“What are you two doing?” shouted Boo the moment he saw Aru and Mini. “Get out! Go!”
Mini locked her legs, swinging the Death Danda over her shoulder as if it were a baseball bat.
“Oh gods,” moaned Boo. He flapped in his cage. “I can’t look.”
“Sleeper! We’re not going to let you go through with this,” warned Mini.
“I’m bored already,” the Sleeper yawned.
Then he opened his hand. From his palm, a ribbon of black spilled out, snaking across the floor and seeping into the walls. It was the same horribly familiar starry black that had nearly strangled Aru. She tried to dodge it, but the enchanted muck yanked her back, flinging her and Mini to the wall so that they were like bugs trapped on flypaper. Keep calm, Shah. Aru had expected this. In fact, she’d banked on him acting like this.
“Don’t you understand, little ones?” asked the Sleeper. “You’re not worthy opponents for me. You would be far too easy to defeat. In fact, you’re not worthy of noticing at all. You might think you’re clever for freeing those vehicles, but I’ll have them back in a cage in no time.”
There it was. Those words. Little ones. Not worthy.
But Aru was beginning to think that, maybe, being overlooked or considered different wasn’t always a bad thing. In social studies class, she had learned that it was a good thing for warriors to be left-handed. In ancient Rome, the gladiators who won the most were the ones who were left-handed. They had the element of surprise on their side, because people only defended themselves from a right-handed attack.
I hope you like surprises, thought Aru.
She and Mini had rehearsed what they would do. Now it was time to put it into action.
Mini held her gaze. Her face looked pale, but she was still smiling hopefully. Aru felt that strange humming buzz once more, the same thrum she’d experienced when they’d fought together in the library. They were connected to one another’s thoughts when they were in combat.
The Sleeper hadn’t bothered to tie up their hands. Why? Because he didn’t think they could do anything that would harm him.
He stepped over the threshold of the front door. The demons spread out around him, taking up all the space in the museum lobby. Aru could feel an invisible wind stirring against the back of her neck. Just a few steps farther, she said silently. He stepped farther.
Aru gave the signal to Mini. Her sister nodded.
Mini opened her compact, and a bit of light seeped out. From there, an illusion of Aru’s mother stepped out into the Hall of the Gods. She was still beautiful, Aru thought, as she stared at the vision. The Sleeper stopped walking. His face became pinched, haunted.
“I know the truth about you,” said the illusion.
The Sleeper dropped the cage holding Boo, and the door opened. The pigeon flew out, rushing straight to Aru and Mini. He started pecking at the shadows that had them pinned to the wall. Aru pried herself loose.
“Krithika?” asked the Sleeper, his voice hoarse. “How…? I thought—”
“I just want to talk,” said the vision of her mother.
“Talk?” repeated the Sleeper. “After all this time, you just want to talk? That’s simply not good enough.”
He lunged forward.
And stepped right into the trap that Aru and Mini had laid.
The Sleeper hadn’t noticed the small chalk circle she had drawn in the middle of floor. And walking into it didn’t just mean that he was in the center of the room.
He was in the center of a circle of every single one of the celestial mounts.
The golden tiger prowled out of the wall, her muzzle wrinkled in a snarl. The peacock’s feathers glittered menacingly. The water buffalo began to paw the ground.
The seven-headed horse turned to Aru.
The Sleeper had only a second to look startled, eyes wide and confused, before Aru shouted, “ATTACK!”
Aru Shah Is a Liar
Aru used to think that the nature documentary she’d seen with two lions fighting each other would be the scariest thing she’d ever watch.
She’d been totally wrong.
The demons charged, trampling through the museum as they launched themselves at the heavenly mounts. Aru felt bad for the sign in the lobby that read PLEASE DO NOT TOUCH. Now it was lying on the floor, currently being crushed by a demon with the head of a wild boar.
The tiger flew at one of the rakshas who had the head of a stag. The peacock joined in, its tail sweeping the floor and cutting out the legs of an asura right next to it.
Boo fluttered to the top of Aru’s head. “Nicely done,” he said, impressed. “But a little lacking in terms of sophistication. An ambush is so bourgeois.”
Aru ducked under the guest sign-in table as someone’s head (literally) flew past her. “Now is not the time!”
“Fair enough.”
Mini crawled under the table with her. Everywhere they looked was chaos. Bits of pottery were flung across the room. Heads, too. A bear mount was foaming at the mouth. One of the horns of the celestial ram was bent at an uncomfortable-looking angle. Sweat gleamed on the body of the seven-headed horse. Aru scanned the lobby. Almost everyone was accounted for except one….
The Sleeper.
Where had he gone? The moment the attack had started, he’d disappeared in a flood of demons and animals.
“Boo,” hissed a voice behind her.
“Ugh, what do you want?” snapped Boo before squawking, “AHHHHH!!!”
Aru and Mini jumped, banging their heads on the underside of the table. Behind them, the Sleeper’s face pushed out of the wall.
Goose bumps prickled down Aru’s arm. The Sleeper could move inside the walls. She scrambled backward. Vajra was still in her hand, but although the weapon had been awakened, Aru couldn’t do much with it except hit a couple of things. She’d tried to throw it, but Vajra wouldn’t leave her hand. It just did what it wanted, like a giant cat.
Aru scuttled crablike from under the table. Her hand slipped and she banged her funny bone on the floor. “Owwwww! Not funny, not funny, not funny,” she said, trying to shake the tinglies out of her arm.
Mini, who had not fallen, got out and up on her feet first. She swung Dee Dee around her head. A blast of violet light shot through the end of the stick, but the Sleeper, now fully emerged from the wall, merely batted the beam of light aside. The force of it pushed Mini back. Her arms pinwheeled, but just as she caught her balance, a raksha slammed into her.
“Mini!” called Aru.
Boo dove into the crowd, pecking the demon’s eyes until the asura screeched and teetered backward. Aru glanced up. Dangling a short distance away was a giant, heavy, and very sharp chandelier. It had been handcrafted by a local glassblower and was her mom’s favorite part of the lobby.
“You’re a liar, Aru Shah,” said the Sleeper, creeping toward her. “You lie to your friends, your family, but most of all yourself. If you think you’ve beaten me, you’re wrong.”
Aru moved back some more. Her palms felt slippery. One wrong move, and the Sleeper could end her on the spot.
“I’m not a liar,” said Aru.
The Sleeper took another step forward. Aru let Vajra loose. For once, the lightning bolt did as she wanted. Light sparked from the end of it, slicing the column of the chandelier. She rolled out of the way just as the Sleeper glanced up.
“What the—?” he started.
“I’ve just got a big imagination,” she said, grinning.
The chandelier crashed down. The Sleeper barely got a scream out before a bunch of glass and crystal erupted around him.
“Sorry about the chandelier, Mom!” Aru whispered. She raced back toward Mini.
All around her sister lay the slumped-over forms of demons and rakshas.
“They’re not dead, unfortunately,” said Boo, landing on Aru’s shoulder. “But they’re out of commission for now. The problem is, this is only a fraction of the Sleeper’s army.”
“Where’re the others?”