The Wicked Will Rise

Before I could question her further, there was a rustling in the trees and the soft, heavy thump of footsteps. A moment later, a hulking shadow emerged from the forest, and I knew instantly who Ozma had been sensing.

The Lion.

The air went out of everything. The chirping of the birds stopped; the Sea of Blossoms was suddenly still and calm. Or maybe calm was the wrong word. It looked more like it was afraid to move.

Even the sky seemed to know he was here. Just a second ago it had been bright and sunny, but in a flash the sun seemed to dim, casting us in gray and gloomy shadows.

The Lion padded toward us. Where his feet met the earth, the flowers withered instantly into black and shriveled husks. Next to me, I felt Ollie and Maude freeze up with fear.

The Lion circled for a moment and then looked down at me, baring a grotesque mouthful of fangs in what was probably meant to be a smile. “Well, if it isn’t little Miss Amy Gumm, Princess Ozma, and their two furry friends,” he said. Maude and Ollie shrank back in terror. Ozma stood up and regarded the scene passively. The Lion glanced to my shoulder where Star was still perched, and he raised an eyebrow. “Make that three furry friends,” he corrected himself.

My hand twitched as I instinctively summoned the magical knife that Nox had given me. The solid handle materialized in my hand and I took a step forward, feeling its heat burning against my palm.

“You,” I spat.

If the Lion was bothered by the threat in my voice, he didn’t show it.

“I thought surely the fall would kill you, but I have to admit I’m glad it didn’t,” he said, sinking back on his haunches and surveying us. “This way I get to enjoy you myself. It’s been such a long time since I had a nice, square meal. And after that terrible brouhaha back in the Emerald City, I’m sure that Dorothy will forgive me if I don’t take you back alive.”

“Good luck with that, dude,” I said. “I’m not as much of a pushover as you might think. I killed your pal the Tin Woodman last night, you know.”

A look of surprise registered on the Lion’s face, but it was gone as quickly as it had appeared. “The Tin Woodman is a lover, not a fighter,” he said.

“Was,” I corrected him. “Before I ripped his heart out.”

The Lion narrowed his eyes and looked me up and down. He was used to people cowering before him, like Maude and Ollie, who were both quivering with fright, crouched on either side of me, their teeth chattering in terror.

This was the effect the Lion usually had. His courage had somehow been twisted into something dark and sick. Now it was a weapon. Wherever he went, he brought a cloud of terror with him. Just being around him was enough to make most people shrink in fear until it consumed them.

Then the Lion consumed it. He ate fear, literally. It made him stronger. I’d seen him do it—pick up a terrified Munchkin and suck the fright right out of him until the Munchkin was just a lifeless shell and the Lion was supercharged, bursting with power.

And yet, today, standing ten feet from him, I found that for the first time I wasn’t afraid. I had already faced down everything that had ever frightened me and I’d come out the other side.

Instead of fear, I felt my body fill with a deep rage. There was something about the anger that seemed to put everything into focus—it was like a pair of glasses I had put on, and I was finally seeing everything clearly.

The Tin Woodman’s heart. The Lion’s courage. The Scarecrow’s brains. According to the Wizard, once I had all of them, Dorothy could finally die the death she deserved. I already had the first item in the bag strapped across my chest: the Tin Woodman’s metal, clockwork heart. Now the second thing on my list was within reach—if only I could figure out where the Lion actually kept his courage.

No big deal, I thought. I could always figure that out after he was dead.

I wanted to wait for him to make the first move, though. I was counting on him underestimating me, but even on my best day the Lion still had ten times my physical strength.

“Now, let’s see,” the Lion was saying. “Who should I eat first?” He looked from me, to Ozma, to Ollie, to Maude, raising a gigantic claw and passing it around from one of us to the next.

“Bubble gum, bubble gum in a dish,” he rumbled in a low, ominous croon. Maude. Ollie. Me. He paused as he reached Ozma. “You know,” he mused, “I’ve never had much of a taste for bubble gum.” The muscles in his hind legs twitched. “Fairies, on the other hand, are delicious.”

“You’re very bad,” Ozma said scornfully. “You can’t eat the queen.”

I could have cheered, hearing her talking to him, totally unafraid, with such casual, careless haughtiness. You had to give it to her for nerve, even if it was just the kind of nerve that came from not really knowing any better. But the Lion didn’t seem to think it was very funny.

I was ready for him when he growled and sprang for her. I moved before he did, slashing my knife through the air in a bright arc of red, searing flame, aiming right for him. Ozma clapped at the display. I was getting better at this magic thing.

But I was also overconfident: my blade barely grazed the Lion’s flank. I drew blood, but not enough to slow him down. He simply twisted in annoyance and swiped for me with a powerful forearm. He hit me right in the gut and I went stumbling backward like a mosquito that had just been batted out of the way, landing on the ground on my butt in a burst of petals. I bounced up quickly only to see that Ozma, as it turned out, was perfectly capable of protecting herself.

She hadn’t moved an inch, but a shimmering green bubble had somehow appeared up around her. The Lion clawed and poked at it, but wherever the force field had come from, it was impervious to his attacks. Ozma blinked innocently at him.

“Bad kitty!” she said. She scowled and wagged her finger at him. “Naughty cat!”

The Lion growled a low growl, apparently not amused at being called “kitty,” and took another swipe at her. Again, though, his attack bounced right off her protective bubble.

While the Lion was distracting himself with the princess, I was stealthily circling toward him, positioning myself to strike again while charging up my knife with another magical flame.

“You’ve always been a stupid little thing,” the Lion was saying to Ozma. “Nevertheless, I suppose you have your own irritating kind of power. It’s a good thing there are other ways to teach a fairy a lesson.”

He turned from Ozma and reached for Maude, who had curled herself into a ball on the ground, her teeth chattering with terror. She didn’t even try to run. “No!” Ollie screamed, hurling himself in front of his sister.

This was my cue: I rushed him.

The Lion sensed me coming. He spun around and gave a furious roar, his jaw practically unhinging.

He lunged for me.

Fake out.

Just as he was about to grab me, I flipped myself backward into the air and blinked myself behind him, my teleportation spell reversing my momentum as I landed on his back. I grabbed a hank of his mane in my fist and pulled hard, yanking his head backward.

“I’ve been wanting to do this for a while,” I said through gritted teeth, using every ounce of strength I had to slash my burning blade across his exposed throat. I cringed at the sound of his flesh hissing under my weapon’s white-hot heat, but somewhere, deep down, I found myself surprised at how used to this kind of violence I had already gotten. At how easily it came to me.

As the Lion howled, I felt some small kind of pleasure in his pain. I pushed it aside, but it was there. I felt the tiniest glimmer of a smile at the corner of my lips.

The Lion bucked and shook wildly and I hung on to his mane for dear life, thinking of my mom’s friend Bambi Plunkett, who had once won five hundred dollars riding the mechanical bull at the Raging Stallion on Halifax Avenue. Unfortunately, I quickly discovered that I wasn’t going to be crowned queen of the rodeo anytime soon.

As the Lion desperately tried to shake me, I felt my hold on his mane begin to slip. He jumped into the air and we landed with a force that shook the ground, flowers flying everywhere. As he gave one last powerful shudder, I lost my grip and tumbled off him, my head cracking against the ground.

My vision blurred. In a flurry of fur and fangs, the Lion pounced, the weight of his body crushing my legs as he pinned my arms with his paws.

“I see you’re a courageous little one,” he purred, pushing his face just inches from mine. “I must admit, I didn’t expect it from you.” He licked his chops. “We’ll just have to change that, won’t we?”

A trickle of blood made its way from his throat, down his fur, and onto my shirt, and I saw that the cut across his throat was really just a surface wound. I’d barely hurt him.

This wasn’t going as well as I’d thought it would. I tried to blink myself out from under him, but my head was still throbbing from the fall I’d just taken, and as hard as I tried, I found that I couldn’t quite summon the magic for it.