Vespers Rising

  “Nooooooooooo!” Screaming the word, Amy and Dan moved as one.

  Time slowed down, which, Dan knew from experience, often happened when you were in midair. By the time they leaped onto the hood of Fiske’s car (oops, dents), and Dan had ripped off a windshield wiper to use as a weapon (probably not the best idea, but hey, he was improvising), Scarey Harley Dude had turned around.

  He strode off in his motorcycle boots, moving swiftly to his bike without seeming to hurry. His helmet back on, sunglasses adjusted, he roared off straight into the road, weaving through the thick traffic like smoke.

  Amy’s face was squashed against the windshield. Dan held the wiper aloft like a club.

  And Evan Tolliver stood on the sidewalk, blinking at them.

  Dan waved the windshield wiper at him. “Hey, bro. We didn’t want to miss our ride.”

  “Right,” Evan said. With a faint, puzzled smile, he turned around and walked back into the coffee bar.

  “Are you two all right?” Fiske asked.

  In answer, Amy just banged her head against the windshield softly.

  “What did he want?” Dan croaked.

  “He asked if I was going to be very long,” Fiske said. “He wanted a latte. I think you guys freaked him out.”

  Yeah, I’ve changed, Dan thought as he handed the windshield wiper to Fiske. Seeing the potential for disaster in every random encounter? Check.

  Amy had done everything the way she always did. Laid out her source materials. Sharpened her pencils. Cracked open a brand-new pack of index cards. Gave Saladin a pat as he blinked at her and curled up on the edge of her bed. She was ready to start her paper.

  If only she could stop thinking about Evan Tolliver’s face when she raced across the sidewalk, hurtled over Fiske’s fender, and ended up with a face full of windshield.

  High school humiliation? She lived for it.

  Just when she’d managed to have a normal conversation with Evan! He’d actually come outside, just to talk to her! Sure, it was about an assignment, but Amy hadn’t thought that Evan even realized she was a carbon life form. He even told her he liked her sweater! He said it matched her eyes. That meant that he’d actually noticed her eyes, didn’t it?

  Then she’d completely wrecked it by actually listening to her little brother and almost attacking some motorcycle guy who just wanted a cup of coffee.

  When Evan went back into the coffee bar, what had he told the others? Would Amy have a new school nickname tomorrow? Hey, Crash Helmet! Can I borrow your notes, Face Plant?

  Amy closed her eyes and dropped her face in her hands. Her life was over.

  Down on the first floor, all was quiet. Usually in the late afternoon Fiske would work on renovating and restoring the Cahill mansion. He had set up a desk in the library, where he had drawings of every room. They’d spent evenings trying to remember every detail of the house that Amy and Dan had loved.

  No, the armchair wasn’t blue. It was sort of bluish lilacish. Grace said it reminded her of the hydrangeas on Nantucket.

  Yes, she hung all her keys on those old brass hooks in the mudroom — she’d bought them in a flea market in Paris.

  Fiske took notes and wrote tiny instructions on all the drawings. They wanted to re-create the house exactly as it was when Grace was alive. They would track down antiques, they would replace the stained glass windows in the turret. The deep window seats, the Chinese rug in the study, the scarred wooden table in the kitchen — they would match them as closely as they could. They would bring back as much of Grace as they could. It would cost a fortune, but they had one to spend.

  It was funny how the effort to re-create the house brought the three of them together. It was easier to tell stories that were about a favorite chair, or a painting, than to talk about emotions. It was like Grace was bringing them together. They were almost a family. But … not quite.

  Fiske was a hard guy to get to know. It had been weird, in the beginning, to live with a stranger.

  Amy knew it had been difficult for him to take on two children. He wasn’t used to dealing with things like parent-teacher conferences, slumber parties, buying a Christmas tree. They were lucky they had Nellie and the Gomez family to help. Nellie picked up the slack — she took them shopping if they needed school clothes or notebooks or athletic equipment. She kept track of their schedules and decided on limits of cell phone use and computer controls. Things were working the way they should, if you didn’t count that there was a big hole where somebody used to be.

  I miss Grace so much, Amy thought. She just wanted to talk to her, tell her that things were basically okay.

  Amy raised her head. What was that noise? They usually didn’t hear any road noise from the guest house. It was situated down a dirt lane behind the main house, far back from the road. Amy crossed to the window. Shadows were blue smudges on the snow, and the sun was already low in the sky. Nothing was stirring. She must have imagined it.

  Then she noticed Nellie’s yellow Jeep parked at a crazy angle by the back door, as if Nellie had been in a huge hurry.

  But it hadn’t sounded like the Jeep.

  Then she heard voices. Raised voices.

  Were Nellie and Fiske arguing?

  Amy rose from her desk and tiptoed to the head of the stairs in her thick wool socks.

  “… too soon!” Nellie said.

  Dan came out of his room and saw her on the landing. He raised his eyebrows.

  “They’re arguing,” she whispered.

  “I can’t hear anything,” he said.

  She leaned forward and took the buds out of his ears.

  “Are you sure they’re ready for this?” Nellie’s voice was suddenly clear. “We said they needed time….”

  That did it. Amy didn’t even have to say a word to Dan. They moved together, taking the stairs quickly. There was no way they were going to be left out of this conversation.

  They weren’t just kids — they were Madrigals. Elite Cahills who had been around the world, faced everything thrown at them. They wouldn’t be left out.

  “Ready for what?” Amy and Dan both asked at the same time, bursting into the library.

  Nellie and Fiske stood near his drawing table by the fireplace. Nellie’s fists rested on her hips in the attitude that meant she was ready to fight. Fiske stood tall and pale, dressed in his usual black sweater and black jeans. He turned, startled, when he saw them. For just a flash, Amy saw sadness in his gaze when it rested on them, and her fear began to coil inside her.

  “Hey, kiddos,” Nellie said softly. “Something’s up.”

  Amy tried to swallow. “What?”

  “We wanted to wait as long as we could,” Fiske said.

  “We wanted you to feel safe, for as long as you could,” Nellie added.

  Which meant, Amy realized, that they weren’t safe. She lifted her chin. “You’d better tell us, then.”

  “They’re Madrigals. It’s time they knew.”

  The voice came from behind them.

  Amy turned. They’d been so focused on Nellie and Fiske that they hadn’t noticed the guy in the corner. Was it because he was in shadow, or because he was so still?

  “Scary Harley Dude!” Dan breathed.

  Now that he wasn’t wearing his sunglasses, Amy could see his eyes, light gray and piercing.

  “Amy and Dan, meet Erasmus,” Fiske said.

  “You said he just wanted a latte,” Amy said with a quick glance at Fiske.

  “I just needed to get a message to Fiske,” Erasmus said. “He’s hard to get hold of. Almost like he doesn’t want to be contacted.”

  “I can’t imagine what gives you that idea,” Fiske said.

  “I had to follow him and drop a secure cell phone in his lap.”

  So that was what he’d been reaching for as they raced toward the car, Amy realized. A cell phone. Not a weapon.

  Fiske cleared his throat again. “You might have guessed that Erasmus is a fellow Madrigal.”

  “T
ell them,” Erasmus said. He crossed to stand by Nellie. This served to make Fiske seem like he was on a stage, pressured to speak.

  Fiske cleared his throat. “Ah … where to start?”

  “From the beginning,” Nellie said. “With Madeleine.”

  Nervously, Fiske bent to his drawing table and scooped some pencil shavings into his palm. He emptied them into the pocket of his jeans. Fiske did things like that all the time. He was a funny mixture of scatterbrained and incredibly focused.

  “Madeleine inherited something from her mother,” he said. “When Gideon died, he had passed a ring to Olivia. She guarded it with her life. Madrigals have protected it ever since. Generation after generation.”

  “Why? Is it so valuable?” Amy asked.

  “It’s priceless,” Fiske said. “We know it was made in the ancient world. But that’s not why we protect it. It has a far greater value — we just don’t know what it is.”

  “Grace had the ring,” Amy guessed.

  “Grace was the last Madrigal to take possession of the ring,” Fiske agreed.

  “Is it here?” Dan asked.

  Fiske shook his head. “It’s in a bank vault.”

  “So … what’s the problem?” Amy asked.

  Because there definitely was a problem.

  “Do you remember when, after you got through the gauntlet, we told you about another family, a group who hated the Cahills?” Fiske asked.

  “This is not going to be good,” Dan muttered.

  “They’re called the Vespers. They’re not blood related, exactly — although at least one of them is descended from Damien Vesper. He was a friend, then a bitter enemy, of Gideon Cahill. We don’t know much about the Vespers today — they’re a secret organization, and they recruit people. Scientists, captains of industry, military operatives, criminals … people who want power and don’t care how they get it.”

  “They want the serum — we know that,” Erasmus said. “They also want the ring. They’ve been after it for centuries, ever since they figured out that the Madrigals were hiding it.”

  “Do you know who they are?” Amy asked.

  Erasmus shook his head. “That’s the problem — we’ve figured out a few possible Vespers, but we don’t have hard evidence, and we have no idea who’s leading them. We just get reports of activity from time to time that let us know they’re still hunting the ring. That activity recently has … stepped up. The ring must be moved.”

  “So where is this ring?” Dan asked.

  “In Switzerland,” Fiske said. “It’s in a safe-deposit box of a numbered account in a Swiss bank. I have the key to it. If something happens to me, the key would go to Amy.”

  “To me?” Amy asked.

  “Grace wanted both you and Dan to be there when I opened the box. She didn’t want this day to come so soon,” he said gently, looking at Amy. “But she knew you two were strong enough to handle it.”

  Amy’s eyes stung with unshed tears. Every time she heard from Fiske how much they’d meant to Grace, she wanted to break down and blubber like a baby.

  “Wait a second,” Dan said. “You guys just said that the Vespers are mobilizing. Do you think they’re watching us?”

  There was a short silence. “It’s possible,” Erasmus said. “If so, it would be helpful to flush them out.”

  “You mean we’re bait?” Dan asked. “Sweet!”

  “Certainly not,” Fiske said. “We would never endanger you and Amy. You’ve been through enough.”

  “More than enough,” Nellie said firmly.

  “We’ve taken every precaution,” Erasmus said. “We made plane reservations from Logan Airport to a tropical resort. Three Madrigals will serve as decoys.”

  “Including me,” Nellie said. “It will be so difficult to have to spend five days in Costa Rica, but hey, anything for you guys.”

  One corner of Erasmus’s mouth lifted. “Yes, Nellie, we know how much you hate sunshine and beach towels. The point is — no one will know you’re heading to Switzerland. You’ll take off from Providence, Rhode Island.”

  “When?” Dan asked.

  “Tonight,” Fiske said.

  “It’s just like old times,” Dan said as they disembarked from the plane in the Zurich airport the next morning. “Three hours of sleep, a lousy breakfast, and I feel like I have a bucket of sand in my eyes.”

  “That’s probably potato chip crumbs,” Amy said. “You ate five bags on the plane.”

  “I was hungry!”

  “I was trying to sleep! Crunch crunch crunch! Right in my ear. All night long.”

  “Guys? Can we focus?” Fiske asked, stifling a yawn. “Let’s get to the hotel, shower, get something to eat, and then we can head to the bank.”

  “This is the cleanest airport I’ve ever seen,” Dan said, registering the gleaming hallway and stainless steel handrails.

  “Welcome to Switzerland,” Fiske said. “Everything works.”

  They followed signs to the train that would take them to the main terminal. They hadn’t checked any baggage. Amy and Dan were used to traveling light. All three had backpacks, and Fiske held a canvas tote bag with a guidebook and some newspapers.

  They boarded the train with a crowd of other tired passengers. The train zipped through a concrete tunnel while a disembodied voice called out terminal information in several languages.

  “Switzerland has four official languages,” Fiske told them. “German, French, Italian, and Romansch. Most people speak English, too. But you’ll hear more German in Zurich.”

  “Look, Amy,” Dan said. “Heidi is blowing us a kiss.”

  Sure enough, a moving image flashed on the window. A woman in braids standing in an alpine meadow waved and leaned forward to blow them a kiss.

  “Wow, look at that. I’d love to see the Alps,” Amy said.

  “We won’t have time for that on this trip,” Fiske said. “After the bank, it would be safest to leave the country. Tell you what; after we check in to the hotel, I’ll take you to Café Schober for a second breakfast — they have the best hot chocolate in the world.”

  They exited the train at the main terminal and followed signs for baggage and taxis. “Wow, can’t we stay and buy some chocolate?” Dan asked, his head swiveling as he took in the array of shops. “Or a watch?”

  “Switzerland is known for its banks, too,” Fiske said. “Let’s try that instead.”

  As they reached the exit, they saw a driver in a thick wool coat and cap holding up a sign: SMITH.

  “That’s us,” Fiske said.

  “Smith?” Dan asked. “That’s the best you can do?”

  “Hey, I like an easy alias.”

  “Mr. Smith?” the driver asked crisply as they walked up. “Let me take your bags, sir. The car is right outside.”

  “No luggage,” Fiske said. “We’re ready to go.”

  They followed the driver to a black car parked with the other limousines and hired cars. Amy and Dan threw their backpacks inside the trunk, along with Fiske’s.

  “We’ll be at the Widder Hotel in a few minutes, sir,” the driver said.

  “Fine, fine,” Fiske said. The driver held the door, but Fiske suddenly staggered. He leaned on the frame of the car.

  “You okay?” Dan asked him.

  He wiped his forehead. “Just got dizzy for a minute. I forgot to take my medication on the plane.”

  “What m —” Dan started to ask, but Amy stepped on his foot. Something was wrong.

  “You forgot again?” she said in concern.

  “Could you get my pack?” Fiske asked the driver.

  “Of course, sir.”

  As soon as the driver moved toward the rear of the car, Fiske jerked his head away from the car. The three of them leaped back on the curb and raced toward the taxi stand. Fiske signaled a cab that was just letting off a passenger. Urging them forward in a run, he sidestepped the exiting passenger and danced Dan and Amy into the backseat. He jumped in after them.

&nbs
p; “Drive!” he barked to the driver.

  “Of course. That is what one does in this kind of situation. But where, sir?”

  “Anywhere! The Fraumünster! As quick as you can!” Fiske ordered.

  “What just happened?” Dan exploded.

  “I never gave the car company our hotel information,” Fiske said.

  The information sunk in slowly, like a footstep in mud.

  “They know we’re here,” Amy said. She turned around and eyed the road behind them. It was full of black cars. It was impossible to tell if they were being followed.

  Fiske leaned forward. “Take this exit!” he ordered the driver.

  “Now?”

  “NOW!” the three of them shouted.

  The car swerved off the highway. Amy, Dan, and Fiske all twisted around to look out the rear window. They saw a black car cross two lanes of traffic, trying to get to the exit, but with a squeal of tires and much honking from the other cars, it was forced to stay on the highway.

  “There goes my green cashmere sweater,” Amy said, thinking of the items in her backpack. It was the sweater Evan had complimented and now it was gone.

  “You sound like Natalie Kabra,” Dan said. “I lost my iPod. That’s tragic!”

  “At least we still have our cell phones,” Amy said.

  “Don’t worry, I have my credit cards,” Fiske said. “And a bag,” he added with a grin, holding up the canvas tote. “We should go straight to the bank. We just bought ourselves some time. But it’s running out.” He leaned forward and spoke crisply to the driver. “Head toward Bahnhofstrasse, please.”

  Fiske drove the cabdriver crazy by making him turn corners, drive into parking lots and reverse out, and go blocks out of the way before they were sure they weren’t being followed. The driver looked relieved when they finally exited the cab.

  The bank was located on a swanky street with fashionable pedestrians and designer stores. Fiske, Amy, and Dan looked up at the gray stone building. Suddenly, they felt too disheveled and casual to venture inside. Dan and Amy were dressed in jeans and heavy parkas, and Fiske was wearing his usual black jeans, this time with a black knit cap and a peacoat.