Angeli (3 page)

Chapter Two

Six months after the angeli appeared in Earth’s skies with warnings of doom.

Three weeks after the pinhole opened and doom began to prosper.

When the world ended, Adelita Martinez intended to be standing at the edge of the Grand Canyon. She had her watch set to the minute the scientists predicted the horde would reach the northern rim. She figured if she jumped when she saw the diabolos coming for her, she could go out flying and see the Grand Canyon at the same time.

It’s not as if anyone on Earth had years to complete a bucket list. No matter what anyone believed, one thing was clear. If she didn’t see the canyon soon, she never would.

Getting there, however, had proven to be a hassle. Driving her Jeep Wrangler through the deserted land between coast and canyon had been a series of pitfalls and near misses. She’d had to shoot that one man, and there had been starving coyotes three campsites ago. Not to mention the soldiers in Reno who tried to take her to a refugee camp and the black diabolos in Utah that crawled out of the Great Salt Lake while she was napping.

Right out of the water! Who knew how long they’d been hiding in there?

They’d been the slow ones. She’d escaped. If they’d been fast ones, the demonios rojos, she wouldn’t still be here, maneuvering her Jeep around a clog of abandoned trucks and motor homes on the highway through the grass and forests in northern Arizona.

The embankment was steep. Tricky. Adelita shoved the Jeep into first gear and tapped the gas. She peered into each vehicle as she jounced past, alert for ambushes. Soon she’d need more gasoline. She’d siphon if she could, use her cans if she must.

She could stop now and siphon. Search the cars for food and water. But she was so close. The map said so.

Impatient, Adelita jerked back onto the asphalt and gunned the Jeep. The road emerged from a stand of aspens and pines into a broad green meadow, and she was anxious to cover ground. She fancied she could hear the wind inside the Grand Canyon already, rushing and wailing.

In some ways, the northern rim wasn’t unlike the coastal town where she’d lived until three weeks ago. The army, and common sense, had relocated the population on this side of the Rockies. Jet contrails crisscrossed the blue sky as military planes scouted the horde’s progress. A beautiful day, a hot July day, as if nothing on earth were wrong.

But everything was wrong.

Everything was wrong, and she was completely alone. Except for the jets.

One thing they’d learned these terrible weeks? If they didn’t feed the horde, the horde turned sluggish. What the horde wanted to eat was people. Souls. The red ones kidnapped or killed, the black ones devoured, and the big ones, well, they stayed near
la boca del infierno
—mouth of hell—and created more diabolos. While everyone hoped the light of rapture would take them, as it had many children and women, they all knew, because of their sins, it was unlikely. The holiest priest at Adelita’s church hadn’t been taken, and if Padre Humberto wasn’t fit for Jesus, nobody was.

They’d all been left behind. The president said the only thing that could kill the black devils were the angeli. The soldiers kept trying, of course, and had managed to take out a few red daemons. They’d had less success launching missiles at
la boca
because of some kind of protective EMP field. Even so, there was talk of nukes, or there had been the last time she’d gotten the radio to work. But the angeli had deserted them, except Archangel Gregori, and from what she’d heard, he’d been cast from heaven for pride or envy or something.

Just Earth’s luck—the heavenly host who’d stuck by them was a fallen angel. Nothing was going according to the good book. Nothing was going according to physics, either. No one could explain what had happened, but there was no denying one obvious reality.

The end had come.

Already the western seaboard of the United States was off-limits. She wasn’t supposed to be here. Maybe she’d leave the bad zone after she saw the canyon. Maybe she’d cross the Navajo Bridge and head for Niagara Falls.

Bucket list item forty-three.

Then again, she was beginning to wonder if she’d ever get to the canyon. These roads. Miles and miles she’d traveled, through several states, detours derailing her time and again. You would think people could have cleared their SUVs and tractor trailers off the highways, but no, as soon as they’d received the broadcast that the Chosen One had failed and evil walked the earth unchecked, they’d abandoned their homes and vehicles, rounded up by soldiers or fleeing on foot whenever a traffic jam lasted too long.

To wherever it was they thought they could hide from the Lord’s wrath.

Idiots. Nearly all believers now, but stupid ones just the same.

Adelita wasn’t avoiding the wrath. She had sinned. She’d coveted and lied and dressed immodestly and cursed and doubted and fornicated with five different men—while using condoms. She was twenty-six years old, after all. And now, now she’d taken a life and was contemplating suicide. There were hardly worse sins than what she’d done.

So no, she wasn’t avoiding the wrath, she simply wanted to see the Grand Canyon before she got what she deserved. And possibly Niagara Falls.

More cars blocked the road ahead, all headed away from the canyon, while she was headed toward it. Some blockages were created when the military cleared people faster than they could drive. And some, well, Adelita didn’t want to think why other areas she’d driven through were devoid of living souls.

No one could outrun the devils forever. Adelita sighed and looked to the sky. Skydiving was one bucket list item she was going to have to let go. At least until the time came to jump.

Not wanting to dwell, she switched on the radio. It crackled with static, as usual. No one left to transmit in this part of the country. She eased a compact disc into the slot, an audiobook by a dead white man that hadn’t been holding her interest.

It still didn’t.

Some things on her bucket list hadn’t been worth the paper it had taken to write them on. So she flung the disc out the open window like a Frisbee and laughed. The sound hurt her throat and rang like the caw of Senor Crow in her ears.

Perhaps it was time for a break. Slowing the Jeep, she glanced around for a parking spot where she could avoid a heat headache.

Her gaze caught on a jet crossing the sky in the north. As it grew closer, Adelita could hear its supersonic scream. Her shoulders hunched and her eyes squinted, as if that could block out the sound. That pilot was in a hurry, all right. Flying hard, flying dangerous. Flying over the pointed tops of the pine trees, lower than…

Adelita slammed on the brakes and muscled the Jeep into park. To get a better view, she yanked open the door and stared toward the oncoming jet, her eyes shaded by her hand.

Its contrail wasn’t white but gray. Blackish. Like smoke. The shape was wrong. Still a dot, but closer than she’d seen any jets the past three weeks.

Was it a jet?

Whatever it was, it seemed to be headed straight for her. The sonic squeal grew until it filled the world. Perhaps the jet intended to use the road as a landing strip.

Adelita glanced wildly around for something that could protect her. The trees? Maybe, but the Jeep would bottom out in the bumpy meadow. She leaped away from the pavement as fast as she could, stumbling over roots and rocks, hoping she wouldn’t disturb any snakes.

She fell over a log, cutting her knee. Madre de Dios! Should have worn jeans instead of shorts, but it was so hot.

The earth shuddered as the jet drew closer. The piercing whine was unbearable. Tiny hairs on her neck, in her ears, bristled. She picked herself up and ran.

The impact sent her tumbling through the air. When she landed, she skinned her palms, her forearms, her legs. She tried to roll into a ball to protect her head and stomach. Finally came to a stop against a rock, her body bruised and raw.

Adelita didn’t bother to pray, because where had that gotten anyone?

Bits of debris pattered to the ground. The world was still spinning, and she huddled into herself. An odd, nearly silent detonation shook the ground again.

Something keened, not a mechanical sound but animal. The wail rose higher and higher until Adelita could only sense it, worse than the approach of the jet. Every atom of her body knew that something was very, very wrong in that sound.

Then there was silence.

She counted to 120 before she got up. Her body hated the movement, and blood trickled down her shins. Smeared her hands and arms. Trembling, her stomach a ball of nerves, she wiped blood on her shirt and started toward the road.

Her Jeep waited, the open door swinging in the breeze. In the roadblock she’d been about to drive around, all the cars were intact.

She didn’t see a crashed jet. Could she have stayed in her Jeep instead of fleeing like a silly jackrabbit across the meadow?

Her palms and knees throbbed with every step. When the adrenaline ebbed, nothing seemed broken. No stabbing pains. She could handle scrapes and cuts.

Where had this not-a-jet landed, if not the road? And what creature had it landed on?

She clambered up the embankment and peered in the direction the jet must have crashed. Smoke rose in a thin plume a short distance into the trees. A hawk called somewhere.

The summer sun wrapped her head like a hot towel. Sweat dripped down her cheek and between her breasts, and she felt the twinge of a budding headache. A fine companion for the other aches in her body. She scrambled in her Jeep for her sun hat, raisins, and a bottled water as she decided what to do.

She could drive to the canyon. She was so close.

Or she could investigate.

When the plume of smoke died down, Adelita could see a twinkle between the trees. She tossed the raisin box into the Jeep and grabbed her binoculars, but the wreckage was concealed by foliage.

There was nothing for it. She had to know. Curiosity killed many cats, and Adelita figured she was on life five by now. She flicked the safety off her pistol and unsnapped the knife in her belt holster, just in case.

Cautiously, she picked her way across the meadow. The closer she drew to the wreckage, the more she smelled something…bad. Acrid and foul. Her boots crunched on twigs and grass. Blood dripped down her shins. A chipmunk skittered across a patch of sandy ground, jolting her heart. She nearly wasted a bullet on it before she realized it wasn’t a snake.

The smell grew stronger. Chemical spill? She reached the tree line.

A breeze eddied around her, danced around the trees. Minimal underbrush surrounded the tall, straight trunks, and the ground was carpeted by pine needles. Her nose scrunched and her heart unsteady, she arrived at a small clearing.

In the middle, a mound of white feathers shimmered.
Jesús
, that was a big bird! Several yards to the left was a body, missing its head. Maroon flesh covered the person-sized creature, but no clothing. Cuts marred it all over, oozing black ichor. Its four arms were tipped by claws, and it had the feet of a chicken. Batlike wings had half-retracted beside it, one seared nearly in two.

A daemon. She’d never seen one in real life, but there were only a few ways to kill them. That meant the white wings belonged to…

Archangel Gregori groaned and rolled over. His breastplate was dented. Silver glinted on his arms. White skirting draped at his knees and exposed his muscular calves. On his golden head, his halo appeared to be askew. His wings flapped feebly, splayed beneath him like white sheets.

He didn’t look comfortable. Did angeli feel pain?

Pistol in hand, Adelita entered the clearing, trying not to forget the daemon a few paces away but unable to keep her distance. She’d only seen the angeli on television, Gregori mostly, his noble brow wrinkled with concern, his wings artfully feathered, his armor gleaming, his garments clinging just so, outlining his body…

Well. One wasn’t supposed to lust after men who weren’t one’s husband, much less sainted beings, but that hadn’t stopped people from objectifying the angeli as if they were movie stars instead of the Lord’s messengers. Telling tales, whispering stories.

Adelita, too, had sinned in her heart.

She looked at the archangel’s firm lips, his square, cleft chin, the muscles in his bare biceps. She looked lower. His torso. Lower.

Adelita was sinning in her heart right now. But he was so beautiful. Angeli glowed with purity and holiness.

On television they glowed. Supposedly they glowed. Right now, Gregori didn’t, but he was no less striking.

She swallowed, hard, and ignored her corruption. It was to be expected. A flawed being such as her was naturally drawn to an angeli’s perfection. Papers had been written about it, about the end times. As had articles professing that the angeli and apocalypse were a global hoax.

The unbelievers had certainly had their wake-up call, hadn’t they? Certainly the light hadn’t taken any of
them
.

“Angeli.” She meant her voice to come out full of reverence, but to her ears it just sounded loud. “Are you well?”

Gregori flung an arm over his eyes and muttered. Golden hair stubbled his jaw.

Angeli grew beards?

“Archangel, may I assist you?” Adelita inched closer. She realized she was trembling. It was becoming hard to aim the pistol at the daemon beyond Gregori.

She reached his side. Her shadow, long in the afternoon sun, fell over his face. His silver-wrapped forearm shifted above his head, and his jaw clenched. He was aware of her.

“Angeli?”

Chapter Three

Gregori felt a presence. His sensor array seemed to be glitchy, and his awareness was dulled by alcohol and the crash, but he was fairly certain it was a large animal.

Coyote, maybe? Vocalizations stuttered at the edge of his consciousness. It wasn’t the daemon or he’d already be eviscerated.

No, couldn’t be the daemon. With the last gasp of his blaster, he’d blown that fragger’s head off after luring it away from the portion of the horde it guarded. Unfortunately, it took daemon bodies a long time to realize they were dead.