DEMONKEEPER II

- DEMONEATER -

By ROYCE BUCKINGHAM

BOY BOOKS INK.

Copyright © 2011 by Royce Buckingham

A Story Merchant Book

www.demonkeeper.com

Cover Art by Max Meinzold

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

I’d like to thank the many dedicated teachers and librarians I know and the many, many more I will certainly come to know in the future for your continuing support of my work and other quality books for boys.

Thanks for doing what you do simply because you love it…so do I.

PROLOGUE

WEXFORD, IRELAND—AD 1739

“My master has returned from abroad alive!” George McFeen scrawled on the crinkled calfskin vellum page of the Journal.

It was a simple sentence—short, clear, delighted, reflecting the Irish student’s obvious love for his teacher. McFeen finished scribbling with a flourish, leaped up from the desk, and hurried out of the writing room to continue the celebration.

McFeen’s visit to the desk a day later was neither so brief nor so happy. He sat tapping the inkwell with his quill, frowning for a time before he dipped it inside and set it upon the page.

“At first I was overjoyed by my mentor’s survival,” he wrote, choosing his words carefully before recording them in the Journal. “I’d given him up for dead. We all had, for no man could have lived at sea for thirty days without food, without water, and yet somehow he did. He told us that he’d fed on the juicy insects that infested the rotted wood of his craft.”

A draft made the candle flicker, and McFeen glanced over his shoulder. Seeing nothing, he closed his eyes. He sensed nothing in the room beyond the reach of his sight either, so he continued.

“He returned without the demons, reporting that he’d lost them. I was too happy to question this. But he acts strangely now—stranger than usual. When he speaks of them, he drools.”

McFeen pushed himself back from the desk and found that he was sweating. He closed the Journal and took care to lock the door on his way out.

A week later, the door opened again. McFeen entered quickly and sat. He wrote with a shaky hand.

“He has been unnaturally efficient in their capture of late, sniffing them out like a hound. And he is changing. Tonight, when I walked past the parlor, I spied him hunched over the entity we had just acquired, a famine demon of the first order that we’d chased about the island for nearly a year. As I peered through the doorway, I saw him dip his head. I heard crunching and the demon’s chilling shriek. I could not see, but I know that our purpose is compromised, for we were sworn to protect them and he has killed it. I slipped out of the parlor unnoticed, I think.”

Two days later, McFeen walked to the desk to make a last entry in the Journal. He sat. It was brief. He finished with a sad swipe of his pen and rose, solemn. The Demonkeeper’s Journal sat on the desk open to the grim passage.

“He is devouring them,” it said simply. “My mentor is a Demoneater.”

CHAPTER 1

THE WAKING OF THE TROLL

SEATTLE, WASHINGTON, USA—Early 21 Century

As a creeping drizzle dampened the Seattle evening, a young girl in a pink dress ducked timidly beneath the Aurora Avenue Bridge, chased by the last rays of the sunset over Elliot Bay.

She turned, looked up, and froze. The Fremont Troll loomed over her, a gnarled, frowning figure so big that its left hand clutched an old VW Bug as though it were a softball. Its massive upper body rose from the ground between the huge bridge struts, its lower half seemingly buried in the pavement.

“Is it there?” her dad called from behind her.

She couldn’t find the courage to speak, so she just nodded as he blundered under the bridge wielding a digital camera the size of a deck of cards.

“Wow!” he said. “Hop up on its right hand and I’ll get a picture.”

The girl glanced from the Troll to the setting sun and back at her father. She gave him a pleading look.

“It’s bigger than you said,” she whispered, as though scared it might hear her and wake up. She was stalling, hoping that the sun would go down before her dad could make her go near the thing for the photo. But she didn’t exactly want the sun to go down either.

“C’mon, it won’t bite you,” he prodded, “it’s just a statue.”

Indeed, the huge monster was made of concrete—a crazy art piece in a most unexpected place. It leered down at her with an expression she could not quite place. Displeasure? Annoyance? Mild hunger? The girl took a deep breath, walked toward it, and found a handhold. She closed her eyes as she pulled herself up onto a rough concrete finger bigger than her entire body and then spun around and motioned for her dad to hurry and take the shot.

He realized that this would be his only chance. He snapped once and then quickly again for good measure. “Okay, back to the car,” he said. “Hurry, it’s starting to rain harder.” Then he was gone, scurrying out from under the bridge.

The sun sank behind the islands and left her alone with the Troll. With gray rain clouds hiding the moon, the space under the bridge immediately went dark. She turned backwards to climb down, but her dress caught on a snag. She could see the Troll’s face above her, vague in the shadows but huge and scowling. She yanked at her dress, not caring whether it tore, just wanting to get away. For a moment it wouldn’t come free. Then, somehow, it shifted and slipped loose. She slid off the giant finger and dropped to the ground, her mind racing. Did the dress come free on its own or did the Troll move? she thought. No. Impossible. She didn’t wait to find out. Instead, she hurried after her dad.

She’d dashed ten steps and was almost out from under the bridge when she heard a thunderous sound behind her.

Craaaaaack! Crunnnnnch!

Her heart leaped into her throat, and her eyes grew wide like saucers. Then, suddenly, she realized the nature of the look on the massive statue’s face. It wasn’t malice or anger or even hunger. It was same emotion she was feeling: fear.

She risked a terrified look over her shoulder and gasped. The space under the bridge was empty, except for the discarded VW Bug, which spun on its top, and a huge hole in the pavement. The gigantic statue was gone.

She stared across scattered shards of concrete that littered the street where the Troll had fled. Somebody’s in for a big surprise when they wake up tomorrow morning, she thought. Then she turned and ran too.

CHAPTER 2

MORNING

Four blunt feet tiptoed to the head of the staircase. They tapped along the wood floor as the morning sun crept through the window and sent slivers of light down the hall. The simple bed settled itself alongside the top step and gave itself a firm shake, rattling its joints and tugging its sheets down off the thirteen-year-old boy snoozing underneath them.

Richie rolled over and reached for the covers. They dodged his hand, eliciting a long groan from him. The light found his eyes, making him wince. Richie gave up. He pulled himself to the edge of the bed, slid his legs over the side, and promptly plummeted down the stairs like an out of control slinky.

Wham-whump-bam-thumpity-whack!

Richie lay in a pile of tangled limbs on the landing at the bottom of the stairs like an injured pretzel, glaring up at his bed through his twisted legs.

“Friggin’ owww!”

Richie uncurled painfully. He grabbed a nearby framed photograph of an eagle swooping down to catch a salmon. He took aim and hurled it up at the bed, but the frame sprouted wings mid-flight and flew harmlessly across the foyer. It landed in an open space on the wall and clung there, slightly crooked.

The bed rattled on its legs, delighted, and clattered off down the hall. Richie rose and gave chase.

“That’s the last straw, bed!” Richie skipped up the stairs and skidded across the hall in his socks, fighting for traction like a cartoon character running in midair. He slammed into the wall.

Thump!

The bulky bed maneuvered around a corner as Richie recovered his balance and resumed the chase.

Nathaniel was already up. He heard the ruckus and stepped from his room, calmly grabbing his young apprentice by the shoulder as he slid past, bringing him to an abrupt stop.

“Sleep in again?” Nat asked.

“I want a different bed,” Richie said.

“That’s the bed I got when I was an apprentice.”

Richie stomped his foot. “C’mon, Nat. It walks somewhere different every night. Yesterday I woke up and dangled my foot out in the toilet.”

“Yeah, I hated that too,” Nat agreed. Then he handed Richie a mop and bucket. “Here you go. The hallways need a good cleaning,” he said, and he walked away.

Richie frowned, dumped the bucket of water on the floor, and started mopping.

As Richie worked his way down the hall, he trudged past two carved masks, one iron and one wood, hanging on opposite walls—the bickering audio possessions.

“Hey, kid,” the iron mask said, “is he making you do all the work?”

“Zip it, uglies,” Richie said. “I know you two are trouble.”

“Like mentor, like apprentice,” Woody said, shaking itself back and forth on its nail.

“Dhaliwahl used to make Nat do all the grunt work too,” added Irony.

“It’s a vicious cycle,” Woody said.

“I’m not listening.” Richie put his hands over his ears.

“He’s using you, kid,” Irony said.

“La-la-la-la-la-not-listening-la-la,” Richie sang as he backed down the hall, mopping quickly away from them.

“Just keep your eyes open,” Woody called after him, its own painted eyes bulging out for emphasis.

Richie finished mopping and prepared for his next chore—his least favorite—feeding the Beast. He hauled two buckets of bloody fish slop—demon food—across the foyer.

“Okay, move it,” he growled at the mustard-colored East Indian rug.

The rug curled back for him and he walked to the trapdoor in the middle of the foyer floor. When he bent down to unlatch the door, the rug rolled up again suddenly and smacked him in the rump.

“Hey!” Richie jumped, terrified. The chore unnerved him anyway. He didn’t need any surprises. “You want me to stain you permanently?” Richie shook one of the buckets of disgusting fish guts at the rug. “I’m not in the mood today, all right?”

The rug retreated, and Richie turned back to the trapdoor. He took a deep breath, unhooked the latch, and began dumping the slop through the grate and down the feeding chute into the basement, where the Beast waited in the darkness to be fed.

Richie could hear the mixture squelch down the chute and splatter onto the dirt floor far below. “I hope you choke on a fish bone,” he called down.

A growl echoed up from below. Richie gasped, kicked the trapdoor closed, and slammed home the bolt.

“Gross, scary, and deadly,” he mumbled to himself. “Worst chore in history.”

Richie sometimes felt trapped in the house where they collected the wayward manifestations of chaos. After living on the streets for years, life in a box seemed like a prison at times. Nat had been kind to take in a delinquent homeless kid like him, and it was welcome shelter, but it was also a sort of voluntary confinement. With the demons of the house preying on his sanity, there were times when he felt like he’d committed himself to a private mental institution with only two patients, him and his teenage mentor, and he wasn’t sure they weren’t both crazy.

He needed to get out of the house, he decided. There were chores that could be done outside in the fresh air and the sanity of the light of day.

CHAPTER 3

DEATH OF THE BEER DEMONS

The light of day brought no comfort to the playful beer demons of McHale’s Irish Pub on the Seattle waterfront. The tavern was closed in the mornings, and the small wormlike creatures could usually splash freely about in scattered half-full glasses and openly frolic across the sticky, well-worn tables before the cleaners came and they had to squeeze themselves back into the kegs to hide.

The worms were not a malicious sort of demon. The fun-loving little chaotic entities swam in the pints at night when the place was loud and packed with humans, sliding unnoticed down the throats of merrymaking patrons and wiggling their way to their brains to disorient them for a few hours. A bit of sport and then they slipped out as discretely as they had snuck in, leaving their human host no worse for wear, though they sometimes left behind a dull ache in the head where they had lodged themselves if silly or especially thirsty humans crowded too many of the happy squigglers into their heads too tightly.

This morning, however, the little demons’ carefree play was cut short before the cleaners arrived. An unfamiliar shadow appeared in the window as the sun rose. Moments later, the glass cascaded inward, shattering their peace. They tittered and fled, making for the safety of the kegs. But the worms were slow, and the thing was fast. It slithered in through the broken window and cut them off, leaving them out in the open, exposed.

It was not a demon, for it exuded no chaos and, in fact, stalked them methodically, carefully rounding them up like a sheep-herding dog. It was not a human either, for clearly it could see them. It was something else.

The beer worms were a simple form of chaos and not very smart. They gathered in a group at the end of the bar, writhing into a pile to seek safety in numbers—a mistake. The shadow loomed over them and thrust a sharp pincer into their midst, hoisting one of their number to its gaping maw. The hapless demon it selected squealed as the thing began to squeeze. There was a hollow popping sound, and the liquid chaos that gave the squirming beer worm life burst out through its head and into the thing’s open gullet. It discarded the empty carcass of the dead demon like a peanut shell and thrust its awful limb in to snatch another. With all of them gathered together, the Demoneater could not miss.

It sat at the bar and gorged on the whimpering little demons, annoyed that the huge, delicious-smelling Troll had gotten away while it was changing into a suitable form to eat the massive thing. But the city of Seattle was rife with chaos, and there were several major elementals living in the open that it could hunt down and devour. The Demoneater also sensed that a large number of demons were gathered in a single location—it just needed to find them.

CHAPTER 4

YARDWORK

Richie left the tumult of demons gathered inside and headed out into the overgrown yard. The house was chock full of the unpredictable creatures, and Nat cared very deeply for them—even the annoying ones. Nat preached to Richie about his obligation as an apprentice Keeper to give them a safe place to live and their solemn duty to preserve the collection efforts of the generations of Keepers that came before them. But it was hard when the demons they cared for behaved like a rowdy classroom full of uppity, ill-behaved children. Nat was technically an adult, but Richie didn’t feel old enough to be a responsible grown-up yet, so he listened and nodded but didn’t sweat the details of Demonkeeping nearly as much as his mentor. As long as the demons didn’t all croak or escape, he figured he was doing a bang-up job as a teenage apprentice.

Richie hunted around in the garden shed and found an extension ladder. The house was four stories tall, towering more than thirty feet into the dreary Seattle sky. Nat hadn’t said anything about the ladder, so Richie didn’t think it was a demon. But he was still learning to use his Demonkeeping abilities, and he couldn’t always see them. The ladder seemed normal—aluminum, heavy, three sliding sections.

Richie tipped it up against the house. A rope and pulley system lifted each section to its full height, and, after some tugging and yanking, the ladder stretched all the way to the roof. Richie gave it one last kick. It felt solid. In fact, its rubber-tipped arms seemed to grip the house, and the ladder didn’t budge at all. He nodded and started up.

Once he was atop the ladder, Richie could see over downtown Seattle and Elliot Bay all the way out to the islands of Puget Sound. The Space Needle rose against the city skyline, a slender, skyscraping monument from the 1962 World’s Fair. It had a large rotating restaurant on top with an observation deck almost six hundred feet above the ground. He had always wanted to go up, but as a street kid, he’d never been welcome. He wondered if Nat would take him some day.

Standing thirty feet in the air, Richie felt peaceful and powerful at the same time, two things he’d never felt while living on the streets before he’d landed the job of apprentice Demonkeeper and moved in with Nat. Maybe doing chores in an old house infested by demons isn’t so bad after all, he thought. Then he turned to dig the sludge out of the rain gutter.

The ancient gutters on the edge of the roof collected all sorts of debris that the wind lifted or the sky dropped. Richie dug into a gloppy mixture of leaves, wrappers, bird dung, moss, and other putrefied gunk that was unrecognizable. He even saw a Frisbee lodged in the serpentine metallic half-tubes that encircled the roof and guarded the house from the elements. He ran a hand shovel through the gutter, scooping up the mucky mess, being careful not to touch it. He knew better. He tossed the sludge over his shoulder, and it plummeted thirty feet down like a shower of wet, decaying compost. It splattered across Mr. Neebor’s garden next door, sizzling and burning brown holes in his delicate flowers.

A seagull drifted in and landed on the rain gutter Richie had just cleared, perhaps hoping to find some hidden morsel uncovered by his work. In New York City, the rats of the skies were pigeons, but seagulls were the aerial vermin of Seattle. Richie didn’t hate them. They were scavengers, like he’d been, and he could appreciate their lifestyle. He gave the bird a friendly warning as it hopped onto the rim of the gutter.

“Shoo, eh.”

The bird glanced up at him, unimpressed, and began to peck through the remaining moss in the gutter.

“I mean it, dude,” Richie tried. “Take off.”

This time the gull glared and gave him a long, sour squawk, which ended abruptly when the gutter snaked upward, grabbed the hapless bird, and stuffed it into its own downspout. The pipe opened wide to devour the seagull whole. It was over in an instant.

“I warned ya,” Richie said, shaking his head as a lonely feather drifted past him.

Just then, the ladder began to lean backward. Richie grabbed hold of the gutter, but it squirmed out of his grasp, and he tilted away from the house. “No, no, no . . . ,” Richie stammered. He had a feeling of weightlessness—the ladder stood straight on its end, braced against nothing and rocking gently back and forth in the breeze. The thirty-foot drop would kill him, Richie decided.

Then the ladder hopped. Richie gripped the rungs, white-knuckled. “Stop that!” he cried. The ladder spun on one leg and groaned—it didn’t like being yelled at, it seemed. “Sorry,” Richie said quickly, “sorry, sorry.”

Richie cursed himself for not thoroughly checking to see whether the towering aluminum tool was a demon. The animated ladder hung him from his fingertips thirty feet in the air as it waddled across the yard. Richie closed his eyes and held on tight, hoping the thing didn’t want to fall over any more than he did. Then he felt it thump against something solid. He opened his eyes and saw that it had leaned itself against the house again. It had simply moved a few feet over so that he could reach the next gutter.

Richie took a deep breath. An unstable ladder—classic chaos, he thought, a typical demon. He should have known. He cursed himself for missing it and began to scoop out the next section of gutter.

Nat watched his apprentice from a window. The urge to rush out and help Richie was strong, but Nat left him alone to see if he could handle the chaos. He had survived the ladder’s antics, which was promising.

Minutes later, Richie was back on the ground tossing rotten vegetables to a pack of portly cherub garden statuettes. The fat, naked little things toddled after the food like lost ducklings with round bellies that grew larger with each bite. They followed Richie until he had them all grouped together near the cracked backyard fountain filled with brackish water. He found an overripe honeydew melon and rolled it at them.

Crash!

Broken statuette limbs flew.

“Strike!” Richie cheered. He turned, grinning. Nat was there, frowning.

“Nice mess,” Nat said. “Didn’t I send you to clean things up?”

“Hey, the gruesome little things always put themselves back together, eventually.”

Behind him, the statuettes struggled to reconstruct themselves, fighting over pieces and mixing up body parts. One had an arm sticking out where its head was supposed to be. Another had mistakenly lodged a nose between its naked legs.

“Cherub bowling is not acceptable,” Nat scolded. “There’s plenty of chaos around here without you contributing to it.”

“Just havin’ a little fun,” Richie said. “You’ve got me doing butt-work and chores like a normal kid.”

“You are a kid.”

“Yeah, but I’m not normal. When you took me in, you said I had special abilities, and now I’m just manual labor for you. It’s like you’re using me.”

Nat nodded. “You’ve been listening to the masks, haven’t you? I warned you about that.”

Richie slumped. “I just thought I was gonna be learning spells . . . ”

“We don’t cast spells. That’s fantasy nonsense. We’re not wizards.”

“ . . . and fightin’ evil . . . ”

“Demons aren’t evil. They’re just entropy incarnate.”

Richie gave Nat a blank look.

“Think of them as wild animals,” Nat explained, “like elephants or tigers, only nobody else can see them. Zookeepers don’t fight their animals, do they?”

“No,” Richie admitted.

“They keep them,” Nat said.

“I just thought it would be more”—Richie searched for the word—“magical,” he said finally.

Nat sighed. “Keeping demons is a serious responsibility, not a game. Generations of Keepers have devoted their lives to collecting the chaos in this house. Protecting it is a lifelong commitment that we place above our personal needs.” Richie rolled his eyes, and Nat realized he had given his young apprentice the speech before. “And goof-offs get eaten,” he added. He’d taken a chance on Richie, a street kid with no direction, no purpose.

“You promised to try,” Nat reminded him.

Richie sighed and nodded. “Okay,” he said. “I just don’t do well with boring.”

Nat knew what Richie was talking about. In a strange way, managing chaos day after day could be monotonous.

“Big battles with evil Keepers and kid-eating beasts don’t happen all the time, Richie,” Nat said. “This job is mostly just monster-sitting, and the odds are a million to one that we’ll ever have another crazy day like we did when we met.”

The day they’d met had indeed been crazy. Nat’s mentor, Mr. Dhaliwahl, had left the entire house and its care to Nat when he was just seventeen. Nat had only been in charge for a short time before a rival Keeper called the Thin Man had come to try to kill him, take over the house, and enslave all its demons. The Thin Man was Dhaliwahl’s failed former apprentice, and he’d returned with three dangerous minions and a nasty chip on his shoulder. Only a miscalculation that had gotten the ill-tempered Keeper messily devoured by the Beast in the basement had saved Nat and Richie from their own deaths.

“Peace and quiet is a good thing,” Nat said upon reflection.

Richie screwed up his face, which meant that he understood. Nat knew that living in the house was a good deal for the boy, even though there was no magic and he had to do chores. Three square meals a day and the supervision of a teenager were better than a cardboard box or a bus shelter on the street anytime, even if his bed played mind games with him and he had occasional near-death experiences.

“Speaking of chores,” Nat said, “I need you to weed the garden.” Nat handed Richie a machete as long as his arm.

“With this?” Richie asked, staring at the huge weapon.

“Oh yeah. Right.” Nat nodded. “You might want this too.” Nat rummaged in the nearby garden box and pulled out a medieval shield.

Blackberries grew wild in the Northwest, including Nat’s backyard. They were an aggressive, fast-spreading plant. When unmanaged, they grew into forbidding thickets of arching stems with numerous short, curved, and very sharp spines along their shoots. But the truly insidious thing about them was that the branches themselves would take root wherever they touched the ground, giving the bush a new foothold every few feet as it quickly took over and ruthlessly choked out other plant life.

Richie approached the dark, twisted patch of thorny stems with the naïve confidence of a boy whose knowledge of blackberries didn’t extend beyond the label on a jar of jam.

“Okay, just a little off the top,” he said, and he swung the machete in a lazy arc.

Whack!

A single blackberry branch fell, severed, to the ground. The bush shuddered all the way to its roots, which were buried directly under Richie’s feet. The ground beneath him trembled. Richie glanced about, thinking that perhaps a heavy truck had rumbled by. He shrugged and took another swing. This time the branches dodged his blade.

“Hey!” Richie said, wondering if the wind had blown them out of its path, but the air was still. He waved the blade at the blackberry bush again and missed again. Suddenly, a clump of branches gathered together and swung back. Richie barely raised his shield in time.

Wham!

The knot of branches slammed against the metal and left long scratches on its surface. Richie’s eyes grew wide. The blackberry thorns had scratched solid steel. He wondered for a moment what the bush’s spines might have done to his face had he not moved so quickly. As he stood there, a sneaking shoot wrapped around his ankle.

“Ahhhhh!” he yelped as its thorns bit through his sock like vicious bee stingers. “Friggit!”

He brought the machete down hard, snapping through the branch and burying the tip of the blade in the dirt. He grabbed the shoot to pull it from his leg and immediately pierced his palm with a dozen thorns, which prompted a new round of self-invented curses.

Richie whipped the machete in front of him to keep the other branches away as he peeled the spiny shoot from his bloodied sock. The branches swayed and twisted like a mass of writhing serpents, shrinking back where the weapon threatened to cleave them in two but pushing forward where Richie’s defenses were poor, fighting the same way they did when battling other plants for territory.

Once he’d painfully removed the severed shoot from his ankle, Richie whirled, swiping and thrusting, holding the renegade plant’s other spiny limbs at bay with his machete and keeping the shield low to protect his legs. The bush whipped past his defenses and struck him twice more, once around the arm and once across his cheek, but he delivered two blows in return, each taking an entire length of branch victim, laying them out on the lawn in squirming death throes.

Finally the blackberry bush shrank away, and Richie held up his machete and shield, victorious. The chore was done. He didn’t need to trim the bush anymore—it was retreating on its own.

“Yeah, you’d better run!” Richie called after it. Then he walked away, thinking himself a skilled gardener and swordsman. He failed to notice the blackberry branches burrowing underground, escaping into Mr. Neebor’s backyard.

CHAPTER 5

SANDY

Sandy strode up Nat’s walk. She had a bounce in her step, the kind that a smart girl got when her report card was outstanding, which hers always was, or when a responsible teenager’s car was cleaned and vacuumed, which hers always was, or when a girl had a real-live, honest-to-goodness, steady boyfriend, which Sandy had never had in her entire life, until now.

She wore heeled boots and flare-leg jeans, which was daring for her, a bit of a fashion gamble even, but what the heck, she thought. Lately she felt like she could take a chance.

“Hello, door,” she called as she mounted Nat’s porch. The heavy four-panel wooden door swung inward for her.

Sandy stepped into the foyer and looked around, pleased. Having a place to hang out besides home was one of the boyfriend perks, even if the place was creepy and she’d almost died in it. She preferred to think of it as interesting. And because Nat had no parents, it seemed like it was practically half hers.

She started across the entryway and noticed an irregular lump in the Indian rug. Despite that she was approximately twice as cool as she had been a month earlier, instinct kicked in and her fussy side took over. No one was looking, so she knelt to straighten the edge of the rug. Even in a house of chaos, she simply couldn’t leave something out of place.

The Beast’s gnarled claw shot out from beneath the rug and grabbed her ankle. Sandy screamed and kicked as hard as she could. The rug rolled back, and her kick flung the claw high into the air.

She stared. The claw wasn’t attached to anything. Pernicious morphed back into himself as he flew across the room, tittering like a stuttering teakettle.

“Yee-hee-hee-heeeeee!”

“Pernicious!” Sandy scolded. The little demon had shape-shifted himself to look like the Beast’s claw and conspired with the rug to scare her, and it had definitely worked. Her heart was thumping in her teenage chest.

As if in answer to her cry, the stocky demon Nikolai bounded into the room and caught Pernicious by the ankle as he sailed past. They went down in a demonic heap and began to wrestle. Pernicious shape-changed madly, but the powerful Nik calmly pinned the squirmy little pest to the wood floor, where he could do no more mischief for the time being.

“Thanks, Nik,” Sandy said. “You’re a doll.” Sandy gave the furry little blue demon a kiss on the head, and he grinned. “So, is my boyfriend home?” she asked, flipping her hair to one side.

Nat arrived in the study minutes later to find Sandy sitting on the couch with a menagerie of demons scuttling and flying about her like chattering wildlife in a tropical aviary. He was surprised to see her in the house. He was surprised to find anyone in the house.

“Hi, beau-beau,” Sandy said, putting her feet up and smiling.

“Huh?” Nat replied.

“Sorry,” Sandy said quickly. “Too cutesy?”

“I thought I heard a scream,” Nat said.

Sandy turned to Nik. “You hear anything?”

Nik shook his thick head.

“Did the front door just let you in?” Nat continued.

“It’s my friend,” Sandy said.

“It doesn’t even let me in every time,” Nat said.

Sandy gave a little smirk. “Maybe it likes me better.”

Nat wasn’t sure how to respond. The door was supposed to be secure from inside and out. The demons roamed free inside. They didn’t bother concealing themselves as they did in the outside world. Anyone who got into the house would see them and tell others. Nat knew well what happened to Demonkeepers who were discovered by ordinary humans. History was not kind to them. Some were jailed. Others burned. They were, at the very least, considered insane and dragged away from the demons they had sworn to protect. And so the door was not supposed to let anyone in. Then again, he’d never had a girlfriend in his entire life, so he wasn’t sure if Sandy was some special exception to the rule.

“So,” Nat said, trying to recover from the idea of having his fortress so easily compromised, “what’s going on?”

Sandy sat straight up, a gleam in her eye. “Haven’t you seen today’s news about the Troll? It’s all over the Internet!”

“I don’t have the Internet here,” Nat said.

Sandy laughed. “That’s ridiculous.” She unzipped her backpack and yanked out a laptop computer.

“What’s that for?” Nat said.

“The news, silly. I’ll just find a wireless signal nearby. There’s bound to be a free one around here. It’s Seattle, after all.” Sandy typed like mad and soon had several news sites on screen at once.

Nat glanced around, nervous. “I wouldn’t do that in here.”

Behind him, unseen, a small spark leaped from fiber to fiber in the rug, arcing straight toward Sandy.

“Look at this,” she said. “Front page news all over the city.”

At the last moment, Nat spotted the little demon. “Sparky, no!” he yelped.

Sparky jumped the final distance by hopping onto Sandy’s sock, zipping up her pant leg, and setting the fine hairs on her arm upright as it dove at her computer.

Zaaaap!

Sandy’s laptop blinked once and went dead. Sandy groaned.

“I told you,” Nat said. “This is not a good house for computers. Cyberspace is very susceptible to chaos.”

“At least I got the scoop before your little friend crashed my laptop,” Sandy replied. She snapped her laptop closed.

“And?” Nat urged her.

“The police can’t find the Fremont Troll,” she announced.

“It’s under the Aurora Avenue Bridge,” Nat said.

“No, it isn’t.” Sandy had an excited look in her eye again. “It’s disappeared. Two tons of concrete, wire, and steel rebar—gone without a trace. Nothing but torn concrete and a hole where it once crouched under Highway 99. The Seattle Police says it’s a prank. They’re offering a reward for anyone who can find it. Ten thousand dollars. No questions asked.”

Richie walked in. Blood soaked his torn socks, and he had red slashes across his face and arms. “Ten K?” he gasped. “Whoa!”

Sandy stared. “What happened to you?”

“Blackberries,” he said. “Long story. Don’t ask.”

Nat stewed, puzzling over the news of the Troll.

“What are you thinking?” Sandy asked, wrapping a cloth around Richie’s bleeding leg.

“This is no prank,” Nat said. “The Troll is a demon.”

“Cool,” Richie said.

“But it doesn’t make sense,” Nat continued. “The Troll has always been a sedentary entity. Its only chaotic tendency is to make people feel uneasy with its frightening expression.”

“The Troll was an art piece created in 1990 from urban industrial materials,” Sandy explained, rattling off its history like an encyclopedia.

“Why now?” Nat began to pace. “What could make a fifteen-foot-high concrete statue move?”

“So we go hunt it down, right?” Richie said eagerly.

“Maybe,” Nat mumbled.

“And collect the cash-ola?” Richie wiggled his eyebrows.

Nat glared at Richie. “We’re a nonprofit organization. And we only capture demons in the wild when they fit the ‘nuisance demon’ profile. Their existence must be mutually incompatible with that of mankind.”

Sandy smirked. “Okay, let’s analyze what we’ve got here: there is an ambulatory, two-ton physical possession wandering around downtown in a major city.”

“That sound like a nuisance?” Richie smirked.

“Okay, okay. I’ll put it on my list of things to do,” Nat said, shaking his head. He was still fretting because he hadn’t located the demons that had escaped during his battle with the Thin Man and the Beast.

The Thin Man had kept three personal demons as his minions—Goop, Charr, and Wedge. Goop, the Quagmirian Congealment, had been pureed in a horrible incident involving a fan that crazy night. But Charr and Wedge had both survived and escaped. Charr, the living flame, had eluded Pernicious’s squirt bottle, diving deep into the wood of the house’s floorboards and inching its way to the entrance. It smoldered at the threshold until the door was opened and it could slip out across the wooden porch. In all the excitement of the night’s wild events, Nat had not sensed its escape.

Weakened to a mere ember, Charr slunk across the wooden porch, waited for days for the grass to dry out and then fled to the neighbor’s house and found Mr. Neebor’s newspaper, which the flame devoured for strength. From there, it leaped from flammable item to flammable item, burning its way down Queen Anne Hill. It found an old trash barrel, torched a junked car, rode a screaming transient’s coattail, and finally burned along a stretch of railroad ties that ran down to the shores of Puget Sound.

The persistent demon crawled along the Seattle docks, a frightening place for a little fire, given their proximity to water. It sought somewhere to hide, a place where it could be safe and grow.

Nat had tracked the little fire to the docks but lost its trail there. He had not yet found a trail for Wedge, the demonic crack that rent asunder anything it touched. The two destructive demons were running loose somewhere in the city, and it was his job to capture them before they did any harm. Nat took a deep breath. Now he had a runaway Troll to find too.

CHAPTER 6

UNDER THE BRIDGE

Sandy pulled over to the curb near the Aurora Avenue Bridge. Cars lined the street, and she had to parallel park. The process took her several minutes and inflicted minor dents on the bumpers of the vehicles in front of and behind hers.

Nat tried to help. “Forward . . . okay, now back, back, back . . . ”

Clunk!

“Stop.” Richie smirked.

When the car was finally parked, badly, they tumbled out and headed under the bridge.

It looked worse than it had on the news. The hole where the Troll’s lower half had been buried looked like a bomb crater. Chunks of concrete were scattered all over the street. Crowds of people milled about taking pictures, grabbing pieces of concrete as souvenirs, and puzzling over the disappearance.

Nat strolled to the edge of the hole, trying to look nonchalant. Yellow tape warned the public about the sudden pit. Richie walked up behind Nat and looked down.

“Hello-hello!” he barked, listening for an echo.

“Please don’t make a scene,” Nat whispered out the side of his mouth.

“So where could it hide?” Richie asked. “It’s as big as a rhino riding piggyback on an elephant.”

“I don’t know,” Nat said.

Richie turned to Sandy. “You’re the smart chick. Got a theory?”

“I’m working on it,” she replied tersely.

Nat caught sight of a man in a badly tailored suit looking in their direction. “Uh-oh. Let’s move along,” Nat said. He tried to pull Richie away, but it was too late.

The suited man poked through the rubble, taking notes, but when he spotted the kids, he sniffed the air and skittered toward them. He was the most shapeless man Nat had ever seen. No hips, no shoulders—just a tubular body with an unnaturally round head on top and sticklike arms and legs poking out the sides. He had a jerky, rushed manner.

“Hello. I am Mr. Calamitous. Who are you? I’m a researcher investigating this phenomenon, or an investigator researching it, whichever you like. I’m very excited. It’s amazing, don’t you think? May I interview you?”

He spoke so fast that it was hard to know which question he wanted answered.

“I heard it was a prank,” Nat mumbled.

Calamitous laughed. “Oh no. This is no prank. No prank at all.”

He sifted through crumbled concrete with his blunt fingers. He looked like he was missing a couple of digits, but they twitched so rapidly that Nat couldn’t quite tell.

Calamitous sniffed the concrete. “Something happened here. Something strange. Something . . . chaotic.”

“University students, probably,” Nat suggested. “They’re wacky and pranky.”

“Tell me,” Calamitous chattered, “do you live around here? Close? Nearby?”

“Yes,” Richie said.

“No,” Nat said at the same time.

“You don’t and you do?” Calamitous eyed Nat and Richie in turn. “Tch-tch-tch,” he tittered, shaking his head. “How do you know each other? Where’s the connection. What’s the relationship?”

“We don’t really . . . ,” Nat began.

“He’s my 12-step sponsor,” Richie cut in. “I’m addicted to video games.”

“Hmmm.” Calamitous put one of his twitching fingers on his chin. “And the female?”

“The what?” Sandy blurted.

“Who is she? Where is she from? Does she not live around here too? What is her role in this supernatural event?”

Nat squirmed. “Who said this was supernatural?”

“Do any of you feel what happened here?” Calamitous kept talking, scribbling notes as he babbled.

“I think I felt a twinge,” Richie offered.

“Could you excuse us, please?” Nat said, grabbing Richie by the collar.

“Oh no. No excuses,” Calamitous said, excited spittle leaping from his mouth. “I’m hot on the trail. And the trail seems to lead through you somehow.” Suddenly, he stopped, sniffed the air, and hurried off.

Just then, a Volkswagen Bug drove up. It was pink, and painted flowers adorned its exterior. The tiny car pulled a huge trailer with equally colorful murals painted on its sides. Another car departed, leaving a large parking space, and the Volkswagen and its trailer drifted smoothly up next to the curb.

Nat hauled Richie into a corner.

“What’s your problem?” Richie said. “He’s just doing research.”

“On us!” Nat snapped. “He’s nosy. He’s snooping. And we’re supposed to be inconspicuous.”

“If I knew what that meant, I’d try to be it,” Richie said.

“It means shut up,” Nat said. “And don’t tell people where you live.” Just then, Nat froze and gazed past Richie at the VW Bug.

An eighteen-year-old girl stepped out. She wore a tie-dyed sack dress whose colors seemed to swim as it moved. Her Birkenstock sandals were so well-worn that they seemed molded to her elegant feet. She had long auburn tangles of unmanaged hair that seemed to go wherever it wanted but always in an interesting direction. And a small, glittering emerald jutted from one side of her pierced nose. She closed her deep green eyes, feeling the aura of the area.

Nat stared at her.

Sandy stared at Nat. Her eyebrows pinched with concern. “What are you looking at?” she asked, despite it being clear exactly what he was looking at.

The girl shook her renegade hair and walked past the crowd, straight to Nat.

“I’m Lilli,” she said, “from San Francisco. Is this where the Troll was?” She closed her eyes. “Ah, yes. I’m getting a vibe. I think it’s still close by.”

“Wow,” Nat said.

“Not exactly a revelation,” Sandy jumped in. “It couldn’t have gotten far without someone seeing it.”

“You’d be amazed what people don’t see,” Lilli said in a way that was both whimsical and dismissive at the same time.

“So true,” Nat agreed.

Sandy fumed, speechless.

“I’m going to check out its former pad,” Lilli said. She smiled at Nat and then sashayed under the bridge toward the pit.

Nat watched her swinging hips send colors rippling through her dress in rhythmic waves as she walked away.

“Nat,” Sandy said. “Nat!”

“I’m listening.”

“No, you’re not,” Sandy insisted. “Now look away from the hippy chick for just one second.”

“Okay. What?”

“The police think thieves hauled the statue away on a truck,” Sandy said. “I don’t believe that, do you?”

“No. It walked away. I’m sure of it.”

“The thing weighs tons. If it walked across the grass on either side of the street, it would have left footprints.”

“Okay . . . ”

“So it must have walked straight down the street. And there’s only one logical place where something that big could hide.” Sandy turned and motioned to the end of the street, which ran out from under the bridge. It led directly to the shore of Lake Union on the edge of downtown Seattle.

CHAPTER 7

DESTRUCTIVE DEMONS

Neebor slumped to his knees in his garden, dismayed. His award-winning tulips had melted into yellow and pink globs. What was left of them looked like dried drippings of wax from a candle. The average man would have imagined that a toxic chemical had been dumped on them, but Neebor knew better. He glared up at the looming house next door—Nat’s house. He couldn’t imagine how, and didn’t want to, but somehow the house and the bizarre goings-on next door had mutated his prized flowers into worthless goo.

As Neebor stared upward, he heard a sound behind him.

Rustle-rustle.

He whirled. “Who’s there?”

The sound came from behind him again, this time from the other direction.

Rustle-rustle.

Neebor began to crawl through his garden, wielding a hand shovel and wondering if he might catch the culprit who’d murdered his tulips.

Suddenly, dirt erupted behind his strawberry patch. He turned and raised his shovel. He didn’t see movement, but he saw a spiny shoot on the ground, invading his patch of ruby red strawberries.

“Blackberries,” he sneered.

If he didn’t do something soon, it would be a berry war, he decided, and there was no question that his strawberries would lose. He plunged the shovel into the ground, cutting the blackberry branch off at the root.

“Ha!” he laughed.

When he turned away, the shoot writhed, kicking up dirt and sending a dying signal to its fellows. Neebor looked over his shoulder and frowned. More blackberry branches had surfaced—huge, sinewy ropes of thorns weaving into his hydrangea and out of his lilacs. How had he missed them on his first glance? He wondered.

He crouched, rotating in place, scanning the rows. Each time he turned the stems seemed to have infiltrated more of his garden. They were getting closer too. He never saw them move, but somehow they had surrounded him.

Richie babbled about the new girl as they neared Nat’s house. “She’s got that earthy thing goin’. And did you check out her ride? All pimped out with bloomage.”

“I guess that’s cool,” Sandy sighed, turning onto Nat’s street, “if you’re into that.” She glanced over at her boyfriend.

“Yeah,” Nat said, carefully noncommittal.

Sandy crinkled her nose. “‘Yeah,’ as in, it is cool, and you are into it?” she asked. “Or ‘yeah,’ as in, it’s only cool if you’re into that sort of thing, which you’re not?”

“Huh?” Nat said.

“I mean, it’s just a clothing style and an old VW Bug she’s painted up to look ‘groovy,’ for gosh sakes,” Sandy snapped.

“She had a sense for the Troll,” Nat said. “She felt it.”

“According to her own self.”

“Whoa! You think she’s, like, a gypsy fortune teller or something?” Richie chimed in.

“Look,” Sandy interrupted, “we know the Troll couldn’t have gone far without being seen. Ergo, it must have hidden in the lake. Not a big mystery. What do you think, Nat?”

“Yeah,” Nat said, gazing out the window. “Lilli said it would be close by.”

“I said, what do you think?” Sandy insisted.

“I think I agree with her.”

Sandy pulled over abruptly, her tire running up onto the curb.

“Are we getting out here?” Richie asked.

Moments later, Nat and his apprentice stood on the sidewalk as Sandy sped off, and Nat didn’t think that Sandy’s comment about needing to drop them off two blocks from the house because she was late getting home was completely true. They began to walk.

As they approached the house, Nat suddenly stopped. He crouched. “Look at this.” A tiny crack ran along the pavement.

“It’s a crack in the sidewalk,” Richie observed. “So what?”

Nat pointed to where it led. Richie followed Nat’s finger along the concrete path and up the walk. The crack ran all the way around the house and into the backyard. He hadn’t noticed it before.

“Do you feel something?” Nat asked.

“Yeah,” Richie nodded. He turned and followed the crack the other direction. Nat jogged alongside him. The fracture in the ground wound down the hill for more than a mile, veering off through driveways, wood fences, and concrete walls as it broke everything in its path.

“This is the sort of track Wedge leaves behind,” Nat explained. “It’s the Thin Man’s second minion, the divider. It’s a parasite of sorts. It forces its way into solid objects, lives inside them, and tears them apart. The night we fought the Thin Man, Nikolai tore up the floorboard that Wedge was inhabiting so that the crack had nowhere to go. Then Nik threw the board into our garden pond. A crack can’t get loose in the water because it can’t break its way through liquid. The piece of wood must have drifted against something so that Wedge could make the jump to a solid object—something it could get inside and split open.”

“Like a concrete wall in an artificial pond,” Richie said.

“Exactly,” Nat said. “You’re learning.”

“It’s getting bigger.” Richie pointed to a larger gap in the street as they walked.

“It’s feeding and growing,” Nat explained.

The boys followed the crack for several more blocks, shuffling along hunched over, until they came to a paved footpath that had been completely torn asunder. The path led to a square where a horse statue was split in half. The front half looked like a two-legged animal standing upright and the back half looked like an obscene practical joke tilting out to present itself to passing traffic. The boys turned a corner.

“Oh my God!” Nat gasped.

“Yeah, that’s not good,” Richie said.

Two houses leaned at odd angles, their foundations shattered. They stood, half tilted, at the edge of a sinkhole the size of a swimming pool that dove into the earth beneath Mercer Street between Nat’s neighborhood and downtown Seattle. A third house had completely collapsed. Shattered glass, bent furniture, and broken wallboard lay scattered in the street. A crew of workmen loaded trucks with debris while a man, a woman, and three children watched from a nearby lawn as the remnants of their home were carted away.

“This is where Wedge went,” Nat said with a guilty sigh. “I let it get away, and now it’s grown large enough to tear down homes.”

“Let’s go get it,” Richie said. “C’mon, I’ve been waiting for some action for weeks.”

“We can’t. It’s gone underground. We can’t follow it there.”

“At least we know where it is,” Richie offered.

“Yeah,” Nat said grimly, “downtown, beneath the skyscrapers.” He turned and started back toward the house. “One problem at a time,” he said. “We need to find the Troll first.”

CHAPTER 8

LILLI’S TRAILER

Lake Union sat on the north edge of downtown Seattle. Dozens of heavily occupied businesses leaned out over the waters of its southern shore. Not a good place to have a giant Troll running loose, Lilli thought as she peered across the lake from Seattle’s Gas Works Park on the opposite northern shore.

Gas Works Park was a nineteen-acre peninsula that stuck out into the lake. The land had been purchased by the City of Seattle in 1962 and turned into a public park, but with one catch: the old, rundown gas plant had to remain. The decaying forty-foot- high gas tanks towered over the grassy playground like grumpy giants—big, scowling, and old. Lilli admired them. They looked wonderfully out of place in the happy green park, an industrial contrast to the fresh air and open space. Their preservation pleased her.

Lilli watched the water. The random collisions of the waves made the lake sparkle like a Christmas tree. It was ever-changing and beautifully chaotic, but she’d been staring across the water for an hour and seen no sign of the Troll. She stepped out of the shadow of the rusting factory. It was beautiful, in its own way, the rust slowly changing its colors. Had she thought about it from another point of view, she might have realized that the rust was also eating the old factory alive, but her perspective was that of an artist.

Lilli walked up the path to her parked trailer. The trailer was actually a converted tour bus discarded by the failed folk band Groove-a-Thon from the ’60s. The bus didn’t run. Instead, it was towed by the flowery little VW Bug, which was scientifically impossible but somehow worked. Elaborate murals adorned its exterior, and the windows were painted over with funky earth-tone oranges and greens.

Lilli checked over both shoulders, pushed open the bi-fold bus door and stepped inside.

The long front hall led to a large living room. Her bedroom door was on the left, and the kitchen was visible through an archway. The big rooms and long halls were, of course, as impossible as the tiny car towing the incredible bus, yet they existed for Lilli. From the outside, her trailer was a just a dead vehicle. Inside, it was as large as a small house.

Lilli glanced around the psychedelic landscape of the main room. Living colors moved across the walls and then left them and floated through the room. They came to her, nuzzling, dazzling, flowing over her feet and curling around her ankles like cuddling cats. Amorphous creatures of paint and clay swam along the floor of the room like an animated carpet.

Lilli swept her hand, and the colors changed wherever she pointed. There were hundreds of the creatures, all shapes, sizes, and sounds—visual and audio—gathered from buildings and subways and dozens of other places where random chaotic beauty sprang up in the city but would disappear if she didn’t collect and preserve it.

Lilli’s own aura glowed purple all around her as she finally flopped down, weary from the day’s events. One of her pets formed an instant hammock beneath her, supporting her limp body as she fell backward and relaxed, trusting them to catch her.

Across the room, a shadowy spot appeared in a dark corner, a black void in the swirling colors. The darkness spread like ink bubbling to the surface of a bright drawing and creeping outward over the picture, blotting it out.

Lilli shifted in her hammock to get a better look at the strange occurrence developing in her trailer.

A pair of round white eyes blinked open in the center of the blackness. They narrowed beneath heavy pinched brows and fleshy eyelids, fixing on her. A thick bald head emerged from the shadows around the eyes, and a broad, sinister grin underscored it all, completing the face of something dark, menacing . . . and chubby.

“Very dramatic, Zoot.” Lilli smirked. “But I’m not spooked.”

Zoot grunted, disappointed, and stopped fading into the room through the shadow. Instead, he raised a short trident—which looked very much like an elaborate dinner fork—tore a clean white rent in the blackness and then popped out of the hole fully formed and landed in the middle of the room on his ridiculously long two-toed feet with a huge smile.

Lilli grinned back. Her demonic companion stood about to her knee, his plump body a bright, unnatural pink, except for his huge tan belly. Two curved, oversized green horns jutted from his head. The hands at the end of Zoot’s skinny arms were as blunt as the rest of him—he had only three fingers on each, and a thick, unsharpened claw extended from the end of each finger. They were more like mitts than hands, Lilli thought, and he looked, overall, like a giant pink pear with clown feet and sheep horns.

“Can you clean that up?” she asked.

Zoot swung the trident in a circle, and the black hole behind him snapped shut, allowing the colors to flow into the corner again.

“The Troll is hiding,” Lilli said.

Zoot frowned, thinking and then swept the trident across the wall. A deep blue color swirled into a round shape, and charcoal lines ran upward, forming towers.

“Exactly,” Lilli said. “The lake in the middle of the city.” She rose from the hammock and put a hand on Zoot’s thick head. “I think it’s scared of something.”

Zoot twirled the trident, painting a vicious snarl on Lilli’s face.

“No,” Lilli said. Her voice came out in a growl. She wiped away the sneer he’d given her with the back of her hand. “Not us.”

There was a knock at her door.

It was not unusual for police to roust her out of places she’d decided to park the colorful VW and trailer. She walked down the hall and opened the bus door, wary, but it wasn’t the police.

A twitchy, odd-shaped man with a notebook stood at the bottom of the bus steps. He spoke eagerly, rapid-fire.

“Hello,” he said. “I saw you today under the bridge. You’re looking for the Troll. Me too. I’m Mr. Calamitous, incidentally. I’m investigating its disappearance.” He stopped and sniffed the air and then peppered her with questions, not slowing down long enough for her to answer. “Can I have a moment? Can I interview you? Can I come in?”

“Not the best time,” Lilli interrupted.

“But why? Why not? What’s the issue? Where’s the problem? Just a moment of your time, yes?”

“No. My place is a mess.”

“A few questions out here, then?” He put his foot up on the first step of the bus. “A couple? Two or three?”

“Hey, man, no offense, but I’m starting to feel like you’re in my space.”

”Then I’ll come back. That’s what I’ll do. Later.”

“I won’t be here,” Lilli said.

“That’s fine. Okay. Yes. Thank’s for your time, Miss . . . ?”

Lilli shut the door.

Whump!

Zoot materialized from the colors in her dress, scratching his round belly with his trident.

“I didn’t like that guy,” Lilli said.

Zoot shrugged.

“I don’t know why,” Lilli answered. “But his karma is all mucked up, and I can’t see his aura at all.” She locked the door and headed down the hall toward her bedroom. Zoot followed. “I think I’m gonna crash for now and start my search in the morning, Zoot,” Lilli said. “It’s not like someone else is going to find the Troll tonight.”

CHAPTER 9

GRUFF MEASURES FOR OUT-OF-CONTROL TROLLS

At 4:30 a.m. there was no traffic on the Aurora Avenue Bridge, except for three teenagers leading three goats, each bigger than the last, down the middle of the street. Nat led the biggest goat, and his minion Flappy flew lookout overhead. The little wind demon fluttered spasmodically like a dizzy, scaly, poodle-sized hummingbird.

“This is ridiculous,” Richie said, struggling to drag his goat into line.

“Just keep the medium-sized goat in the middle,” Nat instructed.

Sandy led the small goat and carried the Demonkeeper Journal—the diary and notes of every Keeper in Nat’s long line of predecessors. Unfortunately, it was written in dozens of different languages. She quoted from it as she walked.

“Here’s one I can read. It’s from Michael Jones Francis, an English Keeper from a couple of centuries ago. He says a demon gets its energy from the chaos that creates it and reflects that same type of chaos back upon the world.” She closed the book and stuffed it in her backpack for safekeeping. “In the Troll’s case, four insane Seattle artists were interpreting the fairy tale Three Billy Goats Gruff in the middle of an urban neighborhood when they sculpted it.”

“Uh-oh,” Richie groaned, “she’s using the librarian voice.”

Sandy continued, ignoring him. “They constructed the Troll illegally, hauling all the parts to the site in just two days and cementing the huge statue in place while pretending to be a road crew. Isn’t that fascinating?”

Richie snorted. “Did you know that people who memorize history are doomed to repeat it? Over and over.”

Blue and red lights suddenly flashed behind them.

Nat winced. “Oh, dagnabbit! We’ve got more important things to deal with here.”

“Dude, you swear like an old man,” Richie said, reigning in his goat as a police car pulled up alongside them.

The officer stuck his head out the window. “Pull over, little shepherds.”

“Now what do we do?” Sandy hissed to Nat and Richie.

“I’ve got this one,” Richie said. “Cops are my area of expertise.” He turned to the officer. “Hey. Sorry to mess with the traffic. Our trailer broke down. Pretty lame, eh?”

“You sound Canadian,” the officer said.

“You’re a perceptive dude. Yeah, we’re from a cheese farm across the border up north. We’re taking these little billies down to the Puyallup County Fair.”

“Yeah? Where’s your trailer?” the officer asked.

Richie fussed with his goat for a moment, buying himself time to think.

Sandy piped up. “You know the groovy trailer on the far side of the bridge? The one towed by the flowered VW Bug?”

“Oh yeah,” the officer said. “I saw that earlier today. You must be friends with the pretty girl in the sack dress.” Sandy winced but nodded grudgingly. He nodded back, satisfied. “All righty, then. It’s late. Better get these goats where they need to be before any cars come.” The officer waved them on and drove away.

“Wow,” Richie said to Sandy, “you lie like a pro.”

“Don’t get used to it,” Sandy snapped. “I hate doing that.”

“Thanks,” Nat said. “Go ahead and take the small goat across.”

As the police car turned a corner and drove away, Sandy led her goat over the bridge. The boys waited.

“Nothin’,” Richie said as she disappeared into the darkness on the far side of the bridge.

As they watched Sandy, neither of them noticed Flappy frantically trying to get their attention. The wind demon swooped low, meaning to fly right past their faces, when a huge concrete hand reached up over the side of the bridge behind them and slapped Flappy head over tail off into the darkness.

Whap!

Richie whirled. “Trrrrrroll!” he yelled.

The huge statue climbed up onto the Highway 99 bridge deck, its gargantuan hands crunching the aluminum rails like plastic straws.

“Execute the plan!” Nat barked, and they turned their goats loose.

In the fairy tale, two goats passed a vicious troll as the creature waited for larger, juicier prey, and when the largest goat arrived, it butted the troll back to where it came from under its bridge.

The two animals led by Nat and Richie, however, took one look at the towering concrete monstrosity and fled back across the bridge, clip-clopping like mad across the pavement.

The Troll ripped the guardrail from its moorings and swung it in a wide arc. It whistled toward the boys.

“Plan B!” Nat barked. “Run!”

They ran just as the guardrail came down on the concrete behind them.

Crunch!

The Troll lumbered after them.

“See? It went for the goats!” Nat puffed as they ran. “It can’t deny its nature.”

“Apparently the goats can, though,” Richie breathed. “They obviously don’t know the fairy tale. And they’re faster than we are, so it’s going to reach us first!”

The Troll swiped at them with giant concrete hands and buried its feet in the pavement with each step. Nat and Richie quickly arrived at the end of the bridge, and Nat leaped off, running underneath.

“Nat, don’t go under there!” Richie shouted. “You’ll be trapped.”

Nat found the two goats huddled under the bridge. “You were supposed to attack,” he told them.

The goats simply stared, not understanding their role in the strange game the teenage human was playing and certainly not willing to follow his directions after he’d led them straight to a bizarre, monstrous thing that obviously wanted to eat them.

Richie joined Nat. “Shoo! Shoo!” he shouted at the animals. “If you’re not going to fight, then run!” He kicked one of the goats in the butt. It bleated and kicked him back.

“Oww!” Richie yelped.

“All of you get out of here!” Nat demanded. But it was too late. At that moment, the Troll climbed over the side of the bridge and dropped its two tons of concrete and steel on the ground right in front of them.

Kaboom!

It had them cornered.

“Now what?” Richie asked.

Nat glanced at his watch. “We wait.”

“We won’t have to wait too friggin’ long!”

The Troll stomped forward and reached for them just as the sun peeked over the horizon. The mighty creature stiffened and then shoved past them, tossing the boys and goats aside with sweeps of its mighty arms. It fell forward with a thunderous crash and began to squeeze madly back into its space under the bridge. Moments later, it was frozen solid.

The police car followed the giant depressions in the asphalt to the end of the bridge, where the officer parked his cruiser. He peeked over the side and saw two huge footprints in the sidewalk. Curious, he leaped over the rail, dropping beneath the bridge, where he was confronted with a bizarre sight.

The Troll had returned to its space, as good as new, except that it had returned to its hole headfirst, and instead of leaving its upper half exposed, its head and shoulders were buried and its giant legs and rump stuck up in the air.

CHAPTER 10

TWO KISSES

Nat and Sandy stood on the porch. It was fully morning now, and the sun leaked through the gray clouds, illuminating their tired faces.

Things hadn’t gone as planned, as they always didn’t. Flappy was gone, knocked off into the darkness and, no doubt, wandering aimlessly, as he was prone to do. It was unlikely he’d be back anytime soon, for he had a miserable sense of direction. It was a difficult loss—Nat was quite fond of the little wind demon. Dhaliwahl had introduced the two of them when Nat had first come to the house. Initially, Dhaliwahl hadn’t wanted Nat to get too friendly with the unpredictable little beast, but the two of them had gotten along so well that Nat’s mentor had relented, and Flappy had become Nat’s first minion.

Besides losing Flappy, the Troll hadn’t been put back properly—not a subtle recovery for a Demonkeeper and his apprentice. They’d almost been caught at the scene too. Fortunately, when Sandy had come running back across the bridge, she’d astutely suggested that they hide behind Lilli’s nearby trailer before the police officer arrived. The goats were so scared that they had stood in petrified silence while the policeman poked around under the bridge less than fifteen feet away.

Then there was the strange reporter who was too interested in Nat and the strange girl, Lilli, in whom Nat was too interested. Nat found his mind filled with a dozen things besides Sandy as he stood with one hand on the doorknob waiting for her to leave.

“I told my mom I was doing seriously early inventory this morning for my job at the library before opening,” Sandy said. “I’d better get there and firm up my alibi.”

“Okay,” Nat said, wondering why, if she had to go, she was still standing there.

“I had a good time,” she continued. “Could have died, but it was interesting.” Again she lingered. Finally, she licked her lips.

Suddenly, Nat understood. She wanted to kiss. It seemed that she always did after they had a brush with danger. They’d kissed after the terrifying episode with the Thin Man. In fact, she’d been smoochy for several days. And she’d gotten into a lip-locking mood again immediately after they were almost run down by Nat’s demonic old lawn mower a couple of weeks later. They’d mashed their mouths together right there in the garden shed.

He looked at Sandy in the bright light of the day. They had been up since 3:30 a.m., and her eyes were red. They bulged out behind her thick glasses, and she was drenched from the drizzling rain like a wet rat. She looked a bit weathered, Nat thought, and smelled a little like a goat too. He hesitated.

“You seem distracted,” she said.

He didn’t want to explain, so he leaned in. She closed her eyes and puckered up, and he kissed her . . . on the cheek. Sandy blindly tried to find his mouth and kiss back but missed. Their noses bumped.

“Well, okay,” Nat said, ending the embrace abruptly. “See you tomorrow.”

“It is tomorrow.”

“Right. Then I’ll see you today.”

“Okay.” Sandy frowned. She finally gave up and walked away.

Richie looked out the window with Nik on his shoulder and Pernicious perched on his head.

“Totally weak, man.”

“I’ve got things on my mind, all right?” Nat snapped. “And what are you doing watching us, anyway?”

“So what’s up next,” Richie said. “We go after Charr? Wedge? The Loch Ness Monster?”

“I need to think,” Nat said. “I’m going for a walk.”

“I’ll get my sweatshirt.”

“Alone,” Nat grumbled, and he started down the steps.

“Don’t worry,” Richie called after him, “I’m gettin’ this Keeper thing totally figured out. I’ll hold down the fort while you’re gone.”

Behind Richie, the comforter from his wandering bed snuck up on him. It engulfed him and dragged him off down the hall, thumping into furniture and walls. Nik and Pernicious gave chase, squealing with laughter.

“You do that,” Nat said to himself.

Minutes later, Nat found himself standing outside Lilli’s funky trailer, wondering why he’d come. His heart was beating quickly, telling him that he shouldn’t be there, but just as he was about to turn and go, the bi-fold door swooshed open.

The smell of incense drifted out, and Lilli drifted out after it like a mirage. She wore a smock with paint stains and didn’t seem surprised to see him.

“Ah, there you are,” she said. “Finally.”

“How’d you know I was coming?”

“You were red.”

“Red?”

“Your aura, man. You lit up like a light bulb when you saw me.”

“You see things?” Nat said.

“I see beauty in things.”

“Not me. I see chaos.” Nat didn’t know how much he should tell her. He didn’t even know her, but he felt an instant kinship and wanted to tell her who he was, what he was.

Lilli laughed. “Honestly, the way I see stuff freaks me out sometimes, but I think what matters is what you feel. What do you feel?”

“I feel responsible for things,” Nat said.

“Like what?”

“The entire world sometimes.”

Lilli waved a paintbrush Nat hadn’t even noticed she was holding. Color danced from the end, splashing the nearby concrete wall with vibrant life. “What do you see there?”

“Graffiti?”

Lilli laughed. “Oh, that’s sad. You poor boy. You need to come inside and see the bright side of things.” She led him to the trailer and opened the door. She hesitated at the threshold. “Can you keep secrets?”

“That’s what I do,” Nat said.

“Do you know what I am?” Lilli asked him.

Nat’s heart leaped. “I think so,” he said eagerly. “Do you know what I am?”

Lilli nodded. “Yeah. It’s all around you, man. It just takes someone who knows what your colors mean.”

“Yeah? So what does it mean if I’m red and as bright as a light bulb?”

Lilli leaned toward him. “This . . .”

She pulled Nat to her and kissed him. Lilli kissed freely and deeply, her lips unrestrained, wandering, doing as they pleased. It was unlike Sandy’s careful calculated smooches. It was better.

When their mouths parted, a purple haze drifted between them. Even Nat could see it.

“So, did you feel that?” Lilli grinned after it faded.

“Uh-huh.”

“C’mon. I want to show you more beautiful things.”

CHAPTER 11

PLAYGROUNDS

Flappy tumbled out over Elliot Bay, tossed to and fro by gusts of damp air, a wind demon bullied by his own type of chaos. Slapped silly by the Troll, the little incarnation wandered, dazed, over the salty waters of Puget Sound.

Flappy was outside the confines of the house and away from his Keeper, Nat, for the first time in years, and he was lost. Yet the openness felt strangely liberating and oddly familiar. As he drifted out over the islands, he began to swoop and soar at will in his new playground. Some demons had memory. Others, like Flappy, drifted from one thing to another, letting go of the past to whimsically explore around the next corner. The blow from the concrete giant hadn’t done his recollection any good either.

The islands passed beneath him, dotting the Puget Sound all the way from Seattle’s Elliot Bay to the Strait of Juan de Fuca and beyond, to the vast Pacific Ocean in the distance. His wings stretched wide as he danced, carefree. He began to embrace his newfound freedom and forget his commitment to his Keeper, and like a koi wandering into a much, much larger pond, Flappy began to grow.

The Demoneater could smell them whenever they were near, wherever they gathered in great numbers, like the little beer demons in the waterfront tavern, or the big elementals that left obvious signs of their passing, such as the huge crack that had eluded it and escaped underground. The Demoneater knew it could not burrow fast enough to chase the fleeing creature . . . yet. It would need to grow better limbs for digging first.

Seattle seemed a plentiful hunting ground, though. Indeed, the quirky city’s hidden demons were part of its charm, its beauty, its tastiness. Some had already proven delicious, it thought, smacking its twitching, wet lips. And the next time the Troll moved, it would be tasty too.

For now, though, there was the flowered trailer it had been following for hundreds of miles. The trailer smelled heavily of chaos. The female human seemed to tend to it and care for the demons inside, but she would not put up much resistance, the Demoneater decided. She flitted about admiring them, gathering the pretty ones like wildflowers. She didn’t seem to be a fighter.

The Demoneater squeezed one long, spiny arm tight like a python as it mused about its future meals, eliciting an anguished squeak from the wide-eyed playground demon that it held down firmly on the schoolyard grass. Its sharp spines punctured the helpless creature in dozens of places.

With the children in class, the Demoneater had caught the bouncy little demon lurking alone beneath the jungle gym, happily waiting for the children to return for recess so it could spark them to delighted, giggly disorder. No more. The friendly demon was already leaking green chaos from its many wounds, and by the time the kids came back it would be completely devoured.

CHAPTER 12

THE KEEPER AND THE COLLECTOR

Nat walked through a curtain of multicolored beads of all shapes and sizes. The hanging strands writhed out of the way to let him pass. He stepped into the main room and stopped, amazed that it was impossibly bigger than the exterior of the trailer. The walls were covered in improvised murals, graffiti, and sketches, all in perpetual motion. As Nat’s eyes passed a piece, it morphed into something else. The sketches moved and shifted, drawing themselves. The room’s furniture was painted on the walls and floors.

“Have a seat,” Lilli offered.

Nat had already decided to trust her, so he leaned backward, and, miraculously, found himself sitting on a chair in the painting.

“Where did you get all this?” he asked.

“I see them out in the world and I collect them. I’m drawn to them.” A sketch behind her drew her portrait, which moved with her like a shadow. “They’re drawn to me too. When I find beauty in cities that is fleeting or unstable, I offer to bring it here and give it a home, a place to survive so that it’s not lost. This is more than a decade of my work.”

“It’s chaos,” Nat said. “I see it too, but you don’t handle it the way I do.”

“I’m a collector. Aren’t you?”

“I suppose. Yes. But I see things differently. And I call myself a Keeper.”

“You make it sound like a chore.”

“It is.”

“We should work on that,” she suggested. “Ugly thoughts, ugly karma. Why don’t you try thinking of something pretty?”

Nat stared at her, and her aura changed to a blushing pink.

“Something else, silly. Something deep in your heart. You can project it on the ever-changing art pieces. They reflect the thoughts of those who contemplate them. They’ll help you spill it out.”

Nat tried, digging down for his feelings. The colors shifted suddenly, flickered and whined.

“Happy thoughts,” Lilli instructed.

Nat worked at it, reaching into his emotions. He hadn’t dug around in his heart for a while, and it was hard. The colors blurred, turned ugly. A painful screech filled the room as a horrible scene materialized around him—water up to his neck and vague figures drowning. He stood, but the water rose with him. He tried to swim but couldn’t. He was sinking. He heard screams.

The colors wailed in agony.

“Whoa! You’re hurting them,” Lilli cried.

Zoot appeared and stabbed the long prong of his trident into Nat’s foot.

“Oww!” Nat let go of his feelings suddenly, blanking his mind. He hopped on one leg, holding his foot as the injured colors flooded away from him and flocked to Lilli for comfort. When he looked, his foot bore no scar; it had only been an illusion.

Zoot retreated quickly, positioning himself between Nat and the visual demons, holding the trident defensively in case Nat tried to express his feelings again.

“I’m so sorry,” Nat said.

“Have you sought therapy for that?” Lilli frowned, waving Zoot back. “I’ve never seen them do anything like this. It’s legitimately disturbing.”

“I should go,” Nat said, and he headed for the door.

Lilli softened. “Hey, no worries, huh?” She laid a hand on his shoulder. “So you have issues. I’m sure there’s a bright side. We just have to look for it.”

“This is really great in here,” Nat said. “It’s so peaceful. But I have to tell you, out there the world can be an ugly and harsh place.”

“The world can be beautiful and gentle,” she countered.

“Bad things happen.”

“Good things happen.”

Nat sighed. “You know,” he said, giving up the debate, “you might be just what I need.”

Nat walked home, his head spinning. The day before he’d thought he’d sensed a kindred spirit. He’d felt Lilli’s ability. But she wasn’t like him. They were similar in some ways, yes, but very different in others. She saw demons like he did, but she was an art collector whereas he was a zookeeper. She didn’t feel the weight of the world. She was free. She went where she pleased. She didn’t even see the dark side of chaos. He’d never considered the possibility that others with the ability to see chaotic creatures might use it so differently. Dhaliwahl had made it seem that there was only one use for the sight—to watch for trouble, to protect mankind and demons from one another like a grim referee. Lilli didn’t concern herself with such heavy matters. She was more like a happy kid gathering shells on the beach. She’d shown him that there was more than one way for someone like him to live, and the world was not as black and white as Dhaliwahl had made it seem. Nat began to wonder what other secrets his East Indian mentor might have kept from him.

CHAPTER 13

MASSACRE

The Demoneater watched Nathaniel go, curious. The boy had been at the Troll site too, it noted, and he smelled strongly of demons.

It turned its attention to the trailer, immediate hunger overcoming its curiosity. Always hungry. The trailer contained many demons. No major demons, but a smorgasbord of smaller entities. The girl that tended them was locking the door and leaving. The Demoneater had picked up her trail in San Francisco, where it saw her pull an entire mural from a railroad car simply by beckoning with her hand. She’d tucked it into her smock and taken it back to the living trailer. The Demoneater had been cruising the train yards feasting on random expressions of joy and angst thrown up by wandering gangs of teens, and so it felt cheated and decided that the girl owed it a hearty meal. Following her to Seattle had been no easy feat and required a change in form, but the accompanying change in scenery had proven interesting and appetizing. Like San Francisco, Seattle still bred the sort of variety and spontaneity upon which it fed.

It slithered to the bus, reared up beside the locked folding door, and smashed a claw through the full-length window. Broken glass tumbled over the creature’s hard exoskeleton as it rooted around inside for the latch mechanism. The door snapped open, and, seconds later, the Demoneater was inside and moving quickly down the hallway.

They fled before it, the loud living images and bright, colorful sounds in the hall retreating to the living room for safety. It didn’t matter. The Demoneater skittered after them and burst into the room, extending a sharp, straw-shaped beak like a monstrous mosquito and stabbing it into the molten colors, slurping the demons up as though they were a fleeing fruit smoothie. They screamed as they died, but even their sounds couldn’t escape. The Demoneater sucked those down too.

It gorged freely. The girl wasn’t around to try to stop it. She had been useful, though. She carried the smell of many demons, and her scent had led right to them.

Later that evening, Sandy hustled up onto Nat’s porch, eager and industrious. She juggled three different daily papers, her laptop safely at home. The door swung open to let her in, and she marched down the hall to the study, where Richie sat trying to coax Pernicious down from the chandelier, where the little demon was launching wads of spit at the unwary walking beneath him.

“Where’s Nat?” Sandy asked.

“Went for a walk,” Richie said.

“A walk?” Sandy crinkled up her nose. “Where?”

“I dunno.” Richie shrugged. “I’m not his mom.”

When Nat walked in minutes later, Sandy had her newspapers spread out across the coffee table and floor.

“Where were you?” she blurted out.

“I went for a walk.”

“Where?”

“What are you, my mom?” Nat said defensively as a glob of spittle splattered on his head.

Richie snickered, and Sandy threw the Seattle Times on the table. The front page photo showed the police officer they’d talked to the night before posing in front of the Fremont Troll’s exposed butt like a victorious boxer celebrating over a fallen opponent.

“That should be us on the front page,” Richie complained. “We caught it. We should have gotten the five grand too.”

“A Keeper doesn’t call attention to the demons he’s protecting,” Nat grumbled. “Now everyone’s talking about the backward Troll.”

“Yeah, they’re calling it the Fremont Fanny.” Richie laughed. “Bet that investigator guy would love to write our story.”

“We are not a story,” Nat insisted.

“I ordered us a pizza,” Sandy interrupted.

Richie pumped his fist. “Yes!”

“Vegetarian.”

“Noooo! That’s such a tease—like you get promised a kiss but it’s from your sister.”

Nat glanced about nervously at the mention of kissing.

“I figured we’ll need something to eat while we strategize,” Sandy said.

“I don’t recall calling for a strategy session,” Nat said.

“You said yourself that Charr and Wedge are still out there,” Sandy argued. “By the way, how did you know the Troll would go back to its hole?”

“I dunno. I just remember reading somewhere that Trolls freeze in the sun. It felt right.”

“We risked our lives. I think we ought to base our tactics on something more logical than a feeling.”

“These are not our tactics,” Nat said. “This is my burden. If you two don’t like the way I do things, you don’t have to help me. And Richie, if you’re going to be a Keeper, you’ve got to understand there are no rewards here, no newspaper photos, and no interviews with strange men.”

“You’re not my dad,” Richie said.

“My house, my rules,” Nat shot back.

Sandy began to flip through the Demonkeeper Journal. “That’s not what the Journal says. Just a moment, I’ll find it.”

“Give me that!” Nat snatched it from her.

“I thought you wanted me to read it for you.”

“Not so you could use it against me!” Nat snapped, exasperated.

“What’s gotten into you?” Sandy said, suspicious. “You’ve been acting strange ever since . . . ”

Just then, a knock echoed down the hall from the front door. “I’ll get it,” Nat said, happy for an excuse not to answer her question.

“It’s probably Channel Five looking to interview the great Troll slayers,” Richie called after him.

“It’s probably the police tracking us down to ask how we put the thing in backward,” Nat mumbled.

But when Nat opened the door, it wasn’t the police or the news. It was Lilli, and she was in tears.

“They’re gone,” she sobbed.

“Who?” Nat asked.

“All of them.”

Lilli’s trailer rose like a lonely black box on the shoreline of Lake Union, silhouetted against the moonlit water. Nat, Richie, and Sandy approached it with Lilli hovering behind them.

“I can’t go in,” Lilli whispered. “It’s too awful.”

Nat motioned for her to stay put and slunk toward the converted bus. Richie followed. When Nat hesitated at the smashed window, Richie pushed past him and gave the folding door a vicious kick.

Wham!

The bus door bent inward, sliding partially open. A waft of air hit Nat in the face. The rich incense scent from earlier no longer drifted out. Instead, the lukewarm gust smelled like something Nat couldn’t quite place.

“Take it easy, would you?” Nat warned Richie as his apprentice craned his neck to look in. “It might still be dangerous.”

“It is dark in there,” Richie said, unwilling to actually stick his head inside.

Nat looked over Richie’s shoulder. Neither breathed.

Click!

A flash of light slashed through the darkness. The boys jumped and whirled around.

“Sandy!” Nat barked.

Sandy stood behind them with a flashlight. “What?” she said as she shined it into the trailer.

Clean white walls greeted Sandy’s glowing beam. Nat stared, slack-jawed. The amazing colors and sounds were gone. So was the furniture. So were the rooms. The interior of the trailer had shrunk to a single space and was, by all appearances, a bare, empty bus.

Nat suddenly recognized the scent, or, more accurately, the lack of any. The bus smelled sterile. All the scents had disappeared too.

Sandy stepped inside, puzzled. “Soooo, what’s so awful?”

“Like she said,” Nat whispered, climbing carefully inside, “everything she had is gone.”

“Stolen?”

“No,” Nat said.

“And why are you whispering?” Sandy said. “There’s nothing here.”

Richie hopped up the steps and into the trailer, relaxed now. “Dude, I gotta say, and I have some experience with this, it looks like her stuff was stolen.”

“Nobody could transport what she had.” Nat frowned.

“How do you know what she had?” Sandy shot back.

“I need to ask Lilli some questions,” Nat said quickly, and he hurried off the bus.

Lilli waited outside, devastated. She looked as though she might simply go limp and collapse at any moment. Nat took her by the shoulders.

“Where were you when this happened?” he asked.

“Zoot and I went down to Pike Place Market for the day,” she sobbed.

“Could they be hiding? Playing a big joke on you? Pernicious does it to me all the time.”

Sandy and Richie hurried over to listen in.

“No, no, no.” Lilli shook her head, flinging tears left and right like a wet dog.

“Did you leave the door open? Maybe they escaped.”

“No. They wanted to be here. It’s more horrible than that. Listen, I can’t explain it. I just feel it.”

Sandy frowned. “There’s something she’s not telling you, Nat.”

“Like what?” Nat said.

“I don’t know,” Sandy answered, “but there seem to be a few secrets flying around between you two.” She glared alternately at Nat and Lilli.

“She’s a Keeper, Sandy,” Nat said abruptly.

“What?!”

“She kept her demons in the trailer. Harmless visual and audio manifestations, mostly, but lots of them. They’ve disappeared.”

“When did you learn all this?”

“I just, uhhh . . . I felt it. You know, like we Keepers do.” Nat turned to Lilli, avoiding Sandy’s stare. “Tell me what you think happened. I can’t help you if you don’t.”

“Yes, you can,” Lilli said, staring off, her previously lively eyes as colorless and vacant as her dead trailer.

“How?” Nat said.

“I’m gonna need a place to crash.”

CHAPTER 14

OVERNIGHT GUEST

Sandy stood rigid on the front porch, and Nat leaned uncomfortably in the doorway. Lilli stood behind Nat, inside the foyer, waiting for him to come inside.

“Nat,” Sandy said, “in the world of bad ideas, this is definitely in the top ten.”

“What is?”

“Having her stay overnight.”

“I’m helping out a friend.”

“You’re harboring some vagabond Keeper you barely know who just lost all her demons.” Sandy shook her head. “Listen to me. I sound like I’ve lost all my marbles.”

“Yes, you do,” Nat agreed. “Go home. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Early,” Sandy promised.

Nat waved the door closed.

CLUNK!

He turned to find Lilli waiting for him. Suddenly, they were alone. Nat caught himself staring at her.

“I’m sorry all your friends are gone,” he said. Lilli winced, and Nat knew immediately that he’d said exactly the wrong thing. “But I’ll be your friend,” he offered quickly.

“Thanks,” Lilli mumbled, and she looked around. She could see Nat’s demons—the living rug that tripped unsuspecting guests, the tippy walking table, the crystal chandelier that tinkled big-band songs from the ballroom where it had hung fifty years earlier.

Nat saw that she wasn’t ready to talk and led her down the hall.

Zoot trundled along behind her, glancing about. As Lilli and Nat walked off, the East Indian tripping rug curled beneath him, catching one of his oversized feet. He toppled forward, and his round body rolled across the foyer.

Nikolai hustled across the floor, stopped Zoot with his clawed foot like a soccer ball and then gave him a light shove. He rolled him back over the rug, and Zoot thumped against the front door.

“Yee-hee-hee-hee!” Pernicious howled with laughter as the tubby pink demon struggled, rocking back and forth until he could get to his feet.

Zoot stuck his trident into the wood floor and pushed himself up to a standing position as Nik and Pernicious snickered across the foyer. The pudgy demon frowned, walking around the rug and past them to follow the two Keepers. As he stomped by, he nonchalantly flicked the trident in the direction of Pernicious and Nik, coloring them both head to claw in yellow polka dots.

As Zoot disappeared around the corner, Nik and Pernicious looked at each other. They howled with laughter, pointing at one another’s spots. Then each looked down at himself and realized that they’d both been spotted. Their giggling ceased abruptly.

“I’ve never seen so many in one place,” Lilli said softly.

Nat was pleased to hear her speak. She’d given him only one-word answers since they’d left her empty trailer. Perhaps he could get her talking, he thought.

“This isn’t my personal collection,” he said. “My kind has been gathering them for centuries. I’m just the one currently responsible for their care. And your care too, for tonight. You okay?”

“No,” she said, and she kept walking.

Nat trotted after her and tried again. “Be careful around the mirror in the foyer,” he warned. “It will show you in your underwear if you’re not looking.”

He explained other bizarre furnishings as they went, falling over himself to get each door for her and head off mischievous demons as they tried to make her stumble, startle her, or leap out to tangle themselves in her wild locks. He scooped up the old broom with duct tape around the middle to swat away a squirming piece of chewed gum that first tried to thrust itself under her shoe. When she instinctively dodged the gum, it catapulted toward her head. Nat hit it midair with the broom, knocking it back down the hall, away from Lilli. The gum demon was notorious for sticking itself to shoes and hair, though it usually got into its victims’ hair while they slept.

They passed the bickering masks, who wolf-whistled at Lilli.

“Stop it!” Nat hissed. “She’s fragile right now.” He clapped his hands over their mouths and ushered Lilli past them and around the corner, where Dhaliwahl’s paintings of skeletal figures wailing in agony hung along the wall.

“Art,” Lilli said, immediately reminded of her loss. She stopped and stared.

Nat didn’t interrupt.

“So beautiful, so sad,” she remarked, letting herself drift through their macabre shapes and dim colors as though they might absorb some of her pain. “There’s something guilty in them—dark secrets.”

“I know,” Nat said. “I live with demons, and these still creep me out.”

“Who created them?”

“My mentor. I think he felt bad about locking his own teacher in the basement with a man-eating beast.”

Lillie looked around, unnerved.

“Long story,” Nat said, “and don’t go down there. The point is, it wasn’t his fault. He had to do it. That’s probably why this painting looks guilty.” Nat motioned to a piece depicting a desperate boy with his back against a door, holding it shut.

“So does the next one,” Lilli pointed out as she walked down the hall. “This one with the wrecked boat.”

Their tour led them through the dining room, where they skirted the massive table’s restless clawed feet to avoid being swiped.

“Why do you think we see them?” Lilli asked absently.

“I think it comes from growing up with chaos,” Nat said, “but just being exposed to it isn’t enough. Someone has to point out that the crazy things you’re experiencing aren’t normal. Then you recognize them for what they are. Dhaliwahl did that for me.”

They arrived in the study. The couch quickly scooted itself to exactly the wrong spot in the room, and a small flock of paperbacks fluttered home to their bookcase, stuffing themselves onto the shelves in a jumbled heap.

Nat pointed out the rows of former Keeper ash urns that lined the study. “My predecessors.”

He stood in silence as Lilli ran her hand across the urns, feeling their karma, concentrating. Nat could see her expression change with each urn she touched.

“This one’s empty,” she said.

“Yatabe the Wanderer,” Nat said. “He was eaten.”

Lilli winced and quickly moved on. As she reached upward to touch the last urn, Raja Dhaliwahl’s, Nat saw a huge tattoo scrawled like graffiti across the pale skin of her lower back between the hem of her blouse and her waistband. It looked like the silhouette of an urban cityscape against a sun rising from her skirt. As he stared, however, the scene changed. The sun seemed to be growing dimmer, setting into her skirt instead of rising, and he thought perhaps he had just been looking at the shadowy city the wrong way.

“It’s late,” Lilli said, and she turned to find his eyes locked on her backside. She crossed her hands over her body protectively.

Nat shrugged apologetically, but it was no use. Even with him she didn’t feel safe.

“Where do I sleep?” she asked.

CHAPTER 15

MOBILIZING

Lilli awoke the next morning to find Nat standing by her bed.

“How are you doing?” he said.

“I think I’ve gotten my head together a little,” she said. “Sorry I was so . . . ”

Nat waved her off. “No apology necessary. You had a rough day. Sleep okay?”

“Actually, I had a very weird dream that Richie dumped stinky fish guts under the bed in my room.”

“Your room?” Nat said.

She sat up. The bed was situated squarely in the middle of the foyer over the Indian tripping rug. “Whoa,” Lilli murmured, “freak-a-delic.”

“It’s a sleepwalker,” Nat explained, “a guest bed imbued with the uncertainty of flopping at the homes of others. People who aren’t careful where they lie down can wake up in strange places. It has been harassing Richie, so he was happy to sleep on the couch, but I figured it would like you so it wouldn’t take you anywhere too dangerous. C’mon, let’s get you some breakfast.”

Minutes later, Nik and Pernicious squatted on the breakfast table, eyeing the food Lilli was trying to eat. She didn’t seem too bothered until Nik let out a particular wet belch and Pernicious sneezed stringy green phlegm on her plate. She leaned back from the table and put her fork down. The little demons leaped forward.

“Pernicious! Nik!” Nat barked, dropping a hand in front of them. “Sorry. They do that on purpose to try to get your food.”

Lilli pushed her plate away. “That’s okay. If they’re that hungry, they can have it.”

“They’re always hungry,” Nat grumbled, “and if you reinforce their negative behavior, they’ll only get worse.” But it was too late. Pernicious was already standing in her food, lifting hunks of hash browns to his mouth with his nimble feet while Nikolai scooped her fried eggs into his mouth, dripping yellow yolk on the table.

“What are they?” Lilli said.

“Chaos. Like your living art, only . . . not . . . art. Nikolai is a demon of brute strength. Not too delicate.” Nik guzzled from a mug. His oversized paws crushed it mid-gulp, and milk joined the egg yolks on the table to form a white and yellow river that cascaded over the edge and splattered on the floor. Nik licked dribbles from his blue and yellow polka-dot fur with his long tongue.

“Pernicious is the demonic incarnation of nasty surprises,” Nat said. “He’s one of my minions.”

Pernicious looked up. Snot and hash browns comingled, hanging from the little demon’s doglike snout.

“Can I get you something else to eat?” Nat asked.

“Not too hungry anymore,” Lilli said as Zoot made a disgusted face from where he sat perched on her shoulder.

“Nik is my other helper. Very loyal. I had a third, but . . . ” Nat sighed.

Lilli nodded and interrupted so that he didn’t have to explain. “Zoot is my companion and complement,” she offered. “My yang, if you know what I mean. I’m mellow, he’s impetuous. I’m gentle, he’s fierce. I’m skinny . . . ” Zoot nodded along, rubbing his huge belly as Lilli spoke. “You get the idea,” she said.

“He seems quite loyal too,” Nat commented.

“He was just a pile of discarded spray paint cans when I found him, and I was a just a kid picking through junkyards.” She rose from the table. “Speaking of junkyards, I need to move my trailer today. My VW won’t tow it after . . . what happened.”

“Why?”

“No more good energy. It was a special car, a special trailer. They were just abandoned vehicles in the middle of the city, but I saw something in them and rescued them. For me they were amazing.” She sighed. “They’re not special anymore. Do you happen to know anyone with a tow truck?”

Nat knocked on Mr. Neebor’s door. He didn’t like talking to Mr. Neebor, or even seeing him, really. But he did it for Lilli. He was doing a lot of things for Lilli. He told himself that he was just helping out a friend, and when Neebor didn’t answer right away, he even ignored his instinct to be thankful for his good fortune and walk away. Instead, he knocked again.

The door cracked open and Neebor poked his shiny balding head out like a skittish seal surfacing from the water.

“Watch out for those blackberries!” he warned, glancing left and right. His ankles and hands were crisscrossed with gauze bandages.

“Mr. Neebor,” Nat said, “do you still have that old tow truck in your garage?”

Neebor frowned but nodded. “Why?”

“We need a tow.” Nat stepped aside, and Lilli grinned at his aging neighbor.

Nat watched the old man’s frown visibly melt before the power of her smile.

“I’ll get my coat,” Neebor said.

Minutes later, they were at the bridge. Lilly’s VW Bug and trailer sat lifeless by the curb. She was right, Nat thought—they actually seemed dead. The happy energy of the flowered car and the funky attitude of the bus had disappeared somehow, as though their lifeblood had been drained. They were just old, rusting, graffiti-covered vehicles now.

Neebor backed his tow truck up to the trailer. It chugged backward with a cough and a rumble. A faded sculpture of a foot hung over the top of its cab. Its cracked plaster toes dipped over the front windshield like limp hair, giving the vehicle a sad, weary look.

Lilli loved it instantly. “This is so groovy.” She clapped her hands. “It has personality.”

“Got it at an auction for practically nothing,” Neebor said proudly. He hit a lever to lower the hoist and locked the brakes. “Picked it up when old Ed Lincoln closed the city salvage yard downtown. I used to go down there and sneak over the fence to play in the junk cars before they crushed them. It’s a piece of genuine Seattle memorabilia.”

The hoist jerked and shuddered loudly. Metal scraped on metal, squealing so that Nat had to plug his ears.

“Too bad it’s all worn out,” Neebor apologized.

“It’s not worn out,” Lilli said as the hoist groaned. “Listen to it talk. It’s telling stories about the old days. It’s full of character, like its driver.”

Neebor stepped out to hook up the Bug, and Nat watched, surprised, as he did something Nat had never seen him do. The old man smiled.

“You just got yourself a free tow, missy,” he said.

Sandy stood on Nat’s porch, pounding on the door. “Let me in, stupid door!”

Finally, the door opened a crack, and Lilli peeked out. She saw that it was Sandy and waved to the door. “It’s okay. She’s cool,” Lilli said, and it swung wide.

“Of course I’m cool,” Sandy snapped. “But I’m wondering if someone told the door not to let a certain person in until that first someone later told the door that the second certain person was ‘cool’ and then it could let that person in.”

“Huh?” Lilli said.

“Never mind,” Sandy harrumphed. “Is Nat here?”

Just then, Nat walked down the stairs. “I heard a pounding noise.” He saw Sandy. “Oh. Hey.”

“Hey yourself,” Sandy said, pushing past Lilli. “Have you seen today’s paper?”

“No.”

“Then it’s a good thing I have. Here.” She tossed the newspaper to him. “Collapsed freeway and a warehouse fire,” she said before he’d had a chance to read it for himself. “People are dead.”

“Dead?” Nat gasped.

Sandy retrieved the Demonkeeper Journal as Richie walked in.

Nat slumped into a chair. “Fire and earthquake,” Nat groaned. “That’s Charr and Wedge.”

“I’ll look for their names in the Journal,” Sandy said. “Maybe we can find out more about them.”

“What about the third disaster?” Lilli added.

“Excuse me?” Sandy said, annoyed at being interrupted.

“Bad things come in threes.”

“That’s a myth,” Sandy said. “Nat, why is she butting in here?”

“She’s helping me,” he said. “She’s part of the team now.”

Sandy bristled. “Who decided that? Did I miss the vote?”

Nat ignored the questions. He was too busy feeling guilty for his failure to capture the Thin Man’s destructive little demons after the minion battle, and he suspected that they were not so little anymore. He opened the newspaper to a photo of the chaos downtown—the raging fire at the warehouse. Another photo showed piles of rubble and crushed cars from the collapsed viaduct that ran along the waterfront. Nat winced. He could see the Thin Man’s demons hidden in the photo.

Richie looked over his shoulder. Nat knew that his apprentice could see them too. To the untrained eye, they blended perfectly, but for the young Keepers whose scattered lives had made them so familiar with chaos, they popped out like bold images in a 3-D hidden picture.

“There they are,” Nat said grimly. “C’mon, we can’t leave them out there among mankind. They’re too dangerous now.”

“This could be my first capture in the wild!” Richie grinned.

“You aren’t ready to take on Charr or Wedge,” Nat said. “Now that they’re running free they’ve grown to lethal size. They’ll be first orders. I’ll deal with them. You just stay close, watch, and please try to do as I say.” Nat turned and whistled. “Minions! To me!”

Nik and Pernicious bounded into the room, ready for action.

“Richie, let Pernicious ride in your pocket. I’ll take Nikolai in the demon box.”

Nat pulled out a square puzzle box the size of an apple and shifted the lid first in one direction and then another. Nik looked on, frowning. He didn’t particularly like going into the box, but it was an easy way for Nat to transport him. The box was a powerful Demonkeeping tool for trapping and containing chaos, but it was also handy for carrying minions. Nik crept close to it and winced. The black void in the lid tugged at his fur and then, like a vacuum cleaner, suddenly sucked him in.

“Wow,” Lilli said.

“A priceless artifact,” Nat explained. “It draws, condenses, and contains chaos.”

“I want to go with you, Nat,” she said. “I can help. I’ll bring Zoot.”

“What’s a Zoot?” Sandy said.

The pattern on Sandy’s blouse shifted and blurred. Zoot separated from her clothes with a faint pop and dropped to the floor, smiling up at her.

“Has that fat, hideous thing been crawling all over my chest this whole time?” she gasped, frantically feeling her clothes to make sure no other strange creatures had pasted themselves to her.

Zoot frowned, looking into a nearby mirror. He hoisted his belly, wiggled his eyebrows, and finally seemed to decide that he was neither fat nor hideous. He pointed his trident at Sandy.

“No, Zoot,” Lilli said, and he lowered it reluctantly.

“Okay, Lilli, you can come,” Nat said.

“What about me?” Sandy asked.

“You stay here,” Nat said.

“Why?”

“You’re not a Keeper.”

“I helped with the Troll.”

“You just led a goat over a bridge,” Nat pointed out.

“Yeah,” Richie added. “That was a no-brainer.”

“You’re a no-brainer,” Sandy mumbled.

“We’re going after two first-order demons here,” Nat continued. “I don’t want you to get hurt.”

“But I’m the one who told you about the freeway and the fire!”

“Yeah, and it would be great if you would stay and translate the Journal some more to see if there’s anything else we should know.”

“You don’t even have a clue where to start looking for them,” Sandy said.

“The trashed freeway?” Richie suggested.

“The warehouse fire?” Lilli said.

“Those places have already been totaled,” Sandy pointed out. “I think your demons will have moved on.”

“Where do you think they are, then?” Nat asked.

Angry and hurt, Sandy debated helping them. Finally, she took a deep breath. “Try the Seattle-Tacoma fault line for Wedge. It was destabilized in the huge Cascadia earthquake in the 1700s, and one branch of it still runs under downtown, right beneath the Space Needle. Any destructive fissure would love it there.”

“Thanks,” Nat said quickly. He turned to Richie and Lilli. “Let’s go.”

Moments later, they were gone. Devastated, Sandy sank into a sympathetic armchair with the Demonkeeper Journal. The armchair’s back scrunched over to massage her shoulders.

“Thanks,” she said. Then she did what she always did when she was feeling down. She took a deep breath, held her book to her chest for comfort like a beloved stuffed animal, and began to read.

CHAPTER 16

WEDGE

At home in the fault-riddled earth beneath Seattle, Wedge had become strong. It traveled easily under the surface, where loose dirt and debris had been dumped more than a century earlier to fill marshes and flatten the ground to build the waterfront city.

But its strength couldn’t protect it now, and its new home was not safe. Wedge feared few things, but the thing burrowing furiously through the earth behind it scared the demon crack.

Sewer lines crisscrossed Wedge’s subterranean path. In its haste it forced its way into the decaying metal of one of the main pipes and wrenched it apart.

Above, dozens of kids in soccer uniforms were in the middle of ordering burgers at the Dick’s Drive-In restaurant. Suddenly, a fountain of sewer water erupted from the floor, blasting two midfielders and a goalie head over heels into the milkshake machine. They lay in a stunned pile, instantly covered with chocolate ice cream and raw sewage as the rest of the team ran screaming out the door, only slightly behind their frightened coaches.

Wedge surfaced through the crack the water had made, but it had no time to enjoy the confusion it had created. The thing following Wedge was not a doe-eyed young Keeper. It was something ancient and hungry, and instinct told Wedge to keep moving and avoid the mysterious pursuer at all costs. Keepers were bad enough, the way they captured and controlled chaos. But there existed things worse than Keepers—much worse.

Wedge crossed the street, ripping a sudden rent in the sidewalk and sending a cyclist flying into a nearby dumpster. It felt the pursuing thing strongly now. Wedge tore through the pavement like a snake through grass, speeding off toward the towering Space Needle.

Nat, Richie, and Lilli stood on the observation deck of the Space Needle, looking out over the city and the waters of Puget Sound. Nik cowered, scared of heights, while Pernicious danced on the edge of the platform’s rail, smiling down at the sidewalk hundreds of feet below.

“Nice view, but what are we looking for?” Lilli asked.

Nat scanned the buildings and streets. “Disruptions in structures, fissures in the earth. If Wedge has gone underground, it’s safe and practically untouchable. We need to look for signs to see if it has surfaced.”

“How are we supposed to see a crack in the ground from up here?” Richie mumbled. He launched a huge glob of spit out into space and watched it tumble earthward.

“Hey, what’s going on over there?” Nat said.

“It’s just a bunch of kids running out of a restaurant,” Richie said. “Looks like a soccer team. They’re all probably trying to get the shotgun seat in the minivan.”

Lilli touched Nat’s arm. “Isn’t there a way to harmonize with this misguided crack? Understand it?”

“It lives to cause disharmony,” Nat said, “and I can’t let it unleash its full potential in the middle of Seattle.”

“Yeah,” Richie said, “we’re looking to drive it outta the ground and kick its butt, not commune with it.”

At that moment, Richie’s spit hit the earth.

Ba-woom!

A sudden, violent tremor shook the Space Needle and threw all three of them to the deck. When the shaking stopped, they glanced at each other.

“Did I do that?” Richie said.

“No,” Nat said. “Look!”

At the base of the Space Needle, the huge Experience Music Project building was still shuddering.

The misshapen, multicolored, and metallic EMP building looked like a massive blob of Technicolor vomit next to the slender, elegant Space Needle under the best of circumstances, but now it was undulating, its joints groaning. Its exterior walls began to fold in on themselves, and patrons poured out of its doors, but it was too late. The entire structure lurched and imploded in a mass of twisted metal and ill-chosen pigments.

Craaaaash!

“It’s Wedge!” Nat affirmed. “Sandy was right. It’s here on the fault line.”

There were still people inside the collapsed building, and Nat winced as the broken structure settled among the clouds of dust, screams, and sounds of crashing metal.

“That’s why we don’t try to reason with it,” he said to Lilli.

“We . . . we have to get down,” she stammered.

“Why would we want to be down there?” said Richie, watching the destruction with a certain fascination.

Even as they spoke, Wedge ripped through the pavement toward the base of the Space Needle and cracked a support pillar.

“Because Wedge is coming up!” Lilli said.

“What?” Richie exclaimed. “It’s attacking? Does it recognize us? I thought it wanted to stay safely underground!”

“This thing isn’t like the creatures I see,” Lilli said, wide-eyed. “Not at all.”

“You see the beauty in chaos,” Nat said. “This is the other side.”

But Lilli was already edging back, terrified, and as soon as Nat and Richie looked away, she turned and ran for the elevator.

“We’ll meet Wedge up here,” Nat declared. “Pernicious, bring me the box.”

Pernicious bounded to Nat’s nearby pack and retrieved the demon puzzle box. Nat took it from his little minion, keeping his eyes trained on the support structure below.

“If I can get close enough, I’ll suck Wedge into the box,” he said.

The Space Needle shook as Wedge split one of its legs. The crack shot up through the metal beam, rising toward them. People inside the rotating restaurant now realized that something was dreadfully wrong, and when the entire building swayed drunkenly, they too began to scream.

Nat shouted instructions. “Nik! If Wedge gets into a piece of the building you can break loose, rip it off and isolate it. Richie, go to the north side and tell me if Wedge comes from that direction!”

“What am I, just a lookout?”

“You’re my apprentice. Now go north! Pernicious, go to the west side.”

Pernicious leaped to do Nat’s bidding. Richie pouted but did as he was told.

“Lilli . . . ?” Nat called, but there was no answer. “Lilli! I need you on the south side!” It was no use. She was gone.

Wedge rose up the Needle, cracking the structure’s east leg so that it swayed wildly in the strengthening winds swirling in from the bay. Nat felt the observation deck move and saw the entire city shift beneath him. The tower leaned until it seemed that it would topple over, and then it snapped back, gaining momentum.

Richie clung to the rail, watching from his vantage on the north side of the deck. “Here it comes! It’s moving west!”

Nat yelled into the wind, “Pernicious! Follow it!”

Pernicious scurried along the rail, tracking Wedge. The demon crack circled the rotating restaurant on top of the Space Needle just below the observation deck, breaking windows. Terrified diners huddled inside, too scared to make for the overloaded elevator. Pernicious stopped and extended his rubbery arm ten feet to point out where Wedge was going next—the south side.

“Dang it!” Nat snapped. “There’s no one over there. I can’t see where it went!”

Wedge was somewhere beneath the deck, tearing the Needle’s restaurant apart a crack at a time. Nat could hear it below him. More than that, Nat could feel it below him, but he couldn’t reach Wedge from atop the building.

Nat didn’t stop to think. If he had, he wouldn’t have done what he did, because it was simply too horrifying. He ran and hurled himself over the rail and out into the safety net constructed to keep jumpers from committing suicide.

Nat found himself hanging in a rope web six hundred feet above the ground. He looked earthward and had to fight a sudden overwhelming queasiness. He was tangled and couldn’t move, but it didn’t matter. Wedge came to him.

The destructive crack shot out into the strut holding the net up, snapping it.

Crack!

The net dipped, and the ground lurched five feet closer. Nat scrambled to open the box, his fingers fumbling, one foot hanging through the ropes in the empty air with nothing between it and the distant ground.

Nat thrust the box upward, holding it near a weak spot in the strut, and when Wedge tore through it, Nat slammed the box against the metal bar. The box wheezed and drew Wedge toward it through the metal. Wedge squirmed, but, strangely, seemed to give up. The box sucked the animated crack inside easily, and Nat quickly twisted the lid shut.

A horrible groan and squeal made Nat gasp. The damaged strut holding the net was failing. It bent. The net sagged. Suddenly, Nik appeared above Nat. The muscular little demon grabbed the strut and held it in place while Pernicious stretched an arm eight feet down to help pull Nat back up onto the observation deck.

Nat grabbed Pernicious’s elastic hand and yanked himself upright. He untangled his limbs from the ropes and then scrambled up the net just as Nik could no longer hold the failing strut. The net fell out from under Nat as he caught hold of the railing. The heavy broken beam and the net tumbled earthward without him, leaving Nat hanging by his fingertips.

“A little help?” he gasped.

Pernicious secured his grip on Nat’s wrist, looping his arm around it twice, and Nik hauled Pernicious backward. Richie grabbed on as Nat’s arms cleared the rail, and the three of them yanked Nat over into a tangled pile of demons and Keepers on the observation deck of the Space Needle.

Richie and Nat rode down the elevator, calm among the other shaken survivors of the swaying tower, who cried and whimpered all around them. Pernicious peeked from Richie’s pocket while Nik hid in Nat’s backpack.

“I understand why she ran,” Nat said.

“That’s so weak,” said Richie.

“She’s not used to seeing their bad side,” Nat explained.

“Still weak.”

“You don’t understand. She views them a whole different way.”

“I repeat,” Richie said, “weak-ass.”

“That’s enough.”

“Hey, I thought she was cool at first too,” Richie persisted, “but just because you got the painfully obvious hots for her doesn’t make her . . . ”

“Maybe you should shut up now,” Nat snapped.

Richie scowled. “When we’re off the clock, you don’t tell me what to do.” He paused and then added, “Sandy doesn’t run when things get ugly.”

Nat fumed, but there wasn’t time to argue. “Charr is next,” he said. “I’ll need help, even if my help has a bad attitude. Are you ready?”

“I’m ready to kick some more demon butt, if that’s what you mean,” Richie said.

“No kicking. Just some help.”

The elevator door opened. A wall of reporters stood before them, gathered around the fallen net and beam.

“Don’t let them take your picture,” Nat said, covering his own face.

But Richie was already mugging for a shot. Nat grabbed Richie to haul him away as the reporters advanced on them, and he pointed skyward. “Look out, everyone! Another beam is loose up there!”

The crowd glanced up and then edged backward like nervous cattle. Only one stood his ground.

“No, it isn’t,” the note-taking man said knowingly. He looked up from his pad with a grin. It was Calamitous. Nat began to hustle Richie off in the other direction. Calamitous gave chase.

“That’s a fabrication, an exaggeration, a lie,” Calamitous tittered.

“Lay off, man,” Richie spat without thinking. “We were up there when all this stuff came down.”

“Aha!” Calamitous clapped his misshapen hands. “I thought so! You’re involved. I knew it when I saw the crunchy female come down earlier.”

“Crunchy?” Nat said.

“The granola girl. The earthy, organic, mussy-haired one. She’s always near when there is chaos. And you are always near her, yes? Aren’t you? You know what did this, don’t you? Did you see it? Where is it? Is it still up there?” Calamitous took notes as quickly as he talked, stopping only to sniff the air.

Nat brushed past him, dragging Richie along. “Don’t follow us,” he warned.

“Unnecessary. Don’t need to,” Calamitous said, and he smiled toward a fire engine that screamed past. “I already know where you’re going next.”

CHAPTER 17

CHARR

Sandy drove Nat and Richie through stop-and-go Seattle traffic toward Pioneer Square, which swarmed with fire engines.

“I’ve been translating the DK Journal,” Sandy said, “and waiting by the phone. I’m glad you called.”

“You were right about Wedge,” Nat admitted. “We found it on the fault line.”

“Yes!” Sandy pumped her fist. “I knew it!”

“You were right about a lot of things,” Nat said apologetically. “I’m sorry we left you behind. I’d like your help with Charr.”

“Where’s the flower child?” Sandy asked, her eyes narrowing.

“I don’t know,” Nat said, “but something’s weird.”

“Yeah. She is.”

“No. I mean it’s weird that Wedge came right to us. It left the ground and shot straight up the highest structure it could find, almost like it was trying to get away from something.”

“What scares a crack?” Richie said from the backseat.

“Open water?” Nat suggested. “Liquid can’t be broken. But that wasn’t it.” Nat puzzled over the mystery for a moment and then gave up. “And that’s not our only problem. There’s that reporter investigating the existence of demons. He suspects us.”

“Yeah,” Richie agreed. “He kept sniffing like he thought we’d just farted in the elevator and wanted to catch us in the act.”

“Did you?” Nat asked.

“Maybe,” Richie said.

“Least of our problems, boys,” Sandy interrupted with a disgusted look. “Time to focus on Charr.” She turned on the radio.

KOMO Radio News blared from her Volvo’s dashboard. “Multiple fires continue to pop up in different locations around downtown Seattle, starting primarily in basements. But the fires mysteriously move on by the time firefighters arrive.”

“That’s our clue,” Sandy said.

“Huh? What clue?” Richie said.

“Basements,” Sandy declared.

“Basements?” Nat didn’t understand either. “So we start by going through everyone’s cellar?” he asked.

“Close,” Sandy said. “But it’s deeper than that.”

“Wait! I know!” Richie bounced up and down in the back seat, excited. “This time I know!”

“Are you thinking what I’m thinking?” Sandy grinned.

“Wanna let me in on this?” Nat said.

“The Seattle Underground,” Richie said smugly.

“Yep,” Sandy agreed. “After downtown Seattle was destroyed by the massive fire in 1889, modern Seattle was built right on top of it.”

“And part of the old city is still down there beneath the streets,” Richie explained.

“That’s where Charr must be,” Sandy added. “It’s accessing different buildings from underneath.”

“They give tours of the old underground,” Richie said. “A friend of mine named Sneakers used to beg for money at the entrance.”

Sandy pulled a U-turn in the Volvo, bumped up over the curb onto the sidewalk, and clipped a peanut vendor cart, scattering a carpet of roasted nuts across the street.

Richie stuck his head out the window to see if the vendor was hurt. Luckily, he’d escaped injury, but he was hopping up and down and shouting his opinion of Sandy’s driving in a foreign language sprinkled with American curses.

“Sorry!” Richie yelled. “We gotta go save the city!”

Minutes later, they approached the entrance to the Seattle Underground.

“The ruins of old Seattle are right down there.” Sandy pointed to the Underground Tour sign, which hung over a door and a shop window.

“It’s closed,” Richie said.

“Perfect,” Nat said, peering in the window. “Nobody will be around. But I wonder where the tour guide is.”

The door was locked. Richie pulled Pernicious from his pocket. The little demon popped out, glancing around and taking stock of where he was.

“Can you get us in?” Nat asked his minion.

“Yee-hee-hee-hee!” The little demon laughed and flattened himself into a two-dimensional sheet to slide under the door. Once he got inside, he popped back into three dimensions and unlocked the bolt from the inside.

“What about Nik?” asked Richie.

“He’s no good with fire,” Nat said. “I’m sticking him in the demon box with Wedge.”

Nat took the lead and strode through the gift shop to a set of stairs that led down. He hesitated. He’d almost died just an hour earlier. Worse, innocent people actually had died.

“You sure you want to come?” he said to the others. “There were casualties at the EMP building under the Space Needle.”

Sandy heard the shake in his voice. She put a gentle hand on his shoulder. “Nat, you’re the one trying to protect people and chaos from each other. You’re not responsible for the harm they cause, and you can’t save everyone.”

“No,” he said, “not everyone. But Dhaliwahl said that if I have the chance to save anyone, I should try, because you don’t have the choice to go back and do it later.” With that, Nat turned and started down the stairs.

The underground was lit by bare bulbs strung on wire. Hundred-year-old storefronts still stood in places, and portions of the former street were visible. The three of them slunk along, growing quiet. Without a chattering tour guide, the underground felt more like a tomb than a tourist attraction. Nat could see the underside of modern Seattle propped above them, held up by steel I-beams and brick archways. There were even thick glass blocks sunk in the modern sidewalk above, and the dim glow of the overcast day filtered down through them to send eerie slivers of light stabbing through the dimness.

Some of the bricks were scorched, but it was impossible to tell whether they had been burned by the fire that had destroyed downtown Seattle a century ago or by something more recent.

Sandy opened her laptop.

“Now that’s nerdy.” Richie smirked.

“I brought it to run the Journal’s entries through a translation program. Turns out it’s surprisingly useful,” Sandy snapped back. “What did you bring?”

Richie pulled two Super Soaker squirt guns from his pack and twirled them, grinning. “Bring on the blaze!” he said.

“What are you looking for, Sandy?” Nat asked.

“I found an entire section on Charr. The demon flame’s history is right here in Dhaliwahl’s entries, you know.”

“Yeah, in Bengali,” Nat complained. “I can’t read it.”

“I’ve figured out a bunch of it,” Sandy said. “Dhaliwahl’s mentor, Yatabe the Wanderer, captured Charr, and it lived with Dhaliwahl before his apprentice, the Thin Man, ran away and took it with him. Here’s more . . . ” She dropped her head into the book and translated Yatabe’s old passages. “Oh my. Oh gosh. Oh no.”

“Oh, c’mon,” Richie complained, “tell us what it says.”

“It’s not that simple,” Sandy said. “It takes time to translate.”

They paused in front of an 1800s bathroom that had been left to decay. Sandy struggled to interpret, typing and reading and then retyping. Finally, she read aloud in a slow, halting voice.

“A very powerful demon in the wild, Charr, the living flame, is best kept in its small, smoldering form. Charr grew to lethal size in the late 1800s. It flared up in Chicago in 1871, Seattle in 1889 and, finally, San Francisco in 1906, where it was captured along with Wedge, the great divider.”

“So what does that all mean?” Richie said.

“Are you kidding? The Journal describes the great Chicago fire, the great Seattle fire, and the great San Francisco fire.”

“That was Charr?” Nat gasped. “Our Charr?”

“This one demon has killed thousands,” Sandy whispered. “And it was with Wedge when San Francisco was leveled . . . by both of them.”

Richie’s eyes grew huge, and he glanced over his shoulder down the dark tunnel. He handed Sandy a squirt gun and began to back away toward the entrance.

Nat stumbled over something in the darkness and toppled backward. The thing gave way, crunching beneath him. Sandy swung her laptop toward it, shedding light. Nat yelped. It was a body, burnt to a crisp. Nearby lay a singed novelty hat.

“The tour guide!” Sandy gasped, pulling Nat up off the dry blackened husk. Nat brushed ash from his pants, not wanting a dead man’s remains on him.

As they stood aghast, smoke drifted into the tunnel around them. Nat looked ahead down the corridor. An eerie red glow burned in the distance.

“We’re in over our heads here,” he said. “Get to the surface.”

Suddenly, more smoke rolled toward them—huge, billowing black clouds. Nat pulled a fire extinguisher from his backpack. “Go! Now!”

Nat stood firm, intending to buy Sandy and Richie time as Charr descended upon them in a flaming fury and faster than he’d thought possible. Nat grasped the extinguisher nozzle and held his ground while Richie ran, as instructed. But Sandy didn’t follow Richie. She stood by Nat as Charr quickly burned through the old, dry wooden walls, surrounding them.

“I told you to go!” Nat said.

“I would never just run off and leave you,” Sandy said. “And you can’t order me to. I’m not your apprentice.”

Flaming ash from the old dry wood drifted down around them. Sandy whirled and fired the Super Soaker at Nat, drenching his clothes.

“What are you doing?” Nat said, dripping water.

“Protecting you!” Sandy turned the Soaker on herself and doused her own clothing.

Nat held the extinguisher up like a gun, trying to hold off the darting demon.

“It’s too big and too hot. I can’t get close to it. I need to make it smaller before I can trap it in the box.”

“Look for the base of the fire,” Sandy said. “Ignore the flames and shoot for its roots where it’s touching its fuel source—the wood.”

Nat nodded and tracked the core flame. “There!” he exclaimed, and he fired the extinguisher. White foam flew. There was a great sizzling sound, and the air filled with smoke and steam.

Nat and Sandy ducked away, coughing, into the old underground bathroom. “Did I get it?” Nat spluttered.

Sandy shook her head sadly as the fire crept out of the haze, unfazed. “I don’t see demons outside the house, Nat, but there’s definitely still a fire, and it’s still coming right at us!”

Charr pulled its flames inward, condensing and glowing brighter.

“It’s gathering to strike!” Nat said.

Sandy tackled Nat and grabbed the lip of an ancient cast-iron tub, yanking hard and tipping it over on top of them. They fell together. Nat lay on his back beneath her as fire roared overhead. He heard the flames thrash against the tub.

“Now what?” Nat whispered, nose to nose with her.

“It’s consuming all the air,” she said. “Now we suffocate.”

Nat winced and put his arms around her. “If we die,” he said softly, “I just want you to know . . . ”

“Shhhh!” Sandy said. “I’m thinking.”

Outside the tub, Charr gathered itself. It pulled itself tighter, concentrating all its heat into a single, tight, intensely hot ball of molten flame. The pulsating sphere of fire leaped onto the tub, burrowing into the metal surface, trying to get to Nat and instantly heating the iron like an oven.

Suddenly, water poured in from overhead, dousing the tub.

Sizzzzzzzle!

Nat felt cooler water soaking into his sweaty shirt and running under the tub on the floor. “Let’s go!” he barked.

He and Sandy pushed up, toppling the heavy tub. Water doused them from above in a steady stream. They looked up and saw Richie’s eye peering down through a hole in the sidewalk. He’d broken out several glass blocks in the pavement above, and a torrent of rainwater was pouring into the underground. He broke another block, and more water rushed down.

Charr limped away along the soggy wood of the old bathroom, quenched to near death. It found a damp splinter and clung to life as a mere ember.

Above, Richie poised to break the last and biggest glass block.

Nat hailed him. “No more water! Don’t destroy it!”

“That thing’s a killer!” Richie yelled down.

“But you are not,” Nat shouted back. “It’s just a wild animal. It doesn’t know what it’s doing. We must catch it, not kill it.”

Richie debated, torn, as Charr weakened, smoldering and barely alive. The hallway grew dim and then went dark.

“I can’t see anymore,” Sandy said, groping for Nat’s hand. She found it and held it tight.

Suddenly, they heard a sound in the darkness. Movement. A high-pitched scream-sizzle cut through the shadows. Sandy held her ears, but Nat listened. He knew what the sound meant—the death of a demon. Charr was gone.

Minutes later, Nat and Sandy struggled up out of underground Seattle and through the tour office, singed, dripping, and coughing.

Richie met them in the rain.

“You killed it,” Nat spat, frowning down at his apprentice.

“What?” Richie threw up his hands. “No, I didn’t.”

Nat shook his head. “Now the great historic demon, Charr, is gone.”

It was a destructive creature, Nat thought, but it could have been kept under control. The Thin Man had done it. It could have been captured again and kept somewhere safe.

“This is a hollow victory,” he mumbled. He looked away from Richie, disappointed, and walked off.

The three of them were standing at the car when Calamitous appeared on the sidewalk, soaking wet.

“Look who we have here!” he grinned. “The fire is out, eh? After destroying ten buildings, five cars, and a few people, it has fizzled. Delicious story, yes? You saw it down there, didn’t you? Did you fight it? Was Seattle saved by a certain special few children?”

“Fight what?” Nat motioned for Richie to get in the car before he said anything.

“The thing you were trying to catch, eh?” Calamitous persisted. “Eh? Eh?”

“Don’t know what you’re talking about, and there’s nothing special about us.”

“We were taking the underground tour and got caught in the fire,” Sandy said. “That’s all.”

“The rain put it out,” Richie said from the backseat, “but it didn’t mean to.”

Calamitous’s erratic gaze locked in on Richie. “You’re the smaller boy from the Troll site and the Space Needle. Can I get your name? Your age? Or, more importantly, your address?”

Nat stepped between them and slammed the door on Richie. He waved curtly at Calamitous and ducked into the car with Sandy, who was already buckling her seat belt.

“Drive,” Nat said.

CHAPTER 18

WE’RE GONNA NEED A BIGGER BOAT

Nat, Sandy, and Richie pulled up to the house and dragged their soaked and sooty selves out of the car. Lilli was waiting for them on the porch, sheepish. The three wet companions stared at her, exhausted.

“Anything I can do to help?” she asked.

“Besides run away?” Richie snapped.

“Make herbal tea, maybe?” Sandy said snidely.

“I hear the fires are out downtown,” Lilli said.

“Yes. The fire is out,” Nat said. “We lost Charr.” He glared at Richie.

“Hey, don’t look at me. I tried to save your life, and I swear I stopped when you told me to.”

“Fire is very elemental,” Lilli offered. “It’s sad.”

“Hey, that’s right,” Sandy said. “Charr was fire, one of the four ancient elements. And Wedge is earth, another ancient element. That leaves air and water.”

“Fascinating,” Lilli said, “but I should tell you that the Troll has moved again.”

Nat was just opening the front door. He spun around. “What? When? How do you know?”

“Easy,” Richie said. “You sound like that stuttering reporter dude.”

“I don’t know how you feel them, Nat,” Lilli said, “but I get this serious vibe when they stir, and I’m getting it now.”

“Are we off to catch another demon?” Richie grinned. “I’m starting to get the hang of this.”

“Kicking their ‘butts’ and destroying them is not getting the hang of it,” Nat said.

“The Troll will be a creature of habit,” Sandy offered. “Not terribly smart. It’ll be in the lake again.”

Nat sighed, weary and burdened. “I’ll have to go get it. Richie, you’re staying here.”

“Dude, you can’t leave me behind. I swear I won’t kill anything else, even though I swear I didn’t kill the last thing.”

“No, and that’s final. But, Sandy, will you come?” Nat looked to her for support. She’d been right about Wedge, just as she was right about most things, and she’d stood by him in the underground. She hadn’t run away, and he needed someone he could count on.

“My parents are probably freaking out and wondering where I am,” Sandy said. “I’m two hours late already, and I purposefully haven’t called them. There’s no possible way.” She shook her head. “I can’t go.”

“I’m going,” Lilli said. “It’s an art piece. I want to save it.”

Nat nodded. “Okay, you’re in.”

Sandy glared, aghast. “She’s going with you?”

Sandy babbled into her cell phone as she joined Nat and Lilli at the docks on the shores of Lake Union.

“Yes, Mom. I’m okay. I’m just stuck in the traffic from the fires.”

Zoot made honking and siren noises through his nose. Sandy frowned at the pink demon at first, but the sounds were surprisingly convincing.

“See? Sirens,” she told her mom. “I’ll probably be several hours. Don’t wait up. No, Dad doesn’t have to come get me. Whoops . . . cars are moving. Can’t talk and drive. Bye!” She hung up. “Man, I hate lying,” she said.

They walked down the long wooden ramp to a dark dock. Unlike the other yachts in the marina, the old boats moored along the dock looked like they hadn’t been touched in years.

A familiar shapeless figure came clicking across the rotting wood planks toward them.

“Hey! Hey you! You there! I still want to talk to you!” shouted Calamitous.

“How do you keep finding us?” Nat demanded.

“I don’t,” he said. “I find them.” Calamitous pointed at the lake. It was clear what he meant. He meant the Troll. He meant the demons. “You just seem to show up too,” Calamitous said, thrusting a thick finger at Lilli and then Nat. “Why is that? How do you do it? Tell me, tell me.”

“Which news organization do you work for?” Sandy said. “NPR? KOMO? Channel Five? The Times?”

“Independent. Autonomous. Freelance,” Calamitous shot back.

Nat turned and walked away. The others followed him, and Calamitous followed them.

“You have bad karma, man,” Lilli said over her shoulder.

“He’s like you, isn’t he?” Calamitous asked, lurking just behind her and whispering in her ear. “Similar. Akin. Comparable.” He sniffed her.

“Back off,” she snapped.

Just then, Calamitous looked past her toward the water. “Fine. Done. As you wish,” he said, and he trotted off back up the dock as though he’d not been terribly interested in the kids in the first place.

“He creeps me out,” Lilli said, shivering.

“He knows too much,” Nat said. “We can’t let him expose what we do.”

“Maybe he’s a Keeper,” Sandy suggested.

“No!” Nat and Lilli said in unison.

“Wrong aura,” Lilli said.

“Just wrong,” Nat added.

He stepped to a boat slip with a dark, looming fishing vessel tied to it. The boat’s flaking paint and crusty anchor told of its age, and there were heavy cog and gear–style mechanical devices bolted to the deck, ready to churn to rusty life.

“Come on aboard!” Nat called, hopping over the transom.

“This is yours?” Lilli gasped. “Wow, it’s vintage.”

“Does it still float?” Sandy asked skeptically.

“It’s Yatabe the Wanderer’s old vessel. He came here in it when he fled from India. One of my chores was to keep it ready.”

“For what?” Sandy said.

“For transporting demons on the high seas,” Nat said, “and for demon fishing. Although I hope I never have to take it out on the open water.”

Nat cast his eyes downward, and Sandy knew he was thinking about the horrible storm on Puget Sound that had sunk his parents’ vessel when he was a child.

“At least we can look for the Troll in the safety of a sturdy craft,” Sandy said.

“Oh no, this is too big and loud to use for searching in Lake Union,” Nat replied. “It would just drive the Troll away.”

“Then what do we use?” Sandy asked.

Minutes later, Sandy rowed the big boat’s small dinghy out into Lake Union, while Nat and Lilli sat in the rear scanning the dark water.

“Over there,” Lilli instructed.

“I hope we have a big net,” Sandy said.

Nat pulled out the puzzle box. “Yes, we do.”

“Why isn’t she rowing?” Sandy pointed at Lilli, who sat pressed up against Nat in the narrow rear seat.

“I’m trying to hone in on it,” Lilli explained, rubbing her temples, “and you’re interrupting.”

“She’s feeling for signs of the Troll,” Nat said in Lilli’s defense.

“If you’re such a great Keeper,” Sandy said to Lilli, “then what signs should we be feeling for?”

“I never said I was a great Keeper,” Lilli mumbled. “I never said I was a Keeper at all. I collect things.”

“Then what are we looking for, collector?” Sandy said.

“Anything strange,” Lilli replied.

“Brilliant,” Sandy said, and she stopped rowing.

They were almost exactly in the middle of the lake. They drifted in silence for a time, watching the water, looking everywhere except at each other.

“I feel something,” Lilli said finally.

The girls looked up as two houseboats drifted out of the darkness. Their mooring ropes trailed in the water behind them like rat tails. They’d been ripped from their moorage and floated loose in the lake.

“Does that qualify as strange?” Sandy whispered.

She grabbed the oars and rowed hard to get out of the way. The houseboats bore down on them, and Nat dug his arms into the water to help, drenching Sandy. As the massive waterborne homes drifted by, missing them by inches, Nat could see a man sleeping on his couch through a window.

“Look!” Nat said. He pointed to a wake in the water behind the houseboats. A six-foot hand broke the surface and pushed them along with a gentle but powerful shove.

“We’re sitting ducks in this little tub,” Sandy said, glancing about in vain, unable to see through her dripping glasses.

Nat pulled Dhaliwahl’s snake staff from his coat.

The snake staff was both demon and tool. It was also Dhaliwahl’s former minion. It elongated for Nat, uncoiling and stretching itself to several times its original length. When the huge hand passed the dinghy, Nat lassoed it.

The dinghy suddenly jolted forward and began to skim across the lake like a water ski towed by the Troll. Nat braced himself as the snake staff wrapped itself tight around his wrist. Even the small boat produced a lot of drag in the waters of Lake Union, and Nat thought that the Troll might yank his arm out of its socket. But soon the dinghy straightened and began to track directly behind the submerged hand. The three of them bounced along in the rowboat, holding on and hoping it wouldn’t flip over as Nat tried to reel himself closer to the mighty statue.

“If I can press the box against the Troll in the right spot, I might be able to suck the whole thing down into it,” he told the girls.

“Might?” Sandy said.

“Just help get us closer.”

“I can’t see a thing!” Sandy complained, unable to let go of the oars to wipe her glasses. She tried to row as they were dragged but succeeded primarily in splashing Nat with water from her oars and smacking him once in the head.

As they approached the far side of the lake, the Troll gave the houseboats a final, mighty shove, and the homes plowed through the water at high speed toward the shore.

“Oh no!” Nat yelped.

The first home slammed into a large yacht.

Boom!

Screaming wedding goers who’d been standing courteously on the deck as the pastor conducted the ceremony flew in all directions like plastic cake figurines flung carelessly across a kitchen. Guests in suits and dresses landed among the appetizers, on top of each other, and tumbled over the side of the ship—a fairly long fall that produced particularly long screams. The bride’s billowing dress ballooned like a parachute as she plummeted into Lake Union with her meticulously set hair, while her frantic groom clung to the rail, his feet kicking in midair.

The second houseboat careened into a dockside nightclub, sending the disco ball tumbling across the floor like a shimmering bowling ball. It flashed and sparkled as it mowed down patrons fleeing the dance floor.

The sleeping owners of the houseboats awakened. The first tumbled out of her tilted front door into the middle of the recovering wedding party. In her long white nightgown and rollers, she looked like a pauper’s version of the absent bride.

The man from the other house flew through his window and spun to a stop on his back in the middle of the nightclub’s floor like a break-dancer, while the hip-hop song playing in the club continued to blare from one smashed speaker.

With the houses gone, the Troll noticed the serpent coiled around its wrist. It turned and plowed through the water toward the dinghy, hauling the boat toward itself.

“Here it comes!” Nat said, and he raised the box.

“Look out!” Sandy cried.

Before Nat could strike, the Troll ducked underwater and out of reach. Nat leaned over the side, peering into the dark ripples on the lake. Suddenly, the Troll exploded upward directly underneath the dinghy, flipping the small boat into the air.

Sandy flew head over heels into the water near the dog-paddling bride. Lilli sailed in the other direction and landed with her limbs flying, but she quickly bobbed to the surface and grabbed hold of a couch cushion that had burst through the window of one of the wrecked houseboats. Zoot, who had been resting comfortably in the pattern of her socks, oozed to the surface as a multicolored oil slick with a pair of staring white eyes floating in the center.

Nat hit the water and went under. Disoriented, he popped up screaming. He’d been thrown from a boat before—on the night his parents disappeared. At twelve years old he’d thrashed for his life in the cold waters of Puget Sound, and that nightmare had never left him. It took a moment for him to remember where he was and that he was not twelve. When he’d calmed down, he blinked and looked around and then stroked twice and pulled himself up onto the overturned dinghy, still shaking.

He had failed, he realized. The Troll was moving off, away from shore and into the depths of the lake. He wouldn’t be catching it tonight. But as Nat got his bearings, something knifed past him through the water and straight toward the huge statue.

The Troll sensed that it was being followed and splashed away in a spray of foam. Nat watched as he clung to the overturned rowboat. The Troll hadn’t feared him or the girls, but the gigantic statue plowed through the water in a panic now, pushing a huge wave ahead of it. What followed was smaller. In the dark night, in the dark water, Nat could only make out a thin wake trailing the large demon.

The Troll turned, trying to evade the thing, flopping frantically toward Nat. Suddenly, something yanked it beneath the waves. The water boiled as the Troll was pulled down, and Nat stared as a piranha-like frenzy ensued. The giant stone hands beat at the surface of the water, and the great head erupted into the air one last time to groan in agony. Then it went under for good. Moments later, Nat’s upside-down dinghy drifted through scattered, sinking pieces of the Troll.

CHAPTER 19

LILLI’S SECRET

Sandy and Lilli ran to help Nat out of the lake as he kicked the dinghy to the dock.

“What was that?” Sandy asked.

“I don’t know,” Nat said, shaking his head. “But we lost the Troll, and it’s been damaged.”

Behind them, Lilli shivered, lip quivering. “No. It’s not damaged,” she said in a hushed voice.

Nat and Sandy turned. “What?” Nat said.

“It’s dead,” Lilli continued, her voice shaking. “The thing you saw in the water . . . it ate the Troll.”

Nat stared at her. Lilli glanced about, not meeting his gaze, and he realized that Sandy was right. He’d just met Lilli. He didn’t know her, despite their common abilities, despite how laid back she seemed, despite how cozy she’d been with him when they met.

“What else do you know?” he said.

“More like, what hasn’t she told us?” Sandy said accusingly.

Lilli took a deep breath as Nat and Sandy gathered around her.

“I’d heard about the Troll,” she said. “When I came to Seattle, I wanted to see it. It’s a fabulous piece of art, you know?” Lilli looked to them for agreement. The two just waited, grim-faced, for her to explain herself. “But I was also running from something.”

“Who?” asked Sandy.

“What?” said Nat.

“I didn’t know,” Lilli said. “I don’t know. But I felt it in San Fran—something hungry, watching. When I got here the other day, under the bridge, I felt it again.”

“It followed you,” Sandy said.

“Whatever it was, it found me. And when I went out for coffee and left my darling babies trapped in the trailer like caged animals, it broke in.” She began to cry. “It ate them!”

“Nat, she went to your house,” Sandy said.

“So?” Nat snapped. “It’s a free country. Why do you have to act jealous at a time like this?”

“I’m not being jealous,” Sandy said evenly. “You’re being defensive. But more to the point, there’s something out there that eats demons, and if it’s following her, she’s led it right to the house . . . your house.”

Nat stood dripping and stunned. He looked out at the empty lake where the Troll had met its doom and then back at the earthy girl who might have brought that doom with her. Her ravaged trailer was parked directly in front of his house and her VW Bug sat in the driveway.

“I need to know everything . . . now!” he said suddenly, pointing at Lilli. “What is that thing?”

“I’ve never seen it,” Lilli insisted. “It’s hidden, disguised, something. But I can feel it. The day you came to my trailer . . . ”

Sandy flashed Nat a dirty look.

“ . . . it must have been nearby,” Lilli continued, “and when I left, it struck.”

“Where else have you been hanging out?” Nat demanded.

“I washed dishes at an Irish Pub downtown for money when I came to town, and I do my yoga at an elementary school playground nearby.”

“I want to see those places,” Nat said. “Take me there.”

They didn’t have to go inside McHale’s Pub to know what had happened there. They could see the listless patrons from the window. The customers hunched over their lifeless mugs of ale with dour expressions. The room was not lively, as it usually was. No music. No conversation.

“It’s dead in there,” Sandy said.

“Without chaos there is only monotony,” Nat explained. He turned to Lilli. “Now the playground.”

It was no different in the schoolyard. Young students filed in and out of the building in an orderly fashion, without fun, without excitement. The dark clouds in the sky hung low over the school, and no vibrant light found its way to the children.

“Richie should be here to see what happens when demons are destroyed,” Nat said. “It kills spontaneity in places of happiness, leaves drudgery in place of discovery. That tavern and this playground will suffer from their losses. This will not be a joyous place for children for a long time.”

“A demon made the schoolyard fun?” Sandy said. “I always thought elementary school kids simply had a high metabolism and, hence, excess energy that led to increased activity.”

“That’s just what textbooks say,” Nat said.

“Chaos is the sustenance of a free spirit,” Lilli said softly, tears welling in her eyes. “Without it, the soul withers.”

“It seems that demons are sustenance for something else too,” Nat said, “something that goes wherever you go.”

“Oh man,” Sandy said. “I knew she was trouble, Nat, but it’s worse than I’d thought. She’s brought something with her that could destroy everything you protect.”

Lilli cried openly. “I didn’t mean to,” she wept.

“Why didn’t you tell me when I met you?” Nat said.

“I don’t know.” She looked to Zoot, searching for words. He could only shrug. “I guess I didn’t want to say anything wrong. I just . . . I wanted you to like me,” she said finally. She gave the pair a pleading look. “Please, I don’t have any friends here.”

“No, you don’t,” Sandy agreed.

“I’ve got to get back to the house,” Nat said. He gave Lilli a hard look. “But I can’t have you around my demons.” With that, he turned and walked away.

“Sorry, hippy chick,” Sandy added. “You’re gone.”

CHAPTER 20

THE STORM GROWS

Sandy pored over the Journal, entering entire sentences into her laptop’s translation program as Nik watched out for Sparky and Nat ran from window to window, checking to ensure that the house was secure. He peered out anxiously like a gopher peeking out of its burrow to watch for predators. Outside, the wind rose, creeping in from the west over Elliot Bay and the islands. The rain built steadily like classical music, its drops coming harder and more rapidly as the storm grew.

Richie was posted by the front door. “What am I watching for?” he asked, armed with a bent fireplace poker.

“I don’t know!” Nat shouted from upstairs, frustrated. “Sandy? Talk to me.”

“There’s something here from Irish Keeper George McFeen in the 1700s,” she called from the study. Nat hustled down the stairs. He and Richie trotted into the study and settled on the couch, where Sandy read aloud.

There were four journal entries. Sandy recited them in English in a slow, careful voice, lingering over each word to ensure that it was correct. It was a short, sad tale, and she winced as she relayed George McFeen’s final line.

“‘My mentor is a Demoneater,’” she whispered.

Nat and Richie listened without saying a word as she finished. Afterward, Nat realized that he had not taken a breath since she began reciting. He exhaled heavily.

“Whoa,” Richie whispered.

Finally, Nat spoke. “Charr wasn’t trying to kill us,” he said, grimacing. “Oh, I’m so stupid. Charr was trying to get to me for safety. That’s why we captured Wedge so easily. It was fleeing. But we just stood by and let Charr die.”

“Dude,” Richie said, “I still swear I didn’t snuff out the fire.”

“I believe you now,” Nat said. “And I’m sorry I blamed you. I was upset. I think the monster McFeen described ate Lilli’s demons, killed the Troll, and was down there with us in the dark to finish off Charr.”

“A Demoneater?” Sandy said. “But that would make it three hundred years old.”

“Sustained by centuries of chaos,” Nat said, “just like it sustained him at sea with no food or fresh water.”

“What does it look like?” Richie asked.

“McFeen doesn’t say,” Sandy answered. “It’s hard to tell from the translation, but I don’t think he knew exactly.”

“He said it changed his mentor,” Nat pointed out, “but not how.”

“If it eats bad demons,” Richie said, “that’s just less work for us, right? Maybe it could eat the Beast.”

“No,” Nat said. “Blindly destroying chaos does not make the world a better place. Would you kill the world’s lions because they eat humans?”

“If I were the human they were gonna eat, I might,” Richie said.

“Would you eliminate surprises, variety, the unknown?” Nat said. “Imagine life with nothing but mechanical predictability.”

Richie cocked his head. “No out-of-control spontaneous rock concerts?” he said.

“Right.”

Richie grimaced.

“We catch the dangerous demons and those that can’t reconcile with mankind,” Nat continued. “But we don’t destroy them, and we leave the rest. Humanity needs some chaos.”

Richie nodded.

Nat stuck his head out the front door to check up and down the street. Lilli’s trailer and VW Bug were still parked outside. Lilli had not yet come to get them. The Bug functioned, and she could drive it away, but it would no longer pull the large bus. In the other direction, toward the bay, the wind was picking up. A gust blew past Nat. He cocked his head and listened. It whistled a familiar tune.

“Wait,” he said.

Sandy and Richie followed as he threw open the door and walked out onto the porch.

“Wait for what?” Richie asked.

“Yeah,” Sandy said. “What’s going on?”

“The storm,” he said. “I need to feel it.” Nat walked out to the road, arms outstretched, into the growing gale, concentrating, letting it wrap around him, feeling it the way that he’d seen Lilli feel the karma under the bridge. The wind came from different directions—it felt random, discombobulated. Suddenly, the hairs on the back of his neck stood straight up.

“I’m leaving,” he announced.

“Where are you going?” Sandy and Richie said at once.

“Into the storm.”

“What?” Sandy gasped.

“Why?” Richie said.

“Because it’s Flappy.”

Nat was already prepping the big boat for launch when Sandy and Richie caught up with him and climbed aboard.

“Nat!” Sandy called. “Stop. Think. Is this a logical decision or just impulsive?”

“You talked about the four ancient elements, right?” Nat replied. “Fire, earth, air, and water.”

“Yes,” she admitted.

“The Demoneater went after Wedge, the earth, and then Charr, the fire. This storm is the air. And it’s Flappy. I can feel it.”

“But you’re leaving the house unguarded.”

“It’s been snacking on minor manifestations—beer and playground demons, Lilli’s graffiti, the animated Troll statue—but the major first-order demons are its real meals, the elementals. When Charr and Wedge showed themselves, it went straight for them, and Flappy’s grown large enough now that I felt his presence in the storm. The Demoneater will too.”

Nat unwrapped a rope from the rear cleat. Sandy still didn’t look convinced. “You know, Flappy was my first minion. He’s always stood by me. I must return that loyalty. Besides,” he added, “I hope I’m not leaving the house unguarded.” He gave Sandy a pleading look.

Sandy sighed. Dating a Demonkeeper was a choice she’d made. It was a chaotic relationship at times and not particularly safe. In contrast to her simple, ordered life as a junior librarian, though, it was definitely exciting. But Nat could see that she didn’t like being left behind.

“I’ll do it this one last time, Nat,” she said. “But the next time you go off on some adventure and don’t take me with you, I’m not going to be here when you get back.”

Even in his rush, Nat paused. Sandy didn’t waste words or bluff—she was a straightforward girl, no mystery, no games. He could see that she meant it. He thought for a moment and then nodded. “I understand,” he said. Then he hopped over the side of the boat and gave her an unexpected kiss. This time he didn’t miss her mouth . . . or her tongue. Nor did his hands fail to find the curve of her hips. And despite his hurry, he didn’t rush. Sandy smiled when he finally let go and climbed back up to the flying bridge.

“Richie!” Nat called out. “You’re my apprentice. Help me prepare to take her out through the locks and into Puget Sound!”

Richie brightened. “Yes, sir!” he said, and he darted around the boat, pulling rain tarps from the strange gadgets. There were nets, cages, and suits of wooden armor. He noticed the name of the boat for the first time—the Wanderer. He pulled a tarp from a large structure on the foredeck, and his eyebrows arched. A sleek steel barrel was mounted on a swivel stand bolted to the deck. A coil of rope fed into the side, and a long shaft with a nasty barb on its tip protruded from the end. “A harpoon cannon,” he breathed. “Cool.”

Richie untied the last rope and called up from the deck. “Dude, we’re ready to hoist the jib, trim the transom, and lift off,” he said, unsure of the seafaring lingo he should use as a deckhand but delighted to be on board.

Nat waved to Sandy.

“How can I help you?” she called, sounding more like a librarian than ever.

“Just watch the house,” he said. “And tell the door to keep itself locked this time.”

With that, Sandy stepped away from the boat, the engine chugged to life, and the young Keepers pulled away from the dock.

CHAPTER 21

INTO THE STORM

Nat steered the Wanderer out of the lake, through the Ballard locks, and into the turbulent waters of Puget Sound. Seattle dropped out of sight behind them, and they headed between the dark, looming shadows of the San Juan Islands. The storm was gaining strength, and Nat piloted the boat straight into it, ignoring Coast Guard radio warnings to find shelter in the nearest port.

“What are we looking for?” Riche asked.

“The eye of the storm. That’s where Flappy will be.”

Richie squinted into the blasts of cold air that greeted them at the crest of each wave. Pernicious hopped onto the rail for a look.

“Why do you think he’s at the eye of the storm?” Richie hollered over the wind.

“Wedge is an earth demon, and Wedge grew to a destructive size once it got out into the wild. Charr was fire, and it became a roaring blaze after the Thin Man no longer controlled it. Flappy has probably grown too. He’s an air demon, and I think he’s the source of all this.” Nat gestured at the howling wind. “He’ll be at its center.” Nat looked down at the deck and frowned. “Pernicious, stay away from the edge! I’m not stopping to fish you out if you fall in.”

As Nat and Richie talked, a wide shadow the length of a limousine appeared in the water, tracking parallel to the Wanderer. Nikolai saw its thin wake and grabbed Pernicious by the scruff of the neck in his not-too-gentle fashion, yanking his demonic companion off the rail just as the shadow erupted from the tossing waves of the sound, breaching and leaping over the rail where Pernicious had been standing only a split second before.

The thing’s body was segmented, like a centipede’s. Foreflippers propelled it into the air and then retracted suddenly into slimy holes in the creature’s torso. Grasping tentacles slid out in their place, groping for the little demons.

Wham!

It slammed into the boat, bending the metal rail as its round, mewling head and forelimbs landed on the deck.

Nik catapulted himself, with Pernicious in his arms, from the deck up to the flying bridge in a single mighty leap, barely avoiding the grasping appendages. As the boat churned forward, the drag of the water on the huge creature’s abdomen pulled it, squirming, back into the water. The monstrous thing slid beneath the churning surface with astonishingly little noise, disappearing and leaving only the bent rail and two frantic demons as signs of its passing.

“Naaaaaaat!” Richie wailed. “What was thaaaaaaat?”

Nat stared down from above, his two minions clinging to his raincoat, terrified. He hadn’t seen it clearly.

“And don’t tell me you don’t know!” Richie yelled.

Nat steered into the storm, head jerking around, wary. “That wasn’t an Orca whale,” he said, “and definitely not Flappy.” But he couldn’t tell Richie he knew what it was because he didn’t know. He’d been seeing things for many years that he did not understand, and making sense of the chaos he saw wasn’t always easy, especially based only on a glimpse.

Wham!

The boat shuddered.

“It’s ramming us!” Richie yelped. “We’re sinking!”

“We’re not sinking!” Nat yelled back. “But put the wooden armor on. It floats.”

Richie quickly donned the wooden armor. The finely carved suit was cut in the fashion of medieval plate mail. It was large and hung on him like a dress, but it was also surprisingly lightweight and comfortable. It was ancient, but its teak wood had not rotted, even in the wet Seattle weather.

“Come steer!” Nat said.

Richie bounded up to the bridge in his new armor, and Nat handed over the wheel.

“Head straight into the storm,” he reminded his apprentice. Then he grabbed a spotting scope and scanned the water for the creature.

“Where are you?” Nat said to himself. “What are you?”

“Maybe it’s gone,” Richie said hopefully.

A horrible scraping sound rose from the bowels of the boat. “I don’t think so,” Nat said.

He climbed down and leaned over the side of the pitching craft, wondering momentarily if the thing might leap from the water again and pluck him from the boat like a trout jumping for a fly. He looked down and, to his horror, discovered the source of the scraping sound: giant crab claws grasped each side of the boat, tearing into the hull. The thing was hitching a ride underneath.

“It’s huge,” Nat said under his breath. He had to get it off. Water was already seeping in through a hole in the side of the wooden craft that one of the claws had punched open.

Nat glanced about and then hurried to the huge anchor in the bow. He quickly tied it to a net and flipped the lever on one of the mechanical devices on the deck. The lever activated a machine that clicked through several gears and then launched the net over the bow. Nat motioned for Nik to heave the anchor into the bay.

The net disappeared over the front, and the boat ran directly over it so that it dragged along the bottom of the craft. The mesh tangled around the clinging creature, and when the anchor caught moments later, it ripped the thing from the hull.

Cruuuuunch!

The boat bucked as the claws peeled a wooden plank from its side just above the waterline. Nat grabbed the rail. Nik flew past, tumbling through the rain and wind. Nat grabbed Pernicious by the tail as the little demon grabbed Nik by a furry leg. Both minions dangled over the water.

Suddenly, they broke through the storm, and the boat settled into calm waters. Pernicious pulled Nik in, and Nat helped them both scramble aboard.

Richie eased off the gas. “Now what?”

“We’re here,” Nat said.

“We’re where?”

“The eye of the storm.”

CHAPTER 22

THE EYE OF THE STORM

The storm still raged around them, but its fury was fifty yards away in all directions. The boys turned, looking around in disbelief. With the waves and wind still visible in the distance, the calm was surreal. The Wanderer floated in a protected invisible bubble as though the laws of physics and nature had taken a time-out so that they could do their demonic business.

“What are we looking for?” Richie asked.

Nat felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand up, a prickling like the feeling of a spider crawling on his bare skin. He looked straight up.

“That,” Nat said.

Far above them, a dark shape whirled at the center of the raging winds. Nat’s determined look turned to uncertainty and then fear. A distant memory rose inside him, like the oncoming urge to vomit—the same feeling he’d had in Lilli’s trailer when the visual manifestations had played out his deepest emotions. The swirling winds nearby sounded familiar—too familiar. The cresting waves that circled him at a distance reminded him of a night long ago, the nightmare from his childhood.

“I know that monster,” he said unsteadily.

Richie thought Nat was speaking to him. “Yeah, it’s Flappy, right?” he said.

“No, it can’t be,” Nat said, more to himself than to Richie. “It’s something else.” Suddenly, he shook his fist. “I know you, demon! I know this wind!”

Nat leaped to bow of the boat. “I defy you, murderer! You should have killed me years ago when you took my parents. But now I’m back!”

“Nat, calm down,” Richie said, nervous.

But Nat was too worked up. “Come down here and fight!”

For a moment, nothing happened. Then the thing above them turned and plummeted waterward. It had great wings that beat at the air, sending sudden gales in all directions. Its vast size grew more apparent as it approached. It was as large as a city bus, even discounting the wings, which were a bit small for its body. It was even bigger than the Troll, and they were bobbing in the water right where it was going to hit.

“No!” Richie pleaded. “Go back up there, and don’t fight!”

Nat tore across the foredeck and swung the harpoon cannon, bringing it to bear by tilting it almost vertical on its swivel. “Come and get it!” he yelled. He aimed the harpoon as the massive monstrosity drew within range.

Richie could begin to make out its shape. It was a huge reptilian thing, and it flew spastically on its undersized wings.

“Nat!” he cried. “It is Flappy!”

Nat froze, stunned. He saw it too now, and he recognized his demon. Indeed, Nat’s first minion—which he had known for years only as his small, spastic companion—had grown huge and violently chaotic in the wild, like Charr, like Wedge, like it had that night long ago, when he and his parents had been tossed into the water.

Nat’s thoughts tumbled back to the day his mentor, Mr. Dhaliwahl, had opened the puzzle box for the first time. Nat had lived at the house as Dhaliwahl’s apprentice for less than a month, and his role in keeping the demons was still unclear. “Put out your hand, young Nathaniel,” Dhaliwahl said in his thick East Indian accent as he twisted the lid with his wrinkled old fingers. “Here is a thing I want you to see. And to hold.”

Nat reached, and a tiny creature crawled out onto his hand. A little dragon, from the look of it. It sneezed and blew Nat’s bangs sideways.

“Does it breathe fire?” Nat asked.

Dhaliwahl harrumphed. “Do not be absurd. This is no fantasy of a child. It is a wind demon.” Dhaliwahl took a deep breath. “I want to show you how gentle it can be, teach you that these wild creatures do not mean harm.”

“Harm?” Nat scoffed. “How could it? It’s downright cute. Can I keep it?”

“Keep it?” Dhaliwahl hesitated. “I do not think that is a wise . . . ”

“I’m going to be a Keeper, right?”

Dhaliwahl looked pained, though Nat didn’t understand why at the time. The little demon rolled over and blew a blast of air up Nat’s nose.

“Look. It likes me,” Nat laughed. He had not laughed much since his parents had disappeared in the violent storm that left him an orphan, but the discombobulated little monster looked so helpless and goofy that he couldn’t help but chuckle. The wind demon hopped up and fluttered through Nat’s hair, mussing it, tangling it, and then the demon crashed to the floor in a heap.

“He’s a confused little guy,” Nat said. “I’ll call him Flappy.”

Flappy was already distracted, whirling with the living dust bunnies in a corner, chasing them in vain as his own winds blew them out of reach.

“Very well,” Dhaliwahl said at length. “The two of you are an unlikely pair, but perhaps it is good for you to come to understand one another.”

The truth hit Nat like a thirty-pound bag of wet sand thrown by a three-hundred-pound ogre: his own little minion was the storm that had killed his parents.

Flappy dove toward the boat, bringing gale-force winds, chaos, and death. “It was you!” Nat screamed.

Nat ratcheted back the harpoon gun’s firing lever. “Ahhhhhhh!” he cried.

Flappy charged, drunk with his newfound power, not recognizing his own Keeper. In truth, neither recognized the other now—anger, chaos, vengeance, and the intoxicating whirl of unrestrained freedom all conspired to hide their gentle selves, and the two faced each other as wild adversaries. Nat snarled and aimed his weapon. The wind demon swept in low over the water, sending out rooster-tail waves in its wake.

Suddenly, the huge worm-creature from the deep surfaced, sending a huge wave over the stern of the boat. Pernicious stood on the rear bulkhead, and the wall of water washed the little demon overboard.

Nat was too focused on the target of his anger to tear his eyes away from Flappy. Nik threw a life preserver, but the wide mouth of the sea creature snapped it up before it reached Pernicious and spit it out, shredded.

Richie whirled to find a weapon and grabbed the vessel’s flare gun.

“Nat!” he yelled. “The thing is back!” Richie leveled the flare gun at the squirming creature as it churned toward Pernicious.

Wooomph!

The flare sailed through the air but fell short of the creature, sizzling harmlessly into the waves. Pernicious flailed at the water. Unlike the limb-changing beast bearing down upon him, Pernicious was not a natural swimmer. Richie didn’t have time to load another flare, and Nat was preoccupied. The little demon was doomed.

But the creature charged past Pernicious, unwilling to veer even a few feet to devour the small demon. Instead, it plowed through the water to intercept larger prey—Flappy.

Richie saw what the thing was after and screamed to his mentor, “Nat! I know what it is! It’s the Demoneater!”

The revelation shook Nat from his gaze. He glanced away from Flappy as the huge Demoneater porpoised through the waves between them.

Flappy did not slow, and the Demoneater met the wind demon head-on.

Ka-whoooosh!

The furious collision of giants sent water spouting in all directions, drenching the Wanderer so that Nat and Richie momentarily lost sight of the confrontation.

When Nat blinked and wiped stinging saltwater from his eyes, he saw the Demoneater coiled around one of Flappy’s wings like a python trying to bring down an eagle. The wind demon spun in circles around the Demoneater, whipping up a whirlpool that threatened to swallow them both.

Nat aimed the harpoon cannon. “Monster!” he cried.

“Don’t shoot Flappy!” Richie pleaded. “He didn’t mean to sink your folks. He was just a wild animal out of control, like he is now.”

Nat didn’t seem to hear him and aimed carefully. The Demoneater’s mouth expanded, stretching to swallow more and more of Flappy as the two titans began to sink together into the swirling water.

Flappy was being eaten, but the wind demon was also in the crosshairs of his harpoon cannon’s sight. He could kill Flappy himself. He only had to fire, or he could let the Demoneater finish the job. Either way, his parents’ death would be avenged by the destruction of the demon that killed them.

“You taught me not to kill.” Richie was suddenly by his mentor’s side. “Even the dangerous ones. They know not what they do, right?”

Nat nodded, but he pulled the trigger anyway.

Kaboom!

The harpoon flew.

“Noooo!” Richie held his ears as smoke rolled from the cannon.

But the harpoon didn’t hit Flappy. Instead, it tore into the Demoneater, jutting suddenly from its torso as though it had appeared there by magic. The thing roared, releasing its grip on Flappy, and fell back into the waves, where it curled and writhed as Nat threw on the electric winch, hauling it in. Nat left the winch running and leaped to the flying bridge, where he jammed the throttle down, cranking up the engine.

The Demoneater fought for traction in the water, but the boat was tethered to its hard shell by the barbed harpoon. The Wanderer bore down upon it like a relentless steamroller.

Griiiiind!

The propeller thumpa-thumped over the creature, chewing at its exoskeleton and slicing the harpoon’s rope neatly in two, cutting the thing adrift.

Flappy regrouped and lifted off again, rising into the air, the storm rising again with him.

Richie saw Flappy escaping into the sky and grabbed the puzzle box. The boat was too far away for him to touch the massive demon with the box, or even throw it. Richie twisted the lid open. He could feel its pull, the ancient artifact drawing chaos, eager to capture and contain it. It was one of the most powerful demonkeeping tools known, and Richie dropped it into the flare gun on top of a fresh charge and fired it into the air.

Wuuumph!

The flare shell catapulted the box skyward, straight into Flappy’s gaping mouth. The huge demon swallowed it and then jerked to a halt. The wind gusted suddenly. It blew Richie, Nat, and Nik across the deck in all directions.

Flappy began to fold inward. Nat stared up at the demon, unsure of what was happening. He hadn’t seen Richie launch the box, and he would have screamed in dismay if he had, for a miss would have lost the priceless device in the waters of Puget Sound. Richie stared too, but he knew exactly what was going on—the box was sucking up the wind demon from the inside. Flappy struggled and then imploded, shrinking into the box, which swallowed the demon’s wispy form like a vacuum pulling in a cloud of escaped dust.

And suddenly the entire bay went eerily calm.

The box fell from the sky and hit the deck of the Wanderer, skidding to the edge.

“Nat, grab it!” Richie yelled, but his mentor was slumped against the wheel, physically and emotionally drained.

The box hit a cleat, flipped into the air, and skidded over the transom. Richie scrambled and dove after it, but it tumbled past his outstretched hand, fell into the water with an ominous plip, and disappeared from sight.

Richie lay on the deck. “Uh, Nat . . . ,” he said. But before he could turn around and face his mentor, Pernicious bobbed up in the water, gingerly holding the puzzle box.

“Demon overboard!” Richie yelped.

Nat still didn’t move but just gazed out over the water.

“Get him out of there, Nik!” Richie ordered.

Nik swung a fishing net on a long pole, scooping Pernicious out of the water. Richie helped the little troublemaker aboard, secured the box, and then went to Nat.

“It’s gone,” Richie said to him, helping him up.

Indeed, the Demoneater had floated away, jerking and spasming, its interchangable limbs schlurping in and out of its slimy arm sockets at random as it writhed into darker waters.

“I know,” Nat mumbled. “I saved my demon.”

“You did the right thing,” Richie said, looking at the older teen with earnest admiration.

“Did I?” Nat wondered aloud.

“Yeah, but we should get back home,” Richie suggested. “It’s freezing, we’re soaked, and Sandy will be worried.”

Nat nodded absently, staring out over Puget Sound, but he didn’t move from the wheel. In fact, his fingers still gripped it, white-knuckled.

“I’ll drive,” Richie said.

CHAPTER 23

THE HOUSE

Sandy had been waiting in the locked house for hours. She was going to be in more trouble with her parents than she had ever been, she thought. She was also bored, which was almost worse, so when she heard a noise outside, she couldn’t resist peeking out the rain-streaked window. The view was blurred. She harrumphed and went to the front door, cracking it open. The rain and wind had stopped an hour earlier, but it was still dark and hard to see.

Sandy stepped onto the porch and slunk down the steps, peering through the darkness. She looked out into the street and gasped. A great shadow loomed beside the curb near Nat’s front path, and something moved nearby.

Light footsteps echoed toward her. She took another step and then another, curious and frightened at the same time. Soon she was leaning over Nat’s fence. She could just make out the outline of a huge creature. It was eight feet tall and twenty feet long. It had a rectangular body, rounded at the corners, and the head was a huge curved lump at the front of the thing, which stuck out like a turtle’s skull.

“What do you want?” said a vague figure in the darkness.

Sandy jumped and just managed to stifle a scream as the figure stepped forward. It was Lilli.

Sandy caught her breath. “What are you doing here?”

“Now that the storm’s over, I’m leaving, like you guys said. I’m here to get my VW. Guess I’ll have to leave my busted rig behind.”

Sandy saw it now. The great shadowy body and head were not part of a creature at all, and she realized she’d nearly wet her pants over Lilli’s broken-down tour bus, which had been towed to the curb in front of Neebor’s house. The VW Bug was parked in front of it. The Demoneater, whatever it was, hadn’t come after all. Sandy was annoyed with herself for getting so scared.

Sandy and Lilli stood at Nat’s gate, eyeing each other. It was awkward. They had not been alone together before, Sandy realized, and she found it much harder to dislike the girl with nobody else around. She looked Lilli up and down. Her clothes were soaked, and her previously wild and free-flowing hair was wet and matted, pasted to her head so that she looked like a sad, droopy homeless dog.

“Where will you go?” Sandy asked.

“Somewhere. Anywhere. Nowhere. I don’t know. I’ve never really found a place to be. When I met Nat I thought, ‘At least there’s someone like me out there.’ But he’s your boyfriend, isn’t he?”

Sandy nodded. “You didn’t know that?”

“I didn’t ask. I didn’t want to. I should have. I’m sorry.” Lilli regarded Sandy with a curious look. “But it makes sense. Your auras are massively different, but they’re complementary.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. Now that I think about it, even though they’re opposite, they go together well. The way purple goes with yellow. And at certain moments, they do align.”

“What does that mean?”

“Smoochy time.” Lilli grinned and winked at Sandy. “Listen, I didn’t know you two were together. I mean, okay, I should have, but I was so excited to meet someone like me that I didn’t even think about him being with someone like you.”

Sandy made a decision. She didn’t hate Lilli. The impulsive wandering girl wasn’t calculating or conniving—she simply blew with the wind, letting fate take her where it chose. Unfortunately, fate sometimes blew you toward someone else’s boyfriend or picked you up and dropped you on your head. Lilli was also the opposite of her. Sandy planned her days in great detail and made careful choices at every turn. In fact, she was more calculating than the girl on the other side of the wrought-iron fence, and she hadn’t tried being nice to her.

“You know, I can’t blame you for being interested in Nat,” Sandy said. “Heck, he’s interesting.”

Lilli looked relieved. “Thanks. I’ve been on my own for so long. I just wanted the connection. I needed it. See, I’m not like other girls. I’m different. I’m . . . ”

“Special?” suggested Sandy.

“Weird.”

“Unique.”

Lilli began to sense that she wasn’t going to win a battle of vocabulary with Sandy. “Freaky?” she tried.

“Freaky-cool,” Sandy shot back.

“You think so?” Lilli’s frown turned into a soft, hopeful smile.

“Yeah,” Sandy said. “I’d like to be as laid-back as you sometimes.”

“No worries. You can be pretty smooth in the clutch.”

“And I’ll bet you wish you had a little more structure in your life at times,” Sandy said.

“Not really,” Lilli said.

Just then, a dark figure came hobbling up the street.

“Nat!” Sandy said. Sandy opened the gate and started toward him. But it wasn’t Nat. The figure was a blunt, misshapen person with a tubular body, round head, and thin limbs jutting out. In silhouette, it almost didn’t look human at all. It was Calamitous.

“Ah, here is the flowered vehicle,” he said. “Calamitous has found it again.” He sniffed the air. “It remains empty, yet there are many more of them somewhere nearby, aren’t there?” He turned slowly toward Nat’s front door, following his nose.

Lilli peeked out from behind Sandy. “I swear that guy’s a stalker,” she whispered to Sandy.

“Oh-ho!” Calamitous wrung his twitchy hands. “The other female, the one who kept them,” Calamitous said, and he stepped completely out of the shadows. The girls gasped. His face was mangled, and he walked with one hand clutching his side, hiding a long object under his coat. “Are you going to invite me into the house? Yes? No? Does it really matter whether Calamitous has your permission?”

“What’s wrong with you,” Sandy said. “Do you need a doctor?”

“Nuh-nuh-nuh-no,” Calamitous tittered. “I just missed my last meal, and I’m a bit . . . ravenous.” He staggered forward and extended a sticklike arm, drawing it smoothly across Lilli’s head as though tasting her.

Sandy grabbed Lilli’s hand, turned, and hustled the hippy girl up Nat’s porch and into the house, slamming the door after them.

Wham!

Minutes later, Nat and Richie trudged up onto the porch, wet and spent. Pernicious and Nik hopped alongside them, kicking each other in the butt.

“Dude, I’m sorry it was Flappy,” Richie said, patting Nat on the back. “I’m totally sure he doesn’t know what he’s doing when he gets that big.”

“I don’t want to talk about it,” Nat mumbled.

Nat stepped to the door and tried the knob. It was locked. “Open, door,” he said. One of the many bolts slid, but the door didn’t open. Instead, it locked itself.

Wham-wham! Nat pounded on the wood. “Open up, door!”

Suddenly, the door flew open, and Lilli blasted Nat with a fire extinguisher. The white foam struck him square in the face, and he tumbled across the porch.

“Wait!” Sandy cried.

“Oh no!” Lilli dropped the extinguisher. Zoot, who had been perched on her head like a plump pink hat, leaped back into the pattern of her blouse and disappeared.

Sandy ran to help Nat up. “We thought you were Calamitous.”

“Calamitous?” Nat spluttered, spitting out foam.

“He was here,” Lilli said, “and acting weird.”

“All beat up and talking in third person,” Sandy added. “He was sniffing around, and we locked him out.”

“Oh no,” Nat said. “We can’t let him discover what we do here! Where did you last see him?”

Whump!

Suddenly, Calamitous dropped from the porch ceiling right in front of them, landing on his four skinny limbs.

Richie leaped backward. “Dude, what the . . . ?!”

“Whoa!” Lilli gasped.

Calamitous squared off with the group, snuffling about madly and drooling. His eyes locked on Nik and Pernicious.

“How did you cling to the ceiling like that?” Nat said. He glared at Calamitous. There was definitely something wrong about the man. There always had been. Nat just couldn’t quite place it.

“They’re here!” Calamitous cackled. “Hundreds—maybe thousands. You just don’t know what to do with them.”

“See?” Lilli said. “Weird.”

“What do you want?” Nat said carefully, suddenly wishing the bizarre investigator was not between him and the open door, through which lay all his secrets.

Calamitous grinned. “To eat them,” he croaked.

He lashed out with an insectile arm, knocking Richie off the porch. Calamitous’s body began to bloat, contort, and shake. His coat fell away, revealing a harpoon jutting from his side, its barbed head anchored in his torso.

“Gross!” Lilli yelped.

“Get back!” Nat shouted to the others.

Calamitous changed before their eyes, his human form giving way to the writhing shape of a giant worm. More spindly insect legs popped through his suit, ripping it to shreds.

“It’s him!” Lilli cried.

“The Demoneater!” yelled Richie.

They evacuated the porch, leaping onto the grass or diving into the living shrubs, but Nik was too slow. Calamitous snatched up the muscle-bound little demon with a pincer. Nik turned on the pincer, grabbed it, and snapped it in half with his great strength, but Calamitous simply produced another from the same slimy arm socket and secured the little demon by the ankle again. He dangled Nik upside down over his open mouth, which was lined with multiple rows of spiny teeth. For all his strength, Nik was helpless.

Pernicious grabbed the fire extinguisher and bounded back onto the porch, shoving the nozzle into Calamitous’s gaping maw and filling it with foam.

Nat yelled to his minions. “Nik! Pernicious! Run!”

The monster that had been the man Calamitous whirled, surprised and confused, snapping and flinging flame retardant foam from its mouth like a rabid firehouse dog. Nik squirmed free and dove off the porch with Pernicious right behind him.

A cherub sculpture beside the door also turned to flee. It was a mistake, for it caught the creature’s bulbous eye. Calamitous scooped the cherub into its open mouth and crunched the sculpture into a million pieces. Then he whirled around and took a bite out of the demonic shrubbery along the porch as though it were a salad bar.

Lilli, Sandy, and Richie scattered to safety across the lawn, but Nat stood transfixed.

“The door!” he cried.

The others stopped and stared. The door stood open, terrified and shaking on its hinges. Even in the frenzy of his transformation, Calamitous was still human enough to understand the word “door.” The gigantic worm whipped around and snapped it in half, gobbling down a mouthful of the centuries-old wood, and then lunged into the house full of demons.

“Nooooo!” Nat screamed.

An equally distressed cacophony of shrieks, screams, and roars erupted inside.

Nat rushed back onto the porch as ferocious gobbling sounds poured out of the house.

“Nat, don’t go in there!” It was Sandy, the voice of reason.

“Listen to them!” Nat said. “They’re dying in there!”

“It’s my fault,” Lilli wailed. “You were right. I led it here.”

Nat leaped to his smashed front door. The entire upper half was gone. Nat grabbed the knob, and it came off in his hand. The demon door was dead.

“You can’t stop it!” Sandy shouted.

“I can’t just stand out here and do nothing!” Nat yelled back.

“But I’ve read the Journal,” Sandy argued. “It’s not a demon. You’ve got no power over it.”

“I’m not going in there to fight it, but I have to try to save my demons. Lilli, you understand, don’t you?”

But she was already rushing past him into the house.

“Wait!” Nat yelled. She was already gone. He heard a tremendous crash. “Everyone else stay out!” he said, and he ran after her.

“No way,” Richie said, watching his mentor throw himself into battle without him, and he rushed after Nat.

CHAPTER 24

RESCUE MISSION

Devastation. Wood splintered. Walls smashed. Richie came skidding into the foyer to find Nat frozen in horror in the middle of it all, staring.

“The living trim,” Richie gasped, seeing that the demonic decorative woodwork had been ripped from the walls of the foyer.

“Eaten,” Nat said.

“The walking entry table?”

“Dead.” Nat motioned toward its chewed remains, which still littered the floor.

“The tripping rug?”

“Devoured.”

“That fast?”

Nat pointed to the dining room’s double doors. The jamb was smashed on both sides. “It’s growing,” he said. “With each demon it eats—Charr, the Troll— . . . you saw how huge it was out in the water. And it’s only getting bigger now.”

“What about Lilli?” Richie asked, looking around. There was no movement in the foyer. Nothing in sight lived.

Nat shook his head. “She’s gone,” he said grimly, biting his lip. “Get yourself out of here.”

“No,” Richie said defiantly.

Nat didn’t have time to argue. “Then go to the rooms it hasn’t ravaged yet.”

“And do what?”

“Open the windows.”

“No other choices?” Richie asked.

“No! Get going.”

Richie nodded and ran down the hall, ripping the wooden and iron masks from the wall.

“Hey!” Woody complained.

“Oww! Put me down!” Irony cried.

“Put a sock in it for once,” Richie snapped, “unless you wanna die.”

“Are you threatening me?” Irony huffed. “Because if you are, I assure you that . . . ”

“Shut up!” Richie skidded to a stop, yanked open the window at the end of the hall, and threw the iron mask out.

“Look ouuuuuuuut beloooooooow!” it cried, tumbling toward the ground.

Richie cocked back the wooden mask.

“Aim for the bushes!” Woody groaned. Then it flew through the window after its partner.

Nat charged into the dining room and saw that there had already been a sudden fierce battle. The walls were streaked with huge gashes from massive talons. The clawfoot dining room table lay in the middle of the room, splintered, cracked, upside down, and heaving like a felled lion.

Nat knelt. “I’m sorry, old boy,” he whispered. “So sorry.”

The table creaked. There was green blood on one of its claws.

“You got in a good lick, didn’t you?” Nat said.

The table was a proud, regal piece of animated furniture from Europe that was centuries old. It had seen kings come and go. It rolled over, its ancient wood emitting a satisfied groan, pleased to have struck a blow, even in defeat. Nat held its outstretched paw as it stiffened, the last of its chaos draining away, and then the table was dead.

Nat stood, fighting tears that had begun to well up when he’d found no trace of Lilli, and he crept to the kitchen door.

In the foyer, a stretch of striped wallpaper above the splintered baseboard shifted, bulged, and then snapped into a pink pear-shaped blob. Zoot’s clown feet, skinny arms, and oversized horns popped free, and he shook himself of powdered plaster from the ravaged walls that had settled on him during the explosive fray.

He’d entered the room riding Lilli’s pant leg, and they’d been met by the massive abdomen of the Demoneater as it whipped around to snatch the flopping rug from beneath its six legs with its huge mouth.

Lilli had taken the full brunt of the blow. She slammed against the wall, her body going limp on impact. Fortunately, the Demoneater had been preoccupied with sucking in the rug and stuffing it down its gullet with its forelimbs. Zoot was able to quickly mimic the pattern of the wallpaper and the grain of the floor, covering her immediately with an improvised urban camouflage.

When it had finished off the rug, the Demoneater’s bulbous eyes had quickly swept the room. The air in the house was saturated with the smell of demons, and so it did not pinpoint their scent, and, seeing nothing, it charged off into the dining room, leaving Zoot quivering with fear and anger atop his injured human soul mate.

It had all happened in seconds. She’d been unprepared for its fury. She didn’t know violence or how suddenly it could erupt. Zoot didn’t either, but he was learning. He frowned deeply—he would not be surprised the next time. He couldn’t move her, as he was primarily a visual manifestation and had limited physical composition. He needed help. The other Keepers had thrown themselves into the bowels of the house, where the danger was even greater. Relief for his companion lay outside. He would try to enlist the aid of the strong blue demon, he thought, and then remembered that he’d turned the thing entirely polka dotted. He’d plead for its forgiveness, he decided, but if it bore a grudge, he’d seek help from the other teenage girl waiting on the lawn.

Richie heaved open windows as he ran down the second-floor hall. He’d gathered a ragtag mob of demons—all the first-floor survivors. They trailed him in a line like children, ignoring the exits he provided for them.

“Go! Go, you morons!”

The animated furniture, living dust bunnies, and wriggling knickknacks all just stared, grinning, confused, and generally moronic.

“Get out!” Richie groaned. “Geeeeeet ouuuuuuut!”

They milled about in the crowded hall, murmuring at the young apprentice’s strange behavior, some imitating him with ghostly groans of their own and others simply bumping into each other. Armchairs pushed and table legs kicked, but though they fought for space, none left the safety of the group.

“Gawd,” Richie exclaimed, exasperated, “you’re like a bunch of sheep waiting to be slaughtered!” Richie frowned, thinking hard, and then ran off.

Moments later he returned with the snake staff in his hand, driving the entire flock of demons through the window by waving the slithering serpent like an evil shepherd.

Downstairs, Nat crept into the kitchen. The Demoneater was there. It was eating the large demon stove. Nat cringed. It was an awful sight. The demon hung from its huge round mouth, shaking and rattling with a deep, metallic death cough and belching smoke as though throwing up blood. The Demoneater enjoyed its final throes, sucking the large thing in slowly, like a snake unhinging its jaw to swallow oversized prey. The stove’s struggles weakened, its chaos dimming to feeble shudders and, finally, dead stillness.

The Demoneater glanced in Nat’s direction and issued a steamy belch. Then it heaved itself up onto its insect legs, bloated.

Nat realized that he had no plan and wished he had the snake staff with him. He turned and ran, slamming the kitchen door behind him. But the door leaped off its hinges and fled too, undulating away like a six-foot-long manta ray. The Demoneater burst through the opening after Nat, scooping up a rancid smell, a leaky mug, and several other small demons in its path.

Nat hurdled up the stairs, and the Demoneater climbed straight up the wall after him, clinging to it like a spindly—legged caterpillar. It would catch him before he reached the end of the hallway, Nat realized. Desperate, he knocked over a watering can as he ran past, spilling it onto the yellowed ever-dying houseplant in the hall. The plant sprang to life, filling the hallway instantly with an impassable green thicket.

The Demoneater tore into the leafy treat, but it slowed him enough that Nat was able to reach the third floor and duck into a bedroom, where he found his apprentice huddled in one corner with a pack of quivering refugee demons.

“We’ve only got a few moments before it chews through the plant,” Nat said.

“These are the last of them from the lower floors,” Richie said, “the ones that can’t make the jump out a window.”

“Where are the rest?” Nat said.

“I pushed as many as I could through the first-floor windows.” Richie dropped his head. “But lots of them were eaten before I could get to them.”

“What about the Beast?” Nat asked.

“I’m not letting that thing out,” Richie spat.

“I understand,” Nat said, and indeed he did. The Beast had eaten several of Richie’s friends and had tried to eat both Richie and Nat. The young skateboarder owed it no favors when he could spend his time saving other, less dangerous demons.

“Have you been to the attic?” Nat said.

“Heck no,” Richie replied.

“I’ll go.”

“Nat, there’s, like, centuries worth of old chaos up there.”

“Then that’s where it will go next.” Nat turned and started off.

“The Demoneater,” Richie said, stopping Nat, “it’s part human. That’s how it was able to follow Lilli.”

“Yes,” Nat agreed. “Why? Do you think we could turn it back?”

A roar from just beyond the overgrown plant reminded them that the monster was still coming.

“Nah,” Richie said. “Just kill it.” He handed the snake staff to Nat..

“Just get these down and get to safety,” Nat said.

Richie gathered a collection of huddled glass stemware that clinked nervously, a book with a torn cover that couldn’t fly, the old broken broom with tape around its center, and a chipped pair of glass Christmas ornaments that couldn’t stop humming “Silent Night.”

“Where should I take them once they’re all outside?”

“You won’t be taking them anywhere,” Nat said grimly. “We’re letting them go.”

“What?”

“Most have probably already gone,” Nat said.

“But we’re Keepers,” Richie replied, “not . . . releasers.”

“Lilli’s demons died in their cage. I won’t have that happen to the ones I’m responsible for.”

“But we’re throwing generations of work out the window,” Richie said.

“It’s better that they’re loose than dead.”

As if to emphasize Nat’s point, a ripping sound echoed up the hall.

“It’s breaking through,” Nat said. “Can you climb down with these?”

“No way. We’re twenty feet up.”

“Here. Keep the staff. It can hold you.”

The staff frowned at Nat and hissed, looking distressed as he handed it back to Richie.

“But don’t you need it?” Richie said.

“Get moving,” Nat replied. Richie just stood there. “Now!” Nat demanded.

Richie jumped and began to struggle through the window with demons clinging to him. The snake staff wrapped itself around his wrist and secured its tail to the window ledge.

Boom!

“Go, go, go!” Nat yelled. Then he wheeled and ran down the hall.

Richie climbed through the window and looked down—he was far up enough to break his neck if he fell. He took a deep breath and began to lower himself with the demons, hanging on to the snake staff.

Suddenly, he was jerked upward. Richie threw his head back and saw the Demoneater’s toothy mouth in the window, slurping up the snake staff like it was a strand of spaghetti.

“No!” he shrieked. He cocked his arm to throw a Christmas ornament at the creature, until it shrieked too. He was too high to jump. The Demoneater pulled him up slowly.

Just then, a metal object thumped against the house. He looked down. Sandy stood on the ground with Nik, and they held the unpredictable demon ladder between them. Richie felt a simultaneous sense of vertigo and déjà vu.

“Here!” Richie yelled, planting one foot on the ladder. Instead of saving himself, he began to dump the demons down to Sandy, who scrambled to catch the fragile ones, leaving Nik to hold the swaying ladder. Outside the house, the demons did not reveal themselves to Sandy, so the ornaments she caught looked like ordinary ones, and the demonic glassware she kept from shattering on the walk looked like a bunch of plain old crystal glasses. She knew better and saved them anyway.

“Get down!” Sandy demanded after Richie had emptied his hands.

“I won’t let it eat Dhaliwahl’s staff!” Richie shouted. A deceptively powerful demon, the snake staff had been left in Nat’s care by Dhaliwahl. It had also saved Richie’s mentor from the Beast in the basement.

“You can’t save them all!” Sandy insisted.

“No,” Richie said, “but I’m gonna save this one.”

Pernicious came shooting up the ladder to help as Richie was dragged upward. The little demon leaped at the Demoneater, using all his powers of confusion and trickery to dodge, poke, and harass the huge creature from outside. Stuck inside and too big to fit through the window, the Demoneater grabbed for the shifty little pest, ramming its head against the window frame, causing the house to shudder and the ladder to cringe away just as Richie had set his feet on it to steady himself.

“Whoaaa!”

Nik fought to hold the frightened, bucking ladder in place as the Demoneater forced a tentacle through the window and pinned Pernicious against the exterior wall of the house. Richie clung to the windowsill, one foot on an unstable rung.

The snake staff had almost disappeared down the Demoneater’s throat when an unearthly wail erupted from the window. Richie would have covered his ears if he hadn’t been hanging on for his life. The Demoneater suddenly regurgitated the snake staff, along with a surprised-looking paperback book, which flapped its cover and fluttered off.

Pernicious, the serpentine staff, and Richie tumbled from the house. The staff still held Richie by the wrist. Pernicious popped into a two-dimensional parachute shape and caught the serpent by the tail, slowing their fall.

“Loooook ouuuuuut!” Richie yelled.

Together, they spiraled downward as Sandy dove for cover. Pernicious did not make a large enough parachute to give the young apprentice a soft landing, and Richie landed hard—right in the vengeful and thorny blackberry thicket, which pounced.

CHAPTER 25

THE SWORD OF CHAOS

Nat stood behind the Demoneater with a sword. He withdrew it from the creature’s tubular abdomen, and thick, green blood oozed out through its cracked exoskeleton. The Demoneater writhed against the window, bloated, hurt, and furious.

“I don’t know who you were,” Nat said, “but I believe you were once like me and Richie, maybe desperate, maybe hungry.”

The Demoneater had grown huge. It didn’t look hungry—it looked gluttonous. It didn’t need to eat them anymore, Nat realized; it enjoyed eating them. It had learned to feed on the very beings Nat and his lineage protected.

The Demoneater tried to turn around and roared. Even the blood liberated from its body was terrified. It fled, slithering off as the creature wrenched itself about, bashing out walls.

“You’re not a demon,” Nat said. “And I’m not obliged to let you live unless you turn back into a human, which I suggest you do immediately.” Nat raised the sword again.

The sword began to dance in Nat’s hand, overeager. It jabbed and slashed spastically, dragging Nat by the arm behind it. The Demoneater managed to turn and face Nat, only to find itself confronted with the whirling blade. The creature dodged and ducked as the sword lunged about wildly as Nat flopped after it.

“I can’t hold it much longer,” Nat groaned as he struggled to keep the sword under control. “Fight the hunger. Go back to being an annoying investigator.”

The creature rammed through a wall, bursting into the next room in an explosion of plaster dust and splintered wooden studs. Nat let go of the sword, and it flew toward the fleeing thing, just missing its tail.

Crash!

The blade smashed through the window and tumbled outside. Nat winced and then turned and ran for the attic.

The blackberry vines swarmed over Richie. They tightened around him, digging in with their thorns.

“Help!” he cried. He couldn’t get up, so he tried to reason with them. “I promise I’ll never trim you again.” In answer, one of the spiny vines wrapped around his neck, drawing blood and choking off his air supply.

Suddenly, Nat’s flailing sword dropped into the thicket. It immediately began whacking at random, left and right. It cleared a careless swath through the blackberry shoots, and Richie was equally in danger of being stabbed.

“Sandy . . . ,” Richie rasped, digging his fingers under the vine around his neck. “Grab the sword!”

Sandy waded through the curling, angry blackberry branches to help him, but they didn’t attack her. In fact, she couldn’t see them move. She only saw Richie entangled and wondered how he’d gotten that way. She eyed the blade doubtfully. It looked more dangerous than the thorns. She wondered briefly if the library would employ a one-armed librarian.

“But I’m not a Keeper!” she said.

“You’ve got hands, don’t you?” Richie said. He yanked his neck sideways as the sword buried itself in the ground right where his head had just been. His neck dripped blood from a dozen gashes, and he wondered if they were about to slice open his carotid artery.

Sandy nodded. She did have hands, at least for now.

“Then friggin’ grab it!” Richie wheezed. “I’m dyin’ here!”

Sandy made a grab for the sword and felt its hilt against her palm. The weapon calmed instantly in her hand. Sandy rose, standing over the blackberries and holding the medieval weapon high like a warrior princess with glasses.

“Hiiiiii-yah!” she shouted, and she whirled, severing vines. With each swing she trimmed off a thick shoot, and soon the bush was cleared away.

“Give me your hand, Richie!”

He did, and she yanked. Richie screamed in pain as he was pulled from the clinging thorns.

“Sorry! Sorry!” Sandy yelped. “You okay?”

Richie looked up, bleeding. “‘Hi-yah’?” he smirked.

“What was I supposed to say?”

“I dunno. En garde? Touché? Taste my steel, freakish demon foliage? Anything but ‘hi-yah.’”

Sandy helped him to his feet. “I’ve read about this weapon,” she said. “It’s an incarnation of the chaos of war from the Middle Ages, where there was often no order and no logic to who was struck or who died. In the heat of battle, this weapon flails at random.”

“It seems calm with you.”

“I don’t get heated.”

Nik and Pernicious joined them, and Richie watched, suddenly curious, as they both changed color from polka-dot yellow back to blue and green, respectively. A subway whistle sounded from the porch, and they all turned.

Zoot stood on the top step, his trident pointed at the recolored demons and his lips contorted to make the most sound he could muster. When his whistle ended, he looked exhausted and forlorn. With a sad, urgent wave, he motioned them inside.

CHAPTER 26

THE ATTIC

Nat burst into the attic and slammed the metal door behind him. “The storage room,” he said.

Storage areas in homes accumulated junk over the years, but in Nat’s case the years were centuries and the junk was demonic. The attic was jammed full of chaotic beings. There were thousands of them, gathered over generations—bizarre objects, breezes, noises, smells, apparitions, physical manifestations, animated foliage, and boxes piled high and brimming with assorted chaos incarnate. Nat threw off the heavy bar on the door and eased into the room—it was best not to startle them.

Some cowered. Some whirled to face Nat. Others gibbered nonsense. But they all recognized him as a Keeper and gave him space. A number of them were dying demons, the old ones whose chaos was running low. They didn’t have the energy to agitate him. Nor would they have the energy to elude the Demoneater, Nat thought.

Random items were piled so high that Nat had to walk down aisles between rows of artifacts, some in motion, some deathly still. Nat bumped a box and spilled hundreds of skittering, slimy little beasties across the floor. They gathered, melding into a single creature, which drew on their collective disorder to leap into the rafters with a burst of energy, where it blended with the wood and shadows and immediately went back to sleep.

Nat hurried past the others, making his way to a ten-foot- wide picture window at the front of the house, where he paused and stared out at Seattle. He’d already made his decision, and he spoke to the vast inventory of creatures behind him with an odd mixture of regret and hope.

“It’s a big, bad world out there, you guys, and there’ll be no one to keep you safe. I won’t lie; some of you will be killed. But I can’t protect you here anymore.” He nodded, as though still convincing himself that he was doing the right thing. “All I ask is that you go easy on mankind. They mean well. They don’t understand you, but there can be a place for you alongside them.”

Nat lifted a hat rack, which, in turn, tried to lean over and take his coat from him. He turned the rack onto its side and then swung it in a great arc and smashed the picture window into a million shards of glass.

Craaaash!

“Forgive me, Seattle,” he whispered.

The demons in the attic perked up. They stared at the sudden opening. Then a few began to inch toward Nat to investigate. The first to reach the window was an old camera tripod that shook whenever someone tried to take a picture. It wobbled past Nat and set one long leg experimentally on the windowsill. When Nat didn’t stop it, the tripod climbed out, and then it was gone.

“Go ahead.” Nat nodded to the others.

They began to evacuate, believing that they were merely escaping Nat, not yet understanding that they were fleeing a carnivore on its way upstairs to eat them.

Phantom noises and smells began to trickle out next. Whispers in the dark drifted past Nat’s ears—maddeningly faint words, like an important message played over and over that one could never quite catch. Intriguing cinnamon scents that tempted Nat to open his nostrils flew by, followed by the surprising acidic smell of dog feces.

The fliers drifted out and caught the breeze. Creepers skittered past onto the roof and down the side of the house. The trickle became a flow and then a flood, and demons streamed through the window as though they were being sucked from a rocket ship into the empty vacuum of space. Impending freedom revived the chaos in many of them. Some grew rapidly as they left the confines of the attic, as Charr, Wedge, and Flappy had done when they left the house. Nat knew they would clash with humanity, yet they deserved to live, and coping with chaos was part of what it meant to be human. It was a lesser evil than letting them die, and Nat stood aside as, before long, a mass exodus rumbled through the window like a stampeding herd.

After the most eager of self-motivated among them had evacuated, Nat began dumping box after box of stored and immobile demons through the opening, pausing only to dodge larger, late-breaking creatures as they roared past. He still had to make choices. A camera that purposefully snapped when someone had their eyes closed wasn’t a priority—the world was full of those—but he made sure that the medieval helmet that made squeaky farting noises when a person wore it made it out. He wondered how many knights it had humiliated in its time.

Soon those that could flee had done so, and Nat had dumped, thrown, or poured out most of those that couldn’t after them. He sighed as he watched the work of his predecessors vanish into the rainy Seattle night, and he wondered if those that came before him would have done the same thing were they still alive.

Boom! Boom! Boom!

Nat shook from his stare and turned to the see the wood framing around the metal door splinter. There was a moment of silence, and then the door exploded inward. Nat dove aside as it flew across the room and slammed into the wall where he had just been standing. The Demoneater’s round head squeezed through the raw hole in the wall, its bulbous eyes searching and rows of teeth gnashing.

Nat rolled to his feet as the monster pushed its upper torso through the gap. The Demoneater had grown even larger, having gorged on demons from the lower floors. Its arms rotated in and out of their wet sockets—claws, paws, pincers, whatever it could summon to rip apart the framing and walls. Teeth and tusks rotated in and out of its mouth, taking turns tearing at the plaster.

Nat moved aside for a shuffling pair of shoes that took their owners to places they didn’t mean to go—they’d once made him wander absently to the graveyard where his parents’ memorial stood. Afterward, he was glad he’d gone, but he’d never put the shoes on again. The shoes leaped out the window. Then Nat turned to face the the Demoneater creature, which had finally pushed its entire undulating bulk through the door.

The Demoneater stopped thrashing and took a long look at the remaining stash of demons in the attic. He shivered with anticipation. There were still many.

When he’d first begun to eat them while stranded on the open sea centuries earlier, it was just for survival, but he existed on them now, hunting them, and they had changed him. He took forms that helped him harvest them—the most efficient was a monstrous version of the most highly organized of organic creatures—the insects, the natural biological enemies of chaos. Appearing to be human was now but a convenient disguise.

He looked across the room. There was nothing between him and the young Keeper—nothing to stop him. The boy would have to go, he decided. Unlike the crunchy girl, the boy was a warrior. He fought for the demons like a shepherd battling for his flock. Even now he was helping them escape. The boy Keeper existed to foil his growing appetite, so the answer was simple: the boy would not be allowed to exist any longer. With that thought and the promise of another orgy of chaos to devour, Calamitous willingly surrendered the last of his human self to the creature he had become and coiled his writhing body beneath him to strike.

Richie and Sandy arrived in the foyer to find Lilli sitting upright with Zoot at her side.

“What happened?” Lilli groaned.

Sandy knelt, staring into Lilli’s green eyes. “Her pupils are different sizes and unfocused. I think she’s got a concussion.”

“Let’s drag her butt out of here,” Richie said, grabbing Lilli under the arms. “Nik, c’mon. Help me.”

Sandy glanced up at the dented plaster where Lilli had hit and stopped him. “She could have broken bones,” she warned. “We shouldn’t move her.”

“Newsflash, honey,” Richie snapped, “she shouldn’t stay here either. That thing upstairs . . .”

Richie froze. The iron door across the foyer had been ripped from its hinges. It hung loose.

“We have to go . . . now!” he whispered to Sandy. He directed her attention to the door. “The Beast,” he said, and he didn’t have to explain.

Sandy grabbed Lilli roughly by the scruff of the neck and helped Richie and Nik yank her across the foyer and out the front door. They wrestled Lilli’s limp form to the bottom of the front steps just as the attic window burst out.

Craaash!

“Look!” Sandy gasped.

Demons streamed from the broken window, flying, crawling, and cascading down around them.

“Is Nat dead?” she cried, dodging a falling white blob of sulfurous-smelling goo, which splattered across the lawn and immediately ran into the ground and disappeared.

“No,” Richie said. “He’s setting them free.”

Demons flew and fell. Some lived. Some died. Most blended quickly with their surroundings and vanished from Sandy’s sight. It was hard for the animated furniture to hide, though, so it simply sat on the lawn camouflaging itself as furniture.

Sandy and Richie instinctively tried to save the first few they saw. Sandy spread her jacket like a net to catch one of the wriggly little dust demons, which immediately shot up her nose to hide and sent her into a sneezing fit. Richie dove to save a salacious drool beast that tended to prey on dogs. But other fragile creatures shattered on the walk or bent into painful contortions on the lawn. A dining room chair broke a leg and squeaked in pain so loudly that Richie wondered if he should put it out of its misery—legs were as important to a chair as they were to a racehorse; once a leg was broken, the chair was never the same. Some of the demons simply couldn’t be handled by Sandy or Richie. When a set of kitchen knives with a tendency to cut its owner’s fingers came raining down, there was nothing to do but run, and the fact that they stabbed the grass in a pattern that spelled out N-A-T was a bit disturbing.

Richie looked up at the window as more demons poured out. It was possible that Sandy was right, he thought. Nat could already be dead.

As they dodged to and fro, Nik propped Lilli up against the VW Bug, and Zoot covered her again with his own body, morphing his pink self to look like part of the pink car and hide her from whatever craziness might spill from the huge broken window at the top of the house.

When the Demoneater squeezed the last of its wormy self into the attic, Nat backed up, shooing a few more painfully slow demons out the window.

“Move it! Move it!” he urged.

The Demoneater writhed into the room like a fat snake, teetering on its distended belly, too bloated for its arms and legs to support it now. They hung from its segmented body like skinny sticks poked into a round snowman and didn’t even reach the floor.

“You!” Nat yelled at the coat rack he’d used to break the window. “You’re the last. Go!” Nat watched sadly as it tumbled out. The rest of the demons were not going to make it.

The curtains billowed out into the night as the the Demoneater coiled its elongated body beneath it across the room. Suddenly, it bellowed and exploded toward Nat like a sidewinder whipping across the desert sands. It charged through the remaining demons—the slow, the weak, and others that Nat didn’t have time to save—scooping them into its gaping maw.

Nat leaped to the window and looked down. He saw, to his dismay, the shattered corpses of all the demons that hadn’t survived the thirty-foot fall. There was no way down for him either. Demonkeepers were not magicians—he’d always reminded Richie that. He was just a normal human being who could see the chaos as it truly existed among humans.

“I can’t fly,” he told himself as the curtains whipped back and forth, panicked. They looked as eager to escape as he was.

“Oh my gosh!” he gasped. He grabbed the curtain rod, wrenched it free, shoved it through the window, and leaped out after it.

CHAPTER 27

FLIGHT OR FIGHT

Sandy and Richie heard the Demoneater’s roar and looked up. The massive creature was in the attic. The demons had stopped coming. The last was a coat rack that landed and wrestled briefly with Richie, trying to take his jacket. They held out little hope that anything lived up there now.

A low growl from the front porch turned Richie’s head. His heart sank. A familiar nightmare loomed in the doorway—a slathering six-armed creature with black lips and long, curved fangs. The Demoneater’s rampage through the house had unhinged the basement door and released the Beast.

“Oh no,” Richie moaned.

The slobbering street demon fed primarily upon lost children, something Richie had been before Nat had taken him in. The Beast, however, was not above snacking on kids outside of its preferred diet who wandered into its path. Richie’s primary concern was for Lilli—her wandering ways put her squarely on its target menu. When he glanced over his shoulder and did not see her anywhere, he was relieved. He understood, however, that his own doom was near at hand as the Beast thumped down the porch steps at full strength and hungry, since it hadn’t eaten yet that morning. Richie glanced about. He didn’t have Nat to bail him out this time. He held up the snake staff but had no confidence that it would save him. He didn’t really even know how to use it. He was going to die a messy death, he decided, the same way his friends Gus and Sneakers had perished before Nat had captured the Beast.

“Sandy, you have to run,” he urged. “Nat and I couldn’t handle it—the house, the demons, the Demoneater, all the responsibility. We’re just a couple of stupid kids in over our heads, but you’re not. You’re smart, and smart girls leave when bad boys get into trouble.”

Sandy stepped up next to him, holding the chaotic sword before her. “You obviously don’t know anything about smart girls,” she said, “because…no, they don’t.”

Richie nodded, relieved and saddened at the same time. Sandy had no business dying with him, but at least he would not die alone.

“Try to cut off its left two arms with the first blow and the other two with your backswing!” he yelled as the Beast started toward them, flinging drool left and right from its thick head, which swung between its powerful shoulders.

Sandy looked at Richie like he was crazy and then turned to face the furry mass of claws and fangs that came hurtling down from the porch at them. But she was not a Demonkeeper, and as soon as it left the house, it faded into the concrete path, and she simply could not see it.

Suddenly, above them, Nat shot from the window holding the curtain rod in the center like a hang glider while the frightened curtains on each end billowed out like great wings. The contraption sent Nat soaring into the Seattle night. Sandy and Richie gasped. He was flying.

Smaaash!

Sandy and Richie had no time to catch their breath. The giant worm that had been Calamitous burst through the window after Nat, snapping with its great mouth. But it could not fly. Whereas Nat soared, the Demoneater plummeted. Sandy and Richie grabbed Nik and Pernicious and dove for cover.

Ka-whoooom!

The Demoneater hit the lawn hard, shaking the entire yard, and then went still. Sandy rolled up against the fence, smacking it with her head. Richie tumbled into the shrubs and leaped up immediately, fearing he’d fallen back into the homicidal blackberries and was relieved to find that he hadn’t.

Nat circled and drifted down on his curtain wings like an angel descending to land among the demons.

“Nat!” Richie shouted as his mentor stumbled to a stop near the Demoneater’s motionless mass. “You’re alive!”

“You two all right?” Nat asked. They looked for Sandy and saw her curled up at the base of the fence, holding her head.

“She’s hurt,” Nat said.

“I’m fine,” Sandy groaned. “Just give me a second.”

Richie’s eyes went wide. “Nat, watch out!”

The Beast leaped on Nat, knocking him to the ground, where it stood over him, salivating. A vicious slap from one of the Beast’s claws left four red gashes in his arm as Nat fought to protect his vulnerable neck. The curtain rod flew into the grass, and Nat’s arm fell limp, torn and useless.

Richie saw that the Beast was going to kill his mentor. He threw the snake staff, but it fell harmlessly short of Nat, and though it slithered through the grass toward him to help, it was not going to make it in time.

The Demoneater lay unmoving beside Nat, like a beached whale. Nat turned his head to take one last look at the incredible thing. He’d saved hundreds of manifestations of chaos from it, yet that same chaos he protected was about to kill him. The irony of it did not escape him, but he felt, in a sense, that he had at least done his job.

The Beast roared and dove for Nat’s neck. But its fangs did not close. Instead, the huge mouth of the Demoneater rotated and caught the Beast’s head before it could snap forward and tear out Nat’s throat. The massive worm lurched sideways and clamped down on the furry horror, ripping it in half. The Beast’s lower torso fell away, flopping onto Nat’s chest, and the revived Demoneater snatched up the rest of it, gulping the large thing down as easily as an Orca whale might swallow a salmon.

Nat still lay on his back as the Demoneater loomed over him, its mouth agape. He could see inside the monster. Half-digested chaos steamed in a foul stew in its throat, with parts of demons floating in it. It would scoop him up next, he thought, and suck him in. He was still going to die. In his last moments he saw that he would drown in muddled chaos, just as he should have done as a child with his parents.

Just then, a horn sounded, and the Demoneater looked up. Nik and Pernicious stood at the nearby gate, drawn up to their full eighteen-inch heights, defiant and ready to leap in and help their Keeper. With its natural prey before it, the Demoneater swung its jaws away from Nat and opened them wide to devour his two minions instead. Without even a quick sniff, it hurled its vast bulk forward and shoveled them straight into its mouth. It was surprised when they vanished.

Suddenly, a pink flash smashed through the gate and rocketed up the path. The Demoneater had a moment of wide-eyed realization, a second when it became clear that the stuttery man inside the monster was not completely gone, a semi-intelligent moment of “uh-oh.” Then Lilli’s VW Bug drove straight into its open mouth and tore its head in half.

Spluuuuuuush!

Stringy, slimy goo splattered the front porch and the shrubs where Richie was standing. He ducked, but it was no use. A wall of raw, stinking, half-digested liquid chaos flattened him.

Zoot crouched on the path. His illusion of Nik and Pernicious had not been great, but it had been good enough. The excited Demoneater had gone right for it, giving Lilli a clean shot at its head with her car. Pernicious snickered from the safety of the fence nearby. Nikolai nodded and clapped. Zoot chuckled too, his fat belly jiggling with mirth and the love of a successful deception.

Sandy stared as a dazed figure crawled out of the VW through the dripping muck. She grinned. It was Lilli.

“You came back!” Sandy shouted.

Lilli looked around, shaken from the collision. “I just went to get my car.” She stumbled and fell, and Sandy ran to help her.

Richie wiped his eyes. At first he didn’t believe what he saw. A pink VW Bug hung from the destroyed jaws of the Demoneater. He shook his head. “Dude,” he said, “this is a new weirdest.”

The girls found Nat nearby, dripping bug entrails and staring down Queen Anne Hill. In the distance, demons scattered through the city, tipping over garbage cans and setting off car alarms, each melting into the urban landscape to cause its own type of chaos.

Sandy wiped slime from his face, and Lilli stood back to allow the young librarian to tend to her boyfriend.

“I let them go,” Nat said.

“Not all of them,” Richie blurted out. “Some got chowed, and there are a few dead ones lying around.”

Sandy glared at Richie over Nat’s shoulder and motioned for him to shut up. “You saved all you could,” she whispered to Nat.

“Oh. Yeah,” Richie said quickly. “Hey, Dhaliwahl would be proud, man.”

Lilli stepped forward. “Nat, I want to say that you were so cool to give me a place to stay after that thing destroyed my life, but then I led it here and helped it destroy yours. I’m so sorry. You even warned me there were bad things out there, and I just couldn’t see the world your way.”

“And I can’t see it yours.”

Nat pushed past the others and walked to the house. He looked inside. It was demolished. He made his way through its empty rooms with their smashed walls to the obliterated study.

“Oh, man,” Richie said, “there’s, like, nothing left.”

Sandy slugged him. “Richie! Shhhh.”

“No. He’s right,” Nat said. “There’s nothing left for me here.”

“What are you sayin’, bro?” Richie asked.

“You have the box?”

“Yeah.” Richie handed it to Nat.

Nat opened it and dumped Flappy out. “I can’t look after this one anymore,” Nat said. “Keep him for me, up in the attic where the worst he can do is chase the dust bunnies.”

“What do we do now?” Richie asked.

“I don’t know,” Nat said, turning in a slow circle as though looking for answers among the wreckage. “I need to talk to someone.”

“Who?” Sandy interrupted.

“My mentor.”

“Dhaliwahl?” Sandy said, confused.

“Dude,” Richie said, “I know you can do some freaky stuff, but I seriously doubt you can talk to a dead guy.”

“Sandy,” Nat said, “I want you to find the place in Dhaliwahl’s Journal entries that talks about Flappy and translate it.”

“Now?”

“Yes.”

Sandy retrieved her laptop and they sat in the middle of the study among the smashed furniture and scattered burial urns. Lilli and Richie stood nearby as she found and read Dhaliwahl’s passages aloud.

“‘I have successfully captured the wind demon, but at an awful price. A young family fell victim to its tempest. Their vessel was smashed on the rocks at Deception Pass just after I passed them in the trawler, tracking my quarry. In that instant, I had a choice—an awful choice. I saw one chance to capture this magnificent deadly demon or one chance to help the family. I made the capture instead of helping them, and by the time I had secured the demon, they had been washed away by the demon I did not see.’”

Sandy turned the page.

“‘The storm died down once the demon had been caught, and I drifted back to discover only smashed remains of the other vessel. But there was something bobbing in the water—a small child in a life preserver. I helped him to shore.’”

Nat sat rigid, staring across the room.

“‘This boy will not remember me, but I will watch him as he grows and keep track of him. I am in need of a new apprentice, but I do not want to burden him further. I hope that he finds a normal family, a normal life, but if this boy—Nathaniel is his name—struggles, I will step in to care for him, because on that dark day, in my blind devotion to my calling, I allowed his parents to die.’”

“He was there,” Nat whispered. His voice trailed off.

“You okay?” Sandy asked.

“Imagine his guilt,” Lilli said softly.

Nat sat silent for a time, thinking. “It was the demon he did not see,” he said finally, repeating Dhaliwahl’s words. He stood up. “I’m leaving,” he said.

Nat summoned Nik and Pernicious to him. They leaped up and were sucked into the box. Nat put the box in his pocket, turned, and walked out, past his apprentice, past Sandy, and past Lilli.

Sandy ran after him and grabbed him.

“Where are you going?”

“There’s one more elemental.”

“Huh?” Richie said. “What do you mean?”

Sandy thought hard and then uttered the answer: “Water.”

Nat nodded. “The wind didn’t kill my parents by itself. I’m taking the Wanderer out to find the water demon.”

“Out where?” Richie said.

“The bay, the ocean . . . I don’t know. Wherever it takes me.”

“What about the house?” Sandy asked.

“It’s empty.”

“What about Richie?” she said.

“Will you be okay, kid?” Nat said to Richie.

Nat watched Richie glance about at the destruction, debating. He was still a punk kid, and it would be hard for him. He needed guidance. But Nat could see that his apprentice wasn’t going to try to talk him into staying.

“Seattle’s gonna be a pretty wild place for a while,” Richie said. “There are several centuries’ worth of demons running amok downtown. And this house is trashed.” Then he grinned. “But you gotta do what you gotta do, man.”

Sandy stomped her foot. “But what about . . . me?”

Nat took Sandy by the shoulders and looked her straight in the eyes. It froze her.

“You’re a great woman,” he said. “You were great when I met you. You’re going to be great after I’m gone. But there’s nothing you can do to keep me here.”

Then Sandy kissed him. It was a good one this time, and Nat found himself kissing back. Lilli grinned. Their auras were exactly the same color for a flickering moment—a vibrant red. Then Nat pulled away.

“Nice try,” he said. “Really nice, actually. You almost had me, but . . . ”

“We can fix the house,” Lilli offered, “and start recapturing demons.”

“I know you can. It needs someone who can see things in a positive light,” Nat said. “Lilli, this is your new pad, if you want it. It comes with its own apprentice. Sorry I left it a bit of a mess.”

Then Nat walked out, down the steps, through the stinking chaos splattered all over the lawn, and away toward the harbor.

EPILOGUE

The next day they gathered at the house again, even though Nat was gone. Sandy sat reading the journal, her thirst for knowledge driving her to decipher every word. Richie repaired walls with spackle. Lilli entered with a wheelbarrow.

Sandy sniffed and curled up her nose. “Eww! What’s that?”

“The remains of our friends,” Lilli answered. “The raw, digested chaos from the creature’s stomach.”

“Monster barf?” Richie said. “Yo, tell that stuff to dump itself into the cellar where the Beast used to live or something.”

Instead, Lilli dipped her hand into it and walked to a nearby wall. She smeared the liquid chaos across the surface, painting, shaping, and sculpting for a moment and then letting it do what it pleased. Zoot swept his trident in random circles, and the makeshift paste transformed the crumbling wall into a bizarre beautiful mural, which to Sandy looked like an abstract representation of the underground battle with Charr, to Lilli like the Troll holding her beloved VW Bug, and to Richie like his spectacular capture of Flappy on Puget Sound. As the picture changed, the smell shifted too, until it was no longer unpleasant but simply a bit sad, like orchids at a funeral.

“We cannot tell chaos what to do,” Lilli said. “We can only suggest a direction for it to take.”

One hundred miles away, Nat steered the Wanderer into the sunset as he left Puget Sound and moved out into the open ocean, heading due west with Nik and Pernicious silhouetted on his shoulders. His newest minion, Wedge, rested in a network of cracks that ran through the wood of the deck, too frightened of the vast liquid sea and its lack of hard materials to risk tearing into the vessel’s hull, which was fine with Nat. He didn’t need any leaks. The ocean was a big place, and it was going to be a long voyage.

END

APPENDIX

Where in the heck is Seattle? Just up there . . . and a bit to the left.

The Space Needle. Scraping the Seattle skyline since it was built for the 1962 World’s Fair.

Unsuspecting houseboats on Lake Union.

The Fremont Troll with a full-size Volkswagen Bug in its claw. And yes, that is Royce’s eldest son with his hand up its nose.

Gas Works Park. A beautiful, serene grassy waterfront with a deliciously creepy decaying factory.

Royce and his minion, Nikolai (I’m the one on the right).

Photo by Jon Brunk

Novels by Royce Buckingham

Demonkeeper

Demonkeeper II - Demoneater

Demonkeeper III - Demonocity

Goblins

The Dead Boys