Cloak (YA Fantasy) (12 page)

Will picked a teen with curved horns. “Antelope?”

Rizz gave a thumbs up. The game was on.

“Chipmunk.”

“Toad.”

“Raccoon.”

“Gazelle.”

“Finch.”

“Armadillo.”

Will was on a roll until a spindly old man with skin like bark and saucer-sized eyes stepped aboard.

“Snake?”

“Nope.”

“A seahorse?”

“No.”

“A dragonfly?”

“Closer, but no.”

“I give up.”

“That is a Panamanian-walking-stick-insect enchant.”

“Oh, come on. How am I supposed to know that?”

“Ooh, there’s a good one. Try to guess her.” He motioned to a wispy young woman with pale skin and dark hair who took a seat made from boxes of macaroni and cheese and air filters.

“She looks normal, I mean,
Nep
to me,” said Will, shrugging.

Rizz shook his head. “Nope, enchant through and through.”

“How do you know?”

“Well, it’s my thing.” Rizz cracked his knuckles. “The ability to tell that someone is an enchant is like an extra instinct. Some got it. Some don’t. I got it. Runs in my family. But, I had to train for years to be able to know what kind of animal is in there. In ISPA they call it tagging. In Special Group, we call it a necessity. I’ll tell ya, you can’t live without tagging in this job. You should work on it.” He poked Will with a cloven hand. “The fact that you can see through Cloak is great, but like the Doc said, ‘You can’t always trust your eyes.’ That girl right there—” The young woman had taken her seat and was pulling a thermos from her bag. “She’s an enchant most Neps want to avoid.”

“Why? What is she?”

“Watch,” said Rizz with anticipation.

Will eyed the dark-haired girl. She opened a thermos and took a quick whiff. After a moment, her mouth widened, her lips stretching at the edges. Two long, clear tubes with pointed tips slid from her gums and plunged into the thermos like straws. As she inhaled, a dark red liquid filled the tubes. Sipping casually, she opened a magazine and thumbed through it. When she noticed Will and Rizz staring, her eyes narrowed and she brought the magazine in front of her face like a shield.

“Whoa. What was that?” asked Will, falling back into his seat.

“That’s a mosquito enchant, kid. And that isn’t tomato juice she’s drinking.”

“Mosquito? That’s blood?”

“Yep, a little O positive for lunch. Yummy.” Rizz smacked his lips. “A lot of insect enchants can hide their animal traits really well. Some don’t even need Cloak.” He leaned in closer. “Mosquitoes are the best at blending in, but Neps have a different name for her kind. Think about it—quiet nocturnal blood-drinkers. Oh, and most can fly.”

Will’s mind worked for a second, then his eyes shot open. “Vampires?”

“Bingo. A lot of legends have been started by hungry skeeter enchants over the years. But the most famous stories came from mosquitochants in Transylvania. Ever heard of the Dracul family?”

“Dracula? No way. That’s just a myth.”

“A myth to explain what Neps didn’t understand, changed over the years to make it seem more and more impossible. Who do you think started the myths? The stranger something sounds, the more Neps dismiss it. Dismiss the legend and you’ll never learn the truth—just another way of keeping us hidden. Enchants have been spinning history for centuries.”

“That’s unbelievable.”

“Yeah? Remind me to tell you about Bigfoot sometime. Now there was a public relations nightmare.” Rizz eyed the flight attendant, who was demonstrating how to put on an oxygen mask. “Have you tagged the stewardess yet?”

Will studied the attendant’s rounded face and traces of white fur on her hands and temples. “Um. A rabbit?” Will was stumped.

“Polar bear. One of the best senses of smell in the world,” Rizz whispered. “That’s why she’s having such a tough time with you. That gerbil scent is working like a charm.”

Will did notice she left the mask on for a long time after the demonstration.

The plane limped forward and bumped down the uneven runway. There seemed to be an unusual amount of smoke pouring from the wing. The sound of metal clanging to the ground was followed by an awful cough from one of the engines.

Will dug his fingers into his Balsamic vinegar armrests until his nails broke through his latex gloves. He glanced down at his gloved hands. Even cured of allergies, he couldn’t take them off. They made him feel secure.

The engines hiccupped twice, then roared to life, sputtering and belching more smoke as the plane wobbled down the runway, faster and faster. Piles of freight swayed wildly, and water dripped from one of the cracked windows. Overhead, the cargo nets swung. The plane lifted for a moment then dropped, bouncing twice off the concrete before it finally hauled itself into the air.

Will’s armrests were starting to splinter as his knuckles glowed white beneath the latex. After fifteen torturous minutes of flying, the plane leveled out and the pilot’s voice sounded through a loud speaker.

“Ladies and enchants, this is your captain speaking. We’ve reached our cruising altitude and it is now safe to move about the cabin. We are looking at smooth skies and an approximate travel time of four hours and twenty-seven minutes. Please sit back and enjoy your flight.”

After two hours, Will had become used to the constant sputter of the jet engines. His hands relaxed, and his knuckles faded.

Dr. Noctua slept, his round shoulders rising and falling with each breath. Kaya sat reading a fashion magazine that had a burly-looking wolverine with a cleft chin on the front cover. Agent Manning was polishing an assortment of weaponry that she’d smuggled onto the plane. Agent Flores straightened his eyebrows in his hand mirror while his face changed color, mimicking the passing clouds in the window.

Will turned to Rizz, who had finished his leafy in-flight meal and was chewing absentmindedly on his fork the way some people chew on pencil erasers.

“Um, Agent Rizzuto?”

“Hey, call me Rizz, remember.” He pulled the mangled fork from his mouth.

“Oh, okay, Rizz? What were you saying back in the airport? You know, that Dr. Noctua bought Special Branch?”

“Yeah. Pretty crazy, huh? Imagine how much money it would take to run a branch of the FBI or CIA. Well, double it and you can guess what the Doc must drop on Special Branch.” Rizz chuckled and elbowed Will in the ribs. “Not like the old bird doesn’t have it, though.”

“What do you mean?”

“He’s loaded—more money than a small country—owns Cloak factories across the world. And powerful, oh man! He might look like a gentle, eccentric doctor, but that little old owl has three doctorates, two medals of valor, two medical degrees, a law degree, speaks thirty-seven languages, and has been knighted in five countries. He is arguably the most influential and respected being on the planet. Good guy to have as a personal physician, huh?” Rizz nudged Will with his elbow.

Will craned his neck to see Dr. Noctua. Rich? Powerful? The Tuttles traveled in the most influential circles in New York. Will’s parents’ friends were nothing like the quirky owl-man snoring a few feet away.

Rizz cracked open an orange soda and took a bite out of the can. Will remembered the other question he wanted to ask. “What did you mean when you said you were all a bunch of screw-ups?”

Rizz snorted and sprayed soda across the crate of fine china in front of him. The other agents turned and looked at him. Dr. Noctua stirred but never woke up. It took Rizz a minute to gain composure. He wiped his mouth and spoke in a quiet voice.

“I said we were screw-ups because we are. Every agent in Special Branch is here ’cause ISPA wanted to get rid of us. For years Special Branch has been a joke. A team dedicated to Immunes when there were no Immunes. This is where they transferred agents that shouldn’t be near anything important. But now…” Rizz snorted. “Now us screw-ups have the most important assignment on earth. You! But don’t worry, kid, none of these agents ever messed up anything critical. We just don’t like playing by other people’s rules, or maybe we said the right thing to the wrong person. Think of us as the most talented team of misfits ever assembled.” He waved his hand and took a mock bow.

Will smiled. A team of misfits protecting an outcast—it seemed fitting. He was about to ask Rizz how he’d ended up in Special Branch, but the agent had put on headphones and was drumming on his knees, bobbing his head to the music. Whatever Rizz had done, Will was glad he was part of his team. Something about the ram-man put him at ease. He followed Rizz’s lead and slipped headphones over his ears, leaned back and let the plane carry him west.

12

Hard Earth

T
he airstrip was barely a dirt runway. A few rusty hangers and an old warehouse that reeked of manure made up the terminal. ‘Welcome to Wyoming’ was spray-painted on an old tractor near rows of delivery vans and dump trucks. The wind bit into Will’s skin the second he stepped off the plane. His parka was useless against the cold, thin air.

He hugged his backpack tight.

It was like standing on the surface of Mars. The land was folded and wrinkled, and from every seam scraggly scrub oak clawed toward the late afternoon sun. In the distance, weathered hills were so thick with pine trees that they created great black stains on the horizon. The sky was like nothing he had ever seen in New York. It went on forever. A pale, blue canvas stretching over the brown grasslands like an umbrella studded with jagged clouds. The former bubble-boy felt very exposed.

The Special Branch armored transport was disguised as an old Moo Valley milk truck. Rizz tucked his horns under a milkman’s hat and took the wheel. He drove like a New York cabbie, throwing gravel as he roared out of the parking lot, then swerving sharply to avoid tumbleweeds on the two-lane highway. Bottles of milk rolled from one side of the truck to the other. Cheese and yogurt collided with Will’s feet.

Will peered through one of the round windows in the center of the O’s in Moo Valley. On his seat made from wheels of cheddar, he shifted to get a better view of a herd of bison grazing on brown grass.

From behind the wheel Rizz eyed Will in the rearview mirror. “Kind of intimidating, huh, kid? You should have seen me when I was hauled out here for the first time. I was about ten, but that was before they put in this paved road. Mom brought me out to meet our extended family in Hidden Ridge. That’s a little po-dunk town about twenty miles from New Wik. It scared the goat out of me walkin’ out onto those plains for the first time. I’d never been out of Jersey before, and this prairie was something out of a stinkin’ Western horror flick. I felt so small, like a spec. My cousin Dean thought it would help me get used to the landscape if I had a chance to ‘commune with nature.’ So he led me on a hike up the cliffs that surround the town. It took me a while to get my footing, but it kind of comes naturally to my family. You know, mountain sheepchants and all.

“Pretty soon I was running across these canyon walls like I was jogging in the park back home. But no matter how fast I moved, my cousin Dean ran faster. He flew along the cliff walls like a dang Olympic sprinter. Made me jump over these cracks in the canyon that were a hundred feet deep. I about wet my pants.

“Anyway, Dean led me along ’til I was so turned around I didn’t know what way was up. Then he rounds a corner and I lose him. He was gone. There I was, the little city ramchant stuck on the side of that canyon, scared to death. I spent the whole night cringing from the sounds of the prairie and clinging to a sagebrush like it was a lifesaver. I thought I was a goner. Next morning, I start yelling for help, and Dean pops his head over the side of the cliff, laughing his horns off. I wanted to kill him, until I climbed to the top of the ridge and realized that I’d been cowering all night about fifty yards from the back door of Dean’s house. Everybody knew right where I was the whole time. My cousins still call me Cringe. Man, I hate that name.”

Will tried to bite back the smile but it wasn’t easy with Rizz wiggling his eyebrow in the rearview mirror. The humor seemed to unravel the knots in Will’s stomach. Sitting back, he glanced out the windshield. “Whoa, what is that?” A giant column of earth grew from the prairie like a soaring skyscraper of stone.

“Neps call it Devil’s Tower,” said Agent Manning’s booming voice from the back of the milk truck. “It’s enchant name is the Builder’s Basilica.”

“Can we go there?” Will asked.

“Not if you want to stay alive.”

The protection team exchanged nervous looks.

Rizz cleared he throat, “Manning meant to say,
‘Stay on time.’
Val’s a stickler for itineraries.”

“Nothing wrong with planning ahead,” Agent Manning said in a dry tone. “You could use a bit of preparation yourself, Rizzuto. You’re about to miss the turn.”

Rizz cranked the wheel and the milk truck squealed onto two tires. When it righted itself, they were barreling north on a neglected road covered in weeds. The Moo Valley truck rattled and bounced, but Rizz didn’t slow.

“Nice driving, Cringe,” smirked Agent Manning.