Brooksie snapped his fingers, and Laughing Boy grabbed my arm. He marched me to a doorway behind the old registration desk and pulled me into a stairwell. Then he dragged me up to the second-floor landing.
And there, lying on her side on the stained mattress, lit by the sickly glow of fluorescent bulbs, was Ghost. She was breathing, but otherwise still. Her eyes and her mouth were half-open, and she was drooling a little. I didn’t know how they had managed to slip something into her smoothie—maybe one of them had gotten a job at Jinka’s—but I did know I had to get her away from them.
Or maybe, if I could just wake her up, she could vanish. Maybe even slit a few Werewolf throats, if she could take a knife from one of them. The Werewolves knew she could go non-corporeal, but they didn’t seem to be aware that she had been an assassin.
I started toward her, but Laughing Boy pulled me back. “Nope nope.” He gave a little snicker. “Just looksees.”
Bile rose in my throat. Okay, so I didn’t really want Ghost to turn into a killer again. It looked like she was too drugged to wake up anyway.
But I had been hoping I might be able to use my newfound skills to save her. I had let myself imagine that if the Werewolves were holding Yerodin somewhere with a window, I could scoop her up, protect her with my wings, plunge through the glass—and fly away. In reality, though, we were in a windowless concrete stairwell. Besides which, there were two Werewolves right next to Ghost, and the ratty sneakers of at least one more a few steps up the next flight. Laughing Boy was right beside me, and Brooksie was right behind. There was no way for me to get to Ghost, even if there had been a window to plunge through.
My newfound skills were useless.
“Now you see that we’re wolves of our word,” Brooksie said. “So here’s what you gotta do.”
Mom’s Diary
I’ve been voted off American Hero. And, of course, once I washed the black spray-on dye out of my hair and shrank down to my modeling size again, then who I really was hit the media. Like in blogs, and on Twitter, and then the TV picked it up, too. You’d think they’d have something better to do than talk about me.
But I’m not sure I care about all that. There’s something going down in Egypt. And a bunch of us aces are getting together to go there and help out.
This isn’t just modeling or TV anymore. This is something bigger.
This is something real.
So I’m going to try to be a real hero.
“It’s simple,” Brooksie said. “Once the sun sets, real soon now, you’ll fly out over the harbor. Then you’ll land on the deck of a container ship called the Shanghai Princess. It’s a big boat with shit-tons of things that look like semitruck trailers.”
I tried not to roll my eyes. “I know what a container ship is.”
“Okay, then. There’s somethin’ … no, somebody we want you to pick up from this one.”
I interrupted. “Wait a minute. You want me to pick up a person? From a ship in the middle of the harbor? Are you nuts?”
Brooksie shrugged. “Maybe. But the guy you’re gonna pick up has to be taken off and snuck into Manhattan. And we can’t use a boat, ’cause it’d be stopped by the harbor cops. So, long story short, we told him we knew about a teenage girl who can fly.” Brooksie paused. “He dug that. He likes teenage girls.”
Laughing Boy started laughing like a hyena. “Especially teenage joker girls! He’s gonna make us a fortune!”
It was as if an electric jolt stiffened every muscle in my body. Now I knew what this was about. The Werewolves were smuggling in a man who was going to turn joker girls into—it was beyond gross—sex slaves. He was going to hurt them the way Aunt Joey had been hurt.
And the Werewolves wanted me to fly him into the city for them. So they had drugged and kidnapped my best friend to get me to do it.
I hadn’t thought I could hate them any more than I already did. But I had been wrong. Now I wished Ghost would wake up and slit their throats.
Brooksie looked at Laughing Boy. “Watch your mouth,” he said. “We’re only tellin’ Sunshine here as much as she needs to know.” He turned back to me. “The Shanghai Princess is bound for the Red Hook terminal in Brooklyn, but our guy needs to get off before it docks. Seeing as how there might be some federal types there, waitin’ for him.”
Laughing Boy chortled. “On account of he’s banned from the country!”
Brooksie lifted a hand as if to smack Laughing Boy, then gave a grunt and dropped it. “Lucky for us, we got a Werewolf in the harbor pilots association. He took control of the Shanghai Princess once it reached the Narrows a couple hours ago, and in a few minutes he’ll stop it dead in the water about a quarter mile south of Governors Island. He’ll say he had to reverse engines to avoid plowin’ into a kayak or somethin’. Then all you gotta do is pick up a guy who’ll be waitin’ near the bow. He’s a white guy, but he might have dark stuff smeared on his face. He’ll be wearing a dark hoodie, too. So let’s call him ‘Mr. Hoodie.’”
That set Laughing Boy off on another fit. “‘Mr. Hoodie!’ I like that!”
Brooksie shook his head, and his blond braid bounced. “It goes like this. You touch down on deck, and Mr. Hoodie signals you with a flashlight. When you approach, he’ll ask if you want to party. If he don’t ask that, he ain’t our guy. You have your cell phone?”
My already-stiff muscles tensed still more. I had silenced my phone so it wouldn’t buzz if Wally texted me from Union Square. But I needed to be able to contact him when I had a chance, and that couldn’t happen if Brooksie took my phone. “Jeez, of course. I always do.”
To my relief, Brooksie just nodded. “Good. Mr. Hoodie ain’t gonna have a phone that’ll work here, so we’re gonna use yours to make sure he’s the real deal. When he asks if you want to party, you take his picture and send it to Miss Ghost’s phone, which is in my pocket. Then, if we say it’s okay, hand your phone over to him. He’ll type in a code, and if it’s right, we’ll send a smiley face, which he’ll show you. And then he gets to keep your phone.”
“Hey!” I protested.
Brooksie waved his hand. “Ah, fuhgeddabouddit. Your famous fat mommy’ll buy you a new one. Now, after you see the smiley face, you let Mr. Hoodie grab your hands or your hair or whatever, and you fly him here to the roof of the hotel. It’ll be dark, so we won’t be able to have eyes on you until you get close—which is sorta the idea, since we don’t want you spotted. But we’re gonna give you exactly thirty minutes from the time we send the smiley face to the time when you need to have Mr. Hoodie here. If you don’t show up, or you show up late, or you show up without our guy, you know what that means for Miss Yerodin. Yeah?”
I nodded. It was all I could do.
“Terrific. So, you land him on the roof, where we’ll be waiting with your pal. You hand over Mr. Hoodie, we hand over little Ghost, and that’s it. You and Ghostie fly home. And if you never say nothin’ to nobody about this, you never hear from us again. Guaranteed.”
I stared at Brooksie and Laughing Boy, utterly monkeyed. I knew what a guarantee from the Werewolves was worth. And I also knew it didn’t matter, because what Brooksie had described was impossible.
“I—I can’t do it,” I sputtered. “I’ve never carried extra weight when I’ve flown. And I’ve never flown as far as you’re asking, either.”
Laughing Boy chortled. “First of all, we ain’t asking. You want Little Missy there to be playin’ with cartoon ocelots tomorrow instead of lyin’ on a slab? Then this is what you gotta do. And the distance ain’t so bad. I figure three and one-quarter miles, straight line from here to the ship. Hell, you can even take off from Battery Park for the first leg. That cuts off almost two miles.”
Brooksie interjected. “But if you do that, you’ll have to run to the park from here, ’cause time’s gonna be tight. The ship can’t stay dead in the water too long without the harbor cops snoopin’. So when we say move, you gotta move.”
They didn’t seem to understand th
e problem. “Look, I really don’t think I’m physically able to do this! What if I crash into the water and your guy and I drown?”
Laughing Boy waggled a finger. “Then you’ll be dead. And Miss Ghostie will be, too.”
Brooksie gave a sigh that made a whoof sound inside his mask. “Look, we’ve been watchin’ you practice. Didja think after what your mama did to us that we wouldn’t be keepin’ eyes on both of youse? Some days, you’ve done enough flights from your roof to add up to at least three miles.”
My wings trembled. “But what you’re talking about now is in the dark, over water. And on the way back, I’m supposed to carry someone who weighs—do you even know how much he weighs?”
“We’ve only seen pictures,” Brooksie said. “But he ain’t a tubbo. He’s maybe a buck eighty-five.”
I was dizzy now, and I almost sat down on the steps. They wanted me to carry a hundred and eighty-five pounds. Plus my own weight. For more than three miles. In the dark, over New York Harbor and Lower Manhattan. After having just flown out into the harbor, also in the dark.
There was no way. There was just no way. These yabbos were in insane clown land. It was cray-cray.
I looked at Yerodin again.
And I knew I had to try.
Mom’s Diary
We went to Egypt to help, and all we did was kill people. I mean, I guess we did the right thing, but it sure doesn’t feel like it.
I blew up a helicopter. I killed people.
This isn’t what I thought a hero would be.
But the U.N. thinks what I did was good. Good enough that they want me to keep doing the “hero” thing. They’ve asked, and I’ve joined the Committee on Extraordinary Interventions. We’re supposed to be sent to places where people like me are needed. People with ace powers.
I just hope that next time I’ll do better.
But I’m not so sure.
I took off from Battery Park, rose to about two hundred feet, and started hitting pockets of cold air. They made me drop suddenly each time, and it felt like my stomach was trying to crawl out of my throat. But I kept flying.
I was afraid I might not be able to figure out which ship was the Shanghai Princess, because it was crazy dark out over the water despite the surrounding city lights and the ones on the boats and ships. But then I saw it. It was the most massive vessel in the harbor, and it was the only one stopped dead.
I began circling downward, using the air currents to reduce speed and rest my wings. I was starting to get the hang of riding the wind. And that was kewl with awesome sauce, despite the situation. But coasting only helped a little, and my shoulder muscles were already starting to get tired. Which was considerably less kewl, with zero sauce.
Even so, I managed a pretty good landing, missing the containers and touching down on deck close to the bow. I went down to one knee, but didn’t take a tumble.
But I didn’t have time to congratulate myself. A beefy guy wearing a hoodie stood about fifteen feet away, in front of a huge stack of containers. He had a heavy beard, and sure enough, there was black stuff smeared on the rest of his face. But instead of making him less visible, it had the effect of making him look pop-eyed. And the way he stared at me made me feel as if there were ants crawling over my skin.
“You want party?” he asked in a thick Russian accent. Then he gave me a gross smile and looked me up and down.
“Sure, douche,” I replied. I pulled out my phone and took a picture of him. And at that moment, the ship gave a shudder and, very slowly, started moving.
I zapped the photo to Ghost’s phone. Meanwhile, “Mr. Hoodie” gave me that gross smile again. “You are, ah, very beautiful.” Bee-ah-yew-tee-full.
My phone buzzed: It’s him. You know what to do.
I held out my phone. His fingers brushed mine as he took it. I yanked my hand back and scrubbed it hard on my jeans.
He tapped the screen, showed me the smiley-face response, and then shoved my phone into the back pocket of his jeans. It felt as if he’d stolen a piece of my soul.
“We go now,” he said, stepping toward me and opening his arms. “For which we embrace, eh?”
I gave a quick flap of my wings and shot up above him. “I don’t know what they told you,” I said, “but I’ve never carried anyone. So it would be hella stupid of you to try to get handsy with me. I might dip too low, and that would end badly for both of us.” It occurred to me that I sounded a little like Mom just then. Totes fearless.
Of course, unlike Mom, I was faking it.
“End badly for Ghost friend, too,” he said.
Which I knew. “So I guess we’d both better behave.”
He zipped his hoodie. “I will try to resist your charms,” he said. “But Werewolves did not say you would be so … perfect.”
I tried to think of something I could do right then to make him suffer for ever messing with any joker kids. But I had nothing. At least, nothing that wouldn’t put Yerodin in worse danger. So I had to roll with it.
For now.
“Grab my ankles,” I said. “And nowhere else.”
A look of rage slid across Mr. Hoodie’s face. Then it was covered by a Velveeta smile. But I knew what was under there.
He reached up and seized my ankles, and I tried to fly upward. But I just kept flapping and flapping, and nothing happened. Except that every muscle in my shoulders and back felt as if it were shredding. So maybe I was just too tired, and the Russian was just too heavy.
A knife-edged slice of cold slid through my tummy. I had texted Wally as I had run down to Battery Park, and had also sent a few “You’d better not be hurting her!” texts to Ghost’s phone at the same time in case any Werewolves were watching me. After I’d given Wally the short version of what was really going on, we had come up with a quick plan. But the whole thing depended on me being able to pick up and carry Wally once I made it back to shore. And how could I pick up an extra-large-with-fries metal dude if I couldn’t even get Mr. Hoodie aloft?
But I had to. I had to fly the Russian from the Shanghai Princess to Battery Park, and then fly Wally to the Hotel on Rivington—where, we hoped, the Werewolves would think that Wally was Mr. Hoodie just long enough for me to drop him on them.
I grunted and strained toward the sky. Sweat started rolling down my back, and the cold knife-edge in my gut turned to hot nausea.
And we still didn’t move.
I looked down then and saw Mr. Hoodie grinning. He had spread his feet and crouched to brace himself, deliberately holding me back.
“Come on,” he snarled. “What is holdup, smartass joker girl?”
He was showing me he still had all the power. Which made me furious. And that, in turn, made me feel … stronger.
“You’re the holdup, you knob!” I yelled. “If you want to get off this tub, stop pulling me down! The Werewolves expect us in thirty minutes, and if we don’t make it, I promise we’re both gonna pay for it!”
The Russian gave a slimy chuckle, and he stood up straight and brought his feet together. “Okay, okay,” he said. “We go now, eh?”
Then a blast of wind pushed me sideways, and I had to flap furiously to stabilize. The ship was starting to make some headway, and we needed to zoom.
Slow down, doodle, I thought. You can do this. You can do it for Ghost.
Be a hero, dammit.
Like Mom.
I squeezed my eyes shut and gave one hard flap of my wings, the fiercest I could muster. My shoulders would have screamed out loud if they could.
And we rose. Just a few feet, at first, and my wings trembled with the effort. But I got Mr. Hoodie into the air.
I didn’t have time to celebrate, though. I had to get some altitude or we’d collide with the nearest stack of containers. We were in danger of being squished in a super smushed kind of way. So I forced more fierce flaps from my muscles, and I climbed higher. And higher.
The sky had become the color of a bruised plum, and the water in the harbor was almost
black. Mr. Hoodie laughed like he was having fun, and he gripped my ankles even tighter. It really hurt. As in, I’m-going-to-kick-you-away-and-drop-you-into-the-harbor-you-hairy-snot-rag. But I couldn’t do that, no matter how much I wanted to.
We cleared the containers, barely. And now I had to make it to Battery Park. The cover of night was going to help me and Wally deal with the Russian and stay hidden from any snooping Werewolves, especially since Wally was going to knock out some of the park’s sidewalk lamps. But first I had to get my cargo to shore. My shoulders were burning, and my breath was like fire in my lungs.
“Move it, joker girlie,” Mr. Hoodie said. He gave my ankles another hard squeeze, and I winced. “Is too bad Werewolves have promised to let you go. I could do much with you.”
A burst of rage shot through me. And it made me fly higher and faster than I ever would have thought I could.
My wings were shaking, but I didn’t care. The only thing that mattered was saving Ghost … and making sure this gross creeper got everything he really, really deserved.
* * *
It felt as if we had been flying for hours, but I knew it had been less than fifteen minutes. I sure hoped so, anyway.
My wings were almost numb now, and my shoulders hurt so much that I didn’t remember what it had felt like when they hadn’t hurt. And disgusting-douchebag Russian was like a big bag of rocks.
As we approached Battery Park, I started heading downward. Mr. Hoodie didn’t notice at first because he was too busy making comments like: “You are just what clients want. Young, nice tits, enough joker to tickle pervert fancy. Wings and skin like shiny leather. Sexy slits in shirt for extra little legs. Are you joker in other places, too? That helps price, you know.”
I wanted to kick him in the scrod. Just, ugh. He was hyper vile. And I knew exactly where I wanted to plant General Tiny Peen: straight into the iron railing on the bay side of the park.
A light mist had begun to fall, but it felt good on my burning shoulder muscles. And the floodlights illuminating the circular wall of Castle Clinton gave off a fuzzy glow that helped guide me. I was aiming for the sidewalk and trees just to the southeast.
The Flight of Morpho Girl Page 4