Flying High (8 page)

A terrible tiredness came over me. “You can always try,” I said wearily.

“Then sit down,” he said. “This could take a while.”

And Brice started to tell us a story so horrifying, that it might almost be true.

Chapter Nine

O
nce upon a time I was a human being.” Brice sounded coldly chatty, like nothing he said actually mattered. “And sorry, Mel, I didn’t live in the distant past, as you’d like to believe.”

“You lived in this century, didn’t you?” said Reuben softly.

“Correct, angel boy. This was my little personal slot in time. This school was also my school. And Dominic de Winter, amateur time-tours operator - well, he was my little brother.”

I think I actually gasped. But Brice was still talking.

“Dom was just three when I died. And before you ask, he has no idea we’re related. He doesn’t remember that he ever had a brother. A little magic trick of mine.”

I was horrified. “Didn’t your parents tell him?”

Brice’s eyes glittered coldly. “Dad was out of the picture by this time. As for Mum, well, better not get me started on her.”

The cello was still sobbing away overhead and I wished whoever was playing would just knock it off. Things were quite intense enough.

Brice took a breath. “Everyone uses that word ‘family’, like we’re all talking about the same thing. But my family is truly unique. Oh, on the surface, we’re incredibly civilised, darlings. But underneath - oh man, it’s like swimming with crocodiles.” He gave his cold laugh. “Yeah, crocodiles is about right. In the days before war was banned, you’d always find a de Winter lurking at the bottom of the pond, making a stonking profit. No matter which country lost or won, the de Winters made a killing. They’d buy and sell anything. Guns, bombs, planes, medicines, artificial limbs, human beings…”

Brice watched, totally without expression, as several sets of tail-lights went glimmering slowly up the avenue towards the house. I counted five - no, six vehicles. They must be having a party, I thought vaguely.

“Isn’t it funny how each kid always thinks he’ll be different?” Brice said. “They see their parents screw up and they say, ‘Uh-uh, not me! I’m better than that. I’m going to change the world.’”

“Some of them do,” Lola pointed out.

“Oh spare me,” he said. “Aren’t you guys ever off duty?”

Lola’s eyes were steely. “I don’t know. Are you?”

“Just let the guy talk,” Reuben told her.

Brice was still watching the cars. “But Dom really was different,” he said and his tone was suddenly softer, less mocking. “I saw that right from the start. The kind of kid Phoenix schools were invented for. Bright, sensitive, totally magic.”

The cello stopped abruptly. A door banged overhead and a small boy came flying down the stair lugging an instrument case that was practically twice his size. Brice waited until the baby cellist was out of earshot.

“I don’t expect you to believe this, but when Dom was born, I actually thought I was getting a chance to make up for all the bad stuff I’d done. I made this promise to myself that I was going to save my little baby bro from our evil reptile rellies.” Brice laughed. “But like I said, I died.

“Now here’s the really hilarious part, you guys. It turned out I’d been talent-spotted by someone at the Agency who decided I’d make an absolutely super angel!” He blew out his breath. “Talk about culture shock! No blackmail, no lies, no undercover thuggery. Just never-ending bliss.” Brice’s voice grew softly intimate. “It feels so safe in the Heavenly City, doesn’t it, Mel? Like nothing could ever hurt you?”

I felt my skin begin to creep. I hated the thought of Brice going anywhere near my favourite heavenly hang-outs.

He went on talking in that same intimate voice, as if it was just the two of us alone together. “At nights I’d lie in my narrow little bed in the Academy dorm, listening to that cosmic lullaby you like so much, Melanie. The humming-top music?”

I went bright red. Brice loves to make out that he has this private window into my mind.

“It’s OK, sweetheart,” he jeered. “Your lullaby never did it for me. I was far too worried imagining what my family was doing to Dom.”

He started pacing. “Oh, Michael gave me all the usual guff about how no-one’s ever really alone on Earth. And I’m thinking, well I was on Earth for fifteen freaking years and you never helped me. And I’m supposed to
trust
you with my baby brother!”

He was back at the window now, staring out at the house. “Anyway, why would the Agency help a de Winter kid, a bad seed? It didn’t make sense.”

Something about Brice’s life story must have got under my skin, because to my annoyance my eyes went all blurry with tears.

Will you get a grip, Melanie, I snuffled to myself. You’re supposed to be thinking up a plan to get the time device away from this creep, not sympathising with his lousy childhood.

It was lucky my soul-mate was made of sterner stuff. “Ok we’ve heard your tragic story,” she said in a bored voice. “What’s your point?”

Brice whirled round. “What’s my
point
? To educate you, Sanchez. I’m giving you brats a free reality lesson.”

Lola gave a rude snort. “Like you’re the only person who’s ever suffered.”

“Stop it both of you,” said Reuben fiercely. “Stop it right now. Can you see this is just what they want?”

Our angel buddy didn’t even raise his voice, yet it went right through me like a bell. Everyone shut up even Brice.

“Better,” said Reuben calmly, and he nodded towards the window. “Now Brice can tell us what going on up at the house.”

“Oh, that,” Brice said in a careless voice. “My evil rellies are having a get-together.”

“Like a party, you mean?” I said.

“You have no idea how big my family is, have you?” He clocked Lola’s scathing expression. “No, I’m not boasting, Sanchez. I’m trying to explain that this is not some small local nightmare you’ve stumbled into. It’s global, baby. The cars you saw just now? They’re just the latecomers. Guests have been arriving from all over the world for days.”

“OK, so your family has flash parties,” Lola began but Brice ignored her.

“That house with its oh-so-distressing vibes belongs to my uncle, Jonas de Winter. Didn’t you realise? He’s the Phoenix school headmaster.”

My mouth completely turned to cotton wool.
What’s wrong with this picture
, I’d asked. Now I knew.

It wasn’t the school which was radiating confusing signals. It was my lovely, perfect dream house.

Brice gave a grim laugh. “You’ve got to hand it to the de Winters. We’re adaptable. War is out. Peace is in. Hey, let’s take over a Phoenix school and use it as cover for our less respectable activities.”

Lola frowned. “So why the party?”

He looked surprised. “To celebrate Dom’s achievement, obviously.”

“Huh?” Lola and I stared at him.

“Oh, do try to keep up, you guys!” said Reuben impatiently. “Dom reinvented the time device. Didn’t you figure that out yet?”

I stared at him. “But he’s just a kid.”

“A Phoenix kid,” he said. “A boy genius.”

It seemed that de Winter scientists had been trying to reconstruct the device for decades. But there was one tiny detail they simply couldn’t figure out.

Then Dom won a major science prize and the Family were over the moon. Maybe little Dom could succeed where the scientists had failed. Someone “accidentally” left the relevant research material at Dom’s mum’s place, where he was bound to find it in the holidays. Then they sat back and waited. They didn’t have to wait long.

“Dom knocks a prototype together in like, a weekend, but my little brother is a total innocent. He has absolutely no idea what he’s got himself into! So what does he do with this world-shattering invention?” Brice looked as if he didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.

“He runs a time-tour scam for his mates?” I suggested.

Brice made an impatient gesture. “The little idiot could have got himself killed, but do you think Mum and the rest of them care? No, they just want to know if the thing actually works. So they simply look the other way and let him take all these stupid risks.”

“Can’t someone stop them?” I asked.

“No-one stops the de Winters, believe me. Oh, sure they’re human. Just. If you stick pins in them, they bleed. When their hearts stop, they snuff it. But there’s always another de Winter to take their place.”

“But the government—” I objected feebly.

He shook his head. “The government has no idea they’re here. The de Winters are masters at camouflaging their activities. It’s an art form, how they operate. They suck people in so gradually they don’t even notice it happening. A well-timed reward here, a little painful pressure there, until they own you body and soul.”

“They’ll never own Dom,” I said fiercely.

“‘They’ll never own Dom’,” he mimicked. ‘Don’t make me laugh. They’d have got him years ago, if it wasn’t for me.”

“So how come you were allowed back to these times to keep an eye on your brother?” said Reuben.

There was an electric pause, then Brice said lightly, “Oh, the usual deal.”

“You made a deal with the Agency?” I was shocked.

Lola shook her head. “He sold his soul, Boo. To the PODS.”

Brice shrugged. “The great thing about the Dark Powers is they keep things simple. They don’t give a monkey’s about your morals or motives. It’s a straightforward trade. I do them favours. They let me keep an eye on Dom.”

“Now tell us the bad thing about the PODS,” Reuben suggested softly.

The question took Brice by surprise. I saw a tiny muscle move in his cheek. “I told you, they’re cool. Anyway, I’m a big boy. I can handle it.”

We waited. He swallowed. “The worst thing is when they won’t let me see Dom. Last time they didn’t let me near him for months. You saw what he got up to then.”

“That’s when he re-invented the time device, right?” I said.

“Do you blame him?” said Brice angrily. “Trapped in our mother’s house for a whole summer. He was lonely as hell.”

“How do we know this isn’t one of your sick little games?” Lola said suddenly. “Like, ‘Oh I’ll make the angels believe my sad story, then catch them off-guard and totally trash them’.”

“I don’t actually care what you think, darling,” drawled Brice. “I know why I’m here, that’s all that matters.”

Reuben’s voice was quiet. “I believe him.”

Lola was horrified. “After what he did to you in London!”

“Like I said,” Reuben repeated firmly, “I believe him.”

Sometimes pure angels take your breath away. After all Brice had done to him, our buddy was willing to give him another chance.

The weird thing is, I thought Reuben was right.

For the first time Brice made a warped kind of sense. He wasn’t just some evil cosmic joker delighting in chaos. He
loved
someone. He loved his brother like I loved my sister Jade. But unlike me, he didn’t trust anyone else to keep his brother safe. Brice only trusted one person. Brice.

The atmosphere in the room had totally morphed. I think even Lola was on the verge of giving our old enemy the benefit of the doubt. And maybe our expressions had changed or something, because Brice’s face suddenly shut like a trap. “OK, the freak show’s over. Now flutter off back to Heaven where everything is pretty and nothing hurts.”

“But I thought you—” My voice trailed off.

“You thought I wanted your help!” Brice’s face twisted. “Don’t make me laugh! I’ve taken care of Dom all his life and I don’t need a bunch of little angels getting in my hair. You’ve got him into enough trouble as it is. So just shove off.”

A door slammed and a desperate voice yelled, “Dave? Dave, are you there?”

Dave
? I thought dimly. Then I remembered that bad-boy Brice was currently posing as good-guy Dave.

Lily came charging upstairs. She’d gone so white that her freckles were standing out like braille. She could hardly get the words out for crying. “I’m so scared,” she gasped at last. “They’ve got Dom.”

Brice looked as if he might be sick. “What do you mean?”

“They know what he’s been up to…” Lily babbled.

I knew she meant the de Winters.

“… about the device and everything. They said he had to hand it over. Dom said he had no idea what they were on about. I lost it, Dave. I said I saw him give it to you, so they sent me to find you. I’ve been looking everywhere!”

In other circumstances I’d have been sorry for her, but I’d gone completely cold inside.

I backed away from Brice in horror. We’d been such
idiots
. Brice didn’t love Dom. He didn’t give a stuff about anyone. He never had. He’d been working for the PODS all along.

“You evil jerk!” I was in tears of fury. “I can’t believe even you would stoop so low. You actually betrayed your own brother!”