Free devil 03 - tween hearts fire and devils delight by sam cheever Page A

lips.
    “Are you okay?”
    He shook his head. “Devil’s Plague.”
    I winced in sympathy. Angels are not human and are therefore not susceptible to any of the human diseases. However, that didn’t mean that they never got sick. There were a few pretty virulent strains of illness that occasionally took hold of the angel population. Devil’s Plague, named thus for obvious reasons, was one of them. “Please tell me it isn’t widespread.” If the guardian angels all took ill the situation on Earth would be vastly worse…as if it weren’t already bad enough.
    Flick shrugged. “Don’t know. I’ve pretty much been tucked into my cloud spewing from both ends for days.”
    “Just awesome,” I muttered, trying not to think about where spewed things went after they left clouds.
    “What do you need, Astra?”
    I glanced at him, measuring my need against his misery. I finally decided he’d just have to deal with the misery. “I need to talk to a prophet.”
    He groaned, “The paperwork alone will kill me.”
    I shrugged. “Sorry, the world is collapsing around my shoulders and I need to know what’s going on.”
    He loosed a rare curse and blinked at me. “All right but you’ll owe me big-time for this.” He popped off before I could pin him down on a time frame.
    “Jeesh! Cranky much?”
    Something crashed through my window and I ducked, flinging myself behind the divan. A large rock rolled to within a few inches of my nose and sounds from the street flooded into the room.
    I waited a few beats to make sure more rocks weren’t coming my way and then scuttled over to the breeched window to see what was going on below. Hundreds of people were gathered on the streets below my window. It was a roiling mass of humanity with no apparent objective other than to cause the maximum amount of damage possible.
    The crowd was throwing rocks and large pieces of metal through the windows of buildings all along the street. It appeared to be totally random violence. The faces I could see below reminded me of the human in the park who had attacked Emo. They were filled with stark fear and something that looked very much like hate.
    My heart thumped against my chest in sudden fear. Something was very wrong. These people had completely lost it. They were out of their minds with anger over something only they understood. I needed to find out what was happening and I had to do it fast.
    As I watched, a woman went down in the midst of the chaos and I could hear her shrill screams as she was brutally trampled. I started for the door. I wasn’t sure what I could do but I had to do something.
    I grabbed a hooded jacket from beside the door and yanked it on, pulling the hood up over my head and face and went out into the hallway, taking the flash to street level.
    The double glass doors leading to the street slid open as I approached. Several rioters flew through the newly opened door and started running toward the flash. I realized I couldn’t just let them have free access to the building and, with a curse, I decided that I would have to use my magic to stop them. I yanked my power forward and created an impenetrable wall in front of the flash.
    Huge mistake.
    As the first couple of rioters pinged off the power wall and crashed onto their backs on the cold, marble floor, several stunned faces turned to look at me and I watched as their hate coalesced into violent focus.
    I knew if I stayed there I’d have to kill them. But I couldn’t leave them in my building. In their maddened state they’d probably start killing people. I pulled a power bubble over myself and headed for the door. Shrieking in rage, they followed me out of the building.
    I dived into the crowd, using my bubble as a battering ram against the rabid rioters in the street. People cried out in anger and surprise behind me as my pursuers pushed them ruthlessly aside to get to me.
    I made it to the other side of the street, turned right and walked several steps and then