by Jerel Law
“Sorry, then!” Rupert called out.
“Any luck so far?” Eliza asked.
“Well, there you are,” he said. “No, nothing yet. Finding him in one of these black cars is going to be like finding a needle in a haystack . . .” She grimaced, and he spoke with a softer tone. “But we’ll find him, Eliza. We will. Don’t you worry a bit.”
His less than convincing tone didn’t help Eliza’s stomach from doing somersaults inside.
“We have to, Rupert,” she said, pushing the tears back down again. “Let’s move faster.”
Eliza asked Frederick and Andre to cover the other side of the street, in the hopes that they could see more cars if they split up. Traffic was starting to pick up, and they were having a tougher and tougher time scanning all of the cars.
Then she saw it—a black car, moving in their direction, with two men sitting in the front. The driver had silvery gray hair. She watched it closely as it drove past them. Yes . . . there was someone in the back, and it looked like a kid!
“There.” She pointed, beginning to walk after it. “Right there! That’s it! Jeremiah!”
Eliza began to run after the car. It was speeding along and quickly moving farther ahead. But she continued to run.
“Guys!” she called out to Andre and Frederick. “This way!”
They had already heard her and were heading in her direction. Frederick sped quickly past Andre, using his sandals of speed to catch up.
“You saw him?” he said, slowing down to her speed, which was still a full-on sprint.
“Right there!” she panted. “In that car, straight ahead!”
The black sedan stopped at a red light, waiting behind a yellow taxi, and to its left, a long city bus.
Eliza didn’t try to sneak up on it. It was too late for caution now. Running up to the rear door, she grabbed the handle and threw it open.
“Jeremiah!” she screamed, leaning down into the car.
The driver swung his head toward her. “What in the . . . what do you think you’re doing?”
She blinked at him for a few seconds, then really looked in the backseat. A neatly dressed girl was sitting there with a lunch box in her lap. She looked terrified and began to scream.
The man in the passenger seat reached back and slammed the door shut. The light had already turned green, and the car sped off, tires screeching against the pavement.
Eliza stood there for a few seconds, stunned. She had been so sure it was Jeremiah.
“You’ve got to be more careful, Eliza,” Andre said, running up and huffing heavily in the cold air. “You could get yourself run over.”
“I thought it was him,” she mumbled, but quickly regained her focus. “Let’s keep moving.”
She texted while they walked and soon got replies from the other teams. No one had seen anything, although apparently some of them had had a few false alarms of their own.
They continued searching. One hour led to two, then to three. They were getting nowhere, although none of them, especially Eliza, wanted to admit it.
“Maybe the police are having some success,” Frederick said to Eliza hopefully.
She nodded. “We’d have heard something by now, though, don’t you think?”
Just then, she heard her phone sound off. Three beeps, coming from her pocket, all in a row.
Pulling it out, she pressed her glasses up on her nose.
“Three different messages,” she said. “The first is from Julia . . .”
Help! Under attack!
Please hurry
Corner of Water and Hanover
Rupert already had his phone out and was plugging the street names in. “We’re only a few blocks away from them!”
Eliza eyed him. “Well, you’re not going to believe this, but the other two texts are from David and Hai Ling. It looks like they’re all in trouble.”
They looked at each other for a few seconds on the street, trying to figure out what to do.
Eliza took charge. “If they’re fighting, maybe it means they’ve discovered something. Maybe one of them has found him!”
“I sure hope the angels are already there, doing some of the fighting too,” said Andre.
Rupert determined that the closest address belonged to Julia’s group.
“Let’s go there first, and maybe we can help,” Eliza said. She didn’t even wait for the others to respond.
Rupert called out to her, panic in his voice. “Don’t you think we ought to discuss this . . . perhaps take a vote?”
But she wasn’t listening. She reached down to her side and pulled out her angelblade.
Eliza, Andre, Frederick, and a reluctant Rupert found Water Street and were close to the corner of Hanover when they saw the battle ahead from within the hidden realm.
“There’s more going on than I thought there would be,” Frederick said, watching the fallen angels fly all through the sky, firing arrows and swinging blades. Most of the battle was taking place in the air, with angels fighting back bravely. There were flashes of light and blasts of fire all over.
There was activity on the ground too, though.
“There they are!” Andre pointed, and Eliza hurried down the street, the others trailing behind.
The round glow of Julia’s shield of faith shone brightly in the middle of the chaos. They could see several fallen angels hovering over it, shooting arrows into the shield. Each time they bounced off, but this didn’t seem to be deterring the evil creatures from their attack. Inside the bubble, Eliza could see Lania and Carlo hunkered down beside Julia and Bridget. Both had their hands raised.
“Bridget has her shield up too,” she called out to the others. “Hurry up! We need to help them!”
Lania was firing arrows through the shield and into as many fallen angels as she could. One fell just as they arrived, squirming on the ground before dissolving right in front of them.
“You got my message!” Julia cried, a faint smile on her lips.
Eliza nodded, just before launching herself at a fallen angel and swinging her blade. “Take that!” she screamed as she connected with a fallen angel, driving the blade right through his chest. He exploded into a million pieces of dust.
Rupert threw up a shield of his own, trying to protect her whenever he could catch up to her. Andre had resorted to his angelic strength, grabbing any fallen angel he could and throwing them into the wall of the building beside them. Within seconds, he had already taken out two of them.
Frederick was putting his archery skills to work. Eliza was grateful to have him by their side as she watched fallen angel after fallen angel drop from the sky.
Eliza continued to battle, clashing swords with fallen angels on the ground. One particularly nasty creature rushed at her with his blade raised high, glowing red. She blocked it with her blade, but another one was behind her and swung at the same time.
Rupert grabbed the fallen angel’s arm just in time, stopping the blade from coming down inches away from her neck. Quickly, Eliza pushed off the first creature and drove her blade into his stomach. She spun and finished the second one off.
“Thanks, Rupert,” she said, breathing heavily.
The sky seemed to be growing darker, and Eliza’s attention was drawn upward. It wasn’t from a stray cloud, though. Fallen angels were arriving by the dozens, soaring through the air above, clouding the sky. She had never seen so many in one place.
“We have to get out of here,” Frederick said, watching the sky as he pulled her back.
The angels seemed to have come to the same conclusion. One of them called out to the others, “Retreat! Fall back at once!” He looked down at the quarterlings and repeated his command with force. “Retreat!”
Julia dropped her shield, and they all turned to run. Several angels flew overhead, still firing arrows, covering for them while they ran across the street and then down the block. Eliza turned to see one of them fall, a flaming arrow piercing his chest. The angel exploded into white du
st, which hung in the air like snowflakes. She watched the awful, beautiful flakes glittering down softly. The fallen angels were driving toward them, firing arrows and throwing spears. Another angel fell in front of her, dropping at her feet. She watched, frozen, as the angel melted away.
“Come on, Eliza!” Rupert said, grabbing her arm and yanking it hard. It snapped her out of her daze, and she ran with the rest, determined not to look back.
After several blocks, they realized they weren’t being followed anymore. They slowed down to catch their breath. A group of angels stood at the street corner, discussing the attack in hushed tones and regrouping.
“Why did they stop?” Eliza asked. One of the angels put his hand up to silence her.
She grabbed her phone from her pocket and checked it for messages. “I wonder how the others are doing,” she whispered.
No messages waiting. She furiously typed in a short note to both David and Hai Ling.
We’re retreating. Are you okay???
They stood in silence on the corner, watching people walk by, entirely unaware of their presence in the hidden realm.
“It just seems weird that they stopped, with that many on their side,” Eliza said again, kicking at the concrete.
“Maybe they just wanted to scare us,” Andre said hopefully.
She narrowed her eyes. “Do you really think that’s all they want to do? After all we’ve been through? No, they want to kill us,” she said matter-of-factly. “And they won’t stop until they do.”
Eliza watched her phone in silence, and Andre, Rupert, and Frederick watched her. She couldn’t keep still.
“Maybe we should go find them,” she said. She gestured to the angels until one came down to talk to her. “Where are the others? What’s going on? Have you heard anything?”
The angel smiled kindly but was short with her. “We’re working on it.”
Eliza threw up her hands. “I’m going. Are you guys coming with me? We can’t just stand here if they’re in trouble. Maybe they have Jeremiah.”
She had begun to hurry down the street when her phone beeped.
“Message!” she called out to them, studying her phone. She sighed, beginning to type a response. “They’re okay. They’ve retreated too. I’m going to see if they’ve had any sign from Jeremiah.”
They had waited only a few seconds this time when her phone pinged again. She frowned. “Nothing. They’re heading back to the convent.”
She looked down the street, in the direction they’d retreated from.
“We need to go back and get our heads together with the others,” said Frederick. “I know you want to jump back in, but we need to trust that Elohim knows what He’s doing here, Eliza.”
She smirked. “That’s funny, coming from you,” she said.
He brushed off the insult. “Come on, let’s go and meet with the others.”
“Fine,” she grumped, storming ahead in the direction of the convent.
NINETEEN
ELIZA’S HUNCH
All of the quarterlings were down in their basement lounge, resting and discussing the attacks. Each of the three groups had a surprisingly similar story. They were searching for Jeremiah, looking everywhere, when they suddenly came under attack. Angels had rushed in, offering protection where they could, but they had all been overwhelmed by a large number of fallen angels. Their only choice had been to retreat.
“It’s not worth it right now,” one of the angel commanders had told David. “We’ll fight them another day.”
Eliza grabbed a plastic cup and poured a soda from the machine. Even that made her tear up, though, as she thought about Jeremiah and how much he loved soda. Right now, she would do anything to be able to give him one.
She yanked her phone out of her pocket and found the number she wanted. The phone rang a couple of times, then rolled straight into voice mail.
She didn’t even try to hide the disappointment and anger in her voice.
“Where are you, Jonah? I haven’t heard back from you, haven’t even gotten a text. Jeremiah is in trouble, he’s been kidnapped, and I don’t even know if you got that message from me or not. I don’t even know if you care anymore. But if you were here—” She paused, trying to keep her voice from cracking, and composed herself. “If you were here, you would really be able to help us out. I just don’t know where you are, and your own brother is missing, and I . . . I . . .” Forget it, she thought. She hung up.
“Hey,” Julia said softly, just behind her. Eliza turned, tears streaming down her face. “It’s okay, Eliza. It’s going to be all right. You need to rest for a few minutes. Come sit down with us. We’ll figure it out.”
Eliza nodded, taking a sip of her drink and sitting on the corner of a sofa in the middle of the room.
She sighed loudly and closed her eyes. She would force herself to be quiet. She would make herself concentrate on the only one who could help them.
Elohim, she prayed, we are stuck. I don’t know where to turn now. We don’t have any more clues to go on. The police don’t seem to be getting anywhere, and Jeremiah is out there somewhere, lost and alone, and maybe hurt. I would do anything to get him back, absolutely anything. Maybe somehow You could switch my place with him . . .
She sat silently, pausing, her upper lip beginning to tremble again.
Just please help us find him. Show us the way.
David put down his phone and walked over to her. “The police haven’t found anything yet,” he said. “They are continuing their efforts, though. They say that they’re not going to stop until—”
“Well, they don’t know what they’re dealing with, do they?” Eliza interrupted. The whole room grew silent, everyone cutting their eyes toward her. “I mean, they hardly know what to look for, and we’ve all seen that finding a kid in a black car in New York City is like . . .”
She stopped in mid-sentence. A light had begun to glow in the corner of the room. It was hovering over the television.
She walked closer to it, studying the light. Elohim was trying to show her something. She could feel it.
Her eyes were drawn up to the television, which was on mute.
“Does anyone have the remote control?” she suddenly said. “Can somebody turn the volume on?”
On the screen was a man in front of a bank of microphones. Behind him were a dozen or so people, all of whom were in suits and ties, looking very official. They were standing in front of a building, where several flags from different countries could be seen waving in the sunlight.
“Why do you want to see a random news conference on CNN?” asked Rupert.
She hushed him. “Someone just turn it up, please.”
The caption underneath the man read: United Nations agrees to historic African peace treaty
And underneath that: Vitaly Cherkov, Russian Ambassador to the United States
“It is my pleasure to announce that I—that we—have been able to negotiate a historic peace treaty between the countries of northern Africa, and that, largely because of the efforts of my own office, as well as the officials from both of these countries, that the millions of people there will be able to enjoy year upon year of peaceful, productive living in their countries . . .”
He continued on and on, smiling, somehow projecting humility while pulling the message back to himself and how he had accomplished great things on behalf of these countries. Behind him were representatives from several African nations. They all appeared stone-faced but nodded along as the Russian ambassador spoke.
That wasn’t who Eliza was looking at, though. She stepped close to the television, looking at the men who stood behind Cherkov.
Could that be him? A man in a dark suit, with curly, silvery gray hair stood in the background. He wore sunglasses, his hands were clasped in front of him, and his head moved back and forth, as if he were watching the crowd.
Eliza pointed at the man. “It’s him!” she shouted. “That guy, I know it. I’m sure of it! It’s him!�
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“It’s who, Eliza?” Rupert asked, standing beside her and squinting at the screen.
She punched him in the arm, a little too hard. “One of the guys who took Jeremiah!”
He rubbed his arm in pain. “Are you sure? Some guy with the Russian ambassador to the United States . . . he took Jeremiah?”
“He looks like he’s watching for something,” Frederick observed. “I think he’s security.”
Hai Ling had moved over to a computer against the opposite wall and was busy clacking away.
“You want to know some information about this ambassador?” she called out to the rest. She quickly scanned several articles at once, clicking from page to page.
“Vitaly Cherkov, the Russian ambassador to the United States. He’s been in that position since 2006. He has a long history of political service, though. His entire career seems to have been in Russian politics. Apparently his uncle used to have the same position, back in the 1980s.”
This news caught Andre’s attention. “Yes, the Cherkovs are like kings and queens in my homeland Russia. Everyone knows who they are. They’ve made billions of dollars in oil . . . and probably other things that aren’t quite so legal.”
Hai Ling tugged at her lower lip. “I guess they have enough money to buy a mega yacht. This story is all about their giant boat, and the special permission it took to be able to dock it in New York Harbor. The thing is enormous. Look at this picture.”
They oohed and aahed over the boat for a few moments. Eliza stepped back, though, her mind churning.
“Where exactly is it docked, Hai Ling?”
Hai Ling studied the article for a few more seconds, scrolling down until she came to it. “It says here that it’s located at Pier Fifteen.”
“Can you pull that up on a map?”
She began hacking away at the keyboard again. Up popped a map, with a red marker just on the eastern edge of Manhattan. “Right there,” she said.
“Interesting,” Eliza said. “Can you drop some more markers in?”
“Sure, what do you want?”
Eliza leaned in. “The three places we were fighting today.”
