“It wasn’t my fault, Dad.” It was a lackluster defense, one Miles had grown tired of repeating.
“It never is. All I’m saying is, it’d be helpful if I could stop ducking out of work to come get you.”
“I could ride my bike to school. It’d be safer than the bus, anyway.”
Mr. Taylor scoffed. “Not with the traffic in this town.”
“Traffic doesn’t stick chewed Bubble Yum on your seat.”
Miles glanced over at his dad, and for a moment they locked eyes. Both sets were the same bright shade of blue, a source of family pride that Mr. Taylor said went back four generations.
“You know, I was the new kid once,” he said. “We had to move because your grandpa changed jobs, so I started high school in a different county than my buddies. It wouldn’t have been so bad, but your grandma made me wear a tie on my first day.” His expression soured, as though he could taste the bad memory.
Miles chuckled. He couldn’t remember ever seeing his dad wear a necktie. Even his parents’ wedding photos showed them standing on the banks of the Chattahoochee River, both of them dressed in T-shirts, shorts, and sandals. The pastor wore canoeing attire, too, and after the ceremony they all went downriver together. “Did you get made fun of?”
“Shoot, yeah.” Mr. Taylor let out a long, slow whistle. “Fashion back then was faded jeans and hunting jackets. It didn’t last long, though.”
“How’d you get it to stop?”
“I busted Jimmy Grant’s nose playing dodgeball.” Mr. Taylor tapped his nose with one index finger and grinned. “Bull’s-eye.”
“I don’t have much of a throwing arm, Dad.” Miles slouched in his seat, hopelessness settling in. If sports were the only way to get the Jammer off his back, he was doomed.
The truck slowed to a stop at a red light, brakes squeaking. Mr. Taylor turned toward Miles. “I know life isn’t the way we want it right now. If you’d told me a year ago that we’d be where we are, I’d have called you crazy. But here we are, right?”
Miles shrugged.
“We’ll get things sorted out, son. You’ll see.”
The light turned green, and the truck shuddered as Mr. Taylor eased it ahead with the traffic. “Did you at least finish your homework? Or did you sit in detention like a bump on a pickle?”
“I got hung up on the math.” Truthfully, Miles hadn’t tried to do the day’s math assignment yet. Fractions drove him nuts.
Mr. Taylor raised an eyebrow suspiciously. “Well, you can take another crack at it while I work. There are some things that still need doing.”
Miles watched the city pass by outside his window. It was late October, the start of his mom’s favorite season. Every autumn, usually in mid-November, she’d pack a cooler with sandwiches and drinks, and they’d all drive north on I-75 to Chattanooga and back. She’d “ooh” and “aah” at the changing leaves, splashes of yellow and red and orange amid the evergreens lining the highway. Miles and his dad would scan the tree line to catch a glimpse of turkey or deer. He doubted he and his dad would make the drive alone this year.
Last time they’d talked on the phone, Miles’s mom had told him that in Hollywood coats were optional during the winter months, and the swimming pools stayed open year-round. Miles hadn’t thought to ask if the leaves that far south ever changed color at all.
• • •
They pulled into the downtown construction site just after five o’clock. A chain-link fence surrounded the site, and workers toting loaded tool belts and empty lunch buckets were filing through the gate and heading home for the night. Mr. Taylor drove up to the wooden security booth and rolled down his window.
Out of the booth stepped a security guard with a tarnished silver badge pinned to his shirt and a handheld radio clipped on his belt. He bent down and rested an elbow inside the truck’s window. “What’re you doing back, Hollis? I thought you knocked off already.”
“Tough job,” Mr. Taylor said. “I decided to bring in an outside expert.” He jabbed a thumb at Miles.
The guard looked over at Miles and smiled. “Going to help, huh? From what I hear, Hollis needs all the backup he can get.”
“Be nice, Cliff, or the power in your little house there might not be on tomorrow.”
Cliff laughed and waved them through.
Ever since he was little, Miles had been coming to work with his dad. Usually it was just a quick stop to install a new wall socket or replace some faulty wiring. Once, when Mr. Taylor was sent to change a ceiling fixture in a downtown high-rise, Miles got to sit in some big-time CEO’s chair.
Other times, like today, they went to construction sites, which were much more fun. Miles enjoyed exploring the skeletons of buildings before the drywall was hung, and there were always scraps of board and lengths of pipe for him to mess around with.
This particular site was a nearly completed concrete parking garage. Not as interesting as some of the other sites he’d been to, but Miles was optimistic he’d find some way to entertain himself until it was time to leave. He jumped down from the truck and bounded off, his eyes scanning the discarded building materials scattered over the ground for anything worthy of closer examination.
“Forgetting something?”
Miles turned to see his dad eyeing him sternly. His tool belt was already buckled around his waist, and in one hand he held his flashlight. With his other hand, he held forward Miles’s backpack, waiting for him to come take it.
“I’ll do my math when I get home,” Miles pleaded. “I swear.”
“Not a chance. You burned me with that one last time.”
Miles trudged over and followed his dad inside the ground floor of the garage. Mr. Taylor set the backpack down on a makeshift table fashioned from a section of plywood set across a pair of metal sawhorses. The table was coated in sawdust, and nails and empty soda bottles were strewn about.
“You can set up here,” Mr. Taylor said. He pulled over a battered, paint-splattered stool that, from the looks of it, had seen more construction sites in its lifetime than Miles had. “If you need me, I’ll be in the circuit breaker room at the other end of this level. I won’t be long.” Mr. Taylor walked off.
Miles plopped onto the stool. The days grew shorter in the early weeks of autumn, and downtown, where the sun hid behind the Atlanta skyscrapers, the days felt shorter still. He could barely make out the circuit breaker room hidden in the long shadows at the far end of the garage.
Miles took out his math book and opened it to the day’s assignment. The page was a mishmash of numerators and denominators. He sighed and reached into the backpack’s front pocket for a pencil.
boom
Thunder? Miles hadn’t seen any rain clouds on his way to the site. Storms often rolled in without warning in Georgia, but that usually happened during the spring and summer months.
Boom
The sound was getting closer. Maybe it was a C-130 cargo plane returning to Dobbins Air Reserve Base northwest of the city. The roar of a C-130’s engines could rattle your eardrums, especially downtown, where the concrete echoed the sound.
BOOM
The parking garage shook, sending dust down from the overhead beams. There was no way thunder was making that noise. A plane engine wasn’t, either. Miles rose from the stool, curious what the source might be. Besides, who could multiply fractions with all that racket going on?
B-BOOM!
The structure shook more violently, and this time the tremor was followed by a loud, metallic clang! It came from inside the garage, from the same area as the circuit breaker room.
“Dad!”
Miles ran to the room, worried his dad had fallen off a ladder. He saw bundles of rebar toppled over, pinning the door to the circuit breaker room closed. “Dad!” he shouted. “You okay?”
Mr. Taylor’s muffled voice yelled back from the other side of the door. “I’m fine. What in the heck is going on out there?”
“Everything just started shaking. Like
there was an earthquake or something.”
“This is Georgia, son. There aren’t any earthquakes. There’s probably a road crew grading the street.” Miles heard his dad shoulder the door.
wump
And again.
wump
“Why won’t the door open?” Mr. Taylor hollered in aggravation.
“There’s some rebar in the way.” Miles tried lifting one of the bundles, but it wouldn’t budge. “I can’t move it,” he grunted. “It’s too heavy.”
Mr. Taylor cursed under his breath. “All right. Don’t hurt yourself. Go to the guard shack and get Cliff. Then wait for me in the truck. I don’t want anything falling on your head.”
Miles walked back to the table and stuffed his math book into his backpack.
B-BOOOM!
The rumble nearly knocked Miles off his feet. He gripped the table to steady himself.
Miles should’ve done what his dad told him—ask Cliff for help and go to the truck where he’d be safe. But parking garages were safe, too, right? Garages like this one were built to support the weight of hundreds of cars. Thousands, even. What could be safer than that? Besides, if it was only a grader, there was nothing to be worried about. Miles just wanted to see for himself. The noise was so close . . .
B-BOOOM!!!
Miles slipped his backpack over his shoulders and stepped slowly toward the edge of the garage. He didn’t spot any road crews on the street. No graders, either. Maybe it was just a thunderstorm after all. He placed his hands on the short concrete wall and leaned out, so he could see the sky.
Miles stared at the old man lying where Gilded was only moments before. The battle against the creature had killed him. But how? Gilded couldn’t be killed. In all the years that he’d battled crooks and fires and floods, he’d never even been hurt.
Miles picked up the golden cape. The fabric—or whatever it was made of—vibrated lightly in his hands. Even with the garage cloaked in late-afternoon shadow, the cape glinted as though it was in the noonday sun. It didn’t reflect light; it emitted its own.
That’s when it dawned on Miles: Gilded wasn’t an experiment or an angel. He wasn’t even an alien, though today’s events were sure to convince people otherwise. He was human, and he always had been. He didn’t have powers. The cape did. And that meant—
“Hollis! Kid! You in here?”
Cliff’s voice snapped Miles out of his daydream. He was shaking with adrenaline. He threw off his backpack and tried putting the cape inside, but it was as long as a grown-up’s raincoat. It wouldn’t fit.
Cliff’s footsteps were getting closer. Any second he was going to discover Miles holding a supercharged poncho.
Miles didn’t have time to think. He flipped the backpack upside down and dumped his books on the ground. He crammed the cape inside and zipped the backpack closed.
“Hello?” Cliff called out again. “Anybody hear me?”
“Over here!” Miles shouted back.
Cliff hustled over. “Dang, kid. You coulda been killed.” He surveyed the pile of rubble, and when he saw the old man, his face went pale. When he saw the creature, it went paler. “You didn’t touch that thing, did you?”
Miles shook his head emphatically. “No way.”
Cliff fumbled at a small holster on his belt. He took out a canister of pepper spray and pointed it at the creature with a shaky hand. “Is it . . . dead?”
“I think so. It hasn’t moved.” Miles noticed dark green blood pooling around the creature, and his stomach rolled over. Apparently, the sight of monster blood made him queasy. “What is it?”
“It ain’t good. I can tell you that. Where’s your old man?”
“Trapped in the circuit breaker room. The door is blocked.”
Cliff started to return the pepper spray to its holster, glanced at the creature again, and then thought better of it. “Follow me,” he said, backing away. “Let’s go get him.”
Miles was frozen in place. Something about the creature’s dying expression filled him with dread. Its mouth hung open in a grotesque, jagged snarl that displayed its sharp, yellow fangs. He couldn’t tell if the expression was a grimace, or a grin.
“Come on, kid,” Cliff admonished. “Your dad wouldn’t like you near that thing.”
Fear sent a shiver down Miles’s backbone. He didn’t want to look at the creature anymore—he wanted to get as far away from it as possible—but he couldn’t stop staring. It was dead—Miles was sure of it—but it was as though he was worried it was only playing possum and would come back to life as soon as he turned away.
Miles took one last, lingering look. Then he hurried after Cliff, unable to shake the feeling that he’d come face-to-face with that snarl again.
CHAPTER
3
THE FIRE DEPARTMENT WAS FIRST on the scene. It took two men to free Mr. Taylor from the circuit breaker room, but not until after they’d spent a good, long while gawking at the dead creature. People trapped in rooms were a daily occurrence for firefighters. The carcass of a reptile-alien mash-up that had ridden into town on a flying sleigh? Not so much.
Mr. Taylor emerged from the room with a frown. He noticed the firefighters and the flashing lights of the ladder truck parked at the end of the garage. Embarrassed, he rubbed his face with one hand. “Sorry, guys,” he groaned. “I didn’t mean for my boy to call nine-one-one.”
One of the firefighters blinked. “Nobody called us. We’re here because of . . . well . . . because of that.” He turned and pointed back toward the rubble pile. Several firefighters were standing around the creature, debating what they were supposed to do next. One of them poked at it gingerly with a snapped-off length of two-by-four. Miles guessed that was as close to checking its vital signs as they were going to get.
Mr. Taylor’s mouth fell open. “What the . . .?”
“If you’re all right, we’re probably needed elsewhere.” The firefighter waited for Mr. Taylor to answer, then gave up and trotted off to join the others.
Miles followed as his dad walked slowly toward the creature. Outside the garage, police cars and fire engines were blocking off the parts of Peachtree Street that had been damaged in the attack. Paramedics loaded bandaged people into the backs of ambulances. Most of the injuries didn’t look too bad—after Gilded had arrived, the creature’s rage had shifted to him instead of the afternoon commuters—but it’d be a long time before downtown was fully repaired and back to normal.
Mr. Taylor wheeled on Miles suddenly. “This is why I told you to wait in the truck!” he yelled, as though he’d known all along that an extraterrestrial incursion was imminent and his pickup was the safest place in the universe. He grabbed Miles by the shoulders and spun him around, examining him from head to toe. “Anything broke?”
“I’m fine, Dad.” Miles could tell that his dad wasn’t mad. He was scared.
“Thank the Lord.” Relieved, Mr. Taylor let out a long exhale. “Trouble always seems to track you down, doesn’t it?”
Miles wanted to point out that, had he been allowed to do his homework later like he’d asked, he wouldn’t have been anywhere near where he was when the roof caved in. But before he had a chance, Cliff brought over an older, round-bellied man with a bald head and wire-rimmed glasses. He wore a dark blue uniform, not a fire suit and boots like the other firefighters.
“This the kid you were telling me about?” the man asked Cliff.
“That’s him. Name’s Miles Taylor.”
The man looked Miles in the eye. “Hello, Miles. I’m Fire Chief Malcolm Willingham. Can you tell me what happened here?”
Miles was taken aback. An adult asking for his side of the story? This was something new. “I was doing my homework,” he said. “I heard a loud noise coming from outside. I went over to look, and that’s when they crashed through the roof.”
“They?” Chief Willingham raised an eyebrow. “You mean Gilded and the, uh . . .” He waggled a hand in the creature’s direction, trying to come up
with a word for it. “You know.”
“Yes, sir.”
“What about the other guy? The old man. You see him?”
“No, sir.” Miles shifted his feet. “I mean, yeah, I saw him on the pile. But I didn’t see where he came from.”
Chief Willingham watched a pair of EMTs load the old man’s body onto a gurney. It was covered with a sheet, so Miles couldn’t see his face. Not that it mattered—he wouldn’t be forgetting that face anytime soon.
“He was on top of the rubble,” Chief Willingham said sadly, “so he probably came from one of the upper floors. We didn’t find any ID on him. Could be he’s homeless.”
“I’ve had to chase a few people out of here,” Cliff offered. “I don’t recognize him, though.”
Chief Willingham turned back to Miles. “And what about Gilded? He fly off?”
Miles grabbed the straps of his backpack, adjusting the weight on his shoulders. “Yeah. I mean, yes, sir.”
Chief Willingham patted Miles on the head. “Oh, I think we can forgive you for being a little informal. Frankly, I don’t think any of us know how to act right now. It’s been a . . . strange day.”
Mr. Taylor placed his hands on Miles’s shoulders. “If you don’t mind, I’d like to take my son home now.”
“Sure thing. But, Miles?” Chief Willingham’s expression softened into an easy smile. “Next time, do your homework at home. It’s safer.”
Miles was beginning to like this guy.
Miles and Mr. Taylor headed for the work truck. News helicopters from the local networks and even CNN—their headquarters was only a mile away—hovered overhead. They jockeyed for position in the sky, each of them trying to get a perfect shot down through the hole in the parking garage. If they weren’t careful, they were going to crash into one another and become part of the six-o’clock news, instead of just covering it.
As they were driving out of the construction site, Mr. Taylor had to swerve to make room for a line of army vehicles heading in the opposite direction. An olive-green Humvee was followed by more than a dozen transport trucks with canvas tops and armed soldiers seated in the back. The lead vehicle stopped, and a tall man in combat fatigues stepped out. He was thin and tanned, and his craggy face was punctuated by a bristly white mustache that hung above his upper lip like a bottle brush.