The Eighth Mage Read online

  Suddenly it bathes in bright light, and the grease quickly covers every part of the body.

  Vicky has picked herself up and is staring at the monster that’s clawing at its face and howling at the top of its lungs.

  “I didn’t know you could do that!” she yells at Charlie.

  My best friend pulls a chocolate bar from his pocket with one hand without pausing his attack. “I’m not doing that…” he gives a curt nod in my direction, “he is.”

  “Nice work,” she says to the both of us as she reaches down to pick up her sword. “Keep going.”

  Charlie has ripped the wrapper from the chocolate bar with his teeth and is chewing on a large piece. “I’ll try.”

  “Make it lower its arms,” she instructs us.

  Charlie covers its middle in grease, and I aim my sunbeam at it. Frantically, the demon tries to swat the melting gel away. It doesn’t notice Vicky jumping forward with her sword raised. She slices the head several times, cutting off the parts that are covered in grease. The growling of the monster is cut off abruptly as the pieces drop down to the ground. Then the whole body tilts. Vicky jumps out of the way just in time. When it hits the ground, it is ripped apart. The tornado pieces whirl in all directions, but they appear to be harmless. Lost.

  “Keep the grease melting on the head!” Vicky calls out.

  Above us, the noise is getting louder, and the wind seems to pick up. If we don’t hurry up, that third demon will rip the whole house apart. I hope the others will be able to stop it soon. But by the sound of it, they’ve got their hands full on the second demon.

  “Concentrate, Dante!” Vicky yells, and I focus on the sunshine again.

  Vicky picks up the three pieces of the head, covered in gel, runs over to the porthole and peers through it. Taylar comes zooming past. “Let me help.”

  Kessley follows him and changes into some sort of ultra long dachshund that forms a shield with its body.

  After another check for movement behind the porthole, Taylar opens it. Vicky throws the parts of the head through the opening, and Taylar slams it closed again, locking it and checking it twice.

  “Duck!” Kessley calls out.

  We do, and a second later, a lopsided tornado slams into her. The blow sends the dachshund sliding toward the porthole, but she’s able to withstand the pressure. The small tornado moves over the long body and hits the glass inside the porthole. As soon as Kessley sees that the demon has lost interest in us, she turns back into herself and takes off to help the others.

  I sneak closer to see what the head parts are doing, but another deafening creak from above distracts me.

  I exchange a worried look with Vicky. “We’ve got to stop that thing.”

  She nods. “I agree, but how?” She gestures at the dark swirls of wind still hitting the glass, and the other parts, turned into wind too in the meantime, doing the same in the silver mine. “It can’t put itself back together, but it’s still alive.”

  Taylar bumps into me. “Sorry, coming through! We’ve got another patient here!”

  This time it’s Gisella carrying unrecognizable pieces of a demon. When I glance over her shoulder, I see Maël standing close to the still body. She managed to freeze it in time completely. Jeep’s skeletons are holding it down.

  Taylar opens the porthole, Charlie hits the demon parts on the other side with grease to blind them and Gisella tosses the pieces of the other demon on top of them.

  “There.” Taylar wipes his hands when he’s closed the porthole again.

  I study the still form of the headless demon. “Is there a way to kill-?”

  My sentence is cut off when debris showers down on us. We all cover our heads as the rest of the ceiling gives in. The pull of the wind gets stronger.

  I run over to Maël, dodging floorboards and pieces of plaster on my way. “Leave this one, it won’t be able to reassemble itself. We’ll deal with it later.”

  With a curt nod, she agrees.

  “To the stairs!” I call out.

  Charlie and Gisella carefully make their way through the secret room and into the hallway. The ghosts simply go transparent and run straight through the rubble.

  Charlie gestures wildly at me as he sways left to avoid a falling piece of wood. “Go, go! Hurry!”

  He lets out a pained grunt, but when I look back, he’s still gesturing at us. “I’m fine!”

  We hurry up the stairs, which are shaking heavily. I grip the handrail tightly and pull myself to the top of the stairs as fast as I can. What I see there takes my breath away.

  All the walls of the attic have come down. Chunks of all kinds of material are swirling through the air. The third demon is standing under a large gap in the roof. It has grown so much that its head sticks through the gap. The funnel that makes up its lower body is turning at crazy speed, sucking in parts of the outer walls while the monster uses its arms to tear down the rest of the roof.

  “Stop!” I yell without thinking.

  The giant head made of wind turns to me. The eyes blink as if it’s trying to figure out what to do with me. Then it pulls its arms in and turns its whole body into a giant vortex.

  It was already a challenge to resist the pull from just the funnel. This is much worse.

  “Hold on to something!” I holler above the whistling and squeaking.

  But of course, with everything falling apart, there is nothing to hold on to.

  “Forget this!” Vicky screams. “We should get out of here, figure out a way to beat these demons and come back later.”

  I nod. “Go downstairs, we’ll follow!”

  Before she can answer or apparate, we’re both pulled into the tornado. Vaguely, I can make out the others swirling around me. I’m hit in the head by something solid, and everything gets hazy. The world turns upside-down, or maybe that’s just me. I try to work out where I am, but there’s so much swirling around me―people, floorboards, roof tiles, plaster, dust―that it’s impossible to get a clear view. I conjure a lightning bolt but realize quickly there’s no way I can throw it without hitting one of my friends. Instead, I reach out to grab any body part of the demon I can reach.

  My hand simply slides through it…

  My eyes search for Maël, but the people floating around me are no more than a blur. I can’t tell whether she’s holding her staff or not and if she’s trying to freeze the demon. The noise around us drowns out her mumbling, if there is any.

  I tell myself the monster will slow down any second now. Maël is the only one who can get us out of this, and she’s strong enough to do it. But while I turn and turn, not slowing down one bit and getting dizzier and more nauseous by the second, I start to lose hope. For a moment, the air around me lights up with sparks, and I smile.

  “We’ll be fine, we’ll be fine,” I tell myself softly.

  Then, the sparks are ripped apart like pieces of dust, and my heart sinks. Panic rises to my throat. How on earth are we going to beat this demon?

  When someone takes my wrist, I scream. The hand that clutches my skin is cold. A vague face swims into view. I don’t recognize it at first, but it looks human. The mouth is moving, but I can’t make out what the words are above the howling of the tornado. I’m being pulled closer, and now I can make out a face. Dark brown eyes under heavy eyebrows. It’s Dylan. To be honest, I forgot about him completely.

  “Are you seeing this?” he yells.

  I want to tell him I can’t make out anything in this chaos, but when I follow his pointing finger, I see it.

  I see it, and it is wonderful. And unbelievable. Amazing and also a bit creepy.

  CHAPTER 6

  Below us, the house is moving. But not because of the tornado raging over it, ripping the roof and walls apart. No, it seems like the house has woken up. The outer walls are moving by themselves, and a loud rumbling rises from the middle. The demon turns a little slower, and for a moment, I can see the eyes blinking in con
fusion.

  “The mansion…” I can hear Vicky gasp, “it’s alive!”

  I nod speechlessly. The demon angered it. And now that we can no longer protect it, the house is defending itself.

  The windows from the second and top floor rise like giant arms. From all sides, they close the demon in and try to grab it. Of course, that doesn’t work, since wind isn’t solid, but it gives us the opportunity to attack again.

  Once we’ve landed on the floor, some of us a bit harder than others, we charge as one. One look is enough to combine our forces. Sparks, grease and sunlight hit the demon all at once. Swords, blades and shields cut through the air. Maël is standing tall, with her wand held out in front of her. From the forest below, all kinds of animal skeletons run out. Kessley has turned herself into several big birds with sharp beaks. She’s circling the demon, pecking it wherever she can. Dylan is throwing whatever he can grab toward the tornado. And even though the objects fly through it, it distracts it at least a bit.

  Vicky is standing next to Charlie, feeding him an endless supply of cookies so he can keep going. Thanks to my sunshine, his grease is flowing over the demon’s head and shoulders.

  “Cover the funnel so we can push it over,” Vicky suggests.

  Charlie aims for the lower part, and I melt his grease again, making the funnel solid.

  The animal zombies reach the demon and start gnawing through the grease. The monster collapses, and the mansion slams its window arms down on it. Over and over it hits the demon, in the face, in the chest.

  Dylan steps back and shoots me a sideways glance. “I think your house is angry.”

  I can’t help but grin. “Yeah, I can’t blame it.” I gesture at the roof tiles and debris around us. “Look at this mess. Just when we’d gotten so far with the renovations.”

  “Watch out!” He pushes me aside, and a giant whirlwind hand flattens him.

  “No!” I yell, and I dive forward to push the arm out of the way. The force of the wind blows me away, but Charlie is there to cover it with gel. I melt it again, my rage heating it up more and faster than before. The demon groans in pain and pulls its arm back. From the corner of my eye, I see Darkwood Manor smacking it with all its might. It goes down, but I can’t join the fight. I need to know if Dylan is okay.

  The spot where he got squashed is empty, and I call out his name.

  “I’m here!”

  I turn, and relief washes over me. “Are you alright?”

  “Yes, fine.” He pats his chest and nods. “It seems like my instincts work fine. I apparated in a reflex.”

  He turns his head to the raging fight beside us. “Come on, lets help the others out.”

  I slap him on the back, grateful that he’s okay and willing to fight with us.

  “I’m running out of cookies!” Vicky yells as Charlie swallows another one almost whole.

  Dylan doesn’t hesitate. “I’ll search the kitchen for more to eat.” He disappears before I can thank him.

  The house shakes violently, and when I look down, I realize it’s standing up. I hit the floor hard but scramble up and concentrate on the sunlight again. The demon is lying on its back, skeletons crawling all over it and even inside it. The Kessley birds peck every spot they can reach while Taylar whirls around them to protect them from the demon’s hands, that keep trying to swat them away. The funnel and head are still covered in scorching grease, and the house slams its hands down on it. Still, it keeps moving.

  “How do you beat these things?” I call out to no one in particular. Maël is using her staff to catapult Jeep’s zombies back whenever they are thrown off. Gisella is kicking and stabbing the demon wherever she can, using her catlike moves to stay out of its reach. Mona and D’Maeo are fighting side by side. Mona’s sparks attack while D’Maeo blocks the power of the wind.

  “I know!” Dylan yells, scrambling to his feet and handing Vicky two bags of sweets. “We need to cut off the supply of warm air.”

  I frown and reach out to the wall for support when the house moves again. “Why?”

  “Because warm air is what feeds a tornado.”

  We all slide to the center of the room when the house tilts. When I turn to the raging demon, I freeze. In the wall I was leaning on only seconds ago, a giant hole appears. The plaster and wood form a ragged line around it, making it look like a huge mouth. The four arms formed by the windows reach out to the demon, but they go through it as the grease melts.

  Jeep picks up his hat, that has landed next to me. “Did the house just slide us out of harm’s way, or is that wishful thinking?”

  “No, it did,” I answer, still flabbergasted because of everything that’s happening.

  Gisella helps Charlie up and nudges me. “Come on, guys. Help the mansion grab that demon.”

  Charlie straightens his shoulders and throws his hair back. Vicky is by his side in the blink of an eye. She stuffs a handful of sweets into his mouth, and he starts chewing like a madman. Balls of grease shoot out of his hands at lightning speed. They hit the demon everywhere as the arms of Darkwood Manor pull back. I focus, and rays of sunlight warm up the grease once more. The mansion responds immediately. The demon struggles, but with grease in its eyes, it can’t see what it’s doing. One of its arms shoots out and hits the house, shattering a window. Darkwood Manor only grumbles loudly from below us, making what’s left of the floor shake. Then the arms grab onto the gel-covered parts of the monster, lift it with ease, shake the skeletons off gently and hurl it into the giant mouth, which closes instantly and with a crunching sound. The mansion shudders, as if in disgust, before reaching down through the hole in the floor.

  It seems to be searching for something, groaning with impatience as it fails to get what it wants.

  Dylan and Jeep exchange a quick look, and the tattooed ghost nods. “We’ll go check it out. See if we can help.”

  They disappear, and I hear them talking on the floor below us.

  “Charlie! Dante! Can you give us a hand here?”

  We walk to the edge of the hole and peer down. The two demons we beheaded are still trying to get through the porthole to reunite with their heads.

  I look at Charlie. “Do you have enough fuel left?”

  He flexes his fingers and licks his lips. “I’ve got a little bit left. And Vicky’s got more sweets if I need them.”

  “Great. Let’s go for it.”

  We hit the headless tornadoes with everything we’ve got. The mansion waits patiently, and it’s not long before it’s able to pull out the monsters. It tosses them at the wall too. The mouth swallows them quickly.

  “Open the porthole,” I instruct Jeep and D’Maeo. As soon as they do, the whirling heads shoot through, followed by another demon, which we hit with grease and sunlight immediately.

  It tries to fly out of reach, but Jeep quickly sends his skeletons over to it while Maël slows it down. The zombies swarm over the monster like a group of hungry piranhas, sending it face first to the ground.

  The house reaches down and picks it up. Soon, all of the demons are gone.

  I close my eyes for a second. The constant focusing combined with a lack of sleep has drained me. I feel like I could sleep for a week. But I can’t even sleep for the rest of the night, because my house is in pieces.

  “Make sure that porthole is properly closed and the line of salt intact,” I say to Jeep and Dylan, still standing next to it.

  They obey, but Vicky, standing next to me, shakes her head. “What does it matter? The house is ruined. We can’t stay here.”

  I wipe the sweat from my forehead. Suddenly I’m exhausted. “I know.”

  I expect her to put her arms around me, but instead, she walks away and flops down onto the top step of the stairs.

  I’m so stunned that I just stand there with my mouth slightly open. I swallow the lump in my throat that rises not only because of Darkwood Manor, but also because Vicky doesn’t seem like herself. In th
e fight with the tornado demons, she really went for the kill, which made me think she had overcome whatever Beelzebub’s attack caused inside her. But now…

  Mona approaches me and pulls me into a hug. “I’m sorry. I know how much this house means to you. You inherited it from your father.”

  I breathe in her sweet smell and try to let go of my concerns, focusing on something else for a second. Something that’s only a six on the scale of total disaster, instead of an eleven.

  Mona lets go and takes in my trembling jaw. “You’ll be okay.”

  “Sure,” I say, trying to sound light and failing miserably. “But it does hurt. Darkwood Manor wasn’t only Dad’s house, it was also the place where I met five of my best friends.” I spread my arms and try to steady my voice. “And look at it now. It turned out to be even better than I thought. It fought to save us, and it was destroyed because of it.”

  Another groan rises from beneath us, as if the mansion answers me.

  I kneel down and stroke the floor. It feels kind of silly, but I’m not sure how else to express my gratitude. “Thank you so much for your help, Darkwood Manor. I’ll come back to fix you. I promise.”

  The mansion lets out a high squeal and starts moving again. The sound makes me think of the creaking of an old man trying to stand up. The big arms reach out to us and pick us up. One by one, they put us outside in the protective circle.

  “I’ve still got some clothes inside that I’d like to take with me,” I say.

  I make for the back door, but Maël stops me. “Wait.”

  “For what?” I ask, still grumpy because I lost the mansion.

  “Look.”

  I follow her pointing finger, and my mouth falls open. I conjure a lightning ball in my hand when a cloud slides in front of the moon.