Angels on Fire Read Online Free Page A

dresser had been as blank as a blind eye.
    She quickly closed the bathroom door and rested her shoulder against the jamb, chewing her thumbnail. She had to regain control of the situation, and there was no way she could do that by cowering in the john. Still, she was unwilling to sally forth unarmed against what was, quite literally, The Unknown.
    She cast about the room, searching for a possible weapon. The only thing that came close was the plumber’s helper under the sink. It wasn’t much, but it had a wooden handle and the heavy rubber cup provided a certain heft she found comforting on a cave-woman level. And, if the thing tried to jump her, she could always spray it in the face with some perfume, which might give her the time she needed to make her getaway. Thus armed with a toilet plunger in one hand and an atomizer of perfume in the other, Lucy eased out of the safety of the bathroom and cautiously edged her way towards the bedroom.
    The door was ajar and there were flickering shadows cast by the light from the television screen. Holding the plunger in front of her like a lion tamer’s chair, she eased the door open a little further and looked inside.
    Nothing had been moved, as far as she could tell. The dresser and wardrobe were in their usual state of disarray, with their drawers half-open and the contents hanging out like tongues. The collection of purloined milk-crates that passed for her bookcase were still overflowing with used paperbacks scrounged from the Strand, and her bed remained unmade from the day before. The only thing different, as far as she could see, was the angel perched on the back of the ratty easy-chair beside the bed, staring with rapt attention at the television’s glowing screen.
    As she moved farther into the room, she marveled that something as large as the angel could stay perfectly balanced atop the chair. It hunkered with its knees pulled up to its chin and arms wrapped around its calves, the wings occasionally twitching and shivering of their own accord without the angel seeming to be aware of their activities. As Lucy drew closer she could hear the angel muttering to itself under its breath, although it never once removed its gaze from the screen.
    The early-morning talk-show hostess, her hair sculpted into something between a helmet and an ornate sea-shell, was blathering on about a certain celebrity’s aerobic exercise video. When the camera cut to a clip of said celebrity hyperventilating to the Oldies, the angel suddenly swiveled its head toward Lucy, like a cross between a barn-owl and Linda Blair in The Exorcist.
    Lucy gasped in alarm and jumped back, raising the plumber’s helper over her head. If the angel perceived this as an aggressive gesture, it did not register as such on its face. Instead, it smiled the same disarmingly open smile as it had before and pointed at the television, announcing in a voice as clear and pure as an alpine spring: “Free wee-wee pads at Puppy City!”
    Lucy laughed so hard she dropped both the plunger and the atomizer. And all the angel did was watch, with a slightly perplexed look on its perfect face.

Chapter 3
    It was funny how the light of day—okay, the crack of dawn—made things a lot less scary than they’d appeared in the dead of night. For one thing, Lucy now had an unobstructed view of all available exits. Also, the angel did not leap from its perch and come flapping after her as it had earlier. Lucy felt a twinge of embarrassment as she replayed the events of the night before. No doubt the poor thing was as disoriented as she had been—even more so. After all, it was the one waking up in a strange place in a strange world, not her. If anyone had a license to freak out, it’d be—? Shit, she didn’t even know what to call the angel, assuming it had a name.
    She eased forward cautiously, just in case the creature decided to go after her again like Tippi Hedren with a wig full of pumpernickel. The angel remained motionless,