He blanched. He couldn’t think about it.
To get to the hole above, he would have to climb a nearly vertical wall. He grabbed a handhold, but it came off in his palm and he stumbled backward.
His heel caught the edge. He wobbled, wind- milling his arms. At the last moment, he lunged forward again, grabbing another handhold.
This one held.
His heart juddered so violently he worried it would shake loose the rock.
Do. Not. Look. Down.
He tried again, keeping his eyes wide open. He made sure to test each jutting rock before shifting his weight. Slowly he made his way up the wall. The breeze washed over him from above, growing warmer the higher he got. It was wicking away his sweat. He could taste freedom. When he was within ten feet, he stepped up the pace, digging his foot into a deep hole.
His toe touched something that moved. A screech ripped the air. A tiny, black form skittered. Flapping its wings wildly, a bat flew at Atticus’s face.
“Ahhhhhh!” he screamed.
He jerked his foot out. His left arm slipped out of its hold. He dangled by one hand, his shout echoing down the chamber. The fingers of his right hand slipped . . . slipped. . . .
He looked down. The abyss loomed black and large.
Desperately he lashed his left arm . . . over his head . . . back to the wall.
Got it.
His fingers latched on to the tiniest hint of an indentation. A rock dimple.
The bat flew upward, disappearing into the hole. Atticus swung his foot carefully into another foothold. He tried to stop from shaking. Shaking was not a help. His hands were wet. His feet felt numb. He looked down into the darkness but instead of seeing the pit, he saw his mom’s face. One foot after the other . . . this is how you overcome your fear. . . .
He reached up again with his aching left hand. Up into nothing.
And this time he felt soil.
Digging his fingers in, he yanked himself up . . . up . . .
And then he was tumbling. Down a hill, through moist, sweet-smelling grass.
The sun was setting over the rim of a hill. He heard the distant bleating of sheep. The breeze ruffled his hair, and he smiled.
Standing upright, Atticus reached to the sky. A laugh welled up from the depths of his gut. It nearly exploded out of his mouth, rising and rising until it became a joyous, hysterical cackle.
And it stopped suddenly when an arm reached from behind and covered his mouth.
Jake heard the screaming loud and clear.
Dan.
He ran toward the noise. The terrain was hilly, and they were now separated by a small ridge. He should never have let the kid out of his sight.
As he scrabbled up the rocky incline, his ankle twisted on a root. He crashed down hard, pain shooting up his leg.
Struggling to his feet, he thought about how much he hated Dan Cahill.
If it weren’t for Dan, none of this would have happened. Atticus would be home, happily exploring dangerous places with Google Earth.
Not taken away by kidnappers.
He barreled over the top of the ridge, not seeing the other person hurtling toward him from the other side.
They collided at the top, and Jake saw black. He felt himself tumbling forward, down the other side, his limbs interlocked with someone else’s. It wasn’t until they hit bottom that Jake saw who it was.
“Att?” he said.
“Jake?”
Jake sat slack-jawed. The faint signal from Att’s device . . . the race to the airport . . . the flight and the high-speed taxi ride . . . it was so fast. Like a dream.
But this was real. It all was real.
Atticus was alive.
Jake fell forward, forgetting the pain in his ankle. He wrapped his arms around his little brother, breathing in the familiar scent of Atticusness he knew so well, a combination of bubble gum and acne cream. “Are you okay?”
But his brother pulled away, eyes darting wildly behind him. “What time is it?”
“Huh?” was all Jake could manage.
“What time is it, Jake?” Atticus shouted.
“Almost five-thirty,” Jake sputtered, “but —”
Atticus jumped to his feet. “We have to get away from here, quick — the Wyomings are right behind me!”
“The who?” Jake glanced behind. High on another sloping ridge, above a sheep farm, Amy was lifting Dan off the ground. “That’s Dan and Amy, Att!”
Atticus’s face fell. “Oh, no . . .”
“They set up this flight,” Jake said. “If there were flight speed limits, we broke them. Then we took a taxi — I mean, actually took it —”
But Atticus was up and running, back toward Dan and Amy. “I’ll get them!” he shouted. “You run the other way, Jake! This place is going to blow!”
The blast sent Dan flying. He landed on his shoulder and rolled down a grassy patch.
He spat dirt and sat up. As the dust settled, he saw shepherds in the distance, their sheep scattering frantically. But all Dan could hear was a tight, ringing sound. It was like a disaster film with the sound turned off.
Amy!
Where was she? He glanced around, squinting through the settling dust.
There. She was farther down the hill, groggy and dirty but safe. Jake was at the base of the next hill, and he looked okay, too. Atticus was between them, picking himself up from the ground. A moment ago, he had blindly flung Dan to the ground, thinking he was an attacker. Now he’d seen Jake. He realized the truth. He’d been rescued.
Atticus grinned as he saw that Dan was okay. He began running to him, his dreads flopping in the wind, his knees banging against each other. Dan couldn’t help laughing. He had never noticed how skinny Atticus’s legs were.
As Dan raced down the hill, his hearing began to return. He knew because he could hear Atticus’s wild scream of joy. He grabbed his best friend, lifting him off the ground, swinging him in a circle.
“I thought you were Casper!” Atticus shouted.
“I should whap you upside the head for that,” Dan said, “but I’m too happy!”
A moment later, Jake’s arms wrapped around them both, then Amy’s from the other side. With a big smile on his face, Jake was almost unrecognizable.
Atticus pulled away and let out another hoot of joy. “I can’t believe you got my signal. I sent it from a men’s room at the airport in Prague.”
“It went dead during the cab ride here,” Dan said. “We were petrified.”
“That was when Casper took it from the trash can outside and brought it into the cave!” Atticus said. “This place was a Vesper headquarters. They were trying to pump information from me. Stuff about being a Guardian. I stalled and stalled, pretending I needed to use their computer. I guess I must have broken the system.”
“Where are they — Cheyenne and Casper?” Amy asked.
“Didn’t you see them come out?” Atticus looked back up toward the rubble. “I thought they’d be out before me.”
Jake shook his head. “Nope.”
Amy gazed at the debris, aghast. “They couldn’t have survived that.”
“I — I killed them?” Atticus said.
“Woo-hoo!” Dan shouted, raising his hand for a high five. “Good riddance!”
Amy shot him a look of shocked disapproval. “Dan!”
Dan shrugged. “It was self-defense. They were planning to kill him! Remember Vesper One’s text — ?”
Stupid. Big mouth.
He wished he could swallow back what he’d said.
“What text?” Jake said.
“It doesn’t matter,” Dan replied.
Looking Jake in the eye, Amy said, “We should have told you. Vesper One wrote to
us. He’d found that we’d kept a secret from him. That’s why he had Atticus kidnapped. He wrote, ‘Your punishment this time: A Guardian goes down.’”
Jake’s face went red with disbelief. “This was a murder attempt on my brother?”
“But Atticus murdered them!” Dan said.
“It wasn’t murder!” Atticus squeaked.
Dan turned to his best friend. “Dude, don’t worry about it. They’re Vespers. They have no feelings.”
“Sometimes I’m not sure Cahills do, either,” Jake spat. He grabbed his brother away from Dan and began heading down the hill. “Let’s get out of here. The car is behind the silo.”
Dan lagged behind as the others jogged away.
He tried to summon up some sympathy for Cheyenne and Casper. He dug as deep into his soul as he could. But he came up with nothing. No feeling at all.
Dude, that’s harsh. They were flesh-and-blood humans!
He’d had plenty of feeling when he saw Lester die in Jamaica two years ago. Dan had barely known the guy, but the horror haunted him to this day. Back when Grace died, he couldn’t sleep for three days. And forget about watching Bambi when he was a kid. Death was awful. For anyone. Even bad guys.
It was human to feel for others. Only psychopaths didn’t have that capacity. Serial killers. Vespers.
Dan shook. Maybe, deep inside, he was like that, too.
Like father, like son . . .
As he walked, his ankle scraped against a scrubby plant and he jumped away. One of its buds, yellow and tightly round, came off in his hand. He recognized it immediately.
Wormwood. Swiftly he broke off a branch and stuffed it into his backpack.
Serum ingredient number fourteen.
It was like an answer. An omen.
With the serum, everything would make sense.
“Hurry, Dan!” Amy cried out.
The others were at the base of the hill. Dan raced after them. They all rounded the silo and ran to the stolen blue taxicab, parked in the shadow. It sported a coat of dust and some strands of hay stuck in the wipers. Jake reached into his pocket, pulled out the key chain, and pointed the infrared beeper at the car.
As it sounded, two figures rose up from the opposite side. One of them had a cell phone, the other, a pistol.
“Yes, Vesper One,” Cheyenne said into the phone. “We have them.”
For dead people, the Wyomings had healthy smiles.
Amy edged toward Dan. The twins’ rage radiated like nuclear waste. They were covered with soot, yet their eyes shone wildly. Casper’s trigger finger was taut and white knuckled.
He’ll do it.
Atticus’s face was lined with confusion. “W-we thought you were crushed!”
“Oh, we were,” Cheyenne replied, pocketing the phone. “The rudeness of cold-blooded eleven-year-olds can be devastating. But we got over it.”
“I didn’t do it on purpose!” Atticus blurted out.
Amy couldn’t believe her ears. “Who are you calling cold blooded?”
Casper pointed the gun at her. “I believe, little girl, that you’re on assignment from Vesper One. As are we. So why don’t you complete your task, and we’ll complete ours?”
He swung the gun to Atticus’s face.
Jake grabbed Atticus and shoved him behind his back. “You have to go through me first.”
“Touching,” Cheyenne said. “I’ll buy hankies when they make the miniseries.”
“We were having a debate,” Jake said, meeting Casper’s glare levelly, “about whether or not you were human. I believe I have switched sides.”
“Don’t provoke them, Jake,” Amy said.
“Don’t tell me what to do,” Jake said.
“Good advice,” Casper agreed. “See, Cheyenne and I were debating, too. About whether we needed armor-piercing bullets. And I won.”
Jake’s voice was low and steady. “He’s not going to do it. Not this close. No human being is going to put a bullet through two brothers staring him in the eye.”
Amy fought back her blind panic. Jake was desperate, buying time. Creating some kind of standoff. He was drawing Casper’s attention to him alone.
It wasn’t crazy. It was unbelievably brave.
We let Jake down. We told him Cahills were capable. Survivors. Strategists.
And now we have to prove it.
Cheyenne’s phone jangled suddenly. Judging from the panic on her face, Amy knew who was calling.
“Shoot him now, Casper!” Cheyenne shouted.
Now.
Amy lunged forward. She snatched away the phone before Cheyenne could scream. Casper swung the gun sharply, pointing it between Amy’s eyes. Jake tensed, ready to pounce.
Amy ducked, pressing the phone to her mouth. “If Casper kills me, you will never get what you want!”
Casper froze.
A soft, measured breathing came from the other end. Amy’s skin ran cold. She was talking to him. Talking to Vesper One in person. Hearing his breaths.
Her hands could barely hold the phone. “Your headquarters is d-d-d-d —”
Stop that now.
“Destroyed!” she blurted. “And Atticus — the Guardian — is alive. If anything happens to a hair on his head and all four of us are not allowed to go free, we do not tell you what we found in the Marco Polo text — the next location! Take this deal or you lose!”
Amy exhaled hard.
Cheyenne and Casper stood gaping. For once, they were speechless.
Impressive.
Vesper One put his feet up on a polished oak desk. What a refreshing twist.
He had to admit, he’d been surprised to know she was heading the family. She’d never seemed the type. He thought she’d make his job easy.
But she was as canny as her brother. Smart. Strong.
This was going to be more fun than he’d thought.
He closed his eyes and let her voice remain unanswered. Silence was a potent tool.
What a difficult time it had been. The botched kidnapping. The Gomez shooting. The messy McIntyre affair. And now this. The Guardian was alive, Göreme Station was destroyed, and Vesper Six had failed. Six nasty little events.
Now the Cahills were holding back a location. And they had just given him an ultimatum.
Quietly he closed the phone. And smiled.
Amy heard a click on the other end of the phone line, and her blood seemed to stop. “He . . . hung up.”
Cheyenne snatched back her phone. “Someone took her brave pills today.”
“And washed them down with stupid juice,” Casper added, cocking his gun.
But Cheyenne’s phone beeped before she could put it in her pocket. Ashen faced, she held a text message to Amy. “You have mail.”
Amy looked at in disbelief.
You win. The boy goes free.
She had to read it three times before it sank in. “We did it,” she murmured. “We outwitted Vesper One!”
But more words were scrolling across the screen now:
Each good deal deserves another. Here’s mine. Limited time only:
1. You choose not to tell me the next location.
2. You go there without any instruction of what to look for.
3. I slaughter all the captives.
As Amy read them aloud slowly, Cheyenne and Casper smiled.
“What now, genius?” Dan said.
Amy took a deep breath. “He’s bluffing. Cheyenne, send this text: ‘Touch one hostage, and Dan and Amy Cahill disappear.’”
“Amy!” Dan shouted.
“Hey, it’s your funerals,” Cheyenne said, carefully tapping out the reply. “Enjoy the bloodbath.”
Amy fought back a horrifying stab of doubt: Nellie,
wan and weak with a shoulder injury . . . Phoenix Wizard, looking so vulnerable and innocent . . .
No. He needs us. We have something on him.
If there was one thing she’d learned during the last two years, it was to work from strength. To recognize the good fights. The Cahills had recognized her wisdom. They’d accepted her as leader.
A leader had one job. To lead.
She ignored Dan’s bewildered look. Atticus’s shaking.
In a moment, a message appeared on Cheyenne’s phone:
Fair enough. The hostages live. For now. Wyomings are to step away from the car. Cahills have 15 seconds to give location.
Amy nearly collapsed with relief.
Jake pushed Casper aside and reached for the driver’s door. “I was wondering, Cheyenne and Casper. Do you have a brother named Jackson Hole?”
In reply, Casper pressed his gun against Jake’s forehead.
“Jake!” Amy shouted.
“We hear that joke all the time,” Cheyenne said.
Casper chuckled. “You must think we’re idiots. We failed Vesper One. We’re as good as dead now. Do you think we care what happens to you?”
“What the — YEEOOOW!” Suddenly, Atticus leaped out from behind Jake, tearing at his own hair. “Get them away!”
“What is it?” Dan said, running to his friend. “What happened?”
“Bats!” Atticus shrieked. “They’re in my hair!”
“Where?” Casper flinched, his eyes suddenly filled with fear. His elbow jammed against Cheyenne, throwing her off balance. “Cheyenne, keep them away!”
Jake rammed into Casper’s midsection. Amy kicked Cheyenne away from the car. As Casper’s arm swung up to hit Jake, she took it and bit down hard. Casper let out a yowl of pain.
The gun fell. Amy grabbed it before it hit the dirt and pointed it at Casper. “That car,” she said, “is now a Vesper-free zone. Move.”
“Casper . . .” Cheyenne growled, “you are such a wuss.”
Their faces twisted with pain, the Wyomings edged away. Jake slid into the driver’s seat. Keeping the gun trained on Casper, Amy entered the passenger side, then so did Atticus and Dan. But as Jake started the engine, Cheyenne’s phone beeped again. “Read it,” Amy said.