Monster War

“Wow, they really want to keep people out,” Brooke said.

“Or keep something else in,” Theodore added. “Something like that.”

He pointed to the entrance to the colossal shell. Something walked through the pearly curves, something regal and fierce.

“The Fifth,” Charlie whispered.

Even from this distance, her alien beauty drew all eyes like a magnet. She was tall - nearly two metres - and her great mane of silver hair flashed brilliantly in the afternoon sun, spilling over crimson skin like a rain of steel on an ocean of blood. Her legs were long and strong and she had four arms, each ending in purple talons - the exact colour of her cat-like eyes. The Shellweavers that slithered past her cowered as they tried to escape into the lair to shield their moist bodies from the heat of her ferocious glow.

The soldiers circling the park were instantly aware of her presence and they quickly grew quiet. Even the distant roar of traffic and the drone of the helicopters circling overhead disappeared, as if some giant creature drew in its breath and inhaled all sound and noise and clamour.

All silent. All still.

The Fifth opened her mouth and began to speak.

“Good people of Earth, I bid you welcome.” Without even seeming to strain, her silken voice boomed up the sides of the skyscrapers and down the cavernous arteries of the city. “I have known many names. Some call me the Fifth; to my monstrous babies I am known as Mother; others call me Pearl - in honour of my marvellous new home.” She gestured to the spectacular shell behind her with a flick of her top right hand. “But I invite you to call me by my real name - the Queen of Nightmares.”

She smiled slyly. Charlie knew from grim experience that there was death behind that smile - death and suffering.

“She’s beautiful…” Theodore whispered. Violet stared at him incredulously. “In a totally creepy and evil way, of course,” he quickly corrected himself.

“I understand you’ve all had a…difficult…week,” the Queen of Nightmares continued with mock sympathy. “I’m told my darling babies visited you in the dark of the night with their pointy teeth and sharp stingers and caused you no end of trouble - children screaming, grown-ups carried off into the blackness. Terrible times…”

She shook her head sadly, although Charlie detected more than a hint of amusement.

“I am here today to tell you that the misery you have experienced is only the beginning. You have barely begun to taste the doom that will descend upon you. Today, this minute, things are going to change. And when they do, when you realise the full scope of the horror that is coming to your world, you will scream for the gentle days when all you had to fear were the beasts of your nightmares.”

She raised her four arms. “Good people of Earth, your rule is over. The time of the monsters has come.”

Oh no, Charlie thought. What’s she going to do?

But before anything further could happen, there was a sound. Small at first - a low, dull whine - it soon sharpened and became the bright roar of a fighter jet screaming overhead. As it passed, two long, silver tubes launched from its wings and arrowed down towards Central Park far below, leaving twin trails of smoke.

Missiles! Charlie realised. They’re going to shoot her with—

WHAM! The explosion was so immense that Charlie and his friends were thrown to the ground as a wave of heat blasted them. A ball of fire blossomed out from the front of the enormous nautilus shell and plumed upwards, revealing a scorched crater beneath. As Charlie scrambled to his feet, he saw that the shell itself was untouched - the massive explosion hadn’t seemed to damage or harm it in any way.

“Well, I’m no chef,” Theodore said, shakily standing, “but I’m guessing that four-armed chick’s goose is cooked.” He turned to help Violet and Brooke up, while Charlie peered into the thick black smoke that blanketed the front of the shell, desperately looking for any signs of movement.

Nothing. And then he heard a sound.

Laughter. A female voice - rich and throaty and full of mockery.

As the smoke cleared, he saw the Queen of Nightmares standing exactly where she had been when the missiles first slammed into her: untouched and unharmed. Her purple cat-eyes glittered with dark delight.

“Charming,” she said, and her casual tone of voice chilled Charlie to the core. “What’s next? Poison? Lightning bolts? Asteroids? Please, send me your worst…as long as I get to do the same.” With that, she raised all four arms to the sky. Her silver hair flashed in the sun. “Wonderful people of Earth, it’s time to introduce you to my newest babies…my dark darlings…my Elemental Golems. Say hello to…Fire!”

With a flick of her top right hand, two circles of glowing cinder on the scorched earth beside her erupted into brilliant flames. The fiery pillars raged upwards, growing and expanding, licking at the sky with orange tongues until forming themselves into creatures. They were blazing, brutish things, five storeys high and made entirely of fire. Every step of their thick legs left behind bubbling pools of lava and every touch of their fingers summoned an inferno.

Violet shook her head. “This is bad…”

Then, with a flick of her lower left hand, the Queen of Nightmares made the ground shudder violently. Two huge slabs of rock exploded from the still smoking dirt and then crashed back down with earthquake-like force. Deep cracks spider-webbed across them, causing huge boulders to fall as if chiselled away by some insane, invisible sculptor. Giant stone creatures emerged. They were horrible, blocky things with wide foreheads and fists the size of tanks. Their dull, empty eyes made them look stupid and slow, but Charlie guessed that they were deadly.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” the Queen of Nightmares said pleasantly. “Meet Earth.”

The two Elemental Earth Golems walked to stand beside the two Elemental Fire Golems. With every step they took, the world shook with thunder.

“Um, wow,” Theodore said. Charlie and the others nodded in agreement.

The Queen of Nightmares continued. “As all good schoolchildren know, there are not just two elements - there are four. I’d now like to introduce you to Air.”

With a flick of her bottom right hand, the air on either side of her began to spin violently.

“And Water.”

With the slightest of gestures from her top left hand, the water in the Pulitzer Fountain at the southern end of Central Park shot upwards, twisting and churning, until it split to create two gigantic spouts, each thirty metres high. The enormous columns of water and air expanded and reshaped themselves until they formed entirely new Golems, huge and terrible. Their existence was impossible, and yet, there they were.

The two violently spinning Water Golems sailed back to the shell on a giant wave that would have doomed even the most experienced surfer, while the two Air Golems - looking for all the world like living tornadoes - settled down on either side of their fellows to create a line of eight Golems, two of each kind.

Brooke stared at them in dismay. “Even if we destroyed all the regular monsters of the Nether, the Fifth could just create more of these things!”

Charlie nodded. “Yeah. And we don’t even know if she can be killed. I mean, not even a missile strike could take her out.”

“Oh, you’ll kill her,” Theodore said, arms crossed. “Definitely.”

“How?”

“Well, how am I supposed to know? I’m sure you’ll figure something out. I mean, that’s what you do, isn’t it? You’re good like that.” He clapped Charlie on the back.

Before Charlie could reply, the Queen of Nightmares lowered her arms and said, “Delicious people of Earth, the time for talking is over. Now is the time for dying.” She turned to the Elemental Golems. “Attack, my beautiful babies.”

As if turned on by a switch, the eight horrific creatures headed out of Central Park and into the city beyond. The military personnel that ringed the park held their ground and fired upon the rampaging monsters, but their bullets passed right through the Air, Water and Fire Golems and bounced off the Earth Golems like grains of sand off steel.

One of the Earth Golems shattered the large glass cube above the Apple Store on Fifth Avenue with a gigantic stone fist, followed instantly by a Water Golem that flooded down into the exposed complex beneath. A Fire Golem breathed lava on the nearby FAO Schwartz Toy Store, while an Air Golem rocketed high into the air and crashed down into Times Square, sucking soldiers into its deadly, whirling funnel.

As the Golems wreaked their destruction, Nethercreatures swarmed up from the sewers and down from the skies to attack the fleeing, panicked people. Dangeroos stuffed some of them into their stinking pouches while Hags descended, cackling, from the smoke-darkened sky to carry off others in a swirl of filthy hair and tattered ballgowns.

“What do we do?” Brooke screamed as they watched the devastation from their vantage point atop the Plaza Hotel.

Charlie shook his head. “Nothing.”

“Nothing!” Theodore shouted. “What kind of an answer is that? Come on - let’s go spank these bad boys! Use some of those sweet Double-Threat moves you’ve been working on!”

Charlie pointed towards a purple flash far below. It was a portal created by a Nethermancer, who leaped through, followed by a mace-wielding Banisher. “They don’t need us. The Nightmare Division is already sending in the troops. In fact, there’s your dad—”

Charlie nodded down the street to a black-clad Banisher swinging a two-handed sword at a Silvertongue.

“OK, great!” Theodore shouted. “My dad’s here! The cavalry has arrived! Woo-hoo! Now let’s go and help out!”

“We don’t have time. There’s something much more important that we have to do first. We’ve got to—”

“CHARLIE BENJAMIN.”

Charlie looked down to see the Queen of Nightmares standing in front of the giant nautilus shell. She smiled as her voice boomed across the city. “People are dying around you by the hundreds. Will you save them? Or are you afraid?”

“I’m not afraid,” Charlie replied. “But getting rid of your ‘babies’,” he gestured to a Fire Golem that was climbing the Empire State Building, turning everything it touched into molten slag, “isn’t going to solve anything. I don’t need to stop them, I need to stop you - or you’ll just keep making more of them.”

“Very true. There’s a whole world out there to destroy - a monster’s playground - and my beautiful babies will soon rule it all.”

“Every playground has bullies and every bully has a weakness. We’ll soon find yours.”

The Queen of Nightmares’ laughter pealed across the skyscrapers, shattering glass. “Of course you will, Charlie Benjamin. Of course you will.”

With that, she walked inside her pearly lair and was gone.

“OK,” Brooke said. “Nice creepy confrontation with the most deadly boss of the Nether. Now how were you planning on killing her exactly?”

“No idea,” Charlie replied. Unfortunately, that was true.

“There you are!” a familiar voice suddenly roared from somewhere high above. Charlie looked up to see a portal hovering in the air over the nautilus shell in the park. It was so far away that he struggled to recognise the person looking through it - until he noticed the weathered cowboy hat the man wore.

“Rex!”

The cowboy smiled. “We been lookin’ all over for you, kid. Shoulda’ known we’d find you exactly where you’re not supposed to be - messin’ around with Miss Mega-Monster.”

“I’ve got a lot of questions for you!”

“And I probably got answers for some of them, which is why you need to come see us! Portal over and do it quick - me and Tabby gotta get back to the Headmaster pronto.”

He turned to go, heading into the bluish landscape of the Nether.

“Wait!” Charlie yelled. “Where are you guys?”

“Well, I don’t exactly wanna shout out our super-secret location in front of the lair of the Fifth - but here’s a little hint…” Rex leaned back and threw something towards Charlie. The small object sailed through the air, glittering as it spun. “See ya soon, kid!” the cowboy shouted as the portal began to snap closed. “And hurry!”

Charlie leaped forward to catch the baseball-sized ‘hint’ that Rex had thrown.

“Well?” Theodore asked, leaning in. “What is it?”

Charlie showed them. It was a snow globe, and the plastic snow inside seemed to be swirling around a familiar-looking building.

“Isn’t that Buckingham Palace?” Violet asked.

Charlie nodded. “Looks like it. Hey, Theo - think you can whip us up a portal to take us there?”

“Can I whip you up a portal?” Theodore echoed with a snort. “Hello? This is Theodore ‘Portal’ Dagget you’re talking to - I whip up portals like pastry chefs whip up soufflés! One delicious, nutritious portal coming right up!” He closed his eyes and began to focus on his core fear.

As he did, Charlie looked out across the city to see many other portals popping into existence like embers from a windswept campfire - the Nightmare Division was clearly sending in the troops. Suddenly, a blue axe flashed in front of him, followed by two large, mosquito-like creatures that thudded to the roof, dead. Charlie recognised the beasts almost immediately - Bloodsuckers. They speared you with their long, sharp noses and sucked you dry, like a juice box.

“Thanks!” Charlie said, turning to Violet, who was wielding her axe. “I was sort of drifting and I didn’t even see—”

But Violet wasn’t listening to him. A cloud of Bloodsuckers boiled down towards them from the smoky sky and, as each one arrived, she chopped it up without thought or pity. Charlie loved to watch Violet Banish - a calmness descended over her as she moved with an almost machine-like precision: elegant, exact and lethal.

“How’s that portal coming?” Brooke asked, turning to Theodore. “No hurry, as long as you don’t mind getting carried off by giant mosquitoes or spending some close, personal alone time with Mr Tornado.”

She pointed to an Air Golem as it spun towards them from the destruction it had wreaked in Times Square. Its eyes were like twin hurricanes.

“Ye of little faith,” Theodore replied.

Just before the Golem slammed into the Plaza Hotel in a massive explosion of concrete and steel, he snapped open a portal. As the landmark structure collapsed around them, everyone leaped through the gateway, which hung in space like a balloon.

Moments later, the Plaza Hotel, which had stood for over a hundred years, was gone…and so were Charlie and his friends.

CHAPTER SIX THE HIDDEN HEADMASTER

Afiery portal snapped open on the red brick in front of Buckingham Palace. Charlie stepped through first, followed by Violet.

“So where do you figure they are exactly?” she asked, glancing around.

“Don’t know,” Theodore replied, stepping through next, followed by Brooke. “But I bet the guys in the hairy hats do.” He pointed to the main entrance of the palace. It was guarded by several bayonet-wielding men wearing red jackets and furry black hats. “Let’s just tell them to bring us to the Headmaster before giant monsters destroy the world.”

Brooke grinned. “We could do that…or we could try it my way.”

“And which way is that?” Violet asked.

“The pretty girl way.”

She walked over towards the nearest royal guard with her thousand-watt smile turned on full blast. “Hey there, soldier! I love your uniform…it makes you look so strong and tall.” She leaned towards him. “So listen, we think a good friend of ours is a guest inside the palace. Can you help us find her?”

The guard stared straight ahead, unblinking, not responding in any way.

Brooke glanced at Charlie, baffled - being ignored was clearly something she didn’t have much experience with. She turned back to the guard with a flip of her pretty blonde hair. “Hey, don’t worry. I get it. You’re just supposed to stand there like a statue. That’s your job, right? Totally cool. You’re rocking that look really well, by the way. So here’s what we’re going to do. I’ll tell you who I’m looking for and you just whisper where she is - it’ll be our little secret. Her name is Headmaster Brazenhope.”

No reply from the guard.

Charlie could tell from Brooke’s expression that she was getting frustrated and he knew that when she got frustrated, she got angry and when she got angry—

“Look here!” the tall girl snapped. “I don’t like this attitude! Now you better help us out this instant because if we don’t get in there and see the Headmaster right away, giant monsters are going to destroy the world - comprende?”

“Hey, that was my plan…” Theodore mumbled.

“Comprende?” Charlie asked, walking up to her. “He doesn’t speak Spanish, Brooke - he’s British.”

“Actually, I do know a little Spanish,” the guard said defensively. He held his thumb and forefinger a few centimetres apart. “Un poquito.”

“You talked!” Brooke shouted. “I knew you could!”

“Hey, kid!”

Charlie was startled by a man’s voice high above. He looked up to discover Rex Henderson hanging out of a third-storey window, waving cheerily. Against the majesty of Buckingham Palace, the cowboy’s glowing lasso and weathered Stetson made him seem like a page out of ‘What’s Wrong With This Picture’.

“Stop goofing around and get on up here! We got a lot to talk about!”

Charlie and his friends rushed inside, past the palace guard. As soon as they were out of earshot, the man sighed heavily. “Americans…”

Charlie had never seen anything as ornate as the inside of the palace. Elegant statuary and priceless paintings seemed to fill every nook and cranny.

“Hey, is that a Rembrandt?” Theodore said, pointing to a haunting portrait of a dour-looking man. He ran his fingers across it. “Look, you can feel the paint - it’s real!”

“Of course it’s real,” a clipped British voice scolded. “And now it’s ‘real’ dirty.”

They all turned to see a thin, older man walking towards them with a puffy cloud of white hair atop his skeletal head. He was dressed in an extravagant purple suit - velvet by the look of it.

“Sorry about that, sir,” Violet said. “That’s just Theodore.”

“And I am one of Her Majesty’s valets. My name is Oscar.”

“Like the Grouch?” Theodore blurted.

The man turned to him. “What an atrocious little boy you are.”

“Exactly,” Theodore replied, nodding. “Definitely atrocious.”

“Believe it or not,” Charlie said, “he’s actually got a few good qualities.”

“Perhaps we should mount an expedition to find them someday. Until then - follow me, please.”

With that, Oscar strode through the maze of hallways and stairs as the rest of the group struggled to keep up. Before long, they arrived at a heavy, hand-carved door. Oscar opened it and led the group into an elegant parlour filled with antique furniture. Rex was perched casually on the arm of a peacock-blue sofa that Charlie guessed cost more than his father had made in his entire lifetime. Tabitha Greenstreet stood on the other side of the room, her red, bejewelled hair perfectly framed by the pattern on the ivory wallpaper.

“There you are,” Tabitha said, rushing to them. She hugged Charlie tightly. “We’ve been so worried.”

“We’re fine,” Charlie replied. “But the rest of the world isn’t doing too good. Have you seen what’s going on with the Elemental Golems?”

Rex nodded. “Yup. Just when you think you know every Nethercritter out there, them fiends whip up some new ones to throw at ya. It’s…it’s wearying, is what it is.”

“May I get you anything?” Oscar asked. Then, with the slightest of devilish grins, “A selection of cheeses, perhaps?”

“No more cheese!” Rex roared. “I mean, ya’ll been unbelievably kind to us, but I’m about cheesed out. Everything here is cheese! Cheese selections, cheese sandwiches, cheese on toast. I had a dream last night where I was crushed under a giant wedge of cheddar cheese before being rescued by pirates from a cheese boat that was sailing on an ocean of melted cheese. In other words - no more cheese, ya got that!”

“Am I to understand,” Oscar said mildly, “that you would not care for any more cheese?”

“Let me put it this way - if I ever ask for cheese again, I want you to—”

“Is there any way we could see the Headmaster?” Charlie interrupted. “We really need to talk.”

The Headmaster lay propped up in bed in the room just off the parlour. Her normally brown skin looked waxy and ashen. She listened carefully as Charlie finished his story.

“So basically, we’re exiled and not allowed to do anything or we’ll get Reduced, but we have to do something because the whole planet’s in danger.”

The Headmaster nodded and Charlie detected a wince of pain. The wounds she’d suffered in the icy lair of the Named were grave, and she was still only in the beginning stages of recovery. Watching her now, Charlie flashed back to the last time he had seen her healthy and active - mowing down literally hundreds of Nethercreatures as they swarmed across her like ants on a sugar lump.

“The fate of the planet is in your hands,” she said, her voice not much more than a whisper. “As you witnessed, the Fifth cannot be destroyed by any mortal means. Even weapons with a touch of the Nether on them, like yours—” she gestured to Charlie’s rapier with a trembling hand “—won’t harm her. To destroy her, you need one of the Ancient Weapons, forged in the Nether eons ago. You need the Sword of Sacrifice.”

“Fine. How do we get it?” Violet asked. Her eyes were as flinty as the axe at her side and Charlie was struck once again by how hard she seemed now. The Banisher that stood beside him was a far cry from the gentle, artistic girl he had met just over six months ago.

“You don’t get the sword, Ms Sweet,” the Headmaster said softly. “Only a Double-Threat can wield something so powerful. And since Pinch has betrayed us and I’m clearly in no condition to get out of this bed, let alone fight, the task falls to Mr Benjamin, I’m afraid. But he cannot do it alone.”

Theodore stepped forward. “We’ll protect him - no problemo there. Nobody hurts Charlie Benjamin when Theodore Dagget is around. Nobody.”

The Headmaster shook her head. “It’s not your protection he needs, Mr Dagget. It’s something far more precious. The Smith will explain it to you.”

Charlie shrugged. “Who?”

“The Smith,” Rex said. “As in blacksmith. You can find him in the Netherforge, out there in the mountains of the 3rd Ring. That’s where Banishers go to make their weapons, and he’s the fella in charge.”

“Is that where you got your short sword?” Violet asked, gesturing to the one that hung from the cowboy’s belt.

Rex nodded. “Yeah. The Smith showed me how to forge it, like he does for everyone - like he’ll do for you someday, if there is a ‘someday’.” He turned to the Headmaster. “I can warn them not to touch him, right?”

The Headmaster smiled dourly. “It seems you just have.”

“We shouldn’t touch the Smith?” Charlie asked. “What will happen if we do?”

Rex sighed. “It would be…bad.”

“Define bad,” Brooke said. “Bad as in…?”

“Bad as in just don’t do it or you’ll hate yourself for the rest of your natural life!”

“Oh,” Brooke replied, startled. “That kind of bad.”

“Will you take us to him?” Charlie asked. “To the Smith, I mean.”

Rex nodded. “Course I will.”

The Headmaster shook her head solemnly. “That’s not possible, Mr Henderson - you know that. They must go without you. The seeker of the blade must bring with him his three closest friends.”

“Rex and I are his friends,” Tabitha replied. “We’re as close to him as anyone.”