lou’s chin dropped and she stepped toward them. I held out my arm and stopped her. “She stays.”

“We have plans for her,” Roy said, the irritation in his voice was apparent.

“I have plans for her,” I said.

“She is ours, human,” Reya snapped. General Roy gave her a stern glare.

“Not tonight,” I said. I wasn’t about to let them have their favorite snack.

I could see the spider legs on General Roy’s head twitch, but he fought to keep himself under control. “Very well.” They exited the condo, but not without Reya giving me one last look of total contempt.

“Whoa, bro,” Gordy said. “That Délon chick does not like you, man.”

“She never has...” We were interrupted by a loud popping sound. I felt a thump against the middle of my back. “What the...?” A wet, oozing warmth began to spread up and down my spine. “You guys feel that?”

“Feel what?” Gordy asked.

“Take off your backpack,” Lou demanded.

“What?” I couldn’t imagine why she was so insistent.

“Take it off!” She didn’t wait for me to comply. She grabbed one of the shoulder straps and yanked it down.

The shunter
.

I wriggled and turned and jumped as if I were on fire. “Get it off! Get it off! Get it off!” I could feel its jellyfish tentacles probing through the thick material of the backpack.

I finally slipped both arms through the shoulder straps and let the now soaked backpack fall to the floor. Gordy jumped up on a nearby chair while Lou ran to the kitchen. She returned with a cleaver. I cursed myself for leaving J.J. on Chubby’s saddle.

“What do we do? What do we do?” Gordy shouted.

“Why are you so scared?” I asked. “I’m the marked one.”

“Yeah, but you heard Devlin,” he said. “If it can’t find the marked, it’ll latch onto pretty much anything and suck its brains out.”

“Can’t find the marked? I’m right here!”

“Oh,” Gordy said. “Yeah, right.” I could feel the terror drain from his body once he realized he was no longer in danger.

A tiny hole appeared on the backpack and a thread thin tentacle stretched out of it.

Lou stood at the ready with the cleaver. Every fiber of her being wanted to raise it above her head and bring it crashing down on the squirmy little shunter, but she knew as soon as she did the Délons outside the window would come storming in.

“The kitchen,” I said. “We can put it in the freezer.” I picked the backpack up by one of its straps and held it at arm’s length. A second tentacle had burrowed another hole in the thick fabric. I hurried across the marble floor through the formal dining room and pushed opened the swinging door to the kitchen. The refrigerator was in sight when the third and fourth tentacles ripped through the backpack. The shunter was tearing it to shreds.

Lou zipped around me, and ran to the refrigerator. Gordy chose not join to us. I pictured him casually reading a Sports Illustrated on the couch, not giving us a second thought. We would have to have a serious talk about teamwork.

Lou opened the freezer and began tossing out all the frozen food items left by the previous owners. The shunter had torn a flap in the backpack. I could see its jelly like body. If it had eyes, it would have been peering out at me. I could hear the fabric of the backpack ripping.

“Hurry,” I said

“There’s a lot of crap in here,” Lou answered. “Some of it’s frozen to the sides of the freezer.”

I put the backpack down on a nearby counter. “Here,” I said. “Let me.”

Somewhat insulted, Lou stood and let me try to remove the items stuck to the sides of the freezer. I knelt down and tugged at a carton of ice cream. I could feel Lou’s sense of satisfaction when I couldn’t budge it. I gave it a more forceful yank and the entire shelf came out while I stumbled backwards to the kitchen floor. A cascade of frozen food came tumbling out of the freezer. It wasn’t pretty, but it got the job done.

There was no time to pat myself on the back. I jumped up and raced to the counter where I had left the backpack. I knew I was running out of time. I picked it up, and almost had a heart attack when the solifipod rolled out of a huge gaping hole in the backpack. The shunter had torn through the pack, and what’s worse, neither Lou nor I knew where it was.

“Oh boy,” I said.

Lou held her cleaver at the ready. “This is not good.”

I searched the surrounding area for a weapon. “Next time,” I said, “don’t let me leave J.J. with the horses.” I opened a drawer and found a rolling pin. It would have to do.

We heard the sound of thousands of little tentacles scampering across the floor.

“Do you see it?” I asked.

“No, but I hear it,” Lou answered.

We were back to back now, slowly circling and looking in every direction.

“I’m really getting tired of creepy crawlies,” I said.

The shunter let out a series of chirps. My left eye twitched in response. I frantically started kicking the frozen food items away from the freezer. The little face sucker was about to make its move, and I didn’t want anything obstructing the door. Whatever was going to happen was going to happen fast.

“Got any ideas?” Lou asked.

“Not really,” I said. “Nothing to do but wait...” I stopped mid-sentence. The room started to spin as the chirping got louder. The twitching in my eye spread throughout my whole body. I fell to my knees and dropped the rolling pin.

“Oz?” Lou said. Her voice was shallow and distant. I heard her scream. No, it wasn’t her screaming. It was the shunter. A flash of bright white hit me. Lou stood over me. Another flash of bright white.

“What the hell?” It was Gordy’s voice.

Everything went black.

***

When I came to, I was lying on a couch. It took me a minute to get my bearings. I was in the penthouse condo. I had just been in the kitchen. How did I get here? I turned to the right. Lou was sitting on the coffee table staring at me. She had a red welt that stretched diagonally across her face.

“What happened?” I asked.

“It’s called the shunter’s song,” Lou said. “It subdues the marked with a series of chirps.”

“You went down like a sack of potatoes,” Gordy said. He leaned over the back of the couch and stared down at me. “Lucky for you I’m here.”

“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.