by Melle Amade
Aiden is the last guy on the face of the planet who usually gets nervous. But as I glance towards him, I see that’s exactly what happens. He swallows.
“We bring everybody here to do this, but the magic is not in the spells or in the spirits. The magic is inside you.”
She waves her hand and my eyes immediately fall shut, and although perhaps I could have the option of opening my eyes, I don’t make that choice. I am comfortable just sitting there with my eyes closed, waiting to see what happens next.
The smell of burning incense fills the air. It’s a warm, clear scent of old wood and dried greens. There is nothing heavy or light or floral about it, it’s the kind of smell that digs down into my guts and roots me to the cushion I’m sitting on, bringing me lower and closer so I almost feel as if I’m never going to rise out of my seat again.
My hands automatically move to my knees. I’m sitting cross-legged and when I flip my palms up to the air, I can feel the heat from my hands start to burn, though I’m sure there are no flames rising from them. The priestess starts to speak. It is not a chant, there is no rhythm to it. She just speaks slow and direct, in a mumbling tone in a language I do not understand, bringing together a series of sounds that I cannot begin to differentiate into individual words. The air next to me moves, and I have the sense Aiden is rising. My eyelids rise, too, the heaviness lifted off and I’m able to look at him. He only stands for the briefest of moments before he kneels on a cushion I hadn’t noticed directly in front of the priestess. Her voice is low and I suddenly see something flash inside her hand. It’s a small blade with a shining crystal on one end and Aiden’s head is bent, his eyes closed, his neck bare. The priestess stands up, moving around him slowly, walking in circles, and my heart begins to race.
I’m not sure this is such a good idea. I know we were given this direction from Mubarak, but who is he really? Doubts and fears swirl inside my head but I cannot move. My hands are practically attached to my knees and my butt is secure on the floor. I just sit there and stare, wide-eyed and fearful as Aiden bows in the priestess’s circle. And it’s only then I notice her words have gotten louder and my heart beat is moving in rhythm with her words. Aiden’s body starts to shake and rock back and forth. She makes three perfect circles and stands with her back to her throne.
She raises the blade.
It glints in the candlelight, then plunges down on the back of his neck.
My scream pierces the night as Aiden falls forward, slumping against the legs of the priestess.
20
The world is blurry and bright as I open my eyes. The night is gone and there is a burning bright sun pushing its way through the mist that enshrouds the swamp. The gentle lapping of water against the muddy bank tugs me up from my horizontal position. I’m lying on one of the wicker couches of the plantation house. I’m not quite sure how I got here, but right now that’s not my concern.
Where is Aiden?
It’s hard to focus my eyes. Everything is a blur of green and gold. Slowly the world clears and I see Aiden, his back to me, standing on the edge of the swamp. I jump up although my head feels like I’ve been hitting it against a brick wall.
I need to get to him.
“Aiden! Aiden!” I call out. “Are you all right?”
I run across the lawn towards him when he turns to me, his face is radiating a glorious smile. His hands are raised and from each one of his hands falls a shower of water rain onto the grass at his feet.
***
There is shouting and scuffling outside of the wine cellar. Iona and I are separated.
“No!” I hear Zan cry as gun fire and roars rattle the glass. I edge against the wall and peak through the window of the door.
Aiden is holding up his hands while Callum stands by his side, dagger drawn and Zan crouches, in coyote form between them and Polaris. El Oso reclines at a large booth against the wall staring at my three friends.
“We’re not intending to do you any harm.” His smile is dark as he grabs a handful of prawns off his plate and shovels them in his mouth, shells at all. He crunches down on them hard. “We just, well, we’ve just lost a key member of our entourage and, you know, I miss her.”
Lady Heather.
“We don’t know where she is,” Aiden says. “But we will help you find her.”
El Oso shrugs his shoulders, throwing another prawn in his mouth. “You’re a lousy liar, Heir. So, let’s not play that game.”
Aiden’s eyes narrow, but he doesn’t shrink back. “What do you want with us, El Oso?”
“I’m inviting you to a party,” he smiles. “You’re leaving immediately.”
Aiden and Callum exchange a look. “Where?” Aiden asks.
“Don’t worry,” El Oso says. “You’re my guest and you’ll be well taken care of.” His smile disappears as he motions Polaris towards my friends.
“What-” Callum starts to object.
But El Oso raises a finger. “Not a word, Ridder,” he says, his eyes surveying the massive Berzerken that line the room. “We are friends. That is, until we are not.”
Berzerken surround my friends and hide them from my sight. Two look towards the wine cellar where I’m hiding. I glimpse a frown from one of them just as I duck down. What if he’s seen me? I scan the room, but there are no windows. A small ventilation fan spins up in the ceiling.
That’s the only one way out.
I tear off the screen and hurtle myself through the hole as I shift into a raven. I claw myself forward into the dark, tiny tunnel. I need to disappear into the dark. The ventilation shaft tips upwards and I yank myself to the top ripping at the metal with my beak and talons. I get to the roof of the restaurant just as hulking armed guards come out with Aiden, Callum, and Zan.
“Where are you taking us?” asks Zan.
Polaris just smiles.
Callum looks up and sees me on the roof, but he ducks his head quickly in case any of the Berzerken follow his gaze. “Is it against the law to be in New Orleans now?” Callum asks.
“It is when we find someone has been hacking into Lafayette,” Polaris growls.
“What? You think a few teenagers have the skill to hack into the Orders security system?” Zan scoffs.
“We can put pieces together,” Polaris says. “Lady Heather disappears from Topanga. Then you guys sneak into Baton Rouge and someone downloads files from Lafayette.”
“Are you arresting us?” Aiden says.
“No,” Polaris says. “I think you heard El Oso. We’re taking you to a private party. An event. Hand over your cell phones.”
“I thought we got a phone call,” Callum smirks.
“Is there anyone you need to call?” Polaris asks.
Callum drops his phone into Polaris’ massive palm. “Nope,” he says.
They step into the black SUV as I stand their shaking on the roof. Right before Polaris gets in the front, he surveys the sky and his gaze flits to the roof. I duck behind a ledge and wait until I hear the cars drive off before I take to the air.
You’d think it would be easy to follow some cars from above, but it’s not. I’ve never flown over a city before. I’ve never flown with all these lights and I’ve never been to New Orleans. So, I follow the car as best I can, occasionally looking up and hoping I don’t hit something.
They travel almost halfway across town, until a large strip of gray tarmac covers the ground and I realize they’ve pulled into a private airport. My heart bangs in my chest as the SUV brakes next to the stairs leading up to a large private jet.
Polaris and eight Berzerken jump out of the SUVs and take Aiden, Zan and Callum up the stairs into the private jet. My friends are being kidnapped.
And there is nothing I can do about it.
I fly to the top of a hanger and stand their helpless and hopeless, feeling the world cave beneath me as the plane takes off into the blue New Orleans sky.
One thing I know is that Aiden, Callum and Zan will be able to take care of thems
elves. They’ll figure it out. But what am I going to do? How am I going to get my father out of Lafayette without them? Without the plans? I can’t do this.
What now?
I’m worried to go back to the plantation, even though that’s the logical place to meet Iona and Darko. But what if Lord Mubarak really isn’t Switzerland? What if he’s on El Oso’s side? What if he’s told El Oso everything? And where the hell is Roman? He was supposed to be helping them out but he didn’t make a peep while El Oso was kidnapping them.
The sun dips over New Orleans as I fly towards the city. I can’t help but be drawn to the tall black skyscraper I recognize from Zan’s pictures yesterday. This is the one that belongs to the Order. That is one of their entrances into Lafayette. My dad is just an elevator ride away.
I perch on the roof of a nearby sky scraper and shift back into human form. I have to call Lord Van Arend. I have to tell him what happened. If I don’t tell him the truth, who knows what sort of lie El Oso will cook up to tell him. I grab my phone out of my pocket.
What am I going to tell him? We’re in New Orleans. Your son was trying to help me break my dad out of prison when he got kidnapped.
This isn’t going to go down very well.
And once I tell him, there’ll be a ruckus in Muiderkring West, I’m pretty sure the Ravensgaard and Eagles will all get out here and Lafayette will go on tighter lockdown. A frown tightens my face. I have to get my dad out first.
I’m staring at my phone swiping apps back-and-forth and back-and-forth while I’m trying to figure out what to do. But then, there’s the app. Zan’s app. It didn’t finish downloading.
I hit the icon and it starts to download. My palms get a little moist. What if they know Zan hacked the system? What if they can see the app? I know she said it was foolproof, but she also thought her stealing of the plans was failsafe. She thought they would never see it, but clearly, they’re not complete techno-idiots.
It’s a gamble and I don’t know what will happen if I press this button and open the app. I’m right across the street from the entrance to the prison. Will they know? Will they just swoop in and arrest me? I have no idea, but I have to take this chance. I have to see what’s going on. I hit the button to open the app.
It’s clunky and crude, but there’s a picture of all of us on the screen when it opens. My heart catches in my throat. It was taken a year ago, right before Callum’s mom died. We were at the Harvest Festival in Topanga and we’re all goof balling with our arms around each other like we would never be separated. Tears prick at the corners of my eyes, but I blink them back.
The five of us.
I stare at the app, but nothing happens, so I reach forward and press the picture, trying to see what else is here.
21
I have to click on Zan’s face to get anywhere in the app. It takes me a bit to figure that out, but after I stab at the app a few times, the picture clicks through to a new screen. On it there are three icons. A door. An eye. A grid. I click on the grid and it shows me the maps of each floor. All Zan’s done is provided PDFs. When I click on it, they download.
They’re just files.
It takes a minute for them to download and they’re really hard to see. I sit there, staring at them. This is not some top-secret freaking system, how am I supposed to run through some darkened hallway and pull this open and zoom in and know where I am? It’s not like it’s a smart map. It looks like it’s a photocopied, scanned, low resolution PDF. I know Zan tried her best, but I don’t know how I’m supposed to do anything with this.
I go back and click on the door, hoping it might bring me to something a little more useful. I’m looking at three pictures; a cemetery, an elevator and a tunnel. How useful is that? I already know where the doors are. I looked at these pictures at the plantation. I don’t know how they’re going to help me now. I feel like throwing the phone across the rooftop, but there’s still the eye to click on. What’s this going to be? An aerial view of New Orleans? I stab at the icon in frustration, my finger slips and double clicks. Suddenly the icon breaks up into ten smaller icons. I stare at them for a minute, trying to figure out exactly what they are and suddenly I realize they’re not still images. There are things moving in the boxes.
Videos.
I click on one and it blows up to the entire screen. There’s a clock running in the bottom corner. This isn’t a recorded video, it’s a live stream.
The camera I’m looking through is in a room where a bunch of shifters wearing uniforms are sitting at a desk. Large screens cover the walls. This must be the command center or main security room. One of the guards flips through papers on a clipboard, another looks like they’re playing solitaire on their computer. I know they’re shifters, but there’s nothing in anything they’re doing that makes them look like anything other than completely bored security guards, just like anybody else would have.
I zoom back out into the other screen and then I scroll to the left. Zan hit the motherlode. This isn’t just ten security cameras, it scrolls once, twice, three times to the side and I suddenly realize every single security camera in the entire prison is streaming live into my phone. Even the ones inside the cells.
The sky is getting dark, even though the heat and humidity is still weighing me down. I have to get off this roof and figure out a way to get Roman, Iona and Darko together. Pulling the baseball cap low over my face, I head to the rooftop access door and walk down flight after flight of stairs until I get to the street. It’s too dangerous to be around the Order’s building and I need to eat.
Fortunately, I have cash in my pocket so I head to the long rows of small wooden buildings with iron wrought balconies. This must be the French quarter. I walk deeper into the narrow streets to get farther away from the Order’s building. The streets are lined with cafés with loud music spilling out and people drinking and dancing, even though the sun has barely set. I try to find one that looks like they’ll let a minor in. Finally, I find a dark, dingy restaurant that looks like people only go to it when they’re completely drunk and need something to sop up the alcohol. I settle into a corner, order a gumbo and open the app. I need to figure out what is going on in the prison.
This is never going to work.
I scoop gumbo into my mouth while going slowly through every video camera in the prison, trying to figure out where each one is. Periodically I go back to the map so I can try to see where each camera might be placed. When I look back at the three main entrance doors, I realize those are live stream videos, too. For some reason, Zan thought it was important we could see them, or maybe she wanted to point out clearly that the Order can see them. If all the entrances are monitored, there’s no way I’m going to walk up to any single one of them to get in.
I ask for a pen from the waitress and grab a napkin, and scribble out a grid of the map. It looks like there’s one large area, but what we’ve been told was Lafayette is a warren with six radiating lines of six cells each. But there’s no sign of my dad on any of the cameras. I count out the cameras and the rooms and realize there are some cells that don’t have cameras. My dad must be in one of those cells that isn’t videoed.
Cold horror creeps into my stomach.
But I slowly piece it together so I have a position for each camera drawn onto the map. I’m going back and forth and I don’t notice it at first. I’m just trying to figure out where everything is and then I see somebody being brought into one of the cells. I pull the video up.
It’s my dad.
He’s pixelated and hard to tell exactly his condition, but he isn’t walking really well. Two guards have him by the arms and they’re half dragging him until they get him to a cell. They push open the door and shove him, slamming it as they leave. I switch cameras to the one in his cell and watch as he slumps against the build in bench and lies down.
My fingers trail across the screen of my phone.
Dad.
I have to go in. The longer I wait, the more dangerous
it becomes. But I can’t go in alone. I know all the times in the past I’ve attacked before thinking, but that isn’t going to work here. It would be ridiculous.
I need help.
It takes me a second to shoot texts to Roman and Iona. This could be a totally dumb ass maneuver or not. I’m really hoping not. I do know if I can find them, they’ll help me. Darko is not an option. He probably set us up with El Oso as it is. He could at this very moment be telling them we’re loose on the streets of New Orleans and waiting for a chance to break in to Lafayette.
My phone’s melodic ring tone startles me.
“How’s the rescue going?” Iona’s flippant tone seeps through the phone.
“I need your help,” I say.
“Yes,” she says. “You do. Where are you?”
“Somewhere in the French Quarter. Does Van Arend know Aiden was taken?” I drum my fingers on the table.
“No,” Iona says. “But we have to move fast. This is all going to blow up in our face and we won’t be able to get anyone out.”
I frown. What if she’s planning on getting her dad out? More to the point, why didn’t I realize she would want to do that? There’s a seriously good chance she doesn’t care about the chalice at all.
“Meet me down by the river at the entrance to the tunnel,” she says.
“Just like that?” I ask. “We’re going in?”
“What are you waiting for?” Iona says. “An invitation? We know how to get in. Callum gave me a couple of things that’ll make it a little easier. You’ve got the maps, right?”
I grip my phone tighter in my hand. There’s no time like the present. “Yeah. Yeah, I do. I’ll see you in five minutes.”
The phone goes dead.
Moments later I’m hanging out by the edge of the river in a derelict part of the city that must have seen a lot of water damage from Hurricane Katrina. It’s gray and broken and the single column building rising before me looks like sheets of metal and concrete might fall off it at any moment. That thing should be condemned.