Underworlds #1: The Battle Begins Read online

  CONTENTS

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Glossary

  Teaser

  Other Books

  About the Author

  Copyright

  LOOKING BACK, I TOTALLY SHOULD HAVE EXPECTED the school floor to crack open and flames to spew out all over the place.

  There were signs the whole morning that things weren’t normal anymore. But it’s just not something you imagine happening.

  The floor opening up like that.

  Smoke suddenly everywhere.

  And Dana Runson suddenly nowhere.

  I tried to help her, I really did. But she was gone in a flash. Just gone. I couldn’t believe it.

  Not then.

  Not until the red wolf and the crazy lunch ladies and the huge guy with horns and the army of metal dudes —

  Hold on. I’m telling this backward.

  Let me start again.

  Before the world flipped upside down and I lost whatever cool I had, this morning started pretty much like any morning.

  With my dad’s voice.

  “Owen Brown, get down here!”

  I leaped out of bed, splashed water on my face, and threw on my clothes. Then I raced to the kitchen and flopped down at the table next to my little sister, Mags.

  “Sorry,” I said. “I couldn’t sleep. I was worrying about the concert.”

  I play guitar in the school orchestra. We were doing a big benefit concert at the local college that morning.

  “You’ll be great,” my mom said. “Eat.”

  As she slid a bowl of oatmeal in front of me, my dad reached into his wallet. “Take a couple dollars for your collections,” he said.

  Besides the benefit concert, there are at least four collections going on every day at school. Flood relief. Earthquake relief. Hunger relief. Senior citizen housing. They’re all part of our H.E.R.O. program. H.E.R.O. stands for Help Everyone By Reaching Out.

  Which I know spells H.E.B.R.O. But that’s not really a word, so we skip the B.

  “Me, too,” said Mags, pushing a handful of pennies across the table. “I’ve colored Mr. Lincoln’s hair with a blue marker. So everyone will know they’re from me.”

  I slid the coins into my pocket. “Nine cents is perfect, Mags. We’ll meet our goal for sure.”

  “Yay!” she said. “Plus, you know what else? Dana comes home with you today!”

  Dana Runson is my oldest friend. Her mother (my mom’s college roommate) and father are teachers at the local college. They called last night to ask if Dana could stay here while they went to Iceland to do some research. I know, right? Iceland? Brrrr!

  Since Dana lives across town, her parents are dropping her off at school this morning, and she’ll come home with me and live with us until they get back.

  Beep-beep!

  “There’s the bus,” my mom said. “Hustle!”

  “See you later! With Dana!” I said. I grabbed my guitar case and tore out of the house to the corner. The bus driver was just beginning to close the door when I leaped on board.

  Cool move, right?

  Wrong.

  The moment I plunked down next to a tall kid listening to his iPod, I realized I had gotten on the high school bus!

  Was that the first thing to go weird today?

  Luckily, the high school was just across the street from Pinewood Bluffs Elementary. If I ran, I could make it to homeroom before the bell. So I pulled out the dollar bills my dad had given me and carefully folded each of them into airplane shapes.

  “You making origami?” asked the boy next to me.

  “Just saving time,” I said. “There’s a collection in school. I have to donate on the run.”

  He glanced at my face. “Hey, you’re that Hebro kid. That’s cool. Here.” He fished a dollar out of his pocket.

  “Seriously?” I asked. “Thanks!”

  He shrugged. “NBD.”

  Which stands for No Big Deal. But it should really be VBD, for Very Big Deal. Since the big power plant in our town closed down, lots of people lost their jobs. People in Pinewood Bluffs don’t have a lot to give.

  Errrch! When the bus finally stopped, I jumped off with the big kids. I ran around the high school parking lot, down one sidewalk and up another, straight toward the elementary school doors. I was totally on time!

  “Owen Brown — help!”

  And I stopped.

  Mr. Kenkins, the custodian, was untangling the flagpole ropes. Again.

  “Can you give me a hand here?” he asked. “It’ll only take one minute.”

  Brinnnng! The first bell rang.

  In three minutes I would be officially late. But when someone says, “Help,” how can you refuse? Besides, Mr. Kenkins only asked for one minute. I had three.

  As I held up one end of the rope, and Mr. Kenkins worked to unknot the other, I looked out behind the school. The dark pinewoods that gave our town half its name were what remained of one of the oldest forests in the state. Beyond them were ten miles of rocky bluffs that gave us the other half of our name.

  Mr. Kenkins unlooped and unthreaded the ropes this way and that until — brrrinnnnng! — the late bell rang. Homeroom was starting.

  “And … done,” said Mr. Kenkins with a big smile. “Thanks, Owen.”

  “Anytime!” I said.

  Slamming through the front doors, I found the halls already empty. Argh! I leaped into the main office to grab a late slip off the secretary’s desk and toss Maggie’s pennies in the collection can.

  And I leaped right into the secretary.

  “Ahhhh!” she cried.

  I spun to keep from knocking her over … and spilled Mags’s pennies all over the floor.

  “Sorry!” I said, fumbling on the floor to collect them. But I could only find eight blue-haired Lincolns.

  Was the missing penny another sign?

  “One must have rolled under Principal Carole’s door.” I stood and reached for the doorknob.

  “Don’t you dare disturb her!” said the secretary, standing in my way. “Take a late slip.”

  I dropped Maggie’s donation in the collection can, snagged a late slip, and raced toward first period. On the run, I fished out the money my dad and the kid on the bus had given me. I shot the dollar airplanes into Mr. Hemlock’s classroom.

  “Thanks, O,” he called.

  I kept running, down the stairs toward homeroom. The guitar case slammed my back with every step. I could picture my grandma wincing, telling me to be more careful with my guitar. She taught me how to play before she died — folk songs, rock songs, everything. My friend Jon Doyle keeps saying that he and I should form a band. But with me on guitar and Jon on triangle — Strum, bing! Strum, bing! — I’m not sure you could call it a band.

  I tore around the next-to-last corner. Almost there. One final turn, then — BLAM! — right into … Dana!

  The crash threw her into the wall, and I fell flat on my face.

  I leaped up and pulled her to her feet. “Dana! I’m such a klutz. Are you okay?”

  She looked into my eyes. Her long blonde hair was tangled. Her cheeks were beyond pale. “Owen, I know the real reason my parents went to Iceland. The monsters. They’re coming here. But you can’t tell a soul, not yet —”

  I stepped back. “Monsters? Dana, what are you —”

  “Find the book! In my house. It’ll tell you everything. You’ll know i
t. It’s not like the others.”

  “Dana —” I thought I heard someone at the far corner. Before I could see who it was, thick black smoke billowed up from the floor under Dana’s feet. The air roared like a jet engine. And I heard words — hissing — as if from a million miles away.

  The … battle … begins ….

  Dana’s face went white. “HELP!”

  She threw something at me. Flames shot up in a ring around her feet, the floor split open, and she fell straight down. I saw eyes, dozens of them. And shiny black stuff. And thrashing shapes. And fire.

  “Dana?” I shouted. “Dana!”

  But an instant later, the floor sealed up, the fire vanished, and Dana was gone.

  “DANA!” I KNEELED AND HAMMERED MY FISTS ON the solid floor, while the school bell ending homeroom jangled on and on. Classrooms emptied, and kids and teachers crowded the hall.

  My brain was spinning.

  What had just happened was … impossible! Had anyone else seen it? Was it just me?

  Then I noticed what Dana had thrown at me. Her house key.

  Seriously? She wants me to go to her house? To find the book she talked about?

  Footsteps pounded toward me. I turned.

  It was Jon. “Are you okay? The lights in the whole school blinked out for a second. It was so weird!”

  “No,” I said. My mouth was dry, and my voice sounded funny.

  “It wasn’t weird?”

  “I mean I’m not okay,” I said, pointing to the floor. I wasn’t sure why, but I lowered my voice, so no one else would hear me. “Dana vanished … down there!”

  Jon looked at me, then at my feet, then at me again. “Where?”

  “Through the floor!” I whispered. “She went through the floor! She disappeared! A hole opened up, and she fell into it!”

  Jon’s jaw dropped. “Mr. Kenkins is going to be so mad. He’s too old to fix stuff like that. He even gets tangled in the flagpole ropes —”

  I grabbed Jon by the shoulders and gave him a shake. “Jon. Focus. I just saw Dana vanish through the floor! One second she was here, and the next … poof!”

  Jon breathed out, was quiet for a minute, then nodded. “I get it. I mean, I don’t get it. But I know you, Owen. When you say something, you mean it. What are we going to do?”

  That was the thing about Jon. It was sometimes hard to get his attention. But if you did, he was with you a hundred percent.

  “Stand right here,” I said, pointing to the floor tiles. “I’m going downstairs. Do not move from this spot.”

  Jon frowned. “This spot? You want me to stand on the spot where Dana vanished? Is that safe?”

  “I’ll be right back!” I ran to the end of the hall and jumped three steps at a time to the lower level. I knew that there was nothing under the hall except the boiler room, which was always locked, but I had to look.

  It didn’t help. “Dead end,” I said to myself, pounding on the iron door.

  My heart thudded as I ran back upstairs. Students and teachers were everywhere now, stepping around Jon, who was on his hands and knees examining the floor tiles. Tapping her foot on the tiles next to him was a really pale girl with short black hair. She was holding a fire extinguisher.

  “Owen, this is Sydney Lamberti,” said Jon. “She’s a transfer. Her dad’s the new shop teacher. She’s a real techie. Plus, she smelled smoke.”

  “You smelled smoke?” I asked the girl. “There was fire. I saw fire coming up from below —”

  “I saw it, too,” she said. “I was coming around the corner and saw the flames. I freaked out and ran for the fire extinguisher.”

  “You saw Dana vanish?” I asked her, relieved that I wasn’t the only one.

  “I saw it, but I don’t believe it. Either way,” she said, shaking her head, “we should tell someone. The principal. Better yet, let’s file a missing person’s report. I can do it right now.” She pulled out her cell phone.

  That’s when I remembered. “No!” I grabbed her arm. “Dana told me not to tell anyone. There’s some big thing happening. Monsters or something. I know, it’s nuts. But she was really scared. And I heard a voice. It said, ‘The battle begins ….’”

  “Uh-oh,” said Jon. “Not good.”

  “There were a whole lot of eyes staring at me from below,” I said, shivering as I remembered them. “And something shiny …”

  Sydney shook her head. “Maybe it was a surge of electricity followed by an earthquake. I mean, people just don’t disappear like that —”

  “Except that we both saw it,” I interrupted.

  “I know,” Sydney said, placing the fire extinguisher next to the wall. “But what can we do about it?”

  I felt Dana’s house key in my hand. “Dana said there’s a book in her house. She gave me her key. She lives near where the concert is this morning. We could slip away ….”

  I looked from Jon to the new girl, hoping they were with me.

  “Hey, I’m totally in,” said Jon. “You know that. Dana’s our friend.”

  Sydney peered at the key in my hand, then at Jon, then at me. She took a breath and said, “I guess I’m in, too. Except that I’m not in the band.”

  “Do you play an instrument?” Jon asked.

  “Gong,” she said. “My dad helped me make a gong in shop. Out of bronze.”

  “You’re in the band now!” Jon said.

  WE COLLECTED OUR INSTRUMENTS — SYDNEY’S gong was a small one she carried in her backpack, anyway — and jammed ourselves into the bus with the other band kids. As we drove away from school, I tried to stay calm. But like everything else that had happened since I woke up, staying calm was impossible, too.

  “Guys,” I whispered, “something seriously crazy is going on here. Dana knew she was in danger. I saw it in her eyes. She was terrified.”

  “Okay, you and I saw her disappear. Fine,” said Sydney. “But disappear to where?”

  I hadn’t even let myself think about where. All I could do was shake my head. “I don’t know. Somewhere dark. With zillions of eyes and a creepy voice.” Not so helpful.

  “Which makes it even more important to find the book,” said Jon.

  When we climbed out at the college, the wind was picking up and the sky was filling with clouds. We pretended to be busy looking through our bags as the other kids hurried into the auditorium to set up for the concert. Soon the bus drove away, and we were alone on the sidewalk.

  “So … where’s Dana’s house?” asked Sydney.

  I turned to the north. “There. On the hill,” I said.

  No one noticed as we made our way past the old brick buildings to a high front yard across the street from campus. I’d been to the Runsons’ house quite a few times over the years. It was two hundred years old, four stories high, and had nine gables and dozens of very tall windows.

  Jon breathed out. “This place is haunted.”

  “No such thing,” said Sydney, as we climbed the steps. “But I think that we should do this quickly. In and out.”

  “Maybe I could do the out part now,” said Jon. “I’ll wait out here while you go in?”

  “Nice try, but no,” I said. I pulled Dana’s key from my pocket. The moment I turned the key and pushed the door in, a wave of frigid air swept over us.

  Jon stepped back. “Whoa, Iceland much?”

  “Dana’s parents both teach Icelandic stuff,” I said. “Dana told me she knew the real reason her parents went to Iceland. Whatever that means.”

  “You mean not for research?” asked Jon.

  I shrugged. “I don’t know.” I was saying that a lot.

  We stepped inside, and the cold surrounded us.

  “They probably just turned off the heat for while they’re away,” said Sydney, being practical. I was learning that was her thing. “It also smells like animals.” She wrinkled her nose.

  The deeper into the house we went, the colder it got. It felt as if the rooms were refrigerated. The walls glittered with a
fine coating of frost. If it hadn’t been so dark, we probably would have seen icicles hanging from the door frames. Our breath hung like fog in front of us.

  The Runsons had just left today, so how did it get so cold so fast?

  “We should be really quick about this,” said Sydney, rubbing her arms.

  We searched from room to room. Dining room. Living room. Bedrooms. Kitchen. Sheets crusted with frost were draped over the furniture to keep the dust off. They looked like dead bodies. I tried not to be creeped out.

  We found no obviously important books anywhere until we entered the Runsons’ home office. It was pitch-black, no windows. Feeling around, I found the light switch and flicked it on. A single lamp glowed, putting the far corners of the room in shadow. But we saw what we needed to.

  “Uh-oh,” said Jon.

  The library was lined with floor-to-ceiling bookshelves. At the very top was a high shelf filled with big old vases and pots that looked like they belonged in a museum.

  “This will be easy.” Sydney snorted as she pulled a leather-bound book from a shelf. “There must be a million priceless books here. How are we supposed to find the right one?”

  “Dana told me I’d know it,” I said. “There’s something about it that’s different from the others.” But I had no idea what.

  We started looking through one book after another. Most of them were written in other languages. Some had letters I couldn’t recognize, some had painted pictures. Others were so old, they felt like they might crumble in our hands. There was one shelf with a gap between the books as if one had been pulled out. I hoped that wasn’t the book Dana needed.

  Just as I was beginning to feel helpless, I turned. And I let out a slow white breath.

  “What is it?” asked Jon.

  A large desk stood in the shadows at the end of the room.

  “I read a story once where there was a clue to the mystery in a desk,” I said, stepping across the carpet to it. Like the walls, the desk was covered in a film of speckled frost. And it was very neat — pens, ink pots, pencil cups, stacks of paper — everything in its place. A clay bowl of paper clips stood off to one side. In with the clips was a small brass key. Stepping back from the desk, I saw that one of the drawers had a brass lock.