Within minutes, Eva and I were crouching next to Cindy’s house, both of us gasping for air.
“Not much of a team player, are you?” Eva said.
“I am, actually. When I feel like I can trust my teammates to tell me the truth. Besides, you’re always the one wanting to do things on your own.”
Eva ignored the comment and turned her attention to Cindy’s house.
“Looks quiet,” I said. “Is it possible we beat them here?”
Eva shook her head. “Look at that,” she said, pointing.
The back door to the house hung at an awkward angle, half-torn off its hinges.
We climbed down from the tree and crept across their backyard. I pushed open the back door and stepped inside.
I had only been in Cindy’s house once. It had been last spring when Mrs. Adams had invited me in when I stopped by, selling candy bars for the baseball team. As she went to get her money, she suggested I go upstairs and say hi to Cindy…in her room. I guess adults forget what it’s like to be fourteen, because walking up those stairs and knocking on the door to Cindy’s room nearly gave me a heart attack. I was sweating all over; my heart was pounding, my hands were shaking, the works.
She probably thought it was one of her girlfriends stopping by, because she told me to just come in. What I saw next would be seared into my mind forever.
Cindy stood there in the middle of her pink bedroom, wearing nothing but her underwear.
We stared at each other in absolute horror. (OK, I wouldn’t say my expression exactly said “horror”, more like total appreciation that there really was a God.) But after a glorious three-second pause, Cindy’s mom showed up behind me in the hallway with the check for the candy bars.
“I made the check out to…what’s going on here!” she shouted. I grabbed the check from her hand and I hightailed it out of there.
I thought about that day as I walked silently through the Adams’ house. Squinting in the dark, I could tell the Creach had been there but they also must have been careful. The furniture in the living room had been shoved just a little out of place. One picture frame lay smashed on the floor. But I had expected the place to be ravaged like they had done at Aunt Sophie’s. I nodded toward the stairs that led to the second floor. Eva followed me up.
We crept down the hallway, past her parents’ room until we reached her room. I slowly opened the door, half-hoping that she would be sleeping peacefully in bed.
Her bed was empty.
There were more signs of a struggle in this room. Overturned furniture, sheets ripped from the mattress, clothes thrown everywhere. We were too late; she was already gone.
Just then, the unmistakable bolt action of a shotgun sounded right behind us.
“Hands up where I can see ‘em,” said a man’s voice.
Eva and I raised our hands and turned, looking sidelong at each other.
Cindy’s dad held the shotgun, but he lowered it once he saw that we were kids. Cindy’s mom snuck up behind him in the hallway.
“It’s the underwear kid. The one I caught sneaking into Cindy’s room when he was selling candy bars,” Mrs. Adams said.
Mr. Adams raised the shotgun back toward me. “Is that right? What in the heck are you two doing here? Is this some kind of prank? A dare or something? Because it isn’t funny.”
“I can explain everything,” I said, not really sure I could.
Mrs. Adams pushed past her husband and walked toward Cindy’s room. Eva stepped to the side and blocked her way.
“What on Earth do you think you’re doing?” Mrs. Adams demanded. “I’m going to get Cindy. She’ll be terrified if she wakes up and hears voices.”
“Step aside,” Mr. Adams said, suddenly a little more suspicious.
Eva did as she was instructed and Mrs. Adams walked into Cindy’s room. She screamed and came running back out. “She’s gone. What have you done with her?”
Mr. Adams pushed past his wife and looked for himself. He came out rattled. “You better tell us right now what’s going on.”
“We’re not responsible,” I said. “We thought this might happen, so we came here to try to save her.”
“Save her from what?” Mr. Adams said. “What are you kids mixed up in?”
“They can tell it to the police. I’m calling. I’m calling right now,” Mrs. Adams said, dialing her cell with shaking hands.
Eva leaned over to me. “Half the police in town are Creach monsters. She makes that call, we’re done for.”
I nodded. “Just don’t hurt them, OK?”
Eva grinned. “You worry too much.”
A few minutes later, I held Mr. Adams’ shotgun as Eva finished tying Cindy’s mom and dad up with duct tape. A couple pieces of tape already covered their mouths. Will finally caught up to us and walked into the room.
“Whoa, I leave you guys alone for five minutes and this is what happens?” he said.
I ignored him and took a knee next to Cindy’s parents. “Look, I wish I could tell you exactly what’s going on. Honestly, I don’t think you’d believe me anyway. Just know that we’re the good guys. We’re going to find Cindy and bring her back safe. I promise.”
Eva rolled her eyes and pulled the tape extra tight around their wrists.
I weighed the shotgun in my hands, not sure what to do. I decided that since I’d never shot a gun before I be just as likely to blow off my own toe as take down a monster. I put the shotgun down on the kitchen table and left it behind. With one last look at Cindy’s parents struggling against their bindings, we left the house.
Outside, we gathered together to plan our next move.
“Where would they take her?” Will asked. “Back to Jack’s house maybe?”
Eva shook her head. “I don’t think so. It’s isolated but they have to be worried that the noise they made earlier will attract unwanted attention. They’re not going to risk that kind of complication right now. It’s why they left her parents alive.”
“Then where?” I said, rifling through the options in town that could make sense.
“There’s a way to find out. But it’s dangerous,” Eva said.
“A little late in the game to worry about being safe, isn’t it?” I replied.
“Ren Lucre has not stopped searching for you with his mind. I can feel it, even with this.” She pulled out a medallion from under her shirt, identical to the one that Hester had given me.
“Hey, why don’t I have one of those?” Will complained.
“You’re not a true monster hunter yet,” Eva explained.
“Neither is Jack,” Will said.
Eva locked me up with those intense green eyes of hers. “Whether he likes it or not, wants it or not, Jack was a monster hunter from birth.”
“OK, but I’m just putting it out there, if we kill Ren Lucre, I want a medallion,” Will said.
“So how can we use the fact that he’s still searching for me to our advantage?” I asked.
“If you remove the medallion, you remove the cloak. Every monster within a mile will know where you are. More powerful members of the Creach will sense it from even farther. The Five Creach Lords will know where you are no matter where they are in the world. Including the one Lord over them all.”
“Ren Lucre,” I said. “But that’s only if I really am a Templar.”
“Whether you are or not, you obviously come from a hunter bloodline,” Eva said. They are searching for you so they should be able to pick you up regardless. The hope is that you’ll be able to see where he’s at as well.”
“You said this was dangerous,” I said. “Do you mean because the monsters near-by would be able to find us?”
“No, we can handle them. The risk is that Ren Lucre is pushing so hard against the power of the medallion to find you, that when you remove it, his power basically explodes your head.”
“Cool,” said Will.
I slowly turned and looked at him like he was crazy. “No, not cool. Not cool at all.”
“You’re right, sorry,” Will said. “It was just the way she said it.”
I shook my head and fingered the medallion. “And what do you think the chances are that my head will…you know…explode?”
Eva shrugged. “I have no idea. If you were a normal hunter who broke the seal the day before his fourteenth birthday, with no training, and no background? I’d say a 100%. Maybe not explode, but that at least your memory would be completely erased and you’d turn into a drooling vegetable.”
“And since he’s ‘born to be a monster hunter’?” Will asked.
Eva looked me over. “I say there’s a fifty-fifty chance. But I don’t think there’s any other way.”
“Great,” I said. “Just great.”
Eva looked at me. “Clock’s ticking. What are you going to do?”
I fingered the medallion, trying to come up with any other way to find Cindy. But I couldn’t think of anything.
S
lowly, I lifted the medallion up, first to my chin, then my nose. I closed my eyes and every muscle in my body flexed in the anticipation of the incredible pain that I imagined would accompany my brain being turned to mush.
With a deep breath, I lifted the medallion completely off my head.
Nothing.
I opened my eyes and looked at Will and Eva.
“I guess it didn’t—”
A searing pain exploded in my skull. I dropped to the ground, grabbing the sides of
my head. There’s no other way to describe it, except to say my brain felt like it was on fire. A wave of sound washed over me like a windstorm. A million voices all shouting at once. My vision blurred from the intensity of it.
The world around me turned dark and Eva and Will looked like shadows, even though they were right in front of me. I could just make out that they were mouthing words, but it was muffled and I couldn’t understand what they were trying to say. I held my head with both of my hands and squeezed as hard as I could, trying to ease the pain.
Oh no,
I thought.
Eva was right. My head is going to explode.
Slowly, I was able to take some control over the sounds. I blocked some out, shifted others to the background. The pain eased up a little. Then from among the chorus, five voices slowly rose and became more intense. I turned toward them and searched them out.
The five voices rushed toward me like storm clouds rolling in from the horizon. As they approached, the other voices became quiet. The voices melded together into a chant, deep and rhythmic. They took on form and shape, black shadows dancing in the sky above me as they chanted in unison. Long dark strands from each shape reached down like the fingers of a tornado and coiled around me, holding me, comforting me.
Then the shadows twisted tightly around me like they were ropes. The five shadows pulled as hard as they could, crushing my body. The chant continued. Louder and louder.
I screamed.
Suddenly, with a high-pitched cry, the shadows released their grip, pulled back up into the air, and disappeared.
Silence. The only sound was the wind in the trees and my own jagged breath as I lay there on the forest floor, panting from the exertion. Eva pulled me up and propped me against on her lap. “Easy, breathe,” she said. “Breathe now.”
I grasped my chest and found that the medallion was back in place.
“How did—”
“I couldn’t take it,” Will sputtered. “You screamed like you were dying. It was horrible.”
“I shouldn’t have suggested it,” Eva said softly. “It was a stupid idea.”
“No, it was working,” I said. I told them about what I had seen.
When I was done, Eva looked at me strangely. “They must have been the five Creach Lords,” she said. “But that’s impossible. They must be thousands of miles away. I’ve never heard of them being able to physically touch something from that distance.”
“What were they saying?” Will asked.
“I couldn’t make it out.” I shuddered at the thought of it. “I felt like they were pulling me toward them. Like I was being pulled out of my body.”
“Sounds like that’s exactly what they were doing. Lucky we put the medallion back on you in time,” Eva said.
“Did you see Ren Lucre?” Will asked. “Do you know where he has Cindy?”
I shook my head. Eva stood and walked away. “I guess we will have to figure out some other way.”
But nothing had changed. There was still no other way to find them.
I grabbed the medallion and lifted it off my head again.
The sound roared at me, but this time, I was ready for it. I opened my mind to the sea of voices, probing, searching. It felt like I was airborne, flying through it.
I heard the chanting from the five shadows, but I turned from them and they faded into the roar.
Then I saw a pillar of black fire, churning like it was a fiery tornado. I can’t explain why, but I immediately knew that it was him. Ren Lucre.
I dove into the black tower of fire, and suddenly, I saw a clearing in the woods that I knew. Over by the river. Right next to Swallow Falls. There were hundreds of Creach. At the center, Cindy sat on a rock with her knees up to her chest, sobbing.
My point of view moved toward Cindy, but then switched to the right at the last moment. Suddenly, I was looking at a still pool of water, the half-moon shining off the surface. Slowly, the face of Ren Lucre slid into view, reflected in the water.
That’s when I realized that I was looking through Ren Lucre’s eyes.
“I know you’re there, Jack,” Ren Lucre’s voice whispered. “I’m waiting for you.”
I felt myself flying backward, away from the clearing, out of the black tornado, through the roar of voices and back to where Eva and Will stood.
I opened my eyes, breathing hard.
“Are you OK?” Eva whispered.
I looked down and saw that I still had the medallion in my hand. I slowly put it on and looked at Eva.
“How did you do that?” Eva asked.
I picked up my sword from the ground. “I know where they’re at,” I said. “Let’s go.”
Will followed first, falling into step right next to me. “This is crazy; you know that, right?”
“The real crazy thing is that I think you’re having fun,” I said, smiling.
“Yeah,” Will said. “I guess I am.”
Eva caught up to us. “You know the old saying: it’s all fun and games until someone gets eaten by a mug-wump.”
After a few beats, Will and I erupted into much-needed laughter. Eva looked shocked at our reaction, the expression obviously common to her. But eventually she cracked a smile and then finally laughed along with us. It felt good to laugh as a group, especially since we were about to enter a fight against insurmountable odds, which none of us was likely to survive.