The Fallen (Angelic Redemption)

The helicopters buzzed like agitated bees over the
LA freeway car chase. On the ground, an army of police cruisers slowly trailed
a green Taurus. The driver had distracted the police and kept the networks busy
for almost an hour, but its main goal was avoiding the black Mustang lingering
behind the chase.

Seething in the black Mustang, Lila knew she
should give up the hunt. Knew any other hunter with more years under her belt
would have given up as soon as the villain ran a red light and caught the cop’s
attention. Knew no conceivable plan ended with her killing the monster with all
these humans in between her and the target.

Lila knew all this, but refused to relent to the
bad guy - let alone admit her failure. She would find a way to kill this
villain even if it took her another hour.

No matter the cool Southern California weather,
Lila felt overheated. Every inch of exposed flesh stuck to the Mustang’s
leather seats. Sweat stung her hazel eyes even after she flicked the air conditioner
to high. The heat came from her forever roaring temper.

Lila hated the Mustang. Hated the human who owned
it and only listened to weird music. Hated the police for their passivity
during the chase. Hated the helicopters for watching and videotaping
everything. Hated the villain for wasting everyone’s time. Hated herself for
allowing the villain to have its fun when it should have been dead hours earlier.

Most of all, she hated the annoying itch along her
spine. Hunting her for three days, the itch caused Lila to lose her
concentration this morning, allowing the villain to escape. Yes, most of all, Lila
hated the itch.

It was still there too. Still invisible to her
sight while making plans about her future. Her itch was a powerful being -
something much grander than she or the villain in the Taurus - and it clearly
viewed Lila as a target.

How much simpler things had seemed three days
earlier when Lila arrived in LA. She found a villain’s paradise with hordes of
bad guys, endless victims, and not a hunter in sight. Quickly stopping much of
the mayhem she witnessed, Lila embraced the city as more than just the perfect
vacation spot. For an eager hunter looking to do real damage, LA appeared to be
an ideal home base.

Yet during her first day in the city, Lila felt
the itch - that piercing, relentless, maddening itch - while she hunted a dozen
villains with a criminal racket in Long Beach. At first, she refused to acknowledge
this new player to the game. When she hit rough traffic in downtown LA though,
Lila made her move and lost her stalker with some fancy driving.

The itch caught up with her the next day while she
walked down Main Street at Disneyland. Once again, Lila found it easier to
ignore the problem. She focused on getting a picture with Mickey Mouse and
riding roller coasters. All day, she felt the itch tailing her as she played
tourist.

It hovered nearby while she ate at Pizza Planet. It
lingered while she shopped for shirts in Downtown Disney. It even joined her on
the Indiana Jones Adventure ride. All the while, Lila tried to spot her stalker
to no avail.

That night, Lila bunked at the Disney Hotel along
with the itch who never strayed far.

The next morning, Lila lost her itch again and
headed back to LA, looking for villains to kill. Finding three with a woman in
their trunk, Lila got to work. She quickly dispatched two villains before the
itch reemerged, stronger than ever.

Turning towards its powerful presence, Lila lost
her concentration just long enough for the last villain to escape and steal the
Taurus. Taking the Mustang, Lila gave chase. The police soon joined in and she
ended up playing the odd man out.

From her spot behind all of the police cruisers,
Lila could barely see the Taurus. As if to irritate her even more, the phone in
her duffle bag began to ring again.

For nearly three days since Lila left his Nevada safe house, Sawyer had been trying to track her down. She assumed he wanted to
lecture her on how new she was to hunting and just how careful she needed to
be. Knowing Sawyer would love to hear about her present predicament, Lila
ignored the phone.

Maybe it was her pouty lips or sun-kissed face,
but something about Lila made other hunters want to baby her. They felt
compelled to take her under their wings and tell her she was doing everything
wrong. Whatever those old dog hunters thought about Lila, she didn’t possess a
fragile bone in her body.

Lila’s personality was all bite and no bark. Never
one for strategy, she instead ran toward danger, never from it. Lila wasn’t a
thinker, but a doer which was why hunters like Sawyer annoyed her so much. How difficult
could it be to stay alive if a hunter thought a problem to death and never left
his safe house? Hiding didn’t appeal to Lila, so she came to LA to cause
trouble on her own.

Unfortunately, trouble was what she was in as the
itch nipped at her spine once again. A taunting fear slipped into Lila’s
consciousness as she accepted how the itch’s patience would eventually wear out
and whatever it wanted would come due.

Maybe it was this fear, but when the phone rang
again, Lila answered.

Sawyer sighed loudly at the sound of Lila’s voice.
So loudly, she had to pull the phone away from her ear.

“Baby girl, I was sure you were dead. Just
positive,” he said then called out to his wife Daisy, “Lila’s alive after all.
I guess I owe you a twenty.”

“If you were so sure I was dead, why did you keep
calling?”

“You were ignoring me, huh?” Sawyer grumbled like
a dad having to track down his wayward teen.

“No, I’ve just been busy.”

“Sure, baby girl. I did think you were dead, but
Daisy saw this thing on TV and figured you were mixed up in it somehow. I told
her if you were alive, you’d never be dumb enough to get into a rumble with the
cops. She said I ought to call you again and so here we are.”

Dumb.
Lila was a lot of things – impulsive, impatient, insensitive to the feelings of
others - but dumb wasn’t one of them. Yet her failure to kill this villain
itched at her ego, much like the itch of being hunted by something more
powerful than her.

Lila couldn’t share any of these concerns with
Sawyer. The suffocating surrogate daddy who thought Lila was too inexperienced
and reckless to leave Nevada.

“Daisy’s right again,” Lila said. “I’m killing
this villain, no matter how many cops stand in my way.”

“Yeah, good luck with that, but you’ve got bigger
problems.”

“How do you figure?”

“A big dog’s caught your scent.”

Lila rolled her eyes, already desperate to get off
the phone. “What does that mean?”

“It means you’re on some big dog’s radar and now
he wants to find you.”

“So?”

“So this guy had wild vibes that scared the
Dobermans half to death. Quite frankly, even Daisy and I were terrified of
him.”

Lila sighed, ready for more babying, more
unnecessary worrying and advice.

“I still have no clue what you’re talking about.”

“The day you left, a hunter showed up looking for
you. Said his name was Roman.”

“I don’t know any Roman, but who cares? Why are
you all freaked over a hunter?”

“He was like no hunter I’ve ever met and he was
real keen on finding you. When he first showed up, I figured he was just a male
sniffing around the new girl in town. This guy’s vibes weren’t normal though. We’ve
also been hearing rumors about a rogue big dog. Since you’ve been making some
noise lately, I figured a rogue might want to take you out.”

Combing her dark auburn hair into a ponytail while
driving with her knees, Lila asked, “If he’s rogue, why didn’t he kill you and
Daisy?”

“I don’t know.”

“Did he threaten you?”

“No. He was a friendly enough fellow, but his
vibes felt wrong. The dogs hated him.”

“They hate me too.”

Sawyer paused, as if once again wondering why his
dogs disliked Lila so much. Apparently deciding he had bigger issues before
him, Sawyer continued.

“Yeah, but not like they hated Roman.”

“Okay, well, this is all very interesting, but…”

“But nothing, baby girl. This guy wanted to find
you bad. Said he knew you’d been here. I told him you’d gone east. He acted
like he believed me, but his car headed west.”

Roman. Ah, so her itch had a name.

A big dog felt right with the level of power radiating
from the itch. Unless he meant her harm though, why all of the cloak and
dagger? Lila worried again, but then Sawyer’s words reminded her why fear was
the enemy.

“You ought to hightail it out of LA and come back
to the safe house.”

“What for?”

“To be safe, Lila. What do you think safe houses
are for?”

To hide from a hunter’s duty.
It’s what Lila thought, but didn’t dare say. Sawyer
might be a pain, but he meant well. He was also one of the few hunters she
trusted.

“Ok, I’ll head back once I’m done with this
villain.”

“You’re kidding, right?” Sawyer said with a
rambunctious laugh. “Sweetie, you’ve got no shot at this villain. Just give up
the chase and head back here before Roman tracks you down.”

“I’m not letting this villain live.”

“You know, this is exactly why I didn’t want you
going out on your own. You’ve got the hunter sickness. We all have to fight it,
but you’ve already got it bad.”

“Sawyer…”

“Don’t Sawyer me, girl,” he growled then sighed.
“Look, God made hunters beautiful and strong and fairly indestructible which
makes us arrogant. It’s our Achilles’ heel, Lila. We ain’t got freewill like
the humans, so to make things a bit trickier for us, God gave us the burden of
giant egos. Your ego’s gonna be the end of you.”

Even if Lila wanted to bail this chase and head
back to Nevada to hide from the scary big dog, the itch would just follow her. No,
she needed to ditch Roman before she made her escape from LA. That was when the
exit strategy Lila had been waiting for finally emerged.