Awakening of Fire Page 5

  Maybe whatever he had yesterday hadn't been a phone.

  "It might not be a good idea," Sven said. "I enjoyed talking to you, too, but Tasha scares me."

  I exhaled, trying to hide my disappointment. My fear of Sven was evaporating, despite logic telling me that he might not be safe. He had no clue about the mall and so far, he'd proven to be a nice guy. "So, what were you going to tell me?" I asked.

  Sven peeked around me to check whoever was ahead of me in line. Once satisfied, he lowered his voice. "You need to find new friends," he said. "The one you have isn't a good one."

  "Next," the lunch lady ordered. The line crept forward. It was my turn.

  "What do you mean?" I asked.

  Sven focused on the green beans next. I handed over my card, and the lady swiped it, then waved me out of line. I thought about waiting for Sven, but Tasha waved me to our usual table the second I emerged from the lunch line. Doing my friend duty, I walked over and I sat.

  Sven emerged next. He stood there on the other side of the cafeteria, eyed me, and settled on the other side of the room.

  "So, what did you say to him?" Tasha asked.

  "Not much," I admitted, confusion stealing over me. We'd been getting along, maybe even bordering on flirting territory, and then this. What would make Sven tell me not to hang out with Tasha? An urge to get me alone, maybe. Perhaps I was getting suckered by his amazingness. It made me forget that he looked like the man who burned from the inside out.

  And now the Vultures were descending on him. Larissa put her tray down a few spots down from him as her friends sat down. Sven ate, trying to ignore them. A lot of the other girls were staring.

  "Come on. Tell me." She smiled, poking at me with her plastic fork.

  "He told me the cafeteria food here sucks," I said, devouring a piece of fish. My stomach roared just as it had yesterday. Fish would not be enough. What was with me? Maybe Mom and Dad were working me too hard.

  Tasha nodded as if she didn't believe me. "Wow. You must be hungry," she said.

  "I am," I admitted. I might be a girl, but I felt no shame in eating. That was one thing I never understood. Tasha had a mortal fear of anything that had fat unless it was (ironically enough) olive oil. "Don't tell my parents I'm eating this."

  "Wait. Don't vegetarians eat fish?"

  But I stopped paying attention to her as a movement over her shoulder caught my attention. Principal Adler approached Sven's table with a stern, almost predatory, look on her face. Sven was so busy focusing on his tray, trying to ignore the Vultures that he didn't notice at first.

  "Look," I said, stomach turning over.

  I'd forgotten that I had tried to get Sven in trouble yesterday.

  And that it caused him to run from the office.

  I'd never seen Adler with that look on her face before. Even from two tables away, her eyes seemed different. Hungry. Almost red. A glow emerged from them, barely perceptible, as she seized Sven's shoulder.

  "What were you doing, running from my office?" she asked loud enough to draw attention to the table.

  "Whoa," Tasha said, following my gaze. "Maybe his complaints about the food didn't get lost on the principal."

  A shudder raced down my spine. My thoughts turned to vampires. They had reddish eyes, right? "Look at Adler," I said.

  "What about her?"

  "Her eyes," I whispered.

  "They look normal."

  Great. Maybe she was right that my paranoia was getting to me, but the glow remained even after I blinked and rubbed my lids. Principal Adler stood by the window, right in sunlight. She wasn't even squinting, so I had to throw the vampire theory out. Besides, what vampire wanted to stay in sunny, dry Olivia?

  I was hallucinating, or this was something different.

  "The thing in my pocket. It was a gift," Sven said. "If you would have taken my phone, my father would have--"

  Principal Adler, despite being a petite woman who looked as if she never worked out a day in her life, pulled Sven off his seat with a single yank.

  By now, everyone in the cafeteria watched. A look of terror swept over Sven's face as he stared down the Principal. The faint glow faded from her eyes. I shook my head. Maybe it was just a trick of the light. It was the explanation Tasha would have.

  "You are coming to the office and facing expulsion," she said, sounding as if she were making an announcement to the entire cafeteria. "Hitting a staff member will not be tolerated in this school."

  Many of the girls gasped. Sven's jaw dropped open, and he looked around at everyone as if begging for help. "I hit no one! She's lying!" His accent was strong now. He pulled against the Principal, looking like someone in the clutches of a monster and not someone about to get expelled.

  Were Principal Adler's fingernails longer than before?

  No. She was Normal. She wasn't a freak. I liked her. She had even helped us pick olives lots of times. Her hobbies included embroidery and baking. This woman here acted nothing like the Adler I knew.

  She pulled on Sven, forcing him towards the exit.

  Then he grabbed a plastic fork and tried to stab her with it.

  People gasped. I thought of the guy at the mall, but Sven's act was one of desperation. The fork bent and broke as it struck Principal Adler's suit sleeve. His eyes widened in terror. Then he looked at me with the greatest intensity I'd ever seen. It was the look of someone getting dragged off to an execution.

  He was begging for my help.

  And I knew why. I'd done this to him.

  Principal Adler dragged him up the stairs. Words had escaped him. She pushed open the door and stepped through the hall as Sven tried to hook his foot into it to stop it from closing. He was buff. Athletic. There was no way Adler should be able to drag him out of the cafeteria.

  His foot vanished.

  She had.

  Chatter exploded in the cafeteria as people freaked. People got up to head for the door. Everyone wanted to gawk.

  Tasha poked me. "Did you see that?" she asked.

  Sven was getting expelled. Maybe he had hit the principal if he was from the same family as the crazy guy.

  But the look of terror on his face stayed with me. I got up.

  "Back to your seats!" one of the lunch ladies ordered. She blew her whistle. "Now. That boy is violent and a danger to the school. I heard the story. Let Adler deal with him and then continue your day."

  People retreated from the door and sat.

  But I couldn't stay still.

  And did I want to help Sven? He hadn't tried to stab me.

  I headed for the door.

  "Felicia! She said to sit down," Tasha said.

  I burst through the door as the lunch lady turned to yell at someone else at the other exit. Slipping out was easy. Tasha didn't follow. There was no way she'd want to risk getting in trouble.

  But something compelled me forward.

  The hallway was empty. I could see the office, and since it had a big window, I could tell that no one was inside. Shouldn't Adler have taken Sven in there? Or maybe there were cops waiting outside the school.

  A door closed with a final thud farther down the hall.

  The sound send a chill down my spine.

  The basement door.

  My gut screamed warnings. I bolted to the metal door in the alcove which stayed shut. There was a sign forbidding any non-staff to enter. No sound escaped. My mind turned to that story about the piper who led those kids into the mountain which wasn't ominous at all.

  Adler had Sven in the basement.

  Creepy.

  I checked the hall, and I pulled on the door.

  A lock snapped as I did with a loud click. I examined the door, floored, and the broken bar that once held the door shut and kept hopeful students out. Maybe it was just old and ready to break, like the rest of the school. The alternative scared me too much.

  The stairs went down into darkness. I only detected a faint orange light below and smelled nothing but moisture a
nd cleaning supplies. Mom and Dad popped into my head, warning me not to go in the basement with all those dangerous chemicals and boilers. But I wanted nothing more to do with listening to them or anyone else, even Tasha. It was time to sort this out.

  So I descended the steps, listening and careful not to let my feet scrape the old wooden stairs. They creaked, and I paused, but no one responded below.

  Once I reached the bottom, a regular old basement with metal shelves of cleaning stuff spread out in front of me. The place smelled damper than it should have because I didn't even spot a boiler anywhere or see any leaks on the concrete floor. There were also shelves of old school banners and supplies. Dust settled around a metal one that held a bunch of paper reams.

  The place was empty.

  But where could have—

  The dust. There were faint tracks on the floor where the shelving had gotten pulled out, probably by Principal Adler. I rushed over and yanked the shelf away from the wall, making a loud squeal. This seemed stupid, but I had no other alternatives. I'd closed the basement door, right? Either way, no one came down to yell at me.

  There was a door set in the brick wall. The outline of it was faint and the boxes of paper had been hiding the handle which was nothing more than an indent in the brick, but Adler had taken Sven through that opening.

  I pulled it open. The brick door hissed as it slid on old hinges.

  And I found the explanation for the moisture smell.

  Stone steps descended into a rocky cavern, into a darkness so deep that it might be death itself.

  I took a breath.

  So Olivia had secrets.

  And they might be deadly.

  Chapter Seven

  It smelled just like I imagined a cave would. If I listened, I could hear a draft, whispering underneath the town I called home all my life. As far as anyone knew, our town had no cave systems or anything more interesting than The Freezer, but by following Adler and Sven, I had proven otherwise.

  They both knew something about this. It explained Adler's behavior and Sven's terror. I didn't know who to trust anymore or who to fear. Sven's look of terror and silent begging for my help returned.

  He held answers. Somehow, I knew it.

  And I couldn't let him end up a sacrifice to some crazy cult. What else was down in the caves?

  I searched for a flashlight, heart racing. I couldn't believe I had the guts to go down there, but after facing that crazy dude, something had changed in me. Confidence was taking over. I could go down there and figure out what was happening once and for all.

  The janitor had a whole collection of flashlights. I chose a small one with a powerful beam and hurried down the steps, lighting the way. The steps spiraled into the earth, and as I descended, the air got warmer instead of colder. Leaving the basement behind, I continued in a circle that drilled down into the depths of the world. Did the janitor even know about this? I'd only found the door because of the shelf's tracks in the dust.

  "Sven?" I called, my voice barely above a whisper. My confidence might grow, but at least my stupidity wasn't. Or was it? Going down here alone wasn't the best idea, but it wasn't as if I could ask Tasha or Dirk. Tasha would tell me no way.

  Principal Adler wanted Sven to vanish and wanted the school to think it was a good thing.

  Time lost meaning as I spiraled down the steps. At last, the whistling sound of the draft increased, and I reached the bottom. A ballroom of smooth stone stretched in front of me as I swung the beam back and forth. Then I had the thought to check above me. Leave it to Mom and Dad to instill that caution in me. Yikes.

  Stalactites. Moisture dripped from them, leaving an eerie ambience.

  "Holy crap," I told myself. "A legit cave."

  The strange heat washed over me. Maybe it connected to some kind of geothermal source or hot spring. Maybe the cult threw their victims in there to scald to death. I swung the flashlight again, leaving the crude steps behind, until the beam landed on a passageway that sloped even farther into the earth.

  "That's where she took you, Sven," I said.

  I'd never explored a cave before and knew my chances of getting lost were high, but I couldn't risk leaving any bread crumbs. Principal Adler had always been nice to me, and if she was some dangerous Abnormal or cult leader (or both) I wanted to stay on her good side. After finding no other passages, I ran across the cavern and into the catacomb. Wasn't that what cave passages were called?

  I was right it sloped downward. Great. The air crossed the line from warm to hot. It felt like the worst summer day but without the sun. My body managed not to sweat (that got reserved for nerves) as I continued to descend. More cave passages forked out on every side of me, until I felt like I was walking through a Swiss cheese network, and then the nervous sweat started between my fingers. I had no way of knowing which way she had taken Sven.

  What was I doing? I had no business down here.

  That was when a horrible noise met my ears.

  If a giant curtain could flap in a cave, it would have made this whooshing, snapping sound. I'd heard nothing like it before. The sound came from somewhere to my right, and then hot air rushed out of that tunnel. Well, that answered my question. Sven was probably in that direction—and whatever had made the noise was big.

  For the first time, I considered turning back. If I ran straight back up this tunnel, I could get out, go on with my life, and never have to worry about Sven again. Only I wasn't worried about him anymore. He didn't seem like someone out to kill me even if he had at first.

  And it was my fault he was down here. I wasn't sure why, but it was.

  Screw it. I was going in.

  I ducked into the right tunnel. It was small enough to not allow anything big through, which gave me hope that Sven might be alive. The scariest animals we had around Olivia were occasional coyotes and a cougar sighting every few years, but none of those fit. But, as I was learning, there might be more.

  The heat increased. Something looked off.

  And then, I lowered my flashlight.

  There was light coming from ahead. It was orange and fiery, but not like the sodium lights of the school basement. Clicking the flashlight off, I tiptoed forward. Fire roared. It must be the source of the heat.

  The narrow tunnel seemed to go on forever, but then it curved and opened into a chamber so large I was shocked that the town hadn't fallen into it. I had to blink to make sure I was seeing this right.

  Large stone braziers stood everywhere, spewing flames. Each one stood eight feet tall, so I wondered how anyone had lit them all without a ladder. Smoke scent filled the room and the whistling of the draft intensified. More stalactites hung, pointing down at heaps—no, mountains—of gold coins, stacks of bills, mountains of change, and an assortment of shining gemstones mixed with everything. The money smell mixed with everything else. Natural stone pillars supported the massive ceiling, blocking my view of much of the cavern. I was standing at the mouth of an underground vault.

  There was enough treasure here to feed the world.

  I took a step back. If I'd wandered into some crime ring's stash, I didn't want to be here. The cult worshipped fire and took the riches of everyone they killed.

  And then I spotted him.

  In the center of the room, chained to the center brazier, stood Sven. He wiggled, trying to slip his body down through his binds, but it was useless. If anyone looked like a sacrifice, it was him.

  Principal Adler was gone. I thought of the curtain snapping noise again, but I was already bolting into the room. My foot grazed a pile of gold coins—ancient gold coins—and sent a bunch of them tumbling onto the cave floor.

  Sven continued to struggle against the chains, but they held him so tight he couldn't even lift his arms away from the brazier's pillar. They dug into his skin.

  "Sven," I said.

  He snapped his gaze up at me. "Felicia."

  "What are you doing here?" I circled him after checking the surrounding cave.


  "They'll kill me," he said.

  "Who?" I asked.

  Sven looked at me as if he couldn't believe I hadn't figured it out and then turned his gaze to the surrounding piles of money and treasure. "You don't know?"

  "Look, if you ticked off the mafia, we have to call the cops and--"

  "We're in a dragon lair."

  I froze right there in the heat. Sven stared me down with sweat pouring down his face. A few more coins toppled off the pile I grazed and onto the floor.

  "We're what?"

  "They're real, okay? And your principal figured out I'm a Slayer. The only reason I'm still alive is that she went to get the other dragons. I'm going on trial when they get back. Then they'll kill me."

  "Dragons do trials?" I asked. Sven had just confirmed the worst scenario. My mind turned to the stanza he read that morning about welling and burning. Sheer panic rose inside me. Dragons wanted to murder Sven and it might be my fault for exposing him. "There are dragons in Olivia? But they're supposed to be extinct."

  "Do they look extinct?" Sven tried to point at all the money and treasure.

  "Well," I started, eyeing the braziers. None of them had ladders, and yet something had lit them all from eight feet above.

  And the flapping noise—

  So Principal Adler was a dragon worshipper who served her reptilian overlords.

  Or worse.

  "Get me out of these chains, or I'll suffer a horrible death," Sven said. "I've never even killed any dragons, but they might not care. Look for something that can cut these chains. Dragons like antiques."

  I wasn't sure why Sven called himself a Slayer if he had killed nothing, but I'd go with it. His terror thickened the air. I knew how the dragons would kill him, and after what I'd seen and heard, how could I deny the truth of his words? I ran to a pile of coins and kicked at it. Some fell away, revealing antique goblets, swords, and even an iron armguard. "Do they like power tools?"

  "Maybe. Check!"

  His voice echoed off the walls of the cave. I had to hurry. I dug through treasure, finding more swords, daggers, and goblets, but none like the one I'd seen in the mall. If I didn't succeed, Sven would burn to death. I didn't even care that this cave must be worth billions and could buy my freedom. If Beowulf had any truth to it, stealing dragon treasure was a terrible idea.