Burn (Drift Book 3) (19 page)

“Is everything okay?” I could tell that he was a little stressed.

“Well, I hope so, but it doesn’t look good. Apparently, Middleton has broken out in pure anarchy. People are looting homes and businesses, lighting places on fire, committing horrible acts that I don’t care to bring up, basically running amuck in the streets. It’s as if…”

“All Hel
l’s breaking loose?”

“Yeah…exactly.
Their three person police force, much like ours here in Mountainside, isn’t able to handle this unrest by themselves. We’ve been asked to drive up to Middleton and help out, along with some other agencies from around the state. We need to get control of the situation and make a perimeter around the town and try to contain this civil disobedience. I’ve sent my deputy there already and my other patrolman is going to man our station while we’re gone. I was hoping to get your thoughts on this and see if you’d like to come along. Someone with your…abilities could be of great help. Can you tag along, son?”

“Of course. What do you want me to do once we get there?”

“Well, no one is allowed to go into the town yet until we get more bodies and a plan put together. I was thinking maybe you could sneak into the town and slow down the madness a little in order to make it a little easier for us?”

“I’ll do what I can. When do we get going?”

“Right now, it’s a two hour drive, so we better get hustling. I’ll call the Spears and let them know that you’re going to be with me for awhile.” He turned back to his vehicle and opened the door. I stood in place and just stared at him. He gestured at me to hurry up and get in. I could tell he was annoyed that I was just standing there and not getting in the SUV.

“You have something else to do first
, son?” he spoke sarcastically.

“No. Did you forget that I’m a demon, Sheriff?” I dished out a little sarcasm of my own.

He just shrugged and said, “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Get in your truck and I’ll show you. It’s not going to take us two hours to get to Middleton
, sir. Can you also call Mark and let him know that I won’t be coming back to the party?” I smiled.

“Sure.” He plopped in
to his police truck and sat there. I calmly slid underneath the vehicle and then stood up underneath it with ease. The automobile rested on my back as I slung out my wings in order to take to the sky.

“Whoooah.” I heard him yell nervously as the squad unit wobbled around on my back.

“Fasten your safety belt…captain’s orders,” I joked.

“Don’t you drop me, son.”

With a couple of flaps from my wings, we took off into the air. Sheriff Taylor shouted down the directions and we were off. With all the flying I’d done around Colorado, I knew exactly where to go anyway. I shouted up to him to hang on and bolted for the town. During the ride we could see police vehicles with their sirens and lights driving on the roads below us. Within twenty minutes we were in the vicinity. As we approached I could see tons of smoke coming from buildings that were on fire in this small area in between a couple of mountains. Flames were roaring all over the place. I could see a handful of the police lights swirling around the vicinity of the city itself, but there were none going off inside of the town.

“Are you seeing what I’m seeing?” Sheriff Taylor called down to me.

“I sure am. It looks like Hell,” I added.

“Let’s land somewhere before we get there so no one see
s us.”

Doing as he requested
, I lowered us down upon a road that was a few miles away from Middleton when I knew the coast was clear. Once on the ground, I approached his door.

“I’m going to head up there and find out where I’m needed. Why don’t you fly into the town and see what you can do
? I heard on dispatch that helicopters are en route as well. Stay clear of them the best you can.” He started his truck.

“Will do.”

“Leo, do whatever it is within your power to help the situation. I know you know this already, but do your best to not be seen…and if you get caught, mum’s the word on knowing me, huh?”

“I’m a master at that. That won’t be a problem
, Sheriff. I won’t get caught.”

“Leo…one more thing…do you think what
’s happening in Middleton is a direct result of what you and the Angels were talking about the other day? I mean, do you think that has something to do with the whole Heaven and Hell thing?” He looked as if he didn’t believe the words coming out of his own mouth.

“I think so, sir. I think so. Hell is
starting to open for business and more creatures than usual are being let out to play as a prelude to War’s arrival. It doesn’t happen often that Hell is so loose about letting beings out, but when it does, this is usually the calling card. Humans going mad, acting in ways they normally wouldn’t. When so much hate leaks out into the world, it’s hard for humans to resist it because you’re such sensitive beings. I’m afraid that in no time it will be like this…”

“Everywhere…all over the world?” Sheriff Taylor finished the sentence for me.

“Exactly.”

“Hell on earth?”

“Hell on earth,” I confirmed.

“What can we do to stop such reckless hatred?”

“Nothing you can do. I must defeat War when he comes out and send him back to Hell where he belongs. That will send the hounds of Hell back to the underworld in fear, at least for a short time I’m guessing, but as long as the gates stay open for War to leave when he’s ready, the gatekeepers will keep turning a blind eye to whatever spills out,” I warned.

“Damn. Well
, then, beat this… War, person… thing.”

I grinned at his stammer.

“For now, go help the people of Middleton restore their sanity. Here, take this.” Sheriff Taylor handed me a police walkie-talkie. “It will help you out. I’ll keep you informed on what we’re up to out here and when the police forces are ready to go inside the town to regain order.”

I grabbed the device and nodded at him.

“Okay, I’m going to take off and await my deputy as I find out what I need to do here. I’ll meet up with you somewhere when it’s over. I’ll contact you through the walkie-talkie afterwards.”

Again, I
non-verbally gestured to him in confirmation.

“Leo…be careful
, son.” He smiled.

“You too.”

Sheriff Taylor drove off and I wasted no time getting airborne. When I reached the air above, I could see about three helicopters with bright spotlights slashing in spots all over the town. I changed into smoke and searched for a dark place in Middleton to creep into. I found a few black sections of the town where it seemed no lights were present, so I landed in one of them.

When I hit the ground I materialized. I stared up to the choppers that were darting their spotlights all over the place. Middleton was actually foggy due to all the smoke from the burning structures. I could hear yelling and screaming.

I jogged out of the small wooded area that I landed in and approached a road in a neighborhood filled with middle class homes. I jogged down the street, unsure about what I should do first. It didn’t take long to get an idea. As I ran, I saw four teenagers, three guys and a girl, terrorizing a family hiding inside a house. They were throwing bricks and rocks through the windows and laughing as the family hiding inside urged them to stop.

“Let’s go in and steal everything they have. Then we can beat them all up
,” I heard one of them say.

I approached the front yard of the home as they began to enter through a busted window.

“Hey…morons, don’t go in there,” I called to them.

This stopped the first kid from hopping through the window
. All four of them turned to see who just insulted them.

“Excuse me?”
the girl asked.

“I said…
morons
…don’t go in there. You know…you idiots? You have no right to go into that place,” I taunted.

They all looked at one another and started
laughing. The one guy that was halfway through the window leaped back out.

“What’s up with this fool?” He looked
at his buddies.

“I guess he thinks he’s hard
,” another guy answered him.

“Let’s kick his ass for being stupid enough to mess with us,
then
we can go back into that house and take whatever we want.”

I didn’t say a word and flashed them a half smirk. All four of them approached me from the front as cocky as they could be. It didn’t take but a second for one of them to throw a punch at me. I let it hit me in the face
. When it did, I actually heard the bones break in his hand.

He writhed in pain as his other friends watched him for a second and then came at me with a series of punches and kicks. I just stood in place and let them do it. When they realized that striking me was only causing
them
pain, they stopped. The one guy that broke his hand pulled out a switchblade with his other hand.

“Forget this fool, I’m gonna take him out my way.”

Again, I remained perfectly still and he lunged at me with the knife and tried to stick it through my chest. When it made contact with me, it bent and broke. All of them looked at me in complete shock. I decided to quit fooling around with this guy, grabbed him by his wrist, and squeezed. He yelled as I broke his other hand within my grip.

“Let him go
, man!” the girl yelled at me.

I didn’t say anyt
hing and just reached for her. Then I grabbed for the other two. I had the four of them in a bear hug in no time and walked to a chain link fence surrounding the backyard of the house they were trying to break into. While keeping them restrained with one arm, I grabbed hold of the fence and started to rip it off the posts that held it in place. Once I removed a section of the fence line, I shoved the four of them into it. I knocked them over and rolled them up within the fence like a tamale. I reached for one of the posts that held the fence in line and pulled it out of the ground. I took it and bent it around the four wiggling teens.

“Now then, this should keep you guys in line until the cops get here
,” I said.

One of them asked, “Who are you
, man?”

“Everything you never want to be.
Keep this nonsense up and you’ll find out. Have a good night.” I smiled at them and walked up to one of the broken windows on the front of the house.

“I’ve tied up the four jerks that were trying to get into your house. The police will be here shortly.
Just stay hidden until they get here, because there’s all kinds of mayhem going on out here. Just tell the cops the garbage is on your front lawn waiting to be taken out.”

When I turned to walk back down the street
, I heard someone thank me. I kept moving in order to find the next bit of business. I could feel the mass amount of evil in this town. It was concentrated. I could tell that Hell had its fingerprints all over what was going down here. I knew that this was the work of Drift and Possession Demons. One good thing, the only good thing, about so much hate being focused in one small place was that it was fueling the demon within me. It infuriated me and made me very powerful.

I continued to seek out acts of civil unrest around Middleton. Some act
s were so cruel to witness that it took everything within me to not rip some people limb from limb in blind anger. Most crimes were things like stealing, assaults and arson, though. Wherever I saw humans doing wrong, I intervened, stopped it, and restrained the jerks by finding whatever I could use near me to hold them captive. Nearly the entire town had been corrupted from what I could tell.

I used everything from
common garden hoses to chains in order to restrain the criminals. I added the use of a magic marker that I found in a grocery store that a few people were looting, to mark what crimes the degenerates were doing when I caught them. I’d mark the restraints I used, or on their clothes. I even marked what they did on some of the people’s foreheads. I’d leave them tied up in yards, stores, or vehicles. I was darting around the towns so fast that the once noisy and chaotic city began to get very quiet.

Once I pretty much scooped up all the delinquents, I started to figure out ways to put out some of the fires. I used hoses and fire hydrants. I managed to dodge the helicopter
spotlights a few times when they would fly overhead.

O
ne particular street right in downtown Middleton looked as if it were the epicenter of the chaos. Everything was on fire on both sides of the street. I captured a slew of law breakers on top of it. When I felt I had all the trouble makers under control on this particular stretch, I continued to search for ways to put out the fires.

While I was searching, I saw a figure standing directly
in the middle of the street through the haze of the fires a good ways down the road. I headed towards the person as the flames around us were wildly burning out of control. When I started to walk, the figure at the end of the road did the same and started strolling at me.