Love Bites Then it Sucks by Julie Steimle (story books to read txt) 📖

the physical world. Imps would still listen to me. And that was useful.

I wandered my stinky neighborhood in the downpour (finally figuring out how to make the falling water pass through me), keeping an eye out for other death angels on the street. I saw one other after I had gone to too far north. He was a dude with mutton chops who looked like he had once carried a cross bow and a big shot gun, busy hunting zombies or something. His wings looked like they were made of rusty cigar smoke. His eye fixed on me with a scowl and he pointed at me, then ran his finger across his throat.

“What?” I raised my hands up in protest.

“Oh,” he shouted back, deflated. “You can see me.”

I rolled my eyes and pulled out my scythe. When the butt of it hit the ground, it seemed bigger for some reason. It was now entirely black, except for the curved blade with looked tinted with red like Andrew Cartwright’s sword. I wondered at the incarnation of it. Did they always change shape? Or did they evolve in shape?

The dude crossed the street over to me, eyeing me up and down. I did the same to him. He was dressed all in leather, with rawhide boots. He had to have been a monster hunter in his former life.

“So what are you?” he said. “Vampires don’t have wings—even as angels.”

Thinking on the vampire-death angel I had seen on the roof in California, I shook my head. He had had black feathery wings. They were small, but they were there. I wryly asked, “Are you an expert?”

He laughed. “Yeah, as a matter of fact. Before I became this, I knew everything there was about monsters.”

I nodded to myself. I was right. Monster hunter. So I said, “Well then, expert, look at me. What am I?”

He eyed me, then my huge wings which fluttered naturally. He closed one eye and said, “Some kind of demon. You ain’t dead. But you have all vampire traits, except your eyes. They’re orange. Now I have heard of only one creature like you, but that one is registered and watched out in California….”

So he knew about me. I raised my eyebrows.

Watching my expression, he drew in a breath (for a dead guy—that was weird, as the dead don’t breathe. I started to wonder if these were just shadow actions from when he was alive). “Impossible.”

I shrugged. “I’m from California.”

He shook his head, stepping back from me. “But, but, but that would make you the vimp.”

I nodded, sighing with relief. He had to have been a member of the SRA. I wondered how he ended up as a death angel.

An angry look formed on his face, though. He pointed hard at me, “You are…” He clenched his teeth, his face turning oddly red. I had no idea how that was possible for a dead guy. Clearly, I didn’t know enough about how death angels worked. “…friends with that werewolf!”

I blinked. That werewolf? I only knew two werewolves. “You don’t mean Rick Deacon, do you?”

He nodded, glaring savagely at me. “It is his fault I am dead!”

I pulled back. Was he going to attack me too?

“His werewolf friends killed me!” he shouted, ‘spit’ flying (Ghostly spit? Maybe they weren’t entirely dead. There had to be something physical about him).

Blinking at him, I tried to think of when that would have happened. I only knew of one werewolf attack incident. “Were you in Germany?”

He violently shook his head. “No. Alabama. This was six years ago. Summer.”

Six years ago? I tried to calculate it. I was still in high school then. Rick would have barely graduated. What was going on with him then? I knew something had. There were rumors. But what were they? Something about drug addiction, which I knew wasn’t true. Rick had never really said anything to me about it, either. The only thing I knew he felt guilty about was some affair with a she-wolf named Daisy, though I did not know much about it. The only thing I knew was that he was ashamed of himself, and more that I had found out. He was afraid of me having a bad opinion of him.

“You have no clue, do you?” he said.

I lifted my eyes to him and shrugged.

“I hunted him down on the full moon,” he said. I raised my eyebrows at him, thinking he deserved what he got if he hunted Rick on a full moon. And he saw me think that, huffing at me. “But instead of finding one wolf, I stumbled on a pack. The next thing I knew, they were tore me apart, and I was dead.”

Ugh. I cringed. That was gross. But a thought occurred to me, and I eyed him. “Were you shooting at him?”

“It was the full moon!” he protested, as if the legality of it made shooting at my friend ok.

I leaned near him with a sharp eye. “You got what you deserved. The fact that you are a reaper is proof that you are being given a second chance.”

He flinched then shouted at me, “How did you become a reaper?” gesturing with his suddenly appearing scythe. His scythe looked just like an old timey farm scythe. It matched his leather, though.

With a sigh and a shrug, I murmured, “Believe me, I didn’t ask for it. I’m not dead.”

“I can see that!” he snapped. “But you are the worst demon in existence!”

I frowned at him. I didn’t think it fair to say I was the worst demon in existence. I had met some nasty ones in my short lifetime; and though I was more powerful than they were, they were what could be described as worst. I did not kill indiscriminately. I protected people.

So I said, “I’m not evil.”

He huffed, backing away from me. Gesturing with his scythe, he said, “You stay in your territory, demon, and we won’t have trouble between us.”

I rolled my eyes. “Can you at least tell me what my territory is? This is my first day, you know.”

Halting in the middle of the road, he stared at me. Then, surprisingly, he walked back. “For real?”

I nodded.

Looking around with another heavy sigh, he marched back to where I stood and drew on the ground with his finger. I could see faint lines of light appearing from it, remaining on the concrete like an afterimage. “I patrol this area here. The witch has these streets—you know where the McDonalds is, right?”

I shook my head. “This is my first time in New York.”

He groaned. “Ok. Fine. Her boundary starts at this McDonalds. On this side of me is a guy I call Titus. I don’t know what his real name is, but he’s freaky and I’d avoid him. His territory begins here at this bus stop. You have old Stoat’s area, which includes the hospital. I don’t know what’s beyond that.”

I nodded in thanks. He then walked away, pointing me back toward my territory without another word. He really wasn’t that bad of a guy. Yeah, he had hunted Rick in his past, but clearly he was just a dude. Maybe he was just stupid and that was why he was being ‘redeemed’ as a reaper. Though, I suspected some reapers were people connected to death in some way and had to make up for those whom they had unjustly killed. His intentions may not have been wrong, but misguided.

As I walked away, I started to wonder about those I had killed in my lifetime and if that was why I ended up in this predicament. The vampires in our mountains were the first, though there was that demon on the beach who had been attacking Michael Toms. He wasn’t exactly alive but a walking curse in a corpse’s body, so I didn’t think it was fair to count him. And the last person I had killed was a serial killer who wanted to catch a vampire to drink his blood so he could live forever—and I had only done killed him to save Matthew Calamori’s life. None of it had been vicious.

I returned to the hospital. It was dry there, and I was getting tired. Despite what George had said, I did need sleep. I was still alive and I was exhausted. I found an empty room in a dark part of the hospital, curling up on an empty bed in my oddly dry clothes, though my skin was still wet, and fell asleep.

*

Hanz pored over Eve’s letter again and again, well into the next morning. He had not slept at all. He had taken out a notebook and had written down all the details he knew so far.

 

Eve was taken away against her will.

Eve still loves me.

Eve is not dead.

Eve asked me to:

Tell her parents Tell her family (assuming she means William and Jane, as well as Travis and Dawn) Show them the letter Contact the Holy Seven… because they are connected to her curse because they might know how to help her

Those that took her claimed:

They were death angels. God sent them. It was so she would not corrupt me They said we could not be together She is being given a shot at redemption Possibly by ending her curse She believes the 7 can help with this She is also to be a death angel

He noticed that Eve had not asked for him to contact Rick Deacon who was one of her more influential friends whom she admired in many ways. It was possible she did not want to tangle him in her troubles as he had plenty of his own. Then again, she had been dragged away from writing the rest of her letter, so she would probably have mentioned it later. Hanz had met Rick briefly and was amazed that, first, he actually was a werewolf, and second how honestly decent Rick was. And he could tell Rick would move mountains for Eve if she just asked.

Staring at it all, Hanz frowned. What was he to do? He had prayed over this since the moment he got the letter. He had prayed again when he had met his and her parents and he had officially ‘postponed’ the wedding. The venue, of course, had to be cancelled as well as the cake and the flowers. The cost was more than he wanted to look at. And all the guests had to be informed. The McAllisters said they could take care of it, urging him to get some sleep. His parents were urging him to take a rest also (for slightly different reasons), and they called the police.

After their meeting, his parents had decided that Eve was kidnapped and Hanz was having a psychotic break. They made a copy of the letter and gave it to the police who did not take it as seriously until they saw who it was. Eve, per the law, had registered with the SRA in that city as well as with the police. Hanz didn’t like it the time they had done it as it felt incredibly ‘1984 control freaky’ in its scope, but there was nothing he could do about her having to be a registered ‘demon’ since there was so much opposition to what Eve was. The SRA had insisted on keeping track of her. He got a nasty of feeling then that the organization was mostly prejudiced rather than serving for the public good. Of course now they had no control over where she was at all.

What could he do?

His cellphone rang.

Picking it up, Hanz looked at the caller ID. It was no one he knew personally, but the number had an east coast area code. He pressed ANSWER, lifting it to his ear. “Hello?”

<< Hanz, this is Rick Deacon. I figured you’d be awake. I heard the news. Tell me everything. >>

Sighing, Hanz nodded to himself. Maybe Eve knew Rick would call him. Without reservation, Hanz described the events from beginning to end, starting with getting Eve’s weird text to the