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FOR LEAGUES, THE FOAMING waves towered high, building and falling all around Nechum and threatening to collapse on his and Jedd’s heads. Laszio and Eran, who tugged them along the currents, circumvented the Florida peninsula towards an Alabama coast that was under siege by a black, growling sky. If not for the angels’ spiritual nature, the torrents of rain would have stung their faces.
Lightning clapped at the rising, watery peaks. The resulting flash startled Nechum, making him and Jedd wobble as they scaled the next wavering mountain.
Jediah flew down and steadied their shoulders. “Hang on! We’re almost there!”
Akela, who left his place in the front, slipped back to fly by their side and pointed ahead. “It’s the supercell!”
Nechum felt Jedd rise on his tiptoes to see. Then, jumping off their board, he surrendered himself to the winds that carried him toward the violent coast.
Taking the lead, Jediah seemed to charge the rolling clouds as their increasing mass sped inland. “Privates!” he called. “Hard right!”
Laszio and Eran raised their left wings and caught a heavier gust. The waterboard skidded in the sharp turn, and Nechum leaned so far to compensate, his ear almost scraped the water’s surface. Alameth, who had trailed behind the whole trek, tipped Nechum up straight.
A half molded dock trembled under the ocean’s beating. Upon reaching the last league, Nechum released the handlebar, coasted a crest, then leaped, kicking off the board and landing on the first rotted planks. His ears rang, for the tempest squalled louder on land than at sea. Flashes tore through the clouds every few seconds. Thunder rumbled, hungry for destruction, and a sticky, humid breeze clawed through the grass.
“Wow, that thing looks mean.” Laszio said, as he unscrewed his stick from Eran’s.
“And moving fast.” Jediah adjusted his hood and face covering. “Jedd, how do we stop a storm this size?”
Staring at the clouds, Jedd frowned. “We technically can’t. Not unless God alters the earth’s rotational pull, but I can slow it down if I smother the storm’s supply of warm air.”
“Are there any other wind angels around here we can rally?” Eran asked.
“No.” Jedd said. “My kind are too few.”
Jediah pursed his lips. “Okay then. Akela, you and Jedd pair up. Take him wherever he needs to go as fast as you can. Laszio, Eran, you and I keep attackers off Jedd and Akela’s tail. Got it?”
“Yes, sir.”
Laszio and Eran pulled their blue hoods to cover their faces. The carvings etched in their sticks glowed to life.
Nervous and at a loss, Nechum was taken aback when Jediah pointed toward him and Alameth. “You two pair up. You’re emergency support.”
***
Clinging to a car-roof, Nechum kept a lookout at ground level. The grumbling cloud plumed blacker and blacker as it billowed into the hemisphere. Electrical streams threw themselves in countless branches, and sleet plinked one at a time on the vehicle seconds before their numbers teamed.
Nechum squinted. Jediah, Laszio, and Eran’s silhouettes followed Akela and Jedd’s to cloudier heights above, making them harder to keep track of. “Do you still see them?” he asked Alameth.
Alameth shrugged and shook his head.
Nechum searched the rotating sky again. Once in a while, he thought he counted only five figures umbrella'd by the storm’s shadows, but the shapes the lightning cast planted doubts in his mind. He could almost swear there were more silhouettes up there.
Wind blasted the windshield. Rubber tires screeched the blacktop in a swerving skid and sent Nechum sliding off to the right. Nechum’s fingers cramped as they clenched the roof edge, but Alameth grabbed his sides and hoisted him back up. “Thank you!” Nechum yelled, as he fixed his footing.
***
Jediah suppressed the sickened sensation rising in his throat as the air pressure shifted. Already a few twisters had latched themselves to the ground. Like leeches sucking blood dry, they consumed all they touched and writhed in chaotic directions.
He and the others overtook the cumulonimbus at a gradual pace and ascended into the frigid cold. Ice chunks floated up and down, gathering water and gaining weight. Farther in, the cloud’s unmistakable slow swirl gained speed. Another new cyclone was about to be born.
Jediah watched Akela’s golden trail as he and Jedd cut through the flying ice-field. Akela let his friend drop into the burgeoning tornado’s center. White flashed from Jedd’s eyes as he plummeted in free fall. Dry cool air followed his descent, poured into the growing funnel, and choked the moist humidity right out. Then, as the swirling cloud slowed to a stop, Akela swooped and caught Jedd from the cyclone’s dwindling end.
“Looks like it’s working!” Laszio shouted, as they all exited the first cloud.
But Jediah frowned. Four more funnels waved their gnarled fingers over the taller trees. Knowing they mustn’t fall behind, he directed his wingmen on a lower angle for a swifter glide. Akela and Jedd just evacuated another funnel they dismantled when his warrior instincts kicked in. Four to five unidentified shadows tailed Akela and Jedd from behind.
“Rise!” Jediah ordered. He, Laszio and Eran rode a swift updraft. Flaming energy flicked off Jediah’s wings, and the flying fire alighted on his blade. The demons he targeted spotted them first and dove to greet them with swords.
Jediah feigned an attack, dodged to the side, and gave Laszio and Eran their window to shoot. The two Private’s spheres blinded them. Then Jediah swooped around and sliced their wings clean off.
“Gah!” Another pair of demons had jumped Akela. He fumbled his grip, dropping Jedd into the arms of two more.
Jediah reached them in two flaps. His sword slew the ones assaulting Jedd, spattering their red energy all over him while Laszio and Eran freed Akela and dragged the attackers into a downward spiral.
A strong gale held Jedd aloft, but his arms quaked in shock as he stared at the fresh wet specks.
Jediah wiped a splotch off Jedd’s face. “Never mind it. Get to Akela and get out of here.”
After a dazed nod, Jedd curved around to his friend.
More demonic soldiers lunged for Jedd, but Jediah clapped his wings, smacking light into their sides. Akela and Jedd rejoined, then charged for the storm’s heart.
Jediah checked on Laszio and Eran below. They were bombarding five more renegades with their light balls, but red from a demon’s light wave filled the corner of his eye, and his breath hitched. The surprise attack missed Eran, but hit Laszio.
Laszio cried out and gripped his side. Eran flew to his aide, oblivious to the whole enemy legion that assembled beneath them, and clapped their wings in unison.
Nosediving towards the incoming volley, Jediah dragged his wingmen with him to fall straight through the barrage. So much red filled the air, there seemed hardly two inches of clearance between. Battered, they all spun out of control.
The street pavement below enlarged. Jediah twisted himself around and flailed his wings, but couldn’t straighten up. Realizing he had no time, he retracted his wings, covering himself with as many quills as possible. The outer feathers he hardened into diamonds. The inner feathers he softened to a plush.
A crunched “Pow!” hit his ears, and his armored shell absorbed the impact but cracked terribly. Jediah rolled to his hands and knees. His quills shivered from the painful tingling. He tried shaking them out. Broken feather pieces flicked off his wings and clinked onto the pavement. Shards from Laszio and Eran’s wings scattered like shattered glass close by.
Laszio clutched his side. Gold seeped thick between his fingers as he collapsed on the street and curled in. Eran gripped Laszio’s shoulder as he checked the gash.
Before Jediah could get up, the tip of an enemy’s sword pricked his cheek, and his peripheral vision caught sight of plated boots.
“Fancy meeting you here,” the demon said. The sharp point of his sword cut a scratch down Jediah’s face, then pulled down his mask.
Angered panic set off within Jediah. His scarf was exposed. The captain’s crest laid bare.
“Hello, Captain.” The demon’s blade popped a single thread.
Jediah snapped his wings. Leftover shards from the crash flew, and the demon reeled as the hot pieces burrowed into and smelted his face. Jumping up, Jediah reverse-gripped the demon’s arm and broke it over his shoulder. His opponent’s sword clanged to the ground.
Throwing him over, Jediah straddled the demon and yanked him up by the collar. “How’d you know about me? Answers! Now!”
The demon grinned despite his sweltered face.
Jediah heard beating wings from behind. He barrel-rolled off, seconds before red waves chopped his attacker to ribbons. Jediah hurried to Eran, who hoisted Laszio up. Grabbing Laszio’s free arm, he pulled them both into a sprint with a demonic onslaught hot on their heels.
Jediah studied the demon ambush behind them. Their leader, the tallest and biggest one, leered with a thirst. Then Jediah realized... his greedy eyes lingered on him—and only him.
Restraining a sense of panic, Jediah reeled. This whole thing was a setup, and we walked right into it! He fired two retaliatory shots. “You two reach Nechum and Alameth and get out of here. I’ll draw them away.”
Laszio’s head snapped up. “But—”
“No buts!” Jediah shouted. He flew westward, and as predicted, the wings of his pursuers swished not far behind and stayed close.
The last dim remnants of daylight were snuffed out. Night joined the storm. Spastic lightning alone now lit the countryside, and trees creaked in agony as their roots were torn from their precious soil.
***
Nechum clapped a hand over his mouth, unable to believe Jediah would abandon Laszio and Eran, wounded as they were. That is, unless something went horribly wrong. He watched Jediah soar in the opposite direction. A swarm of demons chasing him, yet neither Laszio nor Eran attempted to follow. “Alameth?” Nechum asked, “Should we be concerned?”
Alameth, who now hung from the car’s back hatch, said nothing, but his gaze stayed glued with acute attentiveness toward the two wingmen.
With the car speeding past and further away from them, Nechum built the resolve to go back. Sliding, then clinging to a side window, he judged the distance between his spot and the blurred roadside, but then rough hands had him by the tunic. His feet left the car in a rush of wind. Alameth yelled his name. With the ground getting further and further away, Nechum fumbled for his smoke pellets. The demon shook him in response and threatened to drop him. A spurt of panic spurned Nechum’s energy, and a large shield expanded and shoved his assailant off.
Nechum’s shoulder scuffed the asphalt first, and he tumbled off-road into the gravel. Trapped in a dazed stupor, he covered his head. His face buried into the dirt as if that would hide him from the situation.
“Get up!” Alameth barked.
Nechum jolted, stunned both at the angel of death’s booming command and the intense, dark fury churning in his emerald eyes.
Alameth stooped and offered Nechum a hand, but then a demon war-cry rang out. Alameth snapped around. Fog burst from his palm, grabbed the assailant, and slammed him into a street sign. He then pointed Nechum eastward toward a roadside hotel. “More are coming! Go now!”
Still not quite put together yet, Nechum obeyed on instinct. The weather’s growling intensified a thousand decibels and drew his attention to the right. A cracking flash unveiled an ugly funnel. It touched down, ripped up a patch of cornfield, then retracted and bore back down again. Reading the flow of the clouds it came from, Nechum predicted its traction. This ‘jumper’ was heading left, straight for the very hotel he was sprinting to.
Nechum’s empathic sense triggered. He picked up signs of human refugees under its foundations and gasped. Come on, legs! You can run faster!
Telephone posts swayed, pulling their cables apart until they showered spitting sparks. Leaves stripped from their branches, and Nechum dodged mangled balls of wrenched metal that whizzed past. Upon reaching the parking lot, he balked and ducked fence posts as they speared parked cars. A bus barreled over his head and cannonballed a truck, but this time he wouldn’t flinch. Not this time.
He phased through the hotel’s doors just as dust and dirt kicked up into a smog.
***
Jediah’s wings shuddered during heftier strokes. Too many flight feathers were broken by his earlier fall to keep him stable. Hopes of outpacing his pursuers were dead. Thus, Jediah committed himself to pin turns, somersaults, and aerial tricks of the highest caliber to out-maneuver. Most fell behind, except one. Their leader, the large one, matched him one-to-one.
Jediah flicked what sharp feathers he could spare, but missed.
“Nowhere to hide, Jediah!” the demon taunted as he shortened the distance.
Jediah searched for defendable cover, but saw only exposed, flat farmland. That is, except for an oncoming patch of silver spires. As he got closer, it morphed into distinction. Tall metal poles were anchored within a square surrounded by a clattering link fence. Cables swung above graveled rocks from pagoda-like mounts, and several large lettered signs read, “High Voltage.”
Jediah blanched, realizing he was leading a demon straight toward what Nechum called a power grid. Still, he unsheathed his sword. No time to change course now. He pitched his wings hard right and barrel rolled to a stand behind the first wood post. The demon followed too eagerly, and Jediah swung. His blade sliced the passing demon’s arm.
The demon sprawled, shooting feather darts as he fell, but Jediah’s blade blurred and parried the black barbs. Flipping back to his feet, the demon avoided Jediah’s follow-up thrust and swiped with a sharp wing. Undaunted, Jediah angled his sword, deflecting the wild strike. The demon toppled off balance, and Jediah drove his blade deep in his side. His enemy thudded to the ground.
“Who are you?” Jediah demanded.
The wounded creature groped for the clattering fence and dragged himself up, but Jediah’s patience long dried. He seized the scruff of the brute’s neck, slammed his face into the voltage sign, and rammed his elbow square in the middle of his back. “This storm was an ambush scheme, huh? Just to get at me?” After no response, Jediah rammed him into the fence again.
The demon sneered. “Afraid, Captain?”
Jediah stuck the point of his sword under his chin. “I’m not taking any lip from you. Who informed you about me, and how did you know I’d be here?” He pressed the blade in. Red dripped down its edge. “Answer! I won’t ask again!”
Wind blasted through the fence and dislodged a cable. It swung into the chain links, sparking and twitching. The demon’s eyes glowed crimson. He wrenched himself from Jediah’s grip, took a slash to the chin, and seized the active wire’s exposed end.
Jediah ducked from the freakish snapping and cracking that popped from the demon’s fist. Electrical currents vined down his arm. Power units blasted apart, as the currents were sucked into the demon’s every opened wound.
***
Nechum flinched at the sudden blackout. The huddled people around him in the hotel cellar screamed.
***
Amidst the smoke, Jediah watched the demon rise tall. The wire he once held now hung quiet. His low laughter rose to megalomania as his electrified feathers jerked about. “I am Captain Zivel,” he announced. He stretched a hand toward Jediah. “And I am your better.”
Zivel’s fingers tremored. Jediah sensed a sudden change under his feet; a sharp tingling that traveled up his legs. His hair stood on end, and he barely dodged Zivel’s lightning bolt by a hair. Zivel thrust his hand again, casting a new net of blue from his fingertips.
***
Nechum listened to the light click of popping human eardrums. The basement’s air pressure changed. The foundations moaned. Plaster above crumbled, and mothers hugged their wailing children, pressing their little heads close. Hail beat the squatty windows, and Nechum held a breath as jagged lines webbed the glass.
The windows burst inward. Debris flew in like ballistic missiles, and no one besides Nechum could hear the ceiling vibrate and sag in the deafening rumble. It dropped. Nechum raised his hands, investing every ounce of his focus to catch the falling roof. His arms, shoulders, and back burned. His legs were forced into a deeper bend. He grunted, dropping to one knee, until three stories of wood, glass and cement ground to a halt with a droned crunch against his back.
***
Jediah leaped through clustered trees. After landing on a thicker branch, his fingers sensed the sap inside super-heat to a boil. The expanding bark exploded into splinters at Zivel’s lightning blast. Swept by the smoke and wood, Jediah crashed into a barrel roll. He shook the dizziness off. There rested thicker brush not but a few feet away. He sprinted for it, but skidded to a halt. Zivel had beaten him to it.
The power drunk lunatic scoffed. “You’re mine!” Static sparked from his flicking fingers. Crinkled ultra-violet streaks sprang forth.
Jediah’s reflexes overruled him, and he raised his sword. The blade buzzed. His feathers accidentally touched the hilt, and the violent jolts raced through his right wing, into his left wing, then zapped right back out, biting into their initiator’s feet.
Zivel screeched and collapsed in a writhing heap.
Jediah’s whole being vibrated from excess energy. He lost his grip. His head throbbed and the stings in his arms continued to prick even after the initial shock.
Re-piecing what just happened, Jediah stared at his weapon. Steam wafted off the hissing metal.
Zivel moaned as he retreated into the brush.
Expecting a counter-attack, Jediah grabbed his sword, soared up the closest pine, and perched on its top. Rigorous gales bent the tree so far it seemed only the bark kept it glued together.
Jediah pointed his blade toward the skies. Fully encasing his arm in feathers, he ensured a single quill touched the crossguard. The other wing he straightened outwards, and he scanned it back and forth over the tree line. “Come on. Come on,” he mumbled. “Show yourself. I dare you.”
Jediah panned his head around. For a moment, only the storm spoke. He squeezed his eyes closed. Lord, Master of skies, disperse Your holy wrath on those who dare defy You.
Jediah’s hair stood up.
Zivel burst from the clapping leaves a few feet away.
Positive charges hummed up Jediah’s legs, and a negative charge stepped down, igniting on contact. Lightning traveled the blade once more. Its might leaped from Jediah’s quills and consumed the demon in its roar.
The flash subsided.
Thunder rolled for miles.
Jediah gasped. His wings jittered from a frightening amount of invigoration. He wobbled to steady himself and rubbed his brow against another burgeoning headache. Shaking his head, he forced his vision to clear.
Captain Zivel, crippled, one-armed, and missing half his face, limped into a barn a short distance off.
Rolling the tingling out of his shoulders, Jediah glided after him. Even if Zivel’s mouth was missing, he’d get that villain to talk, even if it took all night.
Jediah coasted low to a stop. The aged barn creaked from neglect. Chipped wood sported jagged splinters. Its scarlet paint had long dulled to a sick brown, and its rickety foundations swayed so much a house of cards would be considered more stable.
Jediah approached the huge open door and peeked through the doorway. Darkness shadowed the withered straw and filthy planking. He saw no one.
Refolding his wings into armor, Jediah raised his sword and stepped inside. The sweltering orange glow from his blade dimmed.
“Still playing hero I see.”
Jediah flushed cold. That voice.
The heavy door rattled over the exit.
Those old pangs of guilt struck Jediah’s core. His weakened arms let his sword point stick the ground. He wished not to turn around. It pained him to.
“Isn’t it interesting how the centuries can change an angel?” the voice chided. “Last I saw you, you resembled a lion. My empathic sense, however, reads the presence of a frightened sheep.”
Jediah shuddered and pursed his chapped lips. “Yes, much has changed, Elazar.” With what will he had left, he turned around.
A figure, silhouetted by the scant flashes between the wall boards, cocked his head. “Much indeed.” He stepped into the sparse light emanating off Jediah’s feathers.
A scarred, dead eye came first into view, and the sight of it cut Jediah’s heart open, bare and vulnerable.
“Hello, old friend.”