Shadow Chaser

by Jerel Law

  He waited, not knowing what to expect. Everything in him wanted to reach down and pull out his angelblade, but this was a defense-only competition. He had been instructed not to use that or his bow.

  That left only one option. He prayed quickly while his eyes remained open, surveying the scene.

  “Elohim, make my feet fast again, by Your power and strength,” he whispered.

  He peeked down at his feet, watching his basketball shoes change into leather sandals.

  He was as ready as he was going to be.

  A scream came from the other side of the field. Jonah wasn’t sure but thought it sounded like Bridget. His pulse quickened again.

  Suddenly he saw yellow eyes.

  A creature emerged from the darkness, running straight for him. They are letting the Fallen attack us? Jonah thought frantically.

  He turned and ran in the opposite direction, looking back over his shoulder. With his angel speed, his pursuer was having a hard time catching up. But just as he turned his head forward again, he saw another one coming straight at him.

  Jonah veered to the right, coming across some of the other quarterlings. As he blurred by, he saw Rupert holding his shield steady. He was under attack from three fallen angels. His shield was growing dimmer. Should he stop and help? But Jonah continued running and saw Eliza’s shield, bright and glowing, sparks flying all around. Her shield was being pummeled.

  Another fallen angel, then another, had joined the chase for Jonah, and he wasn’t sure how long he could keep this up. The field was big, but there still wasn’t enough space to outrun them for long.

  He passed a few others who had realized they could run too—Frederick, Hai Ling, and Lania. Jonah pushed himself harder. He was moving fast, maybe faster than he had ever run before. He wove in and out of obstacles at such a quick pace that everything around him had become a blur.

  As he turned again, though, looking behind him, he slammed into something so hard that he immediately bounced off it and fell backward. For a few seconds, all he saw were bright, hazy splotches of light. He pressed the sides of his head with his hands, trying to stop the sudden throbbing.

  Jonah blinked a few times and looked up in time to see yellow eyes glaring over him. He pushed himself back on the grass and reached down for his sword. But before he could pull it out, the face in front of him changed. Yellow eyes changed to blue, and the ugly face to that of a kind, friendly angel. Two more stepped over him. One reached down, extending a hand, which Jonah slowly took. They weren’t real. The Fallen were just angels in disguise. Jonah breathed a sigh of relief. He wasn’t going to be ripped to shreds after all.

  “Not too bad, young quarterling,” the angel said. “The test is over now.”

  “You were fast out there,” a shorter, stocky one commented. “Almost too fast for us.”

  Jonah shook his head a few times, trying to get it clear. “Not fast enough to miss that wall, or whatever that was. Oh, man . . .” He leaned over, catching his breath again.

  “That wall would be me,” a deep voice said. He looked up to see an enormous angel, a head above the others, standing with his arms crossed.

  Jonah continued to rub his head. “Oh, well, that makes sense.”

  Eliza. Jeremiah.

  His brother and sister immediately came to his mind. Searching the field, he began to walk toward the other kids and angels he saw.

  “Eliza!” he called out. “Jeremiah! Where are you guys?”

  He walked past a dazed Rupert but stopped long enough to check on him. He was doing fine, although complaining about something to one of the angels.

  “My father’s going to hear about this!” he overheard the boy say.

  Jonah finally found his brother standing beside a couple of angels, who were laughing at something he was saying.

  “How’d it go, Jeremiah?” asked Jonah. “You okay?”

  “Yeah, it was actually pretty fun,” he said, smiling. “I don’t have a shield or sandals like you guys, so I just tried to use my small size to hide behind people. It worked,” he said. “For a while anyway. Then this guy came up and tackled me to the ground.” He punched an angel in the arm. The angel chuckled again.

  “This one, we’re going to have to watch out for,” the angel said, rubbing Jeremiah’s head.

  Jonah found Eliza in the far corner of the field, resting on the grass. She was still rubbing her eye, but her look toward Jonah had softened just a little.

  “So how’d it go?” he asked, standing back a few steps.

  “It was tough, especially with only one eye,” she said, “but it was a good test. I was able to hang in there a pretty long time. I didn’t expect the angels to be disguised as the Fallen, that’s for sure.”

  “Me neither. To be honest, I thought they were real. I guess I should have known they wouldn’t let the Fallen attack us like that. But I’m sure you did great,” Jonah said, trying to be encouraging. “You’re the best I know at the shield of faith.”

  She deflected his compliment. “Yeah, but I still got caught,” she said, frowning. “I guess we’re about to find out how everyone did.” She pointed up to Nathaniel and the other angels, still floating above.

  His voice boomed across the field, almost as if it were magnified. “Well done, my friends. That was an excellent performance. All of you are to be commended for your bravery! You each will receive points for your performance, with everything taken into account, including the gifts you were able to use and how long you were able to last against our so-called fallen angels.”

  Taryn handed him a piece of paper, and he studied it for a moment.

  “Receiving As on this portion of exams are the following quarterlings,” Nathaniel said. As he spoke, the area around Jonah started to glow, separating him from the others around him. Jonah fidgeted, not enjoying the spotlight on him alone. “Jonah! Excellent job avoiding capture for so long and using the sandals of speed to your advantage. Bravo!”

  A light smatter of applause came from some of the students. He nodded toward them but couldn’t help but notice David and Julia on the sidelines, hands in their pockets.

  “Also with an A, we have another member of the Stone family. Eliza!” She brushed a stray curl out of her face and stepped forward, into the light. “Beautiful use of the shield of faith, especially considering your injury,” Nathaniel said. “Very well done!”

  She blushed as the cheers arose for her, much louder than they had for Jonah.

  “There is one more competitor earning an A, who displayed such an amazing display of speed and agility that I daresay even among the angels we don’t see such athleticism and skill very often,” the angel said, pausing for a few seconds. Jonah saw the spotlight shining across the field on one of the quarterlings. “Let’s hear it for Frederick!”

  The spotlight shone on him in the other corner of the field. He held both hands up in the air, pumping his fists.

  “Okay, okay, Frederick,” Nathaniel said, smiling. “These are the top three performers today. And I’m sure you’d like to know in what order they rank. First place goes to . . . Frederick!”

  The quarterlings cheered as Jonah felt his heart sink.

  “In second, we have Eliza! Which means third place belongs to Jonah.”

  Jonah walked over to Frederick, wanting to shake his hand, but he was being crowded by most of the other quarterlings, as well as Marcus and Taryn and a few of the messenger angels, offering their own congratulations and encouragement.

  He decided to save his handshake for later and walked back under the trees, trying to tell himself that third place was nothing to hang his head about.

  A SHADOW

  IN THE HALLWAY

  Pale moonlight shone through the window at the end of the silent hallway as M’chala glided just above the wooden floor. He moved like one part fallen angel, two parts fog and shadow, searching, probing, pausing in front of each door. Then down to another, then another. He passed his gnarled hand along the room
numbers, sensing the presence behind each door but moving on.

  He came to one, though, and suddenly stopped, tracing his finger along the numbers on the door. Closing his eyes, he held his hand flat in front of it, until it almost rested on the wood.

  The boy was in here. There was no doubt.

  M’chala slid under the door, flowing from the hallway into the room, a dark and quiet mist of shadow. He stood up again and momentarily lingered over the African boy’s sleeping body. He held out his finger over his face for a few seconds, then down toward his stomach, pondering the many diseases he could inflict with but one touch.

  He almost did it, just because he could. But this wasn’t whom he had come for. Reluctantly, he backed away.

  Moving to the other side of the room, he hovered for a while over the snoring shape underneath the sheet. All that was visible was a shock of dark, shaggy hair. M’chala held his hand over the boy’s head. The boy groaned and turned over.

  The spirit held his index finger out directly over the boy’s chest. With relish, he poked it to the edge of his skin, just above his heart, and then farther in.

  Jonah twisted and flailed to the other side of the bed but did not wake up. He would only remember it as another bad dream, if he remembered it at all.

  When he was done, M’chala pulled his finger back and watched the boy fall into a peaceful sleep once again.

  He left the room as quietly as he had arrived. His work was complete. For now.

  All Jonah could see was white. He blinked his eyes several times, trying to allow them to adjust. Squinting them, diminishing the amount of light coming in, until he could finally see.

  Everything was fluorescent and clean. He was walking down the middle of a busy hallway, his feet sliding across a shiny tiled floor. A gurney rolled past him, a tower with bags and tubes hanging down, pushed by two women in white shirts and pants. They quickly wheeled it around the corner. A man wearing a long white jacket over a blue shirt and tie passed him, carrying a clipboard that he studied. An elderly man in a hospital gown crept along, propping himself up with a tall portable stand hung with bags of medicine.

  Then, just up ahead, Jonah saw something that caused him to stop suddenly. It was a figure moving like a shadow, unseen by anyone. It was wandering through the hallway, stopping at every patient it came across, leaning down in front of them, inspecting them. When it came to the elderly man, the shadow reached a hand out to touch his back. Jonah breathed in sharply as he saw the shadow’s hand enter into the man, remain for a few seconds, then pull out again.

  The shadow figure repeated this again and again down the hall, with every patient it came across. Jonah tried to follow it, but his legs were moving so slow. They felt as if they were locked in concrete. He needed to get to this creature. He knew the shadow was doing something evil, but he couldn’t move fast enough.

  Suddenly, the figure whipped its head around, looking back over its shoulder. Jonah knew instantly that it could see him. It seemed to consider for a few seconds whether to come for him. But it turned back, continuing its path down the hallway.

  Before Jonah could think of what to do next, it had moved into the darkness at the end of the hall, and Jonah felt the light around him growing brighter again, until he couldn’t see a thing.

  Jonah’s eyes still closed, he replayed the dream in his mind again. It was so strange. Chasing a shadow creature down a hospital hallway . . . what did it mean?

  That familiar whispering sound caused him to pop his eyes open. David was sitting up in bed, legs crossed and head bowed. Jonah didn’t waste any time. He entered the hidden realm as fast as he could.

  David was there, the tendrils of light stretching up from his heart and through the ceiling as he prayed. Toward the door, a shadow lurked. But in the time it took for Jonah to blink and turn toward it, there was a flash of light. It split the shadow in two, turning it to dust.

  What was that?

  Then instantly, he knew.

  The darkness of a fallen angel, the flash of an angelblade.

  And as fast as that, it was only David again, continuing to pray.

  Jonah left the hidden realm and watched quietly as David finished praying. He watched as his roommate struggled to push himself off the bed, rubbing his leg and moaning.

  “You okay?” asked Jonah.

  “My leg,” David said, wincing. “It’s still so sore.” With a lot of effort, he pushed himself forward and sat on the edge of the bed.

  Jonah tried to rub the sleep out of his eyes as he processed what he had just seen in the spiritual world. The weight of responsibility for his friend’s injury fell heavily on his shoulders again though.

  “I wish I could have that night back,” Jonah said. “I’m sorry, David. I really am.”

  David’s smile helped some of that burden to lift. “I know, Jonah,” he said, rubbing his leg slowly. “I’ve already forgiven you. I was just praying about that, actually. I know I’ve been kind of cranky from the pain. But it’s in the past, okay?”

  Jonah rested his head on his pillow again. “Thanks.”

  Maybe Eliza and Julia would feel the same today too. He could only hope they would see things as David did. He shivered, wondering if the shadowy figures were trying to turn them against him too.

  “Wonder what it would have been like if we didn’t have Abigail’s scarf?”

  David thought about this. “Considering how you described me when I was out of it? I’m not sure I would be here right now. Apparently I looked like I was dead.”

  Jonah sat straight up in bed.

  “What?” asked David.

  He threw off the covers and quickly pulled on jeans and a long-sleeved T-shirt, his standard uniform since the sores had erupted. “Nothing,” Jonah said. “I just had a good idea. See you at breakfast in a few.”

  Jonah put his shoes on and bounded through the door.

  “See you there,” David called out.

  Jonah tried to ignore his headache as he hurried down the steps, even though every step he hit hurt. He wanted to make it before everyone arrived for breakfast.

  When he arrived in the basement, he immediately found a round tray and set it beside the battered old latte maker the kids used to make coffee and tea when they were up late studying. After twenty minutes of pouring, he picked up his heavy tray, carefully balancing it as he walked back up the stairs. He had managed to get thirteen chai lattes onto the platter, and then moved slowly so he wouldn’t spill a drop.

  He timed it perfectly. As he rounded the corner to the dining hall, the quarterlings had just filed in and were beginning to fill their breakfast plates.

  Jonah stood at the doorway with the trayful of steaming hot drinks.

  “Hey, guys,” he said. “I made us some drinks from downstairs. Thought everyone might like something warm this morning.”

  “Ooh, I needed one of those,” Hai Ling said, stepping toward him. “I’m exhausted from yesterday.”

  “I’ll take one,” Andre said.

  Rupert chimed in, “Me too.”

  Jonah smiled. Maybe a small effort like this was just what he needed to smooth over any tensions that were there.

  “Thanks, Jonah,” Julia said, even offering a small smile as she moved forward to grab one of the hot mugs.

  Jonah moved toward them, ready to serve the drinks.

  That’s when he tripped. His feet locked together, stumbling over each other.

  The first thing he heard was Hai Ling’s shriek. Fumbling the tray, he tried to grab it back, then watched in slow motion as the mugs fell.

  Milky brown tea filled the air, and neither Jonah, nor anyone else, had any power to stop it. It rained down onto the quarterlings just as the ceramic mugs shattered across the floor.

  Everyone was screaming now as the hot liquid hit skin. Jonah just stood there, unable to believe what he had just done.

  He thought he heard the faintest snickering laugh, but he was sure it hadn’t come from any of th
e tea-soaked quarterlings in front of him. He looked all around, then back toward the door. It felt like someone had tripped him . . . but no one was there.

  “Jonah!” Eliza yelled, frantically trying to brush the tea off her face and arms. “What were you thinking?”

  “I’m burning! I’m burning!” Rupert shouted, grabbing a handful of napkins from the table to blot his face.

  “What on earth is going on?”

  They turned to see Sister Patricia standing in the doorway. She looked at the mugs on the floor and the kids covered in splotchy brown liquid. “Oh my goodness,” she said, grabbing a huge stack of napkins and moving quickly to help them clean up.

  Jonah just stood there as the chaos around him continued. Ruth was crying, along with Lania and Bridget. Hai Ling was screaming at him. Carlo seemed to have gotten the worst of it, the skin on his arms already blistering.

  Jonah snapped out of his daze and grabbed a roll of paper towels to try to help. But no one wanted anything to do with him.

  “Just get away from me!” Hai Ling screeched. “We don’t need another injury around here.”

  “Back away, Stone,” Frederick said, tending to his own wounds. “No one needs that kind of help.”

  He approached Julia, but even her face turned dark. “Not now, Jonah . . . I think you’ve done enough.”

  Jonah sighed, turned around, and walked out of the room to go shower before the next test.

  He passed by Camilla’s office in time to see the written exam scores, posted for all to see. Since they were listed alphabetically, he came to Eliza’s and Jeremiah’s before his.

  Eliza Stone 100

  Jeremiah Stone 86

  Jonah Stone 63

  “Unbelievable,” he huffed. Things just kept getting worse and worse. Maybe someone would spear him during the morning’s test and put him out of his misery.

  At precisely ten o’clock, just as they had the day before, Camilla and the messenger angels appeared in the lobby. She immediately noticed the bandage on Carlo’s arm.