Excerpt Copyrighted 2005 by KAT BROOKES
Not quite Heaven
�You must be Ryan Matthews,� a deep voice said, penetrating my dazed mind.
Damn my head hurt. I opened my eyes to find a pair of dark eyes staring back at me. Not happy ones, but I supposed they matched the angry expression I saw on the man�s face as he hovered over me.
�We don�t use that kind of language here,� he said, his voice low in warning. He was kind of a cross between Michael Jordan and Arnold Schwarzenegger. Tall and looking like he could kick some serious butt. I just hoped my butt wasn�t the one he was going to be kicking.
�Here?� I asked.
Where, exactly, was here? And how had I ended up on the floor? Better yet, where had all this mist come from that was swirling about around me?
It suddenly occurred to me what the giant had just said. I could have sworn I hadn�t cussed out loud. Or had I?
�You didn�t have to,� he said, smoothing the wrinkles out of the long white robe he wore draped around him.
�What?�
�Say it out loud,� he explained. �All you have to do is think it.�
All I had to do was think it? Yeah right. Like he was some kind of mind reader or something. This guy was definitely off his rocker. Despite the man�s intimidating presence, I burst out laughing.
�I�m not crazy,� he assured me and the laughter caught in my throat.
How did he do that? I decided to try it again. Looking up at the glowering giant, I thought with a smile - Your momma wears army boots.
�Not anymore,� he replied. �But she used to.�
I shot upright and did the fastest backward crab crawl ever attempted by a human. �H...how�d you do that?�
He smiled, apparently finding humor in my moment of spinelessness. �It comes with the job.�
The job?
�What are you? Some kind of C.I.A. agent or something?�
�I work for GOD.�
G.O.D.? I had never heard of that organization before. Probably a government operation. One that was really top secret. So what did this guy do? I wondered, my curiosity getting the better of me. Kill people?
Laughter reverberated in the robed man�s chest. �The government has nothing to do with my job. And it just so happens that people are already dead by the time I get them.�
There he went again, reading my thoughts. I wished he�d stop that. It was giving me the creeps. �W...what do you mean they�re already dead when they get to you?� This was the weirdest conversation I�d ever had in my life.
The man took a step back and motioned toward a sprawling golden gate behind him, one I could have sworn wasn�t there just a moment before. �I�m one of the keepers of Heaven�s Gate.�
�Heaven�s Gate?�
My thoughts went back to my prized possession, a 1988 Mazda RX-7 that I had bought and rebuilt with the money I�d earned delivering pizzas after school. The same car I�d been flying down the highway in earlier. The faster the better as far as I was concerned. And there was that dog that had come out of nowhere. The one I�d swerved to avoid hitting.
The man nodded.
�You mean I�m...� I couldn�t bring myself to say the words.
�Dead,� he finished for me with a confirming nod.
Dead at sixteen.
�Damn.�
The gate guard arched a dark brow.
�Darn,� I quickly amended with a deepening frown. �And my car?�
�Scrap metal.�
