Day of Doom

by David Baldacci

  Isabel stood before them. She looked the same and yet she looked different. There was something ethereal about her movements. She seemed to be floating a few inches above the floor. It was as though she were no longer confined by the physical properties of the Earth. And if one looked closely she seemed fairly red in the face, almost like she had a bad sunburn.

  Dan looked at Amy. “Wow. It really did work.”

  She hissed, “She’s red! What did you put in the serum?”

  “Exactly what I was supposed to. Well, and some red M&M’s for taste. You think that’s where the red color came from?”

  A bloodcurdling scream escaping Isabel’s lips, she raced toward the outer circle of Vespers with such speed that it caught all of them unprepared. She smashed into the front row of Vespers with such force that it knocked ten of them head over heels across the room. Others threw their clubs at her, but she effortlessly dodged most of them, her body spinning and contorting in the most amazing ways and utilizing jaw-dropping angles and gymnastic ability. The ones she didn’t dodge she caught and sent flying back at their original owners with the velocity of a bullet and dead-on aim, dropping them all. She next lifted up three Vespers, their feet dangling ten feet above the floor, and threw them across the room, where they hit the far wall and fell to the floor, dead.

  Sandy had already made a run for the door, his face pale, his expression panicked.

  He ran right into a still-soaked Cheyenne and Casper, who were coming through the doorway. They snagged the intrepid, if diabolical, weatherman and carried him off kicking and screaming.

  Casper said nastily, “Just the scumball we wanted to run into.”

  Meanwhile, like a flesh-and-bone meat cleaver, Isabel raced through the ranks of the Vespers, kicking, punching, and catapulting through the air. With each blow a Vesper fell, while any attempts to land a solid strike against her failed. She was too fast, too nimble, and too quick-thinking. She seemed to know what the Vespers were going to do before they even did it. She was like a dozen perfect fighting machines rolled into one.

  Vesper One turned and ran toward the Doomsday device.

  Amy saw this and raced after him, Dan on her heels.

  Jake, Sinead, and all the others ran away from Isabel’s approach and hid behind some crates. From there they watched as Vespers flew around the room, crashing and dying as Isabel tore through them.

  When all the Vespers were vanquished, Isabel stopped and turned to the body of her daughter. She sailed over to her, lifted off the blanket, and stared down at Natalie. And for one instant Isabel looked closer to a human being than she ever had. Then she put the blanket back and turned to stare at Vesper One, the degree of hatred in her eyes awful to behold.

  Amy and Dan were within feet of him, blocking his escape.

  Vesper One was not looking at them, or Isabel. His attention was on the Doomsday device. In his hand was the gear. In his other hand was a remote-control device.

  With a flick, he turned off the electrical power. The machine powered down and all the Vespers and metal stuck to it immediately fell to the floor.

  He rushed forward, the gear poised in his hand.

  “Oh, no you don’t!” screamed Amy.

  She and Dan flew forward to stop him from inserting the last gear.

  But an instant later they were hurled to the side as Isabel pushed past them with astonishing speed.

  She collided with Vesper One right as he reached the device. He stretched out and placed the gear in the niche. The device started to glow with power, even as Isabel and Vesper One fought each other.

  In another instant they were both sucked toward the device as it came on full power.

  “LOOK OUT!” screamed Sinead.

  The walls and ceiling of the room began to shake. Bits of rock tumbled down and hit the floor, creating small craters.

  The power surge in the device became stronger.

  As Amy and Dan watched from a distance, Vesper One was caught between Isabel and the device. He was slowly and inexorably being crushed between the unstoppable force and the immovable object.

  When he realized this seconds later, he panicked. But by then it was too late.

  The walls and ceiling began to shake more and more, as if an earthquake was happening. Huge chunks of rock were now falling from the walls and ceiling.

  Jake grabbed Amy and Dan. “We’ve got to get out of here. The whole mountain is coming down,” he screamed.

  Amy, Dan, and the others dodged tumbling rocks as they raced to the doorway.

  Amy yelled, “But what about the Doomsday device? We have to stop it.”

  Fiske’s calming voice reached her. “I think we just did. Look!”

  Amy shot a glance at the device. Vesper One appeared to have melted right into the thing. It seemed that his face was now part of the machine.

  Meanwhile, Isabel was ripping at the device, tearing off huge chunks of it with her superpowered hands. The machine started to misfire, sending out massive surges of electrical energy. And then it started to shake uncontrollably as Isabel continued to rip it apart.

  As he ran, Fiske looked back and yelled, “She’s destroying it. But I think it’s going to blow any second.”

  A few seconds later, an enormous explosion occurred, lifting Amy off her feet. An instant before that happened, all Amy could remember seeing was the device, Vesper One, and Isabel Kabra disintegrate into dust. The entire room shook once more, and then everything went black.

  The first person Amy saw was her mother. She smiled and hugged her daughter, and spoke words that Amy had a hard time hearing. Then her father appeared next to her. His smile warmed every molecule in Amy’s body. And that was good because she felt so cold. Sooo cold.

  Am I dead?

  When Grace Cahill sat down next to her and took her hand, Amy knew that she was no longer in the land of the living.

  “How did it happen?” she asked her grandmother.

  “You fought the good fight, Amy. You defeated the Vespers. It just came at a great personal cost.”

  Amy nodded. She tried to remain calm even as her chest felt tight and the tears trickled down her cheeks.

  “But Dan’s okay, right? He made it? Right?”

  Grace pointed around the misty edges of the space they were in.

  “You don’t see your little brother here, do you?”

  Relief washed over Amy. At least Dan had survived. He would carry on the Cahill name and family. Attleboro would be his home. He would grow up and have kids, and maybe he would name one of his daughters Amy.

  With that thought more tears clustered around Amy’s eyes.

  It sucks being morbid.

  But she couldn’t help herself. She was dead, after all. She had the right to be a little depressed, to wallow in a little self-pity.

  She looked around. Jake wasn’t here, either. He had made it, too. Maybe he and Sinead would fall in love, marry, have kids, grow old together.

  Okay, Amy, enough with the tear ducts.

  “Hi, Amy.”

  She looked up to see Evan there. He looked just like he always looked, except a bit pale, which being dead can certainly do to a person. Amy supposed she looked like parchment herself.

  “Hi, Evan.”

  He said sheepishly, “Kind of a bummer, being dead and all.”

  “Yeah,” she said. “But it could be worse.”

  “How’s that?”

  “We could be dead and the world could have ended thanks to Vesper One.”

  “Hey, I died before it all turned out. So we won?”

  Amy nodded. “Yeah, we stopped the machine. Isabel took the serum and went all Matrix on us. She squashed Vesper One like a bug and died in the process. The planet will live on, even if we won’t.”

  “That’s cool. Maybe we can hang out together.”

  “That would be nice, Evan. Thanks.”

  Amy glanced to her left and caught a breath. She was seeing something she thought she never would.


  Isabel Kabra was walking along with Natalie. Hand in hand.

  Isabel looked different. She looked, well, normal, not evil. Natalie was staring up at her mother as they walked along. She looked happy. Happy to be dead.

  Wow, thought Amy. Like, really, wow.

  Off in another corner she saw Alistair. It looked to her like he was running some sort of business. But dead people didn’t buy things. Or eat things. What would have been the point?

  “Amy? AMY?”

  Things went black again.

  “Amy?”

  Something shook her by the arm. Amy slowly opened her eyes.

  The misty room was gone. The sun was shining in a window. She felt a breeze on her face. She sat up, looked around.

  She was in her bedroom at Attleboro.

  “Amy?”

  She turned to see Dan sitting on the side of her bed and looking at her anxiously.

  “Dan? What’s going on? Am I dead?”

  Dan smiled. “You almost were. In fact, we thought you were, but we were wrong, thank goodness.”

  “What happened?”

  “To make a long story short, the mountain sort of collapsed. We barely got out. You got hit in the head by a chunk of rock.”

  Amy reached up and felt the bandage around her head.

  “They had to cut some of your hair off, but it’ll grow back fast.”

  “I don’t really remember.”

  “Docs said short-term amnesia is perfectly normal for getting your head creamed like that. It might come back. But then again, you might not want it to.”

  “What happened after the mountain collapsed?”

  “Jake carried you over his shoulder the rest of the way.”

  “Jake did? Is he okay?” she added quickly.

  “Everyone’s okay. Well, everyone else. You remember about Natalie and Evan?”

  Amy sat back against her pillow. She blinked back tears. “I was hoping that was a dream.”

  Was I dead? I saw Evan. And Natalie. Did I just come back from almost dying?

  “We got you to a hospital. It was touch and go for a while.”

  “I just don’t remember any of it.”

  “You had surgery and were released last week. It’ll take you a while to get your strength back, but the docs said you’ll be fine. No permanent damage.”

  “And what about the Doomsday device?”

  “Buried under the mountain. Along with Isabel and Vesper One, if anything was left of them.”

  “And the Wyomings and Sandy?”

  “Arrested. For multiple felonies. Kidnapping. Assault. Unlawful imprisonment. Stealing a truck. Driving a stolen truck without a license. Oh, and trying to blow up the world. That was a biggie. And they also got Sandy, for impersonating a meteorologist. Seems that he never actually got his degree and he forged his credentials.”

  “And Nellie and Fiske? Their injuries?”

  “Doing fine.” He paused. “Oh, and I forgot. Chicago is still there.”

  Amy smiled. “Maybe we should go visit again. By train. It was a lot of fun.”

  “I think I’ll go by plane,” replied Dan. “And meet you there.”

  A week later, after she felt stronger, Amy met with everyone at Attleboro.

  She hugged Ian and talked to him about Natalie and their mother. She told Ian that she had seen Isabel’s face when she had spotted Natalie’s body.

  “I think she really cared for you two,” said Amy. “Deep, deep down.”

  Ian seemed comforted by this.

  Sinead was with Ted and Ned. Both of them looked better and Sinead reported that some experimental treatments undertaken in Switzerland were really starting to pay dividends.

  “Thank goodness I didn’t try to use the serum,” she said. “Nasty stuff. I even felt a little sorry for Isabel.”

  Amy said, “I’m looking forward to being friends with you again, Sinead. And all of the medical treatments Ted and Ned require will be taken care of.”

  “That’s not your problem, Amy. It’s my burden to deal with.”

  “It’s our issue to deal with, Sinead. We are family, after all.”

  “But after all the things I did?”

  “We all make mistakes, Sinead. But there is a thing called redemption. You fought with us against the Vespers. You saved my life. You saved Nellie’s life. You’re a good person. Never stop believing that.”

  Sinead looked uneasily at her, swallowed with difficulty, and gave her a hug.

  In one corner of the room Phoenix and Jonah were doing a little jam session on the piano. It turned out that Phoenix actually had better pipes than his famous relative.

  Jonah said, “Okay, little bro, some mentoring, some attitude and clothing changes, and you learn my hip-hop version of the moonwalk, we got a gold-plated show we take on the road.”

  Dan stood behind Jonah and mouthed frantically to Phoenix, Just say NO!

  Hamilton and Reagan were in one corner of the room practicing their martial skills.

  “Couldn’t have done it without both of you,” Amy told them.

  Hamilton said, “Just think of the stories we’ll have to tell our kids. Saved the world. Not that many people can say they did that.”

  “Drop and give me twenty, Ham,” said his sister. “You’re looking a little soft.”

  Nellie looked beautiful and her shoulder and arm hung normally. She’d cut her hair and it was now dyed a new color that Amy could not really describe. They hugged and Nellie said she was going to take a little vacation from being their guardian. “Just need to get my mojo back. And I got cheated on my Paris trip, so I’m booking a trip now that I know you’re okay.”

  Fiske was dressed all in black. With his fine, silver-white hair he cut quite a figure. “I don’t think you and Dan need guardians anymore,” he said.

  “Maybe not, but we do need family, right?” said Amy.

  “Are you asking me to stick around?” said Fiske.

  Amy looked at Nellie and then back at Fiske. “I’m asking both of you to hang with us till we drive you absolutely crazy. Although with Dan in the picture that might be tomorrow,” she added, smiling.

  Fiske bowed deeply. “It would be my honor.”

  “Mine, too,” said Nellie. “As soon as I get back from Paris.”

  “Fair enough,” said a grinning Amy.

  That left Atticus, who Amy spent time with and gave plenty of hugs, too.

  Then there was Jake.

  “We have a lot to talk about, I guess,” Jake said.

  “We do, but we don’t have to do it now.”

  “I’m really sorry about Evan. He was a cool dude.”

  “Yes, he was. And we’ll never forget him because he’ll always be a part of us.”

  She took his hand. “And by the way, thanks for carrying me out of that mountain.”

  “Any time,” he replied, smiling at her.

  “And I think I owe you something from the storage room at the train station in Chicago.”

  She reached up on tiptoe and kissed him.

  Later, Dan and Amy walked over the lovely grounds of Attleboro. This was Cahill land, something that was intimate and comforting and familiar. They walked to the top of a little knoll and looked out at a place that their family had called home for so long.

  Amy said, “I thought I was dead, you know. I saw Mom and Dad and Grace. And everyone else who had passed. I guess it was just a dream. But it seemed so real.”

  “Did part of you want to stay there?” Dan asked curiously.

  “Yes, but it was just a little part. Most of me wanted to come back here, to the living.”

  “I’m glad you did. It would’ve been pretty lonely around here without you.”

  They walked some more and then headed back to the house.

  “So, I guess we can settle down to nice quiet lives now,” said Amy. “I can think about college, you’ll be going into high school soon. Just . . . normal . . . everyday . . . lives.” With these last words
her tone grew rote and her expression became bored.

  “Yeah, what a relief,” said Dan, but he looked every bit as bored as his sister.

  They looked at each other.

  Dan said, “Normal everyday lives? Sounds so cheesy, doesn’t it?”

  Amy nodded. “Of course it does. And you know why, right?”

  “Why?” asked Dan.

  She grinned. “We’re Cahills. We save the world. It’s what we do.”

  “It’s what we do,” repeated Dan and he grinned, too.

  They gripped each other’s hands and started to sprint toward the house.

  Sneak Peek

  Amy and Dan Cahill thought they were safe — until an attack on their lives changed everything. Brace yourselves for The 39 Clues: Unstoppable, a brand new adventure series coming in Fall 2013.

  Turn the page for a sneak peek, if you dare. . . .

  Somewhere off the coast of Maine

  There was only one house on the island. The rest was pine forest, a thick, dark, bristling screen that threw the beach into shadow for most of the sunlit summer days. It also concealed most of the buildings, the three pools — outdoor, indoor, and lap — the tennis courts, the helipad, the landing strip, and the four-car garage from any passing sailboat. Only tourists came close. The locals knew better.

  They knew the muscled men in tight black T-shirts in the fast rubber boats who would cut your fishing line or blare a warning with a horn that could make your eardrums bleed.

  They knew the treacherous currents, too. They knew how the wind seemed to whip through the channel at a speed and ferocity that you didn’t feel in the harbor. They knew to stay away.

  The sound of a violin soared through the still air. A sixteen-year-old girl watched her fingers moving without error, notes sliding and falling like pure water. What used to confound her now flowed. She knew that if she worked at her skill she could succeed, even though she had no talent.

  That’s what her father tells her.

  The thirteen-year-old boy just defeated his tennis pro in straight sets without breaking a sweat. He saw the surprise on the coach’s face. Just wait until the guy found out he was fired. The boy’s dad always fires a coach after he’s been defeated.