Azalea stared at the muzzle of the pistol the masked maniac had pointed at her nose.
“Where have all these people come from?” he asked.
“Well, these days, when there’s, like, a disaster, word spreads fast. Text messages, tweets …”
Jack the Lantern shook his head. His eyeballs were looking crazier and crazier.
And the nut job had three weapons: two old-fashioned pirate pistols, one very modern revolver.
“This is not how I had planned it to be! I am outnumbered. Out-armed. I must act boldly! Where is Zachary Jennings? Why is he not on this carriage?”
“I think he took a sick day,” said Azalea.
Suddenly, glass shattered.
A giant black bird busted through the rear window of the bus and swooped up the center aisle. It landed on a seat back and started croaking and cawing like crazy. Glass chips tinkled out of its feathers.
Pumpkin Head tilted his head sideways and started nodding—like he understood everything the crow creaked out.
“But did he find the black heart stone?” he snapped.
“Haw!”
“Curses!” Pumpkin Head balled up his fist and shook it at the bus’s ceiling. “Why must this Jennings family torment me through the ages?”
Furious, he clutched Azalea’s arm and dragged her up the aisle to the back door of the bus.
When the police raised their pistols and rifles in response, the masked man jammed one of his pistols into Azalea’s ear.
“Satan! Come hither!” he shouted out the broken window as he kicked the door open.
As the black steed approached the door, the crazed bandit called to the crowd, “Shoot me, and she dies.”
Now, keeping his back to the school bus and never lowering his pistol, Jack lifted Azalea into his arms and leapt into the horse’s saddle, holding the girl in front of him.
“Come, lass. You and I are going across the street to visit with your friend.”
Malik seemed to be having a hard time taking the black heart apart.
Zack and Zipper were both watching every move he made. Even the ones that didn’t seem to work. Pieces weren’t coming out of the puzzle at the same pace they had when Malik tore the thing apart the first time.
“Everything okay?”
“Zack?”
“Yeah?”
“I don’t perform well under pressure.”
“Right,” said Zack, backing up toward the clock face. “So me and Zip will just wait over here. Give us a holler when you’ve got the black heart core. We’ll just be waiting.…”
“Zack?”
“Yeah?”
“You’re pressuring me again!”
“Sorry.”
Malik swiped some sweat out of his eyes.
Zack figured he’d better not say anything else.
So he peeked through the hole in the glass and checked out the action over by the school bus.
He wished he hadn’t.
Jack the Lantern was leaping from the back of the bus onto the black horse, using Azalea as his human shield!
“Watch out!” Judy screamed.
Aunts Sophie and Hannah were just about to climb out of a taxi when the black stallion came charging around the bus.
Jack the Lantern had Azalea Torres in front of him on the saddle, so even though all the cops had their weapons trained on him, no one dared shoot at the moving target, for fear they’d accidentally hit the girl.
“Look at him!” shouted Stephen Snertz. “Hiding behind a girl! I told you—the guy’s a wuss!”
Suddenly, Jack pulled up on the reins and wheeled his snorting horse to the right. The stallion made a sharply angled turn, mirroring the move a knight makes in chess.
“Oh, crap!” screamed Stephen Snertz when he realized that the masked demon had an arm over Azalea’s shoulder. In his hand was a pistol aimed straight at the hardware-store clerk.
Snertz turned and made a mad dash for the door.
He almost made it, too.
But Jack the Lantern let loose with a cannon blast from his raised pistol.
The bullet smacked Snertz in the butt and sent him sailing forward through the hardware-store window. Glass shattered and Snertz landed with a belly flop on all the carved jack-o’-lanterns in the window display, many of which were already wilting after sitting in the sun so long. When the mounted maniac saw Snertz sprawled out in the rotting pumpkin patch, he started laughing insanely. All the police officers lowered their weapons an inch or two to marvel at his madness.
“Away, Satan! Fly like the wind!”
With a snick of his tongue and a click of his heels, Jack was once again racing away from the school bus and the hardware store.
“He’s heading for the clock tower!” someone shouted.
“Get the kids off the bus!” yelled the sheriff.
Azalea Torres was Jack’s only remaining hostage.
A pair of police officers dashed up the street after him while Sheriff Hargrove and his deputies secured the other children.
Jack leapt from his horse and yanked Azalea out of the saddle. With his modern-looking pistol aimed at her head, they backed toward the doorway of the clock tower.
“My son and Malik Sherman are in there!” Judy shouted to the police.
“Keep away, fools!” cried Jack the Lantern. “If any of you dare come in after me, this young lass dies!”
Judy watched as the demon pulled Azalea into the dark tower and slammed the door shut.
Now Jack the Lantern held three children hostage: Azalea, Malik, and Zack!
“Got it!” said Malik.
Zack pulled back from his peephole.
“He’s coming!”
“Who?”
“Jack the Lantern.”
“You mean Norman?”
“Yeah.”
From down below, they heard a heavy steel beam thudding into a bracket. The door was barred. The police wouldn’t be able to storm the tower and rescue them.
“He’s got Azalea,” said Zack.
“Move,” they heard a scratchy voice cry at the bottom of the spiral staircase.
“Let go of my arm already,” growled Azalea.
Zack, Malik, and Zipper knelt at the top of the spiral staircase, straining to hear every word echoing up from five stories below.
“Climb the stairs, missy. I need to parley with Mr. Jennings. He has something I desire.”
Zack heard the unmistakable sharp click of a pistol hammer being cocked.
“We’re up here!” he shouted down the steps. “And if you hurt Azalea, I’m going to toss this stupid stone down to my aunts, who just showed up and know what to do with it!”
“Zack?” Azalea shouted.
“Yeah?”
“Pumpkin Head put away his pistol.”
Good.
“My name is Jack the Lantern!”
“Fine. Whatever.”
Azalea never lost her cool. Zack just hoped she hadn’t lost that photographic memory she was always bragging about, either.
“We’re coming up,” Zack heard her say. “Let. Go. Of. My. Arm!”
Now all Zack heard was the heavy thunk-thunk-thunk of boot heels against steel stairs.
“It’s up to us,” he whispered to Malik. “We three must agree.”
“About what?”
“Smashing Barnabas Ickleby’s tiny black heart!”
“They’re on the second floor,” said Malik, who was still perched at the top of the spiral staircase, counting boot clicks while Zack rummaged through Aunt Ginny’s bag.
“Okay. I think I’ve got everything we need.” He jammed the signal mirror and party horn into his back pockets. Wadded up the exorcism words into a paper ball. “Malik?”