“It took me a week and a half to find that last time,” John whispered, leading them into the dark stone hallway ahead. “I hear the hall loops around on itself eventually, so ye never get to the end. Spirits end up trapped, walking the hall forever. Lots of things like that in the Eternal Edifice. Powerful architecture, it is.” He stopped and looked forward, then behind them, as if to make sure no one was following them, then he continued. “The upstairs is much more modern. That’s where all the guards are, and that’s where we get on the floaterator. But word is Cleevil doesn’t even know this way exists. In any case, he’s left it alone. Now”—he yanked on his beard—“where was that service entrance?”
As he ran his fingers along the wall, a white, sparkling light began to glimmer farther down the tunnel.
“Mr. Jibber,” Beatrice whispered. “What’s that?”
“What?” John looked up, jolted, and cursed. “Hurry,” he whispered. “Find the door!”
As they all fanned out, feeling along the wall, the beautiful light continued to grow. Watching it, May began to feel warm inside.
“Here!” she heard someone say, but it was like she heard it in a dream, and then someone yanked on the back of her bathing suit, and she was pulled backward, into the deep arch of a doorway. Fabbio shifted stiffly, his elbows jarring everyone else.
“Have ye ever seen a North Farm spirit?” John whispered, his body trembling against the others. Everyone shook their heads.
“Well, yer about to.”
They squeezed hard up against the door as the light grew to a blinding white, and moments later a form drifted past them—long and white, and as filmy and soft as a cloud. May held her breath, mesmerized, and held the hand that Pumpkin slipped into hers. The spirit had a round head that tapered down to a long, gently pointed tail, like a comet, but its light was too blinding to make out any features. It floated slowly by until its light became dimmer and dimmer, and then it disappeared.
Behind May, John began to fiddle with his skeleton key, and then there was a loud crack as the door opened onto the stairs.
“Follow me.”
John crouched lower and lower as he climbed the stairs, until finally he knelt down and crawled the last two on his hands and knees, peering around the corner of the landing. He ducked back just as two pairs of slimy, clawed feet appeared and passed by.
Slowly and silently he crouch-walked back down the stairs, mopping his forehead with a rotted handkerchief and looking around nervously, up and down the stairs.
“There’s a couple ways we can get to the floaterator from here. One’s through the Aurora Atrium, which has lots of nooks and crannies to hide in, but is guarded by at least twenty ghouls. Or we have the recreation hallway. That’s where the guards have their Holo-Visions and arcade games and such, to use on their time off. We’re less likely to meet ghouls that way, but we’ll have to pass the goblins’ lounge, and there’s no place to hide that way—just a straight shot to the lobby. I’m thinkin’ the atrium—”
“But. . .,” May interrupted, without meaning to. Her gut told her to use the hallway. When John paused and looked at her, she stammered. “What are the goblins like? Surely they’re not as bad as the ghouls?”
May was surprised when John actually seemed to consider her question. “They’re faster. And they have bigger teeth. But they are a lot more likely to be fallin’ down on the job. Lazy little things, and vain, too. When they’re haunting down on Earth, they’re either sleeping under people’s beds or hiding in their closets, looking fer things to wear.” He seemed to catch himself rattling on nervously. He thought for another minute. “All right, lass. We’ll do it yer way.”
May swallowed.
“Yes. That is also the way I would suggest,” Fabbio interjected.
“Do ye lasses have any baubles on ye? Jewelry or a nice handkerchief, perhaps?”
May and Beatrice both shook their heads. “Why?” May asked.
“Something we can throw at them if they see us. They’d be mighty distracted by a fine bauble. I’m kickin’ meself fer not bringin’ any.”
May thrust her hands into her pockets. She pulled out the quartz rock she’d brought from her shelf at home. “What about this?” She hated to give it up. It was the only thing she had from the woods back home.
“It might work. Keep it handy, and I’ll let ye know if we need it.”
May tucked the rock back into her right pocket. As she did, her hand brushed against something else. It felt like a tube of lipstick. She pulled it out and held it up—a glass vial full of black liquid. She whimpered.
John squinted. “Gwenneth! Of all the stinking knaves! That’s Gwenneth’s handiwork, I’ll swear it. A sea capsule. Breaks when it’s squeezed. She’s probably taken out two hundred knaves that way.”
May’s mind leaped to all the times the capsule could have broken in her pocket, and shuddered. Then she thought back to Gwenneth on the dock at the grotto, hugging and patting her.
“She likes to get ’em when she’s nowhere around,” John spat. “Gets a satisfaction out of it. A poor soul’ll sit down on his bed, and . . .” John ran his hand across his throat. “Sick. Put it there, girl, down in that corner.”
“But what if somebody steps on it?” May asked.
“Lay it down, child. I’ll not debate with ye. We’re on a schedule.”
May gazed at him, confused. “What schedule?”
John blinked for a moment, then shook his head, as if shaking off a bee. “Stop askin’ so many questions and lay that vial down.”
May considered. In a place like this, surrounded by enemies, a vial of deadly water seemed like a good thing to have. As John watched, she scooped down and laid the vial in a comer of the stairs, but when he turned around, she picked it up again and very gently slipped it into her pocket.
When she stood back up, she met eyes with Beatrice, who’d been the only one watching her. She let May know with her eyes that she’d seen and understood. She reached out and squeezed May’s hand. “Careful,” she whispered, then leaned closer. “I’m not sure I trust your friend.”
May had no time to answer before they all gathered, crouching, behind John at the top of the stairs. “When I give the signal, we float . . . or, er, tiptoe . . . forward, fast as we can into the hall across the way. Ye got it?”
“Of course we get it,” Fabbio whispered, thrusting his nose in the air.
Beatrice nodded, but Pumpkin merely bit his fingers. May held tight to his sleeve, prepared to pull him into action. Beatrice’s words tickled at her brain.
John held one arm outstretched in front of him, and then waggled his fingers slightly. May tugged Pumpkin hard, and they all moved forward, gazing around them as they scurried across a wide, gleaming marble floor under a vaulted glass skylight that reached several stories above them. May sucked in her breath as she saw a pair of ghouls talking a short distance away, but in another moment they’d arrived in the small hall John had told them about, hidden from view.
John came to a halt and held his arms wide to hold May and the others back as they all bumped into him. There was an open doorway on the right up ahead. John gave them a significant look to let them know this was the goblins’ lounge he’d talked about. Then, quick as a flash, he levitated past it. Fabbio, Beatrice, and Pumpkin did the same. May hesitated, knowing she’d have to tiptoe.
She crept up to the edge of the door, peered around the corner, and sucked in her breath again. The room was full of hundreds of little goblins, shin height, with huge fangs and floppy ears. They hung off shelves, chairs, and the Holo-Vision set. Some were sprawled on a long orange couch watching The Sound of Music and singing along loudly, but most were sleeping in various positions all over the room. A few were looking in mirrors, doing their makeup. One pair had a pile of tiny shopping bags lying in between them, and they were pulling out outfits to show each other.
May tilted her chin down bravely and darted past, catching up with the others and looking behi
nd her. The hall remained empty.
John grinned his black-toothed smile and patted her back. “Right. Now we—”
A great rattling sound shook the walls of the hallway, interrupting before John could finish. Everyone froze.
Snooooooooore. Snooooooore.
“That is what, please?” Fabbio whispered, crossing his arms and looking at John severely.
John clearly didn’t know. He yanked out his handkerchief and wiped at his forehead, though May couldn’t see an ounce of sweat. “Let’s hope we don’t find out.”
They moved warily down the hall toward the sound, watching in awe as the walls rattled around them. The ceiling had been built on a rise here, tilting steadily upward. At the end of the hall it disappeared completely where it met an enormous walled circle that rose for as far as the eye could see, with not a roof in sight. In the center of the circle, the floaterator shaft stretched its glowing way upward—a walled circle within a circle.
The gold doors stretched at least two stories high, and at the foot of them, its massive teeth poking out from underneath its enormous black jowls, a silver tag inscribed MAMA dangling from its neck, was a dog the size of a small house. A Black Shuck. Its eyelids, slightly open, revealed bloodred eyeballs.
“Somebody go ahead and push the button for the floaterator,” John whispered after a minute, indicating the glowing blue Up button. It was very small and at a normal height beside the doors.
Everyone looked at one another.
“I am allergic to dogs,” Fabbio said. He faked a soft cough, way down in his throat.
“N-N-Not me,” Pumpkin stuttered.
“Oh, my,” said Beatrice, fluttering her perfect eyelashes. “I don’t think I’m brave enough either. What about you, John?”
John shook his head. “Not on yer life.”
Finally everyone looked at May. “Oh, um.” She could think of no reason why it shouldn’t be her, when she’d gotten everyone here in the first place. But she didn’t want to go.
She began to tiptoe forward. John reached out and grabbed her arm. “Watch fer ghouls,” he said, nodding his head to either side to indicate that the area around the floaterator shaft might be guarded by other things than Mama. A ghoul could come around the curved hall at any moment.
May nodded, clenched her jaw tight, and tiptoed forward again.
She wrinkled her nose as she approached the sleeping beast, covering her mouth and nose with one hand and making sure that the coast was clear of ghouls, then looking back at the dog. Her red eyes, seeming to stare at May between the cracks in her eyelids, sent goose bumps racing up and down May’s skin and set her knees to trembling.
You can do this, May thought. She stepped wide over the beast’s back leg, gently climbing over it and going very still when it twitched, then settled back. She slid down the other side of the leg and pushed the button, then stood back and watched the numbers along the top of the doors come alight one by one, from 800,000 to 700,000 to 600,000 and down to 1,000, then through the hundreds until it reached a star symbol.
The doors slid open, a bell dinging gently. May watched Mama the whole time. She stirred, but did not wake. Behind May the doors started to slide closed.
“Oh.” May turned and leaped forward, punched the button again, and held it, then turned toward the others and waved them forward.
One by one they levitated toward her, floating over Mama’s legs and past her into the empty space of the floaterator, until only Pumpkin remained across the hall.
The others waved him forward frantically. With his right index finger resting on his lip, he shook his head.
“Come on,” May mouthed, waggling her free hand at him and peering left and right. “Hurry.”
Pumpkin stood there for a few more seconds, nibbling his fingers, his body quivering, and everyone scowling at him. Finally he started forward.
“Gbblllllgghh!”
May and Pumpkin both looked in the direction of the sound. A ghoul had just come into sight. Seeing them, he let out a howl, then thrust back his arm to throw his spear.
“Ahhhh!” Pumpkin screamed, sailing forward, but not fast enough to dodge the spear, which stabbed right through his arm. “Ahhhhhh!”
At the same time Mama’s giant head shot up, her red eyes burning with life. There was only a moment of confusion before she saw Pumpkin and yelped in rage, leaping toward him. Pumpkin dodged left, then right as, far above, a bone-rattling alarm screamed to life.
“Let’s go, lassie!” John called from behind May, but May kept her finger jammed in the button, dodging Mama’s back legs as Pumpkin looped around her and zipped in May’s direction.
He sailed into the floaterator, followed by May, who didn’t realize until she was in that she was standing on what looked to be pure air. Beatrice was pressing another button just by the doors, over and over again, to get them to close. Finally they did, but not before Mama thrust her jaws inside. The doors slammed on the sides of her muzzle, making her yelp. Her bloodred tongue lashed out hard, smacking Fabbio backward.
Acting on instinct alone, May grabbed the spear sticking out of Pumpkin’s arm, yanked it out, and jammed it into the beast’s nose. Pumpkin’s scream and Mama’s howl sounded in unison. Beatrice, Fabbio, and Pumpkin flew toward the nose and slammed on it with their fists, until finally Mama yanked her head back. The sound of ghouls running and yelling could be heard as the doors slammed shut.
John floated forward and pressed the top button: floor 1,007,869. The floaterator gave a loud whine. And then May found herself zipping upward so fast that everything became a blur. We’re going so high, May thought, and her stomach did a sick little flip.
Looking up, she saw a ball of light, like the sun, directly above her. She started feeling hotter and hotter. It felt like they were all hurtling right into the sun. A moment later the whiteness divided itself into a prism of light, shooting rainbows down and all around them. It looked like they would crash right through it.
May closed her eyes.
That morning all eyes in Ether were turned to the Eternal Edifice, where, it was said, three specters, a ghost, and a Live One had managed to sneak in. Not one spirit, not even the sniffing phantom, had its eyes turned to the area outside the west wall. Anyone who had been looking would have noticed an unusual sight. A group of more than a thousand ancient Egyptian spirits had gathered in a giant rolling wooden mouse, a hundred yards or so across the sand—a trick they had learned from a group of spirits in tunics they’d run into in the Nothing Platte. They were waiting for instructions from their spies within the city who were trailing Big Ears.
After a lengthy discussion, the spirits had decided not to make a move on the cat within the city, for fear it would surely duck into a building or a gutter and lose them again. No, with the help of the spies, they all agreed it would be better to wait for the cat to leave the city, which he surely would, as he seemed to be a nomadic type of god. And then, when he was in the open with nowhere to hide, they would catch him and take him back to his pyramid, to be honored the way a sacred cat should be.
Which included being sacrificed to Ra on the thirteenth of the month.
Tucked within the darkness of the mouse, and peering through the cracks, the Egyptians watched and waited. From their spot they could see the little tunnel Big Ears had dug into the city.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
The Book of the Dead
The floaterator came to a screeching halt and the two doors opened, spilling May and the others onto the top floor of the Eternal Edifice.
The group looked at one another, smiling weakly with relief. The wail of the sirens drifted up to them, but only faintly.
“Ohh,” Pumpkin moaned, holding up his arm, which had a spear-sized hole running right through the middle of it.
John, who was sweating profusely, immediately dug into his knapsack, pulled out an ancient nutcracker, and went to work on the button of the floaterator, yanking it out, and then digging at the wires in
side. The others gathered around Pumpkin.
“Does it hurt?” May asked.
Pumpkin shook his head.
“We’re in trouble,” John grunted over his shoulder. “But this’ll hold ’em fer a bit. Ghouls and bogeys can’t fly, after all.”
Nobody was quite listening to him, though. Beatrice, Fabbio, Pumpkin, and May had turned their backs, and were staring down a long hallway filled with light, which fell in colored stripes across a crystal blue floor. On either side the walls were made of stained glass, of the richest hues May had ever seen—far deeper and more vivid than anything she’d seen on Earth, in shades she’d never dreamed might exist. In several places the glass had shattered, leaving shards scattered across the floor ahead. A revolving door spun at the end of the hall.
The group drifted slowly down the hall in silent awe. The hallway felt so far above everything happening in the city, and it was so breathtaking, that for the moment the danger below seemed a distant memory.
The glass, once May looked at it more closely, appeared to depict different scenes. The first, on her left, she knew well. And she was no longer surprised. It was of a giant tree growing out of the snow, but lush and full of green leaves and giant magnolia flowers. The eyes that peered out from behind the leaves were the deepest sky blue. Were they hunting her? Welcoming her? Chiding her? The eyes were too mysterious to tell.
May moved on. The next scene showed a vast black ocean, giving a view of the depths, where at the very bottom, waiting on the murky ground underwater, were several horrible-looking creatures—ghouls and goblins and others.
“That must be South Place,” Pumpkin whispered behind her, his voice shaky.
The next scene was one May recognized—it was a view of Earth, but divided into four corners, with a tiny star marking a spot in each corner. “The portals?” May whispered. Surrounding the Earth was a large border, also divided into four parts. In each there was a scene from Earth: monkeys gathered around a steaming pool with Mount Fuji in the distance, an old airplane flying above an aqua blue sea dotted with islands, a stone well in the middle of a desert—