Demons and Druids Read online

  Somehow I doubted that.

  “Out of the cart, young men,” Merlin called to us. We were more than happy to jump out of the teeth-shattering set of wheels and were immediately distracted by the streaming crowd.

  “So where to, Merlin?” I called over my shoulder.

  But he was gone.

  I hardly cared at the moment, I have to say. That chipper, gnomish man-boy was getting on my nerves.

  Arthur and I decided to see what the crowd was up to, and we were led to a ramshackle wooden church—really not much more than a tinderbox with a steeple. There was a growing huddle of people in the middle of the yard, around a very familiar-looking monument.

  A huge boulder was half buried in the ground. Protruding from it, a sword hilt stood at attention. I almost fell over on my face.

  A sword in a stone. The sword in the stone?

  Chapter 60

  I HEARD A MAN calling out as if it were a circus or the county fair. “COME ONE, COME ALL! TRY YOUR LUCK! PULL OUT THE SWORD AND BECOME KING OF ALL ENGLAND!”

  Hmm. Not quite as romantic as they made it out to be in the books.

  Right now a balding, powerful-looking blacksmith type was leaning over the sword. He spat in his palms and rubbed them together vigorously, ready to get a good grip.

  As soon as he grabbed the hilt, though, the man’s body went rigid and there was a crack. A moment later he flew backward a good fifty feet, like he’d been drop-kicked by Beta.

  I took a step forward and got a closer look at the sword, only to be surprised by its, well, plainness. It didn’t look like a great king’s sword at all. The hilt was just ordinary metal—no encrusted jewels, no gold filigree…

  And then I did a double take.

  This was no sword. I recognized a certain, um, Alparian essence.

  “Merlin?!” I said in my mind.

  “Heh heh. Guilty as charged,” said the sword back to me.

  Chapter 61

  IT FIGURED. It was exactly the kind of thing I would do. A creative solution to the problem. If I’d known there was a problem to be solved.

  “I thought we couldn’t mess with history?” I communicated to Merlin.

  “I’m not messing with it, Daniel, I’m facilitating it,” he shot back.

  “Are we quite done here?” Arthur said at my elbow. “I’m not overly fond of crowds, mind you.”

  “Daniel, give us a little help here. Arthur’s a very worthy lad,” I heard Merlin say inside my head. “Just needs a little confidence boost. A little push. So, push!”

  I moved a few steps closer to the boulder. Arthur followed me, looking bewildered. “What, are you going to give it a go?” he asked.

  “No. Not exactly. You are.”

  Arthur backed away as if I were crazy—or an alien, for God’s sake.

  “Are you mad? I’m a boy, a stepson who could never be king. I won’t embarrass myself here. I will not do it.”

  I grabbed his arm and held tight. “You won’t embarrass yourself. You will take a pull at the sword. This is the way life works. You have to try. You have to take a risk sometimes.”

  “No—you do it!” He held firm.

  Oh man, I thought to myself. What if I was the one who pulled the sword from the stone? What would that do to history?

  “I’m not… from around here. I’m not… English,” I stammered. “It wouldn’t be right.”

  “Where are you from then, Daniel? France? Please don’t tell me France.”

  “Alpar Nok,” I blurted. “The United States of America. Either-or. Take your pick.”

  “I’ve never heard of either of them!” Arthur said and held his ground.

  “Who’s next?” bellowed some kind of monk standing near the stone. “Who will be king of England? Who has the courage to be king?”

  I raised my hand high. “He will be!” I yelled above the crowd’s murmur. “I’ll go after you,” I whispered in Arthur’s ear. “And I have a tip for you too.”

  “What—what tip?” stammered Arthur.

  “Wipe that other guy’s spit off the hilt before you pull the sword out.”

  Finally, finally, Arthur smiled. Then he patted me on the shoulder and walked up to the stone.

  “Well done,” said Merlin inside my head. “That was exactly the push he needed. Firm, but not threatening. I’m impressed, Daniel.”

  Now all I could do was watch.

  As soon as he put his hand on the hilt, he changed. It was as if Arthur was remembering something he’d forgotten since he was a child. Courage and knowledge flowed into his face and flooded the depths of his eyes.

  Whatever was happening to Arthur, the crowd sensed it too. In a matter of seconds they were whispering, jabbering, moving in closer to the stone. He didn’t seem to notice. He was just staring up at the sky with wonder and sadness all mixed up in his face.

  “He changed! Did you do that?” I whispered to Merlin over our telepathic intercom.

  “I’m not that powerful,” said Merlin. “By the way, make sure he doesn’t swing me around too much, okay? I get motion sickness.”

  Then Arthur gave a mighty yank at the sword in the stone—a truly heroic pull—and out it came.

  So what happened was history, not myth.

  Take my word for it. I was there.

  Chapter 62

  I WAS HAPPY for my new friend and all. Really.

  But I hadn’t forgotten about my old friends, and my promise that I’d never put them in real danger again. And if Beta had anything to do with the fire at my house on that fateful day fourteen centuries later… well, I was going to get him before I got The Prayer—and I couldn’t wait a minute longer.

  So in the late evening of the first day of celebrations hailing the new king of England, I found good ol’ Pendy and bowed deeply before him.

  “My lord,” I said in the most serious tone I could muster.

  “You needn’t call me that, Daniel. If you’d not dropped into my life—”

  “Never mind about that. As long as I don’t have to call you sir, I’m cool.”

  Arthur looked bewildered by the term but grinned anyway, and I told him I was turning in for the night. Merlin was still partying down—and let me tell you, the dude knew how to get jiggy wit’ it, Dark Ages style. I figured I had at least an hour to sneak into the mill and dig around for some clues. Frankly, I’d had it with Merlin playing the Medieval Man of Mystery all the time when we had a job to do.

  As I approached the mill I noticed a faint glimmer of candlelight through the window and stopped dead in my tracks. Was it possible that Merlin had beat me back? He was a wizard, after all. He could’ve zipped back on a broomstick if he’d wanted, although after all the ale he’d had to drink, I’d have seriously advised against it.

  I was about to create some night-vision goggles but then stopped myself, remembering I’d need to preserve whatever power I could in case I ended up in battle tonight. If I’d learned anything from this latest adventure, it was to conserve energy. I’d have to use good old-fashioned stealth instead.

  As I peered through the window I used no alien superpowers whatsoever—congratulate me—to cleverly deduce these three things:

  1. The figure I saw was too tall to be Merlin. Easy one.

  2. The figure appeared too pathetic and powerless to be alien. Didn’t even need alien-radar for this one.

  3. The figure had the same goal I did: to find some specific piece of information buried in Merlin’s leaning towers of parchment.

  As it turned out, the figure would make it a lot easier for me, since it took very little for this clumsy burglar to tip one of the towers. The material scattered everywhere.

  “Blast!” he hissed, putting his candle down on the floor and scrambling to shuffle the papers back together. But then he stopped dead in his tracks, moving the candle over to get a better view of something he’d spotted.

  “Ah, yes,” he whispered, nodding as he committed the information to memory. Then, in a flash, h
e dashed out, the paper sailing behind him and drifting back down to the floor.

  I didn’t need night-vision goggles to see him in the moonlight. On a hunch I decided to follow Sir Kay to wherever he was so very keen to go.

  Chapter 63

  IT WAS ALMOST midnight. I had spent the last hour breathing stifling air in the pitch-black tunnels of a coal mine, which was actually a natural cave a few miles away, where the locals would dig up coal a basketful at a time.

  I’d had to run into the mill and grab a weapon before setting out, so to my chagrin I’d lost sight of Kay’s actual person very quickly. I’d had to resort to my extrasensory tracking skills, and they had led me to this place, though I wasn’t one hundred percent certain he was actually here. It did, however, seem the ideal spot for Beta’s lair.

  “Figures it would be underground, dusty, and foul smelling,” I muttered to myself. “More aliens need to stay at the Ritz.” I suppressed a nervous laugh and squinted into the cavern.

  As soon as I arrived, I’d felt vibrations far below the surface, and they’d been growing louder. Now their source was only a few hundred feet away, and closing in on me. With every tremor, streams of black powder cascaded from the ceiling.

  An earthquake was the last thing we needed now. Mines like this one were full of explosive coal dust, of course, and if it was Beta…

  Am I ready for him? I wondered. How long would it take to run out of this place in the dark?

  The tunnel was really rocking and rolling now. Then, all at once, things got really quiet. It reminded me of that moment when the theater darkens and the audience stops talking right before a play begins.

  But this wasn’t a play. And the flames that were beginning to seep out of cracks in the ground weren’t special effects.

  I lay down on my stomach and watched the space below me. It was easy to see the whole ballroom-sized chamber glowing on all sides with rainbows of flame. I could make out the mouth of a tunnel at the other end, fifty, sixty feet away.

  Something was moving inside, a bright spark in the shadows. It didn’t look like the wisp of flame that I was expecting from Beta—the one I’d seen three too many times already.

  The flame was long and narrow. It whipped back and forth in the darkness of the tunnel like the arm of an octopus.

  And there was a large body attached to it. I watched in fascination as a scaly, conical head snaked out from the opening, a lithe body like the fuselage of a Learjet following it on about eight tiny feet. We’ve all seen pictures of dragons, right? This one had lava seeping from between its scales and jets of flame for teeth.

  The dragon scurried up the wall like a centipede, arched its neck, and took a bite out of a coal deposit in the ceiling. The sound of grinding rocks echoed through the chamber. Pebbles as big as my clenched fists rained down from its jaw. Then it cocked its head and gave a sniff that sent waves of heat my way.

  “Welcome, stranger,” it said in a familiar hissing rasp. “Please, come in. After all, there’s no point in hiding now that I’ve smelt you. You can have the honor of being my next victim.”

  Chapter 64

  I COULDN’T TAKE MY EYES off of the dragon—off Beta. It seemed like Beta couldn’t take his focus off me, either. He stared down at me, and the flames where his eyes should have been glowed blindingly bright.

  He was silent for a moment, and then he began to chuckle, his mouth spitting out hissing, gasping hiccups of flame. “You’re definitely not who I expected, but I guess it’s my lucky day. And that makes one of us.”

  I’d been waiting for this fight to start for days, but all of a sudden it was much too real for me. Beta’s heat was too intense, the flames too bright. And for some reason I could already smell burning flesh.

  I froze. Just for a split second, but I definitely froze.

  Here’s a fact I’ve learned over the years: in the time it takes to read this sentence, an Alien Hunter who hesitated has probably been squashed and digested, or maybe vaporized two or three times.

  I brought my weapon—one of Merlin’s swords—up in front of his face. It was a basic parry, a way to block the opponent’s sword from splitting your head open. Reflex, nothing more.

  I knew that on its own it wouldn’t really work against Beta’s firestorm. It was time to start summoning my powers.

  The tongues of flame hit the sword and ricocheted away, as surely as if I had been surrounded by a wall of asbestos. I’d created a shield of carbon dioxide—and lots of it—to stop Beta’s flames inches before they could burn me to a crisp.

  Beta roared in frustration and unleashed an even more furious torrent. This time I was totally enveloped in it.

  When the air cleared, though, there I was, drenched in sweat and covered in a layer of black soot but none the worse for wear and tear.

  “You’re only making it harder on yourself,” bellowed Beta. “I was going to flash-fry you, but now you’re going to get slow-roasted.”

  “My dad always warned me that dragons were real,” I shouted defiantly. “Descendants of dinosaurs. He didn’t mention that they were buttheads, as well.”

  When Beta dropped low and sent out his next blast, I was ready and leapt backward, deflecting it deftly with my sword.

  Now the fight to the death was really on. The dragon would spit an explosive fireball, and I would block it with a sweep of my sword. I would thrust mightily at the dragon’s chest, the dragon would knock my sword away with a glowing claw. And once when I ducked to avoid a lash of Beta’s fiery tail, it cracked like a whip and took out a stone column, sending rubble scattering across the ground.

  Now, isn’t this exactly what my dad trained me for on Cyndaris? Navigating tricky rock landscapes while multitasking—without falling? My dad had been proud of my training then, but he wouldn’t have been now.

  Because what did I do? Nothing but trip on a hunk of rubble with the edge of my foot—and I went over backward on my rear end.

  Beta rushed forward to seal the deal. His mouth opened wide, his fiery jaws ready to bite off my head.

  I saw it coming, of course, and the dragon’s teeth met my sword’s cold blade with a clang loud enough to shatter double-glazed windows. My muscles shook with the effort of keeping Beta away.

  And then—inexplicably—my father’s voice came screaming into my head so that it drowned out everything else. “Water, Daniel! Lots of water! Immediately—or you die!”

  Chapter 65

  BETA PRESSED his cruel face, his jaw, closer to my head.

  My heart was pounding, ready to explode from my chest. I wasn’t sure exactly what I was planning, but the cavern was moving again. With every motion of that huge serpentine body, I felt the hot stone tremble.

  Dad had a good idea, but there was no way I could create enough water to put out Beta. Not in an hour. Not in a day. He should have known that. So just what did he mean? Was he back to giving cooking tips?

  But then I felt something else. A constant vibration, underneath the shudder of Beta’s movement. The rustle of flowing water, I realized. An underground river. That was what Merlin was hinting about, wasn’t it?

  I put my hands flat on the rock beside me and sent my power surging through the walls and into the cavern floor below. In the next fraction of a second, there were three distinct hissing sounds.

  The first was the mechanical hiss of the high-pressure fountain I’d just created, beginning to pump water to the surface at about fifteen hundred gallons a minute.

  The second was the hiss of a gigantic water jet vaporizing into a cloud of steam as it hit a very surprised dragon in the throat.

  The third was a hiss of pure malevolence. Beta’s eyes narrowed till they looked like cinders, and he reared back onto his hind legs. His head was hidden in the cloud of steam that had already filled the top half of the cavern.

  Gasping, I rolled to the side to avoid a swipe from Beta’s tail, which was whipping around the room at random. Then I clambered to my feet.

  Ther
e were a few glimmers up above, and an ominous clicking, as if Beta were trying to start a stubborn gas grill. Next came a blessed moment of silence.

  But then an unearthly howl.

  Flames swirled down toward us, splitting the cloud of steam in two. It took only a second before the fountain I’d made was a twisted lump of melted metal.

  “DANIEL!” This time it was Merlin’s voice. And he meant business. “WHAT ARE YOU DOING? It’s supposed to be Arthur. It has to be Arthur. Do not mess with history, young man.”

  Chapter 66

  “SOMEONE’S CHEATING,” purred Beta from the heart of the fire. “I thought we were fighting mano a mano.”

  In a flash my eyes darted through the cavern while keeping Beta in view. And there was Arthur, leaning heavily on one of the few remaining columns, with Merlin the Sword hanging by his side. His face flickered in the light from the cavern floor, which was lit up like the devil’s disco.

  I frowned. Merlin was proving himself to be the madman he’d always seemed. Arthur could barely stand up for himself when his foster brother beat up on him. How was this kid supposed to take out my alien? Number 3, no less?

  Then I remembered how I’d helped Arthur be courageous before. I could do it again. And had to.

  I gave Arthur a penetrating look and encouraging nod that said “You can do this, buddy.”

  “Arthur, meet Beta,” I said cheerfully. “Beta, meet Arthur. Sorry if there was any confusion, but you didn’t give me a chance to explain. I was just the opening act. Arthur here is… the real deal, shall we say.”

  Beta had stopped roaring, but his jet of flame was hanging in front of Arthur. Then a dark face appeared in it, grinning in an all-too-familiar way.

  Arthur didn’t move, but I saw his eyes flick back toward me for a moment. Then he raised his sword.

  “So, beast,” he began, sounding more like a king already. “Let the tournament begin.”