Little Apocalypse Read online

  Demetri reached out to catch her but pulled his hands away at the last minute. The tip of his finger grazed her cheek as she slammed into the floor. Her knee burst with pain. “Ow!”

  Demetri’s mouth hung open. He backed away from her toward the front door. “I’m sorry,” he whispered. “I’m so sorry.”

  Celia winced as she got up. Her cheek felt warm where he’d touched it. “I’m fine. Catching my fall would have been nice, but whatever.”

  Demetri stared at her as he shook his head back and forth. “Forget me,” he whispered. “Forget all of this. And Celia?”

  “Yeah?”

  “If anything . . . feels different, ignore it. I’m sorry.” His face froze. He looked like he was crying beneath the stillness of his features. He turned and let himself out.

  As soon as he was gone, the pain in Celia’s knee faded and the familiar ache of loneliness returned. Only this time, it felt different. Before it was just a blob of hopelessness, but now it had a Demetri-sized shape to it. After so long without making a new friend, it finally felt like she had someone she could talk to: someone who read the same books as her and cared about things. She wanted to get to know him and make him smile some more. She needed to figure out why he thought he had to lie to her all the time. She didn’t want just any friend anymore, she wanted Demetri.

  4

  Living With Wolves

  Hours passed. Morning turned into afternoon, and there was nothing to do.

  Celia tried both phones again. Neither worked. She wanted, more than anything, to hear her mom’s voice sounding frantic and funny and telling Celia she would be home soon.

  She picked up broken things around the apartment, but everywhere she looked there was more mess.

  The apartment felt small and cold, and there weren’t any new books to read or anything to watch, of course. She paced around and her mind raced as she thought about the earthquake and the thumping on her roof. Whatever it was, it had scared Demetri enough that he had to hide. She thought and thought, but she couldn’t figure out what it might have been. What if it came back and she was all alone? The more she thought about it, the worse she felt. She couldn’t stay inside all day with nothing to do but freak out and worry.

  4. Celia will not traipse around town like a vagabond.

  Celia was pretty sure her parents wouldn’t want her leaving home, not when there had been an earthquake, but she could walk to the library and back again. The library was always allowed.

  As she pulled clothes out of her dresser, Celia studied the knee she’d fallen on. It was already turning a satisfying purple. If something hurts, it should mark you, Celia thought. She put on her favorite wool tights, a gray skirt, a sweater, her tennis shoes, and a down jacket. She added a black knit hat and a red scarf, and slipped the cell phone into her pocket, in case it started working. She made a peanut butter and honey sandwich, filled up a water bottle, and grabbed her bike helmet in case another earthquake happened. The last thing she put into her backpack was her parents’ list of rules.

  When she left, Celia caught her reflection in the cracked hallway mirror. There was a small red mark on her cheek—right where Demetri had touched her. It was weird that it would leave a bruise as dark as the one on her knee.

  The elevator had a handwritten Danger! sign taped over the doors, so she took the stairs, running her fingers over the newly made cracks in the walls.

  Outside, the air had a dusty taste, and the world looked like a snow globe someone had shaken too hard. Cars sat bumper to bumper. Broken glass lay scattered on the sidewalks. Adults moved with slow, dreamlike motions, stopping and staring blankly before going back to sweeping up or trying to get their phones to work. An old man sat out on his stoop handing out paper cups of hot chocolate from a steaming aluminum pot set on a camping stove.

  Celia took one. “Want a sandwich?”

  He nodded and said, “Strange days.”

  “Strange days,” she agreed, as she gave him her sandwich.

  Celia walked on and wrapped her fingers around the warmth of the paper cup.

  On the next block a couple of houses leaned against each other. An old brick building wrapped in bright-yellow danger tape looked like a birthday present no one wanted.

  At the corner, someone had spray-painted the word Doom in big letters across the sidewalk. Underneath, scrawled in a messy calligraphy, it read:

  The city will shake and the girl will be found.

  Above the words was a stencil of a sad-looking girl wearing a gray skirt, a red scarf, and a black hat.

  Just like what I’m wearing, Celia thought, which was a weird coincidence. She shivered, shoved her hands into her pockets, and walked around the letters, not letting her shoes touch them. She hurried on to the library, half a block away.

  The library was old and made of stone. There were twin statues of camels outside, next to the library’s open double doors. The inside was lit with gas lanterns, and people filtered in and out. Whenever Celia had a question or needed to find a book, librarians had always been able to help her, so she wasn’t surprised to see that they could deal with an earthquake, too. Some stood behind desks manually checking books in and out, while others reshelved volumes that had fallen to the floor.

  As she walked up the library stairs, Celia saw a card table set up just inside the doors, stacked with different sizes of brightly colored papers, all handwritten. Some offered sanctuary, others listed addresses for free food and trauma counseling. A single yellow flyer caught her attention and seemed to almost flutter up into her hand.

  Who caused the earthquake? it read with scrawling penmanship. What are they going to do next? What do we have to do to stop them?

  It listed a meeting time and a place—Saint Jude’s Cathedral—which was four blocks away. Celia checked her watch and saw that the meeting had started five minutes ago.

  The flyer seemed kind of paranoid: nothing caused an earthquake, they just happened. She thought about games kids used to play in Portland where there would be all-city quests and battles and teams on different sides with some kind of silly prize for the winners. Maybe this was something like that. She wanted to go and check it out.

  Celia reread her parents’ list of rules twice just to make sure she wasn’t forbidden to go to church or play games. She put the flyer into her pocket. She turned away from the library and walked toward the cathedral, passing boarded-up stores, crashed cars, and dusty firefighters trudging down the middle of the street.

  Celia scratched at the spot where Demetri had touched her cheek. The skin felt rough, like a callus. On any other day she would have obsessed over how that was possible, but today the thought drifted away with all the other strangeness.

  Saint Jude’s Cathedral took up most of a city block. It was a massive white marble building with a million stained-glass windows. None of them looked broken. Celia wondered what she would find inside. Just a game, she thought. She looked at her list again.

  22. Celia will not join a cult.

  Celia pulled open one of the tall wooden doors and slipped inside. She smelled beeswax and the faint scent of mold. Beyond the bowl of holy water and rows of lit candles, Celia spied some kids sitting in wooden pews near the altar. A huge round stained-glass window rose up behind it and showered the room in blue and green light. Celia walked down the aisle toward the group. She glanced behind her and saw an upper floor of the cathedral, twenty feet up, with more pews and a big silver organ. When she turned back, all the kids were staring at her.

  “Church is closed today,” an Asian girl with purple-spiked hair snapped. “We’re the only ones allowed in here.” She stood in front of everyone else. All the kids, about two dozen of them, looked like they were Celia’s age or a little younger.

  “But . . .” Celia looked around. “I saw the flyer at the library. This is some kind of game, right?”

  “She saw the invitation. She came,” a boy with a large nose whispered. He stood and stared at her. “It’s the
girl from my dreams.”

  “Are you sure?” a girl with long blond hair asked.

  The boy nodded. “She’s even wearing the same clothes that I saw.” He smiled and said louder, “Come in. Sit down.”

  Celia didn’t move. This was the second time someone had said they dreamed about her.

  They stared at her like they’d never seen a thirteen-year-old girl with bad bangs before. Celia bit her lip and took a couple of steps forward, reminding herself that this was all some kind of role-playing game. They probably told every new kid they’d dreamed about her.

  The purple-haired girl said, “Sit down already.”

  A girl scooted over in one of the pews to make room.

  Celia sank down onto the cold hard wood.

  The purple-haired girl, standing a dozen feet away, put her hands on her hips and said, “Tell us your earthquake story, new girl. We’re all sharing.” Her raspy voice sounded like she’d spent all morning yelling. Her tone of voice demanded an answer.

  Celia looked behind her at the doors. Everyone watching her made her feel nervous. She didn’t know if part of the game was making up stories, or if they wanted the truth. She decided to keep it vague. “It’s been . . . strange.”

  All the kids nodded.

  “Everything feels wrong,” she added.

  Kids smiled at her.

  Celia felt like the question had been a test, and somehow she had gotten the answer right.

  “Who are you?” the purple-haired girl asked.

  “Celia.”

  “Hey Celia. I’m Amber,” the girl sitting next to her whispered. She had a long braid, thick black glasses, smooth brown skin, and a pretty face. She gnawed one fingernail and watched Celia with owly eyes.

  Everyone kept staring at her.

  “So, uh, how do you all know each other?” she asked into the silence.

  “Not how,” the purple-haired girl said. “That’s not what you should be asking. The question you should be asking, Celia, is who. You need to know who we are.”

  “Okay . . . who are you?” Celia settled back in her seat, ready to hear some dramatic story that would explain what this game was all about. Because this had to be a game. It just had to. Nothing else made sense.

  “We are the hunters. We’re the ones who keep everyone in this city safe.”

  5

  Lost Hope

  Hunters? Celia brought her legs up to sit cross-legged on the pew. Perhaps this was hunters versus werewolves, or zombies, or maybe vampires. As long as they weren’t too scary, she loved books about monsters. “Hunters of what?” she asked.

  “Hunters of the secret city,” a girl with long stringy hair said.

  “Of the unnamed,” a scarred boy added.

  “Of the unseen,” a girl wearing a black leather jacket whispered.

  “You found the flyer. You’ve noticed strange things happening. That means you belong with us.” The girl at the front of the room ran her hand through her purple hair. “I’m Ruby, by the way.”

  Other kids called out their names. A lot of them had nicknames like Spike, Rampage, and Twinkle Toes.

  Celia wanted a nickname, too. Maybe she could be Nighthawk, or Danger Girl.

  Amber, the girl sitting next to Celia, scooted closer and whispered, “It’s really good that you found us before anything else happened. We’re going to be friends. Okay?”

  “I’d love that.” Warmth spread through Celia.

  “Enough with the introductions,” Ruby barked. Kids turned their attention back to her. The stained-glass window above and behind her made everything look moody and intense. “Let’s get everyone up to speed, including Celia. Talk to me, hunters,” she ordered.

  As people started talking, Celia watched them. The hunters wore clothes made out of leather or thick cloth. Like the kids last night, they looked like they belonged together. But the kids from last night had looked poor, and all the hunters wore really well-made stuff, even if some of it was dirty. They each wore a silver pin on their chest. Celia looked closer at Amber’s and saw it was a hand wrapped around a heart. Not the Valentine kind, but the kind that pumped blood.

  A boy dressed in a dozen shades of brown leather was saying things that made no sense to Celia. “The Council of Elders met with some of us this morning at their headquarters. They told us the earthquake wasn’t natural, but a spell cast by them.”

  “They can make earthquakes whenever they want?” a wide-eyed boy asked. He looked a little younger, maybe eleven.

  A girl in all black replied, “Not usually. The Council of Elders thinks they might be working together. But that’s not all. They found strong magic stretched across the boundaries of the whole island. Nothing gets in or out. Not people. Not communication. Nothing. Until the doom prophecy ends.” Her hands moved through the air like fluttering birds as she spoke.

  Ruby scowled. “So we’re trapped, and from the sound of it, we may be facing an alliance of Bigs.”

  Amber, the girl next to Celia, raised her hand and said loudly, “Bigs hate each other. That’s one of the only reasons they don’t take over everything. What could bring them together?”

  Kids rat-a-tatted their hands on pews and shook their heads. Every one of them was so into this game—big eyes, furrowed brows, tensed shoulders. Celia searched for signs that they were acting. She found none. She bit her lip and reminded herself it had to be a game.

  “No idea,” Ruby growled. She paced back and forth. “What else?”

  Silence. A scuffling sound came from above and behind them. Celia looked back but saw nothing. It was probably just a rat.

  Amber raised her hand again. “I’ve spent the morning learning everything I could about the doom prophecy.” She pushed up her thick glasses. “I found it written in a couple of different places: a gallery downtown, and in the graffiti flats. It says, The city will shake and the girl will be found. The city will hiss and the girl will run. The city will fill with silent words and the girl will decide—”

  “To save the city,” Ruby said, interrupting her.

  Kids across the room looked at Celia, and then away.

  The doom prophecy? Celia had seen the first part of it written on the sidewalk next to an image of a girl who looked just like her. What if . . . none of this was a game? She shivered. Her belly clenched.

  “We need more information,” Ruby said. She pointed at a boy with a scar. “Reach out through the secure hunter network and contact other teams in every nearby city. Someone somewhere has to know what’s going on.”

  The boy frowned. “No electricity and no computers means no communication. Anyway, I was on the network last night before the quake, and things seemed pretty normal. Along the West Coast, some hunters were fighting a leviathan, and in Mexico City some kids got hurt taking down Chupa. That’s all.”

  “Find a way to contact them,” Ruby said. “Maybe the Elders can get a spell to help.” Ruby pointed at two other kids. “You two grab some hearts and go to the port. Find out everything they know.”

  Both kids nodded grimly.

  “You three take Chinatown and the Salt District.”

  Ruby pointed at Amber. “You and me? We’ll stick with Celia and tell her what she needs to know.” Ruby’s intense gaze rested on Celia for a moment.

  “Everyone else? Do whatever needs doing, by any means necessary. We’ll meet back here tomorrow at sundown. They got the jump on us once. Now we jump back.” She ran both hands through her purple hair and flashed a cocky grin.

  The kids began to leave the cathedral in twos and threes. Their steel-toed boots thunked against the stone floor as they put on hats and wrapped thick wool scarves around their necks.

  They said hi or wished her luck as they left.

  Celia watched them go and wondered if these kids were the most hard-core gamers ever. Or, and this couldn’t be true, but maybe they were telling the truth? Maybe they knew something that no one else did—something dangerous and strange about something that cou
ld make spells and cause earthquakes. A fluttering feeling filled Celia, and she didn’t know whether it was fear or excitement. Maybe both.

  Ruby’s heavy black boots stomped as she walked down the aisle. Her hand touched Celia’s shoulder. “Follow me.”

  Celia stood and walked behind her, past the rows of oak pews and alcove saints. She looked up at the silver pipe organ on the balcony and saw a flutter of movement. She only got a moment’s look before he ducked down, but that was all she needed to see the knit cap, the ragged clothes, and a dark flash of sad eyes.

  Demetri was up there, spying on the hunters.

  6

  More and More Complicated

  Celia didn’t say anything about seeing Demetri as she walked out of the cathedral with Amber on one side and Ruby on the other. Why was he there? Maybe he was part of their game, and playing for the other side. The sky spit down cold needles of rain. Celia wrapped her red scarf around her neck and pulled her cap over her ears. She wished she’d worn pants, not a skirt. Cold seeped through her wool tights. All the hunters left in different directions. Amber and Ruby stood on the steps with her, wearing their sleek black raincoats and thick-soled leather boots.

  “So what now?” Celia asked.

  Ruby shrugged. “We tell you things. You get less stupid.”

  “Be nice,” Amber said.

  “Nice isn’t going to save her,” Ruby growled. She picked at a black leather bracelet around her wrist. She wore a bunch of them.

  “Can I tell her the first thing? The big thing?” Amber blinked and watched Celia from behind her thick glasses.

  “You sure?” Ruby asked.

  “I think so. I’ve thought about the different variables of possible reactions, and for almost all of them her learning the truth right away is the best way to—”