Tobias, come back!” Gordy tried to project his whisper but he could have shouted at the top of his lungs and Tobias probably would’ve ignored it.

Several pumpkins exploded, pulp and seeds splattering and sizzling against Gordy’s shoes. The effects of Tobias’s storm potion churning above the garden hadn’t worn off entirely, and a gale of wind whipped through the forest, carrying with it a biting sheet of rain. It was as though the conjured weather mirrored Tobias’s infuriated emotions as the rain turned into icy sleet and then back to rain.

Cupping a hand over his eyes, Gordy watched in horror as Tobias sprinted down the hill and into the clearing beyond the trees in front of the house, screaming all the way. Save for a few patches of green, the garden was gone, leaving only a blazing square of scorched earth.

Gordy looked skyward, fearful for all those birds entranced by one of Tobias’s concoctions, but they were gone as well. Hopefully the fire had broken their trance and they had flown away. If not . . . He didn’t want to think about that.

An ear-piercing cackle filled the air, echoing from just beyond the tree line. The shed Bolter had once used as a temporary laboratory went up in blue flames. Several objects exploded through the walls, whizzing through the air like miniature UFOs in a space battle. It took Gordy a moment to realize they were the hubcaps from Bolter’s personal collection.

Then a woman wearing rags for clothing stepped out from the trees, and Gordy felt his spirits plummet.

“Not the mud people!” he groaned.

Gordy had hoped he would never see that woman again, but there was no way he would forget her face. During the attack at B.R.E.W. headquarters, she had doused Bolter’s car with a potion that had formed a gigantic octopus that almost drowned everyone.

Several more Scourges emerged from the forest, each with a seemingly endless supply of Pele Punch and Polish Fire Rockets, as well as other combustible concoctions. Crimson potion splashed and ignited, setting everything on fire. Once they pinpointed Tobias’s location, they fanned out, forming a perimeter. Gordy counted seven Scourges—too many to handle all at once. Realizing he was standing out in the open, Gordy ducked back behind a tree, but it was too late.

“Spread out!” the woman shrieked. “There’s another one here!”

Plunging his hand into his satchel, Gordy pulled out the bracelet Bolter had made him and slipped it over his wrist. All four chambers had been previously loaded with Ghost Glass vials, making the bracelet look like a gaudy piece of costume jewelry, complete with colorful rhinestones. Wiping rain and sweat from his eyes, he heard footsteps racing toward his tree.

The vial nocked in the first chamber was bright blue.

As the Scourge closed in, Gordy leaped from his hiding place, shattering the glass with his thumb. A wire-thin beam of Torpor Tonic shot out like a laser, striking the mud-covered Scourge right between the eyes. Liquid splashed. The man’s head snapped back. He didn’t even have time to shout before dropping to the ground with a thud.

“Holy cow!” Gordy whispered breathlessly. “That was awesome!” Terrifying, but awesome. Hands shaking, he twisted the bracelet counterclockwise, loading the next vial into position.

Two more Scourges, both men with long hair and beards, charged up the hill. They hurled bottles that smashed on either side of Gordy’s feet.

The one to his left ignited into a pillar of fire that singed Gordy’s eyebrows as he turned away, shielding his face and coughing from the billowing smoke.

He whirled back around, aiming his wrist, but then stumbled in surprise as a three-foot-long centipede funneled out from a pool of black liquid splattered on his right.

The insect continued to grow by the second. Its bulbous, yellow eyes scanned the area, and dagger-like claws stabbed at the ground, kicking up dirt and leaves as it found its footing. When it stopped growing, it was the size of a twelve-foot python.

Massive insects weren’t uncommon in the potion-making community. Gordy had used Essence of Ampliar before on mealworms and maggots down in the family lab, but none of those insects had ever grown as large as this centipede.

A chittering noise, like the sound of a rotary lawn sprinkler, rose from the insect’s throat. The centipede lunged, snapping with its pincer-like jaws. Dodging beneath its strike, Gordy fired the next potion from his bracelet, a Vintreet Trap, which zapped a branch a few feet above the creature’s head. Vines appeared, squirming and snatching, but the centipede easily plucked them out of the air, gobbling them up with its mandibles.

“Get on with it!” one of the Scourges shouted, prodding the creature from behind with a large, flaming stick.

Gordy didn’t have time to check which potion was loaded next in the chamber. As he looked up to take aim, the centipede reared back, towering at least eight feet above his head. He shrieked, jabbing the vial with his thumb, and orange liquid blurred through the air. The spray, however, arced to the right, completely missing its target. Gordy felt a whimper rising in his throat, but then the potion doused one of the Scourges in the chest.

The man expelled a grunt before transforming into a mini tornado, instantly pulling the other Scourge into the funnel as well. Both men blurred together, their arms and legs whipping around like the Tasmanian Devil from the cartoons Gordy’s dad liked to watch on Saturday mornings.

The funnel reached the centipede, drawing in several of its rear segments. Stabbing at the ground with its claws and trying to free itself, the creature chittered and squealed.

Gordy clung to a tree trunk, fighting against the pull of the raging wind as the tornado whipped both Scourges down the hill. Though the centipede fought violently, the funnel firmly caught the bug, and it careened into the burning trees and brush, drowning out all other sounds of the storm above.

When the tornado finally stopped, one of the Scourges lay on the roof of Tobias’s farmhouse while the other had been propelled straight through the front door of the house. Neither man was moving much. Gordy had no idea where the centipede had ended up, but judging by the puddles of green-and-black sludge everywhere, he doubted it had survived.

“Did you cause all this rigmarole?” Tobias shouted from the roof as he stood over the man Gordy had zapped with the Funnel Formula.

“Technically, not all of it,” Gordy replied. Stepping out from behind the tree, he traipsed down toward the house.

Two of the Scourges who had tried to surround Tobias were out on the lawn near the front hedges, buried up to their chests in the ground. A pair of glowing watering cans hovered above their heads, dousing them with a constant deluge of water.

“How did you make those?” Gordy asked once he’d slid down to the bottom of the hill and reached the clearing around Tobias’s home.

Tobias stood up and dusted off his knees. “Those are my Potable Penyirams. I can fashion them to look like just about anything I want. Say, you didn’t happen to see where that—”

A bottle smashed against Tobias’s chest, cutting him off midsentence.

“No!” Gordy shouted.

Before the shards of glass had dropped to the rooftop, the potion had tangled Tobias in a cocoon of thick spiderwebs. Gordy hadn’t seen where the vial had been thrown from, but then the mud-covered woman emerged from her hiding place, stepping out of the front door of the house, her lone companion following behind. Neither one of them said a word as they both suddenly took off in a run, charging straight toward Gordy.