Angel tried to listen to random thoughts, but she pulled back from the compulsive, panicky minds she tapped into: Be perfect be perfect be perfect be perfect… This place was seriously giving her the willies.
Toni stopped in front of a crusty, black door, where an older kid seemed to be standing guard. The kid nodded at Toni, then Toni knocked.
“Come in!” a man’s voice boomed.
When Toni opened the door, Angel was hit with a blast of malevolence, greed, and lust for power, all overlaced with an oily charm. Angel swallowed hard and held Gazzy’s hand. It took every ounce of her willpower to force herself into that room. She tried to look wide-eyed and innocent, but her throat hurt, the dry, stale air almost choking her
Toni shoved Angel ahead of her, through tall stacks of yellowing newspapers, until they came to an open, dimly lit area. A man stood there, his hands clasped behind his back. He was studying a wall covered in newspaper clippings, and a world map with cities circled in thick black marker. He had just tossed a crumpled sheet of newspaper into the open door of a nearby furnace that was throwing off heat worthy of Hades.
“Toni!” the man said as he turned, narrowing his eyes. “You know we’ve reached our quota. Are you going against my wishes?”
Toni shook her head. “No, Mark! Of course not!” she said quickly. “Rob sent me here with these two! I would never go against your wishes!”
The man turned and looked directly at Angel. He seemed very old, even though his face was smooth and wrinkle free. But there was not that smiling emptiness that Angel had seen in other DG-ers. Angel sensed such pure evil that she held her breath and tried not to flinch.
“No, of course not,” Mark said, smiling like the Cheshire cat. “You believe in the One Light. You want to be part of the solution, not the problem, don’t you, Toni?”
“Yes, Mark,” Toni said frantically. Angel could feel Toni’s terror and saw incoherent orange light glowing menacingly in her mind. “I believe in the One Light. You know I do.”
“Good girl,” said Mark, and Angel felt Toni almost weep with relief.
Toni turned to Angel and Gazzy and pushed them forward. “Show him,” she said. Summoning her courage, Angel stepped closer, urging Gazzy to stay behind her as she carefully opened her wings.
“Oh, that’s good,” Mark almost purred. “That’s very good. Your wings will bring great strength to many of our children.”
Angel wondered just exactly what that was supposed to mean. Especially when the next thing Mark did was to pull a hot, glowing poker from the furnace nearby.
“Let’s see if we can trust you,” he said, moving toward her.
68
THE DOOMSDAY GROUP posters announced that D-day was near, that when the world ended, the new regime would begin.
Why aren’t crazy people content to take over, like, one town? It always has to be the whole world. They can’t just control maybe twenty people. They have to control everyone. They can’t just be stinking rich. They have to be incomprehensibly stinking rich. They can’t just do genetic experiments on a couple unlucky few. They have to put something in the water. In the air. To get everyone.
I was tired of all of it.
But if their claims were true, this could be the worst thing we’d ever come up against. I couldn’t take the chance. What was really getting to me was that since Angel and Gazzy had left yesterday afternoon, we hadn’t heard from them. All sorts of bad scenarios played out in my brain, but I hoped if they’d been harmed, I would somehow know it, feel it.
“What time does the rally start?” Dylan asked.
“You saw the poster. Noon,” I said, my anxiety making me cranky.
His eyes met mine, and his expression told me that he understood, that he didn’t take it personally. Just then I remembered being with him atop the Arc de Triomphe. Being held, being comforted again wouldn’t be such a bad thing right now…. I looked away, angry at myself for thinking like a weak and weepy damsel.
“We should go there early,” said Nudge, fidgeting in her chair. Despite all the baddies and dangers and disasters we’d faced, this one felt different. We were all on edge.
I nodded. “We’ll head there right after breakfast—and try to volunteer.”
Fang’s gang had its own plan; our part was to get jobs at the rally.
By 10:00 a.m., crowds were gathering at the Place de la Concorde. It was a huge plaza and could hold thousands of people. Somehow the DG had gotten permission to close off the traffic circle around the tall pink-marble obelisk that had been a gift from Egypt nearly two hundred years before.
The DG had plastered the place with flyers, promising a wonderful rally, filled with truth, enlightenment, and new beginnings, all starting at noon.
“Truth, enlightenment, and new beginnings? Try mass destruction of humanity!” Dylan sputtered.
I nodded, continuing to scan the area. I saw nothing ominous—and no signs of Angel or Gazzy. How would D-day come about? A bomb? Death rays? A huge meteor that no one expected? So far I wasn’t getting any clues. I felt tense, with a weird sense of foreboding in the pit of my stomach. Still, this could all turn out to be a huge bust. Maybe the DG had overextended itself?
I could only hope.
We found the main stage, where kids were setting up metal barriers to control the crowd. At least six news vans were unloading equipment, getting ready to film whatever happened.
“Why haven’t we heard from Angel and Gazzy?” I asked under my breath as we waited to speak to someone in charge. “I’m getting nothing from her.”
“I’m sure she’s okay,” Dylan said, putting a hand on my shoulder. I tried not to jump out of my skin. Would I ever get used to him? It really seemed like too much, to have to deal with my feelings about him on top of saving the world.
“Yes?” A smiling teenage girl came to the metal barrier. She looked normal, 100 percent human. Though that didn’t mean anything. “Can I help you?”
“We’d like to volunteer,” I said eagerly. “This is so exciting!”
“It really is,” said the girl. “I feel so honored to be here today serving the One Light.” She gave us another smile. “We’re lucky to have all the help we need right now, so why don’t you grab a good spot and wait for the rally to begin? We’re going to have multiple live feeds to just about every major city in the world—and then a huge fireworks display at the end!”
“I love fireworks!” Nudge said cheerfully.
“It’s going to be beautiful!” The girl’s eyes sparkled. “Mark is going to deliver a really inspiring message.”
“I know!” I tried to sound perky. It was hard. “That’s why we really want to be part of this. We came all the way from the US of A to help! Isn’t there anything we can do?”
“I’m not sure what else there is,” the girl said, smiling helplessly. “I’m sorry.”
“We were thinking that maybe a cool aerial show would help advertise the rally,” I said quickly. “We could show people how special it is to be different—or enhanced.”
Dylan stepped back and quickly extended his wings, fifteen feet of bones, muscle, and raw power. The girl almost fell over backward.
“Oh, yes,” she said in awe. “I think an aerial show is a brilliant idea!”
69
HALF AN HOUR LATER, we were gliding and swooping over the Place de la Concorde on a gorgeous sunny morning in Paris. If we weren’t there trying to stop a bunch of crazies from blowing up the world, it would have been great.
As it was, the closer it got to noon, the more people poured into the enormous plaza, and the more I realized just how many people might lose their lives right in front of me if we couldn’t figure out what was going on and how to stop it.