Read Online Angeli by Jody Wallace - Free Book Online Page A

thrashed like a goo-covered snake. Much as the daemon had done to him earlier, Gregori scrabbled past the leathery wings to the beast’s head.
    Now he had the advantage.
    The daemon, realizing its mistake, bucked and flapped. Gregori curled his wings until the tips reached the daemon. He bore down. The serrated feathers sliced the creature’s wings, shredding them.
    The daemon crashed to the floor, face-first. If he could finish it off before it healed, it wouldn’t be zipping anywhere to call its brethren.
    He hoped this was the gatherer from the horde blotch he and Adelita had escaped, and the first he’d killed had been the guard. If so, it should be the last daemon in hundreds of miles.
    Should be.
    Angry all over again at his tech and circumstance, Gregori closed his hands around the daemon’s throat and squeezed. The beast gnashed its teeth and hissed. He wished he had claws instead of blunt human fingers, claws to rend and tear and sever heads.
    Note to Nikolas—retractable tactanium claws.
    Note to Nikolas—don’t be such a Ship-licker.
    Gregori maneuvered his feet around, pinning the daemon to the floor by its tattered wings. It heaved so violently it nearly knocked him to the ground. Still strong, still dangerous. He landed forcefully on his knees against the daemon’s spine. His weight pushed the multipurp, still wedged in the creature’s breastbone, through its back, barely missing Gregori’s shin.
    Ah, that’s where it was.
    Gregori unhooked another multipurp and used it to pry the first out of the daemon’s flesh. The daemon’s squall was music to his ears. The creature’s ichor felt as if it was flaying his own skin off his body, and his hand throbbed where the daemon had chewed on his thumb. He needed to end this and find water.
    He adjusted the two multipurps into one so it formed safe handholds and pushed it through the monster’s neck.
    It wasn’t easy. The revolting cracks and snaps, the daemon’s earsplitting cry, and the effort of sawing through bones nearly as tough as tactanium pained his shoulders. Finally the head rolled free with a splurch .
    He pinned the convulsing body until it settled. With the dripping blade, he chopped off the hands as a safeguard. Tactanium made dispatching daemons easier. Terrans, who had no tactanium, had managed to kill a few with repeated missile strikes. But not even tactanium affected the shades. Had to be blasters.
    “You can come out now,” he told Adelita.
    She peered over the counter with an expression of revulsion in her big brown eyes. “If there was anything useful in here, it’s ruined now,” she told him. “You’ve destroyed the place. You couldn’t take that thing outside to kill it?”
    “If it escaped, it would fetch reinforcements.” He didn’t expect her to sing his praises for saving her life—again—but a little thanks wouldn’t go amiss. “I didn’t exactly plan this.”
    “I thought angeli could tell when daemons were nearby.”
    Gregori wiped the multipurps on newspaper before replacing them on his arm. Blisters pebbled his skin like an all-over rash. “I’m not omniscient.”
    “I suppose not.” She walked around the counter and pinched her nose when she neared the twitching, headless daemon. “That’s a terrible smell.”
    “Don’t get too close to the head,” he warned. The jaws remained lively for hours.
    She edged past the daemon and approached Gregori. Her brows knit together. “You’re bleeding. How can this be? Angeli can’t be killed.”
    “We can be hurt.” If he told her the truth now, the discussion would last for some time. He was anxious to get the ichor off his skin before it ate through the dermis. Healing that layer itched like galactic scabies. “I need to bathe.”
    “What does that have to do with bleeding?”
    “Blood is the life,” he said as mysteriously as possible. “I need to be baptized to cleanse off my sins and all that.”
    “Cleanse off that horrible stench.” She