Free Battle Angel by Scott Speer Page A

the impact cascaded down upon them. Flames shot above the crater, sending a car veering across the freeway to avoid debris until it hit the median, tipped to its side, and slid about a hundred feet.
    Vespa Girl started hyperventilating and struggling in Maddy’s grasp; she still had no idea what just happened.
    “Shh. Calm down! Calm down!” Maddy gasped, trying to catch her breath as well amid the cloud of dust. “It’s okay. I’m an Angel. I just saved you. You’re going to be fine.”
    As she said it, Maddy had to wonder:
Are they actually going to be fine?
    With a sinking feeling, she heard the demon’s raspy, ragged breathing. Maddy looked out from under her wing and saw the thing climb out of the pit it had just made. It had been a while since she’d seen one of
them
this up close and personal, and it was more soul-shattering than she remembered. The Dark Angel’s very shape seemed to be shifting and changing, and Maddy realized that its skin was nearly on fire. It was a black fire, shimmering and roiling along its body. This one seemed to have only one head, but enormous horns speared out of it, and a series of jagged spikes exploded out of its shoulders and back.
    Emerging from the crater like a messenger from hell, the demon turned to Maddy and the girl. Its dark red eyes glinted, dead-like, with recognition. One could almost say it looked excited. The demon took a step forward and flicked a blackened tongue out of its mouth.
    Still in Maddy’s arms, Vespa Girl screamed.
    Maddy felt stunned from the grazing blow of the concrete and the crash, but she still attempted to stand up to defend them—with what? Her bare hands? Or . . . ? She found herself a bit dizzy. But she had to do something. There was no way she could outfly the demon with the girl in her arms, so Maddy steeled herself for the Dark Angel’s approach while the girl fell back into her embrace, weeping in fear.
    Suddenly, the demon stopped, as if it had heard something. It cocked its head toward the distance, then turned its unthinkable face back to Maddy and the girl. In impotent rage, it roared.
    It unfurled its scaly wings and launched into the air, leaving a trail of acrid smoke in its wake. Maddy watched as it bore a course back toward the south, toward the ocean whence it came. It had departed so suddenly, and without attacking Maddy and the girl, that it was almost as if someone—or some
thing
—had been controlling it.
    “It’s gone. It’s gone,” Maddy said, trying to calm the young woman in her arms. She stroked the girl’s hair as if she were a child, although she was probably Maddy’s age. “Shhh, shhhh. It’s gone. I don’t know why, but it’s gone.

CHAPTER SEVEN
    T he numbers in the gleaming elevator steadily climbed up and up. Instead of projecting an underwater scene, the TV wall on the back of the car was now set to an African savanna. Giraffes and lions ran around, silhouetted against a setting orange sun, and beautiful herons skimmed the surface of grassy wetlands. Jacks was impatient. Finally, the car hit level G with a ding.
    He’d felt the earthquakes announcing the beginning of the demon attacks. All the Angels had—the quakes’ echoes had been so strong they even permeated their luxurious underground shelter.
    A security guard came running up to Jacks. Above, through a skylight, Jacks could see the sky was turning black-red.
    “Mr. Godspeed, you’re not supposed to be up here. I’m under strict orders that you’re to be downstairs with the rest of the Angels,” the guard pleaded.
    Without a word, Jacks pushed past the guard.
    Most of the glass cube of the sanctuary was sheltered by leafy trees to make it nearly invisible, tucked far into a massive estate in the Angel City Hills. But a few gaps in the foliage gave a slight view onto Angel City.
    Down the hill, outside the giant gleaming glass walls and ceiling, bedlam reigned.
    Spires of black smoke rose up across the city, which was enveloped in