Jennifer Scales and the Ancient Furnace

• PROLOGUEThe Ruin of Eveningstar
  
• CHAPTER 1The Flip
  
• CHAPTER 2Screaming Butterflies
  
• CHAPTER 3The Crescent Moon
  
• CHAPTER 4The New Weredragon
  
• CHAPTER 5Sheep, Bees, and Fish
  
• CHAPTER 6Regression
  
• CHAPTER 7The Farm UnderCrescent Moon
  
• CHAPTER 8The legend of theAncient Furnace
  
• CHAPTER 9Training
  
• CHAPTER 10Geddy
  
• CHAPTER 11Newolves
  
• CHAPTER 12Investigation
  
• CHAPTER 13The End of the Trail
  
• CHAPTER 14The Ancient Hearth Relit
  
• CHAPTER 15The Beaststalker
  
• CHAPTER 16Crescent Valley
  

Praise for the novels of

Mary Janice Davidson

“
Jennifer Scales and the Messenger of Light
is truly a wonderful read. Authors MaryJanice Davidson and Anthony Alongi have outdone themselves with this second of the series. Regardless of your age, mis is one series which earns its place in any keeper shelf.”

“It’s a great book whether you have read the other novel about Jennifer Scales or are new to the series. With an original, interesting plot, great writing, and awesome characters,
Jennifer Scales and the Messenger of Light
will resonate with teenagers—even if they don’t change into spiders or dragons.”

“A hilarious romp full of goofy twists and turns, great fun for fans of humorous vampire romance.”

“Delightful, wicked fun!”

“One of the funniest, most satisfying series to come along lately. If you’re fans of Sookie Stackhouse and Anita Blake, don’t miss Betsy Taylor. She rocks.”

Berkley Sensation titles by MaryJanice Davidson

undead and unpopular

undead and unreturnable

undead and unappreciated

undead and unemployed

undead and unwed

dead and loving it

derik’s bane

Jove titles by MaryJanice Davidson

sleeping with the fishes

Titles by MaryJanice Davidson and Anthony Alongi

JENNIFER SCALES AND THE ANCIENT FURNACE

JENNIFER SCALES AND THE MESSENGER OF LIGHT

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JENNIFER SCALES AND THE ANCIENT FURNACE

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PRINTING HISTORY

Berkley Jam trade paperback edition / August 2005 Ace mass-market edition / February 2007

Copyright
©
2005 by MaryJamce Davidson Alongi and Anthony Alongi. Cover art by Jerry Vanderstelt. Cover design by Lesley Worrell. Interior text design by Stacy Irwin.

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For the daughters
:

Gabriela Alongi, Christina Alongi and Erika Growette
,

whose help was invaluable

On the day Jennifer Scales turned five, her family was forced to move. It was the morning their quiet river town of Eveningstar, Minnesota, died a horrible death
.

Jennifer remembered only dim dawn light against her window, her mother rousing her, and jeans and a sweatshirt finding their way onto her tired body while her head drooped against her chest
.

If she thought a little harder, she could remember walking through the crisp, brown woods behind her house until they reached the Mississippi River, stepping onto a flat, slippery boat that sunk a bit with her weight, and shivering in her mother’s firm arms while her father’s voice calmly reassured her
.

And if she relaxed her mind, which she wouldn’t be able to do until she was older, she could remember standing on a bluff beyond the other side of the river, watching from a safe distance as her hometown burned under a crescent moon. She heard the roars of beasts—dinosaurs
?—
the howls of wolves, and the screeches of unknown things
.

The morning of September 18, those things laid waste to Eveningstar. No one from beyond its borders ever tried to put out the fires, or bury those who died there, or even report the incident
.

No one went there. No one remembered there. Eveningstar, Minnesota, settled by Scandinavian immigrants and incorporated more than one hundred years past, fell into ashes and out of existence
.

The Winoka Falcons were on the verge of their third straight Community Junior League Soccer Championship. In sudden-death overtime, the score was tied at 1-1 with the Northwater Shooting Stars. Jennifer Scales, the Falcons captain, dribbled the ball across midfield. Four of her teammates charged forward with her; only three exhausted defenders were keeping pace.

Jennifer, who had turned fourteen the day before, wanted a win for her birthday present.

As one of the Northwater defenders approached, she kicked the ball sharply to the left, into what could have been open field. It skimmed the grass and nestled squarely in the instep of her teammate, Susan Elmsmith. Jennifer grinned in delight at her friend’s sudden change in pace and direction. There were times she was sure the two of them could read each other’s mind.

Susan advanced on the enemy net with gritted teeth.

Jennifer slipped behind the defender who had challenged her and matched pace with the last opposing fullback, being careful not to slip offsides.

Unfortunately, it had rained most of yesterday, and though the skies were clear today, the ground was treacherous. More than twenty yards away from the goal, Susan went skidding into the grass and mud with an angry yell, just managing to push the ball a bit off the ground and over the foot of the fullback. It came spinning by Jennifer, and in a tenth of a second she saw her shot.

She darted forward and kicked the ball straight up with her toe. Then she somersaulted into the air, twisted, and sent the ball sailing toward the net with a hard kick. For an upside-down instant she saw the goalie dangling in the sky from the earth above. Then she twisted again, completed the midair roll, and landed on her feet as the ball flew past the goalie’s reaching fingers.

Game over, 2-1, Falcons.

She turned back downfield grinning, already anticipating the slaps and congratulations from her teammates. But all the players on the field were staring at her in surprise, and a little bit of … fear?

“How did you do that?” Susan’s eyes, usually almond-shaped, were wide with shock. “You turned upside down… It was
so fast
.”

“Duh, it had to be,” Jennifer shot back. They were gaping at her as if she’d pulled a second head out of her butt and kicked
that
into the net. “Jeez, any of you could have done it. I was just closest to the ball.”

“No,” Terry Fox, another teammate, said. Her voice sounded strange and thin. “We couldn’t have.”

Then the field was crowded with parents from the stands, and their ecstatic coach, who lifted Jennifer by the elbows and shook her like a maraca. She forgot about the odd reactions of her friends and reveled in the win.

In all the ruckus, she didn’t think to look at her mother’s reaction to her stunt. By the time she sought her out in the crowd, the older woman was cheering and clapping like everyone else.

Winoka was a town where autumn wanted to last longer, but found itself squeezed out by the legendary Minnesota winters. Like many suburbs, it had new middle-class neighborhoods built on top of old farmland and inside small forests. The Scales’s house, at 9691 Pine Street East, was in one of those lightly forested neighborhoods, where every house had a three-car garage, ivy-stone walls, and a mobile basketball net on the edge of a neatly manicured lawn. It looked incredibly typical. Jennifer could never figure out why this bothered her.

The night of the championship, however, she wasn’t thinking about the house. She was thinking about her friends. She wanted her mother to think about them, too.

“Freaking out! Acting like I had sprouted wings!”

Dr. Elizabeth Georges-Scales was a woman who didn’t often show emotion. If her daughter had been paying close attention, though, she might have noticed a slight pull at the edges of her solemn eyes.

“When the coach took us out for ice cream afterward, everyone seemed cool,” Jennifer continued. “But I still caught Chris and Terry staring at me when they thought I wasn’t looking.”

“It was quite a jump,” Elizabeth offered mildly.

“I see players on the U.S. team do it all the time.”

“Really.”

Jennifer hissed softly. If the older woman wasn’t looking right at her, Jennifer would swear she didn’t have her mother’s attention at all. Typical! A vague and absent look, meaningless verbal agreement, and no maternal instincts whatsoever.

Did you actually give birth to me, or did you just crack open a test tube
? She did not say this aloud. The rush she’d get from forcing a reaction from her mother was not worth the weekend grounding she’d receive.

Besides, she had to give her mother credit for being at the game today—and every other soccer game Jennifer had ever played. And this was one of their longest conversations in weeks.

So Jennifer passed on the insult. “They were weird, is all I’m saying. High school just started, I’m under enough pressure … now this!” The ringing doorbell jerked them both out of the conversation. “I’ll get it.” She grabbed cash from her mother’s hand and answered the door.

The delivery guy was tall, blond, wiry, and unfortunately plagued by enough acne to cover twelve boys his size. “H-have a nice s-supper,” he stuttered after passing her the bags of food. He wouldn’t stop staring, so she finally stuffed some cash in his shirt pocket and shut the door on him.