OVERFALLS (The Merworld Water Wars, Book 2) (31 page)

“She is? Who with?” I asked.

“Prepare to worry...Irving Michaels, the Ravenflame competitor in the Overfalls,” said Polly, sulking. “The least she could do is pick a Fairhair.”

I spotted Ophelia smiling, laughing, and flirting with Irving. Was she insane? “Troy.”

“I know. I’ll talk to her later. For now, the rest of us need to stick to the plan. Maile is already in place. Gully is…in her own world. Meeks, Bobby, head to the leftmost side of the room. Airi and Trey…”

“Far right side, by the balcony doors, opposite Maile,” I said. Meikle, Bobby, Airianna, and Trey quickly made their way through the ridiculously crowded room to their perches.

“What can I do?” said Benji, placing a hand on my shoulder.

“Hey! Where were you?”

“Doctor Tenly filled me in on everything, don’t worry,” he said. “I was, uh, looking for Ophelia.”

“She’s giving Irving the eff eye,” said Polly.

Benji’s jaw tightened. “Irving?”

“Yeah, we don’t like it either,” I said.

Crossing his arms, staring at Ophelia with Irving, Benji said, “Where do you want me?”

“Stay by the entrance,” said Troy. “That’s where Ophelia was supposed to be.”

“Right,” he said, eye-stabbing Irving.

“Okay, that leaves Polls,” I said.

“Yep, Polly, we need you to watch fro—”

“DEMONS!” screamed Polly like some crazed fan of the latest teen heartthrob.

“Oh, Lord. She’s gone,” I muttered, watching her push Fairhairs and Ravenflames aside to get to the flying demons.

“I can do that, too!” she yelped, jumping on one of the red silk ribbons.

“She’ll be there all night. It’s Halloween, demons are frolicking…Polly goes bye-bye,” I said, laughing at her swinging wildly with the demons, completely disgusting the Ravenflames, frightening Fairhairs, and awing visiting creatures.

“You choose to keep interesting company, Marina.” Katrina eased up to me wearing a black cut-out dress and a mask that had screaming mouths for the eyeholes. “Although, I will give you credit for the dress. Tacky, yes, but not inappropriate.”

“My company is a far cry better than the boring, kiss-ass crowd you hang with,” I said. “And I guess if inventive and creative designs get branded tacky, then that peep show of a dress you have ranks as classy in your misdirected brain.”

Katrina blew me a kiss and sauntered away.

“You handle her like a pro,” said Troy, kissing my head.

“It’s not difficult. Whenever she opens her mouth, I just want to stuff a sock in it. That emotion helps my brain turn into a computer and my tongue into a gun. I guess we should dance?”

“I’ll ease us to the middle of the floor. We’ll be able to see alerts from the others this way.”

Troy held me in his arms and gently twirled me to the center of the dance floor. Amongst the many unfamiliar faces, I saw Mom resting her head on Mr. Gibbs’s shoulder; they looked happy tonight, and I couldn’t help but feel at least one knot loosen in my stomach. Smiling, I surveyed the rest of the crowded room. Vampires sniffed their dance partners as though they were a fine meal, fresh out of the oven; hundreds of tiny, shimmer-sprinkling pixies flutter-danced just above our heads, keeping well clear of Polly and the demons; perhaps my favorite view was of Madame Helena being wildly tossed around and dangerously dipped by a rambunctious older man.

“Troy, who’s that giving Madame Helena whiplash?”

“That’s Melvoor, alpha of the Arkansas werewolf pack. Were’s are passionate creatures…passionate and completely untamed.”

Watching as Melvoor literally flipped Madame Helena over his shoulder, her hideous black patchwork dress flashing her granny panties as he did, I said, “Find his mailing address for me. I’d like to send him a ‘thank you’ note.”

Troy and I enjoyed a good laugh, something I don’t think either of us expected on this night.

“You know what’s weird?” Troy asked.

“Polly stripping to her undies while groping ribbons with the demons?”

Troy hesitantly glanced up at Polly soaring over our heads, half-naked and screaming in some demonic language. “Yeah, that’ll do…and the fact that we’re in each other’s arms, unlike last Halloween when I was a dickhead.”

“Yet we’re still facing a threat from someone,” I said. “Doesn’t seem fair.”

“No, it doesn’t. But at least the one difference is the one that matters most—we’re together,” he said, leaning down to kiss me.

“Marina! Troy!” Maile shoved her way through the crowd to reach us. “Over there! The woman in a red veil by the wall! She’s wearing a corsage with a queen of hearts pinned to it.”

“I see her,” I said, watching as the woman slowly started to leave.

“Whoa! What’s happening?” yelped Maile, grabbing hold of my arm.

The floor pulsated, almost like it had a heartbeat, and the chandeliers rattled. Meikle magically parted the crowd and literally floated to us, pulling a wide-eyed Bobby behind her.

“Witch-y gliding? New trick?” I asked as Meikle landed in front of me with Bobby, who quickly whipped out his trusty paper sack.

“Been working on it,” she said, glancing at the now bubbling floor. “Bobby saw a man in a joker mask with a joker card attached to his lapel.”

“Where?” Troy asked sternly.

Meikle floated off the ground, raising her body above the frightened guests. “There,” she said coldly, “rushing out of the leftmost doors and into the hallway. I’ll slow him.” She tossed a yellow sphere at his back, but it clipped the doors of the ballroom, which slowly started closing. “Damn it!”

“Maile, come with me. I may need your night vision. Meeks, Bobby, get the others, including demon girl up there, and meet us in the hallway,” I said. Just then, the balcony doors slammed shut and locked.

“They’re locking us in. Marina, Troy you have to get out of here and follow the joker man and veil lady,” said Meikle.

Benji, nearly out of breath by the time he reached us, said, “The veil lady…she went up the hall, turned right and disappeared. But when I tried to follow her, the room wouldn’t let me out.”

“They’ve put an encasing charm on the room,” said Airianna, rushing up to us. “That’s why no one can walk out of those doors now.”

“No one can leave, huh? Wanna bet?” With blood trickling from her nose, Meikle levitated Troy, Maile, and me off the ground, and with two flicks of her wrists, she sent us soaring out of the ballroom just before the doors sealed them inside.

We dropped like deadweights against the cold hallway floor. Troy helped Maile and me up; as he did, every light in the corridor flickered and dimmed. The desperate cries from trapped guests as they pounded their fists against the ballroom doors chilled us to the bone.

Clinging to my arm, Maile whispered, “Do you think they’re okay?”

“My mom’s in there. Meikle will figure something out,” I said. “She has to.” Just then, a large, blue blast illuminated the doors, and a thick green fog oozed from beneath each door. “What is that?”

“I don’t think we want to find out,” said Troy. The fog blended together and created a large, gooey, groaning mouth. “Definitely don’t want to find out.”

“RUN!” I screamed.

As we ran down the hall, the veiled woman and the joker-masked man rounded the corner.

“Maile! Cast your beam to keep the fog mouth away from us!” I shouted, watching the devilish duo wave creepily at us.

She nodded and engulfed the hall in a ray of light. The strange mouth-monster tried biting at the light.

“It’s working,” said Troy. “The creature can’t get through it.”

Cackling, the veiled woman took the masked man’s hand and disappeared; every other blink they reappeared behind us—to our left—to our right—floating above our heads.

“I’ve had enough of the horse crap,” I growled.

“Ready to end their game, Savior?” asked Troy.

“And very willing.”

Troy smiled, grabbed my waist, and together we combined our super speeds to rocket down the hall. I landed just as the veiled woman materialized in front of me.

“Hi, there,” I said, grabbing her neck and slamming her against the wall.

Troy, meanwhile, had his forearm pressed against the once laughing man’s windpipe. “What’s wrong, smiley? Suddenly finding the joke’s on you, eh?”

“It’sssssss coming,” the woman wheezed before her body turned to dust beneath her clothes.

“It’s hap, hap, happening,” said the man, falling to the ground in a pile of mismatching patches of flesh.

Clutching my stomach, I turned to Troy. “What were they?”

“The devil gods of Possession and Manifestation,” said Troy. “She brings messages of control, while he brings word of the existence of some previously unknown reality.”

Something in my gut made me turn towards the string of doors, the very same that contained the entrance to the porthole and Prehendo Animus stone last year. “They left me something. The rooms. I have to check the rooms,” I said, kicking down the first door, before moving to the next.

“What are you looking for?” Maile asked.

“I’m not looking. I’m sensing. I’ll know when I’ve found the right room.”

“I’ll start kicking the ones down here,” said Troy.

“No. I need to do this,” I said, kicking down the third, then fourth, then fifth door. On the sixth downed door, a sickening tingle twisted up my stomach and into my throat. “In here.”

With barely the tips of our toes across the threshold, Maile’s beam failed, and we were left blind in the pitch-black room. “Oh, sorry. I tripped on a piece of the door and lost my concentr—”

What stopped her cold was the very same thing that caused me to wrap my arms around Troy’s arm: small, high-pitched voices saying ‘mama’ over and over again, while others cried and cried.

“Where’s it coming from? Maile, can you see anything?” I asked.

“No, I—” The crying voices were muted by a blood-freezing scream from Maile. “Oh God. Oh God.”

“Maile, what is it? What do you see?” Troy asked, but Maile was frozen with fear.

Desperately feeling around the wall for a light switch, I finally felt a chain sweep across the top of my head. Yanking the chain, six lights popped on around the room, bringing into view the horror Maile saw before we did. Hanging from the ceiling with nooses around their necks…were thirteen crying dolls.

“Dear Lord,” said Troy, staring at the dolls.

Having escaped the ballroom, Meikle, Trey, Airianna, Bobby, Benji, Polly, Gully, Ophelia, Mom, and Mr. Gibbs rushed into the room.

“Opened the ballroom. Did you hear the stampede rushing out of Zale’s house of horror?” asked Meikle. “Polly is demon-ing out in the hallway, braless and pissed because I took her away from ‘her brethren.’ The fog mouth freaked some people out, but Ophelia froze it easy enough. Hey, are you listening to me?”

“I don’t think so,” said Mom. “Look up.”

“They look like us,” whispered Airianna, placing a hand over her mouth.

Each doll clearly represented one of us. There was a doll with pink hair; one holding a purple sequined bag; and another with a brown paper sack. Maile’s wore a tiny replica of her day-sight glasses, and Gully’s held a puzzle piece. Benji, Troy, and Airianna’s dolls had fins in their respective colors. Trey’s doll wore an owl pendant, while Ophelia’s had blue hair and crystal eyes. Mr. Gibbs stood beneath his, studying the small English textbook in its hand. When I spotted a blond doll holding a tray of baked cookies, I knew it was my mom, and at that moment I felt nothing but fear.

“Whose sick joke is this?” asked Benji.

“The only person sick enough to think of it…The Dealer,” I said.

All dolls were dressed in red, apart from the doll in the middle…the doll with flaming red hair; she wore a torn blue dress and had bloody tears dripping from her eyes. Attached to her dress was the four of spades. There was only one word printed on the card’s face:
D
ecisions.

Any fear I felt turned to rage…severe, uncontrollable rage.

“Tomorrow night,” I said. “We end this.”

Chapter Fourteen

Threading Needles

November: Gorge time

Monthly Life Caption: Ghosts of Thanksgivings Past

Mood: Mad

Eating: Thanksgiving goodness

Music: Mom’s go-to music (Carly & Carole)

After finding smaller versions of ourselves dangling from the ceiling, crying and calling for our mamas (honestly, I’m surprised The Dealer didn’t go for the full insult and get dolls that pee themselves), I insisted we venture to the beach and concoct a plan. And that was exactly what we did. I’m sure Doctor Tenly has his reasons for wanting me to stay away from nighttime investigating, but this has gone too far. I’m the damn Savior, right? Wasn’t it my job to put my life on the line for those I love? Thankfully, Mom and Mr. Gibbs agreed to keep our plan a secret from the doctor. The time has come for me to live up to the Savior title…or at least try.

November 2
^nd
, midnight, downtown Saxet Shores
. Airianna, Maile, Ophelia, and Meikle were waiting for me by the main street turnoff.

“Ready?” I said, taking a lumclaire from Airianna.

“Sure no,” said Airianna, her voice wobbly. “Are you certain you don’t want Troy here?”

“Troy, Trey, and Benji are distracting Doctor Tenly. For all the doctor knows, we’re having girl’s night at my house. Polly and Gully are at my house with Mom and Mr. Gibbs, in case we need them. Bobby…well he got stuck helping his dad coax his mom out of her closet after her favorite fin frill made her fin tips sag. I have Troy’s cell phone in my pocket…I think we’re set.”

“Set for what?”

“AGH! Oh, Jesus, Jex! You scared the freaking crap out of me,” I said, facing the curious gaze of my coach. “Look, we’re going after The Dealer. You can’t stop us.”

“Wasn’t planning on it. I will, however, be joining you,” he said.

“Okay,” croaked Ophelia. “Uh, I mean, the more the merrier, right?”

“Heard about the dolls,” said Jex, making a face. “Nothing creepier than an old doll.”

“Yeah. Creepy.” Rolling my eyes, I said, “Fine. Come. Just don’t get in my way.”