“CONGRATULATIONS TO OUR TOP SIXTEEN TRAINEES!” says Director Van
Helsing, raising a glass of strawberry punch. “And a special congratulations
to my son, Dylan, who finished at the top of the rankings. I want all of you
to eat, drink, and be merry before our first weekend break. You’ve earned it.
On Monday, return to us focused, refreshed, and ready to get back to work!
Cheers to you all!”
The trainees gathered in the large conference room let out a cheer. The
conference table is completely covered in desserts—tall frosted cakes, huge
plates of cookies, steaming pies. Kids gather around, munching and
laughing. They’re gathered around Dylan, too, giving him high fives and
pats on the back. Even the Junior Agents who put this whole thing together
for us tell him good job. Lara makes sure to stand right next to him, soaking
in the attention as though she was his partner and not me.
I’m left standing alone by the door, arms crossed, staring down at my
feet. None of those same kids come over to congratulate to me. But then I
guess Dylan wasn’t the one who showed them up in front of Agent Fiona.
Even though that’s not what I was trying to do at all.
It bothers me a little that Dylan is hogging the praise. Because if they
knew the truth, that he’s a magician like me, things would be totally
different. I almost want to blurt it out to everyone, but I know it’s just me
feeling jealous. Plus, I’m so grateful that he bailed me out of the situation
with Lara. And that he’s trying to help me with being a magician.
Still, I wish that I could pretend to be something I’m not too. Things
would be so much better if nobody knew I was a magician.
Who am I kidding? It’s not like people like me anyway. The Bureau isn’t
any different from Jefferson Academy. I’m the outcast here too. “Is there some terrible threat we don’t know about?” Agent Fiona’s voice
comes out of nowhere.
I lift my head to find the Red Lady in front of me. “Huh?”
She smiles. “You’ve been guarding the door all afternoon. Thought
maybe ye know something the rest of us don’t.”
“Oh,” I say, feeling embarrassed. “I’m just waiting for this to be over so I
can go back to my room.”
Agent Fiona glances over at Dylan, who’s posing for a picture with a
pretty Junior Agent girl. “There’s not a name more famous in the
supernatural world than Van Helsing.” She sighs. “Ye get used to them
getting all the credit. Especially in this department. But dontcha go
worrying yourself, those of us who count know who was this morning’s
star.”
I give a little smile, and Agent Fiona rubs my shoulder.
“Uh, Amari?” Dylan has come over. He looks awfully fidgety.
“I’ll leave ye two to celebrate,” says Agent Fiona, moving back toward
the party. “But Peters, do make sure he remembers who got you two that
first place.”
I nod and then frown as I give Dylan my attention. “What do you want?”
He startles at my tone. “Can we maybe talk in the hallway?”
“Why?” I ask. “You don’t want your fancy friends to see you talking to
me?”
“Huh? No—” He pauses to let two Junior Agents through the doorway,
and then drops his voice to a whisper. “You said you wanted to start
investigating together, right?” He flashes me something shiny up his sleeve.
“This is the key to the VanQuish office in the Hall of Special Agents.”
Did he really just say he has a key to my brother’s office?
“C’mon,” he adds, waving me into the hallway.
We start toward the main Ushaped hall.
Dylan walks and talks. “I told everybody I was taking you to meet my
mom. She’s a Crisis Manager in the Department of Half Truths and Full
CoverUps. She comes up with the cover stories whenever there’s a major
secrecy breach. Remember that really bad hurricane we got last year? That
was actually allout war between the merpeople and the ocean nymphs.” A
grin lights up his face. “My mom really does want to meet you, by the way.
Big fan of Quinton. It just won’t be today.” I make sure to keep my voice low when I ask, “How are we supposed to
get into the VanQuish office without anybody seeing us?”
“All the Special Agents on duty today were at the party. I counted.” He
laughs. “I’ve had Maria’s spare key for months. This is the first chance I’ve
had to use it.”
We step into the main hallway. “Just play it cool and nobody will even
notice us.”
He’s right. None of the adults seem to care at all where two trainees are
headed. We move a little farther up the right side of the U, toward the Great
Vault, but take a turn through a skinny doorway we skipped on our tour.
The walls in this hallway are lined with gold trimming. Fancy.
“The Hall of Special Agents,” says Dylan. “There are only ever thirty
agents per outpost. They take on only the most dangerous missions.”
I glance around the hall until I see a smooth wooden door with a fancy
cursive V etched onto it.
Dylan leads me over to it. “The department left their office intact out of
respect.”
I trace the V with my finger. I never would’ve been able to get into
Quinton’s office on my own. It feels like I’m so bad at this investigating
stuff sometimes. Like I’m letting my brother down. “They’ve already
looked in here for clues?”
“It’s the first place they checked,” says Dylan.
“Let’s go inside before anyone sees us.”
Dylan nods and slips the key into the door. I get goosebumps as he
pushes it open.
“You first,” he says.
I take a couple deep breaths to calm my nerves. Once I step inside, the
lights flicker on by themselves. Only . . .
It’s more like a trophy room than an office. The walls are lined with
shelves of photos, awards, medals, and other things. Elsie would love to see
this. It’s a VanQuish fan’s dream.
In the center of everything, there’s a really big photo with Quinton and
Maria crouching down beside a short elf with a head full of dark leaves and
skin like mottled tree bark. “That’s Merlin himself,” says Dylan, trailing
me. “He almost never lets anyone take his picture.”
I follow the shelves around and let my fingers graze a big golden Medal
of Honor. Beside it sit two Agent of the Year certificates in shiny silver frames. Farther down the shelf are a pair of shiny purple Sky Sprints in a
glass case. The same fancy V is written across the side. There’s a little sign
beneath that reads:
DUBOISE AIR VANQUISH:
Limited Edition
“They had their own Sky Sprints?” I ask.
Dylan grins. “I’d have gotten a pair myself but the lines were crazy.”
I laugh.
I step past a few more magazine covers with headlines like “Supernatural
Citizens of the Year” and “Ten Most Influential Members of the
Supernatural World.”
“They’re a really big deal,” I say.
“They really are,” says Dylan.
“I can’t believe Maria would want to give this up.”
He shrugs. “Being a Special Agent is hard. It has to be a lot of pressure
having to protect the whole world. Especially when you get crazy famous
and the older agents start to resent you for being promoted to Special Agent
ahead of them. I know my sister had a hard time with it.”
“Is that why she wanted to be a trainer?”
“I think she and Quinton were starting to get into arguments.”
I stop and look at Dylan. “They didn’t get along?”
“Something must’ve happened,” says Dylan, shaking his head. “Because
one day it was just different between them. It was really weird.”
“No idea why?” I ask.
Dylan shrugs.
That is weird. I look at a giant video game poster of VanQuish and ask,
“Didn’t you say this was an office?”
“Say ‘up,’” says Dylan.
“Up?” Lights flicker on above us and my feet lift off the ground, like
there’s some invisible elevator carrying me upward. I tilt my head back to
find office furniture floating above me. My body doesn’t stop rising until
I’m standing right in front of Quinton’s floating desk.
“Whoa,” I say, testing my balance. “A floating office?”
Dylan beams, floating up to my side. “Quinton loved working in a
cluttered office. But my sister is the cleanest person you’ll ever meet. She threatened to start chucking stuff into the hallway if he didn’t agree to get
the office enchanted for more space.”
“That sounds like Quinton. He’s still got a perfect attendance certificate
from the third grade on his bedroom wall.”
I take a look at my brother’s desk. It’s covered by a large stack of folders
marked Classified and a sleek silver laptop. The stack is so tall it nearly
hides the two picture frames behind it. One is Mama’s high school yearbook
photo from forever ago that she gets all embarrassed about when anyone
sees it. Me and Quinton would always joke that she looked pretty dope for a
cavewoman.
The other photograph is me sitting on a bright red bicycle, with a big ole
snaggletoothed grin. Just seeing it makes me close my eyes and cover my
face with my hands. Next thing I know, I’m ugly crying. Like full on
bawling. Dylan wraps a shaky arm around my shoulder. I try my hardest to
get it together, to stop crying like such a baby in front of him, but I just end
up crying harder.
Once I’m finally done, he says, “That picture must mean a lot to you,
huh?”
I nod. “It was the first time I realized that Quinton always had my back,
no matter what.” Mama and Daddy had just separated, and Daddy had
promised me for months that he was going to get me this bright red bike
we’d seen in Walmart for my birthday. Mama warned me not to get my
hopes up, but I didn’t listen. I knew my daddy would get it for me because
he said he would. And daddies didn’t lie to their little girls.
Well, Daddy didn’t even show up for my birthday. When Mama called to
ask where he was, they got in this big argument on the phone. At some
point Mama must’ve hit the speakerphone by accident because all of a
sudden I heard my daddy’s drunken voice say, “She probably ain’t even
mine. Tell whoever her real daddy is to get her the stupid bike.”
Mama hung up on him and looked right at me. She started to say, “He
didn’t mean it . . .” but I wasn’t hearing it. I ran straight to my room and
cried like I’d never cried before. Quinton brought me into his room that
night after Mama fell asleep, and we had the first of our thousands of talks
lying in the middle of his bedroom floor. He told me he would always have
my back. When Christmas came around, my brother didn’t get one present.
But I had a brandnew red bike.
“We’re going to find them, okay?” says Dylan. “We just have to keep
believing.”
I nod and try to smile. “I do believe that.”
Dylan takes a seat at Quinton’s computer and mashes the power button. I
crouch next to him. “Cross your fingers.”
I do, but all that appears onscreen is:
Please Enter Password
The words keep flashing.
“Could you use your tech magic?” I ask.
“On a computer this advanced?” He shakes his head. “It would take me
at least an hour. We don’t have that much time.”
I bite my lip. What are the odds Quinton uses his email password for
more than just his email? “Scoot over. I want to try something.”
Dylan slides over to give me some space, but he stops me before I can
type anything. “Just so you know, these computers are highly classified. If
you put in the wrong password even once, it’ll alert security. So . . . no
pressure.”
I swallow. “Sure, no pressure.”
“Just be sure this is your best guess,” he says. “You got this.”
It’s my only guess. I type out Amari-Amazing, one nervous keypress at a
time. All that’s left is to hit Enter.
My finger hovers above the key.
Dylan leans over and presses it for me.
I shut my eyes and hold my breath, preparing for the worst.
“We’re in!” says Dylan. “You did it.”
Relief washes over me. Quinton’s schedule appears on the screen. He
must’ve left it open all this time.
Schedule: Quinton Peters
November 18
12 p.m.: Contact KH
11 p.m.: Meeting with Horus
Dylan gasps. “That’s the day Maria and Quinton went missing.”
I pace fast circles around the elevator on the ride down to the youth
dormitories. Dylan wanted me to come back to the victory party with him
but I have to let Elsie know what we found. Maybe she’ll know what KH
means. Could it be someone’s initials, maybe? If so, maybe they’ll have an
idea about where my brother is. Or at least what he was working on.
The second entry was a lot easier to figure out. Horus has to be Director
Horus from the Department of Good Fortunes and Bad Omens.
Unfortunately, he’s not due back from the Wandering Isles until Monday. It
feels like a lifetime from now.
I want to know what his meeting with Quinton was about. He might’ve
been the last person to see my brother before he disappeared.
I’m still pacing when the elevator opens up to the youth dormitories. The
sight of so many kids packed into the hallway raises my eyebrows.
Bertha’s nowhere to be found either. It’s not until I start to make my way
through the crowd that I realize that all eyes are on me, staring. A few kids
nudge one another, whispering.
I’m used to getting weird looks, but this is on another level. What’s going
on?
The farther down the hall I get, the more it happens. People start to step
aside, making a path for me to my room.
“Do you think she’s seen it?” a girl whispers.
When I finally turn the last corner to my room, Lara and a few of her
friends are huddled next to a couple adult agents. The girl looks scared.
I get there at the same time Bertha steps out of my room. Agent Magnus
is right behind her and he looks furious. Bertha keeps shaking her head.
“What’s going on?” I ask.
They turn to look at me. Bertha winces.
Magnus points over my shoulder. “Turn around and go back to the
elevators. You don’t need to see this.”
“See what?” I step forward.
Bertha tries to shut the door, but she isn’t fast enough. Painted over my
bed is a Black girl with two X’s for eyes and a stake in her heart. NO
MAGICIANS ALLOWED is written just below it.
My stomach turns. I ball my fists and storm over to Lara. “You did this?”
“It wasn’t me,” she says quickly.
“Liar!” I scream.
I go to shove her, but Lara twists and pushes me down instead. My back
hits the floor so hard it knocks the air out of my chest and I start coughing.
Lara glares down at me. “If I had done that, you can be sure I would
claim it. Face it, nobody wants you here. It was bound to happen sooner or
later.”
Someone shouts, “No magicians allowed!” Then a few more join in.
Soon the hall echoes with the chant. Everywhere I look, kids shout at me.
Does it even matter who put that message on my wall if they all agree with
it?
I’ve never felt so small.
Magnus stretches out his arms, his hands transforming into solid metal.
With one booming clap, the hall falls quiet. “Next person who says a word
gets a oneway ticket outta the Bureau and ya ain’t comin’ back. Think I
can’t do it? Try me and find out!”
No one says a word.
“Amari!” Elsie appears out of the crowd and takes my hand. “Come on.
We’re leaving.”
I can’t get out of there fast enough.