Into the Gauntlet

by Margaret Peterson Haddix

  Hamilton began sweating, more than he ever had at any athletic event.

  "It's zinc at the end!" Hamilton exploded. "Zinc, not tin! And that's the only other thing I lied about! Honest! I swear! Please don't kill my family!"

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  Isabel smiled.

  And--she didn't push the button.

  * * *

  "Jonah," a melodic voice purred beside Jonah's ear.

  Jonah was having an awful dream. He was on a stage, but only one person had come to see him: a woman. A woman who was somehow his mother and Isabel Kabra at the same time.

  "Sing your clues," the woman demanded. And then the woman split into two, Cora and Isabel becoming separate people. Cora screamed, "No! No! Don't tell her a thing! No matter what she threatens!" And Isabel was screaming, too: "Tell me your clues! Or else!"

  And then Jonah awoke, and he wasn't onstage at all. He was lying on an empty, cold tile floor.

  "Is the pain too bad?" the melodic voice cooed sympathetically.

  The pain was a monster devouring Jonah from the inside out. The pain was a bomb blast, shattering Jonah's body every time he took a breath.

  He'd never known anybody could hurt this much and stay alive.

  "Perhaps this will help," the voice said.

  There was a prick in his arm, and the pain began to flow away. It didn't disappear. But Jonah's mind cleared a little. He could see that it was Isabel Kabra bending over him.

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  His mother was nowhere in sight.

  "I need your clues," Isabel said softly. "And you're going to tell them to me."

  To thine own self be true, Jonah thought. To thine own self be true.

  "I'm not like you," Jonah murmured. "Not Lucian. Janus. My mother doesn't understand. Have to win this ... as a Janus. Artistically."

  "Artistically?" Isabel sneered.

  Jonah knew when he was losing an audience.

  "Like at the Globe," he said, his voice a little stronger. "I just saw it--at that moment. I was going to sing. About how the Cahill feud was hurting the whole family, and how maybe if we just all, I don't know, shared the clues and the prize, maybe, maybe ..."

  Isabel began to laugh cruelly. She was like an audience who was there only to mock, to heckle, to destroy.

  "Cahills don't share," she said. She grabbed Jonah's arm and twisted it--maybe some of the bones in his arm were broken, too? Because Isabel was bringing the pain monster back, full force.

  "You will tell me your clues--now," Isabel commanded.

  "Won't," Jonah said, drawing upon something that was beyond wanting to please his mother, beyond wanting to please his fans, even beyond being a Janus. Was there some true self inside him he hadn't even known was there?

  "You will or else ..." Isabel began.

  "Jonah came to the island alone," somebody else

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  said --Ian, maybe, or Dan. "There's no one he loves you can threaten."

  Alone, Jonah thought. I am alone.

  "Yes, Jonah came by himself," Isabel said. "But, you know, some parents ... When you can't do anything for yourself, and your kid's your meal ticket... Isn't it sweet how worthless old Broderick managed to find his way here?"

  She was propping up Jonah's head, setting off more waves of pain throughout his body. Now he could see a TV screen showing his father tied to a tombstone. Broderick had tears streaming down his face and his lips were moving, saying something Jonah couldn't hear because the TV had no sound. No -- Broderick was singing something. Jonah could even lip-read well enough to know what it was:

  Jonah boy, my homie,

  Jonah boy, my buddy, my son ...

  It was the first song Jonah had ever learned--a song he and Broderick had made up together.

  Broderick hadn't followed Jonah to this island because Jonah was his meal ticket. He'd come because he was worried about Jonah. Because he loved him.

  Why hadn't Jonah always known that? Why hadn't he trusted his father more?

  "I will kill your father if you don't tell me your clues," Isabel threatened, holding a remote before his eyes.

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  Don't tell her a thing! No matter what! the dream Cora Wizard still screamed inside Jonah's head.

  But Jonah watched his father singing. He knew his true self. He knew his father's. And he knew the choice he had to make.

  "Pearl," Jonah whispered directly into Isabel's ear. "Honey, sulfur ..."

  * * *

  Jonah wanted to start working together way back at the Globe, Dan thought at his sister. What he says he wanted--it's pretty much what the Madrigals want.

  Well, he had a funny way of showing it, Amy seemed to be thinking back to him. And he's not exactly the best partner for staging a rebellion right now, not with two broken legs.

  What about Hamilton? Dan thought. The three of us together...

  But Hamilton was staring anxiously at the TV screen, mouthing the same words again and again: "Mom. Dad. Reagan. Madison." He wasn't even watching Isabel.

  And Amy had gone back to staring at the TV, too, looking for Nellie.

  Dan sighed. Isabel was done torturing Jonah now. She pulled Amy and Dan aside, away from the others.

  Dan didn't wait.

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  "Mace," he said. "Lily. Copper ..."

  Each word felt like a betrayal of everything they'd worked for during the entire Clue hunt. Dan wasn't just giving up ingredients. He was giving up the trust Grace had placed in them, the hopes the Madrigals had held for them, the dreams his parents had died for. He was giving up the chance to win in honor of Lester's sacrifice, Irina's sacrifice, his parents'.

  But Nellie's life was worth more than any of that.

  * * *

  "Which brother did you find hiding in my aircraft?" Sinead asked, squinting at the screen, at the rows of people tied to tombstones. "I can't quite tell...."

  "Why -- do you love one brother more than the other?" Isabel cackled. "Which cripple do you prefer?"

  "My brothers aren't crippled!" Sinead screamed, lunging toward Isabel. "Don't use that word!"

  Isabel took a step back.

  "No?" she said, unruffled. "What do you want me to call it? Ever since that explosion at the Franklin Institute, Ted's blind. Ted, who used to draw such intricate architectural and engineering designs ..."

  Across the room, Hamilton gasped.

  "Ted's not blind!" Sinead screamed. "He's--visually impaired. He can still see light and dark!"

  "Ah, yes, light and dark," Isabel murmured, shaking her head. "And Ned ... what is it he says about

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  those headaches he gets all the time now--'I can't think through the pain'? And no medication helps...."

  She clucked her tongue in a show of false sympathy. "So sad to be such a genius and not even be able to think...."

  "He's going to recover!" Sinead screamed. "And Ted's going to see again! When I get the serum--"

  "No," Isabel said, leaning close again. "No. You're not going to get the serum. It's mine. Your brothers will never be cured. The only thing you can do is tell me your clues and save your brother's life. Ned or Ted --who cares which one it is?"

  Sinead was sobbing too hard to say anything.

  Isabel lowered her finger toward the button.

  * * *

  The two Starling boys were hurt that badly? Alistair marveled as he listened to Sinead and Isabel argue. It's true? One's blind, one has disabling headaches?

  He wondered how he'd missed noticing this at the Tate museum, at Holy Trinity Church, during the handful of meals he'd shared with all three Starlings.

  Ned didn't say much. Other than that, the boys seemed virtually identical, he thought.

  And then he understood. Each boy had helped the other disguise his disability: Ned acting as Ted's eyes, Ted covering for Ned's mind-numbing pain.

  That's why they're inseparable, Alistair thought.

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  And... that's why Sinead cares so much about wh
ich brother's out there tied to the tombstone.

  Neither boy would have stowed away on Sinead's aircraft without the other.

  So if one boy was tied up in the cemetery, another boy had managed to hide when Isabel showed up. So he was somewhere else on the island, perhaps even now climbing through the gauntlet to rescue Sinead.

  Maybe it's Ned, and he won't be having a headache, Alistair thought. He's a genius. He'll know what to do when he gets down here.

  Alistair realized that meant they still had a chance.

  If he could stall Isabel long enough.

  He saw that she still had her finger poised over the button, ready to kill one of Sinead's brothers.

  "Leave Sinead alone!" Alistair screamed. "She doesn't know any clues but zinc, which she stole from Bae Oh. You've got everyone's clues but mine! And you're never going to get mine!"

  "No?" Isabel asked.

  "Of course not," Alistair said. He was surprised at how hard he had to work to keep his voice steady. "There's no one out there in the cemetery for me to save. Even if you brought in Bae Oh, I'd say, 'Let him die!' Especially if you brought in Bae Oh! There's nobody I love! Nobody who loves me!"

  His voice cracked at the end.

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  "Not out in that cemetery," Isabel agreed. "But..." She lowered her remote and redirected her gun. "In here ... should I threaten to kill Amy or Dan or Sinead? Or all three of them?"

  The way she was waving the gun at all the children made Alistair's heart pound.

  Isabel's a Lucian, Alistair thought. She sees things other people don't--things she can manipulate to give her power.

  Could she possibly have seen something about Alistair that he hadn't seen about himself?

  His heart sped up even faster; it felt as though it planned to break out. Or just plain break.

  But--the clues, Alistair thought longingly. I've devoted my whole life to gathering them. They're all I've ever wanted. All I've ever valued.

  He was lying to himself. He'd been deceiving himself since the Clue hunt began. Because when he imagined a bullet ripping through Amy or Dan or Sinead --or even Jonah or Hamilton, Ian or Natalie -- the Clues' value faded away. If he could, he might even trade a Clue to heal the bullet wound in Natalie's foot, the shattered bones in Jonah's body.

  And if there were some way to bring Hope and Arthur back? What clue wouldn't be worth that?

  He saw he faced a choice, just as he had all those years ago, the night Hope and Arthur died. The difference was, this time he could see the consequences.

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  Isabel inched her finger closer to the trigger.

  She plans to kill us all anyhow, Alistair told himself, and his own brain screamed back at him, But for now there's still time! There's still a chance!

  "Silver," Alistair blurted. "Phosphorus. Water ..."

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  CHAPTER 40

  Isabel had mixed the serum. She'd found the ingredients the Madrigals knew about in the lab, hidden among dozens of decoy ingredients; she'd blackmailed the members of the other branches into giving up ingredients from their backpacks and pockets and -- in Alistair's case --cane.

  The others came prepared, Amy thought dejectedly. Dan and I were never going to win.

  Now Isabel stood in the center of the lab, the huge vial clutched in her hand. She tightened a stopper in the top and shook it one last time.

  When Isabel takes the stopper out, Amy thought, she'll have to look away for a moment. Maybe she'll even put down the remote control or the gun. That's when we should attack her, all of us together.

  But Amy had no way of signaling the others. She had no way of telling them her plan, not while Isabel was watching everyone so closely.

  And Amy couldn't do anything against Isabel all by herself.

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  Isabel's going to drink the serum, Amy thought. Isabel is going to become the most powerful person in the world.

  Amy and Dan had failed completely.

  Isabel held the vial high in the air, examining the liquid inside.

  "I have been waiting for this moment my entire life," she murmured.

  "Mum, don't drink that," Natalie burst out from her position huddled on the floor. "Please! It's bad for you."

  "What?" Isabel exploded, lowering the vial only slightly. "Are you an even bigger fool than I thought?"

  "You drank the Lucian serum and it just made you mean," Natalie said. "Mean to everyone, even me and Ian. And it made you kill Irina, and you didn't care--"

  "I didn't drink the Lucian serum until after I killed Irina," Isabel said. "I've always been mean. The Lucian serum just showed me how to do it effectively--how to win. It's why I'm holding the full Cahill serum right now."

  She gazed into the depths of the serum, her eyes triumphant.

  She already drank the Lucian serum? Amy thought despairingly. The partial serum I found in Paris? Then... she already knows everything there is to know about strategies and plotting and planning. We could never outsmart her. There's no hope.

  "And to think I once intended to share this with my worthless children ..." Isabel muttered.

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  Natalie winced, but Ian only stood there stoically, glaring at his mother.

  Isabel grasped the stopper in the top, preparing to pull it off. But she did this one-handed, using her other hand to keep the gun trained on all the others.

  Out of the corner of her eye, Amy caught a glimpse of movement in the wreckage of the previous ruined lab. Was it just a scrap of paper --some trash blowing in the breeze?

  There isn't a breeze, Amy thought.

  She had to fight so hard not to crane her neck, not to turn her head --not to do anything to draw Isabel's attention to the movement.

  It must be someone coming to rescue us! Amy thought jubilantly, though she had to keep all traces of hope off her face. Whoever it is, they'll have to advance stealthily-- maybe they can tackle Isabel from behind and she'll never see them coming.

  A crash sounded in the wreckage.

  Now Amy had to look. She saw Ned Starling, doubled over beside a fallen rack of test tubes. He clutched his head and moaned.

  And then Amy saw Isabel whirl toward him. Isabel whipped her gun into position, aiming carefully, aiming directly at Ned's heart.

  Amy saw that Isabel had only been toying with them before, pretending. This was serious. This was real. This was going to happen.

  Amy launched herself toward Isabel.

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  It didn't matter that Amy had no time to plan. It didn't matter that she couldn't defeat Isabel alone. It didn't even matter that she barely knew Ned Starling.

  All that mattered was that Amy couldn't stand by while Isabel killed again.

  This is how I honor my parents and Irina and Lester, Amy thought, running hard. Even if I die, too ...

  And then Amy realized she wasn't alone.

  Beside her, Dan was lunging for Isabel, too. So were Sinead and Hamilton and Alistair and Ian and even Jonah and Natalie, though they struggled and gasped in pain. Just as four branches of Cahills had once united with Isabel, five branches now united against her. The group moved almost as one, everyone roaring, "No! Don't!"

  Several of them slammed into Isabel at once. They knocked her down, jarring the gun and the remote and the vial from her grip. The gun went off, but the bullet zinged harmlessly into the darkness.

  "We did it!" Amy screamed.

  But then it was just Amy and Dan and Sinead holding Isabel down. The others were racing away, following the rolling vial.

  Ian got to it first.

  "This --must--be --destroyed!" he screamed, raising the vial of serum high over his head. "Before it causes even more evil!"

  He started to smash it down toward the floor, but

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  Alistair and Hamilton grabbed his arms and reached for the vial themselves.

  And then Sinead scrambled up, lurching toward the vial and screaming, "No! My brothers need that!"


  Now it was just Amy and Dan holding down Isabel. She effortlessly shook off their grip and raised herself into a crouch. She reached for the gun and the remote.

  "That's my serum!" Isabel raged.

  She had the gun in her hands and was aiming it at everyone fighting over the vial.

  "I'll kill all of you!" she threatened.

  But everybody was screaming too loudly to hear. Hamilton knocked the vial out of Ian's grasp. It slipped through one hand after another, each person yanking it away from the last. Then the vial slid down to the ground and began to roll.

  Now Isabel was reaching for it.

  We can't stop her, Amy thought as she struggled to pull back Isabel's arm. It's just Dan and me against the most evil woman in the world.

  No. That wasn't the right way to think about it. It was Dan and Amy against just Isabel -- two against one.

  Dan swung his fist at Isabel's face -- a puny fist, yes, but enough to distract her. Isabel slammed the butt of her gun into Dan's stomach.

  Dan bent over in what looked like agonizing pain.

  With one hand, Amy tried to pull Isabel away from Dan. With her other hand, she felt around on the floor

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  for something -- anything -- to defend her brother. Her hands grasped something round: the vial.

  Amy raised it high and slammed it down as hard as she could on Isabel's head.

  "Stop hurting Dan!" she screamed. "Don't hurt anyone in my family again!"

  The thick vial shattered. Broken glass and serum streamed down Isabel's hair, her neck, her back.

  And then Isabel fell forward, slumping harmlessly to the ground.

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