Chapter 11 Mountain in the Snow
Slowly, a mountain appeared right in front of us. It looked terribly out of place, right there in the snow. "Well, it looks like we found our Grinch." Emma said breathlessly. I was numb with cold; so the information didn't really process. I knew I should be terrified, but for some reason, I felt nothing. "Can you see any windows?" Annabeth whispered. Everyone shook their heads. On the one hand, this was good news. It meant that at least, the Grinch probably hadn't seen us coming. But on the other hand, we had no way of taking a look inside before we blasted our way in.
"So, what's the plan?" Sirius asked. The wizards had been strangely quiet, talking mostly amongst themselves. Now that this strange structure had suddenly appeared on the icy plains in front of us, it all seemed very real. If they'd still had any doubt before we got here, it was gone now. We were on a mission. And we would save the world, whatever it took.
"Let's first try to make a hole inside the wall. If we succeed, we'll still be able to take a look and devise a battle strategy. If we don't succeed, we'll just have to make our way inside. We don't have a choice. We'll still have the element of surprise." Annabeth told us, and no one argued. It sounded like the most logical plan.
Annabeth took out her knife, and set the tip to the stone. The outside layer she could scrape off easily, but the stone walls wouldn't budge. After ten minutes of trying, all there was to show for her effort were a few scratches on the stone wall. Annabeth sighed. "Time for plan B." I gulped. A few minutes ago, plan B had sounded reasonable, but I was seriously doubting it by now. We would just head inside and try to defeat the monster. It was hardly a plan, and besides, we didn't know if the Grinch had any evil minions inside.
"Percy and I will head in first, and Emma and Regina can cover the rear. Sirius, Remus and James will cover the flank. Henry and Aïcha will be in the middle, protected on each side." I would have protested, but fear had made it impossible for me to speak. And besides; I didn't really want to be in the centre of the fighting. I couldn't actually do anything. "Percy and I will fight with our weapons, and Percy will try to use the water to his advantage. What will the rest do?" Annabeth asked. I was wondering the same thing; none of the others had used any magic on the trip so far.
Regina patted her pocket. "I have a few surprises left." She said confidently, and I realised she had taken more than one vial with her. "And we will use magic." James said, all serious now. "We've refrained from doing so up until now, since it's forbidden to do magic in front of muggles. But it is allowed in life-threatening situations, which the next moments will undoubtedly qualify as." Lupin said gravely.
The reassurance made me feel a bit better, since I knew what their magic could do. They were probably sixth years already, and that meant they had plenty of magical knowledge. We were in good hands.
Neither I nor Henry responded to Annabeth's question. She clearly didn't mean us, since she'd already directed us to the centre of our little formation. "Ready?" Annabeth asked, and we all nodded. Regina walked up to the stone walls with another vial in her hand, and threw its contents onto the wall. She walked back quickly to her position at the back of the group, as the stone slowly started to melt away.
The hole the potion had created was big enough for all of us to fit through side by side. I peered at the inside of the cave, reaching up onto my toes to look over Annabeth's head. The interior was bare; there was a rickety bed on the left side of the room, and a quarter of the room was sectioned off with a black curtain. The room was much less smaller than it had seemed from the outside.
I couldn't see the Grinch anywhere, so I assumed he was somewhere behind the partition. We still had the element of surprise, it seemed. Our entrance hadn't made much noise, the potion had done it's work soundlessly. We stood just inside the room, not breaking formation. I could see the others were looking around the room just like I was. I saw Regina walk to the front of the group quietly. I smiled. That was quite characteristic. I hadn't expected her to be content with her position at the back of the group.
"Come out, come out, wherever you are!" Regina said with her melodious voice. She was going into Evil Queen mode, I could tell. And the Evil Queen had always had a flair for theatrics. I could picture Annabeth's disapproving expression; theatrics were definitely not her style. But it was, after all, mostly Regina and Emma's quest.
I could hear some shuffling behind the curtain. The suspense built up as the Grinch took his time. There was no doubt he'd heard us; whatever he was doing now couldn't be anything good. The fear was making me nauseous. Who did I think I was, coming here to defeat some villain? Here he was, ready to destroy the world, and all I had to stop him was a knife that I couldn't even fight with. If not for the paralysing fear, I would've turned around and ran right then.
Henry grabbed my hand, and I held on to it for dear life. Then, a long, green finger curled around the screen. I squeaked quietly. The curtain was pulled back then, and there he stood. Right in front of us. The Grinch was undoubtedly the ugliest, most evil, awful, scary creature I'd ever seen. He looked exactly the way he did in the movies, but he radiated fear. There was none of the laughable cartoonishness. This was a man who had suffered, and turned his suffering into madness. Madness that planned on destroying the world.
"Well, well, well. Look who we have here! Visitors! How nice of you to come over and visit the poor, poor Grinch." He said mockingly. His voice caused goose bumps on my arms. Compared to this, Regina's theatrics were nothing. This was actual, full on madness. Who did we think we were, coming here?
"We know about your evil plan. And we're here to stop you." Annabeth told him. Her voice was strong; she was used to dangerous fights. "As you can see, you're vastly outnumbered. So we're giving you a choice. Free the Christmas spirit, and we'll leave you alone. Refuse to do so, and we'll destroy you." Somehow, this calm and rational speech was much more scary than the crazy theatrics. I was glad that we had Annabeth on our side.
The Grinch put a finger to his lips, pretending to consider. He mumbled something. Clearly, he was talking to himself. He was truly insane. Then he cackled. "Tempting offer. But I think I'm going to pass up." He said, and without warning, a beam of green light was shot from his hand. "Protego!" James yelled, and the beam of light was stopped. I breathed a sigh of relief. The Grinch seemed hardly bothered that we'd blocked him so easily. The three wizards all had their wands at the ready as a new coil of green light spun from the Grinch's hands. This one, however, was not directed at us directly. It landed on the ground next to him and formed a cloud there. We all waited nervously as the smoke shifted around.
Then, the smoke slowly cleared. And standing on the ground next to the Grinch was a small army of Santa Clauses. If anyone had told me they could create and army out of Santa Clauses, I would've told them it was impossible. It was hard to picture the friendly, big-bellied, bearded, grandfatherly man as a soldier. But the Santas the Grinch had just created looked downright evil. They growled menacingly as they held clubs twice their size. I couldn't remember the Grinch being able to do something like that. Wherever he'd spent his time between the movie and now, well, it hadn't done him any good.
"Ho ho ho!" The Grinch bellied sarcastically, and the Santa Clauses stormed towards us. They split up, each one targeting someone else. Everyone formed a protective circle around me and Henry. I couldn't see anything from there; I was pressed to Henry back-to-back, and in front of me Regina and Sirius were blocking my view. I could hear everyone was fighting ferociously. I heard the lid pop off of several of Regina's vials, and I could hear the wizards casting spells. I found Henry's hands behind my back, and held them tightly. Henry squeezed my hands, as if to tell me everything was okay.
Suddenly, I heard more commotion. It wasn't just the sound of the fighting with the Santas anymore; it was something else. "What is that?" I shouted to Henry, trying to make myself heard over the noise. I didn't get a response, though. Then, all at once, the circle around us broke. Regina stumbled forward, and I felt Henry pull away. I looked around frantically, but I couldn't tell what was happening. Then, the Grinch and I locked eyes. Slowly, his mouth widened in a crazy grin, and he reached out his arm. I wished that someone would block him, but everyone else seemed to be busy fighting off their own attackers.
Time seemed to slow down as a beam of green light shot out from the Grinch's hand. My chest tightened in fear, but the beam wasn't headed for me. I broke eye contact with the Grinch just in time to see the beam hit Henry. "No!" I shouted, and surged forward, to jump in front of Henry. But it was too late; the beam had hit Henry square in the chest. He staggered, and as I watched, his arms stretched and turned into tree branches. As his head shot upward, I realised what was happening. The Grinch was turning Henry into a Christmas tree!
"Henry!" I shouted. "Don't be the Daphne to my Apollo!" Later, I'd wondered why this piece of classical mythology had suddenly sprung to mind, but at the moment, I was too overcome with anger. Within seconds, there was a full grown Christmas tree standing in the middle of the cave.
I looked over at the Grinch, who was laughing uncontrollably. "You did this!" I shouted as my vision turned red with fury. Gone was my fear. All I wanted in that moment was to kill the Grinch. To pull off his ugly green head. I lunged towards him, not even bothering to pull out my knife. I wasn't any good with it anyway.
My fists collided painfully with the Grinch's head, and for a moment, the monster was frozen in shock. I pulled back my hand to punch him again, but the Grinch had quickly come to his senses. He picked me up like a ragdoll, and threw me across the room. My head hit the stone wall with a smack, and my vision went black.
A/N: I hope you had a wonderful Christmas! I would love if you left me a comment as a present ;)