Joshua Graham - Terminus

“Do you hear that?” Hope whispered.

“What is it?”

“Shhh!” In the curved concrete corridors, rapid footfalls grew louder. “Someone’s coming.”

Nothing but the blood-red glow of emergency signs lit the area. Nick got in front of her and leaned up against the wall.

“Stay close.”

“How much time do we have before the bombs go off?”

“A few minutes.”

“Do you know where they are?”

“Not exactly. I heard something about—hold on.” He felt a draft. It reminded him of the dark vapor that used to appear like a portent when he was an angel. Probably just air coming through a vent. He glanced up and saw a sign with an arrow pointing to LOCKER ROOM C.

“Come on,” he said. Hope didn’t move.

“That’s the direction where they’re coming from!”

She was right, and they were getting louder.

“If we don’t hurry, it won’t matter,” Nick said. “Nothing will.”

They ran until what looked like a pair of shadows stopped short a little ways ahead of them.

“Don’t shoot!” a trembling female voice called out.

“ Callate! ” a man said.

There was no mistaking that voice.

Nick stepped into the red light.

“NICK? IS THAT YOU OVER THERE?”

Lito Guzman stepped into the light.

“Yes,” Nick said, straining to see. “What are you doing here?”

“Who is this guy, Lito?” The young woman with him emerged from the shadows.

Hope came to Nick’s side. “What’s going on?”

“It’s going to be okay now,” Lito said to the young woman. Then to Nick: “This is my sister, Maria.” To Maria: “This is Nick. He’s the angel that—”

“The situation is much worse than you can imagine,” Nick said.

“What’s worse than a bunch of armed Mexican drug lords trying to kill us?” Maria said. “It’s only a matter of time before they catch up.”

“We’ve no time for this,” Nick said, as he led them down the hall to locker room C. “There are two nuclear devices, one here and one in locker room B. We’re going to try to stop them from—”

“Nukes!” the former cartel leader said. “What’s going on?”

“Lito, you’ve got to get yourself and Maria out of here.” They were now in Locker Room C, where an open suitcase sat brazenly on the floor by an open locker. The device inside was beeping quietly and rhythmically while the yellow LED of its timer ticked down.

Maria and Hope stared at the suitcase, too panicked to speak. Lito, however, began to mutter. About the only phrase that came through clearly was, “Why, Nick?”

“It’s an angels and demons thing, okay? Get out of the stadium, now!” Nick’s voice boomed through the curved concrete corridors. In the silence that followed, they heard the sound of running feet.

Lito grabbed his arm. “You’re a freakin’ angel, Nick. Can’t you just beam that thing out into space?”

“You think this is Star Trek or something? I’m losing my powers and getting weaker. There are two bombs. And the Suarez and Hernandez men are out there, armed and coming for us.” The running steps were close now.

“Can’t you do what you did last time and mess with their heads?”

“All right, Lito. Time to go—there may be another exit behind us, I’ll see if I can buy you some time.”

“No way,” he said. “You saved my life, I’m not leaving you on your own. Maria, you go and—”

“If I’m going to die,” she shot back, “I’ll do it helping, not running.” She and her brother exchanged a quick nod, then Lito turned to Nick.

“Tell us what to do.”

Nick scanned the locker room and pointed to an exit at the opposite wall.

“Downstairs. Locker Room B. Find the other nuke.”

“And do what, exactly?” Maria said.

“I don’t know yet. First we have to—”

He stopped, because the running steps had stopped. A cold gust from behind—the locker room door was open. He turned around to face the cartel members.

It wasn’t them.

Lena and her Nephilim stood before them.

“Nikolai, Nikolai, Nikolai,” she said. “I’m disappointed in you.” She glared at him with aloof eyes, which was perhaps her most dangerous look.

Nick leaned over to Lito and whispered, “Run.”

IT DIDN’T TAKE LONG. Lito and Maria dashed through the exit while Nick put himself between Hope and Lena. Serena and Gunther stood on either side of their leader. More pounding footfalls sounded in the corridor, no doubt the cartel members.

Lito and Maria fled.

Lena showed no interest in them.

Nick tried to stall while trying to come up with a plan. If only his head wasn’t spinning so wildly. If only Lena didn’t look like a panther about to pounce on its prey.

“You’ve been a bad angel, Nikolai.”

“And you’re what, a good demon?”

“Don’t insult me. I only work with demons when it suits me.”

“So what are you?” He backed up toward the beeping detonator, keeping Hope behind him.

“Nephilim, sweetie.” She stopped, just as he could retreat no further, and touched his face tenderly. And then she delivered a vicious slap—so hard flecks of light swam in front of his eyes. Had his angel powers not faded he’d have kept to his feet. But he lost his balance.

As he fell to the floor, Hope leapt at Lena.

“Hope, don’t!” Too late. Lena nodded to Serena, who lifted her hand and without even touching Hope, caught her by the throat and held her suspended in the air, gasping for breath. Lena stepped over to them.

“You have no idea how much trouble you’ve caused me, Hope Matheson. You were ready to die, I made it so easy for you. Why didn’t you just go and do it?”

Hope couldn’t speak. She just looked down at Nick, silently urging him to flee. He got up slowly, approached Lena and Serena.

“Let her go.” He glanced over at the timer. Less than seven minutes left. But all that mattered now was to rescue Hope from Serena’s grip. “Don’t do this, Lena.”

She turned to her other Nephilim, then pointed her chin at Nick.

“Rip his limbs off.”

Before Gunther got to him, the cartel members burst in, guns drawn.

An idea came to him.

A long shot, but worth a try.

He cast a construct at the gangsters, causing Lena’s Nephilim to look like Lito, Nick, and Maria. Not only did it work, he was still able to impersonate Lena’s voice. “Kill them all, now!”

Lena whirled around.

Distracted, Serena lost her invisible grip on Hope and dropped her next to Nick. With his arms wrapped around her, he tried to cloak her with his invisibility, though it was uncertain to work against Lena or any of her half-angels.

The automatic weapons fire opened up.

Lena shouted for them to stop, but they couldn’t hear her.

Before Gunther could react, a bullet hit him in the back. He turned around and plucked it out as if it were a burr. Then, like a bull with rage issues, he rushed the men who were still firing. Their rounds struck him but didn’t draw blood—some of the slugs just popped out of his shirt. He grabbed one of the men’s assault rifles and used it like a baseball bat. The gunman’s head being the ball.

“What are you doing?” Lena cried out. “Stop!”

Nick reached over to the suitcase with the bomb and the small black timer—a simple device, but the colorful tangle of wires more than made up for it. On its front panel, something resembling an infrared computer port lay to the left of the countdown clock.

The retina scan.

Lena and company could teleport away in a second. And if Nick were to have any chance of stopping the nuke’s detonation, he’d have to scan one of her eyes.