The Carnival of Lost Souls : A Handcuff Kid Novel (29 page)

Jabber raced over to Boxer’s side and tried to wrestle the ax out of his hand. “Give it to me. He still has a chance to live. We can save him.”

“Look at him! It’s too late.”

“It’s not too late. Give me the ax.”

“This is your fault. You waited on purpose. You wanted him dead. Loyal to the Amazing Mussini to the end.” Boxer glared at Jabber and then spun toward the
audience. Looking out into the crowd, he locked eyes with Mussini. He pointed the ax. “I hope you’re happy now. Jack’s dead because of you and your show.” Boxer lifted the heavy ax and hurled it over the masks of the audience and right at Mussini. The heavy blade struck a pillar above Mussini’s head, but he didn’t even flinch, and then he rose slowly to his feet.

Jabber pushed Boxer toward the curtain. “Get off the stage now.”

Runt rushed up to the tank and pressed his face to the glass, staring into Jack’s lifeless eyes. “My new brother is dead!”

Trying to salvage the show and soak in the moment, Jabber returned to the tank and the audience. “Ladies and gentlemen, have no fear. Jack will be fine. The show will go on.” He motioned to the tank. “Stand back, Runt.”

“Hurry, Jabber! We need to get him out of the tank.”

“Since the strongest kid alive has taken a break, may I have a volunteer from the audience?”

The audience hummed with whispers and gasps. No one moved; no one volunteered. Mussini scratched his chin and narrowed his eyes.

“He looks awfully dead.” Runt inspected Jack’s face through the glass.

Jabber sighed. “Well, if no one wants to help, I guess I will have to empty the tank myself.” Jabber walked back to the tank and pulled the drain plug. Water gushed from
the drainage hole, which had been positioned to face the audience. Gallons of icy water poured out of a drain, gushing over the edge of the stage and into the crowd. Screams rose up from the struggling masses as they tried to get away from the water. Panic spread through the shoving and clawing crowd. Masks and feathers flew from shredded costumes up into the air. The dead ran for the aisles, charging the doors.

Mussini tried to push his way past the fleeing crowds to the front of the stage. “I want to see the boy! Get him out of the tank, Jabber. Bring him to me.”

The Death Wrangler thrust his weight forward to block the crowd, but he was trampled in a stampede of terrified audience members. Finally, the creature shoved the dead aside like dried corn husks and barreled toward the stage. Mussini followed in his wake.

If Jack had learned one thing in the Forest of the Dead, it was that death was all about perspective. Magic was all about tricking the eye. Jack knew the trick was too hard for him and that if he attempted to do it, Mussini’s plan of killing him would definitely work. So he and Jabber decided it was best to give Mussini what he wanted, and let Jack die in the tank.

Or so everyone
thought
.

When Boxer raised Jack above the stage, he was momentarily hidden by the curtain. That’s when the
switch was made, and Skimmer was lowered into the tank in his place, though he charged Jabber extra for submerging him in water. Seeing as Skimmer was already dead, it didn’t matter how long he was under, and Jabber took his sweet time building suspense. Once the trick began, Jack climbed down the side of the curtain and waited backstage for his dead alter ego to be revealed. Mussini wasn’t dumb. He would soon discover that he had been duped, but in the minutes meantime, they would make their getaway.

“Mussini never saw it coming,” Jack marveled as he watched the magician react to seeing
Jack
dead in the tank. “He never expected me to fail. He thought I could do it.”

“He may have wanted you to die, but he’s a great magician, and he wants you to be one too. And succeeding at the torture cell would have made you one,” Violet said.

“But I failed by not even trying to do the trick.”

“And your utter failure just saved your life,” Violet reminded him.

“No one was expecting it,” Boxer said, rushing backstage. “Jabber’s a genius.”

“The dead hate water.” Violet wrung her hands and turned away from the screaming masses, now drenched. “They’re going wild to get out of the theater.”

Jack looked up at Boxer and smiled in relief. “Nice
throwing. See how Mussini likes having a knife thrown at him.”

“That was a big knife,” Violet said. “Very theatrical.”

“I hate to break this up, but we’ve got to go,” T-Ray said. “Mussini will be after us. We can’t wait any longer.”

“One second.” Peering through the curtain, Jack saw a frantic maze of masks and spotted the Amazing Mussini trying to shove his way through. A dark rage twisted up Mussini’s face—his skin turned scarlet red. Mussini reached for his belt—for the knives—and in a second a blade sliced though the air, barely missing Jabber as the knife bounced off the glass of the tank.
He knows
! Mussini crashed into an audience member who had foolishly headed right for him.

“Get them! Get out of my way!” Mussini bellowed and pointed toward the stage. “Don’t let those kids escape!”

The kids rushed behind the theater to where the horses were waiting, packed with gear. Jack turned to say good-bye to violet. She brushed his hair out of his face. Jack had to leave her. It was his only choice. Was this how his mother and father felt? Was it possible to love someone so much and still have to leave her?

Violet’s hands were cold in his hands. Her violet eyes were like nothing he had ever seen. He threaded his fingers through hers; it felt like running his fingers through feathery snow. Violet was staying in the forest,
and so were Jabber and Runt, but this was not the fate of the others. It was time to ride.

“Thanks, Violet. For everything,” Jack said. “We couldn’t have done it without your help.” Jack’s heart ached. He never could have saved her. “Tell Jabber thanks, too.” He wondered if Jabber would end up like Mussini one day, rotting and twisted, caught in the choke hold between life and death. He hoped not—maybe he’d move on to the river one day like he should.

“I will. But please go. Hurry. Mussini will make a last-ditch effort to stop you. Remember, he’s a magician. He’ll try and trick you. Don’t let him win.” Violet gave Jack one last look before turning to help T-Ray and Boxer mount their horses.

Jack positioned his wrist out in front of him and commanded the magic compass to appear. “The North Wall!” The mark of Mussini sprung to life, the arrow spinning on his wrist and then stopping as the North Wall appeared off to the left, directing them where to go. Jack realized in that moment as he stared down at his wrist, this was their last chance. He gave his horse a kick and they took off into the woods.

Jack held on as the horse galloped through the trees. Mussini and more Death Wranglers would be in quick pursuit, but he didn’t care. He was leaving, running away from the best family he had ever known, leaving it all behind and letting go.

A full moon hung overhead, illuminating the trees as impenetrable as prison bars. The horse ran faster and faster, dodging through the trees, toward the wall. A rush of wind blew against Jack’s face. He was so close, but he could feel the urgency of pursuit building all around him. Jack could feel Mussini gaining on him with every second.

And then, up ahead something flashed, bright and burning. The sudden brightness reminded him of his first night in the forest, when they all sat around the campfire and Mussini waved his hands over the fire and held the flame in his palm. A warm wave of air hit Jack right in the face. Flames reached up into the darkness. The North Wall was no longer just a wall. If Jack wanted to get out of the forest, he would have to walk through a wall engulfed in
fire
.

Jack never would have thought stone could burn. But sure enough, crackling, hissing pops filled the air. A fiery crust replaced the thick layers of moss and climbing ivy. The raging inferno was so high it was impossible to see over the top. And to make matters worse, the massive iron gate had been left wide open, mocking them. Flames formed a wall between the metal gap, as high as the regular wall.

Sure, anyone could leave the forest, as long as they were fire retardant or at least dead. Mussini was always one step ahead, no matter how perfect Jack’s plan. No one was leaving tonight, not if the amazing magician had anything to say about it.

“What do we do now?” T-Ray asked.

Jack shielded his eyes from the gust of heat that hit his face. “Can we jump through where the gate is open?”

Boxer dropped his pack. “I can’t see anything through the flames. It could be too deep.”

Jack jumped down from his horse and walked as close as he could to the blazing curtain that stood between him and his freedom. “It’s no use going through this way. We can’t walk through fire, and it’s too high to climb over.”

T-Ray fell to his knees. “We’re so close and yet so trapped.”

“There’s always a way out.” Ideas raced through Jack’s mind. There was no way
through
the wall, and there was no way
over
the wall, so that left only one way: the Houdini way. One of Houdini’s tricks was walking through a brick wall. He did it by going
under
it, through a trapdoor in the stage floor. Jack scanned the woods for a torch. When he found one he ran to it and searched the forest floor, desperately shoving aside leaves and dirt. After a minute his foot struck metal—he had found one of the hatches to the labyrinth.

“Look, come on.” He pulled open the hatch and started climbing down.

“I’m not going down there. The Death Wranglers will be on full alert.” T-Ray and Boxer stared down into the pit of the underworld as Jack jumped down from the ladder.

“I’ve got an idea. T-Ray, toss me the pack. How are you at digging?” Jack asked Boxer as he climbed down.

“OK, I guess.”

Jack pulled two small camping shovels out of the pack that Boxer had insisted on bringing. “This is all we’ve got. It will have to work.” He held one out to Boxer.

“What do you expect us to do with these?” T-Ray asked, joining them reluctantly in the labyrinth and taking one of the shovels.

“We’ve got to go under the wall. Start digging.”

“A tunnel!” T-Ray and Boxer both tentatively chipped away at the wall of the labyrinth with their shovels, not fully accepting the idea. “That’s a lot of digging.”

“It’s our only chance. We can take turns keeping watch above so the Death Wranglers don’t sneak up on us. The tunnel is perfect cover.”

“There’s no stone covering this section of the wall.” Boxer ran his hand over the rough dirt surface. “It might work. But it might also cave in halfway there.”

“Let’s do it.” T-Ray gouged the wall with his shovel.

Jack alternated between digging and keeping watch while T-Ray and Boxer dug out the tunnel. It was a long shot, even with all of them digging, but Jack wasn’t about to say so, especially with T-Ray so close to dying. Mussini and his Death Wranglers were searching the woods at that very moment for them, and it wouldn’t be long before they made it to the North Wall.

Jack clawed at the ground with his hands, clearing out piles of dirt. He had no idea how much time had passed when he climbed up the ladder from digging to check the woods. Through the darkness of the forest, he saw a flicker of light moving slowly and steadily toward them, a burning torch sailing through the trees. A flash of gold winked at Jack, causing him to leap up from the ladder. It looked as if a hawk were flying right at him with its sharp gold beak, a cape flapping behind it like dark wings. Mussini was on horseback, racing through the trees. Mussini didn’t need the Death Wranglers to hunt them down—he had come for them himself.

Jack looked back at his two friends, frantically digging the tunnel that would lead them under the fiery wall and back to the land of the living. If Mussini reached the wall, there was no way they would make it. Jack had to stop Mussini; he was their only hope. He yelled down to T-Ray, “I’ll be back. I promise.”

“What’s happening?” T-Ray asked, but Jack didn’t need to answer, because T-Ray’s eyes widened as he spoke. “Mussini. He found us.”

“Just keep digging! And if I’m not back soon, both you and Boxer get out of here.”

“We won’t leave you.”

“Please, T-Ray! Please just do it. I’m the one Mussini wants. Just don’t let it all be for nothing.”

“OK, but hurry. Boxer’s a fast digger.”

Boxer had already dug a five-foot tunnel, burrowing through the earth. Jack didn’t have much time. He grabbed his duffel, jumped up into the saddle of his horse, kicked her haunches, and was off, charging right toward the golden hawk. The only way to give Boxer and T-Ray more time at digging the escape tunnel was for Jack to lure the Amazing Mussini away from the gate. Jack made great bait, and he had one trick left just in case.

Jack barreled toward Mussini. He focused on the gold hawk mask. Tree limbs slapped at his arms and legs. The distance between them grew smaller. His stomach twisted, his nerves sharpened. He stayed straight, until finally swerving out of Mussini’s path at the last second.

Mussini never flinched. Jack looked over his shoulder and saw that Mussini had pulled up his horse and was coming after him. It had worked!