Rogue (6 page)

Lex sank back against the side of the Stiff as Uncle Mort resumed his speech. She couldn’t lie to herself any longer. Driggs was a ghost, which meant he’d never be able to cross over into the Afterlife. They’d be together for the rest of their lives, which would be nice, but when she grew old and died, he’d be left on earth forever, stuck. She’d never see him again, and he’d be sentenced to a never-ending, miserable existence. How could she ever live with that?

She couldn’t.
So fix him
, she told herself.
It’s as simple as that
.

Except she didn’t have the slightest clue how.

“—up to the vault,” Uncle Mort was saying, “destroy the portal, then split. Next, we inform the other mayors—”

—up1em">“Wait, mayors plural?” Ferbus said. “Like LeRoy and—who else?”

Uncle Mort sucked in a gust of air, as if unable to believe the scope of this himself. “All of them. The other Grimsphere mayors around the world. What we do to the portal in Necropolis—if we can really manage to pull it off—is to be duplicated in Grimsphere cities everywhere, once it’s proven to work.”

The Juniors were staring at him, their mouths agape. “I told you, this has been in the works for a long time now,” Uncle Mort said, fiddling with his scythe. “Years of planning, calculations. This is everything I’ve been working for.”

“You got every single Grimsphere mayor in the world onboard for this?” Ferbus asked.

“A good percentage of them. And in the cities where the mayors are resistant—the ones who sympathize more with Norwood’s side, with maintaining the status quo—other rebels have stepped up, volunteered to destroy the portals in secret.”

“Won’t be a secret once they’re destroyed,” Driggs said.

Ferbus interrupted. “If this is such a big deal of a plan, wouldn’t it be easier and faster for us to Crash to Necropolis?”

“Crashing is just another kind of violation, and violations are what’s damaging the Afterlife,” Uncle Mort replied. “It’s messed up enough as it is right now. I don’t want to push it any more than we absolutely have to. Plus, Dora can’t Crash, and we can’t very well leave her behind.”

“Why not?” said Ferbus. “I mean, no offense, but the old gray mare ain’t what she used to be.”

“Bullcrap!” Dora shouted. “The old gray mare is exactly what she used to be! And more!”

The mention of Crashing sparked something in Lex’s head. “Hang on. If Norwood can Crash now, why did he just stand there when we drove away? Why didn’t he Crash directly into our car?”

“Norwood’s primary objective,” said Uncle Mort, “is to beat us to Necropolis. Guaranteed. The president leans much closer to his side than to ours, I’m afraid, and he’s going to exploit that as best he can. He knows what we’re up to—”

“He knows we’re trying to destroy the portals?”

“Maybe not that specifically, but he knows we’re up to something nefarious. He’ll want to stop us, and you can bet he’ll convince the president of it too. By the time we get to Necropolis, it’s likely the whole city will be on the lookout, ready to stop us at any cost. Especially Lex.”

Lex flinched. Elysia—who apparently didn’t give a fig that Lex now had a record of strangling her peers—noticed her discomfort and gave her arm a loving squeeze. Lex let out a long breath toward the ceiling, half expecting the coursing air to be filled with gnats and locusts. She was evil, after all. And she sure didn’t deserve friends like this. They should all be as mad at her as Ferbus was, especially Driggs. She didn’t deserve sympathetic squeezes. She didn’t even deserve to be in the same solar system as these people.

She should be punished. She should be in the Hole.

Her nerves jolted at the thought. The Hole was the worst imaginable kind of punishment for Grims—a deep, dark pit in the middle of Necropolis. It deprived them of the bliss of the Afterlife for as long as possible, keeping them alive but under horrific conditions. Lex and the Juniors had been sentenced to it but had managed to escape before anyone could drag them there.

She doubted they’d be that lucky again.

“So we’ll drive as far as we can,” Uncle Mort said, finishing up his talk, “and then hide out for the night. I know a place that should be able to hold all nine of us.”

“Nine?” Pip asked after getting an elbow to the ribs from Bang, who’d CBan

Uncle Mort glanced at Pandora, then back at the Juniors. “Okay, kids. Brace yourselves. And try not to yell
too
much.”

Elysia’s hand tensed on Lex’s arm. “I hate when he says that,” she whispered.

Uncle Mort gave them a sympathetic smile. “Remember that old chestnut about the wickedest Grim of all time?”

He pounded
on the roof. Grotton’s head popped down through the ceiling, a snaky grin stretching from ear to ear.

The screams were so loud, Dora nearly drove into a tree.

The stuffed buffalo head on the wall stared straight ahead, its dead eyes unconcerned with the plight of the odd crew that had just pulled in off the highway.

“You really think stopping here is a good idea?” Lex asked her uncle, eyeing the buffalo. A strange decoration for a small-town deli, to be sure, but then again Lex wasn’t really up to date on the interior design trends of small-town upstate New York.

“Of course,” Uncle Mort said, counting out a stack of bills and placing them on the counter. “Don’t you think a cross-country run-for-our-lives road trip just screams ‘time for a picnic’?”

“I would not have thought that, no.”

“Well, that’s because you’re a total noob.”

The girl reappeared behind the counter with two bagfuls of wrapped sandwiches. “That’ll be sixty-seven dollars and two cents,” she said, smiling sweetly at Uncle Mort.

“Thanks,” he said, giving her a wink as he handed her the bills. “Keep the change, hon.”

She giggled. Lex rolled her eyes.

“Smooth move, Clooney,” Lex said as they exited the deli. “Do we need to pencil in some time for a sexy rendezvous? I think there’s a motel down the street that rents rooms by the hour.”

“Pop quiz, hotshot: Let’s say someone shows up in this town and starts asking questions about a hooligan band of teenagers accompanied by two ghosts, an ancient woman, and a devastatingly attractive chaperone. Which one do you think that girl will be more likely to remember?”

Lex grumbled. “The chaperone.”

“You seem to have forgotten a couple of key adjectives there.”

“Oh, I didn’t forget.”

“Believe me, that girl won’t dream of ratting us out. Especially now that I’ve bestowed upon her the Wink of Trust.”

Lex snorted. “The Wink of Trust?”

“Has gotten me out of more trouble than you can imagine. I suggest you try it some time. Add it to your already overflowing arsenal of charm.”

As they crossed the street, a car pulled up alongside them. The driver’s side window rolled down to reveal a grinning Wicket. “Hey, guys,” she said. “You okay? Lex, how you holding up?”

Lex shrugged. “As well as can be expected.”

Wicket twisted her mouth in sympathy. “Well, don’t worry. I’ve got your backs. Anyone try to mess with my Juniors, I’ll rocket grenade them straight into the next century.”

Lex stooped down to look at the passenger’s side, but surprisingly, it was empty. “Where’s Lazlo?”

Wicket shot a quick glance at Uncle Mort. “Working security detail. Elsewhere.”

Lex was about to ask what in the dickens that was supposed to mean, but then Uncle Mort nodded at Wicket in a secretive manner, which translated roughly as
Screw you and your curiosities, Lex. We’re telling you
NOTHING.

So she swallowed her irritation and moved on to matters that they might actually discuss with her. Lex, F

Wicket smirked. “Big difference between dead and playing dead.”

Lex thought of his trampled body on the ground as the scene had erupted into bedlam. “Well, he fooled me.”

“He fooled everyone.”

“Then Wicket did the rest,” Uncle Mort said, nudging her. “Tell her what you did.”

Wicket gave Lex a shy smile. “I stole Norwood’s car.”

Lex stood back to look at the rusted gray thing. “No way!”

“Yes way. In all the confusion after the trial, I was able to slip out unnoticed. Ran to Norwood’s house, hot-wired his car, then drove this baby right back into the chaos. Everyone was so surprised, they didn’t even notice when Lazlo rose from the dead to hop in.”

“Punching Norwood in the nads on the way, I hear,” Uncle Mort added with no small amount of glee.

“As a longtime Bank employee,” Wicket continued, “I already knew where the tunnel under the Bank porch came out. So we just headed up to the top of Greycliff, picked up Mort and the Juniors, and headed for the hotel.”

“Wow,” said Lex. “Well, thank you.”

“Happy to help,” Wicket said. “Kick a ton of capital city ass and we’ll call it even.”

Uncle Mort leaned into the window and spoke quietly. “You know our route, right? In case we get separated?”

“Roger, chief,
” she said with a wink—possibly a Wink of Trust. “Over and out.”

Uncle Mort and Lex walked back to the Stiff, which was parked in a small lot near the center of town. Lex let out a sigh of relief when she saw that Driggs was fully solid, so he could actually eat the food they’d just bought. Ferbus had tried to feed him a couple of Oreos earlier, but they’d just fallen through Driggs’s mouth to the seat of the car.

If there were such a thing as an atomic bomb of uncomfortableness, that had been the moment of impact. Driggs looked around the car, unable to make eye contact with anyone, then said, “Okay, for the thirty-seventh time, I understand that you all feel really bad for me. And that you feel the need to be careful not to say anything that’s going to make me lose it. But acting like I have Ebola is, in fact, the
fastest possible way
to make me lose it. So if we can all at least pretend that nothing has changed, that I’m still fully living and functional and the same old moron I was before, that would be great. Mmkay?”

The others finally agreed, Pip launching into a whole tangent on the coolness of being able to go through walls. Even Ferbus, who, after a couple hours of driving and growing a fraction of a percentage more comfortable with his best friend’s condition, had cracked a smile, though it was probably more for Driggs’s benefit than his own.

Or it might have had something to do with the bottled Yoricks from DeMyse that he’d smuggled in his bag and decided to crack open at lunchtime. “There he is!” Ferbus drunkenly shouted as Uncle Mort and Lex returned to the car with the food, sloshing his Yorick all over Driggs. “Captain Sandwich and the Condiment Kid!” He snickered. “Heh. Condom mint.”

Uncle Mort distributed the lunches, and they tore in. Then, just as they would have done if they were back at the Morgue in Croak, they immediately started throwing food at one another.

“Hey!” Ferbus yelled as Driggs walloped him with his wrapper. “No fair, I wasn’t ready!”

Driggs grinned. “Ghost perk: you can’t get mad at me, I’m too dejected and pathetic.”

“But you got pickle juice in my ear!” Fe Kmy ed. “Ghorbus turned to Elysia with a saucy smirk. “Wanna lick it out?”

Elysia made a horrified face. “Oh my hell. Are you serious?” She surveyed the group. “Is he serious?”

“Course I’m serious,” Ferbus said, leaning in. “It’s sexy. It’s a sexy thing.”

“I actually don’t think it is.”

“Come on, it’s in all the romancey movies. Isn’t there a whole pickle-juice ear-licking scene in
Love Actually
?”

“No, there is not! You’ve never even seen it!”

“I get the gist. It’s love. Actually.” And before Elysia could stop him, Ferbus planted a big one on her cheek.

“Ew! Oh God, you smell like pickles. This is
so
not the way that Hugh Grant does things!
So! Not!
”

Ferbus cackled and went back to throwing things at Driggs.

Lex poked Elysia. “The relationship is going well, it seems.”

Elysia’s face erupted with worry. “Oh, Lex, I’m so sorry. It just sort of . . . happened. We were in that hotel for so many days, just waiting around to hear word from Croak, waiting for Mort to figure out a way to rescue you guys. And Wicket and Lazlo not letting us leave, we just went a little stir-crazy and—omigod, I must seem like such a bad friend, and all while you were still stuck in that awful jail and poor Driggs and—”

“Lys,” Lex said, taking her by the shoulders before she could launch into a full-blown monsoon of tears. “It’s fine. I think we’ve all learned a thing or two about taking happiness where you can get it. Plus . . . you know. It’s about time.”

“About time? What do you mean?”

“I mean you two have been itching to get into each other’s pants since the dawn of earth.”

Elysia looked shocked for a moment, then sighed. “I don’t know what I’m thinking,” she said, staring back and forth between her mostly uneaten sandwich and Ferbus. “He’s gross. He’s mean. He’s ugly. He’s a lousy drunk, he’s the biggest nerd on the planet, he looks like a leprechaun, his hair is the color of Cheetos—”

“And you luuurve him.”

Elysia scowled and crossed her arms. “And I lurve him.”

A giggle escaped Lex’s lips, though she tried very hard to keep it in. But even Driggs was smiling, and he was worse off than any of them. They were still allowed to laugh, it seemed. Especially when Yoricks were involved.

Lex tapped Driggs on the shoulder. “Since we’re in the business of treating you the same and all,” she said, keeping her voice light, “you won’t mind if I point out that you’ve got a glob of mayonnaise in your hair?”

“Not only do I not mind, but I’m also going to leave it there. As a reminder.”

“Of?”

“My indomitable spirit in the face of misfortune.”

Lex rolled her eyes, but couldn’t hide her grin. “Here,” she said, plopping down the surprise she’d bought. “More Oreos.”

He lit up. “Thanks!”

“You’re welcome.”