For a moment I stop and listen, pressing my hand against the wall to hold up my pudding-strong knees. Move, dammit! I churn up more stairs, allowing my predator sense to roam. It locks onto a strong aura on the other side of the house. I crest the stairs and move through a small, clean family room. Very clean. My boots eat up distance as I pass a brown couch covered in a sheet of plastic. Not a single speck of dust clings to the blinds, which are closed tight against the world. The entire room is perfumed with Febreze, and a line of collectible plates hang on the yellow walls. Each plate features a picture of baby animals.

  It’s disconcerting. Gun in hand, I make my way past a basketful of kittens, a fuzzy chick with a bright red bow around its neck, two baby lambs curled against each other, and a puppy and kitten touching noses.

  Bear, they called him. There was no Bear’s mask in The Totem’s internet video. Maybe he’s a new member or was holding the camera. I try to remember what happened in the alleyway this morning. Is this still the same day? Hell, I don’t even know how long I was out. I dig through my memories, but there are no Bear masks.

  What if he’s their leader? What if he’s waiting for me with a machine gun or is some kind of trained samurai warrior?

  I have a vision of him preparing to kill me, his muscles glistening as the overhead light kisses the steel of the katana clutched between his expert hands. I hold my gun higher and take a steadying breath. The pull of his aura leads down a narrow hallway filled with more commemorative plates, this set featuring Catholic saints.

  Whose house is this?

  Three closed doors present themselves in the hallway. God, this is like the world’s worst game show. Behind door number one was a lifetime supply of kitty litter, but you chose door number two. Let’s see what you win -- it’s a guy in a bear’s mask waiting to spray you with machine gun fire. Congratulations, and rest in peace!

  I wonder briefly what it actually feels like to get shot. Gabe says that if you’ve got enough adrenaline going, it doesn’t hurt at first, but he only got nicked in the leg once.

  I plaster myself against the wall next to door number two, where the aura emanates. Saint Jerome hangs on the opposite wall, holding up his hand in benediction. I only know he’s Saint Jerome, because his name is scrawled in frilly cursive at the bottom of the plate.

  You wouldn’t happen to be the saint of not getting shot in the face, would you?

  I take a deep breath, possibly my last, and twist the door handle. I push the door open, and wait for the explosion of gunfire or the hum of a katana cutting the air.

  Nothing.

  I exhale, loud and long, and stare at Saint Jerome’s blissed out face before swinging around and sweeping the barrel of my gun across the room. My target options include two large computer monitors sitting on a desk, a sweating can of Diet Coke on a coaster, a big rubber exercise ball leaning against the leg of the desk, or about a dozen plates on the wall, each featuring a Thomas Kincaid painting.

  I flatten against the inside wall, hitting a god damned plate in the process, and point my gun at the closet door. Not a very inventive hiding place, but I guess it was that or underneath the red futon in the corner.

  “Come out,” I say, “I’m not going to kill you.” My voice sounds a lot steadier than any part of me actually is.

  Silence.

  “I can feel you. I know you’re in the closet.” God, the puns Gabe would be spewing if he were here. I shake the thought of my brother away.

  If Bear Mask had a gun and intended to use it, this is when the bullets would come ripping. I wince in expectation, but all I get is more silence.

  I try to make my voice sound stern, hard, Tarren-like. “Don’t make me—”

  “How do I know that you won’t kill me?” a soft voice comes from behind the door.

  “Hear that?” I ask. The girl still wails below us in the basement, clearly audible even to human ears. “I didn’t kill her.”

  “She doesn’t sound happy though,” the closet says.

  “She’s not. The other angel, he killed Garret.”

  Quiet from the closet. Then, the soft voice speaks again, “What about the others?”

  “Alive. Unhurt. Just out of commission for a while. Nifty tranq guns you’ve got, by the way.”

  Another pause. I should just go in there and drag him out.

  “I told Garret,” the closet says. “They’re too strong. Too unpredictable.”

  “You were right. Come out.”

  “That policeman in the alley….”

  “I didn’t kill him either. I know that sounds crazy, but—.”

  “I know.” The closet door opens. I’m not sure what I expect, but the portly, balding man is not it. Both hands are raised in submission, and a plastic bear’s mask is shoved up on his glistening forehead, revealing beady brown eyes and a plain, round face. He reminds me, absurdly, of my high school math teacher.

  “Why?” he asks eyeing the gun I train on him.

  “Seriously? You’re the ones who captured me.”

  “No, sorry, you misunderstand.” He swallows. “You didn’t kill the policeman. I saw it on the cameras. You came afterwards. I told Penguin and Puma, but none of them…”

  “Cameras?” I glance at the computer monitors. The screens are split into four tiles, each showing a flat, gray city or suburban image. They almost look like separate video feeds. As I watch, the tiles blink to different scenes.

  “My questions is, why were you in that alley, and why aren’t you killing us?” Fear is a heavy red stain in Bear’s aura, but there’s something else too. Streaks of lime. I’ve seen a similar hue in Tarren’s aura. I think it’s curiosity.

  “We’re not all the same.”

  “But you want to. Your hands.”

  He’s right. My palms are open, still glowing. I curl my left hand into a fist, hiding the mutation, but that doesn’t change the pull of temptation. My legs tremble with it.

  “Perhaps I have a conscience,” I say to Bear Mask and wonder if he actually believes me, or if he’s just playing for time.

  “Can I…” He lowers his arms. “Sorry, it was getting hard.”

  “What’s on those screens?” I nod toward the computer monitors.

  Bear Mask rubs his shoulder. “They’re uh…I’d rather not say.”

  “You’d rather not say? I’ve got a gun on you.”

  He swallows. “I believe that’s a tranquilizer gun.”

  “Still good for bashing in your face.”

  “I suppose if you must.” He drops his arms to his sides and waits. His round face is flushed, and beads of sweat skate down his neck. How in the hell is a guy like this even involved in capturing and torturing angels? Why isn’t he handing out detention slips to the stoners who fell asleep during his riveting discussion about finding the hypotenuse of a triangle?

  I sigh and lower the gun a little. “What if I told you that we’re on the same side?”

  “Then I’d say you shouldn’t be bashing me in the face with a gun.”

  We look at each other, and I feel my lips tugging up into a thin smile. “Touché. You’re smart. Mind if I give you some advice?”

  He eyes the gun. “I suppose that’s rhetorical.”

  “In a minute here you’re going to take a nice long trip to Candy Land.” I motion with the gun. “After you wake up, pack up and go back to wherever you came from. Wearing stupid masks doesn’t make you professionals.” I try to make my voice go all hard and cold the way Tarren’s does. This is for his own good. “You have no idea about what you’re dealing with. The longer it takes you to figure that out, the more teammates who will be hitching a ride with Garret to wherever you go when your neck gets twisted like a corkscrew. Understand?”

  “Indeed.” The man meets my eyes. Despite his puffy, flushed face, his gaze is hard. I see it in his aura too, a strong emotional surge. I get the feeling that whatever cushy life he came from isn’t waiting for him anymore.

  “They took someone from you,” I sigh.

  “Yes.” His eyes don’t flinch.

  “Then don’t go home. Go someplace new. Start over. Volunteer at a food kitchen. Let us do our job.”

  “Who’s us?” he asks, his voice all innocent and soft.

  I raise the gun. “Nice try.” This guy gets my vote for group leader. I bet he was the one who came up with that clever tightening net maneuver in the alleyway.

  “Wait. Can I…” Bear Mask looks over at the red futon. “Bad back.”

  “Don’t try anything funny,” I say and keep my face serious, so maybe he won’t notice how cheesy that sounded.

  “Have I given any indication that I’m the heroic type?” Bear Mask smiles as he backs up slowly to the futon. When he gets there, he sits down, hands at his sides.

  “Lie down,” I tell him.

  Instead, he looks at me with those hard eyes again. “There are other creatures still in the city. At least four more that I’ve caught on the monitors. They must have a central location somewhere in Peoria.”

  “How do you find them?”

  This time Bear Mask doesn’t hesitate. “Thermal imaging. They’ll keep killing. Innocent people.” Strains of passion overlay his calm manner.

  I shoot a tranq. The man winces and touches the nodule in his arm.

  “I suppose I best get in a…a…comfortable…” He pulls his legs up onto the futon and lies back. “Find them,” he slurs. “Find them.”

  I look back at the computer monitors. In the black and white image, I can make out a street and cars inching through a traffic light. They must have set up rotating cameras on the rooftops. Clever Bear. The tiles on each screen switch to different scenes. I watch a jogger plod carefully down the sidewalk, her frame a much brighter shade of gray than the surrounding landscape.

  Thermal imaging. But do angels give off different heat signatures than humans? Could it really be so simple to distinguish them?

  The thought that these amateurs could have discovered a better way of tracking angels is galling. I’ll have to ask Tarren about it when….well, if I find him.

  I’m struck again by the weight of my current situation, and it’s like quicksand, pulling me down into panic, confusion, hyperventilation.

  Deep breath. Deep breath. One thing at a time. First, finish the angel.

  As I pass back through the living room, I keep hearing Bear’s voice echoing in my head. At least four more…must have a central location somewhere in Peoria….they’ll keep killing. I also think about the angel with the blonde braid and the dead policeman she left behind.

  A plan is forming in my head. A very bad, very stupid plan. A plan that will most likely get me extra crispy dead.

  I descend the stairs, kicking Milo’s chain out of the way. As my adrenaline begins to ebb, I feel the ache in my twisted ankle, the throb of my battered face, and a heavy pounding in my left wrist. I step over Milo’s supine form at the bottom of the stairs. On second thought, I bend over him, rifle through his pockets, and find what I’m looking for – a cell phone. I tap the screen to wake it up, swipe to unlock, and am mildly surprised to find that it isn’t password protected.

  “Thanks,” I mutter, shoving the phone into my pocket.

  Across the room, Rain is still sprawled on the floor where I left him, but I can see little ripples of consciousness starting to rise in his aura. Finch cradles Garret’s head in her lap. She’s pulled his mask off, and his half-lidded green eyes stare up unseeing. The whole basement smells of the bowels he released upon death.

  “He’s dead,” Finch says in an empty voice when she sees me pointing a gun at her.

  “I know,” I say and pull the trigger. Nothing happens. Out of darts. A shame. She could have used some sweet dreams. I drop the tranq gun without wiping it down. What’s the point? I’ve probably got my prints all over this place. I doubt even The Totem would be stupid enough to call the police about this situation.

  I make my way over to the angel and peer at that ugly face. Moment of truth. The pitiless, almost gleeful way this angel went at Garret and then Rain confirms that he is a killer. There isn’t any moral conundrum holding me back. I could also snap his neck and get some points for poetic justice. Just one quick twist, and I’d be on my way to getting him buried in an anonymous grave and then starting my search for Tarren.

  At least four more that I’ve caught on the monitors, Bear’s voice echoes in my mind. They’ll keep killing.

  I sigh. Idiot plan it is.

  Chapter 15

  Six houses to the left, I find a silver Cadillac with a dented bumper and unlocked doors huddled beneath a thick blanket of snow. I thrust the unconscious angel across the wide backseat and sweep off mounds of snow from the windshield with my arms. The inside smells like old lady and church. I mutter an apology as I rip apart the console and hotwire the car. Or at least try to hotwire it. The engine is stubborn in the cold.

  The church-smelling car fills with my curses. The engine catches on the third try, and I drive the hell away. Not anywhere in particular, just away from this middle-class neighborhood, from all those collectors’ plates, and the weeping girl in the basement.

  The handcuff still attached to my left wrist clanks gently against the steering column as the car coughs, shakes, and handles like a boat, its wheels sliding at every stop sign and red light. The console tells me the time is 3:50 PM. Could my world have neatly imploded in only nine hours?

  My adrenaline is draining fast, leaving me with sore muscles, body shakes, and an aching hunger that fills my brain with a tantalizing music. I glance in the rearview mirror at the unconscious angel in the backseat. He doesn’t have an aura, which makes it next to impossible to guess when he might be coming around.

  It won’t be long, I think. He was already reviving when The Totem got back, and they were gone for less than three hours.

  I pull over at a fast food joint a dozen miles down the road. My mind spins with a growing list of “to-dos”, but first I get out of the car, stagger to a fresh patch of snow, and shove handfuls of it in my mouth. I must look like I’m tripping on acid, kneeling here in the snow without a jacket, gobbling up fistfuls of my own handmade, tasteless snow cones. But oh, oh, oh, so good. My entire body shivers as the cold liquid soothes my swollen tongue and sandpaper throat.

  Before my hands turn into ice cubes, I use more snow to try and scrub away the blood on my face and neck. My nose is a big, throbbing mass of pain that lashes out at me even when I try to be gentle scrubbing dried blood from my nostrils with a wet fingertip. There’s nothing to be done for the crimson stains splattered on my gray long-sleeve shirt. Damn.

  I return to the car, dig out Milo’s cellphone, and call Tarren’s number. It’s the longest of longshots. When I said Styx, he should have ditched everything, cut off all avenues of contact. Still, a part of me hopes that he ignored my command, refusing to abandon me to my fate. My heart quickens to a gallop as I press the last digit. Even now he might be valiantly searching for me, clinging to his phone, hoping for contact…

  An operator informs me that my call cannot be completed. I sit back in the seat. Tarren discarded the phone, probably snapping the SIM card in half for good measure. There’s no point in even trying the motel. I hang up the call, and begin to press the digits of Gabe’s main cell.

  My fingers stop. If Tarren is following Styx protocol, then Gabe should also be completely out of reach. Even if he were available, I can’t get Gabe involved. He’d insist on coming to help, and he’d most definitely not allow me to follow through with my terrible plan. I cancel the call and watch for a moment as snowflakes settle onto the windshield of the car. Soft, peaceful.

  “I can’t do this,” I say out loud. Not without Tarren or Gabe. I turn to look at the angel in the backseat and remember how easily Garret’s neck snapped beneath his strong hands. “I definitely can’t do this.”

  I wait a while for my panic to subside. One minute. Two. Three. I realize my panic isn’t so much subsiding as measuring the windows for drapes. I’ve got to do this anyway, despite the fact that I’m….well, me.

  I do a quick Google search on Milo’s phone and memorize the address I find. It’d be convenient to keep the phone, but I can’t risk being tracked. Even if The Totem are amateurs, Bear Mask was no dummy, and there’s that whole logic of never underestimating people who are intent on killing you.

  I slide out the phone’s SIM card, turn it into plastic confetti and brave the snow drifts to throw it all away in an icicle-laced trash bin outside the fast food place. Then, I scramble back to the warm car, clutch the wheel hard, and steer the boat back into Peoria proper. The monster part of me knows what I’m planning, and she purrs with pleasure.

  ***

  The worst of the storm has passed. The streets are plowed and salted, and my Cadillac makes steady progress into town. Heaps of exhaust-tinted snow line each side of the road. Halfway to my destination, traffic halts for an excruciating fifteen minutes as we carefully move around a minor crash.

  I drum my hands on the wheel, thump, thump, thump, and try not to think about what I’m going to do, thump, thump, thump, or how stupid this plan is, thump, thump, thump, or that I have no idea where Tarren is and am thus completely and most utterly alone, thump, thump, thump, and that, just as a kicker, I’ve got a highly volatile and murderous angel in the backseat who could wake up at any moment, thump, thump, THUMP!

  The line of cars finally moves past the accident, and a few minutes later, I pull into a bland strip mall. There’s no telling where the parking spaces are beneath all the snow, so I give it my best guess and plow the Cadillac onto the nearest mound. The pet store is tucked near the end between a closed beauty parlor and a pizza joint doing brisk business.

  A hand-painted sign hangs above the pet store door depicting a little girl in a pink dress embracing a dog while a smiling cat stands by her leg. I immediately hate the sign. The cat is too big in comparison to the girl, and the perspective is off so that the dog looks like it’s floating above the ground. The girl’s left arm is so short it looks like she has some kind of congenital birth defect. Even I could paint a better sign than that. Okay, I couldn’t, but someone in fucking Peoria could.

 

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