Battle Angel

by Scott Speer

  The earth shook again, snapping her out of her reverie.

  “Maddy!” Kevin shouted as a cupboard door swung open and a stack of plates was hurled toward her. He pushed Maddy out of the way as the plates smashed to pieces on the linoleum.

  They were coming. She’d had the vision of the demon bearing down upon her, so strong that she was still reeling, only half-conscious to this world, the real one. That image of the Dark Angel was burned into her mind, still appearing before her in a slightly faded form, like the trace of bright light that followed everywhere she looked. A nauseating pit had been dug into her stomach, settling in with a hollow, sickly feeling.

  Turning toward the window again, Maddy realized that her mind hadn’t been playing tricks on her; the sky really had taken on a sunset-red hue. She had a bad feeling that this wasn’t going to be the strangest thing she saw all day.

  The earth shook again.

  “Kevin! Listen to me! You have to stay inside like we planned,” Maddy shouted, adrenaline rushing upon her.

  “What? Where are you going?” Kevin asked.

  “I have something to do,” Maddy said.

  “Maddy!” Kevin yelled as she dashed to the back door. Without another word, she was gone.

  With bounding strides Maddy rounded the large oak she loved from her childhood to get to the front of the house. She peered into the distance and, with a sinking heart, saw activity across the darkening ocean horizon.

  She could hear the distant rumble of fighter jet engines miles off, toward Santa Monica and the ocean, and could make out small specks in the distance. Whether they were demons or fighter jets, or both, she could not say.

  She immediately tried to key into Tom’s frequency, but in bitter disappointment she found she couldn’t. Straining again to find Tom’s frequency emanating from the carrier, she still felt blocked. She had just felt it minutes before. But now it was gone, and there was no way for her to know what was happening to him.

  With so much confusion and fear bubbling up all at once in the city, her neural circuitry was getting overwhelmed, even though she was superb at frequencing, something Susan Archson, her favorite Angel professor at Guardian training, had taught her. Maddy had excelled in the course, and Susan had been really impressed with her talent. Maddy had had visions since she was just a little girl, but had never known what they were. When people in her proximity were going through extreme situations, Maddy had thought she was just different or weird, and she’d kept the disturbing premonitions to herself.

  But now the entire city seemed to vibrate with terror and confusion, and she couldn’t do a damn thing. It was flooding her all at once, and trying to focus on one frequency was impossible. The overwhelming static from all the panic of the people in the city swamped her senses.

  And yet she still would try to focus on Tom’s, if she could.

  In the distance there were the flashes of explosions. The distant rumble of booms rolled through the air from the ocean, indicating the first line of defense against the demons. But it was all too far away for Maddy to see what was really going on.

  BOOM. BOOM. BOOM. The reports of the far-off bombs continued to roll in.

  With hope rising in her chest, Maddy realized that she hadn’t yet seen an actual demon. Maybe the humans could repel the Dark Angels after all. Maybe they could save themselves. If anyone could stop the demons, wouldn’t it be the biggest and most capable military in the world?

  Then, with bitter disappointment, Maddy saw one, then two burning black shapes in the distance. They were growing closer, closer as they streaked across the sky toward Angel City. Dark Ones. All the hope that had just been glimmering inside her crumpled up in an instant. They had already broken through!

  She could see that the defenses had slowed them down a bit, but clearly some demons had already made their way through the first line of defense along the coast. Maddy heard some terrified yells from the neighbors as they stumbled out of their homes and stared with wide eyes and gaping mouths at the reddening, darkening sky.

  It was really happening.

  Blood pounded in Maddy’s ears as she flashed back to the night she saw her first demon in the high school lab. How much damage just that one had caused. She felt half here and half there, somehow still trapped in that terrifying world of blood and fire that had struck her vision. She shuddered as she realized that the real world and the world from her premonition were soon to collide.

  Suddenly, as she still stood on the front lawn, her senses returned to the present. She noticed the neighbors outside again, their jaws dropped open, their feet rooted to the ground as they watched the Dark Angels move in across the darkening sky: small spots of fire and smoke growing closer.

  Then, as if cued by an invisible conductor, they screamed.

  “They’re coming!” Maddy shouted at them. “Everyone, go! Get inside!”

  Maddy’s pitch must have been sharp enough to break their collective trance, because it only took a second for them to scramble indoors as quickly as they could.

  Maddy heard the distant rumble of fighter jet engines off toward Santa Monica and the ocean, then the boom of an explosion. Then chaos closed in around the entirety of Angel City. She could make out small specks in the distance, and, for just a moment, she saw a flash in the sky—a missile aimed at a demon? Or could it have been a jet exploding? Or, Maddy couldn’t help but think as a raw, hollow feeling dragged its nails across her stomach, could that have been . . . Tom?

  She reeled under the sensation that passed as she thought that the flash and boom might have simply been it. Tom could be gone, ripped apart by the force of the explosion into pieces no one would never find. And to top everything off, try as she might, Maddy couldn’t focus her frequency on Tom. He was either too far away and caught in the frequency static caused by the panic spreading across Angel City, or that had been a jet she’d seen explode, and it’d been his jet. The reason she couldn’t track his frequency was because he was . . .

  Maddy chased the word out of her head before it could enter. He couldn’t do that. She wouldn’t let him. He had to survive.

  Kevin burst through the front door, breaking Maddy’s reverie.

  “Thank God you’re still here!” he said. “It’s all over the news, Maddy. Some of the demons have already broken through at the coast. They’re headed straight toward Angel City, but, Maddy, get this—they’re following the freeways.”

  Maddy didn’t turn to face her uncle, and instead just kept looking up at the sky. Kevin took a few steps farther, out from under the eaves of the house, and followed her gaze up toward the evil brewing in the sky.

  “Are you . . . ?” Kevin trailed off, visibly overwhelmed by the scene.

  Maddy finally turned to Kevin. From the look on his face, she could tell he understood.

  Her inner Angel had come out.

  “Stay inside until you hear from me,” Maddy said. “Or if we . . . can’t reach each other, try to get out, any way you can. Maybe they’ll reopen the evacuation routes. Just . . . stay safe, Uncle Kevin.”

  She looked up and their eyes locked. All their years spent sharing each other’s lives passed between them in that moment.

  “You be careful,” Kevin said.

  She gave him a faint smile—the biggest she could muster in the moment—and nodded. Slowly, as if reluctant, Kevin headed for the front door and, with an attempt at a cheerful wave, went inside.

  Maddy turned back to the darkening sky. Inky clouds ran from behind the demons’ tails, spreading blackness from the ocean, as fighter jets gave pursuit.

  In the distance, a huge explosion of concrete and flame rocked the edge of downtown as a demon touched down on a freeway, pulverizing a large stretch into ash and fire instantly. As Maddy looked out across as much of Angel City as her front lawn perch would allow, it seemed to her that the demons weren’t flying
straight. It was just as Kevin had said—it looked like they were following the freeways.

  BOOM.

  Before she had a chance to think for even a microsecond longer, an enormous explosion erupted just blocks away, rocking the very ground Maddy stood on. The shock waves from the blast rippled through her body.

  Gasping and stunned, Maddy sprinted into the middle of the street. Out toward the Walk of Angels, a snarled cloud of flame and smoke crept toward the skies above rooftops and palm trees. Car alarms blared all across the city, and emergency sirens began to wail.

  Overhead, a sudden streak of black fire and flame passed, followed by the deafening roar of two F-16s, which appeared to be trying to get in position to fire on the Dark Angel. Something in Maddy’s subconscious told her to duck, even though the jets were hundreds of feet in the air. They launched missiles as the beast passed over the hill, and soon the whole group disappeared over the ridge toward the Valley.

  Still more demons appeared in the far-off sky, and the air raid siren began singing its howling song again. There was already a smattering of fires all across the city.

  Chaos. Pure, hellish chaos.

  Maddy dizzied under waves of panicked frequencies running through the city all at once. Using her every ounce of effort, she tried to isolate them, just like Susan had taught her in class. But it was too much. And there were too many. How would she be able to—

  Suddenly, a vision. Maddy braced herself under the impact of grisly imagery and human misery. It was close. The young woman was close. There was still time before she was lost.

  With a holler, Maddy leaned forward. Her wings rocketed out of her back faster than they ever had, creating a huge whoosh and ripping two surprisingly clean holes in the back of her shirt. Before they’d even reached their full span, Maddy took two big pumps and began rocketing west, soaring over buildings and swaying palms. In only a handful of seconds, Maddy shot north, skimming over the 101 freeway in the Cahuenga Pass up into the Angel City Hills, which was lined with lush trees on both sides. The freeway was almost empty, except for a few cars that had used the chaos to evade the checkpoints and were frantically fleeing the city.

  Clenching her jaw, Maddy streamlined herself as much as she could and tried to put on speed. She had only seconds. Any miscalculation would be fatal.

  In her peripheral vision she saw it: the Dark Angel. Careening toward the exact spot she was zeroed in on, streams of dark smoke pouring off its back as it flew at top speed.

  Maddy dropped toward the freeway with a final burst of energy. Below, the concrete and painted white lines blurred with the speed.

  Then, in one horrible, single instant, the demon tucked itself into a ball with nonchalant flexibility and violently smashed down to the freeway, just to the left of Maddy, who had almost reached the road. She had nearly gotten to her target—a young woman on a Vespa riding on the access road right next to the freeway who would never have known what hit her if it hadn’t been for Maddy. At the exact moment the demon touched down, the middle of the freeway exploded in a fury of concrete and flame, and Maddy used everything she had to concentrate on one point and one point only.

  And she screamed.

  Suddenly everything—the flames and concrete and demon and girl and Vespa and smoke—froze. The demon was still wreaking havoc on the freeway, halfway into making a gigantic crater, but it was frozen there, in all its evilness, its limbs curled up against its body like a cannonball, flames leaping off its back in one cold, solid fan. The lethal slabs of concrete and countless particles of dust that had just shot up from the freeway were now suspended in midair.

  Maddy had frozen time. Though it had been infinitely more difficult than the first time, when she’d made a save with the jet and Jeffrey Rosenberg over the Pacific. But now, to her astonishment, she could feel that the Dark Angel was somehow battling her effort. She tried to ignore it and zeroed in on the save.

  Hurtling right toward Vespa Girl was a huge Volkswagen-sized chunk of concrete. The tendrils of the girl’s brunette hair were flying back from under her helmet and frozen in position. A strange look of unknown fear was frozen on her face, but experience told Maddy that the girl’s inner survival instincts were telling her something was wrong. Still, she had no clue she was about to be crushed to death.

  Maddy calculated. She would have a second, maybe one and a half, to make the save before the time freeze spun out of her control.

  With every milligram of concentration she had, Maddy shot down as the time freeze began to collapse in on itself. The Dark Angel fought strongly against her power, but with a final push, just as time was about to tick back on and the concrete mass was starting to budge from its hold, Maddy violently scooped the girl off the back of the Vespa.

  She put everything she had into pulling the girl up, but she wasn’t quite fast enough to totally get away.

  The concrete hurled itself sideways, catching the back of Maddy’s left Converse sneaker as she flew up with the girl in her arms, and smashed the Vespa into a thousand pieces of Italian metal and plastic. The slight impact to her foot sent Maddy spinning as she flew, and she tried to shield the girl as they whirled in the air and tumbled to the ground in a heap.

  Maddy tried to cover both herself and the girl with her wings as a shower of dust and fine bits of concrete from the impact cascaded down upon them. Flames shot above the crater, sending a car veering across the freeway to avoid debris until it hit the median, tipped to its side, and slid about a hundred feet.

  Vespa Girl started hyperventilating and struggling in Maddy’s grasp; she still had no idea what just happened.

  “Shh. Calm down! Calm down!” Maddy gasped, trying to catch her breath as well amid the cloud of dust. “It’s okay. I’m an Angel. I just saved you. You’re going to be fine.”

  As she said it, Maddy had to wonder: Are they actually going to be fine?

  With a sinking feeling, she heard the demon’s raspy, ragged breathing. Maddy looked out from under her wing and saw the thing climb out of the pit it had just made. It had been a while since she’d seen one of them this up close and personal, and it was more soul-shattering than she remembered. The Dark Angel’s very shape seemed to be shifting and changing, and Maddy realized that its skin was nearly on fire. It was a black fire, shimmering and roiling along its body. This one seemed to have only one head, but enormous horns speared out of it, and a series of jagged spikes exploded out of its shoulders and back.

  Emerging from the crater like a messenger from hell, the demon turned to Maddy and the girl. Its dark red eyes glinted, dead-like, with recognition. One could almost say it looked excited. The demon took a step forward and flicked a blackened tongue out of its mouth.

  Still in Maddy’s arms, Vespa Girl screamed.

  Maddy felt stunned from the grazing blow of the concrete and the crash, but she still attempted to stand up to defend them—with what? Her bare hands? Or . . . ? She found herself a bit dizzy. But she had to do something. There was no way she could outfly the demon with the girl in her arms, so Maddy steeled herself for the Dark Angel’s approach while the girl fell back into her embrace, weeping in fear.

  Suddenly, the demon stopped, as if it had heard something. It cocked its head toward the distance, then turned its unthinkable face back to Maddy and the girl. In impotent rage, it roared.

  It unfurled its scaly wings and launched into the air, leaving a trail of acrid smoke in its wake. Maddy watched as it bore a course back toward the south, toward the ocean whence it came. It had departed so suddenly, and without attacking Maddy and the girl, that it was almost as if someone—or some thing—had been controlling it.

  “It’s gone. It’s gone,” Maddy said, trying to calm the young woman in her arms. She stroked the girl’s hair as if she were a child, although she was probably Maddy’s age. “Shhh, shhhh. It’s gone. I don’t know why, but it’s gone.

  CH
APTER SEVEN

  The numbers in the gleaming elevator steadily climbed up and up. Instead of projecting an underwater scene, the TV wall on the back of the car was now set to an African savanna. Giraffes and lions ran around, silhouetted against a setting orange sun, and beautiful herons skimmed the surface of grassy wetlands. Jacks was impatient. Finally, the car hit level G with a ding.

  He’d felt the earthquakes announcing the beginning of the demon attacks. All the Angels had—the quakes’ echoes had been so strong they even permeated their luxurious underground shelter.

  A security guard came running up to Jacks. Above, through a skylight, Jacks could see the sky was turning black-red.

  “Mr. Godspeed, you’re not supposed to be up here. I’m under strict orders that you’re to be downstairs with the rest of the Angels,” the guard pleaded.

  Without a word, Jacks pushed past the guard.

  Most of the glass cube of the sanctuary was sheltered by leafy trees to make it nearly invisible, tucked far into a massive estate in the Angel City Hills. But a few gaps in the foliage gave a slight view onto Angel City.

  Down the hill, outside the giant gleaming glass walls and ceiling, bedlam reigned.

  Spires of black smoke rose up across the city, which was enveloped in dwindling red light. Visible on the horizon were Dark Angels, spectacles of fire born from hell, laughing off the fighter jets that desperately crisscrossed the sky. Jacks looked out across the bleak expanse and saw that most of the freeways were on fire.

  Jackson was surprised there weren’t more demons, actually. He had thought the assault would have started as an immediate curtain of fire and destruction, but right now he only saw a couple dozen or so demons. An explosion rang out in the distance, sounding like it might have come from the Walk of Angels, but Jackson couldn’t be sure without seeing it.