At first, all Celia saw was an empty alley with two large dumpsters.
Then she realized the dumpsters were shaking.
Celia’s heart pounded. Another earthquake? No: the ground wasn’t moving. Just the two dumpsters.
Beyond the dumpsters, Amber and Ruby stood back to back. Ruby threw off her coat and unsheathed two thin swords strapped to her back. Amber reached into a leather pouch hanging from her belt and threw a metal marble into the shadows and darkness.
The marble exploded five seconds later. A howling filled the alley.
Celia’s eyes slammed shut. When she forced herself to open them again, she watched the lids of both dumpsters open. Deep laughter boomed out from both dumpsters. It faded into the whistling wind that moved down the alley, blowing trash everywhere.
Every animal instinct told Celia to run. But she widened her stance and planted her feet firmly on the ground.
Shadows grew out of one of the dumpsters and reached toward the two hunters.
Celia blinked. She made herself see what her mind did not want to notice.
Not shadows, but . . . tentacles. Two of them, made out of slimy trash that snaked along the ground. One of the dumpsters sprayed brown liquid at the girls. Ruby and Amber jumped away. It hit right where they’d been standing and splattered the hunters’ pants. Amber turned and threw more marbles toward the dumpsters. The lids slammed shut, and the marbles clattered to the ground. They exploded, harming nothing.
The garbage tentacles grew longer and thicker, adding more trash to themselves. They stretched toward Ruby and Amber, who moved deeper into the alley. They girls backed up against a brick wall piled high with overflowing garbage bags.
As Celia’s eyes adjusted to the shadows, she noticed something else. Next to the dumpsters sat a small cage made out of rusted metal pipes, shards of glass, and sludgy snarls of string. A blond boy with green skin that shone in the dim light sat in the cage. Orange smoke pooled around him. He faced away from Celia, watching the hunters. Then he twitched suddenly and whipped his head around to stare right at her.
The boy waved.
Celia waved back, not knowing what else to do. This is all real, she thought. Her arms and legs felt numb.
One of the garbage tentacles was curling along the ground toward Amber. As she lobbed exploding marbles into the dumpster, it struck.
The tentacle wrapped around her ankle and yanked her to the ground. Amber fell, and the other tentacle rose up from the grime and struck her leg.
Amber screamed. A black, tar-like liquid stuck to her leg where she’d been hit. It bubbled and began to flow up her thigh. She grabbed the tar and flung it off her. It landed on the ground and stayed still for a second. Then it wiggled and began oozing back toward her.
Amber scrambled to her feet, and she and Ruby backed deeper into the alley.
Celia tried to make sense of what she was seeing: a small green monster in a cage, and two dumpsters with tentacles undulating out from them.
She was looking at a Big with its enslaved Little, she realized with a sinking feeling.
Ruby cried out as she ran forward. With her thin swords, she tried to slice through one of the monster’s tentacles.
It danced away from her and then struck back, whip-fast. It hit her in the middle of her back. A black and oozing mass bloomed where she’d been struck. It throbbed and started crawling up her neck. Ruby screamed and ran to Amber. The other girl pulled it off and flung it against the wall. It splattered against the bricks, then slithered to the ground.
It began crawling back toward Ruby.
Ruby ran forward again. This time, she sliced through one of the waving tentacles.
Hundreds of bits of trash fell to the ground.
Amber threw a handful of exploding marbles at the other tentacle. More trash rained down everywhere.
Both hunters started to run out of the alley, but the pieces of garbage picked themselves up and reassembled, glomming back together in seconds. Tentacles slashed toward Ruby and Amber, hitting them and driving them back.
The girls huddled at the far end of the alley as they tore off the leechlike pieces of ooze that climbed up their bodies and got tangled in their hair.
The tentacles swept back and forth across the width of the alley as eerie laughter erupted from the two dumpsters. More trash flowed out from the dumpster and attached itself to the tentacles. The monster was making itself bigger with rusty nails and broken glass all along its length.
The tentacles couldn’t reach all the way back to Amber and Ruby yet, but they were getting close.
A throaty chuckle that sounded like it came from a man who’d been chain-smoking for a thousand years filled the air. The monster spit bile-garbage. It arced across the alley. The hunters dodged away from it.
“This Big is too strong for us. We need more hunters here, now!” Ruby cried out as she swung her swords through the air at the nearest tentacle.
Celia knew the words were meant for her, but she had no idea how to find other hunters. She had no way of helping them. All she could do was stand there and watch. The girls pulled off black tar blotches that ran up their legs and hurled them through the air.
The tentacles swung wide and lengthened. They smashed into the hunters. Ruby flew backward. Amber fell to the ground and rolled away just as the tentacle rose up and smashed into the ground.
“It’s not going to let us go. We have to find its heart. That’s the only way we get out!” Amber cried to Ruby.
Heart? What did that mean? Celia had no idea.
“Control the heart, control the monster,” Ruby yelled, and cast a desperate look to the end of the alley where Celia stood. She ducked beneath a tentacle that thrashed toward her and vaulted over the other one. She sprinted down the middle of the alley toward the dumpsters, a half step ahead of the tentacles that chased her. She leaped into the air and landed in the middle of one of the open dumpsters.
A look of triumph crossed her face. Then the dumpster shook, and the leader of the hunters fell into its garbage-filled depths.
The lid slammed shut above her, as loud as a shotgun.
The monster made a belching sound and laughed over Ruby’s muffled screams.
“Ruby!” Amber screamed.
Out of the corner of her eye, Celia saw a frantic motion. The green boy in the cage shook his head and pointed to the other dumpster. Heart, he mouthed.
What heart? What did it mean?
Amber fought off both tentacles by herself. They reached all the way into the back of the alley. She ducked, whirled, and threw exploding marbles everywhere. But as quickly as she could destroy them, the monster rebuilt itself. Black goo climbed up her legs.
Ruby’s screams grew more desperate from inside the dumpster.
The Little rattled the bars of his cage to get Celia’s attention again. He gestured to the dumpster without Ruby in it. Heart, he mouthed again.
A real heart, or something metaphorical? She didn’t know, but Amber and Ruby needed help. Someone had to save them.
She turned to look down the main road.
A man in a red jacket was out walking his dog.
“Please?” Celia cried out. “My friends—”
He glanced down the alleyway and then looked away.
Two women walked down the opposite side of the street.
“My friends need help!” Celia yelled, and pointed toward Amber.
One of them frowned. The other squinted. They walked on.
They couldn’t see the monster.
No one can see this. No one can help them but me.
A tentacle wrapped around Amber’s arm and threw her against the alley wall. Her thick glasses flew off and hit the concrete.
I’ve never even been in a fight, Celia thought. I don’t understand about the heart. There’s no way I can fight a big monster.
None of those facts changed what she had to do.
Celia crouched down and ran as fast as she could toward the nearest dumpster.