The answering voice came from flight control over the radio: “Roger. Incoming. Course set to niner-eight-four-niner.”
All at once, four surface-to-air missiles launched from a tactical battleship in the strike group with the aircraft carrier, leaving wispy jet trails as they flashed toward their target. At the same time the jet spiraled to follow the demon and launched another missile its way.
The Dark Angel only had a half second to look sideways, its expression almost curious. First the jet’s rocket struck, and then, a split second later, the ship’s missiles seared the sky and collided with the demon as it skimmed along the surface of the ocean. One shot after the other. BOOMBOOMBOOM BOOMBOOM.
The force of the explosions was visible in the orange fire below, which flared back in the tinted glass of the pilots’ helmets
.
“Target hit. Bull’s-eye,” the pilot confirmed.
“Did it work? Did it work?” The copilot’s voice was calling frantically. The F-18 circled around, and from the billowing smoke of the explosion, not a demon was seen. Only a disturbance in the water where the flaming wreckage of the missile lay.
“Roger that,” the pilot said coolly.
“Holy crap, it worked! We got the bastard! Giant Killer, we have downed our first Dark Angel,” the copilot said. “Ha-ha!”
Screaming against the g-forces, the jet banked backward, away from where they had struck at the demon.
The navigator checked his green radar screen. “Giant Killer, looks like we have three bogies on radar. Hell’s bells, this is going to be fun.”
Suddenly, behind the jet, the demon that had been struck by the missiles emerged from the water. And it looked angry.
“Pull up, pull up, pull up!” the copilot screamed. “Bogey is back, bogey is ba—”
In what seemed like a mere blink of an eye, the Dark Angel was on the jet, colliding in a cataclysm of fire and fury against the wing. Jet fuel incinerated as the aircraft crumpled into destruction. The demon continued flying up even as the fiery wreckage of what once was a mighty fighter jet arced toward the ocean at 200 miles per hour. The flaming ball impacted the blue-green surface so immediately that it appeared as if it had hit concrete. It shattered instantly into a million pieces, taking the lives of the pilots along with it.
“Do you read, over? Do you read, over? Dammit, Trav, answer me!” the control tower called from the carrier.
But there was no answer.
From the sinkhole, even more demons began to rise, circling.
They looked to Angel City.
• • •
Maddy’s gaze was focused on a small fly on the inside of the kitchen window. The insect beat itself against the glass as if striving for the sun outside, launching itself again and again, its wings flapping more desperately now. Even though it was a few feet away, this fly seemed to take up every inch of Maddy’s field of vision. Suddenly, the bright sun outside dimmed dramatically until it cast off the glow of a very red sunset. But it was still two in the afternoon, hours from dusk. The fly was now bathed in a bloodred light as it even more frantically tried to escape, too insignificant to realize it was trapped inside the glass. Maddy was transfixed.
The earth shook again, snapping her out of her reverie.
“Maddy!” Kevin shouted as a cupboard door swung open and a stack of plates was hurled toward her. He pushed Maddy out of the way as the plates smashed to pieces on the linoleum.
They were coming. She’d had the vision of the demon bearing down upon her, so strong that she was still reeling, only half-conscious to this world, the real one. That image of the Dark Angel was burned into her mind, still appearing before her in a slightly faded form, like the trace of bright light that followed everywhere she looked. A nauseating pit had been dug into her stomach, settling in with a hollow, sickly feeling.
Turning toward the window again, Maddy realized that her mind hadn’t been playing tricks on her; the sky really had taken on a sunset-red hue. She had a bad feeling that this wasn’t going to be the strangest thing she saw all day.
The earth shook again.
“Kevin! Listen to me! You have to stay inside like we planned,” Maddy shouted, adrenaline rushing upon her.
“What? Where are you going?” Kevin asked.
“I have something to do,” Maddy said.
“Maddy!” Kevin yelled as she dashed to the back door. Without another word, she was gone.
With bounding strides Maddy rounded the large oak she loved from her childhood to get to the front of the house. She peered into the distance and, with a sinking heart, saw activity across the darkening ocean horizon.