Category : Books-Fiction

Sub Category : Suspense/Mystery

The good news: that book Sierra found on the mantlepiece is the book they're looking for.

The bad news: it's locked, because of course it is. And now they've got to solve a riddle to unlock it, because of course they do. Wouldn't want to make this thing too freakin' easy, now, would we?

"So there's two devils," Andrea explains, trying her best to conceal her confusion. She's the Fixer, she can fix anything, surely a simple math puzzle isn't beyond her abilities. "How many souls has he perverted this week?"

iJustine's already way ahead of her. "Three young ones."

Andrea stares at the riddle before her. It's a sea of words and numbers and devils and perverted souls, none of which make any sense to her. And the font is kind of hard to read; she's honestly getting a headache just looking at it.

"To confound the king of devils and avoid his fiery wrath, he gives them a riddle instead of a straight answer." Justine takes a deep, shaky breath. "Okay."

And that's when Andrea starts to panic. She's no good at math—never has been—and Fixer or not, this is way too confusing for her tiny YouTube brain to comprehend. "We're YouTubers," she frets aloud. "We're not mathematicians."

"Where's the mathematician?" giggles Sierra.

"It's all right." Tim takes the book from Justine. "I'm Asian. I got this."

Thank God. She's known Tim for ages; he was the first YouTuber she ever met, and as such, she has complete faith in his abilities. Yeah, he can be a bit stubborn at times, and yeah, he doesn't always take things as seriously as he should, but if there's anyone Andrea trusts to solve the riddle and get them out of this mess, it's Timothy DeLaGhetto.

She moves aside and lets her friend take over.

 

"Guys, we got a key!" screams Joey, racing through the foyer like he's in a marathon or something.

Lele ignores him. Sure, she's happy for him and all, but she's got her own key to get right now. She doesn't have time to think about Joey and his mountaintops.

And speaking of keys, omigod, this key does not want to leave its nice little hidey hole, does it? She and Oli have been pushing at it and reaching for it and budging it for the last several minutes, but ugh, it's being such a little...

"Put you hand in there," suggests Oli, and Lele does exactly that, fuming internally about how freakin' hard this thing is. How on earth are they supposed to get the key if the damn thing won't cooperate?

And that Matt guy isn't helping. He's just standing to the side, sometimes going on about how wrong they are, being all "let me give it a try here" every couple of seconds. Is he usually this condescending? Honestly, if he thinks he's being helpful by standing there asking to try instead of, you know, actually trying, he's got another think coming.

A part of Lele wants to chew him out right here in front of God and everybody, but she can't. She's got to stay focused. She's got to get this stupid key out of the stupid box, unlock the stupid antidote, and save Shane. The "Matt you are such a self-righteous jerk" rant can wait.

 

"It has to be this one," Joey tells Eva and GloZell, sticking their key into the one compartment they haven't tried yet.

Lo and behold, it opens, and Eva breathes a sigh of relief. There we go. There we go. Now we're getting somewhere. She hopes to God that the other two groups find their keys just as quickly, cause if they don't, Shane's going to die...and then she'll come for me.

Joey fishes the tiny bottle out of the compartment. "I got it!"

Eva snatches the bottle from him, grasping it between her fingers like it's holy water. She kneels down next to Shane, unscrews the cap, and holds it out to him. He takes it with trembling hands and downs the whole thing in one swallow.

One down. Two to go.

Don't you dare die on me, Dawson.

"We need all three in order to cure him!" shouts the butler, as if they didn't know that already.

Trying to ignore her tear-stained thoughts, Eva keeps her eyes fixed on the ginger-haired boy she's going to all this trouble for. C'mon, Shane, you can do this, you're gonna make it, you've gotta fight it...Shane, please, hold on, they're coming, just stay awake, stay alive, don't leave me...

I can't keep this secret alone.

 

"There's three young ones," mutters Tim, going through the riddle once more. "And how old are they?"

Andrea shakes her head. "We're not doing very good, man!"

Justine's pacing back and forth, trying to escape from the muddle of confusion she's spent all night being stuck in. She hates math, she hates riddles, she hates unclear mumbo-jumbo, and she sure as hell hates it when her friends get freakin' poisoned. Needless to say, tonight has not been a good night for her.

"If you multiply their ages," Tim continues, "you will get the number thirty-six. If you add all their ages together, you will get the number of devils in the grand council."

So now we gotta tally up the ages to equal this number, and then divide, and maybe throw some multiplication and goddamn ratios in there while we're at it...I don't know, don't look at me, guys, I skipped this class.

Tim points at the small, winged creatures engraved on the cover of the book. "Oh, wait, is this the number of devils?"

"That doesn't have anything to do with it!" Sierra protests. She's still giggling as she says it, and Justine can't help but wonder if the girl is secretly some sort of giggle machine.

"It'll help us solve the riddle!" Tim insists.

So they count up the devils, and there's thirteen of them, and Justine's just glad they're making progress. They can do this, Tim's good at math, he can figure it out, she trusts him...

"Do we have, like, a pen?" asks Tim.

"A pen?" Sierra's almost hysterical. "We don't have a pen! We don't have time for a pen!"

Her statement is immediately proven correct by the butler. "We only have three minutes!" he shouts, and even Justine's optimism begins to wear thin.

 

"Open your mouth!" Eva screams, watching with wide eyes as Arthur shoves a napkin into Shane's mouth. ...Shane, come on, you can do this, I know it hurts but you gotta hold on...

Joey interrupts her litany of prayers with the mystery everyone's been too preoccupied to think about. "Who poisoned him? That's my question."

The maid, the maid, it has to be, she poisoned him, she's going to kill me...

"You know what?" GloZell points an accusing finger at Eva. "It could be you, because you were off with him. You're the only one who had access to him."

"Yeah!" Joey agrees.

Eva's heart sinks. She should've known this was coming. She was the last one alone with Shane, so of course she's going to top everyone's list of suspects. Even if she tries to tell them the truth, they sure as hell won't believe her, and since Shane's too sick to speak, he can't back up her story.

So she lies. "I was peeing!"

"Peeing with poison!" Joey scoffs.

For the second time tonight, Eva chokes back tears. All she wanted was to have fun and explore the 1920s...and now, not only is her friend fading fast, but she's being accused of his murder. It's almost enough to make her wish that she was the one dying on the ground.

Almost.

 

"Pinch it up, pinch it up," Oli repeats, as if it's some sort of mantra. They've been working on this box for what feels like years now, and he's honestly getting sick and tired of fumbling around in there.

And from the looks of it, so is Lele. "It can't go up!" she complains through gritted teeth, pushing at the box as if it's a wall she's trying to break down.

At least Matt has finally started helping. He's got his hand stuck through a different hole, nudging the box towards Lele and Oli in a final desperate attempt to make some progress. "I've got it all the way in the back right now."

Oli has never been so frustrated in his life. He has no idea where this box is going, they need the key, Shane's still dying, and Lele and Matt are rolling their eyes and glaring at each other. This entire situation is a complete and utter mess, and a part of Oli wants to throw in the towel right now.

Concentrate, he tells himself (and, by extension, Lele and Matt). Keep trying. If we ever want to get this key out, we need to work as a team.

 

"Joey, you know what?" GloZell snaps, her patience damn near close to the breaking point. "I think you might have done it."

Joey's got that stupidly adorable little "oh I'm Joey Graceffa and I'm such an innocent flower who can do no wrong" grin on his face, and GloZell is fighting the urge to slap it right off him. "Why do you think I did it?"

Oh, don't you play innocent with me, sweetheart. "He has more followers than you," she growls. "You probably tried to kill him!"

"You think I'd want to kill Shane?" he asks, as if there's no reason in the world why he'd possibly do such a thing. "Why would I wanna kill Shane?"

"To take over his accounts!" Eva pipes up.

"I don't get access..." Joey stumbles over his words. "The person who kills someone doesn't get their YouTube account!"

But GloZell has stopped listening to Joey's nonsense ages ago. "You are the...the YouTube killer."

Joey laughs. "The YouTube killer..." He's still got that damn grin on his face.

"You are the YouTube killer!" shouts GloZell.

"You know what—"

"Zip-zap-a-doop-bappa-doop-ba-doop!"

My love for Joey is strong, but he is tryin' me, GloZell fumes to herself as Joey and Eva huddle over Shane. He is tryin' our love right now.

 

May you die...in horrible pain...my...cursed...enemy...

Well, he certainly got the "pain" part right, sighs the sliver of Shane's mind that isn't currently preoccupied with it hurts, God it hurts, make it stop, make it stop hurting...

He hears Joey, GloZell, and Eva arguing above him...but their shouts and accusations seem miles away, like he's listening via a broken-down crank phone. Words and shapes have long since become indistinguishable. Everything is a blur of color, blood, and fire.

He can feel the strings attempting to drag him towards the darkness, and a part of him wants so badly to heed their call, but—he can't—stay alive—it hurts—hold on—don't—

"Shane."

Her familiar voice breaks through his thoughts like waves breaking onto a California beach. He turns around, and there she is—wrinkles and glasses gone, hair no longer white, but he'd still recognize her anywhere.

"Grandma?" he murmurs, struggling to see her through the haze of pain.

She smiles (God, it's been so long, he thought he'd never see that smile again) and extends a hand out to him. "You can let go now, Shane," she whispers, her voice so much sweeter than he remembered. "It's all right."

"But...my mission..."

"You did all you could." She shakes her head sadly, a faraway look in her tear-stained eyes. "Sometimes, that's all you can do."

The strings begin to break. The colors fade to black. And Grandma Dawson reaches through the darkness, tugging her grandson towards the not-too-distant light.

Shane smiles, closes his eyes, and collapses into her embrace.

 

Joey sticks his head in the foyer and...yeah, no one's making any progress. Oli's muttering things under his breath, and Matt and Lele seem about ready to start screaming insults at each other, but the key is still firmly entrenched in the box. Tim, Sierra, Andrea, and Justine aren't doing much better; they've currently got their collective heads together over an old-looking book, counting things and calling out numbers, but they don't seem to be any closer to solving whatever puzzle they're working on.

And there's ninety seconds left...oh, God, we're not gonna make it, are we?

The more desperate part of Joey considers running over there and smashing open both the box and the book. Screw the puzzles, screw the games, just give him a hammer and let him tear the place apart.

"Ladies and gentlemen..."

No, oh God...Arthur, don't say it, please don't say it...

"Time is up."

No.

Ignoring GloZell's screams, Joey turns and faces his fallen friend. Shane—oh, God, Shane—has stopped convulsing; he's on the ground with his head on a pillow, lying still...too still...

"Shane is dead."

And Joey's world implodes.