Chapter 44

“Where are the Rebels?”

Spencer was too shocked to move. He stood rooted in place, unaware that the oncoming TPs were about to do to him what they’d just done to Garth Hadley. All around them, the office building began to deteriorate, unable to hold its form after the death of its creator.

Rough hands caught Spencer by the shoulders, shaking him back to reality. “Keep your arms and legs tucked close,” Marv said. Then the janitor tossed him directly into the leaf-blower slipstream.

Spencer felt a strong upward pull that tempted him to throw out his arms to stabilize himself. But he remembered Marv’s warning, and the memory of Garth’s demise was fresh.

Spencer kept his arms at his sides and shot upward like Superman. He passed through the crumbling ceiling of the second floor, gathering speed as he rose. Garth’s building was coming down, the upper floors already dissolved back into the dust from which they were made.

Carefully, Spencer craned his neck downward to find Daisy and Dez rising beneath him. Marv had also entered the slipstream, struggling to keep his broad shoulders inside the air current.

In seconds, they were clear of the crumbling building. The slipstream paved a clean pathway upward, throwing aside dust particles and giving the Rebels safe passage. Spencer saw a number of TPs materialize in the hazy air, only to plummet to the ground when they failed to reach into the air current.

Higher and higher they rose, until the dust of the air and the dust of the ground became indistinguishable. In every direction, it was nothing but a wash of gray.

As Spencer looked across the never-ending expanse of the Dustbin, he saw something in the distance. At first it seemed like nothing more than a smudge of black in the haze. But as the slipstream lifted him higher, his aerial view brought some clarity.

It was a building, or rather a series of buildings, black with age and soot. Spencer knew at once what it must be.

The fortress of the Instigators.

Spencer squinted through the wind and grit. There was a peculiar light rising from the center of the evil fortress, like a beacon of multicolored energy. The column twisted upward as high as Spencer could see.

The beam of magic seemed to exude a wicked aura, and Spencer shivered to think that he would have been taken to that fortress if the TPs had succeeded in capturing him. Sach, Olin, and Aryl hadn’t been so lucky when they had fallen into the Dustbin so many years ago. The Founding Witches had rescued the Dark Auran boys, but not before the Instigators had performed experiments upon them. Spencer shook his head, trying to rid himself of the dark thoughts.

At last, the Rip came into view, only yards ahead. It was a dark hole at the end of the slipstream. The jagged border of their exit glowed a deep and magical purple.

Spencer took a deep breath as the rushing wind seemed to grow louder.

He tensed his muscles, bracing himself to pass through. If Bookworm had succeeded, then they were all about to find themselves back inside the Port-a-Potty.

Everything went dark for a second, accompanied by absolute silence. Then Spencer found himself lying facedown on a hard floor. He scrambled to his knees, blinking hard for his eyes to adjust to the darkness.

He was not in the Port-a-Potty; that much was sure. Spencer fought a wave of despair at finding himself in an unknown environment. He rose to his feet, running his hands along the wall until he found a light switch. As a fluorescent bulb flickered to life, Spencer realized that he was in some sort of janitorial supply closet. The small room was packed with Glopified weaponry hanging from hooks and shoved onto cluttered shelves.

Spencer was looking for the Vortex when Daisy suddenly appeared out of a shelf by his knee. He scrambled backward as his friend dropped to the floor.

“This isn’t the Port-a-Potty,” she said, squinting against the artificial light. “Where are we?”

“I don’t know,” Spencer whispered. He bent down and found the Vortex on the shelf where Daisy had appeared. The vacuum bag looked normal, except for one small hole in the center of the paper material. Spencer held his hand above the hole, feeling a strong wind leaking out.

Suddenly, Dez’s head emerged out of the hole in the Vortex. Spencer jerked his hand away, watching the boy squeeze through a tear no bigger than the diameter of a pencil.

Dez flopped awkwardly onto the floor. His big wings stretched out, scattering the contents of a nearby shelf to the floor.

“Quiet!” Spencer hissed. Stealth was more important than ever since none of them had a clue where they were.

Of course, Dez’s clumsy arrival instantly drew unwanted attention. Spencer froze as the three kids heard the unmistakable sound of a key being inserted into a lock.

Spencer’s gaze turned to the closet door. The knob turned and the hinges squeaked. Spencer reached back to the shelf and grabbed the Vortex just as a Filth Sweeper entered the janitorial closet.

The look of surprise on the Sweeper’s face lasted only for a split second before it changed to aggression.

“Who are you?” the Sweeper asked. “How’d you get in here?” His breath was making Spencer dizzy with sudden fatigue. Daisy saw the effect and reached for the air freshener on her belt.

“Nobody moves!” the Sweeper demanded. His rodent eyes studied Spencer. “Give me that vac bag.”

Spencer was so tired, he gave in without an argument. He tossed the Vortex forward, and the Sweeper caught it carefully in his clawed hands. At the same moment, Marv’s shaggy head appeared through the hole in the bag. The Sweeper let out a cry of dismay and tried to drop the Vortex. But Marv’s strong arms had already come through, and he grabbed the Sweeper in a viselike choke hold.

The Vortex fell to the floor as Marv’s entire body finally worked free of his prison. The Sweeper, even with his Filth enhancements, was still no match for Marv’s strength.

Daisy released a blast of vanilla air freshener to counteract the Filth breath for Spencer’s sake. Then she stepped around the wrestling pair and quietly closed the closet door.

The Sweeper was gasping for breath, his entire body shuddering. In a final move of desperation, he launched the quills from his back. The kids took cover as the arrowlike projectiles pinged off the walls of the closet. Marv grunted but held on, forcing the Sweeper to his knees.

“Tell me where we are,” Marv demanded. He let up on the Sweeper’s neck just enough for the man to gasp out an answer.

“BEM . . .” he tried. “BEM laboratory . . .”

“We’re already inside!” Spencer said. For once, part of the plan had gone better than expected.

“How’d we get here?” Daisy asked, glancing around the supply closet.

“Found . . . the vac bag . . .” the Sweeper said. “In the Port-a-Pot . . . thought it was BEM . . . brought it here.”

Marv looked at the kids as though putting a Sweeper in a choke hold was just another day at work. “Anything else you want to ask this guy?”

Spencer stepped over to their prisoner. “Where are the Rebels?”

The Sweeper forced a painful smile. Then, instead of answering, he spat on the floor in defiance.

Spencer quickly drew a bottle of green spray from his belt and misted the Sweeper in the face. The little bit of consciousness he still had faded instantly, and Marv dropped him to the ground.

The Rebel janitor grunted again as he stepped away from the still body. His hand went to his side, and he drew in a pained breath.

“You’re hurt!” Daisy said.

Two of the Sweeper’s quills had pierced Marv in the side, staining his shirt crimson. “I’ll be fine,” Marv said through gritted teeth.

Daisy drew her orange healing spray and stepped over to him. “This might sting a little.” She pulled the quills out of the janitor’s side and quickly sprayed over the wounded area.

“Now, that’s a handy spray,” Marv said, as the injury began to heal.

“One of Walter’s best,” Daisy said.

“Where is the old boss?” Marv asked.

“He’s here somewhere,” Spencer said. “And I think I know how to find him.”

Marv and Dez worked on tying up the unconscious Sweeper while Spencer and Daisy searched the closet for any piece of bronze. Spencer was about to give up when Daisy found a box full of old hardware. Spencer rooted around until he found a small cupboard handle. He knew it was bronze as soon as he touched it.

The janitor’s closet faded to white, and Spencer focused on thoughts of Walter Jamison. When the vision cleared, Spencer was looking through the old warlock’s eyes, with an immediate fix on his location.

Walter was in a bare room, one floor down, third door from the end of the hallway. Penny and Bernard were there too. They looked worn and afraid, with not a word exchanged between them.

Spencer was instantly relieved that they were alive. But at the same time, the scene brought an overload of worry.

Where was his dad?

Spencer watched through Walter’s eyes long enough to be sure that his dad was not in the room. He tried not to let panic take over. He refused to assume the worst. The BEM lab had six floors. Just because Alan wasn’t being held with the other Rebels didn’t mean he was . . .

Spencer decided to switch perspectives. With Director Garcia dead, there was only one other warlock to spy on. And it was just as important to know Mr. Clean’s location as it was to know Walter’s.

His vision cleared, and Spencer was surprised to recognize the room. The Sweeper warlock was on the bottommost floor, in the room with the round sea window and the bronze nail.

A Rubbish Sweeper woman stood before Mr. Clean, fidgeting, as everyone seemed to do in his presence.

“That is no concern of yours,” Mr. Clean said. Spencer hated coming into the middle of these conversations and trying to piece together the meaning. “I will kill him when the time is right. For now, I want Zumbro alive. Have you separated him from the others?”

“Yes, sir,” the woman said. “Just as you asked.”

“Excellent.” The warlock’s deep voice rumbled out. “Keep him under guard. Now that he’s out of the way, it’s time to pay a visit to Jamison.”