This is so dangerous and so stupid. And just bad, a deep down soul-pitting bad that will make me feel ugly no matter what I see in the mirror.

  I look back at the angel.

  “Don’t wake up for another fifteen minutes,” I command. Then I sit in the car for another minute, completely wasting valuable time. It isn’t because I’m scared. It’s because I want this too much, and because I know what it’ll do to me.

  “But he has to believe,” I say softly to myself, and this, at last, propels me from the car and into the Arctic temperatures outside. I immediately miss my parka and knit cap with the border of happy snowmen as I hunch over and wrap my arms around my chest. I untuck my hair from behind my ears, letting it fan over my face as I pass the large front windows of the pizza parlor and tug open the door to the pet store.

  Animals have a way of sensing my predator vibe, and as soon as I pass the threshold, they start going bat shit crazy. The gerbils rush to their cubbies, the rabbits thump their powerful back legs, and the birds screech and flap.

  I wince at the noise, but keep my steps true to their course. Toward the back of the store, an overweight teenage girl with bad skin was tapping fish flakes into a line of tanks before all hell broke loose. Now, her head swivels around, and her aura crackles with confusion.

  She sees me and automatically says, “Hi, welcome to Pet Palace,” even though her words are soft and nearly drowned by the cacophony. I don’t say anything, don’t acknowledge the greeting. I just keep walking toward her.

  Her eyes widen as she takes in my bruised, swollen face. “Are you…do you need an ambulance?” she asks, her aura spiking with fear. At the last moment, she notices the handcuff dangling on my left wrist. The skin peels back from my palms. Aura. Beautiful aura. She tries to step back, but bumps up against the fish tanks instead. Now. I take her down, swift and clean, pressing my forearm against her carotid artery until all the manic fear releases from her aura, and she slumps against me. Her hair smells of citrus.

  The song, the song. Her aura calls to me. I could just take her instead. Human energy. Velvet power, filling me.

  I drag her behind the counter, turn off the lights, and flip the Closed sign hanging on the door.

  I close my eyes. This is what I have to do. I don’t know who I’m trying to justify this too. Maybe Gabe, maybe Tarren, maybe the decent person I used to be. Either way, it’s only a partial truth. This is what you are, the monster part of me answers back. You try to hide it. You try to fight it, but this is what you will always be.

  I walk to the first bird cage, open the door and start a mini-killing spree. The birds go first, just so I can shut them up. One by one, I reach into their cages with my glowing hand and take hold of their bodies. Their energy pours into me, warming my cold skin, knitting my broken wrist back together. My mind slows its frantic spinning, and all the fears and uncertainties melt away like those snowflakes on the windshield.

  More, More, MORE! The monster’s voice is louder, driving back my weak protests. I keep going – hamsters, guinea pigs, rabbits, mice. They bite me and scratch me, and I drain their lives away. At some point I’m so giddy I laugh. Why haven’t I done this before? Why have I been so afraid of this power when it feels so right?

  I drink in more energy than I’ve ever had before, except for the night I almost killed Gabe.

  Except for that.

  I gorge, and the monster grows strong. She needs to be.

  ***

  By the time the angel in the backseat starts to rouse, I’ve parked the Cadillac in a corner of a quiet business complex far away from the pet shop massacre. A few other cars sit in the long, snowy parking lot – the diehards – but, for the most part, the place is abandoned. I sit on the hood of the car and concentrate on breaking the handcuff. The metal presses deep into the flesh of my palm as I pull and twist. Harder. Power flowing through me. With a defeated cry, the metal arm swings open, and I massage my freed wrist.

  Awesome. Everything is awesome. I listen with fascination at the clarity of the sounds all around me. I breathe in a symphony of scents that even the mounds of snow cannot dampen. The colors of everything are so sharp I could almost cut my finger on them.

  My body hums in harmony. The cold can’t touch me.

  Why have I been holding back all this time? The thought whispers through my mind, and there’s no one to argue against it.

  I get tired of waiting, so I slide off the hood, pull open the back door of the car, and unceremoniously drop the angel into the snow. This brings him around, though slowly. He groans and presses his hands through the white wetness. The threads pull against the shoulders of his tailored sports coat.

  “Wha, in hell?” he slurs, pulling himself to his knees. He looks up and blinks at me. His heavy, Cro-Magnon brow shelters beady brown eyes set too wide on his face.

  “Better,” he says, his tongue gaining traction. “This is better. What was that before?” He frowns, pulls his hands up from the snow, and checks out the fading bruises around his wrists.

  “Not a dream then,” he says.

  “Nope.”

  “That would have been a pretty fucked up dream.” He doesn’t seem to be bothered by the cold.

  “Vigils.” The angel stands up and brushes the snow off his clothing, taking extra care to check his watch. His caterpillar eyebrows fold together in concentration. “Let’s see, I got out of them cuffs, rained down some of my signature hellfire, and then….” He frowns and touches his head, probing the area I introduced quite brutally to the steel chair.

  “Then they put a tranq in your ass, and you hit the chair on the way down,” I finish for him. I can’t take my eyes off his round, squashed nose. It must have been a hard thing to grow up with that nose. “An impressive showing.”

  The angel’s head snaps up from his watch, and the expression on his face reminds me of the wolverines I’d watch on the Discovery Channel as a kid.

  “Damn Ascension’s made me weak as fuck,” he snarls, “otherwise, I would have torn all their heads off.”

  I keep my face carefully set in an expression of nonchalance, even though the word Ascension rings all kinds of alarm bells in my head.

  So they didn’t just come to Peoria to snack.

  “Well?” the angel demands, “what the fuck happened and where the fuck are we?” His small eyes gleam with the threat of violence. I should be scared. I know this the way I know the sky is blue and that Gabe loves Francesca, but I can’t find any fear inside me.

  “You’re not the only one who can break a pair of cuffs,” I say, and dangle my broken cuff from my index finger. “I was just waiting for a distraction, and you gave it to me.”

  “Hmmm.” The angel leans up against the car. His eyebrows part from their deep furrow. Just like that, the volatile anger washes away, replaced by an expression of cool arrogance. “You’re welcome then,” he says, and his eyes rove my body without apology. “Looks like you got a good meal out of it. They all dead?”

  He can see the faint glow beneath my skin, evidence of my recent feeding frenzy. I nod and allow a casual smile. “Every last one. You should be the one thanking me.”

  “Oh, I plan to reward you for sure.” The angel licks his lips.

  “You know you’re ugly as sin right?”

  “But I’m rich,” he quips back. “That usually makes up for it. My ladies tell me my wallet is very handsome.” He gives me another appraising look, and then pushes himself off the car.

  The wind comes howling between us, ripping at my hair and shirt, but I don’t feel the cold at all. Strong, I feel so, so, so strong, and I don’t ever want to let this sensation go.

  “I’m War,” the guy says.

  “War?” I almost laugh but think better of it. “Like a horseman of the apocalypse? Should I be shaking in my boots?”

  “It’s short for Warren,” he says. The sedative is wearing off quickly. His eyes and movements are growing sharper. “But yeah, you should shake in your little boots plenty.” His expression returns to wolverine mode, and the smile he gives me is a warning. “The apocalypse is coming, and I plan to be riding front and center.”

  “Whatever.” I wave him off like I didn’t notice that little bout of crazy. Here comes the tricky part. “I only saved you, because those Vigils were pissing me off. Now you’re awake, so you can go back to wherever you came from.”

  I turn back toward the car.

  “Wait.” With one loping step, War is next to me, practically breathing down my neck with bad breath.

  “I never got your name.” He strokes my arm.

  I make a show of tucking my hair behind my ear. “Buf…Beth. Elizabeth.”

  “Pretty name for a pretty girl.” War is only a few inches taller than me, but I’m suddenly aware of his size, the thick, muscled width of him looming over me.

  “Here’s the thing Betsy,” he says in that breezy, casual voice that is not actually casual at all. “My boss is looking for a girl like you. One who wasn’t fully changed.”

  His hand locks onto my wrist. At this point, fear would normally rip my guts to shreds and turn my knees into Jell-O, or pudding, or some other gooey dessert. And yet, my knees stay strong, my guts untouched.

  “I’m not that girl, I’m nobody,” I say, while my mind churns, trying to re-route my plan.

  “Orders are orders,” War says. His eyes are dull brown, like muddy pebbles. I try to read something in them. “We’re going to take a ride,” he says. “You and me, in this…fuck, a Cadillac? This shit heap is older than I am.”

  He marches me forcefully around the car to the passenger side and leans forward to yank open the door. There’s an instant, like a single grain of sand falling through an hourglass, where he’s distracted. Tarren has taught me at least four ways that I could use this instant to break his grip and either fight or flee.

  I stand still, allowing the instant of choice to melt away, and I hope that I didn’t just make the absolute dumbest decision of my life. War pulls open the car door and throws me inside.

  “Oh, and don’t try to escape or anything, otherwise I’d have to kill you.” War wags his eyebrows like this would be an exciting proposition before slamming the door shut.

  I settle into my seat. I should’ve run. Mousey Maya would have run.

  Ascension – they’re making more angels, I remind myself, which means this particular group just jumped up to a whole new level of needs-to-be-shot-in-the-face-pronto. I have to find them, and I have to destroy them no matter the risk.

  His boss knows about me, but how much? I’m not sure what to make of this development, but it most definitely can’t be good. War lands heavily in the driver’s seat and makes a big deal out of fumbling with the levers and latches to readjust the seat. He’s really not that much taller than me.

  “And where might we be going?” I ask, still playing things casually.

  War grins, and I think his smiles make his face even uglier than his frowns. “To Diamond.”

  Chapter 16

  War drives through the heart of Peoria proper and up north on the 74. The homes grow larger until they start disappearing behind high fences. He fiddles with the radio dial, settling on a Metallica song. He hums along, hand resting easily on the top of the wheel and his gaze flicking over to me like he wants to make sure I’m not going to bail.

  I stare straight ahead, doing my best to look casual as I memorize the route and try to cobble together a plan based on the almost zero information that I have. There are two things I do know. They’re Ascending humans, and I need to find a gun.

  “You’re kinda hot,” War interrupts my thoughts.

  “What?” I look at him.

  “Your face isn’t as puffy anymore. Underneath all those bruises, you’re kinda hot. Ever consider a boob job? It’d do wonders.”

  “My girls are just fine the way they are,” I mutter as I touch my face and explore my injuries. My nose is tender, but it doesn’t throb, and the rest of the bruises are almost healed. Advanced healing happens to be one of my favorite angel hat tricks, but I’ve never recovered this rapidly in the past.

  This is the way your body is supposed to work, the monster whispers, the way you’re supposed to feel.

  “Not as hot as my southern belles,” War is saying.

  “Who?”

  War cracks a wide smile. “You’ll meet them soon.”

  I start an angel tally in my head. War, Diamond, southern belles, woman with the braid who killed the police officer. Yikes, my kill list is growing fast.

  War maneuvers my stolen boat up the circular driveway of an expansive house with a columned porch. A frozen wind chime hangs silent above the door. My stomach drops as I count all the windows.

  A lot of rooms to fit a lot of angels.

  “I don’t suppose you’re renting,” I say as I push the door open and sink my boots into the snow.

  “We take what we want,” War says, slamming his door behind him. He looks over at me, and I can tell he’s measuring my reaction.

  “What happens when the police come around?”

  “We kill away from headquarters and don’t make a habit of settling down anywhere for long.”

  “Hmmm, sounds solid.” I pull in a lungful of the crisp air. I could run, right now. If I walk into that house all bets are off.

  The front door slams open, and a woman squeals, “Baby!” with the type of fervor I would normally associate with a Justin Bieber sighting. She bounds toward us, peroxide curls streaming. Her large breasts bounce under a clingy, leopard-print top like they were spring loaded.

  “Rachel!” War says and opens his arms.

  She stops short, her face clouding over. “I’m Heather.”

  “Really?” It’s clear to everyone except Barbie that War is mocking her. “Prove it.”

  Rachel or Heather turns around and flashes an ornate tramp stamp on her lower back that spells out “Heather” in curlicues of varying shades of fuchsia.

  “You got a tattoo of your own name?” I say.

  “Folks mix us up. We’re twins,” Heather says, her voice heavily flavored with a southern accent.

  “So you didn’t just cut your hair or get your ears pierced?”

  Heather purses puffy pink lips. “Who’s this War?”

  “Yes,” a man from the doorway asks. “Who is she? What is she?” He steps outside, and the last rays of sunlight seem to take pleasure in shining upon the golden curls that fall over his forehead. I think my mouth opens a little. Holy hotness, Batman.

  War drapes an arm around Heather. “Probably no one, but Diamond said to be on the lookout for ones that weren’t changed all the way.”

  “Ascended,” the other corrects. His baby blues take in my appearance. “What happened?”

  Heather finally seems to notice the mottled bruise on War’s face. “Oh my god!” she cries. “You get licked by someone?”

  War’s laugh is big and broad. “Only licking I get is from you and your sister. We just ran into some Vigils, that’s all,” he says with manufactured casualness. He gazes at Blue Eyes, “I took care of them.”

  He pulls Heather into his body. “I killed me some Vigils today, baby, what do ya think of that?”

  Heather apparently doesn’t need to think much, because in a second their lips are fused together, followed by some particularly distasteful sucking and smacking sounds. I turn to look at the other angel and try to guess his age. The soft planes of his face and hairless chin deny him years, but the way he carries himself speaks otherwise. His well-fitted, gray sweater looks expensive and hints at a defined body beneath. Those dark jeans, whoa, they hug him in just the right places.

  He grimaces at the middle school make out session taking place in the driveway and touches a silver chain around his neck.

  “Come on,” he says to me, nodding toward the house.

  I take a hesitant step forward. War disengages from Heather’s face for a moment. “Right behind you,” he says and then dives back in. I follow Blue Eyes, wondering again if I’m signing my own death certificate with every step.

  Ten windows, I think, and that’s just the front of the house.

  With this pleasant thought in mind, I follow my guide into a large, echoing foyer. The décor is…well, there are really two design schemes going on. The first is a tasteful elegance that I assume came from the house’s original owners. Supple leather couches fill the living area, eclectic vases stand on tables and bookshelves, rich rugs protect polished hardwood flooring, and tall, tapered candles sit on the mantel of a large fireplace.

  And then there’s what the angels have done. Three of the vases lay shattered on the floor. The supple leather couches are turned at odd angles, a decorative statue is bedecked in a lacey bra and panties, and muddy footprints track across the rich rugs and hardwood floor. One of the tapered candles is melted into a big puddle of wax. The other stands tall and proud, untouched.

  Angels. The house is filled with them. Three lounge on the leather couches, arguing over the remote while a large television blares a reality show. Two women chatter as they walk down a spiral staircase. I hear clanking in the kitchen, and the murmur of voices upstairs. A cackle of laughter erupts from another room to our left.

  Not a single aura among them.

  Six, seven, eight, I count in my head. So many. Plus War and Heather coming behind us. Nine, ten…So this is what epically screwed looks like.

  We’ve never faced this many angels. Never seen such a large group formed. How can they possibly feed together without causing suspicion?

  The angels on the couch stop their bickering as they turn to look at us. The women on the stairwell also stop and gaze in our direction. A man with a mop of red hair leans through the open doorway of the kitchen with a plastic water bottle in his hand.

  They’re all so young, I think. Not one seems to be over twenty-five. New angels.

  “Rachel!” War bellows behind me. “Papa’s home. He wants some sugar.”

 

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30