But we are not enough. We’re nowhere near enough, I realize now. We are an army that has everything to lose. I think about what Hel said and suddenly I know what to do. I take the watch on my wrist, my father’s watch, and I pull out the timer. That’s like sounding an alarm, right? Isn’t that what Hel said?
At first nothing happens.
My dad wouldn’t let me down. And this had to be what he meant. I double-check to make sure I’ve pulled out the timer. I did. I press it back in again. Isn’t that how the alarm works?
“Come on,” I beg. “Come on …”
My lungs deflate, but then they come. They come through the crazy soundproof walls in waves, old and young, whole-looking and some with their bodies a bit worse for the wear. They glow with the transparency of the dead, not quite cartoon ghosts, but definitely not normal and solid. They do not carry weapons, but my heart beats a bit harder seeing them, as more and more appear—an army of spirits, an army that has nothing to lose.
They stand there, humans, pixies, animals that must be shifters. They stand there and wait. Some of the Bedford people stop fighting—and some pixies too—mouths open, stunned by the dead.
The dead stare at me.
“Fight,” I order them. “Please, I beg of you. Fight for us.”
And they do.
With fists and claws and teeth, with elbows and feet, they battle, surrounding the evil pixies and pulling them to the floor, engaging them with mouths and knees. I turn back to the trapdoor that Frank pulled Nick and Astley through.
There’s got to be a way to open it, but there’s nothing obvious—no hook, nothing to pull, just the floorboards that are part of the stage. How did he open it? Magic? No, it’s part of the theater, the human theater, so there’s got to be a way that’s mechanical, and it wouldn’t be here on the stage, it would be on the control panel.
I rush to stage left and then the wing where all the levers and buttons are. Most are labeled, but there’s one green button, way off to the side. I push it. The lights in the theater go off. It’s complete blackness.
“Crud!”
I push it again. The lights fizzle and come on again. Resisting the urge to check on Cassidy and Issie, to assess the battle, I keep looking for the trapdoor mechanism. My fingers run underneath the table next to the control board and find a lever. I flip it down. The stage door opens. I rush back on stage and a pixie smashes me to the hard, wooden floor. I don’t know where he came from, but it doesn’t matter. His hands smash into my shoulders, holding me down. He’s got a knee on my belly and I’m scrambling to find the pixie mace that’s in my pocket.
He’s a dark shade of blue and he laughs, moves his hand to grab mine.
“Nyuh-nyuh-nyuh,” he scolds.
“What are you, one of the Three Stooges?”
He cocks his head. “Who is that?”
“Classic comedians,” comes a voice from behind him, and the pixie is wrenched off of me. “That’s sad you don’t know that. What are we teaching our pixies these days?”
I blink hard and scramble backward. My savior cracks the pixie’s neck in a quick movement, killing him, and then he tosses him to a bear, a glowing, luminous dead bear who quickly rips him in half, which is beyond disgusting but effective.
“Hello, daughter.” The ghost offers me a hand.
“Hello, pixie father.” I take his hand and let him heave me up. It’s cold, but solid. He’s here, my biological father, the pixie king is here. “Thank you for the rescue.”
He shrugs and runs his free hand through his dark hair. “What are dead fathers for?”
“Hugging?” I suggest, and it’s true. I really do want to hug him. I never in a million years imagined that. We pull each other close and he sighs. And it’s then that I know what he wants, what he needs for him to leave Hel and to go to whatever is next. But as I start to say it, he puts a finger on my lips.
“Let me help you here first,” he says. His eyes flame with purpose. “Okay?”
The bear joins us as we stride over to the trapdoor. My father guards one side of me. The bear protects the other, and I know she must be Mrs. Nix. Her fur is scorched in places, scarred in others.
I place a hand on her back, touch the bristly fur, and say loudly enough to be heard over the battle, “I am so sorry. So sorry you died, that it was a trap, that it was my fault. I am so, so sorry.”
She swings her head to look at me. Huge brown eyes meet my own gaze and she winks. Then she bumps me with her front shoulder. She is so good and so kind, even in death, even in battle.
“Betty!” I call out, hoping she’s nearby.
I want Betty to see her, so I scream my grandmother’s name as we move.
It takes us maybe five seconds more to get to the door. Just then the air explodes. My body’s thrown across the stage and my head spins into some crazy half-conscious place for a second. Part of the curtain falls on top of me and Paul’s body slams down in front of me. “Paul!”
I scramble through the curtain to get to him. His eyes are glazed. His mouth is trapped in a forever grimace. Horror closes my throat as I try to see through the smoke, try not to dwell on poor Paul, try to keep fighting, keep thinking, keep going on. The explosion came from the front of the theater. A gaping hole to the outside is there now. Smoke mixes with snow. Still, even though it should be silent, the battle wages on. People cry and scream and attack. The cold rushes inside. The wind swirls programs into the stinking air.
At the center of the stage, a bruised and blood-stained tiger brushes her nose across a giant bear’s muzzle. The bear lowers her head even more and nudges the tiger’s shoulder.
My father grabs me by the arm. “Come on.”
We scurry back to the trapdoor and look down. Below us are pixies, at least a dozen. They snarl, waiting for us to attempt to get down there too. Austin is crumpled on the ground, bitten and dead. They step on him like he’s a piece of dust. Austin …
“There’s too many,” I say. “They’ll tear us apart.”
“We are ghosts.” My father stands there, obviously ready to jump. He nods at Mrs. Nix. “We have nothing to lose and everything to gain by helping you.”
Mrs. Nix rolls her eyes and plunges into the pit, snarling. She stands on her hind legs and roars. My father jumps down behind her and yells, “Give us a second.”