Dr. Peel appeared from her hiding place behind the wall, dragging a soft leather table cover behind her. Her presence set the waiting hyenas back on their feet. The trio immediately spread out in a predatory fan, growling menacingly.
Haley stopped.
Serena didn’t know what else to do, so she shouted, reprimanding the wild hunters like they were trained pets.
“No!”
To her surprise, the command worked.
They turned their heads to her, and she hissed and shooed them some more. The largest growled once more, but then slunk to where the others had backed against the wall. They piled tightly against the glass and began grooming one another, licking the blood from snouts and necks.
Dr. Peel stood stock still and gaped, wide-eyed, confused and happy to be in one piece.
Serena had no idea why these wild predators had listened to her commands.
She had no idea why they hadn’t chewed her to bits the moment she appeared.
Maybe they were more tame than their captors claimed, or even realized. Intuition told her she had no reason to fear them, or any of the other animals that might be roaming the corridors. All she could feel was a puzzling, unnatural calm. Even the sight and smell of her murdered friend was less abrasive than it should be. She was changed.
Haley kept it together surprisingly well as she and Serena dragged the heavy dark tarpaulin over Julani’s ruined corpse. The veterinarian tenderly tucked the corners of the soft leather under his bulk, wrapping him as tightly as she could. She whispered closely into his ear, something intended only for him. Serena’s newly-acute ears picked it up, but she ignored it anyway, feeling guilty at the invasion of a dead man’s privacy. The doctor knelt there while moments stretched.
Serena’s stoicism melted away as she waited and she let the tears flow.
Her friendship with Julani had been too fleeting, but their professional proximity made it strange for her to think of him being gone. No more swinging dreadlocks, no more oversized shadows cast onto her desk.
No more of a lot of things.
He had been on his way to real reform, shedding the anger of his youth and becoming more resistant to the violence sometimes expected of him.
Serena hoped that he could continue his climb into Heaven.
A mournful whine arose from one of the waiting hyenas as if to echo her private thoughts.
The beastly trio had been watching them intently the whole while.
It was time to go.
She laid a hand on Dr. Peel’s shoulder and gently tugged the woman away from the shrouded mass that had been their friend.
“Come on Haley, let’s get out of here.”
“But what about Julani?” Her red-rimmed eyes told Serena that she already knew it would be too much of a task to move him. And to where?
Serena didn’t know what to say, she only wanted to get out of the zoo level and away from this awful tower. She didn’t feel right inside of Babel anymore.
“That isn’t him anymore Haley.”
The cold and empty carcass, half a meal for wild beasts, was not more than that.
A body. A shell. A soulless husk.
Serena had never been more sure of anything in her life.
What she knew of Julani could not be found there under their makeshift funeral blanket. She would have been able to see or hear or smell if there was anything left of the real him.
Just like she could see and hear and smell everything else in this hallway and out in the darkness of the casino floor.
The doctor nodded sadly and stood up, turning away from the mess. With a breath, she steeled herself and met Serena’s eyes.
“Let’s go find out what’s going on.”
Henderson, Nevada
Serena heaved a huge sigh of relief as she hung up the phone. It had taken what seemed like a thousand attempts, but she had somehow gotten a crackly call through to her father in Utah.
He and Serena’s mother were bogged down in a farming town halfway between Salt Lake City and Las Vegas.
In his raspy baritone, her father had calmly related the day’s events in the same way he usually bored her with tales of his weekly golf outings.
It made her worry to think of her aging mother wringing her hands and fretting over her daughter and grandson.
Serena had elected to leave the tale of her own ordeal for a later date. The last thing her folks needed was to hear about murderers and hyenas in the midst of what was brewing already.
Most importantly, she knew that Danny was okay.
Despite the differences she and Aaron had, if her boy couldn’t be here, she was glad that he was with his dad.
Nobody would take better care of him.
Her own father, always overly fond of her ex-husband, had related a story of Aaron rolling in and out of town in a matter of minutes. Only stopping long enough to collect his son and apparently piss off local authorities. She could say a thousand things about the man -not all of them pleasant- but he did have a certain air of effectiveness in situations like this.
Her father had a box full of medals and military commendations in the basement attesting to that very thing.
The old man had a harder time letting go than even she did.
Serena would get in touch with Aaron soon enough. Until then, she was able to breathe easy knowing that little Danny was protected.
Sitting in Dr. Peel’s living room, eating spaghetti-o’s and graham crackers, Serena Dayne tried to make real sense of what she was seeing on the television. The masterpiece sculptures collected by her friend faded into the background, unnoticed in their niches and cubby holes along the scarlet walls.
It was a nice place -Valdez paid his employees well- but the understated luxury was lost on both of them for the moment.
Network feeds from the satellite television spewed disaster updates, quarantine procedures, and emergency response plans on every channel. Understudy anchors apologized for the absence of the normal talent, shell-shock glaring wetly through the stage makeup.
The imagery of fires and plane crashes and riots, the panicked voices of experts from the CDC, CIA, W.H.O and a hundred other official-sounding organizations was all a bit much.
Tears traced twin tracks down Dr. Peel’s reddened cheeks.
She was intelligent, exceedingly capable in her profession, but also a very sensitive soul.
Serena debated turning off the T.V. to spare the good doctor excessive worry. She reached for the remote, then changed her mind.
Begrugdingly, she let her thoughts wander to what her ex-husband would do in this situation.
We need information.
The television was as reliable a source as they had for now.
She tried striking up conversation to distract the other woman instead.
“Anything else to eat in that fancy fridge of yours Haley?”
The question missed its target, but got the veterinarian talking.
“This is.. this is….” Peel shook her head, at a loss. “What could be causing this? I’ve never seen anything like this. It’s surreal..”
Indeed, the news coming through the bluish glow from the television was more like something from a summer blockbuster, hardly believable.
As her friend babbled quietly, Serena contemplated the scale of the disaster.
So far, CNN had shown them major problems in Los Angeles, Washington D.C. Seattle, Chicago, Atlanta, New York, and St. Louis, but clearly the disaster was widespread, affecting all major cities and outlying areas. It was apparent that no location had been spared. Haley continued her rant, or rather, finished it.
“…. It’s the Apocalypse.”
Her words gave Serena pause. Mostly because they rang dead true, like a funeral bell.
Flicking the remote, she switched to a local station, seeking news more relevant to their personal situation.
Thumbing the feed to KTNV, Serena and Dr. Peel shared a look of surprise in response to seeing the last face either
of them expected.
Staring from the screen, all slicked hair and knitted brows, was Hunter Valdez.
Las Vegas, Nevada
The glaring studio bulbs behind the cameras were irritating beyond measure.
One orb in particular seemed set on baking Valdez’s left eye with its harsh glow. The lancing light made him tear up, then practically steamed the moisture away with all of its heat.
He would have Brown discuss the matter with the lighting engineer later.
His bodyguard stood at the catering table, wolfing down crackers and grapes as though he had never eaten before. He gorged in grotesque gulps, loud enough to be picked up by the studio microphones.
Valdez’s own stomach rumbled. He had downed two sandwiches only a quarter of an hour ago, but it wasn’t enough. Since his… incident at the top of the tower, he felt unable to fill his stomach.
Many things had changed since that fateful occurence.
Las Vegas and the rest of the world had been thrown into chaos. Thankfully, he was still around to witness it.
Such an odd thought process, the moments leading up to suicide...
His logical mind detested the notion, a solution of ultimate permanence for a temporary problem. True, the agony he had felt before leaping from his balcony had been horrific, but surely it would have faded in time.
He smiled at the thought of his peaceful descent. Smiled broader at the way he had survived it, halted abruptly only meters above the pavement. Saved from sudden death by something even he could not understand.
Nobody had seen him.
Not one single soul lucky enough to observe the unexplainable miracle erupt from his back and break his fall.
Wings.
Wings that weren’t there and then simply were. And just as suddenly again, weren’t.
Nobody had seen him pause midair and settle gently to the ground. There was no explanation for the heavy black plumage.
For Valdez, no explanation was required.
Good fortune was not something to be questioned.
Besides, it was an advantage to be made powerful again, in such a unique way.
His personal ordeal and the unfolding events of the global crisis were intertwined, he was certain of it.
With the new and impossible anatomy came alarming sensations. Constant mood shifts, feelings of anger, happiness, hunger, and invincibility, all at once.
Curiously, Brown had described much of the same in the back of their McLaren limousine.
The bodyguard didn’t seem to be handling the emotional imbalance nearly as well.
Brown looked like hell, all twitches and profuse sweating. His clothes were rumpled, and he smelled like a locker room.
Hunter decided that the two of them would have to discuss the matter further.
It simply wouldn’t do for Valdez’s personal companions to look like enraged drug addicts.
He himself wore a smart black suit, black tie, and black shirt.
Funeral clothes.
The intention was to convey the impression of a man in mourning. After all, the entire nation, and presumably the world, was in the midst of an emergency that had claimed countless lives in only a few short hours.
Laughable.
Normally unflappable, it took every remaining measure of Valdez’s self-control to refrain from lashing out at the stupidity all around him. Beneath the cashmere and wool blend of his suitcoat he sweated profusely. Beyond uncomfortably warm, he was blazing hot. The kerchief he clenched beneath the broadcast desk was already soaked through. He wiped it again and again across his forehead whenever the feed cut away, keeping up appearances.
Affecting a tight smile, he flagged a passing production assistant down.
“Excuse me, Miss? Do me a favor and turn the heat down a touch.” This was a talent of his, making a command sound like a request.
The girl, who couldn’t be more than twenty-one years old, stared at him dumbly for a moment before pointing once toward the small plastic lock box on the studio thermostat.
“I see.” without changing his congenial tone. “Now why don’t you find the fucking key and get some cool air moving?” The smile never left his face.
The PA scurried away wearing a look of fearful surprise. Valdez growled through his grin. He would have to find that little bitch and teach her a lesson.
Later.
The “On Air” light flashed red again. Abandoning his smile, Valdez created a mask of solemn concern.
The station’s mannequin anchor asked him questions, and he melted responses out as often as they were required of him, but his mind was elsewhere.
Brown had told him about Julani’s death.
Shame.
Then there was the matter of Serena. Brown was obsessed, talked endlessly of the smell and the shine of her. Valdez found himself oddly fascinated as well, pulled to her by something intangible. It was an angry feeling, an irritation that could not be addressed at the moment. But it consumed him, this desire to find her, her and a few others.
His accountant, a square of a man who didn’t even drink…
The old black janitor that paced endlessly about the halls of the upper offices, his rocket-pack vacuum bouncing noisily with each mulish step…
Brown had told him they both were laid out sick on the lobby floor when he left the building only hours ago. Valdez hoped they were dead. He didn’t know why, but the venom felt good, gave him something to mull over. The endless parade of numbers in his head had halted for now. It was replaced by a notion of profound simplicity, a notion that itched and needed to be scratched.
The chaos around him was a setup for something. The money, the cars, estates, the vast wealth and the all-important legacy of prestige relegated to trivial status, even ridiculous.
He wanted one thing.
As the studio lights bored into him and the automaton beside him prattled on about this crisis and that hospital, the coldly efficient mind of Hunter Valdez turned over and settled on his one new desire.
The itch. He would scratch it.
He smiled into the camera. All teeth.
Lai’e, Hawaii
Peni awoke to a deep rumbling in his stomach. The thunder from his gut was at odds with the scene before his eyes. Green treetops and perfect blue sky. Paradise.
A sort of relaxed puzzlement overtook him as he assessed his position. Laid out flat in his own cane field.
Kava? No.
Warm mud clung to his back and elbows as he pushed himself up off the loamy black Hawaiian soil. His mouth was dry. Peni spat thickly and tried to remember what had laid him here in the middle of his own back lot. The fresh light and far off lowing of the church bell told him he had been there for many hours.
At least overnight.
Back door hinges protested loudly as he mounted the porch and thumped his heavy feet into the house. A light breeze brought acrid smells along with the salt air. Someone had let their trash fire get too big. Smoke was stirring up the local dogs. He could hear them bray and bark from all over.
Nobody would quiet them. Nobody ever paid the dogs any mind.
Inside, Peni’s house was hot.
Vague remembrance inched back to mind as he poured a glass of P.O.G juice. He sipped thoughtfully and found his juice warm. The fridge was dead.
He flicked a switch. Power outage.
He remembered feeling fevered, pained, a heart attack?
Then nothing.
Now he felt good.
Better than good.
The large Hawaiian man eyed his own hand, puzzled at the smoothness of his skin. Even embarrassed. These smooth palms didn’t match the calloused and blistered paws he was accustomed to.
What the..?
There was a sudden percussion, and the peace of his dark kitchen shattered.
The back screen door he had just entered through disappeared, replaced by the rounded outline of a fat man. In the darkened kitchen Peni could hardly see him, but recognized the smell of met
hamphetamine and booze. And something else, like grilled meat.
This man could not be a local if he thought it wise to rob the local patriarch.
The intruder strode forward with purpose. Ill intent.
Without thinking -without needing to think- Peni met him. The glass of warm juice exploded on the fat man’s cheekbone. Somewhere, maybe the front room, a window broke and footfalls echoed.
Voices, multiple voices.
The corpulent invader slid gracelessly under the small kitchen table. His split cheek poured. Careful not to slip on blood and spilled juice, Peni darted into the hallway leading to his bedroom. He had a gun there, and a baseball bat. Relics from a past not nearly distant enough. He had reacted unthinking to the first attack. But he could hear the sounds of chaos two rooms away in his own small house as whomever it was ransacked the place. Someone called his name.
They know me?
Not a robbery. Something else. Adrenaline and rage spread from the base of his spine toward his fingertips.
More heavy footsteps.
Splintering wood.
Shattering glass.
He reached a heavy hand into the top drawer just as the tingling in his scalp told him he needed to move faster. Somebody barreled into his back, pinning him for a moment against the chest of drawers. Cheap wood gave way and they crashed into the wall beyond. His face crushed into the insulation and two-by-fours as old sheetrock surrendered to the stress. Peni was at once furious and puzzled.
Who would do this to me?
Teeth sank into his shoulder and a pair of hot hands clutched for his windpipe from behind. A weird feverish heat emanated from his attacker, stinging where he touched.
Peni would take no more.
He shoved backward and reeled to face the man trying to hurt him. But it was not a man. His mouth dropped open in surprise at the sight before him. It was his nearest neighbor’s wife, Kalea. She had blood under her fingernails and around her mouth. His blood.
“Kalea, what are you doing?!..”
To Light Us, To Guard Us (The Angel War Book 1) Page 20