Shadow Chaser

by Jerel Law

  He was twenty feet from the finish line when he lost his balance. This time, though, his legs were moving so fast that when the column fell, he found himself underneath it. The only things that saved his head from being crushed were his hands, holding the heavy marble inches away from his face. It was sitting on top of him, and he was starting to have a hard time breathing.

  Suddenly the column began to move. It was lifted off him and thrown to the side. Andre and Marcus stood over him.

  “Jonah? Are you all right?” Andre asked, his brow wrinkled with concern. “It didn’t crush you, did it?”

  Jonah sat up and slapped his hand on the ground. “I’m all right,” he said. “Just lost my balance, that’s all.” He watched as Lania crossed the finish line. “I guess that means I’m last.”

  Marcus nodded but didn’t say anything. Jonah dropped himself down on his back again, staring upward at the cloudy sky. He didn’t want to see anyone. Not Andre, Frederick, or anyone else. All he wanted was to be left alone.

  A DANGEROUS PLAN

  The quarterlings were rowdy as the messenger angels were preparing to transport them back to the convent for the evening. All except Jonah, who stood off to the side, occasionally kicking at the dirt with his sneaker. The results had been tabulated, all scores being taken into account. The leaders were announced by Nathaniel:

  First Place: Frederick

  Second Place: Eliza

  Third Place: Jonah

  Jonah was behind with only one event left—the battle simulation. Anything was possible, but it seemed highly unlikely that he could catch Frederick now, especially with how well the South African was performing.

  Jonah felt sick—his head throbbed, he felt shaky and tired, and his skin hurt. His poor performance definitely didn’t make him feel any better. Carlo still had bandages on his arms, which reminded Jonah of the incident with the tea. Nothing was going right. He couldn’t blame his friends for avoiding him—he wouldn’t want to be around himself either, especially after how the last few days had gone. He seemed to be bringing bad luck with him everywhere he went.

  Jonah rushed back to his room, ignoring Eliza’s voice calling after him in the hallway. He didn’t want to talk right now. And he certainly didn’t want to get anyone else hurt.

  Flopping facedown on the mattress, he prayed that he could develop a new gift—invisibility. Then nobody would have to see him ever again.

  Instead, he found his mind drifting back to his dream from the other night and the research he had done. The image from the book kept coming to him, the sparse page with an empty black box and the word M’chala written above. He twirled it over and over in his mind. At one point, he tried to forget it. What could he possibly do? But the image from his dream wouldn’t let him alone.

  He was facing the wall, lying on his stomach, when he heard David come in.

  “Jonah?” he said softly. Jonah didn’t move. “Jonah, aren’t you going to eat dinner? They’re closing the kitchen down.”

  But Jonah remained motionless, pretending to be asleep. He simply couldn’t face his roommate right now, not after the embarrassment of today. He also had decided what he was going to do tonight. What he needed to do. And he couldn’t risk having David involved.

  Jonah waited until David climbed into bed and he heard his steady, slow breathing so that he knew he was asleep. He sat up on the edge of his bed, watching David for a few minutes to make sure.

  He hopped up and opened his top drawer. What he needed now was the MissionFinder 3000, the watch he had been given by Marcus that had helped him so much in his adventures in the past. He hoped it would give him some clue of where to go.

  But he couldn’t find it. He searched through his socks and underwear, but it wasn’t there. Neither was it in any of his other drawers or his book bag. Soon, he had quietly searched the whole room.

  “Great,” he mumbled. “What is it going to be next, Jonah? You going to accidentally set the building on fire?”

  He stood for a few seconds, wondering what to do. One possibility was to crawl back into bed and call it a night. He rubbed the painful boils on his arms, thinking about how good it would feel to just fall asleep and start over in the morning. The alternative was dangerous and unclear.

  But maybe M’chala was somehow the key, and if he could only locate him . . .

  That was the information he was hoping to find in the MissionFinder, though. How could he find him without it?

  Jonah was about to crawl back into bed when an idea hit him. He wasn’t sure it would work, but it was worth a shot.

  An hour later, after sneaking through the back door of the convent, moving as quickly and quietly as he could, hoping to avoid detection from both the angels and any fallen ones who might be lurking about, he stood in front of the building. Wind was whipping off the East River, not too far away, bringing a chill and, along with it, the faint smell of garbage.

  The sign before him read BELLEVUE HOSPITAL CENTER. He had looked it up on the Internet map before he left, and it was the closest large hospital to him. There was a reason he had seen M’chala in a hospital in his dream. If this was the fallen angel in charge of sickness and disease, didn’t it make sense that he would be hiding out in a hospital?

  Two security guards were standing by the double-door entrance. Jonah stuffed his hands in his pockets, pulled his hood off his head, and walked toward them. Just act like you belong here, Jonah. They won’t say anything.

  “Can I help you, son?” Jonah couldn’t see the guard’s mouth move because of his enormous mustache. The guard studied his face for a few seconds. “Do you need to see a doctor?”

  He tried to smile. “No, I’m . . . uh . . . here to see a friend.” Jonah reached for the door handle, but the guard stepped in front of him.

  “It’s just past eleven o’clock,” he said, crossing his arms. “Visiting hours are long over. Who is it that you need to see?”

  Jonah stood in front of him for a few seconds, mouth hanging open, trying to decide what to do. He could make up a story, go into a long tale about a dying aunt who was having surgery or a nephew who had just been born, but he didn’t feel great about lying to a security officer. And he wasn’t good at it anyway. How about the hidden realm, genius? He laughed at himself, realizing he’d forgotten the easiest way to get in.

  “Something funny?” The other officer stepped forward now, placing his hand on the end of his billy club.

  “Funny? No, no,” Jonah said. “I didn’t mean to laugh . . . I was just thinking about something else.” He backed up, putting his hands up. “Sorry, officers. I didn’t realize how late it had gotten. I’ll just call them, how about that?” They grunted their approval, and Jonah walked away, waving back at them.

  Less than a minute later, he walked right past the guards, sliding the door open just enough to get through.

  “Darn wind!” he heard one of the officers say, pulling the door shut behind him.

  Jonah walked across the lobby of the hospital. A long desk was along one wall, with two attendants stationed there, both on the phone while staring at their computers. A bank of escalators was on their right.

  He wasn’t sure where to go from here, but the escalators looked like a good start. Hopping on the first step, he let it carry him upward as he studied the nondescript paintings of flower arrangements hung neatly along the wall. When he stepped off on the second floor, he found himself in front of a bank of elevators.

  Jonah studied the sign on the wall, which listed all of the different medical departments and on what floor they were located. There were more than a dozen, from pediatrics to oncology to the heart center. If I were M’chala, the fallen angel in charge of disease, where would I go? He shivered, not enjoying putting himself in that fallen one’s shoes. But as he looked harder at the list, his eyes fell on one floor in particular.

  “Intensive Care Unit, Floor 9,” he said under his breath. “As good a place as any to start looking.”

  He
followed a young man in a white jacket with a stethoscope draped around his neck onto the elevator. The man pushed the button for the tenth floor and began studying a clipboard full of notes.

  Jonah, still in the hidden realm, slid around him and, eyeing him to make sure he was still looking down, pressed button number nine.

  When the elevator arrived, the doctor walked off right after Jonah.

  “Wait . . . what?” he said, confused for a second, before reaching back and grabbing the closing door and jumping back in. “That was strange,” Jonah heard him say as the doors shut.

  Jonah took a deep breath as he walked down the hallway of the intensive care unit. He glanced in the first room he came to, unprepared for what he saw. An older woman was lying in a bed, an oxygen mask on her face, with what seemed like more than a dozen tubes coming out of her. Machines surrounded her, blinking and beeping in the darkened room. She didn’t move, but the steady beep of the heart rate monitor told him she was still alive.

  These people are in the worst condition of anyone in the hospital, he thought. Stay focused, Jonah. M’chala could be anywhere in here.

  He moved on, passing by other rooms, people hooked up to machines and lying in beds, unmoving. He stopped in front of a room where a teenage boy was asleep, breathing through his mask. His parents stood over him, looks of worry creasing their faces as they spoke soft words to him and each other. The boy had brown, unkempt hair, and his feet stretched off the end of the bed.

  That could be me.

  He watched for another minute as the boy’s mom pressed her hand against her forehead and the boy’s dad stood over her, rubbing her shoulders. They were so worried.

  Jonah stepped quietly into the room. He needed to get a closer look. Moving over to the other side of the bed, he tried to get a glimpse of his chest underneath the covers. He breathed out a sigh as he saw the glow he had been looking for. This one was a child of Elohim. He had placed himself in His hands. Jonah nodded, even praying a silent prayer for the boy.

  The stark white hallway was quiet, except for the footsteps of an occasional nurse or doctor. He was almost to the end when he saw something that made him freeze.

  A greenish shadowy haze moved into the hallway from the last room and began to gather together in front of him, forming something. The hallway grew darker as the image of a face came into view. A torso, legs, and finally, wings.

  “M’chala,” Jonah said, barely above a whisper. His hand automatically moved to his hip, ready to pull his angelblade at any moment.

  “Jonah Stone, what a nice surprise,” the fallen angel seethed. “What brings you to the hospital? You know this is my territory, don’t you?”

  Jonah swallowed hard, looking up at the green face. He was taller than any fallen angel he had ever seen and extremely thin. His head skimmed along the ceiling.

  “I believe I found who I’m looking for,” he said, summoning his most courageous voice.

  The fallen angel raised his eyebrows, studying the quarterling for a few seconds. “Have you enjoyed what I did to your skin?” he jeered. “Tell me, Jonah, how’s it been between you and the ladies since you’ve become the most pimpled kid in the world?”

  The reality hit Jonah like a blow to the stomach. M’chala was the one responsible for his sores. Then images of Eliza, Julia, and David flashed through his mind. And his mother—she was sick too. He fumed, pulling out his angelblade and holding it between them. Light from the blade eclipsed the darkened hall.

  “I don’t care about this,” Jonah said, holding up his left arm. “Do it all you want! But you need to leave my family and my friends out of it!”

  He surprised himself with the boldness that came out of his mouth. He was, after all, face-to-face with the fallen angel responsible for all sickness and disease.

  “You really want that, Jonah?”

  M’chala moved closer to Jonah now, pointing his long, crooked finger toward the boy. Jonah held his blade with both hands, mainly to try to keep it from shaking. He watched the tip of M’chala’s finger, wondering what kind of disease awaited him if he touched his body.

  “I told you,” Jonah said, still focusing on the finger. “If you’re the one causing all of this trouble with my family and friends, it needs to stop. You can do whatever you want with me.”

  Jonah shifted his gaze from M’chala’s finger to his green eyes and slowly began to lower his blade. M’chala glared at him with the look of an animal who’d just cornered its prey.

  He drew his finger closer and closer, until it was an inch away from Jonah’s nose. Jonah stood still, waiting for a strike from the fallen angel, and closed his eyes.

  For what seemed like minutes dripping slowly by, neither of them moved.

  Suddenly, M’chala spun away, his wings flapping behind him, muttering something to himself.

  Jonah finally allowed himself to open his eyes again. He watched the fallen one pace around, still saying something to himself, shaking his head.

  And then something dawned on him.

  “You can’t do it, can you? You can’t hurt me,” he said, finding himself almost smiling. “What, are you not allowed?”

  M’chala spun violently back toward him again, screamed something unintelligible, and pulled out his own flaming red blade. Jonah had just been kidding, but he must have struck a nerve.

  M’chala isn’t allowed to really hurt me.

  M’chala held his blade high in the air, his eyes glittering, full of rage and desire. He brought the fiery blade down hard.

  Jonah held his own sword up with both hands, with just enough strength to block the fallen angel’s blow. The swords pushed against each other, Jonah and M’chala clanging back and forth. M’chala was taller and stronger, though, and Jonah was slowly being shoved to the ground.

  M’chala’s blade was only inches away from his neck and getting closer every second. I hope you’re right about him not being able to kill you, Jonah, he told himself. Because if you’re not . . . you’re dead.

  “Jonah!” He heard the familiar voice echo down the hallway. M’chala looked up and instantly changed back into the shadowy green mist. He shot upward, only a vapor now, through an air vent in the ceiling.

  Jonah turned to see Eliza leading a charge down the hall, with David at her side, bow and arrow raised. Jeremiah and Julia were close behind.

  “Jonah, are you all right?” David said, immediately looking up into the vent above where M’chala had vanished. “Who was that?”

  Eliza and Julia formed a shield that, together, covered all of them. “How about we discuss this in the elevator?”

  Jeremiah helped pull Jonah up off the ground, and they ran down to the elevator. As they went down, they all kept a close watch on the ceiling and the crack in the door.

  “How did you guys know I was here?” Jonah asked as they watched the floor numbers drop all too slowly.

  “You left your Internet search up on the computer back at the convent,” said Eliza. “David knew you’d left, and he came and got Julia and me. We searched all over the convent first, and when I saw the map with the hospital pulled up . . .”

  “It became clear where you were headed,” finished Julia.

  Jeremiah just shrugged his shoulders. “I was downstairs, trying to get into the kitchen, when I saw them wandering around, looking for you. They let me tag along.”

  “Well, you got to see M’chala,” Jonah said as the door opened onto the second floor. “He’s the fallen angel responsible for all of this.” He held his arms up and pointed to the marks on his face. “Not to mention my fall yesterday.”

  “That was the fallen angel of all disease and sickness?” Eliza said, her mouth hanging open. David and Julia just shook their heads.

  “I think so,” he answered as they climbed onto the escalator. “And my guess is, he’s responsible for whatever is going on with Mom too.”

  A MOVING SIDEWALK

  Let’s just get back to the safety of the convent as fast
as we can,” Julia said as they hit the pavement outside. “We can sort everything out then.”

  They all agreed. Jonah didn’t want to say it out loud, and he sensed the others didn’t either. There was no telling what might be after them outside the safe walls of the convent.

  “Let’s move fast then,” he said. He began walking so quickly with Julia and David beside him that they barely heard the screams.

  “Guys! Wait!” Eliza’s voice rang through the air and stopped Jonah in his tracks.

  He turned to see a pair of hands sticking out of the pavement. One held Eliza’s foot, the other Jeremiah’s.

  “What is that?” David said, his eyes growing large as they made their way back.

  “Eliza and I have seen these guys before!” Jonah shouted, sprinting. “The Rephaim!”

  By the time they got back to Eliza and Jeremiah, three bodies had emerged from the ground. They were not completely skeletons, but they were close. Ragged clothing hung limply on their bodies, and dirt and mold covered their faces, hands, and feet. Their faces were expressionless, with sockets for eyes.

  “Help me!” Jeremiah saw his foot disappear under the concrete, and he began to panic as he tried to wrestle his arms free from the grasp of the bony arms that were pulling him.

  Jonah had his sword raised as he called out to his brother.

  “Jeremiah, use your belt! The belt of truth!”

  But he saw movement above them too. Five fallen angels were hurtling downward beside the hospital building. M’chala had obviously sounded the alarm.

  “We’ve got more company, guys!” Jonah called out.

  While Jeremiah was busy trying to focus on the belt and not getting dragged under the earth forever, Eliza was trying to free her hands so she could raise her protective shield. But there was little she could do as she struggled against the arms of the creatures.

  Julia, who had lost a few seconds staring in horror at the awful beings, snapped back into it and raised her arms above her head, forming a shield of light around all of them.