Gordy held up his hand, cutting him off. “It’s okay.”
Roseanne cleared the treetops and banked sharply to the right. Both Adilene and Sasha gasped from their seats. Then the flying contraption shot upward, the Stitsers’ home shrinking to the size of a dollhouse in a matter of seconds.
“She takes a bit to get used to, but once we reach our cruising altitude, I assure you you’ll enjoy the breathtaking views.” Bolter spoke into his mouthpiece, his voice cascading down from a speaker in the shape of a birdhouse above his seat.
“I was hoping you could take a look at this for me,” Gordy said once Roseanne’s herky-jerky movements smoothed out. He showed Bolter his bracelet. “I emptied all the chambers in battle against the Scourges, and I don’t know how to reload them.”
“Battle with Scourges?” Bolter looked appalled, but he leaned back, glancing at the bracelet. “Ah, I’d be glad to. Once we land, I’ll take a look.”
“Could you do it now?” Gordy insisted.
“Now? Well, I’m sort of navigating.”
“But what if we need it?” Gordy extended the weapon closer to Bolter, tempting him to take it in his hand. “What if we’re attacked?”
“Up here?” Bolter laughed. “I doubt a Scourge would take to the air to bring us down.” Then his smile faded, and a knowing look formed in his eyes. Peering down at the bracelet refusing to touch it, he cocked his head. “You wouldn’t dare, would you?” He gave Gordy a look of disappointment. “Put that away at once and sit back in your seat!”
“What did I do?” Gordy asked, allowing his seat belt to cinch him back into place. At once, he noticed the extra body seated on the floor between Sasha and Max. Carlisle didn’t have a seat belt, but he kept his balance well enough. Bolter had yet to notice the stowaway, but when he did, Gordy feared his surprise would ruin everything.
“Desperation will only get you so far,” Bolter barked. “You should be ashamed of yourself. If you don’t want me to tell your mother about how you tried to Blotch me, I suggest the four of you keep quiet for the duration of our flight.”
Gordy looked at Adilene, and she gave him a thumbs-up.
Roseanne squawked, and the hybrid plane rocketed off in a westerly direction. As she turned, the jars in Bolter’s satchel clinked together, drawing his attention. At least half a dozen containers of Barnstorm Broth were in the bag—along with one additional jar of a creamy white substance rising up above the other lids. A jar that had not been in Bolter’s satchel prior to takeoff.
Delighted, Bolter unscrewed the lid and scooped a knuckle of mayonnaise into his mouth. “Yum, yum!” He slurped the condiment. “My absolute favorite.” If there was one thing they could count on, it was that Bolter was powerless when it came to resisting mayonnaise.
Max made a retching noise, and Gordy promptly shushed him.
“How long until we reach the safe house?” Gordy asked as Bolter dug out more of the Tainted mayonnaise and devoured it eagerly.
“I already told you,” Bolter said, shaking his head and leaning on the copter’s steering stick, causing Roseanne to abruptly change directions. “This bird’s headed for Florida!”
Roseanne’s bulky frame dropped suddenly, and everyone, including Bolter, who had been dozing in his captain’s chair, his chin digging into his chest, startled awake.
“Why did we drop?” Max grumbled, kicking his feet out and stretching.
“I’m not sure,” Bolter muttered. He checked the plane’s instruments, twisting knobs and tapping a few gimbals with his knuckle. “Perhaps it’s the warmer temperatures. We’ve just passed over Miami.”
Gordy rubbed his eyes and craned his neck to see over the edge. The sun was shining brilliantly, and the warm air still pumping from the vents made Gordy sweat. They had been flying for more than eight hours. Despite Roseanne’s massive turbines, she only flew slightly faster than a standard single-engine airplane.
Roseanne lurched again, dropping with a clanging of metal.
“Uh, Bolter,” Max called out, twisting in his seat. “Something big just fell out the back of this bird!”
Bolter nibbled on his lower lip, appearing only minorly concerned. “We have been flying almost nonstop for sixteen hours. Roseanne needed to lay some eggs.”
Gordy laughed. “She lays eggs?”
“Well, she is one-eighth chicken. And it’s not an actual egg. Just metal and plastic and sundry tricycle parts.” Bolter glanced at Sasha’s map, cross-checking it against his own instruments, and then called for Gordy to join him next to the controls. “Are you sure about these coordinates?”
“Positive,” Gordy answered. “Why?”
“Because we’re there.” He tugged on a lever, and the turbines ground down to a low whine. The rotor whipping atop Roseanne’s tail fin churned as the airship hovered in place. Pressing another button in the console produced a periscope that rose up with a pneumatic hiss. Bolter peered through it, adjusting a dial with his palm.
“But there’s nothing below us.” Bolter pulled back from the scope. “Have a look for yourself.”
Gordy could see a few clouds drifting below Roseanne and a landscape of blue ocean filling the lens. Foamy waves lapped through the water, but there was no island of any shape or size whatsoever.
“What do you mean?” Max demanded. “Are we in the right spot?”
Bolter scoffed. “We are directly where we should be according to these coordinates. If something’s wrong, it’s the fault of the directions, not the equipment.”
“But there’s no island,” Gordy said. “Can we look somewhere else?”
“Certainly!” Bolter glanced at his control board and typed a couple of commands. “Where would you like to go? There are more than ten thousand islands off the coast of Florida.” The computer chirped, and a long list of destinations with coordinates began scrolling across the monitor. “South Bimini island is ten miles from here. Perhaps that’s where Mezzarix is hiding.”
“Bimini,” Adilene muttered. “Like Cadence.” She moved next to Gordy, rubbing her elbows and shivering.
Gordy nodded, remembering something vitally important. “Carlisle, can you come here for a second?”
Climbing to his knees, Carlisle shuffled over to the captain’s chair.
Bolter didn’t react to Carlisle’s nearness, and Gordy was glad the Blotching was still working. Gordy gestured to the periscope, and Carlisle looked through the glass for a couple seconds.
“Do you think that’s the island?” Gordy asked.
Carlisle gave a subtle nod but didn’t seem as confident as Gordy would have hoped.
“The island’s invisible,” Gordy explained to the others. “Mezzarix used Ms. Bimini’s keystone to find it, so we’re not going to be able to see it through the periscope.”
“So what would you like me to do?” Bolter beamed at Gordy, waiting for his instruction.
“Can you land?” Max asked.
Bolter’s nose twitched from side to side. “On an invisible island? Is there an airstrip? Will I be descending upon rocky terrain?”
“We don’t know,” Sasha replied.
“Then . . . no.” Bolter gave a casual sigh. “I don’t suppose I could . . . er . . . land.” His eyes seemed to lose focus, and he glanced around the cockpit, suddenly suspicious.
Gordy recognized the baffled expression and grabbed the mayonnaise jar from Bolter’s satchel. “Did you forget something?” He wafted the jar under Bolter’s nose.
Bolter blinked and smiled, accepting the jar with a gracious bow. That was the tricky thing about this sort of rushed Blotching. Without constant interaction with a Tainted object, the Blotched individual could snap out of the trance at any moment.
“How close can you get us?” Gordy asked.
“Reasonably.” Bolter licked the rim of the container. “I’ll just need
to be careful not to strike a mountain peak.”
Returning to his seat, Gordy nodded at Sasha’s satchel. “How much of your Heliudrops do you have left?” He rocked back and forth in his chair, the bolts attaching it to the floor creaking.
“We used a ton on Zelda,” Sasha replied. “Why?”
We’re going to do what?” Max bellowed.
Gordy had already unscrewed one of the bolts beneath his chair. “We’re going to use Sasha’s Heliudrops on these chairs and—” He grunted, twisting Bolter’s socket wrench, trying to break the seal of the second bolt. “And . . . float down, I guess.” It wasn’t the worst plan in the world, but by the look on his face, Max must have thought so.
“Float down?” Max repeated. “Like, how fast?”
“Pretty fast, I would think.” Sasha handed Gordy a test tube of something clear and oily. “This will help.” She was being cooperative, and so was Adilene, but their faces revealed their concern with dropping out of Roseanne from a distance of five thousand feet. Heliudrops weren’t exactly created for this sort of thing.
Gordy uncorked Sasha’s test tube and frowned. “What potion is this?”
“WD-40,” Sasha replied. “I always keep some for emergencies.”
Using the lubricant, Gordy made quick work of the rest of the bolts. He and Bolter strapped the seats together with the safety belts and hurriedly added a few extra nuts and bolts for good measure. When all was said and done, the contraption resembled an uncomfortable-looking couch that buckled in the middle.
Gordy tested it out, hopping up and down on one of the padded cushions, trying to see if it would break free from the others. “Seems to hold.”
Max responded by shoving an entire granola bar into his mouth.
“What do you think?” Gordy asked Adilene.
“You don’t want to know what I think,” she said, her voice shaky.
“This will work,” Gordy assured her.
“Yeah, if the Heliudrops don’t malfunction,” Sasha added, folding her arms.
“Weren’t you the one who made them?” Max asked.
Adilene grabbed Gordy’s sleeve and pulled him close. “What if there really isn’t an island down there?”
Gordy had thought about that and had a prompt response. “Then we’ll just land in the water, and he’ll come pick us up. Right, Bolter?”
Polishing off the final ounce of Tainted mayonnaise, Bolter nodded. “Simply activate this distress signal, and I’ll home in on your location.” Bolter handed Gordy a small device hooked to a rabbit’s-foot key chain.
Gordy tested the button, and an incandescent light began to flash from a bulb no bigger than a pencil eraser. Within seconds, an alarm rang in the cockpit, flashing in rhythm with the distress signal.
“See?” Bolter nodded at the console. “I should have no problem finding you.”
After dribbling several Heliudrops onto their makeshift escape pod, which immediately lifted off the floor like a hot-air balloon, Gordy and the others hefted it over the edge. Carlisle grabbed one of the legs to keep it from flying away. Gordy steadied himself by snagging a handful of Max’s shirt—he could hear his best friend’s nervous breathing—and he climbed onto one of the seats. The contraption wobbled like a bobber on the end of a fishing line, but as the others took their turns clambering on and shifting their weight, the couch settled and Gordy felt his confidence increasing, if only slightly. Carlisle was the last aboard, crowding next to Sasha, hugging his suitcase as though it were a parachute.
“Don’t forget about us!” Gordy shouted to Bolter, waving the distress signal. Outside the protective ward of the cockpit, the rush of gusting wind was deafening.
Bolter squinted as he shoved the couch away from the edge. As distance began to stretch between the escape pod and Roseanne, Bolter cupped a hand next to his mouth and hollered, “I’m going to land at South Bimini Island! I’ll tinker with Roseanne until I hear from you.”
He disappeared from the edge, and a few heartbeats later the airship began moving away. The current produced by the turbines caused the escape pod to drop, and as gravity took hold on the weighted seats, Sasha added more Heliudrops to keep them from crashing down like a meteor.
“Any minute now, Bolter’s going to wake up from being Blotched,” Max warned.
“Even if he does, we expected that.” Gordy was impressed at how long his first Blotching had lasted without any prior instruction. Aunt Priss would have been so proud.
“Won’t he leave us?” Adilene asked.
“Bolter would never leave us,” Gordy answered. “He may want to strangle me when this is all over, but he’ll do exactly what he promised.” It was difficult to know how much Bolter would remember once the Blotching wore off, but Gordy was counting on there being enough to keep the determined Elixirist on task.
As they continued to drop farther, the wide blue beneath Gordy began to look larger, more expansive. He could make out the cresting waves and could hear the familiar ocean sounds. Each time the contraption started to pick up speed, Sasha dabbed an extra Heliudrop to slow them.
“How much is left?” Gordy asked.
Sasha cautiously leaned forward and looked down. “More than enough to get us to the bottom. But that’s not the problem, is it?”
“Yeah, where is this dumb island?” Max glared at Carlisle as though it was his fault.
Gordy may have suggested landing in the ocean as a backup plan, but once Sasha’s potion had run out, they would instantly sink. How long would they be able to tread water until Bolter rescued them?
“Do you think there are sharks?” Adilene squeaked.
“And whales and jellyfish and sea monsters!” Max’s voice grew anxious.
“Please, be quiet, Maxwell!” Adilene buried her face in Gordy’s shoulder.
And then, all at once, the ocean vanished. The blue sky, the endless expanse of water, everything was swallowed up in a haze as they passed through a mist that had not been there moments before. Sasha almost forgot to reapply her Heliudrops as they picked up speed, heading toward the tops of palm trees less than a hundred feet below. The craggy peak of a massive mountain rose up on the eastern side of them, so close Gordy felt he could reach out and snatch a rock from the footpath.
Wind began to swirl beneath them, prickly with sand. It tore at Gordy’s pant legs, stinging and sharp. The flying contraption suddenly bucked sideways, and Gordy screamed in surprise. Everyone scrambled, grabbing hold of each other, trying not to be thrown from their seats.
“Is this couch bewitched?” Max shouted.
Maybe it was just the hot wind of the island, but Gordy suspected something else was at work. The air carried with it the lacy smell of frankincense and steamed perentie fangs. A black cloud gathered just below them, snuffing out the view of the forest. It lapped at Gordy’s shoes, and he immediately pulled his feet back onto his cushion.
“Don’t touch it!” Gordy yelled to the others. Something was off about the cloud, something sinister.
“What happens if we touch—” Max started to reply just as a tendril of smoke extended from the mass and coiled around his ankle. Max’s eyes widened, and he gasped in shock. He exhaled sharply in panic, and then he was gone, his body yanked completely out of his seat.
“Max!” Adilene screamed.
Sasha tried to grab his sleeve, but the fabric slipped right through her fingers.
Gordy leaned forward, trying to see where he had fallen, but the loss of Max’s weight caused the contraption to teeter off-balance. More tendrils like phantom fingers lashed out, too many to avoid. Before Gordy could dive into his satchel for a potion, both Adilene and Sasha were pulled out of their seats and swallowed up by the cloud.
“No!” Gordy screamed as Carlisle’s strong arms wrapped around his shoulders, pulling him back. “Get off me!” he demanded, tears welling in
his eyes. Max and Adilene and Sasha! Where were they? How far had they dropped? Gordy had to save them, but he felt fingers of smoke around his ankle. He would be the next, but Gordy didn’t care. He would let it take him.
Carlisle hurriedly raised something to Gordy’s lips.
Gordy struggled against him, uncertain of what the old man was trying to do, but Carlisle’s strength overpowered him, forcing a glass bottle into his mouth.
Gordy tasted Silt. He gasped and swallowed. Then he watched as his body disappeared and the tendril of smoke ripped him out of his seat and sent him tumbling, head over heels, into the abyss.
Luckily for Gordy, he had miscalculated. The craft had only been hovering twenty feet above the forest floor when he had fallen. Though he landed in a drift of soft sand, the sheer force knocked the wind out of his lungs. Rolling on his back and gasping for air, Gordy watched as the black cloud dissolved, leaving only blue sky dappled by a canopy of leaves overhead.
Immediately, Gordy noticed how he could see straight through his translucent skin, the outline of his fingers hardly visible in the sunlight. Carlisle had given him Silt at the last minute, but why, and where had it come from?
A strange shriek startled him, and he swiveled around to see a flock of flamingoes bathing in a pond a few yards away. There were dozens of birds, legs bending at odd angles, eyes unblinking. Through the trees, Gordy could see another pond with more birds gathered: ducks, geese, cranes, storks, and pelicans. It was as though Gordy had dropped into the middle of the bird exhibit at the zoo.
Gordy heard voices murmuring above the birdsong, and he spotted Adilene less than thirty yards away. She was lying on her back next to Max and Sasha, all three of them bound with ropes. A group of ancient-looking people stood guard around them, and standing in the middle, sweaty and miserable, was Ravian McFarland.
“Try not to jostle them but hurry! My Torpor Tonic will only keep them unconscious for so long,” Ravian grumbled, moving out of the way as a couple of men hoisted Adilene off the ground like a rag doll.
The Seeking Serum Page 21
