Chapter 9

As Icarus hit the ground, Gregor could hear the crack as the bones in his neck broke. He died instantly. There was no movement except the leaking of blood from the purple bumps.

"Do not touch him!" warned Neveeve. But this was unnecessary since almost everybody was instinctively scrambling away from the bat's ravaged body. Gregor backed into a roach, lost his footing, and fell over it onto his rear end. Two bats collided on takeoff. Only his mother, who was within a few feet of the ghastly creature when it landed, hadn't moved. She was clutching Boots in her arms, rooted to the ground in terror. Gregor got to his feet and ran for her.

"Torch the body!" ordered Solovet.

"No!" shouted Ripred, but three torches had already left the hands of the soldiers above. "No!" Ripred was literally gnashing his teeth in frustration.

"Get out of here! Everyone! Run!" he screamed.

When the torches hit Icarus, Gregor understood Ripred's frantic reaction. The flames had only rested on the fur a moment when a wave of small, black specks began to abandon the dead bat's body.

"Fleas!" cried Vikus. "Get you gone!"

Gregor grabbed Boots, caught his mother's arm, and pulled her onto the back of the nearest bat, who happened to be Queen Athena. Probably you weren't supposed to hop on a queen without asking permission, but this was no time for polite small talk. As they rose into the air, Gregor could see the rats and cockroaches disappearing into the tunnels leading to the Underland. All the humans on the ground had been picked up by bats and were airborne.

The fleas were hopping madly away from the burning bat.

"To the royal box!" called Vikus. "No one enters the city!"

Queen Athena swerved in the air and carried them toward a large, curved section of seats high in the arena. It reminded Gregor of the boxes where the rich people sat in Yankee Stadium. This must be where the royal family watched the sporting events.

As soon as they landed, Neveeve made them spread out. "Put as much distance as you can between one another." Gregor moved away from his mother and Queen Athena, but didn't feel like he could set Boots down. She'd just run off, maybe to the railing of the box, and they were up really high.

His mom started to follow Gregor and Boots but Neveeve waved her back. "No! Move into a space by yourself!"

The doctor opened a pouch at her belt and pulled out what looked like a fancy perfume bottle. It had one of those bulbs on the side so you could spray it. She closed her eyes, pointed the nozzle at herself, and squeezed the bulb. Puffs of yellow powder settled on her skin and clothing. It looked like the same stuff the rats had been scratching from their coats. The flea powder.

Neveeve moved rapidly around the box spraying everyone. "Rub it into your skin, your hair. Cover every inch of your being," she instructed.

When she got to Gregor, he covered Boots's eyes with his hands while he shut his own. He could feel the powder coating his skin. It had a sharp, bitter smell. As Neveeve moved on to his mother, Boots sneezed and gave him a surprised look. "You yellow," she said.

"You, too," Gregor said, working the powder through her hair. "And what letter does yellow begin with?"

"Y!" Boots said. "Y is for yellow!"

"And what else?" said Gregor, trying to distract her as he rubbed the stuff over her skin.

"Y is for yo-yo! Y is for yak!" said Boots. She had never seen a yak, except in her ABC book. Neither had Gregor, for that matter. Probably no one would have ever even heard of a yak if it hadn't been about the only animal that began with a Y.

In a matter of minutes, the entire party of six bats and six humans had been treated with the pesticide.

"I think it is safe now to gather," said Neveeve.

Everyone came together in the center of the box. Below on the field, the charred body of the bat lay in a puddle of water. The fire had been extinguished.

"Bat sick. Bat needs juice," said Boots. Whenever she had a cold the first thing she got was a cup of juice.

"He's asleep now. He can have some when he wakes up," said Gregor. He could never manage to work out how to tell Boots someone had died.

"Apple juice." Boots squatted down and began to draw squiggles in the fine coat of yellow powder that covered the floor.

"Give orders to disinfect the entire field," Solovet called out to a guard who hovered on his bat near the box. "Wait!" The guard stayed as she turned to the doctor. "Will that be sufficient, Neveeve?"

"They must also spray the tunnels that lead away from the arena," said Neveeve. "The fleas will not be able to enter Regalia with the stone doors shut, nor jump so high as the seats. But some may already have escaped down the tunnels and into the rest of the Underland. Any who guard there must be recalled and their skin examined for bites."

"Do as she says," Solovet told the guard.

"What of the gnawers and the crawlers?" asked Vikus.

"No flea could penetrate the coat of poison on the gnawers, and they will not bite the crawlers. They are all quite safe," said Neveeve.

"And those of us here assembled?" said Vikus.

"If any flea reached us, which is doubtful, it is now dead. We must each be stripped and checked for bites by physicians in Regalia," said Neveeve.

"We are not..." choked out Gregor's mother. "We are never returning to Regalia!"

"Please, Grace, I know this to be very unexpected and distressing —" began Vikus.

"We're going home! We came to your meeting! That's all you said we had to do! So you tell that bat to take us home now!" said his mother as she pointed wildly at Nike.

"Who told you this? That you were only expected for the meeting?" asked Vikus with concern.

"Ripred," said Gregor. "He said we just had to come for a couple of hours. That you didn't need us to find the cure. Then he sent a swarm of rats to scare us out of the apartment."

Gregor could tell by the look Vikus exchanged with Solovet that this was the first they had heard of any of this.

"I am afraid he was not forthcoming," said Vikus.

"What do you mean?" asked Gregor's mom.

"He means Ripred lied," said Solovet.

"He may in fact have thought their presence was unnecessary for the —" said Vikus weakly.

"He lied!" repeated Solovet. "Do not defend him. He knows perfectly well there will be no quest for the cure without the Overlanders! He obviously thought there was no other means of bringing them below. I would have done the same, Vikus, if you would not have."

Gregor bet she would have, too. Solovet would not have cared what Gregor or his family wanted. Not at Regalia's expense.

"We will not force them to stay, Solovet!" said Vikus. Gregor had never seen him so angry. "They have been brought here under false pretenses. We will not force them to stay!"

Gregor's mother clutched Vikus's arm as if it were a lifeline. "You'll send us home now, then? We can leave?"

"No!" said Solovet.

"Yes!" said Vikus. "Nike! Prepare to take the Overlanders home!"

"Guards!" barked Solovet.

Gregor was bewildered at the power struggle playing out before them. He had never seen Vikus and Solovet fight like this, and it rattled him. Who could actually make this decision? What would happen if his family tried to leave? What was he supposed to do?

"Wait!" Gregor took his mom's hand. "Look, Mom, I've been to see Ares. He's really bad. He's dying, Mom. I can't leave him like this. So, how about you take Boots back and I stay and try to help? Okay? You take Boots and Lizzie and Grandma to Virginia. Dad will wait for me to come back up. Then we'll come to Virginia, too."

"That might be an acceptable compromise," said Vikus, eyeing his wife.

"We could put it to the council," said Solovet, although she did not sound convinced.

"I can't leave you down here, Gregor," said his mom. "I'm sorry about your friend. I really am. But I can't leave you here."

"Look, Mom, I don't think all three of us are going to be allowed out of here," said Gregor. "Please, take Boots and go home." He squeezed her hand tightly. It took him only a few seconds to register that something was wrong.

His mom was talking back to him now, but the words weren't reaching his brain. He moved his fingers over the skin on the back of her hand. No, he hadn't imagined it. It was there.

"Gregor, are you listening to me?" pleaded his mom.

He wasn't. He was trying to make sense of what his fingers were telling him. And trying to wish it away. But he couldn't.

Gregor slowly lifted his mom's hand into the light of a nearby torch and wiped off the yellow powder. A small red bite was swelling up on her skin.