“Frank, I’m videoing,” The woman calls.

  The angels are muted blurs in the darkness. Heather is in the lead, her long legs eating up ground despite her heeled boots. She ignores Frank and his pitiful baseball bat. So does War, close behind her. The third angel, limping behind doesn’t ignore Frank. His head snaps to attention, eyes trained on the balding, middle-aged man in flannel pants and no shirt.

  The darkness hides the angel’s expression, but I can image the feral glint in his eyes. The sudden rush of need and addiction.

  “His hands,” Tarren says.

  It’s a little hard to make out, but yes, when I look closely I see a faint glow emanating near the angel’s waist.

  The angel, a mop of dark curls catching the weak light from the window, pounces on Frank like a cat. The woman behind the camera screams. Another dark figure enters the scene, and this one turns toward the window. A woman. Tall and thin, with short steel-colored hair. Cherry Red Infinity, I think.

  The long, screeching howl of fear continues as Cherry Red Infinity advances toward the window just outside the pool of light. The view suddenly shifts, blurring and then resolving into clean, wooden floorboards. The sound of a shattering window is followed by winking shards of glass raining down into the camera’s view.

  “She dropped the phone!” I gasp, and despite the horrific scene, this feels like a miracle. Like the descending blade of the guillotine got stuck when your neck was on the block. My emotions are all over the place. Fear and relief do an odd tango together in my chest. “Do you think the angels can cover it up?”

  In their heyday, the first generation of angels, who called themselves The Exalted without apparently realizing what pompous assholes that made them, specialized in covering up all of their murderous mayhem. The Exalted were men with stars on their collars, women who worked in posh corner offices in the Capital, and others who could pull important strings. These acolytes covered up murders committed by angels, disappeared police reports, scrubbed autopsies, and quickly dispatched anyone who stumbled upon the truth, including people like Dr. Lee who had the unfortunate luck to receive an angel patient in his emergency room.

  “Their network is far weaker than it used to be,” Tarren responds. “The video is out. The story is out. One of the bodies they picked up was an angel. We’ve crossed a line.”

  I shake my head, causing the room to tilt back and forth. “It was too dark. You can hardly see anything in the video.”

  The news shifts to the ongoing investigation into the disappearance of Tucker Cartwright. A clip shows weeping female fans dropping flowers and teddy bears in a lavish pile at the gate in front of his community. They lean against each other and sob as if all the sunlight has been torn out of the world. A crude sketch of a skinny man in a Batman costume appears on the screen.

  Jesus.

  Tarren stands up as if he needs to move, and even in my dazed state I know that he’s in a bad place. Gabe is the jittery one, burning through his nerves with finger tapping and thread tugging. Tarren, ever the solider, is still and quiet…usually.

  I study the lamp shade sitting on the table. Just the shade.

  “Say it,” I challenge him.

  He turns to me, and I notice the stubble darkening his jaw. “Say what?” His words are clipped, almost angry. Over his shoulder, I see a crack snaking along the wall, a crack I’m betting wasn’t there when we arrived.

  “Say whatever it is that’s trying to burst out of you.”

  Instead, he takes a breath. Probably one of those cleansing breaths that supposedly works for him. “Can you travel? We need to get to the rendezvous point to meet Gabe.”

  I stare at him, trying to drill through all his ice. He just stands there, implacable.

  “Yes,” I finally say. “Care to cut me loose?”

  Chapter 16

  Improbably, and yet not surprisingly, Tarren leads me to a new vehicle, an older model Chevy Silverado. The gray truck is slathered with dirt and grime, hinting at a lifetime of hard fought miles. Tarren usually prefers stealing newer cars with less wear and tear, but I guess this old truck did well in a pinch.

  I wonder where our jeep, stained with my blood, filled with ghosts, found its final resting place. I gingerly slide into the passenger seat while Tarren returns to quickly clean the motel room. Even this small exertion has me breathing hard and squeezing my eyes closed to shut out a wave of dizziness. I haven’t felt nearly this horrible since my body was practically turned inside out when Grand injected me with his bone marrow over a year ago. Right now I feel like someone siphoned off every ounce of my energy and replaced it with steel ball bearings. My body feels so heavy I expect the seat to groan and buckle beneath me.

  The cab of the truck smells like cigarettes, fast food, and uninspired life decisions. Wires dangle from the steering column. All of our crap, including the ever resilient Sir Hopsalot in his carrying case, is neatly stacked in the back seat, allowing just enough space for a passenger. A pile of bloodied towels and sheets stick out of a big plastic bag, and I realize that it’s actually pretty spectacular that Tarren performed surgery on me. I know he’s studied up on basic wound care as we all have, but sewing up a bullet hole while my blood pumped all over his fingers? I imagine his face, pale and intense as he made precise, tiny sutures in my flesh.

  I can just see the top of the bandages above the collar of my t-shirt, the discolored blood stains smattering my jeans. Then everything hits me like a sledgehammer.

  I was shot. Holy fucking cheese sticks, I was shot.

  I relive the scene, rushing through the yards, blood pounding in my ears as gunshots crack behind me. This time, I imagine that I felt the bullet as it spiraled through my flesh, muscle, and bone. I see blood gushing out of my body. My heart races, and the spool of images plays over and over in my mind. The click of the driver’s side door sounds like a bomb, and I actually cry out.

  “What?” Tarren tenses, and his gaze scours the parking lot. “Did you see something? Hear something?”

  “No, no,” I gasp. It’s just that I was shot. “It’s…nothing.”

  Tarren swings into the driver’s seat, and the trucks dips with his weight.

  “They’ll find my blood at the scene,” I say.

  “And if they run it through the database they’ll come up with a match from your missing person profile,” Tarren finishes, because of course he’s already thought of this. He’s had half a day to contemplate just how much we’ve fucked up. “It will take them a while to process the scene. It might be possible for Gabe or one of his hacker contacts to…” He pauses just a moment to find the right words. “…take care of that.”

  I nod, and we pull out of the parking lot of the old, modular motel that looks like it’s begging for a bulldozer. I realize that I never even asked about the motel we were in or how Tarren got me inside the room. He must have carried me – how else? I wonder if I felt heavy in his arms, if even in my drugged unconsciousness I still tried to reach up, to feed from his aura.

  Then a whole new carnival of worrying thoughts makes its sluggish way to my brain. Why did I say when I was coo-coo for Coco Puffs? Did I blab my suspicions about Tammy? Did I mumble Gem’s name and describe the greatest hits from our weird-ass family reunion earlier this year in Peoria?

  I watch Tarren drive, those strong hands at 9 and 3. His face is closed. What would his aura look like with one more secret added to the mix? I squint at his energy, but another wave of dizziness hits, and I turn my head to look out the passenger window. The dawn is almost over, and I can see just the barest hint of purple night still clinging to the western horizon. Soon the sun will eat it up.

  My mind jumps to a different place. Tarren and I are finally alone. Right here, right now I could ask him about Tammy. Not ask. Demand answers. Tell him, I know she’s alive.

  I open my mouth. “Did you feed Sir Hopsalot?” I ask with utter lameness. “It’s been a long time since…”

  “Yes. And I let him out in the motel room. I was planning to vacuum anyway,” he replies. We ease to a stop at a red light. Tarren stares straight ahead and says, “We really shouldn’t bring him with us.”

  He’s always considered Sir Hopsalot a distraction. Yet another liability to slow us down.

  “In case something happens to us,” Tarren says.

  My brother has a way of surprising me like this. I think I’ve decoded every bit of his software, but then he’ll throw out a curveball of care my way. Could it be that he actually likes the furry critter?

  “Francesca would take care of him,” Tarren says. “It’s not good to have an animal stuck in cage for so long.”

  “We’re stuck in a cage too.” The words just pop out of my mouth, but they’re true. When is the last time we’ve been home?

  The light turns green, and we slowly roll to the next light. Every little jolt of the truck sends a stab of pain through my chest. It feels like someone spent a day shooting hockey pucks at my right shoulder and upper ribs. Even breathing hurts, and I take short, quick breaths to compensate.

  The road is thick with cars. People trundling off to work. Computers to clack, phones to answer, paychecks to grudgingly earn. I was shot, I think. They have a video of an angel. Glowing hands. And life goes on. Someone honks nearby, trying to merge into a full turn lane.

  “Did you leave some extra money?” I ask. “For the lamp?”

  Silence.

  More silence.

  A stray thread of crimson cuts through Tarren’s aura like an open wound. His knuckles grow white on the steering wheel.

  “I should have seen it,” he says, and his voice is so low it’s almost more growl than words. “After Peoria of course they would have a patrol. I should have anticipated it.”

  I open my mouth to answer, but Tarren is right. It seems so obvious now. In Peoria, Gabe and the Totem ambushed the angels and cut down half their numbers. War is stupid, but even he wouldn’t let something like that happen again.

  “We had to react quickly. We couldn’t think of every possibility,” I say.

  “I HAVE to think of every possibility.” His voice is raw in such an un-Tarren-like way that it actually scares me. It’s like watching a crack splice within a massive iceberg. How much more pressure until it shatters?

  When was the last time he slept? I think. Out loud I say, “You can’t Tarren. You can’t out-think every situation.”

  His hands clench the steering wheel like he’s holding on for dear life. I watch his aura flare with emotion. Blood reds, crackling oranges. But is his voice is eerily calm. “You got hurt. Gabe could have been caught by the police.”

  Does he really believe that he alone is responsible for keeping us safe? Yes, I realize, that’s exactly what he believes.

  “You don’t get to do this,” I snap even as I lean away from the loud fury of his energy. “…this take all the blame thing…” My voice is rising. “…this, I have to be perfect for every second of every fucking day or all the kittens in the world will die and sprinkles will disappear forever.”

  Silence.

  So I fill it.

  “And THANK YOU for saving my life, by the way!” I haven’t re-modulated my voice, so I’m yelling my gratitude at him.

  Tarren pulls us into a small, empty parking lot at a desert nature preserve. Our rendezvous point.

  “I left money for the lamp,” he mutters. Ironic that this makes me feel better even though we’re sitting in a stolen truck. I know Tarren always checks for insurance before he boosts a car. My attention shifts as I feel a faint yet familiar energy pattern nearby. A slim figure emerges from behind the visitor’s center.

  Gabe looks like something even a burly truck driver wouldn’t pick up from the side of the road. His face is caked with dirt and sweat, and his beat-up old ball cap is an immediate Goodwill reject. And yet when his trademark grin slides into place, I can’t help thinking that everything will somehow be okay.

  Gabe ambles up to my window.

  “I don’t have any change, Sir,” I tell him through the glass.

  “Chuck Norris routinely brings 11 items to the 10 items or less line because he's Chuck Norris,” Gabe responds. Streaks of green glow in his aura.

  Tarren must think we’re both crazy, but I can’t help it. I giggle, despite the pain it causes in my back and chest. All the stress and blood loss and the unremitting ache in my arm are doing weird things to my brain, and here’s Gabe looking like he was literally dragged through the mud, still grinning.

  I roll down the window.

  “I got a lot more where that came from,” Gabe says. “Had a lot of time to think recently.”

  “Get in the truck,” Tarren says. He sounds brusque, but Gabe and I know better.

  “Missed you too, big brother,” Gabe says pleasantly. He looks at me, and his brown eyes turn serious. “How are you? In pain?”

  “A little, but it’s not bad,” I lie. “I was worried about you.”

  “Right back at you. Really, Maya, you okay?”

  I realize that it must have been hard for him, hunkering down in a hot attic, listening to our fragmented conversation, that sloppy fight, through his earpiece. After I was out, Tarren probably gave him clipped, sterile updates in an unbearably calm voice.

  “The arm’s still attached.” I pull down the collar of my shirt to show off my bandages. “Tarren sewed me up, and you know I heal quick.”

  “Thank God.” Gabe opens the door and squeezes into the back, pushing around all of Tarren’s neat piles so he can stretch out his legs. “Water. Please. And grub. I’d eat dog food right now.”

  ***

  We park at a gas station just a few miles up the road from our rendezvous point. Gabe has just returned, his arms filled with glinting bags of chips, cans of Monster energy drinks, and three soft pretzels powdered in salt. He smells astringent from the wet clothes he used for a quick homeless shower in the bathroom. Without all the dust, his face looks drawn and tired.

  As soon as we kill War, we need to head home. It’s time for us to rest. Recuperate. The thought of my own bed almost makes me drool. I think I could sleep for an entire day.

  Gabe situates himself in the back seat, leans forward, and offers Tarren one of the pretzels.

  “We need to find someone else. Another angel,” Tarren says.

  “You’ve got to be shitting me,” Gabe groans, his mouth filled with pretzel. “Did you happen to notice how not well the last attempt went?”

  “We have to track War,” I interject. I’ve already repeated his faith-healer craziness to my brothers on the way here. “He is trying to start the end times. Literally. First priority is to blow his head off.”

  Gabe’s aura ticks with discontent but he doesn’t say anything. I know my brother gets unhappy when I roll out the violent speech. It doesn’t suit his narrative of me as his innocent little sister pulled into a war she was never supposed to be a part of.

  “The original plan wasn’t to run across an entire nest of angels,” Tarren responds, his voice going softer, each word clipped. His version of anger.

  Nest, hmmmm. No, I like murder of angels better. Or maybe a brood of angels, like vampires. We should probably have a team vote.

  “We need to do this first,” Tarren insists.

  My anger rises sudden and hot. “What part of THE APOCALYPSE are you not hearing?”

  “Gonna need some juice for this pretty soon,” Gabe mumbles as his thumb flicks across the screen of his phone.

  “If we can track him nearby, we can take him back to Lo,” Tarren says.

  “No, we’re not keeping War alive,” I insist. The last time War was captured, he broke through his handcuffs and then snapped the neck of Puma, the Totem’s least pleasant member, like it was a screw top lid. “We need to put him in the ground. Cut off the snake’s head.”

  Tarren carefully brushes the salt off the pretzel Gabe offered him. I realize that I never asked Tarren if he’d eaten. I’d only asked about the rabbit. I feel a wave of shame slam into my simmering anger. Gabe and I have a pact between us to always watch out for Tarren. Make sure he eats and sleeps, because he often forgets or simply doesn’t consider normal human necessities relevant.

  “Then tell us,” I manage through gritted teeth. “Tell us what you’re working on. Why it’s so important we need to let angel Hitler escape.”

  “Do we know which car was War’s?” Gabe asks, raising his voice.

  “He would be driving something big. Something flashy,” I respond.

  “Bet it was the black Hummer. Big chrome wheels.”

  “That sounds like War,” I agree.

  “Let’s see. Oh, look-ee here. Happens to be one of the cars I put a tracker on. Just another stroke a genius. No big deal…” Gabe’s fingers dance as he pulls a new screen up on his phone. “He drove it last night. Guess he made it out of the fray. Hmmm.” An index finger taps against his lips. “The douche-mobile is two hours outside of Scottsdale. It’s been sitting there for the entire day. Hold on.”

  “Just two hours away,” I plead to Tarren.

  “He abandoned the car, Maya,” Tarren says like this is obvious.

  “Yep,” Gabe says from the back. “That address is a used car dealership. He switched rides.”

  “Dammit!” I throw myself against the seat, and my chest rings with pain. “What about the others in the group?” I manage through gritted teeth. “We can capture one, lean on them. War must have a network, some sort of communication ring. Those guys didn’t just all show up at that house accidentally.”

  “They’re scattered, Maya,” Gabe says, gnawing on his second pretzel. “I only had four trackers. One of the cars is still in the subdivision – that was Teddy Morrison’s – and the other two are halfway across the country.

  “I shot Morrison,” I say. “He went straight down. I think I killed him.” I carefully lay against the seat thinking, I lost War. I lost War. I lost War…Again.

  “We could break into the dealership, download their records. Then as least we’d know what ride he picked up, assuming he kept it,” Gabe says without any enthusiasm.

 

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