by April White
“No, not her,” I muttered under my breath, but ten seconds later I understood that she was actually the coach when she gestured to a young guy I recognized as Patrick Rothchild, Raven’s brother, to come out and face off against Ringo.
I wasn’t actually that high above them on the roof, and if anyone had bothered to look up they would have seen my unsmiling face staring down at them. But people never looked up, so I was feeling pretty invisible, at least until something cast a shadow on the floor and I realized it came from behind me. I pulled back from the skylight and spun to find myself face to face with the biggest eagle I’d ever seen. Its piercing golden eyes regarded me steadily from about four feet away, and the fear that clenched my heart relaxed.
“A Philippine Eagle, huh? Does your mom know you’re out?”
Logan tilted the bird’s head in a gesture that could either mean “of course,” or “are you kidding?”
I didn’t think he would Shift back to human form since that would put a naked boy out in public, so I settled back into my original position. “Stay back far enough so you don’t cast a shadow on the floor below us.” It was actually kind of nice to have the company, so I continued talking.
“Ringo’s going up against Patrick Rothchild right now – I guess so the coach can assess him. She’s the young, pretty one with long brown hair.” I pointed to the young woman who watched Ringo and the Spawn dance around each other. I’d seen Ringo battle with a sword in France and he was pretty lethal, but the Spawn was a dirty fighter, and I didn’t trust him.
“We call Patrick ‘the Spawn’ because he’s Ms. Rothchild’s kid. He’s also Raven’s younger brother, and she was my roommate when I first got to St. Brigid’s. Everyone calls her the Crow behind her back, probably because as a bird species, crows are right up there with pigeons in the rats-with-wings category. She’s over there, the blonde, tossing her hair while she pretends not to watch.” I pointed to Raven, standing in an arrogant pose off to one side, and looked to see if the Eagle was following along. His golden eyes whirled with the intensity of his gaze, and I envied his ability to Shift into something with eyesight like an eagle.
Ringo made an aggressive move and scored against the Spawn, who instantly hurled his foil and threw down his helmet before he stormed off the floor. “Spoiled Monger brat,” I said as much to myself as to the Eagle.
Raven casually pushed off the wall she’d been holding up and donned her helmet. She approached Ringo with every ounce of her arrogance wrapped up in easy grace. I pretty much loathed her anyway, but her obvious athleticism just added fuel to that fire.
She nodded once to Ringo, then got into ready mode. Since I wasn’t a fencer, I could only think in terms I knew, and Ringo’s ready mode didn’t have nearly the same elegance Raven’s did.
They were about the same height, but their skills were very different. Ringo wasn’t necessarily outmatched in the skills department, but he was definitely outclassed. Everything Raven did with the fencing foil screamed technique and training, while Ringo’s moves were pure offense and defense. He was battling, she was practically dancing. It was actually pretty spectacular to watch, except for the despising her part.
She scored on him twice in quick succession, but then he got in a sneaky hit to her stomach and it pissed her off. “Look, she’s suddenly paying attention.” It didn’t seem weird at all that I was speaking to a giant Philippine Eagle, or that he seemed to follow everything I said.
“He’s fought with a double bladed sword before, so there’s more slash than jab in his motion. She keeps having to duck away instead of dance.” I watched him score another hit to her vest, and I could practically see the steam rise off her. It was really hard to tell if beating her at this would make her more or less likely to talk to him. At the rate he was going, I thought he might be lucky to make it off the floor without a knife to his throat.
The coach finally clapped her hands to stop the match, and Ringo waited until Raven’s foil was completely down before he lowered his. He was definitely still in warrior stance though, and I thought that when Raven pulled off her helmet, her glance at him was a little wary.
The coach moved Ringo’s body into a couple of positions and had Raven demonstrate the correct counterattack. Then the coach called to Patrick, who was standing with a group of guys against a wall. She pointed to some other foils that looked heavier and longer mounted in racks above a tall wardrobe and indicated a ladder on the other side of the room. Patrick crossed his arms in front of himsef aggressively and stood his ground.
The Eagle’s wings fluttered, and I looked back at Ringo in time to see him set down his foil and helmet and take off sprinting across the floor. He leapt off a pommel horse, hit a high bar, and did a double flip around to get the height to land, seated, on top of the cabinet. He retrieved the foils, tossed them down to the Spawn, who had to quickly uncross his arms to catch them or be hit in the head, and then Ringo hopped down to stick a perfect landing. He casually strolled over and took the foils from a very startled Spawn.
“Oh, bravo,” I breathed before I turned my attention to Raven. Ringo’s freerunning show had startled and impressed her, and there was an interesting look of respect and thoughtfulness on her face. The coach clapped Ringo on the back with a huge grin, then took the larger foils from him and demonstrated some complicated moves.
Some other students walked into the gym and I realized the lesson must be over. The coach shook Ringo’s hand and seemed to indicate he should come back. Then Ringo shook Raven’s hand with one of his charming smiles, instead of the cheeky ones I usually got, said a couple of words while he packed up his fencing gear, and strolled out of the room.
I turned to Logan’s Eagle. “Alright, dude. Time to fly home. Thanks for hanging out with me though. If you see my mom, could you let her know we’re heading home soon?”
The Eagle tilted his head at me in that way that either meant “sure” or “I’ll conveniently forget the minute someone puts a snack in front of me,” then he took off in a great flap of his enormous wings. Apparently Philippine eagles really were the largest eagles on the planet.
I texted Jeeves that we were ready to be picked up, and I was just getting to my feet when I looked down and froze. Cole Thomas had just entered the gym. I dropped back down to my knees, and pressed my face to the glass to make sure I was actually seeing what I thought I saw. The big, dark-skinned guy, built like Adam, moved in that slouchy way some guys do when they pretend nothing matters. He crossed the room to where Raven was still putting her gear away, and when she looked up and saw him, one of those big “oh yay, you’re here!” grins crossed her face before she threw her arms around him.
Okay, wow.
Tracked
No part of this situation looked good for the presumably mixed-blood friend of a kidnapped boy. Kissing the niece of the bad guy who orchestrated the kidnappings was at worst, traitorous and at best, evidence of dangerously bad taste in human beings.
Cole was smiling at Raven as she said something to him, and the whole scene was so surreal I felt like a cartoon character trying to rub an illusion out of my eyes. I backed away from the skylight and climbed down the fire escape. When I hit the ground, Ringo was already in the alley waiting for me with his gear bag slung over one shoulder. He had an easy smile on his face.
“Well, that was interestin’,” he said.
I grimaced. “You could say that.”
He looked surprised. “She wasn’t all nasty, ye know. I managed to impress ‘er enough that she agreed to spar with me again.”
We started walking toward the street where Jeeves would hopefully pick us up in a few minutes. But then a voice behind us yelled, “Hey, new kid!”
I realized my mistake as soon as I turned, because the voice belonged to Patrick Rothchild, and I’d just busted Ringo by association. “Oh, poop,” I muttered under my breath.
“Ye and yer excrement talk.” Ringo hadn’t turned and was half-laughing at me as he ignored
the Spawn and kept walking. I fell into step next to him, and it clearly pissed Patrick off to be ignored.
“New kid! I’m talking to you! You hang out with trash like her, you’re going to get sent to the same dump.” Patrick wasn’t especially big, and he was only about fifteen years old, but he was as mean as a snake and always traveled in a pack of dangerous boys. I could sense about three of them behind us with Patrick – all Mongers if my spidey senses were working properly. We were about ten yards from the street, but I wouldn’t give the Spawn the satisfaction of seeing me run.
Suddenly, a white van with a smashed front end screeched to a halt on the street in front of us, effectively closing the end of the alley. The side door slammed open, and a couple of big Mongers tumbled out. I recognized one of them from Slick’s office building, and my confidence instantly liquefied. Ringo tensed beside me, and I could feel him making the same decision I was making. Forward into the white, windowless kidnapper van was clearly the wrong choice. Backward past four teenage hoodlums held more options for success, but they could still potentially slow us down enough for the adult Mongers to get their hands on us. So, up it was.
I was very happy we both had the ability to see in three dimensions, because the dumpster was exactly the right height from which to leap for the barred window with a big enough ledge to stand on. From there it was another uncomplicated jump to the rusty fire escape ladder and up to the roof. Ringo flung his fencing bag at the Spawn’s crew since they were closest to us, and we were both up and on top of the building before the first Monger made it onto the dumpster.
“Back toward the gym.” Ringo urged. The flat rooftop of the commercial building we were on abutted the gym roof, and as far as I was concerned, anything that took us away from the windowless van was the right direction.
I could hear the Mongers yelling at the Spawn’s crew to follow us, and a few moments later the screech of tires told us they were on the move. The gap between buildings was only a few feet, so it was an easy jump to the gym roof, and just as I was about to make it, my phone rang.
Ringo practically screeched to a halt and pointed to my pocket. “Answer it. Could be Jeeves.” We were both breathing hard, and he scanned the buildings around us for our best escape plan.
“Saira, I’m here. Where are you?” It was Jeeves.
“On the roof. Mongers found us.”
“Can you make it back to our pick-up spot?”
“I don’t know, what are you driving?” I didn’t like being suspicious, but it was my default reaction at the moment.
“The Rolls.”
I hesitated. “Why?”
There was no hesitation in Jeeves voice. “No door locks.”
That was the confirmation I needed to hear. “We’ll try.”
“Keep me on the line and call directions if you need me to move.”
“Right. Thanks.”
I tucked the phone back in my pocket as Ringo pointed to a building next to the gym. “No fire escape in back, so there must be a way down the front. They’ll have to go around to catch us.”
The jump to that rooftop was only about five feet, but it was slightly higher than the one we were on. I nodded. “Okay. I’m going off the ledge.” The ledge at the edge of the gym rooftop was about two feet higher than the roof, and would give me the elevation to make it. I took a breath, then took off at a dead sprint. I hit the ledge with just the right stride length, and launched off. If I undershot I’d need my hands, but I managed to catch the edge with my toes and land on my feet. Ringo landed right beside me.
“Made it,” I told Jeeves in my pocket.
“Now down,” said Ringo. I paused to look for the white van but didn’t see it on the street below us. Ringo was already headed down the fire escape ladder, which ended at the second floor. It was a fairly simple jump across two balconies to the top of an electrical box and then down to the street.
My phone was in hand a second later. “Jeeves, we’re next door to the front of the gym.”
“On my way,” I heard faintly as I tucked the phone back in my pocket.
Just then, the double doors to the gym opened and Raven and Cole came out laughing about something. Her fencing bag was over his shoulder, and she looked … happy.
Until she saw me.
Raven’s eyes flicked between me and Ringo, then narrowed dangerously.
But I wasn’t watching her. My gaze was locked on Cole’s shocked expression. Was it because I had seen him with Raven, or something more nefarious?
“What are you doing here?” Raven practically spat the words.
The big Rolls Royce screeched around the corner as brazenly as an elegant old lady with balls of steel can do, and sped to a halt right beside us. A quick glance showed me Jeeves was alone, and Ringo was already opening the back door.
“You mean, why am I not your uncle’s prisoner? I don’t know, ask him.” I shot Cole a wary look before slamming the door behind us. Jeeves sped away before I was even properly seated, and I had a serious appreciation for seatbelts a moment later when he took a corner like he was driving a getaway car.
In a sense, I guessed he was.
“Thank you,” I said to him, my eyeballs glued to the view behind us. Raven stared after us as we drove away, and a moment later, her brother ran out of the alley just as we rounded the corner.
My voice echoed strangely, and I realized the call was still connected and I’d been on speakerphone. I hung up and my voice sounded normal again, at least as normal as one can sound when gasping for breath like a guppy out of water.
Jeeves looked grim. I could only see his eyes in the rearview mirror, and I realized I was in the backseat again. In the grand scheme of things-that-sucked, my backseat PTSD was minor in comparison to the windowless van that I kept seeing whenever I shut my eyes.
“Monger goons with a van,” was all I managed to say out loud.
Ringo filled the rest in for me. “Raven’s brother didn’t care for the way I made him look the idiot. ‘E came after me, saw Saira, and must’ve made a call.”
I shook my head. “No, they were there too fast. They knew exactly where we were. It’s something else.” I thought back to my brief time in the back of the Mongers’ van when they’d zip-tied my ankles. I suddenly kicked at my boots like they were on fire. When the one was off I picked it up gingerly and ran my fingers across the soles.
There, like a small black tack, was a thing stuck into the rubber just inside the heel where I would never have seen it if I hadn’t been looking. “A tracking device.” I dropped the boot like it burnt my hands, and Ringo picked it up thoughtfully.
“So small?” He examined it closely. “They set this when they ‘ad ye, I expect?”
I nodded, trying to keep the revulsion of having been tracked from turning into vomit. “Get rid of it,” I whispered.
Ringo looked at Jeeves. “Clearly they know we’re goin’ back to the manor, so losin’ it now just confirms she found it. I say we ‘ang on to it a bit longer and maybe figure a way to use it against them?”
Jeeves nodded slowly. “I agree.”
I shuddered. The knowledge that Mongers had known every move I made in my boots was chilling enough, but this tracking device seemed especially designed to stick into the rubber sole. It was just so … premeditated. I mentally added shoes to the list that included back seats and white vans. It would be inconvenient, but I’d deal.
When we arrived at Elian Manor a few minutes later, I bolted from the car and ran to the house in my socks. Ringo followed me in carrying my boots, which he left by the kitchen door. I had already poured us both a cup of tea and was clutching the steaming mug in both hands in an attempt to keep them from shaking.
Ringo’s voice was quiet and calm. “Which part gets ye most? The trackin’, the findin’, or the chasin’?”
I took a deep breath, trying to steady my thoughts. “The premeditation. They knew I’d run, and they planted the tracker to keep me on a leash.”
“Maybe ‘e wanted ye to run, so ye’d bring Tom back with ye and ‘e could take ‘im when ye landed.” I shuddered violently and Ringo put a hand on my arm. “It’s time for some new boots, eh?”
I gave him a feeble smile. “They were new.”
He gave me a bigger one back. “And they’ll fit me perfectly.”
I almost barked a laugh, but it got hung up on the sob that was stuck in my throat. “For a minute, until you grow again.”
Ringo’s expression got serious again. “Mongers don’t seem to be causin’ ye trouble here at the manor anymore, so the tracker can stay ‘ere. Leave it with me and I’ll figure somethin’ nasty to do with it. Somethin’ that gets ‘em where they live.”
I nodded, very grateful that he was my friend. “Archer’s going to be so delighted to hear about this when he wakes up,” I grumbled.
Ringo shrugged. “’E’ll beat ‘imself up for a bit and add it to the list of ways ‘e’s failin’ ye. And then ye’ll feel ‘orrible for makin’ ‘im feel bad, even though it wasn’t yer fault. And finally, ye’ll kiss and make up, and we’ll get on with the business of figurin’ this whole thing out.”
I stared at him. “That sounds terrible.”
“It does, doesn’t it? Glad I’m not the one in love with ye.” He shuddered dramatically and just managed to dodge the wooden spoon I threw at his head.
Visions
There was a message from Professor Singh that he had gotten permission from an old friend for us to tour Bletchley Park after hours, and if we would be so kind as to pick him up at the Tower, he would work late until we got there. He had never questioned Archer’s schedule, and I figured he must think Archer had a busy job during the day.
I took a long bath but still couldn’t bring myself to wear any of my shoes, so when Connor found me in the east wing library, I was curled up on a couch in my socks. He dropped a shoebox next to me.
“Here. Mum sent them for you.”
