Free Monster Madness by Dean Lorey

Brooke. “It would be okay if you held me, I think. I’m so cold and so lonely.”
    Brooke’s eyes filled with tears. “What if I held it for just a second? Just a quick, little hug couldn’t possibly—”
    “Yes, it could, Ms. Brighton,” the Headmaster snapped. “And it already has. One ‘quick, little hug’ is responsible for the Guardian being in the desperate condition you see now. This is exactly the reason why it must be protected from humans—the urge to touch it is nearly impossible to resist.”
    “Yes, Headmaster,” Brooke said, turning away, wiping tears from her eyes.
    “So what happened?” Charlie asked. “Did someone touch it?”
    The Headmaster nodded. “When I arrived, I found the Guardian in the arms of a child. The little girl was only trying to help, of course—as you were just now—but even the couple moments of contact she had with it have made it gravely ill.”
    “Where is she now?” Charlie asked. “The little girl.”
    “Home.”
    “How? I thought you couldn’t open a portal here?”
    “That’s correct. I had to bring her out of range of the Anomaly to do so.”
    “To where the monsters are,” Violet said softly.
    “Indeed,” the Headmaster replied. “There was…a certain amount of killing that had to be done, I’m afraid.”
    Charlie, who had seen the Headmaster in action, could easily imagine the amount of damage she had caused with her glowing blue staff. Once she got going, she was impossible to stop.
    “Hold me,” the Guardian whispered once more. “It’s so dark in the Nether and I’m so frightened.”
    The urge to comfort the creature was enormous. Charlie didn’t know how the Headmaster withstood it. He was already at the breaking point.
    “Come outside,” she said to them then. “And we will speak of things that need to be spoken.”

    They stood in the BT Graveyard, just out of earshot of the Guardian, although Charlie felt as if he could still hear every labored, rattling breath it took.
    “If the Guardian dies,” the Headmaster said, “the aura that it gives off will die with it, and it is that aura which repels the monsters of the Nether—in fact, it has soaked into the very ships that litter the ground here.”
    “That’s what the Nightmare Academy is built out of, isn’t it?” Charlie said, suddenly putting it all together. “Old ships from the BT Graveyard. That’s why the Academy keeps away all the creatures of the Nether. The ships there hold the aura like a battery holds a charge.”
    “Precisely,” the Headmaster said. “But only as long as the Guardian is alive. If it perishes, the Academy will be unprotected and the creatures of the Nether will overrun the BT Graveyard and escape to Earth.”
    “Then we have to save it!” Theodore exclaimed.
    “Is there a way?” Charlie asked, trying hard to control his growing anxiety.
    “There is,” the Headmaster agreed, somewhat hesitantly. “That’s why I asked Ms. Brighton to bring you here—but the danger is great, and success is by no means guaranteed.”
    “Well, I guarantee it,” Theodore said. “There—you’ve got the Theodore Dagget Guarantee! Consider it done. What do we have to do?”
    The Headmaster stared at them carefully, weighing their ability and resolve the way an expert tailor sizes up a customer and knows the right dimensions without taking a single measurement. Finally, she spoke: “There is a liquid in the Nether that is said to have astonishing restorative properties: one sip and you are returned to the point in your life when you were most powerful.”
    “Wow,” Brooke said. “I’m guessing that’s not easy to come by.”
    “You guess correctly.”
    “What is it?” Charlie asked.
    “Milk,” the Headmaster replied. “From a Hydra.”
    “A Hydra?” Theodore blurted. “You mean, a vicious multiheaded water dragon kind of Hydra?”
    “Yes, but not just any Hydra—a female Hydra. Unfortunately, that’s where the difficulty lies.