»be« by BASTEI ENTERTAINMENT

Digital original edition

»be« by Bastei Entertainment is an imprint of Bastei Lübbe AG

Copyright © 2018 by Bastei Lübbe AG, Schanzenstraße 6-20, 51063 Cologne, Germany

Written by Caroline Dunford as Jay Mason

Edited by Allan Guthrie

Project management: Kathrin Kummer

Cover design: Guter Punkt, München | www.guter-punkt.de

Cover illustrations © shutterstock: margo_black | © thinkstock: Hemera Technologies; svedoliver; ahunjet; akvlv; Sirichoke; RobertoDavid

eBook production: Jilzov Digital Publishing, Düsseldorf

ISBN 9-783-7325-3598-9

www.be-ebooks.com

Twitter: @be_ebooks_com

1. Enemy of my Enemy

“At nineteen I shouldn’t have to lock my bedroom door,” muttered Alex as she threw the bolt. Then she returned to her computer. C0nundrum had left another message. He’d found her through her website, Beyond Belief Investigations, and been pestering her for months.

“I have a project for you if you are interested. Please respond.”

Alex frowned and typed. “Hi c0nundrum, I don’t take on projects. If you read my terms and conditions,” she inserted the link here in case he had missed the bolded URL at the bottom of the page. “You will also see that unless your case is liable to provide me with a unique opportunity I require payment in information. As you have not yet, despite your repeated messages, offered any insight into your case there is little I have to say to you. You should be aware that I am an experienced paranormal investigator and it is highly unlikely, though not impossible, that you will have information I do not already have in my files.” She signed off using one of her favourite false names.

Alex hesitated for a moment. The last line felt a bit immodest, but she had said she didn’t know everything. It was simply that she did get fed-up with people who played all mysterious and enigmatic only to eventually reveal the information they wanted to pay with was something she had discovered years ago.

She pressed send and leaned back in her chair, running her fingers through her long, curly hair. They snagged on a knot, and she spent a few minutes attempting to unpick it. Done, she looked back at the screen, intending to shut the machine down. There hadn’t been any interesting messages on her website for ages. Just a misguided youth asking her opinion on the number of hit points she felt a succubus should have in the game he was developing.

C0nundrum’s reply glowed back at her. Normally he took days to respond.

“I can assure you that ‘my case’ will be both of interest and informative for you. I am attaching a map of the old mine under your college. I have marked the point where I suggest you enter. As proof of information I can offer, I am also enclosing the chemical formula and instructions for a substance I suggest you take with you. Should events take an ‘alarming’ turn you may find it of use.”

Alex typed quickly. She was beginning to feel really annoyed. “I need more information than this. If you expect me to go grubbing around underground, I need to know what you expect I might find.”

There was no response. Her bedroom door handle rattled.

“Dinner, Alex,” called her Dad. Alex groaned and turned off the computer.

Alex’s mother might be one of the foremost chemists of her generation, but cooking had never been among her skill set. Fortunately, neither of her parents were proof against her mother’s barely edible experiments and they both retired to bed shortly after dinner.

Alex waited until she was fairly sure they would be tucked up with their piles of papers to be read by tomorrow — all part of being two of the leading scientists at The Center for Scientific Excellence — and then she snuck back downstairs to her mother’s home lab. Of course the door was locked, but Alex’s uncle had given her set of lockpicks for Christmas years ago. Uncle Andrew was a great joker, but his jokes were generally in poor taste. Alex had once again been in a lot of trouble, so he’d given her these for her ‘future career’. Neither he nor her parents knew she had kept them all these years nor that she had grown extremely proficient at using them.

Then with an efficiency borne of much practice she began systematically raiding the lab for the ingredients c0nundrum had listed.

The morning at college seemed especially long. The only excitement Alex felt as she flunked one class after another was the awareness of what she was carrying in her backpack. Or rather lack of awareness. She’d followed c0nundrum’s instructions to the letter, which would have surprised her chemistry lecturer no end, and created two small yellow disks. The formulae had made little sense to her. She had no real idea of what they would do and she was carrying them around with her. It added a certain frisson to an otherwise dull day. It distracted her enough that she gave four correct answers in the psychics’ oral quiz and knew she’d have to be doubly stupid tomorrow.

The lunchtime stampede was Alex’s cue to get to work. Alex’s lockpicks made short work of the side door she preferred. The cameras here only swept pass every twenty seconds. “Candy from a baby,” said Alex, as she slipped in. Still no motion sensors inside. One day they would find the money in the college budget to upgrade the security system and she’d be in trouble, but for now she could slink around the corridors to her heart’s delight.

The entry point that c0nundrum had marked on the map was all too easy to find. All Alex had to do was pull up of some loose boards at the back of a storeroom used for cleaning supplies.

“I swear c0nundrum, if this is some kind of set-up,” Alex whispered to herself, “I will find you and I will make you pay.”

A large silver pipe ran along the side of the passage. There was an old fashioned switch on the wall which activated an antiquated form of emergency lighting. Alex switched on the small mike clipped to her collar and began to record her observations.

“So far the corridor appears to be an access to utility conduits. I’m guessing heating. Wouldn’t be surprised if I end up in the boiler room. Can’t shake the feeling this is all one big set up.”

She carried on for a while. “Doors on my right and left. Ignoring them for now. Passage still sloping down. Dustier now. I can see a bigger door at the end. Metal and a huge padlock. Let’s hope it’s not rusted.”

Alex crouched down and began to work on the lock. She snapped two of her lockpicks before she got it open. “Remember to charge c0nundrum for expenses,” she muttered into the mike. The door swung open with a loud creak.

“So much for the silent approach,” said Alex. She pulled the door to behind her, but didn’t fully close it. “Switching on torch.” Alex swung the beam wide. “Wow, I didn’t expect this. Looks like the lower levels of some old building. Remember to check maps in local library for what else had been built on this site. No sign of a mine entrance yet.”

Her torch picked out shapes; broken chairs, up turned tables, an old filing cabinet, even a bed frame. Alex walked on, passing through several doors, most of them hanging drunkenly off their hinges. Then she reached a point where corridors ran off in several directions.

Alex took a deep breath. “Right, I seem to have reached some kind of nexus point. This place is becoming a labyrinth. The corridor to my right slopes down. If there is a mine under all this, I’m betting it’s down there. Much as I hate to say it looks like c0nundrum might be on to something after all. This place doesn’t feel right. Proverbial hairs on the back of my neck are standing up like soldiers.”

“Damn,” said Alex and turned off the mike. She didn’t want to admit even to herself that she hadn’t brought the right equipment with her. “I should have believed him. Damn. Damn.” She turned the mike back on.

“I’m going to go a little way down the corridor that seems to lead down. I’m going to try and get an impression of what kind of equipment I’ll need when I come back. See if this is going to be a whole rope and climbing gear stunt or crawling through rubble?”

As she went forward the corridor narrowed, the roof lowered and at some point she realised she was surrounded only by jagged rock. “I believe I’ve found where the old mine starts,” she said. “Air smells stale. Thinking of turning back soon.”

Alex knew the wise thing to do was to back out, but her curiosity kept whispering to her just one bit more, just one little bit more. Any minute the shaft might open up into a huge cavern and then she would see whatever c0nundrum had sent her to find.

She was deep underground when she heard it. From up head, far too close for comfort came a roar. It was the kind of vicious, rolling roar that made it quite clear whatever it was didn’t want you down here and couldn’t wait to get its hands, paws, tentacles, or whatever it had for appendages, on to you and that when it did it wouldn’t be shaking hands and asking to be your friend. Alex froze, considering her options.

Her fingers found the small disc in her pocket. Then her torch-beam dimmed. “Crap,” whispered Alex to the mike. She shook the torch hard.

Footsteps, loud as rolling thunder, echoed through the tunnel. If she held her place long enough would she be able to see what it was? Most people would have turned and run, but not Alex Morgan. Her desire to see this creature was winning over her survival instinct, which was screaming at her to run. Ghosts, evil spirits, and illusions pretending to be real she had seen in abundance, but it was extremely rare to find physical evidence of the paranormal. She clutched her fingers around the desk. “Don’t you dare let me down, c0nundrum,” she hissed into the mike. “I’d rate this situation alarming.” She pulled the disc out of her pocket, readied it to throw and at the same time raised herself onto the balls of her feet in case she had to run. Her heart thudded, adrenaline flowed through her body, and her eyes glowed with excitement.

Five meters away, in the darkness, two red wells of light flickered into being. Alex’s stomach lurched. Eyes? A roar vibrated the ground beneath her feet.

Words failed Alex as she tried to grasp what she was seeing. Another roar. This time so loud it made her ears ring. She hesitated no longer. Alex threw the disc.

There was a blinding flash of light, a strange sweet smell of pine and then all hell broke loose.

The world shook. The roar of the creature disappeared under the rumble of falling rock. Alex dropped her torch and fell to her knees, instinctively covering her head with her arms. She may or may not have emitted a very un-paranormal investigator-like squeal of alarm. A fist sized lump of rock struck her shoulder hard, tipping her over onto her side. Through the dust rising around her Alex saw a chunk of stone larger than her land where she had been sitting. “Head splitter,” she said out loud. “Time to leave,” she told the little machine, but even as she said this there was another shudder. Rocks rained down all around her. Everything went black.

The good thing was Alex could open her eyes. She blinked rapidly and coughed. The air was filled with dust. Her fingers wiggled when she asked them and she could feel her big toes scraping against the inside of her sneakers. But that was it. None of her other limbs responded.

Swallowing down panic, Alex tried again. This time her right arm came loose from a pile of rubble. Gradually, and with an increasing amount of pain, Alex unearthed herself. The large rock that could have split her skull in two was lying a few metres away from her. Fortunately the rest of the cave-in seemed to be much smaller rocks. There were simply an awful lot of them. Sitting upright, Alex felt her head for bumps and then her face for grazes. Her jeans were torn, showing bloodied knees any pre-schooler would be proud of. Her whole body felt like one massive bruise, but there was no sharp stabbing pain and she wasn’t coughing up blood. Alex was reasonably sure she would live.

She shook her head slowly from side to side in an attempt to get the debris out of her hair. Then slowly she began combing it through with her fingers. She’d reached one particularly snaggy knot, when her heart broke into double time. “Where the hell is the thing?” she said. The dust was settling now. The air slowly clearing. Ahead of her lay the maw-like blackness that had spawned the creature.

“Crap! Crap! Crap!” said Alex scrambling to her feet. She turned round quickly surveying her environment. The dust still half blinded her, but she thought she was alone. She bent down, feeling with her fingers for the tape recorder, but she felt only shards of plastic. “Crap,” she said again, this time more softly. “No evidence.”

The ground trembled slightly. A low moan echoed around the cavern. With no way of recording her impending encounter, Alex made her first rational decision and ran.

She sprung through the floorboards of the store cupboard in a manner that would have done justice to an Olympic gymnast and fairly flew through the corridors back towards the college. When she erupted through the final door she collided with something large and heavy. Both it and she landed in a heap on the floor.

Now Alex’s bruises had bruises. When she realised that she was entangled with a boy rather than a monster, she used some rather explicit language that would have shocked her mother no end, as she pushed him roughly off her.

“Hey, you okay?” asked a male voice. “You look like you’ve been in an accident.”

“An accident with a meathead,” spat Alex, ignoring the hand being offered to her and getting to her feet. “What the hell are you studying? Walking for beginners? Cos I hate to tell you this, mate, but you’re failing.”

The red haired boy flushed a blotchy crimson. Tall and gangly, he couldn’t have been said to be good looking, but he had the kind of face people used in infomercials to sell pet insurance; friendly and kindly. He couldn’t be much older than her, but he was still at the big hands and long limbs stage like a puppy that hasn’t grown fully into its body yet.

“I was trying to help,” he said in a hurt voice. Alex felt immediately guilty. It was hardly his fault. She looked up into his eyes and felt a shiver run down her spine. He looked so — so kind. Not something she was used to experiencing at this college.

“Rusty?” called a female voice. It sounded sharp and possessive. “Rusty, where are you?”

“Sounds like you’re being missed,” said Alex. “Hadn’t you better run along?”

Then around the corner came the ‘Fashionable Four’. Alex sighed. How did a nice guy like this get mixed up with that crew? They made the monster in the tunnel seem positively benign. One look at their micro minis explained a lot.

All cheerleaders, long haired and armoured with maximum make-up, they loathed Alex almost as much as they repulsed her. “What are you doing here?” she demanded. “Gym Hall’s the other way.”

“Ooh, what is that?,” said Savvanah, striking a pose. “Could it be female?”

“Ignore her,” said Tiff.

“Classes are about to start,” said Rusty. He half stepped in front of Alex as if he was trying to shield her. “Shouldn’t we get going?”

“I want to know what she’s doing here,” said Charisma. “We have a reason for being here, but what are you up to? Is your brain scrambled again, Morgan? The dining Hall is the other block. Block C, by the big trees.” She said the last words very slowly as if speaking to an idiot.

Alex’s fingers itched to tug the girl’s long hair. She wouldn’t look half as glamorous with her weave half hanging off. But there was something about Rusty’s presence that made her want to act with dignity. She also needed to show him she didn’t need protection. “I seem to remember I mentioned that odd location to you,” she said icily.

“Oooh, seem to remember,” mimicked Savanah.

“Odd location,” echoed Charisma.

“Do all you Brits talk like that or just the mentally challenged ones?” asked Savanah.

Alex could feel her temper rising. With a great deal of effort, she said calmly, “You’d better get off to practice. I’m sure you need it.”

Bethany ran forward and draped herself over lanky red haired guy. “Where did my baby go?” she cooed. “I lost-ed you.” She giggled. “Looks like you got all dirty. You should have waited for me.”

The girls clustered round him, teasing. Alex made her escape.

Ironically her next class was chemistry. Alex dived into the nearest restroom and did her best with paper towels and liquid soap, but the figure looking back at her in the mirror remained grimy. Her face and hands were clean, but the rest of her looked — unsurprisingly — as if she had been rolling in dirt. Alex sighed and picked up her bag. It was not like anyone was going to care.

In chemistry she carefully followed the experiment the professor had laid out for the class. Rusty was on the bench behind her and for some reason that was making it harder for her to concentrate. Just as she was about to complete the final reaction she deliberately added sulphur dioxide instead of chalk. The liquid in her beaker churned wildly for a moment and it satisfyingly erupted like a mini volcano, bubbling violently and throwing out chunks of disgusting goo. Alex jumped back in alarm; utterly what she hoped was a girlish cry of horror. Rusty also, jumped. “What the …” he began. Then he turned to look at her experiment. “Oh my,” he said, his eyes going very round. A gob of goo headed towards him, he leapt aside with an agileness that Alex hadn’t expected, and the goo landed dead centre in the delicate crystal experiment he had been doing for extra credit. The crystalline structure shattered, sending shards everywhere. People screamed and scattered. Mr. Zybslaw shouted, “Enough. In your seats now!”

He came over to Alex’s experiment, which continued to belch softly. “What have you done now, Morgan?” He asked. “You are living proof of nature versus nurture, you know that?”

“No,” said Alex, who knew exactly what he meant.

“Your apple fell a long way from the family tree,” continued her professor. “You will stay behind after class with Gibson to clear up this mess. You will also work with Gibson, in your own time, to repair his experiment.”

“No sir, please. That’s not necessary,” said Rusty pleadingly. He flushed bright red.