Fire Prophet (Son of Angels) (20 page)
J
onah and David walked through the darkness toward the outline ahead. Eliza and Jeremiah were moving their legs twice as fast just to keep up.
“Hold on a sec, guys,” called Eliza.
Jonah turned but didn’t stop walking. “Why? I want to get there before he pulls away. You know how hard it would be to catch a cab at”—he looked at his watch—“three thirty in the morning?”
“Aren’t you forgetting something?” asked Eliza. “That we’re still in the hidden realm?”
Jonah stopped in his tracks. “Oh, you’re right,” he conceded, “it might be a good idea to jump back into the real world.”
“Not the ‘real world,’” Eliza corrected him. “I prefer ‘physical world.’ The hidden realm is just as real—no, it’s more real—than anything else.”
He held up his hands. “Okay, okay, Eliza. Let’s just do this.” He looked around. “And in the shadows over against that building, just in case anyone is watching.”
They moved beside the cool brick side of a brownstone and bowed their heads.
If any human had been watching carefully, they would have seen four kids materialize out of nowhere onto the city street.
They hurried along, trying to move from shadow to shadow, knowing they could now be spotted by humans too, until they came up beside the taxi.
They heard music coming out of the open window of the cab. There were sounds of a fast rhythm and a twangy guitar, along with a high voice singing along to the music in a language Jonah was unfamiliar with. He thought the music sounded Middle Eastern.
Jeremiah started bobbing his head. “Nice tunes!”
Jonah motioned for him to stop as he and David approached the driver. He was sitting with his elbow resting on the car door, his eyes closed, nodding his head to the music, smiling, singing, and tapping his right hand on the steering wheel.
Jonah cleared his throat. “Excuse me?”
The cab driver must have not heard him, too wrapped up in his music.
Eliza had no patience for this. She moved forward and rapped her fist on the roof of the cab. “Excuse me, taxi driver?”
He jumped and turned to look at whoever was beating on his car.
“Take it easy on the car now, please!”
He leaned his head forward to take a look at the four kids standing on the sidewalk in front of him. He had tan skin and a dark mustache. A brimless cap covered his head.
The driver sized them up for a few seconds, wearing an easy smile. “You kids are out past your bedtime. Do your parents know where you are?”
Jonah looked at his companions, then back at the cab driver. He decided quickly that ignoring the question might be the best plan. “We’re just trying to get somewhere and were hoping you could help us out.”
The cabbie eyed him carefully. He must have decided not to press his question further. Instead, he smiled wider, displaying bright white teeth, except for two that were gold. “Well then, my name is Sisera. And I am your man! There is no finer cab driver in New York City than me. Hop in, hop in!”
At that, he jumped out of the car and opened the back door of the cab. Several gold chains dangled around his neck, with large jewels and golden images attached to each.
“Nice chains!” Jeremiah said, staring at his necklaces.
“You, my tall friend, should sit up front with me,” the driver said to David.
Eliza cut her eyes toward Jonah, but he motioned her forward and into the taxi. The three of them slid across the backseat, Jeremiah in the middle, and Jonah slammed the door shut.
The cabbie adjusted his mirror so they could see his brown eyes. “Now then, where shall I take you tonight?”
“Alphabet City, please,” Jonah answered. He added, “We’re trying to get there as fast as we can.”
“It is a big area,” Sisera said. “Avenue A, B, C . . . ? East Fourteenth Street . . . East Second Street . . . somewhere in between?”
Jonah paused, looking at Eliza.
She leaned forward. “Fourteenth and A, please,” she said, glancing at Jonah and shrugging her shoulders.
They saw his eyes in the rearview mirror. “If you say so. Fourteenth and A it is.”
The cabbie eased onto the street in front of him. The music
was still on, and he actually leaned forward and turned it up, alternating between humming along with it and trying to talk to his passengers.
“Alphabet City,” he said, watching them in the mirror. “That is a strange part of New York to take four kids such as yourselves. What brings you there?”
Eliza looked at Jonah and shook her head. Jonah knew what she was saying—there was no need to share anything about what they were doing with anyone.
“We, uh . . .” Jonah struggled to come up with a story that sounded believable. “Our aunt lives there. She gets up really early. We’re visiting her today. And our friend David here . . . wants to meet her.” But David looked lost in his own thoughts. Like he was trying to figure something out or remember something he’d forgotten.
Jonah wasn’t sure his words sounded at all convincing. It wasn’t like him to tell a flat-out lie to anyone, and it made him uncomfortable. But he tried to nod and look the driver right back in the eyes.
The cabbie’s stare lingered on Jonah for a few seconds, and Jonah felt a bead of sweat pop out on his face.
He doesn’t believe me.
But then again, why should he care what the driver believed? As long as he got them to where they were going . . .
“Your aunt, huh?” he said, flashing his gold teeth again with a grin. “Don’t worry. I’ll get you there as fast as possible.”
He continued to hum as he drove, tapping his hand on the steering wheel.
They all seemed to loosen up after he had made a few turns.
“See, guys?” Jonah said, stretching his arm across the seat behind Jeremiah’s head. “We’ll be there in no time.”
The cab began to pick up speed. He figured the cabbie was making good on his promise to get them there fast.
But then the car began to move even faster.
“Excuse me, sir?” a worried Eliza asked. “Aren’t we moving a little too fast?”
Jonah’s mind flashed back to a wild cab ride they had taken with their parents several years ago in New York City, but he didn’t recall it being like this.
“What is the matter, young lady?” the cabbie said, his eyes suddenly wild in the mirror. “You don’t trust me to get you where you need to go?” And then he began to laugh loudly and sing along with the strange music even louder.
He began making turns that threw them up against the sides of the cab. Right, then left, and right again. It started to feel like he was turning to jostle them around as much as possible. Jeremiah was in the middle, getting smashed and yelling loudly.
“You’ve got to slow down! Sisera, what are you doing?” Jonah called out.
David had been silent for most of the ride, but Jonah’s words seemed to wake him from his thoughts. “Sisera!” he repeated.
But this only seemed to make the driver go faster still. They were now on a major thoroughfare, and he was weaving in and out of the other cars, easily going twice their speed or more. Jonah saw a string of four red lights ahead. Traffic was stopped at each one, but that didn’t mean anything to their driver. He ran every single red light, narrowly avoiding crossing cars and buses each time.
They were all yelling now, bouncing around the cab and on top of each other. The cabbie continued singing and laughing.
They hit a large bump in the road, and Jonah felt his head hit the cab ceiling.
“Ow!” he said, holding his hand to his head. When the cab slammed to the ground again, they were all on the floorboard.
Out of instinct, Jonah prayed himself into the hidden realm.
He was not prepared for what he found there. The cab around them was gone. Instead of the black seats, they were sitting on a hard wooden bench. The entire roof of the vehicle had disappeared. Jonah’s hand was bracing him on the cab door, but it was no longer a door. It was made of some kind of cold, grayish metal. It felt like iron.
In shock, he looked at the driver, who was still grinning and singing. His shirt had disappeared, exposing iron bands around his biceps and wrists. His hat morphed into an iron, dome-shaped helmet. He wasn’t holding a steering wheel any longer. Instead, he held reins in his hands, thrashing them fiercely. Attached to those reins was a team of four gray horses. They were charging ahead at full speed.
One of the horses turned its head back. Smoke billowed out of its nostrils, and Jonah saw that its eyes were as red as fire.
They weren’t really in a cab at all.
They were in a chariot.
It suddenly jerked to the left, and they were headed down a long, straight road. All of the lights were green now, at least. Sisera roared with a kind of twisted delight, and Jonah realized he must have found the road he was looking for.
The others must have seen that Jonah had disappeared into the hidden realm, and they quickly joined him. Jonah heard Eliza gasp as she realized that they were actually in an ancient vehicle.
“Sisera!” David cried out again. “I was trying to remember! The leader of the Canaanite army in the book of Judges!”
David reached for the reins but was swatted away, so hard that he slammed against the side of the chariot, dazed.
Jonah reached down to his side and drew his sword.
The Canaanite saw the glint of the angelblade reflecting a passing streetlight and swerved the chariot hard. Jonah flew across the laps of Jeremiah and Eliza again, his sword falling out of his grasp, clattering onto the floorboard. He scrambled down around Eliza’s feet, trying to pick it up. But every time he got close to the blade, the chariot swerved in another direction, sending him and his sword in opposite directions.
“Jonah!” screamed Eliza. “Get it, quick! I think we’re headed toward water!”
Jonah picked his head up from the floor and looked down the road. She was right. They were quickly coming to the end of this road. If they kept going straight, they were going to pass under a bridge. And then, on the other side, he could just make out the lights on a passing boat.
If this creature of the hidden realm had his way, they were all going to end up drowning.
David continued to try to fight Sisera but was getting nowhere. The strength of this driver was impressive.
Jonah narrowed his eyes, stretched down, and reached for the bouncing sword, but Sisera swerved yet again, and Jonah felt the hilt slide out from between his fingers.
“Come on, Jonah!” yelled an exasperated Eliza. Suddenly, she threw herself on the floorboard. A second later, she emerged with Jonah’s angelblade in her grasp.
The horses were under the bridge now, heading straight for a dock that extended into the wide East River. It seemed as though
they were traveling over a hundred miles an hour. In a few seconds, they would be hurled into the air.
Eliza was right behind the driver, Jonah’s sword in her hand.
“The river, Eliza!” David shouted. And then he pointed toward Sisera. “Do it!”
There was no time to hand the sword to Jonah. There was no more time to think.
She pointed the blade at the driver’s head and drove it into the temple of the Canaanite soldier. His scream pierced their ears, and he began to melt. In one last act of evil, he twisted his hands fiercely, even as they turned to liquid. He slapped the reins down as hard as he could, and the horses leaped. Sisera was nothing but a puddle. Eliza still held the sword, her mouth hanging open. But the chariot, having reached the dock now, had turned upward, flipping straight into the air.
Suddenly, Jonah, Eliza, Jeremiah, and David were ejected. Jonah spun upside down, unable to control his body. He could do nothing to brace himself for the impact of either the concrete of the dock or the cold, dark water below.
J
ust as Jonah had begun to say what he was sure would be a short and final prayer, he noticed a flash of light. He landed on the dock, right beside Jeremiah and Eliza. But instead of his body cracking against the hard surface, it felt like he had landed on a thick gym mat.
He looked up to see that Eliza had surrounded them all in her shield, forming it into a bubble of light. It encased all three of them.
But David had been too far away. He wasn’t in the shield with them.
The horses and the chariot had careened over the edge of the dock and down into the water below. Eliza dropped her arms, causing the shield to disappear, and they ran over to the edge. The water swirled and bubbled, but the chariot had sunk.
“What about David?” cried Jeremiah.
Jonah watched the water for another second but saw no signs of life. Pushing off his shoes, he poised on the edge of the dock.
“Jonah!” Eliza called out to him, but he didn’t have time to talk with her. He jumped down into the water.
It was colder than he expected, and murky. He tried to open his eyes, but he could barely see six inches in front of his face. The only thing he could do was kick his feet as hard as he could and reach down into the dark, dirty water.