Fang

“LA!” she said. “We’re going to a party with celebrities!”

“Huh. um, are you okay?”

“We all had, like, stomach flu earlier. But now we’re fine. I miss you! Oops, limo’s here! Gotta go. Love you! Call ya later!” She hung up.

I looked at Fang. “They’re fine. Going to a party with celebrities in LA. Limo was there to pick them up.”

Fang looked at me. “Trap?”

I nodded. “Oh, yeah. Trap.”

62

THE LIMO PULLED to a stop outside Furioso, the hottest, most exclusive restaurant in Los Angeles. Needless to say, it wasn’t dog friendly, so the canines had stayed back at the hotel. There was a crowd of people on the sidewalk.

The flock gazed out the darkened windows of the limo. This was pretty much the farthest situation from anything that Max would have agreed to. They were surrounded, trapped in a car driven by a stranger, with tons of people taking pictures.

“Are you sure this is a good idea?” Jeb asked.

That was enough to decide it for Angel. “Yep. It’s showtime, folks,” she said, popping her door open. The flock heard murmurs ripple through the crowd. Then people were jostling, trying to get closer, trying to see them as they spilled out of the limo.

“It’s the bird kids!” Flashes went off like a hundred tiny fireworks.

Nudge gave a big smile, posing for the cameras. “Hello,” she said, changing her angles. Dylan looked down at first but couldn’t help giving shy smiles to the adoring onlookers. Gazzy bounced up and down and waved.

“Get me out of here,” said Iggy, whose superior sensory skills normally made him comfortable weaving his way through any scene of chaos. “This is giving me the willies.”

Angel looked at him, surprised. “Everything is fine,” she said firmly. “Let’s go inside.” The crowd parted around her as if she had waved a magic wand. With her enhanced raptor vision, Angel could see everything in the smoky darkness as they weaved through the restaurant.

Their contact, a talk show host named Madeline Hammond, ran forward, her hands out.

“Kids!” she said, beaming a thousand-watt smile. “Thanks so much for coming! Hey, give us a little room, will ya?” she called to the crowd, and people edged back. “Welcome to the pre-party! Isn’t this great? The Harrells are going to play later, and Beth Duncraft and Fala Cochran are here.” Her gaze fell on Dylan just then, and she looked up into his turquoise eyes. “Oh, my goodness,” she said slowly. “Who are you?”

“I’m Dylan,” he said. “The new bird kid on the block.”

Madeline looked stu

Nudge squealed with delight. She turned and posed again, waving.

“Let me introduce you to some people,” said Madeline Hammond, and for the next twenty minutes, Angel was absorbed in a blur of smiles and air kisses and shaking hands. But with every passing moment, noises seemed to grow louder, colors seemed to get brighter, and her skin felt more and more itchy and tight.

She glanced at Nudge, who was beaming up into the face of a boy currently starring in a popular sitcom. He looked about sixteen, and Angel gri

“And how did you learn to fly?” a reporter asked Dylan.

“I got pushed off a roof,” he said truthfully. The crowd laughed, eating him up.

In the darkness, Angel saw Gazzy and Iggy sitting at the restaurant’s bar, taking turns flicking almonds into glasses as if it were an advanced game of tiddlywinks. Several Hollywood writer-producer types seemed to be regressing to childhood as they joined the competition, guffawing with the boys and making a scene.

Dylan was surrounded by slinky, admiring girls, some of whom Angel recognized from TV. He was smiling, talking, turning on his own star quality, but Angel thought his expression looked strained, and his skin pale and clammy.

Dylan + pale skin =? Does not compute.

And that’s when it occurred to her. Dylan always looked perfect. Even when he’d just been shredded by Erasers.

There was something very wrong with him. With all of them.

That was when Angel looked down at her hands, seeing them clearly in the dim light. And she screamed.

63

“MA’AM, YOU SHOULD SEE THIS.” The tech nervously pointed at the surveillance screen.

The head of information stared at the face of Subject 6. It was covered with huge oozing pustules, like boils. The subject was crying, even as she tried to keep from scratching her skin raw. There was much activity in the area as the other subjects started to gather around number 6.

“Have you seen Twenty-two yet?” the head asked.

“Yes,” the tech replied grimly, just as the subject in question came into view. The tech enhanced the nightvision capabilities of the camera. Subject 22 was indeed also covered with the plaguelike skin lesions.

“Another malfunction. unbelievable,” the head of information whispered. “This couldn’t have been from the reactant. It was tested a hundred times. We know the effect it has. It couldn’t have done this. In fact – I believe it was tested on Twenty-two himself when he was six months old. Check the records on that before I inform the doctor.”

The tech nodded.

“ASAP,” the head pressed. “The doctor is going to be very, very upset when he -” She broke off and squinted at the screen. There seemed to be some kind of commotion. People pressing together, people yelling.

“What’s going on now?”

The tech turned up the volume and tried refocusing the camera. “It may be that one of the subjects just collapsed? I’m not sure. Let me come in closer…”

“We have to get field reports!” the head yelled, pulling out her phone to mobilize the street team. “This could be turning into an emergency scenario. We are not going to lose any of the subjects on my watch.”

64

I’M NOT CLAIRVOYANT or anything. I can’t read minds or pick up on stray thoughts the way Angel can. But I know where Los Angeles is, and I can read a huge blinking sign that says “Bird kids here tonight! Come meet the flock! Get your tickets at TicketsPlus!”

I pointed, and Fang nodded. “It’s a thin clue, but I say we follow it,” I said. We angled downward, avoiding cell towers and trying not to breathe in the smog, which you could have cut with a knife and spread on toast. Not that you’d want to.

The sign was perched atop a four-story building that looked as if it had once been a movie theater. On the ground floor was a restaurant called Furioso. Signs on the sidewalk proclaimed the opportunity to talk to “Nature’s Marvels, Today Only.”

“Nature had nothing to do with it,” I muttered.

“Good thing the kids are keeping a low profile,” Fang commented.

As we got closer to Furioso, people started streaming out the front doors, yelling and screaming. Burly bouncers were trying to control them, but no one can withstand the kick of a Jimmy Choo stiletto in the shin.

We waited a moment, but the flock wasn’t among the escapees. Which meant they were inside? I didn’t even have to think, just dived between designer-clad bodies.

“No one goes in!” a bouncer said, looming large in front of me. “Everyone’s clearing out!”

“We’ve got VIP passes,” I told him. Fang and I spread our wings. “up and away!” We catapulted into the air and flew right over him as he looked up at us in a daze.

After that, LA’s young and restless got out of our way.

Inside, it was dark enough to hide most face-lifts, but it took only a moment to locate the flock – they were standing by the one light source in the place. I also spotted Jeb’s sandy hair. At the same time, I took in the fact that three people dressed in black were converging on the flock, and they didn’t look like hospitality associates.