Just a few feet out of the meeting hall, Carolus Ludovicus grins at me, although he still looks to be in pain.
“I was waiting for you,” he says.
“For me?” I am confused. Why would someone who I need to kill wait for me? But I have nothing to do but talk now. The sun behind me sets low, and I haven’t figured out how to kill him yet so I can save the world.
“I’ve been waiting for you for years, Alice.”
“Years?” I’m more and more confused.
“Since the first day I materialized into life. You have no idea how many headaches I had to give Lewis until he was weak enough to let me out into the world.”
“It’s a pretty hard concept to grasp, that you’re his darker side, I mean.”
“The Cheshire likes to say ‘we’re all mad here.’” He’s half circling me from a distance, his head tilted to the right a bit. “He is wrong. ‘We’re all schizophrenic here’ is the right phrase. Lewis is no different front the rest of us. Darkness lurks in all of us.”
“Don’t compliment yourself.” I’m still buying time. “You’re just a figment of your imagination.”
“Isn’t Jack the same?” His stare is piercing through me. “But you love Jack and don’t love me.”
“Don’t compare yourself to Jack. What do you really want?”
“I want what you want.”
“I don’t think so.” I slowly step closer to him. Maybe I need to lock him up somewhere until I figure out how to kill him. “You want to laugh at the world by showing them that they can’t handle the truth.”
“And isn’t it fun?”
“No it isn’t. If you want fun, go ride a roller coaster. Now, what do you really want? Why aren’t you running away from me when you know I’m the only who can kill Carroll’s split persona?”
“Why do you think I’m not running, Alice?” He dares me and slowly limps toward me.
This is strange. I don’t understand what’s going on.
“You think I made the March Hare cook this plague to end the world?”
“It’s a plausible assumption.” I’m not going to stop. I try not to be scared of him. It’s like playing tip-top, only waiting to see who will kill the other first.
“And why would I want to end the world?” He flaps his eyes sideways, and balloons start falling from the sky.
This is surreal. I never thought balloons could scare me this much.
“So explain it to me. You plague the world but still don’t want anyone to die. Either I’m mad or it’s you whose screws are loose.”
“None of us are mad, Alice.” Closer. “I created this plague for one reason—other than having fun by laughing at humans killing each other because of the truth, of course.”
“I have an asylum I have to go back to, so cut it short because I don’t have all night. Sleeping early is good for mad girls like me.”
“You want short? Okay.” He stops, his cheeks twitching against the pain. Maybe I don’t have to kill him at all. Maybe the migraine will. “I created this plague to find you.”
“You wanted to see me? Why not send an SMS?” I keep approaching.
“Because how do I know you’re the real Alice?”
Now I stop.
“I had to create an end of the world scenario because only the Real Alice would stand up to face me,” he says. “If you weren’t the Real Alice, you wouldn’t be standing here this very moment.”
There is a lump in my throat. “And why did you want to find me?”
Chapter 102
UN Headquarters, Geneva, Switzerland
Fabiola finally escaped the guards who caught her, thinking she was a terrorist. Funny how mad people think of you as mad once you cure them.
“Where is Alice?” She bumped into the Pillar.
“Outside. She’ll kill Carolus to stop the plague.”
“Something’s not right, Pillar. You have to save her. I mean save him.” She hit the Pillar in the chest.
“I don’t understand.”
“The March Hare just remembered why Carolus imprisoned him in Brazil.”
“Why?”
“Because he feared the March would remember his plan and expose him.”
“His plan? You mean the plague?”
“No, the real plan behind the plague.”
“You mean Carolus doesn’t want to end the world?”
“No. He wanted the plague to lead him to the real Alice. It was a test so he could find her.”
“Find her?” The Pillar thought for a moment. “Find her and what? Kill her?”
“That’s a possibility, but I don’t think that’s it.” She was trying to frantically find an exit, as the guards had locked them for security.
“Then why did he use the plague to lead him to Alice?”
“Don’t you get it?”
The Pillar’s face drooped as if he’d just aged twenty years. “Lewis Carroll!”
Chapter 103
Parking Lot, UN Headquarters, Geneva, Switzerland
“I had to find you so I could finally kill you, Alice Wonder.”
I am about to laugh at him. “That’s not even my real name.”
“You’re right,” he says. “I needed to kill you with my own hands, Mary Ann.”
He begins approaching again, his balloon showing the night all around me. I wonder if they are some kind of weapon. He sounds so confident.
“Back off.” I point my umbrella at him. “Or I’ll shoot.”
“You know the Bandersnatch bullets won’t kill me.”
The worst thing is that I do know. What could possibly kill Carolus?
“I thought Lewis told you how to kill me.” He stopped again. Carolus surely likes to chat a lot.
“Everyone keeps telling me Lewis must have told.” I am going crazy. “But he hasn’t.”
“Maybe he did, and you just missed the message.”
“No! He didn’t.” I take a deep breath after losing control for a moment. “He showed me to his studio. I saw one of the doors to Wonderland. I saw the rabbit in his pocket. I saw the photographs of the girls he took. He talked to me, and he was nice to me.” I realize tears are about to trickle down my cheeks. I can’t help it. “He never even told me about you.”
“That’s because I am the part he likes to forget the most,” Carolus says. “Like everyone else, no one wants to admit their dark half exists.”
“You sure do talk too much.” I hold back the tears. “What do you really want? You would have killed me already if that’s what you planned all this for.”
“I like a fair fight,” His shoulders twitch now. “It th-th-thrills me.”
This is when I realize the full beast is facing me now.
“How fair can this get? I don’t remember how to kill you.”
“So-so let me remind you.” The grin on his face could kill a few people in this life alone.
“Tell me.” I am reluctant, but if he wants to play, let’s play.
“Lewis must have given you something precious and told you not to tell about it.”
“He did,” Sorry, Lewis. A lot of people know about the key. It’s too late to pretend I don’t have it. “A key.”
“Never realized what it’s for?”
“No.”
“How about you check that small button on your umbrella weapon for a start?”
“Button?” I look and find it instantly. I remember pushing it before. It opens a small groove where a bullet should fit in, except no bullet ever did.
“Now try to load your umbrella with the key.”
My heart races. I pull out the key, about to fit it in.
“Not all keys open doors, Alice,” Carolus says. “Some keys open skulls.”
Chapter 104
It’s hard to tell how long it takes to squeeze the key bullet into place.
At first, my shaking hands drop it. Then, as I kneel to pick it up, it suddenly rains, not balloons, but icy waters.
With a blurry vision, on my knees, I feel the earth, looking for my lost key, well aware of Carolus running my direction.