Guardians
an excerpt

A hole smoked in the ground where a picnic table used to be just moments ago. And someone cried out in pain. Nicole gasped, "Oh, God, no!" and she ran toward the hole. "I'm coming! Hold on!"

Blackened grass stubble cracked beneath her feet, and the person wailed with such agony that Nicole stumbled as she clambered up the impact ring, a layer of glass over dirt. When she got to the top of the ring it crumbled under her weight and dropped her into the hole, almost on top of a man. He groaned as dirt, rock and bits of glass fell on him, but Nicole scrabbled frantically and managed to stop her slide.

He glowed. Dimly, but enough to light the deep shadow of the hole. Enough for Nicole to see the way his bones stuck out of his mangled arm. Enough to see the red, weeping, black-edged wounds all over his body. Light enough to see the gaping hole in his gut. And he was looking at her.

"It's okay," she said, but had to shut her mouth and swallow against rising bile. She tried just looking at his face, which wasn't as messed up as the rest of him. His eyes blazed and she couldn't look away until he closed them. Now was not the time for nausea. This guy was going to die if she didn't pull herself together. "I'll call for help," she told him, but he reached out with his good hand and croaked, "No."

His touch burned and she flinched. "I have to call someone – " His grip tightened on her arm at the same time she curled her fingers around the pieces of her cell phone. She took her hand out of her pocket and patted his hand, hoping he'd loosen his grip. It stung and tingled, like putting cold feet into hot water. "I'm sorry," she said. "My phone's broken. I'll have to go get someone."

"No!" He didn't croak that time, and his grip tightened until she thought his fingerprints would be left as scorched bruises in her flesh.

"Let go," she said and pried at his fingers. "It's all right, I run fast. I'll run to the nearest house, make the call and come right back for you."

He opened his eyes and loosened his grip a little. "I'm sorry. I don't mean to hurt you." His eyes fluttered closed again. "There's nothing you can do ... except ... "

His light dimmed and flickered. Nicole touched his face. "Don't give up. I'll get help, I promise."

"No. It's too late." He scrabbled one handed at the collar of his shirt and pulled an ornate jeweled and gold necklace off his throat. "Take this." He thrust it into her hand and closed his hand around her fist. "Take it. Don't let them get it." He glowed brighter, his eyes blazed and his grip burned. "Guard it well. They've killed me to get this. Keep it from them. Do you hear me?"

"Y – yes! Yes!"

"I'm so sorry." His eyes closed and tears sizzled down his face. "Run, now, before they know you're here. They won't be held off for long. Tell no one. Keep the collar safe and give it only to Michael. You'll know him."

"Which Michael?" she asked. "I know four!"

But the light in him winked out and his hand slid, lifeless, from her own, while at the same instant she *felt* him get up, brush past her, and go away. She shivered in the very core of her body and scrabbled out of the hole, sobbing. She'd never been so close to a dead person before, never been present when someone died, and the sense of this man, utterly gone, upset her horribly.

Only when she got out of the hole and the cool night breeze lifted her hair and blew through her torn clothes did Nicole realize how hot and stuffy it had been ... down there ... with the no-longer-glowing dead man. The brawl in the sky continued, nearer and noisier, full of thunder and shouting.

Someone – or something – up there killed the man who held her hand as he died. The man who gave her a necklace and told her to hide it from ... those lights in the sky drawing closer and closer ...