Battle of the Beasts

“Let me put you in a coma,” said the guard.

He grabbed for Brendan – and Brendan and Will took off running around the corner of the Bohemian Club. The guard came after them, gathering momentum with his trunk-like legs. They dashed into an alley at the side of the building and raced under bluish shadows, skirting smelly Dumpsters. Brendan glanced back – there was the guard, huffing his way forward, closing in fast. Brendan knocked over a garbage can – and then saw steam rising ahead. He noticed a nice smell too, very different from the reeking garbage …

“The laundry room!”

“What?”

“Follow me!”

Brendan ran up to a metal grate in the pavement. The steam was rising from it. He dropped to his knees, pulled up the grate, and revealed a ladder leading down.

“This way!”

Brendan started going down. Will followed. The guard came to where Brendan had knocked over the garbage can – and yelped as he slipped on some old kale soaked in vinaigrette and his legs whizzed out from under him. He hit the ground on his back, getting the wind knocked out of him.

“Urf! Huh … Huh!” (That’s about all you can say when the wind is knocked out of you.)

Down below, the ladder ended, and Brendan and Will crawled into an air duct that blew out laundry steam. They moved forward, coughing at the heat – and at the pieces of lint that blew into their faces. Within a few minutes it was getting very hot and stuffy, and Will started kicking frantically at a seam in the duct. Brendan realised that it could be a very slow death for both of them: They would collapse in the air duct and suffocate; their bodies wouldn’t be discovered for months; then, instead of the pleasant odour of laundry, the smell of their rotting corpses would pour out …

Finally Will’s kicks worked and the seam split open. They slid out of the air duct, hitting the concrete floor below.

“We – kaff koff – we did it!” Brendan managed.

They were inside the Bohemian Club. But you wouldn’t know it from the laundry room. It looked like any other laundry room. Only when Brendan led the way out did they find themselves in the place they had expected.

The walls were deep rich mahogany with mother-of-pearl inlays. Bookshelves were placed throughout, holding leather-bound volumes with spines embossed in gold and silver. Between the shelves were items on pedestals: Greek warrior statues, daggers encased in glass, and preserved animals in jars.

Brendan pointed to the ceiling: cameras. He and Will hugged the wall and walked sideways next to each other. They were totally silent, until they passed one of the preserved animals and saw that it was a muskrat with two heads.

Brendan screamed. Will put a hand over his mouth.

“Quiet now, they probably just took two of those creatures and sewed them together.”

“Then why does one of them have a normal head … and the other one is all small and shrivelled up and weird-looking?”

Brendan shook his shoulders to get the chills out. Up next was a staircase, which led to a hallway full of disturbing taxidermy, including an owl with a glass lens in its belly and a mouse skeleton inside it. That hallway led to another staircase. Brendan and Will went up to the second floor, where they heard someone talking.

They were in a corridor that was open on one side, facing a breathtaking main hall with a crystal chandelier. The entire building was arranged around this grand space, which had long hanging tapestries and a table fit for a king’s feast. Surrounding the hall were two rows of giant portraits of former Bohemian Club members, including Teddy Roosevelt and Richard Nixon. The pictures looked down at the table. There, dwarfed by the room, were three figures.

First was Denver Kristoff, wearing a hood thrown back to reveal his hideous face, striding up to speak with the second man.

The second man was Angel – the Walkers’ ex-driver! What is he doing here? Brendan thought, but then he saw the third person.

His little sister, Eleanor.

Kristoff was holding her wrist tight. She was crying.

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Brendan felt rage burning deep in his guts. Of all the nasty, underhanded things for Kristoff to do, he had to go after Eleanor? Why couldn’t he come after Brendan? What a coward!

I’d show him too, Brendan thought. Let Scott Calurio and his friends watch me take on Kristoff. We took care of him once; we’ll do it again. He’s nothing but a punk. Brendan lunged forward, ready to go Three Musketeers with Will, swing down on a tapestry, and take care of Kristoff, but Will stopped him and pointed: Listen. Brendan tuned in to the conversation downstairs.

“So what exactly have I been paying you for?” Denver Kristoff asked the scared Angel. “You’ve been working with the Walkers for a month. You should be familiar with their daily routine by now!”

“Mr Kristoff, I tried to explain—” said Angel.

“Just give me the information,” demanded Kristoff. “Where would Cordelia go?”

“Usually she’d be volunteering after school,” said Angel, “but yesterday she started acting very strange, because of this thing with her teeth—”

“You already told me about that. Good God, man, you’re useless!” said Kristoff.

Brendan seethed as he realised: Angel’s been working for Kristoff! When we put up the partition in the limo for privacy, he probably had a microphone back there to record us!

Kristoff continued. “Angel, all you needed to do today was pick up the Walkers and bring them to me. How could you fail in such a simple task?”

“Because Mr Walker fired me! I couldn’t help it! He said he needed to save money.”

“The weak-minded fool,” said Kristoff. “I never expected it to be so easy. All I had to do was sit down next to him at a bar and convince him to bet on one basketball game – now he’s run through almost his entire fortune.” Kristoff shook his head. “I shouldn’t be surprised. His great-grandfather was the same way: simpering, soft and weak. No core.”

Brendan’s hate grew as he heard Kristoff talk about Rutherford Walker, his great-great-grandfather, who had helped discover The Book of Doom and Desire. It’s not enough for him to ruin my present-day family, he has to talk trash about my ancestors too?

Eleanor, meanwhile, took advantage of Kristoff’s yammering and broke away from him, running for the door.

“Don’t waste your time,” Kristoff called after her. “The doors are all locked. You can’t get out.”

Eleanor beat on one of the big wooden doors that encircled the room, shrieking, “Somebody! Help!! Get me out of here!”

Brendan wanted desperately to help – but inside the Bohemian Club, Denver Kristoff wouldn’t have to worry about people seeing his disfigured face or calling the cops. He could go full Storm King and blast them all to bits.

Will shifted as Kristoff went to Eleanor and picked her up, kicking and screaming. He felt something jab against his thigh, inside Dr Walker’s trouser pocket. He pulled out a tiny green pencil and a score card from the Presidio Golf Club. He wrote something on the card and showed it to Brendan: What do we do?

Brendan took the card and wrote: U were right. We just listen.

Kristoff was trying to talk to Eleanor as he carried her. “I’m going to ask you one more time: Where is your sister? We need to find Cordelia. If we find her, we find my daughter, and then everyone’s happy. And we can all go on with what’s left of our lives.”

“Help me! Someone!!” Eleanor yelled. It was all Brendan could do not to charge down the stairs and pull her away from Kristoff and hug her. Even if he got killed immediately afterwards, it would be worth it to comfort his little sister. Eleanor didn’t deserve this.

But before Brendan could react, Eleanor kicked Kristoff between his legs. “Urp!” he managed, dropping her.

“I hope that’s as broken as your face!” Eleanor yelled, running back to one of the doors. “Help me! Someone!!”

Eleanor’s kick had done some damage. Kristoff was doubled over in pain, making squeaking noises. Brendan smiled. “No core”. Yeah, right. We have a core.

Angel stifled a laugh. Kristoff glared at him, still bent over. “You – find this – humorous?”

“No, sir,” said a terrified Angel. “Not at all—”