by Annie Dalton
He quickly pulled himself together. “Then you must marry,” he said in his lordly way. “Luckily I’ve put an excellent financial opportunity Chance’s way.”
“I heard.” Suddenly Cat leaned over and put her lips close to Nick’s ear. “Don’t hurt him, Nick Ducket,” she said softly. “Don’t you dare!”
Chance reappeared, looking dejected. The actor had obviously fobbed him off.
Nick pushed back his chair. “Come to my rooms tonight, Chance, and we’ll talk business. Sorry to rush off. I’ve arranged to meet someone.”
Reuben got ready to leave too. For some reason this made me deeply uneasy.
“Maybe you should stay with us,” I said. “I’m not sure you—”
“Melanie!” he warned. “Nick’s my human now. Agency policy, remember? I have to go.”
“He’s right,” said Lola. But she didn’t look happy about it either.
As Reuben and Nick walked away across the green, I saw Reuben stumble slightly. He isn’t well, I thought..
Cat and Chance were leaving as well. Cat’s aunt needed her to help in the tavern.
Lola suddenly looked really depressed. “I’ve really gone off Nick,” she burst out.
“Don’t feel bad about it,” I told her. “People change.”
“But you were right, Mel. He’s not the glitch. Or if he is, he’s only a little part of it. I’m so confused.”
I slipped my arm through hers. “We’re confused now. But when we finally see the light, we’ll go, ‘Wow! Was that ALL?’”
She giggled. “You’re such an idiot.”
We’d almost reached the Feathers when Cat said, “Chance, I do wish you’d turn Nick’s offer down. I don’t trust him.”
Chance looked shocked. “You’re wrong. When I had nothing, Nick saved my life. He’s a wonderful friend.”
“So he keeps telling you.” Cat’s voice was pure acid. She took a breath. “Nick did say one true thing. He says you don’t know your name.”
For the first time since our return, I saw Chance’s eyes grow foggy with hurt. “He’s wrong,” he said.
“But your name’s not Chance?” she said softly.
He didn’t answer. She put her arms around him. “Are you ever going to tell me?”
I was quite interested to know this myself, so I deliberately tried to pick up on Chance’s thought vibes. But they were totally confused. Even with my angel senses, I couldn’t figure out what was going on. I could just see this agonizing struggle going on inside him.
“I promise,” he said carefully, “that if I tell my name to anyone, it will be to you.”
She laughed. “You’ll have to tell me when we get married!”
As we reached the Feathers, a grubby white Labrador bounded out.
“Promise me one thing?” Cat pleaded, as she tried to stop the dog licking her face. “Be careful of Nick’s new friend.”
“That’s very dramatic,” he teased her. “Why do you say that?”
“I told you, he came to the tavern with Nick. Nettie said Snowball took one look and went streaking out of the house, with his tail between his legs. She says he’s the devil in disguise.”
Chance grinned. “Nettie thinks all men are devils in disguise!”
Like a song from a distant car radio, Reuben’s little tune floated into my head. “You’re not alone, you’re not alone…”
With a prickle of fear, I saw Lola mouthing the same words.
I grabbed my angel tags. They were burning hot as the Angel Link kicked in. “Reuben, are you OK?”
His voice was hardly audible. “Mel, we got it wrong.”
“What? What are you saying?”
“A trap… a cosmic trap!”
“You’re not making sense, Sweetpea,” said Lola urgently. “Someone trapped you?”
There was a long terrible pause.
“Not me,” he got out finally. “Chance… for Chance.
“Reuben,” I pleaded. “Are you hurt?”
But I could just hear him gasp out, “been so stupid” and “fight”.
“Omigosh!” I whispered to Lola. “He’s really hurt!”
“Reuben, try to hold on,” she told him. “We’re coming to get you.”
“… careful,” Reuben gasped. “Edward…”
“Who the sassafras is Edward?” Lola demanded.
There was another long rasping pause. “… Nick’s friend. He’s with the PODS.”
Chapter Nine
We found Reuben slumped in Nick’s rooms. He tried to raise his head, but he was too weak “Sorry,” he muttered. “Such a wuss.”
“You’re going to be OK, Sweetpea,” Lola told him. “We’ll get you home.” But I heard her voice wobble.
Reuben’s visible injuries were truly terrible, but the worst PODS damage is always deep down. It was like he’d been totally drained of all his beautiful angelic energy, like he wasn’t really our Reuben any more.
It felt as if we stayed like that for an eternity - Lola cradling Reuben’s head in her lap, me softly stroking his hand. Then a white light strobed down and two heavenly paramedics appeared.
“Len, it’s just a bunch of kids!” one exclaimed. “How’d they get here?”
His mate immediately bent over Reuben. What he saw really shocked him. “What on earth did they attack him with?” he muttered.
I don’t know why, but I suddenly remembered those jewelled knuckledusters, the way I couldn’t take my eyes off them.
I swallowed. “There was only one agent. And I think it was his rings.”
The paramedic was mystified. “This happened on a research trip?”
“Had to be,” his mate muttered back. “No other cosmic personnel are allowed in.”
“So who attacked the kid?”
“Beats me. Let’s just get them back home. Come on, girls.”
They were all ready to beam us all up. Lola and I exchanged panic-stricken looks.
“Thanks but we’re staying.” I tried to sound crisp and professional.
“We can’t allow that, miss. This is officially an angel no-go area.”
“Check it out with the Agency if you want,” said Lola fiercely. “All I know is Michael gave us a job to do. Take care of our friend, OK?”
***
It felt incredibly lonely after they’d gone, and we both had a bit of a cry.
I was still trying desperately to understand what was going on. Nothing seemed to make sense.
“Lollie,” I asked tearfully. “Have you ever heard of an angel-free zone?”
She shook her head. “It’s not just our lot that can’t come in. All cosmic personnel, he said.”
“So how come that PODS guy is here?”
“Good question,” she sighed.
“So are we violating some cosmic treaty, just by being here?”
“I don’t think so. Remember how Michael kept insisting it wasn’t a mission? Officially we’re kids on an educational trip. That way we don’t pose a threat to the big guys.”
“Why didn’t Michael explain?”
She frowned. “I don’t know. But he never does anything without a reason. You know that.”
“I know it in Heaven,” I admitted. “Down here you start to wonder.”
Lola gave me a searching look. “Think you’ll be OK by yourself? We really should check on Cat and Chance.”
The prospect of Lola going anywhere without me filled me with terror. I grabbed her hand. “Lollie, can we actually do this?”
She gently took her hand away and jammed her thumbs in her belt loops. “We’re the cosmic musketeers,” she said fiercely. “We don’t give in and we don’t give up. Got it?”
I swallowed hard. “Got it.”
Lola touched her angel tags. “Later.”
And she vanished.
I was just about to beam myself to Chance when I heard someone cautiously lift the latch.
I almost fainted with fright. He’s back! The PODS came back!
Chance peered around the door. “Nick? Oh, nobody here,” he said, disappointed.
I clutched my pounding heart. “That’s right, nobody here,” I said frantically. “So let’s both get out of here while we still can!”
But Chance just ambled about, admiring Nick’s pad. After he’d had a good nose round, he poured himself some ale, hacked a crust off a loaf he’d found under a cloth, then sat riffling through Nick’s books, calmly chomping away.
“For Pete’s sake!” I wailed.
But you can only panic for so long. An hour or so later, Chance was still riffling and I was nodding off.
Then I shot awake as. I heard the metallic clunk of the latch. Nick walked in with his new best friend and I totally broke out in goose-bumps.
I could feel the PODS agent deliberately no1 looking at me.
“Ah, Chance, made yourself comfortable, I see!” said Nick in a forced tone. “I don’t think you’ve met my friend, Edward Brice.”
Chance jumped up, scattering crumbs, and went to shake hands.
Brice gave a frosty nod. “It’s a pleasure to make your acquaintance, sir. I’ll make myself scarce,” he murmured to Nick. “You two have business to discuss.”
I had to hand it to him. Brice had really done his homework. His speech, his Elizabethan manners, were perfect. The bleached hair, however, was pure twenty-first century. That’s because he’d borrowed it from my old school crush, along with his gorgeous face and the bad-boy walk.
He waited until Nick was explaining Chance’s go-between duties to him, then he strolled over. “Hi Mel. How’s it going?” he said softly.
Sometimes there’s so much you want to say, it all gets jammed up inside, and absolutely nothing comes out.
Then I caught sight of those manicured fingers with their glittering rings, and what came out was pure rage.
“I’m so relieved you didn’t damage your jewellery,” I said icily.
Brice laughed. His eyes were totally dead, just like I’d remembered. “Admit it, Mel, you’re out of your depth.”
“So are you going to bash me too?” I said. “Or do you have some quaint PODS code about not hitting girls?”
“Oh, I’ve got other plans for you, Mel,” he said with a sinister smile. “Long-term plans.” Brice stretched himself out on a wooden settle. “These are great times, aren’t they?” he sighed. “I am totally in my element!”
Fortunately I didn’t have to lose any brain cells guessing what this element was, because he couldn’t wait to tell me.
“Chaos!” he explained gleefully. “You really should hang out at court some time, Mel. All those shadowy stone corridors! All those convenient tapestries for traitors to eavesdrop behind! It’s a plotters’ paradise - I love it!”
I remembered how Lola thought we’d beamed down in the middle of a wedding because everyone was so happy.
“You just see ugly things,” I said. “You make me sick.”
“I see what’s real, sweetheart. Oh, did you know Golden Boy over there sold Chance’s soul to pay his debts? Of course, Nick doesn’t know that’s what I’m after.”
Listening to Brice has this numbing effect on your brain. After a while you want to give up, the way people fall asleep in the snow.
“You know what’s tragic?” he said. “Chance can’t believe Nick would hurt him. That’s his fatal flaw.” He shook with silent laughter.
On the other side of the room, Chance and Nick were coming to the end of their talk.
“Funny,” Brice mused. “Chance would be dead if it wasn’t for you. And by the time this is over, he’ll wish he was.”
“Why are you doing this?” I said angrily “If he’s such a nobody, why go to all this trouble to destroy him?”
His eyes glittered. “Sweetheart, you’ll never know!”
And his mocking laughter followed us out into the night. I knew I should be thankful I was still in one piece. Brice could have finished me, if he’d wanted to. He appeared to be saving that treat for later. As if Chance and I were both such sad little pawns that he could do what he liked with us.
Eek! I suddenly realised that I hadn’t been listening to Nick and Chance “discussing business”! I’d been too busy listening to that toe rag, Brice. What was going to happen now?
A fine guardian angel you’re turning out to be, Mel Beeby, I thought glumly.
I followed Chance down dark smelly side streets, until we reached the river. He must be off on some evil little mission for Nick, I realised with a lurch of my stomach.
“The palace, Greenwich,” he told a passing ferryman, who took him on board.
The palace! This was getting fishier by the minute!
It was pitch black out on the river, except for glints and flashes where the ripples caught the moonlight, and the orangey flicker of the boatman’s torch.
Sometimes a ferryboat slid past like a ghost. Most carried only one passenger, shadowy shapes in cloaks. I found myself shivering, and wondered if these were the evil conspirators Brice was talking about.
When we reached the other side, Chance gave the ferryman some coins. “Wait for me, and you’ll have the rest when I return,” he promised.
As soon as we left the river, he went zooming off into the undergrowth, making his way through the trees until we came out in some kind of park. Finally, we arrived at the rear of a huge building, which I assumed was the royal palace. Like everything else, it was in total darkness.
Chance tapped softly at a side-door. It opened slightly and he handed a crackly roll of parchment to whoever was on the other side. I saw a green silk-gloved hand give him another in exchange. The instant the door closed, Chance went racing back through the park. His thoughts jumped out at me. So much money for so little work! I’ll just take this to Don Rodriguez and I’ll get my first payment!”
As we sped back across the Thames in the dark, I could feel Chance smiling beside me. It made me want to cry.
“Wake up!” I whispered. “I don’t know why Brice has it in for you, but you’ve got to be ready for him, Chance. You’ve got to fight back!”
The next few days were the most stressful of my angel career.
Chance was leading a double life, and unfortunately I had to lead it with him. Lola and I mostly had to catch up via Angel Link.
“So when am I going to see you?” she said in despair one afternoon, her voice bouncing back at me like a bad mobile connection.
“I wish I knew.” I was talking from the playhouse. Two actors in holey tights were leaping on and off boxes, practising sword fighting skills.
“I’m not saying Chance has like, criminal tendencies,” Lola was saying. “But I do think he gets a buzz out of this cloak-and-dagger stuff.”
I felt completely despairing. “Lollie, I don’t think I’m the right person to help him. Maybe we should swap.”
Lola’s voice crackled over the Link. “You’re doing fine. Oops, gotta go!” And she’d gone.
“I am SO not doing fine, Lollie,” I whispered miserably.
The trap was closing in. I knew it.
I sensed it as Chance went snaking between the trees in the dark. I knew it from the way I leapt out of my skin at the slightest twig crack. Details jumped out at me, like clues in a thriller. I didn’t know what they meant, but I passed them on to Chance just the same.
“Don’t you think it’s suspicious, how they always wear the same gloves?” I told Chance one night. “It might be just the one glove, actually. You only see one hand after all. Don Rodriguez’s is wine-coloured.
Though you’d think a Spanish nobleman could afford nicer leather. Hers is icky green silk. In my century we associate that colour with poison, hint hint.”
The brainwashing was Lola’s idea. “It’s the dripping tap technique,” she explained during one of our chats. “Repeat the same thing over and over and it’s got to get through eventually.”
So I badgered Chance non-stop. “How come such a noble lady only owns one pair of gloves? Com
e on, Cupid, how likely is that? She’s probably just a maid. I bet Nick and Brice are paying her to pose as a lady in waiting. If you ask me, this lovesick lady thing is pure fiction.”
By this time, we were at the house with the grand gates where Don Rodriguez lived.
“Chance, would you please stop being Robin Hood for one minute and check out the gloves!” I pestered. “Because if the Don is wearing cheap wine-coloured leather tonight, I think you should open that letter and see what’s inside. Wake up and open your eyes, Chance. Open your eyes!”
I can’t say for sure that Lola’s technique worked. I can only tell you what happened.
At first it was business as usual. Chance went through a little side-gate, and tapped at a leaded window. I hated that window. It always stuck. And tonight it seemed to grate open with an especially edgy sound. As usual, a leather-gloved hand appeared.
And suddenly Chance’s expression changed. He looked, really looked at the glove, as if he was seeing it in huge cinematic close-up.
Then he and Don Rodriguez exchanged crackly letters in the usual way, and Chance set off through the dark. I heard him muttering. “Those gloves. Always the same colour and the leather is such poor quality…”
“Oh, finally!” I cheered.
But once again Chance was arguing with himself. “I ferry their letters from one side of the river to the other, and I have no idea what is in them. But Nick would never betray me. Would he?”
A solitary linkman passed by. London streets were dangerous after dark, so people hired linkmen, big tough blokes with lamps, to make sure they got home safely. Chance called out, “May I borrow your lamp?” followed by the usual chink of coins. “Could you hold it up?” he asked. “I have to read this important letter.”
The linkman grinned. “A love letter, no doubt.”
Chance broke the seal on the parchment and scanned the letter frantically. “It can’t be true,” he whispered.
The linkman looked sympathetic. “Given you the cold shoulder, has she? Oh, steady now, young sir, steady, lean on me!”
But I’d snooped over Chance’s shoulder. And I knew the message in this letter was far deadlier than some teenage brush-off.
When Chance and I finally reached the Feathers, it was almost dawn. He stood throwing stones up at Cat’s window for ages, but I think she must have been in a really deep sleep. In the end I called Lola up on the Link and told her to wake Cat up. Finally Cat appeared at the door, dazed and blinking in her nightshift, a stump of candle flickering in her hand.