CHAPTER 33

For a second or two all Scott could think about was gravity, but then they landed on the floor below the mezzanine—safely—and he had a look at the man who had grabbed him.

“Oh,” he said.

“Hey,” said Erno.

Biggs was carrying Scott under one arm like a folding chair, Emily under the other; Erno was hanging down his back. Biggs set Scott down and Erno dropped to the floor, but the big man seemed reluctant to give up Emily.

Many Freemen had fled and continued to flee to the exits, but some stalwarts had stayed. Thirty, maybe. More than enough to make Scott nervous. And what if those men from the freezer with the guns had gotten themselves untied? What if there were more like them?

Mick and Finchbriton were still onstage, and a dozen or more Freemen were circling them, closing in. Including the Freeman in drag and, ironically, the one dressed up like a St. Patrick’s Day decoration. If they couldn’t see Mick without the black lights, they could apparently see the bird just fine.

“They were keepin’ him inna metal box!” Mick shouted to Scott. “An’ shockin’ him like a dancin’ chicken! Danu help me, Finchbriton, I didn’t know yeh were here!”

Finchbriton flapped atop Mick’s head like some preposterous hat.

“We have to just get out of here,” Scott called to the others. “Before they figure out what to do with us.”

“What’s the rush?” asked the old elf. “Me an’ the bird have a hundred an’ fifty years o’ small talk to catch up on with these gennlemen. We’ve been indisposed, yeh see.”

“No, c’mon, guys—”

“I’m with the leprechaun,” said Erno.

“Clurichaun,” said Scott. But he could see the bloodlust in Erno’s eyes. Here he was, among his captors, with a pet Bigfoot at his command. With the biggest big brother of all. And Biggs wasn’t exactly shrinking from a fight, either. There were cloaked figures all around him, and the big man took his first swing. Which missed.

At this the throng of Freemen fell upon them. Biggs swung again, connecting spectacularly with a chin inside a dark hood. But soon he had two Freemen hanging from his good arm. Finchbriton let loose another jet of flame, which scattered a half dozen robes before catching the edge of the theater curtain. Licks of blue started climbing the proscenium. Then a Freeman produced a fire extinguisher from the inside of his robe and gave the bird (and Mick’s head) a good foaming. Finchbriton was whisked across the stage and landed, ruffled and sputtering, on the floor.

Erno was rolling himself at the feet of approaching Freemen and sending them reeling. Biggs socked most of the rest. But not all. Eventually he was forced to set Emily down as more and more dark-robed shapes attached themselves to him like leeches—at the arms, the shoulders, the neck—trying to weigh him down and squeeze the fight out of him.

Scott felt useless. Eventually he ran to Emily’s side.

“Is … is that Mick?” she asked him. She was looking right at the elf. Or possibly she was looking right at the pasting of extinguisher foam on his head that, to her eyes, probably appeared to be floating two feet above the stage. The Freemen certainly seemed to see it, and they were now rushing toward both elf and finch. They tackled Mick at roughly the same time as Erno was pinned and Biggs crumpled under a dog-pile of black bodies.

There were only a handful of unoccupied Freemen now. Maybe these, like Scott and Emily, were the most timid, the least athletic of those who hadn’t simply panicked and run at the first sign of trouble. But they looked confident now with only a pair of sixth graders to contend with. They looked pretty pleased with themselves, actually.

“Any ideas?” Scott whispered to Emily.

Emily gave it some thought. “Stay low, aim for the crotch,” she concluded.

Thank goodness we have a certified genius on our team, thought Scott. Then he fished his arm around and unhooked one of the zipper pulls from his backpack. He held the thing aloft, his thumb twitching over its red button.

“Don’t come any closer,” he told the Freemen, “or I’ll do it.”

The men stopped dead. The one in front winced at Scott’s hand. “Do … do what?”

Activate my LED flashlight, thought Scott. “Trust me, you don’t wanna find out,” he told them. “We’ve planted them on every floor of the temple.”

The Freemen hesitated. More than one of them took a halting step backward. The whole of the stage curtain was now engulfed and dripping blue fire, so for a moment all was quiet apart from crackling flame.

Fourteen more men were sitting on the prostrate Biggs, pinioning every foot of his arms, legs, and torso. The Freeman with the fire extinguisher approached his head, evidently to crack it with the heavy canister. Erno struggled uselessly against two men. Onstage, Finchbriton spat foam and feeble sparks, and Mick was entirely surrounded.

“Everyone get away from my friends!” shouted Scott. “I don’t want to press this, but I’ll do it! We all agreed we’d rather die than get taken prisoner! We talked about it in the car.”

The man with the fire extinguisher paused. Everyone looked to someone else to make the call.

“It’s probably a Nintendo or some nonsense!” shouted an old man from the mezzanine. “He’s just a boy! Take him!”

This was all the motivation most of the Freemen needed. They began to advance again, cautiously.

“Scott?” said Emily.

“Yes.”

“Is that a flashlight?”

“Yes,” he answered, and pointed it at the Freemen like a light saber.

“Is it … bright?”

“Not really.”

The Freemen grinned easily now; aware that, at best, they were only in danger of being slightly illuminated. Having to squint. Maybe getting their sinuses checked.

“Get ready to run,” whispered Scott.

Then the rosette skylight shattered inward, and Scott looked up to see a dark figure sliding down from the rafters on a light and fluidly uncoiling rope, his black mantle unfurling like pure opera, like Batman. It was just the sort of entrance his father would make in a movie, and Scott’s heart stirred as Freemen were scattered by fear and falling glass. “Dad?” he said, not too loudly, but breathlessly, as the dark rescuer alighted and turned.

But it wasn’t his father.

It was Merle Lynn, C.P.A.

Much to everyone’s confusion.