Page 151 of Sweet Nightmare

“We need knives!” he tells her urgently.

“Why do you always have to take the fun out of everything?” she pouts. But then she pulls a giant knife out of her pant leg and hands it to him.

One of these days she is going to tell me where she gets them. Because there is no way that any person carries this many knives on her person. No way. I swear, this one is almost as big as she is.

Remy turns around and starts hacking away at the chricklers, too, wielding the knife like a scythe.

“What about the rest of us?” Mozart calls desperately.

Izzy rolls her eyes and pulls out the tiniest dagger I’ve ever seen. She lobs it at Mozart and says, “Knock yourself out.”

“Seriously?” Mozart looks totally offended.

“Yeah, well, next time think before you fire.”

I lean over and try to pull a chrickler off Jude—apparently, I’m not blade-worthy—and get a pair of teeth in my hand for my trouble. But, on the plus side, I can actually see part of Jude’s leg, so I feel like we’re getting close.

Izzy must feel the same way, because she gets a little too enthusiastic and cuts a massive swathe through a bunch of chricklers—and, also, Mozart’s forearm.

“Ow!” Mozart shrieks, dropping her knife. “You’re as big a menace as the chricklers.”

“Please,” Izzy scoffs. “This is me with the child locks on.”

“That’s what I’m afraid of.” Mozart doesn’t look impressed.

Since she’s currently bleeding and can no longer use it, I pick up her knife. I’ve never stabbed anything before, and if you’d asked me ten minutes ago, I would have told you I’d be quite happy living the rest of my life without ever stabbing anyone or anything.

Refusing to give myself a chance to think too much, I plunge my knife into the nearest chrickler. Then nearly recoil, not because it’s gross, but because it isn’t.

It’s the strangest feeling. The monster is nowhere near as solid as I’d expect it to be. It feels almost…empty. There’s no resistance once the knife slides in, and the moment it’s buried to the hilt, this chrickler does exactly what the others did. It condenses into a black plume and blows away in the wind.

I take aim at a second one, then freak out because a whole new horde of chricklers is racing up the path toward us. And they all look loaded for paranormal.

Simon, who has been behind us with Remy, Ember, and Luis trying to keep the other chricklers off us so we can help Jude, groans. “Damn, Clementine. We can’t fight them all.”

“I know,” I answer grimly as I brace myself for what may very well be a bloodbath.

When all of a sudden, a loud shriek fills the air—followed by the sound of teeth clattering to the ground.

“Oh, fuck no,” Luis says, voice dripping in horror.

But he and I aren’t the only ones to hear the battle cry of that hydra snake monster thing we had to fight in the dungeon. The chricklers hear it, too, and their heads come up in alarm.

Ears pricked, eyes straining through the rain, they freeze for several seconds. Then with howls of terror, they abandon the fight and scatter in all directions, leaving the eight of us to stare after them.

“So, dance hall, anyone?” Luis asks.

The rest of us don’t have to be asked twice. We take off running straight for the run-down old building.

CHAPTER EIGHTY-ONE

NO REST FOR

THE SCARY

We fight the wind as we haul ass toward safety. Every once in a while, we run across a rogue chrickler, but Izzy’s got popping them down to a science, and we make it to the dance hall with almost no more injuries.

We skid to a stop at the door, ready to pile inside. But a giant padlock and chain hang from the door handles, clattering in the wind. I look nervously behind me to make sure no more chricklers have found us.

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