Chase the Devil

Prologue
     Tump, tump, tump; the sound of boots running across a roof.  It’s the middle of the night and the full blood-colored moon is massive above.  Someone is chasing him; relentless in their pursuit.  The air burned in his lungs as he kept moving forward.  Forward, forward; don’t stop running.
     “Freeze; stop running!” the chaser calls out.
      He doesn’t answer back; just keeps running.  The roofs are coming to an end; he’ll have to stop if he doesn’t want to fall to his death.  The distance to the edge is lessening; forty feet and closing.  Thirty feet.  Twenty feet.  Ten feet.  And then he skids to a stop; the end of the roof inches away.
    “Come on, if you testify against the other members, the DA will give you a deal,” the chaser yells.  He, the runner, grins with all teeth; the moon’s bloody light reflecting off his eyes; the wind blowing his hair wildly.  All came together to give the runner the appearance of the Devil.
     The runner turned towards the chaser as he spoke, “Can you beat me in a game of Chase the Devil?  Catch me if you can.”  The runner spread his arms and let gravity pull him off the roof.  The chaser ran forward and…
     BANG!!
    A gunshot rang through the air…
    RIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIINNNNNGGGGGGG!!
    Zeke Magi Arcanum’s head shot up with the Ending Bell.  The final period of his eighth grade year and he had slept through it.  Zeke groaned as stood and popped all the kinks out of his back; he looked towards his childhood friend, “Ready to go yet, Maddy?”
    Maddy looked over at him with mock annoyance, “You’ve got to be kidding me; I would have left ten minutes ago if you hadn’t been asleep.”  Maddy’s pose was one of over enunciation: hands on her hips, chin tilted downward, and eyes squinted in a glare; combined with Maddy’s “hot mama” body, she tended to look like a dominatrix – minus the whip.  Zeke smiled nervously up at her (he was a good five inches shorter); whenever Maddy gave him “The Look,” Zeke knew he was in trouble.
    “Weeeeeell, what are you waiting for, Maddy; let’s go!” Zeke ran out of the room at warp speed.  Zeke, too worried about an angry Maddy, wasn’t keeping his eyes in front of him and… CRASH…ran face first into a solid wall of muscled chest.  He blinked a few times before focusing onto what semi he had been run over by and saw that it was, in fact, a high school male; a rather handsome display of a masculine high school male, at that.  The male in question was staring down at Zeke, rubbing the spot that Zeke must have run into.
    “Zeke!  ZEEEEKEEEE!!!  GET YOUR SKINNY, HALF-WHITE ASS BACK HERE NOW!!!!” an extremely angry Maddy screamed at the top of her Opera-strength lungs.  
     Zeke winced, “Sorry I ran into, but I gotta go; angry Irish-Black woman on my tail.  Bye-bye!” and the Road Runner of Saturday Cartoon Legends, he was off with a “meep-meep.”  This earned a strange look from the high school male.  A few seconds later, Maddy ran up, slightly out of breath and asked, “Did a half-white kid looking terrified run by?”  She received a mute nod and a finger pointing at a ninety-degree angle of the direction Zeke ran in.  A quick “thank you” and Maddy took off.  A few minutes of fruitless searching landed Maddy at the entrance to the nearest subway entrance, where Zeke was waiting; perfectly at home in his surroundings.  With a growl, Maddy stomped up to him and yanked him up onto his tip-toes; looking as if she was about to murder him.  Instead, she pulled him into one of the world’s biggest bear-hugs; giggling like a little girl.  “It’s finally summer vacation!”  She dropped him before heading down into the bowels of the city.