Banshee Worm King: Book Five of the Oz Chronicles (30 page)

Bostic’s eyes shifted from the ball of goo to me.
 
He was terrified.

I moved my hand up his neck and applied pressure to both
sides of his jaw.
 
“I’m going to need you
to open wide,” I said.

He shook his head rapidly.
 

I squeezed the pressure points and his mouth opened against
his will.
 
Before he could close it, I
shoved the egg in his mouth and then covered his mouth and nose with my
hand.
 
Recalling what he had said to me
earlier, I said. “C’mon, Bostic.
 
Swallow
it, and it will be done.
 
Won’t have
another care in the world.
 
I guarantee
it.”

His eyes bulged as he fought the need to swallow and
breathe.
 
He attempted to free himself
from my grip, but it was no use.
 

“Oz,” Lou said. I sensed she wanted to tell me to stop, but
she knew that there was nothing else to be done.
 
She knew he had to be dealt with.
 
If he wasn’t, he would continue his business
of befriending travelers, offering them shelter and food, and then feeding them
to the worms.
 

Bostic slapped my arm in a last ditch effort to loosen my
grasp.
 
Then his eyes closed, and he
swallowed the egg. I released him.

He fell to his knees gasping and coughing, with his hands
clutching his throat.

The sound was faint at first.
 
You could barely make it out.
 
But, the worms noticed it right away. The
climbers who had entered the chamber heard it, too.
 

Bostic put his hand over his stomach and looked up with a
helpless expression.
 
When his mouth
dropped open, you could clearly hear the egg screaming from inside his
stomach.
 

He stood.
 
“I’m
dead.”

“You are,” I said.
 

The worms slowly started to slither his way.

“What am I going to do?” he asked in a shaky voice.

I pointed to a tunnel behind him and simply said, “Run.”

Backing away, he watched the worms as they followed
him.
 
One of the smaller worms hissed and
nipped his leg.
 
He yelped, turned
towards the tunnel, and ran. The worms burrowed underneath the soil and pursued
him, while the climbers bounded through the chamber and gave chase.

Wes, Gordy, Tyrone, Ajax, and Ariabod all stood wiping the
worm slime from their clothes and bodies.

“I am so over this kind stuff,” Gordy said.
 
“This just ain’t necessary.”
 
He saw me for the first time.
 
“Whoa!”

“Oz?” Wes asked

Tyrone pulled his knife from its sheath.

“Put that away,” Wes said.

I backed away from them.
 
I wanted to kill them.
 
I had to
kill them, but something in me held me back.
 
“No, don’t put that away.
 
You
should all have weapons.”

The two gorillas bared their fangs and bluff charged,
pounding their chests as they did.

Lou stepped between them and me.
 
“Don’t hurt him!”

Hearing her voice, I knew she was what was holding me
back.
 
I wasn’t full Délon when she was
around.
 
I don’t know why, but I couldn’t
embrace the anger and hate that fed the Délon part of me.

“It’s not safe for you,” I said.
 
“Any of you.
 
Leave.”

“Not without you,” Lou said.

“Damn it, boy,” Wes said.
 
“I told you it was a fool idea going Délon.
 
Now look at you.”

“Get out of here,” I said as I started to shake from
fighting my natural Délon urges.

“I say we listen to Oz,” Gordy said.
 
“He’s not looking too... friendly.”

Lou reached out and touched my arm.

I pulled back and barked in pain.
 
My arm felt as if I had been smashed by a two
ton rock.
 

Lou touched me again.

I cried out in pain.

“What are you doing, trying to kill him?” Gordy asked.

“No,” she said, “I’m trying to save him.”

She tried to touch me again, but I snatched up her wrist
and twisted her arm until she yelped in pain.
 

“Let her go, boy,” Wes said.

The hair on the gorillas’ shoulders puffed up, and they
pounded the ground with their fists.

“Listen to me, Oz,” Lou said.
 
“You are not a Délon.
 
You’re Oz Griffin.
 
You are Creyshaw!”

“Shut up,” I said, “or I’ll break your arm!”
 
I twisted it a little harder.
 
Touching her was tearing me up in side.
 
The air was leaving my lungs.
 
My heart was crashing against my
ribcage.
 
I was miserable, but I couldn’t
bring myself to let go.

“I’m here because of you, Oz!”

I loosened my grip.

“Stevie, he put me here.
 
He made me to help you.
 
Let me
help you.”

I let her go.
 

“What in the hell are you talking about, girl?” Wes asked.

“Yeah, that don’t make any sense at all,” Gordy said.

“You just couldn’t keep a secret, could you?” the Pure said
standing at the entrance of the chamber.
 
No one had noticed him until he’d spoken.

“Holy crap, it’s like Délon friggin’ central around here,”
Gordy said.

The gorillas lumbered toward the Pure slowly.

Lou looked at the Pure with a confused expression.

The Pure morphed into April and said, “I told you that in
confidence.”

Gordy puffed out a long guttural breath. “Holy mother...!”

“No way,” Tyrone said.

Wes just stared in disbelief.

“I cannot believe you violated my trust,” April said.

Lou turned to me.
 
“This moment is why I’m here, Oz.
 
This is why Stevie put me here.
 
I’m here to remind you that you’re not this.” She grabbed my hand and
showed me my purple skin.
 
“You are not
this monster.
 
This bully.”
 
She placed the palm of her hand on my
heart.
 
“There is magic inside of you,
Oz.
 
Stevie saw that it in you.
 
I see it.”

April clapped.
 
“This
is so wonderfully sappy and heartfelt, but so awfully boring at the same time.”
 
She morphed back into the Pure.
 
“Everyone say their goodbyes.
 
It’s time to sever Oz Griffin from pesky
little things like friends and loved ones now.
 
We really must be getting on with taking control of the world and such.”

I looked from the Pure to Lou.
 
I could feel the Délon side of me boiling up
again.

She could see it, too.
 
Before another second passed, she leaned up and kissed me on the mouth.

It sent a horrible stinging through my brain, but instead
of pushing her away, I kissed her back.
 
Eventually, I felt myself melting.
 
The anger, the hate, the need to serve the Pure just fell away.

The Pure was livid.
 
He hurried to us in the blink of an eye, grabbed my spider leg hair and
bent my head back.
 
“This is so
tiresome!
 
If you will not rid yourself
of these... things, I will.”
 
With that
he tossed me to the ground.

I reached my hand over to pull myself up and saw why he had
grown so angry.
 
My purple skin was
fading.
 
I prayed that I could hold onto
it just a little bit longer.

Before he could reach Lou, I grabbed his ankle and swept
his leg out from under him.
 
He hit the
ground with an earthshaking thud.
 

Ajax and Ariabod leapt forward and whaled on his chest.

It had little effect on the Pure.
 
He grabbed Ariabod’s fist in mid-air and
hurled the gorilla head over feet to the opposite side of the chamber.
 
He then kicked Ajax in the midsection,
knocking all the wind out of him.
 

I roared towards the Pure and threw my shoulder into his
back.
 
We stumbled together into the cave
wall.
 
Rock and dust flew everywhere, but
neither one of us was seriously injured.

The Pure turned as quick as a cat and shoved me back hard
enough for me to hear my ribs crack.
 
I
landed on the ground next to Bostic’s torch.
 

I heard Wes, Tyrone, and Gordy yell in unison as they ran
towards the Pure.
 
They were all sent
reeling back by a single roundhouse kick from the Délon.
 

I spotted the backpack and remembered the last remaining
item in it.
 
I crawled towards the pack,
but stopped when I heard Lou scream.

The Pure stood before me holding her by her hair.
 
She swung her arms, fighting with every inch
of her body to get free.

“Don’t hurt her,” I said.

The Pure shook his head.
 
“I fail to understand this need to care for other people. I mean I
suppose if I had to care for something I could, provided it were real.
 
But she’s not real, Oz.
 
She’s the figment of some poor mentally
deficient kid’s mind.
 
She’s only here
because Stevie learned to draw.”

I sat down and began to move stealthily towards the
backpack.
 
I didn’t want to give the Pure
any indication that it contained something I wanted.
 
“Lou is real,” I said.
 
“She didn’t get here the same as us, but that
doesn’t make her any less real.”

“That’s such a ridiculously optimistic way to look at it
Oz. I don’t know whether to cry or throw up.”

“You know, if she’s not real then neither are you.
 
You were both created in the same way by the
same type of people.”

“Délons aren’t imaginary charaters, Oz.
 
We are the fear, intolerance, anger, and
hopelessness that our creators lived with their entire lives. Lou, all sweet
and brave and pretty, she’s the fantasy.”

“You’re wrong,” I said.

“Are we done?
 
I
really want to get on to the part where I break her neck.”

“Wait!” I reached into a pocket of the backpack and retrieved
a folded piece of paper.
 

“What is that?” the Pure asked.

I unfolded it and showed him the detailed drawing of the
Délon.
 
“It’s you.”

“Me?”

“Your source.
 
What
you’ve been looking for.”

He looked at the paper and nearly smiled.
 
“You do have it.
 
I knew it was close.”
 
He looked at his hands opening and closing
them.
 
“It is why I feel so strong, so
invincible.
 

“Let Lou go.”

He pulled her head back even farther.
 
“Why?
 
She is of no consequence now.
 
Don’t you see?
 
If I possess my
own Source, my power is limitless.
 
You
will serve the true one.
 
You will be my
right hand.
 
All other Délons and
Destroyers will bow before you because I will let it be known that you act on
my behalf.
 
This girl... this fake girl
means nothing.”

“If she’s nothing, there’s no reason to hurt her,” I said
feeling the Délon part of me slipping away.

“You bargain for her life too vigorously.
 
It concerns me.”
 
With that, he lifted her over his head, one
hand still holding her by the hair, the other wrapped around her calf.
 
In a smooth, effortless motion he threw her
towards the cave wall.

In an instant, the Délon part of me surged back in with a
vengeance.
 
I watched Lou fly through the
air as if she were moving in slow motion.
 
She would die instantly given the force of the throw.

While my mind saw her almost floating towards the rock
wall, I saw myself moving in normal speed. I raced towards her.
 
Everyone else but the Pure moved in the same
slow speed that Lou was moving.
 
I didn’t
know what was happening, but I didn’t have the time to question it. I just ran
after Lou, catching up to her just before her head collided with the jagged
edge of the cave.
 
I scooped her up and
gently placed her on the ground unharmed.