Angel Burn (8 page)

For many, though, the Church had become a cozy refuge, and as an institution it had turned out to be an enormous boon in other ways, too — due in no small part to Raziel himself. As the organization had expanded, he had taken control and established a Church TV station and publishing house, as well as a massive Internet presence.
W
ith him at the helm, the word of the angels’ beneficence had erupted across the country and was spreading fast, bringing more churches and thousands of new devotees daily — all of them eager to experience angelic salvation for themselves, even before they’d ever encountered one. When the Second Wave of angels arrived soon, and then others after them, it would be to a very different world from the one the First Wavers had initially experienced: one loudly enthusiastic about the angelic presence, embracing it at every turn.

The really comical thing, thought Raziel, was how oblivious the human world was to what was happening. Those who didn’t believe simply thought that those who did were insane. There were a number of skeptics who loudly decried the ridiculous fad that had swept the country; it was always amusing when, as occasionally happened, one of them succumbed to angel burn and publicly changed their tune. Similarly, any organized interference that might have occurred was laughably minimal; feeding from police and government officials took care of that.

“And
you’re
in a rather nice position, aren’t you?” said Lailah now with a silky smile. Raziel saw that she was wearing a small Church of Angels pendant around her neck — an ironic touch. “As am I.”

He feigned innocence, raising his eyebrows. “Why, I have no idea what you mean. I’m just doing my job at the humans’ behest, running their church for them.”

Lailah threw her head back as she laughed. “Yes, very noble of you! I can hardly wait to see the Council’s expressions when they realize just how much control we’ve gained here already.”

Raziel smiled. Though the angels had never planned to actually take over humans’ affairs, it was slowly happening. And as the head of the fastest-growing church in history, he himself was in a prime position for power. More senior angels than he would arrive as the evacuation continued, but by that time, he would be thoroughly ensconced, one of the de facto leaders.

“It’ll be interesting to see how it pans out,” he admitted, tossing his nail file back onto his desk. “But if the Council didn’t want some of us taking advantage of the situation, then they really should have come across first, rather than hiding at home to see if it worked out.”

“Well, exactly.” Lailah’s gleaming auburn hair shifted on her shoulders as she chuckled. “And by the way, speaking of hiding, I heard that Thaddeus has been taken care of. I felt the ripple myself, a few nights ago. Good. That’s a relief.”

Raziel grimaced. The subject of the traitor angels wasn’t his favorite one. “I don’t know what they think they’re doing, trying to protect the humans,” he said tersely. “It’s not as if we have any choice but to feed off the creatures, if we want to survive.”

Lailah flashed a grin. “I think what troubles them is the fact that some of us
enjoy
it so much. . . . Hypocrites. How many traitors are left?”

“Still a few, but we’re getting there,” said Raziel. “We came up with quite a tidy solution in the end, you know. Very clever.”

Lailah started to say something else, then stopped as the cell phone on the desk rang. Stretching forward, Raziel answered it. “Yes?”

“It’s Paschar,” said a voice.

“Ah, Paschar, hello,” said Raziel, dropping back in his chair again. “And how are things in upstate New York? Still enjoying your little empire?” Paschar was the only angel within a hundred-mile radius in the rural neck of the woods he’d settled in. At his local Church of Angels, he was like a fat, contented bull in a meadow full of cows. Though that would probably change once the Second Wave arrived, doubling the angels’ present numbers.

“We’ve got a problem,” said Paschar shortly.

Raziel’s eyebrows rose at the lack of banter. Paschar was another angel who had spent a lot of time in this world; the two of them went back a long way. “What’s going on?” he asked.

“I’ve been feeding off some new humans in a place called Pawtucket,” said Paschar. “It’s a little far afield, but I was bored with the local offerings — and today I sensed that one of the females has been touched by something angelic. Something that wasn’t me.”

Raziel frowned in confusion. “And? Are you saying that no one else is allowed to feed off your human?”

“Don’t be ridiculous. The energy that had touched her was like our own, but not. It was
human
 . . .  but still angelic.”

Raziel sat up in his seat. “What are you talking about?” Across from him, he saw Lailah cock her head curiously.

“Listen to me. I went to this creature’s house and touched her mind with my own. She looks like a human teenager, but she’s not one.”

“What is she, then?” asked Raziel blankly.

There was a long pause. Across the miles, he could hear Paschar take a breath before he said, “She’s a half angel.”

For a moment, Raziel couldn’t speak. Angels didn’t breed; they were beings of energy that had existed since long before any of them could now remember. Though in their human form they functioned as humans do, angels were fundamentally different — conceiving offspring together should be a biological impossibility.

“That can’t be,” he said at last. “You must be mistaken; such a thing can’t happen.”

“Raziel, I could sense her angelic form as clearly as my own, but it was tainted, intermingled with her human one. She’s an organic mix of the two; there’s no doubt about it. Half human, half angel.”

“How?”

“How should I know? A fluke, somehow. But given her age, it must be one of us who was coming across to this world even before the Crisis who’s responsible.”

There could be almost a thousand possible contenders in that case. “Oh, wonderful,” murmured Raziel. He sat rubbing his temples, trying to decide whether they could get away with not telling the Council about this. What some angels did in their human form was already controversial enough, without throwing this new complication into the mix.

“But, Raziel, there’s more,” said Paschar. “Something requiring urgent attention.”

Raziel stiffened as he heard the dread in the other angel’s voice. “What?”

There was a long pause. “I saw a flash of the future when I touched this  . . .  creature’s hand. She has it in her to destroy us.”

Now I know he’s going mad,
thought Raziel. But unfortunately, he didn’t believe it. Paschar wasn’t given to exaggeration, and his psychic skills were as strong as any angel’s Raziel had ever known. “Who do you mean by ‘us’ exactly?” he asked.

“
Us.
All of angelkind. I don’t know how, but it’s a possibility that’s there within her — a strong one. She will have both the ability and the desire to destroy us all.”

Raziel felt himself go cold; distantly, he saw Lailah staring at him, mouthing,
What is it?

“She’ll have to be done away with, then,” he said.

“Immediately,” agreed Paschar. “You’ve got a means for taking care of this sort of thing, don’t you?”

“Yes, I’ll give the order right now.”

A few minutes later, Raziel clicked off his cell phone and looked down at the details he’d just taken from Paschar. A half angel. Unbelievable. The very thought was obscene. Even if Paschar hadn’t had his vision of catastrophe, they’d have to do away with the thing — such a travesty couldn’t be allowed to exist. Picking up the piece of paper, Raziel rose to his feet.

“What’s wrong?” asked Lailah.

“You won’t believe it,” he said grimly. “I’ll tell you in a minute.” He went into the outer office and dropped the paper onto Jonah’s desk. As his human assistant looked up, Raziel said, “This  . . .  thing must be destroyed. See to it.”

Jonah nodded, his gentle brown eyes worried. “Of course, sir. I’ll take care of it immediately.”

Raziel gave a curt nod. “See that you do.” Then he went back into his office and shut the polished wooden door.

On his own, Jonah sat regarding the slip of paper, feeling troubled. It must be another of the traitors.

Serving an angel was an almost unbelievable honor, and one that Jonah gave thanks for every day. But his position meant that he often knew things that disturbed him, and the existence of traitorous angels was one of them. How was it even possible that some of the angels could turn on the others, attempting to put an end to the good works they did for humans? The idea caused his stomach to tighten anxiously. A world without the angels would be  . . .  unthinkable.

Thankfully, a few months ago, an efficient means of dealing with the problem had presented itself — a solution so subtle that hardly any of the angelic community knew what was going on, much less the human one. Giving a brief prayer of thanks to the angels for allowing him to be of service to them, Jonah took out his cell phone and carefully texted the address on the paper to the contact number. He felt relief as he snapped the phone shut again. There, problem solved. The traitor would be gone in a matter of days; it would never even know what had hit it. How could it?

Their method was so secret that not even the assassin knew the truth.

ENEMY SIGHTED, PAWTUCKET, NY. RESIDENCE: 34 NESBIT ST.

Alex got the text in his Aspen motel room on Thursday night and was packed and checked out in less than twenty minutes. He spent the next day and a half driving. Finally, in the early hours of Saturday morning, he reached Pawtucket, a sleepy-looking town crouched in the foothills of the Adirondack Mountains. Heading for the main drag through town, he found a GoodRest Motel — there was always a GoodRest; they were as dependable as clockwork — and checked into a room to get a few hours’ sleep. The temptation, as always, was to go after the angel immediately, but he knew better. When you were this tired, you were likely to mess up and do something stupid.

He awoke at dawn, instantly alert. Taking a quick shower, he let the hot water beat down upon him and then got dressed. As he pulled on a T-shirt, the tattoo on his left bicep, an
AK
in black lettering, disappeared under the shirtsleeve. The motel did a breakfast of sorts — it was food, anyway — and so he went to the main building to grab some donuts and coffee, which he ate back in his room as he checked over his gear. A habit left over from his days out hunting with Cully.
Respect your weaponry, and it’ll respect you,
the big southerner had said over and over. Maybe there had been a time when Alex had rolled his eyes a little, but now he knew that Cull had been right. No matter how prepared you thought you were, it only took one mistake to kill you.

Alex loaded a full magazine into the semiautomatic rifle, then clicked it home and sighted along the rifle’s length before replacing the weapon in its case. The pistol he tucked into his holster, which was worn under the waistband of his jeans and almost invisible if you didn’t know it was there. He preferred the rifle, but it wasn’t always possible to use it if people were around. Finally, he took the pistol’s silencer and stuck it in his jeans pocket.

He was ready. He gulped down the last of his coffee, then shrugged into his leather jacket and loaded his car, programming the GPS for Nesbit Street. A moment later, he was pulling out onto Highway 12, the main road through town.

As he followed the robotic voice’s directions, he took the place in with mild curiosity. Pawtucket was like a thousand other small towns he’d seen. The business center downtown had been slowly eaten away by shopping malls, leaving everything looking run-down and frayed around the edges. The high school (
THE PAWTUCKET LIONS KNOW HOW TO ROAR!
proclaimed the sign) was the largest building in the place.
And once the students graduated, they probably hit the ground running and never look back,
thought Alex dryly. The only thing the place had going for it was its backdrop of the Adirondacks, with autumn splashes of color covering the mountains like a patchwork quilt.

There weren’t many angels in upstate New York. He knew that the one up here most likely had a clear field — Christ, it had probably fed on hundreds of people already.

The GPS directed him to a tree-lined avenue of Victorian houses. Alex passed an early-morning dog walker with a basset hound; apart from that, the street seemed quiet, the grass still damp with dew. As number thirty-four came into view, his eyebrows rose. Ohh-kay. So this one was into kitsch in a fairly big way. That wasn’t something he’d seen before — they usually liked to keep a low profile; the neighbor who you knew was there but never caught sight of. Maybe this one had decided that you could hide better by being blindingly obvious. Or maybe it just liked plastic wishing wells a whole lot.

He parked the Porsche a few doors down. Apart from the circus in the front yard, the house just looked shabby: flaking green paint with gray wood showing through. Two cars sat in the drive: a brown Subaru and a blue Toyota. Alex turned off his engine, then leaned back in the leather seat and closed his eyes. A few deep breaths later, he had lifted his focus up through his chakras and was carefully exploring the energies in the house.