Kristina Douglas - The Fallen 1 - Raziel Read Online Free Page B

pul ed me back from the jaws of hel . . .
    or whatever it was? He was the one who’d pushed me there in the first place. Besides, he’d only gotten slightly singed, and he was acting like it was third-degree burns over most of his body. He was a drama queen, and after my mother and my last boyfriend, I’d had enough of those to last me a lifetime.
    Hel , who was I kidding? Whether he deserved it or not, I wasn’t going to leave him as food for wolves or whatever they were. I couldn’t do that to a fel ow human being—if that was what he was.
    Though I stil didn’t have the faintest idea how I was going to start the damned fire.
    I edged closer, looking down at him. He was unconscious, and in the stil ness the unearthly beauty of his face was almost as disturbing as the unmistakable evidence of fangs his grimace of pain had exposed. Was he a vampire? An angel? A fiend from hel or a creature of God?
    “Shit,” I muttered, kneeling beside him to get a closer look at the burn on his arm. The skin was smooth, glowing slightly, but there were no blisters, no burned flesh. He was nothing more than a big baby. I reached out to shake him, then yanked my arm back with another “Shit,” as I realized that beneath the smooth skin fire burned.
    That was impossible. It looked as if coals were glowing deep under the skin, and the eerie glow was putting out impressive amounts of heat.
    There was a shuffling noise in the underbrush, and I froze. My comatose abductor/savior wasn’t the highest priority. The danger in the darkness beyond was worse. Whatever was out there was evil, ancient, and soul ess, something foul and indescribable. I could feel it in the pit of my stomach, a nameless dread like something out of a Stephen King novel.
    This was just wrong. I wrote cozy mysteries, not horror novels.

    What was I doing in the equivalent of a Japanese horror movie? Not that there’d been any blood as yet. But I could smel it on the night air, and it sickened me.
    I glanced back at the smal pile of twigs and grasses that I’d assembled. My fingertips were scorched, and on impulse I scooped up some dried leaves and touched them against his arm.
    They burst into flames, and I dropped them, startled; they fel onto the makeshift pyre, igniting it.
    The fire was bright, flames shooting upward into the sky. But darkness had closed in around us, and the monsters were stil waiting.
    I put more leaves on top of the fire, adding twigs and branches, listening to the reassuring crackle as they caught. It was only common sense, using fire to scare away the carnivorous predators in the darkness. Even cavemen had done it. Of course, cavemen hadn’t started fires from the scorched skin of a fanged creature, but I was handling things the best I could. Hel , maybe saber-toothed tigers had had fire beneath their pelts as wel . Anything was possible.
    I rose, turning back to my own personal saber-toothed tiger. We were too close to the fire, close enough that my companion would go up in flames if we stayed there. If I could pul him back against the rock face, we might be safe, and it would be easier to defend only one side of the clearing. I reached under his arms and tugged at his shoulders.
    “Come on, Dracula,” I muttered. “You’re too big for me to move on my own. I gotta have some help here.”
    He didn’t stir. I looked down at him, frustrated. He wasn’t huge, more long-limbed and elegant than bulky; and while I didn’t waste my limited time and money chasing after the perfect body in one of the many fitness clubs in Manhattan, I was strong enough. I should have been able to drag him a short distance away from the fire.
    Nothing was making any sense, and al the possible explanations put him in a fairly nasty light. Even so, I couldn’t just let him die.
    I couldn’t get a good enough grip on his body, so I caught hold of his jacket and yanked. He was unexpectedly heavy, though it shouldn’t have surprised me—the man had towered