Raids and Rescues

by Bryan Chick

  In the space of a few seconds, Solana did what she’d been bred to do—she’d made prey of her adversaries. Words that Noah had once read from a dictionary rose in his head. To descend meant “to pounce upon—to attack with violence and suddenness.” This was what the Descenders did best.

  The remaining monkeys jumped over Noah and disappeared through the portal in the closet. Solana chased after them and ripped away the curtain. Immediately, the pieces of drywall rose into the air, the hole in the wall closed, and the ordinary heat vent appeared.

  She pulled Noah away from the closet into the open air of the room, tarsiers scattering to avoid them. When Noah lost his balance and fell, she sat on her heels and laid his head on the makeshift pillow of her knees. Then she retracted the quills on her hands and began to fan his face with her fingers.

  “You okay?”

  Noah looked up and realized the world was still wavering. He saw Solana—her long hair, her dark eyes. Tarsiers had crawled across her limp quills to stare down on Noah; at least a dozen pairs of eyes were on him. She stroked his cheek with the back of her hand and then ran her fingers through his hair.

  “Noah—answer me!”

  He managed a weak nod.

  Tarsiers continued to crowd Noah from around the room. He felt the light patter of their feet as a few climbed onto his legs and chest. Then he felt something warm streaming out of his nose. Blood.

  Solana shook her head and looked away. When her gaze returned, Noah saw a tear had formed in the corner of her eye.

  And that was when Noah heard the front doorbell ring.

  CHAPTER 17

  A NEIGHBORLY VISIT

  “Get up!” Solana said, keeping her shout to a whisper.

  The ring of the doorbell echoed through the house a second time.

  Solana stood and pulled Noah to his feet. “Someone’s here!” she said. “It could be the police!”

  Noah stared at his room, where hundreds of tarsiers sat perched on the bed, the dressers, the curtain rod, the top of the closet door. With their big eyes on Noah and Solana, they seemed to comprehend the new danger. On the floor lay three dead monkeys, and beneath them, blood was on the carpet.

  Ding-doonngg . . . A third time now, the sound echoing up the stairs.

  Solana retracted all of her Descender gear and dragged Noah into the hallway and then the bathroom. Beside the bathtub, Solana balanced him on his unsteady feet, raised her hand, and shot up a single quill from her knuckles. She swiped the point of the quill from Noah’s neck to his ankle, slicing his clothes on the way. Then she pulled and twisted Noah out of his shirt and pants, leaving him standing in his boxer shorts, his heels against the bathtub. Despite his pain and dizziness, Noah’s cheeks flushed as he realized he was nearly naked.

  Behind Noah, the roar of the shower started. Then he swung back into the spray, Solana gripping his shoulders. Water blinded him and filled his mouth, along with the copper taste of his blood. He lost his breath to the cold, and then was pulled out of the shower again, where he stood blinking, his senses awake.

  Solana stripped a towel off the rack and tied it around his waist. Then she checked his nose and apparently saw it was no longer bleeding. “Go.”

  Noah almost asked “Where?” and then he heard the doorbell ring again. He walked out of the bathroom and headed into the hall, leaving wet footprints in the carpet.

  “Get whoever that is out of here,” Solana said.

  Noah nodded. He listened for the “eeps!” of the tarsiers and realized he couldn’t hear a thing. After making his way through the house, he opened the front door, and out on the porch stood Mr. Connolly, the neighbor from across the street who came knocking so often these days.

  “Noah?” Mr. Connolly said. “Everything okay over here?”

  Noah feigned a look of confusion.

  “The noise,” Mr. Connolly said. “I was coming over to say hi to your parents and I heard a terrible racket coming from your house—your bedroom, it sounded like.”

  “Huh? Oh, the music. I was in the shower with the stereo on. Sorry—I think my window’s open a crack.”

  Mr. Connolly raised an eyebrow and leaned a bit sideways to peer past Noah. “Your parents home?”

  Noah shook his head.

  “Mind if I come in?”

  Noah tried to protest, but Mr. Connolly wormed his way around him and headed into the living room.

  “Mr. Connolly, I don’t think—”

  “Megan here?”

  “She’s at Ella’s.”

  Mr. Connolly grunted. He looked around the room and then at Noah. With one side of his mouth frowning, he sized him up.

  “You sure everything’s okay?”

  Noah nodded; a bit anxiously, he realized.

  Mr. Connolly waited a few seconds, then said, “How’s everything at school?”

  “Ummm . . .” It seemed totally weird for Mr. Connolly to ask such a casual question. Noah, after all, was standing almost naked in his living room, water dripping from his hair. “Okay, I guess.”

  “No problems? Your teachers treating you okay?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Friends . . . they’re good?”

  Noah nodded.

  “Mr. Connolly, I . . . I really need to dry off.”

  “Mind if I have a look around?”

  Noah tried to answer, but his neighbor brushed past his shoulder and headed toward the stairs.

  “Mr. Connolly!”

  The old man pressed a straight, knuckly finger against the tip of his lips—a gesture for Noah to be quiet.

  As his neighbor rushed up the steps, Noah chased after him. “Mr. Connolly—everything’s okay! I’m not—”

  But before Noah could do anything more, Mr. Connolly was standing at his open bedroom door.

  CHAPTER 18

  ALL TIDIED UP

  “Mr. Connolly! I can—”

  Noah’s words stopped short when he saw that his room was perfectly clean. The tarsiers, the monkeys, the stains on the carpet—all of it was gone. Every piece of Noah’s furniture stood upright, and even the lamp with the once-broken bulb was glowing again.

  Mr. Connolly looked around, then poked his head in the closet. Seeing nothing out of the ordinary, he turned to Noah. “I’m sorry. I thought . . . I thought for certain someone was in here and you were being forced to stay quiet. The noise coming from your bedroom—I’ve never heard anything like it.”

  Noah walked over to his stereo, which had been turned on and was now playing low, and switched it off. “I had it too loud, so I could hear it in the shower. I’m sorry I freaked you out.”

  Mr. Connolly’s face flushed. “You see things on the news . . . kidnappings and stuff. Heck—we all thought it happened to your sister when she got trapped in that Jackson House. I guess . . . I guess I’m still jumpy.”

  “I’m okay,” Noah said. “If someone was here, I’d tell you right now, believe me.”

  The old man turned and left the room. Noah followed him through the house and to the front door, where he finally left after more apologies and explanations. Noah latched the door behind him and took a deep, needed breath. Then he ran upstairs and burst back into his room, which was still empty, still perfectly clean.

  “Solana?” he said.

  Solana stepped through the doorway behind him, and Noah realized she must have been hiding in another bedroom. An instant after she appeared, so did a second person, who Noah recognized as a Constructor, a person trained to use magic to repair damage caused to the outside world. In one of his hands was a small duffle bag; in the other, a piece of velvet the size of a towel.

  “We all set here?” the Constructor asked.

  “I think we’re good,” Solana answered.

  The Constructor stuffed the velvet into his bag, saying, “See you at base.” He nodded at Noah, turned, and hurried downstairs. Seconds later, the back door slammed.

  “When you were talking to your neighbor, he slipped in through a wind
ow. I radioed for him on my way over. He took care of the kitchen, too.”

  Noah nodded. Realizing he still had little more than a towel wrapped around him, he went into the closet, threw on some sweatpants and a T-shirt, then stepped back out into the room. Solana grabbed his chin and moved his head to one side, then the other.

  “No marks,” she said. “That’s good.” She squinted into his eyes and added, “You all right?”

  Noah nodded again.

  She lowered her hand. “Once I portal, I’ll radio Council and have them post Specters near Ella’s and Richie’s. And we’ll beef up the patrol—keep you safe.”

  Noah nodded a third time.

  “Keep your headsets close—you and Megan both. I doubt DeGraff will move again tonight, but if he does, you need to be ready.” Solana went to the open window and stared across the street. “Your neighbor—think he’ll be watching you now?”

  Noah shook his head. “He trusts me. I’ve known Mr. Connolly all my life. He’s a good man.”

  “Then I’m glad you stalled him long enough for your room to be reconstructed.”

  This confused Noah, and all he managed in response was a breathy “Huh?”

  Before Solana could respond, a noise came from downstairs—the rattle of the front doorknob as a key fitted into its slot. From the open window, Noah heard his mother’s voice.

  “Kill the lights,” Solana said. As she sat on the windowsill, Noah realized she had the portal curtain balled up in one hand. “Remember—keep your headset close, just in case. I can be here in seconds.”

  “Wait!” Noah heard himself say.

  Solana turned to him. “Yeah?”

  Noah wanted to say so much, but hearing his parents’ footsteps downstairs, he knew there wasn’t time. He settled on what he thought was most important. “I . . . I’m scared.”

  Just when Noah felt certain a response wouldn’t come, she said, “You should be.”

  Noah took a step back, surprised at the truth, which was the last thing he’d expected to hear.

  “Your headset—keep it close,” she reminded him again. Then, in one swift movement, she swung her legs out the window and dropped out of sight.

  Noah lay there, unable to sleep. He kept gazing at the closet. What if another portal opened? What if Charlie came back? Solana had instructed Noah to keep his headset close, but he’d done more than that—he was wearing it. To reach the Descenders, all he needed to do was push a button.

  Noah looked toward the window and imagined Solana there. His thoughts drifted to Tarsier Terrace and the conversation they’d had. She’d been so distracted and worried. Her friends’ lives were in the hands of six girls she didn’t trust. Were the Specters really capable of leaving the Descenders behind?

  The Descenders want revenge, Solana had said. But the Specters . . . they want it even more.

  The idea of Sam and Hannah and Tameron being abandoned made Noah sick. How many times had the Descenders come to his aid? If only Noah could help them now. But of course, Blizzard and Little Bighorn needed Noah just as much as the Descenders, and if the scouts—

  He focused on a spot in the room. The scouts—Richie, Ella, Megan, and him. Four friends for two missions.

  He sat up and gazed at the floor. An idea stuck him and he jumped to his feet and paced the room, thoughts swirling in his head.

  Four friends for two missions.

  He walked to the window and looked out. When he remembered Solana and the way she’d come to his rescue tonight, he realized that he owed her the same.

  CHAPTER 19

  LEAVING HOME

  Noah spent Saturday with fear and adrenaline coursing through him. Tonight, he and his friends would be participating in a secret rescue mission while other kids were fast asleep in their beds. It hardly seemed possible.

  At six o’clock that evening, he made his way into the kitchen for dinner. Eggs, bacon, hash browns, toast—breakfast food, which meant tomorrow was grocery day. Megan was in her normal seat at the table, her hair up in pigtails.

  Noah chomped down on a piece of bacon made bland by his worry. When his parents were out of earshot at the cupboards, he leaned toward his sister and softly said, “You ready?”

  Megan shrugged, then nodded, then shrugged again. She bit into an egg and chewed, perhaps to avoid having to talk. Just hours ago, she’d agreed to go along with Noah’s new plan.

  “Did you call Ella?” Noah asked.

  Megan nodded.

  “And?”

  “She’s good with it.”

  Noah’s gaze wandered to the fridge and the different pieces of paper stuck on it: a telephone bill, his report card, a coupon for the new go-kart track in town.

  The go-kart track. A normal place normal kids might go. But not Noah and Megan—not tonight.

  The thought made a mess of his feelings. He concentrated on the crunch his toast made in his ears and studied a smudge on the table. Eventually though, his gaze lifted and happened upon the row of photographs across the wall. Megan as an infant, his mother in a summer dress. Pictures from weddings, holidays, and vacations—moments of lives well lived, and of people well loved.

  Noah turned to the clock: 6:16. He couldn’t help but wonder how much danger he and Megan were in, and a new thought struck him. What if he and his sister walked away from all this and revealed the Secret Zoo to their parents? What if they just spilled the truth about what they’d been doing at the Clarksville City Zoo, and about what happened in their tree fort at night?

  “No,” Megan said. She’d been watching Noah and reading his thoughts in a strange way that only siblings can. “We can do this—we’re ready.”

  She glanced over at their parents, who were currently raiding one cabinet, noisily moving things around as they searched for something—probably the Tabasco sauce, which their father loved on his eggs.

  “We could—”

  “No,” Megan interrupted. “We can’t.”

  After dinner, Noah and Megan headed upstairs to pack for their sleepovers. On his way out the bedroom door, Noah found himself checking the closet again. Nothing—the portal was still gone.

  At seven o’clock, they were ready. Before heading to the door, they stopped at the kitchen, where their parents were still at the table, drinking tea.

  “When will you be back?” their mother asked.

  “Early,” Megan said. “Before lunch.”

  Noah hated the way it felt like a lie, and he hated the way it made his heart sting.

  “Be safe,” their mother said.

  Noah ran forward, wrapped his arms around his mother, and hugged her tight.

  “Whoa!” his mother said as she stabilized herself. She hugged him back. “I’m not sure what that’s for . . . but I’ll take it.”

  Megan and Noah took turns hugging their father and then headed for the door, adjusting the packs on their backs. As they went, Noah deliberately kept his gaze away from the family pictures on the wall.

  They began walking the short distance to Ella and Richie’s. As they rounded a turn, Noah chanced a look back at his house. It seemed different in ways he didn’t understand. His house, which normally looked so full of life, seemed vacant, not just of people, but everything. No furniture, no walls—as hollow as a building on a Hollywood set.

  “Don’t,” Megan cautioned. “Stay focused.”

  His sister did something totally unexpected then. She reached out and grabbed his hand, threading his fingers through hers.

  Noah chanced another look back. His house suddenly looked less fake and more like a place from a dream that he was already forgetting.

  CHAPTER 20

  THE WAY TO WATERFORD

  Solana peered through the darkness to read the words on the short semitrailer: “Caution! Live Animals!” It was the vehicle the Clarksville Zoo used to transport animals. In the driver’s seat was a hefty man with broad shoulders and a round, weighty head—Mike, a Secret Cityzen who lived on the Outside. He greeted Solana
with a nod.

  Solana jumped to the bumper and stepped through the trailer’s open back door. Two rows of fluorescent lights dimly lit the large space. The trailer had three benches, one on each side. The Specters were sitting, two girls to a bench. One bench that ran along the cab of the truck was empty.

  “Where are the scouts?” Solana asked.

  “Right here,” Megan said, and her voice came from the vacant seats. The scouts were already ghosted.

  “Practice,” Richie chimed in. “We want to be ready.”

  Solana took an open seat beside Jordynn, who promptly slid down the bench a couple of feet. Solana scanned the group of girls, but none of them would meet her gaze.

  She realized it was going to be a long drive.

  After the meeting in the Room of Reflections, Mr. Darby had asked Solana to go along on the rescue in case the Specters got into trouble, but none of the Specters had liked the idea. In the end, Solana had agreed to stay in the vehicle unless needed.

  Mike appeared at the back of the truck, his bulbous belly quaking with every movement. “We set, ladies?”

  Sara was the only one to respond, and she did so with a quick nod.

  Mike grabbed the strap dangling from the top-loading door. “Hope you girls are ready for this.” He pulled down his arm and the door groaned and slammed shut.

  In the confined space, the few sounds were louder: the buzz of a dying fluorescent bulb, the tick, tick of Jordynn picking at her nails, the groan of the bench as Lee-Lee leaned back and kicked out her feet. Someone coughed into her fist. Kaleena. Someone else grunted. Seconds later, the engine turned over, and its growl made the walls tremble. The truck jerked forward as it pulled out of the parking lot. Then the girls rocked in their seats as Mike made a series of turns before finally driving onto the steady stretch of Walkers Boulevard.

  Solana swept her long black hair off her shoulders. To avoid eye contact with the other girls, she stared down at her leather gloves. She’d never been alone with the Specters for more than a few minutes. Had any of the Descenders?