Angelus Read Free

backward and began to half climb and half slide down the first ladder back to the ground. If he slipped, he’d certainly either die or at least break bones.
    He was halfway there already. He might make it.
    Glass smashed above him. It flew past him in chunks to the snow. One piece caught his cheek, slicing into it like solid fire.
    He looked above him. Mikel—or more accurately, the novice she was possessing—had flown through the window and snagged the platform where he’d been standing. The novice’s face and hands bled with cuts from the glass. Then she half flipped over the side of the platform, racing down the ladder toward Father Schrader. Perhaps she’d rethought pushing the novice’s body with another flight. It wasn’t necessary anyway. She was preternaturally fast.
    She was gaining on him too quickly. He had no choice but to jump now.
    He let go of the last ladder, plummeting ungracefully intothe snow below. Father Schrader sank, crying out as his body hit the frozen ground beneath. An immense pain overtook him, threatening to shut down his heart and brain. He struggled for breath, fighting off the urge to sink into unconsciousness. His legs screamed out they were broken, and they refused to move as a strange warmth crept through him.
    â€œ Exorcizo te, ” he shouted, waiting to feel Mikel’s hands wrap around his neck any second. I exorcize you . . .
    His voice died away. Nothing happened. He opened his eyes, startled to find the novice Mikel had possessed lying in the snow a few feet away. The young man’s ankle looked broken. Many of the cuts bled profusely.
    Father Schrader fought with his fear, but then he speedily reached over and felt for a pulse.
    The novice was alive.
    And—Father Schrader looked down at his own body in surprise—he must not have injured his legs badly, after all.
    Voices sounded from outside near the front of the church. Those inside were probably exiting to find him and Mikel. He stole one last glance at the novice crumpled on the ground, muttered a prayer of healing, and then shot away toward a narrow alley at the church’s rear. Though Nina had said no more crows lived near the church, he burst through a few of them strutting around a storm grate in the alley. They launched away from him, screeching madly, and wild with fear, he continued to run and didn’t stop until he found shelter inside an abandoned fortune-telling shop.
    Gasping for breath, he slid to the ground.
    Time passed. He hadn’t been followed, but Father Schrader still felt it wise to lie low for a bit longer. Absently, he fingered a few of the discarded items strewn across the floor. One ofthem was a gilded hand mirror. He picked it up, studying the ornate carvings on its back. Heavens, his head ached. He was lucky to be alive after a shock like that.
    He flipped the mirror over. Father Schrader’s face betrayed his years, and his white hair had matted with melted snow.
    He focused on his weary features. The headache was already consuming him. Had he suffered a concussion of some kind from his fall? Slowly, his vision wavered. He couldn’t be that tired, surely. A new fear overtook him, and the worst possible scenario erupted into his mind.
    He thought frantically of Nina Willis and the others while the world disappeared. The mirror clattered from his hands, but not before he’d already seen it.
    There—in his irises—a flash of red.

One
LUZMEMORIAL CEMETERY
    The sky had cleared in Luz.
    The endless snowfall of months past had ceased, and now most of the city lay frozen in layers of whiteness.
    Wind no longer blew. As ever, the sun refused to show itself, but now the clouds and moon had also vanished. Only millions of stars shone overhead, somehow much too bright and far too close. In the glassy ocean surrounding the isolated city, dead fish floated to the surface day after day, and a strange gleam on the horizon birthed constant rumors