Nightmare Academy Page 4

  “What happened to that one?” Olga asked.

  “That one went bad,” Rex said quietly. “This one won’t. You have my word. That may not mean much from other folks, but it means a lot from me.”

  Olga seemed unconvinced. “Barrington…what should we do?”

  Mr. Benjamin considered, then turned to Rex. “If you hurt my son,” he said, “if anything happens to him—even so much as a knuckle scrape—there will be no place in this wide world for you to hide from my wrath. Am I understood?”

  “You are,” Rex said.

  Charlie was shocked—he had never seen his father so forceful before. He felt a surprising blush of pride.

  Barrington took Olga’s hand in his. “My dear, I know it’s hard to imagine letting him go…but I think it’s for the best. Perhaps it’s time to let his destiny reveal itself.”

  “But he’s so little,” she protested.

  “I’ll be fine, Mom,” Charlie said. “Trust me.”

  “I do trust you, Charlie,” she replied. “It’s them I’m not so sure about.” She gestured to Rex, Tabitha, and Pinch.

  “I understand how you feel, ma’am,” Rex said. “I know we squabble and argue and maybe don’t look like the most trustworthy folks in the world. If I were in your shoes, I’d feel the same way. But, I promise you, we won’t let anything happen to your boy.” Rex smiled gently. “See, ma’am, I grew up on a ranch, and my daddy always said, ‘If the milk is sour, move the herd’—well, things have been sour here for a while and gettin’ worse. If you love him…if you want to save him…you gotta let him go.”

  Olga searched his eyes to see if he was telling the truth.

  “Take him, then,” she said finally, and began to cry.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  INTO THE NETHER

  The nighttime air felt good on Charlie’s face. He and the three adults strode quickly from his house. “She thinks I’m a baby,” Charlie said, adjusting the overnight bag slung over his shoulder. He had quickly packed a couple pairs of jeans, a few favorite shirts, and his Gadget Journal.

  “She’s just concerned about you,” Tabitha replied, scruffling his hair. “You’re her only child.”

  “But she thinks I can’t do anything. I’m brave. I’m tough. I can do stuff.”

  “Little mouths have big appetites,” Rex said with a grin.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “It means be careful what you wish for. You’ll have adventure soon enough—more than you want, probably. This looks like a good spot.” Rex gestured to a shadowy area behind a large bush, hidden from the street.

  “All right. Stand back,” Tabitha said, stepping behind the bush. She closed her eyes and extended her right hand. Purple flames began to crackle across her body as the air became electric.

  “What’s she doing?” Charlie asked.

  “Making a portal so we can get to the High Council pronto,” Rex explained. “We could have done it back at the house, but I figured we should scram from there before your folks changed their minds. They seemed like they were wavering when Pinch gave them those envelopes addressed to the ‘Nightmare Division.’”

  “It’s the only way they can contact Charlie,” Pinch said. “I thought it would ease their fears.”

  “Well, my fears won’t be eased until we get outta here. Don’t worry, kid—Portaljumps are usually fast.”

  “And risky,” Pinch added.

  “You take all the risk outta life, Pinch, you take out all the fun, too.”

  Suddenly, a six-foot-high portal opened in front of them, its circular rim arcing with purple flame. Through it, Charlie could see a barren, rocky plain. It was a desolate place with large, oddly shaped outcroppings of stone dotted with sickly-looking scrub brush that had a bluish cast to it. It looked very different from the part of the Nether that Charlie had seen earlier.

  “Hop on through,” Rex said, ushering Charlie toward the open gateway.

  Charlie turned to him nervously. “But isn’t it full of…”

  “Monsters?” Rex said, grinning. “Trust me, it’s perfectly safe. Go on.”

  Charlie took a breath, closed his eyes, and stepped into the Netherworld.

  After a slight whooshing sensation, he found himself standing alone on the hard, stony soil. He looked behind him to see Pinch, Rex, and Tabitha step through. With a quick wave of her hand, Tabitha closed the portal, and Charlie almost cried out in alarm. He suddenly felt a kind of panic: He was stranded in an alien world and, like a scuba diver who had gone too deep and forgotten which way was up, Charlie realized that he had absolutely no idea how to get out.

  “Relax, kid,” Rex said, seeing his rising panic. “Take a breath. Look around. Get your bearings.”

  Charlie forced himself to steady his nerves and then did as Rex suggested. He was surprised to discover that the rocks surrounding them all subtly leaned in the same direction, as if pointing. He turned to see what they were pointing at and found himself staring at a giant pillar of red fire, twisting and writhing far in the distance.

  “That’s the Inner Circle,” Rex said, stepping up beside him. “Look but don’t touch—nasty place.”

  “How far is it?” Charlie asked, awestruck.

  “In miles? No idea, but far. Real far. Right now, we’re on the 1st ring—the outermost ring of the Nether. See, it’s helpful to think of the Nether as a kind of bull’s-eye, with smaller rings inside bigger ones. It’s pretty safe out here on the 1st ring, just your odd Gremlin and Wight roaming around—nothing more serious than a Class-1 critter, in any case. But the closer you get to the center, the more dangerous the things that live there.”

  “Why?” Charlie asked.

  “Because the Inner Circle draws all the monsters of the Nether to it,” Pinch answered, jumping in. “They start out here on the 1st ring, frail and weak—baby Silvertongues, Mimics, Netherbats, and so forth—but as they mature, they migrate toward the center. It’s simply what they’re born to do.”

  “Yeah,” Rex added. “Most of ’em don’t make it all the way to the Inner Circle—they get killed along the way. But the ones that do…they’re the worst of the worst, kid. It takes them a lotta years to make the trip from here to there, and the journey is so brutal that it either makes ’em get strong or get dead. What do you see past this open plain?”

  Charlie looked and saw that the flat, moonlike ground they stood on eventually gave way to a dark forest, thick and impenetrable. “A forest,” he said. “At least that’s what it looks like from here.”

  Rex nodded. “We call that the 2nd ring. Anything that can survive in there is, by definition, a Class 2. And if you look just past the forest, what do you see?”

  “Mountains,” Charlie said. The color of bleached bones, they rose into the sky like jagged teeth. “Is that the 3rd ring?”

  “Yup,” Rex replied. “And that’s where you’d find the Class-3 versions of those same critters as they move toward the Inner Circle, getting stronger and more vicious every day. See how it works?”

  Charlie nodded. “So what’s past the mountains? What does the 4th ring look like?”

  “It’s an ocean,” Rex said. “Vast and cold and deep. In fact, I nicknamed it the ‘Chill Depths.’”

  “Chill Depths?” Pinch replied with a scowl. “That’s a ridiculous name.”

  “What do you call it, then?”

  “The 4th Ring, of course!”

  “But if you had to give it a nickname,” Rex pressed, “what would it be?”

  Pinch thought for a moment. “‘The Terrifying Ocean,’” he said finally.

  “The Terrifying Ocean?” Rex roared. “That’s terrible! Where’s the beauty? Where’s the poetry?”

  “I have a question,” Charlie said. “If it’s just an ocean, where do the Class-4 versions of creatures like the Silvertongue live? Do they learn to breathe water?”

  “Excellent query,” Pinch answered, “and no, they do not. You see, the ‘Terrifying Ocean’”—he s
hot a challenging look at Rex—“is not all ocean. There are islands there, as well…but not the kind you’re used to. Much of it is still uncharted. In fact, only a very small percentage of the Nether has ever been explored.”

  “That’s true,” Rex continued. “And past the Chill Depths”—he shot a look at Pinch—“is the 5th ring. You saw a glimpse of it earlier, through the portal in your bedroom.”

  “Where those yellow crystals were?” Charlie asked.

  Rex nodded. “It’s a terrible place. I’m sure it was kind of hard to tell, looking down on it from where we were, but at ground level, you’d see it’s tight and claustrophic and filled with the oldest and most deadly critters in the Nether.”

  “Except for those in the Inner Circle,” Pinch corrected.

  “Except for those,” Rex conceded.

  “I can’t believe I opened a portal near that,” Charlie said softly, pointing to the tornado of red flame in the distance.

  “Near but not in, thank goodness,” Pinch said. “You don’t ever want to open a portal inside the Inner Circle. That’s where the Named live.”

  Once again, Pinch shuddered at the mention of the word.

  “In case you haven’t noticed, Pinch is a little panicky when it comes to the Named,” Rex said, but before Charlie could question him further, Rex turned to Tabitha. “How about that portal?”

  “Just waiting on you to stop lecturing the boy,” she said, and extended her right hand. Purple flames began to crawl across her body.

  “What’s she doing now?” Charlie asked.

  “Opening another portal to the Nightmare Division,” Rex explained. “See, you can only open portals into the Netherworld and out of the Netherworld, so if you want to go quickly from place to place on Earth, you gotta portal into the NW, step through, then open another portal leading to the place on Earth where you wanna end up.”

  “So when you portal into the Nether,” Charlie said, “you would probably only want to portal into the 1st ring, where we are right now, because that’s the safest place?”

  “Kid’s got it all figured out already,” Rex said with a grin. Just then, Charlie noticed that the short sword and lasso looped on Rex’s belt began to glow with a dim blue fire. Rex saw it, too, and, quick as a flash, he spun and cracked his lasso at a group of small, spindly creatures with large gray eyes and long tails. They instantly ran off in a chorus of frightened screeches, scattering into the rocks like roaches.

  “Gremlins,” Rex said, casually looping his lasso back onto his belt. “They’re the trash of the Nether. They don’t even have a class number, because they never grow any bigger. They’re basically harmless over here, but on the Earth side, they like to chew on electric cables. They can cause real problems—cars malfunctioning, power plants crashing, that kind of thing.”

  Suddenly, with a pop, the new portal Tabitha created opened in front of them. Charlie looked through it and was shocked to see a lion staring back, its mane a full and glorious crown of hair, its teeth as thick as a man’s finger and nearly as long. The lion opened its mouth and roared. The sound was deafening and made Charlie’s entire body vibrate. He yelped and stumbled backward.

  “Don’t worry,” Rex said, laughing. “It won’t hurt you. Step on through. You’ll see.”

  Charlie, not moving, stared at Rex, unsure.

  “Trust me,” Rex said with a smile.

  Cautiously, Charlie stepped through the portal.

  After feeling that familiar whooshing sensation, Charlie found himself standing beside a rock wall. The lion padded toward him, and Charlie was shocked to discover just how big it was up close. He would barely make an appetizer for the beast, much less a main course.

  The lion drew to within a foot of him and sniffed deeply. Charlie froze. His heart beat wildly in his chest and he couldn’t breathe. Then the lion opened its mouth, leaned forward…and licked his face.

  Charlie stumbled back, shocked. “Why is it licking me?” he managed to gasp. From somewhere behind him, he heard Rex laugh.

  “What do you smell?”

  Charlie closed his eyes and breathed in slowly. “Cinnamon…”

  “Which means?”

  “The lion’s a Mimic, isn’t it?” Charlie said, suddenly putting it together.

  “That’s right.” Rex nodded. “It doesn’t want to eat you; it just wants your sweat. The real lions are safe and sound in a cage just below us.”

  “Where are we now?”

  “Look for yourself.”

  Rex gestured for Charlie to walk around the rock wall beside him. Charlie tentatively did and found himself standing in the midst of three other lions. Surrounding them was a moat of water. Beyond the moat was a fence and past that…people—many of them.

  Rex clapped him on the shoulder. “We’re in the lion enclosure in the San Diego Zoo. This is one of the entrances to the Nightmare Division.”

  “But why?” Charlie asked.

  “Privacy, of course,” Pinch said with a hint of impatience. “No one else knows the lions are just Class-5 Mimics. They wouldn’t dare approach the door.”

  “Door?”

  “Follow me,” Pinch said, and strode confidently toward a cave on the far side of the enclosure.

  “Come on, kid,” Rex said with a friendly wink. “Keep up.”

  Charlie followed the three adults through the pride of fake lions and into the cave. At the far end, out of view of the public, stood a large metal door with no hinges or doorknobs. It had a small black plate in the very center.

  “All right, who’s gonna open it?” Rex asked.

  “Not me,” Tabitha answered. “I hate this part.”

  “I did it last time,” Pinch added quickly.

  “Great,” Rex said with a sigh. He leaned up to the small black plate and stuck out his tongue. Instantly, a pair of metal tongs shot out and clamped down on the tip of it.

  “What’s it doing?” Charlie asked.

  “Tething by D Ben A,” Rex mumbled, attempting to answer.

  “Testing his DNA, he’s trying to say,” Pinch explained. “The doors of the Nightmare Division are protected by Salivometers. Your saliva contains your entire genetic makeup, and the machine uses that to identify people.”

  “Henderson, Rexford—identity confirmed,” a computer voice chimed soothingly. The tongs released Rex’s tongue and slid back to their hiding place behind the black plate.

  “God, I hate that,” he said, flexing his jaw.

  Suddenly, the metal door whispered open and Charlie got his first glimpse into the Nightmare Division.

  The place was a technological marvel, a monstrosity of chrome and steel. From what Charlie could see, it was absolutely gigantic, much larger than he’d expected, and it was alive with activity. Computer terminals lined the hallways and Salivometers controlled access to the many identical doors that dotted the walls of the main terminal.

  Throngs of workers moved purposefully through the cavernous area. Two men in purple jumpsuits wheeled a tank with a large squidlike creature past a woman in a yellow jumpsuit pushing a cart with a giant plate of spaghetti and meatballs on it. At least Charlie thought they were meatballs, until they blinked. With a shock, he realized that they were actually eyes, which meant that the stuff he thought was spaghetti was—But before he could investigate further, the yellow jumpsuited woman was gone, arrowing down one of the many hallways that radiated out from the terminal.

  “The ND can be a little overwhelming,” Rex said, almost as if reading Charlie’s mind. “But it’s just a job site, like any other. Stick with us, don’t touch anything, and we’ll get to the High Council in no time.”

  They walked quickly through a maze of hallways, passing doors with exotic-sounding descriptions like GNOME JUICING FACILITY (CLASS 3 AND BELOW) and VENOMOUS SERPENT DEFANGING CLINIC (NO KRAKENS!).

  Just a job site, like any other, Charlie thought, his mind reeling.

  Suddenly, a man on a gurney rolled toward them, pushed by two workers
in red jumpsuits. The man’s entire body had gone a brilliant shade of marble white. It wasn’t until he was wheeled past them that Charlie realized the man wasn’t just the color of marble; he was actually made of marble. He was as solid and still as a sculpture.

  “Poor guy,” Tabitha said.

  “That’s what happens when you look at a Gorgon,” Rex muttered, shaking his head. “Guess he won’t do that again.”

  “Can they help him?” Charlie asked.

  “Yeah, if they can find the Gorgon that turned him into stone and then cut off her head—easier said than done.”

  Suddenly, they stopped at a pair of large, chrome doors. The sign on them read THE HIGH COUNCIL—ABSOLUTELY NO ADMITTANCE WITHOUT PRIOR AUTHORIZATION!

  “We’re here,” Rex said, and led them inside.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  THE HIGH COUNCIL

  Charlie had never seen anything quite like it before.

  The High Council chamber was the world’s largest and most imposing courtroom. The sleek logo of the Nightmare Division (an intertwined N and D) took up the entire wall at the far end of the room. Below the logo, on a raised dais, sat twelve council members in identical dark suits. Presiding over them was a gray-haired man with a prominent nose and steely eyes. A placard identified him: REGINALD DRAKE—DIRECTOR.

  “That guy in the center is the one we’ll be talking to,” Rex whispered, trying not to interrupt a meeting that was clearly already in progress. “He’s the Director of the Nightmare Division.”

  “He’ll decide what happens to me?” Charlie asked.

  “He decides what happens to everyone.”

  A young man stood before the Director, making an impassioned plea with a variety of visual aids. He seemed nervous in the presence of the thirteen people who towered above him, all of them staring grimly.

  “The Gremlin population has increased twelve percent in just two years,” the young man said, gesturing to a chart that demonstrated his statistic. “Drastic measures are needed. They have infiltrated the California and New York power grids to such an extent that rolling blackouts are all but inevitable this year.”