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“Is that your car?” asked the girl at the 7-Eleven checkout counter. “The shiny black one?”
Alex nodded as he put a Big Gulp coffee down in front of her.
“Cool,” breathed the girl, gazing out at it. It was a Porsche Carrera, and the sunshine was glistening off it like liquid onyx. “We don’t see cars like that around here very often.”
No, I bet you don’t, thought Alex, trying to remember where here was. Cattle Chute, Oklahoma, or some such dismal place. Home of the rootin’-tootin’ Cowboys! The bullet-ridden sign outside of town had proclaimed.
“Pump three,” he told her.
The girl smiled at him, widening her brown eyes as she rang up his coffee and the gas. “So, are you new in town?” she asked. VICKY, said her name tag. She was almost as tall as he was – which wasn’t that tall; he was just over five-ten – and her brown hair had been ironed so straight that you could get a paper cut from it.
Saturday job, he thought, pulling out his wallet. Sixteen or so. She probably goes to that giant high school that I passed just outside of town.
The thought irritated and amused him in equal measure. He had only seen high school on TV: jocks in their letter jackets, cheerleaders jumping around the field, couples hanging onto each other at the Senior Prom. It was another world, one so stupidly innocent that it was frightening. High school students were old enough to be fighting, only none of them were.
Because hardly anyone actually knew that there was a war on.
“Nah, just passing through,” he said. He handed her a couple of twenties.
Vicky’s face fell. “Oh. I was just wondering if you’d be going to our high school…but I guess you’re sort of old for that. What are you – twenty-one or something?”
“Or something,” he said with a slight grin. He was actually seventeen, but she was right in a way. In all the ways that mattered, he was old.
She took her time getting his change. “How long are you here for? Because, you know – if you’re looking for something to do, or maybe someone to show you around—”
There was a beeping sound from his jeans pocket as his cell phone announced a text. Alex’s heart leaped. Turning away slightly, he pulled the phone out and flipped it open.
Enemy sighted, Aspen CO. Residence 1124 Tyler St.
Yes! Immediately, Alex felt the fierce buzz sweep over him that he always got when there’d been a sighting. Finally – it had been over a week; he’d been going insane. Putting his phone back in his pocket, he smiled at Vicky. Why not? He’d never see her again anyway.
“Maybe next time,” he said, picking up his coffee. “Thanks, though.”
“Sure,” she said, trying to smile back. “Well…have a good trip.”
As Alex pushed open the swinging door, the too-cold air conditioning abruptly gave way to a flat, burning September. He slid into the Porsche. It was low to the ground, and its black leather seats wrapped around him in a dark embrace. It was comfortable as hell, actually, which was good, since he practically lived in it. Aspen CO, he punched into the GPS. Estimated time of arrival, 2.47 a.m. Almost nine hours. He’d drive straight through, he decided, taking a gulp of coffee. He didn’t need sleep – god, all he’d been doing since his last prey was resting.
Pulling out of the parking lot, Alex turned onto Highway 34, heading north out of town. If you could call it a town: there were a few dozen grids of streets with clapboard houses, and a couple of long, brightly-lit shopping strips, where the rootin’-tootin’ teenagers probably cruised up and down on Saturday night, drinking Bud Lights and shouting at each other. Just outside the town limits it all ended, and became dust and grain silos and oil pumps. Setting the cruise control to seventy, Alex turned on the radio. The Eagles came on, warbling about the Hotel California, and he grimaced. Switching to his iPod instead, he put on some indie rock as the Porsche began to smoothly eat the miles.
And, briefly, he wondered what Vicky would think if she knew he had a semi-automatic rifle in his trunk.
The Rocky Mountains cradled Aspen deep within them, like a giant’s palm lightly cupping a handful of diamonds. The road twisted and turned down the mountain as Alex approached the city, his headlights sweeping the dark asphalt in front of him. Startled rabbits froze on the side of the road, their eyes wide, and once he disturbed a buck, sending it crashing and leaping into the woods.
2.51, read his car clock as he crossed into the Aspen city limits. Not bad. The GPS directed him to Tyler Street, a quiet, tree-lined avenue not far from downtown. One of the streetlights was flickering; the rest glowed silently, showing a row of houses with large bay windows and immaculate front lawns. No house lights were on. Everyone was asleep.
Alex parked his car a few doors down from number 1124. Propping his elbows against the steering wheel, he surveyed the house, his dark eyebrows drawn together thoughtfully. Sometimes you could see a sign of them if you knew what to look for, but there was nothing here. It was just an ordinary house, though the front lawn wasn’t quite as pristine as the others. A few weeds grew here and there, spiking rebelliously up through the grass.
Letting down the neighbourhood – tsk, tsk, thought Alex.
He’d transferred his rifle to the front seat before he began the descent into Aspen, and now he clicked the magazine into place and sighted along the rifle’s length, squinting through the infrared lens at the house. The front door snapped into an eerie reddish focus. He could even read the name on the wrought-iron mailbox that was affixed to the front porch wall: T. Goodman.
Goodman. Alex snorted despite himself. The creatures often took human last names to help them blend in; nice to see that some of them had a sense of humour. He screwed the silencer onto the rifle’s muzzle. It was state of the art, as sleek and gleaming as the rifle itself. Now all he had to do was wait. He settled back in his seat, gazing at the house. Back in the days when they’d gone out in teams, the other AKs had always hated stakeouts, but they were part of the hunt to Alex. Part of the buzz. Your senses had to be on alert; you couldn’t relax for a moment.
Almost an hour later, the front door opened. He had the rifle in place in less than a second, watching carefully through the lens. The tall man on the front porch paused to lock the door, and then jogged briskly down the steps and strode off down the street, his footsteps echoing with purpose.
Alex lowered the rifle, unsurprised that T. Goodman was in his human form – they normally only showed their true nature when they were feeding. He waited until the man had turned the corner, heading towards downtown, and then he got out of his car and softly opened the trunk. Pulling on a black trench coat, he eased the trunk closed again and set off, the rifle safely hidden beneath the coat’s long folds. As he turned the corner he could see his quarry about a block away, crossing the street. He slowed for a moment, letting his gaze drift out of focus. An aura swam into view around the dark figure: pale silver, with a faint blue light flickering feebly at its edges.
Alex quickened his step. The creature hadn’t fed in days – which meant that he must be on the hunt now.
Sure enough, the man led him to a bar downtown. Spurs, flashed the sign in front. A yellow and pink neon figure of a cowgirl wearing shorts and a tiny leather vest flashed on and off, waving her hat. There was the heavy pulse of music, and a chorus of raucous male cheers.
Recognizing the sign, Alex shook his head in grudging admiration. Spurs was one of those places where the female wait staff wore sexy clothes and danced on the bar. The men staggering out at this hour would be drunk and rowdy, not paying much attention to their surroundings – ideal if you were on the hunt. It was just the sort of place that he’d have chosen himself, in fact.
A pair of bored-looking bouncers flanked the front door. T. Goodman melted into the shadows nearby, attracting no attention from either of them. Half a street away, Alex took up a position behind a parked Subaru, mentally calculating the fallout distance. He’d be fine, he decided; he’d gone for much closer than this in his time. The bouncers might catch a bit of flak, though. Just then Spurs’s heavy metal door swung open, and a man wearing a dishevelled business suit stumbled out. “Excellent night, my man,” he said, slapping one of the bouncers on the shoulder. “Those ladies are goo-od.” He shook his head in wonder, as if the power to describe just how good was beyond him.
“Yeah, they’re real hot,” said the bouncer, looking amused.
“Hope you’re not planning on driving, Eddie,” said the other one. “Why don’t you let us call you a cab?”
Eddie made no reply. He wove off down the street, humming tunelessly to himself. One of his stumbling feet caught an empty beer can, and the sound of it echoed through the night. The bouncers glanced at each other and shrugged. Not their problem.
Alex straightened as T. Goodman detached himself from the gloom and trailed off after the man, a tall, silent shadow. Pulling out his rifle, Alex began to track. It would be any moment now, he was sure of it. They didn’t need privacy, just a relatively clear field. Without taking his eyes off Goodman, Alex drew a deep breath to centre himself and then swiftly moved the focus of his energy up through his chakra points, until it hovered somewhere above his crown.
Immediately, he felt a slight shudder pass through him as the creature locked minds with its prey. He had been right – this was it. Wavering, Eddie stopped in his tracks, looking uncertain. Slowly, he turned around.
With a dark ripple, Goodman’s human body melted away. A blinding, glorious light grew in its place, until it was like a beacon that shone up and down the street, illuminating everything – the bar, the other buildings, Eddie’s small, frightened face. And at the centre of the light was a glowing being, seven feet tall, whose giant, spreading wings were such a pure white that they looked almost blue.
“This…this can’t be…” stammered Eddie as the angel drew towards him.
Half a street away, Alex could hear the bouncers laughing with a woman who’d stopped to ask them for a light. If any of them glanced this way, all they’d see would be Eddie standing on his own, wobbling drunkenly on the dark street.
Leaning over the top of the car, Alex squinted through the lens, his hands cool and steady as he aimed the rifle. The angel’s face came into focus, magnified several times. As a human Goodman had been as physically attractive as all angels were in that form, though Alex knew that if he’d got a good look at his face it would have seemed slightly weird – too intense, with eyes perhaps a shade too dark for comfort. But now, in his angel form, Goodman’s features had an almost otherworldly beauty: proud, fierce. The halo that framed them radiated like holy fire.
“Don’t be afraid,” soothed the angel in a voice that was a hundred chiming bells. “I am here for a reason. I need to give you something.”
Eddie dropped to his knees, eyes bulging. “I – I—”
The halo. Alex sighted on it, aiming for the deep, pure white at its heart.
“It won’t hurt,” continued the angel, drawing closer. It smiled then, and its radiance increased tenfold, burning the night. Trembling, Eddie moaned and ducked his head, unable to bear the beauty of it.
“In fact, you’ll remember this as the most meaningful experience of your life—”
Alex pulled the trigger. As the pulsing energy of the angel’s halo was disrupted by the force of the bullet, the creature burst without a sound into a million shooting fragments of light. Alex ducked behind the car as a shockwave slammed past him, the angel’s scream of anguish echoing in his ears. Still in his enhanced state, he could see the energy fields of every living thing nearby affected by the aftershock: the ghostly outline of a tree, of a few stray blades of grass, all of them dancing and warping as if buffeted by a hurricane.
Slowly, everything returned to normal. There was silence. Alex brought his energy focus back to his heart chakra, and the ghostly outlines disappeared. Shoving his rifle under the car for the moment, he walked over to Eddie, who still kneeled trembling on the sidewalk. T. Goodman was gone completely, with no sign of him left.
“Hey man, you okay?” said Alex easily, crouching beside him. The bouncers had stopped talking and were looking in their direction. Alex raised a casual hand to them. Everything’s fine, dude’s just a bit drunk, is all.
Eddie turned a tear-stained face towards him. “I – there was – I know you won’t believe me, but—”
“Yeah, I know,” said Alex. “Come on, let’s get you up.” He put an arm around Eddie and helped him to his feet. Jeez, the guy could try dieting a little.
“Oh, my head…” moaned Eddie, leaning limply against Alex’s shoulder. Angel fallout, thought Alex. Eddie had only been a few feet away, and though most of it had blasted straight back at Alex, he’d still feel the effects for days. It was better than angel burn, though.
Anything was better than that.
“It was so beautiful,” mumbled Eddie. “So beautiful…”
Alex rolled his eyes. “Yeah, real beautiful,” he muttered. He started walking back towards the bar with Eddie shuffling along beside him. As usual, he felt the mix of pity and contempt that he always felt for civilians. Though he spent his life trying to save them, they were all so clueless that he didn’t get much pleasure from it.
“Hey, I think our friend here needs a cab,” he said when he reached the bouncers. “Found him passed out on the sidewalk over there.”
One of the bouncers chuckled. “Yeah, we’ll take care of it,” he said, taking the businessman’s weight from Alex. “Old Eddie’s a regular here, aren’t you, buddy?”
Eddie rolled his head, struggling to focus. “Tom…I saw an angel,” he slurred.
The bouncers burst out laughing. “Yeah, you mean Amber, right?” said the other one. “She wears those really short shorts while she’s dancing around on the bar.” He winked at Alex. “Hey man, you wanna go in? No cover charge; our treat.”
Alex had been in plenty of places like this in his time, mostly dragged along by the other AKs when he was younger. He thought they were boring as hell, to be honest. And though a drink sounded good, the thought of sitting in a Spurs with his adrenalin still pumping from the kill was a little too surreal, even for him.
He shook his head, taking a step backwards. “Nah, maybe next time. I’d better get going. Thanks, though.”
“Anytime,” said the first bouncer. Eddie had passed out for real by then, slumped against him like a sack of potatoes. He shifted the man’s bulk impatiently. “Hey, Mike, you gonna call that cab company, or what? Sleeping Beauty here is fading fast.”
“Yeah, tell him to lay off the hard stuff,” said Alex, with a grin. “He’ll