The Merchant of Death tpa-1 Read online

  Then the door opened and Courtney charged in.

  “Look, I’ve got two older brothers. It’s not possible to gross me out-” She took a look at the room and stopped dead in her tracks. Mark stood frozen holding a bunch of dirty gray socks that in an earlier life had actually been white. Courtney sniffed the air and had to try hard not to gag. “I was wrong. I am totally grossed out,” she managed to say. “Did something die in here?”

  “S-sorry,” he said in complete embarrassment. “It n-needs a little air.”

  “It needs fumigation. Open another window before I pass out,” gagged Courtney.

  Mark tossed his bunch of socks out of one window and quickly threw open another. Courtney surveyed the room, stopping in front of two posters on the wall. One was a colorful Hentai-animation superhero cartoon, the other was a gorgeous girl lying on a tropical beach in a leopard-print thong.

  Courtney said, “Looks like you’ve got kind of a conflicted puberty versus playschool thing going on.”

  Mark stood in front of the posters, blocking them. “Can we f-focus on the important problem, please?” he said curtly.

  Courtney got the message. Now wasn’t the time to be giving Mark grief. She sat down at his desk as he quickly cleared off the F-117 model plane he had been building in order to give her room to work.

  “Phone book,” she said. All business.

  Mark went to his closet in search of one. Courtney found a scratch pad of paper and opened a desk drawer to look for a pen. Big mistake.

  “Well, I solved one mystery,” she announced.

  “What?” asked Mark hopefully.

  Courtney reached into his drawer and pulled out a revolting-looking block of yellow ooze.

  “I know why your room smells like a shoe,” she said, holding out a rotten piece of moldy cheese as if it were diseased. It probably was. Mark instantly grabbed it.

  “Hey, I’ve been looking for that,” he exclaimed.

  Courtney rolled her eyes and grabbed the phone book Mark had found. The plan was to call Bobby’s parents at work. Mr. Pendragon was a writer for the local newspaper and Mrs. Pendragon was the assistant librarian in town. Courtney found both numbers and called both places. Unfortunately she got the same disturbing information each time. Neither of Bobby’s parents had shown up for work that day and neither had called in to say why. That was bad. She then called Glenville School where Bobby’s sister, Shannon, was in the third grade. Again, she got the same answer. Shannon hadn’t come to school that day. After hearing this last bit of information, Courtney slowly put the phone back down in the cradle and looked to Mark.

  “They’reall missing,” she said soberly.

  Mark quickly grabbed the phone and dialed a number.

  “Who are you calling?” asked Courtney.

  “I’m dialing Bobby’s number.” He did, and what he got was a recorded message from the operator that said: “The number you have reached is not in service.” Mark slammed the phone down.

  “That’s impossible!” he shouted. “I just called him yesterday! A whole family can’t just vanish!”

  On a hunch, Courtney took the phone book and flipped through it. She got to the “P” section and searched for “Pendragon.” She checked, double-checked, triple-checked and then announced: “It’s not here. Their name isn’t here.”

  Mark grabbed at the book and looked for himself. Courtney was right; there was no listing for “Pendragon.”

  “Is their number unlisted?” asked Courtney.

  “No,” answered Mark quickly. This seemed to upset him more than anything else. “And I’ll tell you something else. Bobby and I looked up his number in this very book about a year ago. I was goofing around and next to ‘Pendragon’ I wrote ‘Sucks.’ I know, lame joke, but I did it. And now it’s n-not there. It’s n-not erased, it’s n-not cut out, it’s just…not there, like it was never there!”

  This had gotten out of hand. A whole family was missing. There was only one thing to do. They had to report it to the police. This wasn’t the kind of thing they wanted to do over the phone, so the two of them headed right for the Stony Brook Police Station.

  Stony Brook was a little town in Connecticut that wasn’t exactly a center for criminal activity. There was an occasional robbery, or fight, but most of the time the Stony Brook Police Department kept itself busy by making sure people obeyed the traffic laws and cleaned up after their dogs.

  When Courtney and Mark walked into the police station, they weren’t exactly sure what they were going to say. They decided that they would stick to the obvious facts, which were that Bobby and his family were nowhere to be found and that their house was gone. Telling them about the ring and the parchment and the wild story that supposedly came from Bobby would be a bit much to throw at them at first. They spoke to a policeman by the name of Sergeant D’Angelo sitting behind the large front desk. Courtney did the talking. Mark was too nervous. She explained how Bobby hadn’t shown up for the game last night and didn’t come to school today. She told him how they had gone to the Pendragon’s house to find that it wasn’t there anymore, and none of the other family members were where they should have been. Sergeant D’Angelo listened to everything they had to say and took notes on a form. Courtney had the strange feeling that the policeman didn’t believe a word they were saying, but he had to go through the motions because it was his job. After he finished the form, he walked away from the front desk and went to his computer. He clicked away on the keyboard, read the screen, and occasionally glanced back to Mark and Courtney. Was he scowling? Finally, he stood up and came back to the desk to face them.

  “Look kids,” he said with a frown. “I don’t know what you’re trying to pull here, but you’re wasting my time and taxpayers’ money.”

  Mark and Courtney were stunned.

  “What are you talking about?” asked Courtney. “Didn’t you listen? A family is missing. Isn’t that the kind of thing the Stony Brook Police should be worried about?”

  This didn’t impress Sergeant D’Angelo. “Pendragon, right?” he said. “Two Linden Place?”

  “That’s r-right,” answered Mark.

  “I just went through the town registry,” said the sergeant with force. “There is no family by that name living in Stony Brook. There is no house on Two Linden Place. There has never been a house on Two Linden Place. So the only possible explanation is that you’re either pulling some kind of joke, or you’re talking about a family of ghosts and no, the Stony Brook Police are not interested in tracking down a family of ghosts!”

  With that, he tore up the form he was filling out and tossed it in the wastebasket. Courtney was livid. She was all set to leap over that desk, grab the smug cop and force him to go to their school where everybody knew Bobby. She might have done it too, except for one thing.

  The ring in Mark’s pocket started to twitch.

  Mark’s heart instantly leaped into his throat.

  Courtney leaned closer to the desk, looked up at the cop and said angrily: “I don’t care what your computer says. I know the Pendragons! Bobby is my-”

  Mark grabbed Courtney by the hand and pulled her back with such force it actually made her stop talking.

  “We gotta go,” was all Mark could say. In his pocket, the ring was starting to shake harder.

  “No way! I’m not going until-”

  “Courtney! Let’s go!” He shot her a look that was so intense she got the message. She didn’t know what was going on, but she knew Mark was serious.

  Mark backed toward the door, pulling Courtney with him. But Courtney wanted the last word with D’Angelo.

  “I’m coming back!” she shouted. “And you better hope those people are okay or it’s going to be on your head!”

  Mark pulled her out of the door, leaving Sergeant D’Angelo alone. The policeman sniffed, shook his head, and went back to reading the newspaper.

  Outside of the station, Mark pulled Courtney into an alley to get away from the main street. Thou
gh Courtney was bigger and stronger than Mark, he would not be denied.

  “What is your problem?” she shouted.

  Mark dug into his pocket and pulled out the ring.

  “This,” he said while holding it out in front of him.

  The gray stone had already turned crystalline and rays of light once again shot from its center. Courtney watched in wonder as Mark placed the ring on the pavement and took a few steps back. The ring twitched, flipped over, and started to grow.

  “Oh…my…god.” Courtney breathed, dumbfounded.

  Within the growing circle was a black portal where the road should have been. From this portal came the musical notes that Mark had heard in the boys’ room at school. The sparkling lights flashed against the walls of the buildings and even though it was daytime, they shone so brightly that Courtney and Mark had to shield their eyes. The musical notes grew louder, the stone gave off one last blinding flash, and that was it. The lights ended, and the music stopped.

  “Is that it?” asked Courtney.

  Mark walked cautiously over to the ring. It sat on the road, right where he had left it. It was once again back to normal size and the stone had returned to its original gray color. But something else was there too. Lying next to the ring was another scroll of parchment paper tied with a leather cord. Mark reached down, picked it up gingerly, and turned to Courtney.

  “Mail’s in,” was all he could say.

  Journal #2

  Denduron

  Uncle Press is going to die tomorrow.

  So much has happened since I wrote to you last, Mark. It’s been strange, scary, confusing and sometimes even sort of-dare I say it-fun. But the bottom line is, Uncle Press is going to die tomorrow.

  Right now I’m sitting in a small cavern that must be two hundred feet underground. I’m writing this by the light of a candle because there’s no electricity. I’m looking around and all I see are rocks. Tons and tons of black rocks that look as if they might collapse on my head at any second. I better stop thinking about it because I’m freaking myself out. The cavern isn’t going to collapse. I’m safe here, at least for now. The guy who is in trouble is Uncle Press.

  I’m telling you this because I need your help. I’m going to ask you to do something for me that is pretty dangerous. Under normal circumstances I’d never ask you to do something like this, but it’s the only thing I can think of that might help me save Uncle Press. I’d understand if you didn’t want to do it, but before you decide I want to tell you all that’s happened since the last time I wrote you. Once you know everything, then you can decide.

  I ended my last letter right after Uncle Press was dragged off by Kagan’s knights, and I blacked out. Have you ever blacked out, or fainted? It’s not like falling asleep at all. When you fall asleep, you never know the exact moment it happens. You just kind of lie there, waiting, and the next thing you know, bang, it’s morning. But when you pass out, you can feel yourself slipping away. It’s not a good feeling. Waking up afterward isn’t much better. There’s a moment where you’re not really sure where you are and what’s going on, then suddenly everything rushes into focus and you’re snapped back to reality. It’s a pretty rude experience.

  Of course, in this case, even after I snapped back to reality I still didn’t know where I was and what was going on. The first thing I saw was a face. A girl’s face. For a second I thought it was Courtney. But once my brain started to click I realized this girl didn’t look anything like Courtney. She was totally beautiful. (Whoa, that sounded bad. Not that Courtney isn’t totally beautiful, but this girl was, well, different.) I’d say she was my age, maybe a little older. She had dark skin and eyes that were so brown they looked black. Her hair was dark too. It was tied in a long, tight braid that reached halfway down her back. She wore the same kind of weird leather skins that Uncle Press had made me put on, but on her they looked pretty good because she had an amazing body. She had to be an athlete or something. Seriously, this girl was cut like an Olympic sprinter. No fat, all muscle, totally awesome. And she was tall. Maybe a few inches taller than me. If I saw her at home I’d guess she was of African descent. But this wasn’t home.

  I lay flat on my back as she looked down at me with absolutely no expression. I couldn’t tell if she was glad I was alive, or getting ready to finish the job the quigs started and kill me once and for all. We stayed that way for a few seconds, with neither of us moving. Finally I swallowed to make sure my voice would work and croaked out, “Where am I?” No points for originality but hey, I wanted to know.

  The girl didn’t answer. She stood up and walked to a table that had a couple of wooden bowls. She picked one up and held it out for me, but I didn’t take it. Who knows what she was trying to give me? It could have been poison. It could have been blood. It could have been some vile-tasting liquid that they consider a delicacy here, but would make me puke.

  “It is water,” she said flatly.

  Oh.

  I took it. I was thirsty. The girl then walked over to the door and stood with her arms folded. I took a drink and looked around to get my bearings. I was inside what looked like some kind of hut. It wasn’t big, maybe the size of my living room at home. There was only one room with six walls. Is that a hexagon? The walls were built of stones that were held together by dried mud. There were a few holes which passed for windows and one big opening for a door. The ceiling rose to a center point and was made of interwoven tree branches. The floor was dirt, but it was so hard it might as well have been concrete. I was lying on a low bench-thingy that was made out of lashed-together logs. The top was woven out of straw or something. It was comfortable enough, but I wouldn’t want to spend a whole night there. There was a bunch more of these beds lined up in the hut, which made me think this might be some kind of hospital. It made sense. After what I’d been through, I belonged in a hospital.

  It was like I had stepped into a time machine and been sent back a few thousand years to an age when people built their world out of anything they could get their hands on…and didn’t care much for personal hygiene. Oh, yes, did I mention the place smelled like a locker room for goats? It made me wonder if the mortar holding together the stone walls was really mud, or something disgusting that would make me retch if I knew what it was.

  I looked over at this amazing girl. She stood there, staring back. Was she a friend? An enemy? A guard who was standing watch until one of those knight guys came in to drag me off like they did Uncle Press? A million thoughts ran through my head, but one thought stood out above all others.

  I had to pee.

  The last time I took a leak was before Courtney showed up at my house. When was that? A million years ago? Judging by how my bladder felt, it was at least that long. So rather than lie there and wet my leather pants, I started to get up.

  “Hey,” I said. “I gotta-”

  As soon as I moved, the girl flew into attack mode. She instantly crouched down and whipped out a wooden pole that must have been strapped to her back. It was about five feet long and well-worn from use. She held the weapon steady with both hands, and I saw that each end was stained shiny black from hitting things I didn’t even want to imagine. Scarier still were her eyes. They were dead-set focused on her target, which happened to be me.

  I froze. No way I was going to stand up or she would have whacked me so fast my head would hit the ground before my feet did. I didn’t want to move at all for fear of setting her off. We both stayed that way, waiting for the other one to make the next move. One thing I knew for sure, it wasn’t going to be me. And if she took a step toward me, I’d be off that bench and out the window headfirst.

  Then a voice called from outside, “Buzz obsess woos saga!” At least that’s what it sounded like; I’m not exactly sure of the spelling. Someone stepped in through the door. It was a woman dressed in the same crusty leather clothes that apparently were fashionable in this neighborhood. She actually looked like an older version of the girl who was about to brain me. Bu
t as powerful as this woman looked, there was something about her that made me feel as if she could possibly be my savior. I think it was her eyes. They were kind eyes. No anger there at all. When she looked at me, I knew it was going to be okay. She looked familiar, though I can’t imagine where I could have met her before. She gave the younger girl a stern look and the girl reluctantly responded by putting her weapon away. Whew. Disaster averted.

  The woman then turned to me and said, “Forgive my daughter. She often takes herself too seriously.”

  New info. This was a mother-daughter team. I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised. They looked alike. I wondered what Dad looked like. He must have been a linebacker. I still didn’t feel comfortable moving. This woman seemed cool, but after what I’d been through I wasn’t taking any chances. She walked up to me, knelt down by the bench and gave me a kind smile.

  “My name is Osa,” she said softly. “My daughter’s name is Loor.”

  “I…I’m Bobby and I’m not from here,” was all I could think of saying.

  With a smile, Osa said, “Neither are we. And we know exactly who you are, Pendragon. We’ve been waiting for you.”

  Whoa! She knew who I was! A million thoughts flashed through my brain, but one in particular jumped out. If they knew who I was, then why was amazon girl over there ready to beat my brains out? I figured I better not ask. I didn’t want to tick Loor off. She might decide to yank out her stick and start wailing on me anyway.

  “How do you know me?” I asked.

  “From Press, of course,” she answered. “He has been telling us about you for quite some time.”