Tiny Dragons 2: The Bear and Scepter (5 page)

5. The Bear and the Scepter

The rain had come on strong and heavy, with fierce winds battering the sides of the house. The light slowly drained out of the living room, leaving only the glow of their television and Mrs. O'Neil leaned forward to look out the window and frowned. "James, turn on the light, please," she said.

As he got up from the sofa, lightning forked through the sky, a jagged streak of electricity that lit up their house for a moment like a signal flare. A resounding thunderclap boomed so loudly that Alana threw her hands over her ears and cried out.

"It's all right," Mrs. O'Neil said, draping her arm around her daughter. "Nothing to be afraid of."

Just as James reached to turn on the light switch, the television fizzled and the bright images withdrew into a small dot and went black. "Power's out," James said. "I'll grab the glow sticks."

Alana shivered slightly, and pulled her legs up on the couch and tucked them in between the cushions. James came back from the kitchen with a handful of glow sticks and started handing them out. Alana pulled one out of the packaging and snapped it, making it burst into green fluorescent light. Thunder crackled over the roof once more, this time long and drawn out with almost musical highs and lows. "Another strike," Mrs. O'Neil whispered, laughing slightly.

"What's that, mama?" Alana said.

"Oh, just something my father used to tell me when I was a little girl. He said that when you hear thunder, it's just the angels bowling and one of them rolled a strike."

Alana nodded, trying to picture it in her mind. She'd seen what angels looked like in books and some of the kids at school would draw them on occasion, but it seemed strange to her that they'd ever go bowling. What, she wondered, were they bowling on, exactly?

James snapped his own glow stick and waved it around in the dark, leaving circles of light trails. "That's dumb," he sniffed. "Angels."

"You don't believe in angels?" Mrs. O'Neil asked.

"Nope."

"Why?"

He smirked at her and said, "Duh, because they're not real."

"How do you know?" Alana snapped. She was tired of him always acting so sure of everything he said.

Mrs. O'Neil stroked Alana's hair and drew her back to her side. She looked at James thoughtfully for a moment and said, "Is that because of what your father taught you?"

"I guess," James said. "He always said to only believe in what you can see. That the world is full of charlatans who−"

"What's a charlatan?" Alana said.

"A faker. Like, a schemer," James said. He looked back at his mother, "He said the world is full of people who use superstition and fear to get over on other people."

"That's true," Mrs. O'Neil said, nodding. "But he never said to only believe in what you can see."

"Yes he did," James shot back.

"No, he did not," Mrs. O'Neil corrected him. "He said to only believe in what you can
prove
."

"Oh," James whispered, nodding slowly. "I guess you're right."

Mrs. O'Neil rubbed her forehead with her hands and said, "If you only knew how strange the world really is, you'd know that angels bowling are the least of our worries."

Alana and James looked at one another, neither of them speaking, but both of them thinking that if their mother knew some of the things
they'd
seen, she would think they were crazy. Alana tugged on her mother's arm and said, "Do you believe in angels?"

Mrs. O'Neil put her hand inside Alana's and said, "Well, I've never met any, but I'm keeping an open mind about the subject until it's proven either way."

There came a soft scratching at the patio door.

Alana squeaked in fear, but was immediately reprimanded by her older brother. "It's just Mister Six, you big baby," James said, rolling his eyes. "He hates the rain."

"Stop calling your sister names," Mrs. O'Neil said. "What is wrong with you, young man?"

"Sorry," he said, sounding like he didn't really mean it, as he got up and crossed the room, slashing through the darkness with his glow stick.

"Has he been mean lately, or is it just me?" Mrs. O'Neil said.

"He's not mean," Alana said, feeling protective of her older brother, despite his bull-headed attitude. "He just gets upset when people talk about Dad."

"You think so?" Mrs. O'Neil said, turning her head to look at James as he navigated his way toward the large glass patio doors, more focused on his imaginary sword fight with the glow stick than on rescuing the cat.

She heard the scratching sound again, thinking that it sounded different, somehow. It wasn't a scratch of a cat's paw on the glass. It sounded more like a scrape.

She glanced over to the living room window next to the patio doors and saw nothing but darkness, as if the entire sky were blotted out, or the window had been covered over.

Lighting flashed outside their house, so close to them that it lit up the living room as bright as the daytime, showing the trees and backyard through the patio doors, but not through the window beside it. It was completely dark. In that instantaneous flash she caught a glimpse of why.

There was harsh, bristled fur pressed up against the glass, blocking her view. The fur of something so large it covered the window with its rounded back as it bent over, scratching at their glass door with one of its long, curved claws.

Mrs. O'Neil's mouth fell open in mute horror, broken only by the sound of James turning the patio door handle to slide it open. "James, no!" she cried out, but it was too late.

The bear was enormous.

Its massive paw swung through the door, the padding gray and thick like leather on a catcher's mitt. In that brief second, Alana saw the bear's claws. They were long and curved like eagle talons, heading straight for her brother. She saw James fold at the midsection, struck by the bear's sweeping arm, and his glow stick went flying. It spun through the air, going around and around, and as it passed the glass door, Alana caught sight of the bear looking in at them. In glared with icy black hatred and grunted angrily, fogging the door and covering it in slobber.

James was sprawled on the kitchen floor, face down and not moving. Alana screamed for her brother, but Mrs. O'Neil shot to her feet and shouted, "Alana, run upstairs to your bedroom and find something heavy to block your door!"

"James!" Alana cried out.

"Alana!" Mrs. O'Neil shouted again, her voice deeper and more powerful than Alana had ever heard before, "Do as I say!"

The bear's arm curved back toward the sliding patio door and gripped it by the edge, pushing it the rest of the way open. The bear lowered its shaggy head and poked it inside the house, sniffing the air once before opening its huge jaws and unleashing a deafening roar. Alana pressed her hands to her ears, feeling the force of the bear's roar against her face like wind, so loud it rattled the windows in their frames.

Mrs. O'Neil thrust out her arms to block the bear's path and said, "You may not enter this house, servant of darkness. The place is protected by the First Circle and True Light!"

The bear shook its head violently and roared again, its thunderous call drowning out the sound of Mrs. O'Neil shouting for Alana to run. The bear began to slide into the house, squeezing itself through the open patio door, its clawed paw dangerously close to where James's head was lying on the kitchen floor.

"Get back!" Mrs. O'Neil shouted, swatting the air. "Get back, foul beast! Go back to the darkness!"

The bear roared once more and shook its head from side to side, pulling back slightly, as if Mrs. O'Neil's words were stinging its face. But it wasn't enough. It forced itself in even more, bending the metal frame of the patio door around its thick waist.

It reared back and raised a paw in the air over Mrs. O'Neil, its sharp claws aimed for her head, when Alana saw a gray blur come streaking across the backyard. It shot out of the woods and raced for their house, leaping from the bottom steps of the patio deck and tumbling though the air, directly onto bear's back.

Mister Six landed on the bear's neck, slashing and hissing like a cat possessed. He scrambled up onto the top of the bear's skull and batted it across the face with his tiny claws. The bear threw its head back and gnashed its teeth, trying to catch one of Mister Six's paws in its fangs, but the cat was too fast. He seemed to prance across the bear's shoulders, the sides of his mouth curling up into something that looked almost like a smile, although Alana knew that was impossible. Nearly as impossible as a bear coming into their house and their cat trying to fight it off.

Mister Six darted under one of the bear's swipes and came up with both his front paws extended and aimed at the monster's face. He leapt forward, stretching his long body as far as he could, the tips of his claws about to strike, when the bear wrenched sideways. At the last moment, the bear used its own snout as a battering ram, and hammered Mister Six in mid-flight. The cat yowled in pain as it was flung backwards toward the wall, hitting a framed picture of the O'Neil family with its head and cracking the glass.

The bear turned toward Mrs. O'Neil and snarled. It was going to take its time coming in through the door now. Its obsidian eyes were fixed on her, even as she kept her arms held wide and continued to repeat the words, "Get back to the darkness."

Her voice was failing, though. What had started off like a strong commandment had developed a tremor. Even her hands were shaking.

The bear opened its mouth wide, baring its fangs, showing them the dark tunnel of its throat and filling the room with its foul breath. Alana was too afraid to move. She tried to speak, to call out for James to get up, or for her mother to hide, but nothing came out except high-pitched squeaks.

Mister Six shook his head as he forced himself back to his feet and limped around the couch to stand in front of Mrs. O'Neil. He growled in a low voice at the bear, eyeing it with disdain.

The bear's nose wrinkled at the cat and it lurched forward to grab him, when the bear's head shot up in the air and it roared in anger. It slammed its hips against the patio doorframe, trying desperately to spin itself around in the confined space.

Alana heard what sounded like ripping, and the bear roared again, its voice tinged with pain. The pain seemed to drive the thing mad. It swung wildly at its own hind quarters, bashing itself with its paws. Then, Alana saw a second cat come racing up the bear's back, darting swiftly over the slashing claws and snapping fangs.

The second cat, a cinnamon-colored Siamese, ripped at the bear's fur with such fury that clumps of it flew through the living room. The cat was obviously crazy too, screeching and hissing so loudly that the bear seemed momentarily confused by her vicious attack.

The sound of it spurred Mister Six to action. He forced himself back up and took a running leap at the nearest kitchen counter, landing only long enough to somersault over the bear's swinging arm and stretch out to claw it down the side of its face. The bear roared in anger at being unable to stop the assault, its huge face streaked red from the cat scratches and bites. They'd never be able to defeat the beast, but its rage at their offensive was terrifying.

Mrs. O'Neil used their distraction to race forward, braving the stamping paws and gnashing teeth of the bear, and grabbed a hold of her son's arm. She latched onto him with both hands and dragged him across the kitchen floor, desperate to get him out of the way. She slid him across the threshold to the hallway and pushed him into the study, trying to bury him in the shadows so the bear wouldn't see him. She turned her head and shouted, "I told you to get upstairs!" to her daughter, but the hallway was empty.

Alana was gone.

Even with all the banging and shouting and hissing and the thunderous roaring of the bear, Alana could hear it. It rattled and shook against the walls of its box, like a toddler throwing a fit. The whispering was so loud it seemed like it was inside her head, and even though she was rooted in place by fear, it was calling for her to come.

She watched the two cats fight the bear, two impossibly small creatures compared to its might, but they fought anyway. Poor, unconscious James, who'd so bravely gone to the door, and if he were able to, would have been doing everything he could to keep the bear from coming into the house.

Be…

The voice in her head was getting clearer, like a radio station being fine-tuned to clear away the static and clarify the signal. If only James would wake up. If only her mother would do something. If only her father were home. If only none of this had happened and everything were normal and there were no such thing as evil creatures.

Be your own…

Alana stopped moving. She closed her eyes and lowered her head, trying to listen. She blocked out the fear and the noises and lowered her head, concentrating on what the voice was saying.

Be your own hero.

Alana's eyes flew open and she knew what she had to do. She spun toward the staircase and raced up the steps, taking them two at a time, landing in the upstairs hallway only long enough to turn and slam her mother's bedroom door open. She dove for the closet, pushing her mother's shoes and shirts out of her way and she grabbed the edge of the box, trying to force it open.