The Guardians of Zoone Page 4

  “A little sour,” he decreed before moving on to snuffle the grocery bags. “I’m not sure what happened to that fern, Ozzie, but I can help with these. Anything good in here?”

  “Mostly vegetables,” Ozzie said, slipping the bag out of Tug’s reach. “You know, healthy stuff. Wait a minute! Aunt T did let me buy chips for a Sunday treat.”

  He foraged for the bag of chips, then ripped it open and placed it in front of Tug. The skyger sniffed curiously at the bag—then promptly inhaled its contents with all the tact of a vacuum cleaner.

  “Sorry,” Ozzie told Fidget. “I should have saved some for you.”

  Fidget waved away the comment, her expression hardening. “Look, maybe I didn’t make this clear: Zoone’s dangerous. The motos have already replaced the entire security force. Who’s next? The kitchen workers? The inn staff—don’t sneer at me, Oz. Maybe next will be the porters.”

  Ozzie shook his head in disbelief. “Look,” he said as another loud thump emanated from Aunt Temperance’s bedroom, “you’re not going to stop her from going.” Then he pictured a boy in a Dreerdum’s uniform pummeling him against a locker, which prompted him to add, “Or me.”

  “I’ll come with you,” Tug announced as he licked a few remaining crumbs from his chin. “Zoone’s in trouble. Besides, we’re a team.”

  “I’m not saying don’t go,” Fidget huffed. “I’m saying we need a plan. And maybe an army. We should go to the Council of Wizardry. Find what’s-her-name. Adaryn Moonstrom, the head wizard.”

  “And how are we supposed to do that without going to Zoone first?” Ozzie demanded. “There’s one door here and it only goes to the nexus. So, that’s where we’re going. Look, everything will work out.”

  Fidget sighed and crossed her arms. “Says the boy who can’t even get his shirt on the right way.”

  Ozzie stared down at his collar to see the tag sticking out. Backward and inside out.

  “Just don’t blame me if it all goes to quoggswoggle the moment we get there,” Fidget said. Then, thrusting a thumb in the direction of Aunt Temperance’s bedroom, she added, “How long is she going to be?”

  “I have no idea,” Ozzie answered. He glanced around the apartment, wondering if there was anything worth showing his friends. Eridea was probably the only world in the multiverse that he knew more about than Fidget. “You guys could check out the TV?”

  “What do you do with that?” Tug asked, ears twitching inquisitively.

  “You watch it,” Ozzie replied.

  Aunt Temperance’s TV was embarrassingly old, hailing from an era when entertainment units thought they had to disguise themselves as furniture. It didn’t even have a remote—though, as Aunt Temperance liked to point out whenever Ozzie complained, at least it was in color.

  Tug slumped in front of it. “I’m watching it, Ozzie,” the skyger called over his shoulder. “But, just to tell you, I don’t think it’s going anywhere.”

  Ozzie navigated his way around the enormous cat and switched it on. “Let me change the channel. This is just a commercial.”

  “Wait!” Tug cried. “What’s a commercial?”

  Ozzie’s hand paused on the dial. “Just a thing they make you watch to try and sell you stuff between the scenes of the actual story. This one’s for shampoo.”

  “Oh . . .” The skyger was staring at the flashing images, mesmerized. He nudged Ozzie out of the way with his giant snout, then inched so close to the TV that his nose was touching the screen. It was impossible for Ozzie and Fidget to see anything past his mountainous head.

  “Just to tell you,” Fidget said to Ozzie, “I think Zoonian skygers like TV.”

  5

  Pirates in the Portal

  An hour later, Ozzie was trekking down the winding set of stairs that led into The Depths, taking up the rear behind Fidget, Tug, and his aunt—though she was hardly recognizable. To begin with, instead of a skirt, she was wearing an old pair of cargo pants (cargo pants!), a checkered shirt, and a tall pair of boots. Then there was her hair, which she’d done in two braids. For Aunt Temperance, this was the equivalent of sporting a Mohawk.

  Then there was the canvas backpack that she had slung over her shoulders. It contained not only her blender, but a vast assortment of other items mined from the nooks and crannies of Apartment 2B, everything from tea bags to extra underwear for Ozzie (in the end, it had been Aunt Temperance who had made his packing decisions).

  “I don’t think I’m ready to leave this world,” Tug lamented as they neared the bottom of the stairs. “I was right in the middle of this fantastic story on the TV about a place called Burger Empire.”

  “That wasn’t a story,” Ozzie said. “That was a commercial. Burger Empire is a real place. It actually exists.”

  “We can go there?” Tug exclaimed, coming to a halt as his fur rippled tangerine orange. “That would be so cool.”

  “Cool?” Ozzie echoed. “Where did you get that word? Let me guess—TV.”

  “Don’t they have burgers where you come from?” Aunt Temperance asked.

  She had just reached the landing, and Ozzie noticed her looking longingly down the passageway, toward the door to Zoone. Of course, he thought. When I was desperate to go there, it was all about patience and managing expectations. Now that she wants to go, we can’t leave soon enough.

  “They don’t have anything like Burger Empire in Zoone,” Tug protested. “Did you know the emperor is a deluxe burger? The empress is a cheeseburger, the prince and princess are mini burgers, the knights ride these things called hot dogs and—”

  “It’s not really like that,” Ozzie said, trying to push the skyger down the remaining steps. “They just serve food. There’re no burgers walking around singing ‘long live Emperor Beef.’ That’s a made-up story.”

  “I thought you just said it wasn’t a story,” Fidget said.

  “Well, yeah, not that kind of story,” Ozzie clarified. “It’s a special type of story to sell burgers.”

  “So, they’re lying?” It was dark in The Depths, with just a row of bare light bulbs hanging from the ceiling, but even through the gloom Ozzie could see Fidget raise a purple eyebrow.

  “Well, not really,” Ozzie tried to explain. “I mean, sort of. But everyone knows it’s not the truth.”

  “Your world is confusing,” Fidget decided.

  “Come on,” Aunt Temperance urged, continuing down the corridor.

  She had decided to wear the chain with the locket and ring around her neck, putting Ozzie in charge of the Zoone key. As soon as they reached the portal, he inserted it into the lock and threw open the door. There were no bricks now; instead, they saw nothing but the track stretching out into the distance, a vortex of stars spinning gently around it.

  “Oh!” Aunt Temperance gasped. “It’s . . .”

  It wasn’t like her to be at a loss for words, Ozzie knew, but then he remembered how overwhelmed he had felt the first time he’d seen this. “Beautiful?” he suggested.

  “Ensorcelling,” she finally managed.

  She adjusted the bag on her shoulders and stepped through the door and onto the track. The instant she did so, she began to trundle away, as if on some invisible conveyor belt. Everyone else followed.

  “How are we moving?” Aunt Temperance asked, turning in a slow circle.

  “It’s magic, Aunt T,” Ozzie explained, putting the key back around his neck. “Isn’t it amazing?”

  “You know what would help us get there faster?” Tug said, sitting on his haunches. “The new Bolt Ultra-ZX. It’s a type of car I saw on the TV and, when you’re driving it, the wind whips through your hair. ‘Freedom at your fingertips!’ I don’t have fingers, but I think I could steer one with my paws, or my tail, and . . .”

  He trailed off, prompting Ozzie to say, “Tug? What is it?”

  “Do you hear that?” the skyger whimpered, ears flattening against his head.

  Everyone began to glance around nervously. Soon enough, what had alread
y reached the skyger’s sensitive ears caught up to everyone else’s—a faint but high-pitched squeal coming from somewhere beyond the portal.

  “It sounds like a drill,” Ozzie said with a shudder. “The type a dentist uses.”

  “What kind of maniacal dentists do you have in your world?” Fidget said. “They use drills? Remind me to never come visit you again, okay? Especially if I have a toothache!”

  The noise continued to crescendo, causing the entire tunnel to shake. Ozzie could feel it vibrate through his heels and up his legs. He reached out to steady himself against Tug, only to find that the cat had crouched to bury his head in his paws. His fur had turned a grisly green.

  “What’s happening?!” Aunt Temperance cried.

  “I don’t know!” Fidget shouted over the now-deafening roar. “Things only seem to go wrong on this track when Ozzie takes it!”

  The track began to quake so violently that soon everyone was bouncing around like they were on a trampoline. The sky buckled and bulged—and then, suddenly, it ruptured open to reveal the tip of what looked like an enormous mining drill. The machine grumbled to a halt, providing instant relief to everyone’s ears. The track ceased to twist and turn—in fact, it ceased to move at all. They had come to a complete standstill.

  “The track!” Ozzie yelped, panicked. “What’d they do to it?”

  “Is everyone okay?” Aunt Temperance asked, fumbling a few steps forward. Her glasses were askew and one braid had partially unraveled in the ruckus. She looked like she had gone swimming in her own blender.

  Ozzie nodded distractedly and turned his attention to the split in the tunnel. Even though the auger was no longer spinning, it was still moving forward, and now he could see that it was actually the business end of a humongous floating ship. At first, he wasn’t sure how it was remaining aloft, but once the ship had plowed fully into the tunnel, he noticed a spinning turbine on its back end, gushing clouds of steam amid a cluster of undulating tentacles. This, combined with the drill at its nose, made the ship look like a giant metal squid.

  “Are they dentists?” Tug asked worriedly.

  Fidget snorted. “I wish. That’s a pirate ship.”

  “There are pirates in Zoone?” Aunt Temperance asked incredulously.

  “We haven’t actually made it to Zoone yet,” Ozzie pointed out as the metal leviathan loomed over them.

  “Portal pirates,” Fidget explained. “Scavengers, marauders—my grandfather used to tell tales about them. They roam the spaces between portals and slice their way onto tracks to rob and kidnap innocent travelers.”

  “Spaces between the portals?” Aunt Temperance echoed. “Is that even possible? Scientifically?”

  “Oh, I don’t know,” Fidget snapped. “Maybe I’m just imagining the massive metal monstrosity hovering above us.”

  A series of hatches clicked open from the undercarriage of the ship. Next, long cables began to unspool toward them. Then came the dark shapes of the pirates, scuttling down the ropes like spiders, hooting, hollering, and brandishing weapons. A loud crack sounded, and something whizzed through Ozzie’s mess of hair.

  “They have guns!” he exclaimed. “Come on—we have to reach the door, get to Zoone. Tug, can you fly?”

  The skyger gave him a trembling nod, so Ozzie clambered onto his back and sank his hands into his thick fur. “Come on, guys!”

  “You know, perhaps I’ll stick with my feet,” Aunt Temperance said hesitantly.

  “We don’t have time for this,” Fidget growled. “Get on the skyger! Right. Now.” Without waiting for further argument, she boosted Aunt Temperance onto Tug, then leaped up after her.

  Pirates began dropping onto the track—this side, that side, every side, until Tug was surrounded. Aunt Temperance shrieked. Tug yowled—he was as terrified as any of them, but the pirates didn’t know that. All they saw were his giant fangs, and that seemed to make most of them pause and reconsider certain life choices. Ozzie could have told them that they had it all wrong. When it came to Tug, you needed to worry about his back end—the one that served as base of operations for the wrecking ball otherwise known as his tail. That tail had now been set to full-anxiety mode, which meant pirates were soon flying through the air like plastic soldiers who’d been introduced to a tornado.

  The pirates were hardy, though; Ozzie had to give them that. It took only a moment for them to begin picking themselves up.

  “Hurry, Tug—let’s get out of here!” Ozzie yelled.

  The skyger burst from the ground in a flutter of feathers. Ozzie heard more bullets fly, more pirate war cries. A marauder came swinging toward them from the ship above, one hand clenching a rope and the other a sword with a curve like a malevolent smile. The pirate slashed at them; Tug swooped out of the way just in time, and then Ozzie heard a loud whack. He turned to see the pirate tumbling to the ground and Fidget brandishing a weapon of her own: an umbrella.

  Where did she get that from? he wondered, and then remembered the umbrella Aunt Temperance had packed in the side pocket of her bag.

  Suddenly, Tug shuddered beneath them. “You okay?” Ozzie asked him.

  “Doing . . . my . . . best,” the cat replied in a strained tone.

  “We’re too heavy for him,” Fidget realized as more bullets whistled past them. “It’s your bag, Aunt T. Stupid blender! You’ll have to drop it!”

  Aunt Temperance gasped. “It’s an essential. Can’t we drop something else?”

  “You?” Fidget suggested.

  Ozzie peered around Tug’s massive head and focused on the tunnel stretching before them. He could just make out the door to Zoone in the distance. It looked exactly like the one in The Depths: weathered and gray with hints of turquoise.

  “You can do it, Tug,” Ozzie encouraged. “We’re almost th—”

  A sound split the air like a cannon shot, followed by the sensation of being walloped by a giant claw. They crashed violently to the ground—though, thankfully, the track was soft, which probably saved them a few broken limbs. Still, it took a moment for Ozzie to regain his wits. He was pressed between the ground and one of Tug’s massive wings. He heard the skyger groan, followed by the complaints of Aunt Temperance and Fidget. Ozzie tried to wriggle free of Tug’s feathers, only to realize that they were somehow pinned to the ground as part of an immense skygerish heap.

  “We’ve been ensnared in some sort of net,” Aunt Temperance announced. “They must have fired it from the ship. No use struggling; it’s only going to make things worse.”

  “How could it be worse?” Fidget grumbled from some far region of the pile.

  “Well, for one thing, you might roll onto my glasses! Because I can’t—oh, here they are.”

  Ozzie finally managed to find a vantage point to look down the tunnel. They were so close to the door! He tried to claw his way across the track, as if he could somehow tug the net and everyone in it the last few feet. But, of course, he couldn’t.

  This isn’t fair! he screamed inside his head.

  Then the pirates were there, swarming around them like ants on a lump of candy. They didn’t exactly look like the pirates Ozzie had read about or seen in movies. Sure, they had some of the usual trademarks—tattoos, scars, and mouths sparsely populated with gray teeth—but many of them were wearing goggles and leather flight caps, while their weapons were a combination of swords and flintlock pistols covered in rusty switches and cogs.

  “They look like they’re on their way to a steampunk convention,” Aunt Temperance commented.

  “Really?” Fidget wondered. “Is a steampunk convention a place where pirates stew prisoners in their own juices? Because I think—”

  “Steampunk is just a type of look,” Ozzie interrupted. “That’s what she means.”

  Fidget grunted. “Yeah? Well, they look mean.”

  As if to prove her point, one of the pirates came up and delivered a kick to the pile—Ozzie’s part of the pile. “What do we got here?” the scoundrel snarled as Ozzie
massaged his aching ribs. The pirate was short and stout, but he looked menacing enough despite the lack of height. One of the lenses in his pair of goggles was blacked out—his version of an eye patch, Ozzie assumed—and his right hand was missing. In its place was a gun-sword attachment with a double barrel and a gleaming blade. Still, the worst thing about him was his beard. It was gray and greasy; it looked—and smelled—like a rat had clamped onto his chin and died there.

  “Not every day you capture a skyger, is it?” Ratbeard boasted with a flourish of his weaponized hand.

  The pirate rabble cheered in response. One or two of them even fired celebratory rounds into the air.

  Ratbeard knelt to attach a towline to the net. Then, giving it a yank, he yelled up to the ship, “Winch ’em up, boys! Cap’n Traxx is waitin’!”

  “Captain Traxx?!” Fidget cried as the net—and everyone inside of it—jerked unceremoniously into the air. “Did he just say Captain Traxx?”

  “What’s wrong?” Ozzie asked, with a creeping sense of dread. “Who’s Captain Traxx?”

  “Quoggswoggle,” Fidget groaned. “Things just got a lot worse.”

  6

  The Queen of the Cosmos

  “This is bad,” Fidget moaned. “Really bad. Traxx is merciless. Get captured by her and you don’t come back.”

  “Just to tell you, I saw this one story on the TV where this woman used a bubble bath to escape,” Tug mentioned. “She had all this stress in her life, but she poured this stuff into the tub and all her problems disappeared.”

  “This is a serious predicament!” Fidget growled at him in frustration. “Bath bubbles can’t help us! Like we have any, anyway.”

  “Actually, I do,” Aunt Temperance revealed. “Not that I can reach my backpack right now. But we do have an enormous raptorial creature on our side.”

  “Where is he?” Tug asked excitedly. “Can we call him?”

  “Er, I think she means you,” Ozzie told the skyger.

  “I don’t know how to call him,” Tug said.

  Ozzie groaned. “No, you’re the raptorial creature.”