3 The Spy Who Totally Had a Crush on Me

  This book is work of fiction. The characters, incidents and dialogue are drawn from the author’ s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Spy Goddess, Book 3: The Spy Who Totally Had A Crush On Me. Copyright Michael P. Spradlin. All rights reserved. Created in the United States of America. No parts of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without the express written consent of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. Michael P. Spradlin, Box 863, Lapeer, MI 48446.

  First Edition

  Library of Congress Catalog Information Has Been applied for

  ISBN: 978-1-881-892-021

  Author’ s Dedication

  To Tyler, Kevin, Pilar, Christian, Alex, Brent, Jordan, Scott & Nathan

  Chapter One— It Ain’ t Over

  From my hiding place in the rocks behind the stone altar, I watched as Simon Blankenship unrolled the Scroll of the Enlightened and began to read from it in a long dead language. He was dressed in his full-fledged Mithrian regalia: flowing black robe, golden medallion and a ridiculous looking helmet that had a pair of bull horns jutting out of each side. A truly comical look. In fact if I wasn’ t scared out my wits, I’ d be laughing right now. What a meathead. But he didn’ t know I was here. I was going to have to be very careful to make it out of this temple alive.

  Simon was here to begin the first phase of a ritual that he hoped would unleash the mystical forces of Mithras, the Roman God of the Afterlife, upon the earth. Nobody knew for sure what exactly would happen if Mithras was released from his captivity in the Underworld, but since he was defeated in battle by a girl and sent there well over two thousand years ago, we all assumed that when he got out he was going to be in a very bad mood.

  Slowly and quietly, I reached into my fanny pack and pulled out a small device about the size of a cell-phone and very quietly switched it on. The power light flashed on and I could feel the device begin to vibrate in my hand. I set the timer on the device for thirty seconds and then ever so gently set it on a small ledge that jutted out from behind the altar. I removed a pair of specially designed earphones, placing them over my ears. Crouching behind the altar I waited, counting down with the timer on the screen of the device.

  I’ d just activated an all-sonic stun transmitter. Brent Christian, who was my classmate at Blackthorn Academy back home in Pennsylvania, had recently invented it. It’ s funny that I now refer to Blackthorn Academy as my home. When I first got there a few months ago, that certainly wasn’ t the case. I did whatever I could think of to get out. Then all of the excitement happened and ultimately I decided it was better to stay and fight than spend the rest of my life looking over my shoulder. More about that later. Right now I had to concentrate.

  I was here to retrieve the Book of Seraphim. Somehow Simon or one of his followers had managed to steal the book from where we had it safeguarded at Blackthorn Academy. We don’ t know how he did it. We just knew we had to get it back.

  The all-sonic stun transmitter was supposed to generate a very high-pitched sonic blast when it ‘ detonated.’ It would basically knock everyone down who wasn’ t wearing the proper sound proof head gear, rendering them unconscious for a few minutes. If it worked, you could take out a room full of people with no smoke or explosions that would seriously injure anyone or destroy any priceless artifacts you might want to preserve. At least that was the theory. We’ d tested it a few times and it worked fine. My only fear was that whenever we were around Blankenship things had a way of going wrong. Deadly wrong. So this was the first real test for Brent’ s little device and I needed to keep my fingers crossed.

  The rest of the Mithrians, there were about ten of them in the temple, were chanting along with Simon. This must be the Ritual of the Undead that Mr. Kim had told us about. Simon, acting as the high priest, would read the names of long dead Mithrians from the Scroll of the Enlightened and would then call upon their spirit power to help him summon Mithras from the Afterlife. Except that Simon didn’ t know that in another fifteen seconds he was going to have a very large and painful earache. That would sure put a damper on your zombie party. Freak.

  Brent’ s device worked just like it was supposed too. When the timer counted down to zero, it let out a wailing high frequency blast. Through my earphones it sounded like a loud humming sound. Those that were standing in the temple were driven to their knees by the force of the sound. The device tweeted its little song for ten seconds and by then, everyone including Simon, was on the ground hands over their ears, lapsing into unconsciousness.

  When it went silent, I tore off the earphones and jumped up from my hiding place moving to the front of the altar. Simon lay sprawled on the ground in front of it, his right hand still clutching the scroll. I grabbed it out of his hand and pulling a collapsible knapsack out of my fanny pack I snapped it open. I stuffed the scroll inside, reaching down to yank the medallion off of Simon’ s neck stuffing that in the knapsack too. Then I turned to the altar and saw the Book of Seraphim lying there before me.

  The Book of Seraphim was the key to everything. It was written thousands of years ago by the Emperor Flavius, the last Emperor of Rome and last High Priest of Mithras. It was a written record of Mithras’ battles with the forces of Etherea, Goddess of Light. The Roman Empire was about to fall, facing defeat from the forces of Queen Naromi of the Persian Empire. She and her followers worshipped Etherea. Flavius believed that only darkness could defeat light so he called upon Mithras to restore the power of the Empire and beat back the forces of Etherea. But to make things simple, he messed up. Misread a couple of prophecies. Made some bad mystical decisions and in the end was soundly whipped by Queen Naromi’ s forces. So he wrote everything down is this big book, sent his men off to the far corners of the world to hide the sacred relics of Mithras and then pretty much was relegated to a footnote in history.

  According to legend, this great victory gave Etherea the power to banish Mithras to the Afterlife forever, which she did. But of course, there was one little problem. You see those Gods and Goddesses were tricky. They always left an out or a backdoor in all their little proclamations. The prophecy delivered by the Gods, said that when both Mithras and Etherea were re-born in human form, then they ‘ shall battle each other for dominion over mankind.’ For a long time nobody believed any of this. It was just one of those cute legends that was known to a few scholarly types and generally not believed or accepted until now.

  That’ s because, several years ago Simon Blankenship uncovered the Book of Seraphim in a Mithrian Temple in the desert of Kuzebekistan. When he found it, all kinds of weird stuff happened to him in the temple and it turns out that he is (or thinks he is, I’ m still not convinced about all of this) Mithras reborn. We know this, because Mr. Kim, my headmaster at Blackthorn Academy was with him on that particular mission and saw what happened in the temple with his own eyes. So all that was left was for Mr. Kim to find Etherea reborn before Simon and if you haven’ t guessed by now, that’ s where I come in. Me, Rachel Buchanan. Goddess reincarnated. Let me tell you it’ s not as cool as it sounds. But again, more of that later. Right now I had a madman to foil.

  The Book of Seraphim is big and heavy. Its cover is encrusted with jewels and the binding is made out of thick leather. There are a couple of hundred parchment pages in the book. So it’ s not like we’ re dealing with a little paperback here. I hefted the book off the altar and put it into my knapsack, slipping it onto my shoulders, and took a quick look around the altar. We’ d lost track of Simon for the last couple of weeks and I neede
d to make sure that he hadn’ t somehow found the other missing relics. I didn’ t see anything so I went to step over Simon and make my way to the entrance of the temple. I needed to get out of there.

  I had my eye on the door. Every one of the Mithrians was still down. I was going to make it. At least I thought so until I felt Simon’ s hand reach out and grab my ankle.

  “ Not so fast Etherea,” he said.

  I tried to kick away but he had a grip like steel.

  He jumped to his feet still holding onto my ankle so now my leg was waist high. Remembering a Tae Kwan Do move that Mr. Kim had taught me, I bent my standing leg and leapt into the air swinging it up to land a solid kick to Blankenship’ s chest. It staggered him but not much. He’ s a tough guy, a former Navy Seal and Black Ops Agent so I wasn’ t going to win a street fight with the guy. Still I was counting on him to be a little woozy from the effects of the sonic stun device. My kick worked to the degree that he let go of my foot and I landed on my feet. I turned and ran, but he was quick. He grabbed me around my neck and tried to yank me off my feet.

  I clasped my hands together and spun around on my right foot hitting his arms at the elbow as hard as I could. It was a nifty self-defense move when someone was choking you, and it was almost impossible to counter. I managed to knock his arms loose but as I spun around to face him, he came back at me quick as a cat and grabbed my throat with both hands. This time he had me good and I tried to drive my arms like a wedge up through his arms to break his grip but he was too strong. I was starting to get light headed and I couldn’ t breathe. I tried the arm maneuver again but I had even less energy for this attempt and his hands stayed wrapped around my throat. With one last effort, I reached up and grabbed the horns that stuck out of his helmet. I pulled the helmet forward so it covered his eyes. Then with all the strength I had left I took my fists and hit both sides of his helmet right over his ears. It made a very loud thunking sound and Simon screamed and let go of my throat and tried to pull the helmet of his head.

  I turned to get out of there and then saw that I was sunk. The other Mithrians were waking up and two of them stood in front of the door. There was no way out. I was trapped.

  “ Dang it!” I yelled. “ Can we try this again?”

  Mr. Kim stepped forward from where he had been impersonating one of the Mithrians that guarded the door. He held a stopwatch in his hand and a mild frown on his face. It was hard to get used to that little frown. When I first got here, Mr. Kim was always smiling and laughing. Now he just looked serious all the time. Worried. I tried hard to think that it wasn’ t my fault.

  Alex, who was dressed liked Simon finally succeeded in pulling the helmet off his head.

  “ Ouch!” he said. “ She hit me in the helmet!” He looked at me again. “ Ouch!”

  “ Don’ t be such a Nancy boy,” I said. “ Tough it out.”

  Mr. Kim walked up to me and changed his little frown to a forced smile. He forced his smiles on me all the time lately. Ever since we’ d returned from Hawaii. Like he was afraid if he frowned at me or scolded me in any way I’ d hit the road. He wasn’ t so wrong about that. I was still a little put out with Mr. Kim for hiding things from me that I felt I needed to know.

  Pilar and Brent stood up from the ground and walked up to join our little group. The rest of the ‘ Mithrians’ were mannequins that Mr. Kim had used to fill up the space.

  “ Rachel,” said Mr. Kim, “ you are still taking to much time in gathering the relics. The stun device only buys us a few seconds. You must move quickly. Although I would like to compliment you in your resourcefulness in hand to hand combat. Using Mithras’ helmet as a weapon was very smart and excellent improvisation.” That was Mr. Kim. Whenever he critiqued you about something, he always started out with the bad stuff, and ended up with a compliment.

  “ It hurt,” Alex said, still rubbing his ears.

  “ I believe Alex, that is the point,” said Mr. Kim. “ It is supposed to hurt. However you do not appear to be seriously damaged so I think we shall begin again. Places everyone!”

  “ Yeah, well if you ask me, I think she likes smacking me in the head a little too much!” Alex said.

  We were standing in the Top Floor section of the Academy where Mr. Kim had constructed a replica of the Mithrian Temple in Kuzebekistan. The Top Floor was a secret area of Blackthorn Academy. It was, like its name, on the top floor of the Academy and only a handful of students and faculty knew anything about it. It was built like a giant movie set and Mr. Kim used it to train his best students in various aspects of spying, surveillance and other types of secret agent stuff.

  That was because Mr. Kim had really founded Blackthorn Academy as a training school for students to grow up and become FBI Agents, CIA Operatives and Military Intelligence Officers. And most of his students did just that. A very large percentage of Blackthorn grads became cops or worked with various state and government agencies in some capacity. Because he’ d been teaching here so long and had so many former students, he had managed to create a vast network of associates. He used this network to try and capture Blankenship and keep tabs on his operation.

  So now we were practicing a take down of Simon Blankenship in a fake temple. We didn’ t know where he was our how to find him, but after we last met up with him, he somehow managed to get someone into Mr. Kim’ s Operations Center at Blackthorn and steal the real Book Of Seraphim. Things had been quiet since then and Mr. Kim had alerted all of his agents to be on the lookout for any suspicious Mithrian activity. But so far, nothing. So we started practicing here, figuring that if he had the book, he was probably going to try to go back to the original temple and try something. Mr. Kim had the original Temple in Kuzebekistan under surveillance and we’ d be alerted instantly if Simon showed up there. So we needed to be ready.

  I took the scroll out of my knapsack and handed it to Alex along with the medallion. I put the fake book back on the altar. I couldn’ t stop thinking about how Blankenship had managed to get someone inside Blackthorn and steal the real book. It just seemed impossible. I looked at all of my friends, Alex, Brent, Pilar and Mr. Quinn, one of the Academy instructors. They were the only ones who knew we even had the real book in the first place. So ever since we’ d come back from Hawaii and found the book was stolen, I had been obsessed with just one thought.

  One of my friends was a traitor.

  CHAPTER TWO— Hot Buttons

  After we finally finished our Top Floor exercises, we walked back toward our rooms, quiet the whole way. Ever since we’ d returned from Hawaii we’ d been a lot more subdued. I guess you could say depressed even. We weren’ t so smug about things anymore. When we first ran into Simon we just sort of took him as a big old freaky crook that would ultimately be captured or caught. And while we’ d given him a run for his money and outwitted him to some degree, in the end he’ d gotten away with the biggest prize of all. Somehow, he found out the book was at Blackthorn and he managed to get into Mr. Kim’ s secret hideaway and steal it from a laser hand-print scan protected combination safe.

  Mr. Kim’ s spy office was located about ten stories below the school in the side of a mountain and since there were only a handful of people who even knew about his hideout and even fewer who knew we had the Book of Seraphim there, the list of potential suspects was pretty short.

  I was sure it wasn’ t me, which left me suspicious of everyone else. And since Alex, Brent and Pilar weren’ t stupid, I knew they were thinking the same thing: somehow, one of us had been compromised and given Blankenship the info about the book and its location and had enabled him to steal it.

  It made for a little tension. No one would come right out and say it, but we all had become a little distant and aloof with each other because maybe we were all afraid to find out that one of us had betrayed all of us. And instead of discussing it we had decided to ignore it. Just left it hanging there like a big old juicy plum nobody wanted to pick.

  “ You know what I’ m thinking?” Bre
nt said as we walked down the hall. This was big news. First of all, Brent hardly even spoke when you asked him a question directly and he almost never started a conversation. He was one smart guy, quite possibly brilliant. He just didn’ t talk much.

  “ What’ s that?” I asked.

  “ Cameras,” he said.

  “ What about them?” I said.

  “ We need to install security cameras at key points in the school. Somebody on the inside got the book. If we put up cameras we can watch for specific activity and draw up a list of suspects.”

  “ Mr. Kim won’ t allow it,” I said. “ He doesn’ t believe in security cameras in the school. Feels it’ s a violation of the trust he builds with his students. I already asked him about it. He’ s dug in on that one.”

  Brent frowned. Brent was big believer in using technology to solve problems. He shrugged.

  “ I don’ t think we need cameras or any of that stuff,” Alex said. “ Way I see it, there’ s only six people who even knew the Book was there. So we just have to find out which of the six was the one that gave it up. Simple process of elimination.”

  That was Alex. No subtlety. No finesse. Just see the problem and confront it head on. Alex and I had had a weird relationship since I’ d come to the Academy at the invitation of my Juvenile Court Judge. At first he thought I was a troublemaker and not to be trusted. I thought he was obnoxious and superficial. But when we’ d gone up against Blankenship things changed between us. He could still be very stubborn and always thought he was right, like now. But when in Hawaii, he’ d softened toward me somehow. Like maybe he was starting to like me. A little bit. Maybe.

  This only made things difficult and confusing for me. I mean before Hawaii he and Pilar, who is my best friend and roommate, spent all their spare time together. Like they had a little thing going. But then in Hawaii he started in on me with all the soft talk and mooney-gooey looks at me and touching me on the shoulder and telling me to be careful and not treating me like I was a troublemaker and looking at me with those ice blue eyes of his and god it was confusing.