Samael by Heather Killough-Walden Read Free Book Online Page A

through the audience like Moses parting the Red Sea. Where he went, the people separated, affording him a wide bubble of personal space. He scoured the faces of everyone he passed, and as his eyes met theirs, they froze under the intensity of his gaze.
    The vampires were mobilizing. He could feel them closing in on him. If he didn’t find his wayward mate soon and get the hell out of there, he would have a battle on his hands. An epic one. In the midst of thousands of innocent mortals.
    *****
    Angel popped back into existence smack-dab in the middle of an undulating crowd of concert revelers. She could instantly smell alcohol, the sickly-sweet scent of burning grass, and the stronger taint of real drugs along with the stench of sweaty bodies. It wasn’t a cold night, and there was barely breathing room between each person.
    She changed form at once. No one was looking at her anyway. Every eye in the audience was pointed at the stage or at one of the multitude of ginormous screens that had been erected here and there to reflect what was happening with the band. This was a Valley of Shadow concert.
    Right on top of the Four Corners Monument.
    The Four Corners Monument was where four of the states in the US actually met up at perfect right angles: Utah, Colorado, Arizona, and New Mexico. Angel had known long in advance that they were going to put on this concert here. For quite a while, online chatter had joked that the “Masked One,” the lead singer of Valley of Shadow, was some kind of supernatural monster. The way he moved on stage, the sound of his voice, the mesmerizing properties of his eyes, were all nudging people into whispered imaginings.
    Publically, fans would joke, “He’s magic,” or “He’s a vampire,” or “He’s some sort of alien.” They took it as far as writing fan fiction about him, giving him the powers of a superhero. One particularly popular fan fiction story was turned into a comic strip and then a graphic novel, in which the Masked One could duplicate himself and stop crimes in more than one place at a time. “He can be anywhere at any time!” the victims would warn as they were being robbed. And sure enough, the Masked One would come to the rescue.
    Supernatural powers or not, to its fans, one thing Valley of Shadow seemed to have in spades was a sense of humor. To play right along with its fans, and offer up a light-hearted joke at the same time, Valley decided to prove it could be in more than one place at once. In fact, it could technically be in four .
    The Four Corners marker was on Navajo land, so lucky for the band, the Navajo happened to be huge fans. And, it didn’t hurt that an enormous donation was being made to the tribe. Posters for the event went up months in advance, advertising the concert with vivid imagery, stark color contrasts, and the type of font that steadfastly appeals to “Valley Walkers,” as fans were called.
    Valley of Shadow comprised a lead singer, lead guitarist, a bass guitarist, a keyboardist, and a drummer. What the fanciful public didn’t know was that they were actually right on the money in their suspicions. Angel was one of the few people in the world who knew that every member of the band was actually a vampire. The lead singer was none other than the king of the vampires, and the former angel of death – Azrael.
    Az hypnotized from the stage as a towering, well-built, enigmatic but charismatic as hell figure in black and a feature-hiding mask that provided one final barrier between him and all those questing, prying, and, these days, usually supernatural eyes.
    Valley’s agent was Max, the Guardian. Max had been on the planet as long as the rest of them and had learned a thing or two in that time. He was a highly intelligent man who knew how to play the representation game with the best of them. He also knew how to hire good help, so that when things got rough for him and the boys, his work, and hence his cover as an agent to the most popular