Scorch

by Gina Damico

  “And what if Zara comes back?” Lex added. “She could Crash in at any minute, and here we’ll be, sitting ducks in tight pants and high heels that I can’t even run in.”

  “Would you guys knock it off?” Elysia said. “This is our first chance at fun in weeks. Mort insisted that we come out and enjoy ourselves, and I for one am inclined to listen to him. So just stop talking. You’re embarrassing me in front of all the cool people.”

  “Are you saying we’re not cool?” Ferbus said.

  Elysia looked at the three of them, then turned back to the doors, saying nothing.

  Lex sighed, resigning herself to the night. She turned to the boys. “Did you really make a pillow fort?”

  They stared back at her, confused. “Of course we did.”

  By the time they reached the front of the line, Elysia was so excited she practically cattle-prodded them all into the club. A thick fog pervaded the room, allowing the various lights and lasers to take tangible forms as they whipped across the dance floor, which was packed with dozens of writhing, sweaty bodies and pounded with a steady techno beat. The crowd was made up of Seniors, but no one looked older than thirty. A balcony wrapped around the dance floor, giving it the impression of a gladiatorial pit.

  Lex nearly lost tiny Elysia in the tall crowd, but soon spotted her scurrying toward the bar. “Over here!” she was yelling.

  The music was slightly quieter near the bar, though the fruity smell had grown stronger. “What do you think?” Elysia said as they gathered around. “Friggin’ awesome, huh?”

  “It’s loud,” Ferbus complained. “Corpp’s was never this loud.”

  “And way too chaotic,” said Driggs. “This would be the perfect place for Zara to attack.”

  Elysia shot them both annoyed looks. “Okay, what you guys need are some drinks.” She turned to the bartender, a tall, drippy-looking guy with sideburns. “Hi, we’d like some Yoricks, please.”

  He nodded and grabbed a shaker. “Five?”

  “What? No, six—” She did a double take. “Where’s Bang?”

  They looked back at the dance floor, where Bang was grinding up against a man at least ten years her senior.

  “Daaaamn,” Elysia said as the Juniors stared in shock. “Girl can move.”

  “Ewww!” Pip cried, covering his eyes.

  Elysia had already moved on to something else. “There are the Juniors!” she said, pointing.

  Walking toward them in a pack were at least two dozen teenagers. Some sported the odd hair changes of the ether, some were clad in unspeakably pricey clothing, and all of them wore facial expressions that suggested they owned not only the club but each and every inch of DeMyse.

  “Wow,” said Lex with a gulp. “That’s a lot of Juniors.”

  Even Elysia had gone a little pale. “DeMyse is bigger—so there are more of them,” she said, though her voice had lost some of its confidence.

  Two who were dressed more lavishly than the others stepped out in front of the group: one, a girl with a pug nose, diamond earrings in each ear, and a shimmery, swanky dress; and the other, a boy with beady, weasel-like eyes. His hair was slicked back with half an oil rig, and he wore a three-piece suit, complete with tie.

  “Well, look what the sticks threw up,” the girl said.

  The boy snickered. “I’ve heard Croakers were hillbillies, but I expected at least a modicum of class.” He shook his head and gave them a piteous look. “Silly me.”

  The pair continued on their way, exchanging wicked smiles as their Juniors followed behind. One, a hulking Asian girl, seemed to be glaring especially hard at Lex.

  “I don’t think they like us,” Pip observed.

  “What’s not to like?” Lex said dryly. “We offer convenient Damning and unDamning services, we bring mayhem wherever we go, and—lest anyone forget—we’re hardcore fugitives!”

  “Keep your voice down,” Driggs warned. “LeRoy might restrict the information flow into this city, but he can’t keep people from gossiping. If anyone finds out who we are and why we’re here—”

  “I know why you are here,” a voice piped up.

  Lex felt her heart skip a beat. Slowly, they turned around to find a boy grinning at them.

  “For our world-famous Yorick cosmopolitans, of course!” he said.

  “Oh, thank God.” Elysia put her hand over her chest. “Hello again!” she said to the boy, her voice fluttering into a higher octave.

  Ferbus grabbed Driggs’s shirt, panicked. “Did he say cosmopolitans?”

  The boy smiled at Elysia. “Hola, bonita. What do you think?”

  “Oh, it’s amazing,” Elysia gushed, turning back to her friends. “Guys, this is Riqo.”

  “Pleased to make your acquaintance,” he said with a Spanish accent. A pair of sunglasses sat atop his curly dark hair, and his tanned brown skin shone so smoothly that Lex doubted the kid even had pores. “Do not worry about the rest,” he said, nodding back at the DeMyse Juniors fading into the crowd. “They are . . . resistant. To newcomers.”

  Elysia let out a high-pitched laugh. Bang, having finished her dance, swished over to the bar, took one look at Riqo, and broke into a dopey grin.

  “I will be back in a little while,” he said, dancing into the crowd. “Have fun—and do not be afraid to dance!”

  Bang turned to Elysia and made a face like a panting dog. Elysia collapsed into laughter. “I know, right?”

  “Good Lord,” said Ferbus. “I need a drink.”

  “Six Yoricks,” the bartender announced, setting them down atop the bar. Each was a different neon color, all served in martini glasses. The stems contained glow sticks, and sticking out of the rim of each glass, stabbed through with a plastic sword with a skull on top, were bright red maraschino cherries.

  Ferbus stared in horror at the desecration of his beloved Yorick. “What. The hell. Is that?”

  ***

  An hour later the Juniors were smashed.

  After downing their fruity drinks, Elysia and Bang had hit the dance floor and not stopped since. Lex and Driggs begrudgingly joined them, making sure to stay far enough away to avoid getting hit in the face by Bang’s rapidly expanding hair. Pip was there too, bouncing and weaving through the clubgoers like a field mouse.

  Ferbus was the only one still at the bar. Decrying the “girlification” of the Yoricks while greedily inhaling them nonetheless, he leaned against the bar and made eyes at the endless parade of girls walking by.

  “Lllladies,” he purred, grinning at a gaggle of them. They took one look at his bruised, purpling nose and hurried away in disgust. “They’ll be back,” he told his Yorick.

  “So what do you think?” Driggs said to Lex, his arms wrapped around her waist. “Weirdest Thanksgiving ever?”

  “Well,” said Lex, “now that you mention it, I suppose that Damning a good friend, fleeing to the middle of a desert, and topping off the evening with a bouncy little rave is an odd way to kick off the holiday season.” She was trying to be funny, but it only made her feel worse. Her gaze fell to the floor.

  He looked at her sadly, his one blue eye popping out in the flashing lights of the club. “Seriously, what is wrong with us?”

  Lex hugged him tighter. “I don’t know.”

  They clung like that for a long time, savoring the heat of each other’s skin as the crowd pressed them closer together, the bass pounding so hard they could feel the vibrations resonating through their bodies.

  Yet when Lex leaned in for a kiss, Driggs flinched away.

  Her chest twisted with that irrational fear yet again—that he’d finally come to his senses and realized he was dating a hobgoblin. “What’s wrong?”

  He looked at her worried expression and let out a small, apologetic laugh. “Oh, no, nothing. It’s just—” He sounded embarrassed. “Your lips are really goopy. And wet. Like a glazed ham.”

  Lex exhaled, relieved. True, her boyfriend had just compared her to a pork product, but it was a lot better t
han the alternative. “I know, it’s disgusting.” She wiped her mouth with her hand, then licked her lips until the glop was gone. “Good?”

  Driggs, his eyes never leaving her tongue, leaned in closer. “So good.”

  The strobe lights kicked in next, transforming their entwined forms into a flickering column. A beach ball soared over the top of the crowd, inching its way across in a jerky, slow-motion arc with each flash. Lex followed it through the air until something just behind it caught her eye. Way up in the balcony, someone stood at the railing, watching her.

  A man in a white tuxedo.

  It was the same man Lex had seen at the hospital the night Zara attacked Driggs. The air was too foggy for her to make out the details of his face, but somehow she knew it was him.

  She wrenched away from Driggs.

  “What?” he asked, the residue of her lip gloss smeared across his cheek.

  Not allowing her face to register any confusion, she gave him a quick smile and broke away. “Bathroom break. I’ll be right back.”

  She pushed her way through the crowd to the stairs, taking only a few wobbly steps of terror before yanking off the high heels and tossing them to the floor. Once at the top, she hurried on in her bare feet, struggling to see past the people in her way, until at last she reached the spot where the man had been standing.

  He was no longer there.

  She whipped her gaze around the balcony. Small, cozy tables were scattered throughout, accommodating dozens of gorgeous people, all talking and drinking and laughing. Some were making out. Some seemed to be doing even more than that.

  But the man was gone, as if he had vaporized. Disheartened, she looked back out over the crowd below, resting her arms on the railing.

  She immediately jerked them back. The railing was freezing.

  But freezing wasn’t the right word. It wasn’t physically cold so much as the idea of cold—like it had never been warm, had never known what warm was. It felt alone and empty, as much as a railing could have feelings. It felt like nothingness.

  “What are you doing here?”

  She turned around. The DeMyse Juniors sat at a table in a darkened corner, sipping their Yoricks and looking at her as though they’d just caught her rolling around in a trash heap.

  Under most circumstances Lex would never have put up with this much attitude, but she had enough sense to realize that this was neither the time nor the place to start hurling snobby, entitled assholes off balconies. She was hiding out. She had to be careful.

  “Nothing,” she muttered. “Leaving.”

  On her way back to the bar she spotted Elysia and Bang, who had converged into a Riqo sandwich. “Shameless, aren’t they?” said Ferbus, on his third and final Yorick and, with the way he was holding his martini glass, looking like he’d just stepped off the set of Sex and the City. Driggs stood beside him, uncomfortable and tugging at his pants. His spikes had started to droop.

  “Ready to go?” Lex asked him.

  “Yeah.” He let out a loud whistle and motioned for the girls and Pip to return to the bar.

  “Adiós, bonitos!” Riqo said as they left, dancing back into the fray.

  “We should take off,” Driggs told them, in the responsible voice of the eldest Junior. “We have a limo tour in the morning.”

  Elysia let out a disappointed huff. “Fine,” she said. “But I am so coming back. This place is amazing. The music, the fog, the drinks . . . the eye candy . . .” She and Bang swapped devilish grins.

  “I don’t know what you’re so excited about,” Ferbus slurred, downing the last of his Yorick. “Speedy Gonzalez was gawking at Pip a lot more than either of you.”

  Pip’s eyes grew huge. “Really?” He spun back around, searching for Riqo in the crowd.

  Elysia looked as if she had swallowed a bug. “Let’s get out of here,” she said in an annoyed voice, leading the group toward the door. She threw an angry glance back at Lex. “Where are your shoes?”

  “Keep it down, Lys,” Ferbus said with a smirk. “You’re embarrassing yourself in front of all the cool people.”

  18

  “To your right is Pelts, featuring fur coats made from every mammal in the Northern Hemisphere!” LeRoy announced. “And to your left is Pelts II, featuring fur coats made from every animal in the Southern Hemisphere!”

  A bleary-eyed Lex looked up from the limousine window and glanced at Driggs, who woke when as his head banged against the glass. Ferbus and Elysia were fast asleep, and Pip and Bang were yawning. Uncle Mort sat up front with LeRoy, who didn’t seem to notice that half his audience had fallen into comas.

  Lex felt like crap. And not just because they’d stayed up late or because of what had happened with Corpp. It was all that, plus a strange, uneasy feeling pinballing around her stomach, a restless dread that insisted they had been too reckless, that something terrible was going to happen now that they’d allowed themselves a little bit of fun. The man in the white tuxedo, the constant threat of Zara—there were too many dangerous variables in the mix, yet everyone had let their guard down. It couldn’t happen again.

  “Up the street is the Mayor’s Mansion, home to yours truly,” LeRoy went on. “And to your left is our luxury mall, the Mausoleum, famous throughout the Grimsphere for having everything. Simply everything. Designer clothing? Yes. Electronics? Yes. Fine jewelry? Yes.”

  “Oh. My. God,” Lex whispered. “How much longer could it be?”

  “Maybe we can stop him,” said Driggs. “Pip, pretend you’re about to throw up.”

  “I am about to throw up!”

  “—Chaise longues? Yes. Garden sculptures? Yes. Volcanic—”

  “We have to do something,” said Lex.

  Bang helpfully held up her book, which was filled with doodles of unspeakable things being done to LeRoy.

  “I don’t think we’re allowed to dismember the mayor,” said Driggs in a regrettable voice. “Nice detail on the machete, though.”

  “And now! The grand finale!” LeRoy boomed.

  The limo jerked to a sudden stop, flinging the Juniors into a pile on the car floor. LeRoy turned around in his seat and smiled at them. “Exit!”

  Clawing at the doors, they scrambled out of the limo and lined up on the sidewalk. Lex looked down.

  A skull looked back up at her.

  Just an outline, though, one of dozens that spread down the sidewalk in both directions. The engravings of the skulls were stamped into the concrete itself, with pairs of handprints forming the eyes and names forming the mouth—names of notable Grims, she guessed.

  The Juniors now stood in a wide, beautiful plaza. At the center sat a fountain with a tall obelisk, just like the one in Croak. And straight ahead was a huge building—a gilded, ornate pagoda obviously styled after that Chinese Theatre in Hollywood that Lex had always seen on the Oscars.

  LeRoy opened the trunk of the limo, pulled out a metallic briefcase—the kind that in movies always contains money or guns—and led the Juniors across the plaza to the entrance of the building. They stepped through a pair of heavy doors into a high-ceilinged room. LeRoy came to a stop, clicked his heels, and spun around to face them. “The Bank!”

  Like the hub back in Croak, there were desks with Smacks and a tank of jellyfish, but that was where the similarities ended. Where Croak’s hub was sleek, dark, and futuristic-looking, DeMyse’s was airy and bright, owing to the wall-to-wall windows surrounding the space and the multitude of skylights set into the ceiling far above. The jellyfish tank measured at least five times longer than Croak’s. The Smacks were white and lustrous, and many of the Etceteras sat atop large beanbags or inflatable gym balls rather than desk chairs.

  The Juniors gawked. Never had they thought a hub could be a fun place to work. With the duo of Norwood and Heloise constantly running Croak’s with an iron fist, it had always felt like more of a penitentiary.

  “Enter further!” LeRoy boomed.

  Their footsteps clacked atop the polished marble flo
ors as he led them to the middle of the room, where a girl stood at her desk seemingly barking orders at herself. As they got closer, however, it became clear that she was wearing a wireless headset. And that she was obviously the director of Ether Traffic Control.

  And that she was the enormous Junior girl who had stared so intently at Lex at the club the evening before.

  It was impossible not to recognize her. The girl was more than six feet tall and built like a lumberjack. She gave the Juniors a fleeting glance but never stopped talking, not for a second, her voice choppily jumping from one word to another in an Australian accent.

  “The director of Ether Traffic Control is a Junior?” Lex said to Driggs. “How did that happen?”

  He shrugged, still staring. “Looks like she knows what she’s doing. And I’m guessing that if anyone told her she couldn’t have the job, she would have snapped them in half.”

  The girl made a “come on” motion at Pip and Bang, then impatiently pointed at the scythe slot in the Smack.

  Pip looked up at Uncle Mort. “We’re checking in? For a shift?”

  Uncle Mort looked conflicted. “I’d rather you didn’t, but like I said, the ether is the safest place for you to be. Harder for Zara to find you.”

  Lex broke into a huge grin, as did the rest of the Juniors. “So we can work again?”

  Uncle Mort looked up at the skylights. “I don’t see Norwood or Heloise SWAT-teaming in here to stop you.”

  Lex joyously grabbed her uncle around the waist. LeRoy, not to be outdone, cleared his throat and gave each of them a handful of Vessels. “Yes, in exchange for free room and board here in fabulous DeMyse, you will work just as if you were one of our Juniors. One five-hour shift per day.”

  “Five?” Lex said. “How come we have to do ten hours back home?”

  Uncle Mort looked back at her blankly. “Because I tell you to.”

  Lex made an outraged face, but her brain was already spinning. More free hours in the day meant more time to figure out what to do about Zara.

  Bang signed something at Uncle Mort, her hands a blur.

  “Sure,” he said. “I think you and the Pipster are trained up enough to be partners now. If it’s okay with Ferbus and Elysia, that is.”