“Thank God you’re okay, Ange,” I said, my throat tight. “Did they hurt you?”

“I’ll tell you later,” said Angel. “Time is running out. Gazzy and I came down here to check out some stuff we overheard at the DG headquarters and—”

“Max,” Gazzy broke in, practically vibrating with excitement. “Have you ever seen so many explosives?”

“No,” I said. “Not even close.”

“I guess this is the big fireworks display they were talking about,” Dylan said.

Suddenly a new voice spoke out of the darkness. “I bet you’re right.”

The four of us spun around. We assumed battle positions even as my brain realized that it was Fang, that he must have followed us, and that fighting in a room full of plastic explosives was probably not a good idea.

“Where did you come from?” I asked, rattled.

“I saw you go down,” said Fang. “I came to help.” My sense of pride flared up, then quickly faded. The days when I preferred to fight the bad guys with one wing tied behind my back were gone. The more help, the better.

“Could I maybe… just keep ten chunks?” Gazzy asked wistfully. “Small ones?”

“No,” Dylan, Fang, and I all said in unison.

“Okay, I’m seeing a lot of plastique, and it’s wired to a detonator,” I said. C-4 by itself is actually pretty stable. It needs something to ignite it before it will explode. “But what’s in these big metal tanks?”

“It’s marked VX—gaz toxique,” Angel said.

“Is that a cute French way of saying we’re surrounded by a completely lethal gaseous nerve agent?” I asked.

Angel nodded unhappily.

Perfect. A quick glance around showed almost as much poison gas as explosives. “When the C-4 detonates, the VX will be released too,” Dylan realized.

“All those people above us,” I said, the full horror slowly sinking in.

“These sewer pipes go all over,” said Gazzy. “Some of them go out into the ocean, and some go into Belgium and Germany. They’re really old, and they all seem connected. They’ll carry the poison pretty far away, and it’ll seep up through drainage grates.”

“Is there any way to dismantle the timers?” Fang asked.

“They’re complicated,” Gazzy said, “but I’ve seen them before. I wish Iggy were here.”

“We can grab him,” I said, but Fang shook his head.

“When I left him, he and Nudge were circling back with Maya to find the gang. We’ll never reach them in time.”

“What does that timer say?” I asked.

Gazzy looked. “Seven minutes.”

“Is that enough time for you to kill it?” Fang asked.

“I think so,” Gazzy said. He traced a set of colored wires from one timer to the next. “I can probably do it in about five minutes. I’ve always wanted to work on one of these.”