Midnight's Angels - 03 by Tony Richards Read Free Book Online

have that one.
    I couldn’t see too many ways of escaping this thing. But if I didn’t even try, this would be over very quickly. Without taking my eyes from its face, I began to back off.
    I was heading along the same route that my car had followed. And the tires of my Cadillac had churned the turf beneath me to an oozing sludge. If the creature made a rush, I’d probably fall before it even reached me. And that didn’t make me feel exactly good.
    I kept my handgun pointed at it all the same. The thing practically smiled, when it saw me do that.
    “What the hell are you?” I murmured quietly.
    Then I dropped my aim a little and tried backing away faster for a few unsteady yards. It wasn’t trying to follow me as yet. But considering how fast I’d seen it move, it wouldn’t have much trouble catching up.
    The worst thing was how horribly alone I felt out here. The empty parkland stretched around me, mostly the dark shapes of treetops lancing through a pool of shadow. The only thing properly visible was my own car, since the interior lighting was still on. The front was lit up by the angel’s glow. Even my old Cadillac seemed lost to me.
    I could still see the far more normal, yellow lights of town in the corner of my vision. They looked awful distant. I could call for help in that direction as loud as I wanted. Nobody would hear me, or arrive in time.
    The angel folded its wings slightly. And then it stretched a narrow arm toward me, beckoned with its finger. It was asking me to venture closer, passively accept my fate.
    Goddamit! Anger flared through me. I managed to get off the sludge, and started moving at a quicker rate.
    Its hand dropped. Its face contorted even more fiercely. Then it was coming after me.
    Purely out of reflex, my aim leveled out again. I squeezed off two shots. As I had suspected, they had not the tiniest effect. The slugs passed through it like it was morning mist. It kept on getting closer.
    And I was about to turn on my heels and try to make a run for it …
    When something exploded right in front of the thing’s face.
    Another burst of bright red sparks. Which meant that Willets was managing to keep an eye on me, despite the fact that he had his own problems. The angel reared back a few feet, which gave me a chance to extend my lead. But then it started moving in on me again.
    A second red blast deterred it. Then a third. It reeled off to the side.
    It wasn’t simply being forced away from me. It was being chivvied away from my vehicle as well. And I thought my ears were playing tricks on me, at first. But my cell phone, on the floor by the driver’s seat, had started ringing.
    The doc, trying to get in touch with me again? That seemed the most likely explanation. So I took a real big chance. Sucked in a breath, and then flung myself forward, a real quarterback with the ball kind of effort.
    I was putting my life entirely in the adept’s hands, and knew it. But the truth was, he had changed a lot since we’d first met. I felt that I could trust him.
    The angel made another attempt to close in on me. The largest blast of red sparks yet exploded in the air in front of it. Would have burned its face off, if it had been flesh and blood.
    That finally made its mind up. And it lifted higher in the air, spreading out its wings again.
    And then it was gone, hurtling back in the direction of the ruined building.
    I slammed against the side of my car and then scrambled back into the driving seat. Didn’t even think to shut the door, just snatched the cell phone up.
    Willets’s voice blurted from it so loudly it almost made me wince.
    “I thought I told you to get out of here?” His tone was gruff, exasperated, like I was one of his old-time students who had handed in the wrong damned paper. “Instead of which, I find you messing about in the mud like a two year-old!”
    He never did have what you’d call a sympathetic nature. I was about to answer when the line went dead. And it wouldn’t