Angel

Page 6

 

  That meant angels. Alex looked up sharply. The hot afternoon froze around them, the whole world suspended.

  “Where, Cull?” asked Jake. He seemed older suddenly, more serious.

  “Not sure yet,” said Cully, his eyes narrowed. “I don’t think it’s very far, though. ” He paused for a long moment, gazing around them at the strip mall. Finally he shook himself. “Come on, let’s get checked in and unload. Then I think we’re going to have to take a little drive, gentlemen. ”

  Cully got them a room and parked the Jeep so that it was right outside their door. The three of them worked automatically, carrying their gear in and piling it onto the floor.

  They left the rifles in the Jeep. When everything else had been unloaded, Cully threw a tarp over them. “OK, let’s go,” he said. He swung himself back into the driver’s seat and started up the engine. “You both know the drill. Alex, you sit beside me. Jake, in the back. ”

  Alex saw Jake start to protest and then think better of it. Cully might joke around a lot, but you didn’t question his judgment unless you wanted a black eye.

  Alex slid into the front passenger seat, his skin prickling with excitement. Though he’d been on perhaps a dozen hunts by now, the thrill hadn’t lessened any. And maybe it was petty of him, but he knew that part of the thrill was realizing how good he was. Jake might be older and bigger than he was, and just as good a shot, but he couldn’t tune in as quickly as Alex, or as strongly. When it came to that side of things, Alex had taken to all the weird stuff their father had taught them just like coming home.

  As Cully cruised slowly down the busy Albuquerque street, Alex closed his eyes and relaxed, moving his focus smoothly up through his chakra points. As his consciousness rose above his crown chakra, another world opened up before him. He could feel the energy fields of every living thing nearby — the woman in the car next to them; the guy standing on the curb waiting to cross the street; his German shepherd, straining at its leash. Their energies all touched his own, and he felt them briefly and moved on, probing in ever-widening circles.

  Distantly, he heard Jake say, “Cully, are you sure you felt something?”

  “Shut up —” Cully started to say, then broke off as Alex’s eyes flew open and he sat straight up.

  “That way!” Alex said urgently, pointing. “There’s a — a park or something, maybe two streets south. I could feel lots of trees. It’s in there. It’s getting ready to feed. ” He shivered despite himself. Angel energy felt swamp-cold, clammy. It touched your soul and seemed to leave foul fingerprints on it.

  “A park? Excellent,” said Cully, turning.

  In the rearview mirror, Alex could see Jake looking at him, impressed and a little jealous. “Good one, bro,” Jake said.

  Sure enough, they came to a park a few seconds later. Cully parked the Jeep under a line of trees. After a glance around them, he leaned across Alex and opened the glove compartment. He took out a pistol with a silencer on its muzzle; there was a clicking noise as he checked the magazine then snapped it shut again. He handed the weapon to Alex.

  “Go get ’em, tiger,” he said.

  Alex almost dropped the pistol in shock. “Do what?”

  “He’s only twelve!” burst out Jake at the same time.

  “So? You were thirteen when you soloed, and he’s better at the chakras than you,” said Cully, twisting around to look at him. Jake sank back in his seat again, glowering.

  Alex stared down at the gun. He had shot angels before, of course, but never on his own, without backup. There were more things that could go wrong than he could count. The main one was that the angel might spot him and attack before he managed to shoot it. He’d been on a hunt where that had happened once, to an Angel Killer named Spencer. Alex swallowed, remembering Spence’s vacant stare, his mind completely and forever blistered by the angel’s assault.

  Or sometimes they just killed you, of course.

  Cully was watching him. “Listen to me,” he said roughly. “You’ll never be of maximum use to us if you can’t go out on your own. You can do it; I wouldn’t have just handed you a loaded pistol otherwise. ”

  From Cully, this was high praise. Alex licked dry lips. “OK,” he said. Trying to hide his shaking hands, he flicked the pistol’s safety on. He wasn’t wearing his holster, so he stuck the gun in the back of his jeans and pulled his T-shirt over it.

  “Alex . . . be careful,” said Jake, looking worried now.

  “He’ll be fine,” said Cully. He slapped Alex on the shoulder. “And if you’re not back in fifteen, we’ll call the loony squad to come get ya. ”

  AK humor — you just had to love it. Alex’s lips felt stretched over his teeth as he smiled. Then he got out of the Jeep and walked into the park.

  It only took him a few minutes to find the angel. He didn’t even have to open his senses to do it — the moment he saw the young woman sitting under a tree, gazing dreamily up at the clouds, he knew. She was wearing a light summer dress, and her brown hair was loose on her shoulders. Evidently she’d been reading a book; it lay forgotten by her side as she smiled upward, lost in her own pleasant thoughts.

  That was what everyone else would see. Speeding through his chakras, Alex’s perception shifted abruptly as a glorious being came into view, over seven feet tall and blinding white. Though its great wings almost blocked out the sun, the angel was far brighter than the sun could ever hope to be. It glowed with radiance, casting pure, dazzling light across the woman’s beatific features.

  Alex’s stomach lurched. He hadn’t often seen one actually feeding before. The creature had both hands buried deep in the woman’s energy field, which was growing dimmer by the second, twisting feebly as if in protest. The angel had its head thrown back in gluttonous ecstasy as the woman’s energy seeped away into its own, like water leaving a draining tub.

  And thanks to angel burn, she’d actually remember the angel as good and kind. Just as his mother had, before she’d been killed. Shoving his feelings away, Alex glanced around him. They were in a section of the park away from any paths; the nearest people were a couple of teenage boys about a hundred yards away, throwing a Frisbee. Shielding himself from view behind a tree, Alex pulled out the gun, flicking off the safety. He steadied the weapon with both hands and took aim.

  Now that it came down to it, he felt very calm, with a quick excitement throbbing away somewhere deep underneath. His first solo kill. Cully was right; he could do it. What had he been worried about? He had lived his whole life just waiting for this moment.

  The angel looked up and saw him.

  Fear pounded through Alex as he and the angel locked eyes. The creature knew instantly what he was, and it screamed in pure fury, ripping its hands away from the woman’s energy field. Useless and forgotten, she slumped to the ground, the peaceful smile still on her face.

  Screeching, the angel sped toward him. Alex had a blurred impression of a great rushing and flapping of wings, and of wind tearing at his hair, as if the whole world was whipping past. The pistol began to shake in his hands. Shoot! he screamed at himself. But its eyes were so beautiful, even in its rage. He could only stare into them and know that he was about to die.