by Pearl Love
Salvation’s Song
By Pearl Love
An ancient evil threatens the world, and only the chosen few can save it: the Singers, the Seekers, and the Saviors….
Tyrell Hughes enters his junior year of high school at Winton Yowell with everything going for him. He’s popular, he has great friends, and he has the eye of the hottest girl in school. Jeremy Michalak is a transfer student hoping to escape the bullying he suffered at his last school. All he wants is to keep his head down, make it to graduation without any trouble, and pursue the thing that makes him happiest: playing clarinet.
Tyrell and Jeremy have nothing in common except their homeroom assignments and a mutual attraction each is determined to keep hidden. That is until a dangerous mystery draws them inexorably together. Young people all over the city are dying of seemingly natural causes, but Tyrell and Jeremy discover there are dark forces at work that only they can stop. Now the boys will have to put aside their differences and accept their feelings for each other if they are to fulfill their destinies and become the city’s salvation.
Table of Contents
Blurb
Dedication
PROLOGUE
Chapter ONE
Chapter TWO
Chapter THREE
Chapter FOUR
Chapter FIVE
Chapter SIX
Chapter SEVEN
Chapter EIGHT
Chapter NINE
Chapter TEN
Chapter ELEVEN
Chapter TWELVE
Chapter THIRTEEN
Chapter FOURTEEN
Chapter FIFTEEN
Chapter SIXTEEN
Chapter SEVENTEEN
Chapter EIGHTEEN
Chapter NINETEEN
Chapter TWENTY
Chapter TWENTY-ONE
Chapter TWENTY-TWO
Chapter TWENTY-THREE
Chapter TWENTY-FOUR
Chapter TWENTY-FIVE
Chapter TWENTY-SIX
Chapter TWENTY-SEVEN
Chapter TWENTY-EIGHT
Chapter TWENTY-NINE
Chapter THIRTY
Chapter THIRTY-ONE
Chapter THIRTY-TWO
EPILOGUE
About the Author
By Pearl Love
Visit Harmony Ink Press
Copyright
To my family, who have always encouraged me to scribble away.
PROLOGUE
“RUNNERS ON your mark… get set… go!”
Sam chuckled softly as he set off at a slow jog instead of rocketing to the top speed that had made him a star on his school’s track team. He wasn’t there to race, only to enjoy the solitude of the late August evening. He loved running, whether competitively or simply to clear his head.
No one else was around. The Dan Ryan Woods weren’t exactly a hangout spot, especially not after dark. Major Taylor Trail was his favorite place to run. The path began close to his house in Beverly, and unlike the running/biking/hiking trail on Lake Shore Drive, the track through the park was little used. At this time of night it was entirely deserted.
Sam had been running for as long as he could remember. His dad loved to say he learned to sprint before he could even walk properly. The activity was like second nature to him. He could lose himself in the effortless motion of his limbs and the rhythmic pounding of his feet against the pavement. Jogging at this sedate pace offered not only a way for him to keep in shape during the off-season, but it also afforded him the perfect opportunity to think away from the demands and expectations of his parents and his peers.
In a couple of weeks, he would be a senior. Entrance exams, AP courses, and the regional track meet loomed large on the horizon. He’d gotten one of the highest scores in the state on the PSATs the previous year, and everyone at school expected he’d at least grab the salutatorian spot if not valedictorian. Not to mention his coach was convinced Sam would take first place in his specialty event, the 400-meter sprint, at the finals in early October.
Sometimes the pressure of being perfect got to him, but Sam usually found it pretty easy to shrug off the stress. After all, he’d always been his own worst critic. The only person he worried about outdoing was himself, and as a result, he prided himself on being the best at whatever he strove to accomplish.
The intersection at 87th Street was clear, so Sam didn’t bother waiting for the red light to change. As he continued north on the trail, he grinned at the memory of the unexpected encounter he’d had at the track meet earlier that month. Several college scouts had attended the meet, and his accomplishments had apparently put him on their radar. Even the recruiter from Texas A&M had introduced herself, and they were the best Division 1 school in the country for track and field! Of course, Stanford was still sending him mail after the summer engineering program he’d attended there the previous year. His mom wanted him to concentrate on his academic interests while his dad was gung ho on his chances of making the US Olympic team for the 2020 games. Sam laughed when he remembered his dad talking excitedly about how he’d always wanted to visit Tokyo.
Having reached the heart of the park, Sam tipped his head back to peer at the sliver of sky visible between the high trees that lined the east side trail, stretching as far as he could see in the darkness. He slowed his pace slightly, then hopped up and down for a while before starting again, using the vertical movement to strengthen his calves. The park—a lightless expanse off to his left—was completely still, but a little of the vehicle noise from Hamilton Avenue reached him from the other side of the tree line.
He wasn’t sure when he’d started humming to himself. He didn’t like the distraction of headphones since the beat interfered with his running pace, but he didn’t mind creating his own music while he exercised. He was midnote when a dark shape darted across the path about six yards in front of him. The shadow came out of the trees from the direction of the park and moved so fast, Sam almost wasn’t sure he’d actually seen anything.
“Probably a cat,” he mumbled softly. Plenty of strays roamed the neighborhood, surviving off the garbage of the upper-middle-class families who lived in the area. Nevertheless, he checked his forward motion and hopped in place for a moment. He was merely keeping to his routine. He certainly wasn’t nervous about whatever the mysterious shape had been. Or at least that’s what he told himself.
He was just about to resume his jog when he heard a noise. He stopped completely and stared down the darkened path, cocking his head to the side to better focus his ears. Nothing greeted him but silence, and he was convinced he’d merely imagined the sound when he heard it again.
“Who’s there?”
A low growl answered. Sam exhaled sharply. A dog, then, and not a cat. He wasn’t afraid of dogs. He’d grown up with a steady succession of canine companions from the teacup poodles his mom adored to the Cane Corso his dad insisted on when his wife’s choice of dogs had threatened his masculinity. Still, he knew strays could be dangerous. Confidence was the best strategy when dealing with a strange dog.
“Hey, pooch!” he said loudly to announce his presence while remaining motionless so as not to appear threatening. “You lost, boy?” The dog may have been a girl, but it wasn’t like it would get offended at his mistake.
The path ahead of him remained clear, and after a minute he shrugged, figuring he’d been wrong after all. A foul odor wafted toward him, like animal excrement some jerk had neglected to pick up after walking his dog, but it was faint. He hoped he didn’t have dog crap on his expensive running shoes. He jogged onward a few steps but backpedaled to a rapid halt when a figure suddenly appeared in the middle of the trail a dozen feet in front of him.
“Shit!”
Sam felt stupid for yelling, but the figure had seem
ed to materialize out of nowhere. He squinted, trying to see through the gloom. The figure seemed to be a little under five feet tall and had a slim build. Basically, it bore the outline of an eight or nine-year-old child. Sam relaxed and laughed, feeling pretty foolish for being nervous.
“Hey, kid, your mommy know you’re running around out here so late?” Sam approached the kid slowly, guessing the child was a lot more frightened of him than he’d been. “Why don’t you go on home? Do you need some help?”
The path was unlit, but he was surprised he still couldn’t make out any part of the child’s features. His eyes had fully adjusted to the darkness, and when he glanced down at himself, he could clearly see the orange of his reflective running shirt and shorts and the whites of his gym shoes. But when he looked back toward the figure, all he could make out was a black silhouette.
“You okay, kid?” Sam slowed to a stop a few feet from the child, feeling oddly reluctant to move any closer. “You sick or something?” He was annoyed the child hadn’t answered any of his questions, like he didn’t have anything better to do than babysit some little brat. “Come on, kid. Cat got your tongue or something?”
The last comment finally got a reaction. The shadow that suggested the lower half of the child’s face seemed to split apart, revealing teeth bared in a grin. Only they didn’t even come close to resembling human teeth. Sam choked, his throat constricting in horror, as he stared at the double row of needle-sharp spikes jutting from the figure’s jaws.
“What the fuck?”
His eyes bulged as he struggled to accept what he was seeing. He opened his mouth to do something—scream maybe, or perhaps cry. But the instant the rumbling growl he’d thought he’d only imagined reached him, he spun around and pelted back down the trail. He didn’t care if he’d been mistaken, that it really had been some kid wearing a Halloween mask two months early. The second he’d seen those teeth, a sliver of ice had lodged itself in his gut. Fear instantly took over, a surge of adrenaline preparing him for fight or flight.
Flight was his specialty, and he put on the afterburners as he tore southward down Major Taylor Trail. He’d gone over half a mile before running into whatever the hell that thing had been, but less than two minutes later, he could see the traffic signal indicating the intersection where he’d begun his run.
Almost there!
He felt instinctively that, if he could just reach the thoroughfare, he’d be safe. It wasn’t all that late, and 87th Street was always pretty busy, even in the middle of the night. People would be there, people whom he could beg for help. If he was lucky, maybe he’d even find a police cruiser making its rounds. It would be worth the risk of interacting with the cops if it kept whatever was chasing him at bay.
But was he really being chased? He’d been so focused on running, he hadn’t been listening too closely for sounds of pursuit. Turning his head slightly, he concentrated on the path behind him, but he didn’t hear anything. No footsteps, no sounds of crunching from the dead leaves that always littered the path, not even that creepy growling.
All of a sudden he felt like the biggest idiot on the planet. Hadn’t he already figured it out? It was nothing but some little asshole wearing a mask. He was glad he was alone and that no one had witnessed his foolishness. Although, he added with a smirk, if those scouts had seen the burst of speed he’d just put on, they’d be begging to recruit him even before graduation!
The light was red when he reached the intersection, and he stopped, obeying the jaywalking laws for once in order to catch his breath. While he hadn’t gotten through his entire routine, which usually took him to the end of the trail past 83rd Street and back a few times, that last sprint had certainly gotten his blood pumping. He didn’t want to admit his racing pulse was due in no small part to fear.
The light turned green. He started forward, but before he’d moved more than an inch, he was suddenly yanked backward. He hit the ground hard, a shock of pain traveling up his spine as he landed on his butt. The agony was easily ignored, however, as he was dragged backward up the trail by the collar of his jersey.
“Stop! Let me go!” he choked, the front of his shirt digging into his throat as he was hauled through the dirt.
Sam dug his heels into the ground, trying to halt his passage and thwart his captor, but the grip on his jersey was too strong. He reached up and grabbed the hand holding him, intending to pry it loose so he could escape. But his scrabbling fingers didn’t encounter a hand, or at least not one recognizable as human. The appendages holding him were too thick to belong to a person. They made Matt Rakowski’s ridiculous mitts look like a little girl’s, and he was the largest kid on the school’s wrestling team.
Sam’s panic kicked into high gear when he realized he was being pulled off the path and into the trees. The Dan Ryan Woods might barely deserve the name, but in the dark, it looked like the freaking jungle. The rational part of his mind knew the tree line that bordered the trail wasn’t all that wide, but all he could see was trunks and bushes. He might as well have been in the middle of the forest instead of in the heart of Chicago’s south side.
Something raked at the back of his neck, and he screamed at the pain. He felt warmth running down between his shoulders and experienced an awful moment of confusion as to whether it was sweat or blood.
“Help!” he shouted, but of course, no one was around to hear him. Wasn’t that what he’d always loved about running in the park at night? The solitude? Well, fuck that.
“Get offa me!”
Sam dug his fingers into the dirt, clawing at the soil with his hands and feet in a desperate effort to get away. For a moment he thought his abrupt release was due to his own efforts. But when he flipped over onto his hands and knees, he realized his horrible mistake.
He could see the creature clearly now. A faint glow emanating from the thing’s misshapen form cast a small radius of illumination. For the first time, Sam missed the ignorance of darkness. The glow strengthened, growing brighter as the creature stared at him with a hideous mockery of a grin. Its teeth parted, and a tongue lashed out as though tasting the air. Slime dripped from the grotesque appendage, which flopped obscenely against the creature’s thin lips.
Sam opened his mouth, but he had lost the ability to call for help or to make any sound at all. The light froze him in place, and his skin burned as the illumination touched him.
A small flock of sparrows took off from the trees above when the strange light reached them, and then, in an instant, the brightness vanished.
Silence returned, broken only by the honk of a car horn from the nearby road.
Chapter ONE
“NEXT STOP, Madison and Clinton. This is the twenty, Madison to Austin.”
Tyrell barely heard the bus driver’s announcement. The music blasting through his headphones was just loud enough that he could really enjoy the beats of the new 2 Chainz album while not disturbing his fellow passengers. Not that he really cared about that, but Big Momma’s admonition to always be considerate of others wasn’t easily ignored. He’d been hearing it all his life, and he guessed it had stuck at some point. He stared out the window, having been lucky enough to nab a window seat when he got on at Madison and Wabash after transferring from the #6 Jackson Park Express. The early September weather was showing out, and downtown Chicago teemed with those hurrying to their office prisons as well as those simply enjoying the beautiful sunshine. The bus driver had opened the upper windows, and a warm breeze wafted in to drift among the blue-and-black seats.
Mouthing the words to the current track, Tyrell bopped his head in time to the rhythm, his hands tapping out the complicated beat on the railing in front of him. The middle-aged woman sitting next to him gave him the side-eye, but since she looked away a second later after a single roll, he figured he must not be annoying her too much. A glint of murky greenish-blue caught his eye, and Tyrell leaned closer to the window to catch his first glimpse of the Chicago River since the previous June.
&n
bsp; First day of school, junior year. Tyrell’s little brother, Kevin, had been more excited about that fact than he was. Kevin had hounded him all morning, bouncing around Tyrell’s bedroom like a pinball when he should have been getting ready for his own first day in the sixth grade.
“What’s it feel like to be an upperclassman? Are you finally gonna kick Dunce’s ass?”
Tyrell raised an eyebrow at his younger brother. “You’d better not let Mama hear you cussin’ or it’s your ass that’s gonna get kicked.” He ducked the fake punch Kevin threw at his shoulder. “And why would I fight with Dunce? We’re friends… sorta.”
“Dunce” was the well-deserved nickname of Thomas Allen, one of his crew, though merely by association. Thomas was seventeen years old and should have been a senior, but he’d been held back in the eighth grade and was now one of the oldest kids in their class. Dunce was big and not too bright, but he could sack a quarterback without breaking a sweat, so everybody at Winton Yowell High School loved him. Thanks to him, they’d nearly made it to the state finals the previous season.
Kevin glared up at Tyrell skeptically. “Friends? If you say so.”
Tyrell smacked him on the back of the head. “I say so. Now finish grabbing your stuff so I can walk you to school before I catch the bus.”
He watched Kevin dash down the hall to their shared room, feeling a bit nostalgic about when he’d been a grade-school student. Life had seemed so simple back then without the messy interplay of hormones and Lord of the Flies sociology that often defined high school. A few minutes later, Kevin reappeared, his backpack hanging from his right shoulder by a single strap. Tyrell suppressed a smile at the sight. Wearing your book bag over one shoulder was a sign of maturity, or so Kevin had informed him a few weeks ago when they’d been out back-to-school shopping.
“Duh, only babies wear both straps,” he’d explained.
Tyrell hadn’t said anything, remembering that he’d felt the same way when he was twelve. After taking a final look around himself, he mentally pronounced himself ready to face the day. Since he didn’t have any textbooks yet, his own backpack was light, filled only with pens, pencils, and a binder stuffed with half a package of notebook paper. They made it as far as the front door when their mother stopped them. She was standing in the doorway of their grandmother’s bedroom, apparently having just finished checking on her before completing her own morning ritual.
