The Three Furies (Erec Rex)

The Three Furies

Kaza Kingsley

To Jennifer, the best sister in the world

CONTENTS

BOOK ONE

Alecto the Angry

PROLOGUE

CHAPTER ONE

Letters in Pie

CHAPTER TWO

The Dumpling Invasion

CHAPTER THREE

King Piter in Chains

CHAPTER FOUR

A Surprise Visit

CHAPTER FIVE

A Green House Investigation

CHAPTER SIX

A Sister's Help

CHAPTER SEVEN

Magnet Mountain

CHAPTER EIGHT

Cinnalim

CHAPTER NINE

Danen Nomad

CHAPTER TEN

Little Erec

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Paper Can't Be Fooled

CHAPTER TWELVE

The Nightmare King

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Love and Sand Crabs

x

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Finger Magic

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

A Final Birthday Party

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Wandabelle

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

The Beauty of Dreams

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

The Best Present

BOOK TWO

Tisiphone the Vengeful

CHAPTER NINETEEN

Doubts

CHAPTER TWENTY

One Impossible Thing

Before Breakfast

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

Kilroy's Cuddles

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

An Even Trade

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

Windows to the Soul

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

Lalalalal's Flight

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

Mind Reader Extraordinaire

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

Blind Followers

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

Special Delivery

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

An Interesting Crowd

xi

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

Your Sworn Enemy

CHAPTER THIRTY

The One

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

Schmaltzberry Pies

BOOK THREE

Megaera the Jealous

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

A Productive Swim

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

Noble Revenge

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

The Fate of Bobby Kroc

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

Love, Chocolate, Conversation,

and Massive Death

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

Tartarus

CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

The Boy

CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

Cookies and a Charm

EPILOGUE ONE

Three Days Later

EPILOGUE TWO

Two Weeks Later

EPILOGUE THREE

Five Hundred Years Earlier

1

BOOK ONE Alecto the Angry

ET US GET one thing straight. I don't care how nice you act. I don't care how many wonderful things you think you have done in your life. I don't even want to hear about how much you admire me, or watch you kiss the ground that I have walked on. No matter how much you try to appeal to me, I will always, completely and irrevocably, hate your very existence.

I want to make that fact very clear. I cannot stand you. I despise you. And I cannot wait until the day when I can sink my sharp claws into your flesh and rip all of you to shreds.

I won't ask you to understand me. Nobody does. The burdens I bear are far beyond your simple human comprehension. But let it suffice to say
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that I am miserable, and that is making me furious. Which makes me even more upset. Because I've been so head-splittingly angry for so long that the mere thought of my anger just enrages me even more.

I have been locked away here for an eternity. I have been mistreated. My very own sisters have made my life more of a misery than you could ever imagine. So, if you have any sense at all, when I finally do get out of here and come after you, don't try to run, or think you'll get away. Oh, and don't try to feel good about it, like your death is helping things somehow. Beyond that first moment of satisfaction for me, it will just be a meaningless waste.

That's the way life is. Get used to it.

Now, pardon me while I go and scream.

3

PROLOGUE

OR JUST A fraction of a second, Bethany Cleary's head bobbed from exhaustion. But before sleep could sneak one pajamaed toe into the bedsheets of her consciousness, an electric shock jolted her painfully into alertness. If she had a voice, she would have screamed. But that had been stolen--along with her freedom.

So, instead, she settled on watching the screen. Before her, her entire life was being played like a movie in fast motion. Little things

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that she had long forgotten--stubbed toes, birthday parties--were dredged out for all to see.

Every part of her body ached from sitting still at this desk for so long. She couldn't move, though, because her hands were chained tightly to the chair arms. Her head throbbed from exhaustion, and from the strange metal clamps that dug into her scalp. How long had she been a prisoner here? Weeks? Months? With her mind controlled by someone else, her thoughts projected on a screen, it was impossible to say.

Her captor wanted her uncomfortable. She was freezing, starving, and the little sleep she was allowed was spent chained to this desk. That gave more incentive for her to talk if she was holding anything back--as if she wouldn't have told him whatever he wanted just to get out of here.

Well,
almost
anything. There was one person whom she would die to protect.

How old was she on the screen now? About eight years? That left only six more years of her life for her captor to sift through and then he'd be done. But that was the worst part of all. Because if he didn't find what he was looking for by then, she would not be set free.

No, unfortunately, it was quite the opposite.

5

CHAPTER ONE Letters in Pie

HERE ARE TERRIFYING monsters in our world, like the Grumbleswitch of Alexia and the frightful Minotaur. There are beautiful places, too, like Smoolie in Otherness, which is so delightful you can feel the butterflies of disbelief fluttering in your stomach when you first arrive. There are sweet things, like the Valkyries in Lerna who spend their lives happily serving the families who grew them from seeds.

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But there is nothing in the universe that is more annoying than being teased again and again by a sibling. And again. And again. And again.

Except maybe being teased by two siblings.

Erec Ulysses Rex should have been having a wonderful time at home in New Jersey. It was like having a vacation in his own house. He had been away for months doing quests to become the next king of Alypium. That was the hidden land where he had been born, where magic was still known and practiced. Now he was enjoying a well-earned break. His adoptive mother, June, had been cooking his favorite meals since he came home last month. And he didn't even have to go to school, like his five siblings did. When he returned to Alypium he would meet with a tutor instead--a tutor who taught magic. Really, he should have been enjoying himself now, in every way.

But Erec had no such luck. When his five siblings were in school he was bored beyond belief. With his mother working, there was nobody for him to talk to. And when his brothers and sisters did come home, things only seemed to get worse. Danny and Sammy, his twin brother and sister who were adopted like the rest of the kids, seemed to know exactly the wrong things to say. Or, more like, the right things to make him furious. And when Erec's face turned red it was just an invitation for Danny to dish out some more.

They teased him about being "special," becoming a king, and getting spoiled at home. But those things weren't a big deal to Erec. It was the
other
thing that they kept bringing up that tormented him--a thing that was already torturing him inside. It was the very reason he was staying in New Jersey, bored and teased, instead of returning to Alypium to finish more of his quests.

That thing was Bethany, his best friend in the world. She had

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traveled with him from New York into wild unknown places that they had never thought existed. She was smart and funny and a lot of fun. Beyond that, she really understood him. She knew what it was like to be different. In fact, she was the only other person Erec knew who had grown up in Upper Earth but later learned that she had been born in Alypium.

The problem was, right before he came home, he had done something to completely ruin their friendship. Well,
maybe
he had ruined it. Erec still wasn't sure from all the snail mail letters she was sending to him.

He had kissed her.

Really, it wasn't as bad as it sounded. He
had
to kiss her to save her from a deathly enchantment that Baskania, the evil Sorcerer Prince, had put on her. But he had liked kissing her. A lot. So much that it was really starting to bother him. Kissing was not what he had in mind, not as far as his best friend was concerned.

Bethany seemed to be handling their kiss better than he was. At first her letters seemed totally normal, just chatting about Erec's dog, Wolfboy, that she was watching in Alypium for him. Then she started asking when Erec was coming back, then why he wasn't returning her letters. Erec wanted to write back. He was just confused about what to say. And the longer he had waited, the harder it seemed to pick up a pen. How would he explain why he had been ignoring her?

Part of Erec wanted things to be just like they were, when they were only good friends. And another part was terribly afraid that things really
were
the same, and they were still only friends, and nothing more. If he could just sort out his own head about things, and if the twins would leave him alone about it, maybe he could find a way to write her back and explain.

It had not seemed this bad right after, when Bethany and he were together, in person. Just a little embarrassing, but no big deal. But

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being away from her and dealing with his crazy, mixed-up thoughts was making it worse.

Erec shrank back into the overstuffed chair in the living room of their small apartment and dug his chin into his fist. He'd have to write her back soon. He didn't want her to think that he was mad at her. If he only knew what
she
thought about the whole kiss thing, it would help. . . .

The family's coat rack had been watching him and decided it was time to try cheering him up. The coat rack was, in nearly every sense, alive--as were the alarm clock, toaster, and toothbrush that Erec's mother had bought from a magical store called Vulcan. The coat rack skipped on its short legs into the middle of the room juggling four winter hats and a mitten. The act was surprisingly good, but Erec just crossed his arms. He had seen this performance so many times this winter that even the coat rack's best efforts couldn't make him smile anymore. The thing tried to toss the hats farther and skip higher, until it finally tripped, crashing into the couch and throwing hats all over the room.

From the hallway came the sounds of feet running and the apartment door slamming. Erec quickly grabbed a book that he had already finished and pretended that he was reading.

Danny burst into the room first, running a hand through his sandy brown hair. He was getting taller by the day, and he towered over Erec even though they were both almost fourteen.

"Woo-hoo!" Danny shouted, and plopped himself on the arm of Erec's chair. He tossed a frightened-looking snail into Erec's lap. "You got another snail mail thing. It was sitting outside near the front step. Looks like it's from lover girl again. Let's see it, dude."

Sammy came in after him, a slender girl-version of her twin, with long hair pulled into a bow in back.

Erec stuffed the snail into his pocket. "As if. The last time I was