Ravenspell Book 1: Of Mice and Magic (13 page)

I won’t eat,
he promised himself.
I won’t eat for a month.
Luckily, his stomach was still full of pizza.

“Cheer up,” Nightwing said. “There are worse types of vermin than a tick that you could be.” Then he giggled, “Although I really can’t think of one.”

Ben was still inching across the table when Nightwing leaped forward, grasped him tenderly in a claw, and swept up into the air.

It was a wild ride through the hail, but strangely, none of it seemed to hit the bat, who dodged this way and that as he flew, swerving and dipping, climbing and stalling in the air only to veer off in another direction—all the while letting giant hailstones go whistling by like cannonballs.

Ben glanced down and saw Amber sleeping quietly on the table while the pet shop mice crept out of hiding, making their way toward her. The lights of Dallas, Oregon, were growing small in Ben’s sight, shrinking, shrinking.

“Good-bye, Amber,” Ben whispered. “You really are the prettiest mouse I’ve ever seen.”

Darwin began to plead, “Okay, boss, I see what’s going on. You’re done with me. You’ve got a new buddy. So let me down.”

Nightwing shook all over as he laughed evilly, squeaking like a rusty hinge while twisting between the falling balls of hail.

“You’re not really going to let me go, are you?” Darwin begged. “Oh, I know what you’re thinking.”

Suddenly, the bloated tick leaped off of Nightwing, crying out as he fell.

Nightwing swooped, diving toward the tick, and grabbed the poor beast in his mouth. There was a crunching sound as the bat ate his former familiar.

Nightwing gulped the horrible meal down and smiled. Ben clung to the bat’s warm, stinky fur, afraid that if he fell, he’d be next on the menu. He was even more afraid of that than he was of the pellets of hail that were whistling past.

He could smell blood flowing through the bat’s veins, just beneath the skin. It seemed to call to him.

With a rising sense of helplessness and horror, Ben was swept off into the night.

Chapter 13

THE SWAMP WITCH

Arriving in the nick of time is good enough and makes life far more entertaining than arriving early.

—LADY BLACKPOOL

The next thing that Lady Blackpool knew, the turtle was spinning wildly out of control.

LADY BLACKPOOL RODE her flying turtle through the storm. They had been traveling all day at an altitude of nearly three hundred feet, and so the turtle had to climb each time that it reached a hill or cliff, then dip into each valley, thus making for a bumpy ride. Half a dozen times, Sea Foam had retracted his head as he braced for impact with low-flying ducks and geese, and each time that he did so, Lady Blackpool nearly got squished to death.

But she endured it. Rufus Flycatcher was depending on her to save Amber from the enemy—and Lady Blackpool was up to the task.

Still, she was tired. They crossed the snow-covered Cascade Mountain range, diving under the clouds where the night was as dark as a witch’s brew. Suddenly, the hail began to fall.

Ahead, Lady Blackpool sensed powerful magics. There were flashes and purple mushroom clouds rising up, clouds that only a powerful mage could see. Lady Blackpool imagined that a battle was going on.

Balls of hail were battering poor Sea Foam’s head and flippers, bouncing off him like marbles, and he retracted them as best he could.

“Maybe we should call a halt,” Sea Foam said after getting bashed on the noggin by a particularly large hailstone. “I feel like someone has been using my head as a conga drum.”

“No,” Lady Blackpool urged. “Keep going. We’ve only got a few more minutes.” And it was true. Traveling at two hundred miles per hour, they were nearly to their destination. She pointed down to some lights. “In fact, we only need to get there—to that human village.”

“Okay,” Sea Foam said with a groan.

It was just then that a horrible blinding light sizzled across the sky. Lady Blackpool felt each of her hairs stand on end, just before the lightning bolt struck.

Sea Foam lighted up, and then his eyes rolled back in his head. The next thing that Lady Blackpool knew, the turtle was spinning wildly out of control.

“Sea Foam,” she shouted, trying to wake him, but he was as limp as a dead minnow, and the ground was coming up fast.

Lady Blackpool thrust her paw forward, trying to create something of a force field in order to protect them during the crash, just as they dove over the Willamette River and went careening into a pile of blackberry bushes.

The force field softened the blow as the three-hundred-pound sea turtle ripped through the bushes, plowed into the wet, muddy ground, and skidded into some farmer’s wire fence.

Lady Blackpool stood for a moment under the lip of the turtle’s shell and breathed a sigh of relief.

Poor Sea Foam was trying to raise his head, but each time that he did, his eyes rolled back, and he’d drop it again.

“Are you going to be okay?” Lady Blackpool asked.

“I couldn’t feel more cooked if I was turtle soup,” Sea Foam said.

The hail pounded Sea Foam’s back. Lady Blackpool didn’t dare go out. There was nothing to do but sit in the shelter and wait out the storm.

No sooner had she reached that conclusion than Sea Foam fainted. Up ahead, the magic fireballs had stopped.

“I only hope that I’m not too late,” Lady Blackpool whispered.

Chapter 14

THE MUSH ROOM

We should always encourage those around us to reach their highest potential.

—NIGHTWING

“The master returns! The master returns!”

BEN TWISTED AND FLOATED through a dark and loathsome dream. He kept his eyes closed as Nightwing flew, for the trip was jarring and made Ben’s stomach turn.

He came awake once to find that the bat had climbed above the storm. Down below him, lightning popped and flashed beneath the black and boiling clouds, while overhead, the stars loomed so close that they threatened to burn him.

Ben could hear the bat muttering as he flew, reciting poetry beneath his breath, his voice alternately hissing and then booming.

But see, amid the mimic rout

A crawling shape intrude!

A blood-red thing that writhes from out

The scenic solitude!

It writhes!—it writhes!—with mortal pangs

The mimes become its food

And seraphs sob at vermin fangs

In human gore imbued.

Out—out are the lights—out all!

And, over each quivering form,

The curtain, a funeral pall,

Comes down with the rush of a storm,

While the angels, all pallid and wan,

Uprising, unveiling, affirm

That the play is the tragedy, “Man,”

And its hero the Conqueror Worm.

Nightwing dipped beneath the clouds again, and in the distance, Ben glimpsed the sea surrounding a rugged jut of land. There was a statue atop the jut, a strange one unlike anything Ben had ever seen. It was an Egyptian god, a jackal, holding a huge brazier above its head—a saucer that at some time far in the past had been filled with fire. Suddenly, Ben realized what the strange statue was—a lighthouse, here at the end of the world.

But then Ben must have passed from a dream into a nightmare, for the bat dove steeply past the statue, down among trees that were bent and twisted into shapes that were so grotesque that they no longer looked like trees. Knotholes gaped like screaming mouths, and Ben felt sure that he saw pain-filled eyes hidden behind the leaves. Ben found himself clinging to the bat in terror, more afraid of the woods than of his vile master. Vines and creepers clung to the demented trees, but these were no ordinary vines. Ben saw lengths of them coil around tree limbs like serpents or crawl upon the ground.

Ben smelled death below. Indeed, strange fungi grew in huge colonies, giving a deathly green glow, and by their quavering light, he spotted an abandoned car surrounded by the grotesque woods. Thorn bushes circled the car, raking the air with thorns as long as daggers.

A strange cry rose up from the broken land, a cry that seemed to be neither human nor animal. Ben looked down and saw a raven with the sharp-nosed face of an evil old man.

The monstrous raven cried, “The master returns! The master returns!”

Other shouts rose from the woods. They might have been cheers of greeting or cries of lament.

Nightwing dove under the trees into a dark grotto where all was shadow. Enormous spiders, as luminous as fireflies, had built nests here, and as the spiders suddenly fluoresced, their webs lit up like gauzy ropes of light.

The bat flapped into a dank cave where hot pools bubbled among rocks that looked strangely like animals trying to flee.

Then Nightwing rose up, flying through a haze over a vast chamber. The lightning spiders were everywhere in here, covering the ceiling so that it shone with luminous webs. And on the floor of the cavern were monstrosities—scorpion-like creatures as big as rats, opossums with heads that sprouted bony armor, toads with eyes that glowed as red as coals. Giant evil-looking worms that buzzed their tails like rattlesnakes and watched Nightwing as if hoping that he’d drop a meal among them.

The cavern reeked of decay. And as Nightwing swooped low, the horrid creatures shouted in unison, “Master returns! Master! Master!”

Nightwing flew up to a rock where an enormous serpent lay, a snake that looked as cruel as a cobra. Its skin glowed sullenly, and upon it was painted the most amazing scene—a child whose world seemed to be melting as he cried in horror.

“Welcome, Master,” the snake hissed, rising up to look down on the bat.

“Good evening, Fanglorious,” Nightwing said. “I see that you molted while I was gone. How do you like the new skin? Edvard Munch’s
The Scream,
I think it’s called.”

“It’s much better,” the snake said. “I was getting so tired of that grinning face of Alfred E. Neuman.”

“Well, it does suit you,” Nightwing told the snake.

All the while as they spoke, the monsters in the cave kept chanting, “Master! Master! Master!”

The bat set Ben on the ground and strode around him, as if anxiously inspecting a new toy.

“Hey, that’s not Darwin,” Fanglorious said.

“No,” Nightwing hissed. “It’s not. It’s something better.” The bat addressed Ben. “Now, my little friend, it is time for a test of your powers. Don’t fail me. You know what happens to insects that fail me.”

The bat surveyed his cavern and shouted to his minions, “Release the hummers.”

Suddenly, a pair of spiders parted their webs, and a humming filled the air. Ben glanced up to see a dozen hummingbirds come swooping from a hole. They darted around the room, first veering, then pausing in midair, ethereal creatures, their emerald-green feathers making them shine like gems come to life.

“Die,” Nightwing shouted.

Instantly, the hummingbirds seemed to explode, leaving nothing but feathers drifting in the air. From the horrid mob of creatures on the floor came evil cackling, and the monsters rushed to feed on the remains of the fallen hummingbirds.

Ben gaped in horror. He had never imagined that the bat might use his magical powers for anything so terrible.

Nightwing sighed in satisfaction. “Very nice. Now, we shall put the mush room to good use!”

“Bring forth some prisoners.”

There was movement among the mass of grotesque bodies below, a seething as creatures moved aside, and from a pair of holes came two creatures. One of them was a mourning dove, as white as snow. The other was a crab. The dove crept forward timidly, eyeing the monsters around it. The crab scuttled sideways toward them, waving its claws in the air as if to ward off any attack.

“Welcome,” Nightwing called down to the prisoners. “Welcome to the Dark Arena. Here in my cavern, we have a saying, ‘Extinction is the destiny of the weak.’ And tonight, for our amusement, someone is going to become extinct!”

Guffaws of laughter rose from the mob of monsters, along with cheers of “Hooray!” The crab looked up at the dove, his eyestalks waving as he studied his foe. The crab was huge and his claws were massive, while his carapace kept him safely armored.

For its part, the dove just ducked his head and peered around with eyes as black as marbles.

“Hey,” Ben said. “That’s not fair. There’s no way that a dove can beat a crab!”

“Fair?” Nightwing asked. “You want fair? Well, all right then, let’s
make
it fair.”

From the crowd of monsters, a chant began to arise. “Mush them. Mush them. Mush them.”

And with a wave of his clawed wing, Nightwing used his vast powers to make the dove and the crab slide toward one another. Both frightened prisoners tried to pull away, but they were shoved together as if by invisible hands, and in a moment, they pressed against one another firmly.

The dove cried out in pain and the crab wriggled its claws desperately, and all of the denizens of the cave kept shouting, “Mush them. Mush them.”

Then the most horrible thing happened. The two creatures seemed to melt into one another, forming a strange and loathsome creature.

What stood below was a horror—a bird with red wings all covered with a crablike carapace. Where the joint of the wings should have been, claws curled out like hooks. Its head displayed armor plates with strange horns. Its chest had segments of armor on it too, and the crab-dove scurried around, his six bony feet clacking on the rocks.

“Hooray!” the monsters all cheered as they looked upon this newly formed horror.

The crab-dove looked at itself in shock, and Nightwing cried out, “Oh, don’t be so alarmed. Your disfigurement serves a higher purpose. If you fight well, you will live, and I might even reward you by creating more monsters of the same design to fight under your command in my army. Now bring in this week’s champion,” Nightwing cried with glee, and the seething mass of monsters moved aside as some evil beast came slithering among them. Ben gulped as it came into view—a sharp-toothed eel, gasping in the air. It had hundreds of powerful little rubbery legs and armor plates running the length of its back. Ben realized with disgust that the eel had been mushed with a centipede.

Cheers arose as the two combatants began to circle one another, each searching for an opening. The crab-dove looked terrified and kept trying to run, but it didn’t seem to know whether it should inch sideways or rush forward, so it tripped over its new feet.

The eelipede responded by whipping its tail around, bashing the helpless creature against some rocks.

Ben gazed down in horror at what was happening and realized that it was like some evil game of
Pokémon.

No,
he thought.
It’s more like a cockfight or a dogfight.

But then someone in the crowd shouted to the eelipede, “Use your poison attack!” And Ben realized that yes, it was exactly like
Pokémon.

The eelipede lunged and grabbed the crab-dove, lifting it high in the air and hurling it down with a sickly crunch.

There was brief moment of utter silence when the only sound to be heard was the crash of waves upon rock, and then the monsters broke into a wild cheer.

Nightwing drew his huge ears back and raised his wings to cover them protectively while the cavern shook with cheers and applause.

“Good times, eh?” Nightwing shouted to Ben. “I’ve barely scratched the surface of your power. Oh, we’re going to have gobs of fun. Gobs of it!”