The Chevelle flew. It had been made for the hunt, this car. We raced past the junkyard, past Masrell’s house, through the fringes of northern Addamsville, where the people were either hiding in their houses or had already ventured out to investigate the fiery disturbance. Those flames neared the high school now; if Bach and Ludwig kept on their path, we’d meet them there. The smell of fire permeated the car, and as we turned toward Handack, we saw it.
Walls of fire in the streets, leaping as tall as the houses. My hands faltered on the wheel. All I could hear was crackling, the hissed and pops, the small explosions. My fingers ached. My whole body ached.
“ZORA!”
Artemis grabbed my shoulder. I jammed my foot on the brake. The Chevelle roared as it curled onto Handack, through skeins of flame. We shot north, hot but not burning. I turned late, missed the entrance to the high school parking lot, and went flying over the curb. The bump onto the asphalt rattled my prosthetics loose. Black scars crossed the pavement in front of the school, erasing wide swaths of parking spaces, and a flaming hole had torn through the chain-link fence surrounding the football field. People—locals, DMW fans, ghost hunters—stood outside the fence, phones and cameras out. I aimed the Chevelle. They jumped out of the way at the roar of the engine. We crashed through the fence, and the melted links screamed against the doors and windows.
The Chevelle’s wheels spun out on the field. It churned dead grass and dirt as I jammed the brakes. Small fires peppered the field and danced around the feet of the two combatants at the thirty-yard line.
The Chevelle’s headlights flooded over them. Neither looked good. Half of Tad Thompson’s hair was gone, one side of his face a twisted mask of burned flesh. His clothes were charred. He panted heavily. Bach’s leather jacket was missing, his shirt hanging by threads. He still had all his hair, but he swayed where he stood, and his attention was now split between Ludwig and the Chevelle.
I gunned the engine. Ludwig leaped out of the way just before I drove through him. I spun the Chevelle around. Artemis groaned. Ludwig stood between Bach and me now, his attention on both of us. I couldn’t hit him without running straight into Bach, too, and I needed Bach around until this was done.
“Stay in the car,” I told Artemis, then twisted to grab Dad’s axe from the backseat before kicking open the driver’s side door.
“Hey, asshole!”
Ludwig’s head swung toward me. I moved through the Chevelle’s headlights and started making my way across the field. He followed me as I sidestepped to the left.
“Got my car back,” I said. “Thanks for pulling it out for me. Really considerate of you.”
Words seemed to fail him; his eyes were two red pinpricks in his eye sockets, and his breath came out in long rumbles. His expression was slack, but all his teeth showed. The longer he had to recuperate, the more life came back into his eyes. Bach, behind him, didn’t seem to be regenerating nearly as well.
“Come on. I’m the one you want, right? No fire for me this time? Don’t you want the rest of my fingers?” I spun the axe in my hands, drawing his eye. Behind him, Bach shook his head and regained solid footing. “Nah, you wouldn’t have any left. I’m sure Bach has plenty, though. That’s probably why Hildegard liked him better than you.” A low hiss slipped between Ludwig’s pressed-together teeth. “Oh, you poor baby. You’re so easy to taunt. Can’t get over the fact that Mom had a favorite.” I was really glad Sadie wasn’t around to hear me now. “Your answers aren’t in Grimshaw House, and even if they were, you’re never going to get them. You lost, you piece of—”
Ludwig lunged. So did Bach, at the exact same time, and Ludwig spun and unleashed a blast of fire that sent Bach rolling to the sidelines. I fell, too, with the streak of light imprinted in my vision. He still had fire. He stalked toward me now, leaving singed footprints in the grass. The smell of bonfires filled the stadium. An engine rumbled. The air in my lungs felt burned up, too. I couldn’t breathe. Ludwig stood over me with his jaw tight and his teeth chattering.
The Chevelle roared. Ludwig turned as the front fender caught his kneecaps. Bones snapped like celery sticks; Ludwig screamed; the Chevelle bounced as it ran him over. I scrambled out of the way. The Chevelle roared backward, then shot forward again. Crack-crack-crack-crack. Rib bones, right in succession. The car swerved back again, and Artemis leaned out the driver’s window.
“Is he dead?” she yelled.
I rose to my feet, scooped up the axe, and crept toward Ludwig’s motionless form. Mostly motionless. His legs were mangled and his chest was flattened, and one of his arms looked like pink taffy, but his eyes snapped to me and his lips curled away from his teeth.
You know why people generally have an easy time killing spiders? It’s because spiders are not at all like humans. When a human body is smashed to a pulp, but the head is still staring at you and gnashing its teeth like it wants to eat you, you stop seeing it as a human body. It becomes some straight-up Exorcist nonsense, and that axe in your hand looks like a pretty good spider smasher.
The blade sliced squarely into his throat. Chopping through the human neck wasn’t as easy as TV made it seem. They don’t mention how much blood there’s going to be, or how there’ll be a little bit of whistling and a little bit of gurgling, and how the soft tissue will give way and the spine will hold out a little longer. Prosthetic fingers also don’t help; Ludwig ended up with a neck like ground beef before it was over.
I wouldn’t call it therapeutic. It was just necessary.
Tad Thompson’s head rolled to the side. His smashed body writhed for another moment before smoke began rising from his jeans and a fire caught underneath him. It engulfed him in seconds, and then it was gone. All that was left was a sooty imprint on the ground where a body had once been. Even the blood on the axe flared and disappeared.
The head remained, motionless and bloodied.
Artemis stood by the hood of the Chevelle.
“That’s going to be hard to explain,” she said.
Bach had clambered to his feet and shuffled over to us, and now leaned down to pick up Ludwig’s head by its remaining hair. Ludwig’s own fire had cauterized the gaping neck.
I looked Bach up and down. “Are you—how are you still moving?”
“If you don’t cut off the head, our bodies heal, no matter how bad the damage.” He sighed. The skin was flaking off his lips. Even firestarter bodies could be harmed by fire. “Eventually.”
“So he won’t?” Artemis motioned to Ludwig.
“No. Just get him back through his entrance.”
“Good luck with that,” said Ludwig.
Artemis grabbed my arm so hard she almost broke it. I swung the axe up. Bach sighed again and turned the head around. Ludwig glared at Artemis first, then me.
“You think I’m going to let you get rid of me? I’ll just come back again. And next time, I’ll possess someone really important.” He looked at Artemis. “Maybe your mother.”
Without so much as a blink, Artemis punched Ludwig so hard his head went flying out of Bach’s grip. It landed at the twenty-five-yard line with a heavy thump and rolled until coming to a stop.
Glancing approvingly at Artemis, Bach shuffled to retrieve the head again.
“Zora, do you have a bag somewhere? Something we can put him in?”
All I had was my school messenger bag inside the Chevelle. I dumped out the few papers and pens and the last remains of Aunt Greta’s pruned mums, then held it open while Bach dropped Ludwig’s moaning head inside.
“His entrance is in the mines.” I turned to Artemis. “The chasm.”
Artemis nodded. Then she looked toward the fence, where people were now climbing through the hole. “We have to go now, before someone stops us. This is going to be all over the news tomorrow.”
Bach suddenly turned and looked out over the woods.
“What is it?” I asked.
“Sammy,” he said. “He heard what’s going on.” He turned to me, a smil
e curling up his ruined mouth. “Can you two handle Ludwig?”
“That’s what we’re here for.”
“Good. I’ll take care of Sam.” He started limping toward the far end of the field, toward the woods. As he walked, his stride lengthened, his movements stronger. “Go, now,” he called over his shoulder. “And don’t believe a thing Ludwig says.”
31
Artemis and I stood at the entrance to the Hillcroft coal mine with an axe, a flashlight, and a human head in a bag.
“Do you remember the way?” Artemis asked.
“Kind of but not really,” I replied.
“You’re never going to find it again,” Ludwig said, voice muffled. “Give up and let me out of here. I might get lucky and get eaten by a bear.”
I punched down on top of the bag. Ludwig yelped.
Artemis grimaced. “If we’re going to get lost, let’s do it quickly. We lost the people from the school, but I don’t think they’ll stay lost for long.”
Getting out of the high school was just a matter of driving the Chevelle back at the hole in the fence and watching another wave of people jump out of our way. They hadn’t been able to keep up through town, and I was banking on having lost them long before the mine turnoff.
This time, we entered the mine through the main entrance. There were no fans around this time, no camera truck, no police cruisers. But there were ghosts. The most I’d seen in one place since the parade. They made way for us as we approached. Our steps echoed into the darkness, and water dripped from somewhere overhead. A few of the ghosts trailed behind us. Miners, all of them.
Artemis stepped around them. They watched her as much as they did me, and they were careful to keep from brushing against my bag.
“Hey,” I said to Artemis. “I don’t want to freak you out, but there are a lot of ghosts around us right now.”
She only paused for a second. “I know. They feel cold. Like I might walk into a wall of ice.”
Ludwig let out a low chuckle. “So many things neither of you know. And even Bach didn’t tell you.”
I pulled back the flap of my messenger bag. It was still Tad Thompson’s head in there, cloaked in shadow, but Ludwig’s eyes glowed out of the darkness like red Christmas lights.
“What kind of things?”
“Answers have a price.”
I threw the flap back over him again. “Keep moving,” I said to Artemis. “Follow the cold. I think the miners know where we’re going.”
They made pathways for us, watching as we went. When Artemis’s steps got shaky, I put a hand on her back to steady her.
“So, Zora,” Ludwig said, “how does it feel to have something Artemis doesn’t? Bet it feels good. You can’t have the money, or the clothes, or the looks, the reputation, the status, the house, the friends—but you can see the dead. Does that ease the jealousy at all?”
“Don’t listen to him,” I said to Artemis. “I’m not jealous of you.”
Ludwig let out a keening laugh that echoed down the tunnel. I gritted my teeth.
“Artemis,” he said, still giggling, “how are you feeling, knowing that you’re one of the few things keeping your dirtbag cousins from drowning? That they use you? They make you look bad just by existing, and you’re expected to help them? You have to help them, because you don’t have the tools to do this by yourself?”
“Shut up!” Artemis snapped at him.
“And now both of you know there’s more out there, and the answers are slipping through your fingers faster than you can ask the questions. Who is Bach? Who am I? Who was Hildegard? Why were we here? What is this town? You’ll never find the truth without me. I know all the questions and all the answers. The dead might help you find my entrance, but you’ll never really get out of here. Without the answers, you’ll be lost in the dark forever. Lost like your mothers.”
The farther we went, the louder he got.
“When you die, you’ll be stuck down here, too. No light. No air. And a century from now, when new teenagers come to see if the legends are true, you’ll ask for their help, and they’ll run screaming. They’ll tell everything they saw, and no one will believe them, but they’ll use it to bring tourists. They’ll hold ghost tours here. You’ll be the main attraction. And you’ll plead and beg to be let out, but no one will listen. You’ll be trapped in hell together, and no one will ever know the truth.”
“Here,” Artemis said, voice shaky.
We had turned a corner and come to a short ledge, and past the ledge, the flashlight beam spilled into a wide, dark area. The light revealed the cave in sharper relief than the camera viewfinder had before, but there was the deep chasm that cut the area in half, and there was the old, short bridge where Ludwig had stood when we first saw him.
Except now the space was full of ghosts.
Miners and children. Facing us, watching us, clearing the way to the bridge, where an impenetrable darkness waited. We stepped past them, up to the bridge, where the chasm yawned beneath us.
I opened my bag. Artemis shined the light inside. Ludwig flinched as I reached in and pulled his head out. Already he looked pallid, except for the bottom of his neck, which was a dark purple blue. He blinked at me and bared his teeth.
“Think hard before you do this, Zora Novak,” he said. “I’ve seen things you could never imagine. I know things you have no way of finding out on your own.”
My fingers tightened in his hair.
“What’s the one thing you want?” he went on quickly. “More than respect, or friends, or freedom? I could give it to you. I could give you the truth.” He paused, and so did I. He smiled. “I know what happened to your mother.”
“Zora.” Artemis put her hand on my arm. A soft squeeze around my elbow. She watched me in silence.
“Is it that obvious?” I said.
“You take me out of this cave,” he said, “and I’ll tell you everything. I’ll tell you what happened to her that day in the woods. I’ll tell you where she is now. I’ll tell you how to find her.”
Was it that obvious that I wanted to find her? Was it that obvious how much I missed her, obvious enough that Ludwig could tell? I couldn’t even get angry at him for trying to use her to trick me. There was only an emptiness inside my chest, an understanding that there was a good chance I’d never know what happened.
“Zora.”
A second hand rested on my other arm. It flickered at the edges. Another hand on my shoulder, and one on my forearm. Bodies pressed in from all sides. They smelled like the dank must of the mines. Ludwig’s gaze darted over and past me. Dozens of them pressed in.
There was a good chance I’d never know the answer to Mom’s disappearance. But I also knew that if that answer existed, I already had everything I needed to find it, and it didn’t matter if other people knew I was looking. I was allowed to hunt.
It was my job.
Ludwig began backpedaling. “Don’t you at least owe me the benefit of the doubt? You know better than anyone that doing bad things doesn’t make you a bad person. You gave Bach a pass. I can do good, too. I know the truth.”
He wasn’t wrong, but here’s the thing: no one owes you the benefit of the doubt when your actions have shown, repeatedly and without reparation, that you do not deserve it.
Ludwig would not have me or anyone who lived here. He wouldn’t have Addamsville. It wasn’t for him. It was for me and Sadie and Dad. It was for Artemis and Aunt Greta. It was for Hal, Mads, Lorelei, the chief and her officers. It was even for Buster Gates. It was for George Masrell.
It was for the dead.
It was for my mom.
“You always think you know the truth,” I said. Then, with all the disgust I could muster, “Fucking tourist.”
And I hurled his head across the bridge.
He disappeared into his entrance. The darkness and the pressure sucked inward, like his head had hit a curtain and the curtain was collapsing on the spot. A stale wind roared past us, kicking up dirt, draggin
g on clothes and hair. I grabbed Artemis, and the ghosts braced us, and we huddled there against the force of the entrance closing until it was over.
Dust swirled through the flashlight’s beam. I raised my head first. Artemis lifted hers a second later. The hands holding my jacket let go, one by one, until there were only Artemis’s, slowly unclenching from my arm.
As we exited the mine, the only sounds to be heard were the rustle of the wind in the trees and the scraping of leaves across the ground. The Chevelle waited for us by the fence.
Artemis’s phone buzzed. She glanced at the screen.
“Sadie,” she said. “She wants to know where we are.”
“Yeah,” I replied, exhausted but wide awake. “We should get back.”
Artemis started toward the Chevelle. I grabbed her arm. She looked back, puzzled.
“Thanks for doing this with me,” I said. “I don’t think I would’ve lasted very long on my own.”
“Oh, it was just—”
Before she could finish, I pulled her into a hug.
“Ope,” she said, surprised. Then she hugged me back.
“Is this the weirdest thing that’s happened to you all week?” I asked.
“It’s up there.” She squeezed tighter. “And you’re welcome.”
32
By morning “Addamsville’s Firestarters” had aired on every news channel from New York to LA. Hundreds of videos flooded the Internet, some more believable than others. Tad Thompson, founder and leader of Dead Men Walking, had fought the assistant of Hermit Forester in a battle of fiery fisticuffs that scorched the streets of Addamsville from the Goldmine to the high school. Their trail led to the black silhouette of a body burned into the football field. The fight only ended when two shadowy figures driving an old muscle car came onto the scene to take Tad’s head and flee into the night.
Tad Thompson was gone, and the rest of the DMW crew fled Addamsville shortly after, retreating to Indianapolis to escape the crush of fans and news crews. The footage they had on Artemis’s memory card was now proof the DMW crew had known about the threat and done nothing, and I suspected that was why they said nothing about it. The producer claimed in one interview that they would search for the truth of what happened to Tad, but they would rely on the police first. Leila gave a very different story.
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