The bear looked down at Jerry and Lloyd. When he looked up again he took a step back, startled, and said one word: “Coop?”

“Shit,” said Coop. Then, “Sally!”

She closed her eyes for a second. Coop shot looks at the dwarfs and at Eddie. When Eddie bared his teeth in their direction, they were invisible again.

But where the hell are we supposed to go?

Steve alternated between shouting orders and slapping at the bugs climbing up his legs. The damned things were everywhere. It was difficult to get his bearings. But it hardly mattered. He’d lost control of his congregation. No discipline. Total chaos. They hopped and ran back and forth across the lobby trying to get away from the leaping vermin. He grabbed Susie and Jorge and shoved them toward the elevators, but the doors closed as they reached them, the building’s security system taking them over.

“There!” shouted Tommy. He pointed to the exit, where Lloyd and Jerry lay sprawled on the floor. At the sight of the open door, animal panic took over and all of Caleximus’s worshippers sprinted for the stairs at once, pushing a clacking wave of Jiminys before them.

For the first time, Steve noticed strange men standing in the doorway where Jerry and Lloyd had fallen. Before he could say anything, all three of the men ducked into the fire exit and disappeared. The good thing was they left the door open. The bad thing was that it let the bugs come with them down the stairs. Nothing to be done about that now, he thought. He ran with the others, not looking back.

Two floors down, Steve rethought his position on the bugs. A group of armed security guards were coming upstairs straight at them. He and his congregation stopped when they saw them. However, the bugs didn’t. At the first sight of the leaping, chittering swarm, the guards turned tail and ran back downstairs.

Let your Ravagers do their work, Caleximus.

Steve and the others followed.

Up on the ninth floor, Coop and the others were pressed against the stairway wall until the noise from below grew quiet.

“I think it’s clear,” he said.

“You let those things loose,” said Tintin.

“I was trying to save your life.”

“I’ll get over the cuts. But I’m not going to sleep for a month.”

“Me, neither,” said Sally.

“Well, I think it was pretty clever,” said Morty. “It got rid of whoever those lunatics were and it even cleared out Fast Eddie.” He looked at Coop. “Do you think he saw us?”

“I don’t know. You think it was a lucky guess when he said my name?” Coop said.

“Sorry,” Sally said. “I got frazzled when Tintin fell.”

“Let’s not worry about it now. You okay to move, Tintin?”

The big man nodded. “Let’s get out of here.”

“That’s the best idea I’ve heard tonight.”