The Curse of Greg Read online

  Edwin put his hands over his face and rubbed his eyes. Then he sighed.

  “There’s no guarantee I can ever let you out of here, Greg,” he finally said. “I mean I hope it will get to that, but I can’t take that chance just yet. Not until I’ve succeeded. And that’s not a sure thing. But I guess I will tell you more, anyway, because I do want to call you my friend again. And I want you to trust me again.

  “As I’m sure you’re already aware, when my parents were killed the Elven kingdom fractured. Many of my father’s top-ranking advisers across the globe made plays for power. And among the Elves who felt I was too young, too sympathetic to Dwarves to take over my rightful position as heir, there was a split. In fact there were lots of splits over lots of things. But the point is, it created chaos and infighting and a lot of smaller groups with no real power. Especially not while they fought among themselves.

  “Luckily, many Elves remained loyal to our code and followed me regardless of my youth. It was a small group at first, but it has steadily grown in the last few months. But as you would expect, so, too, did the other factions finally fight it out and come to some sort of resolution. One particular group emerged as the most powerful, absorbing all the rest, who still opposed me as Elf Lord. That faction is a strengthened version of the same rogue, radical nationalist group I suspected took your father all those months ago: Verumque Genus.”

  “Who’s leading them?” I asked.

  Edwin shook his head.

  “I’m not sure,” he said. “I’m guessing one of my father’s old confidants. I have a few candidates in mind, but it would help if I could figure out who among my trusted advisers is feeding them information.”

  “For a time, I thought it was you leading that group, to be honest,” I said.

  “What?” he asked. “Why? And how did you even know about them?”

  “Well, I didn’t know much about them,” I admitted. “Until I befriended your parents’ former Rock Troll slave, Kurzol, whose real name is Stoney, by the way. After your parents, well, you know . . . um, one of their loyal followers took Stoney to New Orleans. While imprisoned there, he heard some rumors. About the new Elven faction planning something terrible and devastating that would lead to universal annihilation, as he put it. And he also heard that their leader was a kid. So, while I didn’t want to believe you’d plan something so terrible, I thought it seemed possible, given your state of mind the last time I saw you . . .”

  Edwin shrugged, showing me that he didn’t take offense.

  “That’s interesting,” he said. “I never considered that their leader might be young like me. I wonder if it might be a former PEE student? Well, either way, your Rock Troll was definitely right about one thing: What they’re planning is really troublesome. And it definitely would lead to global destruction.”

  “So you know what it is?”

  Edwin nodded slowly, like he sort of wished he were blissfully ignorant instead.

  “They want to amass an army of monsters and basically use them take over the world,” he said. “Violently. They want to ensure that they stay at the top of the socioeconomic food chain, so to speak. And in a New Magical Age, they see a monster army as the easiest way to do that. That’s who my squad was fighting in the cemetery. And also why the Verumque Genus were trying to capture the Moonwraith, rather than exile it back to the afterlife permanently. My small team showed up to stop them and your party’s presence was . . . well, unexpected. It complicated things. In the closing moments of the battle, my people found you unconscious and brought you back here.”

  “Who won the battle?” I asked, again thinking of my friends and what might have happened.

  “They did,” Edwin said. “At least in the sense that they got the Moonwraith and got away. Though we didn’t suffer many casualties, we ultimately weren’t able to stop them from getting what they came for. Which is why it’s more imperative than ever for me to find my traitor. I must banish magic once again before the Verumque Genus succeeds. Before their army of monsters is so large that nobody will be able to stop them. I want to use magic to keep peace, Greg. They want to use it to dominate.”

  “There’s no other way to stop them?”

  Edwin shook his head.

  “Not one that doesn’t involve a massive war on a scale much larger than World War Two. Which is why I’ve been saying this all along: I need to succeed in stripping the world of magic or it will be the end of everything as we know it. But first I have to find out who has been leaking information.”

  We sat there and let his statement of doom sink in for a few seconds. My mind drifted back to New Orleans. I had a nagging feeling in the back of my mind that I was missing something.

  “So . . . you never had any alliances at all with the Elves in New Orleans?” I asked.

  “No, not at all,” Edwin said. “We didn’t even know they were there until recently—shortly before the battle in the cemetery. An Elven prisoner of theirs escaped and came to us with the information.”

  I nodded and figured he must have escaped when Stoney had since he’d told me they’d all broken out together. It almost made me wonder if it was the same Elf that Stoney claimed had been poisoned with the same substance as my dad. A substance I now knew was . . .

  My heart suddenly slammed into my chest and my eyes went wide.

  “Greg?” Edwin asked, alarmed. “What’s wrong? Are you okay?”

  “Edwin, I know who your mole is,” I said.

  His concern changed to confusion and then finally a look of annoyed skepticism.

  “How could you possibly?”

  “The substance that poisoned my dad was a variation of an ancient Elven Separate Earth potion called Shawara Marar Yarda,” I said. “It was brewed personally for your dad. Only he and the brewer ever possessed any.”

  “So?”

  “So,” I said. “If I obtained the batch given to your dad, then that only leaves the batch the person who brewed it had.”

  Edwin shook his head in frustration.

  “Greg, I still don’t see at all what this has to do with my mole.”

  “The only reason I went to New Orleans in the first place was to find out what happened to my dad and how to fix him,” I said. “Stoney told me a fellow captive in New Orleans was drugged with the same toxin as my dad. Which, as we know, only one person other than your father ever possessed.”

  “How do you even know all this?”

  “Because that one person, the person who made the poison, told me all of this, here, at Alcatraz,” I said. “Dr. Yelwarin.”

  Edwin’s eyes went wide for a moment, but then he shook his head.

  “No way,” he said. “She’s been too vital to my efforts so far. She wouldn’t—”

  “Well, why wouldn’t she help when she knows she’s got the upper hand to stop it all in the end?” I suggested. “It’s the only possibility, unless Stoney was wrong . . .”

  “Well, you are trusting the word of a Rock Troll, Greg,” Edwin said.

  “Yeah, I am,” I said. “Have you ever met a Rock Troll?”

  Edwin tilted his head to the side and grinned, knowing I was about to win this argument.

  “No.”

  “That’s what I thought,” I said. “So how can you just assume they can’t be trusted? Or that they’re unreliable? Just taking your old Elven books’ word for it?”

  Edwin shrugged, still grinning—though it was far from good-humored. It was more resigned and bitter than anything else.

  “Well, Stoney is my friend, Edwin,” I said. “And I trust him. Dwarves don’t trust others lightly, due to the standards of integrity we try to uphold among ourselves. You know that. But I trust Stoney. And so if what you said the other day was true, that you still trust me, then you have to believe me.”

  Edwin sat there for what felt like forever, but was perh
aps mere seconds. His icy blue eyes bore into my own and then he finally nodded.

  “It seems I need to go find my good doctor,” he said, standing quickly. “Right away.”

  CHAPTER 37

  Greggdroule Stormbelly: Master of Lightning

  The dreadfully familiar sounds of battle woke me the next morning.

  Not just any battle, but an earth-shattering conflict that involved swords clanging off swords, terrible screams, howls from unknown creatures, and the unmistakable sizzling and flashing lights of magical energy from Elven spells.*

  It sounded like the world was ending.

  And it grew even louder when a huge Ogre smashed into the prison wall across from my cell, blowing open a hole in the building large enough to drive a car through. Beyond it, I saw a terrible, strangely beautiful sight.

  The sky was dark with rain clouds and lightning flashed, illuminating raindrops like falling gems. There were creatures of all sorts beyond the crumbling wall, rushing past, battling with Elves. Yellow and red and green bursts of energy from Elven spells lit up the foreground. Screams and the ringing sound of swords filled the air as Elves fought other Elves. Hundreds of flying creatures blanketed the sky, and only during a lightning strike could I see what they were: scores of Harpies and Wyverns. In the frantic, glowing torrents of lightning and Elven magic, I also saw among the chaos Goblins, Orcs, Ghouls, Ifrits, and an array of other monsters I didn’t recognize.

  I knew right then it was the Verumque Genus (otherwise known as the VG) and their army of monsters.

  I instantly knew they were there to destroy Edwin before he could take away their magic (and in the process their entire legion of enchanted beings). But a dark shape filled my vision before I saw anything more. I took a step back from the bars of my cell door.

  It was the Ogre that had crashed through the wall.

  He licked his thick lips hungrily and grinned down at me, saliva pooling at his feet in a steaming pile of slime. Ogres looked like something between a Forest Troll, an Orc, and a really ugly Human being. This particular guy was easily ten feet tall, had shaggy black hair tangled with dried blood and bits of flesh from its last meal (probably some hapless Human). He had a huge belly covered in a smock made from an array of animal hides, and his equally flabby limbs flopped about as he ripped apart the iron bars separating him from his next snack: me.

  I backed into the corner of the cell.

  “Let’s talk about this,” I said, for some reason thinking that maybe all this time around Elves had made me a more charming, persuasive person. “At least get to know me before eating me. It will make the meal a whole lot more satisfying, I’m sure. Ever hear of naming your food? I had an uncle once who named all his steers, even the ones he’d eventually be making into grilled steaks.”

  The Ogre laughed, his belly shaking up and down. Then he lunged forward with his right hand. It fell just short of me as his head crashed into the ceiling of the cell. Concrete crumbled around him. But he recovered quickly, and now having caved in part of the entrance, there was nothing in his way.

  He stood back up and grinned, goopy saliva still oozing onto the floor.

  That’s when I felt it.

  I wasn’t sure if I was standing in a magical hot zone or if this was finally it: magic coming back in full force. But either way I could feel Galdervatn coursing through me. The more magic I’d performed over the last few months, the easier it was to tell when it was present, when I actually had the means to cast a spell. It felt sort of like confidence in a way, but you could tell the difference because having the essence of magic was a lot less logical. Like, confidence only went so far. Confidence alone couldn’t convince you to try to leap across the Grand Canyon. But with magic, the confidence you felt had no limits. It truly felt like you could do anything, no matter how crazy or illogical or dangerous it would normally have sounded.

  The Ogre lifted a fist and swung it down as if to crush me like a bug. But just as his hand descended, I summoned a spell I didn’t even know I was capable of: a bolt of lightning zoomed in through the hole in the prison walls and connected with the back of the Ogre’s head with a crack so loud it sounded like an Australian buloke tree being snapped in half.

  He fell forward, hair ablaze, crackling and snapping from the collected congealed animal fats in its tangles.

  I managed to dive out of the way as he crashed into my toilet and smashed it into a thousand pieces. Water sprayed from the broken, exposed pipes and promptly put out his flaming hair. It sizzled and smoked as the Ogre lay motionless.

  I ran out of the cell and over to the ragged hole in the prison wall. The battle still raged outside. Bodies littered the concrete walkway and I didn’t look long enough (nor did I want to) to see who or what any of them belonged to. Instead, I crouched back inside the cellblock and debated my options:

  I could use this as my chance to escape. Find a way back to Chicago and inform the Council of everything that was happening (or about to happen).

  I could stay and join the battle and try to help Edwin defeat the VG and their ghastly army of creatures.

  I could curl up into a ball and whimper in fear until the whole thing was over.

  As appealing as option three sounded, I eliminated it immediately. Part of me definitely wanted to flee, to save myself, to use this as my chance to escape. But at the same time, the other part of me felt like Edwin and I were almost friends again. At the very least we weren’t sworn enemies anymore. But even beyond that I’d met a lot of genuinely nice Elves working at Alcatraz, Elves who were now in danger. And last, and maybe most important of all: Regardless of what I thought of Edwin’s plan to save the world, there was no denying it was probably better than what the VG Elves had in mind. So stopping them seemed like the most important objective at the immediate moment.

  It was settled: option 2.

  I would stay and help Edwin.

  Even if it likely meant one of these two outcomes:

  We won and I would go right back to being a prisoner.

  We lost and I would be killed in action.

  CHAPTER 38

  An Old Friend Goes Orc Bowling

  My first problem, as I dashed outside to join the battle, was that I did not have a weapon.

  My second problem, just seconds after running out into the rain, was that I was already surrounded by seven angry green Orcs armed with nasty-looking curved swords as thick as cars, battle-axes stained with blood and covered in cracks and chips (likely from chopping so many bones), and wicked clubs with sharpened animal tusks sticking out from the ends.

  Orcs were larger than Humans, but only slightly taller (most were around seven feet tall). But they were a lot thicker—built like hairless gorillas on steroids. Their skin was all different shades of splotchy green and covered in moles. They had gaping mouths that never seemed to close and sported teeth like huge dogs. And they started hacking right away, without even giving me time to assess or plan or reason with them.

  I managed to dodge the first blow.

  Simultaneously, I summoned some magical vines that pulled one of the Orcs off the ledge of the walkway and down into the bay below. But three of the other Orcs’ weapons connected, my body turning to stone just a fraction of a second before impact. But unlike all the other times I’d used that defensive stone spell, which had been relatively painless, this time the blows actually still hurt.

  Their swords clanged off my rock exterior, but rattled my teeth and sent me sprawling, dazed and wondering if they had managed to chop off a limb even though it had been stone. I looked around, my back and arm throbbing. I was still in one piece but already three other Orcs were swinging two huge axes and one massive spike-covered club down toward my head.

  I knew this was it—I didn’t have the energy for another spell. I could feel that much already. And even if I did, it wouldn�
�t be enough. Dwarven magic alone apparently had its limits in combat with orcs. But just before the weapons hit and darkness came, a boulder nearly the size of a small house came flying in out of nowhere and obliterated all three Orcs like they were bowling pins. The boulder rolled off the ledge into the bay, leaving a smear of green blood and Orc parts behind it.

  It wasn’t until the three remaining Orcs were being slammed violently into the wall by a rocky shoulder attached to a massive, charging blur of gray that I realized who had saved me.

  “Stoney!” I shouted.

  “STONEY GUARDIAN GREG!” the huge Rock Troll bellowed as he easily flung one of the Orcs over his shoulder hundreds of feet into the air, like he was throwing away a piece of trash.

  Then in a flash, my other friends were at my side. All of them: Ari, Lake, Eagan, Glam, and Froggy. And all four of the Dwarves I’d met in New Orleans were there as well: Giggles, Yoley, Tiki, and Boozy.

  Ari threw her arms around me and it was probably the best hug I’d ever gotten.

  “You guys are okay!” I said, my throat choking up as I struggled to keep from breaking the Universal Dwarven Rule: Dwarves never cry.

  “We’re sorry we waited so long,” Ari said, ignoring the rule as tears flowed down her cheeks.

  “Come on, this way,” Eagan said, leading us back inside the relatively quiet prison walls, away from the action.

  The larger battle itself seemed, for now, to be relegated mostly to the exterior prison grounds. Which is likely what the VG wanted, with so many of their army either able to fly or too large to be effective in the cramped hallways of the prison.