The Devil's Labyrinth Read Free Page B

Kelly. Now he had to face Frankie Alito and his friends, who would no doubt jump him when he was on the way home after school.
    He turned his head and looked out the window. In the distance, he could see the skyline of Boston, and though he was pretty sure it wasn’t really possible, he thought he could even pick out the spire on top of St. Isaac’s School.
    The school his mother had talked about the last time he’d come home with a black eye after a run-in with Frankie Alito.
    Except he was pretty sure it hadn’t been his mother’s idea at all. In fact, he’d have been willing to bet it had been Tom Kelly’s idea.
    But now, as he stared at his unfinished test, and knew all he had to look forward to for the rest of the day was Frankie Alito’s fury, he began to wonder.
    Surely St. Isaac’s couldn’t be any worse than where he was.
    “Time’s up,” said Mr. Thomas.

C HAPTER 2
    B ROTHER F RANCIS STOOD in the doorway of the vast dining room at St. Isaac’s Preparatory Academy, scanning the tables of students, searching for Kip Adamson. At least half the school’s two hundred students were sitting at the long tables eating, talking, and laughing, yet despite the noise they were generating, the chamber was still far quieter than had been the much smaller cafeteria at the school Brother Francis had left only last fall. Indeed, it seemed to him as if the old stone building housing the dining hall was somehow offended by the noise, and, rather than tolerate such frivolity within its walls, had somehow found a way to absorb the noise the school’s students made, muting it almost as quickly as the students generated it.
    Though he was new to St. Isaac’s, Brother Francis had a knack for attaching names to faces, and now he was able to greet nearly every one of the students by name as he walked between tables in search of one particular face. Kip Adamson, though, was nowhere to be seen; he’d already missed his senior math class, and Sister Mary David had sent Brother Francis to find out why. Sister Mary David’s wrath was legendary; not only would nobody willingly miss her class without an ironclad excuse, but she wouldn’t hesitate to vent her fury upon Brother Francis, should he prove unable to explain young Adamson’s absence.
    Kip must have had a good reason—at least, he’d
better
have had a good reason.
    In the far corner of the dining hall, Brother Francis spotted Clay Matthews, Kip’s roommate, sitting with his usual group of friends. As Brother Francis approached, he caught a glimpse of playing cards, and suddenly knew why they were all knotted up in the corner together.
    “Hey, Brother Francis,” Tim Kennedy said loudly enough that the young cleric was sure it was meant as a warning to Tim’s friends rather than a greeting to himself. Sure enough, the other boys’ heads snapped up the instant Tim spoke.
    Brother Francis put on his sternest face. “I believe you’re all aware that gambling is against the rules,” he said. The boys glanced at each other uneasily. “Think what would have happened if it had been Sister Mary David who caught you instead of me.”
    As the rest of the boys paled slightly, José Alvarez did his best to look utterly innocent. “Gambling?” he asked, as if Brother Francis had spoken in some exotic language he didn’t quite understand.
    “We’re just playing Crazy Eights,” Darren Bender said.
    “I see.” Brother Francis held his hand out for the cards. Clay Matthews groaned, squared the cards into a deck and surrendered them to Brother Francis, who slipped them into one of the deep pockets in his cassock. “Have any of you seen Kip?” he went on. “He missed his math class.”
    The boys shook their heads. “He might still be in bed,” Clay said. “I don’t think he’s been feeling good.”
    Brother Francis frowned, his lips pursing. “Oh? Did he go to the infirmary?”
    Clay shrugged. “It wasn’t like he was sick with the flu or anything. He’s just