Fever Read online

‘Right. The gargoyles,’ Luke said. ‘Maybe under the church? That’s where I hid the sword. There’s a crypt down there, but no gargoyles.’

  ‘We should check it out,’ Eve answered. ‘I don’t know why Mr Dokey would think it was down there though. He wouldn’t have taken it there.’

  ‘I want to get the sword anyway,’ Luke said. ‘It might not feel like it, but we’re getting closer to Amunnic. I’d feel better having it with us. I think we’re going to have to wait until after curfew though.’

  ‘Why? Just for the extra challenge?’ Jess demanded. She ran her fingers through her hair. Wearing the hazmat mask had made it damp and limp.

  ‘They’re fumigating the church. There are a bunch of CDC personnel over there. No way can we just walk in,’ Luke told her. ‘I don’t think they’ll keep working after curfew.’

  ‘What do we do until then?’ Eve asked.

  ‘I really do need to hit something,’ Jess said. ‘Master Justin has a class later. I’m going. Maybe he’ll let me try to chop a board in half or something.’

  ‘I’ll go with you,’ Eve told Jess. Her bestie needed her – that was clear. Seeing Seth, and seeing what the plague had done to Mr Dokey, had devastated Jess. Eve looked over at Luke. ‘I think you’re right about getting the sword before we go further. Right after curfew we’ll get it and check out the church.’

  We have to find Amunnic tonight, she thought. Mr Dokey can’t last much longer, and soon the others will be in as horrible a condition as he is.

  ‘Three more minutes,’ Master Justin said.

  Eve shot a glance at Jess. They were the only two students in the kung-fu class. Jess’s legs were trembling, and sweat had pasted her hair to her head. Eve was feeling like she could hold the horse stance all night, where you basically held your body in the position it would be in if you were riding a horse – only without the horse.

  I bet I could hold it all day tomorrow too, Eve thought, if I just took a little sip of the current that’s powering the studio’s lights. It was like she had an almost endless power source available to her. She just had to learn how to take the power a little at a time. She couldn’t go around causing blackouts the way she had last night.

  Jess let out a little groan. This has to be really hard, Eve thought. Jess was such an athlete. She always got assigned the hardest gymnastic moves in her cheerleading routines. Maybe all the worry about Seth was sucking the strength and energy out of her.

  ‘All right, very good,’ Master Justin finally told Eve and Jess. ‘Now, stay in that position and we’ll do some side kicks.’

  Just imagine there’s a demon over there, and you’re kicking it right in the belly, Eve coached herself. She felt electric jolts through her leg with every kick. It felt awesome.

  ‘That was a lot more fun than I thought it would be,’ Eve told Jess as they left the dojo above the hardware store.

  ‘You know what would be more fun? If you carried me down these stairs,’ Jess answered.

  ‘Tiring, huh? But did it make you feel any better?’ Eve asked.

  Jess scrubbed her face with her fingers. ‘The best I can say is that it exhausted me to the point where I don’t think I have the energy to feel anything at all.’

  ‘If you really want me to give you a piggy-back ride, I will,’ Eve said.

  Jess shook her head. ‘If I get on, I might not be able to get back off.’ She grabbed the stair rail with one hand as they slowly walked down the stairs together.

  As they stepped outside, Eve could feel stored heat being released from the cement sidewalk. If possible, today was even hotter than yesterday. ‘You know what I wish?’ she asked as she looked longingly down at Big Ola’s – which was now closed, along with every other place on Main Street. ‘I wish I could bathe in ice cream. How deliciously wonderful would that feel, to be immersed in sweet, sweet coldness?’

  The idea seemed to revive Jess a tiny bit. ‘Cleopatra used to take baths in milk,’ she said. She knew pretty much every beauty factoid in existence. ‘That makes me think it’s great for the skin. So I’m in on the ice-cream-bathing plan.’

  ‘If this heat wave keeps going, we’ll buy up every bit of ice cream we can find and fill up the pool,’ Eve promised her. She glanced at her watch. ‘Not even an hour and a half until it’s time to search the church. We’ll have just enough time to shower and change.’

  ‘Maybe my stench would be good demon repellent,’ Jess joked, but her voice didn’t hold its usual lightness.

  A long, shrill wail drowned out the sound of Eve’s laugh. ‘What was that?’ she exclaimed, already running towards the sound. She whipped round the corner just in time to see Sean collapse to his knees on the sidewalk.

  Plague, Eve thought. She remembered that he had looked really pale earlier.

  ‘He took them! Both of them!’ Sean howled as Eve skidded to a stop next to him.

  ‘Who? Who took who?’ Jess exclaimed, panting with the exertion of running after Eve.

  ‘Phillip. He took them. We were on the beach, and he grabbed them. Dave and Elisha. Megan went home before that,’ Sean explained. Eve could see him struggling to get a grip on himself, but it wasn’t working.

  ‘Phillip took them? Where?’ Jess asked, kneeling next to Sean.

  ‘I don’t know. It was like Phillip had a complete personality change. He started growling, actually growling. Then he was clawing people.’

  ‘Clawing?’ Eve repeated.

  ‘I know. It sounds crazy, but it’s true,’ Sean swore.

  ‘I’m calling an ambulance for you,’ Jess told Sean, pulling out her cell.

  ‘It doesn’t sound crazy. We believe you,’ Eve reassured him. She knew exactly what had happened. It hadn’t been Phillip they’d seen with the other guys that morning. It had been the demon. That’s why Phillip had seemed so out of it and awkward, not because he was getting sick.

  Amunnic had been standing right in front of Eve only hours before. Amunnic wearing Phillip’s face.

  Chapter Eight

  Eve and Jess watched in silence as the ambulance carrying Sean disappeared from sight, blue light spinning.

  ‘This proves we were right about Amunnic only feeding on healthy people,’ Eve said. ‘That’s why he didn’t take Sean.’

  ‘I guess there is a reason I should be glad Seth has it.’ Jess’s voice was flat and lifeless.

  ‘Yeah. See, always a silver lining.’ Eve gave a grim smile. ‘Let’s go tell Luke Amunnic has Dave and Elisha now too.’ She wrapped one arm round Jess’s shoulders. Jess leaned heavily against her as they started back to Eve’s.

  ‘This is all going to be over soon. I promise,’ Eve told Jess, hoping that she wasn’t lying to her best friend.

  * * *

  Eve, Luke and Jess stared at the church from across the street a few minutes after curfew. Blue-and-white striped tents that looked like they came from a circus garage sale draped the old stone building.

  ‘I guess the fumigation isn’t done,’ Luke said. ‘But I don’t see any guards.’ He started across the street.

  ‘Spoke too soon.’ Eve caught him by the arm and pulled him back into the shadows. She nodded at someone in a hazmat suit walking towards the church from the rectory. ‘What are we going to do? We could get by without the sword if we have to, but what if Mr Dokey really was telling you the bowl is in the church?’

  ‘We have to check it out,’ he answered.

  ‘Want me to go all drama again, try to distract the guard?’ Jess asked. ‘I’m not sure I can do it as well as I did at the courthouse. The class – this whole day – has really taken it out of me.’

  She really does look wiped out, Eve thought. I hope she isn’t getting—Not going there. Enough to worry about without that, she told herself.

  Luke narrowed his eyes and studied the church for a moment. ‘I have an idea.’

  Eve looked over at Jess. ‘He has an idea.’ Jess only managed a faint smile in response.

  ‘Come on.’ Luke led the
way to the cemetery gate farthest away from the church. It gave a soft metallic creak as he swung it open.

  ‘Perfect ending to a perfect day,’ Jess commented as Luke waved her and Eve inside the graveyard.

  ‘In some of those papers we found hidden in the church, there was a sketch that looked like a passage running from one of the mausolea to the crypt,’ Luke explained as they picked their way through the old headstones. ‘If there really is one, we should be able to use it to get inside without being seen. And the crypt is where the sword is, anyway. Start looking for a mausoleum that’s shaped kinda like the White House rotunda.’

  Eve snickered. ‘You really are a history geek.’

  ‘Come on,’ Luke protested. ‘Everybody knows what the White House rotunda looks like, unless those somebodies are so fashion-obsessed that they have no room in their brains for anything other than names of designers who make shoes that look like hooves and—’

  ‘Alexander McQueen,’ Eve and Jess said together. ‘May he rest in peace,’ Eve added.

  It used to bug the hell out of Eve when Luke made fun of her for being a fashion head or acted like she was shallow. Now she thought it was kinda funny. Probably because, no matter how he felt about her romantically, Eve was sure Luke genuinely liked her. He’d become almost her second BFF in the short time he’d lived in town. Not that she saw him as a girl friend, obviously.

  ‘Just please look for a mausoleum that is more round than square, OK?’ Luke asked. ‘I think there were ivy vines carved into the stone on the sides, or at least that’s what it looked like in the drawing.’

  Eve used the LED light on her keychain and Jess used her iPhone to light their way as they began their search. I wonder if my power would let my fingers be LED lights, Eve thought. She had the feeling that if she could just find the dimmer switch for her power, she could go from lightning bolts to those golden waves she’d used on the portal, to a gentle glow that could light her way.

  The path they were walking down split in two directions. ‘Which way should we try?’ Eve asked, looking about. Her back felt itchy, like someone was watching her.

  ‘Go right,’ Luke answered. ‘The children’s section is to the left. No mausolea over there.’

  ‘There’s a whole section just for children?’ Jess asked sadly. She reached over and took Eve’s hand as Luke nodded.

  Eve took a quick glance to the left and saw something pale moving among the lambs and angels that dominated the children’s part of the cemetery. The sight made her heart clench like a fist, a fist that only relaxed a little when she realized what the white form was – another guard.

  ‘Hazmat over there anyway,’ she whispered as they moved deeper into the adult section of the graveyard. Or was it actually Amunnic? The itchy sensation between her shoulder blades grew more insistent. She took another quick look at the figure in the hazmat suit. Not facing in their direction. No one is watching you, she told herself. And if that was Amunnic, he’d be rushing over for some of your non-plague-infected blood.

  Eve took a shallow breath. The air felt thick, like there might be a storm later. Thick air was wrong. It didn’t even seem possible for Eve to pull it into her lungs. ‘There’s a square one,’ she said. It looked almost like a mini plantation house, with its rows of columns. She wondered who came up with the idea of mausolea in the first place. To her, they seemed a little goofy. And creepy. Definitely creepy. Spreepy, even.

  ‘I think I might see it over there.’ Luke picked up his pace. ‘Yeah, that looks like the sketch I saw.’ He stopped in front of a rounded stone structure with vines carved all around the entrance. There was an iron gate across the entrance, but when Luke pushed on it, it opened easily.

  They all stepped inside. ‘I don’t get how there’s a passage from in here to anywhere. There’s only one gate – the one we just came through,’ Eve said.

  ‘If we’re in the right place, one of these niches should be the entrance to the passage.’ Luke walked to the far wall and began running his hands over the rectangles carved into the stone. They reminded Eve of big dresser drawers, but with no handles.

  ‘Aren’t there bodies sealed up behind those?’ Jess asked. ‘I saw this movie once where these guys decided to do a séance inside a place like this, and before I could close my eyes and bite the inside of my cheek to keep from screaming, some nasty rotten corpses came crawling out of the slots in the wall.’

  ‘Most of the niches hold bodies, or will,’ Luke answered. ‘But not the one we’re looking for.’ He continued feeling his way along the wall. ‘Yeah, here we go.’ He pulled a large chunk of stone free, revealing a short, narrow tunnel. ‘Who wants to go first?’

  They all looked into the darkness of the gaping hole.

  ‘I will,’ Eve said. The tunnel was so narrow that she had to slide in on her belly and wiggle through. When she came out the other side, she was standing in a room not much bigger than an elevator. Across from her, a stone staircase splotched with moss led deeper down.

  ‘You OK?’ Luke called.

  ‘Yeah. It’s all clear over here,’ Eve called back.

  About three seconds later, Luke joined her. ‘This is so cool.’

  Eve stared at him.

  ‘In a Hardy Boys kinda way. I told you I read them when I was a kid,’ he confessed. ‘This is like something out of one of those books.’

  ‘Something just crunched under my knee,’ Jess announced from inside the tunnel. ‘I’m telling myself it was a really big potato chip. And not part of a skeleton.’

  ‘The skeletons are in the other niches,’ Luke told her. ‘I’m pretty sure the one you’re in has only been used as a passageway.’

  ‘Good to know,’ Jess muttered as she scrambled free.

  ‘At least you two wore sensible clothes tonight,’ Luke commented.

  Sensible as in black, all the better to – hopefully – sneak up on Amunnic. But Eve was not happy that she’d chosen to wear her silk Da-Nang cargo pants. They now had a hole ripped in one thigh. And not an attractive, perfectly placed hole either. Just a ragged, ugly hole of a hole. Jess’s high-waisted skinny pants hadn’t made it through in much better shape. A layer of dust and grit had taken away their usual sheen.

  ‘Sensible.’ Jess snorted. ‘He just called my once third-favourite pair of pants sensible.’ Tired as she was, she still managed to work up some indignation.

  ‘He didn’t mean it,’ Eve told her. ‘Well, he did, but he actually thinks sensible is good.’ She trained her LED light down the stairs. They were rough and uneven, and the number of spider webs made it seem like they hadn’t been used in … ever.

  ‘Shall we?’ Luke asked, with exaggerated politeness.

  ‘Let’s,’ Eve answered, imitating his formal tone.

  Luke went first, Eve and Jess close behind him. Eve couldn’t think of anything but the fact that the stairs were taking them deeper and deeper under the earth. Were there graves right on the other side of the wall? She couldn’t stop herself from imagining the corpses inside turning restlessly, disturbed by the presence of the living.

  She felt a hand brush against her, then finger bones digging into her flesh. ‘Eve, something has me,’ Jess whispered, voice trembling.

  ‘Me too,’ Eve answered.

  ‘What?’ Luke demanded. ‘What’s back there?’

  ‘No, that’s me. I have you,’ Jess told Eve. She gave Eve’s shirt a tug. ‘But something really does have me. By the hair.’ She let out a little whimper. ‘Get it off me.’

  ‘I don’t see anything back there. I should have brought a real flashlight,’ Luke muttered. ‘The Hardy Boys always had a flashlight.’

  Eve twisted round in the narrow tunnel, trying to figure out how to zap whatever had Jess without hurting her friend. She shone the LED light into the darkness and saw that Jess’s hair had gotten snagged by a root that had worked its way between two of the stones.

  ‘It’s OK. It’s nothing,’ Eve told Jess. ‘Just a root.’ She reache
d over Jess’s head and gently untangled the lock of hair.

  ‘I can’t stop shaking, even though I know it was nothing,’ Jess admitted as they continued on.

  ‘That’s totally normal,’ Eve said. She was sure it was only the power she’d absorbed at the power plant that was keeping her feeling so steady.

  ‘You’ve got to duck when you get to the bottom,’ Luke told them. ‘There’s a doorway, but it’s low.’

  It wasn’t just the doorway that was low. The tunnel that the doorway opened into was low too. They had to hunch over to walk down it.

  ‘I guess this is a good place to get buried alive,’ Jess commented. ‘Since we’re already in a cemetery and everything. Convenient.’

  ‘No one’s getting buried alive,’ Luke said. A stream of gritty earth fell onto Eve’s hair just as the words left his mouth, making them a lot less convincing.

  ‘What’s that smell?’ Jess asked. To Eve, it was more of a taste than a smell. She felt as if she’d swallowed something oily and bitter.

  ‘It must be the stuff they’re fumigating with,’ Luke guessed. ‘That’s gotta mean we’re almost at the crypt in the church basement.’

  The light from Jess’s cell and Eve’s LED showed the ground under their feet changing from earth to brick as they passed through another low doorway. ‘There’s a cemetery under the church?’ Jess asked.

  ‘Kind of,’ Luke answered. ‘The church was built over the oldest part of the cemetery. Most of the town’s founding families are buried here.’

  They straightened up as they entered the crypt. At least they were able to stand up in here. There was a cold damp musty smell as well as the smell of the fumigators. Gravestones had been laid on the floor and round the sides of the crypt, and there were large monuments and sarcophagi in the centre of the space. Eve guessed there were probably at least a hundred gravestones. ‘Listen to this one,’ she said, shining her light on one of the stones. ‘Mary Abigail Hastings, faithful, virtuous and weary. Mother of eleven, survived by nine.’

  ‘Weary. Huh. I bet,’ Jess said. ‘Eleven kids.’