Live and Let Shop (14 page)

I heard it splash into the water. Behind me Blankenship screamed with anger, and for a moment I could have sworn it was the same violent scream I had heard from the creature in the hold below. But that would be crazy. That thing I’d seen below was just a figment of my imagination. It couldn’t have been real. Could it?

He still had hold of my foot, and I kicked back and hit him in the head with my other foot. He yelled and let go of me. I scrambled to my feet. No time to worry about the book now. Time to run. We hit the gangway and raced down as fast as we could. We tore across the dock and up the stairs that led to the parking lot. The first fire trucks and police cars were starting to pull in.

We all ran across the parking lot as fast as we could. I looked back at the
R.A. Smith
. Blankenship and his men
were standing at the railing of the ship, apparently having decided not to pursue us. The guy was crazy, but he was smart enough not to press his luck and get caught. Blankenship stared at me from that long distance and then gave me a funny little salute, sort of like something you’d see in a cheap gladiator movie. He put his thumb to his chest with his fingers spread and then shot his arm out straight. Then he was gone. I don’t know why, but his little salute gave me the creeps.

We ran to the van.

“You must go,” Mr. Kim said. “I will wait for the police and Agent Tyler. But you need to go now. When the FBI show up, the news media will be right behind, and I don’t want Blackthorn students drawn into this if we can help it. Hurry.”

“But what about the book! We need to try to find it and get it out of the water!” I said.

“Don’t worry about that. We’ll take care of it. Listen, your van is equipped with a tracking device. It starts automatically whenever one of the vehicles leaves the school. That’s how I was able to find you here.” He pulled a small GPS reader out of his pocket. “So head back to the school now, and I’ll monitor the progress of the van.
You should be fine. Simon is more concerned about escaping to fight another day than he is with trying to catch you. But I need you to hurry.”

He was kind of calm about everything. Considering that we’d probably broken every rule in the Academy handbook, he was sounding like the same mellow Mr. Kim of old. Or at least of a few days ago.

We didn’t argue with him. We left and drove through the remaining darkness to Blackthorn Academy.

We were all convinced that we’d be kicked out of Blackthorn Academy. We had broken just about every rule there was. Alex spent a day going through the student handbook to see if he could find a single rule we hadn’t broken. So far he hadn’t come up with anything.

Those two days after the ship incident were incredibly tense. At first, Alex wouldn’t speak to me. He blamed me for the whole mess. Pilar was a nervous wreck, although she made a point of letting me know she didn’t blame me. We’d come a long way in a month, and while
there were still times when the whole psychic thing made me a little uncomfortable, I thought that if we survived this ordeal, we might actually be good friends. Brent seemed the calmest about the whole thing, but he never said much anyway, so it was hard to tell.

Then, two days later, Mr. Kim invited us down into his Batcave.

He started by pressing a button on the conference table. The video monitor in the center beeped and the face of Agent Tyler filled the screen. He said hello to all of us, then delivered the news that by the time the police and FBI had gotten aboard the ship, there was no sign of Blankenship or his guards. A launch was missing from its mooring on the deck of the
R.A. Smith.
Agent Tyler assumed they had lowered it to the water and gotten away. They could be anywhere by now, but at least they didn’t have the book. Mr. Kim thanked Agent Tyler, then pushed another button and the screen went dark.

“Well. What do the four of you have to say for yourselves?” Mr. Kim said.

“I think the question is, what do
you
have to say for yourself?” I said. What did I have to lose, after all? If I was going down, I was going down swinging.

“Excuse me?” he asked.

“Way I see it is, you got a lot of explaining to do, mister. Let’s start with Blankenship and this whole
Book of Seraphim
thing. So sing.” I was trying to keep him off guard. I figured the only chance I had was to attack and try to turn everything back on him. Maybe I could get out of the trouble I was in if I could keep him talking long enough.

“Fair enough,” he said, much to my surprise. And he filled us in.

He and Blankenship really did find the book in Kuzbekistan. They were comrades in the Special Forces, part of an elite group of agents called the Blackthorn Squad. When they found the book, something cracked in Blankenship and he became convinced that he was Mithras reborn.

“Simon was furious with me when I turned the book over to the Kuzbekistan government. He left the squad and vanished. Shortly after that, Mithrian artifacts from museums around the world started to disappear. There was no doubt he was behind those thefts. Simon’s been trying to get his hands on the book for years. When the Kuzebkistan government foolishly sent the book on tour,
I knew he would make a move for it.”

“But why is it so important to him?” I asked.

“Because if its secrets can be understood, it will instruct the heir of Mithras how to recover the sacred artifacts and bring the power of Mithras to life.”

“Okay. Ancient book. Crazy guy bent on controlling a supernatural force. That part I understand. But what about this school? The Top Floor? The weird classes? All of that?” I said. “Face it, Mr. Kim, I know this is no ordinary boarding school.”

Mr. Kim laughed. “I’m not surprised you figured it out. But I will need you to give me your solemn vow that you will not repeat what I am about to tell you to any of the other students.” He looked at all of us, and we nodded our agreement.

“Simon is a dangerous man. Since the book was discovered, he has been building a vast network of followers. He has stolen hundreds of priceless objects, selling them on the black market and amassing an immense fortune. He is now one of the wealthiest and most powerful men in the world. His network spans the globe, is completely dedicated to him, and is full of very dangerous people. If he gets his hands on the remaining artifacts, he
could cause chaos throughout the world. I have made it my life’s work to stop him.

“I needed my own network in place, both to watch for Mithrians and to prepare for this coming battle. That is the reason for this school. The Top Floor is a special program for the gifted students here. Sometimes special operations need students for surveillance or sting operations, nothing too dangerous. The Top Floor allows them to train here and be available for certain missions. Only a select few are chosen,” he said.

“Cool,” I said. “That beats regular high school any day.”

“Yes. However, as Agent Tyler pointed out,
you
are not currently Top Floor. Rachel, you had no training and no preparation for anything that you did. If the van’s tracking device hadn’t allowed me to follow it to the ship, it could have been disastrous. I didn’t know who I was going to find there, but I can’t say I’m surprised it was you. You all could have been killed.”

No one said anything for a moment. Then I spoke up.

“Mr. Kim, it’s my fault. I was the one who went snooping around and started this whole mess. I begged them to help me, and even when they said not to I kept
digging deeper. Please don’t punish them. I know you’re kicking me out of school, and I’ll go back to California and do my time in Juvie. Just please don’t punish them too.”

Mr. Kim looked serious.

“Will the three of you excuse us, please? I need to talk to Rachel alone.”

Alex, Brent, and Pilar looked at each other. Then Alex spoke.

“With all due respect, sir, I’m afraid the answer is no. We’re not leaving,”

“I beg your pardon?” Mr. Kim said.

“It’s okay, you guys go. This is my deal,” I said. “I don’t want you guys to get kicked out because of me. I’d have guilt trips for years. Save yourselves!”

“Man, you just never stop talking,” Alex said to me. Then he looked at Mr. Kim. “I’m sorry, sir, but the three of us have talked about it. We’ve agreed. If Rachel is going to be punished, then we all should be punished.”

“Is that so?” Mr. Kim said. I couldn’t tell if he was upset or pleased with this development. He was a hard one to read, that Mr. Kim.

“Yes, sir. One of the most important things you’ve
taught us comes right out of the Tae Kwon Do student’s oath: ‘To have honor and faith among friends.’ If we let Rachel accept punishment alone and deny our part in what happened, then we have no honor. She was the one that discovered all this stuff, but she didn’t force us to go along. For the past couple of days I’ve tried to blame her for that, but in truth, I can’t. We all made our own decisions to follow her. So we can’t allow you to punish her alone, sir. It just wouldn’t be right.”

Mr. Kim stood and turned his back to us for several seconds. Then he turned back to face us. His eyes seemed moist.

“I see. And this is how you feel as well, Pilar? Brent?” Mr. Kim looked at them, and they nodded. “So what do you have to say about this, Rachel?”

“Obviously they’ve been under a lot of stress and they’re not thinking clearly. Maybe there is a gas leak in their rooms or something and they’ve all gotten light-headed. It’s totally my fault. I’m willing to accept the responsibility,” I said. Honestly, I couldn’t believe it. No one had ever stuck up for me like this before. And I still wasn’t even sure that any of these guys liked me in the first place. But maybe they did.

Mr. Kim paced back and forth for a moment.

“Very well. Since you insist on standing together in this, I’ve decided on your punishment. Tonight in the
do jang,
before class starts, fifty push-ups on your knuckles from each of you.”

All of our mouths fell open. “Is that it?” said Alex.

“Would you rather the punishment be more severe?”

“No, sir,” they all said at once.

We weren’t sure if Mr. Kim was playing a trick on us or not. He smiled at us. “Listen, all of you. Everything is fine. You are not being expelled, and neither is Rachel, I assure you. In fact, there is something I want all of you to hear.” He reached into a file folder in front of him and handed me a sheet of paper. It was a memo. About
me
. He read it to the others while I read my copy. It said:

Everyone smiled as he finished reading his copy of the memo out loud and replaced it in the file folder.

“Satisfied?” he said. We all nodded.

“Very well. Now that we’ve resolved this, I do need to speak to Rachel alone for a few moments.” They all looked at me, and I nodded my thanks. For about the millionth time since I’d gotten to Blackthorn, I felt like crying. Only, this time it wasn’t because I was mad or upset. It was because for the first time I could ever remember someone had stood up for me and hadn’t left me to fend for myself. I had never felt this way before. Maybe that Alex wasn’t such a big muscle head after all. I tried to compose myself
as they all turned and filed out of the room. When they had gone, Mr. Kim turned to look at me.

“Mr. Kim, you’re really not kicking me out? Are you really sending that memo to the judge?”

“I am not kicking you out, and yes, that memo has already been sent to the judge. Yesterday, in fact. That is a copy that will go in your file.”

“I don’t get it.” I was horribly confused.

“Is there something in the report you don’t understand?”

“No, that’s not it. I don’t get the whole thing. All of it. You, Mithras, this room, Simon Blankenship? Do you really believe this Simon guy with his supernatural Mithras coming out of the underworld to rule mankind stuff? That he is the human heir to Mithras?”

“Yes, I do.”

Now I was stunned. I had convinced myself that Blankenship was crazy. Delusional. He’d latched on to this old religion and somehow it fed his fantasy of ruling the world. It couldn’t be real. It was just the ravings of a madman. Wasn’t it? Now Mr. Kim was telling me he believed it was true?

“You can’t be serious,” I said.

“Don’t misunderstand me, Rachel. One’s beliefs are relative. There are many mysteries of the world, many forces and powers that cannot be explained. Do I believe that there is a ‘real’ god Mithras? I don’t know. But Simon Blankenship believes it, and he has convinced untold thousands of others to believe it as well. That belief has caused his followers to do evil. So whether Mithras is real or not is irrelevant. The believers like Simon have made Mithras real and have caused pain, suffering, and death because of it. They must be stopped. Do you understand?”

“I guess,” I said, still puzzled. “What happens now?”

“That is up to you. You did a very dangerous thing. You put yourself and your friends’ lives in peril, and that is not something to be taken lightly. But your motives were pure. You were reckless and undisciplined, but at the same time you were bold and aggressive. You were, simply put, very impressive. You need more training and more discipline, but I think you have shown some remarkable skills and talents.”

“I don’t know about all that. I was just following my instincts,” I said.

“I know. And your instincts were correct. If I had
tracked Simon to the ship without your intervention, I have no doubt he would have made every effort to kill me. I’m sure he had a trap set for me. The four of you jumping into things upset his plans and forced him to improvise.” I thought about that.

“There is one thing bothering me, Mr. Kim. How did Blankenship know where to find us? I mean, he sort of came out of nowhere.” I said.

“Don’t forget Simon’s network, Rachel. It is vast. I’m sure he even has contacts inside the FBI. I’m certain he was keeping track of Agent Tyler’s movements, and when he discovered your intrusion, perhaps he thought that if he captured the four of you, he could use you to get to me. As you saw, Simon is quite displeased with me.” I guess that made sense. Although I wished he had used another word instead of “intrusion.” How about “brilliant observation” or “outstanding detective work.” Those are much better than “intrusion.”

“So where does this leave us?” I asked.

“It must be your decision, Rachel. You know about me. You know about the school. If you stay, the four of you can’t say anything about any of this to anyone without my approval. But if you choose to leave, I will understand. I
think I can intervene with Judge Kerrigan. You won’t have to go to Juvenile Hall. You can return home.”

“Well, as I told you before, I still have some conditions,” I said.

“Rachel…,” he started.

“No. Hear me out. If I stay, I want the four of us to be involved in this. I want to help look for Blankenship. The four of us worked well together, Mr. Kim. If this guy is as bad as you say, then it sounds like you need all the help you can get.”

“Rachel, this is not a game. Simon is a very evil man. And you are all in peril now that he knows that you know about him. He will be watching for the four of you. Stay here at the academy. I promise you that I’ll do everything I can to answer your questions and help you develop your gifts. But you must decide whether you can trust me or not. I believe with all my heart that you truly belong here. In time, I think you will feel that way as well,” he said.

I was beginning to think that Mr. Kim was just as stubborn as me. Time to change tactics.

“Mr. Kim, I’m sorry that I wrecked the
Book of Seraphim
. I know it’s priceless and everything. I feel
bad that’s it’s been lost,” I said.

Mr. Kim smiled and walked to the wall across the room. There was a safe built into the wall there, with a small screen next to it. He put his palm on the screen and a green light flashed over his hand and the safe clicked open. He reached inside, pulled out the
Book of Seraphim,
and laid it on the table before me.