Jeremy Chikalto and the Demon Trace (Book III of The Hazy Souls) (13 page)

Jeremy stood up. “So everyone's okay?”

Wantoro looked back at the Victorian. “Why
don't you go talk to Maren.”

“I will soon. I just have to give everyone a
message.” Jeremy took a deep breath and stood tall. “Everyone, can
I have your attention!” he yelled.

“Encore!” yelled a passerby, and some people
standing beside the bulletin board started to laugh. “Take it
off!”

Jeremy ignored them and took to the sky. He
floated above the amphitheater and waited. There was the usual
shout, followed by the buzz of the populace, all coming outside to
see the spectacle. And then he heard his name.

“Jeremy!” It was Tina. “Jeremy! Get down
here!”

Lyrna appeared on the stage, pawing up at
Jeremy.

Jeremy ignored his pet and
Tina, and instead began to glow a pale blue. The bravest drew
closer to him. The more faint of heart gathered quietly along the
outskirts of the town square. “I've kept this compound well
supplied, but I'm going to have to ask everyone to ration your food
better. You're very lucky.” Jeremy wiped his brow. “There are other
compounds out there, just like this. They've run out of food and
water. A drought is spreading quickly from the west. Collect the
hail that comes down
—
don't let it go to waste! I will return soon, and I'll be
bringing people back here with me. You need to be hospitable.”
Jeremy expanded his energy and then disappeared.

Jeremy's speech threw everyone into a
frenzy. Soldiers argued, tossing their hands up into the air,
saying, “That was no drone! He was the one with the demons!”

Maren pushed her way through the crowd and
climbed the stairs to the amphitheater. “Jeremy, come back!”

“Mew.”

Maren felt a gentle paw on
her knee. “Lyrna!” She picked the furry companion up by her ear
tuft and then scooped up her bottom
—
the proper technique for fizdruft
handling. “Lyrna, you have to get Jeremy for me! He's busy, I know.
It sounds awful out there. I just need him to know
something.”

“Mew.”

Maren watched the crowds disperse and then
hugged Lyrna and set her down. “Tell him,” Maren lifted up her
shirt to reveal her belly, “I'm pregnant.”

“Belly.”

“Yes! My belly will get bigger.” Maren
lowered her shirt and pet Lyrna on the head. “Tell Jeremy about my
belly.

“Big fat belly?”

“Tell him we're going to have a baby and I
need to see him!”

“Meow!” Lyrna leapt into the air and
disappeared into the Haze.

Chapter 26

Feed

It was the early morning hours in Northern
Ireland and Jeremy lay on a large, cool rock thinking of the little
town of Sion Mills. He could transport the lot of them back to the
compound in the Hamptons. All the sheep had died and the land, he
was told, had become useless. The families stuck together and
seemed jovial, despite the water drying up. They'd be dead
soon.

Suddenly, Lyrna popped into view. “I find! I
find!” Lyrna ran around in circles.

Jeremy laughed and lay his stick down in the
dirt.

“I look
Boston
—
no. I look
China
—
no. I find
here!”

“Yes, well I had just been
to Shanghai. I dropped a couple of kids off at the compound. Left
them with my mom
—
hope she doesn't mind. More to come soon.” Jeremy leaned
forward and messed up Lyrna's fur.

“I like this town. I'm thinking of bringing
everyone back to the compound, except for this one tall guy. I'm
told he's dangerous.”

“Jeremy say, 'need ration food,' I talk
Maren. Maren fat!” Lyrna hopped from paw to paw.

“Oh? See, that's what I'm
talking about.” Jeremy rose to his feet and clenched his fist.
“They have no right to be eating that much food. People are
starving
—
but,
wait... Maren? Jeremy shook his head. “Maren's not fat.”

“Maren belly, soon!”

Jeremy smiled in spite of himself. “Comfort
food? She misses me. But she can't eat more than the others. She
wouldn't.”

“Big! Fat!”

“Oh, stop Lyrna. Maren's not going to get
fat,” said Jeremy.

“Is.”

Lyrna stretched out her paws as wide as she
could. “Pregreg. Ant.” Lyrna crinkled her nose at the effort.

“Huh? Pregnant?” Jeremy gasped. “Well I have
to go talk to her!”

Lyrna lowered her ears. "Something
coming."

Jeremy stood up and tried to march into the
Haze but as he stepped through, he was blasted right out by a
tremendous force and spit onto the ground. "What the hell was
that?" His heart was thudding.

Something with an enormous amount of energy
was traveling through the Haze, as if a planet was growing closer
to the Earth. Jeremy dared to enter back into the Haze, this time
bracing himself to withstand the force. He went behind the air.

A great wind was kicked up in the Haze, and
while he struggled against the current, the spirit animals around
him were somehow impervious. A wave of dark purple rays crashed
through the Haze, which was now burning hot blue. Jeremy shielded
his face from the wind with his arm, and pushed his awareness into
a thick outer shield. His force field gave him a safe harbor from
which he was able to look out across the Haze.

A figure approached from the darkness at the
center of the force. At first, it was a green outline punctuated by
intermittent flashes of a bright yellow light, but as the figure
drew closer, Jeremy could see a man with dark brown skin, and his
arms were lined in feathers like an eagle. The angel beat its arms
again and again, and Jeremy's force field started rolling backwards
with him inside, tumbling around like a mouse in a ball. He rolled
right into an elephant and steadied himself against its side. The
elephant lowered its head, and Jeremy was mindful of its tusks. He
saw in its eyes a hierophant sitting stoically on a throne. Jeremy
shook himself of the vision and braced himself, expanding his force
field until it pressed into the energy of the angel.

The brown angel had no eyelids and his
pupils locked with Jeremy's. The angel opened his mouth and a great
wind issued forth, along with a warning: "Woe to those who dwell on
the ground, and hear the angel's trumpet!"

The angel now had an
eagle's beak and screeched. Jeremy covered his ears. He was blasted
out of the Haze again and onto his back on the dry dirt of Sion
Mills. A low rock wall crumbled and the dirt began to shift. The
angel flickered in front of him and Jeremy scrambled to his feet.
"Wait
—
"

But the angel flapped its arms, and a
whirlwind knocked him back to the ground.

Jeremy sprang up, still not sure whether to
fight or talk. But the angel was relentless, and it screeched and
split the air. Jeremy covered his ears, and tornadoes howled around
him. The eagle took to the sky, leaving Jeremy. One of the tornados
tore off the roofs of the dwellings to Jeremy's left, and the
debris joined the dirt and sand and swirled higher and higher. How
could Jeremy fight these storms?

Jeremy attempted to weave
in and out of the Haze to fly, but found that the Haze continued to
push him out.
I can't fly above this. I
can't fly through it.
Panic began to set
in. Jeremy vibrated out a few test waves into the nearest storm.
His electricity seemed to make it worse. Would he die? Could he
die? He had been relying on the Haze to make him invincible, and
now it was blocked to him.

The funnels swirled towards him. He clenched
his energy together to anchor him in that spot as everything around
him was swept into the air. Suddenly the body of a large, tall man
slammed into him and was stuck there by the wind. The man was still
alive and moaning, blood pouring from his mouth. Jeremy flung the
man away into the wind.

Then the eagle's shadow passed overhead.
"You feed the dead!" the angel said, and Jeremy could detect equal
parts pity and anger in the voice. "Stop!"

Jeremy felt a darkness collect just beyond
his reach. A demon had filtered through to Earth's atmosphere and
was closing in on the wounded man. Jeremy concentrated on his
demon. "Back," he said. But the demon pressed onward.

The man screamed at the sight of the demon
and the demon pounced on him, sucking the flesh clean off his
skull.

Another demon appeared
beside it and another. Jeremy yelled, "Be gone!" and the demons
lingered for a moment and then receded back into the Haze. "This
is
not
who I am!
I did not will them to eat that man! I do not feed the dead!"
Jeremy looked to the sky to face the eagle angel, but he was
gone.

Chapter 27

Zoo

Ren had been patiently instructing Tina on
firearm use all morning, but Tina had a bad habit of winking at Ren
right before each shot. There was a limit to the ammo one could
waste on not hitting the target.

Frisky, who had observed the whole
excruciating lesson, was up to bat next. “Let's try aiming at the
target this time.” She took the pistol from Tina and assumed the
stance.

“Good, now straighten your arm and wrist
out.” Ren moved his hand down along Frisky's arm.

“Knock it off,” Frisky snapped, and shrugged
Ren off her arm. She pulled the trigger and hit the bullseye.

Ren smiled, and Tina burned with envy,
resolving to focus on her strengths. “I'm going to go perfect my
acrylic leopard nail design.” She marched away.

“You're a natural,” said Ren.

“Why would you assume that I never shot
before?” Frisky replied, fidgeting with her hair. “Hey, is another
hail storm moving in?” She pointed to a cluster of gray clouds
swiftly approaching from the west. “We should ring the bell, get
everyone ready to collect the hail.”

Just then, a woman screamed from the
direction that Tina had marched off to.

Frisky and Ren reflexively
gripped their weapons and dashed between the dying trees and past
the small barn to the perimeter fence. It was hard to believe that
only a couple of days ago vegetation grew there. The dirt was
dusty, and only a few weeds
—
now straw-like
—
lay in the dying Earth.

“Help!” A young boy ran up to the outside of
the fence. His jeans were shredded at his knees, and there was
blood and dirt caked onto his skin. He was shaking and kept looking
behind him. “Please help me!”

“Who screamed?” asked Frisky.

“My sister! Please, let me in!” The boy
grabbed onto the barbed wire fence and cut his hands.

“Don't!” said Ren. “Come this way.”

Frisky craned her neck to see behind the
boy. “What's out there?” She pulled Ren back to her. “Could be a
trap,” she whispered.

“Come to the main gate, you have to go
through security,” said Ren.

The boy rattled the fence, tears streaming
down his face. “It's going to eat me!”

“It?”

“The bear! Help me, please!”

Frisky turned to Ren. “Let's just let him
in.”

Frisky and Ren met the boy at the north
entrance of the compound. He was searched and admitted to the
compound at Frisky's request. They sat him down on a bench and let
the story come out.

The boy talked between sobs and coughs. “My
sister, oh God, she just... and then this bear came out of nowhere
and... tore her to pieces. We ran from the camp... everyone was
screaming.” The boy cried into his dirty sleeve.

“Let's take him to Maren,” said Ren.

Maren was watching Tina pace dramatically
back and forth in Maren's room.

“First of all, I'm in love with Jeremy,
which everyone's known, for like, ever. But he's going to be with
you, okay? And I get that. You're going to have his baby for
Christ's sake. But then there's Ren and I totally called dibs on
him but then Frisky's all, 'I'm going to teach you kung fu,” and
then they ride off into the sunset. It's not fair! Is there, like,
an end-of-the-world escort service or something?”

“Tina,” Maren exhaled slowly, trying to form
some kind of response. “Don't.” She held her hand up. “Do you feel
like something big is happening?”

Tina's eyes shifted to the window.
“Yeah?”

“I feel this tension, this friction.” Maren
stood up and opened the window. The heat from outside seeped into
the window, and the room felt like a soup. “It's like a hurricane
settled over our compound. Do you know about centrifugal
force?”

Tina rolled her eyes. “Here comes the
lecture,” she grumbled.

Maren ignored her and
continued. “With hurricanes, there's friction on the earth and the
wind actually blows inward towards the eye of the storm. We are the
eye of the storm. Something big and violent is happening outside
that fence, and the storm's moving. Soon we'll no longer be in the
eye
—
in the calm;
we'll be in the Apocalypse.” She held her hand up. “Do we try to
outrun it? Maybe the eye will follow us, maybe not.”

Tina studied her zebra print finger nails.
“You don't try to outrun a storm. You go underground, like in
Mantel's Maze.”

Maren was quiet. She didn't know if Tina had
understood anything she'd just said, but Tina's answer rang true.
“I think you're right.”

Ren and Frisky burst through the door with
their frantic new guest. Maren and Tina looked at the boy
expectantly, but he just burst into tears again.

Frisky rested her hand on the boy's
shoulder. “He's from outside the compound. He told us that a flying
bear attacked his sister.”