Angels of America: A Circle of the Fallen novella

ANGELS OF AMERICA:

  Wendy Maddocks

  ©2014 by Wendy Maddocks

  Other works by Wendy Maddocks

  Stand alone novels

  Twisted evil

  Into the darkness

  Short story collections

  The thrill of the Chase

  A Shade too young

  The Shades of Northwood series

  Running shoes

  Circle of arms

  Unfinished business

  Kiss at midnight

  Circle of the Fallen series

  Angels of America

  Poetry collections

  When I was young

  Before the dawn

  Screenplays

  RISK

  Non-fiction

  Student: dazed and confused

  Chapter one

  “Ms Blood. Please report to the principal’s office.”

  The jeers of my classmates rose up behind me but I kept my head buried in my book and swallowed down any snarky remarks I wanted to shout out. Everyone got made fun of when they were sent to see the principal – not because you had broken the rules (come on, this is high school; you’d get ripped apart if you were a goody two shoes) but because you’d let yourself be caught doing so. So I ignored the teasing voices and whistles, and tried to focus on the open copy of Pride And Prejudice. My eyes kept falling off the page and onto my bag. I reached down for it and started to put my things away, taking my own sweet time over it.

  “Miss Blood, please hurry.” Uh-oh, he called me Miss. If I took much longer, this substitute teacher would actually have to look up my first name on the school system.

  “I am. My dad was a tortoise. He’d say this was sprinting.”

  “That’s quite enough of your lip.”

  One of the boys in the back row started tittering and you know how laughter spreads. Anyway, who was this sub to say my father wasn’t a tortoise? I do like lettuce. That’s a tortoise thing, right?

  I glared at the boy who had started the laughter as I pretended to re-arrange my bag. He was one of the ones I didn’t know the name of, and he was sitting with a girl who was all over him and another slightly older boy called Nial. I only knew him because he had been held back a year. There were only a handful of people I had bothered to learn the names of – and they were mostly the people I got partnered up with for stuff.

  “What you done this time?” whispered the girl across the aisle. I think her name is Lauren or Laura – something like that – and she had helped me out once or twice in French tests. I let her cheat off me in history now and again so it was okay. I shrugged at her.

  “Got me,” I answered. It could be any number of things, some real and some made up. The faculty of this school didn’t seem to like me that much. Go figure. “Persistent not doing stupid homework?”

  “Miss Blood! Will you please stop disrupting my lesson?” Subbie was starting to get mad. There was a slight pink tinge to his cheek and, if it hadn’t been covered by that dumb-ass fringe, that vein in his foreheads would have been pounding too. Who ever heard of a male teacher with bangs? Actually, that’s probably why he couldn’t get a proper job anywhere! Once I have my messenger bag dangling from one shoulder, I’m ready to go face the principal. As I make my way to the door, I lean down to Subic’s sweaty face. “The day you learn my name, I might bother to learn yours.” He looks stunned. I mean who-ever heard of a student back-chatting a teacher?

  That was the start of it, I think, because I’m going to talk now. I know one thing and one thing only: I attract weird like a crazy magnet.

  In the hallway, I head down to the offices and then duck into the nearest girls’ bathroom. If I have to face Principal King, I might as well do it with my war-paint on. Standing in front of one of the cracked mirrors and slicking Perfectly Peach on, I figure that if I’m in trouble now, I’ll still be in trouble in ten minutes. Difference is, in ten minutes I might have found the energy to do what needs to be done. Funny how next door blasting out heavy metal music since midnight wipes your energy out.

  “Rose Blood. Report to the principal immediately,” a slightly mechanical voice tells me over the crappy PA system. It’s not like I haven’t been in this position before. I know what I have to do. Find out what I’ve done, who saw me doing it, and wipe both their memories. Simple. No, I don’t how I do it, or why I know I need to, but something in my brain knows what to do before the rest of me does. Basically, I just focus on his mind for a bit, the whole building goes quiet – but that might just be because I’m concentrating so hard – and then I know it’s worked ‘cos there’s this little buzzing sound. So I slip my lip-gloss into my bag, wash my hands, and toddle on down to the main offices. I like to make an entrance when I go into the front office, where you have to wait and be evil-eyed by King’s witch of a secretary. So I kick the door open and slide my bag across the floor a few seconds before I enter. My dramatic entrance is made. And then I realize that that was a really stupid move in heels. I have a policy about heels – every Tuesday is Heel Day and I live in flats or wedges the rest of the week. Why does today have to be Tuesday? Regardless, Ms Secretary (another name I can’t be assed to remember) watches me walk in, retrieve my bag, and take a seat, like she’s passing judgment. Maybe she is. She knows how often I’m in here and that I always walk out without a mark on my record or her having to write me detention slips, but I’ve never touched her memory. I like messing with her head too much. The way she looks at me with a mixture of badly disguised loathing and suspicion is highly amusing – keeps me entertained for hours.

  “How’s our Kingy doing today?”

  Ms Secretary just keeps typing her letter or whatever on the computer, so I screech another chair closer and cross my feet on top of it. That earns a look. I’m pretty sure those stares are meant to strike fear into the heart of the student body. “Principal King is ready to see you now.”

  The door opens and a dark hand waves me in then disappears into the room. “Keep my seat warm.” She refuses to even look at me which I find funny. It’s like she knows what I do to the principal and she thinks I might do the same to her. I don’t have the heart to tell her she’s not worth the effort. All the wrong things I have done rush through my head. Skipping class, being late with no excuse, running in the halls, all pretty minor offences and nothing a pink detention slip wouldn’t have covered… so why the trip to the office? Hmm. Only one way to find out. I pick up my bag, give Ms Secretary a finger wave and head for the heavy wood door. There’s something wrong in there. Again, I don’t know how I know but there’s this overwhelming impression of tension coming from the door. Nobody else seems to have felt it though. I pushed the door open further and stand in the doorway for a minute, letting my eyes adjust to the dimness in the room. Principal King never has the overhead lights on in his room and he has the blinds open. Although the day is bright and hot, his office is in the shadow of the drama studio which, if nothing else, keeps the room cool and fresh most of the time.

  “Aah. Miss Blood. How are you today?”

  “Okay, I guess. How are you?” see, I can do polite.

  “Please. Have a seat.” He waves me to the plastic chair in front of his cluttered desk and I hesitate a moment before taking it. He gets the big, comfy leather chair to spin in all day and gives his guests classroom chairs. So not fair. “You must be wondering why you’re here. What have I done this time?”

  “Not really,” I shrug. “I haven’t done anything wrong.”

  “That’s right. But you have done some
thing of note. I’m not sure what it is but these two gentlemen would like to speak to you about it.” At his nod, two men in suits emerge from the shadows and then I realize that this is the wrongness I had sensed before. I hadn’t even known they were there. One of them takes up a position to the left of me, and the other guy moves to the side of the desk. Both of them are tall and broad and have that squint you associate with people who wore shades a lot. Men in Black? I think not. They look more like over-achieving bouncers than highly trained agents. “I assume I’ll be allowed to sit in on this discussion.” The man by his desk looks down and frowns. “You understand that I can’t leave one of my students with unsupervised visitors.”

  No-one even breathes. The man is listening to some-one talk through a nearly-invisible earpiece. Dammit, there’s something weird going on. Then he nods.

  “Should I be worried Principal King?”

  “No, not at all. I’ll be here if they ask you something you’re not comfortable with. The safety of my charges is a priority for me. You know that.” Yeah, until the bell rang at 3.30. Okay, maybe I’m being a little hard on him. Principal King has never been anything but nice to me – even when he was telling me off, he always looked like he felt bad about it – and he genuinely cared about the happiness of every student in school. Suddenly, I’m feeling bad about messing with his head. It could have saved him.

  “Target secured and waiting, ma’am.”

  “Ooh, are we having visitors. I must look presentable,” I babble, grabbing my bag and shifting to one of the cushioned seats inside the door. I put my bag on my lap and pull out a folding hairbrush, making it look like I’m using the outer light to untangle my pigtails. Why? Shrug. But my brain tells me I should and my brain has a disgusting habit of making me trust it In the mirror, I see a woman striding up towards us. She has on a navy fitted dress and her black hair pulled up in a tight bun on top of her head, making her look ageless. But she’s got the same hard expression as the men in suits and alarm bells kick up a few notches inside. The woman comes in and perches on the edge of Principal King’s desk trying for casual and friendly whilst only achieving intimidating.

  “Sir? What’s going on?”

  The woman nods at one of the men and he moves to shut the door. I drop my bag and make sure my shoulder strap is dangling across the threshold so that, when he locks the door, it can’t catch properly. He’s focused on the woman, not paying enough attention to realize the sound was too dull to be right.

  “Rose, these people need –“ That was as far as he got because, all in a flurry, the same man pulled a gun, cocked it and shot Mr King in the head. At the first sound, in the split second I had before attention returned to me, I grabbed my bag, the door snapping over it, and bolted out. The secretary had stood up and was turned towards the main office to investigate. The suit had used a silencer but even I knew they could only make it quieter. As I raced past, I willed her to sit back down and pretend like nothing had happened. She was obeying when I heard a female voice order the men to “get after her then.” I pulled open the door just as I heard another shot. Something dark splattered on the metal filing cabinet beside me. Run faster. Great idea brain. How exactly did it expect to me to do that. The passing thought comes to me that I should change direction and duck into the locker rooms to put some sneakers on. Apparently panic makes me nuts as well. But the front doors are on the next floor down and then straight ahead. Then it’s just a quick jog around to the back of the building to the cars. Easy. Escaping in kitten heels is hard, though, and my ankles will never be the same. But I daren’t take them off in case there’s something sharp on the floor. Even though I am giving them a definite trail to follow with the clicking of my heels. Another shot. The bullet whistles far over my head, crashes through the large window in front of me leaving a spider web of cracks around it. I hit that mezzanine floor and glance over the railing. Another twenty feet of stairs to the door. Sounds easy enough but the stairs are concrete. I’d rather risk a broken ankle and a headache that be on the wrong end of that gun. I take them at a run and then suddenly I’m bursting out into the open air and squinting in the sun. No time for relief though. The suits are coming up fast, so close I think I can hear their fast breathing somewhere in the school. So I run around to the student lot, digging my keys out of my messenger bag as I go. Not as easy as it looks on TV. By some miracle I manage to pull them out without sticking my finger, and press the central locking button. The lights flash but I don’t need that to help me locate my car. In amongst the boring red, grey, blue hatchbacks of my fellow students, the bright turquoise of my Miata stands out a freaking mile. Of course, that makes it easier for them to spot too. Instead of dwelling on this, I dive into my car and jam the key into the ignition. I didn’t expect it to start first time this morning when I left for school, and it didn’t, but by some miracle it does now. Maybe my luck is changing. Only these strange men murdered my principal and his assistant – can’t forget that. I didn’t stick around long enough to check but I am pretty sure they died. The thin and compressed sound of a fourth silenced bullet attacks the air. Blood splashes on my windscreen and it’s all I can do to resist the urge to reach for the wiper control. Which unfortunate student have they hit? They don’t care and, truthfully, neither do I – I just don’t want to be next.

  In the rearview, the men in suits are holding their guns at their sides and walking casually towards the cliché black SUV. It’s a cliché because it’s true and why the hell have they got blacked out windows? What are they hiding? I know their faces, I know they have weapons, I know that e boss. That thought both comforts me and worries me as I squeal out of my parking space, execute a handbrake turn stunt drivers would envy, and peel out of the lot.

  “Leave me alone,” I yell as they pull onto the main road behind me. They stick close to the flow of traffic. That seems to me to mean they don’t know the area very well. Finally – advantage me! I flip them the bird using my mirrors and stomp on the accelerator. A few twists and turns and a stretch of the freeway later and I’ve lost them. “Thank God.” My breath is coming hard, fast and shallow. Escaping with your life is great cardio. My heart is pounding so hard it might as well be a beacon to the men in suits. I can control that. I stop in a rest spot just long enough to take a few calming deep breaths, gulp some water from the sports bottle in my bag and flex my feet in their heeled little prisons. Then it’s time to hit the road again. I nose my car back into traffic, keeping half an eye out for a black SUV. Nothing. It doesn’t mean they’re not out there, though, just waiting for me to make a mistake and pounce.

  I’m sure they wouldn’t have come this far out of town to follow me – they’d stick to the populated areas, knowing I’ll have to come back. Recklessly I trust that my luck will hold and head back to town. Once more, I find myself wishing the Miata was less unique-looking. But nobody follows me back to my apartment block. No-one that I could see or hear in any case. I crawl into my underground spot and,, grabbing my bag, make a run to the elevator that goes to the ground level.

  “Hey Fred!” The grey-suited old man behind the desk glances up from his crossword and is about to speak when I get there first. “You never saw me.”

  “Okay,” he nods. That’s the best thing about Fred – the way he takes the weirdness of tenants in his stride. “You in trouble?”

  “Me? Never!” And then I’m gone, punching the side of fist repeatedly against the call button. The elevator doors glide open and I rush in. I live on the fifth floor but the elevator doesn’t take too long to get there. My keys are out when I get to the door. Next door are having another argument and something breaks with a crash deaf people would hear. Please don’t be something irreplaceable. Inside my apartment, the first thing I do is pull the drapes across the windows in all the rooms with windows. Everything suddenly becomes night dark but I don’t want to put the light
s on. What I do want is to collapse on my bed and cry for the rest of the day. Not gonna happen. No time for the whys and hows of the day. People are after me. That’s all there is to it; people are chasing me – I don’t know why or want they want to do to me but I know I’m not getting close enough to find out. The light brown fabric at the window stares back at me for a few more seconds before I get moving.

  I’m halfway through packing when the pounding on my front door starts. Oh shit. They’ve found me.

  “Rose! Rose, open up!” It’s a female voice and I’m pretty sure I don’t know it but it could be the lady in the dress putting on a fake voice. “We’re here to help you.”

  I edge into the little hallway and fix my gaze on the door like I could see right through it. “Right.”

  “Please. Just open the door.”

  “You’re with them.”

  There is a sigh and another voice. This one is male and young – young enough that it can’t be either of the suits pretending. The girl sounds quite young too, but it’s always harder to age women because their voices don’t change as much. “We’re not with anyone. But there are people who wanna hurt you and you need our help to stay safe.”

  “I don’t know you.” As far as I’m concerned that’s reason enough not to let them in, to leave them outside as target practice for the men in suits. But they’re muttering something behind the door and I can’t make out a single word – only that their panic is rising. I hate not knowing what’s going on. Especially at times like this when a girl suddenly materializes behind me. “What the hell?”

  “Hi.”

  I take a baby step back and put my hand on the wall for support. “What… what do you want with me?”

  “Relax,” says the girl and flips her long brown hair out of her face. She isn’t that much older than me. As she reaches for the door handle, she shrugs and smiles. “If we wanted to kill you, would we have knocked?” Good point. A boy stands in my doorway and, if you’re allowed to call boys pretty then he definitely fits it. His face is a bit lop-sided but his eyes are the greenest things that aren’t Kermit. As the girl reaches across me to pull him inside, his hair flicks back and I glimpse a round scar in the middle of his forehead. Looks like I’m not the only one with a bounty on their head. “Therefore… allies not enemies.”

  “I don’t know what you are or why you’re standing in the middle of my apartment without an invitation.”

  “This is your place? As in, you live here alone?”

  “No, I live with a unicorn and Fluffles the talking cat!” Okay, that comment was childish but the way this girl’s looking at me…

  “Seriously?”

  “Girls,” says the boy. “This ain’t the place to have the getting-to-know-you chat.

  She turns to look at him. “Right. Job to do.” She takes me by the elbow and propels me to the nearest door – my tiny front room. “Shut the door! Oh God, they’ve already been in. I didn’t sense that. Double crap.”

  “Further proof that I live alone. I like my chaos – it’s cozy.”

  She shrugs and glances at her partner. In the dim light of the curtained room, I notice that they are both wearing leather jackets totally inappropriate for the 30 degree spring weather in South Carolina. The boy is sweating heavily under his light brown garment of dead cow but the girl is wearing a black one which should absorb the heat, but she doesn’t appear to be in the slightest bit bothered. “Why are you on your own?”

  “I like it this way.”

  “But no protection. No parents. What if those men came for you at home?”

  “Maybe they already tried,” the boy points out. We should have – no, I should have thought of that. If they knew where my school was, then they almost certainly came here first. Which meant they wouldn’t have had to follow me to know where I’d end up – just go somewhere to wait. All I was sure of was that they were nowhere close or I would have seen them on the way home. “I mean, if they wanted to, I’m sure they wouldn’t have problems getting hold of the address.”

  “This is my home! No-one can just barge in here without my permission.” My exclamation sounds weak even to my own ears. These two entered with no invite. The men in suits probably didn’t understand the concept of privacy. “They could have just waited here for me.”

  “I’m guessin’ they thought you wouldn’t suspect nothin’ at school.” The boy is staring at all the litter around the bin. He can clear it up for me if he wants. A girl can dream. “Only… you did. What did you sense?”

  Sense? Oh, crap, is he one of these touchy-feely types? Getting in touch with my emotions and all that bull? No thanks. “I sensed that if two bouncers and their lady boss lock you in an office, shoot half the faculty and student body, you run. Fast.”

  The girl pulls her hair back and secures it with a red scrunchie as she moves into the square of light my curtains shone on the carpet. Her eyes go wide and she shoots a look at Green Eyes. He seems to understand whatever silent command she sent him because he starts tramping over all my carefully arranged trash and tries to reach her before something smashes into my window. I’m about to swear when a familiar whistle of a silenced pistol cuts the air and the girl falls forward.

  Chapter two