Waging War (14 page)

“No, not her,” I muttered under my breath,
but ten seconds later I understood that she was actually the coach
when she gestured to a young guy I recognized as Patrick Rothchild,
Raven’s brother, to come out and face off against Ringo.

I wasn’t actually that high above them on
the roof, and if anyone had bothered to look up they would have
seen my unsmiling face staring down at them. But people never
looked up, so I was feeling pretty invisible, at least until
something cast a shadow on the floor and I realized it came from
behind me. I pulled back from the skylight and spun to find myself
face to face with the biggest eagle I’d ever seen. Its piercing
golden eyes regarded me steadily from about four feet away, and the
fear that clenched my heart relaxed.

“A Philippine Eagle, huh? Does your mom know
you’re out?”

Logan tilted the bird’s head in a gesture
that could either mean “of course,” or “are you kidding?”

I didn’t think he would Shift back to human
form since that would put a naked boy out in public, so I settled
back into my original position. “Stay back far enough so you don’t
cast a shadow on the floor below us.” It was actually kind of nice
to have the company, so I continued talking.

“Ringo’s going up against Patrick Rothchild
right now – I guess so the coach can assess him. She’s the young,
pretty one with long brown hair.” I pointed to the young woman who
watched Ringo and the Spawn dance around each other. I’d seen Ringo
battle with a sword in France and he was pretty lethal, but the
Spawn was a dirty fighter, and I didn’t trust him.

“We call Patrick ‘the Spawn’ because he’s
Ms. Rothchild’s kid. He’s also Raven’s younger brother, and she was
my roommate when I first got to St. Brigid’s. Everyone calls her
the Crow behind her back, probably because as a bird species, crows
are right up there with pigeons in the rats-with-wings category.
She’s over there, the blonde, tossing her hair while she pretends
not to watch.” I pointed to Raven, standing in an arrogant pose off
to one side, and looked to see if the Eagle was following along.
His golden eyes whirled with the intensity of his gaze, and I
envied his ability to Shift into something with eyesight like an
eagle.

Ringo made an aggressive move and scored
against the Spawn, who instantly hurled his foil and threw down his
helmet before he stormed off the floor. “Spoiled Monger brat,” I
said as much to myself as to the Eagle.

Raven casually pushed off the wall she’d
been holding up and donned her helmet. She approached Ringo with
every ounce of her arrogance wrapped up in easy grace. I pretty
much loathed her anyway, but her obvious athleticism just added
fuel to that fire.

She nodded once to Ringo, then got into
ready mode. Since I wasn’t a fencer, I could only think in terms I
knew, and Ringo’s ready mode didn’t have nearly the same elegance
Raven’s did.

They were about the same height, but their
skills were very different. Ringo wasn’t necessarily outmatched in
the skills department, but he was definitely outclassed. Everything
Raven did with the fencing foil screamed technique and training,
while Ringo’s moves were pure offense and defense. He was battling,
she was practically dancing. It was actually pretty spectacular to
watch, except for the despising her part.

She scored on him twice in quick succession,
but then he got in a sneaky hit to her stomach and it pissed her
off. “Look, she’s suddenly paying attention.” It didn’t seem weird
at all that I was speaking to a giant Philippine Eagle, or that he
seemed to follow everything I said.

“He’s fought with a double bladed sword
before, so there’s more slash than jab in his motion. She keeps
having to duck away instead of dance.” I watched him score another
hit to her vest, and I could practically see the steam rise off
her. It was really hard to tell if beating her at this would make
her more or less likely to talk to him. At the rate he was going, I
thought he might be lucky to make it off the floor without a knife
to his throat.

The coach finally clapped her hands to stop
the match, and Ringo waited until Raven’s foil was completely down
before he lowered his. He was definitely still in warrior stance
though, and I thought that when Raven pulled off her helmet, her
glance at him was a little wary.

The coach moved Ringo’s body into a couple
of positions and had Raven demonstrate the correct counterattack.
Then the coach called to Patrick, who was standing with a group of
guys against a wall. She pointed to some other foils that looked
heavier and longer mounted in racks above a tall wardrobe and
indicated a ladder on the other side of the room. Patrick crossed
his arms in front of himsef aggressively and stood his ground.

The Eagle’s wings fluttered, and I looked
back at Ringo in time to see him set down his foil and helmet and
take off sprinting across the floor. He leapt off a pommel horse,
hit a high bar, and did a double flip around to get the height to
land, seated, on top of the cabinet. He retrieved the foils, tossed
them down to the Spawn, who had to quickly uncross his arms to
catch them or be hit in the head, and then Ringo hopped down to
stick a perfect landing. He casually strolled over and took the
foils from a very startled Spawn.

“Oh, bravo,” I breathed before I turned my
attention to Raven. Ringo’s freerunning show had startled and
impressed her, and there was an interesting look of respect and
thoughtfulness on her face. The coach clapped Ringo on the back
with a huge grin, then took the larger foils from him and
demonstrated some complicated moves.

Some other students walked into the gym and
I realized the lesson must be over. The coach shook Ringo’s hand
and seemed to indicate he should come back. Then Ringo shook
Raven’s hand with one of his charming smiles, instead of the cheeky
ones I usually got, said a couple of words while he packed up his
fencing gear, and strolled out of the room.

I turned to Logan’s Eagle. “Alright, dude.
Time to fly home. Thanks for hanging out with me though. If you see
my mom, could you let her know we’re heading home soon?”

The Eagle tilted his head at me in that way
that either meant “sure” or “I’ll conveniently forget the minute
someone puts a snack in front of me,” then he took off in a great
flap of his enormous wings. Apparently Philippine eagles really
were the largest eagles on the planet.

I texted Jeeves that we were ready to be
picked up, and I was just getting to my feet when I looked down and
froze. Cole Thomas had just entered the gym. I dropped back down to
my knees, and pressed my face to the glass to make sure I was
actually seeing what I thought I saw. The big, dark-skinned guy,
built like Adam, moved in that slouchy way some guys do when they
pretend nothing matters. He crossed the room to where Raven was
still putting her gear away, and when she looked up and saw him,
one of those big “oh yay, you’re here!” grins crossed her face
before she threw her arms around him.

Okay, wow.

Tracked

No part of this situation looked good for
the presumably mixed-blood friend of a kidnapped boy. Kissing the
niece of the bad guy who orchestrated the kidnappings was at worst,
traitorous and at best, evidence of dangerously bad taste in human
beings.

Cole was smiling at Raven as she said
something to him, and the whole scene was so surreal I felt like a
cartoon character trying to rub an illusion out of my eyes. I
backed away from the skylight and climbed down the fire escape.
When I hit the ground, Ringo was already in the alley waiting for
me with his gear bag slung over one shoulder. He had an easy smile
on his face.

“Well, that was interestin’,” he said.

I grimaced. “You could say that.”

He looked surprised. “She wasn’t all nasty,
ye know. I managed to impress ‘er enough that she agreed to spar
with me again.”

We started walking toward the street where
Jeeves would hopefully pick us up in a few minutes. But then a
voice behind us yelled, “Hey, new kid!”

I realized my mistake as soon as I turned,
because the voice belonged to Patrick Rothchild, and I’d just
busted Ringo by association. “Oh, poop,” I muttered under my
breath.

“Ye and yer excrement talk.” Ringo hadn’t
turned and was half-laughing at me as he ignored the Spawn and kept
walking. I fell into step next to him, and it clearly pissed
Patrick off to be ignored.

“New kid! I’m talking to you! You hang out
with trash like her, you’re going to get sent to the same dump.”
Patrick wasn’t especially big, and he was only about fifteen years
old, but he was as mean as a snake and always traveled in a pack of
dangerous boys. I could sense about three of them behind us with
Patrick – all Mongers if my spidey senses were working properly. We
were about ten yards from the street, but I wouldn’t give the Spawn
the satisfaction of seeing me run.

Suddenly, a white van with a smashed front
end screeched to a halt on the street in front of us, effectively
closing the end of the alley. The side door slammed open, and a
couple of big Mongers tumbled out. I recognized one of them from
Slick’s office building, and my confidence instantly liquefied.
Ringo tensed beside me, and I could feel him making the same
decision I was making. Forward into the white, windowless kidnapper
van was clearly the wrong choice. Backward past four teenage
hoodlums held more options for success, but they could still
potentially slow us down enough for the adult Mongers to get their
hands on us. So, up it was.

I was very happy we both had the ability to
see in three dimensions, because the dumpster was exactly the right
height from which to leap for the barred window with a big enough
ledge to stand on. From there it was another uncomplicated jump to
the rusty fire escape ladder and up to the roof. Ringo flung his
fencing bag at the Spawn’s crew since they were closest to us, and
we were both up and on top of the building before the first Monger
made it onto the dumpster.

“Back toward the gym.” Ringo urged. The flat
rooftop of the commercial building we were on abutted the gym roof,
and as far as I was concerned, anything that took us away from the
windowless van was the right direction.

I could hear the Mongers yelling at the
Spawn’s crew to follow us, and a few moments later the screech of
tires told us they were on the move. The gap between buildings was
only a few feet, so it was an easy jump to the gym roof, and just
as I was about to make it, my phone rang.

Ringo practically screeched to a halt and
pointed to my pocket. “Answer it. Could be Jeeves.” We were both
breathing hard, and he scanned the buildings around us for our best
escape plan.

“Saira, I’m here. Where are you?” It was
Jeeves.

“On the roof. Mongers found us.”

“Can you make it back to our pick-up
spot?”

“I don’t know, what are you driving?” I
didn’t like being suspicious, but it was my default reaction at the
moment.

“The Rolls.”

I hesitated. “Why?”

There was no hesitation in Jeeves voice. “No
door locks.”

That was the confirmation I needed to hear.
“We’ll try.”

“Keep me on the line and call directions if
you need me to move.”

“Right. Thanks.”

I tucked the phone back in my pocket as
Ringo pointed to a building next to the gym. “No fire escape in
back, so there must be a way down the front. They’ll have to go
around to catch us.”

The jump to that rooftop was only about five
feet, but it was slightly higher than the one we were on. I nodded.
“Okay. I’m going off the ledge.” The ledge at the edge of the gym
rooftop was about two feet higher than the roof, and would give me
the elevation to make it. I took a breath, then took off at a dead
sprint. I hit the ledge with just the right stride length, and
launched off. If I undershot I’d need my hands, but I managed to
catch the edge with my toes and land on my feet. Ringo landed right
beside me.

“Made it,” I told Jeeves in my pocket.

“Now down,” said Ringo. I paused to look for
the white van but didn’t see it on the street below us. Ringo was
already headed down the fire escape ladder, which ended at the
second floor. It was a fairly simple jump across two balconies to
the top of an electrical box and then down to the street.

My phone was in hand a second later.
“Jeeves, we’re next door to the front of the gym.”

“On my way,” I heard faintly as I tucked the
phone back in my pocket.

Just then, the double doors to the gym
opened and Raven and Cole came out laughing about something. Her
fencing bag was over his shoulder, and she looked … happy.

Until she saw me.

Raven’s eyes flicked between me and Ringo,
then narrowed dangerously.