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Everyone was frozen, Baus included, waiting to see what was going to happen. The air was tense, heavy, and even the giant Aztec guy seemed wary of tiny Mrs. Charles.
Baus and Janice said some more crazy stuff in Latin, and Baus was pointing at Grant. Janice shook her head in the negative, also pointed at Grant, and said something back that Baus apparently didn’t like.
Baus rose up to his full height and snarled down at Janice.
The sound startled Mrs. Charles out of whatever relaxed state Precipitation had managed to put her in, and she screamed again. “Never mind that! You awful little man! All I want to know is where my bell is! My dinner bell! I can’t eat without my bell! Everyone knows that!”
“Mrs. Charles, please, I’m so sorry—” Precipitation pleaded.
“No!” Mrs. Charles pushed her hands out.
Without actually touching him, she somehow sent Precipitation zooming across the floor. He skidded to a stop, groaning and holding his head. When he sat up, he was clearly dazed, and he grunted a very surprised sounding, “Ow?”
Rebecca came next, flashing her bright smile and saying sweetly, “Hi! Mrs. Charles!”
“Who are you?” Mrs. Charles barked.
“Just someone who loves helping others.” Rebecca batted her eyes. “You want to know who took your bell, don’t you, darling?”
“Yes!”
Rebecca pointed at Baus. “He did it.”
Without a single shred of hesitation, Mrs. Charles adjusted her hat, pushed up her chest, and then marched right over toward Baus.
“That was either brilliant or totally doomed us all,” Grant whispered urgently.
“Both? I feel like it could be both,” Huck whispered back, hugging Grant close. He had no idea what was going to happen, and he still wanted to carry Grant right out the front doors of the hotel.
Baus might eat Mrs. Charles.
Less likely, there was also a chance Mrs. Charles might eat Baus.
“You there! Young man!” Mrs. Charles shouted. “Come here, right this instant!”
“Eh?” Baus looked around in clear confusion before pointing at himself.
“Mrs. Charles,” Janice began, stepping up to her, “this is not—”
Mrs. Charles swung her hand, apparently using the fucking ghost Force to smack Janice into the wall with a very satisfyingthump. “Hush now, I am trying to talk to this young man about the theft of my bell.” There was now a large handbag in Mrs. Charles’s hand, and she swung it at Baus’s knee. “Give it back this instant, you terrible thing! Right now!”
Baus actually howled when Mrs. Charles hit him, and he retreated back into the wrecked stairs.
Mrs. Charles continued to swing, and she pounded Baus until he was thrown off balance and landed on his back. The force of his fall shook the entire hotel, and the idea of Mrs. Charles eating Baus was not as insane as it first was a few minutes ago as Huck watched her climb on top of the giant monster and smack him in the face with her purse.
“What in the hell is happening?” Myrna was here now, and she stopped short when she saw Mrs. Charles beating Baus. “Is…? Is that my great-grandmother beating a monster?”
Finn sprang to life and surged from behind Cary over to her side. He wrapped his arm around her waist, whispering into her ear as he tried to steer her back the way she came. Myrna smacked at his hands and a fierce bickering bout ensued, but then they both froze when Baus roared angrily.
He had managed to get a hold of Mrs. Charles and throw her off, but she refused to stop.
She swung back her purse and when it struck Baus, he crashed into the wall and left a very sizable hole. A long crack ran up from the hole into the ceiling, and a piece of the moulding came down and landed on top of Baus’s head.
The crack continued to grow, and a shower of rubble and dust rained over them all.
“Time to go!” Huck wasn’t going to wait around any longer to see if the ceiling was going to come down next. He grabbed Grant tight and steered him toward the hall with the others right behind them.
Before any of them could reach the doorway, however, Mrs. Charles came crashing through. She destroyed the doorway and took out one of the walls inside the hallway. The damage caused the entire hall to collapse in on itself, totally blocking their route of escape.
