menaced by slavering dogs. He’d been scared out of his mind while running from the beasts through the Undertown. Nurse Rita hadn’t had the benefit of even a day to get used to the bizarre creatures she was facing but somehow she found the courage to defy Orcadia.
“I’m not permitted to release patient information,” she managed to rasp. “Leave here at once. The police have been notified.”
Orcadia crowed with laughter. “The police have been notified? Oh, my! I’m sooooo terrified.” She laughed again. “You have no idea how little I care about the police!” She ceased laughing and raised her fist over her head. Her fingers flickered with sparkling flame and she hissed, “I’ll ask you one last time: I know a boy came here. Who did he come to see and where is he now?”
“Right here!” Brendan announced, stepping out of the hallway. “It’s me you want. Let her go.”
Orcadia’s head snapped around at the sound of Brendan’s voice. She smiled. “Ah. Here he is at last.”
“Let her go, Orcadia,” Brendan said evenly, though inside he was a jelly of fear. He had trouble keeping his knees from knocking together.
“Of course.” Orcadia smiled. She stabbed her finger into Nurse Rita’s neck. There was a crackle of discharged energy. Nurse Rita went rigid for an instant then limp as a rag doll in Orcadia’s grip. Orcadia tossed the nurse aside, and the unconscious woman slid across the floor, through the door into Finbar’s vacated room. Brendan took a quick look and was relieved to see the rise and fall of the nurse’s chest. She was alive, at least.
Orcadia turned to fix Brendan with her seething frigid blue eyes. She smiled as she said, “So, you’ve decided to surrender at last. It’s for the best.” She walked toward Brendan, her arms wide in a parody of loving invitation. “Come give your auntie a hug, Breandan. I won’t bite.”
Brendan stood still, watching her approach. The Kobolds trotted tamely at her heels. They grinned at him, revealing rows of vicious teeth.
Brendan’s mind was racing. He looked frantically around for any way out. The door to Finbar’s room gaped open, but there was no way out save the window. He couldn’t fly. Well, at least I don’t think I can, he thought miserably. How would I know?
Orcadia stopped in front of him and wrapped her arms around him. The sensation was like being wrapped in a live power line. Brendan could feel the hum of energy coursing through her, and the smell of her hair was the metallic tang of rain on pavement.
“Dear boy,” she whispered in his ear. “You needn’t be so afraid of me. I am here to show you your true potential.” She pulled away and looked into his eyes. “My brother would want me to take care of you, to bring you into your powers. He can’t be here.” She smiled, and Brendan suddenly felt that he could believe her, almost. He felt some power working on his resistance. Some part of him knew it was a trick but he was unable to resist her.
Maybe she does just want what’s best for me. Maybe all those others are wrong. “But Mr. Greenleaf and Ariel and Kim… Ki-Mata. They say you want to hurt the Humans. My parents are Human. I don’t want them to suffer.”
“Oh, aren’t you a dear.” She ruffled his hair. Static crackled from her fingertips. “The Humans took everything from us. They have to pay. But here, if you really like these parents of yours”-her distaste for the word was obvious-”we’ll spare them. You can keep them as pets. Won’t that be nice?” She smiled sweetly.
Brendan felt anger welling inside him. Who was this creature to refer to his mother and father as pets? There was no way he would ever submit to her. “I’m afraid I’m going to have to refuse,” he said through gritted teeth.
Orcadia’s eyes narrowed to slits. She drew her lips back to reveal her even white teeth in a grimace of rage. The Kobolds whimpered and cowered away.
“All right. I’m through trying to convince you. You had your chance,” Orcadia hissed. “Now, you will die!”
And that was when Dmitri smacked her with the fire extinguisher.
Orcadia staggered and fell over. Brendan gave his head a shake and surged to his feet. That’s when he saw Dmitri.
“A fire extinguisher?” Brendan asked.
“It’s all I could find!” Dmitri explained.
“I told you to get out of here!” Brendan shouted angrily.
“You’re welcome!” Dmitri snapped back. “I just saved your ham.”
“Bacon,” Brendan laughed, on the verge of hysteria. “Saved my bacon!”
“Whatever.” Dmitri shrugged. “I knew it was a pork product.” Then his eyes went wide and he raised the nozzle of the fire extinguisher. Brendan dropped out of the way as the Kobolds leapt at Dmitri. The small boy triggered the extinguisher, and frigid, pressurized foam gushed into the beasts’ faces. Their hungry snarls became canine yelps of pain as they fell to the ground, rubbing their stinging muzzles on the floor to scrape away the chemical coating.
“Nice one,” Brendan said, looking at Dmitri’s handiwork. His joy was cut short when he felt Orcadia’s hand clamp around his ankle like a vise. He looked down at her face, twisted with rage, snarling up at him.
Dmitri fired off another blast of foam directly into her face.
“Arrrrrrrrgh!” she shrieked. “It burns!” She let go of Brendan, and he danced free, pulling Dmitri out of reach with him. Orcadia, blinded, raised her hands and shouted, “I’ll kill you!” Her hands ignited in showers of crackling blue sparks as she fired bolts of electricity randomly into the air. The bolts struck the ceiling tiles, igniting them.
She spun around, flailing bolts of power at the walls and the floor, trying blindly to strike at Brendan and Dmitri.
Brendan wanted to dash down the hall to join Harold and Finbar on the stairs, but Orcadia was standing squarely in the way. The elevators were blocked off, too. A bolt sizzled an inch above their heads.
Brendan grabbed Dmitri by the sleeve. “We’ve got to get out of range.” He pulled his friend through the door of Finbar’s room. Orcadia swung toward the sound of his voice and fired a blast of energy at the exact spot he had been a split second before. Brendan slammed the door shut.
Dmitri fumbled at the doorknob. “There isn’t any lock!”
“Quick! Help me move this!” Brendan ran to the bed and heaved against it. Luckily, it was on rollers so it moved easily. Dmitri helped guide it across the floor until it rested against the door. “The brakes,” Brendan shouted. They went from corner to corner kicking at the wheels until all the brakes were down.
“That should hold them for a second or two,” Brendan said. He looked down and saw Nurse Rita lying on the floor. “Help me.”
He and Dmitri hauled the nurse between them and propped her inside the wardrobe, closing the door. “Maybe they won’t notice her when they come for us,” Brendan explained. A snarl and crash that rattled the door in its frame made them both jump.
“I wouldn’t count on it,” Dmitri squeaked. “Now what?”
Brendan didn’t know what to say. They were seventeen floors off the ground. He ran to the window and pushed it open. He looked straight down to the concrete forecourt of the hospital. There was no convenient balcony to land on only a floor below as there would have been if this were a story in a book or a Hollywood movie. The door rattled again. Then it began to rain indoors. A heavy downpour began to fall from the ceiling. Brendan couldn’t believe it. “Can she make it rain as well as control lightning?” he cried.
The truth was much more mundane. Orcadia’s indiscriminate blasts had set off the sprinkler system. The water poured down onto her and the hounds. The Kobolds snarled and yelped in the downpour. They didn’t enjoy being wet.
This served to enrage Orcadia further. She fired two crackling blasts of electricity into the floor. 79 The consequences for Orcadia were negligible. She was naturally immune to the effects of her own powers. The Kobolds, however, were not.
Standing in the water pooling on the linoleum tiles of the ward, the Kobolds did a bizarre dance as many thousands of volts coursed through them. Though they were magical beings of more than an earthly nature, they were not able to survive electrocution. After one final yelping whine, they fell in a steaming heap on the floor, stunned, their furry coats smouldering in the artificial rain.
Brendan and Dmitri, listening on the other side of the door, didn’t know what was happening out in the hallway.
“That sounded painful,” Dmitri said in the sudden silence.
