The Maze of Bones (The 39 Clues #1)(36)

Amy's danger sense started tingling. Dan turned toward her, and she could tell he was thinking the same thing.

"They're going to fill the hole," Dan said. "Aren't they?"

She nodded weakly.

"Mr. Holt!" Dan started jumping like Arnold the dog, but he couldn't reach the top of the pit.

"Come on, you've got to get us out! We'll help you!"

Mr. Holt snorted. "You led us into this! Besides, you runts can't fight."

"Dad," Reagan said. "Maybe we should -- "

"Shut up, sis," Hamilton growled. "We can handle this!"

"Reagan!" Dan yelled. "Come on! Tel them to let us out."

Reagan just knit her eyebrows and stared at the ground.

Dan looked at Amy desperately. "You gotta do something. Tell them you can figure out the book!"

But the words wouldn't come. Amy felt like she was already being covered in cement.

Her brother needed her. She had to say something. But she just stood there, frozen and helpless and hating herself for being so scared.

"HEEEY!" Dan yelled up. "Amy knows what the clue means! She'll tell you if you let us out!"

Mr. Holt scowled. Amy knew he wouldn't go for it. They'd be stuck down here forever, cemented in. Then Mr. Holt stripped off his warm-up jacket and lowered it into the pit.

"Grab the sleeve."

Within seconds, Amy and Dan were out of the pit. Sure enough, a cement truck had blocked the gates of the cemetery. Six thugs in coveralls and hard hats were lined up at the fence, hefting shovels like they were ready to fight.

"All right, team," Mr. Holt said with relish. "Let's show 'em how it's done -- Holt style!"

The whole family rushed forward. Mr. Holt grabbed the first thug's shovel and swung it, with the guy still attached, into the side of the cement truck.

CLANG!

The girls, Madison and Reagan, plowed into one thug so hard he flew across the street and crashed through the window of a flower shop. Arnold bit the third thug in the leg and held on with jaws of iron. Mary-Todd and Hamilton tackled a fourth thug against the chute on the back of the truck. His head hit a lever and cement started spilling all over the street.

Unfortunately, two thugs remained, and they ran straight for Amy and Dan. Fear closed around Amy's throat. She recognized their faces -- they were the security guards from the Lucian stronghold. Before she could even think of a plan, Dan unzipped his backpack and took out his blinking silver sphere.

"Dan, no!" Amy said. "You can't -- " But he did.

As much as he loved baseball, Dan was the world's worst pitcher. The sphere sailed right past the two guys who were charging them and exploded under Mr. Holt's feet with a blinding yellow flash. The noise was like the world's largest snare drum being smashed with a sledgehammer. Amy went cross-eyed. When she regained her senses, she saw the entire Holt family and the guys they'd been battling flat on the ground, knocked unconscious -- except for the two thugs Dan meant to hit. They were only dazed, stumbling around and shaking their heads.

Amy turned to Dan in horror. "What did you do?"

Dan looked surprised. "Um, concussive grenade, I think. Like the one in the museum! I knocked them out."

The two thugs who were still on their feet blinked a few times, then refocused on Dan and Amy. They didn't look happy.

"Run!" Dan pulled Amy behind the mausoleum, but there was nowhere to go -- just another iron fence, and a few yards behind that, the back of a building -- brick walls, thirty feet high.

Desperately, they climbed the fence anyway. Amy's shirt got stuck on the top, but Dan pulled her free. Together they pressed against the back wall. There was no alley. No exit. They were trapped. If only they had a weapon ... and then Amy realized her brain wasn't paralyzed by fear anymore. The explosion had snapped her back to her senses.

She knew what they needed. "Dan, the Franklin battery!"

"What good will that do?"

She ripped open his backpack and took out the battery. The two thugs advanced warily -- probably wondering whether Dan had any more grenades. Amy uncoiled the battery's copper wires and made sure the ends were stripped. "I hope it has a charge."

"What are you doing?" Dan asked.

"Franklin used to do this for fun," she said. "To startle his friends. Maybe if it's got enough juice ..."

The men were at the fence. One of them snarled something in French. It sounded like an order to surrender. Amy shook her head.

The men began to climb, and Amy leaped forward. She touched the wires against the fence and the men yelped in surprise. Blue sparks flew off the metal bars. Smoke curled from the men's hands and they fell backwards, stunned. Amy threw down the battery.

"Come on!" she yelled.

In a heartbeat, they were over the fence. They raced out of the graveyard, past the unconscious Holts, the thugs, and the overturned cement truck.

Amy felt a twinge of guilt leaving the Holts behind unconscious, but they had no choice.

They didn't stop running until they were halfway across the Pont Louis-Philippe. Amy doubled over, gasping for breath. At last they were safe. They'd survived the trap.

But when she looked back, she saw something that scared her worse than the graveyard. Standing in the shadows at the foot of the bridge, a hundred yards back the way they'd come, was a tall gray-haired man in a black overcoat.