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  Chapter Thirty

  For the first time in my life, I prayed that I would die.

  As the Hunter, death was like my ky coworker. He was there on every mission, and he didn’t particurly care whose soul he walked away with — the maiam’s, or mine. I didn’t want to die, but I’d accepted the risks the day McGus first handed Sptsy to me. The way she’d felt in my twelve year old hand…the power that I had sensed inside her…nothing in the world had ever mattered more to me than g that power as my own.

  But as the dimensions whirled around me, carrying me and my unwele brai baauldibamm, suddenly the only thing in the world I wanted was to drop dead. A heart attack would have been lovely, or a fast-ag incurable disease. Or maybe Legion could miscalcute with Escher Cube, us onto the New Jersey Turnpike, and we’d get creamed by a semi-truck. I didn’t care how it happened, I didn’t care how much it hurt, all that mattered was that Legion never get its hands ohan.

  But the horrible reality of my situation refused to be ignored. Legion was on its way to Ethan right now. There was nothing I could do to stop it. And the worst part was that I was the one doing Legion’s dirty work. I tried not to imagihe look ihan’s eyes when I betrayed him like this.

  The st row of cubes snapped into pce, and McGus’ training room materialized around me. Aesop was absentmindedly kig a mannequin’s head onto the pile, while Jade ahan scrubbed halfheartedly at the wall. I immediately tried to scream a warning to them. Maybe if I caught Legion by surprise, it wouldn’t be able to stop me.

  No luck. My mouth stayed silent, but my eyes locked ohan. Without a word, I crossed the room toward him. My heart began to beat harder, but I wasn’t sure if that was because of my fear ioement. Legion ractically burning with glee. Revenge was within its grasp. All it had to do was reach out and take it. So I did. I raised my hand, fingers itg with the o themselves arouhan’s thick brown hair, and…

  “Not even gonna say hello, girl?”

  I froze, my hand a mere inch from Ethan’s head, and turo see McGus watg me from his metal chair. His eyes, as sharp and keen as ever, seemed to pierce straight through me. For a sed, I felt a twinge of hope that he actually could see Legion inside of me somehow. If anyone could stop the psycho in my skull, it was him. Even Legio a twinge of when it saw the look McGus was giving me.

  “Thirty mio kill one maiam?” the old Green said without standing up. “Yetting sloppy.”

  “Sorry,” Legion said. Hearing him speak with my voice would have sent shivers down my spine if I’d been able to move at all. “I rushed in without thinking and was caught off guard.”

  McGus raised his eyebrows in surprise. When was the st time I’d apologized to him so willingly? Maybe that would be what tipped him off. But even if he figured out that something was wrong, would he immediately jump to the clusion that I was being possessed by an evil interdimensional Braiein monster?

  “Uh, hey there, Henry,” Ethan said in fusion. He’d finally turned around to see my hand h half an inch from his face. “You, uh, feeling okay?”

  “Yes,” I said, my calm voice the exact opposite of the panicked screams that were eg in my head.

  ETHAN, RUN! THAT’S NOT ME! IT ISN’T ME!

  I threw myself against Legion as hard as I could, but it was like being crammed in a phone booth with Ichabod — absolutely no room to move, and so hopelessly outmuscled that I couldn’t even squirm.

  Jade stepped up beside Ethan, looking at me with her head cocked. “Are you sure you’re okay? You’re ag kind of weird.”

  THAT’S BECAUSE I’M NOT ME, DANGIT!

  “Henry? Weird?” Aesop quipped, ing to stand ohan’s other side. “You realize that’s her factory setting, right?”

  Oh my God, Aesop, if you don’t shut up, I’m going to shove every gold you own up your—

  “Yeah,” Jade agreed, “but right now she looks like she wants to rip Ethan’s nose off his face.”

  I looked from her to Aesop, with McGus’ eyes still burning a hole in the bay skull, and lowered my hand. Inside my head, I breathed an imaginary sigh of relief. Legion didn’t want a fight. It could easily take out my friends, maybe even McGus, but in doing so it would give itself away. Better to grab Ethan and escape without causing a se.

  “Henry, you stop givihat bnk stare?” Ethan pined. “You’re creepi.”

  “e on,” I said, turning to face the door, “let’s go home.”

  “Home?” Ethan echoed. “What about lunch?”

  Aesop moved in front of me, arms folded. “Yeah, what gives? You ’t just bail on us like that!”

  “You’re the one who’s been going on about how great this pce is,” Jade agreed. “We had to make these reservations more than a month in advance!”

  Legion eyed my friends, weighing the pros and s of tearing their heads off.

  Leave them alone, I begged. They have nothing to do with this!

  To my surprise, Legion actually seemed to listen.

  “I don’t feel good,” it made me say. “I think I might be sick.”

  Jade and Aesop shared a look. “What’s—”

  “I o go home. And that means I have t Ethan with me.”

  I reached bad grabbed Ethan by the arm, my grip so tight that he winced a little, and began to tow him toward the door.

  No, you idiots! I screamed inside my head. Don’t just stand there! Stop me!

  “Okay, I guess,” Jade said relutly. “Hope you feel better, Henry. Ahan…” She paused and cleared her throat. “Call me tonight, okay?”

  I passed the pile of broken mannequins, with nothiween me and the exit.

  “This is bull,” Aesop pined. “They’re still gonna charge us for four people, Henry!”

  Please, please, please, I prayed to whatever was listening, don’t let this happen!

  I could hear Legion thinking. Once we were out of McGus’ house, it would pull Ethan into an alleyway, whip out the Cube, and us both back to its ir. There I would put another amulet ohan, adding him to Legion’s colle of puppets.

  Ethan, with his hand still in my grasp, leaned forward to whisper to me, “Henry, what’s wrong? Something happened out there, didn’t it? Tell me what’s going on!”

  Legion looked at him from the er of my eye. “I’ll tell you whe outside.”

  He he trust in his eyes breaking my heart.

  NOOOOOO!

  We reached the door — and McGus smmed it shut in front of me. Legion froze, one hand moving toward Sptsy, but thankfully not drawing her. Or maybe not so thankfully, sihat would have been a major tip off.

  The old Green towered over me, a scowl on his scarred face. “You’re fetting something.”

  I blinked. “What am I fetting?”

  “My Cube, girl.” He poi the box-shaped lump in my pocket. “Did you really think I was gon you walk out of here with that?”

  That made Legion pause. The Escher Cube was its ticket to a quick escape. Without that, it would have to find an IW that ran all the way back to its ir without raising any suspi from Ethan.

  e on, I urged it. Take a swing at him!

  Instead, Legion made me reach down, pull out the Cube, and hold it out for him. McGus snatched it out of my hand. “Good. Now finish ing this pce up!”

  Legion ched my fist in frustration and gnced back at the mess Ethan had made. Only half the scorch mark had been scrubbed off, and tons of mannequin pieces still littered the floor.

  “I’m sick,” I said again. “I o go home.”

  McGus leaned in so that we were eye to eye and whispered, “The Hunter doesn’t take days off because her tummy hurts. I know you zy Blues are always trying to get out of work, but as long as you’re my apprentice you’ll do what I say!”

  If I’d had a jaw right then, it would have hit the floor with a funny cash register sound.

  What…the toothpaste fvored birthday cake…did you just say to me, old man?

  Legion pted the situation. No Cube, no quick escape. It sighed in frustration — a sound that almost perfectly matched my own — and turard the mess. Twenty mio up, tops, and then—

  Ethan’s eyes widened half a sed before one of McGus’ hammers smmed into the bay head.

  Pain fshed through my skull, and the force of the blow sent me flying bato the ter of the training room. I hit the ground and rolled to a stop.

  “What are you doing?” Ethan’s voice cut through the ringing in my head.

  Mother…refrigerating…ouch. Over the past three years of training with McGus, he’d never o me like that. Grouchy as he could be, he hadn’t wao actually hurt me. I should have been happy. A hit like that told me he meant business. But still…o!

  My eyes opened. Ign the pain and the ing way my head inning, I picked myself up off the floor. My skull had just been cracked like an egg, my brain had been rattled like a peanut in its shell. Not Legion’s. It didn’t matter how much abuse I took, Legion wouldn’t feel any of it.

  McGus stood oher side of the room, a dab of blue blood oip of his hammer. Ethan made to run to me, but McGus thrust his arm out to stop him. Aesop and Jade stood in the er with horrified looks on their faces, too stuo move.

  “I don’t know what’s going on,” McGus said, making his way toward me, “but there are two things I do know.”

  Legion pulled Sptsy from my belt, extendio full size.

  “One is that my apprentice would never apologize to me for anything.”

  He drew his sed hammer, twirling them like pistols in a y western.

  “And the other,” he narrowed his eyes, “is that Henry Rider would die before letting me insult her color.”

  Everythi silent. McGus and I faced off against each other, one Hunter vs another, while Aesop and Jade scurried over to the door where Ethan still stood.

  “Who are you?” McGus finally asked. “And what have you doh Henry?”

  Slowly, a grin spread ay face. “Henry Rider is right here in front of you. But we’re afraid she ’t e to the phht now.”

  Don’t worry about me! I tried to yell. Kick his…my…just kick our butts!

  “We’ve already expihe situation to Henry Rider,” I said. “She was gracious enough to lend us her body. But we’re afraid we don’t have time to go over it again.”

  McGus’ grip tightened around his hammers. “Let…my apprentice…go!”

  Legion paused. “Is she really that important to you?”

  McGus gave a curt nod.

  “Then we propose a trade.” My eyes slid to where Ethan was standing. “Henry Rider in exge for—”

  McGus must have thought Legion was distracted, because he threw himself at me with anger bzing in his eyes. Both of his hammers hurtled toward me almost faster than my eye could see. For a split sed, I thought I was going to die. But then I dodged, weaviween his attacks like a lightspeed ballerina. It happened so quick my brain wasn’t even able to process what had happened.

  But Legion could. Legion was twelve brains i could think at speeds that made superputers look slow.

  “Get Ethan to the Grand Lark!” McGus roared without taking his eyes off me. “Tell them what’s happening!”

  Legion watched with a smirk as my friends flung open the door, esg into Mauldibamm.

  “That,” I said, “was a wasted effort. We’ll find him eventually. You ’t stop us.”

  “Just tell me ohing. Henry,” McGus looked into my eyes, “ she hear me?”

  Legioated, then nodded. More emotion than I’d ever seen welled up in the old Green’s eyes.

  “I ’t let Ethan’s power fall into the wrong hands,” he whispered. “I’m sorry.”

  If I could have gasped, I would have. Did…Did that mean he was going to…

  He attacked.