Chapter 16: Escape From the Basement

Their voices came close over my shoulder, screaming at each other about Roanna and the pendant and me and Yvette and how dare we. Purrberus’s yowls and Ruddy’s shrieks were mixed in there too, except Ruddy was screaming about he and Mister Gentry being kindred, whatever that meant.

I expected to be dragged backwards or blasted against a basement wall but we made it to the Chimbrelis safely.

Yvette hopped onto the stone table and tossed me my gloves. I slipped them on. “Ready when you are,” I said in voice filled with fake confidence.

“Remember, the password is revenant,” she said. “I’m going upstairs to get the pendant. I know where Rufus hid it.”

“Wait, doesn’t Rufus want to keep it hidden from Mister Gentry?” I said.

“Neither of those two hell beasts are going to go away without it,” she said. “You need to give the pendant to Rufus, get this thing going and-”

As Yvette spoke, she tapped her paws against the side of the Chimbrelis. Or she went to, except out of nowhere there was a huge BZZZZT and a giant shower of sparks. She was flung halfway across the basement in and landed with a clang inside a huge iron cauldron.

I raced to where Yvette had been thrown, half expecting her head to be bashed in. It stunk like burnt hair. Both front paws were red, likely burned. Her tail was wet with blood and bent at a strange angle. Thank the gods, she was only out cold.

Behind me, Rufus and the two demonic intruders were still engaged in a battle of insults and magic.

I hated to leave Yvette with her injuries alone in the cauldron. Hopefully she’d be safer in there, tucked away from all the craziness. She would probably be screaming at me to get help.

I ran back to the Chimbrelis. “Hello, hello?”

“What is the password?” said the Chimbrelis in a much less scary voice than I had anticipated.

“Revenant,” I said, barely breathing.

“Wrong,” said the Chimbrelis.

“Wrong?” The world lurched. My blood turned to ice. Maybe I was being punished for bungling the answer!

“What is the password?” asked the Chimbrelis.

My mind went blank. I was astonished it asked me again, thinking for sure I wouldn’t get another chance.

“Zombie?” I asked, trying to sound confident.

“Wrong, but you are close.” the Chimbrelis said. “What is the password?”

I wracked my brain trying to come up with words I thought he would use and the Chimbrelis shot down every one. Skeleton. Corpse. Undead. Ghost. Goblin. Gremlin. Ghoul...

“GHOULMON!” I shouted. Please, please, please let it be that.

“I’m still stuck in here!” screeched Ruddy all the way across the room.

“That is correct,” sang the Chimbrelis.

“Chimbrelis, I need the emergency line. I have a, um, a situation and I need help immediately.”

A shimmering, person-shaped cloud swirled up. It was a woman wearing horn-rimmed glasses and a bored look on her face. “What kind of situation?”

“My friend is hurt and I’m stuck in this necromancer’s evil basement and he dragged me here from another continent and there’s this weird stuff from another dimension coming out of the wall, and there’s a really tall creepy insect-looking guy called Mister Gentry and a demon kitten with three heads and they’re all fighting, and I can’t get home and I don’t know where the pendant is!”

The woman glowered and pushed the horn-rims up the bridge of her nose. “Young lady, please don’t use this line to make prank calls. It is an offense punishable by local and international Calare laws with fines and jail time. Are you familiar with the Calare?”

I was. They were a worldwide order of magic users. You pretty much had to join if you’d graduated from a magic school. Addison was member of our city’s chapter but didn’t do much because he couldn’t stand all the ass-kissing that went on. If you were not a magic user and you broke one of their laws, you were screwed.

“You think I’m lying?” I said. “I’m not, I swear.”

Smashing furniture noises mixed with Rufus’s and Mister Gentry’s screams echoed around us, followed by showers of sparks.

“Fine,” said the woman. “Were you kidnapped or are you being held against your will?”

“What? Yes, I mean, not really. It was an accident. It’s a long story,” I said.

“What happened to your friend?” she asked.

“She’s hurt, she was thrown by this Chimbrelis and I think she broke her tail and burned her paws.”

“What species is your friend? How were you able to use this device, by the way?” she asked.

“Get away from that Chimbrelis!” Rufus howled.

“You’ve lost control of your own laboratory,” laughed Mister Gentry. Purrberus hissed demonically.

The woman’s eyes narrowed. “What was that?”

Why did she have to ask so many questions? “That’s the necromancer and the insect-looking guy. We’re all going to get killed if someone doesn’t get over here and help.”

Something exploded somewhere behind me. A scream died in my throat as a gust of smoke, heat and grit rolled over me.

I rubbed the smoke out of my burning eyes. The woman was gone.

“Hello, hello?” I shouted. “Ghoulmon, ghoulmon!”

The Chimbrelis was silent. I peeked behind me to see Rufus being thrown into a wall again. The walls were going to implode if this kept on much longer. I ran back to the cauldron, scooped up Yvette, and sprinted up the basement stairs two at a time.

I darted through the kitchen to Rufus’s bedroom on the third floor. The door was open just a little ways, enough for me to see books and clothes strewn about on the floor and his unmade bed.

We were risking even more certain death if he’d cursed the doorway and the gloves weren’t impervious to whatever magic might be there. I prayed to all the gods and goddesses in every pantheon I could think of that this wasn’t the case.

I squeezed my eyes shut and kicked the door. A blast of pain shocked my foot, as if my toes had been crunched together. The door was made of hefigwood, which was as solid and heavy as steel, and not meant to be kicked open.

Slowly, I pushed it the rest of the way with my other foot and stood on the threshold. A fresh wave of dread settled over me as I realized I had no idea where the pendant was. It could be anywhere in this mess.

At least the bedroom wasn’t booby-trapped.

Yvette groaned and stirred in my arms.

“Yvette, are you okay?” I stepped over a bunch of dirty teacups and saucers, set her down on the bed, then quickly rummaged around for something to wrap her injuries with. The only suitable thing I could find was a crisply-folded, monogrammed handkerchief in one of the dressers, which I tore into strips.

“I hurt all over,” she grunted. “Ow, my paws feel burnt...and my tail...it’s busted! What happened?”

I explained the events after she had been thrown from the Chimbrelis as I wound the torn fabric around her paws and tail. “But we need the pendant, so Mister Gentry will free Roanna and Rufus can send me home.”

“Rufus is going to kill you when he finds out you ruined one of his hankies,” Yvette said. “They were a birthday gift from Roanna.”

“I know, but that’s the least of our worries right now. Where’s the pendant?”

Yvette pointed. On the opposite wall hung a collection of ornately framed paintings and shadowboxes. Next to these in a black lacquered cabinet were taxidermy specimens and other curiosities, including a variety of creatures floating in liquid, probably formaldehyde. More scary looking oddities cluttered a long mantel above the cabinet.

“On the mantel. It’s in the smallest glass box with the scorpion,” she said. “Be careful...it’s alive.”

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The creeping willies came back with a vengeance. “There’s the booby trap. How am I supposed to get it without getting attacked?”

“At least you have the gloves,” Yvette said. “We shouldn’t waste any more time though. The basement will be in ruins by the time we get back down there if we don’t hurry.”

Reluctantly, I peered into the glass enclosure. It was not much bigger than a shoe box, with sand on the bottom and a few rocks. The scorpion was perched on a rock in one corner, stinger poised above its glossy black body. Thankfully, it was much tinier than I anticipated. I didn’t see the pendant anywhere.

“Where are its food and water?” I asked. “And isn’t it supposed to have a heat lamp?” I only knew because an ex-girlfriend of Addison’s kept pet tarantulas, scorpions, and a bunch of reptiles. The lizards and snakes didn’t bother me but the creepy crawlers with eight legs freaked me out.

“It doesn’t need them,” Yvette explained. “It’s an undead scorpion.”

Somehow, that was worse. “Ew, great. What if it stings me?”

“Don’t worry, it barely moves and I’m not sure it’s even venomous anymore,” Yvette said.

The hot and cold at the same time feeling surged over me. “I can’t find the pendant. Are you sure it’s in here?”

“I watched Rufus put it in there,” Yvette replied. “Ask the scorpion. Maybe now it’s hidden under a rock or something.”

I tried to ignore the awful pit in my stomach, and started to lift the wire mesh lid off the enclosure. Maybe the little creep was sleeping and wouldn’t pay any attention to me.

“Hurry,” Yvette urged, almost making me drop the lid.

“I’m going as fast as I can.”

“Talk to it,” Yvette said. “Ask it for the pendant.”

I set the lid down against the cabinet and peeked into the enclosure. The scorpion stood motionless on its rock. “Um, hi. Excuse me for bothering you, but have you seen a pendant in your enclosure?”

The scorpion remained silent.

“It’s black, rectangular...it’s on a chain.” I waited a moment, then turned to Yvette. “This isn’t working.”

“What do you expect, it’s undead. Try again.”

“It’s kind of important,” I said. “We need it...for a project. There’s a situation going on in the basement with a guy called Mister Gentry and a demonic three-headed kitten and--”

“We don’t really have time to tell the whole story,” said Yvette.

“Okay!” I said. “So, um, Mr. Scorpion, do you have the pendant?”

The scorpion clicked its claws.

“Is that a yes?”

Again, the scorpion clicked its claws.

“Oh, good!” I said. “Where is it?”

The scorpion waved its claws.

“In there? Okay Mr. Scorpion, do you think you could just hand it to me or--”

“Hurry!” Yvette screeched.

“You don’t have to yell!” I said.

The scorpion waved its claws again. I took it to mean “come closer”. With even greater reluctance, I stuck my hand inside the enclosure. Again, the scorpion waved its claws. I hated to but inched my hand closer to it.

Quick as a whip, the scorpion jumped off the rock, scurried up my arm, and pinched my nose.

“That’s Miss Scorpion to you,” she hissed. “Be glad I save my stinger venom for my enemies and not rude teenagers.”

I screamed and slipped on a stack of newspapers, flinging my arms out as I careened backwards. My elbow knocked a teapot and some teacups off an end table, dousing the wall and floor. I crash landed in another pile of dirty dishes.

Miss Scorpion didn’t let go. She held on and squeezed tighter.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, please don’t kill me!” I shrieked. “Ow, ow, ow!”

There were several more apologies and expletives before the scorpion relieved her grip. She settled back and shook her stinger.

“Coralie, could you please try not to break anything else in here? And get the pendant,” Yvette said.

“I accept your apology, even if it was tainted by your profane tongue,” hissed the scorpion. “I am called Astrid. Who are you?”

“I’m Coralie,” I said rubbing my nose. “I have to get home to my father. He had a heart attack. I’m here completely by accident, from another continent. Could we please get the pendant before it’s too late and I’m stuck here forever? Rufus can’t help me.”

“Yeah, Rufus is getting killed down there by demons,” Yvette said.

“Rufus is no friend of mine,” Astrid said. “It is his fault I am an undead scorpion. Lift me back up into the glass prison and I will get you the pendant.”

I didn’t want to touch her but there was no other way.

I held her as far away from my body as possible until she scathingly corrected my method of carrying her to “use both hands, do not drop me, and it is insulting to behave as though you find me loathsome. Many humans are equally vile if not worse.”

“Of course, I’m sorry.” Without even turning around, I was sure of Yvette’s disapproving look.

Astrid dug in the sand and pulled the pendant out from under the rock she’d been sitting on. “Rufus commanded me to protect the pendant, but his orders mean nothing to me. However, there is one condition that must be met before I hand it over to you.” She flicked her stinger.

I wanted to scream. Yvette started to protest by I shushed her. My sore nose knew better than to try to bargain with an undead scorpion and I didn’t want to experience the stinger next. “What’s the condition?”

“You must promise not to return me to this glass prison. You must also free my undead brethren that are trapped on the mantel. It must be done now, in case we don’t make it back from the basement. We will assist with your Rufus situation.”

Thinking about a swarm of undead creatures running around the basement gave me even worse heebie-jeebies. I started to see that was my problem though. “You have my word.”

“Please, put me on your shoulder so I may have a better view,” Astrid said. I imagined Addison telling me that confronting our fears is a part of life, and did as she asked.

“And now, free the others,” she said.

A few minutes later, Astrid’s fellow undead creatures were freed from their enclosures and waited on the floor, stretching their many legs and chattering to one another in their whispery languages.

There were three other, much larger scorpions, five tarantulas, a bunch of of giant cockroaches, and the biggest millipede I’d ever seen. A married pair of hermit crabs decided to stay behind because “now it will be quiet and we’ll have a little more privacy.”

They told me that each of them had become undead as the result of Rufus’s botched experiments. “The lucky ones were met with real death,” said one of the tarantulas. “The rest of us linger in this state of being.”

Astrid dropped the pendant into my gloved hands. The hermit crabs wished us luck, and with Astrid perched on my shoulder, Yvette and I and our small army of undead invertebrates headed back to the basement.

As we reached the kitchen the doorbell rang, followed by pounding on the front door. The chaos in the basement clamored in the background.

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