The Final Warning Read online

  We heard voices out in the hall, and then Michael Papa leaned through our doorway. “Is Akila in here, by any chance? Last I saw, she was outside with Total and Angel, but that was an hour ago. Have they checked in with you?”

  Fang’s eyes met mine, the tension of a few moments ago completely forgotten.

  “Get the others,” I told him, and he nodded. “Tell them to dress warm.”

  51

  “WELL, THIS SUCKS BIG-TIME,” Total said, and Angel agreed. She swallowed hard and tried to calm down. If Max were here, what would she do? Angel grimaced — Max wouldn’t have gotten herself into this situation.

  “It’s okay,” Total said soothingly to Akila. He turned to Angel. “Tell her it’s going to be okay.”

  Angel sent thoughts into Akila’s mind. She felt Akila’s fear and confusion, but also a tough determination. Akila wasn’t prepared to die here. She would do anything to get out.

  Us too, Angel told her. Everything will be okay. We’ll get out. Max will come for us. Max always comes for us. To herself, she thought: I’ve got to stop getting into things where Max has to come for me.

  Akila quieted and quit struggling against the ice.

  They were probably about a mile from Lucir station. Angel could picture the exact terrain they had crossed, and she could also picture what it would look like from the air. Everything had been fine: They had plenty of time before sunset, she had Total and Akila with her, and there had been a clear trail of penguin tracks for her to follow. All she had wanted to do was get close to a baby penguin — maybe even touch it. If she sent the parents no-harm thoughts, they would probably let her. A baby penguin would feel so soft and downy.

  The penguin tracks had led over the snow and ice, and Angel had followed them. Right up until she’d fallen into this crevasse. It had been hidden by hard-packed snow, and the penguins had somehow managed to cross it, though some of them weighed more than Angel. But for some reason, as soon as Angel stepped on it, it had given way. Her wings had flared automatically, pulling up painfully as she slid down deep into the hard, icy crevasse. Yelping and scrabbling frantically, Total and Akila had been sucked down with her.

  Now, three minutes later, Angel, Total, and Akila were wedged tightly in a vee made of ice and rock-hard packed snow. Her wings were stuck open, back and behind her, and it really hurt. She tried pulling them in and down but couldn’t budge them without feeling like they were going to be ripped out of their sockets.

  Worse, Angel feared that below them, the crevasse opened out again, that they were caught in a bottleneck of ice, and if it broke, they would fall down who knew how far. One of her feet was dangling through a crack underneath them, and all she felt around it was cold air. She might be able to catch herself, if she had enough room, but she wouldn’t be able to save Total or Akila.

  “How far down did we fall?” Total asked.

  Angel looked up. “Um, maybe like . . . eighteen feet? Twenty feet?”

  “Maybe if I brace my paws on each side, I can climb up, like a chimney,” Total murmured. “No — it’s too wide at the top. Dang it.” His bright black eyes looked at Angel. “We goofed.”

  “Yeah.” Angel felt guilty — this was all her fault. If she sent a thought, could Max hear it? She didn’t think so. It only seemed to work when she was really close to the person.

  Akila whimpered and scrabbled again, trying to grab a paw-hold. But she only slipped farther down, and now some of her weight was resting on Angel, pushing her down an inch and making her wings feel an inch more ripped, and her foot an inch more precarious.

  Akila, please stop, Angel thought at her. Calm down and stay very still. We have to think.

  Akila let out a breath. Angel felt her trembling.

  Angel’s stomach got butterflies when she realized that they wouldn’t be visible from the air. Because she wasn’t moving, she was starting to feel the horrible grip of coldness seeping under her jacket, her pants. She looked over and saw that both Total’s and Akila’s whiskers were covered with frost.

  Oh, no, she thought with rising panic. I can’t feel my fingers inside my mittens. This was bad. Surely Max would find them. But until then, Angel had to do what she could to save them herself. What could she do? She was really, really strong. But they were wedged incredibly tightly. She’d already trying pushing with all her might, to unstick her wings, which had now gone numb.

  She was really fast, but that didn’t help here. She could read people’s minds, which helped a little because she calmed Akila down. What else could she do? Well, she could change her looks. Maybe if she changed into her bird of paradise she might be smaller or skinnier and could pull herself out.

  Angel closed her eyes and concentrated. She felt herself grow warm, and feeling flowed back into her feet and hands and wings with a thousand burning tingles. She felt the whisper of feathers forming on her face and hands, inside her mittens. She loved the way she looked as a blue bird of paradise. It’d be neat to keep it up all the time. But it took a lot of energy, a lot of concentration.

  “Whoa,” Total said groggily, watching her. Angel felt Akila’s surprise and sent her calming thoughts. It’s still me. The transformation was complete, and Angel tried once again to pull herself upward. She pushed down hard with her hands, and though her feathery self was a little smaller, it didn’t do anything to help. She was scared to push down with her feet because of the ice maybe breaking away beneath her. Plus she had the weight of Akila on her.

  It was no use. Her new skill was worth zilch in this situation. They were going to die here. After everything she had been through, all the times Max had saved her, Max couldn’t help her now. Angel had done this to herself. She had killed herself, in the end. Tears welled up in her eyes but froze around the rims before they fell.

  This was it.

  This was the end.

  52

  IN THE END, I made Gazzy and Iggy stay at the station. They started to give me a hard time about it, but one look at my “Gonna kill you if you argue” face, and they shut up. They would stay with the scientists and search around the station. Michael and Brigid were taking Nudge with them to search the Wendy K., in case Angel and the dogs had gone back there.

  “I don’t want you two flying in this storm,” said Paul Carey, looking concerned. “It’s not too bad now, but it’s going to get worse. We don’t want to have to look for you too.”

  I pulled on another pair of socks and jammed my feet into my boots. Fang was looping a coil of climber’s rope over his shoulder.

  “Max?” Brian said. “You need to stay here. Let us handle it.” There was an intent tone in his voice that made me glance up at him. He looked worried.

  “Guys,” I said, zipping up my parka, pulling the fur-trimmed hood onto my head, “I take care of my own.”

  Paul crossed his arms and took on his ship’s-captain persona. “Max, I forbid you and Fang to go out into that storm!”

  I couldn’t help chuckling, and Fang cracked a smile.

  We headed to the door that led to the air lock and outside.

  Brian stepped between us and the door, and what had been amusing suddenly became irritating.

  “Max, you don’t know —,” he began, and that was when I decked him.

  A second later Brian was lying stunned on the floor, one hand to his jaw, blinking and wondering what had happened.

  At least I assume that was what he was doing.

  I wouldn’t know, because Fang and I were already gone.

  53

  FLYING IN HIGH WINDS can be the most exhilarating thing in the world. You just put your wings fully out and coast, doing micro-adjustments as needed to stay aloft. It’s a lot like surfing at the beach, riding the waves, except, you know, without the water. Or the beach. Or the surfboard.

  At least, it’s fun like that when you don’t have to go anywhere and can take all the time in the world to enjoy Mother Nature’s roller coaster. If you need to go in any other direction, you’re screwe
d.

  Fang and I are wicked strong, and our wings are, uh, not superhuman — I guess super-avian would be the term. But these were some freaking stiff winds, and on top of that, it was, to put it in words that won’t get edited out for younger kids, exceedingly cold.

  Fang and I broke through the wind as best we could. We tried going above it, but before we got high enough, we realized we were so far up that we couldn’t see squat on the ground, even with raptor vision.

  Teeth clenched, windburn tears streaming out of our eyes, we headed back down, staying close to each other. We started in small circles, then made them increasingly larger. And saw nothing. Nothing but whiteness. Ice. Rock. Snow. Right then, global warming seemed like a great idea.

  “Hypothermia,” Fang yelled over the wind, and I nodded, biting my lip. Dealing with regular old freezingness was one thing, but being caught somewhere, unable to move and keep warm, was something else. If Angel had fallen through some ice or had gotten trapped somehow, it wouldn’t take long for her to freeze to death. Total, being smaller, would last even less time.

  We kept seeing more of nothing. I realized that the wind was probably scouring away any tracks as fast as they could be made. I was so, so glad that Fang was with me, that we were doing this together. I looked over at him, his face focused and intent, and I felt a pang of — what? I didn’t know. Sort of longing mixed with miserableness.

  Feeling my eyes on him, he looked over at me, and his gaze seemed to go right inside my head, like a laser. I felt as if he could see right into my heart, see all my emotions, and I didn’t know what to do. His expression softened, and he looked a bit surprised, but then he gave me his lopsided smile, and suddenly I was less miserable.

  “We’ll find her,” he called. “We always do.”

  I nodded, and our moment was gone.

  It seemed as if we’d been flying forever, though it had probably been about fifteen minutes. But the coldness, the battling with the wind, the worry about Angel — it felt like a week since I’d decked Brian.

  Then . . . I blinked several times and peered downward. Was that . . . ?

  “There!” I said, pointing. “Are those tracks?” Below us, I thought I saw faint gray outlines of very small tracks.

  “Penguins?” Fang guessed. The prints were being scoured away by the wind even as we watched. I glanced ahead at where they were going, and sure enough, about a half mile away, I saw a huddled black-and-white blob of penguins grouped together to stay warm.

  “Yeah,” I said, disappointment burning in my chest.

  Then I thought: penguins.

  “Penguins!” I shouted at Fang. He heard me, despite my voice being ripped away by the wind. My eyes felt frozen open, and my mouth was incredibly dry.

  “That’s what I just said!” he yelled back. Though he was only eight feet above me, I could hardly hear him.

  “No, I mean, Angel wanted a penguin!” I shouted through cupped hands. “I’m going down!” Fang nodded, and we angled downward, seeing the ground rushing up at us.

  Please, please let Angel somehow be in the middle of the penguin huddle, keeping warm.

  54

  THE LOSS OF HIS MAIN CONTACT was a regrettable obstacle, Gozen thought, but at least she had succeeded in placing tiny homing devices on the quarry before she was so unexpectedly terminated. Now Gozen watched his small screen as the green beacons began moving across the ice. He and his troops had been about to set out to find the beacon that had suddenly stopped and become dimmer, but then others had appeared, meaning more of his quarry had left the station. He’d wait till they stopped, then go out to meet them.

  Head tilted on his gargantuan shoulders, Gozen listened to the wind. The storm was intensifying. Fortunately, neither he nor his troops would be much affected by it. It could even play into their plans.

  He turned to his troops. “Prepare for combat.”

  55

  NO, FINDING ANGEL huddled inside a warm mass of penguins would be too easy.

  The second we landed, Fang and I were almost knocked off our feet. I quickly pulled in my wings and leaned into the wind. My face felt like it was being sanded with tiny ice crystals, and my cheeks were already burning.

  Still, I tried to keep my eyes pried open enough to see the last traces of penguin tracks. Dropping to my knees, I looked carefully. Were those boot marks amid all the faint penguin footprints? There were no dog prints as far as I could tell. Any sign at all was being obliterated. Still, it was the only thing we’d found. I’d follow the tracks to the clump of penguins and then — like, question them or something.

  I motioned to Fang and he nodded, reading my mind as easily as he always did. Not in an Angel-really-reading-my-mind kind of way, but in a Fang-knew-me-too-well kind of way. He stumbled slightly getting up, and I grabbed his hand and held it as we made our way toward the penguins.

  Together we staggered forward, leaning into the wind, trying to keep on the trail between us and the penguins. Regular kids wouldn’t have made it — they would have had to lie down to keep from being blown away. It was getting harder and harder to see, but the flock has a built-in navigator system that allows us to find our way places, even in the dark, even across huge distances.

  It seemed like we’d been searching for hours. I was freezing, trembling with the cold, and really starting to panic. I was just beginning to think we’d never get there when with no warning, the ground gave way beneath my right foot. I yelped and stumbled, and Fang instinctively tightened his grip on my hand, hauling me up and back.

  “Help!”

  “Angel!” I screamed back, not knowing where her voice was coming from. I looked around blindly but could see nothing that would hide even a small bird kid.

  “Max! Help!”

  “We’re here! We’ll get you!” Fang kept his arms around my waist while I cupped both hands around my mouth, shouting into the wind. “Where are you?”

  “Down here!” came her little voice. “You just kicked snow on me!”

  With that, Fang and I both dropped cautiously to our stomachs and inched forward until we saw the deep hole my foot had gone into. I brushed away some snow, and the hole got much bigger, fast.

  “You’re dumping snow on us!” Angel cried.

  “I’m sorry!” I called. “I have to find you first! We can’t even see where you went in!”

  Finally we brushed away enough snow to see the deep, deep crack in the ice, maybe a yard across at the surface, then plunging steeply down in an ever-narrowing vee. It was way too narrow for her to fly out, or for us to fly in. I remembered my flip reply to Brigid, that I would just fly out of a crevasse, and saw immediately that none of us could have flown out of there. No room.

  “Get the rope,” I told Fang, but he was already uncoiling it. “Angel? We’re going to drop a rope down to you. Just hold on tight and we’ll pull you up, okay?”

  “Uh . . . ,” Angel said, her voice weak and tired.

  “What?” Fang asked.

  “My foot’s stuck,” she said, sounding scared. “And I have Total and Akila with me. They can’t hold on to a rope.”

  56

  NORMALLY I WOULD have been swearing bitterly to myself at this point, but what with the Angel-reading-minds thing, I tried to hold off.

  I looked over at Fang, lying next to me on the hard-packed snow. The strong wind was filling our mouths, noses, ears, and eyes with icy grit. “Great,” I muttered, and he nodded.

  “I’m sorry,” Angel called up, close to tears.

  “It’s okay,” I said. Years of successful lying stood me in good stead, and I sounded convincing even to me. “Just hold tight for a second. . . .” Plan, plan, need a plan.

  “It’s awfully cold,” said Angel, teeth chattering. “Akila and Total went to sleep, and they won’t wake up.”

  Oh, crap, I thought.

  “Angel?” I called. “The only way we can get the dogs out is if you tie the rope around them and we haul them out first. Then we’ll get you.
”

  “Them first?” said Angel.

  “They can’t hold on to the rope, like you said. But you would have to be last. Or” — I had to give her all options — “or we can get you out first, if you really can’t wait.”

  Which meant leaving the dogs to die, if they weren’t already dead. Silence, while Angel considered.

  “I’ll tie the rope around Total first,” Angel called up, and my heart flooded with pride.

  Total was pretty light, so he was easy to pull up. When we got him out into the biting wind, he blinked and stirred a bit. Fang quickly zipped him inside his jacket. Fang himself was shaking with cold, and I knew having a big icicle next to him wouldn’t help. We threw the rope down again and waited for eons while Angel tried to tie it around the much bigger dog.

  “Akila’s really heavy,” Angel finally called. “I tied it on the best I could.”

  Fang and I both pulled together, and we hauled up the eighty-pound dog without too much difficulty. As it had with Total, the frigid wind seemed to wake Akila up a bit when she got to the surface. I started rubbing her fur roughly all over, trying to get her blood going, while Fang dropped the rope into the crevasse again.

  Total’s voice came sleepily out of Fang’s jacket. “Angel? Akila?”

  “They’re okay,” Fang told him.

  “Angel?” I called. “They’re both out. You did so good, sweetie! I’m so proud of you. Now you just hang on tight to the rope, okay? We’ll have you up in a sec.”

  “I got the rope,” Angel said, close to tears. “But my foot’s still stuck. I don’t think I can get out.”

  I looked at Fang in anguish. All of us were risking hypothermia. I already felt sleepy and weirdly warm, and Angel’s voice was weaker and weaker. Plus, even if we got Angel out, would she be able to fly? How would we carry Akila? She weighed almost as much as I did.