Celia went somewhere else, up and out of her body into a white-hot place made of pain so total and brutal that when she returned a moment later, her mind couldn’t remember it.
She lay on the floor curled up in a tight ball in front of the fireplace. Was it done? Was it over?
A crash sounded nearby.
Celia opened her eyes. The world looked sharp and hard-edged. She looked down and saw bone-white fingers clenched around Demetri’s yo-yo. The plastic toy had turned black with the spell, and it pulsed with a steady rhythm. Celia stretched out her other hand and studied the chalky paleness of it. Thick black nails, like claws, jutted out from each finger.
Something flew by her, wicked fast. The dark blur hit the wall, bounced off, and changed directions. It zoomed across the room and hit the living room wall. The whole house shook with the impact. For a moment, the dark creature stood still and Celia was able to see what Demetri looked like now. He still looked like a boy, mostly, but shiny onyx scales covered his arms and neck. Obsidian claws jutted out of his fingers and stabbed through the ends of his tattered tennis shoes. Wings had burst through the back of his hoodie and lay folded across his back. He stood watching her with a midnight-black face.
He scowled and sparks fell from his mouth. They bounced and hissed across the floor before going out.
Celia got to her feet and faced him. She felt a hundred tiny differences in her body: her balance was shifted to the front of her feet, her heart beat faster, and her muscles felt twitchy and fast. More than that, she felt the invisible tether that stretched between her and Demetri. I would do anything for him, she thought. Not because he was her friend: he wasn’t anymore. All of those memories were dead and gray within her. No, this bond was because he was her maker. Her owner. The magic that had made them connected them, and even if she knew the desire to obey him was a new kind of poison, she wanted to rush to him, fall to her knees, and vow to serve him forever.
If my spell didn’t work, he’s evil, she thought. He’ll hurt me and keep on hurting me. I should run now while I have the chance.
But all she could do was watch as he burst into motion again and hurtled his onyx body across the room again and again. He bashed himself against the walls. His wings flapped wildly behind him. Sometimes they lifted him up a couple of feet before he crashed back down.
Celia shifted her weight from side to side, feeling the lightness and hollowness in her bones. She felt agile and coordinated, and like she could sprint for five miles and not get tired. She looked at her hands some more, and at the whiteness that was pale as snow and so different from what she used to look like. White like I’m invisible. Like I’m someone no one notices, she thought.
Demetri stumbled and flew toward her, impossibly fast. He managed to come to a skidding halt a foot away from her. His glassy, black eyes bored into her. His hot breath blasted her face. Up close she could see how his scales covered him like an armor and his wings had fine blue-black feathers that looked like a crow’s.
“What did you do, Celia?” His voice sounded the same but held an underlying hiss. “It wars within me.” He put a black-scaled hand over his chest.
Celia inhaled deeply and said in a rush of words, “You said when someone becomes a Big, it burns away who they are. I made a spell so that it wouldn’t. So that you’d still be . . . you.”
Demetri snarled. More sparks fell from his mouth onto the wood floor.
Celia stared at him and tried to see in him the boy who’d been her best friend, but she couldn’t remember why she had felt that way. She knew that should make her sad, but she felt only a landscape of gray indifference. “My spell worked?” she asked. “You’re still . . . Demetri, aren’t you? You’re still good?”
His mouth opened and sparks fell from his lips as he laughed and shook his head. “Somehow, you have done what no one thought was possible.” He smiled and let out an angry hiss at the same time. “Still me, but changed.”
Up close, Celia could see how the silver necklace that Krawl had put on him crackled and hissed where it touched his skin.
Celia reached for the necklace. Before her hand came close, lightning crackled out from it and struck her fingers. She yelped as the electricity stung her.
“It won’t come off until she’s dead,” Demetri hissed. “Show me what’s in your hand.”
Celia held up the burned and blackened yo-yo, and they both stared at the pulsing object that had become his heart. She knew she should hold on to it, that she might need it if the Big parts of him were more powerful than the Demetri parts. She held it out to him. “It’s yours.”
He focused on it for a long moment. “You should keep it safe for me.”
Celia was fairly sure, in the history of all Bigs, that none of them had ever let their Little keep their heart. Which meant that he really was still good. Celia slipped it into her coat pocket. “It’s not the only heart I want. Krawl won’t have gone far.”
A smile slid across Demetri’s face, and for a second Celia almost remembered why she loved that smile. The points of his wicked-sharp teeth showed and sparks fell from his mouth again.
“Are you going to be able to fight her?” Celia eyed his necklace.
“I have to try.” He turned from Celia. His long feathered wings stretched and extended out across the length of the room. They beat once, twice, and Demetri jumped into the air. This time he moved with grace as he pumped his wings and flew toward the front door. His wings beat faster as he neared it. He lowered his head and burst through it with a spray of broken wood.
Celia walked after him, feeling both hollow and heavy in her new body. Demetri’s heart beat in her back pocket. She stepped through the dragon-shaped hole in the door and went out into the bright, white world. The paper storm had stopped, and everything lay covered in bits of meaningless text. She could read any and all of it if she focused on it with her keen Little eyesight. Krawl’s house was only a couple of blocks away from her apartment, on a street she walked down all the time, but the paper turned everything strange. The dragon boy flew overhead in wild, erratic circles. Demetri disappeared over apartment buildings and then swooped back. A steady stream of sparks fell from his mouth down to the road. They ignited wisps of paper that burst into yellow and orange flames, like tiny firecrackers.
“Krawl?” he howled. “Show yourself.”
“Yes, dear?” The old woman appeared at the end of the block, coming out from the shadows of a doorway and standing on a papered stoop. She tapped her white cane against the ground and walked slowly into the middle of the street. “You are mine again,” she said with a smile as she tilted her face up toward the sky and Demetri. “I have missed you. You see now how together we will rule the world?”
He spit fire down on her. It went out a dozen feet above her head.
A look of confusion crossed Krawl’s face. “You are mine?” she repeated, but sounded less certain.
“Never!” He spit more fire. This time it arced and fell toward her small form.
“We shall see,” Krawl said as she held up her palm. The fire disappeared. She pointed toward Demetri and then lowered her finger until it was aimed at Celia. “Destroy your Little.” She spoke with a voice that had commanded monsters for over a century.
The necklace around the dragon’s neck flashed with a blinding white light. Demetri howled and thrashed through the air. Flames burst from his mouth. His wings beat out of sync with each other, and he started to fall out of the sky.
I should run, Celia thought. But even though he was commanded to destroy her, she couldn’t leave him.
“End her!” Krawl commanded with a voice that echoed everywhere. She whipped one hand through the air in a complicated set of gestures and held her cane up in the other. A thick white stream of magic flew out of the tip of her cane and hit Demetri.
“You. Do. Not. Own. Me!” he screamed back as he crashed into the ground.
Paper went flying in all directions. Some of it caught fire, bursting into orange and red flames that died out quickly. Demetri thrashed on the ground as Krawl’s magic writhed around him, covering him like a blanket. He screamed and tried to pull the magic off, but it clung to him.
“I will never hurt her,” he growled. His fisted hands began gathering their own smoky magic as he started muttering to himself.
“If you won’t obey me,” Krawl said, “then stay, dog.” Demetri’s necklace flashed bright again. The white magic convulsed and tightened around his small and rageful form.
He growled and lay still on the papered ground.
Celia swallowed. Fight it, Demetri, she thought. Fight her with everything you’ve got.
Demetri made a mournful keening sound. He didn’t move a muscle. Celia watched him, willing him to get up. He didn’t.
Krawl had taken him down in less than a minute. What chance do I have? Celia wondered.
Demetri lay on the street halfway between Krawl and Celia. Krawl walked a couple of steps toward him, tapping her cane in front of her. “What did you do to him, Celia, girl? All the tender parts of him should have burned away. What monstrosity have you made?”
Demetri tried to speak. All that came from him was an angry cry.
“He’s still Demetri,” Celia answered. “He’s not yours. He never will be.”
Krawl touched the white bun at the top of her head. She swayed from side to side and her tongue flicked out, tasting the air. “I see,” she said. “Your magic flows into him and creates a strange bond. It holds him back. A clever use of your transformation, I will admit.” She made a tutting sound and shook her head. “There’s only one remedy to break that spell, my dear. When you die, so does that disgusting tangle of magic you have trapped my poor Demetri in.”
Demetri growled. Flames shot out of his mouth and burned the paper in front of him. More of it caught fire around him.
Krawl tsk-tsked and pointed at the fire. It went out. “No more of that,” she ordered.
Demetri whimpered in pain. His mouth snapped shut.
“Now where were we, Celia? Oh yes, your imminent death.”
Celia pawed the ground with one foot. Her new body felt so fast. Strength buzzed through her. It wouldn’t be hard to race down the road and knock the old lady down. Anger, just as bright as Demetri’s fire, burned through her.
But . . . one of Demetri’s rules was that Littles didn’t fight Bigs, because they always wanted to, and they almost always lost. And Krawl was the first monster, and more powerful than any other. Be smart, Celia told herself. You have to find Krawl’s heart.
A boom filled the air and something large lurched into view, two blocks behind Krawl.
The old lady turned and sniffed the air as the thing, huge and misshapen, stumbled closer. The Littles’ golem had been awakened, and he moved unsteadily down the road. He was as tall as the three-story buildings he passed. He walked with lurching strides on his long chicken-wire-and-mud legs. The Littles from the sanctuary surrounded him and pushed on his ankles and feet, urging him forward.
“A golem?” Krawl smiled. “I once made one when Demetri and I were both young. It destroyed two city blocks. How droll. I haven’t fought a golem in ages.”
The giant dragged his feet on the ground, sending up clouds of paper with every step. He let out a strange cry that sounded like a hawk’s. His hand hit a streetlamp and knocked it over. His foot kicked a motorcycle that smashed into a storefront.
As Krawl watched the golem, Celia began to move closer to the first monster. Her feet moved silently over the papered ground. She stared at Krawl’s back and at the pocketed skirt the old monster wore. One of those pockets has to have her heart, Celia thought.
“So lovely to see you rebel Littles,” Krawl cried out. “Have you heard the good news? Demetri is a Big now. He failed, just like all of you will fail.”
The Littles froze and stared at Krawl. They looked down the road and took in Celia’s pale form and the dark unmoving lump that was Demetri.
“Lies!” Daisy yelled back. She jumped up and grabbed the golem’s pinky. She held on to it and pulled the giant man forward. “Demetri would never—”
Krawl laughed. She moved her pointer finger around in a circle.
Demetri’s shimmering, scaly body rose up into the air behind the old woman for everyone to see.
Krawl snapped her fingers. Demetri fell like a stone.
“No!” the Littles called out in one collective voice. Even from a block and a half away, Celia could see the shock and pain on their faces.
The golem swayed from side to side. Celia wasn’t sure what kind of magic he could do, only that Demetri and all the Littles had made him to help destroy Krawl. She also knew the golem hadn’t been finished when they’d left the sanctuary this morning, and that Demetri had needed to add more spells to him. Though the Littles had figured out how to get him moving, the giant looked like he might crash to the ground with every step he took.
Krawl raised her cane and pointed it at the sky. A burst of white magic flew toward the golem. The giant watched it arc toward him with a confused look on his crinkled face. The golem raised one stiff-fingered hand as if to catch the magic. The Littles pushed at his feet and tried to get him to move away from it.
Too late, the magic flowed into his palm and wound up his arm in pulsing white rivulets. It moved over his torso and up toward his head.
The golem raised his head and cried out with a piercing bird shriek. He lowered his head and started running forward, arms akimbo. He kicked a car and a fire hydrant. His hand smashed into windows. Glass rained down on the street. He pitched forward.
Littles on all sides of him pushed and pulled at his ankles and shins to keep him upright.
Celia moved toward Krawl. She passed Demetri’s tense and still form. He watched her with his midnight eyes.
Run, he mouthed.
Celia felt the twinge of her maker’s order wind through her muscles. It tried to control her. She gritted her teeth and walked faster toward Krawl. She wasn’t far from the old lady now. Her hands flexed into fists. A rage, deep and animal, roared within her. She lowered her head and pawed the ground with one foot.
Krawl spun around to face Celia just as the golem crashed to his knees.
“A funny thing about me being blind,” Krawl said. “Did you know, dear, that I can sense what’s going on behind me just as well as in front?”
Down the block, the Littles frantically tried to get the golem to stand up.
Celia took another step toward the old lady. What chance do I have against Krawl? Celia wondered. The answer was none, but she had to try.
“I will give you this,” Krawl continued. “You are more interesting than most children.” She touched her bun. “The clever ones are always the most trouble.” She walked down the road toward Celia, leaning on her white cane and closing the gap between them.
Celia’s rage billowed. This was the monster who had hurt her maker. Who had attacked a dozen orphans and stolen their lives. She ground her teeth together, even as a part of her whispered that Krawl only had to raise a pinkie to kill her in an instant. Something moved on the edge of Celia’s vision. She looked left but saw nothing.
Krawl walked closer on silent footsteps buffered by layers of prose.
More motion fluttered at the edge of Celia’s sight, this time on the right side of the road.
“How shall I destroy you, child?” The dark circles of her glasses seemed to stare at Celia. “I will make it useful, of course. Death magic is wonderful stuff. But in what way should I shape it? Dismemberment? Drowning? Or being engulfed by flames, always a classic. . . .” She came closer.
Celia lowered her center of gravity. She didn’t know how far her Little body could jump, but if Krawl took a couple of steps closer . . .
Down the block, the golem got to his feet and started walking again.
Motion scurried along the edges of Celia’s sight. She caught sight of Amber’s long black braid disappearing behind a school bus. She spied other hunters, moving between the papered cars and mailboxes. Krawl still hadn’t noticed anything.
Celia took another step closer to Krawl and spoke loudly, trying to cover over any sounds the hunters might make. “Even if you kill me and use Demetri, you’ll still just be an evil monster. You can make the world worse, but that’s all you’ll ever do.”
Krawl stopped hobbling forward. She threw back her head and laughed. “Oh, Celia, my dearest. Please carry on. The last words of the hopeless are always such poetry.”
“I’m better than you,” Celia said. “I will never be like you, for as long as I live. I’ll never destroy other people’s lives. For a day or a lifetime, I’ll never turn evil like you.”
“Never, says the girl of thirteen? Says the freshly made Little?” Krawl laughed some more and raised her deadly cane into the air. She moved it in slow circles, and white magic built around the tip of the cane. It pulsed and grew brighter with every rotation.
Celia crouched and jumped toward Krawl. She sailed higher and faster than she had expected.
Krawl snarled and snapped, “Fall.”
Magic flared off her cane.
It hit Celia’s body. She slammed into the ground, knees first.
Before she could get up and hurl herself at Krawl again, the monster added, “Stay.”
Magic pushed Celia down, like hundred-pound weights placed on her shoulders.
“Hey Krawl, why don’t you pick on someone your own size?” a voice cried out. Ruby jumped up onto the hood of a paper-covered SUV. The purple-haired hunter held a glowing green soda bottle in one hand. To her left and right, and on the far side of the street, other hunters popped up from their hiding places. They each held glass bottles filled with a glowing green liquid.
Amber jumped up onto the car beside Ruby. She held two of the glowing bottles. Amber looked at Celia, squinting behind her glasses. The hunter hesitated and then threw one to Celia. “Catch.”
When Celia caught it, the glass sent shocks through her hand. She tried to get up from where she knelt, but couldn’t.
Krawl’s tongue flicked out to taste the air. She touched her bun as she turned around in a slow circle.
The hunters spread out across the road and made a ring around her.
“Hello, hunter children,” she said. “So nice of you all to come to the day’s slaughter. I’m getting so many items crossed off my to-do list today. And you brought parlor tricks with you. Lovely!”
The glowing bottle burned cold and then hot in Celia’s hand, pulsing painfully between the two extremes.
“Not tricks. This spell will destroy any monster,” Ruby replied.
“Then it’s a good thing I’m not just any monster,” Krawl responded. She raised her cane and turned around in a wide circle. White magic fell from it and made a protective halo around her. The hanging magic pulsed and then drew tight around Krawl. The old woman glowed from head to toe.
Ruby threw her glass bottle at Krawl. It sailed through the air, aimed right at her. Krawl smiled as the bottle hit her shimmering form. It shattered on her left arm. Green magic splattered onto her hand and forearm. Krawl’s white magic fizzed up against the glowing green spell.
Krawl’s smile fell off her face. Her eyes went wide as she made a hissing sound. The green magic burned through the white. Where it touched her, Krawl’s skin turned a smooth green marble, hard like a statue.
Krawl tried to move her arm. It didn’t budge.
The hunters launched a dozen more bottles at Krawl from all directions. She raised her cane with her free hand and battered some of the bottles out of the air with streams of white lightning. Other bottles crashed into her.
Wherever the green magic touched her, she turned to stone. She couldn’t move her right leg, then her left foot, and then her thighs.
Celia, still on her knees, threw her own bottle. It flew end over end through the air and smashed into Krawl’s torso.
The green magic splashed across her, and the Big stood immobilized and snarling. Over half of her body was frozen. Krawl struggled against her bound form and breathed with an audible rasp. “This won’t hold me for long,” she hissed.
“Good thing it won’t take long to find your heart,” Ruby yelled. “Hunters, attack!”
The hunters ran toward her.
Krawl raised her head toward the sky. “To me,” she whispered in a frail old woman’s voice. Something flashed off her body, so fast that Celia couldn’t track it.
“Careful,” Celia warned. She tried to get up. Krawl’s magic kept her down. Celia gritted her teeth. She strained all her muscles. She stayed put.
Amber was the first hunter to get to Krawl. She reached into one of Krawl’s skirt pockets. “Nothing,” she called out.
The hunters searched every pocket. They patted her down and looked under her shawl. Krawl kept her face lifted toward the sky, ignoring everyone as she muttered under her breath. A couple of cracks grew in the green marble that encased her arm.
Faster, Celia thought, wishing she could join them.
A screeching filled the air. A shadow passed over the street. A keening sound joined the first cry, followed by a deafening roar.
Celia looked up in time to see three winged monsters fall out of the sky. “Did you think I wouldn’t bring backup?” Krawl laughed.
The hunters fell back from her as a snarling blue-skinned man with swirling black tattoos and long, leathery wings landed beside Krawl. His lower half was furry and thick, like a grizzly bear. The hunters pulled together into a wary clump. The next monster to land was a strange jumble of body parts that was hard to look at. It had legs, eyeballs, hands, and arms, all pushed together into a lumpy mass held aloft with dozens of mismatched wings. It stood on seven different legs and stared at everyone with its many unblinking eyes. The third was a winged horse with a pearly white unicorn horn jutting out from its silvery white head. It nickered and moved its horn through the air as it sauntered to stand with the other monsters. Celia recognized all three—their images had been painted on one of the walls at the graffiti flats she had visited with Ruby and Amber.
The blue man folded his thick arms over his bare chest. “Orders, Madame Krawl?” he asked with a thunder-laced voice.
Krawl, still frozen in marble, nodded toward the hunters. “Keep them occupied and away from me, in whatever way you wish.”
The three new monsters flowed past Krawl and ran at the hunters.
The hunters fell back, retreating down the block. They scrambled to pull out spells and weapons from their bags. More cracks grew in Krawl’s marble as she watched the hunters.
Celia clenched every muscle and fought to get up. If I could just get to Krawl and find her heart before Krawl is able to move again, Celia thought. She wasn’t far away, but it might as well have been a thousand miles. Celia tried to move her knee. She failed.
Weights pushed her to the ground. It was all she could do to keep sitting up.
Small chunks of green marble fell off Krawl.
Celia looked around, desperate for any help. In one direction, the golem had stopped walking. He studied the sky with an empty look stretched across his gaunt features. In the other, the hunters threw handfuls of spells at the three advancing monsters. The air filled with fizzing explosions that smelled like rain and peppercorns. Ruby raised her twin swords against the blue man. She struck him in the arm with one of them.
The Big laughed and whipped his cut arm toward her.
His blood splattered across her torso. It caught fire wherever it hit her. Ruby screamed and fell backward. She dropped to the ground and rolled around until the fire went out. Bits of paper caught fire but then went out, too.
Another hunter took her place, using a slingshot to hit the blue man with paintballs that exploded with yellow magic that danced across his tattooed skin. He howled and cut his own hand open with a knife. He used it to set two more hunters on fire as he advanced toward them on powerful furry legs.
Celia kept trying to get up. The weight of the world pushed back on her. More chunks of marble fell off Krawl.
Amber ran with her long braid flying out behind her. She twisted through the air and threw a handful of exploding marbles at the floating misshapen Big. Mouths opened up all over its lumpy form. Tongues reached out and grabbed the round spells. It ate all the marbles, then ran toward Amber on its many legs. A dozen arms reached for her. Amber and four other hunters ran away from it, throwing more spells at it as they did. The thing gobbled them all up.
Other hunters surrounded the winged unicorn. It hummed a song, and, as if in a trance, the hunters swayed to the sound of it. None of them seemed to notice the battle happening all around them. The Big kept humming as it lowered its gleaming horn and ran at the nearest hunter. The boy snapped out of his daze and jumped aside just in time.
The other hunters moved into action. They threw spells and rocks at the horse’s pearly-white hide. The horse fought back, biting the air and charging them with its lowered horn. All three of the Bigs pushed the hunters down the road and away from Krawl.
Krawl muttered under her breath as the marble that held her grew thinner and paler. Cracks spiderwebbed across it as its hold on her weakened.
The golem took a couple of long steps closer. The Littles did everything they could to keep it moving and avoid crashing into the nearby buildings.
The thin green marble exploded off Krawl in hundreds of flying pieces. Krawl raised her white cane up. Great strands of magic flowed off it and flew down the street. The magic streaked across the papered ground and whipped around some of the hunters’ legs. It yanked them to the ground. As soon as they fell, more of Krawl’s magic covered them and bound them. Five hunters fell, then four more, and another three.
The remaining hunters turned and fled from Krawl’s magic. They ducked and zigzagged. They threw spells and jumped into the air. A few of them made it to the end of the block and disappeared around the corner. The three winged monsters chased after them.
The golem shuffled his feet slowly along the ground, kicking up tufts of paper.
We aren’t going to win this, Celia thought. We’re just a bunch of kids. Bigs always win. Her rage grew hot at the thought. It coursed through her with every beat of her heart.
“Now where were we, Celia, dear?” Krawl turned to face her. She looked older and shrunken. “Oh yes, we were discussing your death! And how it will be just the thing to enslave Demetri to me forever. Oh, Celia, I shall love eating your fear and seeing you die.” Krawl gave her a grandmotherly smile.
Celia groaned and found a way to force one leg up. Somehow, pushing against all the weight that held her down, she ground her teeth together and got herself up to standing. She faced Krawl.
Krawl walked forward until she stood in front of Celia. She reached out with one hand and touched Celia on her cheek.
Celia slammed back to the ground again.
Behind them, the golem loomed closer. He ran into a wall. He kicked a car. He scratched his nose and stared blankly up at the sky.