Billy: Messenger of Powers (5 page)

Blythe was in three of Billy’s classes, but since their first strange encounter she had never spoken to Billy. And now here she was, apparently taking an interest in him for the first time, and doing so because he needed
rescuing
. Billy would rather have been beaten up every single day and twice a day on Sundays than have Blythe coming to his rescue. Blissful fantasies that involved him asking her to come over to his place to watch a movie and ended in her declaring her undying love to him all shattered before his eyes. Girls didn’t declare undying love to the little kid they had to rescue. It just wasn’t done.

“Stay out of this, Forrest,” snarled Cameron, turning his attention to Billy.

“Why should I, Black?” responded Blythe, striding fearlessly toward them.

Billy, watching this interplay, found Blythe even prettier now that she was standing up to Cameron. Of course, she was still rescuing him, so her increased beauty just made Billy more depressed about his overall predicament.

Cameron turned around to face Blythe again. Harold Crane and Sarah Brookham both moved as if to stop Blythe, but Cameron stopped them with a glance. “Don’t,” he said to his cronies.

Blythe glanced at the two other Torture Brigaders, disgust written large across her lovely face. “Yes, don’t,” she agreed. “You wouldn’t like what would happen to you.” She turned her gaze to Cameron. “Would they, Cam?”

Cameron growled, and Billy could feel the big boy tense. He was sure that Cameron was about to spring at Blythe.

Billy had one fleeting moment of thought, and it consisted of only two words: “Not her!” Suddenly terrified for Blythe’s safety, Billy shoved Cameron, hard.

Coming from someone Billy’s size, the shove wasn’t much. In fact, Billy was so bad at shoving he actually missed. He was aiming to push Cameron in the chest, but his grip slipped, and he lurched forward, off-balance. His arms windmilled, and there was a sickening crunch as Billy’s out-of-control elbow planted itself firmly in the middle of Cameron’s nose.

Blood erupted from the other boy’s face. Cameron cupped his hand below his nose, trying in vain to keep the red liquid from soaking his designer shirt.

“You made me bleed,” he said. Oddly, he didn’t sound angry. More…surprised than anything.

Billy looked at Blythe. She, too, looked shocked, her gaze riveted on Cameron’s ruined face.

“MR. BLACK!”

It was Mrs. Russet. She was hurrying down the hallway like a freight train hauling anvils down a steep hill, an unstoppable force.

Billy sighed in relief. Cameron couldn’t pretend nothing had happened
this
time. He was snuffling like a walrus with a head cold, blood soaking his shirt in a widening red cone.

Mrs. Russet looked at Harold and Sarah. “Leave,” she barked. The two junior members of the Torture Brigade showed rare intelligence as they high-tailed it as fast as they could.

Mrs. Russet looked at Billy, then at Cameron. She swiveled at last to Blythe. “What happened?” she demanded.

Blythe appeared barely able to speak. “He…,” she pointed to Billy. “He…
hit Cameron
.”

Mrs. Russet made a noise deep in her throat, something between a cough and a guffaw. “That’s not possible,” she said. She looked at Billy and Cameron again. “Is that true?” she demanded of Cameron.

“Well,” managed the bigger boy. “I don’t think he meant to. It was just a lucky accident for him.”

“Lucky? Lucky?” The word seemed to enrage Mrs. Russet even more. “Get out of here, Black!” Cameron turned to go. “You, too, Ms. Forrest.” Blythe hesitated a moment, but Mrs. Russet’s furiously flashing eyes convinced her to go.

“And you,” she said angrily, grabbing Billy by the shoulder, “you come with me.”

She yanked him down the hall with her.

Billy couldn’t believe it. How was this possible? He was being
punished
? Not only was Cameron not in trouble—again—but Billy
was
in trouble?

“But I didn’t—” he began.

Mrs. Russet’s mutterings cut him off. “Not possible,” she said under her breath, casting a glance at Billy. “You didn’t even Glimmer.”

Billy tried again. “But he started it.”

Mrs. Russet stopped in front of a room marked “Janitorial” and seemed to focus on Billy for the first time. “I don’t doubt that for a second, Mr. Jones.”

“But then,” Billy said in a very small, very confused voice, “Why are you mad at
me
?”

Mrs. Russet’s visage softened. Or at least, it got as soft as it could, which was to say it could have shattered diamonds but was now slightly less frightening than it had been a moment ago. “I’m not mad at you, Mr. Crane. I’m mad at Cameron Black.”

She withdrew a small item from her pocket. It was a key, Billy saw. But it was unlike the keys he saw his parents and other older people use. It was old-fashioned and looked like it had been made by hand at an ancient forge: the kind a person would see in movies featuring underground dungeons in medieval castles. But where there was usually a circular piece of metal at the top of such keys, this one had been shaped to resemble a beehive.

Mrs. Russet pushed the key toward the keyhole to the janitorial closet. There was no way it was going to fit, Billy knew. The key was far too large.

But somehow, it did fit.

“Buster bumpkin bunny burps,” whispered Mrs. Russet. She turned the key. A dazzling light speared out of the key, blinding Billy. Unseeing, he felt Mrs. Russet’s hand on his shoulder.

“I’m not mad, Billy. But you never should have been able to touch Cameron. You see, he’s a Black. But you did touch him. So we must find out why.” The hand tightened. “Hold your breath,” she said. “Take two steps forward, then one step back.”

Billy did what she said. He did so automatically, almost as though he had no choice in the matter. Through the blaze of white light, he could feel Mrs. Russet moving with him.

A queer jerking sensation bounced up through Billy’s frame, shivering him from head to foot. The breath he’d been holding burst out of him in a whoosh, and at the same time the blinding light dimmed. Billy blinked once, then
screamed
at the first thing he saw.

Because the first thing he saw…was a dragon.

Billy had never seen a dragon before, so he couldn’t absolutely swear that what he was now looking at was a dragon. But it certainly
looked
like what Billy imagined a dragon would look like. It was the size of a two-story house, with overlapping metallic blue scales the size of tea plates covering its entire body. Great glistening wings flapped slowly, moving lazily and gracefully as those of a butterfly resting on a rose.

But this was no butterfly. The dragon’s mouth was agape, teeth the length of Billy’s forearm glistening with saliva that dripped in stringy lengths to the stone ground upon which the monster sat. The saliva spit and hissed as it touched the ground, etching acid courses through the rock.

The dragon spotted them almost at once. It hissed a warning, and a long tail that ended in a wickedly serrated point flicked over its head. Two small puffs of flame emerged from its nostrils, and then it inhaled deeply.

Billy knew what was going to happen next. He simply
knew
it. He and Mrs. Russet were going to be incinerated.

He screamed again.

Strangely, Mrs. Russet’s only response was, “Oh, fiddlesticks. Artetha couldn’t Imbue a key if the White King Himself helped her do it.”

The dragon was still inhaling.

Billy was still screaming in terror.

Mrs. Russet held out her key: that strange key that she had used on the door to a janitorial closet that apparently was much more than a janitorial closet. She shook it like one would a remote control that wasn’t working, then said, to no one in particular, “Artetha, if you are listening, I want you to know that I am going to drop a mountain on you the next time we meet.”

The dragon stopped inhaling.

Mrs. Russet looked it square in the eye, and said, “Don’t even think about it, Serba.”

The dragon, still holding its breath, seemed to grin evilly, and made a noise, deep in its throat, that Billy would swear sounded like nothing other than a nasty chuckle. Then it opened its mouth to exhale.

And what happened next made everything else seem ordinary in comparison. As the dragon opened its mouth, not fire, but a thick liquid river of lightning spewed toward Billy and Mrs. Russet.

Billy screeched and dropped to the ground, skinning his knees and hands on the rock below. Mrs. Russet reacted differently. She whispered a quick word, and the rocky ground all around them shifted as though it had suddenly become water. A thick stalagmite erupted from the ground directly in front of them, and the dragonsbreath slammed into it with the sound of dynamite exploding against the rock face of a mountain. A shower of dirt and pebbles cascaded down all around Billy and Mrs. Russet, but the stalagmite had protected them from a painful electric death.

Billy could no longer see the dragon, but heard it inhale again, and wondered how many hits the pillar of rock could absorb before simply falling to pieces.

Mrs. Russet looked at him. “Stand up!” she snapped. Billy did so, surprised he was able to move at all.

BANG! Another explosion slammed shockwaves through Billy as the dragonsbreath hit the rock again. The pillar started to shimmy back and forth, clearly about to topple.

Mrs. Russet grabbed Billy as the dragon once more inhaled for a final, deadly strike. She held her strange beehive key against the back of the stalagmite as though it were a door, and turned the key, whispering again those nonsense words that apparently turned the key on: “Buster bumpkin bunny burps.”

And a door appeared in the back of the rock.

Billy had thought nothing could surprise him further at this point, but a door appearing as though to meet the key’s needs did so.

He didn’t have long to think about it though. The dragon stopped inhaling. This was it.

“Hold your breath,” hissed the teacher. “And remember: two steps forward, one step back.” Then she yanked Billy forward with her, with him lurching against her unsteadily as they stepped into the dark doorway to nowhere just as the dragon exhaled lightning once again.

The sound was all around them, too loud to be believed, as the dragonsbreath exploded through the rock. But then it instantly muffled, as though heard from a great distance. “One step back,” said Mrs. Russet, and her voice, too, sounded odd and strained. Billy realized his eyes were tightly closed. But he didn’t open them. What new terror would he see if he did? He just scrunched them even tighter, and then stepped backward with Mrs. Russet, her bony, strong fingers sunk deep into his shoulder and giving him little choice in the matter.

And then, all was silence.

And a moment later, sounds came to Billy. Strange, alien sounds.

“Open your eyes, boy,” said Mrs. Russet impatiently. “We’re here.”

Billy opened his eyes. And gasped.

“Welcome,” said Mrs. Russet, “to Powers Island.”

CHAPTER THE THIRD

“This is what happens when you don’t hold your breath” was the first thing Billy saw. It was written in ornate letters on a six foot tall bronze sheet that stood behind what looked like a shriveled mummy. Its mouth was open in a silent shriek and its eyes bugged out of its head, pupils staring in opposite directions like a chameleon. Billy stifled the urge to scream.

Instead, he managed to look at Mrs. Russet and stutter, “W-would I l-look like that if I hadn’t held my breath just now?”

“Of course not,” said Mrs. Russet, somewhat distractedly. “You’d be much shorter.”

Billy reeled, trying to take in his surroundings. He and Mrs. Russet were standing in what looked like the lobby to a movie theater. Nearby, there were three lines of people, everyone in them waiting patiently as the lines moved toward three glass cases. Each case was about six feet tall and held in it what looked like a carnival fortune teller: one of those plastic mannequins that would give someone a card with their fortune on it in exchange for a quarter.

Mrs. Russet pulled Billy with her into the shortest line. “What are we doing?” asked Billy. “Where are we? Why are we here? Who are you? How did we get here? Why are we in line? What’s that fortune teller thing? How—”

“Calm down,” snapped Mrs. Russet. “Powers Island. To determine if you Glimmer. Mrs. Russet. By Imbuement. To stand and be counted. The Counter.”

Billy looked at his teacher. The words were, once again, English. But as had happened so often in recent minutes, he didn’t understand a word of what she was saying.

“What?”

“Those were the answers to your questions.”

Billy thought furiously. He couldn’t remember what he had asked. But he suspected that, even if he did remember, he wouldn’t understand the answers anyway. Still, he tried again. Start with something basic, he thought, then said aloud, “
Where
are we?”