Lord of the Manor -- Section 9

[I wanted to give you more--I swear, I really did--but I've run down. Simply too tired, so you only get just a bit over 1600 words, and not the 3000 I wanted.

[Forgive me. They're STILL not safe. Forgive me.]

    Maddie couldn't tell for certain, but it looked like one of the creatures--sitting on the handlebars--waved at her. She skidded to a halt and stared. There was something wrong with that. Sure, it was bad enough to have your only means of escape covered with clawed, crazy men--wait, that one was wearing a dress, so crazy women, too--but to have one wave at you was over the top. Too crazy. These little people needed to learn how to be crazy with some class.
    And now they were calling her name. How insane was that? How did they even KNOW her name? Maddie realized her hands were shaking. She was going to die. There, calling her name again. What was the point of taunting her like that?
    "Maddie! Where ARE you?"
    Hang on. That sounded like Michael's voice. She spun around, taking a swipe with her helmet at a moth-man that had swept in too close. She clipped its wing and it spun away, cursing.
    "Michael?" she shouted back.
    "Maddie!" He charged around the corner, a short knight in a backpack with a broom cradled in one arm like a lance, the other hand holding a large, silver platter over his head. Maddie could think of cooler helmets, but not any that she'd been happier to see. "Let's go!" said Michael, swiping at the air with the broom, not coming close to anything, but with just enough crazy to it that none of the flying things were taking the chance that he might actually connect.
    "THAT'S how to be crazy with class," muttered Maddie, running over to meet Michael.
    "Take this," said the boy, handing her the platter.
    "What? Why?"
    "Hit stuff with it."
    "Sure," she said, "but is there something special about it? Are these flying things scared of silver?"
    Michael looked at her with his eyebrows up and his mouth slightly open. "Are they?" he asked.
    "I'm asking you," she said.
    "How would I know?"
    "But don't you know about these things?"
    "Why would I know about these things? I just got here TODAY."
    "But this is--"
    "My house? Yeah, people keep telling me that. Ow!" One of the creatures had taken advantage of Michael's sudden stillness to sweep in and take a swipe at his bottom. The boy swung around with the broom, taking another wild swing and almost hitting Maddie on the follow-through.
    "You don't play baseball, do you," said the girl, holding the tray up over her shoulder, ready to smack anything that came close--at least she hoped she could smack. She hadn't played baseball in a long time, either.
    "Do computer games count?" asked Michael. "Forget it. Let's GO."
    Maddie decided there was nothing to argue with in that statement, and she followed close behind, her tray behind her head--partly to protect from any attacks from above, and partly in case Michael's enthusiastic sweeping got out of control.
    "I figure," he said, grunting as he swung his broom, "once we get to the corner, we start running and don't look back." His voice was louder, calling over the chatter from the dozens--hundreds?--of creatures, laughing and rustling through the air. Maddie even thought she heard snippets of show tunes, zooming back and forth.
    "Run, don't look," she shouted back. "Works for me."
    They rounded the corner and she almost ran over Michael as he stopped suddenly. She caught the broom handle in the ribs, but she figured it wouldn't leave a bruise--at least not much of one. Then she looked ahead toward the entrance to the building, and she stopped thinking about her ribs at all.
    "You've got to be kidding me," she said.
    "I don't think we can make it through that," said Michael.
    "Let me take a look," said a light, tenor voice from Michael's backpack.
Maddie was torn between looking at the hurricane of creatures that stood--flew, actually--in the way of safety, and the small, vaguely lizard-like man that scurried out of the backpack's main compartment and up onto Michael's shoulder. Some part of her brain decided that just about then was the right time to stop worrying about how weird the entire night was, and simply accept everything.
    "Hi," she said. "You must be Michael's cousin."
    The little man looked back over his shoulder and up at Maddie. "It's hard to shake the family resemblance," he said. "We have the same nose."
    "Are you two NUTS?" said Michael. "We're dead, Sticks. We can't get through that."
    "You have to do it," said Sticks, rocking his head from side to side as if loosening up his neck. "Give me the Right."
    "You've got to be kidding," said the boy. "Even with you supercharged, we're not making it across the lawn, let alone through the door." The small man clung to Michael's shoulder as the boy took a swing at one of the braver of the flying creatures. He missed, of course. Didn't his dad ever take him outside?
    "Do you have a better idea?" asked Sticks.
    "Break a window," suggested Michael.
    "And have them pouring in right after us?" said the little man, shaking his head. "Break the Boundary around this place and it's like inviting every nasty thing for miles to come in and join us for lunch. And we're lunch, if you didn't catch that."
    "What about the main entrance?" asked Maddie. Boy and little man both looked at her like she was insane. "What?" she said. "It can't be worse than this."
    "It can be," said Sticks. "Look, young Master, we don't have a choice. Do it and let's go."
    Michael stopped swinging for a second and took a deep breath. "Fine. How do I do it? Anything special I have to say?"
    "Nothing special. Just do it."
    Maddie wondered what, exactly, they were doing, but she found herself distracted by the screaming thing, hurtling down at her from almost straight up. She screamed and ducked thrusting the tray out at the creature with both hands. The metal dented down at her and she felt the jolt through her elbows and into her shoulders. The tray stayed heavy. Long claws curled around the edge of the tray over her head. Maddie screamed again and shook the tray, but the creature stayed firmly attached, his bird wings beating at her hands. Michael looked on, trying to get a good swing with his broom but clearly more worried about hitting Maddie than he was confident in his aim.
    CALM DOWN, Maddie told herself. CALM. Then the creature poked his head over the edge of the tray and winked at her.
    That was too much. Maddie grabbed the tray firmly, planted her feet, and swung at the wall straight from her hips. Whatever else that creature was, it was fast. Before Maddie's swing connected, the little man launched himself into the air, and Maddie's tray smacked into the plaster of the wall with a clang. The little thing twisted in mid air, rebounded off the wall, and lifted away into the night, laughing. He was laughing at her.
    "That's it," said Maddie, her hands shaking with anger. "Whatever it is you two are talking about, just do it, and do it fast, or...or I...RAAAA!" She wasn't sure what she had been about to say, but she knew one thing: feeling angry felt a lot better than being scared, and right at that moment it was one or the other.
    "Sure," said Michael, looking wide-eyed and slightly shell-shocked. "Right away."
    Maddie looked away from him and up into the sky. BRING IT, she thought, glaring at the creatures flying overhead. Maybe being a bit of a valkyrie wasn't such a bad thing. She'd take them all on.
    Michael's voice came from behind her and she felt the anger in her pause. It was still there--she could still feel it, keeping her from crying--but it made a waiting feeling inside her. Something important was happening.
    His voice sounded like he was messing with a karaoke machine, turning on the echo setting--reverb? It sounded like he was calling out in a bathroom, or maybe a concert hall, but his voice was quiet, and it shouldn't have carried over the laughing and singing and screaming that was going on overhead, but it did. She could hear him clearly.
    "Sticks," he said, "I give you the Right and Privilege of Personal Protection and Overwatch for the Lord of the Manor. This manor. By which I mean me." His voice got less steady at the end, and the echo faded away. "Also," he finished weakly, "it would be nice if you could protect Maddie, too."
    Maddie glanced back at the little man on Michael's shoulder. He looked exactly the same. Great. That had been useless. She started to look away, then stopped. Something about Sticks caught her eye. There was an energy to him that hadn't been there before. He scuttled up fully onto Michael's shoulder, standing on his bare feet and leaning against the boy's temple.
    "Wow," he said, then he laughed. "Wow! I'd forgotten how good it feels to have a Right. Let's do this, little Master."
    Michael pulled his head back and looked grumpy. "I'm not little."
    YOU ACTUALLY ARE, thought Maddie, but she was nicer than to say that out loud.
    "I'm sorry," said Sticks, not looking very sorry. He looked confident--not that he hadn't looked confident before. Now he looked ultra-confident. For the first time, Maddie started to think that they could make it through this. "Do you mind if I lead the way, young Master? It's time we went inside."
    Michael looked at the cloud of creatures between them and the door and blew his breath out through puffed-out cheeks. "Why not?" he said. "After all, it is my house."