Flying High (10 page)

Dom’s next words blew everyone away, including Brice. “I’d like to go and live with my dad,” he said stiffly.

The atmosphere instantly dropped way below zero.

Laura de Winter’s beautiful face tightened like a mask. “Dominic, dear, I’m afraid you’re a little confused,” she said coldly. “Your father is dead, you know that.”

Dom looked disgusted. “You people are unbelievable. Did you seriously think I’d never find out about Dad?”

It seemed like Brice’s baby brother wasn’t quite so helpless and innocent as everybody thought.

There was a stunned silence.

“Well,” said Jonas de Winter at last. “If that’s the case, of course you must go to be with your father. We understand perfectly. Don’t we, Laura?” And he totally released Dom from his embrace. He actually held up his hands so we could see he wasn’t holding Dom against his will.

Dom strolled over to our side of the table. He was trying to act cool, but I saw him trembling with strain.

Jonas bared his teeth in a smile. “You see! All very civilised. But civilisation works both ways, my dears, so now you must keep your side of the bargain.”

“Give them the device and get Dom out of here,” Brice hissed.

I stared wildly round the room, trying to think of something, anything, which would get us out of this nightmare.

“Just do it, angel girl!” Brice threatened in my ear. “You’re supposed to be saving Dom, remember?”

I will, I will, I thought. Just as soon as I figure out how.

Because no matter what Brice said, I couldn’t do it his way. Think about it. Generations of evil de Winters snaking in and out of eternity, buying and selling human lives, wrecking my lovely blue-green planet. And I’m supposed to trust these characters with the sacred keys of history? I don’t
think
so!

If only our tags were still working, I thought desperately. We could send for Agency back-up, then we’d get these people sorted, no problem.

Then clear as day, I heard a voice inside my head.

It wasn’t Michael or Mr Allbright. It wasn’t anyone celestial, funnily enough. It was Des, my down-to-earth step-dad. I could actually see him, in my mind’s eye. He was sitting in his favourite armchair and he was smiling at me. “Melanie,” he said earnestly. “If you can’t make it, then you’ve just got to fake it, girl.”

I felt a prickle of excitement. My step-dad had a point. Wasn’t Mr Allbright always saying that imagination was a genuine angelic power? Then why not use it? If I imagined that I still had my personal hotline to the Agency, maybe it would come true?

Well, it was worth a shot. I felt furtively for my damaged tags.

Excuse me you guys, if you’re listening, I said silently. “We’re trapped somewhere in the twenty-third century and we have a major problem. We’ve got to stop the de Winters wrecking history but we totally don’t want to sacrifice this really great kid, Dominic. Please help us ASAP.

Did I feel a genuine tingle of angel electricity then, or was I just so desperate that I wanted to believe it?

Jonas de Winter’s voice was as smooth as ever. “The device, if you please.”

I made a major production out of it, slowly groping inside the wrong pocket of my jacket, then exploring the back pockets of my jeans.

“Don’t screw up now, sweetheart,” Brice warned. “My brother’s life is on the line here.”

The headmaster’s smile was becoming a little fixed. “I hope you aren’t playing games with me, young lady.”

That’s when I knew we’d finally run out of time. Not knowing what else to do, I miserably held out the device.

“Just push it across the table,” Jonas de Winter coaxed. “Nice and easy. No sudden moves.”

In agonising slow-mo I laid it on the table, and felt a collective quiver of excitement go through the de Winters.

My mates and I watched, hypnotised, as Jonas de Winter reached out his hand. I felt numb with horror. By the time this evil family had finished ransacking the past, Earth’s future would be totally in their hands.

It was Dom’s mother who unexpectedly broke the spell. “You silly boy,” she snapped at her son. “You could have had everything, yet you gave it all up to be with that fool.”

Dom went white with rage. Before anyone could stop him, he snatched up the device, frantically pressing keypads.

I heard Brice give a hiss of pure surprise.

Scribbles of neon light appeared in mid-air.

The de Winters looked oddly fascinated. But under their studied calm, it was obvious they were terrified.

“NOW!” yelled Reuben.

Angel martial-arts teachers say that when you’re in tune with the cosmos, you don’t have to think about your moves, you just spring effortlessly into action. And that’s exactly what we did.

For the first time in our training, my mates and I used angelic martial-arts skills on humans. Brice invisibly lent a helping hand. Dom and Lily also pitched in. There was a brief, though quite dramatic, struggle which I’m happy to say we won.

Minutes later we had them all neatly tied up with the pretty golden curtain ropes.

Against all the odds and with absolutely no back-up, unless you count that inspired advice from my lovely step-dad, we had done it. We’d simultaneously saved Dom
and
history!!

Reuben clapped Dom on the back. “Nice work, mate. Now give us that device, before someone really gets hurt.”

Dom shook his head. “No way! This is payback time.”

Uh-oh
, I thought. My mates and I exchanged alarmed glances.

Dom had a weird sleepwalking expression, as if he couldn’t believe this was finally happening. “You know what I hate about you people?” he said to his trussed-up relatives, and I saw tears glittering in his eyes. “Your kids are just like cute little pets to you. You buy us expensive clothes, send us to be educated in your special Phoenix schools. And all the time, you’re filling our heads with your disgusting lies. I’ve been on to you for years, Uncle Jonas. And you, Mum. You think you’ve been watching me, when all the time I’ve been watching
you
.”

“Dom, sweetie,” I said gently.

“Don’t worry, I’m not going to kill them,” Dom told me earnestly. “I just want them to suffer, the way they’ve made people suffer for centuries. And now I’ve come up with the perfect punishment.”

He let out a nervous peal of laughter. “You thought it was hilarious, didn’t you? Funny little Dom, so naive, he’d actually use a powerful cosmic device to run some sad little time scam for pocket money. Yeah, right!”

“You little toad!” said Jonas in a startled voice. “You were running scientific trials all along!”

“Correct, Uncle Jonas! I was also getting an excellent education. I saw a kid succeed where the grown-ups had screwed up. In thirteenth-century France I saw a teenage boy inspire thousands of other kids to follow him, not out of fear or for money or because the de Winters were yanking their strings. But out of pure and utter love.”

“I’m sure that’s highly commendable, dear—” his mother interrupted.

“Just shut up and listen!” Dom yelled. He drew a shaky breath then went on in a quieter voice, “So I figured, hey, I get it! We really can have Heaven on Earth like everyone says. Except that Stephen made one big mistake. He forgot about the Dark side. But I won’t do that. I’ve been watching them operate my whole life. That’s why I had to perfect the device, so I can get rid of my family.”

“Dom,” said Lola. “Maybe, this isn’t—”

But Dom wasn’t listening. “The only thing is where to send you,” he pondered. “Personally I’d love to zap you all back to Marseilles and put you on your own ancestors’ slave ships. Poetic justice, don’t you think?” He gave another nervous laugh.

“But then it might be even more fun to zap you forwards, to one of those experimental space colonies they’re planning to build in our future. That way, you wouldn’t even be contaminating the same planet as the rest of the human race.”

I was getting a wee bit concerned at this point. Don’t get me wrong. I totally sympathised with Dominic’s feelings. But as you know, the Agency doesn’t exactly
encourage
violent acts of revenge.

But like all de Winters, once Dom got going, he was kind of unstoppable. He pointed to the still madly twirling time FX. “See that, you guys? In twenty seconds max, you’ll be gone for ever.”

“He won’t do it,” his mother said scornfully. “He’s all talk like his father.”

Dom’s face twisted. He swung round, deliberately aiming the device at the captives. All the relatives ducked, whimpering with fright.

Reuben’s voice rang out like a bell. “This won’t work, Dom! You can’t create Paradise by just deleting all your enemies, man.”

But things had gone too far. Dom didn’t dare to stop now. His fingers flickered over the keypad and with no expression whatsoever, he activated the device.

There was a collective flinch of horror. I felt helpless. But there was nothing we could do except to wait to see what happened next.

At first I thought Dom had decided to zap the de Winters to that space station after all, because when they appeared, the new time FX were lovelier and more futuristic than ever. Unbelievably beautiful colours filled the room, but at their core was a light so celestial and pure that my eyes filled with tears.

My step-dad’s advice had worked. Our Agency back-up had arrived in the nick of time.

The light levels adjusted, becoming slightly less dazzling, and Michael stepped into the room, closely followed by several stern-looking agents.

Michael calmly took the device from Dom. “Reuben’s right. This is not the way,” he told Dom. “The power to judge and punish does not belong to you. If you really want to change the world, you’ll have to try to understand that.”

I don’t think Dom for one minute suspected that his uncle’s boardroom was full of angels! He just took Michael and the others for humans from some wonderful, luminous, far distant future, and he looked completely over-awed.

Forgetting we’d ever been enemies, I whispered to the invisible Brice, “Isn’t this brilliant? You finally kept your promise! You saved Dom!”

Or that’s what I was going to say.

But he’d silently slipped away. I don’t think he could face Michael.

I noticed Michael watching me with his beautiful all-seeing eyes.

“
Actually
, you all saved Dom,” he said gravely. “His father is a fine influence and now Dom will have his true guardian angel to watch over him. The truth is, we never stopped watching over him, Melanie. Not even for a moment.”

He seemed happy to leave it at that, but my mind swirled with unanswered questions. OK, Dom was safe, but what about Brice? Where was his happy ending? Was anyone watching over him? Could he break his evil bargain with the PODS and come back home? Or had he blown it with the Agency for all Eternity?

Michael passed his hand lightly over my hair, and I felt a zillion archangel volts sizzle down my spine. “Time to go home, Melanie,” he said softly. “We’ll take care of this from now on.”

Chapter Eleven

A
few days later my phone jolted me out of a deep sleep.

“Melanie speaking,” I mumbled.

“Sorry if I woke you,” said Michael’s amused voice.

I shot up in bed. “No problem,” I babbled. “I’ll be down at the Agency in two ticks.”
Then I caught sight of myself in the mirror. With my bed hair sticking up all over the place, I looked ridiculously like a cockatoo.

“Didn’t I say? I’m at Guru,” Michael said cheerfully. “I’ve been at the Agency all night. I thought we could have a chat over breakfast.”

I carefully replaced the phone. Then I registered what he’d said and practically went into orbit, madly throwing on the first clothes which tumbled out of my wardrobe. “Omigosh, omigosh,” I moaned.

There could only be one explanation for Michael’s alarmingly exclusive invitation. My cosmic crimes had caught up with me and I was going to be reprimanded big-time.

My legs were literally shaking as I walked into Guru.

Michael waved from a booth. “I ordered some rather delicious looking pastries for us both. I hope that’s OK?”

But when the pastries came, I just sat fiddling nervously with my cutlery. My heart was thumping so hard, I was sure Michael could hear it.

Why the sassafras doesn’t he just put me out of my misery? I thought miserably.

“If it’s about the tags, maybe I could just pay the Agency back or something,” I suddenly blurted out.

Michael looked blank. “The tags?”

“We didn’t
plan
to materialise,” I said desperately. “It was an accident.”

Michael poured us both some freshly-squeezed orange juice. “A very useful accident as it turned out,” he said smiling.

I was totally bewildered now, not to mention the suspense was killing me. When was I going to get my ticking off?

“Oh, did you hear the good news?” he added. “Orlando’s team saved about fifty of those brave young Crusaders.”

I felt a pang of distress. Fifty was better than nothing, but I’d wanted
all
those kids to be saved.

Michael gave me one of his looks. “At the Agency, we believe in evolution,” he said gently. “This means we take the long-term view.”