Authors: Dean Lorey
The Nightmare Academy was always a welcome sight—those massive wrecked ships sitting on the branches of the world’s most gigantic banyan tree never failed to leave Charlie awestruck—but this time he was so upset that he barely gave it a glance.
“What’s wrong, Charlie?” Violet asked as she finished the last of the mango she was having for lunch. “We haven’t even been back a whole day, and you look like an Ectobog swallowed your mother.”
“What’s wrong?” he snapped. “What’s not wrong! Rex and Tabitha are trying to find Verminion’s new lair on Earth; the Headmaster is in the Nether, trying to help the Guardian…”
“So?”
“So we’re stuck here doing nothing!”
“Aha!” Violet exclaimed. “You’re just angry that we’re out of the action. Relax. Our part in this is done. We’re just Noobs.”
“Addys,” Theodore quickly corrected her. “I don’t care what Pinch said. We still have to get a ruling from the Headmaster on that when she gets back.”
“Well, my point is that serious stuff is going on and it’s no longer our responsibility.”
“You’re right.” Charlie sighed. “But that doesn’t mean we can’t help in some way.”
Frustrated, he leaned against the railing of the pirate ship and stared out at the ocean beyond.
“Hey, guys.”
Charlie turned to see Brooke, with her blond hair and blue eyes, rise up through a veil of leaves like some kind of angel ascending. She stepped off the elevatorlike dinghy that carried her there and walked toward them with a flawless smile.
“Hey, Brooke!” Charlie and Theodore chirped at the same time.
Violet rolled her eyes. Yes, Brooke was older and taller and beautiful, but really!
“So what’s going on?” Brooke asked.
“Major, major stuff,” Theodore replied, “but Charlie’s mad because he’s not part of it.”
Charlie glared at him.
“I mean, we’re all mad about that,” Theodore quickly added. “Not just Charlie—I didn’t mean to single him out like he’s some kind of pouty preschooler or something.”
“That’s exactly what he is,” a familiar voice said.
Charlie glanced over to see Geoff—Brooke’s big, blond boyfriend—walking up behind her with a snide look. It pained Charlie that the boy only seemed to grow more handsome with age: He was sixteen but looked twenty.
“After all,” Geoff continued, “you’re all still just Noobs. Everyone knows you failed your final.”
“We did not fail it!” Theodore shot back. “The Headmaster hasn’t given us a ruling, so the jury’s still out.”
“That’s not the only thing that’s out. You’re out—of your mind!” Geoff snorted with laughter and looked to Brooke for approval.
“Why don’t you go and find something to do that doesn’t involve me?” she replied coolly.
Charlie wanted to cheer but tactfully looked away. Theodore, however, went ahead and cheered.
“Shut it!” Geoff roared, raising his fist.
Theodore raised his fist back at the much larger boy. Then, using his thumb and forefinger like a puppet mouth, he said “I love you!” in a squeaky falsetto and kissed Geoff’s fist with his own.
Geoff stared at him, dumbfounded, then turned to Brooke. “These are the people you wanna hang with?”
“That’s right.”
“Well, if you get tired of playing kindergarten, you come see me.” He stomped across the deck to a waiting dinghy and dropped quickly out of sight.
“Boys…,” Brooke said to Violet with a dramatic sigh as if they were both battle-hardened veterans of the dating game. “They follow you around like gum on your shoe and get so upset when you scrape them off.”
“I don’t chew gum,” Violet replied curtly.
“Meow!” Theodore exclaimed. “Kitty likes to scratch! Rawwwr!” He raked the air in front of Violet with a pretend claw.
“I think I’m done here,” Violet huffed, turning to go.
“Wait!” Brooke called after her.
Charlie knew that Violet had never much liked Brooke—couldn’t stand her, actually—because of the older girl’s supposed snottiness. But Charlie also knew from his time fighting beside Brooke in Verminion’s lair that her superior attitude was really hiding a terrible insecurity.
“You can’t leave yet,” Brooke continued. “I have a message for you from the Headmaster. For all of you, actually.”
“When did you see the Headmaster?” Violet asked, turning back, suddenly interested.
“Yesterday. She talked to me just before she headed into the Nether.”
Must have been right after she left us with the Hag Queen, Charlie realized. “What did she say?”
“She said that if she didn’t return by noon today, the four of us should go and meet her in the Nether.”
“But she was going to the Guardian,” Charlie exclaimed. “I don’t have a clue where in the Nether it is!”
Brooke shrugged. “Doesn’t matter, really. You can’t portal directly to the Guardian anyway. You can only portal near it into an area that’s superdangerous. The Headmaster can handle herself there, but it’s too tough for us. That’s why we have to use the Guardian boat.”
The three friends exchanged glances.
“What’s the Guardian boat?” Charlie asked.
The Guardian boat was hidden under the leaves of a banana tree in a rocky cove farther south on the island than Charlie and his friends had ever ventured.
“Look at this thing!” Theodore exclaimed as they climbed inside the small craft. About the size of a speedboat, it had six seats, each with a steel safety restraint. The bar came down over the shoulders and across the chest. Theodore enthusiastically latched himself in. “Check it out! It’s like the kind of thing you see on one of those upside-down rollercoasters.”
“That’s disturbing,” Violet remarked. “Why would it need that?”
While Theodore messed around with the restraint, Charlie inspected the captain’s chair. There were remarkably few controls on the dashboard in front of it: an ignition switch, a throttle for controlling the boat’s speed, a steering wheel, a simple compass for telling direction, and a red button with the words WARNING: USE ONLY DURING FREEFALL etched below it.
“Freefall?” Charlie said. “What’s that for?”
Brooke shrugged. “Don’t know. All I know is you’re supposed to head into the ocean and somehow the boat gets you there.”
“Somehow the boat gets you there?” Violet asked dubiously. “You mean you just—poof!—magically end up near the Guardian?”
“Well, that’s what the Headmaster said,” Brooke replied, a little defensively. “Obviously, I’ve never done it.”
“Great,” Violet moaned. “That’s comforting. We have no idea how this thing is even supposed to work!”
“Aside from that red button and the weird seatbelts,” Charlie said, “it basically looks pretty much like a regular boat. We just need someone to steer it out of the cove and not smash us up on the rocks.”
“I’ll do it,” Theodore said. “I’m great at steering boats!”
“Really?” Charlie asked. “Have you ever steered one before?”
“No.”
“Then how do you know you’re great at it?”
“Have you even met me?” Theodore replied. “This is the kind of thing I’m just naturally good at—duh.” He unlatched the over-the-shoulder harness and stood up, but Violet pushed him back down.
“I’ll pilot it,” she said, sitting in the captain’s chair. “My family used to have a boat. Buckle up.”
Charlie, Brooke, and Theodore did as they were told. Violet turned on the ignition, moved the throttle forward, and gently guided the small craft through the rocks and out of the cove.
“Hey, you’re pretty good at this,” Charlie said, admiring her skill.
“A girl’s gotta be prepared.”
The day was warm, the air was clear, and in spite of the danger and uncertainty of their mission, Charlie felt his spirits rise as they left the island behind them and sailed out into the welcoming arms of the open ocean.
The catastrophe started out small.
Twenty miles offshore, their compass needle, which had been pointing them steadily, reliably north, suddenly spun to the south, then east, then back south again.
“Weird,” Violet said, watching it as it jittered uncertainly.
“Something wrong?” Charlie asked.
“Not sure. The compass just went funky. Look, there it goes again!”
The needle spun frantically to the left and then to the right.
“Don’t worry about it,” Theodore said. “Compass malfunctions like that are totally normal. Could be the gravitational pull of the moon, or maybe we’re drifting over a large chunk of magnetized ore.”
“What are you talking about?” Charlie replied. “Do you even have any idea what you’re saying?” He pointed to the instrument panel. “Look at the thing—that’s definitely not normal!”
The compass continued to spin crazily as the ocean grew choppy. Above them, the frothy, white clouds started to darken.
“Maybe we should turn around,” Brooke suggested uneasily. “Looks like a storm’s coming.”
“I would,” Violet said, “but with the compass acting so funny, I’m not sure I could find our way back.”
“Of course you can!” Theodore said. “Just use the sun.”
“The sun?”
“You know, for navigation.”
Violet gritted her teeth. “Okay, how?”
“How should I know? You’re the captain. Duh.”
It’s a good thing she’s restrained by that metal harness, Charlie thought, seeing the look of death in Violet’s eyes.
“Just turn us around,” he said calmly. “At least then we’ll be heading away from the rough water.”
The water was, in fact, starting to get rough. A heavy wind had kicked up, stinging their faces with salt spray. Charlie was shocked by how quickly the weather had turned against them.
“You may be right,” Violet said a little nervously, glancing around as increasingly big waves pounded their small boat, causing it to soar and fall like a child’s toy. She turned the wheel.
Nothing happened.
The boat continued to head in the same direction, seemingly drawn now by some strong, unseen force. Huge ocean waves sloshed over the side, threatening to swamp them.
“What’s wrong?” Charlie shouted over the rising howl of the wind.
“I don’t know!” Violet yelled back. “It’s like I’m not steering it anymore! Something’s pulling us!”
“That’s probably either the north or south pole,” Theodore reasoned, “depending on what side of the globe we’re on, of course.”
“What?” Charlie yelled. “The Nightmare Academy is nowhere near the poles—it’s someplace tropical, obviously!”
“You don’t know where the Academy is?” Brooke asked incredulously as another massive wave washed over them.
“Well, no!” Charlie shouted back, wiping the stinging ocean water from his eyes. “No one’s ever told us!”
“I guess that’s not so strange,” Brooke reasoned. “They don’t really teach you that stuff until you’re an Addy.”
“So where are we?” Theodore screamed.
Rain began to lash them in thick sheets. Lightning cracked across the dark sky.
“The Bermuda Triangle,” Brooke shouted as the boat began to spin wildly with the current. “The Nightmare Academy is in the Bermuda Triangle!”
They stared at her, speechless.
“The Bermuda Freaking Triangle?” Theodore yelled. “Are you kidding me? We’re in a death trap! Do you know how many planes and ships have been lost here?”
“Not really,” Brooke shouted.
“Tons! This is unbelievable! We’re gonna die!”
“Stop that!” Violet shouted. “We’re not gonna die!”
“Actually,” Charlie said, looking over the side, “I think we just might.”
The ocean began to spin in a giant whirlpool, and their small craft raced crazily around its edges. Far below, deep beneath the churning water, they could see a gigantic glowing red disc.
It was an alien, incredible sight.
“What is that thing?” Brooke yelled, astonished.
“I have no idea!” Charlie shouted.
They shot down the center of the whirlpool until their tiny speedboat was plunged underwater, spiraling out of control, drawn by the strange red disc. As they neared it, Charlie began to realize how truly massive it was—at least a mile from side to side. It grew in his vision until it filled the world. He strained against his shoulder restraint, trying desperately to free himself, but the metal harness was now tightly locked. There was no way to escape from the small boat that was violently hurtling them through the cold, breathless depths, toward the swirling, mysterious object at the bottom of the sea.
Charlie couldn’t breathe.
He didn’t know how long he’d been underwater—maybe minutes, maybe only seconds—but he did know that if he didn’t get oxygen soon, he was going to die. His lungs burned and a cold blackness began to close over his vision like a coffin lid. He could see his friends around him, drowning, unable to escape the sinking boat. His eyes locked onto Violet’s. He saw panic in them…and also a dim acceptance.
His heart sank.
Once again, he had led them down a dark and lonely path that seemed to end in certain death. They were now so close to the giant, swirling disc beneath them that Charlie could reach out and touch it—which he tried to do.
But there was nothing to touch.
His hand passed through it, followed by the rest of the boat. And then they were falling, end over end, through the air—but it was air! Charlie gasped, breathing in deeply as the blessed oxygen put out the fire in his lungs. Even though they were tumbling wildly, the over-the-shoulder restraints kept them firmly secured in their seats. Charlie could see snapshot glimpses of things around him—the yellow of crystals, a pillar of red fire—
We’re in the Nether, he suddenly realized. We’re freefalling through the Nether.
Freefall.
Where had he seen that word before?
“Push the button!” he screamed at Violet. “The big red button on the dash—punch it!”
Violet, groggy and disoriented, saw the red button with the words WARNING: USE ONLY DURING FREEFALL. Focusing all her energy, she reached forward and pressed it.
There was an intense hissing sound, like air rushing from a tire. Transparent balloons burst out of the sides of the speedboat and inflated instantly. They covered the small craft in a kind of cocoon, slowing its descent. Through them, Charlie could see the blurry image of what looked like sailing ships—hundreds and hundreds of them—on the ground far below.
The Guardian boat plummeted down before finally slamming into the deck of an old freighter. It bounced up like a rubber ball, spinning as it did, and Charlie caught a dizzying glimpse of the enormous red disc through which they had fallen. It was now above them, glimmering in the distance.
And then they were falling again, tumbling wildly.
After a couple more bounces, their crazy speedboat came to a stop. The protective balloons deflated, and the over-the-shoulder restraints unlocked with a satisfying clonk.
They had arrived.
“Well…that was interesting,” Theodore said, raising his restraint.
“Everyone okay?” Charlie asked as he unlatched himself.
“I’m not sure,” Brooke replied, breathing frantically. “I think so. Do I look okay?”
“Heck, yeah!” Theodore said. “You look great.”
“I’m okay, too, Theodore,” Violet said wryly. “Just in case you were wondering.”
“Oh, definitely. I was gonna check on you next. Totally.”
“Uh-huh.”
They all stepped out of the boat and looked around. They were in the middle of a giant graveyard of wrecked ships, piled high like automobiles in a junkyard. The ones on the bottom were old and weathered, getting newer the higher up the pile you looked. Above it all, the giant red disc—which Charlie now realized was some kind of portal—loomed like a dying sun.
“We call it ‘the Anomaly,’” a voice behind them said.
They turned to see the Headmaster walking toward them, weaving her way deftly through the remains of the hulking, crippled ships.
“Headmaster!” Charlie exclaimed. “We got your message!”
“Yes, yes, I see that you did.” Her eyes glinted in amusement. “You’re standing in what’s known as the BT Graveyard. Very few humans have ever laid eyes on it.”
“BT Graveyard,” Charlie repeated. “That stands for Bermuda Triangle Graveyard, right?”
The Headmaster nodded. “As you might have guessed, the Anomaly draws ships toward it from the Earth above and deposits them here.”
“The Anomaly…this is what the Guardian protects, isn’t it?”
“Indeed. We’re not sure what it is, exactly—some type of tear in the fabric of the Nether, perhaps.”
If it’s a tear, it sure is a big one, Charlie thought.
It was enormous—a hundred times larger than even the biggest portal he could open. It burned with a red fire instead of the usual purple. It seemed to remain always open and it actually attracted things to it, like a magnet, allowing everything but seawater to pass.
Not a drop comes through, he thought with amazement as he stared up at it. Just then, he noticed a large shadow approaching from the Earth side.
“What’s that?” he asked.
“Something big,” the Headmaster replied.
The thing that cast the shadow drew closer and closer until it fell through the Anomaly and into the Nether.
It can’t be…, Charlie thought. It’s a humpback whale!
The great creature plummeted down, writhing and twisting desperately through the air until it finally crashed into the ruins of an old plane in a tremendous explosion of steel and blubber.
“That poor thing!” Brooke said, clutching her chest.
“It’s unfortunate, but it happens,” the Headmaster replied. “Most sea creatures sense the Anomaly and avoid it, but occasionally one will get trapped. I would have opened a portal beneath it and allowed it to fall back into Earth’s ocean, but you can’t portal anywhere near the Anomaly—hence the need for the Guardian boat.” She gestured toward their odd little craft. “It’s an unconventional way to get here, to be sure, but it’s also, amazingly, the safest. Without it, you’d have to portal into the 5th Ring and fight your way here through Class-5 monsters, as I did earlier. Not pleasant.”
“Definitely not,” Violet agreed.
“So the Anomaly is why the Bermuda Triangle gets such a bad rap?” Theodore said. “Why radar goes funky here, why so many people get lost and disappear. The mystery is solved!”
“Indeed it is, Mr. Dagget. The Anomaly allows things to cross from Earth into the Nether.”
“Yeah,” Charlie said. “And I’m guessing it also does the reverse: allow things to cross from the Nether into Earth. Things like monsters. Things like the Named.”
The Headmaster nodded. “That’s correct, Mr. Benjamin. It would…if it weren’t protected by the Guardian.”
“Where is it? The Guardian, I mean.”
“Come,” the Headmaster replied. “I’ll show you.”
The Guardian wasn’t at all what Charlie expected.
Weak and fragile, it was the size of a child, with wide, watery eyes and translucent orange skin that revealed pulsing blue veins beneath. Its mouth was small, like a baby’s, full of tiny, white teeth that shined like little pearls. It crossed its long, spindly arms over its thin chest and shivered, wheezing asthmatically.
“Hold me,” it said in a whispery voice. “I’m cold.”
The Guardian lived in the captain’s quarters of a ruined warship. Even though the BT Graveyard was a spooky place, someone (probably the Headmaster herself) had tried to brighten this little area up. There were pillows scattered about and pictures of warm, exotic locales—Charlie recognized Hawaii as one of them. A chessboard sat on the floor next to the Guardian’s bed, which was actually just a pile of blankets, and a game was in progress. Somehow, the effort to make the place look more cheerful had exactly the opposite effect: Charlie thought he’d never seen something so sad and lonely.
“Won’t you hold me?” the Guardian asked again. “I would like to be held.”
“It’s so little,” Violet said, walking toward the frail creature, arms outstretched. She desperately wanted to hug it and comfort it.
“It’s dying, Ms. Sweet,” the Headmaster said. “And if you touch it, you’ll kill it.”
Violet stopped, but it clearly took an enormous amount of willpower. There was just something about the frail being, something almost supernatural, that made you want to take it into your arms and protect it.
“Hold me,” the Guardian pleaded. “Please…make me warm.”
“That’s enough, Hank,” the Headmaster gently scolded. “You know they can’t touch you. None of us can.”
“Hank?” Theodore said with a laugh. “The Guardian’s name is Hank?”
“I don’t know what its actual name is,” the Headmaster replied. “I’m not even sure it has one. But I used to have a dog named Hank that I liked very much, so…”
She shrugged, as if that said it all.
“You look kind,” the Guardian whispered, turning to Brooke. “It would be okay if you held me, I think. I’m so cold and so lonely.”
Brooke’s eyes filled with tears. “What if I held it for just a second? Just a quick, little hug couldn’t possibly—”
“Yes, it could, Ms. Brighton,” the Headmaster snapped. “And it already has. One ‘quick, little hug’ is responsible for the Guardian being in the desperate condition you see now. This is exactly the reason why it must be protected from humans—the urge to touch it is nearly impossible to resist.”
“Yes, Headmaster,” Brooke said, turning away, wiping tears from her eyes.
“So what happened?” Charlie asked. “Did someone touch it?”
The Headmaster nodded. “When I arrived, I found the Guardian in the arms of a child. The little girl was only trying to help, of course—as you were just now—but even the couple moments of contact she had with it have made it gravely ill.”
“Where is she now?” Charlie asked. “The little girl.”
“Home.”
“How? I thought you couldn’t open a portal here?”
“That’s correct. I had to bring her out of range of the Anomaly to do so.”
“To where the monsters are,” Violet said softly.
“Indeed,” the Headmaster replied. “There was…a certain amount of killing that had to be done, I’m afraid.”
Charlie, who had seen the Headmaster in action, could easily imagine the amount of damage she had caused with her glowing blue staff. Once she got going, she was impossible to stop.
“Hold me,” the Guardian whispered once more. “It’s so dark in the Nether and I’m so frightened.”
The urge to comfort the creature was enormous. Charlie didn’t know how the Headmaster withstood it. He was already at the breaking point.
“Come outside,” she said to them then. “And we will speak of things that need to be spoken.”
They stood in the BT Graveyard, just out of earshot of the Guardian, although Charlie felt as if he could still hear every labored, rattling breath it took.
“If the Guardian dies,” the Headmaster said, “the aura that it gives off will die with it, and it is that aura which repels the monsters of the Nether—in fact, it has soaked into the very ships that litter the ground here.”
“That’s what the Nightmare Academy is built out of, isn’t it?” Charlie said, suddenly putting it all together. “Old ships from the BT Graveyard. That’s why the Academy keeps away all the creatures of the Nether. The ships there hold the aura like a battery holds a charge.”
“Precisely,” the Headmaster said. “But only as long as the Guardian is alive. If it perishes, the Academy will be unprotected and the creatures of the Nether will overrun the BT Graveyard and escape to Earth.”
“Then we have to save it!” Theodore exclaimed.
“Is there a way?” Charlie asked, trying hard to control his growing anxiety.
“There is,” the Headmaster agreed, somewhat hesitantly. “That’s why I asked Ms. Brighton to bring you here—but the danger is great, and success is by no means guaranteed.”
“Well, I guarantee it,” Theodore said. “There—you’ve got the Theodore Dagget Guarantee! Consider it done. What do we have to do?”
The Headmaster stared at them carefully, weighing their ability and resolve the way an expert tailor sizes up a customer and knows the right dimensions without taking a single measurement. Finally, she spoke: “There is a liquid in the Nether that is said to have astonishing restorative properties: one sip and you are returned to the point in your life when you were most powerful.”
“Wow,” Brooke said. “I’m guessing that’s not easy to come by.”
“You guess correctly.”
“What is it?” Charlie asked.
“Milk,” the Headmaster replied. “From a Hydra.”
“A Hydra?” Theodore blurted. “You mean, a vicious multiheaded water dragon kind of Hydra?”
“Yes, but not just any Hydra—a female Hydra. Unfortunately, that’s where the difficulty lies. There’s only one female Hydra in existence, and we don’t know where she is.”
“So, to save the Guardian,” Violet said, “we’d have to find the only female Hydra in the Nether, get her milk, and get it back to the Guardian before it dies.”
“Precisely. And, at the rate the Guardian is slipping away, you have less than a day.”
“No way!” Theodore exclaimed. “That’s impossible!”
“Impossible?” the Headmaster replied. “But how can that be? I thought you guaranteed that it could be done.”
“Well, that was before I actually knew what the job was. I mean, this is way more challenging than I thought it was gonna be.”
“Well, I should hope so. It has the potential to save our world, so I’d be distrustful if it were easy.”
“We’ll do it,” Charlie said quietly.
Everyone turned to him.
“Charlie?” Brooke said. “Are you sure?”
“Yeah. It needs to be done, that’s all. There’s no one else. The Headmaster has to stay here and protect the Guardian from other kids who might show up, and everyone in the Nightmare Division is hunting down Barakkas and Verminion. We’ll do it because we have to.”
He smiled confidently at Brooke.
“Wait a minute,” Violet said, glancing between them. “Are you saying we’ll do it because you want to impress her?”
Charlie flushed with embarrassment. “What? No! How can you even suggest that…”
“You are, aren’t you? You’re red as a beet!”
“Stop it!”
“Unbelievable. Seriously.”
Charlie wished he could find a deep hole and bury himself in it. How could Violet accuse him of such a thing? There was no way he was doing this just to impress a girl!
Was there?
“Do you accept the task?” the Headmaster asked.
“Yes,” Charlie said defiantly, then glanced at his friends. “Right?”
“You’re the boss,” Theodore replied quickly. “If you need me, I’m there, mon frère—that’s French for ‘my brother.’”