Angel Burn (4 page)

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.

No!
With the greatest effort of his life, Alex tore his attention away from the angel’s eyes and focused on its halo instead.
That’s the angel’s heart,
his father always said.
Go for the center.
Alex’s hands were so unsteady, he could hardly take aim. The angel was shrieking in triumph, its terrible, awesome voice slicing through him. Its halo was the size of a saucer  . . .  now a dinner plate  . . .  now a  . . . 

Alex shot. The world exploded into shards of light as the force from the fallout blew him backward, off his feet. He landed in the grass a dozen feet away and lay there stunned, the wind knocked out of him.

“Man, if
that
wasn’t just about the messiest kill I ever did see,” observed a drawling voice. “I was about to shoot the damn thing myself.” Suddenly there was a strong arm around his shoulders, helping him to his feet. Alex staggered and stared at Cully in confusion. He tried to speak, but the power seemed to have left him for the moment. His head was throbbing as if an anvil had been dropped onto it.

“You’re going to feel terrible for a good week, probably,” said Cully conversationally, putting away his own gun. “Don’t believe in doing things speedily, do you? I thought you were waiting for the son of a bitch to fly
into
you.”

Alex laughed shakily. Now that it was over, he felt almost giddy with relief — and then his emotions swung to the other extreme, so that he had to clench his fists to keep from bursting into hysterical tears. Jesus. It had almost got him. It had really almost got him.

Cully squeezed his shoulder. “You did good,” he said seriously, dropping the banter. “It’s tough when they see you. Stay here. I’m just gonna go check on our lady friend.”

He jogged toward the woman, stopping only to pick up Alex’s pistol and shove it in the back of his jeans first. Alex leaned weakly against a tree as their voices floated toward him.

“You OK, ma’am? You look sort of peaked.”

“Oh  . . .  oh, I’m fine. You won’t believe me, but I’ve just seen the most — the most beautiful, amazing thing. . . .”

Alex closed his eyes. The angel was gone now; he had killed it — but the woman’s words chilled him, anyway. Yes, the most beautiful, amazing thing. She’d have a cherished memory now for the rest of her life, and at what cost? Insanity, perhaps? That happened a lot — schizophrenia taking her life over, until she was screaming back at the voices in her head. Or how about cancer? That was always a good one: the angel’s feeding touch causing the very cells inside of her to wither up and die. Or MS, so that she’d eventually lose the use of her limbs and end up in a wheelchair, until finally she died of it. Or Parkinson’s or AIDS or any other ailment you could think of — there was no telling with angel burn; the only certainty was that she’d been inexorably poisoned, and no matter what form the damage would take, the quality of her life would go firmly downhill from now on. And ironically, she would never see the connection between this and the angel. In fact, she’d probably think that the angel had been sent to
help
her in her time of need.

Cully reappeared. “She’s on her way home, happy as a clam — for now, anyway. Come on,” he went on, dropping his hand on Alex’s arm. “Let’s go find your brother, so you can brag you got your first solo kill. Might even brag on you a little myself.”

“Why?” Alex asked raggedly. The words felt like sand in his throat. “I did everything wrong! I waited too long to shoot. I looked into its eyes. I —”

His headache threatened to blind him as Cully lightly cuffed the back of his head. “None of that, boy,” he said. He draped an arm around Alex’s neck as they started walking back to the Jeep. “Didn’t I just tell you that it’s hard when they look at you? You did good. You did good.”

Now, five years later in Aspen, Alex stared out the window at the Rocky Mountains, seeing the dry, rugged hills of New Mexico instead. As it turned out, only a handful of angels had ever seen him again; it had just been sheer bad luck that it had happened his first time on his own. But it hadn’t mattered. He’d gotten over his nerves, and now he had brought down more angels than he could count — especially since he had long ago stopped bothering to keep track. There hadn’t seemed much point anymore once Jake was gone, taking with him the friendly competition between the two brothers.

The thought winced through Alex before he could stop it.
No. Don’t go there.

“Here you are,” said the waitress, appearing with his breakfast. The plates clinked against the table as she set them down in front of him. She produced fork, knife, and spoon from her apron, and clattered those down as well. “Would you like some more coffee?”

“Thanks,” said Alex. She refilled his cup and bustled off, and he eyed the food tiredly, wondering why he had wanted so much. But he needed to eat for the fuel, if nothing else. He might get another text any minute, sending him off to God knows where. Or it could be as long as a week from now. A week full of long, pointless hours that he’d somehow have to fill — which usually meant boxy motel rooms and crap TV shows.

Ignoring the happy families sitting all around him, Alex lifted his fork and began to eat.

“HI — COME ON IN,” I said to Beth.

It was Thursday afternoon after school, and she was standing on our front porch, looking around with wide eyes. My aunt Jo lives in an old Victorian house on the south side of Pawtucket, and she very, very kindly (as she keeps reminding us) allows Mom and me to live there with her — which is good, since Mom doesn’t have a job and couldn’t work, anyway. It’s a great old house, or at least it used to be, once upon a time. Now it’s sort of in need of a paint job. Not to mention all the little deer statues and windmills and tiny flying kites that Aunt Jo has in the front yard.

Beth tore her gaze away from a gnome with a red hat. “It’s very  . . .  colorful,” she said weakly.

I stood back to let her in. The inside of the house looks more normal, apart from the piles of clutter everywhere. Aunt Jo is a hoarder. She saves whatever she comes into contact with but can never
find
anything because it’s always buried under a foot of mess. So she ends up buying two or three or six of everything.

Beth came in hesitantly, clutching her purse. She looked perfect as usual, in a pair of black pants and a turquoise top. Her dark honey hair was pulled back in a pony tail, making her brown eyes even larger. I glanced down at her shoes. Prada. Next to them, my purple Converse sneakers looked even more “colorful” than the front yard.

As I shut the door, I could hear the TV going in the living room, where Mom and her caregiver were. Aunt Jo wasn’t home from work yet.

“I usually give readings in the dining room,” I said, starting down the hallway. “It’s back here.” Beth trailed after me, gazing silently at the kitten figurines and the bookcases stuffed full of Harlequin romances and floppy sad clowns, and the dozens of dusty decorative plates on the wall. Aunt Jo’s a collector as well as a hoarder. She practically keeps the Franklin Mint in business single-handedly. Seeing it all through Beth’s eyes, I suddenly realized that maybe the inside of the house wasn’t that normal after all.