He can’t even think of a good metaphor. He’s that dumb.

Burnsy would laugh at him right now. Marvel at his pain.

Wait. Burnsy. What was it Burnsy said? Not to drop it. Don’t drop it, for Chrissakes. That’s what he said. Why? What happens if one were to drop it?

Mookie clutches the phial to his chest.

The shelves against the door rattle. Books tumble. Splinters fly.

The Boss is almost through.

Mookie bellows, then pitches the glass against the floor. The phial shatters with a pop. The golden fluid spreads quickly, almost as if alive – oozing, shimmering, pseudopods of fluid crawling outward. He hears a sizzle. Smoke rises from the hardwood.

A flash of bright bronze light–

Where the puddle of Ochre was, now there’s nothing: just a hole, a pit, a yawning abyss rimmed with the oozing remnants of the glittering sap.

Fear stares up through that hole. And yet, what choice do they have?

Mookie knows he has to move fast. Panic is unspooling in the chambers of his heart like a clot of cankerpedes. He pulls away from the bookshelf. Launches himself across the gap to Nora. Swoops her up in his good arm. The bookshelf shatters inward – books and splinters everywhere. The Boss-thing stands in the gap, broken leech mouth clicking and chittering–

The cleaver is at his feet. Mookie kicks it to the hole – it tumbles in.

The Boss springs toward him.

Mookie feints right, moves left–

He leaps into the hole as Zoladski sails past.

Darkness.

A shimmer above.

A pop.

Chapter 26

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