Fallen Angel of Mine (2 page)

I could have run away at supernatural
speed and they never would have caught me. But if I did, the cops
would assume I was guilty of something. Ending up on the FBI's most
wanted list would be the perfect capper to a crappy day. So I
swallowed the nervous lump in my throat and tried to act
natural.

"He's right there, officer," Agnes
Wright said, voice crackling with accusation as she and two local
police officers closed in on me.

I almost gulped but somehow managed an
innocent look of concern. "Who, me?"

"Yes, you, you rotten kid!" Agnes
screeched.

"That'll be enough, Ma'am," said the
officer to her right, a dark-skinned officer of medium build who
looked like he wanted nothing more than to get the school secretary
as far away from him as possible. He looked at me. "Justin
Case?"

Technically, Justin
Slade.
I nodded. "Yes, officer?"

"Mind if I ask you a few
questions?"

I managed a shrug. "Sure." Elyssa
squeezed my hand as a jackhammer pulse pounded in my
chest.

"I'll take him to my car," the officer
said to his companion.

I looked toward the milling mass of
students in the church parking lot then across the road to where
the nearest patrol cars sat, blue lights flashing. "What's going
on? What happened?"

He gave me a shrewd look as we walked
toward the car, a look that made me think he could see straight
into my soul and pick out every little lie. Once we arrived, he
retrieved a metal clipboard from the front seat and wrote a few
things down on the paper clipped to it.

"Where were you at ten this
morning?"

"Biology class."

"And after that?"

"Uh, Ms. Wright called my class on the
intercom and told me to go to the front office."

"And?"

"I went there and met with Principal
Perkins and our football coach." That much was true.

He scribbled on his notepad. "What was
the nature of the meeting?"

"They took me outside and told me some
college scouts might be coming to our football game this Friday and
if I played well, I might have a chance at a scholarship."
Actually, they hadn't said much of anything until they'd gotten me
inside the football training room where Sheriff Skinner, Chief
Amerson, a doctor, and two goons with guns were waiting.

"Anything else?"

"They said they were proud of me, sir."
The absurdity of that lie almost made me burst into hysterical
laughter. Instead, they'd informed me the blood sample I'd
submitted for testing as part of the standard procedure for joining
the football team had returned very surprising results. They
mistook my supernatural abilities for a miracle steroid which had
transformed my previous loser self into an all-star athlete. To
them, I'd looked like a cash cow worth millions and they planned to
milk my blood of the imaginary steroid. Then Brad showed up and
killed them all.

The officer scrawled my lies on his
pad, stopped, and tapped the pen against his chin. "Where outside
were you, exactly?"

"On the side of the school, kind of
near the cafeteria."

"Did anything else happen?"

"No. I left them right after
they told me about the scouts and headed back for class. Well,
first I had to go to the bathroom because I was kind of nervous
about the scouts thing and it upset my stomach something awful.
Whew, let me tell you it took a few minutes to squeeze
those
demons
out."

He cleared his throat and raised an
eyebrow.

I wondered if I might have
over-embellished the details. "Uh, yeah, let me think. Oh, and then
I headed to class but the bell rang and I found out we were
evacuating."

"Did you hear anything on your way back
to class?"

I shook my head. "No. Just the
bells."

He narrowed his eyes and stared at me
for several seconds. "Are you sure that's what
happened?"

"That's exactly what happened." It took
everything I had to look him in the eye and keep a straight face.
For all I knew everything in my posture and voice was screaming,
"Liar!" I swallowed and asked, "What's wrong? Why did we have to
leave the school?"

"I'd like you to have a seat in this
car until I say you can go." He opened the rear door of the patrol
car and motioned me in.

"Am I under arrest for something?" My
heart was trying to burst out of my ribcage at this point, and it
was all I could do not to run away at top speed.

"No, but I need to confirm your
statement before I let you go back to your friends,
okay?"

I nodded and got into the car. He shut
it and walked across the barricaded road. Underborn met him halfway
and drew him aside. My nerves splintered even further. No telling
what the slimy, backstabbing assassin was saying.

I slumped in the seat and
buried my face in my hands. I could kick the door off the hinges.
Run away and never look back. My normal life was all but over
anyway. With the sheriff and his co-conspirators dead, my friends
Ash and Nyte would probably be safe from retaliation. But another
part of me recoiled in horror at the thought of giving up on a life
that, up until a month or so ago, had been painfully boring and
normal. I'd been an overweight dyed-in-the-wool nerd with a
hopeless crush on Katie Johnson, who I'd mistakenly believed to be
the
one
. My life
had revolved around live-action role-playing by way of Kings and
Castles.

I shuddered at the memories, but still
kind of missed being normal.

Cries and shouts of alarm reached my
ears and tore me from my thoughts. I peered through the windshield
of the patrol car but saw only the other car blocking off the high
school entrance. I looked through the driver's window and noticed
students scrambling deeper into the church parking lot in a
panicked, screaming throng. One of the cops standing in the middle
of the road pulled his sidearm and aimed at something behind
me.

I heard the roar of a diesel engine
growing closer. I twisted in my seat. The officer fired. Bullets
pinged off the grill of a huge truck. It was yards away and
charging straight for me.

I screamed like a little girl at the
same time I tried to twist and kick open the car door, but it was
too late. With a crunch, the truck smashed into the side of the
car. My head whipped back and slammed into the window. I flew
across the back seat and, for a stunned moment, couldn't think
straight. I flopped like a rubber chicken to the
floorboard.

As my wits returned, I noticed a flat
metal blade like the kind I'd seen on forklifts had punctured the
door to my left. I glanced through the center grille separating the
back seat from the front and saw another flat blade protruding
through the front driver door. It had driven itself through the
seats. The computer console in the center sparked and
died.

The truck was a garbage hauler with a
massive lift on the front for picking up industrial dumpsters and
turning them upside-down over the enclosed truck bed. And this
truck was roaring full speed onto the school grounds. The tires on
the patrol car squealed and smoked as the truck plowed forward,
pushing the car sideways. The high-pitched thrum of a hydraulic
motor kicked in and the police car lifted off the ground, giving
the tires some respite just before another chain-link fence loomed
ahead.

I ducked against the door as metal
fence poles clanged and screeched against the side of the car. The
forklift continued lifting and the car tilted, throwing me against
the door closest to the truck. When I peeled my face off the
armrest and looked out the window, I came face-to-face with the
truck driver—a gray man. He wore a gray business suit and wore his
silvery hair slicked back. His gray eyes bore no emotion. He might
be having the time of his life, smashing a patrol car with a person
inside, but his face didn't have so much as a smile on
it.

The lack of emotions wasn't surprising,
considering he, she, or it, was a golem—a life-sized animated Ken
doll sent by the mysterious Mr. Gray.

"Let me out of here you oversized
blowup doll!" I shouted.

The truck rocked as it hit a concrete
curb, tossing me around like a rag doll. The lift moved the car
upward, perpendicular to the huge vehicle until I could see the
rusted top of the cab through the window. I braced myself to kick
out the left door, which, due to the angle of the tilted patrol
car, I now stood on. Another jolt plunged my leg through the
window.

The window seemed to be bullet
resistant so it didn't shatter. Instead, my leg punched a jagged
hole through it, tearing at my pants and ripping my skin. I gripped
the back seat and pulled myself up. The ragged corners of the
window further shredded the side of my name-brand jeans, probably
making them more fashionable in the process. I kicked the door. But
it was impaled on the fork lift and wouldn't budge. The lift
rotated the patrol car until it was upside down and shuddered to a
halt. I tumbled across the headliner. Through the side window, I
saw four black leather shoes slam atop the cab as two more
gray-suited golems joined in the fun. In unison, they kicked the
car. Metal screeched against metal as the vehicle slid off the
forklift and tumbled into the back of the garbage truck.

I yelped as the roof clanged against
the truck bed, jarring every bone in my body. The roof of the
patrol car crunched but held thanks to the stiff roll cage. The
door nearest me pressed against the slick metal inside of the truck
bed so I crawled across. Braced my back. Kicked the door. It shot
off its hinges and gonged against the metal enclosure.

I crawled out. The gray men jumped atop
the undercarriage of the patrol car. The truck, still roaring
ahead, slammed against a large bump, flinging us into the air. I
took advantage of my airtime and gripped the top lip of the truck
bed, some ten or more feet above the bottom, and pulled myself up.
Hands like iron clamped my leg. Yanked me down. I kept my hold on
the lip. Another tug yanked my arms straight. Pain flared in my
joints at the intense pressure. I kicked the gray man holding my
ankle. The bottom of my shoe stomped his face. He didn't make a
noise. I kicked him again and again. It didn't matter to him. He
just kept pulling my leg.

"Let. Me. Go!" I shouted with each
kick.

His partner joined him, gripping my
free leg and tugging. My arms screamed in agony as my shoulder
joints popped. My sweaty fingers lost their grip. I flew backward,
crashing into the golems. Pine branches shrieked against the sides
and top of the truck as we entered the wooded area behind the
school. The rugged terrain rocked the stiff shocks mercilessly,
tossing the two golems and me around like circus freaks at a yacht
club. The patrol car skidded sideways on its roof, trapping one of
the gray men in the corner while pinning my arms, legs, and chest
against the cold metal of the sidewall. I gasped as it crushed the
air from my lungs. Even worse, I had no leverage to push it
off.

Golem two climbed back to its feet.
Leapt atop the overturned car. Gripped my head. I braced as it
twisted my head side-to-side, like it was trying to snap my neck.
Somehow, I resisted, keeping my head straight. It increased the
pressure. My neck muscles burned from the effort. I clenched my
teeth so tight I thought they might crack.

It reared back a fist and punched me.
My head gonged against the truck bed. Stars exploded. The golem
gripped my chin and the back of my head and jerked. Just then, the
truck lurched. Wood cracked. Pine needles and cones showered the
truck bed. The car slid away, freeing me. Golem two lost his
footing and slipped, twisting my head as he tumbled away. A bone
cracked loudly in my neck. I screamed.

Pins and needles pricked my skin as
blood circulation reached the places pinched off by the car. I
wiggled my fingers. Looked left and right. Somehow, I was still
alive. I felt my neck, expecting it to be dislocated horribly.
Instead, it seemed to be intact.

"You jackass!" I leapt for the golem.
Slammed into it. It clanged off the metal wall and landed face
down. I jumped, knees first, onto its back. Gripped its hair and
beat the head to a pulp against the floor until a shiny knob of
metallic skull showed through the freakishly realistic fake flesh.
I stood. Backed away from the disgusting mess. The first golem—who
I'd forgotten—wrapped its arms around mine and lifted me off the
floor.

Pulpy-faced McPulperson staggered to
its feet like a broken doll and came for me. A blood-chilling howl
sounded. Something clanged into the side of the truck, ringing it
like a massive bell. The metal frame groaned. Leaned to the side.
Toppled over and slid along the ground. The two golems and I
ricocheted around the metal cage. My face connected with the lights
on the police car. Everything spun. Blurred. Suddenly, I was free
of the truck, sailing through the open air.

A tree caught me, its trunk slamming
like a sledgehammer into my ribs. I heard a cracking noise and felt
knives of bone pierce my vitals. I rolled on the needle-strewn
forest floor in a blinding haze of pain, no breath left in my lungs
for even a scream. Leaves crunched around me. I took a shuddering
breath and looked up. McPulperson and his BFF dragged themselves
from the truck where it lay on its side at the end of a long furrow
of freshly ground earth and leaves. The passenger-side door of the
truck screeched and flew twenty feet into the air, making a
whistling noise as it flipped end-over-end before embedding itself
into the ground twenty feet away. The driver pulled himself from
the cab.