“On it,” said Claire.
A new portal opened up in front of Uhl, sending him and the trash can down to the sewer, heading straight toward AAARRRGGHH!!! Uhl skidded to a halt and started rolling the can backward, only to find Jim, Toby, and Claire motoring out of the shadow portal behind him.
“We’ve got him now!” said Toby.
Uhl morphed back into Draal, curled his spiked body around the trash can, and spun up and over Team Trollhunters along the rounded tunnel ceiling. Jim squeezed the brakes, narrowly avoiding AAARRRGGHH!!! The Polymorf came to a stop behind them, and an extremely dizzy Blinky clambered out of the dented trash can.
“Great Gronka Mor—BLARGH!” he managed to say before puking.
“I guess the sewer’s as good a place as any to blow chunks,” said Toby.
Jim said, “Okay, Señor Polymorfo. This is the part where you hand back our friend and tell us what you have to do with The Book of Ga-Huel.”
“Sorry, Trollhunter,” replied the Polymorf, its accent returning as it switched back to Uhl. “But I think you skipped a chapter.”
Uhl reached into Blinky’s belt pouch and pulled out a squat crystal fastened to a handle.
“The Horngazel!” said Claire.
The Polymorf drew the crystal in a glowing arc along the sewer wall, then punched it. A Horngazel passage opened, and Uhl tugged the dazed Blinky into the swirl of stones and light. Jim summoned his Glaives and hurled the spinning blades into the passage right before it closed, becoming solid wall again.
“I can use Blinky as an emotional anchor to get a lock on them!” said Claire.
Team Trollhunters dove into another of Claire’s portals and instantaneously emerged three blocks away on Delancy Street, where another Horngazel flashed behind Stuart Electronics. Out came Uhl, the unconscious Blinky, and the boomeranging Glaives. Jim caught his throwing blades and sped after them. Draal’s horns sprouted from Uhl’s head and bucked the Vespa’s tires, making it swerve. Jim regained control of the vehicle and said, “Tobes, take the wheel!”
The Trollhunter jumped off the scooter and followed Blinky and the Polymorf down a new Horngazel passageway. A heartbeat later, he came out the other end—which happened to be on the top side of Arcadia’s tallest office building. Uhl waved bye-bye with one of Blinky’s limp hands from the roof, and Jim plummeted eight stories to his doom. He shut his eyes as the ground raced toward him, only to feel a pair of sturdy arms catch his body. Jim opened his eyes and saw AAARRRGGHH!!!, NotEnrique, and Chompsky under an umbrella of shadow.
“Close one!” said Toby as he pulled up on the Vespa with Claire.
She shadow-jumped their group to the roof, where they caught the tips of Uhl’s horns sinking into a new Horngazel passage. Claire didn’t miss a beat. Another portal lowered them one level down to the deserted penthouse floor.
“Good thing nobody’s putting in overtime this weekend,” said Toby.
They heard the crackle of a Horngazel around the corner. Team Trollhunters raced over and saw Uhl slipping away with the out-cold Blinky. But Jim’s armored hands grabbed two of Blinky’s, and he and the Polymorf played tug-of-war with the six-eyed Troll. With one final heave, Jim pulled Blinky clear, and the Horngazel passage shut.
“Ha! Got him!” said Toby, before Uhl dragged Jim and Blinky into yet another passage.
“Hang on!” said Claire, whipping up another shadow.
She took Team Trollhunters to the seventh floor, where Jim tossed Blinky to AAARRRGGHH!!! before he and the Polymorf disappeared again.
Jim broke free on the sixth floor. Everyone cheered, until the Uhl/Draal hybrid rammed AAARRRGGHH!!! into another Horngazel passage, along with Blinky, NotEnrique, and Chompsky.
While Jim and Claire reclaimed them on the fifth floor, the Polymorf hijacked the Vespa—with Toby still on it.
Fourth floor: They got the Vespa, but no Toby. Also, Chompsky ran to the men’s room.
Third floor: Toby escaped. Blinky woke up. The Polymorf kidnapped everyone else.
Second floor: Blinky rescued his teammates, only to fall into the Polymorf’s clutches again.
First floor: Jim, Claire, Toby, NotEnrique, and AAARRRGGHH!!! landed in the lobby level, out of breath and punchy. They readied their weapons in anticipation of the final Horngazel passageway . . . but it never came.
“Blinky?” muttered AAARRRGGHH!!!, his big eyes searching the lobby in vain.
A door slammed behind them, causing the frayed team to turn and yell, “Get him!”
But it was just a startled Chompsky at the stairwell door, a toilet paper streamer trailing from the heel of his little Gnome boot. Jim lowered his Sword of Daylight and said, “They can’t have gotten far. Claire, can you hone in on Blink—use him as an emotional anchor again?”
Clare hadn’t even bothered closing her shadow portal for those last few floors. She stared at it, concentrating on Blinky, then looked back at everyone with wide eyes.
“I . . . I can’t feel him,” she said. “It’s like he’s vanished off the face of the Earth. Or . . .”
“Don’t say it,” Jim interrupted. “Don’t even think it. We’ll save Blinky . . . somehow.”
A Gun Robot ringtone abruptly blared, making everyone jump again. The Trollhunter twisted off his Amulet in annoyance, vanishing the suit of armor so he could reach the cell in his pocket. Jim saw Barbara’s picture on the screen next to a video chat icon.
Jim answered it, angling the camera away from his Troll friends, and said, “Mom, you have no idea how glad I am to see your face, but I can’t talk now. We’re, um, in the middle of a weekend project with, uh, Señor Uhl.”
“But, Jim, that isn’t possible,” Barbara replied. “I’m looking at Señor Uhl right now.”
Doctor Barbara Lake panned her camera across a hospital room, where Señor Uhl lay bandaged and sleeping, his skin swollen and purplish. Jim’s mom’s head poked back into view, and she added, “The school librarian brought him into the ER last night. What’s her name?”
“Ellie,” Toby cooed dreamily before Claire flicked his ear.
“Oh,” said Jim, his mind racing. “I, uh, meant Miss Janeth. Silly me, I get those two teachers confused all the time! Is . . . is Señor Uhl okay?”
“He will be,” said Barbara. “Señor Uhl suffers from extreme allergic reactions to metal. He even has to coat his keys in clear nail polish so they don’t make contact with his skin.”
Toby gave a nervous chuckle, speed-dialed a number on his phone, and said, “Hello, I’d like to send a floral arrangement to Arcadia Oaks Memorial Hospital. The message on the card should read: Querido Señor Uhl, por favor, no me mates . . .”
“Did you know Señor Uhl has a long-distance girlfriend?” Barbara asked. “They met in Barcelona when he was finishing his degree in Spanish. Her name’s Susannah.”
“Aw, Señor Uhl named his truck after her,” Claire said. She smiled.
“You sure it isn’t the other way around?” Toby muttered while on hold with the florist. “I bet Uhl only started dating Susannah because she reminded him of his truck!”
“Anyway, the good news is Susannah’s flying out here to check on him,” said Barbara. “She was supposed to arrive a few days ago, but there was some hold-up with her reservation.”
All at once, everything about his Spanish teacher’s recent spate of bizarre behavior clicked into place in Jim’s mind. He figured Señor Uhl and his long-distance girlfriend probably had been video chatting—just like Jim and his mom were now—on the classroom computer. And all those heated exchanges that Jim, Toby, and Claire overheard about timetables and returns were just about Susannah’s delayed flight . . . not evil Changeling plans.
Jim became vaguely aware that his mom was saying goodbye to him. He forced a smile at her face on the screen and said, “Sure, Mom. Love you, too. Bye.”
He ended the video chat. The remaining members of Team Trollhunters stared at one another in the lobby, aware of the one empty space between
them.
“Must find Blinky,” said AAARRRGGHH!!!
“But Claire can’t track him,” reminded NotEnrique. “And if the teacher brace-face almost offed ain’t the Polymorf, then who is?”
“Let’s just check The Book of Ga-Huel,” suggested Toby, before face-palming himself. “Which is inside Blinky’s pouch . . .”
“It is now,” said Claire with dawning realization. “But it wasn’t always.”
She held her phone up to Jim, showing him the black-and-white photo of the Hindenburg library. Jim raised his eyebrows in sudden realization and said, “I need to go to the Void.”
CHAPTER 14
SECOND-TO-LAST RITES
Jim and Kanjigar’s ghost stood at the foot of a European castle, its pointed turrets backlit by a full moon. The stone stronghold reminded Jim of something right out of a fairy tale—except for the mounds of burning books in the bailey at its center. Both Trollhunters past and present watched as soldiers in severe green uniforms dumped more volumes onto the blaze.
“We must be near Berlin, in the 1930s,” said Jim.
“Most astute, young Trollhunter,” confirmed Kanjigar. “These jackbooted thugs routinely destroyed any literature that contradicted their leader’s mad vision for the future. But this tomecide also served a secondary purpose.”
Jim and Kanjigar neared the torched texts, the soldiers oblivious to their presence. Some donned gas masks to avoid breathing smoke as they raked through the cinders.
“They’re searching for something,” Jim realized.
“The Final Testament of Bodus,” said Kanjigar. “A separate text written by the same author of The Book of Ga-Huel before his death.”
“I’m familiar with it, from my time,” Jim said. “We thought Blinky had gone crazy when he set the Last Rites on fire. But the ashes revealed a secret message Bodus had left. It spelled out how to collect the Triumbric Stones and defeat Gunmar.”
“Correct,” said Kanjigar. “Although Gunmar had been vanquished to the Darklands by this point, the Janus Order still contracted these misguided humans to find and incinerate Bodus’s Last Rites. This, I could not allow.”
The spirit nodded his horns to the side, and Jim saw the living Kanjigar steal into the castle through a tunnel dug by his gyre. The soldiers opened fire on the Trollhunter with their machine guns, but he deflected the hail of bullets with the flat of his Sword of Daylight.
Jim stared agog as his predecessor dispatched the enemies with unparalleled skill. Unlike Boraz’s blunt braggadocio or Unkar’s uncivil attacks, Kanjigar the Courageous took no delight in combatting others. He fought thoughtfully, efficiently, never hurling needless punches or insults, only swinging his sword when absolutely necessary. To Jim, watching Kanjigar systematically dismantle this army was like watching poetry in motion. Within minutes, the armored Troll had defeated every single soldier.
“Man, they should’ve called you Kanjigar the Kick-Butt,” Jim said.
He thought he saw the briefest of smiles flit across his ghostly guide’s face before they followed the corporeal Kanjigar into the castle’s once stately library. Red banners emblazoned with the two-faced Janus Order insignia hung on the walls. Many of the bookcases had already been emptied, their former contents now burned to ash. Kanjigar the Courageous slowly walked past the cases that had not yet been ransacked, the Amulet on his chest ticking louder and faster.
“It’s like a Geiger counter,” Jim said. “I didn’t know the Amulet could do that!”
“You’ve already unlocked a great many abilities in your short tenure, Trollhunter. But Merlin’s contraption still holds a few secrets you’ve yet to discover,” said Kanjigar.
Jim returned his attention to the Trollhunter in the library, whose Amulet now ticked incessantly. This Kanjigar paused in front of a shelf and pulled out a dusty old book that had been sandwiched between other unremarkable works. He tore off its false cover, and Jim recognized the actual book that had been exposed underneath.
“The Last Rites of Bodus!” Jim exclaimed to Kanjigar’s ghost. “You brought it to Trollmarket. . . .”
“Alas, if only I had succeeded in the other half of my mission,” said the spirit.
“So sorry, Kanjigar, but you should’ve visited this library during open hours,” taunted someone from behind, whose voice Jim recognized immediately.
He turned around and saw Walter Strickler at the far end of the library, dressed in all black—and tucking The Book of Ga-Huel under his long leather coat. Kanjigar the Courageous raced toward the smug Changeling. Strickler opened a hidden door behind a bookcase and said, “Auf Wiedersehen, Trollhunter.”
Strickler’s laughter echoed along the secret passage as he escaped through it, followed doggedly by Kanjigar. The spirit watched in regret as his younger self disappeared behind the bookcase, then said, “As you can now surmise, the Changeling evaded me on this day—and the many days that followed.”
Jim felt his anger rise. He understood that there was nothing he could have done to affect the outcome of this past event, but hearing Strickler’s arrogant laugh made Jim want to punch something nonetheless. He took a deep, calming breath and said, “I suppose Strickler hightailed it back to America on the Hindenburg and locked The Book of Ga-Huel in the hidden room in his office. Where it stayed for nearly eighty years.”
“Until you and your allies obtained it,” added the phantom Kanjigar. “I know not if this encounter aided in your efforts to rescue Blinkous. But my sincerest hope is that you find him, Trollhunter, and then find a way to rid this world of The Book of Ga-Huel, once and for all.”
“It’s hard to say,” said Jim as he started drifting back to the Void. “I doubt I’d know any helpful information if I saw it. I’m not even sure what questions I should be asking.”
Jim took one last look at the disordered library around them. He didn’t know what he was going to tell AAARRRGGHH!!!, Claire, and Toby when he got back. This Void Visitation seemed like their last hope of determining the Polymorf’s true identity—and finding Blinky—but now Jim was going back empty-handed and—
“Wait!” shouted Jim. “Kanjigar, take us back!”
The ethereal Troll’s Amulet flashed, and they returned once more to the library. Kanjigar’s ghost asked, “What vexes you, young Trollhunter? There’s nothing new to see here. My memory of this library ended at the exact instant my body left through that passageway.”
Jim knew Kanjigar was right, of course. Even now, the library around them appeared static, like someone had pressed the pause button on a video of the past. But Jim turned and faced the last thing he saw as they started heading back to the Void—the red Janus Order banners on the wall. His eyes narrowed, and Jim said, “There may not be anything new, but there is something we haven’t seen before, Kanjigar. Look.”
Jim pointed to the farthest banner, and the spirit beside him now perceived a face peeking out from behind it—the pig-jowled face of a Troll wearing crystal spectacles.
“The Dishonorable Bodus,” breathed Kanjigar’s ghost. “He was here, in this library! He saw everything—yet I did not see him!”
“Don’t beat yourself up, Kanjigar,” said Jim, walking closer to Bodus’s unmoving form. “You were kinda busy fighting an entire castle full of soldiers and chasing after Strickler. But you must’ve seen Bodus out of the corner of your eye, even for a second, for him to subconsciously register in this memory.”
“But if Bodus was—is—still alive, then whose remains did Boraz the Bold inter at the Colosseum?” asked Kanjigar’s spirit.
“I think that’s the question I was looking for,” said Jim. “Now let’s answer it.”
CHAPTER 15
BODY DOUBLE
AAARRRGGHH!!! left Trollmarket for Rome at midday. But by the time his gyre reached the Colosseum ruins, it was already night, thanks to the difference in time zones. The tourists and street performers in chintzy gladiator costumes had long since left the landmark, so AAARRRGGHH!!! was free to lop
e onto the arena floor. He started digging his huge paws into the spot Jim had mentioned. After a few minutes of excavating, the gentle giant hit pay dirt.
“Bingo,” said AAARRRGGHH!!!
“How’s my favorite strongman-slash-emotional-anchor doing?” asked Claire as she emerged from a shadow portal behind him.
By way of answer, AAARRRGGHH!!! tossed the broken, disinterred body of the Dishonorable Bodus onto the ground before Claire’s feet. She had never been to Italy before—heck, she’d never been outside of Arcadia, with her mom’s busy political career keeping them local. But Claire hoped the next time she was in Europe, it’d be under less morbid circumstances. She nudged the stone remains with the tip of her shoe and said, “Is it him?”
AAARRRGGHH!!! picked up one of the flinty pieces and sniffed it. He stuck out his tongue and shook his head, as if reacting to a pungent scent, then said, “Not Troll. Smell like fake Draal. Smell like Polymorf.”
“So Jim was right,” Claire said, putting the puzzle pieces together in her mind. “Bodus used a Polymorf body double to fake his death. C’mon, AAARRRGGHH!!! We need to get back to Trollmarket and tell the others.”
• • •
“C’mon, AAARRRGGHH!!! We need to get back to Trollmarket and tell the others,” Claire’s voice echoed into the Void.
Jim watched in wonder through one of the afterlife’s floating, circular windows as Claire and AAARRRGGHH!!! returned to the gyre and sped home. He was so engrossed, Jim didn’t even notice Deya the Deliverer’s translucent spirit manifest behind him. She studied the young Trollhunter for a moment, just as Jim studied his friends, before saying, “You care deeply for them. I can tell from the way you peer through the Void’s scrying portal.”
“They . . . they’re everything to me,” said Jim. “All my friends are.”
Even NotEnrique, thought Jim to his own astonishment.
Normally, the little Changeling irked Jim. But after he had emerged from Kanjigar’s Void Visitation and sent AAARRRGGHH!!! to confirm a hunch at the Colosseum, Jim asked NotEnrique to check on his mom and the real Draal. The Trollhunter half expected the impish Changeling’s retort to be some sort of punch line. But NotEnrique surprised Jim—and maybe even himself—when he said, “I’ll guard ’em with me life. No joke, Trollhunter.”
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