Strange Angels

ringed eyes, glaring white cheeks, and camo jacket—stared at me, replicated in each glass shield.

The crash and tinkle of broken glass was followed by a crunch and a low, sonorous growl that scraped not only at my ears but inside my head, dragging through the center of my brain. Pain flared behind my eyes, and I pitched forward, catching myself on the window with my left hand and forehead. The jolt clicked my teeth together hard. Copper bloodtaste spilled down my throat as my heartbeat slammed into overdrive, pounding so hard in my belly and chest black spots whirled and danced through my vision.

I found myself on my knees, shaking the growl out of my head. The pain vanished as soon as it had arrived, and I was only disoriented.

Get up, Dru! Dad’s voice barked at me. Get under cover! Do it now!

I set my teeth and breathed in the way Gran taught me, pulling myself back into a compact ball inside my own skull. The growl slid into a lower, purely physical register, and I lifted my head, peering with watering eyes down the long empty hallway broken only by potted plants, benches, and carts full of useless crap covered for the night. There was a ruddy glow creeping up the walls, and I heard a rushing crackle under the growl.

Now that the thing wasn’t echoing inside my head, I could think. I scrambled on hands and knees to the shelter of a huge potted palm, probably fake, and smelled smoke. I wasn’t sure if it was real smoke or just my own panic. My right hand dug in my jacket pocket, the weight of the gun cold and reassuring. I slid it free of the fabric, bringing it up nice and easy and clicking the safety off as the growling swelled, plucking at the outside of the small ball I’d made of myself inside my head.

Another thing they don’t tell you about this sort of thing is how much it makes you want to pee. I really wanted to find a bathroom, my bladder suddenly incredibly, painfully full. No time for that—I slid over to the side and peeked down the hallway.

Whatever it is just broke the glass on a second-floor window. Then I realized entrances to the top level of the parking lot were on the second floor, and a quarter of the way up this arm of the mall was one of those entrances. It was just past the shop with the funny-smelling lotions.

What the hell? I breathed in, tasted smoke and something else, something icy and fresh, with an iron undertaste.

Outside air.

Then it padded into view, long and lean against shifting shadows. It was the size of a pony, covered in weird glassy hair, shaped like a mother of a big shaggy dog. My head hurt, the way it did when an apparition was getting ready to materialize, draining the warmth out of the air and sucking up all the ambient energy most people barely recognize they’re swimming in.

I sucked in another soft breath, catching myself before I made a noise. It was a close call. Be quiet, Dru. Be really quiet. This is so not good.

I suppose I get a prize for stating the obvious, even inside my own skull.

The dog-thing inhaled, snorting through a nose the size of the Grand Canyon. As it exhaled, its jaws parting and the huge obsidian teeth sliding against each other, it made a sound like a match applied to a gas leak. Smoke fumed off its shoulders, lifted from its spine.

It ignited. Orange and yellow flame raced along its back, dripping down the glassy fur, spattering the flooring. The scorch of it rolled down and hit the back of my throat—burning plastic.

The thing was on fire.

I was stupid. I gasped. I couldn’t help it.

It heard me.

Its blind fiery head swung around, questing. Then it snorted, and the heat of it rolled down the hall and brushed the leaves of the fake palm tree above me. The quiet rustling was almost lost in the sound of its claws snicking as it loped unerringly forward.

A burning dog. The size of a Shetland pony. Running straight at me.

I scrambled to my feet, my mouth dry and tasting like thick liquid copper. I bolted. My boots slapped the linoleum as the thing let out a howling growl with the rush and crackle of flame underneath it, belching with foul, sulfur-impregnated, roasted air.

I put my head down, barely aware I was screaming like a goddamn cheerleader in a horror movie, and ran for my life.

CHAPTER 9

I pounded down the hallway and jagged to the left as the mezzanine opened up in a well of darkness, my legs thick with terror and refusing to work right, the gun clutched uselessly in my right hand as my arms pumped. The escalators were turned off for the night, but I skidded around the corner and took the frozen stairs three at a time anyway, my hips and shoulders jolting each time I landed. The thing behind me— it’s burning, the rational part of my brain howled, and the other part, the part Dad had trained into me, replied with an iron imperative to fucking move I know it’s burning!— gave out another roar as it thumped into something with a crash, and the whole thing began to seem like a nightmare. I’d wake up any second now, safe in my bed, with Dad downstairs watching cable.

It smelled horrible, rotten eggs and burning foulness. I ran like a rabbit, fleet with terror, my boots slapping down with little squeaking sounds. Something that sounded like Dad was screaming in my ear, but I didn’t listen. I couldn’t listen.

Instinct saved me. I threw myself aside as a bullet train of compressed air screamed past, holding the smearing crimson and orange of the burning thing, stretched out in a full leap. I fell heavily, not bothering to try and stop myself, barking my head on something. Warmth dripped down the side of my face. I scrambled to my feet and tripped again, knocking over chairs—overflow from the food court, a nice little nook where people could sit and eat their fast food while looking at the fountain—

The fountain! The click inside my head was so loud I almost didn’t hear the burning thing howl again, a long, cheated rasp of ignited rage. I made it to my feet with hysterical speed and bolted, my back burning with pain and something torn loose in my side.

Behind me. It was behind me again, and it was fast. I couldn’t hope to outrun it. Twenty feet between me and the fountain, and I wasn’t going to make it.

MOVE! Dad’s voice bellowed in my head, as if we were in Louisiana again with the cockroach things scuttling in the basement and the ammo clips jittering in my shaking hands.

I moved. I don’t know how. One moment I knew I wasn’t going to be able to get there in time, the next I was there.

Water gushed up in a sheet as I threw myself over the lip of the fountain in a wide receiver’s dive, getting a sudden mouthful of chlorine and stale chill, my head barked something else—the concrete holding up some ridiculous Swiss-cheese sheet metal the water cascaded down while the fountain was turned on. More pain jolted down my neck. I was really racking up the score here. If this was a video game I’d be yelling at the stupid screen right now. Or throwing my controller at it.

The burning thing howled. Spattered with filthy mall-fountain water, it landed heavily as I scrabbled, a gout of foul-smelling steam belching up. Heat rolled through the water clawing at my arms and legs. I grabbed the sheet metal and pulled with both hands, my right clumsy because of the gun clicking against the rattling flimsy edifice. I pushed myself aside and fell again as the creature smashed spastically into the metal with a hollow bong that would have struck me as goddamn hilarious if the water hadn’t been boiling. I landed hard again, breath driven out of me in a howling scream, and heard a yammering electronic sound. Had that been going on the whole time?

It slid down the metal and landed with a splashing jolt.

Steam drifted in great eddies from the once-placid water. The fountain bubbled and buzzed. I scrabbled for the stone ledge and just made it, hopping up and perching like a frog with trembling legs.

“Holy shit,” someone was saying, someone with a high trembling voice very much like mine. I felt my lips