Read Online Angeli by Jody Wallace - Free Book Online

over his shoulder into the creature’s head. A sickening crunch was his reward.
    Its keen shattered what remained of the glass in display cases all around them. Now it wasn’t just pissed off. It was extremely pissed off. He hoped Adelita had ducked.
    Furious, the daemon renewed its effort to haul Gregori out of the building. Its tough, thin wings batted up swirls of glass shards. Rubbish scudded across the ground.
    Blood slicking his arms, Gregori let himself be hauled to the open space near the door. He yanked the multipurp out of the daemon’s head. Black goo dripped off the blade. Shit, this was going to be painful and unhygienic. He shoved the tool under his armor to his wing pack to activate one of his defense mechanisms manually, since it wasn’t responding to mental commands. Another victim of his dead sensor array.
    Ichor scorched his skin until… Click .
    The resultant pings all around him sounded like thousands of needles hitting the floor. The daemon tried to tear out his throat. He grabbed two of its wrists. Its ichor and his blood made it as slimy as snot.
    With a grunt, Gregori curled his wings forward before smacking them back. He caught the daemon between them like a bug in a flytrap.
    Wings weren’t meant to be weapons. With force fields and blasters, multipurps and enhanced strength, additional protections were overkill. But Nikolas, the team’s mechanic, had modified their wing packs the last time they’d played flying spirits for a beleaguered planet.
    The daemon shrieked as tactanium-tipped feathers sliced its skin everywhere they touched.
    Gregori battered it repeatedly with his weaponized wings. This wouldn’t kill it any more than the bullets, but daemons did feel pain—and he liked to inflict it on them.
    The creature freed him to hover near the ceiling. Without a force field, Gregori needed to do a better job of protecting himself. He leaped into the air. His opponent was more black than red as a thousand cuts oozed dark blood. Droplets hit the floor and hissed as the ichor ate the tile.
    Gregori yanked a ceiling fan off its wiring and flung it at his opponent. While the daemon was busy dodging, he hurled himself forward.
    His blade drove into the daemon’s chest, past the nearly unbreakable breastbone. The blade stuck tight with a jolt. His hand numbed from the harsh blow. Frag his aim! He’d been going for the neck. The best way to kill a daemon was chop off its head and fend off its body while it continued to assail you.
    Eventually the body caught up with its lack of brain and keeled over.
    The daemon wheeled in midair, which pulled the tool out of Gregori’s hand. Instead of diving for Gregori, it arrowed lightning-fast toward the counter where Adelita had been.
    Gregori grabbed its scaly feet just in time. The blade in its chest wasn’t slowing it for anything. Its claws raked gouges in the countertop. Behind the counter, Adelita started ranting.
    She hadn’t run as he’d told her to. Was she offering herself up as entity takeout?
    Items began flying through the air, bouncing off the daemon’s screeching head. Adelita hurled everything behind the counter at the monster. Its jaws worked, and its powerful muscles quivered as it struggled and kicked. Wicked dewclaws on its legs missed Gregori by inches. He flapped his great wings, braced his feet against the counter, and muscled the daemon away from Adelita.
    He hauled it to the center of the store, but it was all he could do to hold it in place. With his hands occupied, Gregori couldn’t unhook another multipurp, and he couldn’t see the first one anymore. Items that could damage a daemon were limited. How was he going to kill this fucker if he was too busy trying to keep it away from Adelita?
    Unless he used the monster’s single-mindedness against it.
    His skin aflame with droplets of ichor, he propelled himself to its shoulders. As soon as Gregori stopped anchoring it, the beast jetted toward the counter. Its wiry body