by Brian Fuller
“Get in!” he yelled.
Chapter 10
Bestowal
Trace yanked open the back door and jumped in. Cassandra took the front. Goldbow floored it.
“What happened?” Cassandra asked, digging through her backpack for her phone. Trace stuck his hand under the passenger seat in front of him, pulling out a BBG and a box holding six of the oversized bullets. Despite his size, his Ash Angel strength let him handle the gun easily, though his short finger would have to strain for the trigger.
“I parked, and Prescilla got out to get you. The van pulled up right next to the driver’s side door and pinned me in. By the time I grabbed the gun and got out, they had shoved her into the van. This is messed up. How could they know?”
“Trace saw a Dread drive by about fifteen minutes ago and scout the yard,” Cassandra said. “This training op was blown somehow. Trace, keep your eyes out behind us.” Cassandra scanned ahead of them. “There it is!” she exclaimed as they rounded a corner.
The van blew through a four-way stop. Goldbow gritted his teeth and followed suit, swerving to avoid taking the bumper off an SUV edging out into the intersection. Cassandra buckled her child-sized body in and tapped her phone. “I’ll see if we can get some eyes or some support. Looks like they’re heading for the freeway. When the school calls this in, the police will be everywhere.”
The car lurched and bounced as they negotiated traffic, the heedless Dreads outpacing them as Goldbow tried to keep up without hitting anyone. Trace gripped the seat to keep from sliding around in the car. He checked their six. No tail. Something nagged at him, a lesson from his military days. Every terrorist and insurgent in the Middle East knew that if they captured a soldier or if a chopper went down, the Americans would come to the rescue. Every soldier thrown into the back of a truck or dragged to a desert hideout counted on it. So did every enemy soldier.
“This is a trap,” Trace said. “Prescilla is bait.”
“My thinking too,” Goldbow added.
“If I’m right,” Trace speculated, “the trap will be set fairly close. They wouldn’t want to give us time to pull in reinforcements or have the cops show up.”
Cassandra nodded in agreement. She put her phone on speaker as the Dreads’ van turned up an on-ramp and accelerated toward the freeway.
“Southwest Operations. Commander Joel speaking.”
Cassandra outlined the incident, including their assessment of its purpose. “The victim is a Cherub, Commander, and one straight out of the 1800s. They will eat her alive. We are in pursuit.”
“We can have a team there in twenty. Try to keep eyes on, but if it looks too hot, pull back as per Rule of Engagement 44-2. Keep me apprised. We are now tracking your phone.”
ROE 44-2. Required learning. It meant to ditch an Ash Angel in distress if a rescue risked too much. The captain’s words seemed to spark something in Cassandra’s eyes, but she kept her mouth shut as they pulled onto a freeway with moderate traffic.
Goldbow slalomed smoothly through the lanes of oblivious drivers as they tracked the van a half mile ahead.
“Come on, Goldbow! You’re losing them!” Cassandra said sharply. “I’d kick you out of that seat if my feet could reach the pedals.”
“This isn’t your Caddy, Cassie,” Goldbow snapped back. “It’s a gutless four cylinder POS. That van’s a six. Probably an eight.”
They lost sight of the van for a moment, but Goldbow spotted it flying down an off-ramp. Goldbow forced the Taurus across two lanes of traffic to reach the off-ramp, dust and gravel spitting out behind them. The van had already turned and headed east toward the same part of town where the Possessed had crippled Trace a few weeks earlier. Once off the highway, their quarry slowed. Trace blew out a breath of air. This was it. The Dreads didn’t want to lose their pursuers now. The trap had to be close.
“We are on the surface streets,” Cassandra informed Captain Joel. “Still in sight. They are moving slowly.”
Trace got on his knobby knees and checked their six again. As they turned right to follow the van east, Trace spotted a sporty crew-cab truck with at least three Dreads filling the seats. It drove conservatively two cars behind them. When Trace turned to report it, he spotted another Dread sitting on a Harley at the intersection they were about to cross.
“They’re going to box us in,” Trace warned. “We’ve got three behind and one to the side about to join the party.” With a quick thrust, he shoved the box of bullets in his backpack and readied the gun. Cassandra updated the captain, her little-girl face strained with some internal conflict.
“This is Joel. Evade and escape. ROE 44-2 is in effect. Get back to the freeway immediately. We’ll get a Michael team there as soon as possible.”
“Roger,” Goldbow said, gunning the engine and laying on the horn as he tried to thread his way toward the intersection.
“We can’t bail on her!” Trace said. Were they really just going to drive off?
“We can’t do any good,” Cassandra said, voice hollow and faltering. “We aren’t serving any purpose by getting ourselves caught and killed along with her.”
Trace understood precisely what she meant and why it was wisdom, but something within him refused to accept it. God had chosen Prescilla to return to life to do good work. He believed that. As innocent and naive as she was, she did not deserve to go out at the hands of butchering Dreads. Remembering her embroidering and gossiping and how she’d looked at him with her hopeful brown eyes tore his heart open. He would not abandon her. He would find her now or die trying. All the Dreads needed was a pool or a bathtub to snuff out her life, and Phoenix had an ample supply of both. He had to hurry.
The van had crossed the intersection Goldbow still strove to reach. Trace peeked over the seat and saw what he wanted: Goldbow’s phone in the console. With a quick lunge, he grabbed it and stuffed it into his backpack along with the gun.
“What are you doing?” Cassandra asked as Trace strapped on his backpack.
“Tell them to track Goldbow’s phone,” he answered.
The light turned yellow, and Goldbow hit the accelerator hard, throwing them back in their seats as he tried to cross onto the sidewalk to get around a car on the right. The car abruptly turned in front of them and braked, Goldbow’s jerky deceleration throwing Trace against Cassandra’s seat only to bounce back to his own.
“If I make it out, I’ll head back to the school,” Trace said.
“Don’t, Trace!” Cassandra commanded, sounding conflicted, but he had already opened the door and jumped out, clearing the car just as the truck full of Dreads rear-ended them with a thunderous crunch, propelling the Taurus out into the intersection. Goldbow used the momentum to turn left and tear off down the street.
Trace bolted.
Before the black truck sped away, he heard a door open and close. A quick look over his shoulder revealed a Dread charging after him. He had a round, white face and a bald head ringed with an unkempt strip of dark hair. He was dressed as a laborer in well-worn work boots, faded jeans, and a grungy pullover sweater.
Second-grade legs pumping, Trace threaded through the backed-up cars at the intersection with unnatural speed and agility for an eight-year-old, but he knew the adult-sized legs of the Dread would overtake him in a straight race. Trace banked left into the parking lot of a grocery store. With the determination of an Olympic sprinter, he dashed forward, backpack bouncing uncomfortably with the weight of the gun. Trace beelined it for the front doors, hoping the Dread had enough sense not to cause a scene.
He guessed right. Trying to act like someone who wasn’t a murderous thug chasing down an elementary school kid, the Dread slowed as the people thickened. Trace took the opportunity to get some distance, though not too much. He wanted the Dread to follow. The Dreads had set a trap. He would too.
Double glass doors parted as Trace jogged inside and slowed his pace to a walk. The cool of the air-conditioned interior and airy background music hinted at a ni
ce, domestic normalcy that contrasted with the supernatural game of life or death he and the Dread were playing. Shopping carts and kids. Rows of food. Stacks of cans and brightly colored signs with the latest sales. Trace wished he had time to enjoy the familiar hum of real life, but the red glow of the Dread behind him pushed him on. If the Dread could torch, he was in real trouble.
He hunted for the stock doors that led to the storage area in the back. He found them back by the dairy as a sudden warmth and light flooded over him like the Rapture of dawn but with the intensity of a molten furnace. His body, while not in pain, felt like it was radiating the heat of the sun in July, his very fibers turning to light to the point they would lose all mortal shape and explode into the atmosphere.
In his mind’s eye, a vision opened to him. He saw the path of the blue van, the streets it turned down, and the cheap motel where it parked. He saw three Dreads drag Prescilla up a set of stairs to room 210. When the Dread shut the motel door, the vision and the searing sensation closed with it.
Boop! “Attention shoppers! We have Kraft Macaroni and Cheese three-box sets on sale for $1.50 on aisle six! Be sure to get them before they’re gone!”
Trace found himself facedown on the grungy, white tile floor next to the refrigerated milk. What had happened? Where was the Dread? He rolled over, finding an aproned employee and the Dread staring down at him.
“Don’t worry,” the Dread explained to the adolescent shelf stocker. “He’s autistic and has seizures from time to time. I’ll take care of him. Thanks for your assistance. You’ll be fine, won’t you, Timmy? Let’s go now. We’ve scared the nice people enough.”
Autistic? That’s the best the Dread could come up with? Trace forced himself back into breathing and swallowed, standing up and tearing off down the aisle before the Dread could get his hands on him. Something about his body felt different, though he didn’t have time to concentrate on it. He weaved to keep out of the Dread’s reach and plowed through the double metal doors to the cool of the stockroom, unhinging one of them and sending it crashing to the ground.
“I’m sorry!” the Dread was apologizing. “He’s autistic!”
Trace tore through the empty boxes strewn on the floor and fled past the loading bay doors. The rear loading area was empty, a dumpster sitting to his right. As he unlimbered his backpack, the gun dropped out the bottom, the heavy weight of the weapon having ripped through a seam only meant to withstand the weight of notebooks and school folders. It clattered to the ground. Trace spun around.
The Dread was upon him, stepping on the BBG and thrusting it behind him. So much for brilliant plan A. The brute grinned at him with malice. “Time to die, little Trash Angel.”
Trace feinted like he was going to run, taking a couple steps and then turning abruptly. The Dread had stepped forward to pursue, and Trace acted as Cassandra had trained him. His eight-year-old height ruled out anything to the head but lent itself nicely to a hit to the pelvic region. With all the strength he could muster, he drove his fist into the right hip of the Dread.
The force of the impact, unnatural even for an Ash Angel, surprised him. Something cracked inside his enemy’s body, and the combined force of Trace’s fist and the Dread’s forward momentum sent the Dread spinning hard to the ground. Like Ash Angels, Dreads felt no pain, but the Dread struggled to kneel with a busted hip, his body not cooperating. Trace lined up and sent a foot toward his head like he was punting from the back of his own end zone. The Dread’s head caved in, snapped backward like a Pez dispenser, and stayed there, the rest of his body crumpling to the ground.
Trace grabbed the limp Dread, who twitched uselessly and gurgled incomprehensible threats, and found he had no trouble lifting him over his head and tossing him into a nearby dumpster. He shut the plastic lid and smiled with satisfaction. When he had passed out on the floor of the grocery store, he had been given his first Bestowal: Strength. A timely gift.
While he wondered what his limits were, the thought of Dreads brutalizing Prescilla cleared his mind. He retrieved his backpack, moving Goldbow’s phone and the bullets to a smaller pocket. The BBG he would have to carry. He gripped it by the barrel so that if anyone saw him they would at least realize he wasn’t on a rampage—yet.
The vision of Prescilla’s location still burned in his mind as he strapped on the backpack and resumed his tireless sprint in the direction shown him. As he calculated it, the hotel was less than two miles away, two miles for a runner who would not tire or slow down. Drawing on his football days, he wove in and out of people and through lines of cars unconsciously, the world a blur of light and noise. Left on Third. Right on Wilcutt. Right on Samson. Two hundred yards.
The seedy Cactus Twin Hotel, a nondescript building of dingy white plaster and red trim, waited just ahead. The blue van sat in the side parking lot, and Trace angled away, trying to stay out of sight of the windows. He didn’t slow until he approached the wrought-iron stairs up to the second level, but as he was about to sneak up, a thought struck him. He returned to the Dreads’ van and opened the driver’s side door. With his newly found strength, he yanked the gearshift off the column and threw it on top of the hotel roof. Now they were even—except for their adult legs.
Cautiously, he ascended the stairs, flipping the gun to its proper grip, his short index finger barely reaching the trigger. He crawled beneath the drape-covered window to the left of the door and found what he’d hoped for: a peephole. Crouching, he knocked softly. He could make out a few muddy sounding grunts and then footsteps. He watched for the light to change on the hole. When it did, he put the gun to it and pulled the trigger.
The thunderous report of the BBG echoed throughout the parking lot as the bullet tore a hole in the door and mangled the head of the Dread behind it.
Rearing back, Trace kicked the door and sent it flying off its hinges into the room. Cheap orange-brown carpet, dingy walls, and dim light greeted him as he surveyed the room through the haze and reek of cigarette smoke.
Making good use of the confusion, he barreled into the narrow entryway as shouts erupted from everywhere. The door missile had knocked another Dread to the floor behind his mushy-faced companion.
Water ran in a bathtub to Trace’s left. He clenched his teeth. Was he too late? But there she was, standing near the back of the bedroom in front of darkly draped windows. Her terrified, tear-soaked face changed to one of amazement, brown eyes widening. A bullet hole through her flower-print dress over the heart revealed the Dreads’ plans: once they filled the tub, they would immerse her in the water. The water would instantly turn the wound fatal and Prescilla to ash.
Scrambling over the Dread he’d shot, Trace leapt on top of the door covering the second, hoping to pin him down, but the Dread pushed it up. The force sent Trace careening awkwardly into the wall, the gun creating an ugly divot in the sheetrock. He came down on his feet just as a Dread rounded the corner from the bedroom into the entryway, firing a 9mm pistol. Trace took two bullets to the chest before he aimed the BBG and squeezed the trigger.
The bullet hit the Dread high on the shoulder and spun him backward, leaving Trace a clear path to Prescilla. He had only seconds before the Dreads recovered, and in one fluid motion he launched himself at Prescilla, grabbing her around the waist and pushing them both upward and through the window with tremendous force.
The drapes enveloped them as the glass shattered, the tinkling shards dropping to the ground. Trace and Prescilla thudded onto the hood of a beat-up sedan. Trace ripped the drapes away, pulling a stunned Prescilla to the ground.
“We’ve got to run!” he yelled as small-arms fire erupted around them. Grabbing Prescilla’s hand, he pulled her out into the parking lot as a bullet ripped into his back, frighteningly close to his spine. He jerked forward with the impact but kept going.
Two Dreads jumped from the window behind them and landed with a crunch on the broken glass. The back of the hotel created an alley with another brick building to Trace’s right, and a de
livery truck was parked directly in their path.
“Get behind the truck!” Trace yelled, pushing Prescilla ahead as a Dread unloaded a magazine into his back. The pistol was full auto.
Chunks of backpack and spiral notebook flew into the air as the force sent Trace hard to the pavement, carving up the flesh on his hands and sending the BBG skittering ahead of him. While he couldn’t move easily with the torn muscles in his back, he pulled himself forward, hand over hand under the truck, recovering the pistol as Prescilla grabbed his wrists and dragged him the rest of the way to her.
“Can you heal me?” he asked.
“I . . . I don’t know. I’m not sure—”
“Focus, Prescilla!” he urged, angling his back to the wall. “They’re coming for us, and I can’t get away when I’m busted up like this!”
She nodded and knelt beside him, grabbing his wrist. Her hands trembled as she closed her eyes to concentrate. Inside him, Trace sensed the muscles knit together, but Prescilla released him before it finished, screaming. The Dread with the full auto rounded the corner, taking aim at Prescilla. Trace raised his gun, and the two of them fired simultaneously. Three bullets ripped into Prescilla’s chest just as Trace’s bullet blasted into the Dread’s neck, blowing out the back with a chunk of his spine. He collapsed.
Prescilla was in shock. Trace, healed enough to stand, pushed her against the wall and peered around the van. A fusillade of bullets peppered the truck and pushed him back. Then he heard the rumble of a familiar-sounding engine: a bus. Checking the end of the alley, he spotted a bus-stop bench and blue sign thirty yards away.
“Prescilla!” Trace yelled, trying to break through her fear and digging into his pocket for his lunch money. “Do you know how bus stops work?”
She nodded her head as she probed the holes in her dress.
“Take the money,” he instructed, pulling the phone from his backpack. “And take this. They’ll find you. Have someone on the bus help you call Cassandra. She’s in his list, I’m sure.” She took the items numbly. “Now, you need to run. I’ll cover you so you can make it. Go! Go now! Stay by the wall.”
