“Where are we going?” asked Lief.

“We’ll know when we get there.” The truth was, Nick had no idea. Courage and spontaneity were new to him. It hadn’t occurred to him until after he had run from the Ugloids that perhaps he had confused courage with stupidity. He should have had a plan for escape—after all this was a ship, and there were a limited number of places they could go. But now he was committed, so he kept on running, turning down corridors and climbing through hatches hoping he wouldn’t take a wrong turn, which, of course, he eventually did.

With the Ugloids gaining on them, Nick pushed open a hatch, and found that it opened onto one of the ship’s holds—a cavernous space thirty-feet deep, forty-feet long, and smelling horribly of rotten eggs. There was a steep iron stairway winding down into it, but he had come through the hatch with such speed that he and Lief missed the stairway completely, flipped over the railing and dropped into the depths of the hold.

The fall would have killed them, had they been alive, but things being what they were, it was merely a nuisance. They crashed loudly into furniture and picture frames and statues, and when they managed to get their bearings, they found themselves in the middle of the McGill’s grand treasure trove. It looked more like a dragon’s hoard than anything else. Shiny things like chandeliers, thrown together with chests of drawers, and automobile axles—like several moving trucks had just dumped the contents of a city-wide garage sale here, and left. Mary would know what to do with all of this, Nick thought. She would organize it, distribute it, put it to good use. Clearly the McGill had no purpose beyond hoarding it—as evidenced by the fact that everything was painted with the words PROPERTY OF THE MCGILL. His purpose was greed, nothing more. Nick could imagine the McGill capturing Finders and taking everything they had. Maybe he even forced the Finders to work for him, collecting items that had crossed over, just so the McGill could store them here.

By the time Nick and Lief had made their way through the treasure trove to the nearest hatch, Pinhead was there, with plenty of associates to back him up.

“Hi,” said Lief, all sunshine and joy, “did you miss us?”

Pinhead took Lief’s weirdness as sarcasm, and tossed Lief aside. Then he grabbed Nick and pushed him against the wall. “The McGill wants to know how you can be useful to him.”

“We’re nobody’s slaves,” Nick said.

Pinhead nodded. “I knew you’d be too defiant to be of any use.”

“Does that mean I can go back into my barrel now?” asked Lief. Pinhead ignored him.

“Chime them!” Pinhead ordered. “Chime them along with all the other useless ones.” Then the crew came forward, grabbing them, forcing them through the hatch and down a narrow dim hallway toward another hatch labeled CHIMING CHAMBUR with sloppy childlike paint strokes. Nick struggled against them, but it was no use—and although his first instinct was to try to talk his way out of this, he wasn’t going to give Pinhead the satisfaction of seeing him plead.