Read The Forsaken - The Apocalypse Trilogy: Book Two for Free Online Page B

cut away to form a walkway
and balcony over the dance floor. Cheers rang out, laughter
followed, and the crowd closed to form many tight circles of
revelers. The principle color of the décor was red, and the
clothing was a dazzling array of scarlet silk. Faces in the crowd
were twisted into mad humor and inebriated joy. The air stank of
perfume and alcohol.
    “Thank you,” chortled the old man with the
accordion. “I thank you, and the Beer Barrel Trio thanks you.”
Again, applause. Felon made his way along the right side of the
room past a man of middle-aged appearance snoring uncomfortably in
a wooden chair.
    “We have always enjoyed playing at the Davedi
Club. And we would never miss the Valentine’s Dance. The air is
full of love. The people are full of love. I am full of love!” The
crowd responded with a profusion of kissing and laughter. “We make
this annual dance the cornerstone of our performing year. I am not
getting any younger, as my wife can tell you.” Chuckles echoed
through the audience. “But I am made young by this wondrous
occasion. The love is what makes us young forever. And we know at
least that Love will not change! As always we would like to perform
the music that moves us all along the current of life, the dance
that inspires romance in us all. We give you now the melody that
commands the passion in our hearts and the sky above us.” He
turned, nodded to his companions, the lights faded to twilight blue
and the small band moved into a cramped rendition of “Moon River.”
The old man croaked the words out.
    Felon studied a huge cloud of purple helium
balloons that crowded over the stage and dance floor. If the
Cherubs were feeding, the assassin knew that would be the perfect
blind for them. Raw human emotion would be radiating upward like
heat. It was natural that their kind would be attracted to a
Valentine’s Day dance. They flocked to them like fat flies to shit,
feeding off the veiled lust of the dancers; but even Cherubs had
rules and followed the covenant of Angels and so could not directly
intervene in human affairs, or be in close visual proximity. Among
Angels, they went most often in their true physical forms,
primarily because of their connection with sensuality, lust and
love. Cherubs were historically and mythically thought to be
responsible for love, love at first sight, and rekindled love.
Felon thought of them as parasites, feeding off an emotion they
could not produce themselves.
    Felon hated Cherubs the most. He found their
rotund little forms and their predilection for romantic love and
mischief a perversion. They were the naughty children of some two
thousand years. He hated the way they looked, their
disproportionate wings flickering obscenely over raw dough
buttocks. Felon knew their sweet cinnamon smell, and their idle,
eternal child voices—caricatures, really. They were the least
impressive Angels, gaining their powers from idle sentimentality
and romanticism. He was disgusted by the ugly ambiguity they
formed, feeding on the irrational human desire to justify lust. And
these sexually barren, golden locked, flying Cupie dolls were
nothing more than a pedophile’s dream—they had little to do with
love, or the sexuality it thinly disguised.
    He slid the M-16 on its strap until it hung
under his arm and then gave it a reassuring pat through his coat.
Felon squinted into the darkness watching the balloons. There was a
steady column of heat rising from the dancers that caused the mass
of rubber to undulate, so Felon waited for any telling motion. A
man reeking of scotch brushed into him. Felon’s arm did not yield
and his stance did not sway. The man, a pre-Change fifty, scowled
beneath iron gray eyebrows.
    “Damn it...” He rubbed his chest where
Felon’s elbow had scraped a furrow in it. “Watch your...”
    Felon tore his gaze momentarily from the
balloons. He glared into the stranger’s bleary eyes. Something in
the look penetrated the man’s drunken