The Road to Nevermore (16 page)

“Time should be ticking by now… . How’s this possible?” Gloom fussed. “You!” He whirled, pointing a talon sharp finger at
Billy.

“Get that thing off Grim’s head!” Pete shouted to Roger as he charged Gloom.

Roger and Mordecai pitched in behind, but Shadewick Gloom blasted them with two sputtering bolts, sending them skidding across
the workbench. Everything including Grim’s head was swept to the floor. He fired two more bursts at Pete and Billy, but missed.

“Why are you just standing there?” Shadewick Gloom screamed at the sentinels.

“Waiting for orders,” the larger one rumbled.

“Well, grab them, imbeciles!”

With two massive swipes, the sentinels grabbed Billy and Pete and hauled them up by the collars. They didn’t bother with Roger
and Uncle Mordecai, who were passed out on the floor.

“Pin the pirate so I can attend to the boy.” Shadewick stole to the tank and fished out another dread.

“It is our duty to obey,” the sentinels answered mechanically.

Gloom approached Billy, his net squirming as much as his smile. “Seems you’ve acquired some of Grim’s powers. That explains
why time hasn’t started and how you rebuffed me back at the cottage. Impressive, boy.”

Billy didn’t dare say anything. It was taking every link of his concentration to shackle time.

“I’m sure Miss Chippendale will be impressed, too. The Investigative Branch is itching to get their hands on your parents.
Really aren’t fond of defeats, you see. And where do you suppose Mommy and Daddy will end up, boy?”

This time Gloom almost got him. Billy screwed his eyes into deeper concentration.

“I’ll have your whole snug little family in Nevermore soon, along with your deliciously guilty nightmares!” Gloom lifted the
net above Billy’s head, ready to overturn it.

But instead of shrinking in fear, Billy seemed transfixed, mumbling, “blindly obey.” Then his smile lit up the room. He turned
to the sentinels. “Excuse me, sirs, but isn’t it against Dark Side rules to do a good deed?”

“The inquisitor would say that is so,” the larger one rumbled.

“I was just wondering why you haven’t arrested him?” Billy cocked his head toward Shadewick Gloom.

“Eh?” Gloom clacked back a step.

“He’s been working with the Light Side Government. You heard him admit it. And Lightsiders are always doing right.”

Pete’s smile added to the room’s sudden glow. “True enough, they wouldn’t be on the Light Side unless they were judged good-deed
doers.”

The sentinels dropped their load and turned toward Shadewick Gloom.

“Don’t listen to them. They have no authority here.” Gloom stamped a shadowy boot.

“Yer thick with responsibility in helpin’ the Investigative Branch. I’d be hornswoggled if they ain’t awarded ye a medal by
now,” Pete said in a sugary voice, and then looked up over his shoulder. “Wouldn’t want that inquisitor feller practicing
his lashes on yer backs, would ye, lads? Why don’t ye take him?”

The towering demons locked glances. After two sizable nods, they grabbed Shadewick Gloom. But he wriggled in their grip like
a gaffed marlin. And he would have gotten away, too, except for some sly skeleton thinking.

“Dump that thing on his head!” Billy cried, pointing to the net.

The sentinels wrestled it out of Gloom’s hands, upending its contents onto his head. Gloom’s arms fell limp to his sides and
the dread burbled a gooey, “Num!”

Tossing Shadewick over his shoulder like a sack of soiled laundry, the large demon turned and marched out of the darkroom.
The smaller sentinel followed.

When the crunch of their last footstep echoed away, Billy clattered over to the bench and burst into laughter.

Uncle Grim’s head was nestled between Roger and Uncle Mordecai. Roger was coming around, but Uncle Mordecai was still knocked
silly. “What’s so funny?” the skeleton dandy asked, sitting up slowly.

“Your hat.”

The dread had slipped off Grim’s head and was trying its utmost to work its way over Roger’s. His old top hat was crowned
with a dread, looking very much like a glob of struggling pudding.

Roger scrambled up to his feet and sauntered over to the aquarium, where he examined his reflection in the glass. “Hmmmm,
not very dashing.” With a flick of his wrist he flipped the hat into the aquarium, where it sunk unceremoniously to the bottom.
Pete chuckled quietly to himself from across the room, his eyes filled with twinkling affection.

Billy hunkered down next to Uncle Grim’s exhausted but smiling face. “Well done, Billy. You kept time stopped just long enough
for that dread to slide off my head.”

“I was wondering why it got so easy all of a sudden. Thought I was getting as powerful as you.”

“Unless I’m mistaken, you’ve more power than you can imagine, but I need you to promise you won’t think about using it. I
still need to straighten things out with Oversecretary Underhill.”

“I’ll do my best,” Billy promised. He wasn’t in an awful hurry to endanger his uncle or the rest of his family.

Grim shut his eyes again, and somewhere not far away his body breathed a sigh of relief. “Now you might want to smarten things
up around here. You can begin by gathering me up. I think we’ll be having company in a minute or two.”

“How do you know that?” Billy asked.

“My body is riding on Fleggs. I can feel the rush of wind and his unmistakable gallop.”

BWANG! URG! THUMP!

Along with Mr. Brittleback’s grunts and Millicent’s shouts, these were the loudest sounds in Nevermore. The skeleton and Millicent
were holding their own against the dreads.

Millicent screamed, “There’s another one behind you!”

“Got it!” Mr. Brittleback leaped, swinging his shovel. The shot knocked the groundskeeper’s head clean off its shoulders.

Millicent wished she could do more to help, but she had to content herself with cheering him on. So far, half of the nasty
blobs had been sent to the Realms Below.

As Mr. Brittleback leaned on his shovel handle, thankful for the break, a swift wind kicked up dust as hoofs sparked up the
carriage road. A magnificent midnight stallion cantered to a stop. Atop Fleggs sat Grim, body joyfully reunited with head,
which now bore a wide smile.

“Bartemis!” Grim called down.

“Mill!” Billy poked out from behind his uncle’s cloak.

“I suppose you’ll need some saving, now.” Grim’s eyes crinkled cheerily.

“Thanks for the offer.” Brittleback held the shovel by the end of its long handle. “But it won’t be necessary.” He wound up
and, with one stroke, knocked all five dreads off their victims’ heads.

Billy leaped off Fleggs and clacked over to Millicent. “How are we supposed to save you when you’ve gone and saved yourself?”

Millicent grinned. “Well, you could have, if you hadn’t waited so long.”

“Dad’s going to be disappointed, after calling out the cavalry and all.”

“The cavalry? You and Grim?” Millicent laughed.

“Not us. Them.” Billy pointed to a column of distant figures.

Colonel Siegely led the way aboard his horse, Clattershanks, but he was overtaken by Ned, who cut a less dashing figure. The
burly skeleton was mounted on a runaway horse. He looked as if he couldn’t dismount soon enough, unlike the hundred stone-faced
soldiers that trotted behind him.

“All that for me?” Millicent tried to wrap Billy in a hug, but her arms were only half there. He settled happily for a smile.

Grim dismounted and helped Mr. Brittleback lay the unconscious ghosts and skeletons he’d battled side by side.

“Hope they aren’t tempted to give me a whack when they wake up.” Mr. Brittleback grimaced, dropping the last ghost into place.

“Aside from their splitting headaches, I should think they’ll be most thankful.” Grim strode up the line to examine several
ghosts laid out on the end. “Boos borough, Sheets, Ghostly, and White. You can’t say Shadewick Gloom hasn’t a sense of humor:
turning the most senior members of the High Council into groundskeepers.”

“Cornelia Chippendale will be mighty surprised when these gentlemen return.” Mr. Brittleback clattered from one groundskeeper
to the next, sprucing up their clothing as best he could.

“Chippendale!” Millicent turned to Billy. “She was here. She was the one who sent Shadewick Gloom to get us in the first place,
and she was really mad that he hadn’t captured you, too.”

“A witness tying Chippendale to the Dark Side. That’s sure to help,” Mr. Brittleback chirped.

“Yes.” Grim tapped his chin. “But I’m not sure that’s enough. Chippendale is slippery as eel sweat. I don’t want any surprises
when we face her. For example why was she after Billy and Millicent?”

Why?
Billy tapped his own chin, unaware of how well he was copying his uncle.

“She loves her power,” Mr. Brittleback mumbled. “Been clawing her way to the top of the council ever since Pickerel disappeared.”

Billy met Millicent’s glance.

“Chippendale knows about Pickerel!” Billy blurted.

“And she knows that
we
know,” Millicent added right behind him.

“That’s got to be it,” Grim agreed, “but how did she find out? I know I didn’t blab.”

While Grim chewed on this, Pete, Mr. Bones, Roger, and Colonel Siegely arrived on skeleton horseback.

Mr. Bones smiled at Billy and Millicent. “I might have known you’d have things sorted out by the time we arrived.”

“Aye, got to say they make a wily pair.” Pete nudged Mr. Bones in the ribs and Jenkins smiled at the children like he’d just
hatched them from two eggs.

Billy skipped over to the riders. “The missing council members!”

“Hah! Like to see Chippendale wriggle out of this one … blaming all this on me when she was the one who disappeared ’em.”
Pete dismounted with surprising grace for a bandy-legged sea dog. “We should round ’em up and parade ’em under her nose this
second —”

“Not quite so fast, Pete,” Mr. Bones interrupted. “We have a little more business to attend to.” He nodded toward Millicent,
who was drifting as fast as she could toward a nearby tomb.

“She won’t leave without her parents,” Billy said.

Mr. Bones swung his mount toward Clattershanks and spoke to Colonel Siegely, “Do you think your men could give us a hand?”

“My men, Mr. Bones, will be glad to give you hands, heads, and everything they’ve got.” A few crisp commands later, the soldiers
galloped off to the surrounding tombs. Backing their skeleton horses up to the doors, they bashed them in. After trotting
inside, they emerged with blinking but very happy prisoners.

The first released were Millicent’s parents, Artemis and Julia Hues. They met Millicent, still struggling toward the tomb,
and wrapped her up in a long hug.

Millicent and her parents drifted back over to Billy, Pete, and Uncle Grim. Mr. Bones and Roger rode off with the soldiers
to help release prisoners.

Soon, hundreds of stunned prisoners were milling around, with more on the way.

“Now that ye got yer parents in tow, Millicent, I’d surely like to be off to the council,” Pete urged.