Haunted Love Read Online Free PDF Page B

—”
    “What are you saying?” Zachary presses.
    It’s not like him to lose patience. My angel blames himself for the boy’s death.
    Painful as it is, he’s not being unfairly self-flagellating. What happened was foreseeable. If Zachary had already struck Mitch down, the teen would still be alive.
    I could’ve warned him that this would happen, that Mitch could only manage his bloodlust so well for so long.
    Then again, perhaps Zachary wouldn’t have believed me anyway. He’s a confirmed optimist. He doesn’t know the thick, sticky satisfaction of nursing from a savaged, leaking vein. He doesn’t miss it like I do.
    Mitch replies, “I, I, bye. Bye-bye, Zachary. It’s time. Resolution. Resolved.”
    He holds up his hand-lettered sign. It reads:

    “You’re sure?” my angel asks, and I hear the catch in his voice. He may have set out tonight to remove Mitch as a threat. Yet now that the neophyte is willingly offering to end his existence, it’s become a matter of resolve for both of them.
    Mitch has taken lives — more than one. He’s orchestrated violent, bloody deaths. Yet I serve as proof that a killer may be forgiven. I was ten times the monster that Mitch is, a fiend to whom other fiends groveled and bowed.
    At the same time, Zachary can’t know whether he’ll be sending his friend to the Penultimate en route to heaven or whether he’s condemning a once-kind man to hell.
    Zachary turns off the flashlight and tosses it aside. The blade of his sword bursts into flame. Raising the weapon, he begins, “What you’re doing . . . Offering yourself to the Big Boss, there’s no better decision you could’ve made. You’re going out a hero.”
    My angel said as much to me when I begged him to use his holy radiance to burn me to nothingness, when I surrendered my own demonic existence for
true
eternal life.
    I can only imagine how painful tonight must be for Zachary, having to once again destroy someone he cares about. It must bring back memories.
    It’s archangels that are warriors born, not guardians.
    Guardians are sent to earth to care.
    “Good, good,” Mitch replies. “Good for you. You’re good, too. Hero.”
    Zachary’s fiery blade falls on Mitch’s last word.

IF I SCREW UP AGAIN , I’m one toasted guardian angel (GA). We’re talking hellfire and damnation. Hot. Searing hot. Chomp the serrano peppers. Chug the Tabasco.
    In case there’s any doubt, the archangel Michael himself materializes on the dock to tell me so. “That was unnecessarily costly and dramatic,” he announces. “Zachary, how many times must we review this? Though the neophyte vampire’s soul may have been temporarily salvageable —”
    “He was still tainted by evil,” I recite, returning my sword to its scabbard. “When he became an immediate threat to the living, I shouldn’t have hesitated to destroy him.”
    I’m not inclined to argue. Michael is the Sword of Heaven, the Bringer of Souls, my supervisor. Besides, he’s right.
    I bend to pick up my flashlight and hook it to my belt.
    “Once again, you have indulged your feelings at the expense of the greater good,” Michael thunders. “Your friend’s victim, fourteen-year-old Jorge Alvarez, didn’t find out that his father got the janitorial position at Dell until after he recovered from the shock of dying. If Jorge had lived, that drug deal may have been his last.”
    I’m not sure about that, but it’s not worth debating. The boy is dead. That’s all that matters now. That and his grieving family.
    I’d worried when Mitch didn’t stop by over the holidays to pick up his latest supply of pig’s blood. I should’ve assumed the worst and followed up then. But I wanted to give him the opportunity to choose salvation. And he did. Only too late for Jorge.
    Sounding weary, Michael says, “You are a slipped angel, Zachary — granted, one who has shown promise. You earned back your wings and the power of heaven’s light, and you have put them to good