Into the Gauntlet Read online

  It had been amazing -- and a little scary--to watch

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  the transformation in Amy and Dan over the course of the past month. Nellie tried to remember what she herself had been like at eleven or fourteen. Eleven was the summer she'd done nothing but hang out at the local swimming pool, right? And fourteen was the year she'd gotten her nose pierced.

  And ... that was the year Dan and Amy's grandmother had entered Nellie's life. Not directly--Nellie didn't meet Grace until later. But opportunities had begun falling into Nellie's lap the year she started high school. For a kung fu "scholarship." For flying lessons. For more advanced classes than she'd signed up for at school, with demanding new teachers who seemed to care way too much about a certain girl with a pierced nose and multicolored hair sitting at the back of the room.

  It had taken Nellie a long time to figure out where all those opportunities came from. But now Nellie saw that Grace had changed her life completely.

  And Grace was one of the good Cahills, Nellie thought. What could someone like Isabel Kabra do to people like me if she's in charge?

  Nellie fingered the "K" coin Dan had handed her. It had seemed just like a coin toss --random luck--that Grace had chosen Nellie to be Amy and Dan's au pair. But in Jamaica, Nellie had found out that her family had been linked to the Cahills for generations. In her own way, Nellie had been as fated to take part in the Clue hunt as Amy and Dan.

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  And, in Jamaica, Nellie had accepted that fate.

  Nellie kept fingering the "K" coin. And then she wasn't thinking about families or fate. She was thinking about the coin, which didn't exactly seem like a coin anymore. It had a thin line that went all the way around the edge. A crack maybe?

  Nellie forced her thumbnail into the crack. Under pressure, the "coin" popped open, revealing a miniature electronic network inside.

  Just then Amy whirled around in her chair.

  "I've got it!" she said. "The answer is--"

  Nellie dived toward Amy. She clapped her hand over Amy's mouth.

  "Don't say it!" Nellie commanded. "We've been"-- with the hand that wasn't on Amy's mouth, she flicked miniature wires out of the faux coin -- "bugged!"

  * * *

  In the limo a block away, Isabel Kabra leaned forward, intent on the headset piping an uncultured girl's words into her ears: "We've been --"

  Static. Nothing but static. The audio link was gone.

  So they discovered the listening device. So what? It had been overkill anyhow. Isabel had the Cahill children's lead, and she had vastly more resources than they did for figuring it out. She had vastly more of everything that mattered than they ever would.

  This was just... annoying.

  Isabel almost frowned -- no, don't do that. Remember?

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  Frown lines? There's only so much that Botox can do. Those brats aren't worth getting wrinkles.

  They really weren't worth noticing, but just in case, she mentally sorted through everything she'd heard, checking for any significance at all in those pathetic children's pathetic conversation.

  "You agreed with everything the Madrigals wanted in Jamaica"... "If we can't win the Madrigal way..." This meant they'd joined forces with the Madrigals, the shadowy ne'er-do-wells who had been the bane of Isabel's family's existence for centuries. Ah, well. In Isabel's experience, loyalties were nothing more than opportunities for betrayal.

  Isabel mentally fast-forwarded to something the boy had said: "Can you imagine letting Isabel Kabra take over the world?"

  Isabel let herself smile, even though smiles were nearly as likely to cause wrinkles as frowns.

  Yes. She could imagine that. She could imagine it perfectly: the power, the glory, the rightness of it. Isabel Kabra was superior to everyone else in the world. When she won the Clue hunt, everybody would finally see that. She would rule, and everyone on the planet would obey.

  They would obey--or they would die. Exactly as they deserved.

  Amy and Dan Cahill certainly deserved to die.

  Isabel's smile widened. She was almost grateful to those brats for managing to stay alive so long. This way,

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  she could think of even crueler ways to kill them.

  "Mummy?" Isabel's eleven-year-old daughter, Natalie, half whined from the opposing seat in the limo. "You look a little scary right now."

  Isabel realized she was still holding the disgusting monkey.

  "Here," Isabel said, thrusting the nasty creature into her daughter's lap. "You and Ian take the paper out of his mouth and figure out what it means. Justify your superior abilities and education for once in your life."

  Isabel had trained her children well --the girl cringed away from the monkey, instinctively knowing that monkey hair would look horrible on her haute couture black dress. And fourteen-year-old Ian looked nauseated at the thought of potentially exposing himself to monkey spittle. These instincts would serve Ian and Natalie well someday, if they ever became the heads of the Kabra empire --after long decades of Isabel's astute rule, of course. But right now, Isabel's children were mere underlings, and she couldn't have them failing to obey a direct order.

  "Whatever happened to, 'Yes, Mum. Whatever you say, Mum'?" Isabel demanded. "When did you stop obeying instantly?"

  Ian mumbled something Isabel couldn't quite catch.

  "What's that you say?" Isabel asked. "Speak up!"

  "W-we--" Was Ian stammering? Ian, whom she'd

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  trained to be smooth and suave, who'd known how to wear a tuxedo properly since he was three? He cleared his throat and managed to get the words out: "We haven't stopped obeying. We just think first now." Isabel slapped the boy.

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  CHAPTER 3

  Amy lined up listening devices on the desk. After Nellie had destroyed the Kabra bug, the Cahill kids had belatedly searched the entire hotel room, as they should have from the very beginning. They'd found three more bugs: an ingeniously tiny one inside a lamp; an elegant one on a picture frame that Amy had originally thought was part of the artwork; and, under the bed, a rather crude one that looked like it might have been built by a football player with thick fingers.

  "Ekat," Amy said, pointing at the ingenious one.

  "Janus," Dan said, pointing at the artistic one.

  "Tomas," Nellie said, pointing at the crude one and rolling her eyes.

  "And the Kabra one was Lucian, so that's everybody," Amy said.

  They were naming off branches of the Cahill family--the other branches searching for the Clues. Each branch was descended from one of the four feuding children of Gideon and Olivia Cahill: Katherine, Jane, Thomas, and Luke. Only the Madrigals--Amy

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  and Dan's branch--knew that there'd also been a fifth sibling born after the family fell apart: Madeleine. My ancestor, Amy thought.

  It was nice to know where she fit. She'd been longing for that knowledge ever since the Clue hunt began.

  But do I really fit if I don't try to do what the Madrigals want? she wondered.

  Dan shoved the three bugs a little closer together on the desk. He raised his fist above them, ready to smash them all in one blow.

  "Three, two, one ..." he counted down dramatically.

  At the very last minute before his hand hit the bugs, Amy grabbed his wrist.

  "What are you doing?" he asked, trying to jerk away from her. "Are you nuts?"

  "I have to talk to you," Amy said. She gestured toward the bathroom and pulled on his wrist. Dan frowned but followed along. Nellie pointed to herself and raised her eyebrows as if to ask, "Me, too?"

  Amy nodded.

  In the bathroom, Amy turned on the faucets in the sink and the bathtub full blast. Together, they made a sound like a waterfall. Nellie and Dan had to lean in close to hear what Amy was saying. There was no danger her words would be picked up by any bug.

  "If we're just trying to make sure the Kabras don't win, should we throw some help to the other teams
? Let them know our lead?" she asked. "And ... doesn't

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  that fit with what the Madrigals want us to do?"

  "Are you kidding?" Dan said. "You want to just give away our hard work?"

  "What if you share your answers and then, I don't know, the horrible Holts end up ruling the world?" Nellie asked.

  The Holts were the Tomas representatives: Eisenhower and Mary-Todd Holt and their three kids -- Hamilton, Reagan, and Madison.

  "Hamilton's not so bad," Dan said.

  "Okay, but Eisenhower?" Nellie said.

  Eisenhower Holt was a muscle-bound, knuckle-headed buffoon.

  And he was there when Mom and Dad died, Amy thought. She clenched her fists, as if that could smash the Holts' clumsily made bug.

  "Uncle Alistair can be okay," Dan offered. "He hasn't betrayed us ... recently."

  Alistair Oh, an Ekat, had teamed up with them more than anyone else. But he'd also double-crossed them again and again. Then, during a horrifying fire on an Indonesian island, he'd made sure that they got to safety before him. He'd even seemed willing to sacrifice his life for theirs. Was that enough to redeem him?

  He lied to us in China after that, Amy thought. And he was also there when Mom and Dad died. He didn't start the fire that killed them, but... he didn't save them, either.

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  "How do you know the Ekat bug is Alistair's, not Bae Oh's?" Nellie asked, making a face.

  Bae Oh was Alistair's uncle and a completely unpleasant old man. He would have let Amy and Dan die in Egypt if Nellie hadn't rescued them.

  Amy's fists clenched tighter. The Ekat bug would have to be destroyed, too.

  "So that leaves the Janus," Nellie said. "You want to tip off Jonah Wizard? Want to let him add 'king of the world' to all his other titles?"

  Jonah Wizard was already an international hip-hop star, bestselling pop-up book author, and Pez dispenser model. The only thing bigger than his fame was his ego.

  Amy waited for Dan to defend Jonah so she could squash his arguments flat. Dan had kind of bonded with Jonah in China. But Dan just got a stunned look on his face.

  "Whoa," he said. "Are you sure Jonah's still on the hunt? When was the last time we saw him looking for a clue?"

  "He wasn't in Tibet. Or the Bahamas. Or Jamaica," Nellie mused. "Could the great Jonah Wizard actually have given up?"

  "There's a bug out there that has 'Janus' written all over it," Amy pointed out.

  "Maybe Cora Wizard is doing her own dirty work now," Nellie said.

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  Cora Wizard. Jonah's mother. Amy could barely remember ever meeting the woman. No, wait. She could.

  That night, Amy thought. I saw her there the night our parents died, too.

  Amy had to grip the counter. She felt the blood drain from her face.

  "We can't let Cora Wizard win," she whispered.

  Nellie and Dan looked at her. Both of them seemed to understand instantly.

  "So that's it. You can't trust any of the other teams," Nellie said. "Not really. Not all together."

  "Duh," Dan said. "We knew that a month ago."

  Amy blinked back something that might have been tears. She hoped Nellie and Dan would just think it was steam from the sink and bathtub faucets running full blast.

  "Then how do the Madrigals possibly think we can--" she began.

  "Power," Dan said. "We have to win. And then--then maybe we'll have enough power to knock everyone else into shape."

  For a moment he looked like a miniature Napoleon, plotting world domination. Then he was Dan again, gleefully darting out of the bathroom.

  "We'll stomp on the bugs," he called back over his shoulder. "Come on --we'll each do one. I call first dibs!"

  Amy and Nellie looked at each other and shrugged. Then they raced after him. Together, all three of them

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  swept the bugs from the desk and began jumping up and down, crunching the electronic devices beneath their feet.

  * * *

  Two men sat in a darkened room. One had a beaked nose and a dour expression. The other was dressed all in gray and had headphones over his ears. The first man, William McIntyre, kept looking expectantly at the other and asking, "Can you hear them now? Now?"

  Finally the man in gray, Fiske Cahill, pushed the headphones back.

  "They are figuring out the lead," he said. "They are proceeding with the hunt. But... they have destroyed all the bugs."

  Mr. McIntyre was silent for a moment.

  "Except ours," he finally said.

  "We had the advantage of having ours built into the wall," Fiske said. "They are staying in a Madrigal room. One we arranged for them." He winced.

  "You don't feel right about eavesdropping on them," Mr. McIntyre said, interpreting the other man's wince.

  "There is much that I don't feel right about in this clue hunt," Fiske said. "We are gambling on children. We are gambling with their lives."

  "Doesn't every generation gamble on the next?" Mr. McIntyre asked.

  Fiske made a barking sound that was much too bitter

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  to be a laugh. "Says a man who chose never to have children," he said. "But... I made the same choice." He stared bleakly at the wall. "Something else to regret," he murmured.

  Mr. McIntyre started to lift his hand, as if he might pat Fiske's shoulder. But William McIntyre wasn't the type to give comforting pats. He lowered his hand.

  "I thought you'd become more optimistic," Mr. McIntyre said. "You're wearing gray now instead of all black."

  "It's dark gray," Fiske said. "Allowing only a little hope ..." He tapped his fingers on the table. "I wish we could know what they're thinking. Why they decided to destroy the bugs but continue the hunt. They must have been discussing it somehow." He pictured scribbled notes being passed back and forth, or a whispered conversation in a closet while the water ran in the bathroom, masking the sounds for the bugs. Knowing Amy and Dan and Nellie, he suspected they'd made it fun. Fiske himself hadn't had much familiarity with fun.

  "They know the fate of the world depends on reuniting the entire Cahill family," Mr. McIntyre said.

  "Is that enough?" Fiske asked. "Should we have given them exact details, spelled out precise consequences -- told them everything?"

  Mr. McIntyre pushed back from the table. "How much of a burden can two children take?" he asked.

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  He sat in gloomy silence for a moment, then added, "You could just ask them what they're thinking. After all, they've told us their clues. We've told them ours. They know we're on their side."

  "Yes, but... don't you see how this clue hunt has taught them to lie?" Fiske asked. "Taught them to be suspicious of everyone?"

  Mr. McIntyre frowned.

  "They know we're in this together," he said.

  "And that's why we're sitting in a safe, dark room, while they're about to head out into danger?" Fiske asked. "Danger that we're going to make worse?"

  * * *

  "And the solution is"--Amy paused dramatically-- "William Shakespeare."

  Dan blinked.

  "Okay, Amy, I know you've read, like, every book ever written. And you know a lot more about words and writers than I do," he said. "But how do you get from 'thin air' and 'crack of doom' and 'heart of hearts' and all that other stuff to William Shakespeare?"

  "Because he's the one who made up those expressions," Amy said. "Look." She brushed aside the debris of the destroyed bugs and pulled out the chair to sit down at the computer. She touched a key, and the screensaver disappeared, replaced by the site Amy had been looking at before they'd discovered the first

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  bug. "This is a list of all the words and expressions Shakespeare coined. 'Into thin air,' 'crack of doom,' 'heart of hearts,' 'mind's eye,' 'come full circle' -- all the underlined phrases are on this list."

  Dan watched as Amy scrolled through the words and phrases. There were hundreds of them.

  "Sheesh, did the English la
nguage even exist before Shakespeare?" Nellie asked. '"Bated breath,' 'gossip,' 'leapfrog,' 'mimic'..."

  "Aw, come on. Nobody ever uses a lot of these," Dan said. "Have you ever in your life said something 'beggars all description'?"

  "Some of these sound a little weird now," Amy admitted. "But here's a word you use all the time, Dan."

  She let the cursor rest on a single glowing word: puke.

  "Shakespeare made up the word puke?" Dan asked.

  "Yep," Amy said.

  "Well, then... I guess he kind of knew what he was doing," Dan said.

  Dan wasn't about to admit it to Amy, but he'd always regarded puke as pretty much the perfect word. It sounded exactly like what it was.

  "And how about..." Amy was scouring the list for other good words.

  Dan wasn't in the mood for a language lesson. He liked it better when the Clue hunt pointed to swordsmen and kung fu experts.

  "Okay, okay, I'll take your word for it." He wanted

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  to say, "Whatever," but he was afraid Shakespeare might have made up that word, too. "Now that we know our next clue has something to do with William Shakespeare, what are we going to do about it?" he asked.

  Just then the hotel phone rang.

  All three of them jumped, then Nellie reached over and answered it. She listened for a moment, then put her hand over the receiver.

  "It's the hotel's concierge service," she said. "They want to know if we'd like them to get tickets for us to any attractions. Or" --she raised her eyebrows significantly-- "theatrical productions."

  Amy beamed.

  "Oh, no," Dan moaned. "No!"

  "What's playing at the Globe?" Amy asked eagerly.

  "I am not going to a Shakespeare play!" Dan protested.