Banshee Worm King: Book Five of the Oz Chronicles (28 page)

“Because she helped me get away from Bostic before.”

“Maybe,” Wes said staring holes in her.
 
“Or maybe that’s what she wants you to
think.”

“Why would she do that?”

“Don’t know,” Wes said.
 
“But she weren’t the most reliable person before she ate that meat.
 
Now I wouldn’t trust her far as she could
throw me.”

“I told you I’m not with Bostic.”

“I know what you said.
 
I just don’t believe it.”

I climbed down.
 
“We
don’t have a choice, Wes.
 
If she’s
lying, we’ll know soon enough.”

I stepped down onto the ground and planted my feet.
 
I watched the ground for any movement and
felt for the telltale signs of Banshees burrowing their way underground.
 
Satisfied that April was right, I said, “It’s
safe.”

Tyrone and Gordy hopped down followed by April and then
Wes.
 
I started slowly up the hill and
then stopped. Turning to the others I said, “Where are the climbers?”

“What’s a climber?” Gordy asked.

“The monkey worms,” I said.
 
“The Banshees have been following us underground since we got back on
the treeway, but I haven’t seen a single climber.”

“Maybe the Myrmidons killed them all.”

I shook my head.
 
“No, not likely.
 
Too many of them
and they’re too fast.”

“What difference does it make?” April said
impatiently.
 
“You have to go in the
cave.”

“Have to go in the cave?” Tyrone said.
 
“What do you mean have to go?”

“I mean to save Lou,” she said sounding nervous now.

“It’s a trap,” Wes said.
 
“I knew it.
 
I knew it.
 
I knew it.
 
She’s setting us up.”

“I am not,” April said.
 
“You heard Oz.
 
I helped him get
away from Bostic.”

“The way I see it,” Wes said.
 
“You helped Bostic out by letting Oz go.
 
The Myrmidons are out of the way, and he’s
got plenty of Myrmidon meat to soothe that crazy craving y’all got.
 
And he’s got Oz, the bargaining chip of all
bargaining chips for any future deals he wants to make.
 
And he’s got us, worm food.”

I stepped down the mountain.
 
“Is Lou in that cave, April?”

She nodded. “Yes, I swear it.”

I hesitated before asking my next question.
 
“Is she alive?”

She paused before answering and my stomach turned.
 
“I don’t know.”

The idea of wrapping my hands around her throat and
strangling her crossed my mind, but I controlled myself.
 
“Why did Bostic put her in there?”

“So she’d be guarded,” April said.

“Guarded by who?” Wes asked.

April looked down.
 
“Not who. What.”

“Don’t say that,” Gordy said.
 
“That doesn’t help. We don’t need to know
that.
 
It’s just creepy and wrong.”

Wes’ cheeks turned red.
 
I had a feeling he was considering choking April, too.
 
“Guarded by what?”

Her lower lip started to quiver.
 
“The worms.”

I thought I’d heard her wrong. “The what?”

“The worms.
 
He
controls them.
 
They’re like his pets or
something.
 
He feeds them and they do
what he says.
 
He’s basically their
king.”

The word king ricocheted in my head.
 
It meant something to me, but at first I
didn’t know why. Then I remembered Nate’s drawing.
 
I removed the backpack and hoped it had
survived everything the backpack had been through since I stuffed it in the
pocket of the pack, including thirty feet of icy cold water. I unzipped the
pocket and felt the thin stiff edges of the paper.
 
I pulled it out and carefully unfolded it.
 
Amazingly, the colors had run only a little.

“What’s that?” Wes asked.

“A drawing.
 
I saw
Tarek and Nate.
 
Nate made this drawing
for me.
 
I didn’t think it really meant
anything, but now I’m beginning to wonder.”

“Let me see that,” Gordy said taking it out of my
hands.
 
“It’s some dude holding a rock,
and another dude with a crown and a bloody mouth, and some chick being attacked
by snakes. And for some reason, the sun isn’t round.
 
It’s a long french fry looking thing.”

I was mad at him for taking the drawing from me at first,
but after hearing his description, I realized he saw what I hadn’t been able to
see before.
 
The squiggly cloud wasn’t a
cloud at all.
 
It was a mass of
worms.
 
Nate had drawn what was about to
happen.
  
“The dude with the crown,
that’s got to be Bostic.
 
The girl under
the worms, that’s got to be Lou.
 
The
pile of rocks,” I said pointing at the hill.
 
“That’s got to be that mountain.”

“Okay,” Wes said.
 
“But what’s the french fry sun and the other stick figure.”

I thought I knew the answer, but I didn’t want to say it.

Tyrone said it for me.
 
“The other stick figure is purple.
 
And the sun isn’t round, it’s long.
 
Long day.
 
Day long. It’s a Délon,
and he’s holding...”

“An egg,” I said.
 
“A
Banshee egg.
 
The Délon is me.”

“Wait,” Wes said.
 
“What are you trying to say?”

“I’m not trying to say it,” I said.
 
“Nate said it.
 
I’ve got one chance to save Lou.
 
Only I can’t do it.
 
Not me.
 
Not in this... form.”

“This form?” Wes walked up the hill a few steps and turned
around.
 
“You’re talking insanity, son.”

“Wes, I just rescued you guys from cages hanging from trees
while a bunch of ant men fought giant worms with shark teeth.
 
What about this isn’t insane?”

“But you just made a huge leap about Nate’s drawing.
 
How do you know that ain’t a french fry in
the sky? How do we know he didn’t use purple to draw that one stick figure just
because he likes the color purple?
 
You’re talking about doing something very stupid based on some fool
notion that picture tells you how to save Lou!”

I looked at the drawing.
 
“I know what this picture means, Wes. I can’t tell you how or why, but I
know what I’m supposed to do. What I will do.”

He placed his hands on his hips.
 
“Well, I ain’t going to let you do it.
 
The Storytellers have created this world,
right?
 
And they’ve written what we all
do and say.
 
Well, I’ve been written to
stop you from doing some idiot thing like turning Délon.”

I held up the drawing.
 
“Nate is a Storyteller, Wes.
 
He
can change a story.
 
He may not be able
to write, but he drew this picture. He can make things happen.
 
This isn’t what I’m supposed to do. This is
what I’m going to do.”

“No you ain’t!”

I tried to calm myself.
 
“There’s no use discussing this, Wes.
 
This is the way it’s going to be done.”
 
I turned to Tyrone to tell him to stay behind with April when my world
suddenly went dark.
 
My mind felt like it
was being sucked out of my head.
 
I had a
vague notion that I was falling at some point, but I was in a pitch black void
before I could put together any thoughts.

***

When there was light again, a white fuzzy haze covered
everything. The haze wasn’t outside.
 
The
haze was in my brain.
 
I blinked to clear
my vision.
 
A tree branch came into
focus.
 
Soon I was able to make out the
handrail of a platform.
 
Looking past it
I could see the rocky hill.
 

I attempted to lean forward by I couldn’t move.
 
Looking down, I saw that I was sitting on the
platform.
 
When I attempted to move my
arms, I was faced with the reality that they were tied behind my back.
 

The world wasn’t completely spinning, but it was rocking
back and forth a bit.
 
I forced my
eyelids wide open and called out. “Hey!”
 
My head throbbed.
 
“Somebody!
 
Wes!
 
Tyrone!
 
Gordy!”

“They’re gone,” I heard April say.

“Gone?” I shook my head to try to clear out the fog.
 
“Where did they go?
 
What did you do with them?”

“They went into the cave.”

“The cave?
 
No, no,
they can’t do that.
 
I’m the one... I
should be in the cave.
 
The drawing...”

April shrugged.
 
“I
guess Wes didn’t see it that way.
 
He
smacked you upside the head with a good-sized rock when you weren’t looking.
Made the others drag you here and tie you up.
 
Told me to look after you ‘til they got back.”

I struggled to pull my hands free, but it was impossible. I
felt around blindly with my fingers until I understood how I was tied up.
 
One end of the rope was tied to one wrist and
then stretched around the trunk of the tree where the other end of the rope was
tied to my other wrist.
 
“Where did they
even get the rope?” I asked.

“They took it off the walkway.”
 

“Untie me,” I said.

“Can’t,” she said walking out of view.

“C’mon, April.
 
They
need me.”

“No,” she said, “they don’t.” Her voice seemed to be
dropping.
 

“I’m not playing games,” I said fighting against the ropes.

“I’m not either, Oz Griffin.”
 
Her voice was much deeper.

I tilted my head back to try to get a look at her.
 
I could only see movement.
 
“April...”

“April isn’t here anymore.”

I saw a pair of legs step out in front of me.
 
They weren’t wearing the jeans April had been
wearing.
 
They were clad in black.
 
I scanned up to the face.
 
It was a Délon, the Délon, the Pure.
 

He squatted next to me.
 
“Why do you insist on walking around like this?” he asked.
 
“Humans are so weak.”
 
He leaned in and held his purple face with
dead eyes just inches from mine.

“Wha-where’s April?”

“April?”
 
He leaned
back and in an instant his face morphed into April’s.
 
“You mean April.”
 
He morphed back to his ugly face.
 
“She served her usefulness.
 
She’s no longer necessary.”

“I don’t understand.
 
How did you...”

“Oh, you are wasting so much time with these stupid
questions. I am the Pure, Oz Griffin.
 
I’m not bound by the limitations of my fellow Délons.
 
They can only assume their old human
forms.
 
I can assume any human form.”

“What happened to April?
 
What did you do with her?”

“I found her in the closet where you imprisoned her.”

I had to think hard to remember what closet he was talking
about.
 
“In the Biltmore.
 
The basement.”

“She was so miserable.
 
I did her a favor really.”

“What favor?”

He smiled and with it sent little needles of pain through
the back of my head. “Let’s just say I got hungry and she was so very
frightened.”
 
He rubbed his hands together.
 
“Frightened blood tastes so, so spicy.”

I gritted my teeth and jerked against the ropes.

“That’s it,” he said.
 
“That’s it.
 
Get mad.
 
I need you to get very, very angry.”