One of the Ellies whistled long and low.
“That is one massive gem,” she whispered over my shoulder. “Imagine what you could buy with that.”
My mind flew to the pile of medical bills teetering in our kitchen corner, the bills from Nina and the leftover bills from me, years old, screaming at us in red-red ink to be paid—now. This stone could help with those and with our fine, old home crumbling around them.
But, no, surely that’s not why Virgo left her stone behind. I shook my head. That just didn’t feel right.
The wedding party, the guests, milled around, wondering at the bride’s abrupt departure. Finally, I turned to Brennan to ask him what he thought.
But he was gone. Both of the Ellies, too.
“Ellie?” I asked. I heard panic in my own voice. “Brennan? Where are you guys?”
The park was a knot of people searching for others. I tucked the birthstone into the cargo pocket of my new khakis and made my way back to the main road. Then I saw it.
A black car.
Orange flames surged in my stomach.
Gemini grabbed my elbow. “Don’t trust them,” she said before fading away. “Don’t.”
At that moment, a single arrow whizzed through the air and planted itself with a sproing in the dirt between my feet. Sagittarius was near. The tip of the arrow buried itself several inches deep, the shaft waggling from the impact. If an arrow like that could dig into hard earth so easily, I could only imagine what it could do to soft flesh.
The back door of the car swung open, and Agent Cygnus leaned across Ellie and Brennan.
“Jalen,” he called. “I think you should get in.”
We walked under a dotted line of fluorescent lights down a long hallway and through a heavy metal door. It banged shut with an echo.
“Have a seat,” Agent Cygnus said. He swept his hand at a long table with dozens of cheap folding chairs scattered around it. The lights buzzed overhead. We sat.
The black car had taken us backward, backward, away from the river to a government-looking building with no windows. I guessed we were near the naval base. I guessed we just lost two miles in two minutes. The orange inside flickered.
“Can I get you anything? Something to eat, maybe?” Agent Cygnus said. Ellie shook her head sharply. One Ellie, thankfully, since we’d climbed into that dark car. I clutched her hand. This was my Ellie.
Agent Cygnus leaned his chair back and propped his wing-tip shoes on the table. I thought about how much damage I could do with a pair of pointy-toed shoes like that. I was totally losing it.
Agent Griffin joined us, spinning his chair around and leaning over the back of it like a hungry wolf staring at meat. I thought I saw a leather holster strapped to his side. “How did you do it?” he grumbled, shaking his head at me. “How did a kid like you unlock the Keepers? We’ve been trying for years.”
Agent Cygnus banged forward in his chair and shot Griffin a look that said all too plainly, Shut up! He turned to me and his face softened. “Nothing at all? A soda?”
I didn’t have time for this. “How did you find me?” I asked. “Originally, I mean.”
Agent Cygnus smiled again. “Yes. Let’s see. We’ll start at the beginning, shall we?”
I couldn’t tell if he was taunting me. “Just make it quick. I’m on a deadline.” Wowza! Me, talking to government officials like that. I hoped I wasn’t about to be handcuffed.
His face grew serious. Maybe even miffed. “Of course. Well, finding you was easy enough. We simply traced the ultraviolet patterns that the Keepers leave behind in their travels. They led directly to your doorstep. They faded after scattering throughout the city.”
They knew about the Keepers, even though they couldn’t see them. “You traced ultraviolet patterns,” I repeated.
Agent Cygnus nodded. “It’s part of what our agency does.”
“Are you…” I felt silly even asking it. “FBI?”
Agent Cygnus chuckled, stood, and tugged his jacket lapel. “No. Not FBI. We spend a little more time…stargazing, if you will.”
“Like NASA?” Brennan asked.
Agent Griffin snorted. “No. Not like NASA.”
Agent Cygnus scowled at his partner, then turned back to me. “We’re a little more discreet than that.”
Discreet? Sounded very secretive to me. I hesitated before asking my next question, because honestly, I’m not sure I wanted to know. “What do you want?”
Agent Cygnus paced the cold tile floor. “You’re aware that every personality on earth has shifted, aren’t you, Jalen?” he asked.
I shrugged, unsure of what exactly I should admit to knowing.
“Jalen!” Agent Griffin slammed his fist on the metal table. His coffee sloshed out.
Agent Cygnus looked at him and shook his head, then continued, “This shift has major consequences. Surgeons are suddenly squeamish and refusing to perform surgery. Airline pilots are afraid to fly. And our world leaders are now timid, or aggressive, or lax. Over the past few hours, several enemy countries have escalated toward war.” He leaned on his knuckles, glaring at me. “Jalen, world peace is at stake.”
World peace. Those words sank in, turning my insides from sharp orange to steely metallic. I tried to swallow but couldn’t.
People across the globe, unfit for their jobs, unfit for their lives.
Somehow I forced my voice through the dust in my throat. “I understand. You need me to switch everyone back.” I stood, reenergized by this new information.
Agent Cygnus eyed me, and it was like he could see Virgo’s blue birthstone tucked into my pocket. Instinctively I touched the side of my pants leg.
“Oh, you don’t understand the half of it, Jalen.” His eyes were unblinking. “Take a seat.”
I did, and Agent Cygnus continued. “What we need,” he said, “is Ophiuchus’s stone.”
The stone? He didn’t mention the pin I was wearing, the lock, the book. He wanted the stone? It occurred to me that these agents really didn’t know how to unlock the Keepers, or the consequences of what happened when you did. They just knew about the stones, it seemed.
“Jalen, that stone?” Agent Cygnus was staring at me so hard, I felt like he was trying to hurt me with his eyes. “It can cure anything. Even death.”
My eyes clamped shut, my chest clamped shut, my brain clamped shut. Ophiuchus held more than the power to shift our personalities. Ophiuchus held the secret to death.
“Immortality?” I hadn’t realized I’d whispered it out loud until Agent Cygnus answered me.
“Not exactly,” he said. “The stone doesn’t prevent death or illness. But it can reverse it. The ultimate cure.”
That was why the Keepers protected Ophiuchus so adamantly. That was why the sign was no longer a part of the zodiac, why it was hidden away in the history books. Why the Other Twelve descended to earth and committed to battle anyone who unlocked it, anyone who threatened the order of the universe. What human would need to rely on a horoscope sign, or really any higher power, if the ability to control death was in our hands? Ophiuchus could alter humanity, forever. It was the most powerful sign of them all.
What humans would do if they had power over death! For a flash, it sounded marvelous: a world where death could be cured. I instantly thought of my Nina. I suddenly wanted nothing else but that stone in my hand.
But…even if death could be reversed, ours wouldn’t be a world without pain. If anyone knew that pain could exist without the immediate threat of death, it was me. In fact, a single stone that could cure the dead would probably cause more suffering than it could heal. Who wouldn’t fight for that kind of power? The greed it would cause! The wars and destruction!
And surely not everyone would have eternal life. No, that kind of stone in our kind of world? The power over death would be reserved for the richest, the strongest. Or the evilest, the kind of person who would stop at nothing for the chance to pick and choose who lives and who dies.
No
. The agents were right. Humans could not be trusted with that kind of power.
“But we don’t know where Ophiuchus is,” Brennan whispered at last.
I opened my eyes. Agent Cygnus was still glaring at me. “But you think you do, don’t you? Otherwise you wouldn’t be on this quest. Find her. Find her stone. The stone has all the power. Find Ophiuchus’s stone and bring it to us. I don’t care how long it takes. We must ensure that this never happens again. We have to destroy that stone. If that stone falls into the wrong hands…”
As Agent Cygnus talked, Agent Griffin pulled something out of a paper bag. A pot—one of my pots. He plunked it onto the table, not caring if he might shatter it.
Just the sight of the pot made me feel ill. It was hollow and empty that pot. I wasn’t that person anymore, the person who so desperately needed to make them.
Agent Cygnus’s mouth pulled into a straight line. He bent toward me and his jacket fell open, showing, yes, a holster. His breath was icy, like peppermint. “This isn’t the first time this has happened.” His fingers twitched. I flinched. “But you already knew that, didn’t you, Jalen?”
My heart tightened. I felt myself nodding, agreeing. Aries had said, “You fight like your father.” I had known then.
My dad disappeared when I was nine. I was on the edge of my own death, and my father disappeared, and my mother hardened bone-dry like this pot.
Had he unlocked Ophiuchus to try to heal me?
And if he hadn’t survived these Challenges, how could I?
“You must do this, Jalen,” Agent Cygnus was saying. “And we’re here to help you. You’ll help us, won’t you, Jalen?”
There were so many reasons not to trust these agents, including this pot of mine. This pot, which in their hands, said, We can get to you and, worse, we can get to your family.
But I was so tired. I’d quit once already, and I still had more than half my Challenges left. I’d created a path of destruction through the streets of New Orleans, and I would need someone on my side when it became clear that the damage was mine. They knew more about this than I did, no thanks to Gemini, who, apparently, hadn’t told me the whole truth. And these agents could get me to Nina—quickly.
But perhaps most of all, after all the guessing and second-guessing, I needed so badly to trust someone.
I reached out with a single finger to touch the lip of the bowl. I felt myself nod numbly. “I’ll help you,” I whispered.
The car’s engine purred, Agent Griffin at the wheel. “Where we going?” he grumbled, his eyes glaring at me in the rearview mirror.
Ellie’s hand tightened around mine. A warning not to tell them. She was right. I wanted to trust these agents. I thought I could. But there was no reason to tell them everything.
“Head toward the Garden District.”
Agent Griffin’s eyes narrowed further, a feat I would’ve thought impossible. “Where in the Garden District?”
“Just go,” I said. “I’ll tell you where to go when we get there.”
Agent Griffin grunted and slammed the car into drive. We pulled out of the parking lot, and an arrow drove straight at my backseat window, a deadly dot that grew into a lethal line as it sliced toward me. It bounced off my window with a ting, and I flinched. Agent Cygnus shot me a look of concern.
In a few short moments, we were back at the terminal for the Algiers Ferry. Flashing blue lights dotted and spun against the West Bank. I sank into the backseat and prayed all the people on the ferry were okay.
“What a mess,” Agent Cygnus said. “Take the bridge. It’s faster, anyway.”
Agent Griffin sped away, and moments later we stopped at the mouth of the Crescent City Connection Bridge. We’d gotten here so fast! I’d never thought about how fast and easy cars are.
As we approached, we saw more flashing lights. Orange ones, this time. White-and-orange striped construction barrels blocked the entrance to the bridge. Agent Griffin growled and smacked the steering wheel. Agent Cygnus sighed. “Roll down your window, Steve.”
“Hey!” Agent Cygnus yelled over Agent Griffin to a group of construction workers. “What gives?”
Two construction workers wearing orange reflective vests and hard hats crossed to the car. I cringed. If they were Keepers, would they still attack while we were with these agents? I thought they would.
One guy—a huge man with a bulbous red nose and overalls—hitched his radio back onto his tool belt. “Bridge is closed. Take the ferry.”
“Ferry’s closed, too,” Agent Griffin snapped. “We supposed to swim across?”
The huge construction worker shrugged. “Stinks for you.” His radio crackled, and he turned and walked back to his group. Agent Griffin pressed the button to slide his window back up.
The other construction worker—this one with mirrored sport sunglasses and dreadlocks to his waist—leaned toward the car. His hair swung down like thick rope. “Jest go round de barrels.”
Agent Griffin never turned to look at him but stuck a finger in his ear and jimmied his knuckle. He jerked the gearshift down and swung the wheel.
“Hang on. I’ma go around the barrels.”
We were, at last, crossing the Mississippi River. It lay below us, snaking through the city. Brennan clutched the door handle, his knuckles white. I didn’t care for how high up this bridge was, either.
It was eerie, riding in the only car on this bridge. We were high enough up and far enough out to feel like the only humans on earth. I took deep breaths.
“What the—!” Agent Griffin shouted. He stomped on the brakes, and we skidded in a half circle before the back of the car dropped with a thunk. Ellie, Brennan, and I were thrown against the ceiling of the Lincoln.
A hole in the bridge. The car teetered, the front half of it still on the bridge, the back half dangling far above the Mississippi River. The front tires were still spinning, and a smoking, groaning whirr of rubber stench lifted from the two front wheels.
We were frozen, all five of us, too terrified to even speak, for fear we would upset our balance. I snaked my eyes sideways to Brennan. His face was pulled tight like a knot. The lump in his throat bobbed. I snaked my eyes farther, toward the back window. The swirling river lay far below. My head spun with the height.
“Libra,” Ellie whispered.
I didn’t nod. I couldn’t. But I knew she was right. This was the work of Libra, the balancing scales. If we didn’t play this just right, Libra would ensure the scales tipped in the zodiac’s favor.
The construction worker, the one with the dreadlocks who had advised us to go around the barrels, sauntered up.
“Bit of a jam you in, eh!” he yelled. He hitched thumbs in the armholes of his orange vest and bobbed on his toes. My anger matched the glare of his ugly vest. The agents didn’t see him. This must be Libra himself.
Agent Cygnus had sneaked a hand forward. He pushed the button that slid his window down but stopped.
“These windows, they’re too small,” he whispered. “We can’t go through them. This car would drop for sure.”
Brennan made a sound like a small whimper.
The construction worker, Libra, approached the open window. He bent in half, dreadlocks swinging over the chasm in the middle of the bridge. He tsk-tsked our situation. “Watch dat first step. It’s a doozy!” He threw his head back and cackled, the sun flashing off his sunglasses.
Agent Griffin and Agent Cygnus heard none of Libra’s teasing, of course. Agent Griffin inched his hand off the steering wheel to his hip. He arched his back to reach for his gun. What was he thinking, drawing his gun now? The tires screamed and the car dropped an inch. Or twenty. The oxygen in the car was sucked away as we all snatched a breath.
Agent Griffin raised his gun and pointed it at the windshield. “I’ll shoot it out,” he grumbled. “Then we go out the front.” He touched gun barrel to glass.
Brennan squeaked. “Kick back,” he breathed. “Not on the glass. Away from it.”
Griffin paused, then nodded and pulled the gun away from the glass a few inches.
“It’ll still give some kick,” Brennan said, his voice slowly steadying. “Agent Cygnus, you’ll have to throw your body forward, through the window, to offset the recoil. Do it as the gun is fired to keep our balance.”
Cygnus nodded slightly. “Yes, right, smart,” he said. It appeared he was trying to keep his tone light. “Son, you want a job with the government?”
“No.”
“Fair enough. On three, Griffin.”
Griffin nodded. “One, two, three!”
BLAM!
The gun exploded, a blast of fire in a tiny space. My ears began ringing immediately from the shot. Cygnus crashed through the glass after the bullet. He landed on the hood of the car, sprawled head first, his feet still with us in the car, draped over the dashboard.
The car teetered and tottered, moaned and groaned, but it eventually came to rest, leaving us in the backseat bobbing a few inches lower than before. Libra stood next to Cygnus and clapped his hands slowly, loudly, clap, clap, clap.
“Nice work, Jalen and friends,” he said, pacing next to our balancing act. “Nice, nice. Dese scales, dey hard to balance, no?” He raised and lowered the palms of his hands, like scales correcting themselves. As he did, the car swayed and creaked. “Jest like life. Right or wrong. Left or right. Black or white. Alive or dead.”
Lost or left? It was the question that had been with me since this morning. One or the other. In Libra’s world, everything was absolute. Slightly off balance was the same as crashing to the ground to a Libra.
I understood our Challenge, then: Get out of this car alive, and I win. Or don’t.
Absolute.
Agent Cygnus had to be uncomfortable, sprawled across broken safety glass and gripping the hood. He could save himself now, roll to one side and the car would plummet. I held back a shudder so I wouldn’t move the car even more.
“Ellie,” he said over his shoulder. “You first. Climb over me.”
Ellie was in the middle of the backseat, so it made sense for her to go first. She inched toward the edge of the seat, then slowly, painstakingly, lifted. The car dropped centimeters. It felt like miles.
The 13th Sign Page 11