Kill All Angels

by Robert Brockway

Shouts, a yelp of pain, a meaty snap—like somebody had slapped down a big fat steak, flat on the floor. Footsteps, glass crashing. More shouting.

  I blinked rapidly. Shook my head. I rolled up onto one elbow and the world flowed sideways, like somebody curiously tilting a snow globe. There were sharp and brutal movements happening in my peripheral vision. Dark shapes snapping at each other, like fighting fish. Brin and Glenn were huddled together just a few feet away. They were kneeling, their arms around one another, biting their lips and sobbing. Carey was on the floor just outside of the kitchen, blindly scooting backward across the hardwood planks.

  The dark shapes caught one another and paused for a moment: a slender man in a black leather jacket with his hand around a young Asian girl’s throat; her fingers sunk deep into his cheeks, blood welling around the wounds. Then his other hand descended into a blur. It impacted her stomach and the shapes were a smear of madness again.

  I dragged myself over to Jackie’s parents, and tugged on Glenn’s sleeve.

  “Where is she?” I said. “We’ve got to get out of here.”

  “Please,” Brin said, without looking at me. “Just go with them. Just leave us alone.”

  Me? What the hell did I do?

  “Brin, where’s Jackie? We have to leave! Now!”

  Glenn looked at me with steel and fire in his eyes, where usually there was only goose down and Burberry.

  “No,” he said. He released his grip on Brin. “You’re not going anywhere.”

  He grabbed both of my wrists and pinned them to the ground, above my head. He straddled my chest, using his knees and weight to lock me in place.

  “Glenn, what are you—” My head was still swimming. I was trying to focus on a central point—the light fixture on the kitchen ceiling right above me—but it kept slipping down and to the left.

  “They only want you,” Glenn said. “Just you, and they’ll leave us alone.”

  “You don’t understand,” I said.

  My tongue was made of cotton, too big for my mouth. My vision ebbed, a tide of blackness momentarily creeping in.

  “I understand,” he said, “that this is the only way to keep my daughter safe. You love her, too, Katey. Wouldn’t you do this for her?”

  Something snarled in the study. Partway between a trapped fox and a train whistle. It was not a human sound. A moist tear and a thump, like a wet paper bag full of meat had lost its bottom. Droplets of blood arced through the air above Glenn and I, a parabolic spray of crimson painting the pristine white kitchen.

  “Jesus!” I said. “Glenn, we all have to get out of here! We don’t have time!”

  “I can’t, Katey,” he said. The resolve on his face wavered, but only for a moment. He set his jaw, and tightened his grip on my wrists. “There’s nowhere to go. They’re everywhere.”

  I kicked my legs, but couldn’t find good purchase at this awkward angle. I bucked my hips and twisted. I was stronger than Glenn, I knew—he spent his whole life carefully nurturing the doughy physique of the comfortably rich—but there were dampers on my muscles. The blow to the head sucked the energy right out of my limbs, like waking up and immediately trying to make a fist.

  This isn’t going to work.

  I stopped struggling. I closed my eyes. I heard Glenn sigh with relief. I pictured my breath entering my nostrils and flowing down my throat, like a diagram in a commercial for allergy medicine. Blue arrows moving through the airways of a generic human being, in cross-section. Hold. The resistance building in my chest was a red circle, enlarging. I exhaled, and orange arrows flowed outward. I got rid of the imaginary cross-section of a person. I pictured colorful arrows traveling through me, a circle enlarging. I got rid of the arrows, now just colors streaming in and out: blue, red, orange. Now no colors, just flow—shapeless, smooth, and even. Stillness.

  I opened my eyes and the air was full of silver—glittering metallic particles drifting lazily on unseen currents. All color had been washed out of the world, leaving it overexposed and wan; the ghostly afterimages your eyes assemble after staring directly into a flash. A jagged black outline surrounded Glenn. It danced and surged about the perimeter of his body, though Glenn himself appeared to be frozen. I was still pinned by his weight. More so, actually—his fingers were statues that had been carved around my wrists. I couldn’t have moved them an inch, even at full strength. I turned my head and saw Brin, similarly chased by a spiky black aura, and also immobile. I bucked and heaved under Glenn, but his body didn’t budge in the slightest. He wasn’t heavy; it just felt like he’d been glued in place. It felt like everything around me had been fused permanently to its spot, in fact. I was the only mobile thing around.

  Think, Kaitlyn. What did you do the last time this happened?

  Dammit, I didn’t do anything. Not consciously, I just found myself in this nothing place—this world between worlds—and I stepped out of it.

  No, that’s not right. Remember.

  I saw something first. I saw options. I saw pathways.

  I looked again at Glenn, and noticed that his outline was not spiking and dipping at total random. It more or less followed his form, as it rapidly moved in thousands of different directions, simultaneously. I focused on one of those directions, and a ghostly outline of Glenn split off from his body. It shunted to one side a little bit, its weight thrown slightly off balance, then recovered. I followed a different outline, and saw a similar result. Again and again I concentrated on discerning distinct outlines from that ragged black aura, and again and again Glenn shifted only slightly before returning to his original position.

  I kicked my heels in frustration.

  Maybe you’re thinking about this wrong.

  I glanced over at Brin, instead. Her aura was substantially more active than Glenn’s: it flung itself wide, all the way across the room, or retracted until it was nonexistent. I picked out one of those possibilities, and a faded image of Brin rolled on her heels, scrabbled backward across the kitchen, and hid in the den. I tried another option, and this one crawled over to assist Glenn in holding me down. Another potential pathway found Brin just squatting there and sobbing until some unseen force lifted her up by her hair, then bashed her face into the floor so hard that her skull splattered like overripe fruit.

  God. What the hell? Is that what happens if an Empty One gets to her?

  I isolated another outline from the ragged, squirming mess, and this one crawled toward me again. I was about to let my focus fade and release the potential Brin to return to her point of origin, but then she reached out and grabbed Glenn’s wrist instead of mine. Her aura merged with Glenn’s—their potential actions tied together now, and they struggled. She pried at his fingers. He turned his head and shouted something I could not hear. Brin reached up and slapped him across the cheek. It stunned him enough to loosen his grip.

  There.

  I focused on those low-opacity images, and mentally filled in their details. They brightened and solidified, just a touch. I squinted at them harder, picturing Brin’s kindly crow’s feet, her intricately braided hair. I drew out the stubble on Glenn’s face and the weave on his shirt. The faded figures grew more and more vivid, until they were too painfully bright to look at. I blinked. The world unpaused. Brin was squatting beside me now, waiting on bated breath for Glenn to respond. He lifted a hand from my wrist and felt at his face. I swung hard with my free hand and connected, right where the hinge of his jaw met his cheekbone. His head snapped around and connected with Brin’s, and the both of them tumbled into a loose heap on the floor beside me. I squirmed out from under Glenn’s legs and crawled toward the den. I knew it dead-ended, no exits but back the way you came, but it was in the general direction of “away” from whatever the hell was going on in the study. That was all that mattered.

  Something grabbed my ankle.

  God, no. I’ll turn around and see those blank eyes, fingertips like claws tearing into my skin, rejoicing in the arterial spray—

  It was Glen
n, looking dazed and lost. The blow had momentarily sapped his strength, and he pawed at my legs weakly. I felt a moment of pity for him. I really would do the same in his situation, if I thought it would help. But I knew it wouldn’t. I knew a deal with an Empty One meant less than nothing. They might let you go, because you’re nothing to them. Or they might tear you limb from limb, again, because you’re nothing to them. It’s too risky to gamble a life on, even one as messed up and crazy as mine had become. I tried to tell Glenn all of this with my eyes, as I reared my other foot back and kicked him in the face.

  I don’t think he got the message.

  His head rocked back sharply, then lolled forward and smacked the kitchen floor. Brin let out a mousy “eep,” and covered her face with her hands. She tucked her feet up under her and rolled to her side, becoming the tiniest, most unobtrusive ball of human that she could be.

  In the room just beyond the kitchen, Zang and Jie were fighting like trapped tigers. I only caught brief glimpses of them: a pretty young girl pulling a long strip of flesh from a man’s neck with her teeth. A man’s hand wrapped around a delicate throat, the flesh bulging out between his fingers. A wrist snapping backward. A fistful of silver hair. But for the most part, they were just a bloody, screaming blur.

  I took advantage of the distraction and ran from the kitchen. In the den, a TV half the size of my apartment blared some offensively hip folk-rock as a sixteen-year-old girl stared dramatically at the ocean. Behind her, a teenage boy in a backward ball cap and a white T-shirt that came down to his knees was freestyle rapping to nobody in particular.

  God, who watches this crap?

  A stifled moan from behind me. I whirled and put my fists up, ready for some shifting-face monstrosity to come hurtling toward me. I saw the source of the noise: a pale girl with a dark brown pixie cut, laid out on a pristine white couch, her hands and feet bound with duct tape, a bundle of cloth stuffed in her mouth, her green eyes wide and pleading.

  Jackie.

  I dove at the couch and tore at her hands. I pulled at the tape, but only succeeded in making it tighter. Jackie made another muffled plea. I looked up and she shook her head furiously, working her jaw. She wanted the gag out. I caught the edge of the fabric protruding from her lips. It was white and lacy, like a doily. I pulled, and a pair of expensive panties unraveled from her mouth. When it was out, she gagged and spat.

  “What the hell?” I asked, holding the damp underwear between thumb and forefinger.

  “They’re my mom’s,” Jackie said, with intense bitterness. “That Asian bitch put them there.”

  “Oh my god.” I hurled them across the room and shook my soiled hands. “That’s so fucked up.”

  “Tell me about it,” she snapped. “But do it while you’re untying me.”

  I went back to work on the tape, this time suppressing my own adrenaline enough to actually peel it apart. I freed her hands, then she sat up and we both worked on her feet. The instant they were loose, she leapt up from the couch and ran to the kitchen. I tried to catch her, but I was too slow. She made it around the dividing island and saw something that froze her in place. I was only a few steps behind her, and saw it seconds after.

  Jie was a network of bloody lacerations. Half of her ear had been ripped off, and her silver hair was matted with gore. She stood in the center of the kitchen, holding Brin and Glenn by the backs of their necks like disobedient puppies. Their faces were a bloody mash, their bodies utterly limp, remaining upright only because Jie held them that way.

  “This is what happens when you fuck with me,” Jie said, matter-of-factly, and she bashed Brin’s and Glenn’s heads together so hard that their skulls gave way, melding them into one.

  My first instinct was to cover Jackie’s eyes. I blocked her view with one hand and pulled at her with the other. She moved like she was sleepwalking. I steered her easily back into the den, and we retreated to the far wall. The bulk of it was taken up by massive, nearly floor-to-ceiling windows. I grabbed a triangular metal end table, and whipped it into the glass as hard as I could. It rebounded and clipped me in the head. Blood streamed down my forehead and into my eye. I blinked and swore. The glass wobbled slightly from the impact. Barely a scratch from where the table hit.

  “It’s shatterproof,” Jackie said, her voice flat and distant. “My parents are afraid of L.A. riots. Were afraid.”

  She laughed, bitter and hollow.

  “Riots in Brentwood,” she said, looking at me with unfocused eyes. “Can you imagine?”

  “Oh little pigs,” a lilting voice sang behind us. “Where do you run to?”

  Jie leaned casually against the island dividing kitchen and den. She twirled something red and meaty in one hand. It looked to be a human jawbone.

  “I’m going to pull your parents apart and stuff them inside of you,” she said, looking to Jackie. “If you’re nice, I’ll let you pick which orifice.”

  Jackie hummed tonelessly.

  “Let us go,” I commanded, with all the authority I could muster.

  Good job, Kaitlyn. What a super compelling argument.

  “No,” Jie said. Though strangely, she did seem to give it some consideration before answering. “I don’t see a very good reason for doing that.”

  She paused, waiting for me to provide one.

  “B-because it’s the right thing to do?” I tried.

  Jie laughed, high and trilling. It was clearly practiced: a socialite expression, a thing to unfurl at old-fashioned cocktail parties in response to ribald anecdotes. It didn’t fit this situation at all, much less her current “punk girl that gives head for beer” image. I wondered, for the first time, how old the Empty Ones really were. I wondered how many public personas they had adopted over the years. How many people they had pretended to be.

  “No,” Jie said. “I think I’ll just torture you both to death.”

  I tried to find that still place inside of me again, tried to go stepping between moments, but I felt too loose and shaky. Like there were still ripples on the pond from the last time I’d thrown something in. Back in Mexico, I could see everything that Marco had ever been. It was so easy to just … pick him apart. Like pulling a thread on an old sweater. But now I felt like I’d taken a blow to the head—well, I mean, I had just taken several, but that’s not supposed to affect me anymore—and now I just couldn’t focus. I guess the between-space takes a different kind of toll.

  I pushed Jackie behind me, putting my body between her and Jie. It might buy her a few seconds, I guess.

  Jie quirked her head, listening to something. I didn’t hear it at first, but whatever it was, it was increasing in volume. An industrial whine, like a giant drill spinning up. Through the windows behind Jie, I saw a Prius take the corner into the driveway too fast, briefly and madly tilt up onto two wheels, come down with an out-of-control shudder, veer around the median and then barrel, unbraking, straight through the wall of the study. Jie barely had time to turn her head before the car was on her. She folded under the front bumper and disappeared. The Prius sat at a severe angle, its right front tire parked atop her. The passenger door kicked open, and Carey spilled out.

  “What is with you chicks?” he yelled. “I told you to run!”

  He led the way, limping back across the wreckage he’d just generated and onto the driveway. I grabbed Jackie’s wrist and pulled her toward the ruined kitchen. I pushed her up on the half-destroyed island, then crawled over myself. I heard a ragged breath being drawn from somewhere beneath the car. The shocks jounced and settled. Fingernails scratching on broken tile.

  Jackie obeyed every prompt I gave her, but the second I stopped guiding she just shut down. She ground to a halt and stared straight ahead. I dragged her through the study, stumbling and tripping over shattered furniture, to the top of the driveway. We paused on the street. People were just coming out of their homes, drawn by the noise of the crash. I surveyed their gawking faces, and more than a few of them slipped right out of my mind. Their e
xpressions were unreadable. Their features were a blur. Unnoticeables.

  A horn honked.

  Twenty feet away, a black SUV idled. The horn sounded again, longer this time, then the passenger door opened and Carey leaned out. He gave us an exasperated look.

  “Do I need to send you a formal fucking invitation?” he asked.

  I bolted for the car, hauling Jackie along with me. The second we moved, roughly half of the gathered crowd moved with us. I yanked open the rear door and shoved Jackie inside, then jumped in myself and slammed the door just as something hit the truck. Balled fists battered angrily on the rear windshield. I was thrown back as the SUV accelerated, then forward as it braked briefly, lurched to one side, and sped up again. I sat up and watched the street disappear behind us. A dozen indistinguishable figures still chased after the truck, though it was clear they’d never catch it. Only a handful of the neighbors were looking around in genuine confusion.

  God, they really had taken most of the neighborhood. How many people were lost, just for the off chance at getting to us? To me?

  A good half of the skin on Zang’s neck was missing. His pink muscles twitched and jumped as he jerked the steering wheel. I could see part of his face in the rearview mirror. Enough to know one eye was also gone—just a dark red, wet hole that pulsed bloodily.

  That reminds me …

  “Are you okay?” I asked Jackie.

  She blinked at me.

  “Am I what?” she said.

  “Are you okay?” I repeated. It was going to take a while for her to get through the shock. She’d probably be dazed and unresponsive for—

  “That’s what I thought you said,” Jackie snapped. “But I wanted to give you a chance to think about how fucking stupid it was before you repeated it. But no! You doubled down! You’re a gambler, K. You’re like Kenny Rogers without the mustache. Well, without as good of a mustache.”

  She laughed, high and cruel.

  “Hey,” I said, keeping my voice gentle. “I know, okay? I know what it’s like to lose somebody like that. I know what you’re going through right now, but I need you to stay with me, okay?”