Truth Runner

by Jerel Law

  It sliced through the fallen angel’s arm.

  “Aarrghhhh!” he cried, grabbing his arm and writhing in pain as he fell to the ground. While the others only watched, she drove her blade into his chest.

  “Well, how about that?” she said, almost to herself and almost as surprised at her success as the other two fallen angels were. She held the blade up to them. “Which one of you is next?”

  The ashes of the first fallen angel were disappearing underneath their feet as they both swung, their blades crashing into her shield at the same time. She felt the weight of their blows, wincing, hunching down, and absorbing them. They didn’t wait to see if she would recover. They began to strike her shield again and again and again.

  Eliza began to back up, forced to retreat. Finally, she caught her footing, bracing herself, and pushed forward with the shield and everything she had. She had to find some room to use the only real weapon she had, her sword.

  She forced them back just enough. Raising her sword, she swung again. This time, it was met by the fiery blade of the fallen angel, and a shower of green and red sparks rained in the air. Her arm was still up and her shield still raised, but it was growing weaker.

  Remembering a move she’d seen Marcus do the other day in class, in one motion she pulled her sword back, spun, and brought the angelblade slicing through the air from the other direction.

  It did the trick. Catching the fallen one off guard, she hit him on the other side, sending the sword straight through his midsection. His scream was muffled as soon as his mouth and the rest of him turned into vaporized dust.

  She turned her attention to the one fallen angel left, waving her sword toward him. He held his in front of him, and they began to circle one another. Dropping her left hand, her shield disappeared.

  “Where’s my brother?” she asked, glaring at the ugly creature. “Did you see a kid pass through here not long ago? Tell me, and maybe I won’t kill you.”

  The fallen one spat on the ground. “He’s dead!”

  She swung her sword as hard as she could with both hands. “Liar!”

  He blocked her advance and countered with his own strike. They began to wale away at one another, back and forth, crashing their blades together, each trying to find an advantage. He was making huge swings, and Eliza knew that if she could avoid them long enough, that may be her chance.

  He swung again, and she cried out, pretending to hurt her arm. The fallen one saw an opportunity. Raring his blade back, he swung for her head.

  Eliza ducked, and just as she did, she delivered her blade upward, into the arm holding his sword. The arm—and the sword itself—dropped onto the pavement, the hand around the hilt disintegrating, leaving the blade glittering alone.

  The fallen angel stepped backward, holding his arm and howling in pain. Eliza was quick to move on him. She took advantage of his lack of balance, and kicking his foot out from underneath him, she pushed his chest, and he fell onto the ground. Immediately, she put her knee on his abdomen and her sword at his throat.

  “You are the most awful-smelling creature I’ve ever been around,” she said, wrinkling her nose. He was writhing in pain, and she looked at the wound. The blade had cut him just below the shoulder, and she figured she didn’t have much time left.

  “You were lying about my brother, weren’t you?” she said, leaning in. “He’s not dead, is he? Tell me the truth!”

  He sputtered, a gargling sound in the back of his throat, eyes shining a bright yellow as he tried to laugh. Only it came out as a wheezy cough.

  “Don’t you know,” he asked weakly, “that lying is what we do?”

  She grabbed him by his armor and shook him. “Did you see him? Where did he go? Tell me!”

  He coughed again, laughing, and then, as she held him, she felt her grip loosen. Her knee hit the pavement beneath her, and she watched as he slowly disappeared. His remains fell underneath her and then seeped into the street.

  Eliza sat on her knees on the cold pavement, gathering herself until she could stand and continue looking for Jeremiah.

  ELEVEN

  BACK AT THE WAREHOUSE

  Eliza approached the warehouse with no small degree of caution. She saw the underground driveway they had emerged from in the yellow moving truck and felt her stomach lurch as she remembered what it felt like to sit in the back with her brother, wondering if the awful creatures were flying outside.

  She had remained in the hidden realm as she walked, but thankfully hadn’t come across any more fallen angels. She had chalked up the encounter with those three as bad luck, and she was grateful she’d been able to destroy them before they could alert any of the rest of their horde. The last thing she or Jeremiah needed was a group of fallen angels chasing them when they were out alone at night with no backup.

  She felt her anger rise toward Jeremiah again. When was he going to learn that his actions caused other people problems too?

  Eliza looked up and down the street, and finally convinced no one was watching her, made her way across. She looked for any sign of him but found none. Eyeing the opening that led into the parking deck below, she figured she would give it a try.

  Although it was just beginning to grow light outside, the garage was lit by the same fluorescent lights. She walked in, hoping to find her little brother wandering around.

  Instead, she found an empty lot, except for a handful of cars parked in random spots.

  She sighed, adjusting her glasses. “Come on, Jeremiah. Where are you?” Maybe we should give him a cell phone. It would make this a whole lot easier.

  “Jeremiah?” she called out as loudly as she thought she could. “Jeremiah?”

  Eliza walked through the empty lot, trying to put herself into the shoes of her nine-year-old brother. She saw the steps to the right, leading up to the warehouse above, and knew that was the only place she had left to search.

  When she arrived at the top of the stairs, she stopped to survey the scene. The conveyor belts weren’t moving on the factory floor yet, and there were a handful of workers milling about. It appeared as if the workday was about to begin in the warehouse.

  Her eyes were drawn to the door at the end of the conveyor belts to her left. There was some kind of disturbance going on. Two men were hunched over, struggling with something. Or was it someone?

  Eliza was still in the hidden realm, so she stopped breathing when she saw the fallen angels swoop in from all corners of the place. They hovered over the men, encircling them in a frenzy, several of them leaning in, mouths to their ears.

  She heard the scream and knew it in an instant.

  “Jeremiah!”

  The only thing she saw was the back of his head as he strained against the two large men in suits, who were dragging him out of the warehouse and through the small room, toward the door that led into the alleyway.

  Eliza began to run, praying as she went to reenter the visible world. But by the time she got to the door, they had yanked him through it, even though he was resisting and flailing himself around.

  She burst through the doorway so fast that she tripped, falling across the cold pavement. Her cheek scraped against the hard ground, but she didn’t notice the scratches or the blood.

  “Jeremiah!” she called out again.

  But it was too late.

  She watched a black car speed toward the busy street ahead. Before it disappeared into an ocean of other vehicles, she saw a boy turn his head, looking back through the rear window.

  “Jeremiah!”

  Eliza looked on helplessly as she found herself standing alone in the middle of the quiet city street. She reached into her back pocket and pulled out her phone.

  TWELVE

  CENTER COURT

  Jonah was walking through the school corridor, and he was alone. His backpack hung heavily on his back as he found himself lost in his thoughts yet again. He couldn’t stop thinking about what had happened at school the day before. The kids taunting Carlton, their bli
nd following of whatever they were told, regardless of the truth, the outright arrogance of their science teacher, and those monsters attacking them. He didn’t want to see another one of those as long as he lived.

  “Jonah.”

  The word spoken to him was like rushing, cool water. He suddenly noticed that no lights were on in the hall. A faint white glow came from only one room, the next one ahead on his right.

  He moved forward, feeling the rush of relief still in his heart from hearing his name. But something in him resisted, and he peered into the doorway with his hands stuffed in his pockets, hesitant.

  A man sat on the edge of the teacher’s desk, his feet dangling off the floor. His hair was brown and neatly cut, and his eyes sparkled. He wore a blue button-down shirt and khaki pants, typical male teacher wardrobe, but Jonah hadn’t seen this teacher before.

  “Hi, Jonah,” he said in that same voice that washed over Jonah like a cool rain on a dry summer day. The teacher beckoned to Jonah, “Come on over and sit with me.”

  Jonah stepped into the doorway but stopped, fingering the strap of his backpack. It felt so good to hear his name spoken by this man. Jonah stared at his face, which almost seemed to be radiating a warm, gold light. Jonah couldn’t take his eyes away, and yet, there was something inside him still that wanted to turn and leave.

  “I know you’re upset,” the familiar man said. “And you have every right to be. You’ve been wandering around in the wilderness, afraid, and you feel alone. Am I wrong about that?”

  He slid off the desk and stood in front of Jonah, hands in his pockets. Jonah flinched, feeling the tug-of-war within him grow. He wanted to go and sit with the man. He reminded Jonah of someone . . . someone from his past. But he couldn’t place it.

  But another, darker part of him wanted him to stay right where he was.

  Jonah didn’t move, either forward or backward.

  The man took another step toward him.

  “Jonah.” He said his name again kindly, almost like his father would, as if the very word were sweet to his mouth. “Come in. Let’s talk. You’re hurting, and I can help.”

  “You haven’t helped me yet,” Jonah said, the forcefulness of his own words surprising him.

  The man looked pained, almost as if these words physically hurt. He looked Jonah in his eyes, still radiating love and acceptance. “My offer of love to you has always been there, and I’ve never left you alone. Even though I know you’ve felt alone. Very much so.”

  Jonah sighed. It was true, so true, and the words resonated with him deeply. He had felt like no one was there, and no one could help. But whose fault was that? He had tried, for at least a month after his mom died, to find help with his father, with people in the church, his friends . . . and most of all, Elohim Himself. And what had he heard when he cried out for help? Nothing. Nothing but awful, hardened silence.

  He steeled himself, feeling his heart turn a shade darker.

  “No one has been there for me,” he said, glaring. “I tried, after she died. I tried, and you know it. And no one was there for me. Especially not Him!” He pointed upward, toward the ceiling, unable to even say His name.

  “One day you will see, Jonah,” the man said. “One day you will know. Elohim has a purpose for you, and yes, a purpose, even in this. He wants you back. He is calling you to Himself, and a day will come when you will see. Your mother’s death was—”

  But Jonah didn’t want to hear any more—no more about his mom’s death and how it had a purpose and there was a reason behind it. He didn’t want anyone, not even this man, to speak of his mother again. The rope inside him, the one both sides were pulling, was tugged hard, and one side gave in.

  He put his hands on his ears and backed out of the room.

  Jonah walked down the hallway again, in a haze, ignoring the pleas inside to return to the room, to sit with the gentle man, to pour his heart out to him and to let him help. He hardened himself against that and stepped forward.

  When he rounded the corner in the darkened hallway, another voice spoke into the emptiness of the corridor and his heart.

  “Jonah Stone . . .”

  This was a voice he recognized too, but waves of peace didn’t swell in his heart this time. Instead, his heart began to race, a vague sense of dread overtaking him. He quickly forgot about the man in the other room, all those feelings swept aside.

  A paler light came from another doorway ahead.

  Jonah stepped toward it, somehow enticed and frightened by the voice at the same time. He pushed away the urge to run, instead wondering what he might find in this room.

  “Come on in. Don’t be afraid, my son . . .”

  Jonah stepped into the classroom, only to find that it wasn’t a classroom at all. It was clammy and damp, moss growing where the ceiling once was and along the ground. The sides of the room were like a cave, or a dark jungle, vines and branches hanging from the ceiling. It smelled musty, almost like the boys’ locker room after a hard-fought game.

  Sitting in the middle of the room, in a plush chair, was a man wearing a white suit with a matching hat and a black tie. A neatly trimmed goatee covered his face.

  Jonah’s stomach dropped.

  “Well, grandson, it’s nice to see you here,” the man said, his eyes gleaming.

  Victor Grace. It was Victor Grace, who had been destroyed underneath the streets of New York. Victor was a fallen angel, who was also his mother’s father.

  “But you . . . you’re supposed to be . . .”

  “What?” he said. “Dead?” He began to chuckle. “You know that kind of thinking is what I would expect of a human, Jonah, but not from you, not with someone with so much power and ability. Surely you know better.”

  Jonah stood in the doorway, his mind racing. He wanted to lash out, to reach for his angelblade and destroy this fallen one who had started his family on this whole awful path. He had manipulated and used his grandmother, whom Jonah had never known. They had married, but Victor had left as soon as his new bride was pregnant. She had had the baby all alone. That baby, of course, was his mother, Eleanor.

  “You’ll never be my grandfather, Marduk,” Jonah said, calling Victor by his real name.

  He smiled at Jonah for a few seconds, tugging at his lip. “You can’t change the past,” he said. “You can’t change the present, and you know what?” He tapped his fingers on his knee for a moment, glancing up somewhere above Jonah. “You can’t even change the future.”

  He smiled broadly again, as if this were the best news he’d ever heard. Jonah felt his heart sink. Everything within him wanted to change. He wanted to be different, to run, to change everything about his past, to have a different life.

  “But let me tell you one thing,” Marduk said, standing up now as he held a single finger aloft. “Leaving that room down there, with that other guy in it . . . that powerless, weak, sappy man . . .” He moved forward as he spoke these words, and Jonah felt locked into the ground, powerless to move. “You did the right thing.”

  The man grabbed Jonah by the shoulders. Jonah flinched at the icy touch of Marduk’s fingers through his shirt. He pulled Jonah close to him in a cold embrace. “Yes,” Marduk continued, “don’t worry about him. You will have everything you ever wanted right here with me.”

  Jonah felt the man’s fingers on his back, like ice picks, beginning to dig. They burrowed into his shirt, and then beyond. Jonah felt the ice shoot through his body, as if his bloodstream had become a frozen river. He was freezing, and he felt faint. His mind wandered hazily, as he wondered when he would feel the ice-pick fingers pushing all the way through his chest.

  “Jonah . . .” He heard the voice again, but it wasn’t coming from Marduk. The voice from down the hallway, just barely, in his ears again. It held just enough warmth to allow his mind to think again.

  “Aaaaahhh!” Jonah cried, and with all his strength, he pushed against Marduk’s chest, feeling his talons rip out from his back. “Let go!”


  Jonah went sprawling back on the ground. Victor Grace laughed, standing over him.

  “There’s nothing you can do, Jonah,” he said. “Nothing you can do to change anything! Best bet for you is to keep on running!”

  Jonah pushed himself away from the door and back into the hall and did just what Marduk said.

  He ran.

  Jonah awoke later on the floor of his room, just below the set of bunk beds. His head pounded, and his body felt weak. His legs were sore, as if he’d actually been sprinting. He had been, right? His mind was foggy, and he lay on the carpet, some of the fibers from it sticking to his lower lip.

  He suddenly saw the image of Victor Grace again, and pushing himself up, he had to stop himself from running out of his own hallway, down the steps, and out of the house.

  “It was a dream, Jonah,” he said out loud to himself. “Just another dream. It was nothing. Nothing. It was nothing at all.”

  He told himself the same thing over and over again as he took his shower, leaning against the tile wall, letting hot water course over his body, especially his back, which, dream or not, still felt as cold as ice.

  Jonah continued telling himself the same thing as he ate his cereal, mumbling the words over and over again.

  “What was that, son?”

  Jonah continued to stare into the bowl of milk in front of him, picking the last bits of marshmallow from it, lost in his thoughts.

  “Jonah,” Benjamin said. “Did you hear me, son?”

  At the word son, Jonah snapped out of his daze and glared up at his father. Victor Grace had used that word too. He had to blink a few times to remind himself again where he was.

  It was only a dream, Jonah. A dream.

  “Yeah, yeah, sorry,” he said. “I was just . . . going over something for a test for school today. Memorization technique, you know?”

  Benjamin set his mug down across from Jonah and sat down. Propping his elbows on the table, he sat for a minute in silence, occasionally scratching his beard, which had grown shaggy and unkempt. He looked as tired as Jonah felt.