Weeping Angels - Age to dust

‘All I want is a kiss. Just one more little kiss. I ain’t never been kissed like that before.’

Even if I ignored the double-negative, it sounded like I’d overdone the lipstick.

Not that Max cared. ‘It was the kiss of an angel.’

His lips protruding alarmingly, Kliener closed his eyes into tight scrunches, and leaped at me from point-blank range.

If he thought I was going to stand there meekly and give in to the puckered-lips apocalypse, he was sadly mistaken.

‘I’m no angel,’ I said, and stepped to one side with a neatness and poise that would have impressed a prima ballerina. Well, Max Kliener should relate to that.

At the moment, however, he had other things to relate to. With me out of the way, he overbalanced, tripped, staggered a few steps forwards, and found himself in the arms of and kissing a very different sort of angel.

He seemed to freeze in position. The Angel was very definitely smiling now. Her face was undeniably less weathered, her wings less chipped and fractured.

Max Kliener looked grey, as if all the colour had been sapped from him. His face was lined and cracked like ancient stone. Then he simply crumbled away. A scattering of dust fell to the floor at the stone Angel’s feet. Followed by a well-chewed cigar.

***

The Angel's Kiss: A Melody Malone Mystery, Chapter 8