Michael (13 page)

CHAPTER I

U.S. Highway 97, Oregon, present day

RAIN. IT PELTED DOWN on the windshield loudly in the darkness, the wiper blades pushing at it in swipes, but the downpour was relentless, making it hard to see the road.

Headlights came and went behind us on the road. Someone else was caught out in this weather too.

I didn’t know how Michael could see through this endless rain. I felt like my life was just like that. It was never going to end, and no matter what I did I couldn’t see what was coming for me until I was right on top of it: pain and troubles…and they would just keep on coming.

I twisted in my seat and glanced at Ellie and Kim. Kim was right behind me in the very seat that at one time had held me captive. Ellie sat behind Michael, fully absorbed with her phone.
Should I try to start up some kind of conversation? Oh, what to talk about. How does it feel to be a full-blood angel?
I had angelic blood, but I was like one sixteenth or one thirty-second…I wondered if she had more abilities, if she was stronger than I was.

There was an awkward silence pressing down on us and I could feel the tension it produced. Michael looked like he was a little preoccupied with speed, but I tried not to worry about that. Kim was uncharacteristically quiet. The only one who seemed not to notice any of it—or not to care—was Ellie.

I looked at her with interest, studying her. Her skin was smooth, much like mine. There were no blemishes; it had this kind of cleanness to it. Her hair was crazy bright blue, it was even bright in the dark. It was like a neon sign made of cotton candy.

Ellie looked up from her phone to catch me staring at her. I turned back to the front, blushing.
Dang! What are we doing, anyway? What—we trust her just because she’s an angel? Or says she is?

Michael broke in, “So, Ellie…have you been here in the Portland area long?” He sounded like my Dad.
Just yikes.
Dad had that same exact tone when he wanted to break the silence and get me to talk when I didn’t feel like it.

Ellie shifted in her seat a little and chuckled. “Yeah, mate. I lived there back when it was just a wide spot in the river. Y’know, a one-horse town that ain’t big enough for the two of us.”

He laughed quietly, shaking his head.

“But you’re not really trying to start a conversation with me, are you?” Ellie was smarter than I gave her credit for, and direct.

“No, I—”

“It’s just really awkward…” I tried to interject.

Then Kim blurted out, “All I want to know is where we’re going!”

I turned and smiled at her. “Yeah, do we have a plan? A lead—anything?” I looked at Ellie. I had a weird gut feeling about her.
What is it? Jealousy? Would she try something with Michael? She’s a pretty hardcore chick…. A threat, though?

Ellie opened her mouth to say something when Michael cursed loudly and swerved to the right, jerking the wheel, stomping the brakes. There was a bang and a thud on the driver’s side. Then everything came back to the left and I went right, slamming against the door, grunting as my lungs flattened and the seatbelt tensed against me.

“Hold on!” Michael cranked to the right, trying to steer into the skid. The SUV felt like it was going to turn over. I reached out and grabbed the handle on the dash. Kim screamed. I couldn’t turn around to see if she was okay. My body went rigid. I could see things flashing by the window in the darkness. The road was coming at us through my side window for a moment as Michael fought for control. The engine roared loudly at full throttle, scaring me. The wheels fought for traction and I could hear bits of gravel ricocheting off the wheel wells as the SUV fishtailed left and right, the back end dipping down low on the shoulder. Then we were back on the road, rocking side to side, coasting, stopping—I hoped.

I realized I was holding my breath and then I let out a deep sigh. “What the— ?” I was both confused and alert.

Michael slowly brought us to a full stop, looking out the windshield wide-eyed.

The car that had been following us was gone, the darkness growing more intense all around us.

One of our headlights remained, dim, casting a cockeyed eerie light through the rain across the double yellow lines on the road in front of us.

“We hit something! Big too, I think—” Michael was panting, trying to talk, his hands shaking, turning around in his seat and looking back through the rear windows, trying to see what it was.

The rain just hammered away at us. I could see steam rising from the engine in the single crooked beam of light. I flashed back to a horror movie, one where some hooded man with a hook stalked dumb blondes and hacked away at the car trying to get in. I shivered and felt my heart pound in my chest.

I looked out my side window and saw movement. I did a double take.
What’s out there?
Then I saw it again: something big, all right. Big and dark. I gasped.

Before I could say anything about it, the whole inside of the car lit up from behind. A car? It was on our back bumper—right on top of us.
How…?

A loudspeaker came on: “THIS IS THE FBI. EXIT THE VEHICLE WITH YOUR HANDS ON YOUR HEAD.”

“Go!” Ellie yelled, grabbing Michael by the shoulders and forcing him to face front. “Go Michael, NOW!”

Michael stomped the gas pedal to the floor. The engine roared like a beast, the tires howled, and the SUV launched forward.

“Those are the cops!” I said.

“The FBI will take care of itself,” Ellie said. “DRIVE!”

I could feel it. It was in the space around me, reaching into me and drawing me down, consuming me. And I knew: “The Brotherhood. They’re here.”

“Oh, God,” Kim said in a small voice. She gripped the back of my seat.

Kreios’s bashed-up SUV howled into action, rocketing us into the darkness. As I glanced at the speedo, I saw the needle moving briskly past 80 and carrying on from there into the hundreds. I didn’t know how Michael could see. The rain…. “Michael?”

He turned toward me. “It’s okay…”

I turned back to see the headlights, the FBI. Now red and blue strobes flashed above them. My heart sank as I thought of my parents.
Are they okay?
The FBI had been tailing us the whole time.
The whole time! For how long?
And they weren’t stopping now. They were right on our tail.

The SUV shifted into top gear, pushing me back into the seat again. I couldn’t bear to look.

CHAPTER II

WHATEVER THAT WAS, IT was pretty big. Did I even see what I think I saw?
Rawlins wondered to himself.

Hammer down. Triple digits in the rain.

He wished he had time to call in the pursuit. But he was gonna bag this little teenaged miscreant in just a few, and then he’d call it in. They wouldn’t be able to get very far with a damaged vehicle.

He reached over and switched on the lights. There was something magical about those flashing lights.
What a rush.

Michael wanted to ease Airel’s mind a little, but deep down he knew that this might very well be their end, on this road, tonight.

It was wet, water stood on the road in the ruts. He put one set of tires on the double yellow, the high ground, as the speedo swept well past 120.
What did Kreios install under the hood of this thing?

A train snaked along in the night not far away; he could see its lights stabbing steady through the night in his rearview mirror. It was a peaceful counterpoint to the thrashed chaos in which he felt immersed.

There were no other cars on the road except their relentless tail. It had been hours since he’d seen anything but that stupid pair of headlights. He knew he was right to be suspicious of that car. But he could never have guessed what would happen.
Why hadn’t he done something?
But what?

It was hard to see through the windshield, especially with the broken headlight on his side.

“What did we hit?” Kim sounded worried. “Are you sure it wasn’t just a deer or something?”

Michael didn’t answer her. He didn’t want to.

Airel turned and gave Kim a look that said it all anyway. It was a look that said,
we’re in big fat trouble, girl.

Just ahead, the road peaked in a gentle rise that Michael thought could pose problems at this speed if they caught too much air. Plus there was a spray of light blooming up from beyond it: oncoming traffic. He backed off the accelerator and coasted a bit, moving back into his lane.

It got brighter, closer.

He slowed still more, easing the brakes, down to 80.

It was a truck. A big one. Michael could see the orange clearance lights on its roof break just on the other side of the rise, and he braced for the brightness of the headlights that would follow.

Then a massive black shape, as big as a house, fell from the sky on the crest of the hill right in the middle of the road. It hit with such force that the asphalt split and cracked asunder. Shards of rubble ejected from the impact, flying in every direction.

They were too close to avoid it, he could see that; and for the briefest of moments, the strategy of the enemy impressed him.

Brilliant.

The oncoming truck could do even less than Michael could do. It slammed hard into the massive demonic blackness and shredded itself, smashed from radiator grille to mud flaps. Jackknifed. Its cargo, coming around and revealed now in the single pitiful headlight—three enormous old growth redwood logs—began to tip and disengage.

There was no time. “Airel, brace!”

There was nowhere to go.

Michael stood on the brakes, but they were carrying too much speed and closing on the wreck too fast.

Weirdly lit by the feeble headlight, large wings opened out and up, then swept powerfully down, launching the demon into the air, leaving them to collide with the four-foot-thick logs now skidding across the road on the remains of the trailer.

Compounding everything, the FBI vehicle—a Crown Victoria—crashed into the back of the SUV. It nosed up under the back bumper, pushing it up and forward.

The SUV, nose down, crashed into the logs head on, crumpling the front. The inertia of the car under and behind pushed the back of the SUV up and over, flipping it, catapulting it over most of the wreckage. The SUV went flying end over end as the FBI car smashed into the logs, which had far more mass and force than the car. They rolled over the entire thing, crushing the car like a pop can.

Michael could see Airel’s face as they became airborne. It was the strangest look of determination intermingled with utter peace—as if she saw the situation for what it was, as if she knew all possible outcomes.

But how could that be?

She moved toward him and took him by the arm, ripping his seatbelt off him with her free hand. The vehicle rotated in the air around them, back to front, as she pulled him to her and enwrapped him within her embrace, holding his head tight to her chest as a mother would hold a child, the strength of her arms like a vise, irresistible. Michael returned the gesture, drawing his legs in tight under her, wrapping his arms around her, trying to curl them into a ball.

The power of the crash, the centrifugal forces involved, flung whatever was loose inside the SUV out through the back and front windows. Luggage and debris flew out the back. And as they came around, Michael could feel the force of the rotation pulling him toward the broken windshield.