“Guys,” I called out to the four of them. “I need you to make a circle around the hole, facing outward. Don’t let any random students through.” The most important thing was to give Joe room and time to assess the situation. Having a thousand people trying to rush over and assist would be the opposite of help.
“Lee, I want you to get on the phone and call the paramedics.”
Lee, more than any of them, seemed calm enough to talk to emergency services.
“Joe?” I called down the hole.
“He’s alive! But I think he’s broken both legs. They’re going to need a stretcher to get him out.”
Dr. Darity had made his way through the crowd by this point. I grabbed his arm and pointed him toward the microphone. “Mill is going to be all right. Get everyone to calm down and exit the building.”
He seemed thankful to have something to do. After a few false starts, he was able to quiet the frightened crowd and convince them to leave the premises. He also assured them that, despite this terrible accident, the big game would continue tomorrow.
Finally the ambulance arrived and carried the now unconscious body of Mill out of the ballroom. Joe was right—he’d broken both his legs, as well as a wrist and his collarbone. Though none of the injuries were life threatening, it would be quite some time before he would walk again.
Once he was safely removed from the premises, I pulled Lee aside. “You guys were in here rehearsing earlier, right?
Lee nodded.
“Did you see anything strange? Was anyone hanging around?”
“No. There was nobody else here but us, and the people who were setting up. Is—is Mill going to be all right?”
“I think he’ll be okay,” said Joe, who had come up from behind while we were talking. “And you didn’t notice anything wrong with the floor then?” Joe asked Lee.
“I mean, I didn’t really notice the floor at all. It’s just, like—the floor, you know? Look, I’ve got to get some sleep before the game tomorrow. Is it okay if I take off?”
I nodded. It didn’t seem like Lee knew anything that would be useful.
The room had emptied out. Only Dr. Darity, Destiny, Joe, Lee, Killer, and myself remained. Joe pulled Dr. Darity aside to ask him for permission to examine the stage before the police were called—and to tell him to keep an eye on Destiny. Lee offered to walk Destiny home, and Dr. Darity went to his office to call Mill’s parents.
Once they were gone, I began to examine the hole itself. It only took a moment to confirm my worst fears.
“Joe, look.” I pointed to the edges of the hole. The break in the floorboards was clean on one side, not the jagged edge one would imagine if the wood had simply broken underneath the weight of his jumping. Someone must have sawed through the wood to weaken it. Mill had been set up.
“Why Mill? Who would want to hurt him?” I wondered aloud.
“I don’t know,” said Joe. “None of the other incidents have been aimed at him. He is kind of mean, but still . . .”
“If he hadn’t landed just right, this would have killed him. Whoever did this meant business.”
I hopped down into the hole. It was dark here, beneath the stage. Thankfully there was enough light from the hole in the floor to be able to see. The room was filled with swirling dust and splinters—and about a century’s worth of leftover props and scenery from various shows that had been put on by the Firth Drama Society.
Silently, Joe and I canvassed the room. In a place as messy as this, there was only one way to do a proper search: slowly and carefully. We divided the room into a grid, like a spreadsheet, and slowly searched each quadrant.
“Frank!” From the way Joe called my name, I could tell it was important. I abandoned the thing I’d been searching—a seven-foot-tall castle, complete with a working drawbridge—and rushed over, Killer at my heels.
“Look.” Joe was holding up a long piece of velvet curtain. Underneath it was a saw. Unlike everything else in the room, it wasn’t covered in dust. I looked closer. There was wood caught in some of the teeth. It had been used recently—and I was pretty sure I knew where.
Something bright next to the saw caught my eye. It was a black-and-silver scrunchie, exactly like one I’d seen Destiny wearing at soccer practice in the past! But I couldn’t remember the last time I saw her with it. Joe and I stared at it in silence for a second.
“No way,” said Joe, when he saw the look on my face. “I don’t think Destiny could have done this. Besides, there were a lot of girls on campus for Benevolence Weekend. This could belong to anyone.”
“Yeah,” I agreed. “But how many of them have a reason to hate Mill? And have gotten into physical fights with him before?”
Then I noticed something. There was a spot of blood on the scrunchie. Whoever had worn it must have cut themselves sawing. This could be just the clue we needed. I pulled JuDGE out of my pocket. Since they’d already been able to identify Destiny’s blood once, we’d get a match if this was hers.
“Always prepared, eh?” Joe smiled.
“Like a boy scout,” I agreed. “Only way cooler.”
I took a few photos on my cell phone of everything just as we’d found it, for evidence purposes. Then I carefully rubbed JuDGE’s sensor on the blood spot.
“If this is Destiny’s blood, we’ll know soon.”
I lifted the scrunchie up with a pen, careful not to get my fingerprints on it. I put it in my pocket. The saw we’d have to come back for—my backpack didn’t fit with the formal-wear theme of the evening.
“Do you feel that?” Joe asked suddenly.
“Feel what?” I said. But then I stopped. There was a cold breeze coming from one corner of the room—which didn’t make any sense, as the basement had no windows or doors to the outside.
“Frank, was the Marks Student Center on that list you found of places connected by the underground tunnels?”
I thought for a second. “Yeah, it was.”
Joe followed the breeze back to the far corner of the room. There was a pile of old huge props leaning against the wall. The breeze got stronger the closer we got to it. At first it looked like they would be impossible to move. But on inspection, they were balanced perfectly on one point. With just a little pressure they moved.
The source of the cold air was revealed to be a small wooden door!
“I think I know how our culprit got in here,” Joe said. “And I think I know how we’re going to find them.”
JOE
13
Things That Go Bump in the Night
I took the leash from Frank and let Killer lead the way as we headed down into the tunnels. Who knew what we might run into down there. Having a trained police dog with us might come in handy.
“Come on boy,” I said. “We need you.”
Downstairs, Frank had cleared away all of the debris in front of the doorway.
“In case we need to make a quick exit,” he said.
By the time I’d gone five feet into the tunnel, I couldn’t see my own hand in front of my face. It was pitch black down there. Thankfully Killer didn’t seem to have any problem. Whether he was finding the way by sight or smell, I couldn’t tell, but he was at the forefront of our little party from the moment we entered the tunnels.
Occasionally Killer stopped to sniff around. I could hear his nose running along the dirt, and the random doggie sneezes when he inhaled a big wad of dust. The tunnel twisted and turned through the ground. Once in a while I felt a breeze coming from a different direction, and had a sense of other tunnels branching off in other directions, but Killer seemed to know where he was going.
At one such intersection we paused for a long time. Killer seemed uncertain, tugging this way and that on the leash. Finally, in frustration, I decided to keep going. I could tell the way we’d been heading, and it seemed the right direction to me. Killer would catch up if I pulled on his leash I figured.
I went about two feet and walked straight into a wall.
THUMP!
“Ow!”
“Are you all right?” Frank was behind me and couldn’t tell what had happened. I held my nose, trying to see if it was bleeding. I didn’t think I’d broken it . . . but I wasn’t sure.
“Joe!” Frank hissed.
“I’m fine,” I said through the hands I’d cupped around my face. “I, uh, tripped.”
Since he couldn’t tell what happened, I saw no reason to let him know I’d actually walked directly into the wall. In a few seconds Killer picked up whatever scent he’d been following and took the lead again. This time, I stayed a few feet safely behind him.
In the dark it was hard to tell how far we had gone. Sometimes it felt like the tunnel was closing in around us, and I could almost feel the rough stone walls against my hand and the ceiling pressing down on my head. At other times it felt like we were walking through a giant empty room, and I wouldn’t be able to touch the ceiling if I jumped. It gave me vertigo.
I started to wonder if Killer knew where he was going. For all I knew, he could be following the trail of some students who had last used this passage eighty years ago. Or the smell of a cat that had gotten trapped down here. It seemed likely that whoever had cut the hole in the floorboards had used this secret tunnel to do it without being noticed, but the map Frank had found had shown dozens of tunnels. How would we know if we were on the right track?
After what seemed like fifteen minutes, I was about to suggest to Frank that we turn back—although I wasn’t totally certain I knew which way “back” was. I opened my mouth, but Frank beat me to it.
“Do you hear that?” he whispered.
I cocked my head, but couldn’t hear anything.
“No,” I said. “I think we might be going the wrong way.”
“I’m sure there’s something up ahead,” said Frank. “I can hear it, just barely. Let’s just go a little farther.”
We walked for another minute, and now I could hear it too. It was the sound of many people, singing at once. Or maybe not singing. Maybe they were chanting. The hairs on the back of my neck stood up. In the dark, with the voices echoing off the tunnel walls, it was impossible to tell if I was hearing two people or two hundred.
Killer’s behavior started to change. He’d slowed down a lot. I could hear him sniffing the air. Soon I could smell it too—there was a fire somewhere up ahead. He was trained well enough not to make any noise, but I could tell that the smell of the fire had his senses on edge.
It began to get brighter. There was a flickering light coming from somewhere up ahead. Frank, Killer and I slowed down to a crawl. The voices were getting louder and louder. Whatever language they were chanting in wasn’t English.
“Do you know what they’re saying?” I whispered to Frank. He was always good with languages.
“No. But I’m pretty sure that it’s Greek.”
The mention of Greek triggered a thought, but it took me a moment to chase it down.
“ATAC said Erebus was a Greek god associated with death!” I hissed.
“Yep,” Frank said, nodding. “And I think we’re about to meet some friends of his.”
The tunnel we were in ended in an abrupt turn, which led to a rough archway. The light and voices were all coming from beyond it. I crept up to the corner of the archway, knelt down, and peeked around the corner.
The room was large and circular, with four different entrances and a series of rough wooden torches along the walls. Standing in a circle were a dozen or so people wearing black robes and blank, white masks. They were all chanting together. I caught the word Erebus a few times, but the rest, as the saying goes, was Greek to me.
One of the robed figures stepped forward into the center of the circle. The other ones grew quiet. He seemed to be the leader.
“Tonight,” he said. “One of our newest initiates has brought great honor upon the Brothers of Erebus. By his deeds we know him to be truly worthy of membership here. He has proven himself.”
As one, all of the other figures repeated “He has proven himself.”
“By his courageous acts, we know him to be a true Brother of Erebus!”
The voice of the lead figure was familiar, but with the weird echoes in the room, and the way the mask muffled his words, I couldn’t tell who it was for certain. But one thing I did know—the great honor brought to them tonight? They must have been talking about whoever had nearly killed Mill. This was some kind of death cult!
I tried to move closer, but the smoke and the fire from the torches aggravated Killer. He pulled back against his leash and whimpered. It was a quiet sound, but by some trick of the tunnel, it echoed into the chamber. Instantly, the masked figures whirled to look at the gateway where we were hidden.
“Intruders!” yelled the leader. This time I recognized the voice. Spencer.
There goes that whole stealth approach, I thought, as Frank and I both tried to get past Killer and through the door at the same time.
The cultists must have been trained on what to do if someone discovered them, because the robed figures wasted no time. Each of them ran straight for the wall, grabbed a torch, and extinguished it. By the time we’d made it into the chamber, the whole place had been plunged into darkness. I could hear running footsteps and the whoosh noise of the fabric of the robes rubbing against the walls, but I could see nothing.
The one good part about the darkness was that Killer sprang back into action immediately, leading the way. I felt someone slam into me in the dark, and was nearly knocked over. I felt the pull of the leash as Killer leaped forward, barking. He hit someone, and they screamed. I reached out to grab them, and got a handful of sleeve. They pulled away before I could tackle them.
“We’ve got to get one of them!” I yelled.
“On it!” Frank’s voice came from across the room. If we didn’t catch any of them, we’d have no proof, no way of telling who any of them were—aside from recognizing Spencer’s voice, and what kind of proof was that? All he’d have to do is deny it, and it seemed like the rest of the cult was pretty much a follow-the-leader type of crew.
I ran forward, blindly, hoping I wouldn’t slam straight into a wall again. At the speed I was going, I’d definitely break my nose this time. Luckily, Killer pulled me along behind him as he ran, dodging this way and that, through doorways and corridors. Sometimes I heard footsteps—in front of me, behind me, getting closer, retreating. It was confusing and terrifying. My heart was pounding in my ears. Finally, after what seemed like an hour of running, I heard someone right next to me!
“Gotcha!” I yelled, and leaped. I knocked them right off their feet and landed on top of them, pinning them to the ground.
“Ow! Joe! It’s me, Frank.”
“Sorry!” I tried to help Frank up, and Killer’s leash slipped from my hand. I could hear the sound of his nails clicking against the bare stone floor as he ran off.
“Quick!” I said to Frank. “We’ve got to follow him!” If we lost Killer in these tunnels, we might never see him again.
I followed the sound of Killer’s footsteps deeper into the maze of tunnels. They got fainter and fainter, and soon I couldn’t hear them at all. Just the sounds of Frank and me running. We’ve lost him, I thought.
Suddenly loud barking sounded up ahead.
“Help! Get him off me! Help!”
Looks like Killer had done our work for us! I ran toward the noise.
“Get him off!” It was Spencer. By the time we reached them, Killer had pinned the leader of the group! Good dog!
“Stay where you are!” Frank yelled. I got a firm hold on Spencer’s wrist, then reached down to pull Killer off of him. I heard Frank rummaging around at my feet. There was a sharp sound of something metal being struck against the rock. Then a spark leaped out and lit the torch Frank had taken from Spencer.
I handed Killer’s leash to Frank, reached out, and pulled off Spencer’s mask.
We’d pretty much known that Spencer Thane was involved with the
Brothers of Erebus. We’d already found out he knew about the tunnels, and Frank had found a torch in his room. Just about the only thing we didn’t know was that he was willing to hurt—and maybe even kill—other students for this mysterious cult.
“All right,” I said. “The game’s up Spencer. We’re on to you. Now tell us the truth. Why did you do it?”
“What are you talking about?” Spencer looked from me to Frank and back. “Why did I do what?”
“Mill! Why did you try to kill Mill? What is the Brothers of Erebus anyway?”
“WHAT?” His eyes grew wide. “What happened to Mill?”
I looked at Frank, and he gave me a tiny nod. It sounded like Spencer was honestly surprised.
“The floor—it collapsed beneath him during the show. Right near where your little secret door was hidden.”
“I don’t know anything about that. Really! All of us left before the concert started, to get ready for the ritual tonight. I wouldn’t hurt Mill! You can ask any of the guys who were down here, we left early.”
“Then what ‘great deed’ were you talking about?” said Frank. “Who were you letting into the Brothers of Erebus?”
Killer stepped forward and started growling while Frank was talking. He knew how to make people talk! Spencer flinched.
“Lee! I was talking about Lee. I’d heard he was going to win the Firth Spirit Award, and I knew that was the last thing I needed to convince the other members of the brotherhood to let him in. Most of our members are legacies, so I had to work to convince them to let him join.”
“So you guys had nothing to do with the accident?” I let Killer’s leash out a bit.
Spencer shook his head furiously.
Private Killer Page 8
