Angel Burn Read Online Free PDF Page A

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