I opened the door for Kenny and he asked, “Where are you taking me, Alfred Kropp?”
“You’re going to stay with Mr. Needlemier for a while,” I said, nodding toward his smiling, baby-faced bald head behind the steering wheel. “Until we can figure something out.”
I looked back at the little house on Broadway. Horace had thrown a couple of strands of those old-fashioned Christmas lights with the fat multicolored bulbs on the bare branches of some azalea bushes the cold had killed, and had put out the same old faded light-up Santa (only it didn’t light up anymore because the bulb was missing and he was too cheap to replace it).
It was two days before Christmas, and cold, but the sun was bright and the shade of the stunted dogwood by the front walk was sharp and hard-looking. I slipped the Oakley Razrwires back on. My eyes had become sensitive to light.
“I’ll see you back at the house,” I told Mr. Needlemier.
“You’re not coming with me?” Kenny asked, panic setting in.
“Sometime this afternoon, Kenny,” I said. “I’m late for a meeting.” As if on cue, the Bluetooth buzzed in my ear and I pressed the button next to my temple to answer.
“This is Alfred Kropp,” I said. I closed Kenny’s door and walked behind the Lexus to the CCR. I saw Kenny staring at me—or maybe I was flattering myself and he was really staring at the car—through the back window of the Lexus as Mr. Needlemier pulled slowly away from the curb. The deputies, Mr. Fredericks, and the Tuttles had gone inside the house. The place felt abandoned, but it probably felt that way because I was abandoning it.
“All right,” I told the person on the other end of the line. “Tell her I’ll be there in five minutes.”
I climbed into the CCR and drove straight to the church, flooring the gas and heading north, past the bus station and the rescue mission and the old Fifth Avenue Hotel now boarded up and plastered with “For Sale” signs. I passed under the railroad tracks going sixty-five, flying past a cop car. The cop gave a little wave as I skimmed through the intersection of Broadway and Summit Hill. He knew who I was.
I parked on the hill beside the church and went inside. It smelled old, and the floor was made of wide wooden planks that creaked when you walked, but the candles weren’t real candles; they were electric and you pushed a button to light them. I guess they were worried about fire. I walked up the aisle, toward the altar and crucifix. She was kneeling in the front pew. I bowed toward the altar and slid in beside her.
I didn’t speak first. I figured she was praying. After a second or two she said, without looking at me, “Hello, Alfred.”
“Hi, Abigail.”
“You look well,” Abigail Smith said. “Much better than I expected.”
“I needed to lose some weight,” I said. I had dropped almost thirty-five pounds. “I call it the Paimon Diet. The fresh coat of skin and new teeth I owe to him too. But I’m eating better and sometimes I’m able to get three hours of sleep—not all in a row, but in a twenty-four-hour cycle.”
“And the hair?”
I ran my hand through it. My hair had grown back thicker and straighter, but streaked with a shade of gray just this side of white.
“I’m thinking of leaving it,” I said, meaning the gray.
“Kids at school think it’s raw.”
“ ‘Raw’?”
“Means cool. I guess before, my hair was well-done.”
She laughed. “Oh. Yes, it’s definitely raw.”
Her laughter died away and we didn’t say anything for a minute.
“It was Merryweather,” I said. “I guess he decided it was time OIPEP took over the world, so he pretended to fire Mike and Mike grabbed the Seals to scare all the world leaders into getting their act together—or else. But he made the mistake of telling Mike to extract me, which he should have known wouldn’t turn out exactly the way he planned. I think I’m the only hero ever born who saves the day by screwing up.”
She nodded. I’m not sure what she was nodding at—that I was a screwup or that Merryweather had gone crazy.
“Where is Mike?” I asked.
“We don’t know.”
“Merryweather?”
“Under custody. He denies everything, of course, but we have the e-mails and Op Nine’s testimony. He violated our Charter’s most sacrosanct provision by setting up this operation with Michael.”
“Samuel,” I corrected her. “He doesn’t like to be called Op Nine anymore.”
She nodded. “Alfred, you know why I’ve come.”
I twisted the ring on my finger. I did know.
“I’m sorry, Abby. I’ve thought about this a lot, but what if you get a new director and he gets this same idea about the Seals? As long as we keep them apart, that’s better for everybody, isn’t it?”
“You have my personal guarantee that won’t happen, Alfred.” “I’m sorry, but that just doesn’t mean much, not after all this,” I said. “You guys snatched me and took my blood without asking. Why didn’t you ask?”
“That was Operative Nine’s decision. Our only hope was using your blood as the active agent, so whether you agreed or not was irrelevant.”
“What must be done,” I said, and she nodded.
“Well, I’ve been thinking maybe you guys oughtta revise some of your protocols, because right is right and wrong is wrong and maybe I’m just a kid, but you should have given me a choice.”
“Of course,” she agreed. “And if we had to do it over again . . .”
“Hopefully you won’t,” I said. “Ever. So don’t make me any guarantees.”
“But I can now, Alfred,” she said. “I’m the new director.”
I didn’t know what to say at first. She hadn’t said it proudly, but almost sadly, so I didn’t think I should congratulate her.
“I’ll think about it,” I said.
She said, “The Seals are safe for now, but there are other objects of great and terrible power still in the world. I took a solemn oath when I joined the Company to do whatever is necessary to preserve, protect, and defend them against evil.”
I nodded. “That which must be done. I know all about that.”
“This much I can tell you, Alfred. There is great pressure on me from the signatories to forcibly take the ring from you. I don’t want to do that. I think we have a bright future in front of us, but to survive, our relationship must be built on a foundation of mutual trust. Giving us the Great Seal would go a long way toward establishing that trust.”