Fairy Metal Thunder (Songs of Magic, Book 1)

  Chapter Thirty

  Andrew Malarkay looked over the Assorted Zebras carefully, his intense green eyes measuring and calculating.

  “You’re the group, then,” he finally said.

  None of them could speak, except Mitch.

  “Yes, that’s right, Mr. Malarkay,” he said. “I’m Mick Schneidowski, keyboard and whatever else I can synthesize. And I just want to say that I’m a big fan of, um, your company—”

  “Good,” Malarkay said. “You pretend I’m not even here, watching how Heath and that sneaky Cayce Roddell are blowing my money tonight.”

  “Mr. Malarkay, sir, I was told to film the video here—” Heath began.

  “Enough of that,” Malarkay interrupted. “Carry on. This better make publicity history.” Malarkay hobbled to a leather executive chair his two security men had just assembled for him, and he eased down into it, leaning heavily on his cane.

  The band walked up to the stage slab and began setting up.

  “Wow,” Dred whispered. “Why would he bother coming all the way out here?”

  “And how did he climb all those steps?” Mitch whispered back. “Did somebody carry him?”

  Something kicked Jason in the shin.

  “Ow!” Jason looked down and saw Grizlemor, in the form of a very short roadie with a checked cap, slightly greenish skin, slightly pointy ears. The goblin’s disguise magic was a little sloppy. “What is it?” Jason whispered.

  “I’ve been trying to get your attention for five minutes!” Grizlemor snapped. “We have a situation.”

  Jason looked at the crew setting up around them, the cameras pointed toward them.

  “Can it wait?” Jason whispered.

  “No, it’s urgent! Follow me.”

  “I’ll be right back,” Jason told Erin, who nodded, but was mostly focused on warming up her harmonica.

  Jason followed Grizlemor past a troupe of Romanian ballerinas practicing some sort of bat-style dance, and on to the far end of the ruins. Grizlemor slipped under a safety rail, onto a narrow rock ledge overlooking a sheer drop into the canyon below. He kept walking, but Jason stopped at the rail.

  “Come on,” Grizlemor said.

  “Nope,” Jason said.

  “It’s perfectly safe.” A wind snatched Grizlemor’s cap from his head. The goblin reached a leg out over the ledge, caught the hat on the tip of his foot, and kicked it back onto his head. “See?”

  “You’re crazy,” Jason said.

  “All right. Well, the view isn’t as good from there, but look down.”

  Jason looked down. Someone was hanging upside down by one foot. A very small someone, in a very old-fashioned green coat and ascot, clutching a bowler hat to his head. He was swinging in the wind over the huge, rocky gorge below him.

  “What did you do?” Jason asked.

  “Nothing! I was just keeping an eye on the craft services food for everyone—first place any thief will stop, you know—and happened to see this joker sneaking about the set.”

  “Is he a goblin?” Jason asked.

  “A goblin?” Grizlemor snapped. “He’s a sneakin’ leprechaun! Look closer!”

  Grizlemor hauled up the rope, bringing the leprechaun closer to them.

  “Didn’t I see you hiding behind a toad at the golf course on Saturday?” Jason asked the little man.

  “You call that golf?” the leprechaun asked.

  “What are you doing here?” Jason asked. “Why have you been spying on me?”

  “Ah, well, I just like the music,” the leprechaun said. “Fairy instruments powered by human emotions! I’m a fan.”

  “He’s not a fan,” Grizlemor said.

  “But I am!” the leprechaun said.

  “Who are you working for?” Grizlemor asked.

  “Nobody!” the leprechaun insisted.

  “You’d better tell us,” Grizlemor said. “Or we’ll leave you here tied up and stuffed in a cave. And then we’ll find your gold and give it all away.” The goblin paused, then added the final insult: “To charity.”

  “Nooooo!” the leprechaun howled.

  “Hush!” Grizlemor said. “Now tell us. Who sent you to spy on Jason?”

  “I didn’t want the work. ‘Twas a nasty dullahan, cornered me in an alley one night. Threatened horrible things if I refused her!”

  “She paid you in gold, then,” Grizlemor said.

  “It was a bit of a carrot and stick situation,” the leprechaun said.

  “Why is she spying on me?” Jason said.

  “That should be obvious. She suspects you’re playing stolen fairy instruments. As you are, aren’t you?” The leprechaun winked. “Don’t worry, your secret’s safe with me. I’ll tell the dullahan you haven’t got them. If you’ll only just let me go.”

  “Don’t listen to him,” Grizlemor said. “He can’t be trusted.”

  Jason heard Heath calling his name a few times. Heath sounded annoyed.

  “Well, what should we do, Griz?” Jason asked.

  “I say we cut him loose and let him fall,” Grizlemor said.

  “It’s bad luck to kill a leprechaun!” the leprechaun said.

  “Jason, are we working tonight?” Heath called.

  “I have to go,” Jason said. “Just keep an eye on him, Grizlemor. We’ll figure something out.”

  Jason hurried back to the stage area. Heath was addressing the band and the camera crew, as well as the dozen Romanian dancers in vampire costumes. Jason cast a nervous look at his bandmates. He wanted to tell them about how the goblin had captured a leprechaun, but there was no way of saying that in front of all these people.

  “Ah, Jason,” Heath said. “As I was explaining to everyone who wasn’t off wasting my time, here’s how things will go. First, we have Erin approaching Dracula’s castle alone, at sunset. She’s scared. She’s excited. Then she comes up through that narrow corridor over there, the walls high and close on both sides. Then a gang of vampires surrounds her—those are the dancers I’ve hired for the day. And just as the vampires are about to rip her to bits, she begins singing ‘The Sugar Dance.’”

  “And they decide not to kill me?” Erin asked.

  “Exactly. Smash cut to the stage, the band plays, Erin sings, the vampires, charmed by her music, dance here in front of them. A few pyrotechnics, and we’re out. Any questions? None? Good. You’re all over here for makeup and costumes.” He pointed toward the little tents, where a couple of makeup and wardrobe ladies were waiting.

  Erin was in the first sequence, so she went first. Her costume looked like a white bridal gown, with a scarlet hooded cloak on top of it.

  “What’s with the red cape?” Erin asked Heath. She sat in a folding chair, and one of the ladies began to braid her hair. “Am I Superman?”

  “More of a Little Red Riding Hood,” Heath said. “Innocent, sweet, lost in the woods. All of that.”

  “Is that related to anything else in the video?” Erin asked.

  “Oh, you want to thicken it a bit?” Heath looked at the rest of the band, then pointed at Dred. “You. How would you fancy being a werewolf?”

  “I’ve thought about it before,” Dred said. “There are pros and cons.”

  “Good. Make her a wolf.” Heath snapped his fingers. “There you are, Erin. The drummer’s a wolf. It all hangs together in proper literary fashion, I hope.”

  “I was just asking,” Erin said.

  While Erin’s hair and makeup were getting done, the wardrobe lady gave Jason and Mitch their costumes. They changed quickly behind the tents. Jason and Mitch’s outfits were identical—white ruffled-lace blouse and short, tight black leggings. Jason looked down at his new clothes, shaking his head.

  “I think this looks good on us,” Mitch said.

  “Right,” Jason said.

  “No, I’m serious. We should dress like this for the tour.”

  “Forget it. I don’t even want to hear what Dred has to say wh
en she sees our clothes.”

  They stepped out in their costumes, Jason barely able to look anyone in the eye.

  “You guys look hot,” Dred said. She wore a shaggy wolf costume from her neck to her paw-shoes. The costume lady dropped on a wolf mask that covered her entire head. Dred looked out through the wolf’s open jaws.

  “That is a really good look for you,” Mitch said.

  “Says the Renaissance Fair refugee,” Dred said. “Seriously. Nice blouse, Mitch.”

  Erin stood up, and Jason felt his heart catch when he saw her in full makeup, her hair braided, dressed in the vintage bridal gown.

  “Shut up,” Erin said. “All three of you.”

  “You look—” Jason began.

  “Don’t make fun of me.” Erin left with a cameraman and Heath to film her solitary approach up the stairs to the castle.

  The attention was off Jason, Mitch and Dred now, as the dancers went back to whatever they were rehearsing, and the crew finished their last-minute adjustments to the big lights and cameras. They’d designated the slab stage and the dirt-and-rock floor in front of it as “Dracula’s ballroom.” The “ballroom” area was flanked by scaffolding on each side, where a number of lights had been installed. They’d strung wire between the two sets of scaffolding, and from these they’d hung billowing black sheets, iron-mesh curtains, and heavy copper chains to decorate the ceiling area. They had also hung some fake medieval tapestries behind the stage.

  “Listen,” Jason whispered to Mitch and Dred. “Grizlemor’s back there. He caught a leprechaun spying on us.”

  “What? That’s absurd,” Dred said, through the wolf head she was wearing.

  “Seriously. We found out the dullahan sent him. You know, Mrs. Dullahan? She knows we took the instruments. She’s got people watching us.”

  “You mean leprechauns,” Mitch said. “Not people.”

  “Whatever!” Jason said. “Grizlemor has him prisoner now.”

  “Can he grant us wishes?” Mitch said.

  “No!” Jason said.

  “Are you sure? Catch a leprechaun, get a wish. Isn’t that how it works?” Dred asked.

  “Well, maybe he can,” Jason said. “That’s not the point. What do we do about the dullahan?”

  “Is she here?” Mitch asked.

  “I don’t think so,” Jason said.

  “Then we can’t do anything right now,” Mitch said. “We have to shoot this video. Just let Grizlemor take care of it for now.”

  When Erin returned, they moved on to the first major sequence, which was Erin walking in a narrow passage between two of the old walls. The Romanian dancers, all in dark vampire wear and pale makeup now, waited for their cue to spring out and surround her. Night had fallen—Heath had made them wait until dark because he wanted total control over the lighting.

  Erin walked up the passage while the camera filmed her.

  “Cut,” Heath said. “You’re supposed to look scared but excited.”

  “What was I doing?” Erin asked.

  “Bored and disappointed,” Heath told her. “Back to first position, and start again.”

  For her second take, Erin walked through the passage again.

  “Cut!” Heath said. “Now you just look annoyed.”

  “This could take a while,” Jason said. “Let’s check on Grizlemor.”

  The three of them slipped away. Jason saw the little green man hanging from his ankle dozens of feet below, but he didn’t see any sign of Grizlemor.

  “Where’s the goblin?” Dred asked.

  “I don’t know where he went,” Jason said.

  “Wherever there’s food, probably,” Mitch said. “I’ll go check the craft services table again.”

  After Mitch walked away, Jason could hear Grizlemor’s voice: “Jason! Jayce! Down here!”

  The little man at the bottom of the rope was waving his hand. Jason pulled him up a few feet. In the moonlight, he finally recognized the face—it was Grizlemor, not the little leprechaun, at the end of the rope. Jason hauled him the rest of the way up.

  “What happened?” Jason whispered.

  “Don’t ask.” Grizlemor worked at the knot around his ankle. “It was ugly.”

  “Did he get away?” Jason asked.

  “No, Jason,” Grizlemor said. “I captured him when he tried to escape, then tied the rope around my own ankle and jumped off the cliff. Just for fun.”

  “Where did he go?” Dred asked.

  “Away,” Grizlemor shook his head. “The band’s time may be short. The dullahan is the Queen’s gatekeeper. If she knows you have the instruments...Well, I wouldn’t want to be on a dullahan’s bad side. Which I suppose I am, now.” The goblin shivered. He shrank back to his usual size and turned fully green again. “Think I’ll find a nice place to sit the evening out. I mean, to watch for that sneaky leprechaun. Yep, that’s what I’ll do.”

  He disappeared in a puff of green.

  “Great,” Dred said. “Tons of help. Thanks, Grizlemor.”

  They returned to the set, where the gang of vampire dancers jumped out at Erin, surrounding her, raising their arms and baring their fangs. She looked scared for a second, then pulled out her harmonica and did a few bars, which seemed to slow their attack. Then she sang, and the vampires danced:

  Everybody raise your hands!

  Everybody shake your pants!

  Everybody do it, do it, do it,

  Everybody do the sugar dance!

  “What a horrible song,” Dred whispered. Jason nodded.

  After several takes of this, they were ready to move on to the main sequence. The Assorted Zebras took the stage in costume, and the lights flared up all around them, the cameras all focused on them from different angles. They played “The Sugar Dance,” though Heath wasn’t too worried about the sound, since he was going to dub in the studio recording of the song over their performance here at the ruins.

  When the four of them were in position, Heath yelled “action!”

  Erin played her harmonica for the span of a verse, then sang more of the song:

  Everybody take a chance!

  Everybody go in a trance!

  Everybody from California to France!

  Everybody do the sugar dance!

  In front of the stage, the dozen dancers in vampire wear moved to the song just like the crowd at the Spoon and Cherry Festival, not following their rehearsed steps at all. The camera and lighting crew danced a little, and so did Sean and Shane. Even Heath was tapping his foot. In his chair, Andrew Malarkay watched the band with a smile as his two beefy security guys tried to move with the music.

  They did the song again, and again, Heath interrupting every thirty seconds or so with some minor change he wanted. Jason’s guitar grew warm in his hands.

  Then all the lights went out, and their amplifiers died.

  “Oh, what now?” Heath complained in the dark. “This is just perfect, isn’t it? What idiot messed up the electricity?”

  The crew muttered and grumbled while they used flashlights to search around the set. They checked the lights, the gas-powered electrical generators, and what seemed like miles of wires and cables.

  “I hope this isn’t the fairies,” Jason whispered.

  “You’re scared of fairies.” Mitch snickered.

  “You haven’t seen them,” Jason said. “You haven’t been to their world.”

  Thick dark clouds formed overhead, blotting out stars and moonlight. They sprang up suddenly, from nowhere, with a strange buzzing, humming sound.

  Everyone in the band looked at Mitch, whose keyboard had been known to generate rain and stormclouds.

  “What? It’s not me!” Mitch said. He wiggled his fingers in the air. “I’m not even playing right now.”

  “Did you play soft enough?” Dred said. “Or have you been showboating?”

  “I haven’t! Seriously,” Mitch said. “I promise, I was putting in as little effort as poss
ible. I was mostly daydreaming about hang gliding. You guys want to go hang gliding after this?”

  A deep whooshing sound filled the air, like the sound of blowing across a Coke bottle, but amplified a thousand times.

  Jason saw the glint off the tall glass bottle as it tumbled end over end, high above them but rushing down towards them. It looked like someone had thrown it from behind the wall across from the stage.

  He hurried to step in front of Erin, but the bottle landed short of the stage and struck the hard-packed earth in the middle of the dancers. The bottle didn’t so much shatter as explode, sending glass fragments in all directions, and everyone ducked or turned away. Lots of people shouted or cried out.

  From the shattered bottle, a thick column of glowing, twisting, ghostly mist appeared, emanating a sound like hundreds of groaning, whining, shrieking voices.

  The column burst apart into pale clouds, and then each cloud became a transparent ghost. One looked like a huge, angry-eyed lumberjack, and he swung a ghostly ax right through a cameraman. The cameraman shouted and ran, his shirt slimey with ghost-goo.

  Several of the ghosts look like women in old-fashioned Victorian clothing, including bonnets and big, flowery hats. These ghosts clutched the sides of their heads and shrieked into the faces of the people around them. Their mouths flared out wider than their heads each time they shrieked.

  Another ghost looked like a rotund Englishman in a three-piece suit. He had a monocle and a walrus mustache. He walked around with a broken pocket watch on a chain, gears and springs hanging out everywhere. “Have you got the time?” he would ask each person he saw. “Have you got the time?”

  A ghostly Yorkshire terrier darted here and there, nipping and barking at everyone’s feet.

  All the living people were shouting or screaming in the haunted confusion. Some of the crew took off down the steps, along with the makeup and wardrobe people, while everyone else pulled together in tight little clumps. The dancers drew together, grabbing onto each other. Heath and the camera crew formed another clump. Onstage, the band pulled together.

  Malarkay's security men had pulled their guns, as if they planned to shoot any ghosts who drifted too close to their boss. Malarkay himself looked remarkably calm, as if all the ghostly activity didn’t spook him a bit.

  “Sean! Shane!” Jason shouted. When the big twins looked at him, Jason pointed. “I think the bottle came from behind that wall!”

  Sean nodded, and Shane gave a thumbs-up, and they ran to check it out.

  “Okay...I’m thinking fairies are definitely involved here,” Jason whispered to the group.

  “If it’s not that, it’s something even weirder,” Dred said.

  “Where is that stupid goblin when you need him?” Mitch whispered.

  “Have you got the time?” asked the portly ghost with the monocle. Jason jumped—the ghost had crept up behind them.

  Erin reached out a hand toward the ghost.

  “Erin, don’t!” Dred whispered, but Erin reached right through the ghost’s ascot and into his chest.

  “Ew!” Erin said. She pulled her hand back—it was slimey and covered with goosebumps. “That’s really cold,” she said.

  “Have you got the time?” the ghost asked her.

  The buzzing drone from the dark clouds above grew louder. Then the clouds pulled together and formed into a funnel shape, like a tornado, which reached downward towards the ruins. More people dashed away down the stairs.

  “Should we run?” Mitch asked.

  “I don’t want to leave our gear,” Dred said.

  “If it’s fairies, that’s exactly what they’re after,” Jason said. “Our gear. We should get ready to fight.” Jason raised his guitar. It was warmed up from playing, but not scalding hot like it was when he had generated the big dragon-slaying fireball. He knew the instruments drew energy from the audience, but tonight, there hadn’t been a very big audience at all.

  The buzzing, clicking tornado touched down in front of the stage. It wasn’t made of dark clouds, as everyone now saw, but of dark flying insects. One of them landed on Jason’s hand, and he quickly slapped it and crushed it. The thing had a fat, sluglike body, wings like a housefly, and a big stinger on its tail. It looked crudely made, like a child had shaped it out of dark green Play-Doh. The crushed insect leaked thick, sticky black goop that smelled like garbage juice all over Jason’s arm.

  “Ugh,” Jason said, shaking it off. The crushed insect plopped to the ground next to his black velveteen boot. Then its body changed shape. The dead insect became a small chicken bone, a scrap of old cloth, and a leaf of rotten spinach, as if it had been made of garbage.

  Jason didn’t have much time to think about that before the whole swarm descended. The tight clusters of people broke apart and raced towards the steps—the dancers first, since the insects were diving directly towards them. The swarm spread out, and the crew ran towards the stairs after the dancers.

  Heath ran off with the crew, his hands covering his face as insects stung him, the ghost terrier yapping and nipping at his heels. The ghost women screamed even louder as everyone ran through them.

  Malarkay's security men hustled the aged mogul into the wardrobe tent and pulled the flaps tight against the insects.

  Jason and the band backed up all the way to the tapestries hung behind the stage. Behind those was the safety railing, and then a steep drop to the modern concrete walkway below the castle, which they couldn’t even see in the night.

  “Do you think we can climb down?” Mitch whispered.

  “Do you have the time?” the portly ghost asked them.

  “No!” Dred snapped. “To both of you. I’m not scaling down a castle wall in the dark.”

  A churning wall of dark green insects approached across the stage, and all of them seemed intent on reaching the cornered band and stinging them to death.

  Jason riffed on his guitar, forcing his fingers to move fast, trying to generate a big blast of fire to beat back the swarm. Tiny flames licked up and down the guitar neck, but there just wasn’t enough crowd energy to make anything big happen.

  “Hey, that’s a pretty cool special effect,” Mitch said. “You should do that onstage.”

  “We’re about to get eaten alive by a million insects, and that’s what you’re thinking about?” Dred asked him.

  The swarm of dark, clicking insects bulged toward them, buzzing angrily, thousands of stingers raised and ready to strike. The entire swarm was heading towards the band now, as if they shared a single mind, and that mind wanted to make life very miserable for the Assorted Zebras.

  A long, sonorous note punctured the air. Erin played her harmonica as loud as she could, her eyes scrunched and her face turning red. A stiff wind blew out from her, knocking back the swarm. She continued playing to hold them at bay—Jason thought she was playing “Blowing in the Wind,” a common song for beginning harmonica players.

  Erin advanced a few steps, and the wind from her instrument pushed the swarm back.

  Mitch ran to his keyboard and joined in, and soon a small raincloud had formed above the swarm, battering them with droplets. It was no bigger than the sort of cloud that harassed Charlie Brown on the pitcher’s mound.

  “Make it hail!” Dred shouted at him.

  “You make it hail!” Mitch shouted back. “I’m doing the best I can.”

  Jason tried to get more fire going, but his guitar just didn’t have enough power. Frustrated, he gripped the guitar by the neck and swung it like a bat, swatting at the attacking insects.

  Mitch’s weak raincloud had more effect than Jason expected. Some of the flying insects began to tumble, and Jason saw a few of them fall to pieces, turning back into garbage.

  “They’re made of garbage!” Jason announced.

  “What do you mean?” Dred asked.

  “I think somebody—some fairy, I guess—cast a spell on a heap of garbage to make those flies.”


  “So...how does that help us?” Dred asked.

  Jason looked towards the makeup and hair tent.

  “Come on, Dred, I have an idea,” he said.

  They ran to the tent, and quickly returned with armloads of beauty products. They threw handfuls of liquid soap and shampoo at the swarm, and these mixed with the sprinkling rain from Mitch’s small cloud to form sudsy foam.

  Large globs of the swarm fell now, splatting into the rocky floor as they turned to garbage.

  “Keep it up, you guys!” Mitch shouted. He was sweating as he played as fast and loud as he could manage. Erin was blowing her harmonica so hard that her face was going purple.

  Jason and Dred followed up with hand sanitizer, hair conditioner, and nail polish remover. The insects crumbled, and the rain washed them out of the air. Soon it looked like someone had ripped open fifty bags of kitchen trash, scattered it all over the castle, and soaked it with soapy water.

  Mitch stopped playing and collapsed dramatically to the stage floor. “Tell me we’re done,” he groaned.

  Erin was still blasting out harmonica notes, so Jason touched her shoulder. She opened her eyes, saw the swarm was gone, and collapsed against him, gasping for air. Jason held her steady in his arms.

  The sound of sloshing feet echoed through the ruins. A bizarre, squat creature approached along the narrow passage where Erin had been attacked by vampire dancers early in the video. It looked like a warthog, standing upright like a man, dressed in armor made of stone and leather, including a ridiculously tall spiked headdress. In one porky hand, the beast carried a long bamboo pole decorated with feathers. In the other, it held the leashes of three red-eyed warthogs that walked alongside it like angry dogs, straining and snarling, wearing spiked collars.

  From another direction, blocking any retreat to the stairs that led down and away from the castle, another creature approached. She had the head and torso of a woman in a black silk dress, but at her waist she became a giant, eight-legged spider. Her legs sloshed forward through the sludge of soapy garbage.

  As she drew closer, Jason saw that she wore a necklace that looked like a ruby hourglass, and she had long, dripping fangs.

  “Oh, sick!” Mitch shouted. He stood up, pointing at the spider-woman. “What is that thing?”

  The spider-woman snarled and spat a glob of webbing at Mitch. It splattered all over Mitch’s head, completely covering his face, and it knocked him back into the fake medieval tapestry behind him. He stuck against it, unable to pull free.

  “Hey, you guys, I can’t see!” Mitch’s muffled voice said from beneath the glob of webbing.

  The monsters approached the stage, and the spider-woman leaped onto the scaffolding at one side of it.

  Jason heard a whoosh of air from the other direction, and turned to see that the hog-headed creature had raised the long hollow shaft of bamboo to its hoggy lips. It was some kind of blowgun, but instead of shooting a dart toward the band, the gun had launched something green and very long.

  It hit Dred right in the stomach, and then coiled around and around her...and around and around her some more, as if it were growing longer and longer.

  “It’s a snake!” Dred yelled. She tried to fight it off, but the snake’s coils had pinned her arms to her sides. It wrapped around her legs and ankles.

  Jason and Erin caught her just as she was about to topple over, bound from shoulders to feet by the thick snake. Jason reached for the back of the snake’s head and seized it before it could bite her.

  The snake’s head squirmed in his hand, then its texture turned coarse and rough, and it stopped moving. The entire snake had turned into a green rope, and its head was now a thick, tight knot.

  Erin shrieked, and Jason turned to see some kind of giant fly-creature attacking her. It was trying to snatch away her harmonica, but Erin wouldn’t let it go.

  “Stop it!” Jason shouted at the fly. “Buzz off!” He eased Dred to the ground. He grabbed up his guitar and swatted the fly with it, but the fly guy didn’t budge. He smacked his guitar into its buggy head again and again.

  The fly-creature finally relented and rose off of Erin, hovering just out of reach of Jason’s swinging guitar.

  “Jason!” Erin shouted, as a pair of long-fingered hands with sharp nails grabbed Jason up. The fly-creature tore the guitar from Jason’s hands and buzzed back out of reach.

  Jason turned his head and was face to face with the spider-woman. Her hot breath was like rotten meat, and her fangs dripped thick, clear fluid that Jason would have bet was poisonous. Her long, hairy tongue licked across his face, as if seeing whether he might make a tasty snack. Jason noticed that she had six tiny extra eyes—two in her forehead, and two on each side of her head.

  “What do you want from us?” Jason whispered.

  She sneered and pitched him through the air, into a thick spiderweb that now covered one scaffolding like Halloween decorations. Jason landed upside down and stuck there.

  The spider-woman reached for Erin next, but Erin raised the harmonica to her lips and blew until her face was a deep red. A stiff wind blasted from the harmonica, pushing the spider-woman back a few steps, her arachnid feet skittering on the stone.

  “Erin, behind you!” Jason shouted.

  The hog-man who’d shot the blowgun arrived on the stage with his three warthogs. One of the leashed hogs opened his mouth and belched out a thick, steamy yellow cloud in Erin’s direction. Erin gagged and coughed, her eyes watering, and doubled over like she was about to be sick.

  When the smell hit Jason, he understood why. The hog’s burp smelled like rotten bologna soaked in rotten eggs. The stench was so foul that it almost knocked Jason out. With his hands stuck in the spiderweb, he couldn’t even cover his nose.

  The fly-creature snatched Erin’s harmonica, and then the spider-woman grabbed Erin and tossed her up into the webbing. She landed across Jason, her back against his stomach, and she stuck there. She tossed Dred and Mitch up into the web with them, trapping the four of them together.

  “What’s going on?” Mitch asked. His face was still completely covered in sticky spider-silk, and nobody had a free hand to help him. “Somebody tell me!”

  “You probably don’t want to know,” Jason said.

  Below them, the monsters collected the band’s gear.