Grotton looked shaken, upset that they’d discovered his secret: that he’d created the Grimsphere, that he’d so severely disrupted the natural order of things.
“So that’s your plan, then?” he sneered, fading. “Norwood will be most displeased to hear it.”
He disappeared.
The Juniors were still reeling. “But—” Ferbus sputtered. “Being Grims is what we do. It’s who we are. How can we just give it up like that?”
Lex couldn’t imagine giving it up, but it was hard to argue with Uncle Mort’s logic. “Well,” he said, “I guess it comes down to the question of what’s more important—maintaining the Grimsphere and its cushy way of life, or ensuring the safety of the Afterlife for yourselves and for generations to come?”
Elysia shrugged. “Maybe sometimes you have to topple a secret empire that’s been around for centuries in order to save one that’s been around forever.”
“Sometimes?” Ferbus asked incredulously. “When exactly has this happened before?”
Uncle Mort ignored him. “This could work,” he said, the wheels turning. “Of course, it’s all contingent on the reset, and whether Driggs has enough human in him to become permanently solid again.”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” said Ferbus, swinging his stump. “Are we seriously considering this bonanza of insanity? Look, it’s not that I don’t want to give up my job and lifestyle and pretty much everything on this earth that I care about, but what gives us the authority to make a decision like this? How can the dissolution of a society be green-lit and carried out by a bunch of ragtag rebel teenagers and their—no offense, Mort—deranged leader? Shouldn’t the rest of the population have some sort of say in this? Before we so rashly take away their entire way of life?”
“We’ve already been given the green light,” Elysia argued. “By, if you’ll recall, the president. All the mayors of the world, too—they wouldn’t have sealed the portals if they didn’t believe in the cause.”
“But none of them planned for it to go this far,” Ferbus argued back. “We’d be pulling the rug out from under thousands of people. Robbing them of their livelihoods. And they won’t know what to do with themselves—it’ll be total anarchy. Most of them never went to college or learned a trade; they’ll have to start their lives all over again. It’ll be just like Ayjay, multiplied across an entire society!”
“But it would be for the best,” Lex said quietly. When they all stared at her, since this was the last thing anyone ever expected to come out of Lex’s mouth, she shrugged. “Humans never should have been entrusted with this responsibility in the first place, as flawed and vulnerable to corruption as they are.” She looked down. “As I was.”
Driggs was shaking his head, unable to comprehend the scale of what they were discussing, and him the lynchpin of all of it. Finally he looked at Uncle Mort. “What do you think?”
Uncle Mort was quiet.
“I think,” he eventually said, “we Grims have had one hell of a run.”
19
“Ready, Lex?” Uncle Mort asked a couple of hours later. The second-to-last dot, on the Brazilian coast, had switched to red just a few moments before.
It was time to go back to Croak.
Uncle Mort packed up his bag while Ayjay watched from the hallway, his arms crossed. Elysia and Ferbus were already waiting in the backyard with Driggs. Bang sat on the couch, still sullen—but ever since Broomie had told her that Pip was all right, she’d allowed a little bit more of her face to peek out from behind her hair.
Lex nodded. “Yeah, I’m ready.”
“Good.” He reached into his bag, pulled out a vial of Amnesia, and started walking toward Ayjay. “One last order of business, and we’ll be on our way.”
Lex tensed. She thought she’d reached a good, sane place: she’d spent a wonderful night with Driggs, she was onboard with this nutzoid plan of theirs, and she was ready for the next step. But the moment she spotted that vial of Amnesia, something in her snapped.
“Don’t!” She grabbed Uncle Mort’s elbow, yanking him back, and marched toward Ayjay.
Bang’s eyes widened.
“I lied,” Lex told Ayjay. She could sense Uncle Mort fuming behind her, but she didn’t care. “When you asked me if I knew you. I did know you. We all did. We were your friends—we lived together, worked together—you even had a girlfriend. That’s how you lost your eye, protecting her. You were a part of something special, and there were people in your life who cared about you. You can’t go back to that life—actually, if we do this right today, none of us can go back—but just remember all that, okay? Remember it.”
Ayjay’s mouth was moving, but nothing came out. Lex turned around to face Uncle Mort. He was staring at her, his expression unreadable.
After a moment he shook his head, put the vial back in his bag, and walked up to Ayjay. “Thanks for your hospitality,” he said, shaking his hand. Without another word he turned around and walked out the back door.
Bang looked up at Lex, making eye contact for the first time since they’d left Necropolis.
Lex shrugged. “You wouldn’t want to forget Pip, would you?”
Bang smiled.
Lex helped her off the couch and joined the others in the backyard. Uncle Mort was examining Ferbus, who, considering that he’d been forced to come to terms with a lot of major changes in the past twenty-four hours, was doing relatively well. He’d even come around on the unGrimming thing, though it was hard to tell whether he actually agreed with it or had just caved under Elysia’s relentless badgering.
“Feeling okay, Ferb?” Uncle Mort asked.
“Oh, definitely. One thumb way, way up,” he said with a smirk. “I gotta hand it to you, Mort, you were quite the helping hand back there. Give him a hand, folks.”
“How long do you plan on keeping this up?”
“Oh, for the next decade. At least.”
“Good luck with that,” Uncle Mort told Elysia.
She sighed. “It’s a drop in the bucket at this point.”
Ferbus pretended to put both hands on his hips. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means that you were already a whackjob without a missing limb, and this is only going to make you weirder.”
He grinned. “I should get a hook. And a parrot.”
“Oh God.” Elysia buried her head in Lex’s shoulder. “We’re going to be those people. He’s going to buy a three-cornered hat, and then a puffy shirt, and next thing you know, he’s building a mini golf course with waterfalls and anchors and swashbuckling songs blaring out of speakers that look like rocks, and I’m the one who’s going to have to smile and work the cash register while children come from all over to take pictures with the damn pirate.” She glared at Uncle Mort, though that weird bubbliness of hers was still in her eyes. “I hope you’re happy.”
He snorted. “Ecstatic.”
***
They Crashed to Greycliff, Bang pulling the no-longer-Grimmed Elysia through and Driggs arriving via his ghost skills.
He stared at the spot where he’d died. “Couldn’t you have picked a less emotionally scarring place, Mort?”
“Sorry about that. Arriving within the town limits would have set off alarms. And this way we can get a better idea of what we’re dealing with before we storm on in.”
But the advantage didn’t make them feel any better, and neither did the cheerful sunshine illuminating the valley below. The snow that had fallen a few days ago had already melted, and from their spot atop the cliff they could tell that Croak was deathly quiet—and so battered, Lex barely recognized it. Hinges hung from the library doors. The Morgue’s windows were broken, one of its red stools lying on the sidewalk outside. Many of the stores on Slain Lane were boarded up with plywood. Attempts had been made at rebuilding the fountain, but they were half-assed at best—the obelisk was crooked, and the fountain itself dry and mildewed. Only the Bank remained relatively the same, sunny yellow as always.
?
??What happened?” Elysia breathed. “Who trashed our town?”
Lex pointed. Armed men—the ones who’d stayed loyal to Norwood even after his implication in the fountain bombing had come to light—were patrolling the street in pairs, shotguns slung over their shoulders. There were no other people to be found, and no Norwood, either.
“They couldn’t all have left,” said Lex. “Everyone on our side—gone?”
“Well, some of them died at Grave,” Uncle Mort reminded her. “And the rest are in hiding, I’m sure.”
He backed away from the cliff’s edge and gestured for them to follow. “So here’s the plan. We take the tunnel down to the Bank. Driggs, Elysia, Ferbus—you fend off the goons, create a distraction. Bang, you sneak away and head over to Norwood’s house to find the Wrong Book. Lex, you come with me into the Bank and fight off the guards inside so I can get up to the portal.”
He paused, swallowed, then continued. “Once the portal is sealed, Lex, you’re up. Hopefully Bang will have found the Wrong Book by then. If not, that becomes the priority. Find Grotton, make him solid, and Annihilate him. Voilà—Grotton’s gone forever, Damned and ghosted souls are restored, and Driggs gets his beloved body back.”
“Hopefully,” Driggs added. “Fifty-fifty shot.”
Uncle Mort gave a weary nod. “Hopefully. And if you do, then it’s unGrimming time. But a lot has to go right to get to that point, so we need to make sure we all know what we’re doing. Any questions?”
Elysia and Ferbus started trading ideas on how to outmaneuver the guards once they got to Dead End, but Lex was too distracted to listen. It wouldn’t be long now. All she had to do was send Grotton to the Dark, and Driggs would get his life back. He’d either be human or he’d be dead, but at least he’d be whole.
Her insides, though, were writhing. She’d Damned so many people and hurt so many others on top of that—one more shouldn’t make a difference, especially someone as wicked as Grotton. If anyone deserved such a Dark fate, it was him.
But she couldn’t get Driggs’s voice out of her head. No matter what they’d done to me, he’d said about his parents, it wasn’t my job to punish them.
She shook her head and looked at him, but he was listening intently to Uncle Mort. You can’t be judge, jury, and executioner, he’d added. Humans make mistakes, which is why humans shouldn’t be allowed to make those sorts of calls in the first place.
And she’d promised him that she’d stop Damning, that she wouldn’t make those kinds of calls anymore. And Annihilation was so much worse. Could she really make an exception for this?
She shook her head. Of course she could. Annihilation was the only way to fix Driggs.
And that was a promise she intended to keep above all others.
“Lex?” Uncle Mort said. She looked up to find him staring at her, impatient. “You ready?”
She nodded and squeezed her scythe. “Yeah.”
“Good.” He threw his bag over his shoulder—then, as if realizing something, took it off and set it down on the ground. The only thing remaining in his hand was his scythe.
Lex blinked. He’s leaving his bag?
But he swept them all toward the rock before she could figure out why. He took one last look at the town below, gave it a sad smile, and shoved them forward.
“See, Driggs?” he said as they squeezed into the tiny tunnel, Bang lighting their way with Pip’s Spark. “Now Ferbus gets to revisit his own personal hell. I strive to provide equal opportunities for emotional scarring, you see.”
Ferbus, trying his hardest not to imagine any mine holes drilled into the walls, cringed. “You’re too kind, Mort.”
***
As quietly as they could, the Juniors emerged under the porch of the Bank and snuck through its little wooden door out to the streets of Croak. But it took only a second for one of Norwood’s men to notice them and sound the alarm.
“Don’t move!” Trumbull yelled, pointing a gun at them. Riley joined him at his side, along with a few others.
There aren’t so many of them anymore, Lex thought, becoming hopeful. Definitely not as many as there were before!
“Maybe some of the morons in this town have been fooled by ‘President Pandora’ and her ‘proclamations,’” Trumbull continued, his voice dripping with mockery, “but unfortunately for you, they’re not the ones with weapons.”
Lex glanced at the apartments that were visible from where she was standing. There were people peeking out from behind the blinds, watching the scene unfold as if it were a Wild West showdown.
“Hands in the air!” Trumbull shouted. “Walk toward us, slowly. If you try anything, we’ll blow your heads off!”
“No, we won’t,” Riley hissed at him. “Norwood wants her alive!”
“So?” Trumbull said, grinning. “He didn’t say anything about the rest of them.”
He took aim.
Yet before he or anyone else could squeeze out a single shot, a great roar erupted from the buildings of Croak. The townspeople came pouring out from every direction—the library, the Morgue, the stores on Slain Lane—dozens of them, all wielding homemade weapons, scythes, or whatever blunt objects they were able to find around their houses.
A shovel hit Trumbull squarely between the eyes, and Riley took a scythe slash all the way up her arm. “Trumbull, shoot them!” she shouted, holding her hand over her bleeding arm.
But in their confusion Norwood’s men had scattered, and only a handful had their guns out; they’d been prepared to defend against the Juniors, but they obviously and erroneously believed they’d already taken the fight out of any dissenting civilians. Small fistfights were erupting all over Dead End, cries of pain bursting down the small street as Lex and the other Juniors watched in horror.
“Why are we watching in horror?” Ferbus asked. “Let’s kick some ass, shall we?”
And so, yelling and charging and waving their scythes in the air, the Juniors jumped into the fray.
Lex couldn’t be sure what was happening to her friends as they fought. At one point she spotted Elysia biting Trumbull’s arm, Ferbus clotheslining Riley, and Bang zipping around like a gnat, yanking people’s feet out from under them. Lex fought too, though she was having a hard time keeping her hands in check; every time a Senior approached, they alternated between hot and cold, as if unsure whether she should be Damning or Annihilating.
Neither, she tried to tell them. Not yet.
Time seemed to slow down. Bodies littered the ground—an image Lex had seen repeated so many times by now, the settings and victims were all starting to blur together. The upper hand kept switching back and forth between sides—just when it seemed as if Trumbull and Riley were beginning to beat down the Croakers to the point of defeat, the townspeople roared back even stronger than before.
Lex did a quick recon. Bang had managed to slip away and was running for the outskirts of town. Elysia and Ferbus were holding their own, and Driggs was confusing the hell out of everyone. Uncle Mort had made it up the stairs of the Bank and was gesturing wildly for Lex to follow.
She pounded up the steps and followed him into the lobby. It didn’t look anything like she remembered; the space that Kilda had tried so hard to keep homey and welcoming had fallen into ruin. The red velvet couches were slashed, potpourri littered the floor, Kilda’s desk looked as if it had been raided—
And something behind it was whimpering.
“Kilda!” Uncle Mort said when they found her cowering underneath. “Are you all right?”
“I tried to lay low, but Norwood still made me come into work!” she said, her eyes frantic. “They pointed guns at me the whole time! They spilled my potpourri!”
“I know,” said Uncle Mort. “Listen to me. Is anyone else in the building?”
“No one except for the guards! They ran upstairs!”
Of course they did—to guard the most important thing in the Bank. “What about my parents?” Lex asked. “Are they still locked up in the basement?
”
Kilda shook her head. “No, Norwood took them out a few hours ago! I don’t know where they went!”
Lex jumped up. She wanted nothing more than to go look for them, but Uncle Mort put a hand on her arm. “Later,” he insisted. “After.”
Kilda started to curl up into a smaller ball, but Uncle Mort held her shoulder. “Kilda—” He paused, searching for the right words. “Thank you for all you’ve done for this town.”
She looked confused. “What?”
“No one ever gave you enough credit. But Croak couldn’t function without you.” He patted her once more and stood up to leave. “Now get out of the building. Run.”
For the first time ever, Kilda was speechless.
So was Lex. What was that all about?
They booked it up the stairs and burst into the office. Unsurprisingly, the guards were waiting for them, poised to fire.
But at long last Uncle Mort’s Amnesia blow dart came in handy. He slipped it out of his pocket, brought it to his mouth, and sprayed Norwood’s men with about a dozen darts, turning his head like an oscillating fan and hitting every one of them in the neck.
“Down the stairs,” he commanded once the glazed look settled over their eyes. “And out of the building. Go.”
The last one was even polite enough to close the door behind him. Lex looked at her uncle. “That was really impressive.”
“Couldn’t have done it without these guys.” He nodded to the Lair and the multitudes of spiders within that were mere minutes away from getting blown up. “So long, little dudes,” he mumbled, crossing to the keyboard on the desk, “and thanks for all the Amnesia.”
Lex watched as he started typing. “How are you going to open the vault?” she asked. “Norwood’s at least smart enough to change the code—”
The door swung open.
He smirked at her. “And I was at least smart enough to put in an override back when I was mayor.”
The Afterlife was darker than ever; the kickback from the sealed portals had done quite a number on it. The Void glowed a little brighter in the distance, but elsewhere in the atrium swirled ominous, near-black clouds. There were no souls to be seen, not even any of the wrestling ex-presidents.