Meg Cabot - Ninth Key

I bent down and seized one of the accent lights that glowed, hidden in the sand at the bottom of the tank. Shaped like a small floodlight, it proved to be very hot in my hands when I touched it.

Marcus, realizing I wasn't going to come with him on my own accord, sighed, and reached into his suit coat, which was wet and smelly now. He'd have to change before his lunch meeting.

"Okay, you want to play games?" Marcus pulled something made of shiny metal from his breast pocket. It was, I realized, a tiny little gun. A twenty-two, from the looks of it. I knew from having watched so many episodes of Cops .

"See this?" Marcus pointed the muzzle at me. "I don't want to have to shoot you. The coroner tends to be suspicious of drowning victims bearing gunshot wounds. But we can always let the propellers dismember you so no one will actually be able to tell. Maybe just your head will toss up onto shore. Wouldn't your mother love that? Now, put the light down and let's go."

I straightened, but I didn't put the light down. It came up with me, along with the black, rubber-coated cord that had grounded it beneath the sand.

"That's right," Marcus said, looking pleased. "Put the light down, and let's go."

Jesse, standing in the water beside my would-be assassin, looked extremely interested in what was going on. "Susannah," he said. "That is a gun he is holding. Do you want me to - "

"Don't worry, Jesse," I said, approaching the edge of the tank, where there'd once been a wall of glass - before I'd broken it, that is. "Everything's under control."

"Who the hell is Jesse?" Marcus, I realized, was getting testy. "There is no Jesse here. Now put the light down and let's - "

I did what he said. Well, sort of. That is, I wrapped the cord that was attached to the light around my left hand. Then with my other hand, I pulled the bulb so that the cord came popping right out of the back of the socket.

Then I stood there holding the lamp in one hand, and the cord with frayed wires now sticking out of one end of it in the other.

"That's great," Marcus said. "You broke the light. You really showed me. Now" - his voice rose - " get down here! "

I stepped up to the edge of the tank.

"I am not," I informed Marcus, "stupid."

He gestured with the gun. "Whatever you say. Just - "

"Nor," I added, "am I a bitch."

Marcus's eyes widened. Suddenly, he realized what I was up to.

"No!" he shrieked.

But it was way too late. I had already thrown the cord into the murky water at Marcus's feet.

There was a brilliant blue flash and a lot of popping noises. Marcus screamed.

And then we were plunged into impenetrable darkness.

CHAPTER 21

Well, okay, not really impenetrable. I could still see Jesse, glowing the way he did.

"That," he said, looking down at the moaning Marcus, "was very impressive, Susannah."

"Thanks," I said, pleased to have won his approval. It happened so rarely. I was glad I'd listened to Doc during one of his recent electrical safety lectures.

"Now, do you think you want to tell me," Jesse asked, moving to offer me a steadying hand as I climbed down from the aquarium, "just what is going on here? Is that your friend Tad on the couch there?"

"Uh-huh." Before stepping down, I bent down, searching for the cord along the floor. "Step over here, will you, so I can - " Jesse's glow, subtle as it was, soon revealed what I was looking for. "Never mind." I pulled the cord back up into the aquarium. "Just in case," I said, straightening and climbing out of the aquarium, "they get the circuit breaker fixed before I'm out of here."

"Who is they ? Susannah, what is going on here?"

"It's a long story," I said. "And I'm not sticking around to tell it. I want to be out of here when he" - I nodded toward Marcus, who was moaning more loudly now - "wakes up. He's got a couple of thick-necked compadres waiting for me, too, in case - " I broke off.

Jesse looked at me questioningly. "What is it?"

"Do you smell that?"

Stupid question. I mean, after all, the guy's dead. Can ghosts smell?

Apparently so, since he went, "Smoke."

A single syllable, but it sent a chill down my spine. Either that, or a fish had found it's way inside my sweater.

I glanced at the aquarium. Beyond it, I could see a rosy glow emanating from the room next door. Just as I had suspected, by giving Marcus a giant electric shock, I had managed to spark a fire in the circuit panel. It appeared to have spread to the walls around it. I could see the first tiny licks of orange leaping out from behind the wood paneling.

"Great," I said. The elevator was useless without electricity. And as I knew only too well, there was no other way out of that room.

Jesse wasn't quite the defeatist I was, however.

"The windows," he said, and hurried toward them.

"It's no good." I leaned against Mr. Beaumont's desk and picked up the house phone. Dead, just as I'd expected. "They're nailed shut."

Jesse glanced at me over his shoulder. He looked amused. "So?" he said.

"So." I slammed the receiver down. " Nailed , Jesse. As in impossible to budge."

"For you, maybe." Even as he said it, the wooden shutters over the window closest to me began to tremble ominously as if blown by some unseen gale. "But not for me."

I watched, impressed. "Golly gee, mister," I said. "I forgot all about your superpowers."

Jesse's look went from amused to confused. "My what?"

"Oh." I dropped the imitation I'd been doing of a kid from an episode of Superman .

"Never mind."

I heard, above the sound of nails screaming as if caught in the suck zone of an F5 tornado, people shouting. I glanced toward the elevator. The thugs, apparently concerned for their employer's welfare, were calling his name up the shaft.

I guess I didn't blame them. Smoke was steadily filling the room. I could hear small eruptions now as chemicals - most likely of the hazardous nature - used in the upkeep of Mr. Beaumont's fish tank burst into flames next door. If we didn't get out of there soon, I had a feeling we'd all be inhaling some pretty toxic fumes.

Fortunately, at that moment the shutters burst off first one and then another of the windows, with all the force as if a hurricane had suddenly ripped them off. Blam! And then blam again. I'd never seen anything like it before, not even on the Discovery Channel.

Gray light rushed in. It was, I realized, still raining out.

I didn't care. I don't think I'd ever been so glad to see the sky, even as darkly overcast as it was. I rushed to the window closest to me and looked out, squinting against the rain.

We were, I saw, in the upper story of the house. Below us lay the patio....

And the pool.

The shouting up the elevator shaft was growing louder. The thicker the smoke grew, apparently, the more frantic the thugs became. God forbid one of them should think to dial 911. Then again, considering the career choices they'd made, that number probably didn't hold much appeal for them.

I measured the distance between myself and the deep end of the pool.

"It can't be more than twenty feet." Jesse, observing my calculations, nodded to Marcus. "You go. I'll look after him." His dark-eyed gaze flicked toward the elevator shaft. "And them, if they make any progress."

I didn't ask what he meant by "looking after." I didn't have to. The dangerous light in his eyes said it all.

I glanced at Tad. Jesse followed my gaze, then rolled his eyes, the dangerous light extinguished. He muttered some stuff in Spanish.

"Well, I can't just leave him here," I said.

"No."

Which was how, a few seconds later, Tad, supported by me, but transported via the Jesse-kinetic connection, ended up perched on the sill of one of those windows Jesse had blown open for me.