The Girl with the Destructo Touch

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  For Katie Mignola. A key to the city.

  CHAPTER 1

  The stink was awful.

  Billy wrinkled his nose in disgust, wishing his Owlboy suit had come with a gas mask. “It really smells,” he whispered into one of Archebold's pointy ears.

  “What'd you expect? Roses?” the goblin asked with a shrug, keeping his eyes on the curve of the tunnel ahead. “It's the sewer.”

  Billy tried breathing through his mouth, but that only made it worse because now he could taste the stink. He started to gag.

  “Shhhh!” Archebold ordered, placing a stubby, clawed finger to his lips. “They'll be here any minute.”

  Billy felt foolish. “Sorry,” he said. He'd been at this whole superhero thing for a few weeks now, and it was awesome. But every once in a while, something would happen to make him feel like just a kid in a costume— such as this trek into the Monstros City sewer system.

  He pulled his legs up closer to his body where he and Archebold sat on the slimy stone ledge and peered down at the steady flow of sewage. There were things floating in the water that he couldn't identify, which he decided was probably for the best. The filthy water reminded him of what had brought them here in the first place.

  Monstros City had been experiencing a wave of burglaries, and the police had run out of ideas.

  It had looked like a job for Owlboy. But at the site of the most recent robbery, even Billy and Archebold had been stumped. All the doors and windows had been locked and the security system activated, yet the house had still been burgled. Even after going over the place with a fine-tooth comb, he and Archebold were completely dumbfounded.

  It was at that point that Billy—nervous that his reputation as the newest Owlboy in the city of monsters might be tarnished—had had to use the bathroom wicked bad. And there he had found the clue that had led to their current, fragrant location.

  There had been dirty water on the floor around the toilet. The Monstros City Police crime-scene reports of the break-ins all made note of wet bathroom floors, but the police hadn't seen that detail for what it was.

  A clue.

  At first, Archebold had accused Billy of having an embarrassing accident, but once Billy had explained, the gears in the goblin's head had begun to turn.

  And that was when they'd consulted the Book of Creeps.

  “Sausage?” Archebold asked, pulling Billy from his thoughts.

  Billy stared through the lenses of his special Owlboy goggles at the meat product wiggling in his face and felt his stomach do a triple somersault. “No, thank you,” he said. Just the thought of eating while enduring the nauseating stench of the sewer was enough to make him ralph, but he managed to keep the contents of his belly where they belonged. “How can you even think of eating down here?”

  The goblin tore into his snack with relish. “Obviously you've never been around the old goblins' rest home on franks and beans night,” he said, chewing happily. “There's an aroma you could bang nails into. This is nothing.”

  Billy couldn't imagine anything smelling worse than this place, and he had an awesome imagination.

  “Where do you think they are?” he asked impatiently.

  Archebold finished his snack and slipped the empty wrapper into the pocket of his tuxedo jacket. “Probably plundering another house.”

  “They” were the Sludge Sloggers, a jelly-bodied species that could squeeze into the tightest places and, according to the Book of Creeps, had been known to slog through the pipes of the Monstros City sewer system. The Sloggers could very easily have traveled those same pipes and used the toilets as their entry and exit points to the burgled homes.

  Can we say Ewww, boys and girls?

  “So did the other Owlboys ever have trouble with the Sloggers?” Billy asked, wondering how his predecessors had dealt with the foul odor of the sewers.

  Archebold seemed to stiffen for a second before slowly turning to look at him. “Y'know, now that you mention it, the Sloggers really aren't the sharpest knives in the drawer. They've never been involved with anything more criminal than stuffing up somebody's pipes and causing their toilet to overflow. Robbery is a whole new game for them.” The goblin stroked his chin in thought. “That was a good question, sir, and it certainly has my brain juices flowing.”

  “Thanks,” Billy said. He was just about to suggest that maybe the robbers were actually the Slime Sliders (a whole other foul, jelly-bodied beastie he'd read about in the Book of Creeps) when a rushing roar filled the confines of the smelly stone tunnel.

  “Showtime,” he heard Archebold say over the thunderous sound.

  The tiny goblin began to inch his way toward the source of the racket, and Billy followed close behind.

  A powerful wave of raw sewage was pouring into the main tunnel, where it would be filtered and cleaned and eventually flow into the Abominous River. Everything that found its way into the Monstros City sewer system wound up here, and that included Sludge Sloggers.

  Torrents of filthy water spewed into the drainage tunnel from a circular opening in the curved wall, and even though Billy couldn't believe it was possible, the smell got worse.

  “Ready?” Archebold asked.

  “Ready for what?” Billy was eyeing every disgusting fragment of filth that erupted from the drain.

  “You've been doing so well, sometimes I forget you're still a rookie,” the goblin commented.

  Realizing that he must be missing something, Billy squinted through his goggles. And then he saw them. At first they looked like wriggling clumps of clear jelly, plopping down into the filthy water, one after the other, to bob among the other pieces of floating debris.

  “Should I be paying attention to them?” Billy asked, pointing at the oily globules wobbling around the outskirts of the sewage flow.

  “Might be a good idea,” Archebold answered.

  Billy stared hard in concentration. There had to be at least a hundred of the things. He was expecting them all to drift through the drainage pipe with the rest of the sewage when he noticed that they were actually moving against the current, bumping and flowing into each other, making even bigger globs.

  “Let me guess,” Billy said, watching as the collected blobs began to take more monstrous shapes. “Sludge Sloggers.”

  “Give the kid in the Owlboy costume a prize,” Archebold said.

  Soon all the blobs had found their places somewhere on the bodies of eight Sloggers, who stood knee-deep in the raw sewage, giving each other high fives.

  Their bodies were the color of hamburger grease, with large potbellies that jiggled as they congratulated each other on a job well done. Something on one of the creatures' rounded stomachs caught Billy's eye. He focused and realized that he could see through the slimy fl
esh of the monsters' low-hanging bellies, inside which floated bracelets, necklaces, rings and other valuables.

  “They carry the stuff they stole in their bellies?” Billy asked, wrinkling his nose.

  “You should see how they get it out.” Archebold stuck one of his nubby fingers down his throat and pretended to throw up.

  Maybe it was the horrible smell of the sewer, or the fact that he hadn't had anything to eat since coming to Monstros City earlier that night, but Billy's stomach suddenly did a quadruple flip, and he made a pretty disgusting gagging sound.

  “Good one,” Archebold said as the Sludge Sloggers slowly turned to look at them, surprised.

  “Sorry. My mother always said I had a strong gag reflex,” Billy tried to explain.

  “You don't say,” Archebold responded with a grumble.

  The Sludge Sloggers fixed their black button eyes upon Billy and Archebold, their froglike mouths opening in a gurgling roar. The monsters splashed toward them, their dripping, four-fingered hands reaching out, ready to grab.

  “I'll take it from here,” Billy said in an effort to make amends. He puffed out his chest and stepped in front of Archebold. “Halt right there, vile creatures!” Billy's voice boomed, echoing about the confines of the stone tunnel as he held up a gloved hand.

  And the Sloggers did exactly as they were told, stopping in their tracks.

  Billy smiled, lowering his hand.

  “Obviously you know a struggle against me would be futile,” he said in his best authoritative superhero voice. “So if you would be so kind as to…eh… ummmm …” He wasn't sure what to ask them to do, and looked to Archebold for suggestions.

  “You want them to give up the jewelry,” the goblin said out of the corner of his mouth. “Ask them to throw up the loot.”

  Billy turned his attention back to the Sloggers. “Please… please throw up the belongings you've stolen so we can return them to their rightful owners.”

  One of the Sludge Sloggers pointed a dripping finger at him. “Who you?” the creature asked in a wet gurgle.

  Billy was stunned. “Why, I'm Owlboy, of course,” he proclaimed, sticking out his chest even farther and striking a pose.

  The Slogger who had asked the question looked at his brothers, and they started to laugh, sounding like a hundred whoopee cushions all going off at exactly the same time. A disturbing sound, to say the least.

  “You no Owlboy,” the Sludge Slogger said with a shake of his dripping head.

  The others shook their heads in agreement, causing droplets of ooze to fly.

  “Owlboy go away long, long time ago.”

  Billy agreed with Archebold's assessment that the Sloggers were none too bright. Here he was, in his full Owlboy costume, and they still couldn't get it through their jelly-filled heads.

  “Well, as you can see as clearly as the noses on your faces, I'm back.”

  He felt a tug on his cape and turned slightly to see what Archebold wanted.

  “Yeah?”

  “They don't have noses,” the goblin whispered.

  “Oh,” Billy said, feeling a little embarrassed. “Forget the noses, you can all see that I'm back,” he said, spreading his arms to show off his costume. “And better than ever.”

  The Sloggers stared.

  “Who's back?” the one who had been speaking suddenly asked.

  Billy slapped his hand to his forehead. These guys were as dumb as a bag of hammers… and that was being exceptionally mean to hammers everywhere.

  “Owlboy, you dopes,” he said in exasperation. “So make it easy on yourselves and give up the property you stole and we'll see how fast we can get you guys into a nice comfortable jail cell. How's that sound?”

  The spokes-Slogger rubbed his bulbous belly, and Billy watched as rings and a wristwatch swirled within.

  “We no go to jail,” the Slogger stated, slowly shaking his head, and as before, the others shook theirs. “We sell pretty, pretty jewels and stuff to guys who hire us, get lots of money and buy very own sludge pit on outskirts of city. Dat be de life, eh, fellas? No more sewers for us.”

  The Sludge Sloggers started to give each other high fives again.

  “Hate to burst your sludgy bubble,” Billy said, pulling on the ends of his gloves for a tighter fit. “But you guys aren't buying anything anytime soon. You're heading to the monster Big House, and I'm the guy who's going to put you there.”

  The lead Slogger's face twisted into a horrible smile.

  “No, you the little guy who gonna try…”

  Suddenly the Sludge Sloggers were moving incredibly fast, bumping and flowing into one another to form one really big, ticked-off, nasty Slogger. “… and fail!” the huge Slogger bellowed.

  Billy hadn't seen that one coming.

  The slimy beast was at least fifteen feet tall now, and had to crouch so its head didn't scrape on the rounded ceiling of the sewer. He surged through the filthy water, raising a huge fist, preparing to bring it down on the young superhero and his companion.

  “I didn't know they could do that!” Billy yelled, turning to run.

  Archebold was quickly flipping through the Book of Creeps, searching for additional info. “Me neither. I can't find anything about Sloggers being able to merge to make giant Sloggers. I know a publisher who's going to be getting a nasty letter,” the goblin said indignantly.

  Billy snatched up the diminutive Archebold from the stone walkway and stuck him under his arm. “I'll help you with that letter if we make it out of here alive,” he said, feeling the Slogger's fist strike the ground behind him with enough force to make the rock beneath his feet tremble.

  He almost stumbled, but managed to catch himself. Once again he was grateful that being in Monstros City had the strange effect of magnifying his talents big-time. He would never have been able to run this fast back in Bradbury.

  But the Slogger was no slouch in the speed department either. Billy remembered reading that the bottoms of Sloggers' feet were ultraslimy, which allowed them to slide across surfaces like an ice-skater crossing a frozen pond.

  “Whatcha runnin' for, little Owlboy?” the giant creature gurgled close behind him. “Thought you gonna put me… us in jail?”

  Billy was running as fast as he could, Archebold tucked beneath his arm.

  “I can't believe this,” the goblin complained. “What good is a book of creeps if it doesn't have all the facts?”

  Ahead of them, the tunnel curved, and Billy thought he recognized where they had first come into the stinking sewer system. Sure enough, he saw the black metal ladder that would take them back up to the surface.

  He was pouring on the speed, aiming for the ladder, when there was a sudden rush from the water-filled canal to his left. Something large was swimming through the filthy drainage, surging out of the stinking sewage to block his way to freedom.

  “You no think it was gonna be that easy, did ya?” the Slogger asked. The monster started to laugh, all the jewelry and valuables stolen by the other Sloggers now swimming around in the disgusting fluids visible through the skin of the giant Slogger's stomach.

  Billy backed up, the grumbling Archebold still clutched beneath his arm, flipping angrily through the pages of his book. “Any suggestions?” Billy asked, setting the goblin down.

  Archebold continued to turn the pages of the Book of Creeps, then suddenly stopped.

  “Aha!” he screeched. “Here it is. It was sent as an insert and I must've put it in the wrong place.”

  The Slogger drew closer, the stink of his gigantic body making Billy swoon. If they didn't get out of the sewer soon, he was going to throw up for sure.

  “Yep, additional information made available recently from the Society for the Study of Slimy Beasts of All Varieties states that Sludge Sloggers have the unique ability to join their bodies to create what is known as a King Slogger.”

  The goblin looked up from the misplaced pages, a smile of victory on his ugly face. “And all is right with the wor
ld.”

  “Not really.” Billy pointed to the advancing King Slogger.

  “Oh dear,” Archebold said with a start. “Don't you think you should be doing something to stop him?”

  The King Slogger opened its mouth wider and wider, a disgusting smell like the most rotten pile of garbage in the world wafting out. It was obvious what the great beast intended, and Billy wanted nothing to do with it.

  “So how were we going to stop these things?” Billy asked.

  Archebold started to go through the book again. “Give me a sec,” he said.

  “We don't have a sec,” Billy responded, the creature's hungry mouth—a tidal wave of filth—starting its disgusting descent to engulf them.

  Billy reached into one of the pouches on his utility belt, his fingers fumbling over anything that could possibly be of use. Chewing gum, an extralong rubber band, a plastic container of breath mints, a hunk of lint and the prototype for a freeze bomb.

  Stop the presses!

  He'd forgotten all about the explosive device he had been working on back at the Roost. When detonated, the bomb would duplicate the raw power of the coldest New England winter, or at least that was his plan. He had been meaning to try the device out when he and Archebold were called away to investigate the burglary, and he had placed the freeze bomb in one of his pouches for safekeeping.

  Sometimes he was a genius without even knowing it.

  He moved with the speed of an owl, which he imagined had to be pretty fast. Dropping onto his back, he took the extralong elastic, pulled it back as far as he could and shot the freeze-bomb prototype into the yawning mouth of the Sludge Slogger.

  “Choke on that!” he shrieked as the bomb rocketed into the monster's cavernous mouth, ricocheting off the roof and down its throat.

  The King Slogger reacted immediately, pulling back and placing an oozing hand to his throat.

  “What you do?” it asked, its large black eyes bugging out of its head.

  “Give it a second and we'll see,” Billy said, still lying on his back, looking up at the monster.

  And then from within the body of the gelatinous creature there was a silent explosion of blue light. The King Slogger's body went suddenly stiff. A pathetic scream cut off as the slimy and dripping surface of his flesh became solid and all the fluids inside the gigantic beast were turned to ice.