Villain's Lair (2 page)

Now, you're probably wondering, What is this “it”?

And again, the answer is not an easy one. Or is, at the very least, not one you won't say “Impossible!” to when you hear. (Which means that you
will
, most likely, say “Impossible!”)

So I am somewhat hesitant in sharing that what Sticky retrieved from an ancient Aztec treasure hidden for hundreds of years in the folds of a secret cavern was… a wristband.

A
magic
wristband, known also as a power-band.

Ah-ah-ah, I warned you. But as I've said before, this story is true.

Amazing?

Yes.

Incredible?

Yes.

But still, true.

Now, had this amazingly, incredibly magic
Aztec wristband worked on Sticky, he might have cut Damien out of the equation entirely. (After all, what had Damien done, really, but take him to the vast, unforgiving mountain where legend said the powerband had vanished?)

But the powerband did not work on Sticky.

And, as it turned out, it did not work by itself either.

You see, the wristband was but half of the equation.

The power ingots were the other.

These power ingots could easily be mistaken for ancient Aztec coins. What gives them away to the discerning eye, however, is that they are notched.

And have odd pictures on them.

And are shinier than gold.

Blindingly so.

In fact, you could pick them out of a treasure chest, no problem.

Assuming, of course, you were looking for shiny notched coins with strange pictures on them.

Which Sticky was.

Because Damien had told him to.

But let's go back to the wristband, shall we? That will take us back to Dave's reaction to Sticky being able to talk, which will take us back to what in the world these two were doing, creeping through a frightening forest and an oozy, stinky cave toward the underbelly of a nightmarish mansion*

Well, you've almost certainly figured that last bit out on your own by now, but I'll tell you anyway:

Damien Black still had the ingots.

Sticky had snagged the wristband.

The wristband is useless without the ingots.

The ingots are useless without the wristband.

Together, though, that's another story! By clicking a power ingot into a slot on the wristband, the wearer immediately possesses that particular ingot's particular power. Super-strength, lightning speed, invisibility … that sort of thing. It's a one-power-at-a-time sort of magic wristband, but still, very cool indeed.

Now, Damien had promised Sticky the life of a king if he could bring the powerband and the ingots out of the cavern, but in the end, Damien had betrayed him. Tricked him. And then, much worse,
caged
him. He was, Sticky learned the hard way, a beastly barracuda of a man. A bwaa-ha-ha-ha-in-the-night sort of villain. Damien did not care about Sticky. He merely saw him as a possession. A unique kind of treasure. Something he did not want to let get away.

But Damien Black underestimated the price
he would pay for his betrayal. For although it took all of Sticky's ingenuity and strength, he managed to escape the dastardly treasure hunter's lair with Damien's most valuable possession:

The magic wristband.

So! Knowing this now, you can see why it took a while for Sticky to work up the courage to talk to Dave. He liked the boy, but what if he was just another, younger Damien Black? What if he, too, would betray him and
cage
him?

But in the end, Sticky decided that getting his hands on the power ingots was not something he could do alone. He needed help, and Dave seemed just the boy to give it. He was strong and nimble and fast on a bike. He was old enough to go places on his own, and young enough to not freak out over a talking gecko lizard.

Or so Sticky hoped, anyway.

He really, really, really didn't want Dave to freak out.

It happened one afternoon when Dave was home alone. Sticky simply crawled onto his shoulder and said,
“Buenas tardes, señor!
“

“What?” Dave said, looking at the gecko with wide eyes.

“You heard me,
hombre,”
Sticky said as he cocked his head. “I said,
‘Buenas tardes.'
You know, good afternoon?”

“I know what
buenas tardes
means! But…but…you
talk?”

“Looks like,” Sticky said with a shrug, implying that Dave was brainy like a burro.

Dave shook out one ear.

He shook out the other.

“It's impossible!” he whispered, trying to convince himself that he wasn't hearing what he was indeed hearing. He looked at Sticky and said, “Talk again.”

“What do you want me to say,
señor?”

Dave fell into a chair. “A talking lizard!” “A talking leeezard,” Sticky repeated, pronouncing “lizard” the only way his accent would allow.

“A talking lizard!” Dave said again, and ah though Dave was much, much larger than Sticky, he looked enormously frightened.

“A talking leeezard!” Sticky repeated again, and although Sticky was much, much smaller than Dave, he looked enormously amused.

Dave sat up a little. “How can you be talking? Are you enchanted? Bewitched?
Cursed?”

Sticky shrugged. “I'm just me,
señor.”

“Have you always been able to talk?” Dave asked, his voice but a whisper.

Sticky nodded his little gecko head and grinned.
“Sí, señor.
Ever since I can remember.”

“Can
all
lizards talk?”

“Ay
caramba
, don't I wish? No! I've tried to teach them, but they look at me like my head's full of
loco
berries! I say to them, Theees is how you do it, seeee? You move your leeeeeps. You push words ouuuuuut.' But they won't even try! All they want to do is eat bugs and sleep.”

“Eat bugs and sleep,” Dave said, like he was in a trance.

“Sí, señor.
So what was I supposed to do? Hang around a bunch of sleepy-eyed cricket catchers for the rest of my life? No way, Jose! I needed to shake a tail! Flap a tongue! Find someplace where I belonged!”

Dave's eyes were enormous. “And…and…you belong
here!”

Sticky's face scrunched to one side.

His eyes became a bit shifty.

He inspected the fingernails of his little gecko hand.

And just when it seemed he would huff on his nails and buff them against his chest, he put the hand down and muttered, “That depends on you,
señor.”

“On me?”

“Sí.
On whether you're willing to help me.”

“Help you?” Dave asked helplessly. “Help you how?”

“Ay-ay-ay,” Sticky said. “This is not easy to explain.”

Dave stared at the lizard for a moment, then said, “Well, try!”

Sticky tapped his little gecko chin with a little gecko finger and murmured,
“Dios mío
, where to begin?” But then, with great gecko wisdom, he decided that the very best place to begin was… at the beginning.

Now, as Sticky told Dave about Damien Black and the ancient Aztec powerband, and the vast, unforgiving mountain where he had so selflessly risked life and limb, he did it in a very
spicy
way, generously seasoning the story with expressions that were neither English nor Spanish, nor even Spanglish. Expressions like “Holy tacarole!” and “Freaky
frijoles
!” and “Chony baloney!”

Expressions that, really, could only be called one thing:

Stickynese.

In fact, the telling of the tale became
so
spiced that as Sticky was explaining the power of each magic ingot, Dave could take it no longer. He jumped up and said, “Stop! I don't believe you! Not for a minute! There's no such thing as a wristband that can make you fly! Or turn you invisible! Or let you walk up walls! It's impossible!”

Sticky pursed his lips.

He cocked his head.

His whole mouth screwed around from one side of his face to the other.

And at long last he said, “You cut me to the quick,
señor.
I am most insulted. Perhaps you are not the one to help me after all.” Then he jumped off of Dave's shoulder and scurried across Dave's bedroom, vanishing behind a small bookcase.

Dave cried, “Wait!” because although he knew a magic wristband was an impossibility, so, too, was a talking gecko lizard.

And what if it was true? In his wildest dreams, in his very
best
dreams, he could fly. And to be able to become
invisible?
That was more than he dared even dream of.

Dave pinched himself, but he was, in fact, not dreaming.

“Hello?” he asked, peering behind the bookcase. “Where'd you go?”

Just as he was beginning to fear that the
lizard
had disappeared, Sticky emerged over the top of a
row of books, dragging the ancient Aztec wristband behind him.

“Holy smokes!” Dave gasped, for it was plain to see that this was no ordinary bracelet.

It glowed like a band of sunshine.

It shimmered like a deep pool of molten gold.

It had designs on it that were both foreign and mysterious. Designs that seemed to hold the secrets of an entire civilization.

Designs that, without a doubt, held the promise of power.

“Holy smokes!” Dave gasped again.

“So,
señor”
Sticky said, “do you still think I'm a liar?”

Dave's head wagged slowly from side to side.

“Do you want to be able to fly and go invisible? Do you want to be able to lift boulders like pebbles and climb walls with ease? Do you want the speed of a roadrunner and the—”

“Yes,” Dave gasped. “Yes!”

Sticky crossed his arms and cocked his head. “Then you must promise this,
señor:
you will tell no one about the wristband, and you will tell no one that I can talk.”

“No
one?” Dave asked, for even in his understandably stunned state of mind, he knew that this would be difficult. He had a talking lizard! And a wristband that (he now believed) could make
him. fly.

How could he
not
tell someone about it?

But despite his understandably stunned state of mind, Dave did manage to realize that if he did tell someone—
anyone
—about any of it, the lizard would probably never speak to him again. And if that happened, who'd believe him?

People would think that he was crazy!

Mad!

Wholly and totally mental!

Or worse, a complete dork.

So with all these thoughts muddling through
his stunned state of mind, Dave grudgingly agreed to Sticky's conditions:

He would never tell a soul about the wristband.

He would never tell a soul that the lizard could talk.

“Very good,” Sticky said. “Because if you do, I will never talk to you again, and people will think you're
loco
, man. Or worse, a complete dork.”