Eliza had called as many people as she could as she ran home, trying to wake them up and alert them to the fact that Jeremiah was gone. It was still early, though, and the only person she’d been able to get on the phone was Julia, who had her phone on her bedside table.
“You need to call the police, Eliza!” she said, sitting straight up in bed.
Eliza was running as fast as she could, with barely enough breath to talk. “I want to tell Camilla first and see what she wants to do, Julia. I just can’t believe . . . I just can’t believe . . .”
“It’s okay,” said Julia, trying to be as reassuring as she could. “We’ll find him.”
Eliza could hear the strain in her voice, though, and all of the unsaid words strung through her mind. What if they didn’t find him, though? What if they couldn’t? How would they know where he went and who had taken him?
What if they never saw him again?
And it was all happening under her watch.
She felt the weight of her failed responsibilities crashing down upon her. Her shoulders drooped as she pressed on, feet slapping the cold concrete. She was supposed to protect her brother. That’s what her mom would’ve wanted her to do.
Camilla was waiting for her at the door of the convent with Julia.
As soon as Eliza saw them, she burst into tears.
“Oh, dear, come here!” the angel said, wrapping her arms around Eliza tightly.
“I didn’t mean to lose him,” she said, her words muffled. “I tried . . .”
“It’s Jeremiah,” Camilla said. “He’s hard to keep up with. But let’s go to my office now. You need to tell me everything you know.”
Eliza sat in her office with Julia, recounting everything with as much detail as she could remember, from Jeremiah’s description of seeing Eleanor, to everything she could remember about the men with Jeremiah, to the car they put him in. Sister Patricia entered the office quietly at some point and stood waiting at the door.
“Sister Patricia,” Camilla said. “You will call the police immediately and report Jeremiah as having been kidnapped. We need all the resources we can get to find him.”
She nodded and stepped out of the office.
Camilla stood. “I will gather the rest together, and we will search for him, alerting the Second Battalion of the Angelic Forces of the West to help. Don’t worry, Eliza,” she said, patting Eliza on the shoulder as she hurried past. “He can’t have gotten very far.”
Eliza followed her out into the hallway, where they found all of the quarterlings standing and waiting. Even though it was early, they were all dressed and had somber looks on their faces.
“Excellent, you are all ready then,” said Camilla. “Step into the dining hall for a moment, and we will get organized!”
Eliza felt her eyes well up again when she saw the others, ready to help and encourage her.
“We’ll find him.”
“Don’t worry, Eliza. He can’t be very far away.”
“Jeremiah is tough. He won’t let them get away with anything.”
A hand eased around her shoulder. “We’re going to get him back,” Frederick said, winking at her and offering a smile. “Remember, it’s Jeremiah—by the time he talks their ears off for fifteen minutes, they’ll probably throw him out of the car and be on their way.”
She didn’t laugh but rested her head on his shoulder for a second. “Thank you. Thanks to all of you for being willing to help.”
Everyone loved Jeremiah. He was almost like their group mascot, and she was grateful that they both had such wonderful friends.
Camilla organized them into search parties, instructing them to go out at once and scour the area around the factory, moving gradually away from it.
“Remember, we are looking for a black four-door sedan with two men and Jeremiah. I know there are a lot of those cars in this city, but with the help of Elohim, we will no doubt find him,” Marcus instructed.
His confidence inspired the quarterlings, and they were itching to hit the streets with their teams.
“Eliza,” Sister Patricia said, sticking her head just inside the door. “The police are here.”
She walked into the hallway and past the prayer room, which was full of nuns already on their knees, calling out to Elohim. She heard Jeremiah’s name over and over, and she knew that if she were in the hidden realm, she would see tendrils of light joining those that were praying together and pouring as one upward.
Two police officers stood in the doorway, along with a woman dressed in a sharp-fitting navy suit. They were speaking with a couple of the nuns as Eliza walked up.
“Eliza,” the woman said, extending her hand and looking at her seriously. “I’m Officer Kelly, and I’m sorry to hear about your brother. These are officers Anderson and Reilly. We’d like to know as much as you can tell us about what happened.”
They sat down in some chairs in the lobby, and Eliza took a deep breath to tell the story again. But she hesitated before launching in. What could she tell them about their first visit down to the factory? About Jeremiah thinking he saw his mom? About the attacks? She couldn’t just come out and say, “Well, we were being attacked by fallen angels because my brother thought he saw our dead mother, so we had to escape, and we jumped into a moving truck.” She silently prayed that she would be able to figure out a way to tell the story without lying.
Officer Kelly asked her to detail exactly what happened, and Eliza offered everything she could think of. She spent most of the time trying to describe as much as she could about the men she saw take Jeremiah. She’d seen them for only a second or two at the most, but she could remember certain things. One had curly gray hair, and the other was wearing a black stocking cap. Both had black trench coats on. She had seen one shoe, worn by the gray-haired man—a light brown boot.
Kelly was impressed. “You have a remarkable memory, Eliza,” she said, making notes in a spiral-bound notebook resting on her knee. “So tell me what you saw the first time you two were there that made him want to come back.”
“Well, I was looking for him, because he had wandered off, which Jeremiah is prone to do,” she said. “He thought he’d seen our mother. She . . . passed away last year.”
Kelly glanced up from her notes and blinked. “I’m so sorry, Eliza.”
Eliza continued, “We ended up going into this factory by accident. We got out by going downstairs into the parking deck.”
She decided to skip the part about riding in the yellow truck.
Officer Kelly chewed on her pen for a minute and seemed to want to say something else, but then closed her notebook. “We’re going to put as many people as we can on this. Hopefully we can have some news for you soon.” She looked around the hallway for a minute. “What kind of school is this again?”
“It’s a Christian boarding school for international students,” Eliza answered, hoping that answer would satisfy her. Kelly shrugged and handed Eliza her card. “Call me if you think of anything else. I’ll be back in touch.”
She turned to go with the other two officers. Eliza wondered how much help they would really be, but then she remembered that they were looking for real people and vehicles in the physical world, and the more help, the better.
Eliza stepped into the prayer room, sinking to her knees beside the women already praying. Silently, she entered the hidden realm, watching for a few seconds as the white glowing ropes moved through them and into the ceiling, alive, pulsating, coming from the heartfelt prayers that were being offered.
“Elohim,” she whispered. “Please, if You will, please let us find my little brother. Please help guide us in the right direction. I know You have a plan. You have a purpose in all of this. Nothing happens without You knowing about it first. Whatever happens, I want to ask that he please be returned safely here. Let him know that You’re with him right now.”
She stayed another minute, listening to the others pray. Then quietly she stood, throwing up one more quick prayer.
“Please . . . the last thing our family needs is to lose someone else.”