Extinguish Read Online Free PDF

but offered no real response as he turned away. "I have things to do."
    "Wait!"
    He was gone before the word had fully escaped her lips.
     
    "Do you ever want to help people?"
    Samuel's brow creased with bewilderment at the question as he stared across the table at his sister. "Isn't that what I do every day?"
    "Yes, but that's not what I meant. You do your job, but do you ever just want to, you know . . . do more ?"
    "I don't know what more could I do, Ser."
    Sighing, Serah glanced around the busy diner. The sun had just risen outside, and the place was already packed with patrons. A bell at the counter repeatedly dinged as the cook yelled, "Order up!" Waitresses in striped skirts and blouses skidded around, taking orders and helping customers, as the infectious sound of some doo-wop song played from the nearby jukebox.
    Serah's eyes fell upon a middle-aged woman waiting by the register. She wore a gray skirt and jacket, her blonde hair pulled into a tight bun.
    "Take her for example," Serah said, motioning toward the woman. "It's her first day at a new job—an office job, as a secretary—and she has a tear in her panty hose. It's a hard enough struggle for American women in the workplace. Nobody's going to take her seriously like this."
    "Really, Ser? You're sounding like this feminist movement. You don't want to get her equal pay while we're at it?"
    "Well . . . yes." Serah sighed as her brother laughed at her. "It's the 1960s. They should get with the times already."
    "I agree," he said. "That's what the Guardians are for, though. They micromanage the humans, not us."
    "Yes, but why can't we?" As the woman walked by, heading for the door with her coffee, Serah reached out and touched her leg, instantly mending her sheer hose. "I just got her off to a good start."
    Samuel quirked an eyebrow. "Why does it matter so much to you?"
    "Why doesn't it to you?"
    "Touché." Samuel relaxed in the booth, his gaze shifting to a man sitting alone in the back, nose buried in today's newspaper. "I guess I'm more concerned with the likes of him than whether or not some lady has a pleasant day at work."
    Serah could sense the malicious presence prowling deep inside the man. Samuel had been stalking him since the night before, waiting for the perfect moment to eradicate the harbored demon without causing a scene.
    "I love that about you, though, sis," Samuel continued. "You soar above and beyond, while I just take a flying leap into the trenches. And I suppose if I were human, I'd appreciate there being someone like you out there who cares. You know . . . in case I get a hole in my pants."
    The man across the coffee shop stood then, clutching his newspaper as he strolled out. Samuel instantly followed. Curious, Serah joined her brother as they tailed him through the city, spending hours just watching, patiently waiting. When the man was finally alone in a backyard, isolated, still unscathed, Samuel pounced.
    The demon sensed the impending attack a fraction of a second before it happened. It reacted, taking full control, the man's tired green eyes flashing pitch-black. A snarl ricocheted through the yard as the creature fought back, a long scuffle ensuing before Samuel was able to lay his palm flat against the man's chest, over his silent heart, seized by the damned beast. " Exorcizo te, omnis immunde spiritus. . . "
    The man convulsed and dropped to the ground as Samuel recounted the exorcism incantation, the grass around his body withering to a crispy brown as the life expelled from it, the demon violently being forced below , damned back to his cage. Samuel stood over the man until he detected a steady heartbeat, then he turned and strode away.
    The man would be unconscious for a few minutes. When he awoke, he'd have no memory of the event. It was a gift humans had been blessed with—the ability to forget—and Samuel took full advantage of that.
    Others weren't so kind. It was just as easy to destroy the demon with the blade of a