John Miller - Death Draws Five

The Angel looked at the mirror mounted outside the driver’s side window. Her right foot found the gas pedal again and she stomped it. The van shot backwards down the hill, weaving dangerously as it approached the grocery store’s rutted parking lot. Two cars, were both big black boats of some unfamiliar make and model, were already in the lot. A handful of men stood around watching as two others tried to stuff a wiggling and fighting boy in the back seat of one of the cars.

It was John Fortune. She was, thanks be to God, in time.

She roared into the parking lot backwards, the wheels throwing pebbles like bullets. More through luck than any sort of skill managed to screech into the narrow slot between her enemies’ cars. She stood on the brake with both feet, hitting her head again against the van’s roof and ignoring the pain as the VW slammed to a halt an inch from jumping the curb and crashing into the storefront behind it. She was out of the van before the amazed on-lookers stopped flinching from the shower of pebbles thrown by its squealing tires.

“Release the boy!” she cried in a voice like the ringing of a great iron bell.

There was a moment of silence as everyone, John Fortune included, stood stock still and stared at her, her chest heaving, eyes wild, hair streaming back like a valkryie just come down from Valhalla.

The Angel broke the silence. She growled like a she-wolf, driven to inarticulate fury by their failure to respond to her command, and reached both hands high above her head while saying aloud her short prayer, and called down the fiery sword. She struck one of the cars, hitting the roof dead on center, slicing all the way through to the pavement. The blade threw off coruscating sparks that sent half the on-lookers diving away, screaming and batting at the cinders burning their hands and faces and setting their clothes on fire.

She took a step forward, swinging her sword in a great arc and bringing it down again on the car’s roof with all her strength, cutting through roof and side-panels and neatly bisecting the vehicle. It collapsed in the parking lot with a groan of tortured metal.

“Jesus Christ!” one of the men said.

She turned and back-handed him, sending him flying over the wreckage. “Don’t blaspheme!” she said, and moved around the front of the van which was still chugging in place, pointing her sword at the two men who were still holding John Fortune. “Release the boy,” she repeated, this time in a voice low and hard and full of undefined menace.

They did, but only to reach for guns holstered at shoulder and belt.

The Angel moved faster than seemed humanly possible. She pulled her hands apart and the sword vanished. She slapped one of the men down before he could pull out his gun. The other drew, fired hastily, and his shot spit harmlessly over her shoulder. She closed on him before he could fire again. She grabbed his gun hand, twisted, and heard things break. Some were parts of the gun, some were parts of his hand.

He went down screaming. There were two other men at the front of the car. One had a pistol out, the other was reaching into the car’s front seat for a rifle. The Angel hunched over and scooped John Fortune up with one hand. She reached with the other and snagged the bottom of the car’s driver side rear panel, right by the tire. She grunted with effort and stood, veins pulsing on her neck and forehead, throbbing as if they were going to burst. The muscles in her legs, buttocks, back, and right arm cracking with strain, she heaved.

The car flipped up into the air.

The man reaching for the rifle was thrown to one side. The man with the pistol said, “Oh, shit.” He dove aside but the car came down roof first, mostly on him. He screamed like a cockroach meeting an inescapable size twelve shoe bottom.

The Angel whirled and tossed John Fortune into the van’s passenger side seat as gently as she could, leaped into the van herself, ground a bit more of the transmission to dust, whirled out of the parking lot, and sped off down the county road, across a bridge over a little river and out into open rolling country bordered by lettuce fields and occasional farm houses, going in the direction opposite the camp, away from the useless Creighton, from the useless Billy Ray, and from the blasphemous and scary, if generous, snake handlers. She hoped they wouldn’t think too unkindly of her. She took a deep breath and for the first time took a second to turn off the Canned Heat tape. Enough of that, she thought.

She glanced at John Fortune, who was staring at her like she was some kind of figment from an awful dream. She calmed her breathing, ran a hand through her wild hair.

“Hello, John,” she said in as calm a voice as she could manage. “How are you?”

“I-I’m all right,” he said in a small voice. “Who are you?”

She smiled kindly. “I am your friend. You can call me the Midnight Angel.”

He looked her over carefully. “Are you taking me to my mother?”

Here, she thought, it gets difficult. She could not lie to him.

“No, John.” She looked back out through the windshield. It was best that he learned the full truth as soon as possible. “Have you ever been to Branson, Missouri?”

“No.”

“There’s a theme park there,” she said, trying to put the best possible face on it. “With rides.”

There was a momentary silence, and she glanced back at the boy, afraid of what she might see.

John Fortune nodded. “Cool,” he said.

Fortunato watched as the wild-eyed woman with long black hair roared into the parking lot and proceeded to kick major ass. There was no other way to put it. He would have gladly joined her, but his insubstantiality prevented him from being anything more than an invisible cheering section as she rescued the boy from his abductors.

He watched her rattle off down the road with his son safely in the seat next to her while the still-standing kidnappers tried to roll the flipped Lincoln off their screaming compatriot. Once they succeeded the man didn’t stop screaming. He was in bad shape, with crushed legs and probable internal damage. He needed a hospital, fast.

That reminded Fortunato. Even though his body was safe in a hospital bed, he was actually not in great shape. His spirit had been away from it for quite awhile. While he had achieved much, his success wouldn’t be quite as dramatic if his body perished because he’d left it alone for too long. It was time to go back.

The transition wasn’t instantaneous, but it seemed faster than the trip out. For one thing, he knew where he was going. He didn’t hesitate. He just aimed himself south and flew on the unseen, unfelt etheric winds. For another thing, he had far more energy than he’d had in years. The vigor he’d absorbed from the rich black earth was still singing through his system like high-octane fuel. He didn’t know how much was in his tank, but he was determined to utilize it as best he could. He pushed himself hard, and it was a good thing that he did because he arrived at the clinic just in time.

He opened his eyes to see a frantic Dr. Finn standing over him. His hospital gown was torn open, exposing his chest, which had been smeared with some messy goo. Finn was holding two shiny metal paddles that were hooked up by thickly insulated wires to a machine that had been newly wheeled to his bedside.

“Clear!” Finn yelled, and the nurses jammed around Fortunato’s bed stepped backward.

Fortunato opened his eyes and grabbed Finn’s hands before he could slap the defibrillating paddles onto his chest. He was pretty sure that he didn’t need an electric jolt his heart.

“Fortunato!”

Fortunato couldn’t tell if Finn had shouted in fear or relief, or both. The paddles sagged in the doctor’s grip. “I’m all right, doctor,” he said. “Really. I don’t think I need this.”