Angels on Fire Read Online Free

one side, and a look of mild puzzlement crossed its androgynously perfect features.
    “Get back!” Lucy said, gesturing violently with her hands. “Get back or I’ll scream!”
    The angel tilted its head to the other side, its gaze fixed on her hands. It did not move away, but neither did it come closer.
    “Just stay where you are—understand?” She had no idea if it spoke English, or any language at all, but it seemed to find her hand gestures meaningful. “Don’t come any closer, okay?”
    The angel looked her in the eye and smiled the most beautiful, disarming smile she’d ever seen on anyone besides a baby. “Okay,” it said, in a voice like the dawn.
    Relieved, she returned the smile and lowered her hands.
    The angel promptly swooped towards her like an owl going for a mouse. Lucy turned and fled, shrieking, down the narrow hall to her bedroom. She risked a glance over her shoulder and saw the angel looming behind her like a rogue Macy’s balloon, its toes skimming six inches above the floor. Choking on a scream, she dove into the bathroom and slammed the door behind her, locking it with trembling hands.
    Gasping for breath, she dropped onto the toilet and, head in hands, stared at the door through her fingers. She could hear the angel moving about on the other side—or rather, she could hear its wings, which made a sound like cicadas in summer. She closed her eyes and struggled to calm herself. She had to regain control. She needed to think her way out of this. She could kick herself for freaking out and boxing herself in. Her bedroom might not have a lock on the door, but it did have a fire-escape that led directly to the street. While the bathroom door had a lock, its solitary window was the size and shape of a gun-slit. Even if she were contortionist enough to wriggle through it, it still left her five stories up and nowhere to go but down—and quickly, at that. She was trapped, plain and simple.
    Lucy slid down off the toilet and onto the cool of the tile floor, slumping against the bowl. “Shit,” she groaned aloud, to no one in particular. Well, at least she was in the right room for it.
    So, the angel wasn’t dead after all. It must have been stunned or something. Although she could have sworn it hadn’t been breathing and didn’t have a heartbeat. Then again, maybe angels didn’t have hearts or lungs? It’s not like she was an authority on angel physiology. Hell, now that she thought about it—maybe it wasn’t even an angel. Maybe it was a member of some alien race that was the source of all the angel myths, kind of like those ancient astronauts.
    She couldn’t let this get her down. She had to look at the positive side of it. She would make just as much money with a live ancient astronaut as she would with a dead angel—it didn’t really change much at all. If anything, this was actually an improvement! She just had to figure out how to work things to her advantage.
    But first she needed to think for a few minutes...
    Lucy started awake, uncertain how long she’d been asleep. She knuckled her eyes and spat out fluff from the pink synthetic toilet cozy that was her makeshift pillow. At first she was confused by her surroundings, then remembered how she’d come to be locked in the bathroom.
    She pressed her ear against the door, listening for the tell-tale drone of the creature’s wings, but instead heard what sounded like human voices. She opened the door a crack, peering around the jamb into the hallway. The voices became slightly clearer and seemed to be issuing from her bedroom. She recognized one of the voices as belonging to a particularly obnoxious early-morning talk show hostess.
    Had she left the television on when she left the house for work the other day and simply forgotten to turn it off? No—she distinctly remembered the apartment being dark when she returned the night before. And when she’d retrieved the phone from under the bed, the portable set perched on her