“Them too,” Gunner said. He closed his eyes and fell onto his face.
The unwounded groundskeepers both jumped to their feet, but Diana slid to Gunner’s body, raising her own revolver. “Down, ticks. I’m a Boone. From here, I could shoot your rat ears off. Not that I’m aiming for your ears.”
The men dropped back onto their bellies. Diana picked up one of Gunner’s pistols and tossed it to Antigone.
“Point at what you want to hit and keep them down.”
Shaking, the warm gun heavy in her hands, Antigone aimed at the men, and then at the two white-faced cooks. Diana ducked into the dining hall.
“Jax!” Her voice was still loud through the door. Gunfire was louder. She ducked back through. “Keep pointing, Tigs. Jax is fine, and he’s coming this way.”
The grate rattled off of the heat tunnel in the wall behind her, and she spun around.
Nolan stepped into the kitchen and looked up at two gun barrels pointed right at him.
The dining hall door burst open and Jax jumped through, red-faced and bleeding. “Jaculus venom!” he yelled. “My vipers! I don’t know how Sterling got it, but he did. I built an immunity a long time ago. Where is he?”
“Shoot if you like,” Nolan said. “But I was just going to ask the same thing. Where is he?” He squinted out the window. “That’s a plane. Sterling doesn’t matter. Phoenix is here.” He scrunched his face. “And if he’s here, we shouldn’t be. Where’s Greeves? I didn’t see him in the hall.” He looked around. “Where’s Cyrus?”
Antigone’s eyes widened. “Cyrus!” she yelled. “Diana, where do I go?”
Backing up, Diana picked up Gunner’s second gun and handed it to Nolan. “Get these four tied up. I still don’t trust the cooks.” Then she hurried through the room, grabbing Antigone as she went. On the far wall, behind the groundskeepers, Diana slid a bolt and jerked open a little door. Tight stairs twisted down and to the right.
Dennis had managed to worm his way across the floor until his trussed feet were on the pickle jar. But he still hadn’t spit out the pot holder.
“Did you hear it that time?” Cyrus asked. “That’s a gun. I know it is. How many rounds is that? Who do you think is shooting?”
Dennis grunted and wiggled.
“Sorry,” said Cyrus. “I know.” He looked back at the Quick Water in the onions. “Come on!” he yelled. “Tigs, I know you’re somewhere. I know you can see me. I’m surrounded by spices! Where could I be?”
The door opened. Stairs moaned.
“Hello?” Cyrus said. “Who is it? This room is occupied.”
“Cyrus!”
Diana staggered into the room, Antigone pushing from behind.
“Wow,” said Diana. “You guys are the lucky ones.” She bent down and plucked out Dennis’s gag.
The porter sputtered. “Lucky? This is lucky?”
Diana nodded.
“It’s terrible upstairs,” Antigone said, pulling on Cyrus’s straps. “Sterling’s poisoned the whole Order. Everybody. The kitchen is full of bodies.”
“You didn’t even see the dining hall,” Diana said. She stopped suddenly, forcing herself to breathe. She looked dizzy. “The Order’s gone. Everyone.” Her eyes widened and she blinked quickly. Pulling the last ropes off Dennis’s wrists, she helped him to his feet.
Cyrus stood up, and Antigone thumped into him with a hug. She was soaking wet.
Cyrus pulled free and picked up the mayonnaise jar and eyedropper, handing them to his sister. “Sterling said to put two drops under the tongue. We were the only ones in here. He was telling us what to do.”
“What to do after he poisoned everyone?” Antigone asked. “Why would he do that?”
Cyrus shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe he’s not all bad.”
His sister’s eyebrows shot up.
“Or,” said Cyrus, “maybe he is all bad, but he doesn’t want to think he is.”
“Come on,” Diana said. “Back upstairs. We’ll ask Jax.”
In the kitchen, all four of the thugs had been tied up with apron strings.
Jax had Hillary and Gunner lying on their backs, and his fingers were on the Texan’s throat.
Dennis staggered through the kitchen and dropped to his knees beside Hillary.
“His heart’s beating,” Jax said. “Slowly. Every five seconds or so. With spasms. Hillary is worse, but she’s much smaller.” He looked up at Diana and the others. “It doesn’t take much with a Jaculus Viper, and unlike normal snakes, it doesn’t need to be injected. The venom is acidic enough to get into the blood through tissue — skin, stomach lining, anything that has blood in it. It was in the food, so that gives us a little time — they’d all be dead already if it was a direct bite. But there’s too many people.” He teared up and looked away quickly. “The small ones have thirty minutes. Forty-five if they’re lucky. Maybe. I have to get to the zoo, catch a viper, cut it open, drain a gland, and get back. And that might only give me enough for five people.” The zookeeper sobbed. “I’ll have to pick. I don’t want to pick.”
“What about this?” Cyrus asked, holding out the jar. “Sterling had it.”
Swallowing, James Axelrotter took the jar, twisted off the lid, and sniffed at the contents. Surprised, he snatched the glass eyedropper out of Cyrus’s hand. Pinching a dropperful, he raised it to his mouth and dabbed it with his tongue. It hissed. The boy zookeeper flinched, and then laughed. “This is it! I don’t know how he got this much, and I don’t care.”
Jax opened Gunner’s mouth and squeezed two drops under his tongue. Then he rolled him onto his face.
“It’ll foam,” he said. “And they won’t come to for a little while. They’ll choke if we leave them on their backs. There are hundreds of people and not much time. I’ll need help.”
He turned to little Hillary Drake, and Dennis opened her mouth.
“Excuse me,” Nolan said. “But we can’t stay here, and soon enough, we won’t be able to do this at all.” He pointed at the window. “The plane has landed, Phoenix will be here any minute, and there are other thugs still around to give him a welcome.”
“Have any ideas?” Diana squinted at the dark window.
“Maybe,” said Nolan. “Almost.”
Jax and Dennis rolled Hillary onto her face, and then crawled to the next body — a busboy.
“Whatever we do,” Cyrus said, pointing at the four tied-up men, “they shouldn’t hear about it.”
“Drag them downstairs,” Antigone said. She jumped over to Jax. “Give me some,” she said. “We need more droppers. I’ll start in the dining hall.”
Cecil Rhodes sat on his couch, drumming his fingers on his knees, wiping sweat on his sleeve, and then drumming his fingers on his knees. He couldn’t stop thinking about what Maxi had done to Mrs. Eldridge in that very room. His eyes kept drifting to the bloodstain on the floor, and then up to his telephone. It was supposed to ring. Any second.
He looked across the room at the muscle who had been assigned to him. The man was working on his teeth with a fingernail.
“Did it really work?” Cecil asked. “What happened?”
The man sighed, examining his hand. “I told you already. They kicked, they screamed, they dropped down dead.”
Cecil didn’t like the man’s eyes. They were cold. And catlike. But they weren’t as bad as the gill slits on the sides of his neck. He used to wear a scarf, and Rhodes wished the man would tie it back on. Cecil knew what the man had done as an Explorer. Cecil had served as the O of B’s prosecutor at the trial.
The phone rang.
Rhodes jumped forward, nearly knocking it off the desk.
“Hello, sir. Yes, sir. It’s done. Just the boy, sir. The girl may be among the poisoned.” Rhodes covered the handset and looked up at his guard. “Sterling?”
“No sign of him.”
Cecil lifted the phone back up. It was slippery with sweat. “No, sir. We don’t know where he has gone. Would you like us to begin moving the bodies? No? I understand, sir. We will leave them for you to view.
