"The Fallen" Excerpt

Chapter One

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.

“See you soon, Sawyer.”

“Lila, wait…”

Hanging up, Lila tossed the phone in her duffle bag. Rummaging through the bag, past the Mickey Mouse ears and an assortment of weapons, she found her Glock.

This exit strategy was like all her strategies - do whatever necessary to win.

Lila wasn’t sure why she took so long to see what was always in front of her. Maybe her confidence had wavered because of the itch and losing the villain? Yet her old arrogance roared back to life and her plan was clear. The villain’s escape ended now.

Hanging from the Mustang’s window, Lila took aim at the police cruiser bringing up the rear of the chase. Firing once, she watched the shot rip through the back tire, causing the cruiser to hobble to the divider. Giving the gas pedal a kick, Lila raced towards the army of cruisers ahead of her, dodging the ones she could and taking shots at those she couldn’t.

For a few minutes, chaos reigned as cars screeched and shuddered from the chase’s sudden shift. Once Lila spied God corralling the humans to safety behind her, she made a beeline for her fleeing villain.

Up ahead, the Taurus sped over a bridge with only a metal railing separating the road from the gorge below. Seeing her chance, Lila exchanged the Glock for a flare. She pressed the gas pedal to the ground and aimed for the Taurus.

While lighting the flare, Lila felt the itch’s presence growing again. In the rearview, she only spotted approaching police cars. Somewhere the itch lurked though, watching the chase play out. If Roman wanted to see what Lila was made of, she was happy to give him a show.

Roaring into the Taurus, the Mustang shoved both cars through the railing. Spiraling once, the Mustang landed atop the Taurus and smashed it into the ground. Lila’s flare ensured both cars soon burst into flames.

The fire billowed smoke high into the air, causing the choppers to back off from their bird’s eye views of the crash. As a legion of police cruisers lined the highway and their occupants stared down at the fiery mess below, the villain’s run for freedom came to an end.

And the itch’s job just got a little bit harder.