Unlucky Charms (The Cold Cereal Saga) Read Free Page B

invented yet. You think this ploy of Emily’s is gonna get us out of here?”
    “Can’t be worse than any other part of our plan.”
    Two Freemen lost their nerve and ran for the exit.
    “You heard them upstairs,” Scott told Merle. “They’re afraid of you too.”
    “Good point,” said Merle, and he pocketed his wand and waved his arms around, chanting in Latin.
    “ Admonitio! Insani magica tempus! ” *
    What followed was a lot of tripping, running every which way, and repeated orders from the black-hatted Freeman to “STAND YOUR GROUND.” But then the tinted doors of the south baggage claim entrance opened, filling the hall with light, and in glided a lovely, horrible woman. Emily dropped her act and suddenly looked every bit the little girl she was. Biggs roared. Merle muttered something that wasn’t Latin but was no less exotic.
    “Nimue,” whispered Scott. Perhaps she heard, because she fixed her eyes on him and smiled.
    “Freemen!” the woman sang. “Behind me!”
    The remaining men scurried to her side like children. She looked good, which could only be bad. It meant she’d been feeding on stolen magic and had glamour to burn. Her black hair was pulled up and piled atop her head in glossy ringlets like a tangled telephone cord. Her dress was red as a wound, with a bodice of crow’s wings and milky pearls. It was hard to take your eyes off her.
    It was so hard, in fact, that no one noticed a girl dash into the hall through the opposite entrance.
    Nimue raised her slender arms, looking only at Scott. He could guess why. They’d foiled Nimue last time because she was weak and she didn’t know Scott’s True Name. He felt certain that she wanted him to know now that she’d figured it out, or was currently so powerful it wouldn’t matter either way.
    “We should run,” said Scott.
    “Can’t outrun this.” Mick sighed.
    Then, suddenly, Polly was at his side. Scott turned to his little sister and said, “What are you do—”
    “Lift me high!” said a small but confident voice that seemed to come straight from Polly’s gut. She raised her hands, and in her palms stood a tiny black-skinned man, no larger than a toy, brandishing a birch-bark shield the size of a postage stamp.
    “MACBETH DOE!” shouted Nimue, and a cold flash of roiling light tumbled toward them. “MERLE L—”
    Then the light spasmed, rippled, and the woolly haze of it spun down into a single thread that plunged into the center of the birch-bark shield and was gone.

    Nimue gagged, wide-eyed, and pitched forward. The Freemen at her sides caught her before she hit the floor face-first.
    “Yay, Prince Fi!” shouted Polly. The tiny man shuddered as the shield glowed fitfully like a loose lightbulb. He shook it until it was nothing but dead wood again.
    Scott leaned close to Polly. “I thought you were supposed to stay in the car.”
    “Yeah—like Dad could keep me in the car.”
    “P-PIXIE?!” spat Nimue. She struggled for composure as the Freemen advanced. “How on this sterile doornail of a planet do you have a freaking pixie?!”
    “It’s kind of your fault, actually,” Erno told her.
    “Remind us to tell you about it next time,” Merle added, fiddling with his watch. “Kids?”
    “YOUR FAULT, MERLIN!” she screamed as they ran for the north doors and the Freemen followed. “EVERYTHING’S BROKEN, AND IT’S YOUR FAULT!”
    Biggs burst through first, carrying Emily under one arm, and soon they were all in the sunlit, airy freedom of the outdoors. Two white vans bucked up onto the curb, clumsily—one because it was being controlled remotely by Merle and his wristwatch, the other because it was being driven by Harvey. Harvey was half man, half rabbit, and all jerk. He had just the right mixture of self-regard and disregard for everyone else that you wanted in a getaway driver.
    In a moment Biggs had the back of Harvey’s van open, and then they were face-to-tiny-smoldering-face with a fluttering,