CYRUS HAD SEEN his sister. He knew he had, but only for a moment, and her features had been hugely warped in fish-eye — she must have been holding the ball close to her face. But it had definitely been her.
That had been hours ago.
At least she was alive. That made bad things better. She wasn’t in a bear’s stomach or a turtle’s stomach or a dozen different viper stomachs.
He would have gotten a longer look if the Quick Water hadn’t squirted out of his fingertips. Now it was on the floor, wedged behind the biggest jar of miniature pickles he had ever seen.
The pickle jar was taller than he was, but only because he was tied up and strapped into a chair.
The chair was bolted to the floor in front of a large butcher-block table.
Patricia adjusted her cool body on his neck, and the keys scraped quietly against his collarbone. Once again, Cyrus rocked himself forward in his straps and tried to look at the clear fungus ball he’d dropped. When he’d finally managed to get it out of his pocket, he’d only had a few seconds to look before the guards had come in, untied him, searched him, tied him back up, and left.
Cyrus leaned harder, but he could see nothing. Groaning, he sat back up.
Dennis was tied and lying on his back. There had only been one chair in the enormous pantry. His eyes were wide open and he was watching Cyrus. Occasionally, he grunted. A pot holder had been shoved into his mouth. Cyrus’s too, but he’d managed to spit his out.
“Hang in there, D,” Cyrus said. “They won’t leave us in here forever.”
Dennis grunted, widening his terrified eyes.
“That’s what you’re worried about,” Cyrus said. “Right. Me too. I just hope they don’t cook us. I don’t want to be eaten.”
He looked around the crowded shelves. Spices. Grains. Hanging sausages at the other end. An entire wall of garlic. Another of dried peppers. “But why else would we be in here?”
Dennis rocked from side to side, and then rolled onto his face. His hands were tied behind his back. He arched his back and shook his head, fighting the pot holder.
“Go,” said Cyrus. “You can do it.”
Slow steps thumped on the stairs. Bells jingled.
Big Ben Sterling ducked down through the low doorway and into the pantry. No hat, no beard net or apron, no sign that he’d been cooking. He was carrying a large glass of something brown.
“Lads,” he said, raising the glass. “I drink to you, and to all boats and bridges that have ever been burned.” Knocking back half the liquid, he sat on the table in front of Cyrus, banged the glass down, and smacked his lips.
“What are you doing?” Cyrus asked. “What the heck is going on?”
“What is Ben Sterling doing?” the cook asked, massaging his knees. “Why, I’m taking a night off and lying low, Brer Fox. For this last supper, I was nothing but a saucier and prep cook. As for your other question, well, that’s outside of Ben’s control.”
Dennis grunted and bounced on his stomach.
“I’m sorry, Mr. Gilly,” Sterling said. “I don’t understand.”
“Are you going to kill us?” Cyrus asked. “You can have the tooth. That’s what you want, isn’t it? Let me go and I’ll get it for you.”
“The tooth, the tooth.” The cook drained his glass and licked the rim. “Soon enough, lad.”
Cyrus jerked against the straps. The cook watched him without a smile. His eyes were heavy.
“I loved this place,” Sterling said. “In its way and mine. Ben Sterling’s done right by the Order, but has the Order done right by Ben Sterling? Tonight it ends, lad. The living have dwelt above the Burials long enough. Let them lay their heads down and be silent.”
“Are you drunk?” Cyrus asked. “Do you want the tooth or not?”
Sterling smiled. “You have it, do you? Where would you tuck a thing like that? Your little nook in the Polygon has already been searched. You swallow it? Tell an old cook and I’ll believe you.”
Cyrus breathed slowly. He could feel the keys against his skin. He could give them away right now, but then what? Sterling wouldn’t let him go. What reason would there be to keep him alive?
Sterling continued. “Rupe would like us to believe that he has it. But maybe it’s in your sister’s hands. There were only so many people in that room when poor Maxi was done in.” Sterling shrugged. “When you’re all lined up and watching each other’s pain, the truth will bubble out.” He looked at his empty glass. “But my coin is on little Nikales, Nolan the Thief. He’s snake-slippery. Undying Nolan. Unaging Nolan. He just sheds his skin and slinks away. He’s a dark one, lad.”
Cyrus lifted his head. “Let me try to find him,” he said. “He’ll give the tooth back. He told me I could trust him.”
Sterling filled the room with laughter. “You had it hid a moment ago. So Nolan does have it, then? He told you to trust him? And you did, didn’t you? And he took the tooth and disappeared. Why does Nolan want it, lad? Would you like to know? It isn’t pretty. Nolan wants to die. Nikales was fifteen years of age — a poor Persian boy — when the hero Gilgamesh went diving for the fruit of life. And he found it, too, at the bottom of the Persian Gulf — he plucked it from the lost garden and the living tree. But when he rose from the waves and lay gasping on the beach, the thief saw his chance. He snatched the fruit and fled, eating as he ran. But it wasn’t to be so easy. Gilgamesh cursed that boy for a serpent and a thief. Oh, Nikales lived on — even when old Gil cut him down. He remained young, but as an undying serpent. Three thousand years and he still looks to be a lad, unless you stare into his eyes. Three thousand years, that boy has been peeling off his snake skin.”
Sterling slapped the table. Then he leaned forward and winked at Cyrus. “Wherever Nolan is, he has that tooth in his hand, a smile on his face, and not a spark of life in him.” He paused, tugging his beard. “But maybe not.”
Dennis had stopped squirming. He was up on his side, staring at the cook.
Cyrus’s heart was racing. “You’re working for Phoenix, aren’t you?” He kicked his bare ankles against rope. “Did you help him take Dan? Did you want Maxi to kill us?”
The cook shook his head. “Sorry, Mr. Cyrus. Things have gone as things have gone, and Benjamin Sterling will play his part to the end.”
“What end?” Cyrus asked.
The cook’s face grew suddenly serious. “I am not drunk, Cyrus Smith. Far from it. But tonight … I wish I were. I’d remember less in the morning. Goodbye, lad.”
“Wait!” Cyrus said. “You knew my dad. You cooked us his favorite meal. You must have liked my parents. Why are you doing this?”
Sterling didn’t answer. He was looking at the Quick Water, peeking out from behind the pickle jar. He slid off the table — legs bending beneath him — crouched carefully, and picked it up.
Frustrated, Cyrus banged his head back against the chair. “Please! Just let us go.”
Sterling peered into the Quick Water. Sighing, he glanced back at Cyrus. His mouth twitched into a smile, but his eyes were heavy.
“You may look Cataan, lad, but you’re a Smith through and through.”
Footsteps drummed on the stairs.
Sterling hesitated, but then he nestled the liquid ball into a pile of onions on a crowded shelf and eased quickly away.
Four men tumbled into the pantry.
“Storm or no storm, Greeves or no Greeves, Phoenix is coming in,” one of them said. “Rhodes is ghost-white and pig-sweating. Rupe grilled him good, but he didn’t crack. Not yet, at least. Still no sign of Nolan.”
“Greeves is bayin’ for you, too, Ben,” said another. “And he made a scare speech to the whole dining hall. They’ve gone gun-ready, every last one of them, and they’re as edgy as wildcats. He’s been in and out of the kitchen.”
“Why do you think I’m not in the kitchen?” Sterling asked. “I’ll speak with him after his meal. He has been served, hasn’t he?”
The men grinned.
“He grabbed something,” said the first. “And special deliveries have been made to all the guards. We should have some fun with this pair before the action starts.”
Cyrus bit his lip and twisted in his chair to see Sterling.
The cook shook his head. “Leave them for Phoenix.”
“Why?” All four men were confused.
“Why don’t you go watch the show?” said the first man, grinning. “We’ll stay and cut off their toes. Shouldn’t take too long to learn what they know.”
“Get out,” Sterling said. “Out! I know orders, and I know what Phoenix wants, and it isn’t dead or toeless boys. What there is to get, he’ll get, and no one else. Out of my pantry until your heads hold something more than air!”
The four men squeezed quickly up the stairs and a door slammed behind them.
Sterling sniffed loudly and moved over to the shelf beneath the onions. From the shadows in the back, the cook pulled out an old mayonnaise jar. It was full of clear liquid.
“Strong stuff,” he said loudly. “Remarkable. If I should ever find myself needing to save a life”—he pulled an eyedropper out of his apron and set it on the jar—“I think I’d use two drops beneath the tongue.”
Looking at Cyrus, Sterling curled his own tongue and clicked it behind his teeth. “Farewell, lad. And to your sister, too.” He scratched his beard and smiled. His eyes were hollow. “You’re right,” he said. “I did have a fondness for your father and his bride. Old Billy Bones lived two years running on the road. Don’t know if I could do half that, but it might be time to try. It might.”
He climbed the stairs. His voice tumbled back down. “You were a good porter, Dennis Gilly! One of the best.”
A door opened and shut. Bolts slid.
Cyrus looked at Dennis, again trying to writhe his way to his feet. He looked at the Quick Water, nestled into the onions, and at the mayonnaise jar with the eyedropper. He still had little idea what was happening, but he’d picked up enough, and none of it was good.
“Come on, Tigs,” he said. “You can see us. Now find us.”
Antigone heard the clock strike eight — through the trees, through the wind and the rain and the early storm darkness. She looked down at the small, heavy box in her hand. The sides were wooden, but broken up with the mounding backs of smooth brass tubes. On top, black-and-white images shot past on a glass screen, bulging even more than an antique television — like a slice off a crystal ball. Staring into it gave her a headache.
Antigone blinked and shook her head. An hour ago, in the dining hall, she’d listened to Greeves address the Order. But she hadn’t stayed to watch the members react. Greeves had hurried her outside, given her the box, attached her to Diana Boone, and disappeared. Supposedly, the box showed her what one of Rupert’s flying “hunters” was seeing. But the images moved too fast. She’d barely been able to make out the lake.
When she’d tried her Quick Water, she had seen Cyrus’s fingers and thumbs but only briefly. After that glimpse, the Quick Water had only shown distortion, shadow, and dim greenness. Olive green. Pickle green. Forest green?
While the images had flitted through her hands — treetops, tree trunks, odd shapes, and glowing windows — she had searched every trail through the trees between the zoo and the main buildings. She had kicked every bush. Twice. Next, she was going to start looking under individual blades of grass. She didn’t care how hard it was raining. She didn’t care if her stupid flashlight had died. She didn’t care if the black clouds had swallowed the sun and killed the day’s last light. She was not going to stop until she had found her brother.
Diana Boone came striding down the path wearing a hooded raincoat. The wind whipped it around her. She carried her own box.
“Tigs!” she yelled, and Antigone flinched. She was soaking wet for the second time in one day, her feet were blistered, her legs were chafed, her soaked leather jacket was lead-heavy. Cyrus was missing, and a psycho had her mother and brother. She didn’t want anyone calling her by the name Cyrus had given her.
Diana slowed down and stopped beside her. The wind and the trees were fighting. Somewhere close, a big branch popped free and tumbled to the ground. Trunks groaned.
“I brought you a better coat.” Diana held out a large parka shell.
“Too late,” Antigone said. “I drowned an hour ago.”
“Put it on.”
Antigone did. It didn’t matter one way or another.
“Gunner’s got nothing. And he did a pretty full sweep. He just stopped into the kitchen to grab a bite. You should, too. It would help. As for me, I went to all the entrances and down to the harbor. The hunters haven’t turned up anything, no one’s seen anything, and believe me, they’re looking.”
Antigone looked down at her box. Trees warped and flashed. And then she saw two shapes — girls, standing in the rain. A flash was all she needed to recognize herself. She looked up. A shape sliced through the air and the rain above them. Slowing, an enormous dragonfly circled around and paused, staring at Antigone from two compound eyes the size of tennis balls. Two more shapes shot by above it, wings clattering like machine guns. Her dragonfly turned and shot away through the trees. It was the first time she’d managed to see it.
Antigone’s mouth was open, but she didn’t even taste the rain.
“Rupe raised them, and he has all of them out,” Diana said. “One patrolling for every guard, and a couple extra hunting for your brother. But they won’t be able to fly much longer in this storm.”
Antigone looked back down at her box. “And I see what they see.”
Diana leaned over Antigone’s shoulder. “It takes a lot of getting used to, especially when you’re trying to fly behind them. They have three-sixty vision and they’re crazy fast. The translator does what it can, but you’re still left guessing a lot.”
Diana grabbed Antigone’s arm and began pulling her up the path. “It’s time to find Rupe. He might have learned something.”
Stepping out of the trees, they met the full force of the wind. The main building of Ashtown loomed on top of the hill, guarded by an unshaken stone regiment of rooftop statues, lit windows eyeing the storm.
Antigone’s rain hood snapped up in the wind. It actually did help. She looked at the overly confident, overly nice, overly competent girl beside her.
“What am I going to do?” she asked. “My mom, my brothers …”
Diana threw her arm around Antigone’s shoulders as they marched up the hill. “You’re going to hang in there,” she said. “That’s what you’re going to do. You’re a Smith. I’m a Boone. We don’t roll over.”
A bundled and hooded shape was moving down the hill, carrying a pack on its back. Beneath the swirling raincoat, two rod-thin legs were visible.
Antigone stepped down the hill to follow him.
“Hold on,” Diana said. “We’ll tell Rupe where he is. He’s heading to the harbor.” She looked down at the screen in her hand, and then over at Antigone’s. “Check your water ball again.”
Antigone dug into her pocket. The Quick Water glowed in her hand, but the wind and the rain made it impossible to see anything clearly.
“It’s lighter than it was,” Antigone said. She tucked her hand under the bottom of her coat and ducked her face down inside the neck.
A moment later, she popped her head back out. “It’s Cyrus. He’s tied up. And those might be Dennis’s feet!”
She held out the neck of her oversize coat. “Quick! Where are they?”
Diana Boone only needed a second.
“That’s Sterling’s subpantry,” she said, popping her head back out and squinting down the hill at Sterling. “It’s under the kitchen floor.”
Sterling was slipping on the wet grass, sliding down to the airstrip.
“The guards will stop him,” Diana said. “Come on.”
With the wind pounding their backs, Antigone and Diana turned up the hill and began to climb.
Benjamin Sterling braced himself and slid, staggered, braced himself, and slid again. The storm was more than just another thunder banger, blowing in off the lake. This was one to remember, and he would remember it.
The boats were bobbing and rocking in the harbor. Spray was washing over the jetty. The two little guard shacks were glowing, but he couldn’t see any motion inside. He hadn’t expected to.
His bag was heavy, but he hadn’t taken as much as he was owed. Just a few trifles from the collections — things stolen by the Order and then tucked away and forgotten. Some spices. His books of recipes.
How much were two legs worth?
The O of B wouldn’t miss any of it. They wouldn’t be missing anything. And Phoenix wouldn’t notice, either. His eyes would be searching for a different prize.
Sterling stopped. He’d reached the first body. Jenkins. Facedown in the grass. An old guard. A good guard. Sterling stepped over him and continued on. He couldn’t walk by the guardhouse. Not without looking in.
He slipped forward. A moment later, he pulled open the door.
Four armed men had fallen into a tangle on the floor. A fifth was facedown on the small table. Guns and flickering dragonfly screens had been useless. All five had been good men. But Phoenix had no use for them, and they had no use for Phoenix.
Guilty meat, guilty bread, a guilty thermos of coffee sat innocently on the table.
Sterling moved on.
Hobbling out on a dock, he stopped at a pretty little teak skiff. It had belonged to Cecil Rhodes. Now it would belong to Benjamin Sterling.
The angry lake and the rushing wind were killers, but the legless cook could only smile at the storm. The wind was an old friend promising freedom. And the seething water was nothing like as dangerous as the North Sea in its winter fits or the Caribbean in a hurricane or the Cape of Storms when the boneyards beneath the cliffs were hungry.
He drew the anchor and unfurled the small sails, tacking starboard, out and around the jetty. Close-hauling the sails, he put his nose as tight to the wind as he could, plowing and bouncing through the heavy freshwater waves.
When his course was steady and his beard was dripping like a loaded sponge, he reached into the deep pocket of his oilskin coat, and he smiled.
A tiny ball of liquid perched on his thick fingertips, glowing — the small ball he’d pinched from Cyrus’s Quick Water. Ben Sterling would see what happened. He’d know the end of the story. The kitchen always knows.
Above him, he heard the sound of muffled engines. Green and red lights blinked in the air.
Phoenix was descending.
Nolan sighed. He hadn’t eaten all day, his sticky new underskin still stung whenever he moved, and he was hungry. Hungrier looking down on a dining hall full of armed people inhaling their dinners between nervous whispers. Only the monks seemed unaffected by the mood of the place, mounding their plates and talking loudly about judgment and divine protection.
At first, he hadn’t fully understood why Rupert had wanted him to leave the hospital and hide. Now, after a day of playing fox and beagle, he knew perfectly well.
Nolan had watched men hunt for him; he’d tucked himself in dead-end ducts while clumsy groundskeepers stumbled sneezing through the dusty tunnels, searching for Nikales the thief and cursing Sterling. Sterling? The legless cook was right at the center of whatever was unfolding.
As soon as the Smiths had arrived in Ashtown, Nolan had known that Phoenix wouldn’t be far behind. He’d had his theories about Phoenix. With the Solomon Keys in hand, creeping through the most sealed of the Sage collections, he’d confirmed them.
He’d found a naked wooden mannequin.
According to an official note pinned to the naked chest, the mannequin should have been wearing the Odyssean Cloak. The cloak, originally a talisman to protect and enhance Odysseus’s mind and vitality against the wrath of various gods, had been collected and abused by Keeper John Smith some five hundred years ago, resulting in his Burial.
Thirty years ago, a nameless Sage had added a scribble to the bottom of the card: “Presumed stolen.”
Nolan had told Rupert. The long-missing cloak might explain the mind and abilities of Phoenix, but even if it did, what made Mr. Ashes, he couldn’t even guess.
Today, he’d crept into the document wing of the Sage library looking for a stack of old handwritten notes he’d seen once before — transcripts of interviews with a troubled young Acolyte, detailing the horrible experiments his father had performed on him and their various effects on his body and mind.
He had rolled the transcripts into a tube. The tube protruded from his pocket.
And now he was wedged high in a vent, wondering what doom would fall on Ashtown, sure that whatever had been planned, no bullets could stop it.
Beneath him in the dining hall, glass crashed and silver clattered to the floor. Men and women yelled in surprise and horror as the first diners slipped out of their chairs, twitching where they fell.
Dragging Antigone, Diana Boone quickstepped up the kitchen stoop, past the trash cans, and banged through the door.
The room was in chaos.
Pots were boiling over. Smoke was pouring out of unattended ovens.
The floor was a tangle of bodies. Cooks and waiters and busboys sprawled motionless on cold stone tiles.
Gunner, tall in his long, wet coat, pale and sick, was holding a large revolver in each hand, pointing at the only two cooks still on their feet, and at four surly groundskeepers. His legs were shaking. Little Hillary Drake, the girl from Accounting, was curled up, quivering on the floor beside him.
“Who did it?” Gunner yelled. “Where’s Sterling?”
“Gone,” said a cook. “He just walked out. Don’t shoot. We had nothing—”
“Shut up!” Gunner yelled, and he staggered backward into the island of simmering pots.
He moved the guns to the groundskeepers. “Phoenix’s lads, aren’t you?” He was slurring. “All of you. Embarrassed you couldn’t hack the Order? Well, me too, but I didn’t turn to murdering for a clown.”
The men didn’t say anything. They only had to wait. The tall Texan wouldn’t last long.
Dripping, Antigone threw off her coat. “Gunner!” she said. “What’s going on?”
Drawing her own revolver, Diana ran across the room and dropped to her knees beside Hillary.
Head lolling, Gunner lowered his shaking arms. Two of the groundskeepers jumped forward, but too soon. Both of Gunner’s pistols rose and cracked. Both men tumbled.
Gunner slipped to his knees, his face twitching. “They poisoned the … everyone,” he said. “Everyone. Greeves warned us. Phoenix …” He dropped his left arm to the floor, exhausted. His right hand wavered. “You!” he yelled at the last two groundskeepers. “Did you know?”
The two men breathed slowly, looking at the bodies of their friends, taking in the room.
“Answer me!” Gunner yelled. He fired into the wall behind them.
“Yes!” one of them blurted. “But it wasn’t serious. Sterling recruited us. We never knew it would be like this. We didn’t know.”
Gunner swallowed. “Is Phoenix coming?”
The man nodded and pointed out the wall of rain-rattled windows. Below the dark clouds, blurry but visible, green and red wing lights were blinking. A seaplane was touching down in the rough water.
“He’s here,” the man said.
“On your faces,” Gunner said, and the groundskeepers dropped to their knees and fell forward. “Antigone … tie … tie … find some rope.”
The kitchen door swung open and two laughing men stepped through. “We need a gun! Little Jax is brawling in here, going crazy with some table knives—”
Gunner shot twice and both men dropped, yelping, clutching at their legs.
“Them too,” Gunner said. He closed his eyes and fell onto his face.
The unwounded groundskeepers both jumped to their feet, but Diana slid to Gunner’s body, raising her own revolver. “Down, ticks. I’m a Boone. From here, I could shoot your rat ears off. Not that I’m aiming for your ears.”
The men dropped back onto their bellies. Diana picked up one of Gunner’s pistols and tossed it to Antigone.
“Point at what you want to hit and keep them down.”
Shaking, the warm gun heavy in her hands, Antigone aimed at the men, and then at the two white-faced cooks. Diana ducked into the dining hall.
“Jax!” Her voice was still loud through the door. Gunfire was louder. She ducked back through. “Keep pointing, Tigs. Jax is fine, and he’s coming this way.”
The grate rattled off of the heat tunnel in the wall behind her, and she spun around.
Nolan stepped into the kitchen and looked up at two gun barrels pointed right at him.
The dining hall door burst open and Jax jumped through, red-faced and bleeding. “Jaculus venom!” he yelled. “My vipers! I don’t know how Sterling got it, but he did. I built an immunity a long time ago. Where is he?”
“Shoot if you like,” Nolan said. “But I was just going to ask the same thing. Where is he?” He squinted out the window. “That’s a plane. Sterling doesn’t matter. Phoenix is here.” He scrunched his face. “And if he’s here, we shouldn’t be. Where’s Greeves? I didn’t see him in the hall.” He looked around. “Where’s Cyrus?”
Antigone’s eyes widened. “Cyrus!” she yelled. “Diana, where do I go?”
Backing up, Diana picked up Gunner’s second gun and handed it to Nolan. “Get these four tied up. I still don’t trust the cooks.” Then she hurried through the room, grabbing Antigone as she went. On the far wall, behind the groundskeepers, Diana slid a bolt and jerked open a little door. Tight stairs twisted down and to the right.
Dennis had managed to worm his way across the floor until his trussed feet were on the pickle jar. But he still hadn’t spit out the pot holder.
“Did you hear it that time?” Cyrus asked. “That’s a gun. I know it is. How many rounds is that? Who do you think is shooting?”
Dennis grunted and wiggled.
“Sorry,” said Cyrus. “I know.” He looked back at the Quick Water in the onions. “Come on!” he yelled. “Tigs, I know you’re somewhere. I know you can see me. I’m surrounded by spices! Where could I be?”
The door opened. Stairs moaned.
“Hello?” Cyrus said. “Who is it? This room is occupied.”
“Cyrus!”
Diana staggered into the room, Antigone pushing from behind.
“Wow,” said Diana. “You guys are the lucky ones.” She bent down and plucked out Dennis’s gag.
The porter sputtered. “Lucky? This is lucky?”
Diana nodded.
“It’s terrible upstairs,” Antigone said, pulling on Cyrus’s straps. “Sterling’s poisoned the whole Order. Everybody. The kitchen is full of bodies.”
“You didn’t even see the dining hall,” Diana said. She stopped suddenly, forcing herself to breathe. She looked dizzy. “The Order’s gone. Everyone.” Her eyes widened and she blinked quickly. Pulling the last ropes off Dennis’s wrists, she helped him to his feet.
Cyrus stood up, and Antigone thumped into him with a hug. She was soaking wet.
Cyrus pulled free and picked up the mayonnaise jar and eyedropper, handing them to his sister. “Sterling said to put two drops under the tongue. We were the only ones in here. He was telling us what to do.”
“What to do after he poisoned everyone?” Antigone asked. “Why would he do that?”
Cyrus shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe he’s not all bad.”
His sister’s eyebrows shot up.
“Or,” said Cyrus, “maybe he is all bad, but he doesn’t want to think he is.”
“Come on,” Diana said. “Back upstairs. We’ll ask Jax.”
In the kitchen, all four of the thugs had been tied up with apron strings.
Jax had Hillary and Gunner lying on their backs, and his fingers were on the Texan’s throat.
Dennis staggered through the kitchen and dropped to his knees beside Hillary.
“His heart’s beating,” Jax said. “Slowly. Every five seconds or so. With spasms. Hillary is worse, but she’s much smaller.” He looked up at Diana and the others. “It doesn’t take much with a Jaculus Viper, and unlike normal snakes, it doesn’t need to be injected. The venom is acidic enough to get into the blood through tissue — skin, stomach lining, anything that has blood in it. It was in the food, so that gives us a little time — they’d all be dead already if it was a direct bite. But there’s too many people.” He teared up and looked away quickly. “The small ones have thirty minutes. Forty-five if they’re lucky. Maybe. I have to get to the zoo, catch a viper, cut it open, drain a gland, and get back. And that might only give me enough for five people.” The zookeeper sobbed. “I’ll have to pick. I don’t want to pick.”
“What about this?” Cyrus asked, holding out the jar. “Sterling had it.”
Swallowing, James Axelrotter took the jar, twisted off the lid, and sniffed at the contents. Surprised, he snatched the glass eyedropper out of Cyrus’s hand. Pinching a dropperful, he raised it to his mouth and dabbed it with his tongue. It hissed. The boy zookeeper flinched, and then laughed. “This is it! I don’t know how he got this much, and I don’t care.”
Jax opened Gunner’s mouth and squeezed two drops under his tongue. Then he rolled him onto his face.
“It’ll foam,” he said. “And they won’t come to for a little while. They’ll choke if we leave them on their backs. There are hundreds of people and not much time. I’ll need help.”
He turned to little Hillary Drake, and Dennis opened her mouth.
“Excuse me,” Nolan said. “But we can’t stay here, and soon enough, we won’t be able to do this at all.” He pointed at the window. “The plane has landed, Phoenix will be here any minute, and there are other thugs still around to give him a welcome.”
“Have any ideas?” Diana squinted at the dark window.
“Maybe,” said Nolan. “Almost.”
Jax and Dennis rolled Hillary onto her face, and then crawled to the next body — a busboy.
“Whatever we do,” Cyrus said, pointing at the four tied-up men, “they shouldn’t hear about it.”
“Drag them downstairs,” Antigone said. She jumped over to Jax. “Give me some,” she said. “We need more droppers. I’ll start in the dining hall.”
Cecil Rhodes sat on his couch, drumming his fingers on his knees, wiping sweat on his sleeve, and then drumming his fingers on his knees. He couldn’t stop thinking about what Maxi had done to Mrs. Eldridge in that very room. His eyes kept drifting to the bloodstain on the floor, and then up to his telephone. It was supposed to ring. Any second.
He looked across the room at the muscle who had been assigned to him. The man was working on his teeth with a fingernail.
“Did it really work?” Cecil asked. “What happened?”
The man sighed, examining his hand. “I told you already. They kicked, they screamed, they dropped down dead.”
Cecil didn’t like the man’s eyes. They were cold. And catlike. But they weren’t as bad as the gill slits on the sides of his neck. He used to wear a scarf, and Rhodes wished the man would tie it back on. Cecil knew what the man had done as an Explorer. Cecil had served as the O of B’s prosecutor at the trial.
The phone rang.
Rhodes jumped forward, nearly knocking it off the desk.
“Hello, sir. Yes, sir. It’s done. Just the boy, sir. The girl may be among the poisoned.” Rhodes covered the handset and looked up at his guard. “Sterling?”
“No sign of him.”
Cecil lifted the phone back up. It was slippery with sweat. “No, sir. We don’t know where he has gone. Would you like us to begin moving the bodies? No? I understand, sir. We will leave them for you to view. Wonderful. Yes, sir.”
He hung up and jumped back, like he was shaking off a spider. The man with the gills laughed.
Edwin Ashes-Laughlin-Phoenix rose from his seat and limped forward into the cockpit of his seaplane. One of the pontoons was grinding against the jetty. But he didn’t care about the rocking waves or the damage to the plane. He cared about what he could see at the top of the slope, with its windows lit. He cared about a small piece of sharp tooth, and hidden sleepers in their Burials. They were now his.
The men and women of Brendan were dead. The time had come for a Phoenix to rise up out of Ashtown.
Behind him, two unconscious shapes lay motionless on narrow cots, and a red-winged blackbird fluttered and screeched angrily in a cage hanging from the ceiling.
“Shall we bring them?” One of the green twins pulled off his headset.
“No,” said Dr. Phoenix. “First, the triumphal entry.”