by Gina Damico
“Come on, Lex!” Uncle Mort yelled. He was standing over his target, watching her. “We’re waiting on you!”
“Of course you are,” she said under her breath. She moved as far back on her square as she could go, lunged forward two steps, jumped—
And collapsed onto the target.
“Yes!” she yelled, pumping her fist into the air.
But her glee was short-lived. The lights went out again with a loud click. More mechanical noises, more whirring and splashing. Her scythe vibrated in her hand.
“More?” Pip cried, the desperation in his voice echoing everyone’s sentiments.
“Multiple means multiple,” Uncle Mort said. “Just keep going.”
***
Lex scythed and landed on a different platform, but she couldn’t tell where she was in relation to where she’d just been, or even where her new target was—because the lights hadn’t turned back on.
“What’s going on?” she shouted into the void. Others were yelling too. “Where are the lights?”
“I don’t know.” Uncle Mort sounded close to Lex, relatively speaking. “Just stay calm!”
But he didn’t sound calm at all. Carefully, Lex felt around the edges of her island square, but just like last time, all the panels surrounding it had disappeared. She leaned as far forward as she dared, groping around with her scythe in front of her. Again she felt nothing. She’d have to jump, but in which direction?
And then it hit her.
“Uncle Mort, the Sparks!” she shouted. “See if they give off enough light!”
She heard him digging around in his bag. Seconds later, a faint glow popped out of the darkness. He held the bag wide open—she could see the little glass orbs within.
But the weak light that their whizzing embers threw off wasn’t enough. All Lex could see was the square he was standing on, and not much else—not even the target he was supposed to jump to.
Uncle Mort kept groping for a solution. “Um—” he said. “I could throw them to you . . .”
“Don’t bother,” Pandora said. “You can’t even see us.”
Her voice seemed to come from the floor. Or maybe the ceiling. Lex was becoming disoriented, the Elixir fumes working their way into her brain. They weren’t going to last much longer like this.
“Guys!” Pip yelled. “I’ve got it!” There arose a few sharp bursts of metal clanging, Pip’s voice getting higher as he spoke. “I ended up next to the elevator shaft. I can climb up and turn the lights back on!”
“How the hell do you know that’s going to work?” Uncle Mort shouted back.
“I don’t! But I’ve watched Bang mess around with wires lots of times. It’s worth a shot, right? Are there any other plans on the table?”
Silence provided that answer. “Well, no. But be careful.”
In addition to the clanging noises that Pip’s feet made against the metal of the shaft, Lex could make out some ragged breathing elsewhere in the room, along with a rapid foot tapping.
“Bang, he’ll be okay,” Lex said into her general direction. “Don’t worry.”
The tapping got faster.
A minute later Pip shouted down to them. He sounded miles away. “I made it!” A few more seconds of silence. Lex’s heart jumped as something lit up at the ceiling, then went dark again.
“Dammit, Pip,” Uncle Mort yelled, “don’t get yourself electrocuted!” Lex could see his face in the ambient flicker of the Sparks. He went into a fit of coughing, the Elixir getting to him too. “Get down!”
Pip’s voice came back fainter than it had been before. “It’s not working.”
“Then climb down,” Uncle Mort answered. “Carefully!”
Pip didn’t say anything. But there were no metallic thumping sounds either, no indication that he was following Uncle Mort’s instructions.
Lex was growing more and more panicked. She reached into her bag, hoping to find something that would help. Dammit, she thought, finding nothing. Why the hell did I get rid of Cordy’s Spark? Cordy’s glowing, blindingly bright Spark?
“Guys?” Pip was calling down.
“What?” Uncle Mort shouted back.
“Good luck.”
Lex frowned. “Pip, what?”
She whipped her gaze at Uncle Mort, and even in the scant amount of Spark light she could see that he’d gone pale. “No,” he said quietly, then louder. “Pip, don’t!”
Lex didn’t know what was happening. She didn’t fully understand until Pip spoke one more time.
“Love you, Bang!” he yelled, a smile in his voice. “Keep going!”
Two noises followed. That of a very fast whooshing, then a loud, sickening thud.
One of the Sparks in Uncle Mort’s bag burst into light, illuminating the room. Lex could see the square she was standing on, the target she was supposed to jump to, the alarmed faces—
And Pip, lying in a broken heap on one of the platforms.
The sound that came from Bang was inhuman. She crumpled to the floor, curled herself up into a ball, and rocked back and forth, wailing like a wounded animal.
Uncle Mort took an inordinate amount of time to come to his senses, even for him. “Come on,” he said, his voice gravel. He held up the blazing Spark so that it lit their paths. “Get to your targets.”
Somehow, they did. Somehow, they managed to land their jumps—two jumps, in Pandora’s case, since someone had to touch Pip’s target. Bang was the last one to go, flinging herself into space without seeming to care whether she landed. As soon as her finger graced her target, the lights came back on. The missing panels returned, forming a solid floor once again.
And the elevator door opened with a cheerful ding.
15
The whole way up, no one spoke. Uncle Mort’s face was hard. Pandora looked at the ceiling; Lex looked at the floor. Bang was curled up in the corner with her head between her knees, her body quaking every few seconds with silent sobs. Ferbus’s mangled hand dripped blood onto the floor, drip, drip . . .
drip . . .
DING.
The doors opened.
Lex, Uncle Mort, Ferbus, and Pandora walked out of the elevator, cautious, Uncle Mort jimmying a crowbar into the door to keep it open. Bang stayed where she was on the floor, not moving, still sobbing.
They stayed close to the all-glass elevator bank; there was an additional tube next to the one they’d exited, but its door was closed. They were in the center of another circular room, this one much smaller than the last—and far brighter. Its walls were one big window, sloping so tightly toward the ceiling that they formed a point. With nothing but glass above and 360 degrees around them, Lex could see across the Kansan plains for miles—through the cloudy gray Afterlife, of course.
They’d reached the very top, the apex of Necropolis.
And yet the place felt oddly familiar. Aside from the windows-as-walls, the room bore a striking resemblance to the Oval Office. A couple of sofas faced each other, a coffee table between them, and a large desk sat at the far end of the room. Unlike the desk in the Oval Office, however, this one was made not from wood, but from cut, polished stone, like a graveyard monument. Behind it sat an empty executive chair, and behind that, set directly into the glass, was a gigantic steel vault door.
“Dammit!” Knell shouted from behind them. The Croakers whipped around to find the woman stomping toward them, no longer the calm, poised leader they’d seen on television. Norwood was at her side, furious but wary. “What are you doing here?”
Uncle Mort put on an expression of mock confusion. “I thought you asked us to turn ourselves in,” he said. “Or was that a different president-turned-kidnapper?”
While Uncle Mort worked his classic irritation tactics, Lex scanned the room. She looked from the vault all the way up to the glass tip, then around the room once more . . . then realized with a crushing dread—
There were no dark places, no hidden closets. The room was far too bright and open.
&nbs
p; Her parents weren’t there.
And as soon as she realized this, she remembered why their holding room had looked so familiar. The concrete walls, the dirty floor—it had to be the jail back in Croak, under the Bank. She’d been so convinced that President Knell had captured them, she hadn’t even considered that they might be somewhere else, that Norwood could have done her dirty work for her. But Lex had spent days staring at that floor back when she was imprisoned. That’s where they were. There was no doubt in her mind.
Knell sidled over to her desk and pushed a hidden button. “It doesn’t matter,” she said, jutting out her chin. “I just gave my guards uppermost security clearance. They’ll be here any moment.”
Yes! Lex thought. Skyla!
“Fabulous,” said Uncle Mort, taking a seat on the sofa and throwing his legs up on the coffee table. They’d done exactly what they’d set out to do—clear a path for Skyla. “We’ll wait.”
Neither Knell nor Norwood knew what to do with this. They stood together behind the desk and watched the Croakers, waiting for the guards to arrive.
“I don’t know what you think you’re doing,” Norwood said to them. “I told the president everything I know. How Lex and Zara worked together, Damning, terrorizing innocent people in cold blood all over the country. How you and your Juniors have repeatedly evaded capture and thwarted every opportunity to pay for your crimes. And as for why you’re here in Necropolis, well”—he produced the Wrong Book—“your old buddy Grotton filled in the rest.”
Right on cue, Grotton took form to Norwood’s right. It was so bright in the office, he’d been invisible up until then.
“Sorry, team,” Grotton told the Croakers. “Your secrets were too juicy. I couldn’t resist spilling.”
Lex had to restrain herself from lunging forward, but whether it was to grab the Wrong Book or smack him, she wasn’t sure.
“You really think you can destroy the portal?” Norwood continued in a mocking tone. “Wait, wait, not just the one—all of them?”
“I know I can destroy the portal,” Uncle Mort corrected him.
Norwood snorted. “Well, I hope you can do it from the Hole, because that’s where you’re going to be in about five minutes.”
Uncle Mort decided to ignore him. “Knell, this is going to happen,” he said, addressing her instead. “With or without your permission. We don’t want to hurt you, but we will if we have to. I don’t blame you for not heeding my previous warnings; I know that my actions in the past have not earned me your trust. But things are bad.” He stood up and took a step toward her. “They’re at their breaking point. If we don’t do something to stop this erosion, the Afterlife will disappear.”
“Bullshit,” Norwood spat, getting angrier. “The Afterlife is fine. You’re just using all this doomsday crap as an excuse!”
He’s losing it, Lex thought, staring at his reddening hands.
“Tell her, Lex—tell her how many people you’ve Damned! How you’re a threat to this world and everyone in it!” Norwood was yelling so hard, flecks of spit were flying out of his mouth.
But she couldn’t take her eyes off his hands. “Uncle Mort—”
“How you Damned my wife! My men!” He inhaled deeply. “The president!”
Lex blinked. “What?”
“What?” said Knell.
It happened so fast, and he was standing so close to her, no one could have stopped him. The moment Norwood’s finger touched the president’s arm, she burst into flame.
When the darkness cleared and Knell was nothing more than a crispy mass on the floor, no one moved. No one spoke until Uncle Mort let out a groan, sounding more exasperated than anything. “Oh, Woody,” he said, rubbing his eyes. “You stupid son of a bitch.”
Norwood grinned. “Not as stupid as the band of criminals who so blatantly stormed the president’s office and Damned her in cold blood. And without your loyal contingent of townspeople here to defend you, it’s your word against mine.” He pulled a gun out from his waistband and aimed it at them, his eyes even more demented than they’d been at the battle in Grave. “Who do you think they’ll believe?”
A million things were running through Lex’s mind. And yet somewhere amid the fog of what just happened, one thought above all came to the surface. She glanced at Uncle Mort, who was looking at Pandora and seemed to be thinking the same thing. According to Grimsphere law, if Knell was dead . . .
Then Uncle Mort was now president of the Grimsphere. Right?
“You sniveling snollygoster!” Pandora shouted at Norwood, stomping up to the desk. “What the hell is the matter with you? Did a team of rats gnaw out the contents of your head and refill it with their own droppings? Because YOU, sir, are the biggest shit-for-brains I’ve EVER—”
Exhaling impatiently, Norwood shot her in the chest.
The Juniors screamed as she fell to the floor, but Uncle Mort stood his ground, his face growing paler by the second.
Norwood took aim at Uncle Mort next, his face exuding a confidence that everything was going exactly according to plan. Well, his plan, at least. Obviously not Knell’s. “Now, it occurs to me—and Mort, I’m sure you’ll agree—that the good people of the Grimsphere will be looking for some strong leadership now, in the wake of this tragic upheaval. Of course, I haven’t served as many years as you have, but I do have some experience with taking troubled and corrupt governments under my wing. So who better to serve them than—”
With another happy ding, the second elevator opened. But to the Croakers’ dismay, Skyla wasn’t in it. Stepping out instead was a handful of masked guards led by Boulder, who was clutching—
“Elysia!” Lex shouted. Elysia looked scared and small, but otherwise unharmed. She took one glance at Ferbus’s injury and started to cry out, but Boulder held her tightly, one massive hand on her shoulder and the other over her mouth. Driggs swooped in behind her, stifling a yell when he spotted Dora’s lifeless body.
Norwood slapped on a look of horror and immediately lowered his gun. “They Damned the president!” he shouted in mock fear, rushing out from behind the desk to the guards. “Arrest them!”
The guards were stunned into inaction for a moment, but they soon unholstered their weapons and trained them on the Croakers. Uncle Mort and company swiveled around to face them, backs to the desk. Both sides were now in neat little lines; if everyone hadn’t wanted to kill one another, they could have started a nice game of red rover.
Norwood pretended to cower behind the big guard, but his jeers kept coming. “You’re outnumbered, Mort. You’re outranked. You’re done. Cooperate, and we’ll go easy on you. I mean, you’ll all get life in the Hole—like you were supposed to in the first place—but if you go quietly, we won’t have to get violent.”
Lex looked from Ferbus’s dripping wrist to Dora’s still body on the floor. “Yeah,” she growled under her breath. “Can’t have that, can we?”
“Hands on your head,” Boulder ordered the Croakers. “Now!”
Uncle Mort started to raise his arms, but at the last second he gave Lex and Ferbus a shove. “Behind the desk!” he shouted. They flung themselves over the top of the president’s huge stone desk and took shelter under it, queasily shoving Knell’s scorched body out of the way to make room.
Lex peeked out over the top. Elysia had just elbowed Boulder in the groin, wriggled out of his arms, and was running toward the desk to join them. Boulder grunted and shouted for his team to spread out and shoot—which they did, with real guns instead of stun guns this time. Panicked, Uncle Mort pulled out his own gun and started shooting back.
But Lex was the only one to notice the empty elevator door close.
Ignoring that for now, she ducked back down behind the desk and gave Elysia a quick hug. “Are you okay?”
Elysia let out a cry when she saw Pandora, then turned to Ferbus. “I’m fine. What happened to him?” He was sitting against the back of the desk with his head drooping, eyes closed. “Ferbus! Wake up!”
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Ferbus groaned and opened one eye. “Hey, beautiful,” he slurred, holding up his mangled hand. “Gimme five.” He let out a gurgled laugh. “No, really, gimme. I need the fingers.”
“He lost a lot of blood,” Lex explained. “I think he’s getting loopy.”
Driggs popped in next to her, his face white. “Oh shit, Ferb.” Then, even more horror dawning, he looked around the room, spotting Bang alone in the elevator. “Where’s Pip?” he asked Lex.
She shook her head. Driggs’s face fell, and Elysia burst into a fresh batch of tears.
Uncle Mort nudged Lex. With a friggin’ gun. “Here. Point that way, pull the trigger.”
Lex flinched. She tried not to look at Pandora, whom Driggs had moved on to, hovering over her in shock. “I can’t shoot anyone!”
Even in the midst of a shootout, Uncle Mort found the time to roll his eyes. “Lex, in your short but sinful life you’ve lied, cheated, stolen, Damned scads of people, and started a war. Now is not the time to develop a conscience.”
Lex swallowed. Heart in her throat, she peeked her head up, held the gun out in front of her, and started shooting.
“To the left,” Driggs whispered in her ear. He’d materialized right next to her and was watching the room. “Right. No—left. You’re a terrible shot, Lex.”
“Sorry. Forgot to make time for target practice.”
Ding.
Lex held her breath. The guards kept shooting; no one else seemed to have heard it or to notice as one more guard emerged from the elevator.
It wasn’t until that guard yanked a scythe out of her pocket and grabbed Norwood around the neck that she caught their attention.
“Hold your fire!” Skyla shouted, holding the blade to Norwood’s throat. Taken completely by surprise, he dropped both his gun and his scythe.
“Shoot, and I’ll kill him,” she said.
The room went silent. Guns were aimed, but none were fired.
“Drop your weapon,” the big guard told her.
Skyla let out a short laugh. “Come on, Boulder,” she said. “You know as well as I do that you could fill me to the brim with bullets and I’d still have time to slit his throat on the way down.”