Haunted Love by Cynthia Leitich Smith

Author:Cynthia Leitich Smith [Smith, Cynthia Leitich]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 978-0-7636-6047-5
Publisher: Candlewick Press
Published: 2008-12-26T08:00:00+00:00

UNTIL THE NIGHT I WAS TAKEN, demonically infected, the guardian angel Zachary watched over me. Now, I watch over him.

It’s not your average long-distance relationship. Romantic entanglements between humans and angels are rare, archaic, and discussed only in hushed tones.

A romantic entanglement between a guardian and one of the murderous undead had been unprecedented. Then we fell in love.

One of the consequences of Zachary’s “slipped” status is that, though not fallen, he’s earthbound, limited to corporeal form, and banished from the ethereal plane.

Therefore, he’s banished from me as well . . . at least for the foreseeable future.

Meanwhile, Zachary will continue to devote himself to counseling neophyte eternals, those who might embrace redemption like I did.

Assuming the monster lying in wait for him around that thorny bush doesn’t pluck out his eyes, claw out his throat, and rip his glorious muscled body to bloody pieces.

Zachary is immortal. He wears a gleaming holy sword with a gold hilt, a weapon forged in heaven. His blood is as toxic to an eternal as holy water. Yet he’s no stronger or faster than a mortal man. He can still be brutally injured. He has been in the past.

Far, far, far above, I’m curled in a plush wing chair in a tropical lobby of the Penultimate, the way station for ascended souls immediately outside heaven. I’m one of hundreds of thousands, gazing down on loved ones, enemies, and the occasional celebrity of the day, trying to make our peace before passing through the famed pearly gates.

It’s usually a comfort, watching over Zachary, a way to hold the loneliness at bay. Yet at moments like this, when he’s in danger, I feel every inch the predator defanged.

I zero in on the nearest lakeside dock. Where did the fiend go? I never should’ve taken my eyes off it. Not that I can warn my angel, not that I’m useful in any way.

Zachary scans the shadowy trees. In his matte black cowboy shirt over black jeans and boots, he makes a dashing, romantic figure. My fingertips twitch at the sight of his golden hair, lit by the moon.

He’s come from working as a waiter at a vampire-themed Italian restaurant located a few blocks south. There, the danger is pretend.

It’s past 3 A.M. a few hours before sunrise on New Year’s Day, on the wide hike-and-bike trail surrounding Lady Bird Lake. It’s a natural border, dividing downtown Austin, Texas, from its south side. Lake is something of a stretch. It looks more like what it is — a dammed section of the Colorado River, lined with trees, brush, and parkland — a playground for waterfowl and boaters, famous for its bats.

You can see across it, stroll from one side of the bridges to the other in only a few minutes. Perhaps I’m biased from having resided on the coast of Chicago’s formidable Lake Michigan, but, to me, it’s more of a water feature than a lake per se.

I slip in my earbuds and raise the volume on my palm-size monitor-com.

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