Monster Madness Read Online Free PDF Page A

in there and someday you will be.”
    “Good.”
    Charlie wondered what tortured path the little girl’s Gift would eventually lead her down. Would she be a Banisher and use her skills to fight the monsters of her nightmares? Or would she be a Nethermancer and summon up her greatest fears to open portals for traveling through the terrible ferocity of the Nether?
    Either way, he empathized with her. He knew how brutally difficult it was to be young and afraid of what horrors you might conjure, late at night, alone in the dark….
    “Well, I think we’ve had enough drama for one day,” Tabitha said with a smile. She turned to Charlie and his friends. “Don’t you agree…, Addys?”
    “Theodore Dagget—Addy!” the skinny boy exclaimed. “That’s my name—keep sayin’ it, it’ll still be the same!”
    “Not so fast,” Pinch said. “Technically speaking, you didn’t pass the exam: You used the panic horn.”
    “Well, yeah,” Charlie replied, “because Violet was dying.”
    “Even so, it was a clear violation of the rules. A true Addy would have been able to recover from the situation without our help.”
    “Aw, c’mon!” Rex roared. “Don’t be ridiculous. The test is set up to see if kids can handle Banishing a couple Class 1 critters—not Class 4’s! I mean, what the heck were Class 4’s doing on the 1st Ring, anyway?”
    “That’s entirely beside the point.”
    “No,” Tabitha said. “Rex is right. That is the point—the only one that matters, anyway. Why were those Class 4’s there? I’ve never seen that before.”
    “Not only that,” Charlie added, “Nethercreatures are supposed to escape from the Nether and come to Earth, right? But the Dangeroo didn’t do that. It came out of the Nether, grabbed Violet, and then went back in.” He shrugged. “It doesn’t make any sense. I mean, where was it taking her?”
    “That’s exactly what I asked while I was in its pouch,” Violet said.
    Everyone turned to her.
    “And what did the critter say?” Rex prompted.
    “Well, it was kind of hard to understand—its voice was pretty growly—but it sounded something like it was taking me to the Guardian.”
    Rex, Tabitha, and Pinch shared a troubled glance.
    “You’re sure?” Tabitha asked.
    Violet shrugged. “Pretty sure.”
    What the heck’s the Guardian? Charlie thought. And why is everyone looking so serious all of a sudden?
    “Hooo-boy,” Rex exclaimed. “Y’all thinkin’ what I’m thinkin’?”
    Tabitha nodded. “We’d better go see the Headmaster.”
    She began to open a portal.

    “That is, indeed, cause for great alarm,” the Headmaster of the Nightmare Academy said after Charlie finished telling her what had happened. She absently stroked a pet Snark that clung to a wooden railing on the first floor of her warm and pleasantly cluttered study.
    “So, what do you think?” Rex asked. “You think the Named are behind this?”
    Headmaster Brazenhope nodded. “Oh, most certainly. Slagguron and Tyrannus have been trying to escape from the Nether for centuries. If they’re doing what I think they’re doing, they may have finally found a way.”
    “Slagguron and Tyrannus?” Charlie asked. He’d heard those names once before. Six months earlier, he’d faced off against Barakkas and Verminion—two of the four Named Lords of the Nether—and barely escaped with his life and the lives of his friends and parents. Even though Barakkas and Verminion had made their way to Earth, he knew that the remaining two Named—Slagguron and Tyrannus—were still stranded in the Nether, where they lived in their dark and glorious palaces.
    “What will they do if they get to Earth?” Violet asked.
    “Summon the Fifth,” Charlie replied quietly.
    The very thought sent a chill through his heart. Each of the Named possessed an Artifact of the Nether. For Barakkas, it was a giant metal bracer around his wrist; for Verminion it was a thick choker around his neck. Charlie didn’t know