A Hero at the End of the World (29 page)

Ewan put a hand over his mouth. “What was that?”

His voice cracked. His heart flipped over. A giddy, bubbling sensation spread through him; suddenly, all the odd things Archie had ever said and done made sense. Also, there had been all those comments from Louise and Oliver.

“Do you—do you fancy me?”

“This is literally the worst conversation of my life,” Archie said.

He began to back away, but Ewan cupped his face in his hands and kissed him. As with most other things, Ewan knew that he wasn’t a very good kisser; he knew that his kisses were a tad too wet, and he never knew what to do with his hands. But he kissed first Archie’s top lip, then his bottom one, and then he gently stroked Archie’s tongue with his, and when pulled back, Archie looking slightly dazed.

“Was that all right?” Ewan asked nervously.

Archie made a sound before digging his fingers in the fabric of Ewan’s hoodie. “I’m not certain... We should do it a few more times to be sure.”

Laughing slightly hysterically, Ewan leaned in again—and out of nowhere, a horrible, ringing noise pierced the air. It sounded like klaxons.

“What’s that?” Ewan asked, jerking back with fear. “Does that mean other people are here? What if they want to kill us?”

Archie shook his head. “I have faith we’ll be fine no matter what happens.”

Ewan frowned. “Why’s that?”

“Because if there’s one thing I know about you, Ewan Mao, it’s that you have an animal-like instinct to survive, like a badger,” said Archie unflinchingly. “Otherwise, you would’ve died ages ago by throwing yourself at Duff Slan.”

“Did you just call me a badger?” Ewan asked.

Before he could finish that thought, the door to the toilet flew open.

“Can you hold off the romance until after we’ve returned home?” Sophie asked hotly.

She had the Baahl in her arms, but she hadn’t activated it yet, from what Ewan could tell. There were no extra cracks or missing squares. In the few minutes he and Archie had been in the toilet, she must have been crying: her eyes were red-rimmed.

“We’re staying here,” Ewan said. He had been hoping to sound confident, but his voice cracked.

“It’s two against one,” Archie said mulishly, crossing his arms over his chest.

Sophie tucked a lock of hair behind her ear. “Even if Oliver’s—Oliver’s dead, I’m going to find a way home. I can’t leave my family on the other side. And my cat really wouldn’t like it if he had to stay with my flatmate by himself. He has abandonment issues.”

At the mention of family, the faces of Ewan’s parents appeared in his mind. If he stayed where he was, he might never see them again. What had his mum and dad done, back in his universe, when he hadn’t arrived home from work? Had they even cared? Or were they happy that their useless, disappointing son was finally out of their hair?

Yet even if they were happy he was gone, he missed them. He missed having tea with his mum in the morning before work and watching telly with his dad. He missed the way his house smelled and the comfort of his own bed. He wanted to go home, and he wanted Oliver to still be alive, even if he had been an arsehole sometimes.

Sophie was right: he might not ever see Oliver again, but he
could
go back to his parents.

“What if we die?” Archie asked in a small voice.

“Then we die,” said Sophie matter-of-factly. She raised her chin stubbornly. “But at least we’ll have done
something
.”

Ewan drew in a deep breath, his mind made up. He pointedly glanced at Archie, who did a double take and replied, “What, are you—? Ah, rubbish. Fine, I’m with you.”

“All right,” Ewan said, hoping he sounded braver than he felt, “let’s do it.”

“Good,” said Sophie, “because I was going to do it anyway. But it’s nice to know that you two are with me.” She held the Baahl out, looking a bit perplexed. “Now, how do I turn it on?”

“Just drop it,” replied Archie.

Sophie let it fall from her hands. It hit the floor with a soft sound, and Ewan mentally braced himself, ready for the disorienting changeover to a new reality, yet nothing happened.

“Do it harder,” Archie insisted.

“I
did
,” Sophie replied, scooping it back up. She tried again, but still, they remained where they were; she looked terribly annoyed.

“Let me do it,” Archie snapped, taking it from her. “You have to pretend it’s the head of someone you hate.”

“That’s dark,” Sophie said.

Archie held it over his head, prepared to slam it against the ground.

“Please be a nice universe,” he whispered.

Without warning, the ground began trembling.

A movement in the corner of Ewan’s eye caught his attention. He glanced up into the gray clouds through the few remaining beams from the roof and immediately spotted a dark creature soaring through the sky. At first, Ewan thought it was a bat, but as it got closer, he noticed the long, curling tail.

It wasn’t a bat at all. It was a feral dragon, and it was aiming straight for them.

Chapter 29

I
think it’s headed for us,” said Ewan, his voice rising in fear. Suddenly, the air was pierced by an earsplitting screech, and the ground beneath him shook once again, this time far harder. A stream of flames poured out of the dragon’s mouth.

“We need to move,” Sophie said. When they didn’t budge—Ewan frozen in terror, and Archie looking like he was on the verge of fainting—she said in a panic-stricken tone, “Get under cover!”

Ewan’s knees wobbled like jelly as he followed Archie and Sophie through the missing front of the building and into the wasteland that had once been the street. He kept his eyes on Sophie’s swinging ponytail and Archie’s long-limbed flailing as they darted past broken-down vehicles, shattered shopfronts, and half-standing buildings. Smoke was rising from somewhere in the distance and the air reeked of the charred remains of what Ewan really hoped wasn’t people.

They dashed into a battered but roofed shop that, until then, Ewan would have thought was blackened with soot. Now he knew that it was really from dragon fire.

He made the mistake of glancing back over his shoulder; the dragon was closer, its huge, leathery wings blocking out the faint sunlight peeking through the clouds. Some of its features were coming into focus: the long snout, the scaled belly, the claws at the end of each foot.

And that was when Ewan tripped over a very large and very obvious pothole.

He hit the ground hard, scraping his knees and elbows across the bits of gravel and glass scattered across the rough road. He could tell by the way they went hot that he was bleeding, but all he could think was that he was about to become a dragon’s dinner. Somehow, he lurched himself back to his feet, trying to ignore the stinging pain that shot through his legs and arms.

It was too late. The dragon had seen him.

Ewan scrambled into the nearest building, hearing the dragon’s wings in the air above him. The place he had chosen to hide in was without a roof and was missing more than half of the front façade; he pressed his back against a slab of plastered wall, hoping that the dragon would fly right over him.

Instead, it landed on the top of the remaining wall on the western side of the shop, its claws digging into the red brick, bits of it crumbling off and falling to the floor. Each curved claw was roughly the size of Ewan’s arm, and they were filthy, like they had recently been tearing living things apart.

Ewan stood in its shadow, gazing dumbly into its icy blue eyes.

It was an enormous creature. Ewan had seen dragons in those Save the Endangered Cave Dragon adverts on TV, and there was the one that lived on top of Westminster Palace and the larger one meant to be at the London Zoo, but he had never met a dragon in person. Up close, it was larger and smellier than he could have imagined. Its hands, nose, and belly were gold, but the rest of its body was covered in iridescent cobalt scales. A series of deep gashes ran down its side, bright red with fresh blood. The tip of its snout was dusted in black soot.

He couldn’t look away even as Sophie and Archie rushed in. He heard Sophie scream something, and a shimmer danced over the dragon’s scales; out of the corner of his eye he saw Archie wave his hands, and there was another flash.

But that didn’t stop it: it angled its neck down until it was nearly face-to-face with Ewan. Its mouth was close enough that Ewan could smell its rancid breath. It blew out a puff of minging air. His glasses clouded over with moisture, and he felt his hair ruffle.

I’m going to die
, he thought,
just like Oliver
. A trickle of sweat slid down his temple.

“N-nice dragon,” he stammered. He started to reach it out to pet its snout and then thought better of it.

“Hello, Ewan,” it said in a familiar, though booming, voice.

“Louise?” he asked incredulously.

Louise the dragon grinned at him with a mouth full of sharp, stained fangs.

Ewan stared. “Were you always a dragon? Because I’m pretty sure that this morning you were a person.”

If anything, Louise the dragon looked pensive. Before that moment, Ewan would not have guessed that dragons had so many facial expressions.

“
What’s going on
?” Archie yelled.

“Hello, my darlings,” Louise said. She flicked her tail, and it nearly took down a wall.

“Uh,” said Sophie, her jaw slack. For the first time since Ewan had met her, she seemed at a loss for words.

“What are you doing here?” Ewan demanded.

Louise grinned at them with hundreds of sharp, pointed teeth; he remembered, belatedly, that she had wanted to kill him, and a shiver of fear ran down his spine. “The same as you, I expect. Archibald, are you well, my love?”

Archie seemed to think about it. “I’m alive,” he said finally.

“These new realms have been a nightmare,” Louise said, her snout wrinkling. “Remind me why I wanted to move to another universe?”

“Power?” Sophie asked, as Ewan said, “Because you’re mad?”

“First, the werewolves,” Louise said, ignoring them. She turned slightly, showing off her wounded side; Archie drew in a sharp breath. “They tried to give me the bite—back in my human form, obviously—but it didn’t take. Then I was nearly drowned, and in this realm, well.” She shifted her wings. “Dragon.”

“Why do you still have the bite?” Archie asked. An alarmed look passed over his face. “Oh no, does this mean I still have the tattoo?”

“I hope so,” Ewan said under his breath.

Louise sighed. “I was supposed to be the queen of my own universe, not—this.”

“There’s still time, Mother,” Archie said soothingly, and Ewan elbowed him in the side.

“If I could take it back...” Louise began, but then she trailed off. Her large nostrils flared as she turned her gaze inwards. If she had been a person, Ewan would have said she looked troubled. “I wonder, perhaps, if the Lord Ravager didn’t know what he was doing after all.”

“How do we get home?” Sophie demanded abruptly.

Louise snapped back to attention. “I’m afraid our home is gone,” she replied.

A sour taste tickled the back of Ewan’s throat. “That’s not true,” he protested. He glanced at Sophie helplessly. “Right? You said it wasn’t true.”

“It’s not,” Sophie insisted. “It’s impossible.”

Louise shrugged, or she shrugged as much as a dragon could. “Perhaps. But I’m not going to get my hopes up. I do hate to be disappointed.”

The air filled with a series of faint screeches, one after another. They sounded far away. Immediately after, more klaxons rang, and Louise’s head turned.

“Bugger,” Louise muttered. “Oh, pardon my language. But it appears that the other dragons have found me. They’re less friendly than I am.”

“Are they as large as you?” Ewan asked.

“Oh, no,” she replied, shaking her head, “they’re
far
larger.”

She nodded to the Baahl, which was in Archie’s hands. When he realized he was still holding it, he hastily passed it along to Sophie. “I recommend changing universes now,” said Louise. “They nearly caught me the last time. That would have been... unpleasant.”

She opened her leathery wings, letting out a gust of wind so strong that Ewan had to close his eyes against the grit blown in his face. When he opened them, Louise was airborne, sailing off to distract the next wave of dragons.

Archie sighed. “Oh, Mum,” he said, “always so dramatic.”

Chapter 30

E
wan hit the floor with a painful bang. Once his vision stopped spinning, he found himself flat on his back, staring up at a white, paneled ceiling. Above his head, a fan oscillated. He couldn’t recall why he was on the floor.

It came back to him when a familiar voice from above him

asked, “What is it with you and coffee shops?”

Not quite believing his ears, Ewan rolled onto his side. Oliver was sitting on the edge of a bar, the Baahl resting in his lap. He sent Ewan a crooked grin.

Ewan let out a wet sob in spite of himself. He wiped his face with the crook of his arm before managing to sit up, his arms feeling like cooked noodles.

“I thought—I thought you were dead,” he said.

Sweaty and dirty, Oliver looked like he’d been through the wringer: his right ear was purple with clotted blood, his eyes were lined with dark circles, and his tie appeared as though something had been chewing on it. Ewan couldn’t remember the last time he’d been so happy to see another person.

“It’s going to take more than Nessie to take me out,” Oliver replied. It was his usual bravado, but his voice was strangely lacking its usual boastful tone, as though he were just going through the motions. He seemed tired, but Ewan supposed nearly being eaten alive would do that to someone. “To be fair, I was the one with the universe-changing mechanism, and the sea monster was, well, a monster of the sea.”

“Well, you know what they say,” began Ewan. “Can’t live with magic—”

“—Can’t destroy humanity without it,” Oliver finished.

“I don’t think that’s how it goes,” Ewan said slowly.

Oliver pressed the heels of his palms into his eyes. “I feel like I’m losing my marbles. How many universes have we been in now? Four?”