BROKEN ANGELS (Angels and Demons Book 1) by Brenda L. Harper Read Free Book Online Page B

their allies, but whom Stiles knew were not. More than that had happened in the park…particularly a moment Dylan should have long put behind her, but which, somehow, still cropped up in her thoughts more often than she would like to admit.
    “What do you know?”
    Stiles glanced at her. “There’s the Dylan I know. Always blunt with no filter.”
    “We don’t have time for this, Stiles. Tell me what’s going on.”
    He turned from her, facing the direction of the hospital. The lights were ablaze in the building, all of them, something that Dylan couldn’t remember ever happening before. The hospital had a dozen rooms, but only two or three had ever been occupied at one time before. Now, they were struggling to find space for the most critical of the ill. It was so bad that they had to send home patients with bags of medications and overworked nurses stopping by every few days to check in.
    “I think I have an idea of what this disease is.”
    Dylan stared at him. “What do you mean, you know what it is? Even the doctors have no clue.”
    “That’s because most of them have never seen it. But I have. And you.”
    “Me?”
    He glanced at her and suddenly her mind was flooded with memories. Lily, sitting on her throne with lesions on her body, so weak she could hardly sit up straight. Stiles himself, lying on the ground, covered in lesions and coughing, with bloody foam slipping from between his lips. Joanna…the horrifying sight of Joanna dying from the infusion of darkness that Dylan herself had given her.
    She pushed the images away, shivering in the warm evening air as she wrapped her arms around her chest.
    “That’s not possible.”
    “The lesions, the cough, the weakness, the joint pain. It’s all the same, Dylan.”
    “But it’s not possible. That was an angel disease that only affected the angels. The humans were immune.”
    “It’s been altered.”
    “How?”
    Stiles shook his head. “I don’t know.”
    “Then how do you…”
    But then she realized there was no reason to argue. She could see it, probably had seen it from the beginning. She just didn’t want to believe it.
    She walked over to a bench and sat down. She felt like curling up into the fetal position and comforting herself by rocking like a baby. She had thought they were past all of this nonsense. The end of the war—the choice made—that was supposed to be the end of it all. Luc and Lily were dead, Joanna was…well, they hadn’t heard from her in thirty-seven years, so she assumed that she was gone. The people were becoming human again, the world was rebuilding itself. They were living their second chance.
    And now this.
    “Could it be the gargoyles?”
    Stiles shrugged. “I don’t know, but I doubt it. It’s their purpose to protect humans, not harm them.”
    “You said some turned on them—”
    “They turned on the Nephilim. Not the humans. And now…even though they’re all Nephilim, their souls are blessed and they’ve lost their powers, so, technically, they’re human again. And that puts them back under the protection of the gargoyles.”
    “Are you sure?”
    Stiles came over and sat heavily on the bench beside her. “I’m never completely sure of anything. But I’m pretty certain.”
    “We should talk to Donna.”
    Stiles hesitated. Neither of them had seen a gargoyle in years. Demetria, one of the gargoyle leaders, used to come by every couple of years, just to check in, but she stopped five, maybe seven years ago. Donna, Dylan’s sister—they shared a guardian in the dorms at Genero—was their only contact with the gargoyles, now. But the last time they saw Donna was over a year ago.
    Dylan slid her hand over Stiles’. He wrapped his fingers around hers, squeezing her hand. And then, in a blink, they were standing in a bright, airy room Dylan didn’t recognize. But she recognized the pretty, blonde woman sitting on a couch across from where Dylan and Stiles appeared.
    “Dylan!”
    She jumped up