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they are,” he said, “then perhaps by the time we get back, they’ll be a little more open to our position. And willing to fight
for
us, not against us.”
    This was good news. Which, of course, meant that bad news was not far behind.
    “So then—wait,” Lex said to Uncle Mort. “We’re escaping to Necropolis, right? What do we need so many weapons for?”
    Uncle Mort paused in his work to look up at her. “Do you know of a better way to invade a city?”
    “What?” Lex looked to Driggs for help, but he appeared just as startled as she did. “We’re
invading?
”
    “Well, yeah. Necropolis is built like a fortress. Can’t just waltz in there and expect to be greeted like it’s a family reunion and we’re the eagerly awaited branch of really attractive cousins.”
    Lex was shell-shocked. “I thought—” She didn’t know why, but up until nd ut up unow she’d believed that Necropolis was the one place they could go where they’d be safe. She thought it’d be full of all the other Grimsphere rebels, people who supported the Juniors and believed in Lex’s innocence. She thought it would be a sanctuary, not a deathtrap that was even more dangerous than Croak.
    “
No one
there is on our side?” said Lex. “Not even the Juniors? Aren’t they being persecuted just as much as we are?”
    “Yes, but that doesn’t mean they’ll be willing to stick their necks out for a band of notorious criminals.”
    “So let me get this straight,” Lex said slowly. “We’re leaving pitchfork-waving townspeople behind to march headlong into a heavily armed military? Why are we going to a city that wants to see us dead?”
    “To be fair, Lex,” he said matter-of-factly, “
every
city in the Grimsphere wants to see us dead. So it’s not like we have much choice in the matter.”
    Lex felt sick. That whipped cream bonanza had been a huge mistake.
    Uncle Mort’s face softened. “We’re going because what I said back in the cabin is true, Lex. All the human involvement and corruption in the affairs of death has triggered a destructive chain reaction in the Afterlife. Any time a Grim does something that we’re not
supposed
to be able to do—Damn or Crash, anything outside the realm of reasonable involvement in people’s deaths—another hole gets poked in the Afterlife. These transgressions against the natural order—violations, they’re called—are what’s causing the vortexes, the memory deletions, and whatever else is bound to pop up the more we interfere. If we don’t stop the damage soon, then
poof—
no more Afterlife for the currently dead, the soon-to-be dead, or the centuries-from-now dead.”
    “Okay,” said Driggs. “So how do we stop the damage?”
    “We permanently seal off the Afterlife from the rest of the world.”
    Lex all but stopped breathing.
“What?”
she shouted. “How?”
    Uncle Mort paused, then sighed.
    “By destroying the portals.”



3
     
    For a moment, there was silence. “Destroy the portals?” Lex repeated in a whisper. Sealing off the Afterlife would mean never seeing her sister again, not until Lex herself died. “Completely?”
    “Yes,” Uncle Mort replied. “And the tunnels we use to deposit the souls, too. Once those openings are sealed, the damage will stop. The portals are in and of themselves violations of the highest order—I mean, they’re giant honking holes between this world and the next, and ones that Grims are free to go in and out of as they please. They’re certainly not helping matters.”
    “I—” Lex was too stunned to form a sentence. “Huh?”
    “Of course, the act of sealing the portals is yet
another
violation,” he continued, “and will most likely cause even
more
damage within the Afterlife, but you know what they say: Sometimes you’ve got to break a few eggs to preserve the everlasting life of mankind.”
    “I don’t understand,” said Lex. “Without the tunnels, how will Grims get the vessels to the Afterlife? Won’t