Angel - Impressions

VIP免费

2024-12-24 0 0 485.73KB 127 页 5.9玖币

侵权投诉

Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Doranna’s Back Story

Wesley turned on him, no longer

restraining his anger. “Are youtrying to

turn every possible clue into goo? What

on earth is the matter with you?”

Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html

“I was trying to stop him, not kill him,” Angel said, emotion thrumming against his soul like the heartbeat

he no longer had. Once released, it didn’t ease…didn’t ebb into the night as it should have. No respite

here.

Gunn ran to where the demon had been, grabbing up the ax. “Doesn’t look like you dideither . If this

particular demon had one of those odd stone things, it doesn’t have one anymore.”

“That’s what his companion was after?” Wesley asked.

“If it had anything to be after at all—besides us,” Angel said, and shrugged, so much more casual on the

outside than on the in.

“Well, we can’task him, can we?” Wesley said. “We can’t askeither of them.”

Angel stopped, blocking Wesley’s path. “Let it go, Wesley,” he said softly. Dangerously.

Angel™

City of

Not Forgotten

Redemption

Close to the Ground

Shakedown

Hollywood Noir

Avatar

Soul Trade

Bruja

The Summoned

Haunted

Image

Stranger to the Sun

Vengeance

The Longest Night, vol. 1

Impressions

Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html

Endangered Species

Angel: The Casefiles, Volume 1—The Official Companion

The Essential Angel Posterbook

Available from Simon Pulse and Pocket Books

Historian’s Note: This story takes place during the third season ofAngel.

This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real locales are used

fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination,

and any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

First Simon Pulse edition February 2003

SIMON PULSE

An imprint of Simon & Schuster

Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html

Children’s Publishing Division

1230 Avenue of the Americas

New York, NY 10020

The text of this book was set in New Caledonia.

Library of Congress Control Number 2002113626

ISBN 0-7434-8074-0

Visit us on the World Wide Web:

http://www.SimonSays.com

With thanks to many people, because one never writes a book in a vacuum. Jennifer didn’t let me get

away with anything, and Amy applied her Angelometer, and Lisa and Micol put up with me on the

editorial end. The SFF gang cheered my snippets, and Ruth, Kevin, and Kristina offered up demon

names (Veroscini, Khundarr, and Slith, respectively). Tom and my family were cheerleaders (I love

e-mail), and Google was my first research stop. (I love the Web!) The Los Angeles Zoo was kind

enough to send me an entire PR kit full of info, so if I got anything wrong it’s entirely my fault. And of

course the dogs all did their best to be as distracting as possible, which is their job. This book is for all of

you!

Chapter One

In one reality…

A young Tuingas demon moved respectfully through the special pocket universe it was his honor to

maintain. He was slightly small for his clan, but endowed with the usual assortment of limbs and quite a

masculine long-nose that he liked to drape back over his shoulder in an affected habit. He said it kept his

long-nose out of the dust he often raised while tending the less frequently visited family shrines, but in

what served as his heart even he knew that he merely liked tossing the long-nose around.

The demon moved from one family shrine to another within the pocket dimension created and sustained

by his people. At this shrine he checked his protective amulet, buffing it slightly against his leathery skin.

Only family members and highly trained priests could withstand the presence of the deathstones without

amulet protection, and this particular deathstone was newly arrived, potent not only in its freshness, but

because of the demon from which it had come. One of their warriors, and a great hero. His deathstone

was a handsome one, a solid fist-sized oblong with unusually consistent color and texture. A stone the

outside world could never fully appreciate…or even survive.

Reassured by the amulet’s icy response to his touch, the demon entered the marble-walled shrine, pulling

a little red wagon liberated from the human world. As fresh as it was, this shrine would need little in the

way of maintenance; he rummaged through the contents of the wagon and withdrew a bright yellow

feather duster. Humming a nasal tune through both face-nose and long-nose at once, he applied the

duster with enthusiasm, sweeping clean the empty stone nooks and crannies that would hold future

deathstones for this now-exalted family, and working in toward the single occupied central pedestal. With

the wagon trailing behind him, he bent over to pluck a gum wrapper from the plush shag rug, not the least

bit annoyed when his long-nose fell forward. After all, it merely offered him another chance to toss it

back over his shoulder.

Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html

But he neglected to put aside the feather duster when he reached for his long-nose. In fact, he all but

jammed the feather duster up his long-nose in a painful collision that at first seemed to have no particular

consequence. He stood mildly stunned, long-nose smarting, his dull black little eyes watering, when he

felt the first tingling warning way at the back of both noses. Frantically, he patted down his broad waist

belt in search of tissues, horrified at the thought of a sneeze—adoublesneeze —in this quiet, sacred

space.

The doublesneeze rose in an inevitable wave of nose-spasm, violent enough to bend him in half. He lost

his balance, staggered backward, and—oh horror—found himself caught in a second spasm, a double

doublesneeze right here in the hero’s shrine. He fell, kicking the wagon in one direction while his arms

windmilled in the other and his head fetched up against something hard.

He lay stunned.

After a moment he whimpered, opened his gummy little eyes, and pulled himself upright. His wagon and

his supplies had tipped over, but to his great relief the red paint had not marred any of the marble walls.

He heaved a great thankful sigh and crawled over to it, set it upright, and reached for the spilled supplies.

Only then did he realize that the lump on the back of his head had been raised by the warrior’s

deathstone pedestal.

Only then did he realize the deathstone was gone, propelled by a conjunction of magics never meant to

make physical contact with one another. Gone from its pedestal, from this shrine, from this pocket

dimension. Gone to the outside world, where it would wreak destruction.

Gone to Los Angeles.

In another, more familiar reality…

A small rat-like demon clung to the edge of the roof, leaning out over the five-story drop to peer down

at the rattling fire escape. “Here!” it squeaked, accidentally spitting in its fear—although its extreme

overbite made a certain amount of spitting inevitable in any case. “Take the purse, take it!” It flung a

floppy crocheted purse down at its pursuer on the fire escape. “You don’t have enough problems in this

city, you gotta pick on a little guy like me?” And with an agitated twitch, it scampered off across the flat

roof.

The man on the fire escape caught the purse neatly in one hand, never hesitating in his pursuit. Dressed in

black topped by a sweeping leather duster, moving with purpose and not satisfied with the simple

recovery of the stolen purse, he jogged up the noisy metal stairs and leaped onto the roof, landing in a

graceful crouch and hesitating only long enough to spot the fleeing thief. Crunching steps on tarry roof

gravel traced his pursuit, the duster flapping out behind him as he gained on the creature. Dark hair, pale

skin, the hint of a fang…

The little demon gave a squeak of fear and redoubled its scuttling efforts, heading straight for the

opposite edge of the roof. “It was only a purse!” it cried back over its shoulder. “Gimme a break here!”

But they both knew that wasn’t going to happen. And they knew which of them was faster—he who

closed on the demon with such intent, prepared to make sure this particular creature menaced no more of

Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html

Los Angeles’s unsuspecting tourists.

Except the demon reached the edge of the roof a few precious steps before its pursuer, and launched

itself out into the darkness—with no strength or speed inherent in its scrabbling flight, but not needing

those things. It spread its arms and legs, revealing a flap of skin running from scrawny elbow to knobby

knee, and sailed lightly down to the next roof barely one story below.

It wasn’t such a big jump, not for a vampire running full speed and full strength. But the black-clad

pursuer put on the brakes, stumbling to an abrupt halt that left him teetering at the edge. His coat billowed

around him, his silhouette barely visible against the night sky.

On the roof below, the ratty demon cavorted, dancing his victory and flinging all manner of rude gestures

at the hero somehow stymied by the narrow space between the buildings and the minor drop between

roofs.

The hero turned away from the display. The swirling duster revealed a lanky form not quite at home in

the sleek black clothing, not quite as muscular or athletic as the image his clothing conveyed. His dark,

spiky-moussed hair had no highlights, a bad dye job here in this city where the inhabitants were finely

attuned to such things. And even with the glint of fang at his lip, his forehead remained perfectly

human…at least, to those who would know the difference.

He resettled his glasses on his nose and went to return the purse.

Chapter Two

Angel’s bedroom lay swathed in a false twilight created by drawn curtains. Angel himself lay swathed in

twisted bedcovers, restless…frowning in his sleep. Marginally aware that something reached into his

privacy, touching him. Whispering to him.

Nebulous dreams of uncomfortable passions. Exposed throats, warm pulses, an angry young man once

named Liam now made powerful. Touched by those things familiar, Angelus stirs. Caressed by gentle

waves of dark power….

Angelus stirs.

Pencil in hand, Cordelia Chase put aside her magazine and leaned over the lobby desk of the

abandoned—mostlyabandoned—Hyperio Hotel that Angel Investigations called headquarters and that

Angel himself called home, greeting him as he came down the lobby stairs with his

not-an-early-evening-person face on.Barely twilight and he’s up already? Not likely to be cheery .

Just the time for some distinctly cheery news. “A woman came by. She wanted to thank you again for

getting her purse back from some rat-thing.”

He lifted a hand in acknowledgment and shuffled past to the fridge behind the front counter, evidently

ready for a second serving of breakfast blood. Definitely not all there, with the cuffs of his black jeans

dragging below his boot heels and his gray sweater rumpled. Cordelia was willing to bet he hadn’t even

fastened the snap to his jeans, and she was never wrong about Things Clothes.

Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html

Men. They’re all alike, even the vampire versions.

After a gulp, he said, “Didn’t see any rat-things last night.”

“She sure seemed to be full of appreciation.” Cordelia retrieved her magazine and filled in one of the

five-letter words of the painfully simple crossword puzzle. “Considering that her appreciation came with a

check attached and all. I don’t understand why she kept muttering about not being able to find the main

office, though.”

He merely grunted, and she gave him a sharp look. “You’re not having trouble sleeping again, are you?”

Except she didn’t mean troublesleeping, she meant trouble with dreams, like when Darla had invaded his

nights, luring him back toward the Angelus side of his nature and driving a rift between Angel and the

gang at Angel Investigations. And maybe he hadn’t let Angelus out, not really…but Cordelia could still

feel the hurt of his inexplicable rejection, and that was bad enough.So no,I don’t really mean trouble

sleeping.

Angel flinched ever so slightly. He, too, remembered. He lowered his cheap plastic tumbler and gave her

a look with more thought behind it. Thought, and perhaps a little bit of guilt.

“Not a great expression,” she told him bluntly.

He hesitated, then said, “It’s just a mood. Isn’t a guy entitled to a mood now and then?”

She drummed the pen against the counter and considered him. Yes, a definite hint of guilt. And Angel

was a take-charge, do what had to be done,whatever had to be done kind of guy. Lots of remorse over

things he couldn’t change, things he’d done, lots of regret…but the guilt? Guilt meant something he was

afraid he mightdo . Time to worry. “Nope,” she said decisively. “No moods. Not for you.”

He looked a little hurt, but Cordelia held firm. There were some luxuries that a guy walking around with

a wantonly evil vampire personality lurking beneath his soul just couldn’t take. Flirting with

darkness…that would be one of them.

But then he realized what she’d said a moment earlier and latched on to it with not so subtle relief. “A

check? We got money?”

She retrieved it from the computer desk and waved it at him. “Money,” she confirmed. “Think

paycheck! And I’m going to go right over to her bank and cash it.”

He drained the tumbler and left it sitting on the counter. “Cordy…the money’s not ours. I washere last

night. No rat-things. The woman’s mistaken me for someone else.”

She gave him an incredulous look. “And how likely isthat ?”

He shrugged. “How likely is anything that happens in this city?”

She had to admit he had a point there. She looked wistfully at the check. “I suppose I could hold it for a

couple of days….”

Wesley Wyndham-Pryce wandered out of his office—once the hotel manager’s office, with a huge

window between office and lobby and a solemn decor of dusty green and dark wood. He was in his rare

Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html

rugged look today—a day’s worth of seal brown beard, a flannel shirt with rolled sleeves…a year ago

Cordelia would have bet he didn’town a flannel shirt. But the refined features of his face were as serious

as ever, as were gray eyes that often seemed to turn dark with the solemn wisdom of someone who

knows all the things that can go wrong with the world.

Well,most of them. There was always something new and improved going on.

Wesley jammed his spiffy new black lacquered chopsticks into the contents of a Chinese take-out

carton with finality as he swallowed a last mouthful.

Angel winced at the stabbing gesture. “Kind of rude, don’t you think?”

Unaffected, Wes barely glanced at the utensils. “They’re hardly up to the standards set by Buffy’s Mr.

Pointy. I think you have nothing to fear. Now what’s this about money?”

“We have some,” Cordelia said, and waved the check again, giving Angel an accusing look. “Hewants

me to give it back, as if anyone could possibly mistake him for somebody else. Plus, he’s all moody,

which as we know never bodes well.”

Angel stood at the end of the counter and said with exasperation, “Cordelia, I’m just—”

The main lobby doors burst open—an event that should have happened with much less frequency. A

man ran into the lobby, stumbling over the step as he tried to take in all directions at once. He wore an

old rumpled coat over a hound-stooth sweater-vest, and polyester pants that should have been burned a

decade earlier, and Cordelia mentally assigned him to the clothes Fashion Police for the day. The man

raked a frantic gaze across them, looking and not finding. He hesitated upon reaching Angel and almost

imperceptibly shook his head in rejection.

“I need to find Angel,” he blurted.

The young Tuingas demon hadn’t waited for the priests to ponder his punishment; he hadn’t even waited

for them to find out about the missing deathstone. The sneeze, the fall, the physical touch-chain of his

amulet to the deathstone—only two degrees of separation!—he’d known what had happened. He’d

known he was responsible. And he’d known what had to be done…and what would happen to Los

Angeles if he didn’t do it.

He took it upon himself to leave the peaceful pocket dimension where his particular branch of the

Tuingas clan spent most of their time, and he entered the human world to find the deathstone.

Tracking the stone hadn’t been hard at all. Their pocket dimension was anchored in Los Angeles;

anyone or thing emerging from it generally found themselves in one of the unfathomable concrete river

channels veining the city. This fact combined with the seasonal floods made the Tuingas clan very much a

set of look-before-you-leap demons.

Look-before-you-leap wasn’t a luxury that the young Tuingas had had. So he’d leaped, and he’d landed

on hard concrete, and he’d followed the stone’s distinctive emanations, knowing he had very little time.

He might not be a priest, but he was in the shrines on a daily basis. He’d learned well enough what

would happen should an exposed stone not be recovered. Removed from its protective shrine and its

Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html

protective pocket dimension, the stone’s emissions—normally experienced only by prepared visitors

under priestly supervision—would flood this city’s demons with the very impression left on the

deathstone. In this case, by a warrior, fighting at peak emotion for a just cause. A warrior who’d left

impressions of his death fury, his intent to avenge the cause…all the passions and motivations of a warrior

in his last fight…moments before it became his last fight.

Oh, whythisone? the young demon moaned to himself. This potent new stone, so strong that it had

tasteful warning signs inscribed upon its pedestal. So potent that no unprotected demon would be able to

resist the wave after wave of emotion it emitted. And the deathstone itself—activated by the warrior’s

death, kept in the shrine for its own purity and protection—would be just as sensitive to the resulting

mood of the city.

The young Tuingas didn’t even want to think about that. He wanted to be gone from here long before

the feedback became strong enough to express itself in the city. And so he’d been heartened to track the

stone as easily as he had, from the one who’d found it and the next day put it in a suburban garage sale

as a unique garden stone, to the one who’d bought it for a paltry sum, having no notion of the

pricelessness of the deathstone but just savvy enough to think that his friend, a collector of odd artifacts,

might be interested in it.

For an equally paltry sum and with a determinedly casual expression, that friend had indeed acquired the

stone. With just as much determination but no opportunity, the Tuingas lurked and waited and stalked

and…

Waited.

And the collector had known. The young Tuingas could see by his actions, how he carefully and quickly

packed the stone up in its odd, oversized bag. But the man’s admiration for the stone had nothing to do

with its intangible value to the Tuingas…the lingering presence of a hero and loved one. There was no

respect in his face. There was only greed. To judge by the man’s other such transactions, he would keep

the stone only long enough to find a wealthy buyer, either not knowing or not caring about the

consequences. Or figuring, as many humans seem to, that somehow he would be the exception to the

rule.

The young Tuingas grew frustrated. Limited to hiding in shadows and waiting for opportunity, he

followed the man to a temporary cluster of dwellings…and there he ran intoreal trouble. Where the

unfamiliar nature of L.A. had not deterred him, where his lack of sophistication had not discouraged him,

the man’s wise precautions—including no doubt a newly minted amulet of his own—stopped the Tuingas

short.

The young demon couldn’t enter the building. Not from the roof or the windows or the so obvious door.

He tried and he tried again, and found himself inexorably repelled. The man had visitors…people bearing

food and messages and then another man, younger, all dressed in black and awkwardly keeping to

shadows. But for the Tuingas there was no entry, so he waited. He watched. He wondered what the

priests had said when they found his crudely scrawled note of intent to reclaim the deathstone, and he

wondered what would happen to him when he finally returned. He’d already lost weight. His long-nose

hung limp and unhappy.

But eventually the man had emerged.

Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html

The young Tuingas had followed him.

“I need to find Angel,” the man blurted.

He’s crazy,Cordelia decided at once, and applied her politely-interested-but-really-not face for him.

“I know I’m not supposed to come here, that he likes to keep his street people under cover. But he’s

not at the main office address he gave me andI need to see him —”

“Calm yourself,” Wesley said, glancing at Angel with wry bemusement as he set aside his take-out

carton. “We’ll try to help you, but—”

Angel looked at the man who had so decisively and unexpectedly dismissed him, and then down at

himself. He straightened his sweater, surreptitiously tugging his jeans up to fasten the snap.

I knew it.But Cordelia savored the private triumph only for an instant. She gestured at Angel. “But thisis

Ange—”

The man waved a hand in vehement denial. A bowling bag weighed the other hand down, a battered old

thing with handles that barely seemed to be attached. It seemed heavy in his hand, but its slack sides

looked empty. “I know all about the look-alike he sends out on the street to confuse those who might be

following him,” he said. “Don’t try that charade on me. I need thereal Angel, and I need him—”

The doors crashed open. Really crashed, as in right off the hinges. Even Angel blinked at that, and at the

distinctly inhuman creature that bounded through them, heading straight for the desperate man and his

bowling ball.

“—rightnow! ” cried the man, his voice raising an octave. Maybe two.

“I’ll fake it,” Angel muttered, and put himself between man and demon as the man dove for one of the

lobby columns, clinging to it from behind. The creature hesitated, long enough to offer a brief impression

of alligator skin, a flexible fifth appendage swung neatly over its shoulder, and beady black eyes focused

entirely on his prey.

“Hey,” Angel said, annoyed. “I’m right here in front of you. And I gotta tell you, it bothers me when

demons forget to knock.”

It saw him then. It reached for him with every apparent intent of tossing him aside, and Angel responded

with every apparent intent of holding ground. The demon used its weight to shove Angel back and back

again, up against the column behind which the man quivered—and not so incidentally beside which

Cordelia had been standing. It pushed Angel right off his feet—and up—to dangle against the column.

Cordelia’s anger flared. Was that any way to behave in someone else’s hotel? She hauled back and

kicked the demon. She kicked it in the shin—or what she thought was a shin—she kicked it in the

thigh—ditto—and she kicked it in the groin—definitely not sure about that one.It didn’t appear to notice,

and, panting, she staggered back to reconsider.

At the far lobby wall, Wesley flung open the glass-front door to the weapons cabinet and grabbed

something sharp at random; he tossed it to Cordelia. She made no attempt to catch it—not until it

Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html

文档加载中……请稍候！
如果长时间未打开，您也可以点击刷新试试。

下载文档到电脑，查找使用更方便

5.9 玖币 0人已下载

立即下载 VIP免费下载

摘要：

ContentsChapterOneChapterTwoChapterThreeChapterFourChapterFiveChapterSixChapterSevenChapterEightChapterNineChapterTenChapterElevenChapterTwelveChapterThirteenChapterFourteenChapterFifteenChapterSixteenChapterSeventeenDoranna’sBackStoryWesleyturnedonhim,nolongerrestraininghisanger.“Areyoutryingtoturn...

展开>> 收起<<

Angel - Impressions.pdf

共127页,预览26页

还剩页未读，继续阅读

声明：本站为文档C2C交易模式，即用户上传的文档直接被用户下载，本站只是中间服务平台，本站所有文档下载所得的收益归上传人(含作者)所有。玖贝云文库仅提供信息存储空间，仅对用户上传内容的表现方式做保护处理，对上载内容本身不做任何修改或编辑。若文档所含内容侵犯了您的版权或隐私，请立即通知玖贝云文库，我们立即给予删除！

Angel - Impressions

相关推荐

开通VIP享超值会员特权

作者详情

相关内容

热门标签

举报选择: