Inside Straight

The baby's crying seemed to get louder.

They managed to maneuver the fire hose in place to spray water at the blazing windows, but by this time the flames were monstrous, engulfing the building. Shouting continued to emanate from within—more people needing rescue. They didn't have much time, and the minutes dragged painfully.

Then Curveball said, "Oh my God." She cupped her hands to her face and shouted, "Hardhat! He's gonna jump! The guy's jumping!"

From one of the third-story windows, a man was climbing over the sill. Hardhat came running. "Where?"

"To the right!"

Drummer Boy dropped the hose and made a dash for the window, as if he could actually catch a falling body, but it was too late. Hardhat only laid one of his I beams down before the victim landed.

"Motherfucker!" Hardhat shouted. Drummer Boy gave an angry shake of an arm.

They had no way of getting inside. They couldn't pull anyone out.

"Would somebody do something?" Curveball yelled. She kept saying that.

Hardhat, sweat and soot smearing his face, turned on her. "What the fuck you want me to do? Blow pixie dust out my ass? I've been doing something!"

Gardener tried to step in. "Arguing isn't going to help anything."

"At least we're good at that," Hive said, and he actually smiled.

Then they all started shouting at each other.

Some team, Ana thought.

"Maybe I can make it look like we're doing a good job," Wild Fox said, flicking his fox tail. Suddenly, another Wild Fox—a young Asian guy with floppy black hair and a quirky grin, fur-covered fox ears, and a luxurious fox tail poking out the back of his jeans, swishing like a banner behind him—ran from the building, carrying the latest teen pop star in his arms. She wrapped her arms around his neck and planted dozens of kisses on him.

Ana looked at him. "I thought your illusions don't show up on camera. That isn't going to help us."

He frowned. "Crap." The vision before them popped out of existence.

Then, an air horn blared. The flow of water from the fire hose slowed and stopped, cut off from another source. Floodlights snapped on, drowning the area in blazing white light. The seven Hearts squinted against the glare.

Inside the building, the fires died as the feeds from gas nozzles shut off. Four people walked from the building—perfectly safe, uninjured. They were stuntmen, wearing protective suits and helmets. A fifth climbed off the stunt mat set up at the side of the building. Hollywood magic at its finest. They removed their masks and smirked at the seven aces as they passed. The three who'd actually been rescued weren't any less accusing.

From a side doorway leading into the Hollywood backlot, a woman emerged. She wore designer jeans and a fitted, cream-colored blouse. With her statuesque frame and long brunette hair, she was already stunning, but one feature stood out above all the others: her wings, mottled white and beige, spectacular even folded back.

Peregrine crossed her arms and regarded the seven would-be heroes, who avoided her gaze. "That was a little underwhelming. But I think I'll save any more criticism for the judges. Go home and wait for your next call."

A half-dozen cameras captured the failure from every angle.

Team Hearts had their own Humvee for use during the show, tricked out and painted with their logo. The marketing gurus had thought of everything.

Hardhat drove, and for a long time no one said a word.

Finally, Hive broke the silence. "Well. That could have gone better."

Crammed into his seat in back, Drummer Boy snorted a laugh.

After that, the seven passengers glared silently out their own windows. The camera planted in the dashboard captured an image of profound disappointment, and it would play on millions of TV sets for all the world to see.

Ana Cortez—Earth Witch, so-called—thought through the scenario again and again, and wondered what she could have done. Dug a hole. Dug a ditch. Undermined the building. And what good would that have done? None. Now the team had lost, and one of them would get voted off.

Almost, she wished she'd get the boot so she could go home and forget about all this.

Team Hearts headquarters was a sprawling West Hollywood manor, with a gated driveway, stucco walls, a luscious lawn and flourishing garden—the kind of place that played well on television and promoted the fantasy of a Southern California paradise.

All of it was just a backdrop for the drama.

Curveball—Kate Brandt—stormed from the garage into the combined kitchen and dining area. In her, the stunned disappointment of their failure had changed to fury. Jaw set, she turned on her slower teammates.

"They should have given us some kind of warning. If we'd been able to plan—"

Hive laughed. "That's the whole point. We're not supposed to plan. We're supposed to face the unknown. Battle the unexpected." Arms raised, he flashed his hands to emphasize his sarcasm.

"I thought they'd start with something small," Andrew Yamauchi, Wild Fox, said. His tail revealed his disappointment, hanging almost to the floor. "Rescuing kittens from trees or something."

Hardhat—T.T. Taszycki—leaned against the counter. "Makes you wonder what the fuck is next, don't it?"

Hive just wouldn't let up. "Look at it this way—that farce back there was highly entertaining. It should get us a lot of air time."

Curveball turned on him. "Would you shut up? There was nothing entertaining about that! We were awful!"

Curveball and Hive faced each other down across the too bright kitchen, and any friendly sparks that had lit between them over the last week vanished. The others lurked around the edges of the room. Even Drummer Boy, all seven feet of him, managed to slink out of their way.

Jonathan Hive was too slick. He had a studied detachment, a journalistic objectivity that went a little too far—he was always an observer. He'd put himself on the outside, and he was used to commenting on everything.

He regarded Curveball and said with wry amazement, "You're actually taking all this seriously, aren't you? That's kinda cute."

He'd failed to observe that she'd already taken a marble out of her pocket and gripped it in her fist.

Ana spotted it. "Kate, no—"

Too late. Curveball wound up her pitch and threw the missile at him.

"Whoa!" His eyes went wide, and his shoulder—where the marble would have struck—disintegrated with the sound of buzzing. The cloth of his shirt collapsed as the flesh dissolved into a swarm of tiny green particles, which scattered before the marble as he flinched away. A second later, the hundred buzzing insects coalesced, crawling under his collar and merging back into his body. The marble didn't touch him, but hit the wall behind him. A faint insect humming lingered.

To her credit, Curveball hadn't thrown the marble hard. She hadn't put all her anger into it. It would have only bruised him. But it did embed itself in the wall behind Hive and send cracks radiating across the paint.

He glared at the wall, then at her. "I guess this would be a bad time to ask if you, ah, wanted to have dinner with me. Or something."

She stomped out of the kitchen and through the French doors to the redwood porch. A moment later, Drummer Boy followed her. No doubt another camera would capture them and whatever heart-to-heart conversation they were having.

Back in the kitchen, Hive shrugged away from the wall, straightened his shirt, and for once seemed uncomfortable that he was the center of attention. Without a word—uncharacteristically without a word—he hunched his shoulders against their stares and stalked to the back of the house to hide away in his bedroom.

Seemed as good a plan as any, Ana thought, and did the same.

Break to commercial.

This was all Roberto's fault.

A month ago, back home in New Mexico, Ana lugged bags of groceries into the trailer where she lived with her father and brother. Seventeen-year-old Roberto lay stretched out on the sofa, reading a magazine and watching the evening news in Spanish.