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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 some flak, though.
Just then the heavy metal door to Spurs swung open, and a man wearing a disheveled 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. With the rifle propped firmly against his shoulder, Alex began to track him. It would be any second now; he was sure of it. They didn’t need privacy, just a relatively clear field. Not taking his eyes off Goodman, Alex drew a deep breath to center 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 center of the light was a glowing being seven feet tall, whose giant, spreading wings were such a pure white that they looked almost blue.
“Jesus Christ,” breathed Eddie as the angel drew toward 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 was as physically attractive as all angels, though Alex knew that if he’d gotten a good look at his face, it would have seemed slightly weird — too intense, with eyes maybe a shade too dark for comfort. But now, in his ethereal 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 shock wave 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. He shoved his rifle under the car for the moment, then walked over to Eddie, who still knelt, trembling, on the sidewalk. T. Goodman was gone, with no sign of him left.
“Hey, man, you OK?” said Alex easily, crouching beside Eddie. 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 tearstained face toward him. He swallowed, shaking his head. “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. Jesus, the guy could try dieting a little.
“Oh, God . . . I’ve got such a headache,” 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, his head lolling limply. “So goddamn beautiful. . . . ”
Alex rolled his eyes. “Yeah, real beautiful,” he muttered. He started walking back toward 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, 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 adrenaline still pumping from the kill was a little too surreal, even for him.
He shook his head, taking a step backward. “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 the man’s broad shoulder like a sack of potatoes. The bouncer shifted his bulk impatiently. “Hey, Mike, you gonna call that cab company, or what? Sleeping Beauty here is fading fast. ”