Things got seriously weirder after that. I ran out of the house, my feet barely shoved into my untied boots. The first thing I saw were two winged horses standing in a corner of the front lawn, snuffling at the few lone strands of grass Baba hadn’t killed. There was a medium-sized white one with snow-colored wings and a larger, dangerous-looking black one with feathers the color of a raven. Their wings were muscular and wide, sprouting right out where you’d imagine their shoulders would be. Both horses pawed the ground near Baba’s snake ditch. They whinnied nervously. Apparently, they didn’t like snakes either.
Some little trick-or-treaters on the sidewalk gaped at the winged horses, giggling and pointing, but their parents ignored the animals—as if the horses had some kind of grown-ups-can’t-see-me spell on them. Even as the adults sauntered by with their little ghosties, firefighters, and goblins in hand, a group of high schoolers dressed as punk-zombie-rockers stopped in front of the house to squint at the winged horses, blinking as if they weren’t really sure what they were looking at.
“Wicked horse costume, man!” a boy with mascara and a nose ring shouted as we came rushing out of the house. “Hey, who’s in there?” he yelled into the white horse’s nose.
“Unhand our horses, sir!” Lal yelled as Nose Ring tried to pull one of the midnight feathers off the stallion’s wings.
The pack of costumed boys broke out laughing. “Check out the loser! Look at that getup! Fresh off the boat!”
Lal stopped in front of the boys, growing as red as his turban. “You uncouth hyenas!”
“Enough already with the posh accent!” I thought I heard Neel mutter. In a louder voice, he called, “Let it go, Lal!” Neel and I hadn’t stopped running, and now he shoved me onto the back of the black horse, which snorted and shifted under me. “We’ve got more important things to worry about right now!”
The crashing sounds coming from the house were getting louder. For a second, I thought about how upset Ma would be at the mess when she came home. But then I remembered I had no idea where she and Baba were. Had the rakkhosh taken them before I got there? What was it that Ma wrote? Something about a protective spell being broken on my birthday? Was all this really happening? My stomach clenched, and I felt my tear ducts doing something suspicious, until I reminded myself: Blubbering is for babies.
Lal put away his sword and rolled up his sleeves. He circled Nose Ring with his fists raised, like an old-fashioned boxer. “We are the princes Lalkamal and Neelkamal—guests in your land from the Kingdom Beyond Seven Oceans and Thirteen Rivers. You have insulted us, and I must ask for satisfaction.”
Princes? Ma’s note said something about trusting princes. The truth was, I guess I’d already decided to trust the boys—right after I’d figured out they probably weren’t serial killers. Why else would I be sitting on the back of a winged horse, waiting for Lal to finish his duel with a teenage zombie?
The horse under me whinnied and stamped its feet, and I was grateful that Neel had its reigns firmly in hand. But Lal wasn’t paying either of us any attention.
“You are unarmed, so I challenge you to fisticuffs! Hand-to-hand combat!”
Lal’s dark eyes glinted at his opponent, as if he had nothing better to do than fight a mascara-wearing high schooler. As handsome as he was, I had to admit, Lal wasn’t the most practical person I’d ever met. And why did he talk like an old-fashioned hero when his brother didn’t? It was like he was playing some movie version of a prince. I almost expected a little glint of light to cheesily spark off his front tooth. Like: *ching*
“Hello? Could we move it along? Being chased by a demon here?” I muttered. Neel gave me a sideways glance.
“Haoo, maoo, khaoo!” The crashing sounds were louder now, and I could hear the demon’s cries very close to the front door of the house. The horses skittered and neighed, and I held on as tightly as I could, but kept my attention on Lal and his opponents.
“Man, that’s a wicked scary haunted-house tape!” Some of the high school boys looked nervous and started backing off.
Only Nose Ring stayed. He hacked and spit at Lal’s feet. The goober hung on a lone blade of grass, shimmering like a disgusting jewel.
“I demand satisfaction!” Lal yelled. He circled the boy, his fists still up. Despite how ridiculous he was being, anger only made Lal more hair-meltingly handsome. While I got my fill of Lal-flavored eye candy, Neel swung himself up on the ever more agitated black horse.
“Hold tight,” he ordered over his shoulder. “I bet you don’t know how to ride and I don’t want you rolling off and getting pancaked.”
My skin prickled at Prince Neel being so close. Not just because he was a boy, and I wasn’t sure I’d ever sat that close to a boy, but because he was an obnoxious boy. A boy who thought he was all that and a packet of samosas.
“Why can’t I ride with Lal? I bet he’s more of a gentleman!”
“Oh, sure, he’s more of a gentleman, and better at being royal too.” Neel raised a dark eyebrow. “But you better believe I’m the better rider.”
Uck! Obnoxious and an egomaniac! I was about to zing off a good response, when I heard a cracking noise—like an iceberg breaking off a glacier.
I looked up just in time to see the entire wall around my front door collapse. The horse flapped its wings and bucked in fear. I had no choice but to hang on to Neel’s waist for dear life.
“Time to go, little bro!” Neel hollered, barely keeping the animal on the ground.
The rakkhosh pushed through the wall of my house as if it were tissue paper and held one of the pillars from the front porch in its hand. Bricks and mortar fell on the demon’s shoulders, but it brushed them away like raindrops. When its beady eyes finally focused on the far end of the lawn, the demon lumbered in our direction, the pillar raised like a club over its head. Each step made the ground shake.
“Mommy!” Nose Ring was halfway down the street, running at full speed behind his already disappeared crew.
To my left, I heard a thin, high-pitched voice. Oh no!
“Look at the scary monster costume, Daddy!” A little mermaid approached the house with her suit-wearing father.
“Run!” I shouted at the dad, since I was pretty sure he couldn’t see the rakkhosh.
The father stood frozen, as if he wanted to run but wasn’t sure why. I shouted at him again, and by some instinct, he grabbed his daughter and started sprinting down the sidewalk. The girl’s smiling face bobbed over her father’s back, her tiara hanging crookedly from her head. “But I want to see the monster eat the prince, Daddy!”
Lal was paying no attention to the rakkhosh that was gaining on him by the second. Instead, he shook his fist at Nose Ring’s departing form.
“Run, you lily-livered lamprey! Run from my wrath!”
Even with a looming demon, a near-eaten neighbor girl, a spooked horse, and a rude riding companion on my mind, I noticed that some of Lal’s dark curly locks had come loose from his turban. *sigh*
The advancing rakkhosh was drooling so much goo from its mouth now that strings of the frothy stuff were sticking to the tree stumps and bare bushes it passed. It eyed Lal, licking its lips.
“Dirty socks and stinky feet!” the demon screeched. “I smell royal human meat!” Bristle-like hairs stood up on its arms and nose.
Wow, rakkhosh really do rhyme! I thought in passing, before my mind became more appropriately preoccupied with my imminent death and dismemberment.
Handsome or not, this royal wack job was going to get us all killed. Trust the princes, Ma had said, but we’d all have to survive first.
“Come on, Lal!” I yelled. “Let’s get out of here!”
The white horse was just as scared as the black one. Its eyes were big and its breath came out in audible whooshes through its nose. But it wasn’t going anywhere without Lal. The loyal animal opened its wings and took a few steps toward its master. It shook its mane, as if asking him to get on its back. The black horse bearing Neel and me shuddered, dashing this way and that, barely under Neel’s control.
The demon’s black tongue lolled from between his fangs. “How he’ll holler, how he’ll groan, when I eat the mortal prince’s bones!”
“Seriously?” Neel mused. “That’s the best meter he could come up with?”
The horses whinnied in fear and warning.
“Lal!” I screamed. The rakkhosh’s fingernails were inches from his head.
But just then, Prince Lal did something fairly high on the Richter scale of stupidity. He launched himself off a tree trunk, did an Olympic-level double back somersault in the air, and landed on the demon’s head, gripping its two horns like motorcycle handle bars.
“Me thinks, sirrah, you need to go on a diet!” Lal announced. He tried to stab the monster with his sword, but the rakkhosh’s thick skin stopped the blade from going in too far.
“This prince is like a little fly!” cried the demon, swatting at Lal. “Me thinks it’s time for him to die!”
“Aren’t you going to go help him?” I yelled at Neel. He just sat there in front of me, watching the spectacle.
“Aw shucks, he’s just showing off.” Neel reached into his pocket and scarfed down a couple more of Ma’s rasagollas.
I shrieked as the monster’s fist managed to connect with Lal’s head. The prince slumped forward, unconscious, and then began to slip off the rakkhosh’s neck. Only his red sash, which had gotten tangled up in one of the demon’s horns, saved him from crashing down to the ground. Prince Lalkamal hung upside down from the thrashing monster, his perfect face deathly still.
And then I don’t know what the heck got into me.
“Well, if you’re not going to help your brother, I will!” Pushing off Neel’s back, I slid from the dark horse and ran at the rakkhosh. Unfortunately, I only reached the monster’s waist. I grabbed Lal’s sword, which had fallen from his limp hands, and stabbed the hairy demon in the foot.
“Let him go, halitosis-head!”
Some instinct told me to plunge the sword into the soft spots between the demon’s toes. I was scared, but felt something else besides fear coursing through my veins. Something brave and strong and heady. Like I’d been fighting rakkhosh all my life instead of doing inventory on two-liter soda bottles and pine tree–shaped car deodorizers.
“Princess smells like yummy pickles!” the demon snarled. “Stop it! Stop it! Ooo, that tickles!”
I felt the monster grab my hood. “You best not rip my favorite sweatshirt, you drooling toad!” Sure enough, as the monster lifted me up, I heard the material start to tear.
I hung from the monster’s fingers ten feet above the ground. I kicked my legs, swinging my sword in a wild arc. Lal, still hanging unconscious, was suddenly very close.
“Here, horsey! Come catch your master!” I sliced through Lal’s tangled sash, freeing him. The unconscious prince plummeted toward the earth.
Luckily, the monster was too occupied with me to worry about Lal, and too shortsighted to see the winged horse that swooped up, catching him on its snow-white back.
“Good job, Snowy!” I could have sworn the horse smiled at me as it flew back toward where Neel and the black horse still stood at the far end of the lawn.
As the rakkhosh lifted me face-high, it was hard not to faint at the smell coming from its mouth. Holding my breath, I took aim at its teeny, bloodshot eye and stabbed the sword forward with all my might. Unfortunately, sword fighting wasn’t on the curriculum at Alexander Hamilton Middle School, and my aim wasn’t exactly perfect. I looked in horror as Lal’s weapon lodged itself right in the middle of the monster’s bulbous nose, resulting in yellow streams of rakkhosh snot streaming out of both nostrils.
“Barf!” I yelled as the monster’s sinuses drained all over me. “Neel, anytime now, some help would be awesome!”
If it was possible, the monster looked even more furious. “Princess mean, but she’ll be sweet! Princess meat is good to eat!”
I was done for—abandoned by my parents, covered in rakkhosh snot, and about to be eaten. This was the worst birthday ever!