A Million to One: (The Millionth Trilogy Book 2)

by Tony Faggioli

  And boy, did those girls hear that car too, and boy, wouldn’t you know it, they started screaming up a holy chorus for help.

  It took a few tries, but finally The Bread Man stumbled to his knees and stood just as a man’s voice yelled from outside, “Beaury Sheriff’s Department. Come out with your hands up!”

  He knew that John Wayne-type voice. It belonged to the local sheriff, that crotchety old bastard who sometimes came and ate at Denny’s and sat not twenty feet from him some mornings. How many times had The Bread Man been gleeful in the irony of it all as he mopped up his egg yolks with his toast and sipped at his coffee?

  At first, The Bread Man panicked. But then a calm came over him, and he began to calculate.

  Pretty Ashley was screaming up a storm. “Help us! Please! Heeeeeelp!”

  But Jasmine had actually stopped yelling and was now looking over at Ashley, shaking her head at her, weakly, desperately, as if she were begging Ashley to stop.

  The Bread Man was genuinely sad that he wouldn’t get to fully exploit all that Jasmine had to offer. He was positive now that she would’ve been the best one yet. She was just so… damned… smart.

  She understood that Ashley was calling the sheriff right into the garage. He would have to come in. He would. It was his job. Yes. He could call backup.

  But he couldn’t wait for it.

  Jasmine kept shaking her head, but it was no use; Ashley was staring with panicked intensity at the back door, waiting for help, screaming and begging for it.

  “I say again… this is the County Sheriff’s Department. Come out now.”

  A brief spurt of worry came over The Bread Man: How many cop cars are really out there? What if there are dozens of—

  The Other’s voice came to him, clear as day: “He’s alone.”

  And The Bread Man smiled.

  CHAPTER 29

  AS NAPOLEON RAN, HE felt a huge rush of air as The Gray Man launched himself up towards the demons. Three on one. It wouldn’t normally seem like a fair fight, but Napoleon wasn’t worried, partly because he sensed The Gray Man was far more powerful than he’d let on up to this point, and partly because Napoleon had his own problems to deal with: namely the advancing mob, which had grown to over a hundred people and was quickly closing in on him, from behind and on both flanks. His only way out was the direction The Gray Man pointed towards, but then what?

  Taking off at a dead run, his left foot caught on a divot in the ground and he tripped. Panic overtook him. If he fell, at the speed the mob was moving in, he’d have little chance of getting up again. He pinwheeled his arms and righted himself with his gun-free hand, regaining his balance before he continued on.

  What bothered him the most was the near absence of sound in this place; the mob rumbled, like all mobs do, but it was heavily suppressed, as if the entire city were buried beneath a pillow.

  The only thing he heard clearly was the sound of his labored breathing. Not twenty steps out of the gate and he was already sucking wind. Part of it was perhaps the oxygen level here, but the rest was due to the fact that he’d let himself get horribly out of shape over the past few years. As a result, a few members of the mob, evidently anticipating where he was trying to get to, had moved to cut him off.

  He wasted no time. He shot the man to his left, who was in a tan Members Only jacket, through the left eye and then another two people, a woman in blue sweat suit and a man with bared teeth, both directly in the chest. They went down instantly and his count started: three bullets gone, thirteen to go.

  But now he could make it to the end of the street. Once there he was about to turn left when his path was cut off by a demon plummeting from above, evidently The Gray Man’s first kill, as it struck the ground and exploded in white, the force of the blast leveling part of the adjacent building and briefly lifting Napoleon off his feet.

  So much for going left. Right it is then, Napoleon thought as he landed hard on his heels and again had to use his free hand to keep from face-planting onto the street.

  The boulevard he turned on was littered with the wreckage of many vehicles, as if a scrap yard had been dumped on it, some of the cars still smoking and burning. The buildings were covered in black ash and soot, and the outlines of people were cast in eerie flashes against them, as if he were in what was left of a city that had been on the outskirts of a nuclear explosion.

  But that wasn’t the worst part. The worst part was that he knew this street: it was Wilshire Boulevard, at the corner Grand Avenue, in the heart of Downtown Los Angeles.

  How had this happened? More importantly, when did it happen?

  This time he didn’t need The Gray Man to coach him. “Remember where you are,” he said to himself through gritted teeth. “This place wants you to see things that you never want to see.”

  Like his hometown gone in a nuclear holocaust.

  Out of shape as he was, he was still able to outpace the vast majority of the mob. A man in a Nike jacket with a long goatee had no problem catching him though, and Napoleon had no problem turning towards him quickly and shooting the man in the neck. He grunted, grabbed at his throat as his eyes went wide and he veered sideways, like a drunk, into a bus stop bench, where his knees and chest thudded against it with the sickening sound of flesh on wood, and he went down.

  Think. Wilshire dead ends at Grand. Right would take you towards Staples Center. Left would take you towards…East LA.

  “Home,” he said. It was clear. Left was the way out of here. He was sure of it.

  Dipping into his line of sight, above and in front of him, the two remaining demons were upon The Gray Man and beating on him with their weapons.

  Napoleon glanced over his shoulder; the mob was still in pursuit, but only about a dozen were close enough to catch him. He had a thirty-yard lead or so, but his adrenaline boost was wearing off. Maybe, just maybe, he could help The Gray Man and help himself at the same time.

  Against every instinct in his body, Napoleon forced himself to stop running, drew a bead on one of the demons above and squeezed off four carefully measured shots. One missed, but two struck the demon in the back and one caught him in his left wing. It was no use, it was like shooting a rhino, but it did serve a valuable purpose; it distracted the demon, just long enough for The Gray Man to swing a thin, white line through its neck, severing its head, which fell to the ground and tumbled past Napoleon like a bowling ball.

  Eight bullets left, Napoleon thought.

  He heard their footsteps before he saw them; three of the mob had closed the gap quickly and grabbed at him. He shot the first one, a woman with black hair in a dress skirt and blouse, in the leg, the only shot he had based on where he was positioned. She went down wounded but was able to reach his ankle and was trying to bite at it like some feral animal. One of the others, a pudgy man in a purple polo that said “Business Improvement District,” tried to grab at the gun, but he’d underestimated his own momentum and instead found the gun against his cheek. Napoleon pulled the trigger and the man’s head exploded like a watermelon.

  The last person who caught him was the biggest problem of all, because he had tackled Napoleon from behind around the waist and wasn’t letting go. A small man in his early twenties, he was scrawny but strong, with a vice-like grip. It was obvious that he had no intention of fighting Napoleon; he just wanted to slow him down so the rest of the mob could catch up.

  It a fit of rage, as the woman at Napoleon’s feet was trying to chew through his shoe, he shot her in the back of the head, then, with renewed panic and adrenaline, Napoleon spun his body from side to side until he could get the man rotated to his hip and into a headlock.

  Six left. No. Five. It’s five.

  The Gray Man still had his hands full with the last demon, and the mob was closing in again. Napoleon didn’t want to, but he had no choice. Killing with your hands was always more personal. Still, it made Napoleon sick as he snapped the man’s neck.

  But he had to save bullets.

>   As he took off running again, he saw that Grand was blocked by a collapsed building at Third Street. He also couldn’t go right at the intersection, so by default he cut left, between two cars, knocking over a trash can in the process, which by blind luck tripped up one member of the mob who had almost snuck up on him. The man, who was in a business suit, went sprawling head first into a light post.

  Napoleon was not long for Third Street either. To his horror, right at the corner of Hope Street, were the burning remains of a crashed plane. From the looks of the tail section, it was once an Airbus. The bodies were the worst: scattered everywhere, adults and children alike. As Napoleon cut to his right, he noticed something in his path and had to step over the corpse of a baby.

  He screamed. “¡Oh, dios mío! ¡Por favor, ayúdame!” It was that or faint. His head was beginning to overflow with horror. He wanted out of here with the same desperation of a rat in a burning box.

  His gut told him to go right at Hope, and since going left meant going over and past more bodies, he didn’t argue with it. Glancing over his shoulder, he saw the mob still chasing after him, and now more people were coming, from in between buildings and adjacent streets.

  There was something else too; the sky was off.

  It was getting darker. As he ran down Hope Street, he looked up. The Gray Man and the last demon were locked in a vicious struggle, teetering in the air from side to side, somersaulting at times and losing altitude before the demon would flap its wings and pull them back up again, higher into the sky, up towards the…

  Napoleon only had one word left as he looked up. “Shit.”

  The darkness was really blackness: the black of thousands upon thousands of demons descending from above.

  The Gray Man had said they’d be coming now that their cover was blown. He hadn’t lied.

  Ahead of Napoleon, about two blocks away, was a massive white light.

  The last demon that had been fighting The Gray Man screeched and came flying through the air like a cannonball and through two buildings in the skyline up ahead.

  The Gray Man was descending towards Napoleon when it hit him.

  But of course. How could he have forgotten?

  The bright light was now only a block ahead: at First and Hope Street. And what stood at that corner? The Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels. In Downtown Los Angeles it stood as a beacon in an otherwise ruthless place.

  Occasionally, like on Christmas or on really down days when his depression seemed insurmountable, Napoleon would go there to light a candle to Saint Jude, and to pray. He told himself he was there for his grandmother but he knew better. He was really there for himself. Because Saint Jude was the patron saint of lost causes.

  “Or lost souls,” Napoleon whispered as tears filled his eyes. This was it: the doorway out.

  He looked around to see the mob was still a way off and the wave of demons in the sky had not yet closed in.

  Amazingly, up ahead, The Gray Man had descended to the street and was talking with some man on the opposite corner.

  Napoleon squinted through his tears, and then wiped them away to confirm what he was actually seeing.

  The man was Kyle Fasano.

  “KYLE,” said The Gray Man in a voice tinged with amazement.

  “Hey, Gray,” Kyle replied with a nod, overwhelmed with sudden emotion.

  They were at an intersection. The asphalt was black but reflected intermittent spots of red. Kyle looked up and saw them, winged demons, in the thousands, descending in rolling waves. He looked back at The Gray Man, who seemed to be contemplating something.

  “What?” Kyle asked.

  “There’s no time. Or, more accurately, time will tell,” The Gray Man replied before he pointed to a building across the street. It was a massive church. “Do you see the gate, there at the church entrance?”

  Kyle nodded.

  “There, we can leave this place. We must reach it—at any cost. Do you understand?”

  Again, Kyle nodded.

  With that, The Gray Man took off into the air and was halfway across the street before he shot up into the advancing demons in an explosion of gray and white. He was a fireball of light and the effect was immediate: a good half of the descending demons, eyes evidently only tuned for darkness, turned away and fled. The rest pushed on, past The Gray Man, and landed at the end of the street in rank and file formations. Before long they were a sea of bobbing, horned heads with red eyes framed by grimaces and masks of pain. They chanted some odd song, pausing at times to slither their tongues out of their mouths and bare their fangs.

  So many against three? They were hopelessly outnumbered. Or so it seemed.

  From behind them bodies flew, some off to the left, others to the right, and smashed into the buildings on either side. Instantly the advancing army turned inwards on all sides to surround their attacker.

  Kyle looked into the sea of demons and saw him, The Gray Man, majestic and regal, defiantly advancing through the ranks and glowing like a gray sun in a world of reds, oranges and yellows, all muted now, as if hell had been filled with a shadow. A shadow made of light.

  When his eyes met Kyle’s the moment froze, and in that split second, Kyle knew that with the return of his power he now needed to actually use it. To wield it.

  He called on the blue and it filled him.

  The Gray Man pointed to a spot halfway between where Kyle was standing and the church. A man in a beige suit was there. He was covered in soot, screaming and spinning in semicircles, a gun in his hand as he tried to stave off a pack of dogs that were circling him.

  I’ve got him, Kyle said without words.

  The Gray Man nodded in reply as he unleashed an arc of white that cut down a line of demons that were advancing upon him.

  Do it swiftly.

  Kyle nodded, relieved and overjoyed to be hearing a voice that comforted him so much, a voice that until now he had truly believed he’d never hear again.

  He pulsed the blue out of his arms and into the ground, the force catapulting him twenty yards across the street and over a mob of people. He hit the ground hard and skidded a good distance before regaining his feet and running. He reached the man just as one of the dogs, that was larger than the rest, closed in on him with bared teeth.

  Kyle reached up and shot a blue bolt out of his hand, the surge of power almost joyous throughout his body. The blast was straight and true, vaporizing the dog just as it leaped.

  To Kyle’s right, about ten yards away, two demons advanced, one holding a hammer and the other a long staff. They moved quickly, screaming as they charged. Kyle blasted the one with the staff first, the blue boring a hole straight through its chest before spreading out like a web, crackling over the rest of its body as it fell over. The other demon took two more strides and then threw the hammer, barely missing Kyle’s right shoulder, before Kyle ended him with a wider blast that hit it just below the chest, its upper torso flying forwards with the momentum of its run as its lower torso was launched backwards and off into the street.

  Meanwhile, the man in the suit had spun on another dog and was wrestling with it, too close for Kyle to have the confidence to blast it. If he were wrong, if he “thought” the wrong size blast, he’d kill the man as well as the dog.

  Instead, Kyle ran, fast and hard, the power in his legs propelling him with such speed that he lost his breath, the gap closing instantly. He wrenched the dog off the man and threw it, shocked to see the animal fly across the skyline like something launched from a catapult. Either the blue was more powerful in this place, or he was beginning to learn how to use it better.

  Kyle. Focus.

  The man in the suit looked at Kyle as if he knew him, which struck Kyle as odd because he was sure they’d never met. He was old, with a full head of graying black hair. His skin was brown and his eyes had heavy bags beneath them, as if he’d endured a lifetime of troubled sleep. Around his neck was a gold chain with a crucifix poking out over the loosened collar of his shi
rt, which was smeared with streaks of tar and dirt, as were the beige pants he was wearing.

  “Kyle Fasano,” the man said. Again. It was not a question. This man knew him somehow.

  “Yeah?” Kyle replied cautiously.

  A smile crossed the man’s face, and without warning, he stepped forwards, reached out and grabbed Kyle by the arm. “Gotcha,” he said.

  “Who are you?” Kyle asked, perplexed.

  “We spoke once before, when this all began. I’m Detective Villa. Napoleon Villa.”

  “What? How? I mean, what are you doing here?”

  To this comment the detective only gave an exhausted laugh and shook his head, widening his eyes in a “you have no idea” sort of gesture, before he glanced behind Kyle.

  Kyle turned to see that The Gray Man was swiftly becoming outnumbered; twenty or thirty demons were now circling him cautiously, a few making tentative charges and then backing away slowly, testing his defenses, as The Gray Man levitated off the ground and rotated slowly.

  When Kyle heard the sound of hoofbeats on the pavement, dread filled him instantly.

  “No,” Kyle whispered, turning towards their left flank.

  He was coming, his horse at a full gallop, somehow having gotten inside the city. Kyle’s mind swam in the blue. He suddenly understood: rules had been broken, by both sides, open war proclaimed, and the shield had been dropped as domains were forsaken and barriers shattered.

  The Shaman appeared at the other end of the street, with a separate pack of dogs, a group of about a dozen Dobermans, much larger than the rest, moving in sporadic shifts of space, there one second, gone the next, blinking in and out of the reality of this place, as if they were teleporting in spurts.

  “Oh my God.” Detective Villa said.

  “We’ve gotta get to the church gate. Let’s go!”

  Kyle had no idea how they were going to do that, though. The Shaman had the angle. He evidently knew where they were trying to get to and now began charging towards the gate instead of directly at them.

  Between this and the mounting number of demons that were surrounding The Gray Man, the situation was becoming dire. They were running out of time. It seemed as if hell—the entire damned place—was aware of their presence and was rising up in protest.