Cloak (YA Fantasy) (9 page)

The elevator opened, a man yelled, and Will flew through the air like a ragdoll. He crashed into the wall, his head and side hitting something soft before he tumbled to the floor. Will pushed himself up. His fall had been broken by a doctor who lay unconscious, a cut crossing his forehead.

A large shoe stepped into the elevator. Will scurried into the corner and looked up. A wolf-man stood hunched over him, glowering with one ghastly white eye. Blood trickled between the fingers of the gloved hand covering his other eye. His huge yellow canines were bared. The wolf’s growl turned into a wild roar and he lunged, sharp claws popping through his latex gloves.

Will braced for the pain.

But in an instant, the wolf-man’s expression changed from outrage to surprise. He flew into the air and slammed into the metal ceiling of the elevator. His body smashed into one sidewall then crashed into the other, leaving craters in the steel. Finally, his limp body fell to the floor in a heap.

Kaya stood above the unconscious wolf-man with her claws gleaming, wild triumph in her eyes. As she stepped over him, she gave the kidnapper a sharp kick to the head.

“Are you okay?” She helped Will off the floor.

Will stared. “I thought you were…”

“Dead? Ha. It’d take more than a cheap shot to bring me down.”

A groan came from the far side of the elevator.

Kaya pulled Will behind her. The wounded doctor stirred. Kaya reached to lift him but winced, grabbing her ribs. Will caught the doctor by the other arm and they stumbled over the wolf enchant and into the hallway.

“Thanks.” Kaya untangled herself from the doctor and laid him on an empty gurney against the tiled wall. She checked his pulse and eyes. “He has a concussion. He’ll be alright if we–No!” Kaya struggled to get back to the elevator, but the doors continued to slide shut. The wolf-man was on one knee holding the close button and grinning, the blood from his face turning his yellow teeth red.

The world was in slow motion.

Kaya dove, but the wolf-man disappeared behind the metal doors.

The down arrow glowed.

The elevator whirred.

Kaya punched the button repeatedly. She slammed her fist against the steel, then flinched, grabbing her ribs. Leaning against the door, she yelled into her dental floss.

“Rizz. This is Das. Come in. Rizz, where are you?” She put her finger to her ear and waited.

Nothing.

She growled and pressed the floss again.

“Manning. Are you there?” Kaya listened. “We’ve just been attacked by a hunter disguised as an X-ray technician. A wolfchant. He’s injured and dangerous. Last seen on the elevator, tenth floor heading down. Send Flores to intercept. Find Rizz, stat. He’s not answering.” She pressed her finger to her ear, glanced at Will and spoke into the floss. “No, he’s alright. Just a little shaken. But that was too close. Initiate evacuation plan Alpha now. Understood?” She listened again. “Good. Das out.” Holding her side, she limped back to where Will sat and slid down the wall.

“What was that?” Will panted.

“A hunter—an enchant assassin.”

Will almost choked. “Do you think they’ll catch him?”

“I’m sure they will.” Kaya’s eyes were full of worry.

He knew she was lying.

10

Evacuation Plan Alpha

T
he aftermath of the wolfchant’s attack was a whirlwind. Three people in hazmat suits with long, reflective facemasks burst through the stairwell door and surrounded Will. Two of them hoisted him onto a gurney without a word. The third reported to Kaya, his voice muffled by the mask.

“The hunter escaped, jumped off the elevator between floors and went through a window. He could be anywhere.”

Kaya gritted her teeth. “How did a hunter know about the Immune in the first place?”

“I don’t know. But he knew our positions. He got the drop on me, hit me from behind. I never smelled him coming.”

“Neither did I. He was good.” Kaya moved beside Will’s gurney. “There’s nothing we can do now but focus on evacuating the Immune. Is everything in place?”

The man in the reflective mask nodded and handed Kaya a doctor’s coat.

“Good.” As she put it on, she winced and grabbed her side.

“You’re hurt.”

“Just a couple of ribs.”

“Can you keep up?”

“Don’t worry about me. I’ve outrun you with worse,” growled Kaya.

The man snorted behind his mask.

Kaya took up a position next to Will’s shoulder and gripped the rail of the gurney. The three others did the same. They all crouched low, like a four-man bobsled team ready to start a race. Will was the bobsled.

“Remember your training. Let’s make this clean and fast. The hunter could be waiting.” Kaya looked down at Will. “I need you to hold on tight and look sick.”

Will nodded. His stomach was a ball of knots. Looking sick would be easy.

There was a groan.

“What about him?” Will pointed to the injured doctor on the other gurney. Kaya had bandaged his cut, but he was still unconscious.

The cat-woman reached above the doctor and yanked down on a fire alarm. “The Neps will take care of him.” She turned to the others. “Ready?”

Three hazmat hoods nodded.

“Let’s move.”

The burst of speed almost threw Will off the gurney. He squeezed the railings, his knuckles white under his latex gloves. Wind whipped his face and tore at the edges of his hospital gown as they blew around a corner.

“Make way! This is a code red! Move!” roared Kaya, causing a clot of doctors to spill their coffee as they dove out of the way. The pace was impossibly fast. The four enchants moved with fluid grace, choreographed power. Gurney wheels squealed around the corner. The man at Will’s shoulder sprinted up the wall to avoid a collision. The agents at his feet bounded over food carts, somersaulted in the air, and landed without missing a step.

“Watch out!” yelled Kaya. A chubby nurse screamed and landed upside down in a bin of towels.

“I’ll give her an eight on the dive but only a four on the entry,” joked the man running next to Will.

“Rizz!” Kaya chastised.

“What?” The man feigned innocence.

Kaya maintained her glare, even while pirouetting around an orderly with a mop.

After speeding through the halls, the elevator ride to the basement was surreal. Sappy seventies music played until the bell pinged and the gurney shot through the doors.

“This way. The transport is in the alley.”

They roared through the kitchen as cooks upended pots of tomato soup and spilled boxes of potato flakes.

Bursting through the delivery bay doors, they blinked against the daylight.

“A bread truck?” Will looked up at the doors of an old, beaten truck from The Long Island Bread Company idling in an alley.

“It’s standard Special Branch Transport. Top of the line.” Kaya stepped forward and pressed pieces of dried gum stuck to the door of the truck. Like a pre-chewed combination lock, the gum beeped each time her finger made contact—grape, orange, orange, strawberry, lime, grape. After the grape, the tumblers clanked and the door opened.

“Wilhelm, thank goodness!” Dr. Noctua was waiting inside. “How are you? Where does it hurt?” The gurney was lifted into the truck. The owlish doctor clicked his beak and checked Will’s vitals.

Will tried to speak, but the doctor shoved a tongue depressor in his mouth.

“Attacked only hours after I diagnosed you as an Immune,” he muttered. “How could word have leaked so fast?”

“I was wondering that myself,” answered Kaya, slamming the door behind her after the others had climbed in. “There must be a mole in ISPA. From now on, we limit all details about Will to the team present here. Understood?”

Everyone nodded. Will’s gurney was pushed between piles of pastry boxes and a teetering stack of deli rolls. There was no seating in the truck. Kaya balanced on bags of baguettes while the others made makeshift seats out of boxes of bagels, mounds of pumpernickel and racks of sourdough. The air had the bitter smell of stale bread and moldy buns. Bands of rust crept along the edges of the walls and the whole truck listed to one side.

Kaya pounded the roof twice with her fist. The truck revved and lurched forward, tossing the boxes as it rumbled onto the street.

“All clear.”

Will sat up, careful to hold his backless robe.

“A few bruises and scrapes.” The doctor finished checking Will’s toes for hairline fractures. “You are a fortunate young man.”

“Yeah, I am. Thanks to Kaya.”

The cat-woman flickered a small smile.

“Fortune favors the brave,” said Dr. Noctua, pressing his spectacles back onto the bridge of his beak. “I heard you did much of the escaping yourself.”

“It’s true,” purred Kaya. “He fought well. Will’s quick action forced the hunter into the elevator. Had he taken the stairs, we would not be speaking right now.”

Will blanched at the thought.

“If we’d been better, he wouldn’t have needed to save himself,” grumbled the smallest of the three people in hoods.

“Val, it was no one’s fault. That’s what is going into the official report.”

“Reports don’t save lives.” The tiny woman reached up and removed her hood, flinging it at a crate of banana cupcakes. Seated on a squashed box of Chocolate Covered Nutty-Pals, the petite, middle-aged woman’s feet couldn’t touch the floor. She had fawn-like eyes, soft white spots, and a voice much too big for her body. Her face looked human, except for the six-inch antlers curving from her temples. Part of her right earlobe was missing. Faded scars dotted her face and neck. The deer-woman moved with rigid precision and remarkable speed as she stripped off her gloves and wiped the sweat from her brow. With a diminutive hoof-hand, she reached up to fluff the sweaty, caramel-colored hair matted between her antlers.

“Well, I guess introductions are in order. Will Tuttle, meet my team, I mean
your
Special Branch protection team.” Kaya gestured toward the deer enchant. “This is Agent Val Manning, our self-defense and hand-to-hand combat specialist.”

Will wondered how the three-and-a-half-foot tall woman could be a combat specialist.

“Good to meet ya, Tuttle,” she said gruffly, extending her diminutive hand.

Will reached to shake it, but the woman yanked her hand away and seized Will’s wrist with two fingers, twisting his arm painfully to one side.

“Ow, ow, ow!” complained Will.

Dr. Noctua ducked down and spun his head so he could speak face to face with Will, who was still bent over in Agent Manning’s wrist-grip. “Wilhelm, I forgot to mention. In enchant culture we don’t shake hands because of the variety of, well, differences.” The owl held up his own feathery wing tip and wiggled the feathers like fingers. “It’s considered a sign of aggression.”

Dr. Noctua turned toward the deer enchant. “Agent Manning, I believe there’s been a misunderstanding. Could Wilhelm please have his hand back?”

The deer woman complied.

“Instead of a handshake, we touch the back of the limbs, wings, paws, et cetera. Like this.” Dr. Noctua showed Will how to hold his hand and let the other person tap it like a backhanded high five. “Good. Now try it again with Agent Manning.”

Will looked at the deer-woman and rubbed his wrist. “Are you sure?”

“Certainly.” The doctor clicked his beak.

With caution, Will held out his hand to Manning. “Um, sorry. I’m new to this.”

The deer-like woman sniffed and flashed a set of tiny buckteeth. “No harm done, Tuttle.” She smacked the back of his hand so hard that Will was sure she’d left a mark.

Beside Agent Manning, the other two figures emerged from under their masks. Both men were much larger and sweatier than the deer-woman. The taller of them used a monogrammed handkerchief to mop his scaly, knife-like face. He was completely bald with a long, thick neck and small eyes that swiveled in opposite directions like glistening beads on the end of tiny round pyramids. His wide mouth was lined with thin lips. He had a nose like a thorn and a ridge of scales that ran over the top of his scalp like a Mohawk. Smaller ridges stretched from his chin down his throat. His scaly skin was the same color as the hood he’d been wearing, but it slowly changed to match the green bread racks stacked to the ceiling behind him.

A chameleon,
guessed Will.

“Agent Santiago Flores. Master of camouflage and reconnaissance,” said the chameleon-man with a flowery, Spanish accent. He offered the back of his scaly, three-fingered hand. Will and Flores tapped. At the point of contact, the enchant’s skin remained the same color as Will’s glove. The agent flexed his fingers, morphing the hand’s color to the same mottled blue as the bread bag under it. “It is my pleasure to make your acquaintance.” The chameleon lifted his thorn-like nose and swiveled both eyes Will’s direction.

“Um, yeah, nice to meet you too.” Flores’s spinning eye sockets and changing color were a bit unnerving.

“Agent Tony Rizzuto. You can call me Rizz.”

Will backed away. It was the ram who had mugged him in the park. The same brown eyes with slightly horizontal pupils. The same heavy jaw and goatish muzzle. Two huge horns curved from his head. They were carved with ornate etchings of snakes, eagles, tigers, and other animals. Half of the ram-man’s right horn was missing and the broken portion was covered by a sliver cap with a skull and crossbones. He had long, coarse hair that was pulled into a ponytail and partially obscured his human ears.