Underworlds #1: The Battle Begins Read Free

“There’s something about it that’s different from the others.” But I had no idea what.
    We started looking through one book after another. Most of them were written in other languages. Some had letters I couldn’t recognize, some had painted pictures. Others were so old, they felt like they might crumble in our hands. There was one shelf with a gap between the books as if one had been pulled out. I hoped that wasn’t the book Dana needed.
    Just as I was beginning to feel helpless, I turned. And I let out a slow white breath.
    “What is it?” asked Jon.
    A large desk stood in the shadows at the end of the room.
    “I read a story once where there was a clue to the mystery in a desk,” I said, stepping across the carpet to it. Like the walls, the desk was covered in a film of speckled frost. And it was very neat — pens, ink pots, pencil cups, stacks of paper — everything in its place. A clay bowl of paper clips stood off to one side. In with the clips was a small brass key. Stepping back from the desk, I saw that one of the drawers had a brass lock.
    Sydney saw it, too. “Way too obvious.”
    “But worth a try,” Jon said, bouncing on his toes. “Anything to get out of here.”
    The key was cold when I picked it up from the bowl. I slipped it into the lock and turned it. Ping! The drawer popped out, and my breath caught in my throat. Inside the drawer was a very used copy of a very fat paperback book: Bulfinch’s Mythology .
    “Mythology?” Jon said. “You mean like ogres and unicorns?”
    “More like gods and monsters,” Sydney said. “When I was little, my parents read me those stories. Do you think this is the book Dana was talking about?”
    “It’s not like the other books on the shelves. It’s cheap,” I said. I peeled back the cover and saw Dana’s name written inside. “Why would she keep it locked up here and not in her room?”
    “Maybe she didn’t keep it locked up,” Sydney said. “Maybe her parents did. To protect it? Maybe —”
    Grrrrr .
    Jon froze. “I think we woke the dog ….”
    GRRR! The growling was louder.
    “They don’t have a dog,” I said quietly. My hands and feet were numb. I couldn’t tell if it was from the cold, or from the fear that shot through me.
    A massive thing rose up from the shadows. And up and up. Its head alone was the size of a dog. Then it bared its teeth … only they weren’t just teeth. They were fangs — long and curved and dripping thick goop. The thing’s eyes were deep and black. It wasn’t a dog.
    It was a wolf.
    Some kind of crazy extra-large wolf with spiky bristles of red fur sticking out like bent wire. The giant beast just stared at us, heaving out the foulest frozen breath imaginable.
    Jon flattened against the shelves. “Please let this be a dream. And I wake up far away —”
    RRRAAOOO! Flames shot out of the beast’s jaws as it leaped high over our heads and landed by the library door. It slammed the door shut, and the house echoed — doom-doom-doom! We were trapped.
    Scrambling backward, I tripped over Jon’s feet and fell to the floor. Maybe I was dizzy with fear, but from that angle the bookshelves looked like only one thing.
    A ladder.
    Without thinking, I leaped up and swung my arms across the top of the desk. Bowls, pens, paper, everything flew at the wolf.
    “Up the shelves!” I cried.
    In the second it took for the giant wolf to dodge the junk, we clambered up the dark wooden shelves.
    The wolf roared fire again, then jumped at us. I hurled a heavy book at its head. With a cry of pain, the wolf tumbled backward.
    We clawed our way up to the top shelf. I heaved one of the vases down over my shoulder. So did Jon. The wolf dodged mine, but Jon’s caught it on the snout. It shot another blast of fire.
    “There’s a heating vent in the corner,” Sydney said, grabbing my arm and then pointing.
    We crawled across the top shelf to the corner, where an ornate grille stood in the wall. Jon and I kept dropping