Fireworks (2 page)

Dan was pushing a hundred now, the needle pulsing down into the red. He’d never gone this fast in his whole life, even as a passenger. It felt amazing — everything a blur as he blew right past it. The cemetery, the woods. Acres and acres of the Cahill estate that normally would have taken five times as long to navigate. The night was cold, especially with the top down, but Dan couldn’t remember the last time he’d felt the wind on his face like this, the race of his heartbeat, hair flapping about wildly, his mouth breaking into a grin. Dan pushed the car faster still.

The radio station switched to a commercial. Dan took his eyes off the road to channel surf for a better song. When he looked up, it was too late. There was a fallen tree as wide around as a barn fully blocking the road, its roots tangled and huge. Getting larger and larger by the second.

Dan slammed on the brake with both feet, one on top of the other to try and force the car to stop, the tires squealing hideously, the smell of rubber rising up from the road. Dan’s body shot forward toward the windshield, the seat belt barely keeping his small body in the car. He couldn’t downshift — there was no time. Dan was headed straight for the tree, full force, like a roller coaster off its rails.

Lightning quick, Dan pulled up the emergency brake. The car slid sharply, wheels spinning out from under him, and he was sliding on the ice, the car whipping around in circles. The tree was there, and then it wasn’t, it was closer, and then it wasn’t, and then —
SMACK!

The car crashed sideways into the fallen tree, whacking Dan hard up against the shattering windshield. The dashboard knocked out his breath, loosened a tooth. With the roof down, the tree shook branches on him like artillery, firing down on his head and neck and shoulders. He could feel a thousand cuts splintering into his face. His ears exploded.

The worst part was: Right before he hit the tree, at the moment of truth — he hadn’t even cared if he hit or not.

It was almost as if he’d been asking for it.

“Okay,” Amy said, trying to connect the many voices on the video conference call. “The Cahill extended-family meeting will now come to order.”

Flashing red lights bleeped throughout the high-tech command center. A lit-up world map had glowing markers on the dangerous places to watch closely. Floor-to-ceiling flat screens lined the walls, awaiting her far-flung relatives, who were videoing in from all over the world. That was why they had to schedule the meeting so early in the morning, because of the time differences. But Amy would have been up anyway.

After a wash of static, in popped her many teenage cousins: Natalie and Ian Kabra from London; Hamilton Holt, mountain climbing in Switzerland; and last, covered in silver glitter, multiplatinum teen idol Jonah Wizard, gearing up for the kickoff of his world tour in New York City. In the background, you could hear female fans screaming outside his trailer. Even before dawn.

“What’s this, a courthouse?” Dan asked glumly, his face entirely bandaged, his arm in a cast. “Since when has the Cahill family ever
come to order
?” He put his head down on his folded arms.

Amy hadn’t slept at all last night. Worry was like caffeine. After the ER trip with Dan, she’d hobbled back to her bed and had a few minutes to sob into her pillow before washing her face and heading up to the command center. She could still feel pillow lines on her forehead. She looked out over her notepad at her brother, who winced when lifting his head to sip his orange juice. He was all drugged up on painkillers and didn’t want to eat, on top of everything else.

“Everyone,” Amy said, “Dan had a little accident last night.” Her voice wavered, but she willed herself not to stutter.

A clamor of “Are you okay?” and “What happened?” and “Feel better, dude!” poured out from the screens.

“Thanks, everybody,” Dan said, his voice straining. “I’m okay. I sorta messed up.” His voice cracked when he glanced at Amy. “But I don’t want to talk about it. Let’s just focus on the meeting.”

“Here’s the agenda,” Amy said, willing her voice to be strong, trying not to relive the horror of waking up in the middle of the night to find her brother covered in blood. She’d practiced this many times the day before, since the idea of bossing everyone around made her want to crawl under the table. “The hunt may be over, but that doesn’t mean we’re safe. We don’t know who’s out there, or what they’re willing to do to get the clues.” Amy’s voice sounded over-rehearsed. It was hard to convince her relatives that the threat was real without telling them about the Vespers. And that wasn’t something she was ready to do. After all her family had been through, they deserved a break.

Sinead was taking meeting notes on her computer. She waited for Amy to continue.

“Item one: training schedules. I’ve constructed hour-by-hour day planners for all of you, to make sure we are all doing our part. These include research reports on Cahill clues, physical training, and security measures.”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” Jonah broke in. “I’m getting ready to kick off my world tour, homes. There’s no way I have time to fit all this in. My dad already has everything scheduled for me, down to when I go to the bathroom.”

“Sinead,” Amy continued, trying to push on, “you’re in charge of the new department of defense. I need monthly reports with updates on security threats.”

“Sure, it’s not like I have anything else to do anyway,” Sinead replied sarcastically.

People don’t have to like their assignments
, Amy thought,
but they do have to abide by them
. If she could be convincing enough.

“Ham,” Amy said, ignoring Sinead.

“Present,” Ham said.

“I have you on a strict physical fitness regime and advanced weaponry training. So that you can act as a kind of bodyguard, should we need it.”

“Sweet!” Ham said. “When do I start?”

“Immediately,” Amy said, smiling. At least someone was happy.

Ham started firing shots from his finger, complete with sound effects. “
Bam!
” he shouted, “
Bam, bam, bam!
” Perhaps this wasn’t the best idea.

“Ian will be in charge of the new department of finance. Doing financial upkeep on the clue hunt accounts. We want to make sure we’re up to speed on international tax laws and that the accounts are managed in secret. Also, Natalie will be allocating funds to upcoming projects.”

“This isn’t a tree-house club,” Ian piped up. “We can hire professionals to do these tasks for us, you know. You pay people like accountants and bodyguards and librarians —”

“And what?” Amy shot back. “Risk letting our enemies infiltrate when we take out a ‘Secret Bodyguard Needed’ ad on the Internet?

“Jonah, you are in charge of public relations,” Amy went on. “We have to keep a strong hold on our public perception —”

“Not gonna fly, cuz,” Jonah sighed.

“All of this is mad!” Natalie cut in. “
We
aren’t on the Forbes One Hundred list. I refuse to work for an organization that doesn’t offer car service and corporate accounts.”

“Dan and I will be in charge of the research department,” Amy said, not looking up for fear that tears would start to fall. This wasn’t going as she’d planned.

Dan sighed heavily. “Amy,” he said softly, “we don’t even know who we’re researching.”

“Well, does anybody else have any bright ideas?” Amy asked, throwing up her hands. “B-b-because I am all ears. I’ve put a lot of thought into this distribution of labor, but if you all think you can do it so much better, go ahead.” She searched the faces on the screens. “Please! If anybody has a better plan to try and stop the people out to kill us, don’t be shy.”

The Cahill cohort was quiet. For a second.

Then a chorus of chatter broke out on-screen, everyone talking over each other, cutting each other off.

“Meathead!” Natalie shrieked at Hamilton.

“Spoiled brat!” he shot right back.

Ian was looking at Amy and muttering under his breath. She thought she heard him say “know-it-all.”

Amy would have cried if she had the energy. Dan was jerking his head awake to keep from nodding off. Sinead was giving her the cold shoulder and recording everyone’s put-downs in the meeting notes.

Amy slumped down in the swivel chair, tossing her notepad and pencil onto the operations desk. She eyed the rows and rows of secret file cabinets, containing all they’d learned so far, which wasn’t very much. The vaults were still mostly empty, the files all too thin. How would it ever be enough? There was so much to do. Not to mention that school would be starting up next week.

Nice leadership
,
she thought to herself.
Way to bring everyone together.

“Hey, bros, can we wrap up this little family reunion? My publicist is saying I gotta bounce. Photo shoot,” Jonah said.

“Ah, the lifestyles of the rich and shameless,” Ian quipped. Amy knew for a fact that Ian and Natalie had at least a cool two million in the bank, but ever since their mother had disowned them, they’d been moping around like they were slumming it.

“Jealous much?” Jonah shot back.

“Our family would never fraternize with the kind of new-money peons you pal around with,” Natalie said. “It’s beneath us.”

“Right, I forgot. Daughters of Satan only meet on Thursdays,” Jonah said.

“Guys, guys!” Amy cut in. “Can’t we just agree to the schedules I’ve assigned and check in again with progress reports in a month? Item two —”

“Ian and I have to go. We’re throwing a fabulous party with our
civilized
friends. And there’s a menu to plan. And maids to fire.”

“Later, peeps. No rest for the richest celebrity under twenty,” Jonah said.

“Happy New Ye —” Amy started to say, but everyone had signed off before she could get it out.

Sinead stormed out and slammed the door.

Well, that went well.

She looked over at Dan, who has unwrapping one of his bandages from his wrist. This was shaping up to be some New Year’s Eve, and the sun hadn’t even risen yet.

Then a crackle of static caught Amy’s attention. An incoming call? She went over to check the switchboard and realized that the line was still connected and the audio still on. Dan started to push himself out of his chair, but Amy put a finger to her lips: “Shhh.”

“It’s okay,” Ian was saying, over the sound of sniffles. “There, there, don’t muss up your five-thousand-threadcount Egyptian cotton kerchief.”

“But it’s all so ghastly,” Natalie explained. “How did it come to this? No party, no parents, and our only relatives don’t even
like
us. Even the
help
has somewhere to go on New Year’s Eve!” she cried.

Amy looked at Dan helplessly.

“You and I will find some fun,” Ian tried. “We could break out the good china and hire a string quartet!”

“Bah!” Natalie cried. “I wish we’d never learned of the clue hunt. I wish we’d never met the other Cahills.”

Amy had heard enough. She shut down the connection. The faces of her other cousins flashed before her — Jonah’s exhausted smile, Ham’s jaw tensing as he tried to keep the peace. In their own ways, they were all trying very hard to do what was right. Each one was hurting just as much as Amy, but each one was pretending they were fine. Where in the schedules she’d just passed out had she assigned time for a break?

“Amy,” Dan croaked from the corner, “I might need help getting down the stairs.”

Amy nodded and got up. Was this going to be how they met the new year? Injured and depressed? Would the rest of their lives be like this? It wasn’t like any of them could take a vacation. Vespers didn’t give you two weeks off for R & R.

Amy wished she could wave a magic wand and make it all go away. But she was only fifteen, after all.

And then she got it.

“Dan,” she said, “I have an idea. It’s super-risky, and probably counterproductive, and
definitely
a waste of resources.”

“Sounds awesome,” Dan huffed, out of breath just from trying to lift himself up.

Amy started pacing and talking fast. “How would we get to the mountain—we’d need a copter? And where could we reserve a site? We’d have to leave right now. Security, provisions!”

“Amy, breathe,” Dan said. “Slow down. What are you talking about? What’s so urgent that you forgot to add it to the agenda?”