He dropped into pitch black. Someone zipped a canvas bag around him so his knees were under his chin and his guitar was mashed against his back. The cloth was pulled so tight against him, he couldn't move his arms. His knees jammed into his chin and throat so he couldn't shout. The bag was so thick and ruffly that he couldn't see or hear clearly.
Miguel missed a lot of things.
His missed Manolo ripping open the floorboards just to catch a glimpse of the kidnapper diving through the stage wreckage. He missed his frantic cries to the others- "Olivia! Olivia's got him!"- which sent them all in different directions to try and cut off her escape. He missed each wild dive they made for her and every miss as Olivia jumped two or three floors worth of stairs at a time. All Miguel could do was feel the movement, and the constant sensation of blindly falling left him sick. He missed the point where Olivia made it to the street; he only knew when she tossed him in the trunk of a car and slammed the lid shut over him with an ear-popping force. She took off fast enough to roll him into the metal.
He missed Dante's frantic flight after him, and how the street lit up with flames as the Bone Wagon joined the chase. He missed the sky going orange with La Muerte's rage as the goddess filled the air, and the road going slick with filth as Xibalba gripped at Olivia's tires. He missed alebrijes diving, Legends attacking, Manny and Imelda shooting, and each of Olivia's wild turns and inexplicable escapes from every power that should have held her back.
Miguel missed Olivia making one blind shot and taking out the Bone Wagon's front tire, sending it spinning into a wall.
He missed the gods recoiling in horror as Olivia turned a corner into the Petrified Forest, peeling up a cloud of flower petals from the dusty soil.
He missed the hidden tunnel which took Olivia underground, past the damn built by the flaming demon beavers.
Miguel missed a lot of things, in a lot of ways. Right now, he missed his mamá.
The car drove for ages. His stomach hurt. His back was starting to ache. Everything around him smelled like flowers and cigarettes. All he could do was curl up to keep from hurling and think about all the events that lead to this moment.
The car stopped. His bag was lifted and he was carried out. He didn't bother shouting. He could feel it in his bones; wherever he was, there was nothing else. Other than the steady crunch of feet against dirt, he couldn't hear a sound. No people, no city noises, no echo of nearby walls… no nothing. His kidnapper carried him across a short distance and, breaking the silence, opened a screen door with a worn, weak spring.
He could hear that, and it struck him. The sound put him back home for a split second; just the normal little squeak of a spring door, and the faint feeling that all around him… everything was wet.
Hector LeMans sung. "There she is~ Miss Olivia~"
Olivia responded coolly. "Good to see you too, darling."
With a quick zip, Miguel rolled out of the bag and directly onto a wooden table. All the blood rushed back into his arms and legs at once, rendering them numb and useless for sitting up. He could only gasp for the too hot, too wet air and try to get his bearings. Why was he on a table? Where was he? Everything around him was so colorful-
It was a sun room. Moderately high walls with massive panel glass windows, a warm brown stone floor with water drains, lots of shelves… Miguel's home had a room just like it for growing peppers and marigolds. Everything inside was clean, if glistening wet, and the only brick wall opened up via a simple wooden door into a yellow-tiled kitchen. All of it was so… normal. Normal and alive. Right down to the flowers.
Dozens and dozens of potted flowers. Flowers of every shape and size and species, stacked up on shelves and on the corners of the table, some sitting on the floor indecisively and waiting for space. Past the windows, Miguel could see more flowers, a meadow of green and rainbow that spread out to the horizon in every direction. It made the air inside smell clean, unimaginably clean and perfumed with both the buds themselves and the damp soil they grew in.
Each bundle of flowers was set inside an upside-down jawless skull.
Miguel's throat closed before he could scream.
Above him, Olivia and LeMans just kept chit-chatting. Olivia lit a cigarette. "The tower's a bust. So's Cruz- Domino got him in the head. Now he's coneflowers."
LeMans sat heavily in a nearby chair. It groaned under his weight. "Bah, common! I should've guessed he'd turn into something plain. Ah well, no accounting for the public taste, I suppose. Nothing of him left at all?"
"Only this." Olivia yanked the neck of the guitar, lifting it and Miguel a few inches off the table.
"Goodness, Livvy, do you mean the guitar or the boy?"
"Yes."
LeMans laughed. It was such a small chuckle from such a massive skeleton. Hector LeMans was taller than Glottis, and almost fatter than him, and that shouldn't even have been possible. He made Miguel feel like a baby by comparison. LeMans reached over and rustled Miguel's hair; Miguel felt his stomach twist and nearly come up his throat. "Well, let's get a place set up for the both of them. The mantle for the guitar, and I think the reading room should be fine for the boy. I'll get him a few toys and a water bowl. You'll have to find someone else for the table in the breakfast nook."
Olivia put a hand to her cheek in thought. "Calavera? I wrecked his ride back on 33rd Street."
"Oh, Livvy, you always have such wonderful ideas- but no. That's where I'm going to put Salvador."
"I'll get him out of the car next."
Miguel was dropped, and while Olivia and LeMans talked, he slid away over the side of the table. There was no real thought in what he was doing; his eyes found the door and his legs brought him there, and his hands gripped the doorknob- but the door stuck tight, as if the lock had been cemented shut.
"It's trying to get away, darling."
"I know! Isn't it adorable?" LeMans assured Olivia. He chuckled again, so sweetly innocent that it whipped into Miguel's back like a threat. "Keep trying, lad! Surely one of these will work."
Miguel's legs stopped. He fell to his knees right at the door.
He had messed up bad. This was all a big mistake- the sneaking, the stealing, the confronting De la Cruz, getting up on the stage, all of it. He had no idea where his family was and his skull was back with Héctor. Salvador was in Olivia's car, probably sprouted or just kidnapped like he was… Every decision he'd made in the last three years all fell down on him at the same time. It was just like the octopus, or the bees in Rubacava, or running away from his living family in the first place. He could have not gone to the festival in the plaza. He could have stayed with Eva that first night, or a few hours ago, or he could have just not listened to Dante and done the safe thing. Every bad thought all tangled together in his head, electrifying his body and leaving him with no way to move or breathe or see. He leaned against that door, small and tucked into himself, sweating and shaking and gasping for air. There was nothing he could do.
Dante barked.
It was far away. It was quiet, and it echoed in the wide open space. But it was Dante.
The house went silent save for the soft hiss of water sprinklers above.
"What was that?" LeMans stood straight up. "Was that a dog?"
Olivia didn't answer. As smoothly as breathing, she pulled a pistol from her pocket, loaded it, and stepped up to a window to scan the horizon.
"It can't be…" LeMans filled the silence. "We're covered in enough tickets to be invisible to the gods, and you were followed home by a dog?"
Her voice could have kindled a fire for how dryly she spoke. "Can we keep him, daddy? I promise to take care of him."
She jumped back from the glass as it shattered into a spider-web starburst. In the center, a Sproutella dart stood proud and sharp, the dripping of the poison inside falling on a skull and sprouting it beneath her.
Miguel ducked under the table as Olivia and LeMans sprung into action. They stampeded over the room, kicking up shelves to cover the windows and rushing back and forth from the kitchen and sun room. Above him, the table began to groan with the heavy weight placed upon it. LeMan's hip caught the corner, and the contents spilled out over the side; dozens and dozens of Sproutella bullets. Miguel, on instinct, scooped up a handful and stuffed them into his pockets.
"You lead them to my meadow!" LeMans sounded so betrayed. "My one refuge away from all this nonsense, and you lead assassins here!"
Olivia was swapping out her pistol for a rifle as she blew off the comment. "I'll handle it."
"I had you handle the Tower and now it's useless!" LeMans hands never stopped as he whinged at Olivia, loading and cocking a gun of his own. "I let you handle the cat track and you killed all my best cats! Is this going to be a habit?"
Olivia aimed and shot, but apparently hit nothing. "They were Max's cats."
"They were my cats by- by transitive property! Or something!" LeMans took a position at a window and shot. A patch of earth far away from the house burst into a spray of flowers. "This house is a hundred years of hard work, Olivia! I'm not about to give up perfection because you couldn't get away from a few deadbeat souls!"
Olivia fired again, but without aiming or even looking. Miguel couldn't see much of her face, but he could see the firm clench of her jaw and how her hand struggled with loading the next round. She was angry. Her voice was pure ice as she spoke.
"You are the richest man in existence. You can buy new cats, you can build another tower, and you can start a new meadow with these idiots once I'm done with them. You can start with the one in the stupid straw hat."
Miguel nearly squeaked in terror. Héctor was here?! He'd followed him all the way out here to save him, and now he was being shot at! Miguel's heart pounded so hard it hurt him; his shoulders and knees were starting to shake.
"Or." LeMans leveled his gun at the back of Olivia's head. "I can start with a new Olivia."
Miguel expected, after Domino, for the bullet to just kind of stick in her and do nothing. Or for her head to explode into flowers in a split second, like De la Cruz. Instead, he watched in horrifying real time as the bullet struck and Olivia's head started to sprout from the inside out. She staggered and screamed in agony, and clawed at her eyes like she could pull the plants out. Miguel ran as LeMans carelessly stood over her still-writing body and took her place at the window. Even as he ducked into the house's kitchen to hide from the sight, the screaming followed him, along with the knowledge that no matter who else was out there- Manny or Manolo or Imelda- LeMans would do the same to each and every one of them without a second's hesitation. Miguel had to do something, something that would save his family and stop LeMans for good. Something drastic…
He remembered Meche and Imelda's signals for Héctor on the stage. Shoot him.
He tried every drawer, but none of them would open. Every cabinet was locked. This had to be where LeMans kept the guns, right? The was where he and Olivia had run to get them all! But every single door was shut and locked with a keyhole, because LeMans was weird and paranoid and-
He could open one of the cabinets! The one under the sink popped open, and within it sat a tiny electric pump hooked up to the pipes. Water ran through the soft plastic tubing from the sink and out through a damp black hose. Something compelled him; Miguel reached out his hand and leaned on the house. Within a second, the hiss of the sprinklers in the sun room stopped.
LeMans immediately noticed. "What was that?!"
He has no time. With LeMans' footsteps fast approaching, Miguel grabbed the darts from out of his pocket and stabbed them into the hose. He released the Sproutella-charged water, and with a pent-up hiss of pressure, the sprinklers came to life and flooded the sun room with the deadly mix. It caught the giant skeleton in the back just as he stumbled through the kitchen door.
"What are you- ow! Augh! What-?!"
He could hide under the sink! Miguel had enough time to think it, but not enough time to act on it. LeMans stroked the stinging pain on the back of his neck and came away with his palm covered in daisies, and within the next instant he was across the room. He caught fistfuls of Miguel's hoodie, then his arm and neck when Miguel slide out of the sleeves to dive for the cupboard. Through it all, he wailed, a wall-rattling bellow that stabbed into Miguel's ears.
"What did you do?! WHAT DID YOU DO YOU LITTLE BEAST! WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU?!"
From under his feet, Miguel felt something push against him. LeMans' already bulging belly was growing, wriggling, and taut.
Something inside him told him to hold his breath. He could barely inhale, but what little he could suck in, he held tight.
The last thing he saw was a flutter of gold.