The 39 Clues: Rapid Fire #2: Ignition

by Riley Clifford

  Astrid leafed through it. There wasn’t much: a list of names, a few photographs. No step-by-step instructions on how to fight a band of ancient evil adversaries. No “How to Save the World Guide.” Astrid’s shoulders felt very, very heavy all of a sudden.

  “It is grossly incomplete,” William continued, “and I apologize. But hopefully it is enough for you to start with.”

  Astrid looked up at him and almost laughed. There was no place to start. She felt like someone had just pushed her off a very high and rocky ledge. Astrid gripped her chair as she searched for thoughts to piece together — something, anything that might help this all make sense.

  Just then, a moan sounded from within the wall opposite Grace’s desk.

  They hurried over and put their ears against the wood. A voice on the other side whispered a muffled, “Help!” William stood up and rushed out of the room into the hallway. Astrid followed close behind.

  “There’s a broom closet next to the office,” William explained as he wrenched open a door in the hallway. Inside, a woman lay bound and gagged, shoved up against a mop and a pile of rags.

  “Ingrid!” William exclaimed. The lawyer untied the handkerchief that was used to gag her and began working on the bindings at her hands and ankles. When Ingrid’s face was bare, Astrid recognized her at once. But her medallion was missing.

  “You were at the will reading, weren’t you? What happened?” Astrid questioned. The woman coughed as she tried to speak. Her first few words were muffled.

  “Never made it,” Ingrid said. “. . . was trying to use the bathroom . . . cough . . . before the presentation, but couldn’t find it. I was searching . . . ack cough! . . . this hallway when I ran into myself. I mean — a version of myself. She was . . . cough . . . waiting for me.”

  “Do you mean someone was disguised as you, Ingrid?” William asked. Ingrid nodded, then fell into another fit of coughing.

  “She ripped off my necklace and said, ‘Tell them the Vespers are watching.’ ”

  “My God!” Astrid gasped. She turned to William. “It can’t be!” They stared at each other with wide eyes, knowing instantly how devastating the breach was. An enemy agent had infiltrated not only Grace’s funeral, but the will reading and launch of the Clue hunt. The Vespers knew everything.

  They each grabbed an arm to lift Ingrid out of the closet when a pungent smell wafted down the hallway.

  Was that . . . smoke?

  Hamilton Holt watched in horror as the flames crept up Grace’s dining room drapes and thought, What have I done?

  Just an hour ago, the Holts had received their Clue:

  After leaving the Great Hall, the Holt family had regrouped in the atrium garden, a greenhouse-like room at the center of the mansion. The roof was one big skylight, and the room was three stories high, with balconies from the other floors looking out over the garden below. The Holts were debriefing near a small reflecting pool as a stone statue of a nymph looked on.

  “Sir, I suggest we start in Grace’s library,” said Hamilton. “Grace had a lot of old books, and I don’t think we’ll find a better set of resources!”

  Eisenhower, who was not a great reader, gave his son a blank stare. Hamilton tried again. “Er, ‘Richard S.’ could be the author of something with ‘fine print,’ sir. You know, like, a book? The old ones —”

  Reagan cut in. “Dad, permission to report!”

  “Permission granted,” Eisenhower responded, turning to his daughter.

  “Well, during our visit last winter, Grace gave me a tour of the portrait hall, to show me our ancestors. There were definitely lots of plaques with tiny writing on them underneath the pictures. Maybe one of them was this Richard S. guy — one of our relatives! I think we should check there first.”

  “Excellent reconnaissance, Reagan,” Eisenhower approved. “Hamilton, try to be more inventive next time. Okay, troops, FALL IN!”

  Reagan shot a smirk at Hamilton. The Holts jumped quickly into formation. “Arrf!” Arnold barked and scrambled over behind Mary-Todd. Together they jogged up to the portrait hall in the west wing.

  The room was long, connecting the north and south corners of the western-facing side of the house. The hallway was flooded with the dark, shifting light of the storm. A long row of tall windows faced out onto the lake. Opposite the windows was a wall stretching the length of the hall, and it was covered with family portraits.

  As the Holts read over each and every plaque, Arnold barked at the family dogs that had been painted alongside their famous owners. Cahills from over five centuries stared out at the Holts from their gold-framed portraits. There was Luke Cahill, Gustave Eiffel, Thomas Edison, Marie Curie, Neil Armstrong, Sacagawea, even LeBron James. But no Richard S. And just when Hamilton was going to suggest looking in the library again, Madison piped up.

  “Dad! I mean, sir! We should try the china room. There are all those fancy dishes with the fine print on them! That’s definitely where we’ll find Richard S., I just know it!” Madison exclaimed.

  Eisenhower nodded. “Fall in line, troops!” he called again, and set their marching beat. “One, two, three, four . . .”

  In Grace’s china room, every wall was covered in porcelain. Some were commemorative pieces, while others seemed to have been handed down through the generations. There were curio cabinets made of glass filled with ancient porcelain teacups and silver spoons. The Holts read almost every line of fine print on every piece of china, and found nothing.

  Hamilton shook his head in frustration. “Dad, I feel very strongly that we should —” But Hamilton was interrupted by the tinny ring of a plate bouncing along the carpet. The Holts spun around just in time to see the plate crash into the wall.

  “Arnold!” Mary-Todd yelled. “Bad dog. Very bad dog!”

  The pit bull whimpered a little and wrapped his tail between his legs. As Hamilton’s mother continued to yell at him, Arnold backed into a curio case, sending it toppling over. All the china came crashing out, splintering into a thousand little pieces. The noise was earth-shattering. And it spurred Arnold into a frenzy, barking like mad and racing around the room, knocking over case after case.

  Madison and Reagan screamed at every new broken plate. Then Mary-Todd started screaming at the girls to quiet down. A wave of thunder cracked outside.

  “Stop screaming!” Eisenhower belted out. “Fall in, troops! Show some composure!” But it was several minutes before the noisy waterfall of barks, screams, and splintering china ceased.

  “This is ridiculous!” Eisenhower said to his family of troops, almost breathless now. “There are no clues here, and I’ll be spittooned if I waste my time in this house for much longer. Move ’em out!”

  Hamilton jogged along behind his father as they entered the formal dining hall on their way out of the manor. Halfway across the room, Eisenhower stopped and everyone behind him screeched to a halt. Even Arnold ran into the back of Reagan’s leg, and let out a surprised yelp.

  “Ham!” Eisenhower called behind him. “Step forward!”

  “Yessir,” Hamilton answered, and walked up beside his father.

  “Hamilton, I don’t want to leave any traces behind, nothing our competition can use. Take this lighter and set those drapes on fire. We’ll flush our enemies out empty-handed,” Eisenhower commanded.

  “But, Dad —” Hamilton protested.

  “No buts!” Eisenhower cut him off. “This is a direct order, son. Now, take the lighter. . . .”

  “But, Dad, you just said yourself that there weren’t any clues left in this house! Why do we have to burn it down? It doesn’t —”

  “A direct order! Just do it,” Eisenhower yelled. Hamilton took one last look into his father’s eyes, which were cold and resolute. Hamilton turned away, knelt down to the floor, and picked up the foot of the drape. Then he flicked the lighter open, applied pressure to the flint, and touched the small flame to the soft, velvet drapery.

  As little flames grew into larger ones, Hamilto
n noticed the drapes were the exact same purple as their tracksuits. He would have laughed at the coincidence, if remorse hadn’t already filled him with fear. He shouldn’t have done it. The flames were very large now, creeping up the curtains to the ceiling, then billowing out like liquid fireworks. The whole room was quickly engulfed in fire, and an almost deafening roar rose as the flames sucked in the remaining oxygen.

  “Okay, children, I believe we’ve overstayed our welcome,” Mary-Todd said in the calmest motherly voice she could muster. But Hamilton couldn’t take his place in line. His eyes were glued to the snarling fire as it raged through one of the grandest rooms in Grace’s entire mansion. A scream rang out behind him.

  “Reagan!” Hamilton yelled. The drapery had almost fallen on top of her in a fiery cloak. As he helped his sister up to her feet, the full weight of his actions fell upon him. And then a horrifying realization: There were still people in the house! “Fire!” He screamed the alarm at the top of his lungs. “FIRE!!”

  Eisenhower stopped as soon as he heard Hamilton’s warning cries.

  “Ham! What are you doing?!” Eisenhower demanded. “Stop this insubordination!”

  “No,” Hamilton panted. Smoke was billowing down the hallway and quickly obscuring the image of his father, but Hamilton didn’t remove his gaze. “I’m not letting anyone die on my watch . . . sir.”

  Eisenhower’s jaw clenched. “I’ll deal with you later, solider!” Eisenhower yelled, then turned and set a wall hanging on fire. “GIRLS!” he bellowed, tossing his daughters another lighter. “Keep spreading that fire. I want to be sure it catches. Do you hear me?” A chorus of “Yessirs!” followed Eisenhower as he marched his family out.

  The mansion was becoming a smoky, fiery blur, but Hamilton kept an eye out as best he could for anyone still within the house. As they moved through the billiards room, Madison stopped quickly to light the pool tables and cues on fire. The green felt from the tabletops started popping with little sparks. Pool sticks, once neatly mounted in their cases, were splintering like matchsticks from the flames.

  In the music room, Mary-Todd reluctantly set row after row of bound sheet music alight. Black smoke began billowing from the bookcases, clogging Hamilton’s nose and mouth. Soon, his body was riddled with choking coughs. He struggled to call out his warnings as he dodged pianos and music stands, hoping to catch anyone left in the building. As Hamilton looked around, he could barely even see Reagan bringing up the rear. But he could hear “Troops!” being yelled in front of him. That must be Dad.

  With the help of his family, the fire was getting really bad, really quickly. The roar of it almost deafened him as they ran past the ballroom, which his father had already set alight. Behind him, Hamilton heard the tuneless clang of something falling onto the grand piano. It sent a chill down Hamilton’s spine. That couldn’t have been the ceiling. Could it?

  The Holts were running toward the exit now, Hamilton shouting alarms as they raced through the Great Hall, where the projector screen was already engulfed in flames. Taking a left out of the Great Hall, Hamilton stopped before the grand staircase to be sure that Reagan had made it through the house safely. As soon as she turned the corner, Hamilton fell in behind her, and they raced over to the staircase.

  But just as they finished descending the stairs, a section of the roof caved in, sending the upstairs dining room crashing right through the middle of the grand staircase. Hamilton turned around to watch the last of it fall through. He heard a shrill scream, and through the smoke he saw Cousin Ingrid stuck in one of the fractured floorboards above the fiery hole left in the stairway.

  Hamilton didn’t have to think twice. He spun around and headed straight for the fiery pit.

  “Hamilton! Ham! COME BACK!” his parents yelled. His sisters screamed behind him, but their shouts were drowned by the roar of the fire. There was no way he could get to her through those flames. He’d have to find a way to douse them if he was going to cross over the gaping hole in the staircase. He looked around for a source of water. The flowers! Grace always kept a magnificent flower arrangement in the foyer to greet guests.

  Hamilton ran over to the table, grabbed the arrangement, and ripped the flowers free. He carried the vase full of water as far up the stairs as he could possibly go. The flames were as high as his waist now and obscuring his view of Cousin Ingrid. He could hear her calling to him through the fire. And her signature medallion necklace was gleaming through the smoke like a beacon, refracting the light of the flames.

  Hamilton knew he didn’t have much time left. He held up the vase, feeling the cool china beneath his hands. It was strange to feel something besides heat when you were inside a burning mansion. Hamilton took aim and tossed the water at the base of the worst flames.

  Success! The fire sizzled out, leaving a broken path of smoking, charred wood between him and Cousin Ingrid. There was just enough room for Hamilton to get across the gap. He took a few steps down the stairs to get a running start, then leaped across the fiery hole to the stairway above. He landed safely, but teetered a little bit on the weakened beams.

  After catching his balance, he quickly grabbed hold of Ingrid’s ankle and began pulling it from the floorboards. But it wouldn’t budge. Hamilton glanced down to get a closer look. No wonder she’s stuck! Hamilton realized. Why is Cousin Ingrid wearing combat boots to a funeral? But before he could ask the question out loud, her foot popped free. The hole it left behind instantly started spewing smoke. Hamilton picked her up, just like he did his barbells while bench-pressing at the gym, leaped over the hole, and carried her to safety below the burning stairs. Together, the Holt family and Cousin Ingrid ran outside to the front lawn. Covered in soot and coughing incessantly, everyone collapsed to the ground beside the main drive, gasping for air.

  When Hamilton finally caught his breath, he realized the rain had stopped. He looked up to the burning mansion. A window burst open from the heat of the flames. Smoke spewed from every possible crack and opening, forming a deep black cloud above the manor. He could hear eaves bursting inside and the horrible yawn of collapsing beams. A sense of relief washed over him as he counted his family members. Everyone had made it out alive — he’d even saved Cousin Ingrid. He looked around. Where is she?

  Before Hamilton had a chance to find her, a giant crash rang out from the mansion. He turned and caught a glimpse of the massive chandelier in the foyer falling through the air. A split second later, a giant ball of fire flamed out through the front door, like a dragon exhaling its last breath. The mansion was dying.

  Daylight was fading over the Attleboro hills, and the burning glow of the house bled into the sunset. Staring into the fiery ruins of Grace’s sprawling manor, Hamilton had an overwhelming sense that something had just been set in motion — bigger than anything he’d ever known in his entire life. And he, Hamilton Holt, was already a part of it. It felt grand and old and absolutely unstoppable.

  The hunt for the 39 Clues had begun.

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  Clifford Riley would like to acknowledge Grace Kendall.

  Cover design by Keirsten Geise; Rapid Fire logo design by Charice Silverman

  First edition, December 2011

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