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I DON'T GET MY USUAL message from Jophiel, asking me to come to Archangel Tower. Instead, he shows up at the front door of my apartment—with Archangel Haniel at his side.
“Guess who asked if she could tag along?” Jophiel asks, jabbing a thumb at Haniel. “It seems you've actually managed to charm her. How did you pull that off, Pho?”
I don't reply because I'm waiting for Haniel to deny what he's saying. But she doesn't.
“At this point,” Jophiel continues, “it's as if you have two Archangel instructors. I think that's an unprecedented advantage.”
Haniel quickly objects, “I'm not his instructor. I'm his friend.”
“Ooo...” Jophiel winces at her reply. “Haniel, don't you know that friend is a deadly word to a young man? You've pricked his heart with that, I'm sure.”
He's right. When you've been on a date with someone, it's really hard to hear the word friend after that. Is this her way to wipe away any chance of a relationship between us? She's letting me know it's platonic.
“I like him!” Haniel declares. “Chris is a very nice young man, and we have another date lined up in a few days.
We do? That's news to me.
“In that case, I'm happy for him,” Jophiel says. “Now... we should probably stop standing around and begin our next mission. Have you said goodbye to your grandmum, Pho?”
“She's not here,” I tell him. “It was her first day of school today.” It's a little weird to think about grandma going to school, but the students come in all ages. In fact, most of my fellow classmates were a lot older than me.
Jophiel asks, “I hope you've perfected your manifestation?” When I answer with an unsure nod, he tells me, “Keep practicing, and try to help your grandmother with it.”
Before I can reply, he warps us to our charge's house. Right away, I realize there's a problem. Lights are flickering, boughs are scraping the windows, and there's a persistent whistling wind outside. A man is racing around his living room, stuffing mementos into a luggage.
“Honey!” the man shouts. “Honey, do you have the kids' bags?”
From another room, a woman replies, “They're at the bottom of the stairs!”
The man, who's about fifty, finds the bags and drags them to the front door. Rain batters his face as he shuffles outside with his kids' luggage.
“Our charge is that man, Jason Huckland.” Jophiel reads from his LightTab, “He's a forty-eight-year-old father of three, living in Charleston, South Carolina. I believe our mission will be fairly straightforward this time.”
Watching Jason from the window, I state the obvious. “The weather's bad.”
“How very intuitive of you, Pho,” teases a chuckling Jophiel. “I didn't think you'd notice. Anyway, as I said, this will be a straightforward mission. Jason wants to evacuate with his family before Hurricane Ivy hits. It appears to be a category five hurricane and... it's bad.”
Jason loads his kids' bags into a van, and by the time he returns, he's soaked. It's so windy, he struggles with the front door. It swings open, crashes against the side of the house, and at the same time, a big black dog bolts through the door.
“Goro!” Jason shouts the dog's name and takes off after him. “Goro, get back here! Goro!”
Goro dashes across the street, faster than Jason could ever run. He chases the dog halfway down the block before he finally returns, dejected and drenched.
“Honey!” Jason screams as he enters the house. “Honey, Goro got away!”
We finally get a glimpse of his wife as she waddles down the stairs with an overstuffed luggage. She looks about ten years younger than him, and her bag is way too big for her. “What about Goro?” she asks.
“Goro ran out of the house!” Jason tells her. “I tried to catch him, but he got away. I think the hurricane's scaring him.”
“It's okay. Don't freak out yet,” replies “Honey.” We still don't know his wife's name, but I'm guessing it's not Honey. “Maybe he'll come back... or maybe we can find him along the way?”
“Should we try to go after the dog?” I whisper to Haniel, but I think she misses my question because her attention is on her LightTab.
“Jason's wife is Felicia,” Haniel identifies her. “Their children are Aiden, Anya and Austin.”
“Eww.” Jophiel's nose wrinkles with disgust. “They're one of those nauseating couples who give all of their children a same-letter name? Oh well. I'll try not to hold it against them.”
While Jophiel voices his disgust, Jason grabs his wife's bag and hauls it to the van with the rest of the luggage. Outside, a strong gust of wind almost knocks him over. By the looks of things, they should have evacuated sooner.
Haniel continues to read, “Aiden is twelve, Anya is ten, and Austin is six.”
Soon after we learn the kids' names, they appear in the living room. Austin, a little blonde boy, looks a little more frightened than his siblings. When his father returns, Austin asks, “What happened to Goro?”
“He ran outside and took off down the street.” Ruffling his son's hair, Jason adds, “Don't worry. We'll find him.”
He sounds confident, but I have my doubts.
Branches are still smacking every window of the house as the family gathers the rest of the essentials for their flight. I feel pretty useless right now, but if there was something I was supposed to do, I assume Jophiel would tell me.
When the Hucklands head to their van, we follow. Jason holds his youngest son's hand, and together, they yell, “Goro! Gorooo!”
Unfortunately, it looks like Goro is long gone. The family must realize that too, because they eventually climb into the van and roll out of the driveway.
The wind is strong, but strangely enough, Jophiel, Haniel and I aren't affected. Trees are bending around us, but our feet are still planted firmly on the ground.
Jophiel says, “We should ride with them... to make sure they evacuate safely. However, Jason's wish was for his entire family to evacuate, and that includes the dog.” Looking directly at me, he finishes, “We need to find Goro.”