Bently McQuinn Saves Literature

In the light of the crack in the door was an aged woman. At first, Bently thought it was Professor McGonagall. But he soon realized the chances of that happening were very slim, and he found the woman slipping into the closet and shutting the door behind him. She lit the candle she had brought with her. It was now very cozy in the closet, a bit too cozy for comfort.

“Who are you?”

King was the first one to come out of the shock.

“I am Madame Giry. This Bella girl killed the girl I have been looking after for years, Mademoiselle Daae.”

They all paused, waiting to hear Bella’s screams about someone saying her name, but they never came. Apparently, Bella was too stupid to know that Christine’s last name was Daae.

“What in the world is wrong with this book?” Meggie asked.

Madame Giry sighed. “When Bella came here, she killed Mademoiselle Daae and took her place in the opera. By doing so, she started a cataclysm of events, and new characters have been showing up every day. Why, only today I saw Roxy from Chicago walking down the streets. Sweeney and Shiloh were some of the first, and more leads from musicals show up every day. If we don’t stop her, soon all the shows will merge into one and disappear.”

“What do you mean, disappear?” Meggie asked, looking worried.

“I think she means it’ll be a sort of black hole effect,” Bently said. “And what’s happening tonight?”

“Tonight is the opera performance. Bella is forcing all the characters to attend to try and turn all of them. If she succeeds, the book will be overrun, and she’ll get even more powerful. It will be very, very difficult to defeat her after that.”

“Has she turned anyone?” King asked.

“One person. The Phantom. She someone turned him, and he will most certainly be on the look for you tonight. She knows you’re here.”

“How?” Lucy asked.

Madame Giry was about to answer, but Bently cut across her. “My blood. She made my ears bleed on the catwalk, and some of it fell on the stage. I guess she does have some vampire powers after all.”

Madame Giry nodded. “Yes. So you’ll have to be extra careful tonight, because the Phantom is very crafty and silent. He will not bestow you with any mercy.”

“And if we kill her… if she leaves the book, everything will go back to normal?” Bently asked. He had to be sure.

Madame Giry nodded once more. “That is the hope. Now, I must leave.”

“Would you be able to send Shiloh and Sweeney here? We need to let them know what’s happening, they could be of use.”

“I shall try,” Madame Giry said, and left silently.

Bently sighed. This was not going to be easy. He almost, almost wished he was back to fighting raptors with his sword.

“Have a plan of attack now, Bently?” Lucy asked. Her eyes were shining with anticipation.

Bently ran a hand through his brown-red hair. “Yeah, I guess. Meggie, Lucy, I want you two in the audience. King, you and I are going to go up on the catwalks again. I’m hoping we can strike from above.”

There were more footsteps in the hallways, and the door opened again, making everyone tense up. But it was only Shiloh and Sweeney.

“Madame Giry said you were here,” said Shiloh, sitting down. “Please tell me you’re here to save us. I hate it here.”

“Yeah, we are. But we’re going to need your help,” Bently explained. “You two are going to be on stage, right?”

They both nodded. Sweeney’s face was so pale it seemed to glow in what little light they had. “Alright, good. Shiloh, I’m going to need you to be a distractant. King and I are going to be up in the catwalks, and if something goes wrong up there and you think Bella’s noticed us, then distract her until we can move. Sweeney, since you’re a, um, serial killer, we might need your help with the Phantom. He’s apparently the only one who’s been turned, and we could need you to help us keep him from ruining the plan. I’m not saying to kill him, but… we might need help fighting him, okay?” Sweeney nodded, silent. Bently thought he was much creepier up close.

“So… to the opera tonight?”

“To the opera tonight,” everyone echoed, and Sweeney and Shiloh left. Bently smiled tensely. He was getting quite a bit better at this leader stuff.

-

King and Bently hid on either side of the stage in the wings. They waited until the show had started, and began climbing their respective ladders up to the catwalk. King had figured that they should go up on either sides, so if the Phantom was already up there, at least one of them might surprise him.

But they met in the middle of the walk, and there was no Phantom. They looked down and watched the show.

They had a full house. This made Bently uncomfortable. What if something went wrong? He seemed to remember a falling chandelier in Phantom. What if that happened again, or something worse? He wasn’t sure what he would do if he had a lot of casualties on his hands.

He found Lucy and Meggie in the audience. They had sat separate from each other, both relatively close to the stage, but not close enough that Bella would be able to pick out their faces unless she was really looking hard, and there was enough light. Not that Bella would recognize their faces, but she might be able to tell them apart from everyone else in the book. They had tried to dress Lucy and Meggie in French dresses, but they still stuck out because they were rather young. Bently just hoped their meager disguises would be enough.

On stage was Bella, Sweeney, and Shiloh. Bella was singing her awful, screeching rendition of a cheesy love song. Bently plugged his ears, not wishing for them to bleed again. He stood there, leaning against the railing with his ears plugged, not able to hear a thing. He just stared at Bella as she waltzed across the stage in an elaborate gown, looking amusingly like a peacock. A male one, that is.

But Bently felt the railing shake, and that’s when he snapped out of it and turned. He heard a chocking noise, and saw that the Phantom had dropped out of no where and was now trying to strangle King.

“Oh no you don’t,” Bently muttered, and he pulled out his elvish knife and lunged. The catwalk swung, and Bently tried to be as careful, quite, and powerful as possible. He stabbed at the Phantom’s arm, who let out a cry of pain.

There was a gasp from the audience when they heard this. Bella thought it was about her, so she didn’t pay attention, but she did pay attention when Bently had pried the Phantom from King and pushed him off the catwalk to fall on the stage bellow. There was complete silence as everyone, Bently, King, and Bella included, stared at the Phantom. Then Bella turned her face towards the ceiling, fury, murder, and fire, real fire, in her eyes.

“You,” she seethed, and everyone could hear it.

‘Oh shit,’ Bently thought. Oh shit indeed.

“YOU!” Bella screamed, and from her mouth, she unleashed an inferno of fire from her mouth.

“Oh shit!” Bently and King swore at the same time and rolled away in opposite directions in order to avoid the flames. Suddenly Bently’s back got hot, but he didn’t catch fire. The catwalk, however, started melting.

Meanwhile down on stage, the Phantom was rising. One of the apparent few benefits of being turned into a fairy vampire follower was that you couldn’t die as long as your fairy leader was still in your world, and so he got right back up. But that’s when Sweeney sprung into action, swinging his silver razor high, and he and the Phantom were caught in a fight.

Lucy and Meggie had risen from their seats just like everyone else in the house. But unlike everyone else, they weren’t screaming and running for the exits. Instead, they were more concerned with what was going on with the column of fire that was erupting from Bella’s mouth; she was setting the Opera house on fire.

Just then, the middle of the catwalk gave out, and broke in two. King and Bently clung desperately to the bars, trying to prevent a serious fall.

“YOU KILLED MY EDWARD!”

Bella had found Bently again, and she aimed a new stream of fire at him. He let go of the railing out of instinct, and fell to the stage, and although it wasn’t nearly as long of a drop as what the Phantom had experienced, it still hurt a lot.

“YOU RUINED MY LIFE!”

Bella was now almost upon him. He had dropped his knife, and he was scrambling to find the sword…

“BENTLY, MOVE!”

Meggie had yelled it just in time, and Bella looked up just as she was shooting the fire. Most of it missed Bently and went over him, making his cloak smoke. But about a third of it hit Meggie, and she fell screaming into the seats. Bently had no time to check whether she was alright or not, because Bella was just a few feet away from him, and he had a firm grip on Gryffindor’s Sword.

He went to run at Bella, stood, and pulled the sword all at the same time. Bella saw him, and fear shown in her brown eyes. She blew fire down at the stage, engulfing it in flames, and shooting herself towards the roof. In the ceiling where the chandelier should have been was a swirling black portal.

“NO!” Bently screamed helplessly as he tried to avoid the flames.

“Next time, you’re dead,” were the last words Bella spoke before she disappeared into the portal and it winked out of existence.

Bently dropped to his knees, wanting nothing more than to weep in frustration. But he couldn’t.

“Come on Bently, we’ve got to get—what?”

King stopped. He was about to say, “we’ve got to get this fire put out,” but as soon as he was about to say it, the fire extinguished itself, everything that was burned repaired itself, and the catwalk was whole again.

The Phantom was lying on the stage in a daze. He seemed to be back to normal, but he had a gash on both his arm and his face, one from Bently and one from Sweeney. Sweeney and Shiloh were no where to be found, and Christine Daae was walking out onto the stage. Madame Giry rushed up to her from the right wing.

“Christine, are you alright?”

“Yes, I just… I don’t remember anything… was I asleep?” Christine asked in a dazed voice.

Bently sheathed the sword, found his knife, and put that back too. He also checked his wand, relieved to find it unbroken. With all the falling he had been doing lately, he wouldn’t have been surprised if it had snapped in half.

“How is she?” King asked as he and Bently walked over to the girls. Lucy had propped Meggie up in a seat, and Meggie was groaning. She had several white patches on her arms, and one small one on her face.

“She’ll be fine, she just got burned pretty bad,” Lucy said, putting away her magic potion. “You are all really lucky Peter let me come with you. You’d all be dead by now if it wasn’t for this healing potion.”

“You’re right. Thank you, Lucy,” said Bently, smiling at her.

They all sat there together, resting for a moment. “What happened to Bella?” Meggie finally asked.

“She… escaped,” Bently said bitterly. “She shot herself up and out of here.”

“Oh.”

Bently shook his head. “But let’s not worry about it. How many more books do we have left?”

“Well, four, counting Meyer. Maximum Ride, A Series of Unfortunate Events, Alice in Wonderland, and Oz.”

“Oz?”

“It’s a combination of The Wizard of Oz and Wicked,” King explained.

“That’s where Meyer is,” added Meggie.

“Great, another musical,” Bently grumbled. “Well, how about we hit up Maximum Ride next? It’s in a normal world, and in my time, too. We can hopefully get another notebook there.”

“Oh, speaking of notebooks,” said Meggie, brightening up. “I stole this from the dressing room. I know it’s not much, but… here.” She handed him a small piece of stationary. It smelled like flowers, and had a floral print on it, but it was paper.

“Thanks Meggie,” said Bently, carefully folding the paper and setting it in his cloak pocket with the pen. “To Maximum Ride?”

“Absolutely,” she said, pulling the book out of her bag. “This one doesn’t look quite as bad so far, so maybe we won’t have too much trouble.”

“Knock on wood,” said King, and he knocked on the stage. Meggie began to read.

“She nodded and started stacking clean plates. I fantasized about actually being friends with Ella and her mom long after I left here and went home. I could come back and visit sometimes… Yeah, and we could have picnics, exchange Christmas cards… I’m so sure, I was totally losing my grip on reality. I had to get out of here.”

With those short, few sentences, the opera house faded. The last thing Bently thought about was how he was getting used to this portal jumping stuff.