When Death Loved an Angel Read Online Free PDF Page A

girlfriend she wasn’t really considered an immediate family member. Betsy took a ragged breath and let it out slowly. She took Gregan’s hand the way Nyra wished she could and spoke to him softly.
    Nyra walked to the window. She wished she could shut out the quiet expressions of love that left Betsy’s lips. Gregan probably couldn’t hear her, so she should just stop. She was only hurting herself. It would be harder if they lost Gregan and she left her heart in that room. Nyra knew the same applied to herself, but shied away from the thought.
    She kept her gaze out the window until Betsy left. The woman was a schoolteacher and had to get up early. She had stayed well past visiting hours, but the nurse had kindly ignored her presence there as she came in regularly to check Gregan’s vitals. Nyra was somewhat grateful for Betsy’s presence because the nurse often gave little indicators as to Gregan’s current status. The nurse wouldn’t talk to an empty room.

Chapter Five
    DEATH
     
    Something had changed inside him. Nyra had changed him. Death muttered angrily to himself as he made his way past the hospital in the direction of another person from the list. Gregan Parker’s name throbbed on his arm, urging him toward the hospital. He pointedly ignored it and followed the next name down. It tingled when he neared a set of apartments at the end of the block.
    He walked through the door and up several flights of stairs. Babies cried in apartments he passed, and in one, the screaming of a man and woman were at such a level that he was sure he would be back in the next day or so. Death paused, then crossed the steps to whisper in the ear of a man who held a bottle of beer poorly concealed in a brown paper bag. The man sat up straight and stared in his direction. He dropped the bag, bottle and all, and ignored the way the contents spilled down the steps. Death chuckled and continued.
    The apartment was on the left, its door open to catch the faint breeze that came from the broken window at the end of the hall. Inside, Death found a man sleeping in an armchair with a bottle in one hand and a smoking cigarette in the other. A myriad of other bottles littered the floor along with several dime bags.
    Death paused. He had a choice. He could let the cigarette fall from the man’s hand; it would ignite the liquor that had spilled from the bottles, and burn down what would probably be not only the man’s apartment but those around him. The babies he had heard cry, the man drunk in the hallway who would probably sober up quite quickly, and the man and woman fighting along with the many other occupants of the building. They would be victims in the man’s senseless actions.
    If Death let the cigarette fall, those in the building who died would require his touch. After that, names of some who had been set to die would shuffle around because of the time he took at the apartment complex. They would then appear on his list the next day, shuffled back among those chosen to move on. He had made the decision before. It was easier than chasing around the city fulfilling all the names. He caught himself reaching up to rub the back of his neck. It was an empty gesture and he wouldn’t feel it anyway.
    Nyra.
    He shook his head with a sigh and leaned over to the man’s ear. “Wake up,” he said in a voice as soft as a rattlesnake’s hiss.
    The man’s eyes cracked open.
    “Put the cigarette on the table,” Death said.
    The man obeyed, though he looked around as if wondering who was talking.
    When the cigarette was settled safely on the ashtray already filled with smoking butts, Death smiled his predatory smile. “It’s your time.”
    He put a hand on the man’s fleshy head and felt him jerk in alarm. Death stepped back, watching denial and anger run through the man’s eyes. He shook his head, his eyes focusing on the mess around him.
    “I’ll change,” the man pleaded. “I can do better.”
    “Your time here is done,” Death