Angeli (7 page)

She slid her backpack off, dangling it by a strap. Her eyes squinted against the strong breeze. “So what now? We talk?”

“We go inside, out of this wind.” He mounted the steps to the store, checking the building. The broken sign, hanging from a chain, banged against a post. Several windows had been smashed, and the doorknob hung halfway off. He heard no noise besides the rattle of the sign. “There may be water. I’m sure you’d like to get cleaned up.”

“You’re saying I’m dirty?”

He couldn’t—wouldn’t—glance at her face, but it sounded like she was smiling. “You’re wounded.”

“That, too. Dios. These buildings have been vandalized.” The smile left her voice. Her boots crunched on broken glass. “Why would people do this?”

“To get inside.” The Terrans who’d ransacked the place wouldn’t have taken everything—he needed cleaning supplies and a few tools he’d learned to reconfigure. The endo-organic connections of the wing pack and sensor array needed to be sterilized, for starters.

“I’ve broken into a lot of stores the past three weeks. You don’t have to bust all the windows.” Adelita followed him into the building and its welcome shadows. The ceiling rose to a vaulted peak, fans hanging the length of a beam. “Hello? Anybody here? I’ve got the angeli with me.”

There was no answer except the clatter of the broken sign.

“I’ll tell you what I think,” Adelita said. “There was a fight here. People have gone mad. They argue over nothing because they’re scared.”

“Possibly,” he agreed. “But I don’t see any evidence of gunfire.” There at the end, when the military had been herding humans out of the bad zone west of the Rockies, there had been riots, killings, and general chaos.

The US and Canadian governments were barely keeping a lid on the eastern half of the continent, and the Mexican government had fled south, as far from the mouth of hell as they could get. The rest of the world, dealing with its own pandemonium, didn’t want American refugees on its soil without a payout.

Gregori didn’t stay long enough in populated areas to hear more news than that. He’d deal with the other nations if—he hated thinking about it as when—the entities swallowed this one. For now he remained on the front, killing daemons, avoiding Ship-lickers, rescuing Terrans, and trying to figure out a way into Ship’s hidden dirtside base to steal munitions.

“I suppose people needed food and water for the trip east.” Adelita rattled a box she’d found on a shelf. “My aunt and uncle drove to Florida to stay with my cousin Eduardo.”

“And you stayed behind because?”

“I told you already.” She unsealed the box, checked the contents, and stuck it in her backpack. “I wanted to see the Grand Canyon.”

“Against the express orders of your government?”

“Yep.” As they talked she pawed through the aisles, tossing empty containers onto the bottom shelf.

His team had worked with suicidal cultures before, people who’d thrown themselves at the shades in sacrificial fervor, but Terrans clung to life as ferociously as the Shipborn. “Do you have a death wish, Adelita?”

She screwed the cap back on a bottle before she answered. “That’s a long story. Do you want to hear it or do you want me to tell you I’m fine?”

“I want to hear it,” he said, but before she could respond the wind shifted, billowing dust through the open door. Gregori had two seconds to register the scent of daemon before it struck.

Chapter Six

The dense missile of Gregori’s attacker bowled him into a display case. Glass exploded around them, and their combined weight ripped the unit to pieces. They didn’t stop until they hit the wall with a bone-jarring thud.

Adelita screamed so loud he could hear it over his own curses.

Shit! No time to prepare. Gregori slapped open his wings, hoping to wrench the daemon off him, but it clung like a leech. If he couldn’t kill it, it would take him to the shades, which would taste his essence.

And then the leviathan would come.

Its wicked claws scrabbled off his armor. One hand snaked past the top of his wing to burrow into his upper arm. Its claws grated on bone.

No protective force field. No blaster. He’d have to do this the gory way. Ignoring the pain, he reached behind him and grabbed the monster’s head.

Twisted as sharp and hard as he could.

It wasn’t hard enough. The daemon sank needle teeth into his hand. If he weren’t careful, it would bite off his thumb. Couldn’t regrow that bastard in a day. Another set of claws fastened into his opposite arm. The daemon’s wings flailed as it tried to drag him backward, out of the building.

Gregori struggled for a handhold, for ballast, against the daemon on his back. It would be easier to kill the daemon inside the building, where it had less room to operate or go for help. Daemons never quit hunting prey once they located it, but that didn’t mean they were stupid.

A loud retort cracked through the room. Gregori smelled gunpowder and felt the daemon flinch. Another shot. Another flinch.

The daemon quit tugging him as it considered Adelita and her gun. Gregori tried to free his hand from the daemon’s mouth. His flesh burned from the daemon’s corrosive saliva. He squeezed the monster’s jaw as hard as he could, his fingers not quite breaking through the warty flesh.

“Get out of here!” he yelled at Adelita. “Go inside another building and hide.”

Her response was to shoot the daemon several times. Mostly the bullets glanced off the daemon’s tough skin, but a few burrowed in. She stood behind the store’s counter and squinted through the gun’s scope as though she knew what she was doing.

When a sixth bullet caught the daemon in the eye, splattering Gregori with poisonous ichor, he realized Adelita did know what she was doing.

Too bad bullets were only going to piss the creature off.

One set of daemon claws unhooked from Gregori as it prepared to attack Adelita. In a practiced, one-handed maneuver, Gregori shook a multipurp off his arm and flicked it into a blade. In seconds, the daemon was minus a hand.

The daemon, screeching, finally released Gregori’s thumb. He promptly tried to chop off more daemons limbs. Challenging when the monster was on his back, but a good strategy. If it had no arms, it would be easier to kill. He couldn’t let it escape.

But the daemon was wary now and avoided the blade, raking Gregori’s forearm in the process. Blood spurted between his bands. Disgusted, Gregori shoved the multipurp over his shoulder into the creature’s head. A sickening crunch was his reward.

Its keen shattered what remained of the glass in display cases all around them. Now it wasn’t just pissed off. It was extremely pissed off. He hoped Adelita had ducked.

Furious, the daemon renewed its effort to haul Gregori out of the building. Its tough, thin wings batted up swirls of glass shards. Rubbish scudded across the ground.

Blood slicking his arms, Gregori let himself be hauled to the open space near the door. He yanked the multipurp out of the daemon’s head. Black goo dripped off the blade. Shit, this was going to be painful
and
unhygienic. He shoved the tool under his armor to his wing pack to activate one of his defense mechanisms manually, since it wasn’t responding to mental commands. Another victim of his dead sensor array.

Ichor scorched his skin until…
Click
.

The resultant pings all around him sounded like thousands of needles hitting the floor. The daemon tried to tear out his throat. He grabbed two of its wrists. Its ichor and his blood made it as slimy as snot.

With a grunt, Gregori curled his wings forward before smacking them back. He caught the daemon between them like a bug in a flytrap.

Wings weren’t meant to be weapons. With force fields and blasters, multipurps and enhanced strength, additional protections were overkill. But Nikolas, the team’s mechanic, had modified their wing packs the last time they’d played flying spirits for a beleaguered planet.

The daemon shrieked as tactanium-tipped feathers sliced its skin everywhere they touched.

Gregori battered it repeatedly with his weaponized wings. This wouldn’t kill it any more than the bullets, but daemons did feel pain—and he liked to inflict it on them.

The creature freed him to hover near the ceiling. Without a force field, Gregori needed to do a better job of protecting himself. He leaped into the air. His opponent was more black than red as a thousand cuts oozed dark blood. Droplets hit the floor and hissed as the ichor ate the tile.

Gregori yanked a ceiling fan off its wiring and flung it at his opponent. While the daemon was busy dodging, he hurled himself forward.

His blade drove into the daemon’s chest, past the nearly unbreakable breastbone. The blade stuck tight with a jolt. His hand numbed from the harsh blow. Frag his aim! He’d been going for the neck. The best way to kill a daemon was chop off its head and fend off its body while it continued to assail you.

Eventually the body caught up with its lack of brain and keeled over.

The daemon wheeled in midair, which pulled the tool out of Gregori’s hand. Instead of diving for Gregori, it arrowed lightning-fast toward the counter where Adelita had been.

Gregori grabbed its scaly feet just in time. The blade in its chest wasn’t slowing it for anything. Its claws raked gouges in the countertop. Behind the counter, Adelita started ranting.

She hadn’t run as he’d told her to. Was she offering herself up as entity takeout?

Items began flying through the air, bouncing off the daemon’s screeching head. Adelita hurled everything behind the counter at the monster. Its jaws worked, and its powerful muscles quivered as it struggled and kicked. Wicked dewclaws on its legs missed Gregori by inches. He flapped his great wings, braced his feet against the counter, and muscled the daemon away from Adelita.

He hauled it to the center of the store, but it was all he could do to hold it in place. With his hands occupied, Gregori couldn’t unhook another multipurp, and he couldn’t see the first one anymore. Items that could damage a daemon were limited. How was he going to kill this fucker if he was too busy trying to keep it away from Adelita?

Unless he used the monster’s single-mindedness against it.

His skin aflame with droplets of ichor, he propelled himself to its shoulders. As soon as Gregori stopped anchoring it, the beast jetted toward the counter. Its wiry body thrashed like a goo-covered snake. Much as the daemon had done to him earlier, Gregori scrabbled past the leathery wings to the beast’s head.

Now he had the advantage.

The daemon, realizing its mistake, bucked and flapped. Gregori curled his wings until the tips reached the daemon. He bore down. The serrated feathers sliced the creature’s wings, shredding them.

The daemon crashed to the floor, face-first. If he could finish it off before it healed, it wouldn’t be zipping anywhere to call its brethren.

He hoped this was the gatherer from the horde blotch he and Adelita had escaped, and the first he’d killed had been the guard. If so, it should be the last daemon in hundreds of miles.

Should be.

Angry all over again at his tech and circumstance, Gregori closed his hands around the daemon’s throat and squeezed. The beast gnashed its teeth and hissed. He wished he had claws instead of blunt human fingers, claws to rend and tear and sever heads.

Note to Nikolas—retractable tactanium claws.

Note to Nikolas—don’t be such a Ship-licker.

Gregori maneuvered his feet around, pinning the daemon to the floor by its tattered wings. It heaved so violently it nearly knocked him to the ground. Still strong, still dangerous. He landed forcefully on his knees against the daemon’s spine. His weight pushed the multipurp, still wedged in the creature’s breastbone, through its back, barely missing Gregori’s shin.

Ah, that’s where it was.

Gregori unhooked another multipurp and used it to pry the first out of the daemon’s flesh. The daemon’s squall was music to his ears. The creature’s ichor felt as if it was flaying his own skin off his body, and his hand throbbed where the daemon had chewed on his thumb. He needed to end this and find water.

He adjusted the two multipurps into one so it formed safe handholds and pushed it through the monster’s neck.

It wasn’t easy. The revolting cracks and snaps, the daemon’s earsplitting cry, and the effort of sawing through bones nearly as tough as tactanium pained his shoulders. Finally the head rolled free with a
splurch
.

He pinned the convulsing body until it settled. With the dripping blade, he chopped off the hands as a safeguard. Tactanium made dispatching daemons easier. Terrans, who had no tactanium, had managed to kill a few with repeated missile strikes. But not even tactanium affected the shades. Had to be blasters.

“You can come out now,” he told Adelita.

She peered over the counter with an expression of revulsion in her big brown eyes. “If there was anything useful in here, it’s ruined now,” she told him. “You’ve destroyed the place. You couldn’t take that thing outside to kill it?”

“If it escaped, it would fetch reinforcements.” He didn’t expect her to sing his praises for saving her life—again—but a little thanks wouldn’t go amiss. “I didn’t exactly plan this.”

“I thought angeli could tell when daemons were nearby.”

Gregori wiped the multipurps on newspaper before replacing them on his arm. Blisters pebbled his skin like an all-over rash. “I’m not omniscient.”

“I suppose not.” She walked around the counter and pinched her nose when she neared the twitching, headless daemon. “That’s a terrible smell.”

“Don’t get too close to the head,” he warned. The jaws remained lively for hours.

She edged past the daemon and approached Gregori. Her brows knit together. “You’re bleeding. How can this be? Angeli can’t be killed.”

“We can be hurt.” If he told her the truth now, the discussion would last for some time. He was anxious to get the ichor off his skin before it ate through the dermis. Healing that layer itched like galactic scabies. “I need to bathe.”

“What does that have to do with bleeding?”