Chapter 18

CHAPTER 18 The holding cell was tiny and smelled bad. This may or may not have been because the toilet was right in the middle of the room, displayed like it was a stylish conversation piece. Dan hoped he wouldn't be there long enough to have to use it. If Dan was upset, Jonah was devastated. His fans would not have recognized their hip-hop idol, who sat on the wooden bench, his famous face sinking lower with each passing hour. Gone was his effervescent confidence. In fact, he wasn't speaking at all. To Dan, who had only known Jonah the world-beater, the change was almost as scary as their current predicament. Dan tried to be encouraging. "Your dad was parked just down the block. He must have seen what happened. I'll bet he's on his BlackBerry right now, pulling strings to get us out of jail." "Yeah, whatever," Jonah mumbled.

Dan was bewildered. "Don't you want to get out of here?" Jonah shrugged. "I don't care." "Well, you ought to care! You've got the world's greatest life to get back to! You're a rap star, a TV star—" "You think that means anything?" Jonah interrupted. "Seriously, yo, in our family, if you can't hack it with the thirty-nine clues, you're nothing!" "Fine," Dan conceded. "Ian and Natalie put one over on us. So what?" Jonah was bitter. "So what if I stink at the thing I've been prepping for since the day I was born? Yeah, put me in a recording studio— double platinum. Put me on TV— hit show. Put me in the clue hunt—" "Who cares about the clue hunt?" Dan interrupted. "After all you've accomplished, you're a failure because you don't think you're acing the clue hunt?" "I am a failure!" Jonah stormed. "As a Cahill and a person! Don't you get it? I bailed on you

tonight!" "You didn't! You probably saved my life!" "I was halfway out the door, cuz," Jonah insisted. "Okay, I came back. But I was gone." "That proves you're not bad," Dan reasoned. "Any idiot can do the right thing. You know what's hard? Doing the right thing when you've been hardwired to do the wrong one!" Who better than a Madrigal to understand that? "I flaked on an eleven-year-old kid who I set up to get killed!" Dan took a step back. "You wanted me dead?" The famous features twisted. "You were supposed to be my decoy. If the guards spot us, I throw you to the sharks and bounce. Nothing personal," he added, noting Dan's hurt expression. "It's the clues, yo. They're supposed to make you the most powerful human in history— I say they make you less than human!" Dan said nothing, mostly because there was nothing he could say. He wasn't even all that angry at Jonah. Dan knew better than anybody how the Clue hunt could mess with your head.

Look how it had turned Amy against their parents and split up two siblings who had scarcely left each other's company for eleven years. Dan couldn't escape a growing dread that this wasn't a temporary separation— that there was a very real chance that he might never see his sister again. At the same time, he had saved his own life in hand-to-hand combat, using skills taught to him by a Shaolin master— how awesome was that? There was a clatter of metal on metal, and the guard appeared, accompanied by Broderick Wizard. "Are you guys okay?" His famous son didn't even look up, but to Dan, the man was a welcome sight. This was the closest Dan would ever come to having a dad show up in the nick of time. "We're all right," Dan told Broderick. "Thanks for getting us out." Jonah's father marched them briskly through the building toward the waiting limo. Their quick pace and the dirty looks they were receiving from all the police officers plainly said that they were

making their getaway before the cops changed their minds. "Don't even ask what the record company had to say about this," Broderick informed his son as the limo pulled away from the station. "They called in favors they'll still be repaying twenty years down the road." Jonah slumped against the leather upholstery. "I thought the 'gangsta' image was good for sales." "Not in China," Broderick growled. "They take their terracotta warriors very seriously. And you turned six of them into dust." "Blame the Kabras," Dan said defensively. "And the hit man they hired." "Well, he must have escaped," Jonah's father concluded, "because this whole rap is on your heads. And you wouldn't believe what it cost to make it go away. Venice hit the ceiling! The Janus haven't had a cover-up this big since Lufbery's lion got loose in Piccadilly!" Jonah's answer was a soft purring snore. He hadn't slept a wink all night. Neither had Dan, but never could he remember being so wired— not

even the time he'd put away forty ounces of Red Bull. He watched the sun rise over the miles of apartment buildings in Xian on both sides of the walls of the old city. The dawn of a new day that he had almost not lived to see. It felt— big. Jonah woke up as the limo stopped in front of the Bell Tower. He followed along like a zombie as they took the private elevator up to the penthouse. "There's a surprise waiting for you in the room," Broderick promised his son. "And I've got a surprise for you. I'm out. No more clue hunt for this kid. I don't want it and I don't like what it's turning me into. Tell Mom she's going to have to find another chump." At that moment, the elevator door slid aside, leading them directly into the suite, and a strong female voice declared, "Why don't you tell me yourself, Jonah?" Jonah's eyes widened. "Mom?" Cora Wizard, internationally renowned sculptor and performance artist. The youngest Nobel laureate in history. Legendary leader of the Janus