The New Kid (34 page)

The town would never be the same. Much of it had been decimated by the blast, including the high school, which had been totally obliterated. Moreover, the moral corruption that had swept through the town courtesy of the Black Prince had left such scars that most of the surviving uninfected people chose to move away. Natalie and Emily grieved over the loss of their parents—Natalie feared this last shock would be too much for Emily to handle but it
was as if so much had happened that they were both a little numb—and knew they would be among those who left. Will needed to pack up his laboratory and move on as well.

Will checked the Demon Trap and the warped visage of Rudy frozen inside as soon as he was back in the remains of his lab. Rudy had fallen to the Dark Lord but he was, after all, just a lonely little misguided kid who’d had a moment of weakness. After learning about Edward and about April’s mistake—and after nearly giving in himself—Will intimately understood how easy it was to succumb. Someday Will would figure out the antidote his father had used and release him from the Demon Trap, patch him up enough so that he’d be able to live some semblance of a normal life. Though he had a sneaky feeling that even if he “cured” Rudy, the little guy would always have a devilish streak in him. Besides, he couldn’t waste Rudy, he just couldn’t. The little guy was his friend. He actually had a friend now. A demon freak friend, but a friend.

And he had Natalie, and Emily—they seemed to come as a package deal. Will would have to protect them but he more than welcomed the challenge. Remembering Natalie with the tri-blade, he realized that with a little training—if Natalie wanted it—they might even be able to protect each other.

Will thought about Edward and wished he could have saved him. He would never forget Edward; Edward would always be his real father where it counted, deep inside his heart. And Will would make his killer—the beast that had violated April and sired Will—pay.

Will thought about his newly revealed “father” (how he detested using that word, how he hated even
thinking
he was the offspring of that creature). Teenagers were supposed to buck horns with their parents, but in Will’s case it had been taken to the extreme and there was surely more to come—a whole lot more. He suspected that the blast inside the cathedral had not been fatal to the Dark Lord and that they would meet again on the moral and physical fields of battle. Will
knew his fate was singular and extraordinary and he was doomed, some might say damned, to an existence of perpetual war.

But maybe he didn’t have to feel sorry for himself. Maybe being the son of the Devil could have its advantages. Who was to say he couldn’t use his demonic powers for good? No one could tell him what to do, he was free to follow his heart. And his heart told him that he had been given this gift for a purpose, and that purpose was to protect and defend those who were predominately good-hearted and pure. As for the others, those who would join forces with the Dark Lord to further their egotistic desires, well, they would have someone to answer to. And that someone was the New Kid.

Will packed up his crates for shipment, loaded Natalie and Emily into a car along with Rudy in the Demon Trap, and drove off in search of a new beginning.

Screenwriter/filmmaker Temple Mathews, a graduate of the University of Washington and a producer at the American Film Institute, has written dozens of half-hour animation TV episodes and several animated and live action features and direct-to-DVD and video films. Mr. Mathews has sold scripts and/or worked for hire at every major studio in Hollywood. His credits include the Walt Disney animated feature films
Return to Neverland
and
The Little Mermaid II
, and the MGM feature film
Picture This!
Mr. Mathews lives in Santa Monica with his daughter, Manon.

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination and are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

Copyright © 2009 by Temple Mathews

First BenBella Books Edition 2010

 

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eISBN : 978-1-935-61843-0

 

 

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