...And the Angel With Television Eyes by John Shirley

Author:John Shirley
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Night Shade Books
Published: 2015-01-15T16:00:00+00:00

Seven

Hurricane, Terrorist Attack, Flood Warning, Volcano! Bio-Warfare Attack, Tidal Wave, Tornado!

He cringed from claws of polished black metal; claws long as a man’s fingers and wickedly curved, slashing through the cab’s thin roof. The claws raked once, twice, three times, to peel the squealing metal back.

The cabby screamed, and angrily honking traffic parted as he swerved in an attempt to dislodge the thing.

Heart hammering, Max worked at a door to get it open but the swerving inertia of the car held it in place. The cab fishtailed, and slid sideways into oncoming traffic.

A bus pulled out from its stop and barreled right at them; traffic closed up tight on their right side, and the only way to avoid collision was to jump the curb to the sidewalk.

Max braced himself as the cabby slammed the taxi jarringly up onto the curb, so hard two tires burst, hissing.

The car skidded sideways and stopped against a fire hydrant. The driver bolted from the car, shouting in Punjabi...

And a swag-bellied, wide-eyed cop ran up, drew his gun...

Claws snatched at Max’s shoulders...

Max got a door open, managed to scramble onto the sidewalk. Something struck him hard between the shoulder blades. He staggered—and then was jerked backward by the icy digging in his shoulders. He howled with pain.

Steel claws tightened their grip, sinking more deeply into his flesh—and then lifted him off his feet. He could feel the muscles of his shoulders straining, threatening to tear.

The claws opened, releasing him, and he fell face down. He lay for a moment, gasping on his belly, knees and elbows stinging.

The daylight strobed around him, and Max had a choppy impression of something blue-black flapping above and behind. Felt a tugging at his belt, in back—and then he was lifted into the air, the clawed thing carrying him as if his Pierre Cardin belt was a luggage handle.

Hanging in limp shock from his belt he glimpsed more than one winged, flapping creature close by, but it was hard to think about any of it, in the paralysis of pain and terror as he was borne into the air over the sidewalk.

The cop was shouting, “What the fuck!”

Max was two, three, six yards, ten, and twenty yards above the concrete, spiraling upward. The clawed-open cab was small beneath him.

He heard a gunshot, thought he glimpsed the swag-bellied cop scurrying, a winged darkness descending blurrily on the man; a piteous scream.

The city whirled into a gray blur. Max heard the regular beat of powerful wings just above.

Even through the fog of pain, he thought: I’m too heavy. It’s not aerodynamically possible.

But he was carried higher still, the flying things making creaking, whipping sounds with their pinions. Otherwise, they were unnervingly silent—for the moment.

Max stopped struggling to free himself. If he broke loose now, he’d fall ten stories to the street. And it hurt to struggle; the throbbing pain from his lacerated back was bad enough.

He slumped like a rabbit in a hawk’s claws, hanging limply, humiliated in his powerlessness.

He saw two of the things flying below, now, just climbing into his line of sight.

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