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

retrieved her backpack behind the counter. “I didn’t see any water before you turned the place into rubble, but I bet we could find a pool at a motel.”
    “My thoughts exactly.” One of the buildings next to the canyon had been a likely candidate. He led the way out of the decimated store, Adelita following him with a cloth over her nose and mouth. Across the parking area was a walkway to the rim. It was still hot and windy as the sun set. The hotel’s sandy stone and timbered roof blended into the scenery, while the grass around the hotel had died. No Terrans here to water it.
    Gregori had become experienced at finding bodies of water on Terra. This close to the canyon rim, the hotel had no pool but did feature a small exercise room, sauna, and hot tub. There were also a gift shop and a restaurant that should have food and cleaning supplies.
    After a wash, he needed to disengage his wing pack and assess his tech. Before he could do that, however, he needed to finish telling Adelita what he’d intended to tell her before the daemon had found them.
    The water in the hot tub was cloudy and discolored by the time he finished. His raw skin started healing in a series of prickly waves. His tactanium armor and bands were impervious, but the ichor had etched thin spots in some feathers and scorched holes in his tunic. He’d need new clothes.
    Adelita had declined his offer to let her wash first; she’d disappeared during his ablutions to return with a sack of boxes and a container of moist wipes. She used them to scrub the blood and dust off herself. Beams of setting sun poured through the windows of the exercise room in bars of red-gold.
    “That stings like fire.” She threw the dirty cloths into a trash can. “You look better.”
    “Thank you.” He flapped his wings, shaking off the water. He hoped the ichor-coated multipurp hadn’t damaged his wing pack’s endo-organic connectors when he’d sprung the feather-tip blades. If he could fix the sensor array, he wouldn’t have to manually switch his wing settings anymore.
    “Are you cleansed of your murderous ways? I still smell daemon.” She pressed her curls to her face and sniffed. “I think it’s in my hair.”
    Satisfied his wings were dry and all tactanium tips retracted, he settled one shoulder against a wall of mirrors. “We need to finish our conversation.”
    “All right.” She rubbed moist wipes over her hair. “I was about to tell you why I don’t have a death wish anymore.”
    “I’m listening,” he said.
    “Let me begin at the beginning.” She resealed the wipe container and stuck it in her bag of plunder. “At first, I doubted you. We all did. We wanted science to explain the shades and daemons and flying men. We wanted science to set us free.”
    She seemed calm, introspective. A good time to confess. “Actually, science is—”
    “No, no. You said you wanted to hear this.” She propped her arm on a treadmill a few paces from him, her posture tightening her shirt across her full breasts. The buttons strained to hold the garment closed. “Science couldn’t help us. I was ashamed of my doubts, and I came to believe. How could I not?”
    The adrenaline crash after defeating the daemon certainly hadn’t rerouted his libido. He wrenched his gaze from her bosom and concentrated on her story. “Many of your people don’t believe.”
    “Many of my people are dead,” she said flatly. “When the white light didn’t take me, I thought it was because I wasn’t worth taking and I did have a death wish for a while. But do you know what I learned?”
    “No,” he said, fascinated by the play of emotions on her face.
    She lifted her chin. “I don’t want to die. I have things to see and do in this lifetime, and I think it’s the Lord’s will that I’ve come to understand this. Suicide is one sin you won’t have to forgive me for, angeli.”
    She seemed secure in her beliefs, but her story revealed her ability to handle change.