Copyright © 2015 by Michael M.B. Galvin and Peter Speakman
Cover design by Tyler Nevins
Cover illustration © Owen Richardson
All rights reserved. Published by Disney • Hyperion, an imprint of Disney Book Group. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without written permission from the publisher. For information address Disney • Hyperion, 125 West End Avenue, New York, New York 10023.
ISBN 978-1-4231-8767-7
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Contents
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Prologue
Chapter 1
Vesiroth’s Journal (document B31771)
Chapter 2
Vesiroth’s Journal (document B31772)
Chapter 3
Vesiroth’s Journal (document B31773)
Chapter 4
Vesiroth’s Journal (document B31774)
Chapter 5
Vesiroth’s Journal (document B64110)
Chapter 6
Vesiroth’s Journal (document B64190)
Chapter 7
Vesiroth’s Journal (document B65810)
Chapter 8
Vesiroth’s Journal (document B65810, B66015)
Chapter 9
Vesiroth’s Journal (document B66002, B66015, B66027)
Chapter 10
Vesiroth’s Journal (document B66044, B66051)
Chapter 11
Vesiroth’s Journal (document B66056)
Chapter 12
Vesiroth’s Journal (document B67008, B67020)
Chapter 13
Vesiroth’s Journal (document B67051)
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Epilogue
Acknowledgments
About the Authors
For Laura, Devon, and Zachary: the best
adventurers for the biggest adventures.
—P.S.
For Chelsea, of course.
—M.M.B.G.
PROLOGUE
PARKER QUARRY HAD NEVER DRIVEN a car a hundred and fifty miles an hour before.
Actually, if you want to get all technical about it, Parker had never driven a car at all before. Not even once. Not even in a parking lot. They don’t let you drive cars when you’re twelve years old. He had checked.
He grinned. This was, without a doubt, by almost anybody’s definition, cool.
“Dog!”
Parker heard Reese scream out, but he had already seen the dog in the middle of the road. He had spotted him almost a mile away. What was it, exactly? A Boston terrier? Some kind of a retriever? A labradoodle? It was hard to say. All of Parker’s senses seemed sharper, but he wasn’t really a dog person.
“Parker!”
“I heard you, Reese. Sheesh,” Parker said.
It would have been impossible for him not to hear her. Reese was wedged into the backseat of the red Porsche 911 Turbo S, and her head was only three inches from Parker’s ear. It was a backseat designed more for small children or groceries than actual people. Reese wouldn’t have been comfortable back there even if she was alone, and she wasn’t. Parker’s cousin, Theo, was crammed back there, too, one hand gripping the side of the car so hard his knuckles were turning white, and one hand held up to his mouth in case he got any sicker than he already was.
The backseat was not suitable for two junior-high kids. It would be perfect for, say, a Boston terrier, or some kind of a retriever, or a labradoodle.
Like the one that the car was hurtling toward.
“Parker!”
Parker thought that Reese might actually have a heart attack. With all the skill of an F1 driver, he downshifted the Porsche and turned the wheel, missing the mystery mutt by a good foot and a half. The dog was safe to resume his life of barking happily at skateboarders and urinating on things that needed to be urinated on.
The Porsche growled as Parker stabbed the gas again and continued his automotive assault on the winding, tree-lined back roads of Cahill, New Hampshire.
“I think I’m gonna throw up,” said Theo.
“Deep breaths, buddy,” Parker said. “In through your nose and out through your mouth.”
The man in the passenger seat sighed and crossed his arms against his broad chest. He feared that he would never get used to twelve-year-olds or cars. He was tall, with sharp features, and eyes that never seemed to decide what color they wanted to be. He was dressed in black robes. He might have been twenty or he might have been fifty. It was hard to say.
“Um, Parker?”
“Yes, Theo?”
Theo was too ill to get the words out, so he just pointed. A police car was turning onto the road behind them.
“Oh. Well, maybe they’re not after us,” Parker said.
The cop turned on his flashing lights and sirens and stomped on the gas, his rear tires erupting in smoke as he joined the chase.
“Huh. Well, that’s not a problem.”
Parker shifted again, and the sports car lurched forward as if someone had attached rockets to the back bumper.
“Five hundred and sixty horsepower,” Parker bragged as the police car faded from his rearview mirror. “I don’t think they’re going to catch us.”
“They don’t have to catch us,” said Reese. “They have radios.”
She pointed. Three more police cars were parked sideways, blocking the road about a mile ahead. The cops were standing behind their cars, guns drawn. The officer in charge held up a bullhorn.
“This is the Cahill police. Stop your vehicle.”
Reese turned pale. “I think he wants us to stop.”
Parker just smiled.
“I mean it, Parker. I can’t get in trouble with the police. My mom’s expecting me to apply to Harvard in four years. My safety school is Stanford!”
“There’s no way out,” said the cop. “Stop the car. Now.”
Parker frowned. On the one hand, it was a beautiful day and he was really enjoying the drive. On the other hand, policemen with badges and shotguns seemed to really, sincerely want him to stop the car.
It was a no-brainer.
“Guys,” Parker said, “You might want to hang on to something.”
Theo groaned. “I knew this was a bad idea. I just knew it.”
Parker mashed the gas pedal. The Porsche accelerated like it was dropped out of a plane. It was headed straight at the roadblock.
“Are you ready, Fon-Rahm?” Parker asked.
The man in the passenger seat nodded.
“Then do your thing, please.”
Wisps of smoke came from the man’s eyes.
“
I just knew it,” said Theo.
The cops saw the car speeding toward them. The officer with the bullhorn shook his head. “I don’t think that guy’s going to stop,” he said.
He was right, too. The Porsche was going to smash into the police cars. At a hundred and fifty miles an hour.
“Um, I’ll be over there,” said one of the officers, pointing toward the side of the road.
“Wait! Stay here!” said the top cop, but it was too late. Every one of his officers had abandoned the roadblock.
The officer in charge thought for a moment. Then he dropped the bullhorn and ran off the road to be with his buddies. His wife was making tacos for dinner, and he liked tacos, and he wouldn’t be able to eat them if his teeth were scattered all over the highway.
The Porsche charged at the cop cars. This was going to be messy.
“Now!” said Parker.
Fon-Rahm lifted his left hand and waved it through the air, bored. Smoke rose from the ground, and bits of wood, sheets of metal, and street signs leaped up from the sides of the road and magically shaped themselves into a makeshift ramp.
The cops stared with dropped jaws as the Porsche hit the ramp and sailed over the police cars. It landed with a thud and a storm of sparks past the roadblock, and it didn’t pause for a second before speeding off.
Reese scrunched up her face. “Well, at least we’re not getting arrested,” she said.
“Please, Parker, please stop the car,” said Theo.
“I will in just a few minutes.” Parker looked the man in black over. “I know we’re the only ones who can see you, but those robes really give me the willies. How about changing into something a little more contemporary?”
A light mist filled the car. When it cleared, Fon-Rahm’s robes were gone, replaced with a sleek black suit.
“Is this more to your liking?” he asked.
“Very sharp. The color fits your personality.”
“You try my patience, boy. I am Fon-Rahm of the Jinn, not a dress-up toy.”
Parker shook his head and clucked. “Fon-Rahm, I’m surprised at you. Have you not been wearing your seat belt this whole time? Put in on, please. Safety first.”
Fon-Rahm put his seat belt on and continued sulking.
“And cheer up, Rommy, old pal. This is what us humans call fun.”
Parker stepped on the accelerator and grinned. You know what was cool? Having your own personal genie.
That was cool.
1
TWO WEEKS EARLIER
THE GODS STARED DOWN FROM the ceiling.
Mercury blasted through space, wings flapping at his ankles. Venus lounged on a cloud, her long, black hair flowing behind her. Jupiter held lightning in his hands as if to warn humans not to get too close. Atlas held up the world, weary but unbroken. Imagine propping up the entire planet on your shoulders for all eternity. It was a thankless job, but somebody had to do it.
Mr. Ardigo knew the feeling.
“All right, all right, settle down, please. Please. Please.”
He had volunteered—no, he had begged to bring his class to the Griffith Observatory. The place was, as the kids would say, sick. It was equipped with massive telescopes and a planetarium, and it was set smack-dab on the edge of a cliff overlooking the entire city. The view was amazing. From the right angle you could even see the Hollywood sign. “It’ll be educational!” he had said. “It’ll broaden their horizons! It’ll show them the grandeur of space and how small we are compared to the rest of the universe!”
If it showed them anything, though, it was that one teacher (okay, two, if you count Mrs. Haverkamp, but she was useless. A nice woman, sure, and great with computers, but when faced with screaming kids she was as handy as a Nerf hammer) could in no way hope to successfully wrangle forty seventh graders through a Los Angeles landmark. There were just too many of them. Mr. Ardigo was simply outmanned.
The kids were all standing around a circular hole in the floor of the marble rotunda, watching a pendulum swing from the center of the mural of the gods overhead. That was fine, he thought. The pendulum’s swing was proof that the Earth was rotating, and that was a science lesson in itself. He wanted the kids to learn.
What he didn’t want them to do was act like what they were: twelve-year-olds on a field trip. The boys shoved each other into walls while the girls kept up a regimen of near constant shrieking. What was there to scream about? The pendulum was neat, in a nerdy way, but really? The second these kids stepped out of school, they lost their minds. He thought they might burn off some of that extra energy on the bus ride over, but their supply seemed limitless.
Mr. Ardigo had a headache already. He checked his watch. They had been at the observatory less than fifteen minutes.
“The planetarium show starts in twenty-two minutes,” he said over the roar. “And then everyone will get a chance to look through the telescope.”
He checked his guidebook. “Apparently, we’ll be looking at a very rare planetary alignment. The last time it happened was over three thousand years ago. Kendra!”
Kendra stopped leaning so far over the railing that she would absolutely fall in and looked at him blankly. A small, small victory. She did not stop shrieking, though. They never do, thought Mr. Ardigo.
“There’s a lot to see in here, and I want to get to it all, but you’re all going to have to cooperate, okay? Guys?”
Mr. Ardigo noticed that he was tapping his foot, and made a conscious effort to stop. He was always drumming his fingers or clicking a pen. Stuff like that drove his wife nuts. She was right. He was too nervous. He had to learn to relax. He also had to make more money. Mrs. Ardigo’s dream was that her husband would ditch teaching altogether and open up a Quiznos.
He would never do it. He loved teaching. Well, not on this particular day, but in general, he loved teaching.
“Okay, let’s go, let’s go.”
His class broke away from the pendulum in one noisy lump and rushed past him on their way into the exhibits.
“Stick together, please, and keep your hands to yourself,” Mr. Ardigo said. “We’re going to be quiet and we’re going to be respectful. That goes double for you, Parker.”
The teacher froze. He scanned the line of kids once, and then again. No Parker.
“Parker? Has anybody seen Parker?”
Nobody had. Mr. Ardigo let out a sigh and stared at the ceiling. Atlas, he thought. Atlas had it easy.
Parker twisted the puzzle again. It was a series of four interlocking metal squares, and the idea was to make them all line up. It should be easy, he thought, except for some reason, it was ridiculously hard. He would get two in the right place, and then one would be way out of whack, and then he would fix that one, and ruin all the work he had done before. The thing was impossible. Maybe if he could take the price tag off.
“I can never figure those things out,” said a woman behind him.
She was about sixty years old, and she was wearing a blue shirt with a collar and a Griffith Observatory name tag that read JUNE.
Parker smiled sweetly at her. He was just an innocent kid browsing the racks of a gift store. There’s nothing less suspicious than that.
“Me neither,” he said, putting the puzzle back on the shelf with the astronaut ice cream and the Lunar Lander play set. “But, you see, it’s not for me. I’m looking for a present. For my mother.”
“Aren’t you sweet! Is it her birthday?”
“No, she’s...” His eyes found the floor. “She’s in the hospital.”
“Oh, I’m so sorry,” said June. She was, too.
“Yeah, she’s pretty sick. I thought maybe, since I was here, I could get her something to cheer her up. I got her some flowers and stuff but it’s still pretty depressing in her room.”
“Well, how about a stuffed animal? People love these!”
She held up a stuffed monkey wearing a NASA space suit.
“That’s great! Really great! But I was thinking maybe something li
ke that?”
Parker pointed to a crystal sculpture of a shooting star lodged at the top of the highest shelf in the store.
“Oh!” she said. “That is pretty.”
June bit her bottom lip. She was a small woman, smaller than Parker, even, and he was twelve. If she was going to get that sculpture, it was going to take some effort.
“Let me just get that for you.”
June stood on her toes and reached as high as she could.
As soon as her back was turned, Parker expertly grabbed the metal puzzle and slipped it into the pocket of his jacket.
June’s fingers touched the sculpture. For a second it looked like it might fall, but June caught it and showed it triumphantly to Parker. “Ha! Got it!”
Parker looked at the light sparkling off the crystal.
“Is it okay if I come back for it later?” asked Parker. “That way I won’t have to carry it around with me the rest of the day. I might break it. I’m pretty klutzy.”
“Oh, you are not. I’ll bet you’re a natural athlete.”
“Could you set it aside for me? Please?”
“Of course. You come back for it whenever you would like.”
Parker thanked her and walked out the glass doors. It was that easy, he thought. If only he could get up the guts to grab some stuff out of a real store. Then maybe he wouldn’t be the only kid he knew without a decent skateboard. Or a flat-screen TV. Or an iPhone.
He smiled a sly smile. Then he looked in the window of the gift shop and saw June struggling to put the crystal star back on the shelf.
Parker sighed.
He walked back into the gift shop and steadied June while she put the thing back. Then she thanked him, and he sneaked the metal puzzle out of his pocket and back on the shelf. He never would have solved it, anyway.
Parker left the gift shop. He had better get back. Mr. Ardigo might have noticed he had left the group, and the last thing Parker needed, really, was to get in trouble again. His mom would kill him. Before he could take two steps, though, Parker was confronted by two of his classmates.
“Hey, Parker, what are you doing in the gift shop? You know you can’t afford anything in there.”
Great, Parker thought. Jason Sussman and his buddy Adam. They were two kids with more money than brains, and they were not fans of Parker. Both Jason and Adam were bigger than he was. In fact, almost every guy in his class was bigger than Parker. His mother told him he was going to hit a growth spurt soon, but Parker would believe it when he saw it.
Rebels of the Lamp, Book 1 Page 1
