Dr. Whittier snatched the stone and dropped it into his pocket, but when Bonnie turned to go back to her seat, he stepped forward and grabbed her from behind with his left arm, gripping her tightly while holding the gun to her head. Both the girl and the slayer scrunched over, with Bonnie’s hidden wings squeezed between their bodies. She let out a single painful grunt, but she didn’t struggle.
“Now, open the cargo door,” the slayer demanded.
Billy’s dad took a heavy step forward and stopped, keeping his eye on Dr. Whittier’s gun hand. “You said you wouldn’t shoot anyone else. That gun could go off!”
“It won’t if you cooperate.”
He turned toward the front. “Think you can hold Merlin while I open the door? It’ll get real bumpy.”
“I think so.” Billy tried to act confident, but he wasn’t really sure he could hold the plane. He considered jerking Merlin with a sudden tilt, hoping his father could take advantage of the surprise, but he was afraid it might make the slayer angry enough to shoot everyone.
Billy’s father stepped around the slayer and threw open the door. A stiff, frigid breeze buffeted the three in the rear of the plane while Merlin bounced angrily. Billy held the copilot’s yoke and kept glancing toward the rear. His mother had risen from her crouch, and with the extra light pouring in, he could see the silent fear in her eyes as she stared at him as if crying for help. He could also see the parachute on Dr. Whittier’s back. It looked familiar, like one of the stock parachutes from the hangar.
With a maniacal grin, the slayer pointed the gun toward the cockpit and fired toward the front of the plane. Billy threw his body to the right, away from the line of fire. Each crack of the gun popped in his ears like a firecracker.
Pow! One bullet hit the windshield, drilling a precise hole through the glass and sending crooked streaks in every direction. Clank! Clank! More bullets plowed into the instrument panel, bending and breaking the metal and plastic gauges. Thump! A fourth bullet ripped through the carpet and lodged somewhere under the floor.
As soon as the gun went silent, Billy jerked back up in his seat and tried to hold the bucking plane in check. After a slight adjustment to the left, however, Merlin yawed and kept leaning more and more to the left while slowly losing altitude. “Dad,” Billy yelled, “I can’t correct.” A cloud of gray smoke erupted from the left side of the panel while he struggled to maintain control. “We’re gonna crash!” His father took a step toward the front of the plane to help.
“Halt, foul dragon!” the slayer commanded, causing his enemy to turn toward him once again. The slayer pointed the gun directly at his chest. “This bullet’s for you, Clefspeare. The twelfth of the council finally meets his end.”
The gun sounded again, and the bullet smashed into the former dragon’s body, slamming him against the cabin wall.
“Dad!”
“Jared!”
Neither Billy nor his mom dared to move.
“I must be going now,” the slayer said while bracing against the plane’s slow spiraling turn. “Of course I’ll have to take the witch with me. She could just jump and fly away. We can’t have that happen.” The slayer dragged Bonnie to the open door. After first leaning over to look below, he hoisted Bonnie up off her feet and jumped. Without a sound, they disappeared into the open sky.
Billy’s mother leaped from her seat and scrambled to her husband’s side. She put her hand on his heaving chest. Her voice trembled, each word barely escaping in tightened squeaks. “How—How b—bad is it?”
He opened his eyes halfway, and his wincing face breathed out a tortured reply. “Very.”
She ripped open his shirt and grimaced at the wound.
Billy grabbed the radio handset, squeezed the talk button, and shouted into it. “Emergency! If anyone can hear me; plane in trouble, pilot shot and can’t operate. We’re losing altitude, big time. I can’t do anything with the controls.” Billy let go of the button and leaned over to listen, but all he could hear was static. He slapped the handset back in place and moaned, “The bullets must’ve killed it.” He waited a couple of anxious seconds, staring at the radio, his heart pounding, his chest heaving through rapid, shallow breaths. C’mon radio! Work!
“What’s your position?” came a faint, scratchy reply.
Billy snatched the radio again and squeezed the button. He coughed. His words squeaked through his swollen throat. “I’m—I’m not sure. We were flying—I mean, we were heading for Huntington, coming from Ca—Castlewood. We had over a hun—hundred miles to go.” Billy’s throat pressure eased, and he kept on talking in case he didn’t get another chance. “We’re in a Cessna Caravan, two adults and one teenager. The shooter is Dr. Whittier, the principal from Castlewood. He jumped with a parachute and carried another teenager with him. Her name is Bonnie Silver.”
Billy waited for a reply but could only hear static once again. He looked back at his father. His mother crouched over his dad’s quivering frame, and she pressed a towel on the wound. Blood oozed through the towel and over his mother’s fingers. Dad’s blood!
Billy’s throat tightened again. He squeezed his eyes half-closed, fighting the tears. His father . . . his dad . . . lay mortally wounded. The tears flowed. There was no way to stop them.
His mother rocked her body and nodded her head in rhythm with her sobs and the bounces of the plane. “Jared,” she cried. “I don’t know what to do. Help me.”
He breathed out a faint whisper, his voice gurgling as he spoke. “Para . . . chute . . . behind . . . seat. You . . . and . . . Billy.”
She jerked her head around and yelled. “Billy, check behind Dad’s seat! Is there a parachute?”
Billy jumped up and lunged toward the rear of the pilot’s seat. He could barely choke out a reply. “Yes!” he said, desperately trying to hold back his sobs.
His mother’s expression softened and her tone calmed. “Bring it here . . . please.”
Billy had found the chute in a space behind and under the seat. It was stuffed in tightly, but a quick tug dislodged it. There was no use trying to steer the plane, so he left the cockpit and brought the bundle to his mother. With one hand on her husband’s wound, she used her free hand to fumble with the parachute straps.
“Do you know how it goes on?” she asked.
Billy took the chute again and separated the straps. With his heart racing, he stumbled through his words. “I’ve seen—seen Dad’s jumpers put them on. . . . H—Here.” His mother had to release the pressure on her husband’s chest while Billy hoisted the pack over her shoulders and tightened the straps. “It’s just an emergency chute,” Billy explained, “there’s—there’s no backup.”
“It’ll have to do. Do you know what to pull?”
Her calm demeanor helped him speak more easily. “Yes. We’ll have to hold each other, but I’ll be able to reach the cord.”
Billy’s mom leaned over and caressed her husband’s face with a tender, open palm.
He whispered into her ear. “No . . . time for . . . good-byes. I can’t . . . die yet. The prophecy . . . must be fulfilled.”
Two large tears splashed onto his chest, mingling with the spreading blood that had painted his shirt crimson. She kissed him, her trembling lips only managing a weak peck on his deathly pallid cheek. Billy helped her to her feet, and the two crossed the few steps to the open door. The wind buffeted their faces and dried their streaming tears.
Billy and his mom grasped each other. He felt her arms squeezing tightly around his back, and he held the ripcord with his right hand while wrapping his left arm around her shoulders.
He tried to stop trembling, but even his mother’s tight embrace did little to calm him now. Was his fear for his father’s safety or for his impending jump? He honestly couldn’t tell; everything he had ever known was falling apart before his eyes, and so quickly that he couldn’t take it all in.
His mother’s soothing voice whispered in his ear. “Don’t be afraid, Billy. We can do this.”<
br />
His only answer was a tighter squeeze with his arm, and he laid his head down on her shoulder. With his mouth so near her neck, he didn’t want to risk burning her skin. He really had no idea what to say, anyway.
Billy looked back at his father’s writhing body. He could barely spit out the words, but his emotions forced his shaking voice to push forth his tearful lament. “Good—good-bye, Dad. I—I love you!”
There was no answer. His father’s tall frame lay deathly still.
After briefly looking down at the slowly spinning cloud bank, they jumped.
Let me go!” Bonnie screamed. Although the rushing wind drowned out her cry, her struggling arms and kicking feet relayed the message.
The slayer shouted into her ear. “I should have known you’d be strong.” He held her tightly from behind, both his arms wrapped around hers. The parachute had already opened, and they had penetrated and passed the gray wall of clouds that acted as a blanket to hide the ground below. Now they could see a mass of dense treetops drawing closer, and the shifting wind made their eventual landing point impossible to predict. With each heavy gust, the wind jerked the chute, dragging Bonnie and the slayer at random angles, and the slayer had to reposition his arms to keep his prisoner in check.
Bonnie decided to rest for a few seconds. She had to gather her strength to be ready to kick and struggle with all her might at the next gust of wind. Maybe, just maybe . . .
She didn’t have to wait long. A gust hit the chute and threw it to the side, and just as she sensed the pull, Bonnie thrust her elbows into the slayer’s ribs and bit his right hand. With a mighty two-legged kick and another thrust with her elbows, she felt his grasp slip over her head. She was free . . . and falling.
She tried to flap her wings. She was almost in flying position, facedown and body in a horizontal spread, but something was wrong. Somehow her wings were stuck. The sweater! She was still wearing the sweater! She reached down and yanked at the hem, trying to rip it over her wings in the back. The trees raced toward her from below. The stinging air brought tears streaming back toward her temples. In a few seconds her body would be dashed against the branches.
She pulled at the front of the sweater and snatched it over her head, then after two quick tugs, each arm was free. She wasn’t able to reach to her back, so she flapped her wings ferociously, hoping they would throw off the sweater. The trees were so close, she could distinguish individual twigs, and she could almost feel sharp branches thrusting into her body, impaling her, leaving her dangling as a morbid decoration in the lonely forest.
She flapped again with all her might, knowing the next second would bring the first stabbing knife. A splash of color rushed at her face. Branches scraped her legs, snagging and pulling her jeans as her failing wings thrust her body horizontally across the deadly spikes. A stream of twigs and leaves flashed by her eyes, threatening to slice her face. “Ohhhh! Help!” With a pain-filled gasp she pulled through a desperation flap. She caught a gust of wind and vaulted just above the treetops.
Pain stabbed the top of her left wing near her back. The outside half collapsed, spinning her to one side. Spying a narrow gap in the trees, Bonnie lunged for it. After brushing against an outstretched hickory branch with her injured wing, she swerved to avoid the other wooden spears and fly into the treeless gap, a rainwater trench in the mountain slope.
Bonnie spread her wings to slow her descent and hoped for the best. Barely missing a few more protruding limbs, she resembled a huge falling leaf, zigzagging downward on the ever-shifting cushion of air. Finally, she crash-landed into the trench, tumbling forward along the downslope, face-first into the dense floor of decaying leaves.
Chapter 12
THE CHASE
It’s okay, Mom. The parachute opened. We’re going to be all right.” Billy’s voice trembled as he whispered into his mother’s ear while trying to avoid breathing on her. He was locked tightly in her arms, and he had his own arms wrapped around her, careful to avoid the parachute lines.
She didn’t answer. Billy followed her line of sight and spied their falling plane, still making a spiraling descent. Since they were now floating more slowly downward, the plane passed them by, missing them by several hundred feet. As the wind blew them in the opposite direction, Merlin grew smaller, and the tiny airplane disappeared into the trees, hundreds of yards away. Billy’s mother stifled a sob, and he could feel her arms grow ever stronger around him. “He said he wouldn’t die, Mom,” Billy said tenderly. “I believe him.”
“I do, too, honey. If I didn’t, I don’t know what I’d do.”
They stayed quiet for a few moments, but their reverie was cut short. The treetops below rushed toward them, their spiny fingers reaching to catch their prey. “Mom,” Billy called out. “It looks like we could get scratched up.”
“Close your eyes and pray!” They both squeezed their eyes shut and hoped for a narrow, vertical entry into the forest. The idea seemed to work. Billy felt twigs lightly scratching his arms, and he heard the pops and groans of bending branches, but he felt no pain. A strong tug from above and a swinging sensation finally signaled the end of their fall.
Billy opened his eyes and looked around. They were suspended in midair! Their parachute had entangled itself in the arms of a tall oak tree, actually two trees that grew side by side, and the two jumpers, still clutching one another, bobbed slowly up and down like a dying yo-yo.
His mom spoke up first. “Now how are we going to get down from here?”
Billy looked below. There was nothing between him and the ground except for a few skinny limbs that were much too far away to reach safely. “I’d guess we’re about fifty feet up. Too high to jump.” He looked around again. Since he couldn’t point, he had to gesture with a nod of his head. “But if we can swing to my right, toward the big tree over there, I might be able to catch that branch and drop to the limb just below it. Then maybe I could pull you toward it.”
She clenched her teeth. “I see it. It looks too dangerous.”
“Do we have any choice?”
“I guess not.”
At first they moved in opposite directions, but within a few seconds they were rocking in sync, waving back and forth, suspended in space. Their motions sent a cascade of leaves raining down on their heads, the stubborn ones that had not yet succumbed to the cold weather. Billy heard a slight cracking sound from above, but the branches held firm.
Billy and his mom pulled and pushed through a fourth swing, then a fifth, drawing closer and closer to the protruding branch. They spun around like a twirling pendulum, first clockwise until the parachute lines wound up, and then counter-clockwise. Billy wondered if he would be closer to the branch than his mother would when the time came to make a lunge for it. Would he have to reach in front of himself and around her or would his back be toward it?
The cracking sound grew louder. On their next swing the branch came within reach, directly behind him. He released his mother with his hands but kept a firm grip on her with his legs as he twisted to stretch toward his target. There was no room for error. The slightest miscalculation would send him downward, dangling with his legs around his mother’s hips, at best, and at worst, diving headfirst into who knows what below. He reached high, knowing he would start falling as soon as he let go of his mother, and he thrust his whole body outward.
He did it! His hands struck the branch! His left hand slipped away, but he hung on with his right, stubbornly refusing to lose this chance. A loud pop sounded from above and a dozen small crackles. “I got it, Mom!” he grunted.
“You’ll never make it unless you let me go!” she called back.
“Okay. I’ll drop down to the limb and you can swing back to me.” He pulled with his right arm and threw his left hand up again to get a double grasp on the branch, then, after releasing the scissors grip he held on his mom with his legs, he yanked his body upward to get a better hold. His fingers screamed in pain as the extra weight dug the bark deeper into hi
s hands.
He spun his head to see his mother swinging wildly away in the other direction. The branches snapped her up higher, and when she came back down, they finally gave way, sending her plummeting toward the ground. Billy could only watch in terror as she alternately fell and stopped with each snag of the parachute. Her legs swiped against small branches twice, but her head cleared all the deadly obstacles. She finally reached bottom with a sickening thud, and Billy leaned forward to try to see through the tangled mesh of woods.
Still dangling, he screamed toward the ground. “Mom! Can you hear me? Are you all right?”
There was no answer.
He had no time to lose. He had to get down, now! But how? That limb underneath was close, but not close enough. Dropping straight down to it was possible, but if he missed, the next step was about another fifty feet away, ground zero . . . and zero chance of surviving.
Ouch! My fingers! They’re slipping. Gotta go for it.
He let go with his left hand and watched his shoes stretch for the limb, maybe five feet down. Here goes! He released the branch, and when his shoes slapped against the limb, he bent his knees to absorb the shock. With a quick turn toward the tree, he dropped down to straddle the limb and then slid his body across the bark until he could grab the trunk.
He took a deep breath and rested, but just for a second. There was no time for a break. He looked down. The trunk stretched to the forest floor without more than a gall and a few knots in its rough skin, hardly anything to grab with his hands or to use for foot support.
With a surge of adrenaline, he hugged the supporting limb, swung down, and clutched the trunk with his legs, giving him the grip he needed to release the limb and wrap both arms around the tree’s middle section. From there, he shinnied down the trunk like a monkey racing down a palm tree. A sharp knot dug through the skin of his hand, sending a trickle of blood into his palm, but he couldn’t worry about minor wounds—not now.