Heroes of Perpetua Read online

  Heroes of Perpetua

  © 2020 Brian Clopper

  Published by Behemoth Books

  on December 15, 2020

  No part of this book may be reproduced without permission from the author, except by a reviewer who may quote short excerpts in a review.

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  brianclopper.com

  Contents

  Acknowledgments

  1. Lou Suffers a Porch Predator

  2. Hugo Buries the Evidence

  3. Nelson Endures Garden Trespassers

  4. Lou Takes a Bike Ride

  5. Nelson Experiences a Furry Loss

  6. Hugo Records the Uncanny

  7. Lou Meets Not Quite a Golem

  8. Nelson Converses With a Feathered Fellow

  9. Hugo Finds His Fighting Spirit

  10. Nelson Wades Into a Rocky Situation

  11. Lou Marvels At Their Scaly Allies

  12. Hugo Makes a Key Friend

  13. Lou Encounters Orcs of a Fickle Disposition

  14. Nelson Faces a Keep That Doesn't Keep To Itself

  15. Hugo Overshares With the Elf

  16. Lou Rubs Elbows With a Notorious Wizarding Crowd

  17. Hugo Loses an Ally

  18. Nelson Marshalls His Forces

  19. Hugo Prefers Dragons to Misleading Elves

  20. Lou Fights Her Way to Freedom Almost

  21. Nelson Goes for a New Point of View

  22. Lou Parts With Her Magic

  23. Nelson Resents His Role

  24. Hugo Assembles an Army

  25. Lou Sees Through a Fellow Spirit

  26. Hugo Avoids a Key Dilemma

  27. Nelson Puts Himself Into the Mix

  Epilogue

  Author’s Note

  Building a Brian Bookshelf

  Books Brian Wrote Under a Pen Name

  Acknowledgments

  A big thank you to Keith and Arantza for their excellent editing and revising talents as my first readers.

  Chapter 1

  Lou Suffers a Porch Predator

  Lou Walker stared out her bedroom window. With it being October, the large maple in the front yard was bare and she could see across the street to Nelson Rivers’ house. Her classmate sat on his porch steps coaxing a squirrel to approach by offering up a snack. Nelson was as close to a friend as she could manage. If she was being honest, they really only interacted once a week or so at garden club.

  She checked her bid on eBay. The entire run of Blue Devil comics will soon be mine. The pleasant thought boomed through her head as if she were a gloating villain broadcasting her evil plot to a captured hero. She had the winning bid, for now. Three others were watching, but so far no one else had jumped in. She knew from experience the most crucial time was the last minute. Cutthroat bidders came out of the woodwork and pounced on the auction items then. She’d lost a run of Mai the Psychic Girl to a last-minute bidder and was determined to not let that happen here. Her father’s collection had ten random issues of the DC title, and she wanted an entire run, all thirty-two issues of the eighties’ series.

  While she still bought new comics every Wednesday from Four-Color Loot, Arnold Lake’s only comic shop, she favored buying eighties’ editions because her dad’s collection was predominantly from that decade and she wanted to fill in the holes in his twenty-plus long boxes.

  She eyed the countdown clock on the laptop screen. In exactly six minutes and thirty-one seconds the adventures of a stuntman trapped in a magic demon suit would be hers.

  Forty dollars wasn’t a bad price. She’d set her highest bid for fifty but hoped it wouldn’t climb to that. With the ten dollars in shipping, she had just enough allowance saved up to cover no more than that. While her mom would happily give her an advance, she didn’t want to trouble her. She worked at a small tech company as an office manager, and Lou knew from some snooping that their one-income household was just getting by. Once and a while her mom delayed paying a water bill, but she never missed a house payment and always kept the pantry filled.

  Four minutes and sixteen seconds to go.

  Something landed in the tree. She glanced over to see a bat hanging upside-down on the branch that pointed at her window. Given a few more years, she could easily jump onto the tree from there, but at the moment that offshoot just wasn’t long enough for her to be able to reach. She’d always envisioned using the branch to escape a fire. Thankfully, that scenario hadn’t played out. Yet.

  The bat stared at her with yellow eyes then let go and flew downward.

  A second later she heard a thump at her door.She sat up, unnerved and worried for the little creature.

  Across the way, Nelson stared at her house, clearly having witnessed the same strange flight path. Was the bat flopping about on her front porch, screeching like crazy? She strained to listen for just that, but it was quiet.

  Three minutes and forty-seven seconds to go.

  She didn’t want to lose the winning bid.

  Lou decided she could at least go and open the door to check on the poor thing.

  She raced downstairs, noting that Ferrigno, their black Lab, was snoozing on the couch. He was. She didn’t want to have to deal with the big brute trying to shove past her and gum the bat to death. The old dog was almost fourteen and had gnawed most of his teeth down to nubs on his crate.

  She whipped open the door . . . to stare at their empty green welcome mat. She inspected the entire porch, top to bottom. No sign of the creature.

  Probably flew off. She imagined the poor injured thing flying crooked through the air. It wouldn’t be dark for another half hour. Why was it out and about?

  She raced back upstairs curious about the behavior of bats. Nelson would likely know a reason why it was out during the daytime. He was a ‘walking encyclopedia regarding all things flora and fauna,’ his exact words.

  Her eyes zeroed in on the screen once again. Still have a lock on the winning bid. Two minutes and seven seconds on the clock. She settled into her chair and hovered her index finger over the mouse. She clicked refresh, and the bid didn’t change. Good, still mine.

  Movement out the window once again caught her eye. The bat was back, hanging from the same branch. She peered closer. It wasn’t using its legs to grip the branch. Instead, a long, black, rope-thick tail wrapped around it three times.

  What the heck? Bats didn’t have tails.

  It narrowed its eyes to slits and unfurled its tail. The bat dropped out of sight, and there was another bump against her door.

  She didn’t think. She reacted on instinct. Lou bolted to her feet, snagged the tennis racket from the floor, and shot down the steps, knocking into the wall twice as she took the stairwell turn too fast.

  Ferrigno lifted his head and stared at her.

  “Stay put, big guy.” She performed a calming gesture with her free hand at the Lab.

  He dropped his muzzle and closed his eyes.

  Once more, she whipped open the door, racket raised to defend herself from the possibility of an attack. The tail part had her rattled. What kind of bat has a tail?

  The bat sat on the welcome mat, its wings folded around its torso as if hugging itself. It was all black except for its eyes and the sharp white teeth that poked out from under its lips. It scowled at her and opened its mouth to show off even more of its extensive pointy dental collection.

  It didn’t appear hurt in the least. Lou didn’t want it getting in the house. She’d really expected it not to be there, especially with such a bloodthirsty grimace. She started to close the door.

  The bat chittered and flew toward the open door. Lou hurriedly tried to shut it in time, but for a second she had the bat’s wing trapped against the frame. She kicked it clear and slammed the
door.

  Peering out the narrow vertical window set in the door, she locked on the creature. It turned about and took off.

  She watched it keep low and leave her yard’s airspace, making a beeline for across the street.

  Lou gasped and fumbled at the doorknob.

  The bat was heading right at her neighbor. Nelson rushed to his feet, while the squirrel he’d been feeding darted back up its tree.

  She opened the door and shouted a warning, “Get outta there!”

  Nelson froze.

  Even from this distance, she could spot his eyes widening.

  The weird bat would rake its little claws across Nelson’s face, maybe chew on his cheeks with its fangs.

  Nelson was an animal lover. He looked rather calm all things considered. She’d seen him do this before with a groundhog they’d run across in a ditch. He’d projected calm to the animal, and it had halted its charge and veered off into the tall grasses. Nelson called the move his ‘Serenity Smackdown.’ The guy loved his big words. She called it ‘almost getting yourself killed by being too kind and thinking good thoughts made a difference.’

  The bat closed in on him. Nelson opened his hands and smiled without baring his teeth.

  Lou raced down her porch steps, racket at the ready. Right when her bare feet entered the grass, the bat cut sharply right and flew high and away. Lou crossed her yard and stopped at the curb, watching it become a speck, then a tiny speck, and finally a teeny-tiny speck. It disappeared a few seconds later. She scanned the sky where she’d last spied it, thinking the bat might swing around and return, this time diving at them with kamikaze speed.

  The bat didn’t reappear.

  Lou sprinted across the road, ignoring the rough blacktop against the pads of her feet. She ducked under the low branches of Nelson’s tree and pulled up in front of him.

  He also eyed the same patch of sky.

  “That’s crazy,” he said.

  “I know, right? Like why’s it flying about in broad daylight?”

  “No, not that.” He stared at her right ear with his big brown eyes, made even bigger by the oversized lenses of his glasses. He didn’t enjoy direct eye contact. An ear was the closest he’d gotten so far. “You must have seen it—the thing had a tail!”

  She nodded. “And that’s not possible?”

  Nelson shook his head and looked as if he were accessing the supercomputer that was his brain. “I don’t think so. I’m going to want to check, but I just don’t think bats grow tails. Not such long ones like that. It had to be a foot long.”

  He whipped out his phone and searched for confirmation.

  Not being a big fan of Batman, she couldn’t mine her comic book expertise to add anything.

  Nelson was a funny guy. Not funny ha-ha, but funny peculiar. He tended to fixate on anything regarding nature. Knowing him, she’d have to hear endless facts about bats tomorrow morning during their club. Other students treated him fine, but some teased him for being such a word nerd and always spouting off to anyone who would listen anything new he’d learned about say the mating habits of skunks, or exactly how wonderfully adaptive a plant the sunflower truly was. Sometimes she’d swooped in and helped him get unstuck. She never knew if he recognized this, as he just didn’t express thanks often, if at all. Lou never pressed him for any show of gratitude. Truth was, she respected his bluntness.

  Nelson didn’t look up from his phone. “Well, I stand corrected. There is a long-tailed fruit bat. See.”

  Lou kept her smile to herself. What twelve-year-old said stood corrected?

  He showed her the picture. The bat’s tail was about three inches long and slender like a mouse’s.

  “But it didn’t look anything like that. It was longer and thicker like a hose.”

  “Yes, and the lack of fur was concerning,” he said.

  “It didn’t have any fur?” Lou had missed that detail. “Are you sure?”

  He flitted to another page. “All the ones classified as free-tailed have really narrow ones.” He scrolled down. “And there are lots of types: Mexican, Brazilian. And even one from New Zealand.”

  Okay, he’s back on that. Lou needed to help him jump off the crazy bat-tail train. Holy Bat Tails, Batman!

  “Ah, the Great Mouse-Tailed Bat has a long one but it’s nowhere close as thick as Bat X’s.”

  And now he’s labeled the specimen.

  He didn’t hold up the phone to show her this time.

  “Nelson, it’s gone. Maybe it was just a piece of garbage that got stuck to it, like a black streamer.” She decided not to share that the bat had wrapped its tail around the branch to hang out and hiss at her.

  He typed in a new search and scanned one of the entries. “Bats can be spotted during the day but are not diurnal. Some reasons why any might be out are: it’s a baby and got confused, or it’s sick and disoriented.” He looked up at her, focusing on her hairline and scrunching up his nose. “Definitely too big to be a newborn. I think its wingspan was about ten inches.”

  Lou watched upside-down as he typed “average wingspan for bats” into the search window. Down another information rabbit hole.

  She put a hand on his phone.

  He tensed but kept his gaze fixed on the screen.

  Lou knew better than to touch his hand or anywhere else on his person. He was sensitive to that. Letting a squirrel rest its tiny paw in his palm was fine with him. Having a bird land on his shoulder and scarf down seeds he’d sprinkled in his hair was also swell. But any contact by a fellow human—she thought back to the incident in Mr. Lamont’s fifth-grade science class—that was a big fat no-no.

  “Look at me.” She waited.

  His lips moved. He was reading to himself.

  “Look at me.”

  He slowly lifted his head until he stared over her shoulder, vaguely in the direction of her driveway. She counted that a victory. “It’s gone.”

  “But if it comes back?”

  Lou wagged the racket. “Then it will feel the pain of my devastating backhand.”

  His eyes flared. “Oh, no. It wasn’t going to hurt either of us.”

  She resisted shaking her head. He didn’t need judgment for his optimistic take. “Then, go inside and research all you want what exact snack you could extend as a peace offering. If anyone could win it over, it’s you.” She smiled.

  For half a second, his eyes darted to her face and then fled just as quickly.

  He retrieved his snack bag, walked over to the mulch around the tree, and sprinkled what remained on the ground. He looked up into the tree, locking eyes with the squirrel. “We’ll have to cut short our conversation for today. Same time tomorrow?” He held his gaze on the rodent.

  Oh, bushy-tailed folk you make extended eye contact with, huh?

  The squirrel chittered, haltingly posing several times, comically freezing and unfreezing, before scampering into the higher branches.

  Nelson walked by her. At his door, he didn’t turn around. “See you tomorrow morning, Louisa.”

  She didn’t say a word. If he had looked back at Lou then, he’d have commented on her sour expression, probably rating it by the degree of glower or disdain, throwing egghead words at her. It sometimes amazed Lou how much of his vocabulary rubbed off on her.

  He was the only person she let use her real name. Truthfully, he rarely did it. While he missed many social cues, he knew exactly the right time and place to deliver the blow of calling Lou out.

  It’s Lou to anyone who values breathing. She unleashed the threat to herself to counter her frustration.

  He closed and locked the door behind him.

  Lou scanned the sky. When no bats made an appearance, she marched back across the street, entered her house, hugged Ferrigno, and trundled up the steps to her room to witness the unthinkable.

  Her computer delivered horrible news.

  She’d lost the bid.

  Lou slid into her chair and gawked at the winning bid. $50.89. She memorized
the username and then shut down her laptop. Lunar-5821, you just made yourself an enemy.

  She flopped on her bed, snagged a Buffy comic from the reading pile on her nightstand, and tried to immerse herself in the latest incarnation of her favorite Slayer.

  All she could think about was bats.

  Chapter 2

  Hugo Buries the Evidence

  Hugo Hammersmith ping-ponged back and forth between the walkthrough playing on his phone and the flatscreen. He was trying to find the secret level in Starbow, his latest video game obsession. It was an FPS featuring a galactic explorer who hunted cosmic relics throughout the universe, armed with what amounted to a laser crossbow that Hugo had upgraded four times so far. If he completed this secret level, he’d unlock the final upgrade.

  He needed to find a way through a cavern riddled with sentient, and quite bloodthirsty, stalagmites. This was the fourth asteroid he’d explored. The walkthrough showed the portal key was one chamber away. If he could get by this obstacle, the acid-squirting mushrooms up next posed very little threat.

  He dodged right, only to be impaled by a stalagmite. His mom walked in at the perfectly wrong time, witnessing the grisly death. He quickly respawned and held back from entering the deathtrap. No sense risking her experiencing the far worst way to croak; beheaded by two stalagmites operating as scissor blades wasn’t what she’d call entertainment.

  “What is that? Hugo, that game looks terribly violent. Is this really what you want to spend your Friday night doing?”

  Fingers crossed he could get out of this without having the game confiscated. The last one his parents had plucked from his PS4, The Dead Shall Rise, he’d never seen since. Of course, he’d been ten and had downloaded it himself without approval. Somehow, depictions of zombies made of dough that expanded when you added magic yeast to your undead army didn’t hold the same fascination to his parents. The fact that when they exploded, a multitude of guts spilled out may have just been too much for his parental overseers. His dad had coined his fatherly catch phrase on that momentous occasion: Straw. Camel. Since that fateful day, anytime Hugo had gone too far, his dad would mouth those words or variations of them. Hugo’s least favorite was: Dromedary. Hay. Whenever his dad tried too hard with his humor, it drove Hugo crazy.