Ravenspell Book 3: Freaky Fly Day (14 page)

“Our master seeks your company,” Amber’s giant fly grumbled. “Don’t try to get away. I wouldn’t want to drop you!”

“Aaaah,” Lady Blackpool moaned. “This is . . . this is just as I saw it in my vision!”

Chapter 22

BELLE’S VICTORY BALL

The race does not always go to the swiftest or strongest. Sometimes it goes to him who outlasts all others.

—LADY BLACKPOOL

In the gathering darkness, a superfly grasped Benjamin Ravenspell.

Ben stabbed the monster in the abdomen, and it hissed and pulled the needle free then tossed it away. Ben watched longingly as it tumbled away, the steel catching bits of starlight, until it was lost in the darkness.

The flies were taking Ben and his friends back to the junkyard one last time. Though he wriggled and tried to break free, it was no use. The superfly held him tightly, and it had the kind of strength that he would expect from such a monster.

Yet as they neared the landfill, Ben saw that something had changed. Fire lit Belle Z. Bug’s throne. She’d set hundreds of candles in the masts of the yacht so that it was lit like a Christmas tree.

The flies were still airborne. Billions of followers buzzed softly, a deep and throbbing sound, expectant and watchful. They hovered in the air around the ship.

Ben saw his mother and Governor Shortzenbeggar. Both were still alive, and both of them were being held by superflies.

The light surrounded Belle Z. Bug as if she were on a stage. Immediately Ben recognized what was happening. Belle Z. Bug was going to make an example out of all of them.

Ben’s captor landed near Belle and roughly thrust Ben to the deck of the ship. An instant later, Amber and Lady Blackpool were delivered also.

Belle Z. Bug strutted across the deck of her yacht. Her eyes glowed with an evil red light.

“Ah,” Belle gloated, “it is so good of you all to come. After all, what is a victory party without a little entertainment? And, of course, you are all so entertaining.

“You know what I’m going to do with you, don’t you?” Belle Z. Bug asked.

Ben shook his head.

“I’m going to kill you now. Your bodies will be left out to rot for the night. By morning, your stomachs will have begun to bloat and ooze.

“When you are ready, I am going to lay my eggs in you.

“The maggots that hatch in you will be my own children. The next generation of fly wizards will gain their nourishment from you.

“But before I destroy you, I want to thank you . . .”

“Thank us?” Lady Blackpool asked in surprise.

“Yes,” Belle Z. Bug said. “You waged a fine battle and were worthy opponents. You amused me through what would have otherwise been a long and tedious day.

“You made me sharpen my skills, and you forced me to become my best. I only wish that the Ever Shade had been here. I’m sure that he would have been amused by you, too.”

Ben’s mother raised her hand.

“Yes?” Belle Z. Bug asked.

“Uh, I’m just an innocent bystander. Can I just get my money out of the Learjet and go?”

“No,” Belle said. “I happen to like killing innocent bystanders. In fact, I like killing them so much, I think that I’ll execute you first.”

“No!” Governor Shortzenbeggar shouted. “Take me first!”

Belle Z. Bug glared at him. “Stop your whining and wait your turn!” she shouted. Then she told the superflies, “Bring the woman!”

The flies had taken Ben’s mom by the arms, and though she struggled and tried to break free, they dragged her across the deck of the ship. They threw her down in front of the sorceress fly.

Belle Z. Bug strode forward. “Now, we must decide how to kill you,” she said thoughtfully. “It should be something clever, fun . . . something you don’t see every day. Oh, and it should be painful and slow, too.”

The fly studied Ben’s mom and stood above her, absently stroking the charm bracelet around her neck. Once again, Ben noticed it, and felt that it was out of place. Belle Z. Bug was beautiful, with her hot pink carapace color and various forms of makeup. The wing wax on her wings made them glisten like rainbows. The fly-liner and fly-shadow brought out the beauty of her eyes.

But that darned ugly necklace was a puzzle.

Suddenly, Ben got it. The necklace was magic!

He didn’t know what it might do, but he knew that it was important—so important that he decided he had to get it from her if it was the last thing that he did!

Belle Z. Bug finished pondering how to kill Mona Ravenspell. “I know: garbage! You humans are so good at making garbage, I think I’ll have you eat some. In fact, I’m going to stuff you so full of garbage that it kills you!”

“Oh,” Ben’s mom said, “a little garbage won’t hurt me. I’ve been eating it all of my life. Believe me, if you’d ever tasted my cooking, you’d know!”

So that’s why mom never cooks!
Ben realized. She didn’t like the taste of her own cooking. Come to think of it, Ben didn’t like her cooking, either.

“Oh, you’ve never tasted garbage like this,” Belle Z. Bug warned. “Flies, make me a toxic taco!”

At that, the flies above all began to buzz in glee, and tens of thousands of them raced off in every direction. Moments later, a flock of flies came back with the nastiest flour tortilla Ben had ever seen. Mold grew on it in various shades of gray, green, and blue. Maggots dripped from it as it fell to the deck of the ground with a plop.

Next came the beef: bits of putrid hamburger that had never been cooked, all reeking and rancid. It was so slimy that Ben thought that it might crawl away by itself.

Then came the cheese: limburger. It looked like a perfectly fine piece of limburger, but if you’ve ever tasted the stuff, you know that it can’t be fine.

Then came the condiments—salsa from a grungy old jar, a huge ball of earwax, and various funky-smelling things that Ben couldn’t even imagine eating.

The flies gleefully folded the ingredients all together, and they began to chant: “Taco time! Taco time! Taco time!”

The guards that held Ben’s mother had her on her knees. Now they forced her head to the ground, and Belle Z. Bug lifted the deadly taco and drew near.

“Get her mouth open!” Belle Z. Bug shouted. “I don’t want any of this stuff to spill on me.”

The flies began to wrestle with Ben’s mom, sticking their fly legs into her mouth, trying to pry it open. She grunted and strained, fighting them as best she could until at last with a growl of despair they got her mouth open.

Ben’s mother shouted her dying words. “Ben, I love you! Always remember that I love you!”

Belle Z. Bug growled, “Ah, put a taco in it!” The monster fly shoved the ugly end of the taco toward Mona’s mouth.

She screamed and tried to break free. At the last instant, Belle Z. Bug pulled the taco away.

“You really didn’t think I was going to give you a good one, did you?” Belle Z. Bug demanded. She bit off the end of the taco, and suddenly Ben realized that to a fly, the toxic taco really would taste good!

Ben looked up to the fly that guarded him. The poor thing was drooling. A great wad of spit plopped on Ben’s head.

Belle Z. Bug laughed and waved a hand. Suddenly a new taco magically appeared: one with a fresh handmade tortilla, crisp lettuce, tender slices of corn-fed beef, American cheese, and a zesty pepper salsa.

Belle Z. Bug grasped the taco and shoved it into Mona’s mouth. The flies all gasped and recoiled in horror.

Belle Z. Bug had made a terrible miscalculation, and Ben decided to act before she recognized it. The fly that was holding him had loosened his grip just enough so that Ben could slip free.

But he wasn’t free to go just anywhere. A billion flies surrounded him. He could never escape.

Maybe I can attack,
he thought.

The necklace that Belle Z. Bug wore had caught his eye. Ben wasn’t just an ordinary mouse, he was a jumping mouse. More than that, he’d been human once, and he had been studying karate for years.

In a flash, Ben slipped free from his captor. The night air had cooled enough so that the flies moved more slowly, and Ben was able to get two great leaps in before the fly shouted and gave chase.

Two leaps was enough for a Pacific jumping mouse. Ben covered a dozen feet in a heartbeat, veered to his left to avoid the attacking fly, then leapt over his mother and launched himself feet first—right at Belle Z. Bug’s throat.

If he’d hit a human there, the kick would have crushed the victim’s larynx. It would have made the person’s throat swell closed, strangling the victim.

But a fly doesn’t have a larynx. A fly breathes through the pores in its carapace and can’t be strangled by normal means.

In fact, Ben’s kick didn’t have much effect at all, except that it broke the charm bracelet Belle Z. Bug wore as a necklace. The elastic string snapped, and charms went scattering everywhere across the deck of the ship.

In that instant, the fly’s face grew dull and dusty looking. Her hips grew wide, and a roll of cellulite bulged on her carapace. Her wings drooped like a pair of wilted leaves, and her mop lolled and hung like a sticky piece of taffy.

The flies all around Ben suddenly gasped.

“Ew,” one cried. “She’s old!”

“Ick,” another cried. “She’s disgusting!”

“Uh, you guys,” a third fly cried, “she’s dying.”

Sure enough, Belle Z. Bug fell to the ground and began to roll, as flies often will when they’re dying.

“My youth,” she cried. “My youth! You stole my youth!” The malevolent light that had glowed in her red eyes now began to die. One by one, each of the ten thousand facets in her eyes began to wink out like old light bulbs.

The audience of flies gaped in astonishment.

Lady Blackpool whirled. “Behold your leader!” she said. “Her beauty was a lie, just like her promises! It was not the makeup that made her beautiful but a cunningly wrought spell. All that she had was the beauty of her youth, and now you see her for what she really is!”

“Yuck,” the flies cried in horror as she aged. “I’m out of here!” one of the leaders said. “Let’s go down to Hollywood and walk around the Boulevard!”

With that, the flies all cheered. Their new leader leapt into the air, and clouds of flies rose up in a swarm and went racing toward Hollywood. Only a couple of the superflies remained, heads hanging dejectedly.

Belle Z. Bug lay on the ground, rolling a bit, then finally landed on her back, her legs waving uselessly in the air. Her eyes had gone blank, with only a couple of dim lights remaining.

Mona Ravenspell and Governor Shortzenbeggar got up and began massaging their wrists. The governor still had an extra fly’s head, along with a couple of fly arms and a pair of mismatched wings.

Amber the mouse just stared at the dying fly.

“I . . . don’t understand,” Amber said. “What happened? Did the governor’s poison finally kill her, or was it Lady Blackpool’s magic?”

“Time,”
Lady Blackpool explained. “Time is killing her. Though mice and humans measure life in months and years, Belle Z. Bug was but a fly. A single day is all that she had to live—less than a day. She stored her youth in that necklace and kept it close. So long as it was on her, she could not grow old.

“But now her age has caught up with her, thanks to Ben,” Amber said.

Ben stood watching it all, feeling surprised. He had feared that the flies might try to take vengeance on him for killing their master.

He still wasn’t entirely sure how he had done it. He decided that he was lucky.

Belle Z. Bug turned her head, and her voice came out as a hiss. “I go now to meet the Master of Field and Fen,” she hissed, “and to gain my reward. Nothing can save me. But the Ever Shade is coming, and he shall grant you your reward,” she threatened. With smug satisfaction, she added, “and nothing can save
you
!”

Belle Z. Bug’s head dropped to the deck of the ship, and she fell silent. Her legs twitched.

It might take hours for her to die, Ben knew. He’d watched one die on the windowsill of his house once. Like a snake, the body of a fly keeps on kicking a little until the heat of the day leaves its body.

So the heroes sat for a bit to watch Belle Z. Bug die. It was a solemn occasion, a lonely vigil, and Ben did not speak. He felt that it was somehow improper or disrespectful.

Finally, one of the superflies, a fine bombardier fly, tilted its head toward Ben’s mom. “You will find your treasure inside the shell of the plane, there at the edge of the landfill. You’re welcome to it. We flies have no use for it.”

“Thank you,” Mona said.

The fly turned to Governor Shortzenbeggar. “You, sir, are the finest human on this planet. It was a pleasure defeating you. As your reward, I would like to suggest that you remain a fly. With just a few more alterations, you could become one of us. You would be a handsome specimen, I think . . .”

“That is a generous offer,” the governor said, “but I kind of like the idea of keeping the humans’ extended life span. No offense, but I don’t want to be dead by morning.”

The governor’s fly head swiveled around. “Hey, speak for yourself, buddy! Have you taken a good look in the mirror? You ain’t got nothin’ on me! I’m a real ladies’ man!”

The governor socked the fly head under the chin. The fly head bobbled back a little as it passed out.

Ben realized that the bombardier fly must be some kind of general or something.

“And now,” the bombardier fly said, “you are free to go!”

“Free?” Mona asked. “You’re just going to let us go free?”

The bombardier fly shrugged. “Humans make trash, and trash makes flies. There’s no value in giving you any extra grief.”

Ben wasn’t sure that he bought the giant fly’s argument. He suspected that it was scared. Two wizards and a vengeful governor are nothing to be toyed with.

Belle Z. Bug’s head now rested on the ground. The glowing red lights in her eyes had now nearly all extinguished, and her legs were curled up and folded in on themselves.

Ben’s mom came and picked up the mice and put them in her pocket. Then she and Governor Shortzenbeggar climbed down from the garbage mound, hand in hand, walking carefully over a carpet of dead flies lit by the candles that still burned all over the ship like funeral fires. They made their way to the airplane.