“They’re after us,” cried Molly.
To Addison’s horror, he heard the heavy footfalls of the men bearing down on them. Addison and his crew broke into a run. “This way!” he called. He raced around the corner onto Orange Street and ground his heels to a stop. Before him were so many men in black suits, it looked like an undertakers convention. Or, perhaps, an undertakers meeting at a bodybuilders convention. Whichever the case, the crowd of giant men stared at Addison through their rows of dark glasses. And as one, the men clenched their fists and closed in.
“Okay, panic,” said Addison.
Chapter Seven
Panic
FOR EDDIE, THE ROAD to panic was never very far. He could be sent into a cold sweat by an unusually fast elevator ride. The sight of a row of linebacker-sized men charging directly at him was more than enough to overload his circuits. Eddie bolted like a startled deer, his body barely keeping up with his feet. He sprinted south on Haymarket Street.
Addison, Molly, and Raj dashed after him.
“Good thinking, Eddie!” Addison shouted. “We’ll split up! Meet back at the train station!”
Eddie and Raj continued straight. Addison and Molly branched east down a side street. Addison saw a half dozen of the black-suited men barreling through the crowd of holiday shoppers, charging straight toward him. Pedestrians screamed as they were shoved to the ground.
“The Right Honorable Winston Churchill!” Addison gasped. He banked hard, hurtling down an alleyway. Wherever Molly was, she was going to have to fend for herself. Addison leapt over shipping crates and knocked over garbage cans, struggling to slow down his pursuers.
He reached the wide-open plaza of Trafalgar Square and poured on the speed, racing headlong for the train station. Molly galloped in at a fast clip—she had outrun her pursuers as well.
Raj wove across street traffic, raising an angry chorus of honks. “They’re closing on us!”
He merged with Addison and Molly as they burst through the nearest open door to the train station.
“I’ve got something that can slow them down,” said Molly, dropping to a crouch and whipping open her satchel. She pulled out a large sack of marbles and poured them out in the doorway.
“Wow, you really do have a lot of stuff in there,” said Raj. “Do you think this will work?”
Molly listened to the sound of footsteps pounding closer. “Definitely.”
Eddie rounded the corner at full gallop, his face a portrait of panic. He skied across the marbles, his arms pinwheeling, his legs scissoring in all directions like a giraffe on an ice rink. Both feet flew out from under him, landing him on his back with a sound like a thunderclap.
“Ow!” Eddie hollered. “What did you do that for?”
“I’m sorry, Eddie!” Molly was mortified. “Are you okay? What hurts?”
Eddie rolled back and forth on his back like an overturned turtle. “My ankles!”
“Your ankles?”
“Yes, ankles. The wrists of your legs!” Eddie tried to get up, and slid down again. “Who lost their marbles?”
“Wasn’t Molly,” said Addison. “She lost her marbles years ago.”
“Don’t laugh, Addison. Get me some aspirin or something.” Eddie managed to gain his feet.
“Laughter is the best medicine, Eddie.”
“Medicine is the best medicine!”
Raj pointed at the inbound herd of men in black suits stampeding toward them. “Here they come.”
Addison led the way, racing through the main concourse, his leather wingtips sliding on the polished floors. Usually Molly was much faster than him, but she was weighed down by the bronze tablet and whatever else she had hidden in her satchel. He scanned the departure board for outbound trains, but spotted nothing leaving for fifteen minutes. He searched the concourse for the familiar black-and-white uniform of a London police officer, but strangely, there wasn’t a single officer to be found.
Addison was hot from running. He felt it important to dress respectably, but his blazer trapped heat like a pizza oven. Black-suited men converged from both ends of the concourse. Out of options, Addison fled across the station and escaped, terrified, onto Craven Street.
Black SUVs skidded to a stop at both ends of the block.
Addison stood on the sidewalk heaving for breath. “We’re cornered.”
“I have purple smoke balls,” said Raj. “They’re perfect for an escape.”
“What,” asked Addison, with all the patience he could muster, “are purple smoke balls?”
“You know, for magicians. They throw them onstage when they need purple smoke for a big exit. I bought them at a magician’s supply shop in Times Square.”
Addison swiveled his head, watching black-suited men circle in from all directions. “Raj, I appreciate your help, but we’re going to need more than purple smoke balls. We’re going to need a miracle.”
“Like what?” asked Molly. She was already drawing her sling from her satchel and loading it with a metal slug.
Addison never answered. He was too busy watching a white luxury Mercedes speeding past the train station. It jumped the curb, swerved around a black SUV, and screeched to a halt directly in front of them. A young woman threw open the passenger door. She had ebony skin, with long dreadlocks piled on top of her head and tied with a scarf. When she spoke, it was with a French accent. “Get in.”
Addison stared at the young woman and hesitated, wondering if this was a trap. “Absolutely not. I don’t get into cars with strangers.”
“You fools!” She revved the engine with impatience. The sedan lurched forward a few inches. “I said, get in!”
Addison heard Raj gasp, and looked up to a horrible sight. The closest men in black suits were reaching into their blazers and drawing weapons.
Addison turned back to the woman. “We have reconsidered your offer,” he announced. He dove into the Mercedes.
Molly, Eddie, and Raj piled into the back seat.
Addison was astonished to hear concussions of gunfire. He felt bullets slam into the metal frame of the car. The mysterious woman floored the accelerator, rear wheels smoking, and they blasted south, black-suited men hurling themselves from their speeding path.
Chapter Eight
D’Anger
YANKING THE WHEEL, THE young woman tore a course east along the Thames River before rocketing north past the Royal Opera House. Addison realized with no small excitement that their route would take them past his favorite place in London—the British Museum—though he didn’t figure they’d have time to take in an exhibit. Black SUVs were already lining up in their rearview mirror.
Addison took in his unknown driver. He figured her for seventeen or eighteen: old enough to be allowed to drive, but not old enough to be any good at it. She lurched the Mercedes in and out of lanes, desperately trying to pack distance between her and the pursuing SUVs.
She fixed Addison with an intimidating stare and spoke rapidly in her clipped French accent. “What have you done, you foolish child?”
“Me?” said Addison. “I’m just a guy trying to use the bank. They’re the ones shooting guns!”
“You took the tablet map, didn’t you?” The young woman shook her head in disgust. “This is precisely the sort of galactic incompetence I would expect from the Cooke family.”
Addison frowned. “I’m sorry, I don’t believe we’ve met.”
“Put on your seat belt,” the woman growled. She ripped the wheel, tires screeching as they rounded a corner at Russell Square Park.
Two black sport utility vehicles kept pace, engines roaring. They jumped the sidewalk and shortcutted through the park as pedestrians shouted and leapt for cover. The SUVs were four-wheel-drive beasts that could drive up a mountain backward in an avalanche; a manicured London park was not about to slow them down. The two SUVs smashed onto
Woburn Place, surrounding the Mercedes.
In the back seat, Eddie gripped his overhead strap with both hands as the Mercedes wove between cars at nail-biting speed. “This is horrendous!”
Raj tightened his seat belt. “Each year there are more than seventeen hundred automobile fatalities in England.”
“There’s going to be one more fatality if you don’t pipe down.” The young woman took another tire-shrieking right turn. A hubcap popped off one rear wheel. “It’s okay,” she told Addison. “It’s a rental.”
“I can’t help but wonder,” said Addison, as they passed the British Museum for the second time, “where are we going?”
“How should I know?” the woman grunted in her tough Gallic accent. “Do I sound like I’m from London?” She held down her horn and shot through a red light. “There’s a map in the glove box.”
Addison opened the glove compartment and unfolded the map. “This,” he announced, “is a map of Paris.”
The driver did not answer. Instead, she careened through another red light. Two London squad cars turned on their sirens and joined the chase. Addison sighed. Five minutes earlier there hadn’t been any police when he needed them; now there were too many.
He pulled out his London map from Fiddleton’s Atlas and stuffed the Paris map back into the glove compartment. As he did so, he noticed the driver’s name signed on the rental car forms: Tilda Danger. Addison looked at the young woman with newfound respect. “Wow, your last name is Danger?”
“It’s French,” said the woman. “It’s pronounced d’Anger. Tilda d’Anger. People call me T.D.”
Addison’s head swam with the scent of her perfume. He knew she was only four or five years older than him, but she seemed vastly more sophisticated. He suddenly felt the need to impress this woman. “Your perfume,” he said in his most debonair voice. “Is that Chanel Number Five?”
T.D. furrowed her eyebrows at him. “I don’t wear perfume. You’re smelling my shampoo. It’s called Pizzazz. It costs two ninety-nine at the grocery store.”
“Well,” said Addison, unruffled, “if I had been right, it would have been incredibly suave.”
Molly, in the back seat, rolled her eyes. “Addison, just use your map to get us out of here!”
“No need,” said T.D. “I can see the highway from here.” She blasted onto the center divider and thundered past a row of cars. The police kept up their chase, their blue lights flashing.
Molly eyed T.D suspiciously through the rearview mirror. “Who are you and how did you know to find us?”
“Your uncle Jasper came home, read your aunt’s letter, and figured it out. He begged me to rescue you at the bank. I was almost too late.”
Molly had to shout over the wail of police sirens. “How did those guys in suits know to stake out the bank?”
“And who are they anyway?” Eddie added.
“They are not fans of yours,” said T.D.
Addison felt this was a small understatement. An SUV sped close and bumped the rear of the Mercedes. The car fishtailed wildly.
T.D. gunned the engine, shifted into fourth gear, and regained control of the vehicle.
“Can you be more specific?” called Molly. “There are a lot of people who aren’t fans of us.”
“They are called the Collective.”
Addison and Molly shared a look. Finally, someone was willing to give them answers. “What is the Collective?” asked Molly.
T.D. shook her head. “I can only tell you when you come of age.”
Molly gritted her teeth.
T.D. hit a wall of traffic and slammed on the brakes. “Mon Dieu!” she exclaimed. “All this traffic! Having a high-speed chase in London is like trying to sprint the hundred-meter dash in a crowded elevator!”
A black SUV screamed to a stop next to the Mercedes and rolled down its windows. Guns protruded.
Addison grabbed his door handle. “Let’s get out and run!”
“No!” T.D. gripped him by the arm. One-handed, she managed to steer the Mercedes behind a delivery truck, blocking any shots from the SUV. “Addison, let me put this in words you will understand. Those dark metal things in their hands—those are called guns. They fire nasty little metal things called bullets. They make you dead, and we prefer to be not dead.”
Addison felt she was making a lot of sense. Still, he had to do something. He pulled her rental form from the glove box and held it up. “You paid for car insurance, right?”
“Sure.”
“And English drivers are required to have car insurance?”
“It’s a civilized country.”
“Okay.” Addison nodded. “We need to cause some traffic.”
“More traffic?” asked Eddie.
Addison reached over and pulled T.D.’s steering wheel hard. The Mercedes cut off a double-decker bus that swerved across its lane and plunged into a telephone pole. Cars piled up behind the wreck like water behind a dam. The police cars were trapped.
“Are you out of your mind?” Tires shrieking, T.D. skidded the Mercedes north, heading for the highway. The two black SUVs managed to smash their way through Addison’s traffic blockade. Addison jerked the steering wheel again, cutting off a dump truck. The truck mashed its brakes and spun out, colliding with both SUVs.
T.D. merged onto the highway. Not a single car was able to follow them. Addison felt bad about causing so many accidents, but on the cosmic scale of things, escaping from bloodthirsty gang members was probably a decent enough reason to cause a few fender benders.
Tilda d’Anger glanced over her shoulder at the growing traffic jam in her wake. Hundreds of commuters were now unable to merge onto the highway from either direction. All London seemed to be one growing mass of red brake lights and a din of honking horns. She turned to her passengers. “Do you destroy every city you set foot in?”
“Not on purpose,” said Molly.
T.D. regarded the black SUVs shrinking in her rearview mirror. “I am impressed.”
“Scratch a Cooke and you’ll find resourcefulness,” said Addison. “Though you really shouldn’t go around scratching Cookes,” he added.
Chapter Nine
The Knight
THE MERCEDES CRUISED ALONG the highway. Addison spotted a sign for Heathrow Airport and turned to T.D. “You want us to leave the country?”
T.D. said nothing.
“All this trouble over an ugly chunk of bronze,” said Addison. “We’re risking our lives over this tablet, and we don’t even know what it is!”
“You know it’s important,” said T.D. “You just saw a group of men tear down half of London trying to take it.”
Addison shook his head. “I don’t want anyone else to get hurt. I’m running low on family members! Can’t we just hide the tablet somewhere?”
“What, a precious relic your family has guarded for centuries?” T.D. snorted. “Sure, just stick it in your sock drawer and call it a day. No, you cannot just hide it somewhere! If you stay in London, you will get caught. The Collective will torture you and find out where you hid it. Why am I arguing with a bunch of thirteen-year-olds? Could you guys be any more clueless?”
Raj liked a challenge. “Probably.”
“This is my friend Raj,” said Addison. “He doesn’t know that you don’t have to answer rhetorical questions.” He returned his attention to T.D. “Why don’t you take the tablet? I don’t want it. I’ll only get it taken.”
“My family does not handle relics. That is a Cooke job.”
Addison heard the disdain in her voice. “Well, what does your family do? And how do you know so much about us anyway?”
T.D. shook her head impatiently. “The Collective is hunting you. Don’t you realize that? You have been chased out of London. Your uncle and his butler have fled Surrey. With or without the tablet, there is nowhere in the wo
rld that is safe for you.”
“Who are you anyway? And why do you care what happens to us?” asked Addison.
T.D. slammed the steering wheel with her fists in frustration. “Addison, you impossible Cooke! How can you not realize what I am?” She reached under her collar and pulled out a bronze medallion. An eye in the center of a bright sun was emblazoned across the front. “I am sworn to the same order as your family!”
* * *
• • • • • •
Addison’s thoughts were a fizzy cocktail: two parts shock, one part disbelief, and a twist of amazement. He had learned in Mongolia that the Cookes were descendants of the Knights Templar, a secretive order of powerful knights that vanished in the Middle Ages. Aside from his uncles, he had never met another living member. Addison was silent for a few miles while his mind teeter-tottered, trying to regain its balance. At last, he turned to T.D. “The Knights Templar. I didn’t think there were any left.”
“We are not extinct,” said T.D. “Not yet,” she added grimly. She took the exit to Heathrow Airport.
Addison already held a lofty impression of T.D., but it grew even loftier when she steered the Mercedes to a private security gate, flashed an ID badge, and drove directly onto the tarmac.
Eddie sat up straight in his seat. “Are you allowed to drive on a runway?”
“Of course I am,” said T.D. “How else would we get to our private plane?” She guided the car to a Learjet, its engines warming up for takeoff.
“So the Templars are rich?” asked Molly.
“The Templars are, but you’re not,” said T.D. “Aside from that big, crumbling house, the Cookes care more about history books than pocketbooks. But the d’Angers still have a few coins to rub together. You’d be amazed how much a savings account can accumulate when your family is seven hundred years old.”
T.D. pulled the Mercedes to a stop in front of the airstairs to the jet. She shifted the car into Park and turned her intense gaze on Addison. “I cannot answer questions about your family and who you really are. But if you wish to learn more, I can assure you, the answers are with that tablet.”
Addison Cooke and the Ring of Destiny Page 4
