The Angel Wore Fangs(29)

It was all over within minutes, but felt like hours. The creature was already dissolving into a puddle of slime. Cnut, breathing heavily through fanged teeth, glanced up and saw her standing there, frozen with shock. Was he a creature/monster thing, too? He didn’t have the same horrible body, but the fangs . . . yuck!

“You’re still here!” He made a sound of disgust at her having disobeyed his order to go upstairs. Through the still open front door, she saw that the other creatures were even closer to the house now, only fifty yards away or so. He slammed the door shut and locked it while she turned, finally obeying his order. She needed to escape, and not just from the creatures outside.

Rushing upward, he picked her up by the waist from behind and took two steps at a time, despite her screeching and kicking. Going into the first bedroom they saw, he set her down and made sure the door was locked, even pushing a dresser in front of it. She heard the splintering of wood downstairs. And voices. The creatures could talk?

“Oh God! Oh God!”

“That’s right, sweetling. Pray.”

Cnut seemed to be studying the situation, going from one window to another, speaking on his cell phone again.

“A goat fuck for sure. Ha, ha. A cow fuck, then. Very funny. Get serious, Vikar. Send a hird of vangels. Right away, dammit.”

Did he ask someone—his brother—to send a herd of angels? Cnut was the one who needs to get serious. Meanwhile she was saying an Our Father in her head, but she wasn’t asking for God to send her angels, more like a battalion of police.

Cnut paused as he listened.

“You’re already on the way. Good. Why didn’t you say so? Quack, quack to you, too.”

He pocketed his cell phone then and gave her a direct look that scared the spit out of her. His fangs were mostly gone and the eyes were blue again, but still . . .

“Who . . . what are you?”

“A vangel.”

“You? An angel?”

“A vangel,” he corrected. “I don’t have time to explain now.”

Maybe she’d gotten knocked on the head and this was some strange afterlife. “Are we dead?”

“I am. You’re not. Yet.”

“What? Don’t come near me, you . . . you . . . thing.”

“I’m not going to hurt you, Andrea. I hope to save you, God willing.”

“And you have a close connection with the Big Guy, huh? That is just great. You have fangs, by the way.” She backed up, hitting the wall.

He retracted the fangs the rest of the way, and now just had two pointy lateral incisors.

“Make me feel better, why don’t you?”

He halfway grinned at that. “We can’t get out. I could fight off one or two, maybe a half dozen of them. But there are too many.”

“I could maybe shoot some if you gave me the gun.” Or maybe I will shoot you, Fang Man.

“Do you have weapon training?”

“No, but those beasties are so big, how could I miss?” You make a big target, too, even if you don’t weigh four hundred pounds, which was probably a lie, come to think on it now.

“Beasties?” he choked out. He came up to her then and wrapped his arms around her.

Now? He was going to hit on her now? “Oh no, no, no!” She struggled and tried to push him away, but he was bigger and stronger.

“Be still and listen. I have no choice but to teletransport us out of here,” he said, drawing her tighter into his embrace. Even in the midst of all the danger, she noticed that he smelled like fresh mint, clean and alluring. Not at all scary.

“Teletransport? Like, beam me up, Scotty?” she joked, even as she heard movement outside the door, then a claw-like scratching on the wood.

“Something like,” Cnut replied. “Hold tight, baby. I’ve never done this with a human before.”

“Human?” she began to gurgle, but then lost all ability to speak or even think.

She wrapped her arms tightly around Cnut’s shoulders, and his arms encased her back, and they began to twirl and twirl and twirl up into space. Or something. They were in a mist. Maybe like the eye of a tornado.

And then she lost consciousness.

Or died.

But, no, she wasn’t dead.

She was still in the bedroom, but she was lying on the bed. It was the same room, and yet it was different. Coming awake slowly, she noticed the wallpaper was different. Instead of the full-bloomed roses, there were now evergreen boughs and pinecones. And instead of the two double beds with rustic print bedspreads, there was now a multicolored coverlet, something she’d heard called a hap on Antiques Roadshow, on just one double bed. And instead of a bedside lamp, there was an oil lantern.

Cnut was standing at the window, staring at something outside.