But that meant the horror was almost to them too.
I saw the moment they realized they wouldn’t be able to control it.
Their faces shifted from unconcerned curiosity to fear. And then, with the monster’s proximity, their expressions changed to horror.
“Primus!” Last sobbed, reaching out a hand.
The Clark spoke, and Primus gave a sharp jerk of his head. He held out his hand for his sister. Last jumped toward the tunnel’s opening. The horror had surrounded us. Its jaws were closing around us, and the larvae were swarming.
Primus watched the horror reach out. He looked at his sister and at Luvic and me behind her. Then he twisted the hand he was holding out to Last.
He conjured a thick stone wall, locking us inside the tunnel with the monster.
Last slammed against the wall, and then the ground opened up beneath us.
I screamed. My stomach plummeted, and I rolled through the air. I hit Luvic. Last kicked me as she somersaulted. Then we hit the dirt floor in a jumble of limbs. My head slammed against the ground, and my teeth rattled. The wind flew from my lungs, and they seized from the force of the fall.
Primus hadn’t saved us.
He’d made us the sacrifice that’d stall the horror long enough for them to escape.
The monster could’ve seeped around his stone wall, but he’d also thrown us into his conjured pit. It was twenty feet deep, narrow, and as dark as the stomach of a monster.
The rock moaned as the horror tested the walls and then slid down the hole toward us.
“He’s killed us,” Last said, her voice laced with fear. “Primus . . . he . . .”
A jackaltooth snarl ripped through the hole. “How do we kill it?” Luvic asked.
“I don’t know.” I shook my head even though no one could see me.
“How do we trap it? How was it locked up before?”
“It took . . . it took a principal, his six heirs, all their sons and daughters,” Last whispered. “He’s killed us. He’s?—”
I closed my eyes. Found the calm, brightly lit center of my locked heart. Think. Think.
The horror crept around us. A fetid, anticipatory stench filled the hole. It savored our fear. It was a monster with its mouth wide-open, enjoying the moment before its teeth crunched down on its juicy, squirming, terrified prey.
Its jaws snapped.
“Conjure a bed!” I screamed.
No one moved.
“Conjure a bed!”
Luvic twisted his hand. A twin bed appeared before us, lit by a night-light.
I knocked three times on the stone ground and shouted, “Good night, sleep tight, time for me to give a fright!”
The stone floor under the bed opened. I grabbed Luvic and Last’s hands and dove headfirst into the abyss, right as the horror’s black jaws snapped closed.
84
Luvic crouched in the monster under the bed’s tunnel, sniffing the musty, old-mattress air. His eyes glowed an eerie orange, reflecting the marrow-white and red tunnel walls. He cocked his head and listened to the low, sloshing hum of the spongy walls. Above our heads floated the underside of Luvic’s conjured bed.
I stared at the opening, waiting for the horror to slip beneath the bed, but it didn’t come. Maybe the stone floor was closed to it. That meant it was still in the Clarks’ catacombs. Or it had already escaped into the city.
