Battle of the Beasts Read online

  Dedication

  For Eleanor, Brendan, Violet, and Bella

  —C.C.

  To my grandmother

  —N.V.

  Contents

  Dedication

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Chapter 56

  Chapter 57

  Chapter 58

  Chapter 59

  Chapter 60

  Chapter 61

  Chapter 62

  Chapter 63

  Chapter 64

  Chapter 65

  Chapter 66

  Chapter 67

  Chapter 68

  Chapter 69

  Chapter 70

  Chapter 71

  Chapter 72

  Chapter 73

  Chapter 74

  Chapter 75

  Epilogue

  About the Authors

  Books by Chris Columbus and Ned Vizzini

  Credits

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  Brendan Walker knew the package would be there by eight a.m. It had to be. He had selected “FedEx First Overnight” on the website; he had confirmed that in his zip code (in Sea Cliff, in San Francisco), “First Overnight” meant eight a.m.; he had even woken up continually during the night to hit Refresh on the FedEx tracking page. If the package didn’t arrive at his house by eight, how could he go to school?

  “Brendan! Get down here!”

  He turned away from his laptop and went to the trapdoor that was the only exit out of his room. Sometimes he thought it was strange that his room was actually the attic of a three-story, Victorian-style house, but mostly he thought it was cool. Besides, it was one of the least weird things about his life.

  He hit the latch. The trapdoor swung away, unfolding into steps that led from the attic to the hallway below. He hopped down and folded the steps back behind him, tucking the rope that hung from the trapdoor inside, so it dangled down several inches less than normal. This way, if anybody entered his room while he was at school, he would know.

  “Brendan! Your breakfast is getting cold!”

  He ran toward his mom’s voice.

  In the hallway, Brendan passed three photos of the home’s former owners: the Kristoffs. They had built the place in 1907. Their pictures were faded, overlaid with pastel colors that appeared to have been added years later. Denver Kristoff, the father, had a grim face and a square beard. His wife, Eliza May, was pretty and demure. Their daughter, Dahlia, was a cute, innocent-looking baby in the photos—but Brendan knew her by a different name, with a different set of skills.

  She was the Wind Witch. And she had almost killed him half a dozen times.

  Fortunately, she hadn’t been a problem for six weeks. She was . . . How would the cops put it? “Missing and presumed dead,” Brendan thought. Brendan’s little sister, Eleanor, had used a magical book to banish her to “the worst place ever” and they hadn’t heard from her since. Which meant it was probably time to take down her picture. But whenever Brendan’s parents brought up that idea, Brendan protested, along with Eleanor and his older sister, Cordelia.

  “Mom, the house is called Kristoff House. You can’t take down the pictures of the Kristoffs,” Eleanor had said the other week, when Mrs. Walker showed up in the hallway with pliers and putty. Eleanor was nine; she had strong opinions.

  “But we own the house now, Eleanor. Wasn’t it you who suggested that we start calling it Walker House?”

  “Yeah, but now I think we should respect the original owners,” replied Eleanor.

  “It gives the place historical integrity,” Cordelia agreed. She was three years older than Brendan, about to turn sixteen, although she sounded like she was in her thirties. “It’s like when they change the name of a baseball stadium to Billionaire Corporation Field. It’s fake.”

  “Fine.” Mrs. Walker sighed. “It’s your house. I just live here.”

  Mrs. Walker left, allowing the Walker siblings to speak more freely. Just looking at the pictures brought them back to the fantastic adventures they had been on in Kristoff House—the certifiably crazy, never-talk-about-them-because-you’ll-be-put-away adventures. The adventures about which Brendan thought: If any of us ever gets married, and we tell people, “The best day of my life was when I got married,” we’ll be lying. Because the best day of our lives was when we got home safe, six weeks ago.

  “It really does make sense to keep the Kristoffs up,” Cordelia said. “They’re the ones responsible for this whole . . . situation.”

  “What situation? The situation where we’re rich?” Eleanor asked.

  It felt weird to say. But it was true. At the end of the Walkers’ certifiable adventures, when Eleanor had made the wish in the magical book (or cursed book, really) to banish the Wind Witch, she’d also wished for her family to be rich. The Walker parents had ended up with ten million dollars in their savings account as a “settlement” for Dr. Walker. Now the family was living very comfortably because of it.

  “There’s that,” Cordelia said, “and there’s the situation where we live in mortal fear because the Wind Witch could come back.” She looked at Denver Kristoff’s picture. “Or the Storm King.”

  Brendan shuddered. He didn’t like to think about the Storm King, the persona Denver Kristoff took for himself after he became a wizard warped by The Book of Doom and Desire. The book—the same book that had given the Walkers their newfound wealth—was blank, but if you wrote a wish on a piece of paper and slipped it inside, the wish came true. As one might imagine, prolonged use of such a magical artifact had terrible effects on the body and mind, and, in Denver Kristoff’s case, had turned him into the monstrous Storm King. All of that was scary enough, but the real problem was that the Storm King was AWOL—the kids had no idea where he was.

  He might be living in Berkeley.

  “Here’s what I think,” Brendan said. “For the month or however long it’s been since we got home, those pictures have stayed up, and we haven’t had to deal with the Kristoffs in real life. Is that a coincidence? Probably. But in this house, you never know. So it’s safer to keep them up.”

  Eleanor grabbed his hand. He grabbed Cordelia’s. For a brief moment, they all made a silent wish that it was really over.

  Now Brendan rushed past the pictures down the spiral stairs to the kitchen.
The room had been nice when the Walkers bought Kristoff House, but after the ten-million-dollar cash infusion, Mrs. Walker had gone a little nuts, picking up a fancy French stove that cost more than a Lexus.

  “Here,” Mrs. Walker said as Brendan took a seat between his sisters at the marble countertop. His mother handed him a plate of warmish blueberry pancakes. He looked left and right: Cordelia was leafing through a copy of Teen Vogue; Eleanor was playing a game on her mom’s iPhone.

  “Look who decided to wake up,” Cordelia said.

  “Yeah, what were you doing up there?” Eleanor asked.

  Brendan tucked into his pancakes. They were good. But they had been just as good back in their old apartment.

  “Wuhting fuh uh uhmportunt puhckuge,” Brendan said with his mouth full.

  “Ew! Could you chew and talk separately?” Eleanor said.

  “Why? Who’s watching me?” Brendan washed down the pancakes with almond milk. “We’re not in the dining hall, are we? Is one of your new friends who owns every single American Girl doll going to see me?”

  “It’s not like that,” Eleanor said. “You’re just supposed to have manners and you don’t.”

  “You never cared before,” Brendan said.

  “Families that are rich are supposed to be nice!”

  “Okay, hold on,” Mrs. Walker said. She looked at all three of her children. In many ways they appeared the same as they had before the family moved into Kristoff House: spiky-haired Brendan; Cordelia with her bangs over her eyes like a shield; Eleanor with her nose scrunched, ready to take on a challenge . . . but they all felt different.

  “I don’t want to hear you use the r word, Eleanor. I know things have changed since your father’s settlement—”

  “Where is Dad, anyway?” Cordelia asked.

  “He’s out for a run,” Mrs. Walker said, “and—”

  “All morning? Is he training for the marathon?”

  “Don’t change the subject! Now, even though we are financially in a better place, we are still the family we always were.”

  The Walkers looked at one another, then at their mom. It was tough to believe her when she was standing in front of so much high-end kitchen equipment.

  “That means that we respect each other, so we don’t do things like chew and talk at the same time. But it also means we’re kind to each other. If we’re offended by something, we nicely ask the other person to change what they’re doing. Is that clear?”

  Cordelia and Eleanor nodded, although Cordelia was already back in her music—she had found a band from Iceland that she liked; they sounded . . . “Cold” is the best way to put it, Cordelia thought. They make the coldest music I’ve ever heard.

  And Cordelia liked feeling cold these days. Numb. It was one of the only ways she had to deal with the craziness that had happened to her. She could never tell anyone what she’d been through—never write about it or speak about it. It would be better to forget it ever happened. But that wasn’t easy, so she tried to distract herself; for instance, she’d had a TV installed in her bedroom. At first it was to keep up with Brendan, who’d had both a TV and a beef jerky–dispensing machine installed in his attic (or as Cordelia liked to call it, his “not-quite-a-man cave”). But it had grown to be a source of comfort for her, along with music, because it allowed her to numb the swirling emotions she had about where she’d been and what she’d done. Reading used to provide that escape for Cordelia, but books were harder for her to enjoy now—books, after all, were what had gotten her into trouble in the first place! I’m changing, she thought. And I’m not so sure it’s a good thing. But she couldn’t dwell on this now, because Brendan had spotted the FedEx truck outside.

  “Brendan! Where are you going?”

  He was tearing out of the kitchen, rushing past the suit of armor in the hallway, under the chandelier, out the big front doors, into the chilly San Francisco air, down the path that slalomed the gigantic oak trees on the pristine lawn, past the new driveway with his dad’s new Ferrari parked in it . . . all the way to Sea Cliff Avenue, where the truck was parked by a man in a blue-and-orange uniform.

  “Brendan Walker?”

  “That’s me!” Brendan said, signing for the package and opening it on the sidewalk. He pulled out what was inside . . . and gasped.

  Cordelia and Eleanor were down the path and practically on top of their brother before he could appreciate his delivery. He held up—

  “A backpack?” Cordelia asked.

  “Not just a backpack,” Brendan said. “A Mastermind backpack, from Japan. You see this skull logo on the back? Real diamonds.”

  “Like the crystal skull from Indiana Jones?” Eleanor asked.

  “No! Cooler than that! This is one of the most exclusive backpacks in the world! There were only fifty of them ever made!”

  “Where did you get it?” Cordelia asked.

  “From a website . . . ,” Brendan said.

  His mother was coming down the path. He gulped. He’d been rehearsing for this moment.

  “Brendan! What is that?”

  “Well, Mom, it’s a—”

  “Diamond skull backpack from Japan that he probably spent a thousand dollars on,” Eleanor interrupted.

  “Nell!”

  Brendan started putting the backpack on. Maybe if his mother saw how great he looked in it, she’d let him keep it. “Mom, look . . . Bay Academy is a great place. . . . I mean, it’s the best school in San Francisco. Everybody knows that.”

  His mother’s eyes narrowed suspiciously, but she was listening. Cordelia and Eleanor shared a look of annoyance. Brendan went on.

  “It’s also a really competitive place. And I don’t mean like in studying. I mean, we’re going to school with high-powered kids. Kids whose parents are bankers and CEOs and baseball players. And my wardrobe, it just . . . needs a status piece.”

  “A status piece,” his mother repeated.

  “Have you ever heard me complain about all the clothes you order from L.L.Bean? No. But they’re just normal clothes that every kid wears. I need something that I can wear when I’m walking down the halls and have people go, ‘Wow, who’s that guy?’ Because otherwise, I’m invisible. Or visible in a bad way. Like a stain.”

  “Mom!” Cordelia said. “You’re not buying this, are you? He’s giving you a sob story for a thousand-dollar backpack!”

  “Will you stop with the thousand dollars? It didn’t cost that much,” Brendan said.

  “Well, how much did it cost?” his mother asked.

  “Seven hundred.”

  His mother’s forehead turned into upside-down arrows of wrinkles. “You spent seven hundred dollars on a backpack?”

  “Including shipping.”

  “How did you pay for it?”

  “Your credit card.”

  “Have you lost your mind?”

  “It’s all good,” Brendan said. “I wrote you a check to pay you back.”

  Brendan pulled the check out of his pocket. It was one of Mrs. Walker’s, made out for the exact cost of the backpack, but Brendan had crossed out Mrs. Walker’s name on the upper left-hand corner and replaced it with his.

  “You wrote a check to me from my account,” said Mrs. Walker. Her face was crimson now.

  “Yeah. I mean . . . I figured some of your money is technically my money, too,” said Brendan. “I know you and Dad put away money for us to go to college. So I figured I’d use my college money to buy the backpack.”

  “You have no idea how much money we put away for college!” Mrs. Walker snapped. “You’re sending that bag back immediately!”

  “But it’ll help me become popular, and by becoming popular, I’ll be invited to more extracurriculars, and by doing more extracurriculars, I’ll get into a better college. Think of it as an investment!”

  “You know what would help you get into a better college? Getting rid of the S’s from your report card,” Mrs. Walker countered. (Bay Academy Prep didn’t do letter grades; it had E for
excellent, S for satisfactory, N for needs improvement, and U for unsatisfactory—or as the students called it, uh-oh.)

  “I’ll get all E’s this semester,” Brendan said. “I’ll be like Cordelia. I promise.”

  “Don’t believe him,” Cordelia said. “The last thing he wants is to be like me.”

  Brendan looked at her. That’s not true, he thought. Deal’s still the smartest person I know. She’s just been acting a little weird lately.

  “I’m very angry with you, Brendan,” said Mrs. Walker.

  “How are you gonna punish him?” asked Eleanor.

  “Shush, Nell,” said Brendan.

  “Make him do chores!” said Cordelia.

  “Chores?” said Brendan. “What are our three cleaning ladies gonna do then? Do you really want to put people out of work in this economy? Just to punish me?”

  “No,” said Mrs. Walker, “what you’re going to do is make this backpack count as your birthday present.”

  “That’s not fair,” said Brendan. “My birthday isn’t for six months.”

  “Or,” said Mrs. Walker, “you can get a job at In-N-Out Burger.”

  “Are you kidding?” asked Brendan. “One kid at Bay Academy sees me making animal fries, my entire life is over!”

  “Your decision,” said Mrs. Walker. “And if you ever use my credit card again, I will take that backpack right down to Glide Memorial and give it to the first homeless person I see. Don’t think I won’t.”

  Brendan shrugged and sighed; he knew this fight was over—and he’d gotten to keep the backpack. It just meant he couldn’t get a moped for his birthday like he was planning. “Yeah, fine, okay, Mom,” he mumbled. “Thanks.”

  “I can’t believe you’re letting him off so easy,” Cordelia said.

  “Look, I took you and Eleanor on a shopping spree when we got the settlement.”

  “Yeah, but . . . but . . .”

  “But you’re girls?” Brendan said. “Sorry, equal rights.”

  “Brendan! Stop antagonizing your sister and get ready for school!”

  A few minutes later the Walkers rushed out to Sea Cliff Avenue with bags full of homework and books to meet the black Lincoln town car waiting for them. The driver, Angel, a portly, cheerful fifty-seven-year-old, was always early. He turned down the music of the great accordion player Flaco Jiménez as the kids came toward the car.