nearby shopping centre. Something was inside.
Something bad.
“Don’t,” his mother pleaded.
“I have to,” Charlie replied and, without another word, he ran out of the restaurant and towards the monsters in the mall.
CHAPTER TWO MONSTER IN THE MALL
Screaming customers flooded from the entrance in waves, and pushing through them was like trying to break through heavy surf. Somehow Charlie managed. Once inside, he tried to distance himself from the cries of the panicked people to figure out the cause of their terror. His first clue came from a woman just outside a clothes shop. People streamed past her - mothers clutching children, elderly people hopping along on sticks - but for some reason this woman wasn’t moving.
That’s strange, Charlie thought. And then he realised why.
She was covered, from the neck down, in a clear, gummy mass that completely immobilised her, anchoring her to the floor. Charlie glanced around and saw that she wasn’t the only one encased in the gluey mess. A security guard in the food court on the second storey was trapped against the cash register of a Chinese restaurant and two children in the play area were stuck to a giant foam ladybird.
Only one monster does that, Charlie thought. And then he saw it.
A Ravenous Sticky-Spitter.
The large, lizard-like creature clung to the outside of a glass elevator that was making its way back to the first floor. The beast was incredibly hard to spot - Sticky-Spitters had terrific camouflage; the pigment in their skin mirrored their surroundings so perfectly that most people could only see them when they moved. Charlie didn’t think he’d ever come into contact with a Sticky-Spitter before, but that didn’t mean he hadn’t. Before his training at the Nightmare Academy, one could have been sleeping right next to him without him ever seeing it.
As the elevator landed on the first floor, the Sticky-Spitter opened its wide mouth and spat out a large wad of glistening goop that shot through the air and snagged a fleeing shoe-shop assistant.
At least his face isn’t covered, Charlie thought, before remembering that Ravenous Sticky-Spitters (or RSSs) preferred to swallow their food alive, so they carefully aimed their spit to immobilise prey, not suffocate it.
With his rapier glowing fiercely blue, Charlie rushed towards the RSS, intent on putting an end to its attacks before feeding time could begin. But as fast as Charlie was, he wasn’t faster than the gluey phlegm that the RSS hurled his way, sticking him to the floor like a fly to flypaper. His arms were pinned to his sides and his face was spattered with flecks of glistening spittle - they had the sour smell of a burp that had been fermenting inside a belly for far too long.
OK, Charlie thought calmly, if I can’t Banish it, I’ll just Nethermance it away.
As one of only three people in existence who could both Banish and Nethermance (although not at the same time), Charlie had options available to him that most people with the Gift could only dream of. He had just begun to open a portal beneath the creature when several Netherstalkers suddenly burst through the air shaft in the ceiling above him, quickly descending on long strands of spider-silk. The double eyestalks that waved on their heads told him they were only Class-2 creatures, which wouldn’t normally present a problem - but this situation was far from normal.
Normally, Charlie wasn’t trapped in a glob of Sticky-Spitter phlegm.
How am I going to get out of this one? he wondered as their large, spidery bodies arrowed down towards him, sharp fangs snapping.
Just before the first of the Netherstalkers pounced on his head, Charlie noticed his father running out of a sports shop, wielding a large baseball bat.
“Get away from my boy!” the tall man shouted. With one mighty swing, he knocked the nearest Netherstalker away. It made a crunching sound, like a snail being crushed underfoot, then swung wildly into the air, still tethered to the thick silken line that spun out of its abdomen.
“Thanks, Dad!” Charlie shouted.
“No time to talk, son,” Barrington replied as he swung at another of the descending creatures. Again there was that peculiar crunching sound and the Netherstalker soared away with a squeal. “You may have noticed,” Barrington continued, eyeing another of the approaching beasts, “that I’ve chosen to use a baseball bat made of wood. Why not aluminum, you ask? Because aluminum doesn’t compare to the feel of a solid length of northern white ash, that’s why.”
He shot Charlie a friendly wink just as the hairy bristles on the leg of another Netherstalker landed on Charlie’s shoulder. Barrington prepared to swing as Olga rushed up with a can of insect spray.
“Get off him, you filthy bug!” she yelled, spraying the creature right in its waving eyestalks. The Netherstalker shrieked and crashed to the slippery floor.
“Olga Benjamin!” Barrington roared. “Excellent work! Where did you get the bug spray?”
“The chemist’s,” she replied. “Best thing to get rid of bugs, don’t you think?”
Barrington smiled fondly. “My girl…”
The two of them went to work dispatching the rest of the Netherstalkers so that Charlie could go after the Ravenous Sticky-Spitter, which was now moving rapidly towards them. Because its skin was camouflaged so perfectly against the wall of the mall, Charlie had trouble judging exactly how far away it really was.
If he opened a portal behind it, there wouldn’t be enough time to open another and the monster would get them and eat them. If he opened a portal too far in front of it, the monster would have time to swerve around the trap and still get them and eat them. But if he opened the portal just right, directly beneath the rampaging creature, then maybe—
Purple fire blazed across Charlie as a wide portal snapped open right below the fearsome beast. The RSS let out a wail of surprise and then plummeted through the portal and into the Nether, tumbling wildly through the air before crashing into the icy waters of the 4th Ring, where it was consumed by a passing Hydra. Charlie quickly closed the portal and was pleasantly surprised to discover that the purple flame on his body had melted the thick gum of the Sticky-Spitter, freeing him. With a couple swipes of his rapier, he killed the few remaining Netherstalkers, then turned to his parents with a smile.
“You two are…you’re Leet!”
Barrington grinned. “I have no idea what that means, but I’ll take it as a good thing.”
“It is. Trust me.”
Olga smiled primly. “I’d better get to work helping out the other unfortunates that have got caught in the big lizard’s spit. I’ll be in the supermarket getting peanut butter. It helps remove chewing gum from hair, so I don’t see why it wouldn’t be useful in this situation.” With that, she strode off.
“Terrific, isn’t she?” Barrington said proudly once Olga was out of earshot.
“Yeah. She really is.”
And that’s when they heard a scream.
What now? Charlie thought as he and his father raced in the direction of the sound.
The screaming woman stood in front of an electrical store, pointing at a widescreen TV in the window. Charlie pushed his way through the crowd of people around her to see an aerial view of Central Park in Manhattan - or what Charlie knew should have been Central Park. But the wide lawn of Sheep Meadow and the rippling waves of the toy-boat pond were now gone from view, covered by a thick, impenetrable white mist that had settled over the place like an Otherworldly shroud.
“What is that weird fog?” a small boy asked, awestruck.
“And