Copyright

First published in hardback in Great Britain by HarperCollins Children’s Books in 2016

HarperCollins Children’s Books is a division of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd,

1 London Bridge Street, London, SE1 9GF

The HarperCollins website address is: www.harpercollins.co.uk

Text copyright © Novel Approach LLC 2016

Illustrations copyright © Tom Percival 2013

Jacket Illustration © Cliff Nielsen, 2016

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

Source ISBN: 9780007465859

Ebook Edition © 2016 ISBN: 9780007465880

Version: 2016-04-05

For Ned

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

Chapter 37

Chapter 38

Chapter 39

Chapter 40

Chapter 41

Chapter 42

Chapter 43

Chapter 44

Chapter 45

Chapter 46

Chapter 47

Chapter 48

Chapter 49

Chapter 50

Chapter 51

Chapter 52

Chapter 53

Chapter 54

Chapter 55

Chapter 56

Chapter 57

Chapter 58

Chapter 59

Chapter 60

Chapter 61

Chapter 62

Chapter 63

Chapter 64

Chapter 65

Chapter 66

Chapter 67

Chapter 68

Chapter 69

Chapter 70

Chapter 71

Chapter 72

Chapter 73

Chapter 74

Chapter 75

Chapter 76

Chapter 77

Chapter 78

Chapter 79

Chapter 80

Chapter 81

Chapter 82

Chapter 83

Chapter 84

Chapter 85

Chapter 86

Chapter 87

Chapter 88

Chapter 89

Chapter 90

Chapter 91

Chapter 92

Chapter 93

Chapter 94

Chapter 95

Chapter 96

Chapter 97

Chapter 98

Chapter 99

Chapter 100

Chapter 101

Chapter 102

Epilogue

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About the Publisher

Brendan Walker knew this story wasn’t going to have a happy ending.

He stood on the beach near his home on Sea Cliff Avenue with his sisters, Cordelia and Eleanor, and stared out at the San Francisco Bay. Not at the whole bay, but rather at the exact spot in the water where they had just seen their friend, a colossus named Fat Jagger, standing a few moments ago.

Cars were stopped on the Golden Gate Bridge. Several people peered over the edge, likely wondering if they had really just seen a massive, fifty-storey tall, overweight version of Mick Jagger in the middle of the San Francisco Bay, howling at the moon.

But it simply couldn’t have been possible. Fat Jagger wasn’t real, at least not in the same way that he and his sisters were. He was just a character in an old novel by Denver Kristoff. Or so Brendan had thought. Then again, the Walker children had witnessed enough “impossible” things in the past few months to convince them that literally anything was possible.

Most kids would probably run away screaming if they saw a huge colossus wearing a loincloth rise up out of the ocean. Or at the very least, call 911. They certainly wouldn’t try to lure the massive giant even closer. But the three Walker children were definitely not like most kids. At least, not any more. Not since they had moved into Kristoff House and found themselves thrown into the magical world of his books – engaged in a seemingly endless battle with the evil Wind Witch, frost beasts, Nazi cyborgs, bloodthirsty pirates, and a variety of other horrors from the depths of the author’s imagination.

“Well, now what?” Brendan asked. “We could call my English teacher, Ms Krumbsly, to lure him out. She’s still single and almost as big as Fat Jagger. They might make a cute couple?”

His younger sister, Eleanor, slapped his arm. “Bren!” she scolded. “Fat Jagger’s our friend! You should be nicer to him; he did save our lives a couple of times. Ms Krumbsly is way too mean – I wouldn’t even wish her on my worst enemies.”

“Yeah, I know, Nell,” Brendan said. “I guess what I’m saying is that we don’t exactly have a good plan.”

“Since when have you ever worried about having a well-structured plan in place before acting?” Cordelia asked.

She was the oldest of the three Walker kids at nearly sixteen, although she tended to sometimes talk and act like she was at least twice her age.

“Hey, I can make plans and be the leader sometimes too,” Brendan protested. His sisters just looked at him. They knew, as well as he did, that he was much better at making jokes.

The three Walker children were standing on the beach directly below the cliff upon which the Victorian, three-storey Kristoff House was precariously perched – the same house that they would only be able to call home for one more night. Because after once again barely escaping from the fantastical book world with their lives, they had returned to a reality in which their father had managed to gamble away a ten-million-dollar fortune. And so the next morning they’d be moving back into a cramped apartment near Fisherman’s Wharf.

“Come on,” Cordelia said, pulling her coat closed to fend off the biting ocean breeze. “Let’s at least try to get closer to the bridge, in the vicinity of where he surfaced. Standing around talking certainly isn’t going to accomplish anything.”

Brendan and Eleanor followed Cordelia along the beach towards the bridge. There was still no sign of Fat Jagger.

As the three Walkers moved further along the beach, they passed a homeless man with a long grey beard sitting in the brush at the base of the cliff. He watched them walk by, but said nothing. The moonlight seemed to make his eyes shine like diamonds in the darkness of the shadows. For a split second, Brendan thought it was the Storm King, which was what Denver Kristoff had been calling himself ever since The Book of Doom and Desire had corrupted his soul years ago.

But that book was gone now; Eleanor had banished it for ever, using its own magic against it. And so was the Storm King. The three Walker siblings had seen him get hit and killed by a city bus outside the Bohemian Club in downtown San Francisco – killed by his own daughter no less, Dahlia Kristoff, aka the Wind Witch. But in spite of the online news article claiming his body had been buried in a nearby mausoleum under an assumed identity, Brendan wasn’t completely convinced that the crooked old wizard was actually dead.

“Fat Jagger!” Eleanor screamed, shaking Brendan from his thoughts.

For a moment, he thought the colossus must have reappeared. But Eleanor shouted his name again, calling out across the bay like she was looking for a lost dog.

“Fat Jagger, come out, we can help you!” Eleanor yelled.

Cordelia cupped her hands around her mouth and joined in. “Fat Jagger, we’re here now!”

“Come on out, Fat Jagger! It’s us, the Wallllk-errrrs!” Eleanor shouted, drawing out the pronunciation of their last name the way he always did.

“Nice Fat Jagger impersonation,” Brendan said as he looked around the beach. “Let me try.”

Brendan stepped up to the water and began to sing,

“You can start me up, if you start me up I’ll never stop …”

“Just because you were a rock star when we travelled to ancient Rome doesn’t mean you’re a great singer back in the real world,” Eleanor said.

“You’re just jealous of my sterling pipes, Nell.”

Eleanor didn’t bother responding.

A young couple jogging along the beach slowed and watched the three kids warily. They kept a safe distance from the Walkers as they passed.

The water lapped gently at the kids’ feet as they continued to shout, but there was still no sign of their friend. Several other people taking an evening walk on the beach were now looking at them with a mixture of curiosity and confusion.

“Guys, let’s take it easy with the shouting. People are going to think we’re a few noodles short of a spaghetti dinner,” Brendan said, borrowing one of his dad’s favourite lame jokes.

The first few times Dr Walker useAd that line, Brendan had groaned. But after hearing it at every holiday and birthday party for so long, he had come to love it. Those had been simpler times back then, though. Back before the Walker family was in financial ruins, before they had gotten themselves tangled up in the dark magic and secrets surrounding Kristoff House. Back before the three kids had to spend their evenings on a beach trying to lure a fifty-storey colossus named Fat Jagger out of the San Francisco Bay.

“What are we going to do?” Cordelia asked. “Why won’t Fat Jagger surface again?”

“Maybe he can’t hear us?” Eleanor suggested, fighting tears. “Under all that water.”

“Maybe we never even saw him at all?” Brendan said. “Did we just imagine him?”

“You’re not helping,” Cordelia scolded. “We all know what we saw. Even if one of us imagined it, there’s no way we all did simultaneously. Three people don’t just randomly have the same hallucination!”

Brendan sighed. She had a point.

“Well,” he said, “we know Jagger can hold his breath for a really long time. So he probably won’t drown.”

“That’s right,” Cordelia said, turning towards Eleanor’s panicked face. “Remember? The first time we were sent into Kristoff’s books, Fat Jagger walked all the way across the huge sea to Tinz … just to save us.”

Eleanor nodded and took a few deep breaths, still struggling to fight back her tears. She didn’t quite know what it was about Fat Jagger that she connected with so much, but she had truly come to view him as one of her best friends, in spite of the fact that they’d never really had a conversation longer than one or two words.

“I mean, we could try to go fishing for him or something,” Brendan suggested, only half kidding. “We could use one of Mrs Deagle’s cats as bait …”

“That’s horrible!” Eleanor shouted.

“But she’s got like twenty-seven cats,” Brendan said. “She’ll never miss one!”

“Not funny, Bren,” Cordelia chided.

“Sorry, comedy is in my blood.” Brendan shrugged. “I can’t just switch it off.”

“I would hardly call it comedy,” Cordelia muttered.

Eleanor wasn’t really listening to her older siblings squabble. She was lost in her own thoughts. And then the solution suddenly hit her – she knew how they could lure Fat Jagger out of the bay.

“I’ve got it!” Eleanor said. “I just need to get to a Safeway.”

“Nell, we can eat later,” Brendan said, but then put a hand on his stomach. “On second thoughts … now that you said it, I could go for a couple of Lunchables.”

Neither Cordelia nor Eleanor had the chance to respond, because their mother’s voice called out from behind them.

“Kids, there you are!” she called. “Don’t sneak off like that, I’ve been looking everywhere for you three! Let’s get back home. Our plans have changed.”

“We can’t yet!” Eleanor said. “We’re, uh … not finished saying goodbye to the neighbourhood!”

Eleanor knew she needed to buy more time to execute her plan to lure out Fat Jagger and get him away from the city, to head north up the coast where he’d be less likely to get spotted. She had seen enough movies to know that a colossus running loose in San Francisco would not end well. She could already envisage Fat Jagger chained up and on display as a part of some sort of travelling freak show. Or even worse, swatting at fighter jets as they swooped in to destroy him.

“I’m sorry, sweetie, there’s no time!” Mrs Walker said, crushing Eleanor’s hopes. “Things have changed and we need to move into the apartment tonight. The moving truck is waiting for us. We’re leaving right now.”

The Walker kids looked at each other with expressions that ranged from complete despair to outright panic. Their looks said:

Now what would they do?

How could Fat Jagger possibly stay hidden throughout the night?

Man, I could really use a Lunchable.

But they had no choice. Mrs Walker clearly wasn’t going to allow any debate on the matter, and she already looked harried enough as it was. So they slowly followed their mother up the hill towards their street, Sea Cliff Avenue. Or, more accurately, their former street.

As they trudged up the steeply sloping hill, Eleanor took one last look back at the bay. That’s when she saw a disturbance in the water out near the centre of the bridge. At this distance, it looked like a small ripple, perhaps just a swirling current, or a seal or dolphin. But she knew better. To her, the ripple had looked more like a pair of pronounced colossus lips poking out of the water to get another breath of air.

As they followed Mrs Walker back towards Kristoff House, the three kids lagged a few feet behind. Brendan and Cordelia were surprised to see Eleanor smiling.

“I just saw Fat Jagger poke his lips out of the water to breathe,” she whispered to them. “Which means I think he knows that he needs to stay hidden. If he can just stay out of sight until tomorrow morning, I have a plan to lure him out.”

“But what are we going to do even if we get Fat Jagger to shore?” Brendan asked dubiously. “Invite him over for a slumber party? Play Twister, make microwave popcorn and then spill our most embarrassing secrets?”

“We could bring him to school!” Eleanor said excitedly, totally missing her brother’s sarcasm.

Brendan imagined Jagger rolling up the school bully Scott Calurio between his thumb and forefinger like a booger and then smashing him to the side of the school building.

“That would be pretty cool,” Brendan admitted. “Plus, he would absolutely crush it in lacrosse.”

Cordelia glared at Eleanor and Brendan, but before any of them could say anything else, their mom interrupted the conversation.

“Kids, there’s something else I have to tell you,” Mrs Walker said, looking a bit nervous. “It’s certainly not going to be easy – but it’s for the best. It’s the reason we need to move tonight instead of tomorrow.”

The Walker kids stopped and waited anxiously for her to deliver the news.

“I know this will be hard for you, and it is for me too,” Mrs. Walker said slowly, her eyes looking red and tired. “But tomorrow morning, your dad is going away for a few days, or maybe even a few weeks. To a gambling addiction treatment facility.”

“Wait, Dad is a gambling addict?” Cordelia asked.

Guilt began to stir inside her as she realised that her first thought was how this was going to affect her – what would people think? Would all the prestigious colleges she hoped to get into somehow find out that her dad spent time in treatment? Cordelia had always focused on her future, doing everything the “right” way and trying to be the best. But now she saw her dreams quickly fading in the face of this news. Did kids with addict fathers actually get into places like Harvard and Yale and Stanford?

“Dad is going away?” Eleanor asked, her voice breaking. The thought of potentially losing Fat Jagger and her dad in one night was more than she could stomach.

“Don’t worry, baby,” Mrs Walker said, pulling an arm around Eleanor and trying to force a smile. “It’ll just be for a little bit, and we can visit him this weekend. And when he gets back, everything will be so much better. I promise. You kids are so strong and independent, you always have been. I know you’ll … we’ll get through this, together.”

“But what will we do for money?” Brendan asked.

“Brendan!” Mrs Walker said, glaring at her son. “Is that all you can think about right now?”

Brendan hesitated, perhaps a moment too long, before finally shaking his head no, feeling bad that he was more worried about family finances than his own dad’s mental health.

Of course, there was always the Nazi treasure map they’d brought back from the book world. But that was a long shot. According to the red X on the map, the treasure was hidden somewhere in Europe. Which, the last time Brendan had checked, was a long way away from San Francisco. Plus, they still had no idea if the treasure would even be there in the real world at all. It might only exist inside one of Denver Kristoff’s fictional books.

“In the meantime, I am more than capable of taking care of our family,” Mrs Walker continued, struggling to sound positive. “Which is why I will be starting a new job in the shoe department at Macy’s tomorrow.”

Just a few weeks ago the family lived in a beautiful Victorian home overlooking the Golden Gate Bridge and had a ten-million-dollar bankroll. Now they were moving into a tiny apartment with virtually nothing to their name. Well, except the embarrassment that their father, Dr Walker, had brought by losing his medical licence and then gambling away all their money in just a few short months. The family still had that to their name, of course.

Brendan suddenly felt horrible giving his mom such a hard time about money. None of this was her fault, after all. She was the one Walker who was probably least responsible for any of the family’s recent and ongoing problems.

“Well,” Brendan said, “if you need your first customer, I’ve got some birthday money saved up. I always wondered what I’d look like in a pair of red heels.”

In spite of the sombre mood, all of the Walkers laughed. The sound of their laughter almost seemed to lift some of the darkness draped across Sea Cliff Avenue that evening. As if the moon had suddenly switched to a higher setting.

“I think I would actually pay to see Brendan in heels,” Mrs Walker laughed, hugging them all. “I love you guys, you know that? No matter how bad things get, you always find a way to make me smile. Anyway, you won’t have time to shop for shoes tomorrow.”

“Why not?” Cordelia asked.

Mrs Walker then delivered what Brendan and Cordelia thought to be the worst news of the evening so far.

“Because you’ll all be going back to your old schools tomorrow morning.”

Later that night, Eleanor tossed and turned in her tiny bed inside her tiny room that she shared with Cordelia in the tiny apartment they had moved into. Nightmares haunted her sleep. Nightmares of Fat Jagger fighting off massive great white sharks in the dark waters of the San Francisco Bay. Nightmares of Fat Jagger getting caught up in a fishing net and drowning. Nightmares of Fat Jagger getting discovered and then hunted by men with giant harpoons in whaling ships. And in all her nightmares, there was nothing she could do to help him.

Brendan, however, was not even trying to sleep.

He was sitting at the small desk in his room with his head in his hands, thinking about having to go back to his old school and seeing all of his old friends and teachers. They would all ask him why he had to transfer out of private school and come back. He’d have to tell them the truth. That his dad gambled away all their money and they got kicked out of their home. It’d be especially hard to face them after the way he’d left – admittedly (now) a little too cocky over how much better his new private school was going to be “than this dump”.

This reality somehow filled Brendan with more fear than most of the crazy book adventures he had been on. He realised death was almost easier to face than total humiliation – which was a startling and sobering revelation.

Brendan distracted himself by switching on the fifty-five-inch TV that he’d brought with him from his not-quite-a-man cave in the Kristoff House attic. They could take away his cool attic bedroom and his old school and the money and his chauffeur (which was probably his favourite part of their old life). But nobody was getting their hands on the TV he bought with some of the money Eleanor had wished for using The Book of Doom and Desire. He and the TV had been through a lot together already, including the Giants’ most recent World Series victory. He’d been so excited on the final out, that he almost accidentally threw his half-full can of soda right through her beautiful and flawless screen.

Brendan flipped through the channels, looking for the reruns of Family Guy or South Park that always seemed to be on late at night. He was just about ready to settle on ESPN as a consolation, when a headline on a news channel caught his eye. For a second, he figured maybe he was watching a parody news show, because there was no way the headline could be true.

But the channel was CNN. The news story Brendan watched play out on-screen was most definitely real. And it caused him to literally fall out of his bedroom chair and land on the floor with a sickening thud.

At the other end of the Walkers’ apartment, Cordelia was in the middle of the strangest dream of her life. In fact, it didn’t feel like a dream to her at all, but more like reality, with actual sounds and smells and textures. If it weren’t for the fact that what was happening in her dream was impossible, she would have believed it was really happening.

Cordelia was back in the book world. She wasn’t sure how she knew that, but she was certain of it. Perhaps it was partly because the sunshine seemed a little too bright as it poured through the narrow windows lining the walls of a huge castle. The slivers of sun lit up her feet as she moved through a long, vast stone hallway.

Except that her feet didn’t look like her feet. They seemed … bigger, but also lighter somehow, almost as if they were capable of floating. But they were her feet; they had to be, since Cordelia could feel the coldness of the stone floors through strange, thin leather shoes.

She entered a large room at the end of the extensive hallway. It didn’t take long to recognise the lush tapestries on the walls and large windows. The massive bone and amethyst throne at the end of the red silk carpet was the surest giveaway of all.

Cordelia was back at Castle Corroway from Denver Kristoff’s book Savage Warriors. She was inside the evil Queen Daphne’s throne room. Even as the royal guards knelt before her, Cordelia knew it couldn’t be true. But yet, it clearly was. And somehow she was the new queen.

But still she pressed on, almost as if something was driving her besides her own free will. Cordelia marched up to her throne like she truly belonged there. She sat down and surveyed the room. She had guests, it seemed. But they were certainly not ordinary guests.

Before Cordelia’s throne stood the most bizarre array of creatures and people that had likely ever assembled inside a castle, fictional or otherwise. Krom was there, from their first adventure, as the new leader of the band of Savage Warriors who carried out Queen Daphne’s most vicious orders. Next to him stood a familiar German general who looked exactly like the only other German general Cordelia had ever met, the Nazi cyborg, Heinrich Volnheim, Generalleutnant of the Fifteenth Panzergrenadier Division from Kristoff’s book Assault of the Nazi Cyborgs. But it couldn’t have been Volnheim himself, because she’d watched him get blown to bits on a snowy mountainside by a tank cannon. All of the cyborg generals must look exactly alike.

Next to the Nazi cyborg stood a very stereotypical-looking vampire, complete with a pronounced widow’s peak in his slicked black hair, pale skin, a black cape with a high collar and protruding bloody fangs. There was also Ungil, the slave gladiator from Emperor Occipus’s Roman Colosseum, German pilots most likely from the World War One adventure novel, The Fighting Ace, a group of Prohibition-era mobsters, military officers from what looked like virtually every major war, a few hideous purple aliens with tentacles, and a vast array of other creatures and characters that Cordelia didn’t recognise.

They were all staring at her expectantly. So Cordelia began to speak, surprising herself with the authority and confidence of her words.

“Welcome!” she said. “Thank you all for joining me. As you know, I’ve been trapped here for months. But now our time draws near. The worlds are ready to converge. As we speak, more of us are finding ways to break through, slipping past the barriers that separate us from the outside, from the place that is truly ours. And once we finally break through, nothing will be able to stop us.”

The creatures and soldiers cheered. More words spilled from her mouth, almost of their own accord. Cordelia could feel that she meant what she was saying even though each word that came out shocked her. It was almost like talking on the phone with someone and hearing an echo of your own voice.

“The only person who could have stopped us is now dead!” Cordelia announced excitedly to the crowd. Except that by now she suspected she was not really herself, and she had a sinking feeling she knew precisely what was happening. “The old man’s magic is broken, decaying like his rotting corpse inside the cold ground. So now the time has come for us to act. We must make our plans accordingly and prepare for the moment when …”

Suddenly Cordelia was torn violently from her dream. She was being shaken and there were voices whispering harshly into her ear.

“Cordelia, wake up!” the voice said. “They’re coming through! They’re going to kill us all!”

Cordelia Walker sat up quickly at the sound of Brendan’s panicked voice and her head slammed into the metal frame of the top bunk. She cried out in pain, suppressing the urge to curse loudly.

“Ouch! What’s the matter with you, Bren?” Cordelia asked as she rubbed her aching forehead.

“Sorry about that,” Brendan said. “I maybe got a little excited there, but I swear it’s super-important. You’re gonna want to see this right away. Both of you.”

Cordelia was used to having her own room and her own queen-size bed. But their apartment by Fisherman’s Wharf only had two small bedrooms and a den. And so now Eleanor and Cordelia had to share a room. The movers had brought back their old bunk beds from storage that evening.

“Are you OK, Deal?” Eleanor whispered.

“Yeah, there’s no blood,” Cordelia said, still holding her sore forehead and trying not to take it out on her sister. She knew it wasn’t Eleanor’s fault that they had to move back into the bunk beds.

Eleanor climbed down the ladder from the top bunk as Cordelia groaned and dragged herself out of the lower bed.

“This better not be a collection of your toenail clippings again, Bren,” Cordelia said. “That wasn’t even funny the first time you did it!”

“No, this is for real,” Brendan said. “And, by the way … that was hilarious.”

A few years ago, Brendan had told Cordelia he had something extremely urgent and awesome to show her. He’d sold it so well he even managed to get her to pay a one-dollar entry fee to get into his room. Then he’d proudly shown her a collection of toenail clippings that he’d arranged into the phrase Cordelia = Nerd across his desk.

“Took me two years to collect enough toenails,” Brendan said, smirking at the memory.

“Eww, Bren, let’s just go see whatever it is you want to show us,” Cordelia said, making a face.

They followed Brendan out into the dark hallway of the apartment. The door to their parents’ room was closed and the light was off. The silence was broken only by the creaking of their footsteps down the hall towards Brendan’s room at the front of the unit. His “bedroom” wasn’t technically a bedroom at all. It was really a den that they had converted into a room for him.

Cordelia held her breath as she slowly pushed the door. The hinges creaked as it swung open. The room was dark, but a pale blue glow splashed across the bed like they were in a garishly lit horror movie.

It took Cordelia’s eyes a few seconds to adjust to the light, and then she gasped in shock. She stared at Brendan’s TV in silence. Her mouth hung open, her dream almost completely forgotten for the moment. Brendan pushed past her and sat down on the edge of his bed.

“Insane, right?” he said.

Eleanor shuffled around Cordelia so she could get a better look at the TV. This was another of those frequent moments when she hated being the youngest and smallest. She could never see anything!

She stepped into the centre of the room and finally got a clear view. Eleanor gasped, just like Cordelia had.

How could this be possible?

Eleanor stood there shaking her head, as if it could make what she was seeing go away. It turned out that Fat Jagger wasn’t the only character to cross over into the real world from one of Denver Kristoff’s books.

A CNN headline scrolling across the bottom of Brendan’s TV read: “Real Abominable Snowman Gunned Down in Santa Rosa, CA”.

Eleanor quickly recognised that the dead beast displayed on the screen wasn’t merely an abominable snowman. It was one of the deadly frost beasts that she and the gladiator Felix had battled in Kristoff’s book world alongside Wangchuk and his order of monks. One of the surviving frost beasts had not only crossed over into the real world … it had made its way to California!

The three Walkers watched the TV in silence for several minutes. Grainy footage from someone’s mobile phone showed three local sheriffs posing next to the dead creature. One of them crouched on top of the massive, furry chest, holding an automatic rifle in his hand. Even with the poor video quality, the kids could clearly see a gaping bullet wound on top of the beast’s head, right at its fontanel – which was the frost beasts’ only weakness.

The news footage then cut to an interview with one of the sheriffs.

“Well, at first he wouldn’t go down,” the young deputy said into the camera, clearly struggling to keep a wide grin off his face. “But we just kept shooting, until the monster fell to its knees. Then I stepped up and put one right in his head and he dropped dead. Just like that.”

Brendan hit the Mute button.

“What’s going on?” Brendan asked. “Are we going to see Nazi cyborgs storming the White House next? Or giant dragonflies snatching up dogs off leashes in Central Park?”

“No!” Eleanor nearly shouted at the thought of poor dogs getting eaten by giant bugs. She clamped her hands over her mouth, worried that she might have accidentally woken her mom.

“My dream wasn’t a dream at all,” Cordelia said softly to herself. “It was … real.”

Eleanor and Brendan looked at each other and then turned their confused faces towards their older sister. Cordelia shook her head; her eyes were wide with a mixture of fear and disgust. It was the same look she had on her face when she’d discovered they were all direct descendants of the Wind Witch.

“What dream?” Eleanor asked.

“My dream, it was actually real,” Cordelia repeated as if in a trance. “Which means all of this is really happening. And it’s only going to get worse. The Wind Witch knows how to make it all worse somehow …”

“Hello-ooo, Deal?” Brendan said, waving a hand in front of her face. “You want to clue us in on what you’re talking about, please!”

Cordelia finally looked up and met Brendan’s worried eyes. Then she glanced down at Eleanor, wondering briefly if her little sister could handle what she’d just figured out.

“Maybe you should go back to our bedroom while Bren and I talk?” Cordelia suggested gently.

Eleanor cocked her head indignantly, scowling.

“I’m not a baby,” she said. “You don’t have to protect me. Anything Bren can hear, so can I!”

Cordelia looked at Brendan, who merely shrugged. Perhaps she was right, somewhere along the way, they were going to have to stop treating Eleanor like a helpless toddler. Especially after everything they’d been through together.

“When you woke me up … I’d been having this dream,” Cordelia began. “Except that it wasn’t like any dream I’ve had before. It was like I was inside someone else’s mind. And I think I actually was!”

She gestured towards the ongoing news story of the slain frost beast.

“Maybe you just banged your head a little too hard when you woke up,” Brendan said. He held up two fingers in front of her face. “Maybe you got a concussion. How many fingers am I holding up?”

“Two,” Cordelia said, slapping Brendan’s fingers away. “It was real! I’m linked to someone for ever, remember? And when I was sleeping, I somehow became her, I saw what she saw, said what she said. I became another person.”

“Who?” Eleanor asked, even though both she and Brendan feared they already knew.

“The Wind Witch,” Cordelia said. “I was the Wind Witch.”

“How is that even possible?” Brendan asked.

“Remember back when I read our great-great-grandmother’s journal?” Cordelia said. “The Wind Witch was somehow able to read it through my eyes. It must work both ways; sometimes she sees what I see, and I see what she sees.”

“Great,” Brendan muttered, “my sister is synched up to an evil she-devil like some sort of supernatural Wi-Fi network.”

Cordelia shot him a look that could have killed someone less healthy.

“What happened in the dream?” Eleanor asked.

Eleanor and Brendan sat and listened quietly while Cordelia explained what she’d experienced earlier that night. About seeing all of the characters from Denver’s different books gathered in one place: Castle Corroway.

“It’s hard to remember which characters were all there, exactly,” Cordelia said, frowning. “Even though it felt real, it’s still like a dream in that I can’t remember all of the specific details.”

“It sort of sounds like it was a gathering of the Dark Avengers,” Brendan said. “Like an all-villain supergroup.”

“Yeah, it almost would have been funny to see Dracula sitting between a Nazi cyborg and Krom if it weren’t for the fact that they were definitely plotting something horrible,” Cordelia explained. “I said … or, I mean, the Wind Witch told everyone that even though they thought they were trapped inside the book world … they really weren’t. She said there was a way they could escape, a way they could all get out into the real world. She said the seams between the two worlds are frayed and getting worse with each passing day. Something about the magic being weakened. One of the last things she said before I woke up was that the only person who knew how to stop her was dead.”

“Denver Kristoff!” Brendan said under his breath. “That old bag of rotting goat guts.”

Cordelia nodded. “It makes perfect sense. After he died, we were able to bring an artefact from his books back with us into San Francisco—”

“The Nazi treasure map,” Brendan said.

“And then Fat Jagger somehow crossed over,” Eleanor said.

“And now a frost beast,” Brendan added.

“It’s only a matter of time before more characters get through,” Cordelia agreed. “Or before the Wind Witch is able to pull off whatever it is she’s planning and all of them get through.”

“What do you think that is?” Eleanor asked.

“I’m not entirely sure,” Cordelia admitted. “But whatever it is, it will let everything from the book world come through. I think she’s amassing a whole army of evil book characters for an invasion.”

“An invasion of our world?” Eleanor asked.

Cordelia nodded.

“You do have to admit, it would be kind of cool to see a T. rex tromping through downtown San Francisco,” Brendan said. “Or a bridge troll escaping Alcatraz.”

Cordelia and Eleanor both rolled their eyes.

“This is serious, Brendan,” Cordelia snapped. “Thousands of people would die.”

“I know that,” he agreed miserably. “I just don’t know what we’re supposed to do about it. I mean, how could we stop something like that? It would take the army, navy, air force, all the cops in the city … and maybe that wouldn’t even be enough!”

“The first thing we need to do is get to Fat Jagger,” Eleanor said, not able to get the image of the dead frost beast from her head. She kept envisaging Fat Jagger on TV instead of the frost beast, his giant body riddled with bullet holes. “He’s our friend, and we have to help him first. We need to make sure he knows that he needs to get away from the city and stay hidden until we figure this out.”

“We will, Nell,” Cordelia assured her.

But she also knew that would merely be treating one of the symptoms of the problem, not actually fixing the cause of the problem itself. Dr Walker had explained the theory behind practising medicine to Cordelia when she was ten years old and had spent the day at the hospital with him.

“The key to curing people,” he’d explained, “is as simple as keeping your mind focused on the underlying cause. Don’t try to fix the symptoms, instead fix the issue causing the symptoms. Sometimes they don’t even seem related. Like, if your leg hurts all of the time, you can’t just take aspirin every day for the rest of your life. Instead, you have to figure out what’s causing the pain and fix that. Leg pain can be caused by a number of ailments not occurring in your leg at all, like back issues or a neurological disorder. That’s why we strive to treat the underlying problem or cause, not just the symptoms themselves.”

It was important to keep Fat Jagger safe, but Cordelia knew they couldn’t merely ask him to hide in the ocean for the rest of his life. They would eventually need to find out how to get him back home. She knew nobody else was coming to help; the only other person alive who even knew the book world existed at all was the Wind Witch; which meant it was up to the three Walker children to somehow save the world.

“If only there was a way we could talk to dead people,” Cordelia speculated aloud.

“What are you talking about?” Brendan asked, holding up three fingers in front of her face again. “Are you sure you don’t have a concussion?”

“I’m talking about Denver Kristoff,” Cordelia said, pushing his hand away again. “If he were alive, he might be able to tell us what to do. How to fix this.”

“That old monster wouldn’t help us even if we could somehow talk to his ghost,” Brendan said. “He’d probably want his creations to exist in real life. What writer wouldn’t?”

“Are you so sure about that?” Cordelia asked, pointing at the TV still showing images of the dead frost beast. “I mean, if his characters crossed over, many of them would probably end up getting killed. People shoot first and ask questions later. Would Kristoff really want to see his characters getting massacred? Or destroying the city he loved?”

“This is a ridiculous conversation,” Brendan said. “Kristoff’s dead. Unless you have a Ouija board and psychic abilities, we won’t get a single word out of that stiff!”

“That’s it!” Cordelia shouted. “You’re brilliant, Bren!”

“Now you’re calling me brilliant?” Brendan asked. “I think we need to get you a CAT scan.”

“No, remember what happened at the Bohemian Club when we saw Aldrich Hayes and Denver raise the spirits of dead Lorekeepers with a simple spell?”

Brendan nodded, already not liking where this was headed.

“I don’t see why their own spirits can’t be summoned as well,” Cordelia said.

“What are you saying?” Eleanor asked nervously.

“We’re going to resurrect the spirit of the Storm King!”

“But we have to help Fat Jagger first!” Eleanor nearly yelled. “I already have a plan and everything.”

“We will help him, Nell. I promise,” Cordelia assured her. “But we also need to find a way to fix this for good. And Denver Kristoff is probably the only one who can tell us how to do that. Brendan, do you still remember that spell?”

Brendan had an incredible memory. He could remember the smallest details years later after only having heard or seen something once – as long as it was something that interested him, like sports statistics, or cryptic spells that summoned real ghosts.

He nodded reluctantly – remembering that horrifying experience all too well.

“Good, so you get the job of trying to summon the Storm King’s spirit,” Cordelia said. “Nell and I will try to help Fat Jagger.”

“This is never going to work,” Brendan said.

“We have to try something,” Cordelia said.

“Last time we snuck into the Bohemian Club we almost got killed,” Brendan said. “So where exactly am I supposed to hold this charade of a séance? In our living room? Or how about a random street corner? Larkin and Bay sounds kind of magical …”

“Start with the cemetery,” Cordelia suggested, ignoring his sarcasm. “Where the old fart is buried. Use your brain, Bren, I can’t always be the one with all of the ideas!”

Brendan didn’t really have a strong desire to raise the dead alone in a cemetery. But it’d be in broad daylight. He could handle that. Plus, he didn’t want to look like a complete wuss in front of his sisters. So he nodded, pretending it was no big deal.

“Yeah, cool,” Brendan said, raising his chin to look confident. “But when are we going to do this? We have school tomorrow. Are we going to call in sick, or just wait until the bell rings?”

“We can’t wait that long,” Cordelia said, shaking her head. “Even as we speak, more creatures from Denver’s books might be streaming into the real world! We have to do it now.”

“Now?” Brendan asked, his voice cracking.

“Yes!” Eleanor said, her eyes glowing. “Poor Fat Jagger’s probably getting tired of hanging out under all that water. He’s all alone and scared!”

“He’s all alone and scared?” Brendan asked, completely dropping his thin facade of bravery. “What about me? Your brother! I’m the one going to a cemetery alone in the middle of the night! The place is probably filled with San Francisco’s weirdest creeps and lurkers …”

“You’ve faced a lot tougher stuff than a graveyard at night,” Cordelia said. “You can do this, Bren.”

She put a reassuring hand on her brother’s shoulder and smiled. Brendan turned to Eleanor. His little sister nodded at him; the look in her eyes reflecting back just how much she really did look up to him.

“We believe in you, Bren,” she said.

Brendan couldn’t back down now. His sisters could be a royal pain sometimes. But at moments like this, when he needed a burst of strength or confidence, they always provided it.

He smiled and nodded back.

“OK,” Brendan said. “Let’s do this.”

To any regular bystander, Cordelia and Eleanor Walker must have looked completely insane. After all, it’s hard to imagine why a fifteen- and eight-year-old would be standing near the shore of the San Francisco Bay at two thirty a.m. throwing pounds and pounds of raw meat into a huge pile. They had created a meat tower of steaks, ground hamburger, pork shoulders, chicken thighs and cheap fish fillets. The pile was almost as big as the two of them put together.

It had taken nearly all of the three Walker children’s saved-up allowances and birthday and holiday money to amass such an impressive supply of meat. But Eleanor was still worried it wouldn’t be enough. After all, even though the pile could feed a whole army of human beings, to Fat Jagger it was only the equivalent of a small chunk of beef jerky.

They’d all snuck out of the apartment and taken a late-night bus to a twenty-four-hour Safeway to get their stockpile. Brendan had helped them haul it out to Torpedo Wharf and then departed for Fernwood Cemetery, where Denver Kristoff was buried under a fake name.

It was three in the morning, cold, damp and nearly pitch-black by the time the Walker sisters arrived at Torpedo Wharf, cut open all of the packages of meat, and dumped them into a massive pile at the edge of the concrete pier. They shivered miserably while they stood and waited.

“Now what?” Cordelia asked her little sister. “We’ve been here almost twenty minutes.”

“I don’t know,” Eleanor said. “This was the end of my plan. I guess I just thought he’d be hungry enough to smell the meat.”

It definitely smelled. Cordelia held a hand over her nose to fight off the stench. But maybe the odour simply wasn’t enough? The wind was blowing in from the bay, after all, carrying the shoreline scents away from where Fat Jagger lurked. And it would certainly be even more difficult, if not impossible, for him to smell anything underwater. There had to be something they could do to intensify the smell.

Cordelia was torn from her thoughts by a shrill squawk. A white seagull plopped down on top of their four-hundred-dollar pile of meat and greedily gobbled up several chunks into its gullet.

“Shoo!” Cordelia yelled, swatting at the bird with her hand.

The seagull flapped its wings a few times and hovered above the meat for several seconds, before settling down again on the other side of the pile. Several other pilfering white birds descended out of nowhere, squawking greedily.

“Nell, I need your help here,” Cordelia said desperately as she removed her jacket.

She swung it in wide circles near the growing group of seagulls feasting on the pile of meat. As the jacket neared them, they quickly hopped away or took flight. But each time it passed them by, they dived back in for another helping.

“Go away!” Eleanor yelled, charging in at the birds. “This is Fat Jagger’s!”

The birds must have sensed her frantic energy, because they fled for cover as she neared. But then, one after another, they circled back hungrily.

Cordelia looked at Eleanor desperately.

“We need to do something fast,” Cordelia said to her little sister. “Or else pretty soon there’s not going to be anything left!”

Meanwhile, seven miles away, across the Golden Gate Bridge, Brendan paid the cab driver and stepped out of the car into the dark night. He had no idea how he was going to get home. The number forty bus stopped running at eight p.m., and he’d had to spend all of his remaining money on the cab ride there. Thankfully, his driver didn’t speak English very well, and didn’t even bother asking why a twelve-year-old kid was taking a cab to a cemetery at two thirty in the morning on a school night. Brendan supposed this was a benefit of living in a big city like San Francisco. Nothing seemed weird there.

He was surprised to see that Fernwood Cemetery did not have a perimeter fence. He’d been fairly certain he was going to have to climb a ten-foot-tall iron fence with impaling spikes at the top. But the huge cemetery, surrounded by woods and built on a gently sloping hill, seemed almost welcoming to late-night trespassers.

It was dark; the only light was from several streetlights nearby and a few faded stars in the black sky.

Brendan braced himself with several deep breaths as he stared into the blackness of the cemetery, trying to tell himself that facing savage warriors, bloodthirsty pirates, Roman gladiators, hungry lions and a vicious wolf the size of a horse had all been way more terrifying than this. There was no reason for him to be afraid.

His mind drifted towards the time when he was nine and snuck into the living room late at night to watch Night of the Living Dead On Demand. He might as well have been a delicious brain sitting on a dinner platter. Brendan would have laughed at the image of his brain sitting neatly on a silver platter flanked by sides of braised kale and mashed potatoes if he were less petrified.

He tried to ignore his fear and instead focus on what he was there to do. First things first: he had to somehow find Denver Kristoff’s tomb.

Brendan switched on his phone’s flashlight and made his way into the cemetery, weaving past most of the headstones. It actually took far less time to find it than he’d suspected, given the cemetery’s size. But his gut instinct to start by checking the larger, more expensive mausoleums paid off. After jogging to four or five of the newer-looking mausoleums, Brendan found the one labelled Marlton Houston, the false name reported by the news in the days following Denver Kristoff and Aldrich Hayes being killed by a city bus downtown.

Kristoff’s mausoleum was a grand affair. It was roughly the size of a large tool shed, but all similarities ended there. It was constructed of white marble and had three steps leading up to a set of bronze double doors covered in intricate carvings of hooded figures and mythical beasts. Two marble columns flanked the doors beneath a peaked roof containing a large carved symbol Brendan didn’t recognise.

He stood in front of the steps and took a few deep breaths, cleared his throat, and thought back to the horrifying experience of watching Denver and Aldrich summon the spirits of past Lorekeepers inside the Bohemian Club with a simple spell.

“Diablo tan-tun-ka,” Brendan said, softly at first. “Diablo tan-tun-ka.” His voice grew louder as he chanted the spell several more times. “Diablo TAN-tun-ka! Diablo tan-tun-KA!”

Nothing seemed to be happening. Brendan continued anyway, recalling words the two Lorekeepers had spoken, but not quite remembering the inflections.

“Diablo TAN-tun-ka, spirit of my … uh, great-great-great-grandfather, um, I think,” Brendan said. “I summon you! I wish to speak to the one departed called Denver Kristoff!”

Brendan raised his arms towards the sky, as if he were literally trying to lift up the dead spirit of the Storm King from his resting place. He stopped and waited, his arms still raised into the air like he was signalling a touchdown.

Only silence greeted him. He lowered his arms and realised how ridiculous it was to think he could possibly raise the spirit of a dead Lorekeeper … or anyone for that matter.

A chill went up his spine as a breeze whipped across his neck and face.

Then a twig snapped behind him.

Brendan spun around, raised his phone’s flashlight; his heart lodged firmly in his throat. And then he screamed loudly enough to wake the dead.

Back on Torpedo Wharf, Eleanor realised that Cordelia was right. They needed to do something fast or else the growing pack of seagulls would eat all of Fat Jagger’s bait.

Eleanor looked around desperately. Her eyes rested on a nearby metal trash can full of newspapers and plastic bottles and Styrofoam coffee cups. A snoring homeless man in tattered clothing lay next to it. It was obvious he had just passed out because the still smouldering butt of a cigarette dangled loosely from his fingers.

Eleanor glanced at Cordelia, who was still waving her jacket at the flock of seagulls. It was chaotic, and getting louder as more birds cawed along with Cordelia’s screams.

Eleanor knew there was no time to waste. She didn’t always need her older sister’s approval or supervision; Cordelia wasn’t the only smart one in the family!

So Eleanor pushed away the fear and marched right up to the man. She knelt down beside him and gently and carefully plucked the cigarette from his fingers. She stood up, a triumphant smile spread across her face.

A hand grabbed her leg.

“Gimme back my smoke!” the man growled.

She quickly shook the man’s hand from her leg and ran around towards the other side of the trash can.

“Get back here, you little brat!” he screamed, trying to get to his feet. But he wobbled unsteadily, having unusual difficulty standing up.

“Nell, what are you doing?” Cordelia yelled, swatting at several seagulls that were dive-bombing her, apparently tired of being hit by her jacket. “Stop torturing that poor man and help me!”

Eleanor didn’t answer, carefully cradling the burning cigarette in her cupped hands so it wouldn’t burn out. She knew that smoke and heat travelled upward. That’s what the firefighter who came and spoke to her class about fire safety had said. She crouched down near the bottom of the mesh trash can.

“Get back here, kid!” shouted the man, who was finally on his feet and stumbling towards Eleanor.

“Nell, let go of that disgusting thing! What are you doing?” Cordelia asked as she swatted at another seagull.

“You’ll see,” Eleanor said as she touched the red ash of the cigarette to the bottom of the garbage.

She had no idea what the wadded-up newspapers at the bottom had been soaked in, but the whole thing ignited much quicker than she’d expected. After just a few seconds, the entire trash can was engulfed in flames that leaped several feet into the air, sending sparks floating into the night sky.

The vagrant grabbed Eleanor by the back of the collar and lifted her up.

“Gimme my smoke!” he shouted.

Eleanor held out the still-lit cigarette. He grabbed it and set her back down.

“Thanks, mister,” she said.

“You really should respect other people’s property, kid,” he said and then slumped back down to the ground.

“Nell, will you please tell me what’s going on?” Cordelia shouted.

Eleanor ran towards the hungry seagulls, waved them off, and scooped up an entire armload of raw meat. She held her breath and reminded herself that she was doing this for Fat Jagger. She’d take an earthworm bath if that’s what it took to save him.

She ran over and tossed the meat inside the blazing trash can. The fire crackled and popped as the fat seared instantly in the heat. The aroma of cooking steaks and poultry was almost immediate and far more intense than the mound of raw meat.

Eleanor ran back for another armload.

Cordelia marvelled at how clever Eleanor was as she grabbed an armload of meat herself. Fat Jagger would be much more likely to smell cooking meat the next time he resurfaced for air. Together, they ran back and forth, dumping loads of meat into the burning trash.

The smell of searing meats was so powerful that both Cordelia and Eleanor covered their faces with their shirts. They stood next to the makeshift barbecue and looked out into the dark bay. Cordelia draped an arm around her little sister’s shoulders.

“Do you think he’ll come up for air soon?” Eleanor asked.

“I hope so,” Cordelia said. “But either way, I’m proud of you. That was really risky what you did, but it was a smart idea, Nell.”

Eleanor responded by resting her head against Cordelia’s side. They waited until the fire was nothing more than a smouldering pile of embers and roasted meat. The smell still wafted in the air even without active flames.

Ten minutes later, just as Eleanor began losing hope, a deep, rumbling whoooosh that almost sounded like wet thunder erupted from the darkness of San Francisco Bay.

Eleanor’s hopeful smile slowly disappeared when she saw the massive tidal wave emerge from the blackness, coming right at them.

“Nell, duck!” Cordelia screamed, hugging her sister close.

But it was too late; the massive wave was upon them, drowning out their screams.

The force of the water knocked both of the Walker sisters to the ground and pushed them thirty feet back, right off the walking path and on to the lawn of a nearby café and gift shop. It also scattered the cooked meat across the wharf.

Eleanor pushed herself to her feet and looked around frantically for Cordelia.

“Nell! Are you OK?” Cordelia asked, staggering to her feet a few yards away.

“I think so,” Eleanor said, trying out her arms and legs, shocked that she didn’t even feel bruised.

“That was close,” Cordelia said. “We almost got—”

“Fat Jagger!” Eleanor screamed, cutting off her sister.

Fat Jagger, still submerged from the waist down, towered above the wharf, his hair stringy and sopping. Salty ocean water dripped off his hairy torso and splashed on to the concrete wharf like a torrential rainstorm. When the colossus saw the Walkers, he grinned.

“Waaalk-eers,” he said.

“Fat Jagger!” Eleanor yelled again, running towards him.

Cordelia followed her.

Fat Jagger turned his attention towards the wharf landing, where bits of meat were still scattered about. He reached down and began deftly plucking clumps of meat off the ground with his thumb and forefinger. He popped them into his mouth, a grin still plastered on his huge face.

“Fat Jagger, you need to listen to me,” Cordelia shouted up at him. “You have to …”

But she didn’t get to finish, because she was suddenly interrupted by the whoop-whoop of a cop-car siren behind her.

Seven miles north, in the Fernwood Cemetery, near the expensive mausoleum for Mr Marlton Houston, Brendan Walker’s phone flashlight shone directly on to a man several feet away. He wore a grey security guard uniform and had his hand on the butt of a gun.

“What’s going on here?” the security guard asked.

“Uh, nothing much,” Brendan said. “You know, just visiting my uncle’s grave. Yup. Definitely not performing magic spells to raise the spirits of the dead. No way.”

The guard sighed.

“Come on, kid,” he said. “Give me a break. I just wanted a quiet night. But now I’ve got to arrest you. There are signs everywhere that say no trespassing after visiting hours. Didn’t you see them?”

“I guess not,” Brendan said, already trying to plot his getaway.

He could not afford to get arrested.

“And where are your friends, kid?”

“Friends?” Brendan asked. “It’s just me.”

“Are you kidding me?” the security guard asked. “Nobody sneaks into a cemetery alone. Who would be that dumb? Unless you’re some kind of weirdo …”

“Now you sound like my sisters.”

“Look,” the guard said, “just tell me where your friends are hiding and I woooon-aaaAAAHHHHHH!”

Brendan stumbled backwards a few steps as a pair of rotting grey arms emerged from the darkness and wrapped around the security guard’s neck, turning his last sentence into a horrifying scream. The arms dragged the guard into the shadows. There was one final scream. And then silence.

“Mr Security Guard?” Brendan called out. “This isn’t funny, man. It’s not cool to play sick jokes on kids.”

From the darkness, the only reply was a deep, guttural groan. It sounded … hungry.

Brendan took a few more steps backwards until his calves hit the cold marble steps of Kristoff’s mausoleum. There was another groan, this time followed by the sound of shuffling footsteps. The groaning got closer as Brendan fumbled with his phone’s flashlight. It felt like his heart had stopped beating, as if the pure terror of the situation had shut down all of his bodily functions.

He pointed his flashlight up again and found himself face to face with a dead guy. Most of the corpse’s flesh was gone. His face was basically a skeleton with a few scraps of skin stretched across it, covered by a mop of long grey hair in desperate need of a shampoo. The corpse’s left eye was gone and an eye patch covered the right eye socket.

The zombie groaned again as it continued to shuffle towards Brendan.

“Um, hi,” Brendan said, terror welling inside his chest. “We haven’t met. I’m … Brendan. I should inform you that according to my sisters, and that security guard you just killed, I don’t really possess a brain, so you’re probably wasting your time.”

The zombie stopped walking. It almost seemed to cock its head like a confused dog. And for a moment, Brendan thought he actually might have saved himself with his sense of humour for the first time ever.

But then the zombie suddenly lunged at Brendan and wrapped its bony fingers around his right arm. Before he could even scream in shock or terror, the zombie leaned forward and sank its teeth into Brendan’s fleshy forearm.

San Francisco Police Department Patrolman Nick Boyce was just three hours into his twelve-hour night shift, but he had already downed three coffees, a Red Bull and one espresso. If it weren’t for all the caffeine, it’s possible that he wouldn’t have believed what he was seeing when he pulled up to Torpedo Wharf.

It was a giant. Not a member of the Three-Time-World-Champion San Francisco Giants out for late-night trouble, but an actual giant! Like from the beanstalk book he sometimes read to his nephew when babysitting.

Officer Boyce knew he couldn’t just pull over a giant like he would pull over a vehicle in a routine traffic stop, so he got out of the car and took a few steps towards the monster, unsnapping the leather loop on his gun holster. In spite of his shock, he took a moment to marvel at how much the beast looked like Mick Jagger from the Rolling Stones. Well, if Mick Jagger were to go on a four-month diet of Big Macs and twenty-piece McNuggets, that is.

Officer Boyce grabbed his shoulder radio and clicked it on.

“Dispatch, this is unit fourteen-eleven.”

“Go ahead fourteen-eleven.”

“I’m down here at Torpedo Wharf,” Nick said into his radio. “Requesting immediate backup. We have a … uh, a code four-two … no, um, we have a code … well, um, there’s a giant, fat Mick Jagger down here and he looks hostile. Send all available units. Send the chopper. Send SWAT! Send everyone!”

Officer Boyce was so transfixed by the colossus standing before him that he didn’t even notice the two young girls next to the monster. He didn’t hear them shouting in vain that the giant meant no harm. Instead, he pulled his service gun.

The giant was staring past Nick at his patrol car, seemingly transfixed by the lights. Then the beast reached out his massive hand, which was easily twice the size of the police cruiser.

Officer Boyce ducked instinctively, fearing he was about to become a midnight snack.

But the giant Mick Jagger reached past him and instead picked up the patrol car. It looked like a Hot Wheels car in the colossal hand. Fat Jagger held it up to his face, entranced by the flashing blue-and-red lights. This time, the caffeine and adrenaline backfired. Office Boyce felt the panic rise up into his throat. He was going to die. He knew it.

And so, without considering the consequences of agitating a fifty-storey colossus, Officer Nick Boyce raised his gun and fired.

Cordelia and Eleanor were practically hoarse from shouting, but the cop didn’t seem to hear them.

Cordelia barely had enough time to pull Eleanor back before the cop started shooting at Fat Jagger.

“Noooo!” Eleanor screamed as the gun cracked several times.

“It’s OK, Nell,” Cordelia reassured her as they huddled down on the concrete. “There’s no way those small bullets can kill Fat Jagger. They’re just like bee stings to him.”

“Bee stings still hurt,” Eleanor said, sniffling.

Fat Jagger was still holding the patrol car, his head tilted to the side when the cop fired. He seemed more confused by the onslaught of bullets than anything else. Several of the rounds struck him in the belly but he didn’t even seem to notice. Several more ricocheted on to the concrete surprisingly close to where the Walker sisters were huddled.

Eleanor screamed.

Fat Jagger looked down at them, then back towards the cop whose hands were shaking as he reloaded his gun. Jagger quickly tossed the cop car over his shoulder. It crashed into the San Francisco Bay with a massive splash at least a hundred yards behind him.

The cop readied his gun and pointed it back at the giant, his hands trembling so much that he probably couldn’t even hit a target just two feet away.

The Walkers were in danger. Fat Jagger’s eyes went wide with fear. He reached down, scooped Eleanor and Cordelia into the palm of his hand, and then popped them into his mouth like a pair of raisins.

The police officer began to scream.

Officer Boyce grabbed his radio.

“Dispatch!” he screamed. “Where is my backup? The giant, he … he just … oh my God, it was horrible! He just ate two small kids! In one bite! Like popcorn! Please get me backup!”

On cue, several patrol cars pulled up alongside him. Four officers jumped out and gaped at the massive giant standing in the San Francisco Bay. The sound of an approaching helicopter whirred in the distance.

“At first we thought this was a joke, Boyce,” his sergeant said. “But strange things have been happening everywhere! First, there were reports of a real yeti getting killed in Santa Rosa. And now this …”

“He just ate two kids,” Officer Boyce mumbled, still in shock.

“What are we waiting for then?” the sergeant growled. “Let’s take him down!”

All five of the SFPD officers drew their weapons and began shooting at a confused and panicked Fat Jagger. The bullets tore into his skin, not causing any real damage but still causing him to wince in pain.

Fat Jagger swatted his huge hands around his head like he was shooing away a swarm of gnats as more cops and a SWAT van pulled up to the wharf. They were armed with even heavier artillery. The sound of the police chopper drew closer.

Cordelia and Eleanor sloshed around inside Fat Jagger’s mouth, his thick saliva was warm and gooey, but actually provided pretty decent cushioning to the constant movement of his head as the bullets pelted him on the outside. It felt like a bulletproof hot tub in desperate need of a whole dump truck of Listerine mouthwash.

They realised rather quickly that Fat Jagger had put them in his mouth to protect them.

“They’re killing him!” Eleanor shouted.

“Not yet,” Cordelia said. “But eventually they’ll bring more weapons … bigger weapons … and he may not be able to survive that.”

“We can’t let that happen!” Eleanor said as the sound of a police helicopter whirled around Fat Jagger’s head.

“This is the San Francisco Police Department,” a voice echoed through a megaphone. “Surrender yourself immediately, or we will begin using heavier force. We will not hesitate to take you down.”

“Deal, this is horrible,” Eleanor said, tears streaming down her cheeks. “We have to stop this!”

Her sister was right. Cordelia needed to do something.

“Fat Jagger,” Cordelia shouted. “Can you hear us?”

They were suddenly swept off their feet by sloshing saliva as Fat Jagger nodded his head up and down. They heard the sound of machine-gun fire outside and Fat Jagger winced in pain, sending them sprawling on to his slick tongue yet again.

“We need to get to Brendan!” Cordelia shouted, hoping that her brother had actually managed to summon the Storm King. It was their only chance now. “He can help us! Understand?”

Fat Jagger nodded again.

“Good!” Cordelia shouted. “Now take a deep breath and dive! Dive back into the water where they can’t shoot you or find you! Swim along the huge red bridge towards the shore on the other side. Then I’ll tell you how to find Brendan!”

Fat Jagger nodded one last time and then suddenly Cordelia and Eleanor felt their stomachs drop as Jagger dived deep into the San Francisco Bay, essentially becoming a living submarine. The two girls hung on to Fat Jagger’s huge molars for dear life as the colossus made a break for the Golden Gate Bridge.

Deep within Fernwood Cemetery, Brendan Walker stumbled away from the zombie that had somehow managed to clamp its deadly jaws on to his forearm. Brendan yanked free from its clutches, and in the process tore off one of the zombie’s arms. But the damage had been done.

Brendan slumped down into a sitting position and looked at the gory bite wound on his forearm. This was it; he was a goner. Everyone knew the first rule of zombies: if they bite you, then you will eventually turn into a zombie.

He swore to himself. He had always believed he would thrive in a zombie apocalypse. He’d read instructional books, had escape routes mapped out, and had even drawn up construction plans for a fortress on the cliffs of Battery Crosby. Now here he was about to become the world’s second zombie, literally the worst you could do in this situation.

He looked up and noticed more zombies stumbling towards him. Some of the walking corpses looked much fresher than others. A few looked old enough to have even fought in World War One.

They continued to advance on Brendan. Didn’t they understand that he’d been bitten? He was already as good as dead.

He only had himself to blame. Not only had he failed to raise the spirit of Denver Kristoff, but he had somehow managed to accidently raise the dead! Brendan had just accidentally jump-started the end of the world with a zombie apocalypse.

But that didn’t mean he’d go down without a fight. The knowledge of his own impending doom erased any fear and replaced it with pure rage and courage the like of which he’d never experienced before. It was almost like drinking some sort of hero potion. It made him feel invincible – because, in a way, he sort of was.

Brendan leaped to his feet, still holding the zombie’s severed left arm. He stepped forward and reared it back like a baseball bat. Then he swung at the nearest zombie like he was back in T-ball. The zombie arm connected with its head and it flew into the trees at least fifty feet away, still groaning the entire time.

“Home run!” Brendan screamed, before pivoting and taking another swing at a different zombie behind him.

He connected again; this time the zombie’s head stayed attached to the neck, but exploded on impact like an old rotting pumpkin. Bone and dirt and dust sprayed everywhere.

“Gross!” Brendan yelled.

He whirled around swinging the severed zombie arm as fast as his injured arm would allow. Brendan stayed near the mausoleum since it provided protection on at least one side as more zombies began showing up.

Eventually, he climbed up the three stairs on the mausoleum. He looked around and then promptly dropped the zombie arm he’d been using as his weapon. From his new vantage point, he finally saw just how hopeless his situation had become.

The sea of zombies spread out around the mausoleum had grown to rock-concert proportions. If he weren’t feeling so hopeless, he might have even performed the Bruce Springsteen song “Glory Days” that had saved him back in Emperor Occipus’s Colosseum.

But, instead, he slumped against the ornate bronze doors and waited for the zombies to devour him.

Fat Jagger came bounding into Fernwood Cemetery still dripping wet from the ocean water he’d been soaking in for the past ten hours. His mouth was open just enough for Cordelia and Eleanor to see outside so they could direct his movements. He’d been careful to avoid smashing any houses on the short walk there, just as Cordelia had instructed. But now, inside the cemetery, he was crushing people with each step.

“Oh, no!” Eleanor gasped. “He’s smooshing all those people! Wait … what are they all doing in a cemetery at three in the morning?”

“Those aren’t ordinary people, Nell,” Cordelia said, straining to see over Fat Jagger’s huge lower lip. “I think they’re … zombies!”

“But zombies aren’t real!” Eleanor said. “That’s impossible.”

“So is a colossus with two kids in his mouth walking around Mill Valley, California!” Cordelia reminded her.

Eleanor was about to admit that Cordelia made a good point, but was distracted by shouting somewhere far below them.

“Down here!” the tiny voice yelled. “Jagger, down here!”

“It’s Brendan!” Eleanor yelled, pointing to their left. “Fat Jagger, can you see Brendan down there? He’s in trouble! Save him!”

They saw Brendan on the landing of a white marble mausoleum, jumping up and down hysterically. There were hundreds of zombies closing in around him.

Fat Jagger closed his mouth to keep Cordelia and Eleanor from falling out and then reached down and pulled the entire mausoleum from the ground. Brendan clung desperately to one of the marble pillars. The bronze doors had burst off from the force of Jagger’s grip. The roof of the mausoleum crumbled.

Fat Jagger opened his mouth wide and shook the mausoleum over it like a box of sweets, dumping a screaming Brendan inside. Then Jagger closed his mouth and turned back towards the ocean.

A SFPD helicopter suddenly hovered down into view from the clouds above the giant. A man in a blue SWAT uniform sat inside the open door of the chopper. He raised a huge rocket launcher, pointed it at Fat Jagger, and pulled the trigger.

Brendan fell into Fat Jagger’s mouth, not having any idea why his friend would eat him. Maybe Fat Jagger had become a colossus zombie himself?

In spite of the dizzying headache gnawing at the back of his skull, it didn’t take Brendan long to figure out that Fat Jagger had never intended to swallow him, even. Part of it was the fact that he was still in the giant’s mouth, sitting in a pool of gooey saliva on a massive tongue. The other clue was the arms of his sisters wrapped around him.

“Brendan, you’re alive!” Eleanor said.

“Did it work, did you manage to talk to Denver Kristoff?” Cordelia asked, getting right down to business.

Before Brendan could answer, the sound of a helicopter outside interrupted their reunion. Brendan had never heard a real rocket launcher being fired before, but he’d played enough video games to recognise the sound right before they were all tossed around inside Fat Jagger’s mouth from the impact, like toddlers in a bouncy castle.

Fat Jagger bellowed in pain. In the split second that his mouth was open, the Walkers saw a gaping and bloody hole in the colossus’s left shoulder.

“They’re going to kill him!” Eleanor shrieked. “Jagger, get back to the bay! You need to hide!”

Cordelia screamed too, but for an entirely different reason. Rising up slowly behind Brendan … was the Storm King!

It wasn’t a spirit version of the Storm King. It was the real flesh-and-blood version. That much was obvious as they jostled and bounced inside Fat Jagger’s mouth as he ran back towards the bay.

Brendan spun around, yelped, and then quickly scampered over to Cordelia and Eleanor.

Fat Jagger dived back into the water, shaking his four passengers together like dice in a cup. Once the colossus was smoothly swimming through the bay and his mouth was settled, the Storm King climbed slowly to his feet again with a loud groan.

The Walkers scrambled away from him; towards Fat Jagger’s right molars. Their mobile phone flashlights cast an eerie glow on to Denver Kristoff’s rotting face.

“Denver?” Cordelia ventured. “I know we’re not exactly best friends or anything … but we really need your help.”

The Storm King had never looked worse. His normally putrid face was even more hideous than usual. If it weren’t for a few greenish flaps of rancid flesh clinging to his head, he would have basically just been a skull with hair.

The Storm King finally opened his mouth to reply.

“Graaanghhhhh!” the Storm King moaned. “Brrrraaaaoooohhhhrrrr!”

“Um, what?” Cordelia said.

“Oh yeah, did I forget to mention that I accidentally started the zombie apocalypse?” Brendan said.

“What are you talking about?” Cordelia asked.

“The spell did bring Kristoff back from the dead,” Brendan explained. “But it also turned his corpse into a zombie, along with the rest of the cemetery’s inhabitants. I must have used the wrong inflections or something …”

“Are you kidding me? Now what are we going to do?” Cordelia asked, panicking. “He was our only way out of this!”

“Let’s start by making sure no one else gets bitten,” Brendan said, standing up.

He’d watched enough zombie movies to know that they moved pretty slowly – plus, he’d already been bitten so he wasn’t nearly as afraid to attack a zombie unarmed as he normally would have been.

Brendan charged at zombie Denver and slammed his shoulder into the old dead guy’s chest. He wasn’t sure what he expected to happen – he considered for a moment that the decrepit old man might simply explode from the force. But zombie Denver didn’t explode. Instead, the old man went flying backwards into a row of Fat Jagger’s molars, a low moan escaping his green lips as he slammed into the teeth with enough force to cause Cordelia and Eleanor to look away.

Brendan tensed, waiting for the old man to get back up again. But he didn’t. Zombie Denver just stayed there, slumped against a pair of huge Fat Jagger teeth. Brendan took a few steps closer and then realised that the old man’s arm was firmly wedged between the teeth. He was stuck.

“Well, I think we won’t have to worry about him any more,” Brendan said, turning back towards his sisters with a satisfied grin.

“Nice check,” Cordelia admitted, her voice wavering. “But why did you say ‘no one else’ gets bitten?”

Brendan answered by showing them his infected and pulsating bite wound.

“I’m going to become zombie,” he said sombrely. “There’s nothing we can do to stop it. Pretty soon, I’ll be trying to eat your giant brain, Deal.”

Instead of laughing at his joke, Cordelia choked out a sob.

Eleanor, meanwhile, seemed not to have heard Brendan at all. She just sat there staring at Denver Kristoff lazily struggling to free his trapped arm. He was more of a skeleton now than the rotting monstrosity he had been when he was still alive.

“I’ve got it!” Eleanor said suddenly. “I know how to fix this!”

“How?” Brendan asked. “It’s too late to chop off my arm to slow the infection …”

“No, and that’s disgusting, Bren!” Eleanor said. “I’m talking about the bigger problem.”

“Geez, Nell,” Brendan said. “Can’t you at least pretend to be upset like Cordelia? Or say you’ll miss me?”

“We have to get Fat Jagger back home!” Eleanor said, her words rushing out in a panic. “We have to somehow fix all of this! If not, more and more creatures and bad guys from the book world are going to come into our world and eventually destroy everything!”

“So what’s your big plan then?” Cordelia asked her little sister with more edge in her voice than she’d intended.

“I’ll explain later, there’s no time right now,” Eleanor said. “Fat Jagger!”

They felt him grunt in reply as he swam.

“Can you get to the surface and open your mouth?” Eleanor shouted.

Their ears popped as Fat Jagger ascended. They heard splashing as his head broke the surface of the water. His jaw hinged open slightly. A dolphin caught in Fat Jagger’s hair dropped into the water and swam off to safety. Eleanor looked out of the giant’s mouth and saw the pink haze of the sunrise on the ocean’s horizon. They were currently headed west, out of the bay towards the open Pacific.

“Turn left slowly!” Eleanor screamed over the sound of an approaching police helicopter.

Fat Jagger spun slowly. As soon as Eleanor saw what she was looking for, she shouted for him to stop.

“Go back down and swim straight ahead!” Eleanor screamed over the roar of the nearby helicopter. “When you get to shore, climb the cliff and look for our house.”

“You remember what it looks like?” Brendan yelled. “You’ve held our house before, Jagguuhhhhhhnn …”

Brendan looked confused as he opened his mouth to speak again.

“Urhhhh,” Brendan grunted, trying desperately to get the words out of his mouth. “Urgggghh?”

“You OK, Bren?” Eleanor asked.

Brendan lifted himself up slowly and Eleanor gasped. She wasn’t sure if it was the giant’s saliva, the seawater, or something else entirely, but Brendan’s face was now a pale shade of green.

“Cordelia?” Eleanor shouted frantically. “I think Brendan just turned into a zombie!”

Cordelia instantly knew Eleanor was right; the pale twelve-year-old groaning in the centre of Fat Jagger’s mouth wasn’t their brother any more.

Brendan turned towards Eleanor and snarled, his jaw hanging open and his dead eyes unblinking. He limped forward, drool seeping out from between his teeth. His now-leathery greyish-green skin was filled with saggy wrinkles and festering welts, as if Brendan had aged a hundred years in a matter of seconds.

“It can’t be,” Cordelia pleaded desperately. “We were so close to the house. We were almost there!”

Eleanor ran into Cordelia’s arms as they watched Brendan slouch down against the wall of Jagger’s cheek. His skin seemed to tighten across his skull; he was looking more monstrous by the second. His head lolled to the side as a guttural groan escaped from his grey lips. Seeing their normally jovial brother just sitting there, looking so empty, gutted them both – it was almost worse than seeing him die. Their brother’s eyes, which once gleamed with mischievous humour, now lolled vacantly from side to side, a shade of grey that was even more neutral than inexistence.

“Is there a cure for zombie-ism?” Cordelia asked frantically. “Holy water? Penicillin? Aspirin?”

Eleanor, having watched one too many scary movies with her older brother, shook her head dejectedly.

“The only way to stop a zombie is by destroying its brain,” she said, fighting tears.

“I’m going to go and try to talk to him,” Cordelia said, unhooking Eleanor’s arms from around her. “Maybe if we can get him to remember us, he can turn back? Maybe it’s not too late?”

Brendan, still slumped against a pair of Fat Jagger’s massive teeth, looked up as Cordelia approached.

“Hey, Bren,” Cordelia spoke softly. “It’s me, Cordelia … Are you still in there, buddy?”

Eleanor peeked out from behind a molar, as Cordelia got even closer to their undead brother.

“Brendan, come on, I know you recognise me,” Cordelia said, now just a few feet away from him. “We don’t always get along … but it’s me, your sister, Cordelia. Can you say Cordelia?”

The corners of Brendan’s mouth slowly widened and his eyes glowed with life again, in what could have only been a sign of recognition. As Brendan’s lips parted further, it was clear to Cordelia that he was trying to smile! She reached out to help him up, and his smile grew even wider.

“It’s OK, Brendan,” Cordelia spoke softly, offering her hand for support. “I knew you could fight through it!”

CRUNCH!

Brendan’s teeth clamped down on to Cordelia’s hand before she even knew what was happening.

“Ouch! He bit me!” Cordelia shrieked.

Cordelia screamed as she looked at the gruesome bite wound on her hand. She wondered if she might faint just from seeing it.

Eleanor joined in with Cordelia’s screams until the colossus’s mouth sounded like a haunted house. Cordelia looked up from her throbbing hand to see Brendan slowly chewing on his own arm like he was munching on a chicken tender.

“Don’t eat yourself, you jerk!” Cordelia yelled, slapping Brendan across the face with her good hand.

Suddenly Jagger’s mouth shook violently, sending all three Walker children flying.

“What happened?” Cordelia asked as she stood up uneasily, still holding her injured hand.

Eleanor knocked twice on Fat Jagger’s lower lip. He understood the signal and opened his mouth just enough for Eleanor to peek outside.

“We made it out of the bay!” Eleanor shouted excitedly.

But her excited expression instantly turned to one of horror. Coming right at them were helicopters, police boats, SWAT trucks and patrol cars, all loaded to the brim with enough firepower to take out a whole family of Fat Jaggers.

Across the city of San Francisco, the residents feared that another Great Earthquake was upon them as the ground shook and rumbled. As cars rattled on their tyres and anti-theft security alarms blared. As windows shattered, causing sleeping children to scream out into the early morning fog. As the entire city pounded to a steady beat like it was sitting atop a huge bass drum at a Rolling Stones concert.

But it was no earthquake.

Rather, it was a huge colossus named Fat Jagger bounding across the city in long loping steps. Crushing mailboxes, trees and parked cars under his massive feet as he ran through streets.

Several helicopters were in close pursuit, including a small SFPD chopper and a dark green military helicopter manned by members of the US National Guard. A stream of large-calibre bullets ripped across the sky and tore into the giant’s back like a swarm of angry wasps.

A second later, a series of missiles erupted from the twin cannons mounted just below the whirring blades of the National Guard helicopter. They zipped across the faded pink sky and connected with the colossus. The colossus screamed in pain, his teeth gritted together to keep his mouth closed.

Inside Fat Jagger’s mouth, the Walker kids screamed as pinholes of light started to appear in his cheeks from the large-calibre machine-gun fire. Cordelia pushed Eleanor down on to Fat Jagger’s tongue, behind a row of molars, as blood pooled around their feet.

They peeked over the gumline and spotted their zombie brother. Not only had becoming a zombie robbed Brendan of his youthful looks, but also his sense of personal safety. He stumbled around Jagger’s tongue, right in the middle of the fire fight. Gunfire exploded all around him.

“We need to help Brendan!” Eleanor screamed over the deafening battle.

Cordelia was about to respond, but it was too late. The National Guard helicopter let loose another burst of high-calibre rounds, sending Brendan sprawling on to Fat Jagger’s tongue.

“Brendan, noooo!” Eleanor shrieked.

Cordelia quickly hugged Eleanor, shielding her eyes. Brendan’s body lay in the middle of Jagger’s tongue.

How could this have happened? Cordelia let her face fall into Eleanor’s shoulder; she was too shocked to even cry. Cordelia thought she might never be able to move again. But then the sound of a low groan caused her to lift her head quickly.

Brendan’s head rolled as if coming out of a very deep sleep. He slowly climbed to his feet to resume the search for a snack. He was much more interested in finding something to munch on.

“What?” Cordelia said.

She had just seen her only brother shot with enough force to stop an elephant, and now he was walking around like everything was fine.

“I told you! Zombies can only be stopped if their brains are destroyed,” Eleanor explained. “You should put down Pride and Prejudice and read The Zombie Survival Guide sometime!”

The two sisters wanted to run and hug their brother, but didn’t since it was likely that he would take a bite out of their faces if they tried.

Suddenly, Fat Jagger rocked violently to the right, sending the three Walkers sprawling once again. Every bullet, missile and rocket impact could be felt inside Jagger’s mouth and a gust of hot air rushed out of his lungs each time he winced in pain.

“I don’t think Jagger can last much longer,” Cordelia said, almost in tears. “We need to get to Kristoff House!”

They held on as Fat Jagger moaned in pain, which only made Eleanor sob more. Through her tears, she spotted Brendan fighting to keep his balance on the increasingly uneasy surface. Eleanor quickly bent down and unlaced her left shoe.

“Cordelia, I need a distraction,” she said as she began working on her right shoelace. “Get Brendan’s attention!”

Cordelia stood up and took a deep breath; her last encounter with Brendan hadn’t gone so well.

“Hey, Dawn of the Dork!” Cordelia yelled as she walked towards her zombified brother.

Brendan cocked his head in Cordelia’s direction. He shuffled towards what he hoped would be his next meal, stopping to groan after each uneasy step – until suddenly his legs wouldn’t move any more. He groaned again before toppling over, a shoelace tied around his ankles.

“Nice one, Nell!” Cordelia said.

Eleanor grabbed Brendan’s arms and tied his wrists together with her other shoelace, careful to avoid his snapping jaws. Even with the future of her family on the line, Eleanor’s confidence surged through her. It felt good to know that she could actually help save her siblings – especially with a plan that was all her own.

Once Brendan was tied up, the two girls dragged him to the back of Fat Jagger’s mouth and nestled him under the colossus’s gigantic tongue for safety. Eleanor almost giggled at the image of zombie Brendan tucked under a giant’s tongue like a pig in a blanket. But the reality of the situation quickly erased her smile.

“I hope your plan works once we get to Kristoff House, Eleanor, whatever it is,” Cordelia said. “There are three lives on the line now.”

“Who’s the third?” Eleanor asked.

“Me,” Cordelia said, holding up her wounded hand, already feeling a little woozy from the zombification process. “Brendan bit me. If my calculations are correct … I should start turning into a zombie in about twelve minutes.”

“How close are we?” Eleanor yelled, as Fat Jagger stumbled again.

He opened his mouth just enough for Cordelia and Eleanor to peek outside. They saw Kristoff House sitting atop Sea Cliff Avenue a few more bounding steps away.

More rockets collided with Fat Jagger’s back as he reached the house. He fell to his knees on the huge lawn next to Kristoff House, groaning in pain.

“Spit us into the attic, Fat Jagger!” Eleanor screamed, tears pouring down her face now.

She knew Fat Jagger was dying. Her only hope of saving him was if her plan worked. But the problem was, now that they were actually here, she was less convinced than ever that it actually would. It was a long shot, and she knew it.

Fat Jagger gently poked a hole into the peaked roof of Kristoff House with his massive index finger. He bent forward slightly and spat the contents of his mouth into the attic. Then he slumped backwards into a cross-legged sitting position like a small child getting ready for story time, exhausted and breathing heavily and barely able to keep his eyes open. But he had done it; he’d finally saved the Walkers.

Fat Jagger smiled triumphantly, breathed his last breath, and then slumped forward on to the driveway, his face crushing a police cruiser like it was made of paper.

The three Walker children and the Storm King spilled into the empty attic of Kristoff House, sloshing inside a tidal wave of warm and smelly Fat Jagger spit. They slid across the wooden floor like freshly caught fish being dumped on to a dock.

Eleanor climbed to her feet, slipped a few times, and then rushed over to the attic window. She watched in horror as Fat Jagger slumped over on to the driveway.

“He’s dead!” Eleanor screamed. “They killed Fat Jagger!”

Guilt and grief ripped into her heart, as she realised that his death was on her hands. She was the one who insisted that they summon Fat Jagger that night. It was her idea to bring him to the surface. He had been safe and sound inside the bay, and now he was dead, and it was all her fault.

Her plan was mostly forgotten now, washed away by an overwhelming sense of sorrow. Eleanor fell to her knees and sobbed, crying harder than she had since she was two years old.

She looked over at Cordelia for support, but saw that her sister was just as distraught by the death of their friend as she was. Brendan, on the other hand, seemed perfectly content.

He was chewing on a pigeon.

“Brendan, get that out of your mouth,” Cordelia commanded.

Zombie Brendan looked up, opened his mouth, and the pigeon escaped, flying away through the hole in the roof.

Eleanor probably would have stayed there crying, unable to move, right up until the moment the National Guard soldiers (who were currently breaking down the front door) rushed upstairs to find them. But her sister’s chilling scream brought Eleanor rushing back to reality.

Eleanor spun around to find herself face to face with the Storm King. Not a decomposing zombie version, but a very much alive Storm King. He rose up towards the ceiling, arms spread on either side of his body. His face was restored back to the ugly, sagging lump of grey that it had been on the day he died.

He grinned at her sickeningly. His teeth, yellow and crooked, gleamed in the morning sun that now streamed into the attic through the massive hole in the roof above him.

“Hello, my dear,” he said. “Brendan’s appearance certainly has changed. I actually prefer this new look. Ugliness creates fear in others. Fear creates power. My … shall we say, unique face has certainly opened many doors for me.”

Instead of screaming in terror the way Cordelia had, or even backing away from the monster in front of her, Eleanor, amazingly, smiled.

“It worked,” she said triumphantly. “My plan actually worked!”

Cordelia climbed to her feet, ready to tackle the Storm King before he could harm her sister. But now she stood there gaping at the smiling face of her younger sister. Of course! Cordelia wanted to kick herself for not thinking of it.

With the many rifts opening up between the book world and real world, some of the magic the Kristoff House possessed in the book world had crossed over. In the book world, skeletons brought into the attic came back to life. And the Storm King’s body had pretty much been nothing but a skeleton covered in scraps of withered flesh.

Eleanor was a genius!

“We need your help!” Cordelia said to the Storm King, as the sounds of National Guard troops breaking down the front door reverberated through the floors below them.

The Storm King spun around, his eyes wide.

“I know precisely what is going on,” he said, the usual menace in his voice surprisingly muted. “It’s my magic. Since my rather untimely death, it has weakened. My book world and the real world are colliding. I never should have created it to begin with – there were better places to hide that wretched Book of Doom and Desire. Perhaps back where we found it in the first place …”

“We don’t have time for this,” Cordelia pleaded. “We all make mistakes, we get it. But now how do we fix it?”

“Fat Jagger is dead,” Eleanor added, pointing across the attic. “Brendan’s a zombie and he bit Deal, so she’s about three minutes from joining him! Can we undo it all somehow? Please …”

Her plea came out as a whimper as her newfound confidence began to wane. After all, it was entirely conceivable that the Storm King would offer no answers. The death of Fat Jagger, Brendan’s new hunger for flesh, Cordelia’s eventual turning, all of the destruction Fat Jagger had accidentally caused trying to get them here … it was more than Eleanor could bear to think about.

“I can save them,” the Storm King said, almost as if reading her mind. “We can save all of them. We can seal off the two worlds from each other for ever, and undo all of the damage that’s been caused. There is a magical fail-safe that I created when I made the book world. I always leave a way out, a way to undo the effects of any spells or magical constructs. That’s the first rule of the Lorekeepers. No magic should ever be permanent.”

As he spoke, he floated over to Brendan’s body and easily hoisted him on to his shoulder, belying the appearance of his withered old frame. Draped across the Storm King’s shoulder, Brendan tried to gnaw at the old man’s back, his teeth clacking together viciously.

They heard the National Guard troops in the hallway below them, searching the rooms on the second floor of the house. It would only be a matter of minutes before they discovered the attic.

The Storm King carried Brendan over to the far side of the room, just past the folded-up attic stairs. He pressed his hand against the wall and muttered several words under his breath.

“In nomine Domini rex aperto tempestas.”

A section of the wall suddenly vanished, opening a doorway into the secret passages that existed within Kristoff House. The Storm King turned back to face Cordelia and Eleanor. His eyes blazed as if they were on fire, the intensity causing both of the Walker sisters to look away.

“Follow me,” he said and then disappeared inside the dark passageway with Brendan still slung over his shoulder.

Eleanor and Cordelia met each other’s stare before they cautiously followed the Storm King. As she entered the passageway, Cordelia looked down at her right arm. The skin up to her elbow was turning a pale shade of green and already decaying. A growing headache pulsated at the back of her skull, making it increasingly difficult to focus on anything.

She clearly didn’t have much longer.

The Storm King spoke quickly as he lead them through a maze of passageways lit by an eerie green glow.

“We don’t have much time,” he said. “If we don’t get to the chamber soon, you and your brother will spend the rest of eternity as undead monsters. We need to get you three back into my books as soon as possible.”

“Your books?” Cordelia said. “We have to go back?”

“Yes,” the Storm King hissed, as he sped up through the interminably endless stone passages.

“But why?”

“There are three enchanted items hidden inside the book world, items called Worldkeepers.”

“What are Worldkeepers?” Eleanor asked.

“Merely objects,” the Storm King said. “But objects that, when used together, act as a key between the two worlds. They must be retrieved and brought to my brother, Eugene, in Tinz. He can help you get them to the Door of Ways. If all three Worldkeepers pass through the Door of Ways at the exact same time, then they will act as a locking mechanism, permanently sealing off the worlds from each other.”

“Wait, did you say your brother Eugene?” Cordelia asked.

She never knew he had a brother. Surely he must be dead by now, in any case – only magic had kept Denver alive so much longer than he should have been.

“Yes, my brother has been in Tinz for decades now,” the Storm King said. “There isn’t time to explain further, but once you retrieve the Worldkeepers, you must bring them to Eugene. He will help you from there.”

“Why can’t you just come with us?” Eleanor asked.

“I can no longer go back,” he said. “The same forces that trapped Dahlia inside the book world are keeping me out. It almost certainly has something to do with my death. Now enough jibber-jabber, we need to move!”

Eleanor and Cordelia glanced at each other, but didn’t have time to question him further. They suddenly realised that they had entered a small chamber. Neither of them remembered going through any doorway, and the room appeared to be sealed off on all sides.

“How did we get in here?” Cordelia asked as she looked around the small room.

Denver Kristoff gave no response and uttered another low spell as several torches around the room ignited with flickering blue flames that almost looked like liquid. The chamber was the size of a large bedroom. Its walls seemed to be made of stone, in spite of supposedly existing within an old, wooden Victorian house. Bookshelves made of polished bone lined the walls, stacked two deep with old leather-bound tomes that looked far more ancient than Denver’s rotting face. A small desk sat along the centre wall, and this too was made of bones. But not just any bones, the entire desk appeared to have been constructed entirely from human skulls, the tops of dozens of craniums creating a surprisingly smooth surface.

“Eeewww,” Eleanor said, shuddering.

“So … grotesque,” Cordelia muttered.

“Not really,” the Storm King said. “These are the heads of my old fraternity brothers. It always brings a tear to my eye when I see the grinning skulls of Winston, Charles, Xavier … and of course Henry, with that endearing gap in his front teeth … Oh dear. Can’t get emotional. There’s work to be done!”

The Storm King flopped Brendan down on to the desk with surprisingly little care. Brendan groaned and gnashed his teeth.

“Be careful!” Cordelia said.

“He’s already dead, my girl! A few more bruises won’t do any harm – you can already see right through his torso!” the Storm King barked at her, his eyes still blazing.

Cordelia shrank back, not wanting to upset him further. Somehow this old, demented madman had become their only hope.

The Storm King grabbed the lower jaw of one of the skeletons that made up the desk. He pulled it down and a small drawer made entirely of mandibles slid open near the base of the desk.

“Take this,” the Storm King said, spinning around.

He handed Cordelia a thin book. It was the size of a small novel, but was bound in some sort of strange light brown leather that felt rough and brittle. It had a surprisingly unsettling texture that she couldn’t quite identify – but strongly suspected might be dried human skin. The cover of the book had a few words etched on to it by hand in a dark brown ink that looked suspiciously like dried blood: Denver Kristoff’s Journal of Magic and Technology.

“It’s all explained inside,” the Storm King said. “Every bit of my magic, every invention I created is documented within these pages. This will help you find the three Worldkeepers and bring them through the Door of Ways. It won’t be easy. But if you are successful, it will undo all the damage that has been inflicted here, today. Do you understand?”

Cordelia nodded. She was scared, nervous, and full of questions. Eleanor looked at Brendan’s dying body and nodded as well. She hated the idea of trusting the Storm King, but they had little choice at this point.

“You mustn’t let Dahlia get her hands on the Journal or the Worldkeepers,” the Storm King continued. “She will be there, lurking somewhere, full of tricks. She may not even appear as herself, so be extremely careful whom you trust. She doesn’t know where the Worldkeepers are, but no doubt she can sense their power and could use them for great harm. If she gets her hands on any of the three Worldkeepers first, all will be lost. So guard them, and the Journal, with your lives. And stay away from Dahlia.”

“Trust me, we don’t wanna go anywhere near that horrible creature,” Eleanor said.

Cordelia nodded. Brendan offered a few grunts and snapped his teeth with a low groan.

“Watch your tongue,” the Storm King snapped defensively. “She’s done many dreadful things, but she’s still my daughter, my own flesh and blood.”

“The old Dahlia is gone,” Cordelia countered. “All that’s left is the Wind Witch, the twisted, soulless monster that killed you and then laughed about it! How can you forget that?”

“You’re not a parent,” the Storm King said, tears forming at the corners of his saggy and yellow eyelids. “You can’t understand. Dahlia wasn’t always like this. She once was a gentle soul, so kind, so full of life. She loved nature and wildlife. At least once a month, she would come home carrying a pigeon or a robin, with a broken wing or foot, in the pocket of her favourite yellow dress. And she would nurse the poor creatures back to health. No matter how many times her mother told Dahlia to stop bringing home the birds, she never listened. Dahlia always did have a mind of her own, but she was generous and thoughtful; she always found and admired the beauty of this world – and the beauty in other living creatures.”

“Big deal!” Cordelia shouted. “That’s nothing compared to the pain and grief she’s caused so many people.”

“I know she’s become a monster,” the Storm King said. “But I believe that what was initially in her heart, in her soul, is still there somewhere. I know that little girl isn’t completely dead. But enough of this. I’m starting to sound like a sentimental old fool. And it’s time the three of you got back into the book world one last time.”

Cordelia exchanged a glance with Eleanor. They never thought they would have to go back there. The other two times, they had all barely escaped with their lives. And even the seemingly good things that happened in the book world only brought them more misery in their real lives. Going back was actually the last thing in the world either of them wanted to do – aside from maybe planting a kiss on the Storm King’s withered old mug.

But they both knew they had no choice now. And so they slowly nodded, Eleanor fighting tears at the reality of having to go back. Cordelia clenched her jaw and told herself that she would do anything, anything to save Brendan and Fat Jagger and the rest of her family.

The Storm King grinned at them as he recited a spell.

Suddenly the chamber was spinning. It was spinning so fast that Cordelia could no longer make out the skull desk or bone bookshelves. She couldn’t make out the faces of the Storm King or Eleanor, or Brendan’s body crumpled on the desk. She couldn’t see anything but the blurred streaks of blue flames and concrete walls.

Then it all faded away into darkness, and there were books all around her, books spinning with her, closing around her like some sort of coffin. They collided with her body and then stuck, as if coated in superglue.

More books piled on, emerging from the blackness around her. The books seemed to morph themselves into her skin, becoming a part of her.

Cordelia screamed out in pain, but no sounds came out. Sound didn’t exist any more, there were only books and pain and spinning in the dark. It was far worse than her two previous trips into Denver’s book world. It was excruciating. But she could not even scream as she no longer had a mouth.

He had tricked them! Cordelia was sure of it. They had just willingly followed the Storm King to their own deaths.

Just as this horrible realisation hit her, she was swallowed up completely by the darkness.

The first thing Cordelia became aware of was light – light so bright that it seemed to pour right through her closed eyelids. She covered her face with her hands … and then grinned.

“Check it out, Eleanor!” Cordelia yelled excitedly, finally opening her eyes. “My hand’s healed!”

They were still in the Kristoff House attic. Except the gaping hole in the ceiling was no longer there. Sunlight streamed in through the attic windows. It was quiet except for the chirping songs of several birds outside.

“Deal, we made it,” Eleanor said, rushing over to hug her older sister. Then she stopped short. “Where’s Bren?”

They both spun around and looked across the attic. In the corner, Brendan was still tied up and rolling around trying to free himself.

“Why am I tied up with shoelaces?” he asked, spitting out a few pigeon feathers. “And how did we get back to Kristoff House?”

Cordelia marched up to Brendan and pointed an angry finger in his face.

“First of all, I want an apology,” Cordelia commanded.

“For what?”

“You bit me!”

“Why would I do that?” Brendan asked.

“You became a zombie! Don’t you remember?”

“Actually, no, I don’t,” Brendan said, suddenly fascinated. “But that is so cool! Did my eyes get all white and weird? Did my skin turn green? Was I really scary? Did I growl a lot?”

“Who cares! You wanted to eat us!”

Brendan gagged.

“OK, that’s pretty gross,” he said.

Eleanor rushed over and gave her big brother a hug.

“I’m just happy you’re not green any more,” she said. “It was really disgusting.”

As Eleanor helped Brendan untie his feet, Cordelia explained what had happened after the zombie bite. When she told him about being shot three times in the chest by an attack helicopter, Brendan pumped his fist in the air.

“No way! People at school are going to freak when they hear about this,” Brendan said. “So where are we, anyway? Transylvania? A volcano? What awful book did we end up in this time?”

He didn’t wait for an answer, but instead ran to the nearest window to see for himself. Based on past experiences, he was nervous about what he would find. Seconds later, he spun around with a huge smile on his face.

“Guys, come check this out,” Brendan said. “We totally scored. There are no forests teeming with savage warriors, giant insects, battling colossi and bloodthirsty wolves; no Roman colosseums filled with lions and gladiators, nothing scary at all!”

Eleanor and Cordelia shared the same thought as they sprang to their feet and rushed over to the window: it was too good to be true!

But this time was totally different. As Cordelia and Eleanor peered outside, they both saw the same things: an open and vast prairie under a bright blue sky. The flat fields of grass and golden stalks of wild oats and weeds, spotted with patches of yellow and blue and purple wildflowers seemed to stretch out before them for ever. They’d never seen such a vast stretch of flat, grassy prairie before.

“Crazy, right?” Brendan said behind them. “I’m starting to wonder if Denver ever wrote a knockoff version of the Little House on the Prairie or something.”

Cordelia tore herself away from the window.

“Denver never wrote about anything remotely pleasant,” Cordelia said. “We’d better go downstairs and see what nasty things are lurking behind that beautiful landscape.”

“So, you’d better tell me what happened after I turned into a zombie,” Brendan said, leading the way back down the attic stairs. “Why are we back in the book world anyway?”

Cordelia remembered that Brendan had been out of commission during almost their entire ordeal. He didn’t know that the Storm King had come back to life, or about their mission to find the three Worldkeepers, or any of it. So she explained what had transpired while he was a zombie as they continued down towards the foyer of Kristoff House.

“But the Storm King said we could save Fat Jagger?” Brendan asked, as they arrived in the living room. “That by finding these Worldkeepers and bringing them through the Door of Ways … we would be able to undo all of the terrible havoc the book world caused to the real world? And, um, you know, also undo the zombie apocalypse that I accidentally started?”

“Yeah, that’s what he said,” Cordelia answered, sounding unsure. “Supposedly everything we need to know is in here.”

She held up Denver Kristoff’s Journal of Magic and Technology. Brendan reached out for it, but his sister pulled it back reflexively. She had already sort of assigned herself the role of official researcher and leader of the mission – she was the best at that stuff. That’s the way it normally played out, anyway, even for smaller things like simply ordering pizzas for them all when their parents were out of town. She always took charge, and they never seemed to mind.

Instead of protesting, Brendan sighed. “What makes you think we can trust the Storm King?” he asked warily. “That old sack of donkey poop hasn’t exactly been helpful ever before.”

“I don’t know that we can fully trust him,” Cordelia said. “But we didn’t have much choice. We still don’t, especially now that we’re back here.”

“He said we could save Fat Jagger!” Eleanor chimed in.

“I really don’t think Denver ever wanted the two worlds to coexist,” Cordelia added. “Why would he? It would only result in a lot of destruction, especially for his beloved characters, his creations.”

Brendan wasn’t really sure he fully believed that argument. But even if the Storm King was lying, being here seemed to be a lot better than back in that mess at the moment. He had technically died in the real world, after all.

“Well, let’s go outside and see where we are,” he said, taking a deep breath as he reached for the front door.

But just before his hand touched the knob, someone pounded the other side of the door so violently, it almost sounded like gunshots. Brendan flinched, his eyes wide.

“We know you’re in there!” a voice shouted from the front porch as a fist pounded on the door again. “Now come on out or we’re gonna start shooting!”

The three Walker children exchanged frightened glances, unsure of what to do.

“I knew it was too good to be true,” Cordelia muttered.

The sound of guns cocking just outside the front door pushed Cordelia into action. She crept forward and gently pulled back the curtain.

Standing on the front porch were three men wearing cowboy hats and shiny gold badges. Two of the men had flannel shirts and held Winchester rifles. The man in the centre wore a huge overcoat made of grey fur and held a Colt revolver with a smooth pearl handle in his right hand.

Cordelia turned back to Brendan.

“They look like lawmen, so I’m going to try to reason with them,” she whispered. “You take Nell and go hide in the kitchen pantry. Just in case.”

“No,” Brendan protested. “You take Nell. I’m good at talking my way out of things.”

“Those are cowboys out there,” Cordelia said. “From the Old West. The men from that era were full of machismo, which meant other men threatened them. But they had a soft spot for girls and treating them properly … like ladies. I might have a better chance with them.”

“But …” Brendan started, not feeling comfortable with his sister playing the hero while he hid like a coward. Where was the glory in that? But even more than that, he simply couldn’t stomach the thought of either of his sisters facing down armed gunmen alone.

“There’s no time to argue,” Cordelia cut him off. “Do it now!”

Brendan knew she was right. He grabbed Eleanor’s hand and they headed towards the kitchen pantry. He heard Cordelia yelling at their unknown assailants just as he closed the pantry door.

“I’m going to open the door,” she shouted. “Don’t shoot, I’m an unarmed lady!”

Cordelia slowly opened the front door and then took several steps back. The men stormed inside with their guns ready. The man in the fur coat pointed his revolver right at Cordelia’s face.

“Where is he?” he demanded.

“Who?” Cordelia asked, trying to keep her voice steady.

“The deadly outlaw that goes by the name Lefty Payne,” the man said.

“Lefty Payne?” Cordelia repeated. “Never heard of him.”

“He’s called Lefty on account of him only having one arm, the right one,” the man said. “But don’t let that fool you, he’s four times deadlier than most men are with two arms. He’s a wanted outlaw guilty of at least fourteen unprovoked homicides. And we know he’s hiding in here.”

Cordelia did her best to look indignant. Like she belonged in this house in the middle of the prairie.

“Well, I certainly hope you catch him,” she said. “But there’s nobody here but me. And besides, you have no right to just barge into my house like this!”

“I have no right?” he said as if he was the King of the Prairie. “Don’t you know who I am?”

“I’m afraid not,” Cordelia said.

“Sheriff Burton Abernathy,” the man said and then paused, as he pulled back his shoulders to make himself look more regal.

Cordelia’s face remained blank. Sheriff Abernathy grew visually agitated.

“Well?” he finally shouted at her. “You ain’t heard of me?”

Cordelia shook her head.

“They call me the Wolf Catcher,” Sheriff Abernathy said. “You must know me by that name! I’ve caught over one hundred and fifty wolves with my bare hands.”

“How do you catch wolves with your bare hands?” Cordelia asked, not able to help herself. When some crazy guy in a fur coat says he’s caught hundreds of wolves with his bare hands, further enquiry is required. It’s an inescapable, proven law of science, like gravity, or photosynthesis, or climate change, or evolution.

The Wolf Catcher held up his right hand, allowing the sleeve of his coat to slide down, revealing a muscular forearm covered in hundreds of cuts and streaking scars.

“By jamming this arm down their throats!” he said triumphantly. “It keeps them from biting me.”

“How … macabre,” Cordelia said, warily eyeing the old scars on the man’s arm.

Even though he said he was a sheriff, and had the badge to back up his story, she was getting the sense that he was not to be trusted.

Sheriff Abernathy looked around the house for the first time. The relatively modern furniture and artwork and fixtures seemed to unsettle him. The odd setting of the house only seemed to make him more suspicious and angry than he’d been when he first arrived. He shoved the gun towards Cordelia’s face again, practically jamming the barrel up her nostril.

“Mind if we look around some?” he asked.

“No, I want you out of here,” Cordelia said, surprised by her own defiance in the face of this seeming madman.

The sound of a low cough drifted out into the foyer from the kitchen. The three lawmen’s heads all snapped in that direction and then turned back towards Cordelia.

“I thought you said you was alone,” one of the deputies said.

“You mean, were alone, Deputy Sturgis,” Sheriff Abernathy corrected him.

“Yeah, whatever, she knows what I meant,” Deputy Sturgis said with a menacing grin.

“You know, little lady,” Sheriff Abernathy said to Cordelia. “Lying to an agent of the law is a felony offence. Punishable by death.”

Cordelia was fairly certain that could not be true. But at the same time, Old West law was vastly different from the modern law she learned about in civics class last year, in the sense that the local sheriffs of counties in territories that weren’t even states yet could virtually make up their own rules as they went along. There used to be judges known for that sort of thing in the Old West. Judges who acted as the sheriff, jury and executioner all at once.

“I didn’t lie,” Cordelia said, her voice shaking. “There’s nobody here but me.”

“You’re lying again,” Sheriff Abernathy said with a nasty grin. “That’s two offences now. Which means we get to carry out your death sentence immediately and with extreme prejudice. Men, take aim. Fire on my command.”

“We ain’t even gonna arrest her?” one of the deputies asked.

“No, Deputy McCoy,” Sheriff Abernathy replied, “we are not going to arrest her. There’s no time, we need to keep looking for Lefty Payne or else he’ll get away again. Plus, arresting folks creates paperwork, and you know how much I hate paperwork. Now, reload your rifles if you need to. We’ll fire on three.”

All three lawmen raised their weapons and took aim at Cordelia. She couldn’t believe it had devolved to this so quickly. She could only hope Eleanor and Brendan were busy making their getaway.

“One,” Sheriff Abernathy started. “Two …”

“Hold up a sec,” Deputy McCoy blurted out as he lowered his gun. “Shootin’ an unarmed man is one thing, but shooting an unarmed female? Well, that just seems downright unhonourable. Plus, I’d be feeling mighty guilty about it for the rest of my days. Now, Sturgis and me is the same rank, why do I got to shoot this here little girl?”

“He makes a right good point,” Deputy Sturgis said. “I don’t want to shoot her neither …”

“Either,” corrected the sheriff.

“She reminds me of my own little girl,” Sturgis said. “But one of us has to do the dirty deed, since the law is the law and all, and she done broke the law. Maybe we should vote on it?”

“That’s a mighty swell idea!” Deputy McCoy said. “’Cause, you know, there’s three of us, so we know it won’t end in a gridlock tie or whatnot.”

“We’re not voting!” Sheriff Abernathy screamed, silencing them both. “It doesn’t matter! I’ll just do it myself!”

He raised his Colt and pointed it at Cordelia again. He pulled back the hammer. This time there would be no countdown. Cordelia closed her eyes and hoped it would go quickly.

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