Rogue (28 page)

But hopefully it would be enough.

Tut arrived seconds later, buffing his fingernails, along with Lumpy and Poe. “I will miss the peasants, I suppose,” Tut said with a melodramatic sigh, patting Lumpy’s hump. “Though I will not miss their infernal interruptions.” He looked pointedly at Lex.

“I can’t believe you’re abandoning me to these numbskulls,” Poe moaned, nervously picking at Quoth’s feathers. “The other day Thomas Edison stole my shoe and turned it into a battery! I can’t take it anymore!”

“You’ll be okay, Ed,” Lex said. “And remember, someday I’ll come back.”

“See that you do.”

Lex twisted her hoodie harder, trying not to cry at the thought of parting from her beloved Edgar Allan. “Oh, scarecrow,” she said. “I think I’ll miss you most of all.”

“And I, you.” He took off his hat, sank into a deep bow, and turned up the corners of his mouth into what might have been the closest thing he’d ever gotten to a smile. “You are the least detestable person I have ever met.”

Lex squeezed her hoodie even tighter, her throat burning.

“No!” Skyla shouted from the office, snapping Lex back to the moment. Through the crack of the vault she could see that Skyla and Uncle Mort were arguing about something. “This is
my
city!”

“But this whole thing was my idea,” he countered. “I should be the first, to make sure it actually works—”

“Hey.” Lex turned back around. Cordy was looking at her, smiling sadly. “Let’s just do this,” she said. “Before we’re out of time.”

A rock formed in Lex’s gut.

Cordy scrunched up her mouth. “Do I really have to say all the mushy stuff? That I love you and I know you’re going to win and you’re my favorite person out of everyone in the world, both living and dead?”

“No,” said Lex, her voice hoarse. “You don’t have to. I don’t have to either, do I?”

Cordy grinned. “Nah. I always know what you’re thinking anyway.”

“Twin perk,” they said at the same time.

Lex rubbed her eyes. She wanted to scream and cry and run all at the same time. This was
too hard
.

But she put on a brave face and looked fo an>Lex rur one last time at her dear departed sister. “Well,” she said, hoping to sound light, “see you in fifty years.”

Cordy smirked back. “You’re a tough kid, Lex. I’d give it a hundred.”

That did it. Tears, sobs, and a glob of snot all rocketed out of her face at the same time. She blew her nose into her hoodie, not even caring about how gross that was. It was waterproof; it would survive.

Without turning back—if she did, she’d never leave—Lex tore out of the vault. Skyla was still yelling at Uncle Mort and was near tears as well. “I’m the mayor!” she yelled, smacking him on the shoulder. “Don’t you
dare
take this away from me, Mort.”

He gave her a look that held a million unsaid things, but a gunshot snapped him out of it. The guards had finally realized that Norwood was bluffing, and they were firing away.

Uncle Mort nodded at Skyla, giving in. “Okay,” he said, digging into his bag.

Lex stared intently at his hands, but she still couldn’t see what he handed her.

Skyla smiled and took it from him. “Thanks.”

“I’ll see you soon. Good luck.”

“You too.”

Uncle Mort turned away from her and started to gather up the Juniors. “What was that?” Lex asked him. “What did you give her?”

“We’ve got to get out of here,” he said gruffly. “This room is about to become a very dangerous place for living people to be.”

“Why?”

“Because a portal is going to be put out of commission forever, and I don’t think it’s going to go quietly, do you?”

Lex glanced back at Skyla. She was looking up and down the height of the vault door. “Is she going to be okay?”

“Yeah, she’ll be fine. Once the portal’s closed—”

“No!”
Norwood shouted, overhearing them. He was ducking behind a chair, hiding from the hail of gunfire. At this point there wasn’t anything he could do without getting pumped full of lead, and he knew it. He’d lost. “You need to stop this. You have no idea what you’re doing—you’re going to destroy the Grimsphere!”

Uncle Mort shrugged. “Maybe.”

Norwood narrowed his eyes. “Well, if you think I’m going to let you do the same thing to Croak, you’re out of your minds. I’ll be waiting for you.” He waved the Wrong Book at them and tucked it under his arm. “Oh, and one more thing, Lex: Consider your parents Damned.”

With that, he jumped out from behind the sofa. Quickly snatching up his scythe from where it had fallen on the floor, he whipped it through the air and Crashed away.

The shooting stopped for a brief moment while the guards tried to figure out what had just happened, where the culprit had disappeared to, and what, exactly, they should do next. “Find him!” Boulder shouted at them. “Norwood’s our new priority. Search the building!”

They hesitated, looking at the desk. “But what about—”

“I’ll take care of these guys. Go!”

Lex was staring at the spot where Norwood had been standing, but Uncle Mort grabbed her by the hoodie and gave it a good yank. “Elevator, all of you. Run!”

He bolted for the elevator, leaving the Juniors with no choice but to follow him. They all piled into the glass tube, Bang not even flinching as they crowded in around her. She probably hadn’t registered a thing that just happened. Skyla looked fairly out of it, too, Lex noticed when she looked back at her. She was watching the Juniors flee, as if waiting for them to leave.

Ferbus was the last one to stagger in. Uncle Mort removed the crowbar and pushed the down button, but not fast enough; Boulder reached a hand the size of a dinner p of widtlate through the glass doors, opening them up again. “Where do you think you’re going?”

“Dammit, let us go!” Uncle Mort yelled. “You think we’d do something like this if it weren’t important, Boulder? You know we’re right!”

Boulder worked his jaw. “I don’t know that for sure.”

“Well, you’re about to find out in two seconds.”

Just then a small, withered hand appeared from behind and settled on Boulder’s shoulder. “Let go, kid,” Pandora said, fixing her vulturelike stare on him.

“DORA!” the overjoyed Juniors yelled.

She winked at them, then addressed Boulder again. “Come on. Hop to it, Tiny.”

Perhaps it was the fact that she’d just risen from the dead, or maybe her shriveled little claw was preposterously strong, but for whatever reason, Pandora’s words seemed to suddenly carry an inordinate amount of weight. The look on Boulder’s face was one of such intense concentration, Lex thought she could hear gears turning. “Yes, ma’am,” he said, removing his hand from the door.

And then Elysia yelled something even more surprising. “Boulder, come with us!”

“Whoa, what?” Lex said.

Elysia grabbed his hand and pulled him into the elevator. “I promise we’re right,” she told him. “You’ll see.”

Lex gave Elysia her very best what-the-hell look. Elysia shrugged. “He and I sort of . . . chatted. While I was in custody.”

“Elysia, chatting?” Ferbus said into the glass. “Get outta town.”

The door closed, and the el
evator started to descend. Skyla had opened the vault door wide and was staring into it, her hands balled into fists. Lex tried to wave at the souls inside—at Kloo, who’d looked distracted ever since Lex’s cryptic name-dropping; at Tut, who was trying to give Edgar a wedgie; at Edgar, who was futilely trying to escape said wedgie; at Cordy, grinning and waving back as if she were on a parade float—

But someone else had appeared in the Afterlife—and the closer she got, the more recognizable she became. Especially with the light glinting off her silver hair.

“Zara!” Lex shouted, pointing.

In an instant Zara caught Lex’s eye and erupted in a flurry of animated gestures. She pointed at herself, then started rotating both hands, as if she were miming using a steering wheel. She was yelling, too, but Lex couldn’t hear anything through the glass of the elevator.

“What?” Lex shouted.

But it was too late. The elevator sank below the floor of the office, and Zara and Skyla and the Afterlife disappeared from view.

The Croakers plummeted back to earth in a narrow tube that didn’t stop for five whole minutes.

“It’s in express mode,” Boulder explained. “No stops.”

Lex turned to Uncle Mort. “What was that all about?” she asked him. “What could be important enough for Zara to dare to show her face again?”

He shook his head, looking up. “I have no idea.”

Everyone’s nerves were jumpy as they descended; they were obviously waiting for something to happen, but none of them really knew what they were waiting
for
. Most of them slumped down to the floor, but Lex paced around the small space, wanting to smash the glass with her hands. Forget about Zara—Norwood had the Wrong Book.
And
her parents. What was he going to do to them?

“So we’re going back to Croak, right?” she asked Uncle Mort.

“That’s the plan.” He turned to Pandora. “Are you all right?”

“Right as rain,” she said, an>Lhe el taking off her shirt to reveal a bunch of metal spatulas situated around her chest. She put a finger through a newly formed dent. “Though I can’t say the same for the old chain mail.”

Driggs snickered. “Homemade bulletproof vest, Dora?”

“I’m a very important lady!”

Elysia, meanwhile, was in full-on crisis-relief mode, one arm around a half-conscious Ferbus, the other around the still-sobbing ball that was Bang.

“She’s a good kid,” Boulder said out of nowhere. Lex and Driggs looked at him, eyebrows raised. “She told me what you guys were fighting for, why you did all that bad stuff you did. And if Skyla’s part of it too—” He shrugged, creating more ripples in his neck muscle. “I trust her. If what she’s doing makes the Afterlife safer, then I’m okay with it. Otherwise, what’s the point? If we don’t have anywhere nice to go after we’re dead?”

Driggs let out a puff of a laugh. “Well put.”

Lex was still wary. “You can vouch for this guy?”

Driggs nodded. “He’s cool. A perfect gentleman, which is more than I can say for the other guards.”

Elysia shot him a look, then pulled her sleeve down over a few conspicuous bruises on her arm. She looked at Ferbus. He hadn’t heard.

Lex inspected Driggs’s knuckles, which were bloodied. “Wait a minute. Are you saying that you did, in fact, get solid and kick some ass?”

“They were roughing her up a little, so I returned the favor. Luckily, we got interrupted by the call up to the office, so it didn’t get as bad as it could have.” He looked at Ferbus’s hand, then at Bang. His face tightened at the reminder of Pip’s absence. “And not as bad as you guys had it.”

Lex swallowed. “Yeah.”

Driggs frowned, but then his eyes lit up. “Hey, wait a sec. I can do the same thing for your parents!”

“Huh?”

“I can go back to Croak and bust them out!”

“But what if you can’t . . .” She stopped, not wanting to hurt his feelings.

Too late—that miserable expression of frustration and helplessness was back on his face. “I’ll do what I can,” he said quietly.

Lex grabbed at his arm, even though her hand went right through. She didn’t want him to leave, but she didn’t want her parents to be left alone, either. She didn’t know what she wanted.

“Let me do this,” he said. “I can’t do anything for you here, I can’t—” He snorted sharply. “Just let me do it.”

Lex closed her eyes. “Okay,” she said. “Go. Get them out if you can.”

He brought his lips to her forehead and kissed it, though she felt nothing. “I’ll see you there.”

Uncle Mort nodded his approval and told them, “We’ll be there as soon as we can. We need to make a little”—he looked at Ferbus—“pit stop.”

Driggs looked more than disturbed by that last part, but he turned to Lex, mouthed “Love you,” and was gone.

They rode the rest of the way down in silence, Lex wondering the whole time how it could possibly get worse than this, but knowing with certainty that it would.

***

When four minutes and fifty-five seconds had elapsed, Boulder reached out and pressed a few buttons. The elevator screeched to a halt.

“What are you doing?” Lex asked.

“The citizens will be expecting us to get out at ground level. They’ll mob us,” Boulder said. “This is the second floor, so we can hopefully get the jump on them. It’ll give us enough time to explain what happened.”

The door opened into a space that looked like a hotel corridor. Boulder exited the elevator and crossatoll gied to a large painting, which he removed from the wall to reveal a door.

Uncle Mort raised an eyebrow. “Backways?”

Boulder nodded. “Skyla isn’t as slick as she thinks she is.”

Elysia helped Ferbus up from the floor while Lex grabbed Bang by the elbows and pulled. She arose without a struggle, but her hair still covered her face. What little amount of skin Lex could see was wet with tears.

They walked through the door—Boulder barely fit—and pounded down one last set of stairs. “Hang on. I remember this hall,” Elysia said as they walked. She pointed. “There, that’s where—”

Driggs and I had a lovely discussion about how he murdered his parents
, Lex silently filled in. She missed him already.

Then she frowned. If this was the same hallway, then that door Boulder was now opening led to . . . 

“Oh, no,” she said. “Not again.”

The smoky, suffocating air of the Hole wafted out into the hallway, turning Lex’s stomach. “We’ll go fast this time,” Uncle Mort promised when he saw her face. “Come on.”

And so for the second time in two days they marched right back into hell on earth. Lex plugged her ears, not wanting to hear a peep out of those tormented souls, but she couldn’t drown out the guy who was still going on about sitting in solemn silence on a dull, dark dock.

“I’m going to throw up,” Lex said to herself, or Elysia, or maybe no one at all. The room was even worse than before. The screaming girl they’d heard the first time was getting louder, more desperate. Lex thought about closing her eyes, but falling into the Hole was absolutely the last thing she wanted to do. So she stared at her sneakers instead, causing her to bump into Elysia.