They rose swiftly up to about ten feet so they could swerve around busses and swoop right over the shocked, alarmed, and astonished crowds. The board wobbled like he was balancing on a ball and Dave saw his life flash before his eyes (which were so full of water he couldn’t see anything really clearly anyway). It took him a moment to wonder about that, amazed that the cliché was actually true, then he was back in the present trying not to die.

  “Please don’t dump me, be a good skateboard, fly real steady, okay? I’ll buy you new wheels…” Dave muttered through gritted teeth. Soon his jaw was aching.

  They whistled down the Hong Kong streets toward the bay. Pedestrians whipped out cameras despite the rain and started taking pictures that would end up on the internet in moments. Now he was going to be a Chinese YouTube superstar. Great. He could see the headlines now: American Skater Dude In Hong Kong, Ultimate Trick Revealed!

  “Oh god… this is such a shitty day… week… month… year…”

  He could see the twister coming down to a ferry that just left port. Now that he was closer, he saw the the twister was shrouded in a haze of darkness like a black spotlight, and there were evil faces and voices in it. He didn’t understand what the voices were saying, but it they boomed over the noise of the cars and the shouts of excited spectators.

  “There!” Dave pointed to the ferry, trusting Indigo to steer. They streaked toward the big double-decker boat just as it was departing, and performed the longest ever skateboard jump right onto its back. Ferry riders and pedestrians screamed and leapt out of the way.

  But he landed, skidded to a halt, and almost crashed into the wall of the big cabin.

  They’d made it. The van was somewhere down below in the innards of the big ship, along with a bunch of other cars, and Dave was on the pedestrian deck above.

  Dave grabbed the skateboard and smiled at all the people staring at him. Some kids pointed and jabbered at their parents in Cantonese, astonished. More pictures.

  Dave ignored his momentary fame. “Okay… so how are we going to do this, Blue? I mean, you probably know a lot more about fighting evil minions than I do. This skateboard doesn’t have pop out rocket launchers or something, does it?”

  Indigo was almost transparent now, barely a shadow, but Dave could still hear him. Barely. “No rocket launchers… look, Charis and her buddies are really powerful, they’re just really tired right now, but they can rain down hellfire if we just give them a chance. Our job will be to follow, see where they are, hide until we get the opportunity, then sneak in and get them loose or something. Or call for backup.

  “Remember, we have the Gateway looking for us and they’re a really powerful Team; Madrik would have gone to get them immediately so they have to be on their way here right now. The good guys are probably already in the city, back near that basement we arrived at. If we hadn’t wandered off so far from the drop point, we’d probably be home by now.” Indigo grumbled.

  Dave kept his eyes on the sky, trying to see where the oily nasty twister was touching down on the ferry ahead. He tried to drown out the chaos of the city, the lights and the mess, straining to pick out the voices and whispers of the tornado and make some sense of them.

  Indigo, almost to himself, kept talking with his fists on his hips, gazing out to sea. “They had all kinds of evil shadim with them… evil invisible guys I mean… which means there are probably several high-powered mazik in those vans. We’ll have to be real sneaky, stay hidden, lay low… I don’t want to have to rescue you too so I’m probably going to find you some place to stay put while I go for help.”

  Dave unfocused his eyes, simply gazing, ignoring what he saw as he concentrated on making sense of what he heard. It was like trying to hear a single conversation in the midst of a babbling crowd, but he thought he could hear the tornado speaking. Words in some evil language that only he, for some weird reason, could understand. He wondered why he hadn’t understood the people speaking in Cantonese if he could understand demon-speak. “Uh… something about a temple. You know anything about a temple?”

  “A temple? In China?” Indigo snorted and became intensely sarcastic. “Why would they mention a temple? Like there aren’t about two thousand of them in the local area…”

  “Athena’s court. Did I hear that right? Why the hell would evil sky dudes be talking about greek gods?”

  “Athena’s court? Maybe it’s a street name?”

  “In Hong Kong? It should be more like Mai Pow Poo alley.”

  “Hey, I don’t speak Chinese, Charis does!”

  Dave shot him a look of pure frustration. “You’re really useful, aren’t you?”

  “Well I saved YOUR ass,” Indigo scowled.

  “No, you jumped me in a bathroom. Maybe if you and I had been out there fighting we could have tipped the balance!”

  “Oh right,” Indigo crossed his arms, incredulous. “Are you kidding?? If I hadn’t gotten away when I did, you’d be tied up on the floor of a van probably knocked cold with tranks right now like the rest of them! Either that or they would have hosed you down with a semi-automatic!”

  “They’re tied up and tranked? Even Charis?” Dave looked even more upset.

  “Dude, even Mike is tied up! And he’s invisible!”

  “The invisible dude?” Dave paused for a moment, really impressed. “Wow. That’s gotta be some kind of duct tape.”

  Indigo gave him a sarcastic look. “Look, I’m actually physical just like you are, I just happen to be standing in another dimension from you. Me and Mike are both physical in our home dimension. Stop thinking like a civilian.”

  “So Mr. Physical, why don’t you get on your super angel cell phone, and call for help?”

  “I don’t have a cell phone, they don’t work in this plane because there’s no fucking satellites here! Charis does! Or did! Until you guys got the brilliant idea to get Lost, and let Lord Madrik keep it!”

  Dave growled with frustration, then peeked over the rail of the slow-moving ferry looking at it’s passengers. “Then we’ll have to find help the old fashioned way.” He wasn’t seeing any other guardian angels patting cute children’s heads or jamming to head phone music. Just a lot of normal people, some with demonic parasites. Just like San Francisco, just like every other city he’d been in.

  If you stumble upon this tale on Amazon, it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.

  He looked further afield. Back to the city. Toward their destination. He saw nothing good. No white lights, no dancing pale auras of virtue and propriety. “What, aren’t there any angels in Hong Kong?”

  “Look, as soon as we find out where the Yakuza are taking the Team, I have other ways of getting in contact with the good guys, okay? I don’t need a cell phone.”

  “Well, start doing it!” Dave continued searching for anybody remotely invisible, glowing, or weird. Other than the ever-present demons.

  “I can’t, I have to concentrate for a while to be able to do it! Just leave me alone and keep your eyes on where they are going, alright? Sheesh, do your job, and let me do mine!”

  “Do it already, and stop telling me what to do!” Dave snapped. Only then did he realize that people thought he was talking to himself. He glared at the other passengers, willing them to leave him alone. They were still filming him.

  Indigo gave up and rolled his eyes, turning this back on Dave.

  “Of all the people I get stuck with. A rent-an-angel. God, it’s worse than a rent-a-cop. Why did I have to get stuck with the secondhand angel, anyway?”

  “Secondhand!!” Indigo became totally offended. “What the hell makes you think I’m second rate??”

  “Well, I’m borrowing you from the girl you failed to protect, aren’t I?”

  Indigo smacked his palm against his forehead again.

  Dave looked up. “God, I can’t deal with this guy. Nobody can deal with this guy. Can You do something about him?” Then he went back to looking for angels. Honestly, in a city this size, there had to be SOMEBODY with glowing friends. Where the hell were they? “I don’t suppose you angel guys have like… a bat signal? Like, an invisible help me light you could shine up above the city or something?”

  “That would call more bad guys than good guys. Look, the way this works, the good guys probably already know there’s trouble and someone is being sent to help, okay? Just calm down and let’s do what we have to do, and let God take care of the rest!”

  “Easy for you to say! You’re a fucking angel! I was an atheist up until now! God is not on my speed dial!”

  It seemed to take forever to cross the bay, but eventually it happened. At least it stopped raining, leaving the sky glum and soggy and Dave wet to the bone. And still hot enough to sweat. By that time the other passengers had pressed as far away from Dave as they could get, leaving him in a tiny little clearing near the back rail. The normals escaped with anxious backward glances at him, all except for the teenaged girls who were filming the crazy American on their phones. Couldn’t he go anywhere without ending up on YouTube??

  He saw the van exit before the passengers were let off, driving into the city and along a hill. Grabbing Dusty’s board, Dave didn’t think; he leapt off of the side of the ship and willed the thing to fly. It didn’t. As he was falling he started to scream, and then Indigo landed on the board and pointed at it, making it take off. “You’re just a Normal!” Indigo shouted to Dave. “You can’t make an elogic Artifact work, so don’t leave me behind you idiot!”

  Dave gritted his teeth and said nothing. They flew after the van.

  The actual island of Hong Kong had some really nice buildings in this part of town. He flew past without really looking, stringing his eyes to keep up with the tornado. He was honestly never going to be able to watch the Wizard of OZ the same way again.

  The glass behemoths of Mankind’s achievements kept blocking the black tornado out, but he reacquired it and switched streets, following more directly. They headed up the hill. Some of the streets became confusing, losing him when they turned or became ramps, or became sudden right angles that blocked him from his goal. He leapt over rails and cars and kept flying, hearing brakes squeal and people shouting. An entire double-decker bus of passengers stared at him with mouths agape. More people pulled out cell phones and filmed him.

  He got lost three times, finally finding an onramp that led him to a freeway and through a tunnel that seemed to go on forever. It made him anxious that he could no longer see the tornado. Cars honked, the noise echoing dramatically in the concrete tube.

  “Oh my God! How long is this crappy tunnel??! I should have gone over the top!” Dave shouted, voice ripped away by the noise of wheels and the roaring echo. He couldn’t hear Indigo’s reply, even though he was right behind him.

  Finally they emerged in the misty hills of the island, and he saw it. The twister had left the road and headed for the top of a hill nearby. He followed, flying over tiny winding little streets lined with what were probably extremely expensive (if very small) houses. He kept following the tornado, passing increasingly fancy-looking townhouses, sometimes with a bank of trees on one side of the road or the other. The place stank of money. At least here there were fewer cars and no pedestrians.

  At last the tornado halted over a big white house that sat alone near the top of the hill, bolstered on all sides by concrete banks that followed the terrain, sloping down to the sidewalks. The concrete was wet, the trees at the top dripping.

  He couldn’t see much of the house, but he surged forward anyway. Indigo started yelling at him about being careful and guards, but he wasn’t listening. The finger of darkness that had been reaching down to the earth was now retreating hastily back up into the sky, fading away even as he looked for it.

  “No!” Dave shouted, bringing the skateboard to a halt at the edge of the house’s yard. Here he was totally alone, trapped in China with no money, a flying skateboard, and an annoying borrowed blue angel, up against the Yakuza and immortal supernatural evil. This week just kept getting better.

  Something screamed nearby. It didn’t sound human. Dave and Indigo looked up the hill together to see a set of three ancient lichen-covered standing stones in the midst of the gray concrete, carved with weird runes. In their shadow squatted several hairy little horned demons, shaking with fear at the sight of the angel.

  The tiny demons broke and ran, shrieking, and Indigo followed them like a shot with that big black sword out. He seemed to get a real kick out of chopping up tiny monsters. The sword slashed downward, and when it impacted the demons they all burst into blue flame and shriveled up into lumps of coal, shrieking horribly as they sank below the ground.

  “Argh!” Dave yelled with frustration at coming to the end of the road, finally jumping down off the skateboard beside the rock where the little demons had been hanging out. This seemed to be the end of the road. He had to agree with Indigo; it was probably stupid to charge the mansion. Who knew what was in there?

  “Whew, smell that?” Indigo wrinkled his nose, waving his hand in front of his face. “Demons really stink when you scorch them. Almost as bad as burning a roach.”

  “Jesus, Blue!” David gagged at the burning stench. “Stop making things stink! This is bad enough already!”

  They both look up at the slinky-tornado which was now very high and turning light gray, almost gone. “I wonder why the tornado of evil is just vanishing like that?” Dave asked no one.

  “I don’t think they went into the house,” Indigo said thoughtfully, looking at the three rocks. It appeared to be some kind of garden art or something. “I think they went through there,” he pointed at the rocks.

  Dave stared at the standing stones. “What?” He just didn’t get it. What the hell happened to the bad guys, where the hell was the van, what the hell was the slinky, and what the hell were these rocks about, and what the hell were they supposed to do now?

  “Come on,” Indigo hit Dave on the shoulder and jogged toward the stones.

  Dave slapped his face into his hands and attempted meditative relaxation breathing. Indigo was acting crazy again.

  “Hurry up! Do you want to let them get totally away?”

  Surely, it would start making sense. Any minute now. With that hope held firmly in his heart, he followed Indigo intending to look carefully around the rocks. “Don’t tell me there’s a secret doorway or a manhole or something… or God help us another rabbit hole…”

  “It’s best if you take these things running!” Indigo instructed, “and don’t worry if you see flashes of light and stuff, just keep your mouth shut and don’t yell and give us away, okay? As soon as we come out the other end, hit the deck and roll and look for somewhere to hide.”

  Dave stared at the rock as he quickly approached. At its carvings. All his knowledge of ancient languages; hieroglyphics, Sanskrit, Ancient Sumarian, and here he was shit out of luck, looking at little leering stone faces and super-ancient Chinese. One extinct language he didn’t know.

  He glared at the rocks, hating them.

  Just as they reached the rocks, Indigo grabbed Dave by the front of his cheap Super-Mart shirt and yanked him forward, right into the middle of the three stones.

  And just like that they were sucked into the sky.