Underworlds #2: When Monsters Escape Read Free Page B

held a hammer with a head the size of a garbage can.
    The floor thundered and now the hairless giant entered, casting his big eye on the anvil. “The Dark Master freed us for one thing only,” he bellowed in a voice like rolling thunder. “He needs it fast.”
    The hairy giant nodded. “The forge is hot. Let us begin,” he said in the same way.
    “They’re each wearing one of those necklaces,” I whispered, creeping as close as I dared.
    Together, the two giants took a big pair of tongs, dragged something out of the furnace, and dropped it on the anvil.
    FWA-A-A-ANG!
    A blinding crash of light flared from the anvil, blasting the room with heat. The giants laughed, then positioned themselves on either side of the anvil. Raising their hammers, they began to pound the hot metal. Doom! Doom! Doom! First one Cyclops hammered, then the other, over and over, until the metal on the anvil began to take shape.
    Putting down his hammer, the hairy giant reached for the tongs and tossed the hammered object into the huge pool of rainwater. SSSSS! The water exploded with steam, filling the room with a nasty-smelling cloud. Both Cyclopes coughed and tried to wave the steam away.
    As the bald giant thundered over another piece ofmetal at the anvil, the hairy one dragged the cooled piece out of the pool and drew a long file from his apron. With each stroke, the metal lost its crude shape. He ran the file over and over the metal, until it was as bright as silver and shone with brilliant light.
    Dana groaned softly. “And that’s how they make lightning bolts.”
    Piece after piece went from the forge to the anvil to the cooling pool. After Baldy hammered them, Hairy polished them, making the pieces so bright they were almost impossible to look at. Shielding my eyes, I glimpsed one piece shaped like a silver platter the size of a breakfast table. Another was a long tube bent at a right angle. One of the others looked like a large hand with blades running along the fingers.
    Jon tapped my shoulder. “I haven’t seen a lot of actual lightning bolts up close,” he whispered, “but none of that stuff looks like lightning.”
    The bald Cyclops removed one last piece from the pool and held it up. It was a large cone, made of bands of metal crisscrossing one another and twisting to a point at the top.
    I didn’t know what it was, but I knew what it looked like.
    A helmet.
    “Uh-oh.” Dana’s face was suddenly as pale and frightened as when she had disappeared to the Underworld. “They’re not making lightning bolts for Loki. They’re making armor!”
    “Yes, yes!” Sydney whispered, tapping on her cell. “I just saw something about Loki’s armor. According to legend, Loki was wounded by Odin, the chief Norse god. He was hurt so severely, he couldn’t be healed.”
    Dana nodded quickly. “My parents told me that. He was seriously hurt, but he couldn’t die. Though armor made by the Cyclopes would be … indestructible …”
    My brain sparked with a crazy idea. “If this armor is for Loki,” I whispered, “and we trapped the Cyclopes and wrecked the armor, it would solve two problems.”
    “Hold on, look at this,” whispered Sydney, pushing her phone in front of us. “It’s an alphabet of rune symbols. Owen, did you see any of these runes on the necklace?”

    I studied the strange carvings and pointed to one of them. “There were a couple on the stone. That was the biggest one.”
    “Thurisaz,” Dana whispered. “Of course. Owen, I should have remembered that when you first told us about the necklace. Thurisaz is Loki’s special rune. He uses it to control shape-shifting. The Cyclopes must have used it to get out of the Underworld, out of our school, and to vanish in the woods.”
    “Then we’ll use it on the giants to capture them,” Sydney said.
    “Okay,” whispered Jon. “But how will we get that close to them?”
    Before anyone could answer, the hairy Cyclops stood and stretched his mighty arms.