“I knew you were in this building somewhere.” The fly spoke in his own voice this time. It was not an improvement. Scratchy and uneven, it made Alex’s skin crawl. Actually, everything about the fly bugged him: the way his filthy robes clung heavily to his frame, as if greased; the way the small, strange mouth of his mask puckered and smacked, as if alive.
“Yeah, ’cause that old man told you!” called Ren, doing her best to disguise the fear in her voice. She quickly turned to Todtman and mouthed: Not you. But his attention was divided between the approaching enemy and the piled evidence.
The fly tilted his mask and considered Ren with its bulbous composite eyes. “The old man told me nothing but lies,” said the fly, his jagged voice betraying a certain amusement. “A little birdy told me you were here.”
He raised his right hand and extended his long, gnarled index finger. But it wasn’t a little birdy that landed there; it was a buzzing black dot. The fly perched briefly on the hairy digit before buzzing off.
“Was a spy,” finished Alex, his eyes beginning to water from the stink.
“You should never trust old men,” added the fly, directing the comment toward Todtman.
The elder Amulet Keeper finally tore his attention from the piled papers and focused fully on the fly. Alex’s stomach lurched as he realized the reason for Todtman’s divided attention: If the fly went through those piles, he’d see they were sorted by place. They were all searching for the same person, and unlike the friends, The Order had the manpower to search all of those places at once. Alex glared at the masked operative. Not only was The Order standing in the way of where they needed to go, they were also a threat to get there first!
“It is not like you to dispense life lessons, Aff Neb,” said Todtman, giving this horror a name. “Death is more your style.”
Aff Neb’s many eyes shimmered like water as they shifted focus. “True,” he rasped. “Death tastes better … Let me show you.”
Aff Neb’s mouth puckered and smacked one more time — and then released a thick stream of greenish-brown vapor. The putrid plume billowed forth, filling the little clearing among the shelves.
“Don’t breathe it in!” shouted Alex before slapping his hand over his mouth and nose.
“No kidding!” called Ren, her own eyes bugging out from the approaching grossness.
Just a few feet away now, it smelled more like a thousand sweaty feet. Alex held his breath and shifted his grip, dropping one hand to his amulet and pushing the other out in front of him.
The mystic wind rose up with merciful swiftness, ruffling books and papers all around — and pushing the stink cloud back where it came from.
“Guhh!” Alex gasped. He released the sour breath he’d been holding and gulped a fresh lungful that smelled like approaching rain.
Aff Neb seemed entirely at home in his own stink. “I see you have been hard at work down here,” he said, eyeing the half-full box and remaining stacks of paper. “Tell me, what have you found?”
Alex tried to step between the thousand-eyed gaze and the table, but there were better ways to obstruct the view.
“Hey, fly guy!” called Ren.
Aff Neb’s eyes shimmered as they shifted toward her. They had thousands of lenses — but no lids. Ren squeezed her ibis tightly.
FOOOP! A bright-white flash lit the dim basement.
“Grehh!” called the fly, his hands reaching up too late to cover his creepy peepers.
Alex caught some of the flash, too, but before the swirling spots even faded from his vision he was already at the table, dumping the remaining stacks into the old box with both hands. “Got it!” he said, slapping the top closed.
“Let’s go!” called Todtman, and the three Amulet Keepers turned to run.
But as they did, Alex caught a glimpse of movement in the gaps in the bookshelves. In the narrow space between the tops of the old books and files and the shelves above them he saw cloth, arms, legs, a quick flash of metal — guns! “Uh, guys,” he said as they rushed away from Aff Neb and into the nearest row of shelves.
“I see them,” said Todtman.
“What are we going to do?” said Alex. Aff Neb had recovered and was in hot pursuit, and an ambush of Order gunmen awaited them among the rows.
“Get in the clear,” said Todtman.
His words came out in a sad, almost wistful sigh, and suddenly Alex knew what he was planning. “Oh no,” said Ren, figuring it out, too — and sharing Todtman’s academic reservations.
The old scholar wasn’t happy about it, but he didn’t hesitate. He squeezed down hard on the falcon and grunted slightly with the effort. By the time they reached the narrow gap at the end of the first row, the heavy metal bookcases had already begun falling like dominoes.
Thousands of pounds of bound books and thick files tipped and toppled, and twice as much weight in metal shelves and stacked boxes came down, too.
“GAAARARB!” shrieked Aff Neb as the heavy case they’d just rushed past fell over on him, pinning him against the next case as it fell, too. On either side, Order thugs were squashed like Order bugs. Somewhere in the stacks, a pistol went off, the bang muffled as the bullet buried itself in some old book or other.
Standing in their tiny clearing amid a veritable paper apocalypse, Todtman and Ren cast horrified looks all around. Even Alex was stunned by how fast decades of neatly filed scholarship had been reduced to toppled chaos.
“That is going to take forever to re-alphabetize,” moaned Ren.
But even as they surveyed the wreckage, their pursuers began to push free. An arm punched through a stack of books to the left, the sound of shifting, tearing paper was heard to the right, and then: FOOM! A stack of books was blown clear up to the ceiling by the telekinetic might of the fly mask.
“There!” said Todtman, pointing to a door along the wall. “The staircase.”
Alex and Ren began picking their way over the fallen books and files and shelves. Ren made decent time hopping from one flat spot among the books and boxes to the next, but Alex was carrying a crumpled box of his own and couldn’t quite manage the jumps. He hunted for level surfaces to place his feet.
“Hurry, hurry!” called Ren. “I see a gun!”
Alex turned to look. Sure enough, a hand pushed a black pistol through the piled paperwork. Alex used the scarab to send the weapon flipping end over end across the room, but he knew there would be more. They needed to get to the stairs fast, and if this shifting terrain was tough for him, how would Todtman ever manage on one good leg?
“Watch out!” Todtman called as he zoomed past.
Alex stumbled out of the way, then did a double take. Todtman had his hand on his amulet and a book under each foot. Alex couldn’t believe it: He was using his amulet to ride the old books like skates, the flat surface of each one hovering a few inches above the scattered debris. He zipped toward the door like a bug skimming across the surface of a pond.
Alex spotted some big books in front of him and looked down at his own amulet. No way, he thought. Todtman had had decades to practice with his amulet. If Alex tried, it would be 3, 2, 1: face-plant! Instead, he and Ren hopped and stumbled and hustled across the last half shelf.
Todtman reached the heavy fire door to the stairwell first, and as soon as the other two arrived, he flung it open.
Alex’s breath caught in his throat as he stared into the stairwell — and at the wall of guns directly inside.
A row of three tightly packed men stood in the doorway, and there were three more a few steps up, all pointing semiautomatic pistols directly at them. With two barrels pointed at his face, Alex knew that any move toward his amulet would mean death. Or maybe they would just shoot them all, anyway.
“What?” came a jagged voice behind them. “You didn’t think we would cover the exits?”
Alex and the others slowly turned to face Aff Neb, the guns that had been pointed at their faces now jabbing into their exposed backs.
“I will take that box now,” the fly said. His greasy robes were torn, and it seemed as if all eight thousand lenses in his eyes were brimming with annoyance. Other gunmen were rising from the scattered debris and filling in alongside their leader. Their bodies were battered, their guns were pointed, and they all seemed pretty eager to pull the trigger.
Alex knew better than to anger them now, and yet …
He glanced down at the box. It was because of him that the Death Walkers had been released, because of him that The Order’s plans had been set in motion. Now he was being asked to hand over the keys to victory, as well.
“Here you go,” he said, pulling the heavy cardboard cube out from under his arm and extending it forward.
“Alex!” hissed Ren.
“You mustn’t,” said Todtman.
He wouldn’t. No matter the cost.
As Aff Neb took a step forward, Alex continued the motion, using all his strength to toss the box up toward the ceiling.
“Catch it!” cried Aff Neb.
But as all eyes followed the modest flight of the box, Alex quickly grasped his amulet, thrust out his free hand, and absolutely obliterated the thing with a concentrated spear of whipping wind. The old cardboard was torn to shreds, and the last thing Alex saw was a shower of paper and pictures and pottery scattering through the air and drifting down toward the waiting chaos all around. Toward a floor full of books and paper and pictures and pottery from all the other fallen files and boxes.
That ought to keep ’em busy, he thought.
Then the butt of a pistol smashed down on the back of his head and his whole world went dark.