Angel Souls and Devil Hearts Read Online Free Page A

collection thing going, pieces of stuff. The Berlin Wall, the Pyramids. He wanted me to get a piece
of something, and this thing is fuckin’ old.”
    George helped him look around, noticing that the stone walls and battlements, especially near the edge, were supplemented here and there with modern concrete. Chunks of the cement had fallen to
the ground, and it was a simple task to find a big one.
    “How ’bout this?” he asked.
    “No, man,” Jack said, as he continued his search. “It’s gotta be somethin’ from the oldest part, none of this cement shit.”
    Their search took them to an open doorway off to the left, and the floor within. Its surface was rough stone and dolomite chunks, and Jack knew they’d found what they were looking for. Now
they just had to work a piece loose. He took a drag off the joint and handed it back to George, then kicked at several large pieces of rock that jutted slightly from the floor. After a few tries,
he found a chunk a couple of inches wide that moved.
    With his heel, Jack kicked the thing again and again, and it moved more and more. But it didn’t come out. Apparently it was bigger than it looked. He had to stop for a couple of minutes as
the couple on the watchtower came closer to them and then finally left. George tried kicking a bit, and then Jack took over again, going farther into the hall to lean against the wall and kick.
    It happened on the fourth swing of his foot. One minute Jack’s back was firmly against the wall, and the next, as George watched, he disappeared through it.
    “Jack! What the hell . . .?” George moved toward the wall, but not too close. One of Jack’s hands came back through, and George noticed for the first time that the wall had
changed. Its color was almost silver, and its surface too flat, rippling like a pool of water where the hand broke through. George didn’t want to have anything to do with this weird shit, but
he and Jack went way back. George grabbed Jack’s hand, scrabbling for a hold on the rough, stone floor. Bracing his feet, and holding that hand with both of his own, George pulled.
    Jack moved forward, just barely, then stopped. To George it seemed as though the silver pool in the wall, whatever it was, and I don’t want to fucking think about that right now ,
were jelly, or quicksand. Some kind of suction held Jack—wherever he was. And then, beyond that reflective surface, in which George could see his own face, beyond the quicksilver sand that
held Jack in place, something tugged.
    George was jerked roughly forward. He almost let go of his friend’s hand as his boots slid over the stone, but instead his grip tightened. No way was he letting go. George slid farther,
closer to the opening, and then noticed something that saved him from being pulled in right behind Jack. The opening in the wall was only so big, and on either side of it, the wall was still solid
stone. Or at least it looked solid.
    In an instant, George’s feet were up, gripping Jack’s hand and being pulled along, his ass cut and scraped by stone as he lifted his legs and planted his boots on either side of the
opening. The muscles in his neck and back, in his arms and shoulders, strained for a few seconds, and then the opposing force, the one pulling Jack in, let up. It still wasn’t easy, pulling
him out of there, and George wasn’t about to let go in case his tug-of-war opponent was giving him a false rest, but with a grunting effort, he did it. Slowly, once his head and upper torso
had emerged, Jack crawled out of the wall, over the struggling form of his friend, and lay still on the stone by his side. They both rose, slowly, panting, moving away from the wall. George looked
up.
    “My God, Jack, what the hell—” And then George stopped. Because the man he’d pulled out of the wall wasn’t Jack at all.
    Sure, he looked like Jack. Same killer baby blues, dirty blond hair and beard. Same clothes, same smile. But this was an older