The Ninja Vampire's Girl Read Online Free PDF Page A

right now didn't sound, or look, like day-saving.
    Zane was in there, and that made me antsy. I didn't want him to get hurt. I doubted the angel would leave him scarred this time around. No, the Fallen was out for blood after we'd stolen his halo.
    Halos were supposed to hold the Fallen's earthbound soul. The angel could take that soul and become mortal. But Granny told us most Fallen didn't want to go with a pitiful human existence and eventually die a mortal death. They preferred to remain something more than mortal—and to go after their muses as their twisted libidos demanded.
    Things crashed, maybe boards, windows and interior walls. Every so often a brilliant flash of blue would mimic the glow of the halo I held. A man cried out in pain—Zane. I'd developed a twitch, wanting to rush in every time I heard his miserable shouts.
    Like that would do any good. Go, super travel-agent lady! Not to be. Actually, my middle name is Marie, not Adventure.
    Squatting against the wall, I huddled, protecting the halo between my legs and chest, and kept one eye on the second-floor window. Had something just been thrown across the room? Something man-sized?
    I ducked my head against my knees.
    "Don't look, Coco. He'll be fine. He said he had a good chance now the angel had been disarmed."
    Clicky footsteps set up the hairs on my arms. I recognized the pitter-pat of high heels. One person. Coming up around the corner from where I sat.
    I swung up and almost did a chest bump with the woman who was preoccupied with scratching her wrist. A wrist that glowed blue.
    "I don't know what it is," she muttered, boggled, and obviously more worried about the glowing sigil than a complete stranger who bowed over her wrist to inspect.
    "It's always been there, but it just started to glow. It's like some kind of alien implant. Oh, my bloody hell!"
    "Don't worry." I cringed. Not the truth, Coco. But I needed to calm her, and make sure no one nearby—like the Fallen—saw her.
    I walked her back around the corner and hugged her. She allowed it. I sensed she was in shock for she shivered minutely. "It's an angel sigil," I said. "You were born with it, right?"
    She nodded. Wisps of blond hair that had dried about her hairline teased the air. The rain had stopped, but it was dark, murky and more humid than a steam room.
    "It's very pretty." I traced the square shape that had a triangle in the middle. I hadn't seen the Fallen's sigil, but I knew that this muse matched the angel Zane was fighting. That's the only reason it would glow. "And it itches?"
    She nodded again. Her skin was red and I worried she'd tear it with those press-on nails. "Stop." Itching turned the sigil into a beacon the angel could follow right to the muse. I clasped both hands about her wrist. "I'll explain things. You won't like what I have to say, but you need the information."
    "Sure, whatever, lady. Wait."
    We both studied her inflamed skin, the sigil now a soft brown against the redness where she'd scratched. It had stopped glowing. I cast a glance over my shoulder. Darkness in the second-floor window.
    Had Zane accomplished the task?
    Or would the muse and I be dodging a furious angel intent on claiming the halo and his muse?
    I strung the halo on a forearm, and sheltered the woman from whatever might come our way.
    Â 
    The air glimmered before me. I staggered, bloody blade held back and out with one hand. The cuts on my body hurt like hell, and the blood drooling out soaked me in crimson. Those damned iron wings had been sharp.
    Had been . Heh.
    The angel's body burst into a brilliant nimbus and shattered. A glamorous wall of sparkly bits hung suspended before me momentarily. The wings dropped in flakes of black iron, the crystallized body fell in a man-length pile of ash before my feet.
    This is what I'd been stalking the streets for tonight. What I'd been striving for over the months since witnessing the Anakim tribe's macabre machinations.
    And yet, I looked