The Grimm Chronicles, Vol. 2 (44 page)

Seth nodded. “Tons and tons of practice over the years. I know you might find that hard to believe, but I am in fact quite the manly man.”

“Great.” I took a deep breath, clutching my white purse. “Just stick to the plan. No risks.”

“Right,” Seth said. “No problem.”

We walked to the emergency exit door. My shaky hand went to the handle, testing it. Yup: unlocked. Agnim was definitely ready for me. I checked my right pocket: the magic pen was tucked safely inside. I checked my purse: the
strappers
were inside.

“You sure those are going to work?”

I smiled. “They’ve been tested. Let’s go.”

Seth nodded, clutching his gun with both hands.

I opened the door, stepping inside. Except for the red curtain in front of the movie screen, it was just like my dream.

Right down to the robed men sitting in the seats. About two dozen of them, a few more than I expected. The little lights along the ceiling cast a bloody glow over the audience, and I felt a warm rush of anger flood through my body. They were human, all right. Men willing to cavort with a creature like Agnim didn’t deserve mercy.

But I was going to give it to them anyway.

“Get her!” shouted one. They got up from their seats, swarming toward me. I set my bag on the stage, grabbing one of my homemade
strappers
. Three of them reached me at the same time, their hoods falling back as they charged toward me.

“Get ready,” I said to Seth, who was crouched in the open doorway.

The first one got within striking distance, and as he reached out with his arms I could see the ferocity in his dark blue eyes. He would kill me. This man, this fellow human being, would
kill
me simply to protect the gold promised to him by Agnim.

I dodged right, whipping the leather
strapper
around the man’s arm, pulling him to the ground.

“Now, Seth!”

He fired his gun. A nail the size of my finger flew through the air so fast I didn’t even see it until it hit pierced the fabric of the man’s thick, magnificently tailored robe.

Pinning him to the floor.

The other two came at me at once. From behind them came the shouts of a dozen more, charging down the center aisle between the rows of seats. I used the momentum of the two men to pull them back, falling over and taking both with them.

Whump! Whump! Whump! Whump!

Two nails each pinned their robes to the floor. Seth gave a quick thumbs-up, then pointed over my shoulder.

“I know!” I said, turning and climbing the stage before the next group of minions could reach me. They were swarming the stage now, and nearly all of them were wearing those terrifying steel claws.

“You’re not playing by the rules!” I shouted, pressing my shoe on the head of one who’d managed to get one leg up on the stage. I pushed him onto his fellow minions. “You’re supposed to come at me one at a time, like in the movies!”

“Kill her!” one of them shouted, his mouth frothing with saliva.

Another had managed to climb halfway onto the stage, using his claws to dig into the old wooden floorboards. I grabbed another
strapper
from my bag, whipping his wrist and pulling him onto the stage. I then promptly tossed him off, stage-right.

Whump! Whump!

Two nails pinned his heavy robe to the ground.

“Luckily you’re all mostly out of shape,” I added.

“Get her friend!” someone shouted.

“Shut the door, Seth!” I called out. We knew it would happen eventually. The plan was for him to shut the door and bar it shut with his ice scraper. No risks. He could open the door again once they turned their attention back to me.

Instead of following the plan, he ran inside.

“Seth!” I shouted, pushing another of the minions off the stage. “What are you doing, you big dummy?!”

“I panicked!” he called back, running up the side aisle along the wall. A handful of minions followed him, splitting up so they could corner him before he crossed over to the center aisle.

I grabbed another
strapper
, heart racing. They would kill him if they caught him. I couldn’t let that happen.

“Seth!” I called out, pushing two more minions off the stage. “Jump the seats!”

“What?! How?!”

“Just stand on the backs of the seats and step on them like they’re stepping stones!”

He crossed into one of the rows of old seats, followed quickly by the robed minions. Thankfully, none of them were in peak physical condition. In fact, most of them looked like they’d spent the last ten years sitting behind a desk. They were huffing and puffing; the murderous lust to protect their gold was their fuel now.

More cornered Seth from the center aisle, sidling between the seats. Seth climbed onto one, then stepped over to the next. The minions, clearly not as agile or young as Seth, sidled their way back to the aisles to chase him down.

I kicked three more off the stage. They were getting bolder, spreading out and making it difficult for me to keep them off. I used the
strapper
on another one, wrapping it around his wrist and taking him down just like I had Joey Harrington, tying a quick knot around his ankle. I rolled him onto his friends, momentarily incapacitating a half-dozen of them.

This wouldn’t work for much longer. And Seth was stuck, jumping frantically from row to row. His assailants were already spreading out, closing in. I had to think fast. I looked around frantically …

And quickly spotted my way out.

“Perfect,” I said, running over to the red curtain hiding the movie screen. I grabbed it and pulled as hard as I could, feeling it give way somewhere above. One of the minions climbed the stage and I ran over still clutching the heavy curtain, pushing the minion off with my shoe.

The curtain began falling. I guided it to the edge of the stage, blanketing the minions.

There came a collective gasp from those not trapped under the heavy curtain. I looked out into the seats—the minions had stopped chasing Seth and were just standing there, staring at me. Seth jumped his way toward the stage, hopping over the first row of seats and then stopping.

“Woah. Holy crap.”

“The dragon! The dragon has finally awakened!” said one of the robed men, pointing with a shaky finger.

I turned, feeling an icy chill creep down my spine. When I saw it standing there on the massive hay-covered platform, I nearly fainted.

It wasn’t a dragon at all.

It was a
goose
. A big, fat, golden goose.

Chapter 14: Briar

Dummling went and cut down the tree, and when it fell there was a goose sitting in the roots with feathers of pure gold. He lifted her up, and taking her with him, went to an inn where he thought he would stay the night. Now the host had three daughters, who saw the goose and were curious to know what such a wonderful bird might be, and would have liked to have one of its golden feathers
.
[viii]

Meanwhile, back at the bat-cave …

Huh! Well, not quite. But at the very moment our hero was on her way to the movie theater of magic happenings, yours truly was on the precipice of a downright terrifying discovery.

“I don’t see what the point is,” Chase huffed, tossing aside another book. We were in the incapacitated fellow’s living room, combing through my research. “All these old writings won’t help Alice now. She’s out there and we’re here …”

“Helpless?” I finished. “Ah, of course you feel that way. You’re quite smitten with her.”

“Take that back!”

I hopped back a step, ever the cautious one. That, and I now had a straight line to the kitchen, should a snacking break arise. “Easy now … perhaps a snack to settle your nerves …”

Chase flipped through another book with all the temerity of a squirrel, sighing a great big teenager sigh.

“Now, be careful with those,” I said. “All three of the books are very, very old. They were incredibly important in my research on this horrid group of ne’er-do-wells.”

“So what do we need them for now?” Chase asked. “What are we looking for?”

“We are checking and re-checking and
re
-re-checking our research, like good researchers do.” I grabbed one of the old books Chase had already flipped through. “Hmmmm,” I said, sipping my mug of hot cocoa. “Quite a few stains on this table. I hope your parents don’t notice.”

“Dad won’t care,” Chase murmured, thumbing through the book. “Ma might, I guess. So do you poop or what?”

My fur bristled. Positively stood on end. The very
rudeness
of the question! “That’s between me and the garden outside the house, dear sir.”

He chuckled. “Now
that
my dad might have a problem with.”

“Tell him he missed a few delicious tomatoes when last he harvested. If he’d simply got on his hands and knees, he might have seen them.”

“I’ll be sure to tell him when he gets home tonight.”

“And
when
are we expecting your parents?”

“Tonight. Late. They have some card club. Geezers like playing cards.”

I sat down on the couch, stretching out my legs. Hoo boy, I was a fan of that couch. Cushions that you could really sink into. My favorite. “Say, shouldn’t we have snacks while we’re waiting?”

“Rabbit, how could you think of eating at a time like this?” the furless fellow exclaimed. “I mean, who knows what’s happening to Alice right now?”

“If I had to guess, she’s probably still in the car. It’s about a fifteen-minute drive from here to the theater.”

He gave me a very animated expression of suspicion. “How do you know that?”

“Because it’s my business to know. And besides, you have little to worry about. I’m a bit of a
deus ex machina
, if you haven’t noticed. The hero’s helper.”

“But you’re
here
,” he said.

“Oh. Right.”

“Why are you here again?”

“Er … to do research.” A clever lie, unfortunately. I’d promised Alice I would protect Chase, plain and simple. After all, we didn’t know what Agnim might try, and poor Alice was so worried about the young man. I hopped off the couch—with some hesitation. “You don’t mind if I make myself a sandwich, do you?”

“No, go ahead,” he said, his face buried once again in the book.

I meandered into the kitchen, opening the fridge and surveying the bounty.

“There’s lettuce in the bottom drawer!” Chase called out.

“Lettuce!” I scoffed haughtily, selecting a handful of deli meats and cheeses. “Turkey … ham … provolone … that’s a wonderful book you have there, by the way! From the late eighteen hundreds. Lots of information about the southern states after the Civil War was over.” I arranged the meats and cheeses on a piece of bread and took a bite. Absolutely scrumptious! “It’s amazing what you can learn …” I took another bite. “Laws and goings on, and so on and so forth. All that wonderful stuff. This really is a fantastic sandwich. What was I talking about again?”

“Briar! Come here!”

I gave my sandwich a sad look of longing, then hopped back into the living room. My heart sank when I saw Chase’s face. “What is it? Is someone at the door?”

He held up the book. “Look. Look at this.”

“What?” I asked, peering over his shoulder.

“Here,” he said, pointing to a passage. The very same passage Alice and I had run through during our initial research. But I didn’t see anything out of the sort. “Wheel me into the hallway, where the lights are brighter.”

I pulled him backward into the hallway.

“Look close,” Chase said.

“The Order of the Golden Dragon,” I read. It was a passage from an old newspaper account, one of the only ones I could find that mentioned the mysterious organization.

“Read
closer
,” Chase urged, holding the book up.

“The Order of the Golden Dragons.” I burped, nearly spewing half-eaten sandwich onto the poor fellow’s head. “Dragons!
Plural!
How, oh how did we miss it? More importantly, how many dragons are we talking about here?”

“The type is so faded I almost missed it too.” He turned in his chair, nearly falling right out in his excitement. “Briar, we have to go to Alice. She’s walking into a trap!”

I tittered, thinking. The boy was right. If there was more than one dragon, there was no telling what else we missed. Agnim had played a royal flush when we expected a full house.

“Briar, come on!” Chase slammed the book shut. “We have to warn her. We have to help. I may not be able to do much, but
you
can.”

“But how will we get there?”

“I’ll drive.” He winced. “I mean I’ll steer, and you can push the gas and break pedal. Can you handle that?”

A surge of energy ran down my legs. “Yes! Yes, I might could do that. But what will we do when we get there?”

Chase’s fingers tapped nervously on his armrest. After a moment, he shook his head. “I don’t know. Damn it, I don’t know! I can’t do anything in this chair, Briar.”

I looked around. There had to be an answer. I was Br’er Rabbit, after all. I always had something up my sleeve. But what?

What?!

“Ah-ha!” I exclaimed, spotting the open doorway at the end of the hall. Alice had told me all about that room and I hadn’t believed her. To think: a grown man obsessed with ancient toys! But there it was, just sitting in the corner begging to be unleashed upon an unsuspecting world.

A suit of armor. And a lance.

I flashed Chase a devilish smile. “How’s about we play a little prank?”