The Gifted Ones: A Reader (15 page)

Aiden, who was seated on the other side of the table, also stood, but in a more leisurely manner. He was holding a pepperoncini from the antipasti on the table. He lifted it to his lips and said simply, “Kumi.” Then he bit down hard on the pepper.

Kumika narrowed her eyes, barely nodded, and slipped into the proferred chair. When all the men were seated, she turned to Carlo, who was next to her, and stuck her fingers into his hair. Pulling a tuft straight up on his head, she asked, “Gone blonde, huh?” She looked toward Aiden. “You boys going in for some matchy-matchy look?”

Aiden didn’t answer, but Carlo blurted, “No!” as he attempted to undo the damage she had done to his perfect coiffure.

Suppressing a grin, Archer settled the matter, “
I
suggested it, Kumi. I thought the Angel of Darkness might like it. Opposites attract and all that.”

Kumika reached for a tiny plastic sword on the antipasti tray and pierced a cube of aged cheddar. She studied it as she spoke, “Hmm, I guess it worked. Let’s hope the rest of the plan is equally successful, because, from what I hear, it’s on.” She stuck the cheese end of the sword in her mouth and pulled it out clean.

“It will be, and it starts with this.” Archer held his left hand up and pulled and twisted at a ring on his middle finger. He reached across the table and handed the ring to Carlo. “Try it on.”

Carlo tried the ring on his thick middle finger first, then failing that, his ring finger. When it got stuck there as well, he moved it to his pinky, and the ring slid on. “Okay, so what do I do with it? Is it like a radio or somethin’?” He held the ring up to his mouth and seemed about to speak into it when Archer held up a hand.

“No, son, it’s not a radio. It’s a magnet, a fairly powerful magnet. It’s the perfect tool for removing nanophones.”

The boy wrinkled his nose up. “Nanophones? What’s a nanophone?”

Kumika grinned her most devilish grin, saying, “I’ll show you.” She turned to face the boy and slowly extricated a dripping mass of diamonds from her right ear. Then she took Carlo’s hand in hers and laid it along the side of her neck. Keeping her eyes on his face, she gently guided his fingers up toward her ear, pushing them through her silky locks. Archer couldn’t stop himself from grinning as the young man’s face turned an ever-deepening shade of red. Finally, Kumi pulled his hand away from her ear and held it out in front of all of them. With a long fingernail, she pointed to a tiny metal button that had affixed itself to the pinky ring. “That, my dear, is a nanophone—a little teeny two-way microphone.”

Carlo snatched his hand back and held it two inches from his face, inspecting the tiny device. “No kidding,” he said. Then he looked at Kumi. “That was in your ear?”

Archer answered for her, “Yes, and there’s likely one in your girlfriend’s ear much of the time.”

Carlo thought about that for a minute, and his face took on a horrified look. “Wait, like…even when…”

At that, Kumika spiraled into a fit of laughter, and Mondo joined her, his deep bass resonating off the walls. Only Aiden seemed unamused. Archer just shrugged. “Let’s hope the monitors are discreet enough to turn the tapes off once in a while.”

“Tapes?” Carlo gulped.

The poor guy looked miserable, so Archer moved on. He reached into his inside jacket pocket and brought out two tiny sealed vials. One was about half-full, and the other, all the way to the top. He laid them on a napkin and pushed it across the table to Carlo. He pointed to the one that was half-filled. “This one’s for the kid.”

Aiden interjected, “She’s a lightweight, Carlo. Don’t confuse the vials.”

“And make sure they eat first. No empty stomachs, or it might not stay down,” added Archer.

“Wait, what exactly’s gonna happen here?” Carlo picked up the filled vial and studied it. “What does this stuff do? Drowsiness? Confusion? Blackout?” When he got no immediate response, his tone changed, “I mean, this ain’t gonna kill her, right? ’Cause I—”

Armondo laid a hand on his son’s arm. “No, no, no. Nobody’s gonna get hurt. We don’t want no trouble.” He looked across the table. “Do we, Arch?”

Archer had just picked up the bottle of wine from the table. “Why, of course not, Mondo.” He poured himself a glass and lifted it up. He held the glass at eye level, studying the dark colored liquid inside, then spoke, as if to himself, “The formula is quite precise. I mixed it myself. It’s based on some of my groundbreaking research in paralytics…from back in the day.” He swirled the wine in the glass, then took a sip. After holding the beverage in his mouth long enough to savor the flavor, he swallowed. He set the glass down, nodding his approval of the vintage, then looked at all of them. “I just want what’s mine, and this is the simplest way to get it.” He smiled at Armondo. “But I appreciate your concern, my friend; good parents always want what’s best for their children.”

# # #

“And while Joe’s at his meeting, we can tour the monuments and see the White House.” Grace was talking to Ellie the next morning, as they approached the barn, en route to the secret entrance to the airstrip.

Angel, who was just behind them, was thinking how that just sounded boring as hell. She had much better ideas for Ellie’s trip to Washington. “No, no, no. You don’t want to go there. Go see the spy museum. It’s my favorite! There’s so much cool stuff in there, and there’s this awesome bistro next door where they bake all their own bread, and then this gelato place right next to that—it’s to die for. And once we’re done with our…uh, stuff we have to do, we’ll come meet you guys for dinner. Oh, but first thing when we get there, you’ve got to try some of Nicky Argulo’s homemade pretzels—”

Joe looked back at her, laughing. “Angel you should write a book: Washington, D.C., the Gastronomic Guide.”

“Hey, I just don’t want them to miss out…” Her voice trailed off as everyone’s attention shifted toward the barn.

“Grace! Grace, I’m so glad I caught you!” Doo was running toward them, Stetson in hand, from the direction of the pasture. He came to a screeching halt in front of Grace, and panted out his words, “It’s Gilda. She’s sick. I never seen her like this, and she can’t tell me what’s wrong.” He rocked his head back on his neck and looked skyward, catching his breath, then went on, “I think she got into the seaweed bin. I found it this morning with the lid off, and the whole thing’s empty.”

Grace’s eyes widened.
“The whole thing?”
She bit her lower lip and appeared to be thinking hard about something.

Joe looked at Doo. “Well, can’t you just give her something to settle her stomach?”

“No! It’s not that simple,” Grace insisted. “Seaweed has iron and iodine and lots of other powerful constituents.” She shifted her attention to Doo. “If she really ate all that…”

“Is it bad?”

“Yes, really bad. It could kill her. We have to act fast. Do you have any activated charcoal? What about sodium chloride?” She dropped her bag, and started to move toward the pasture.

“Grace…” Joe looked bewildered.

She turned back to look at them, as though she’d completely forgotten about the trip to Washington. “Oh, Joe, I…uh…”

“We can wait for you,” he offered.

She shook her head. “No, you go. I have to stay with her. It might be all day…even all night.” She pointed at Angel. “You’ll stay with Ellie, right? Every minute?”

Angel raised her hands. “That’s my job, Grace. Won’t let her out of my sight.”

“I’ll be fine, Aunt Grace. Go take care of the cow.” Ellie made a shooing motion.

Grace nodded her assent to all of them, and blew a kiss to Ellie. Then she grabbed Doo by the elbow and yanked him back in the direction from which he had come. Joe looked at Angel and Ellie and said half-heartedly, “Well, I guess it’s just us then. Ready, ladies?”

Angel looked at him quizzically. She’d known Joe Manning a long time, worked side-by-side with him in many stressful situations, and he’d always kept his cool. That was Joe—Mr. Even Keel. It was why he was such a fantastic leader. But yet, these last few days, with Ellie and Grace around…well, he just seemed off his game.

# # #

Joe was still brooding as the trio boarded the plane. While Angel and Ellie settled themselves in to comfortable seats in the front, he excused himself to the back cabin, taking his computer and phone with him. As soon as he’d pulled closed the cabin door, Ellie wrinkled up her nose. “So what’s up with him?”

“You noticed that, too, huh?” Angel looked in the direction of the back cabin, as if it would somehow yield some insight. “He’s never like this—all moody and broody.”

“It’s certainly not the way I remember him, from when I was little. He was always happy and funny and playful. At least with me. He used to take me to the zoo and the museum and the playground.” She shrugged. “Maybe this is just what happens to people when they get old.”

Angel laughed out loud. “Hey, he’s not
that
old, and he’s probably got more on his mind nowadays than he did back then, but…something does seem to be bothering him. He’ll usually tell me. I can’t very well protect him and our other Gifted folks, if I don’t know everything that’s going on.”

“Maybe it’s personal.”

“Personal…” Angel raised an eyebrow to indicate her confusion.

“You know, like…maybe he had a fight with his girlfriend.”

Angel shook her head. “No girlfriend. At least not currently.” She looked up in her head a moment, trying to recall. “Hmm, not for a long time, now that I think about it. As long as I’ve known Joe, he’s never really had great luck in that department. He’ll go out with somebody a few times, maybe a few weeks or months, but it never lasts.” She shrugged. “I don’t know why. I guess he’s just too wrapped up in his work. His love life is one area we don’t discuss.”

“But maybe…I mean, I was thinking…” Ellie bit her lip.

“What?”

“Well, he looked kind of red, didn’t he? Maybe more violet. You know, hot. Like hot temperature.”

“Violet? Hot temperature?” Angel shook her head out. What was the kid talking about? She seemed like a bright girl, but she was making zero sense right now.

“You know what I mean, Angel. Jealous. Angry. Hurt.”

“O-o-o-h.” Angel’s eyes widened. “You think Joe has a thing for your aunt? And he’s jealous of Doo?” Angel thought about it a minute, then laughed. “No. No way. Even if he was totally diggin’ on Grace, Joe would never be jealous of the cowboy.”

Ellie shrugged. “If you say so.”

“I know so. Joe Manning’s a very confident guy. If there’s something he wants, he doesn’t sit around and mope. He goes after it.”

“Is that what happened with you? You said he more or less plucked you off the street, and now you’re the Chief Defender for his whole organization.”

Angel grinned, trying to control her pride. “I don’t think that was necessarily his plan from the beginning. He just wanted to help us—me and Rique, I mean.”

“Oh, your brother. Right.”

“Yeah, one of the Council members had read about what happened, had Rishi do some checking, and they figured out we were probably Gifted and sent Joe to find us. They’re good people, chica, all of them. If it wasn’t for Joe and Granny and the Council, I’d probably be in jail now, and Rique would have ended up dead.”

“But why? I know your mom died, but didn’t you have anyone to take care of you? What about your dad? Or some other relatives?”

Angel gave her a soft smile. Maybe they had both lost their mothers at an early age, but that’s where the similarities stopped. There was no Aunt Grace to pick up the pieces for the Espinoza kids. “Nah, there was no one. Daddy wasn’t exactly up to the task, and none of Mom’s relatives even knew where we were or how to find us. I took Rique and ran, because I knew if Social Services got a hold of us, we’d end up split up and probably abused and lost in the system somewhere.”

Ellie looked dumbfounded. She spoke quietly, “Wow, I never thought about that. How did you live? On the streets?”

“More or less. Sometimes, we’d find a place to crash for a while—a church or a friend of a friend or whatever.” She looked down at the floor. “But there was always a price to pay, one way or another.”

After a moment, though, she looked back up and grinned. “But sometimes, it wasn’t so bad. We’d sneak in places, like hotels or department stores or public buildings, and find a warm place to sleep and a clean toilet. And sometimes there’d be food left out on room service trays or from some big shindig, and we’d stuff our empty bellies ’til we were sick. Rique developed quite the talent for moving around without being seen or heard.” She wrinkled up her forehead. “And he’s only gotten better at it with time. He used to love to sneak up behind me and scare the crap out of me…until I got to where I could beat the living hell out of him.”

“You can do that? Really? I know you’re good, but he’s a Defender, too, right? And he looked…big. I mean, really big.”

Angel leaned back in her seat and stretched her legs out in front of her. “Oh, he is. Six-foot-four, about two-fifty, and yes, I can still take him down. And more importantly, he knows it.” She grinned from ear to ear. “Nothing pisses him off more.”

“But how? You’re…”

“Six inches shorter and almost a hundred pounds lighter? Yeah, well, I’ll tell ya.” She sat back up and leaned forward in the seat, bringing her closer to Ellie. “It’s not his fault. He’s a Two.”