“I don’t believe it!” Caul shouted. “Will no one allow me a moment to glory in all this?”
“Listen!” Bentham hissed.
We listened. For a moment I heard nothing, but then, distantly, there came a high, sharp sound. I saw Emma tense and her eyes widen.
Caul scowled. “Is that … a dog?”
Yes! A dog! It was the bark of a dog, far away and lost in echoes.
“The peculiars had a dog with them,” Bentham said. “If it’s following our scent, I doubt it’s alone.”
Which could mean only one thing: our friends had overpowered their guards, and led by Addison, they were coming after us. Yes—the damned cavalry was coming! But Caul was moments from taking power, and who knew how far echoes traveled in these caverns. They could still be minutes away, and by then it would be too late.
“Well, then,” Caul said, “I suppose my remarks will have to wait.” He tucked the paper back into his pocket. He seemed in no particular hurry, and it was driving Bentham mad.
“Go, Jack! Take your spirit and then I’ll take mine!”
Caul sighed. “About that. You know, I’ve been thinking: I’m not sure you could handle all this power. You’re weak-minded, see. By which I don’t mean unintelligent. On the contrary, you’re more intelligent than I am! But you think like a weak person. Your will is weak. It isn’t enough to be smart, you know. You’ve got to be vicious!”
“No, brother! Don’t do this!” Bentham begged. “I’ll be your number two, your loyal confidant … anything you need me to be …”
Serves you right, I thought. Keep talking …
“This groveling is precisely what I mean,” said Caul, shaking his head. “It’s the sort of thing that could only change the mind of a weak-willed person, like yourself. But I am not susceptible to emotional entreaties.”
“No, this is about revenge,” Bentham said bitterly. “As if breaking my legs and enslaving me for years wasn’t enough.”
“Oh, it was, though,” Caul said. “True, I was cross with you for turning us all into hollowgast, but having an army of monsters at my disposal turned out to be quite useful. But if I’m being honest, it’s not even about your weak character. It’s just … it’s my own failing as a brother, I suppose. Alma can speak to this. I don’t like to share.”
“Then do it!” Bentham spat. “Get it over with and shoot me!”
“I could do that,” Caul said. “But I think it would be more effective if I shot … him.”
And he aimed the gun at my chest and pulled the trigger.
*
I felt the impact of the bullet almost before I heard the gun roar. It was like being walloped by giant, invisible fists. I was knocked off my feet and thrown backward, and then everything became abstract. I was looking up at the ceiling, my vision tunneled to a pinhole. Someone was screaming my name. Another gun fired, then fired again.
More screams.
I was dimly aware that my body was experiencing a great deal of pain. That I was dying.
Then Emma and Miss Peregrine were kneeling over me, anguished, shouting, the guard out of the picture. I couldn’t understand their words, as if my ears were underwater. They were trying to move me, to drag me by the shoulders toward the door, but my body was limp and heavy. Then came a howl like hurricane winds from the direction of the spirit pool, and despite unbearable pain, I managed to turn my head and look.
Caul was standing calf-deep in the pool, his arms outstretched and head tilted back, in a state of paralysis as the vapor gripped him, merged with him. It poured into every opening in his face—tendrils of it sliding down his throat, ropes of it reeling up his nose, clouds of it settling into his eyes and ears. Then, in a matter of seconds, it was gone, the blue light that had shone throughout the cavern dimming to half strength, as if Caul had soaked up its power.
I could hear Miss Peregrine shouting. Emma picked up one of the guards’ guns and emptied it at Caul. He wasn’t far and she was a good shot. She must have hit him, but Caul didn’t so much as flinch. Rather than falling, he seemed to be doing the opposite—he was growing. He was growing very quickly, doubling in height and breadth in just a few seconds. He let out an animal scream as his skin split open and healed, split open and healed. Soon he was a tower of raw pink flesh and tattered clothes, his giant eyes electric blue, a stolen soul having finally filled the old blankness he’d nurtured so long. Worst of all were his hands. They had become huge, gnarled things, thick and twisted like tree roots, ten fingers each.
Emma and Miss Peregrine tried again to drag me toward the door, but now Caul was coming after us. He stomped out of the spirit pool and bellowed in a bone-rattling voice: “ALMA, COME BACK HERE!”
Caul raised his awful hands. Some unseen force ripped Miss Peregrine and Emma away from me. They were pulled into the air and hovered there, flailing, ten feet off the ground, until Caul flipped his palms down again. Quick as a bounced ball, they slammed back to earth.
“I’LL GRIND YOU BETWEEN MY TEETH!” Caul howled, starting across the cavern toward them, his every footfall an earthquake.
Adrenaline, it seemed, had begun to focus my vision and hearing. I could imagine no crueler death sentence than this: to spend my last moments watching the women I loved be torn apart. And then I heard a dog bark, and something worse occurred to me: watching my friends die, too.
Emma and Miss Peregrine ran. They had no choice. To come back for me now was impossible.
The others began pouring out of the corridor. Kids and ymbrynes, all mixed up. Sharon and the gallows riggers, too. Addison must have led them here, as he led all of them now, a lantern dangling from his mouth.
They had no idea what they were up against. I wished I could warn them—don’t bother fighting it, just run—but they wouldn’t have listened to me. They saw the towering beast and threw all they had at it. The gallows men pitched their hammers. Bronwyn hurled a chunk of wall she’d carried in, winding back and letting it go like a shot-put. Some of the kids had guns they’d taken from the wights, which they fired at Caul. The ymbrynes transformed into birds and swarmed his head, pecking him wherever they could.
None of it had the slightest effect on him. The bullets bounced off. He batted away the chunk of wall. He caught the hammers between his giant teeth and spat them out. Like a swarm of gnats, the ymbrynes seemed merely to irritate him. And then he spread his arms and his knotty fingers, the little feeder roots that dangled from them dancing like live wires, and slowly brought his palms together. As he did, all the ymbrynes circling his head were pushed away, and all the peculiars were smashed together in a clump.
He brought his palms together and folded them over and over as if crumpling a piece of paper. The ymbrynes and the peculiars rose from the ground in a spherical crush of limbs and wings. I was the only one left alone (except Bentham—where was Bentham?) and I tried get up, to stand and do something, but I could only lift my head. My God, they were being pulverized, their terrified screams echoing off the walls—and I thought that was it, that in a moment blood would pour from them like juice from a squeezed fruit, but then one of Caul’s hands flew up and began to flap in front of his face, waving something away.
It was bees. A stream of Hugh’s bees had flown out of the crush and now they were in Caul’s eyes, stinging him as he let out a shattering howl. The ymbrynes and peculiars fell to the ground, the ball they’d formed collapsing, bodies spilling out everywhere. They hadn’t been crushed, thank God.