V had done terrible things against the Rebels, it was true. But none of that made Spencer feel like she deserved death. She just wanted to grow up. She just wanted to have a normal life.
“What now?” Spencer said. “You’re going to kill us, too?”
“If we had a Timekeeper for you,” Belzora said, jingling the twelve remaining bracelets, “we’d make you wear it.”
Spencer couldn’t afford to be discouraged by the fact that he was now the only Auran who didn’t have a way to become mortal again. But even if the Witches had prepared a Timekeeper for him, the effect certainly wouldn’t do to him what it had done to V. Spencer hadn’t been an Auran for even a full year. Touching his Timekeeper might cause him to grow an inch or two, but it wouldn’t kill him.
“You were never supposed to gain this power,” Ninfa said. “So . . .” She shrugged. “We’re going to have to turn you to dust.”
“Nothing personal,” Holga said. “We simply can’t have a fourth Dark Auran running about. And since you’re not tied to the Toxites, you’re expendable.”
Spencer judged the distance to his janitorial belt. V’s gray hair had flowed over the top. It would be difficult to pick up without getting tangled. Belzora raised her wand.
There was a loud knock on the door.
“Pizza delivery?” Holga said.
“For the last time,” Belzora cried. “No one ordered pizza!” She flicked her wand at the door, disintegrating it with a puff of dust. Hal, the Filth Sweeper, staggered in. There was a trickle of blood on his forehead, and one eye was already black and swollen shut.
“This better be important!” Ninfa snapped as Hal stood leaning heavily on the door frame. “We were about to pulverize someone.”
“The Sweeper boy,” Hal muttered. “He escaped. We’ve searched everywhere. He’s gone!”
“And now you come crawling to us for help?” Belzora asked. “He was your responsibility.”
“You seem useless,” Holga said, raising her wand. “Good-bye.”
A thick ribbon of dust shot from her bronze wand, striking Hal in the chest and knocking the Sweeper out of him. He struck the wall, slumping down, blinded by the force.
“Why didn’t he die?” Holga muttered, inspecting her wand as if it had suddenly become faulty.
“Sweepers,” Ninfa said. “You have to kill them twice.” A second blast from Ninfa’s wand hit the dazed Hal, instantly vaporizing him. Belzora followed up with a figure-eight wave of her wand, causing the door to rematerialize.
“See?” Ninfa said to Spencer and Daisy. “Quick and painless. You probably won’t feel a thing as you turn to lifeless dust.”
Spencer didn’t like the idea of his body getting blasted into a million little particles. He dove for his janitorial belt, but the handles of the cleaning supplies were snagged in V’s sea of hair.
“Not so fast!” Ninfa leveled her wand and released a blast of vaporizing dust. The magic attack passed only a foot above Spencer’s head, reducing the filing cabinet to fine particles.
“You missed?” Holga shrieked. “How could you miss? He was ten feet away!”
“It wasn’t my fault!” Ninfa said. “Someone bumped me!”
“Pitiful excuse,” Holga said, pointing her wand at Daisy. She fired a deadly shot, but it went wide, vaporizing Garcia’s office chair.
“You did that on purpose!” Holga yelled at Ninfa.
“Did what?”
“Bumped my elbow!” answered a furious Holga.
“I did no such thing,” Ninfa defended. “You’re just a lousy aim.”
Spencer and Daisy were crawling toward the door, janitorial belts around their waists. The Witches’ wand dust had disintegrated the buckles, so now a shred of duct tape held the belts in place. Spencer didn’t know what good luck had caused the Witches to miss twice, but he had a bad feeling that Belzora would be a deadeye.
They were almost to the exit when Belzora stepped around her bickering sisters and lowered her bronze wand. Spencer grabbed a metal dustpan from his belt. As he gave the handle a twist, the dustpan fanned out into a round shield covering his head. He didn’t know if it would be enough to stop Belzora’s attack, but it was his only option.
Spencer heard the dry hiss of magic dust streaming from the wand. He braced himself, but Belzora shrieked in surprise, her arm jerking suddenly upward so that the attack obliterated the ceiling fan over their heads.
“Either they’re all bad aims,” Daisy said, “or we have a guardian angel.”
“How about a guardian Sweeper?” said an unmistakable voice.
“Dez?” Spencer said. He’d heard the boy’s voice as clearly as if he were standing beside him. But there was no visible sign of Dez anywhere.
The door to the office banged open, as though struck violently. Spencer felt an unseen hand grab him by the front of the shirt and jerk him into the hallway, Daisy flailing at his side. At the same moment, three accurate wand attacks blasted a hole in the floor where Spencer and Daisy had been standing. The Witches weren’t likely to miss again.
“This way!” Dez’s voice called as the exterior doors to the main building flung open.
“Where are you?” Spencer asked.
“Right in front of you, Doofus,” answered Dez.
The Witches emerged behind them, wands flinging powerful dust toward the exit. Spencer and Daisy narrowly dodged again, propelled down the steps as the front part of the school crumbled.
They sprinted across the lawn in front of the rec center, much more agile than the aged Witches. Academy students were scattering, adding to the chaos as another blast from a Witch’s wand tore a deep gouge in the grass.
Three Pluggers emerged from the computer labs: two men riding armored Filths and a woman on an Extension Grime. The Glopified saddles held them tight to their beasts, orange extension cords making an unnatural connection from their battery-pack belts into the Toxites’ flesh.
When the Pluggers had almost reached them, one of the Filth riders was suddenly yanked from his saddle. His extension cord snapped as he was hurled through the air by some unseen force. The Extension Filth, now riderless, reared back and galloped away from the fight. It had no quarrel with Spencer and Daisy. It just wanted to soak in the Academy brain waves.
“Yeah!” Dez said. Spencer saw two footprints smash down the grass beside him. “Invisibility rules!”
Spencer turned just as Holga’s wand released a streamer of destructive dust toward Daisy. He brought up his shield and leapt in front of the blast. It hit him like a thousand pounds, demolishing the shield and sending Spencer skidding across the lawn.
He grunted in pain. His shield arm was broken; he had heard the bones snap. Spencer’s eyes rolled back as he fought to maintain consciousness against the pain.
Spencer didn’t understand how the impact had hurt him. His Glopified coveralls should have prevented that sort of injury. Grasping at the zipper of his coveralls, Spencer realized that it had slipped an inch or two. V must not have zipped it all the way after she searched him for the Witch hair. Now his arm was shattered, and the pain was almost too intense to bear.
Invisible Dez picked off the Grime Plugger in the same manner as he had the first. That left one BEM Plugger on a giant Filth. Daisy delivered a Funnel Throw of vacuum dust directly into the beast’s snotty muzzle. Its head dropped with the suction, leaving a clear shot for her mop to lasso the rider. The strings snared him around the shoulder, toppling him from the saddle.
Dez’s arm suddenly became visible as it swung through the air, delivering a knockout punch to the unseated Plugger.
“It’s wearing off!” Dez said, his entire shoulder and the left side of his face visible once more. His unseen arm suddenly wrapped around Daisy, while his visible one hoisted Spencer to his feet.
Spencer moaned at the pain. “My arm’s broken.”
“Boohoo,” Dez said. “Don’t be such a crybaby.” The Sweeper boy took flight, his invisible wings snapping agains
t the air as he bore his companions straight up.
Below, Spencer saw the Witches stomp their feet in a rage. Dust swirled from their bronze wands, the powdery magic forming into familiar shapes.
Brooms. Created out of thin air.
The Witches grabbed their solid brooms and took flight, soaring on an intercept course for the escaping kids. Dez angled hard and flew Spencer and Daisy out over the Academy wall. The Witches used their wands to alter course, scraggly hair blowing. The dust from their wands formed into buffeting winds that directed their in-flight brooms however they wished. The angry hags were coming in fast, their wands spurring the broom bristles to speeds that Spencer had never seen on a typical broom.
Dez halted in midair, his now-visible wings flapping to keep them aloft. The boy’s legs were still invisible, and when Spencer looked down from the dizzying height, all he saw was asphalt and a few parked cars in the lot below him.
“You ready for this?” Dez asked, looking down and squinting one eye.
“What are we supposed to be ready for?” Daisy asked.
Dez grinned mischievously. “Trust fall!” yelled the Sweeper boy, suddenly letting go of Spencer and Daisy.
They plummeted side by side, a stomach-wrenching free fall toward the blacktop below. Daisy screamed, reaching out to grasp the back of Spencer’s coveralls. He couldn’t help but flail to stop from spinning, an action that shot needles of pain all the way to his shoulder.
Then, poof, Spencer and Daisy were in the landfill, their momentum spitting them out of the dumpster to land in a heap on the trash-stained concrete pad.
Chapter 18
“She had other plans.”
Dez appeared a split second after Spencer and Daisy, shouting like a maniac, “Close the dumpster! Close the dumpster!”
Rho stepped up and grabbed the black lid, slamming it shut with a resounding clang. Daisy removed the orange healing spray from her belt and carefully misted Spencer’s arm. The magical solution was capable of knitting broken bones back together, though Spencer would have to endure several more minutes of pain before the spray took effect.
Dez let out a laugh and gave a victorious fist pump. “Man, those Witches never saw me coming!”
“Literally,” Rho pointed out. “You were invisible.”
“Did you guys get it?” Dez asked, turning to Spencer and Daisy. “Did you find the stupid hair?”
Spencer was just beginning to shake his head when Daisy produced the pink hairbrush, choked with long, scraggly black hairs.
“I thought you dropped it!” Spencer said, feeling more encouraged than he had in weeks. “Where was it?” He couldn’t figure out how V had missed it when she had searched them.
“It was in my hand the whole time,” Daisy said. “As soon as the Witches showed up, I knew they would try to take it away. I used the bleach to turn the hairbrush invisible. Then I just had to make sure I didn’t set it down or I’d never find it again.”
Spencer grinned. Amid so much failure, he was thrilled that they had accomplished what they’d set out to do. “Nice work.” He was amazed at her quick thinking. “You did great.”
“It was nothing,” Dez said casually.
“I was talking to Daisy,” replied Spencer.
“Hey! I did some awesome stuff too,” Dez said.
Spencer had a hard time admitting it, but they never would have escaped without Dez. “How did you get past Hal and the Sweepers?” Spencer asked, remembering that Dez didn’t have bleach at the time.
“I have a skill they weren’t expecting,” answered Dez. “Burping.”
“You belched at them?” Rho raised an eyebrow. It didn’t sound like a very threatening skill.
“Yup,” Dez said proudly. “I burped up a huge cloud of black dust and escaped while the Sweepers couldn’t see anything.”
“Only you could find a way to make burping your secret weapon,” Spencer said.
“I made my way back to the garbage truck and came through the dumpster,” Dez carried on. “Rho was sprawled out on the concrete. It seemed like a dumb time to be sleeping. I could have used some help.”
“I wasn’t sleeping,” Rho said. “Someone hit me with the green spray and took the squeegee.”
“That was V,” Daisy said.
“I thought she went into the landfill with the boys,” Rho said.
“She had other plans,” said Spencer, wondering how to break the news.
“Anyway . . .” Dez said, annoyed that other people were talking during his story. “I grabbed some extra bleach from Rho’s belt and went back through the dumpster. The first thing I did was make myself invisible. But then I realized that the BEM would be looking for the garbage truck, so I bleached it out, too. I drove up and parked it right outside the Academy wall. Then I made my way back to that office where you guys were. When Hal went inside to report to the Witches, I slipped through the door. That’s when the Witches tried to blast you, so I knocked off their aim.”
“That was you?” Daisy said. “I was starting to think they couldn’t point their wands straight.”
“Wands?” Rho said. She froze as the gravity of that statement struck her. “The Witches have their wands?”
Spencer nodded regretfully. “V swapped out the nails, and Dez delivered the real ones to the Witches.”
“I didn’t know I was helping V,” Dez said. “I promise.” He held up three fingers. “Scout’s honor.”
“You’re not even a Scout,” Daisy said.
Dez shrugged. “Doesn’t mean I can’t use their honor.”
Rho’s face was turning red, her hands clenched into fists. “Where is the traitor now?” She was struggling to keep her voice calm. “Where is V?”
Spencer and Daisy glanced at each other. When Daisy put her head down, Spencer knew it was his responsibility to break the news.
“V’s dead.”
Rho’s expression softened, then sank. Tears welled in her eyes, and Spencer wondered what the loss must feel like. The Aurans had been together for nearly three hundred years. They shared centuries of memories. Prolonged time had given them the opportunity to grow closer than a family. No matter what V’s betrayal had been, this was going to hurt the Aurans.
“How?” Rho finally managed, just barely keeping her emotions in check.
“She grew up,” Spencer said. “She grew old.”
“That old dead grandma lying on the floor in the office?” Dez said. “That was V?”
“Show some respect!” Daisy scolded.
“The Witches have Timekeepers for all of you,” Spencer said. “They’re bronze bracelets on Belzora’s wrist. They kept them from the moment you first became Aurans. The years you should’ve aged have been collecting in the bracelets. When V put hers on, she aged so fast she couldn’t get it off until it was too late.”
Rho nodded to show that she understood. “I’ll call the others,” she whispered. “They deserve to know.”
“In the end,” Daisy said, “V wanted you to know she was sorry.”
And Spencer remembered V’s final message. The Glopified scissors were lost somewhere in the landfill. Spencer didn’t know how they could possibly find the scissors when the Dark Aurans had searched the trash heaps for centuries with no luck. But he chose to take hope from V’s last words.
“We need to get Marv,” Spencer said. His Bingo game in Florida was a dead end. The retired Silver Swiffers didn’t have the scissors. They’d been lost at the landfill all along!
“And we need to talk to the Dark Aurans,” Spencer added. “When will they be back?”
Rho was staring off into the landfill, a vacant expression on her youthful face. “Sorry,” she said, turning when Spencer paused for an answer. “What did you say?”
“I know this is hard,” Spencer said. “But we have to keep going. When will the Dark Aurans get back?”
Rho swallowed and wiped the tears with the back of her hand. “They were going deep,” she said. “Almost all the way
to the Broomstaff. They won’t be back until tomorrow night.”
“Then we’ll have to start looking without them,” said Spencer.
“Looking for what?” Rho asked.
Spencer gazed out into the strange formations of Glop-tainted garbage in the landfill. Somewhere out there was the tool they needed to destroy the Toxite brain nests.
“The scissors.”
Chapter 19
“Were the prizes good?”
Spencer, Daisy, and Dez paused at the door to the conference room with the Aurans’ round table. Rho had gone through Lina’s garbage truck to find Marv and bring him back from his Bingo game with the old folks. All their efforts had to focus on finding the scissors, now that V had revealed their true location.
“Nobody say a word,” Spencer said, grabbing the doorknob. “If V’s mug is still in there, the Witches will be watching.” He pushed open the door.
The conference room was empty. No one sat at the round table, and the skylights were dimmed by the lowering afternoon sun. There was only one item atop the large round table.
V’s mug of root beer stood untouched from when she had left. As the kids drew closer, Spencer saw the fizzy bubbles. Knowing now what he hadn’t before, he bent close and looked at the magical soapsuds.
He half expected to see into the Witches’ lair, thinking he could look backward through the suds to see the pedestal sink and the horribly dirty living space. Instead, Spencer saw only the reflection of his face and the spacious room behind him.
It made sense that the soapsud surveillance worked only one way. The Witches wouldn’t take a chance that someone might be able to look into the suds and spy on them.
Just to be sure that the bubbles weren’t regular soda fizz, Spencer reached out and dipped his finger into the suds. He pinched a single small bubble and expanded it to a large view screen between his finger and thumb. An ordinary bubble surely would have popped by now, and Spencer had no doubt that the Witches were still watching the room.
As Spencer stared at his glossy reflection in the soapy bubble, Dez reached out a finger and popped the soapsud with his sharp talon.