Angel Souls and Devil Hearts by Christopher Golden Read Free Book Online Page A

afford the risk if you don’t evacuate?” Allison said, getting angry now.
    And then the earthquake began.
    The hotel shook to its foundations, windows shattered and the floor beneath the bed began to buckle. Cody moved barely fast enough to knock Allison away from the bed and onto the marble bathroom
threshold. Above them the ceiling was about to cave in, and Cody saw it just in time. He covered Allison with his own body as it gave way.
    The quake lasted seventeen seconds. When it was over, Cody’s back had been torn open by a falling beam, which even now he held up, away from Allison, with his body. As soon as the ground
stopped shaking, he used his strength to turn slowly, sending the beam sliding into the hole that had opened in the center of the room. For the moment, their spot half-in, half-out of the bathroom
seemed safe enough.
    Even as he checked Allison for injuries, and found none, Cody’s back was healing. By the time Allison had the presence of mind to look him over, the only evidence of any wound was his torn
and bloody shirt. He looked around for a fresh one, and saw that most of their belongings had fallen down to the floors below. Aftershocks could come at any time, Cody knew, so he didn’t
waste a second worrying about clothing. He made do with an old Allman Brothers Band concert T-shirt that he’d worn to bed the night before. His tan-colored light cotton jacket was hung on the
bathroom door, and he grabbed that as well.
    The one other thing he was able to salvage, from behind a heating grate in the wall, was his holstered Beretta—nine-millimeter, semiautomatic, loaded with hollow points, fifteen in the
clip and one in the chamber. He was a better rifle shot, but rifles were a tad conspicuous on most days. He slid into both holster and jacket, and turned to find Allison observing the entire
transformation with raised eyebrows.
    “I’ve never understood why you feel the need to carry that,” she said.
    “Call it a security blanket,” he answered. “I’ll never shoot as well as my old friend Annie Oakley, but then, I’m still around, aren’t I?”
    She looked as if she were going to say something, and then must have realized it was not the time.
    “Well, I’m certain the mayor will get with the program now, so what’s our next move?” Allison asked.
    “You mean after we get out of here?”
    “Yeah.”
    “Let’s talk about it after we get out of here.”
    They smiled together, and then Cody walked to the edge of the hole, stepping gingerly. He wouldn’t have any trouble getting back up if he fell, but it would be inconvenient.
    What he saw when he looked down was unexpected. Where he had assumed that their bed and most of their furniture had collapsed into the room below, in truth a chain reaction had taken place, with
the weight of each floor collapsing the next until they had all fallen in. And at the bottom . . . At the bottom there was only darkness. Cody struggled to concentrate, to focus his vision, and
then realized what he was seeing. A huge fissure had opened up right beneath the hotel, tearing its foundation wide enough that much of its bulk had fallen into that hole. But then how deep was the
hole if most of the debris had disappeared into it?
    “Allison,” he said, “look out the window and tell me what you see.”
    “Cracks,” she answered. “A lot of cracks, why?”
    They shared a look then, which was nearly as effective as telepathy. It had been obvious from the first tremor that Mulkerrin’s power had caused the earthquake. They didn’t know how,
but they were certain it was him. Therefore, they could no longer put any limit on his abilities, not until they learned those limits for themselves. In the meantime they had to get out of the
hotel, perhaps out of the city proper, before another quake hit. They had both realized that there would very likely be another.
    The first problem to be surmounted was that between them and the door was approximately