Angel Burn (10 page)

Another pause, this one lasting for almost a minute. “Someone will call you back,” said the woman finally. Another click, and the line went dead. Alex swore, sorely tempted to throw the phone against the wall.

It was almost an hour before his cell phone went off. He grabbed it on the first ring. Without preamble, a male voice said, “Are you alone?”

“Yeah,” said Alex.

“Good. What’s going on?” The voice was bland; Alex couldn’t tell whether it was the same one he’d heard almost two years ago. Briefly, pacing around the motel room with its two double beds, he explained what had happened.

“Yes?” said the voice when he had finished. There was too much politeness in the short syllable, implying,
What’s the problem?

Alex frowned. “So — I don’t know what this girl is,” he said. “If there’s no halo, then —”

“She’s an angel,” interrupted the voice. “You’re to follow your orders.”

Alex felt himself bristle. The CIA had come onto the scene about ten years too late, as far as he was concerned. Where exactly had they been while the rest of them were living out in the desert like refugees, shooting ancient guns, and using creaky holographs for training?

“Look,” he said, trying to keep his tone level. “She’s
not
an angel. I know an angel when I see one, all right? This girl is something else. It’s almost like she’s  . . .  part angel, part human.” Even as he spoke the words, he knew they were insane. Angels couldn’t breed.

“The anomalies are not your concern,” said the voice. “Just do your job. She’s an angel; she has to be exterminated.”

“Did you hear a word I just said?” demanded Alex. He started pacing again, shoving a chair out of his way. “Listen to me:
She is not an angel.
She doesn’t
feed.
She had a
childhood
. There’s no halo! If she’s an angel, then where’s she getting her energy from? How does she exist?”

“Again, these aren’t your concerns.”

Alex heard his voice rise. “You’re kidding, right? I’m out there on the front line every day; if there’s something I don’t understand, I’m
toast.
If this girl’s a danger, I need to know how. She —”

“Trust us,” said the voice.

Alex fell silent in disbelief. It was like talking to a robot.

“We have no reason to believe that there are any more like her,” the man continued after a pause. “But she must be taken care of. And quickly. She’s already caused great harm.”

Listening intently, Alex thought he caught a faint English accent. He stiffened as memory traced a finger up his spine. Just like humans, angels had their individual quirks  . . .  and one of the few to ever get away from his father had spoken with a British accent. The AKs used to joke that whoever got that angel next time would get bonus points.

“What great harm?” he asked.

“That’s not —”

“Not my concern. Right.” Alex sank onto the bed. This felt wrong. This felt very, very wrong.

“If there’s no halo, then more conventional methods will be fine,” said the voice, its English lilt obvious now that Alex was listening for it. “But you’re to do it, and do it now. If that creature isn’t dead in an hour, you’ll regret it.” With a click, the voice was gone.

Alex slowly flipped his phone shut and put it on the bedside table. It could just be a coincidence, of course. It wasn’t impossible that someone from England could be in the CIA. Except that he didn’t really believe in coincidence; it was one of the reasons he’d stayed alive for so long. Mentally replaying the conversation with its evasive, threatening tone, exactly
how
wrong it was struck him forcibly. In his experience with the CIA, that wasn’t how they operated, at least not with Project Angel. They knew perfectly well that the AKs were the experts, not them — they’d never have said “trust us” to him and actually expected him to buy it. He was being lied to.

His thoughts tumbling, Alex rapped his fist against his jeans. Jesus. Could angels have taken control of Project Angel? The implications reeled through him. And if they had, then why were they so eager for him to kill this girl?

What was she, anyway?

Alex’s gaze fell on the photo that lay on the dresser beside his keys. The pretty little girl with long blond hair, smiling upward through the trailing leaves. Abruptly, he got up from the bed and began to pack, throwing things into his bag without paying attention to how they were landing. If he was right and the angels were somehow behind this, then he wasn’t going to let this girl out of his sight until he knew what the hell was going on.

And meanwhile, he had a feeling that he might have to make a run for it soon.

ON FRIDAY, I’d gone to school early so I could catch Beth before classes began. I sat in my Toyota in the student parking lot for over half an hour, watching all the cars pull in one by one, until the parking lot was a sea of glinting metal. Beth’s car never showed. I waited until ten minutes after the final bell had rung, and even then I walked into the building slowly, glancing over my shoulder and hoping — but a tight, anxious part of me already knew that it was too late.

Then, later that morning, Beth’s parents must have called the school, because someone overheard Mrs. Bexton talking about it in the office. By lunchtime Pawtucket High was buzzing with the news: Beth had dropped out of school to join the Church of Angels.

All that day, I walked around in a daze, hoping it was a mistake, that Beth just had a cold or something, that she’d turn up later, smiling and perfect, just the same as always. But of course it didn’t happen. Finally, between fifth and sixth periods, Nina showed up at my locker. “You know something about this, don’t you?” she demanded.

I stared into the messy depths of my locker, suddenly close to tears. Around us, the hallway jostled with people. “Yeah, sort of,” I said softly.

“Come on.” Nina grabbed my arm and dragged me out of the school. As we left the building by a side door near the art room, we passed a couple of seniors, and I stiffened as I heard what they were saying.

“Well, I think Beth’s really brave.”

“Yeah, my cousin joined, and so did one of my mom’s friends. They all say that angels really exist and that —”

I hunched my shoulders in my jean jacket and hurried out the door after Nina.

In the parking lot, we sat in her car and talked. I told her everything that had happened  . . .  except for the part about Beth’s angel turning up on my doorstep. She wouldn’t believe me, for one thing, but more than that I didn’t really want to think about it myself. Anyway, she was stunned enough. She sat silently for ages, shaking her head. “Willow, this is just  . . .  I mean, my God.”

“Yeah,” I said, and tried to smile. “That sort of sums it up.”

“Well — what are you going to do?”

“Do?” I was sitting curled in her Corvette’s bucket seat with my head against the window. I looked up and stared at her. “What can I do? She’s already joined; she’s not going to
un-
join.”

Nina’s hazel eyes were accusing. “And you know this how, exactly?”

I scraped my hair back, frustrated. “Because I saw it! She just stays there, getting sicker and sicker, until  . . .  something happens.” I trailed off, seeing again the cold gray cloud that had drifted over everything.

“Something happens,” repeated Nina, drumming her fingers on the dash. “Willow, listen to yourself! It’s not like you
know.
”

“I do know!”

“You do not. All either of us know is that Beth has joined the Church of Angels and that it’s because of your reading somehow and that you’ve got to
help
her before she ruins her life. Did you know that she was going to try for early admission at Stanford?”

I blew out a breath, wondering why I’d even told Nina. “Look, I have to go,” I said, uncurling myself and grabbing my bag.

“Willow, wait! You can’t just —”

I was already out of her car by then, heading for my own. But I should have known that Nina wouldn’t let it go.

The next morning, Saturday, she turned up at my house early. “OK, here’s the plan,” she said briskly, flipping her bangs out of her eyes. “I checked the Church of Angels’ website, and the nearest church is in Schenectady. That must be where Beth has gone. There’s an afternoon service today at two o’clock — you’ve got to go there and talk to her.”

We were sitting on the ancient glider on my front porch, drinking coffee. With a sigh, I tucked a knee under myself and dropped back against the faded striped cushions. “Nina, I’ve already told you  . . .  it’s pointless.”

She shoved my leg sharply. “Willow, you
have
to. Come on, do you think your psychic powers are so infallible that it’s impossible for you to be wrong?”

Put like that, I didn’t really have an answer. I stared out at our street. A few doors down, a car engine started up, breaking the hushed early-morning silence. I sat cradling my coffee, listening to it fade away.

“I don’t know,” I admitted.

Resting her coffee on her knee, Nina leaned forward to look me in the eyes. “Please go,” she said softly. “You seriously might be the only person she’ll listen to.”

I could feel myself caving in. I gazed down at the glider’s rusting metal arm, picking at a flake of white paint. “I don’t know if she’ll want to see me or not, though. She was pretty angry after her reading.”

“You still have to try,” insisted Nina. “If you’re right and she won’t leave, then fine. But you have to
try.
”

I let out a breath. I couldn’t argue; she was right. Even though I knew I wasn’t mistaken about what I’d seen, she was still right. I started to tell her so but stopped as a thought chilled my hands, even as I cradled the warm coffee mug. Of course I was going to go to the church. There had never been any doubt. I can’t psychically read myself — whenever I’ve tried, I’ve only seen a sort of grayness. The same sort of grayness that I’d seen in Beth’s reading, though without that terrible graveside coldness.

That was why I couldn’t see more of Beth’s future at the Church of Angels. Because I was going to play a part in it.

“What is it?” asked Nina, peering into my face.

I shook my head, draining the last gulp of my coffee and trying to ignore the dread that was suddenly pulsing through me. The last thing I wanted was to even go near the church now, but it didn’t feel like I had a choice. Grayness or not, Nina was right: I had to at least try.

“Nothing,” I said. I tried to smile. “OK, I’ll go.”

The dread had faded a little by that afternoon, though the worry hadn’t. I stood in front of the oval mirror that sat over my dresser, studying my reflection. I was wearing a tight white top and a long purple skirt with lots of sparklysilver threads running through it. I touched the skirt worriedly. Was it OK? People dressed up for church, didn’t they? Not that it mattered, really, but I wanted to blend in if I could.

It’ll do,
I decided. Quickly, I brushed my hair, then twisted two long locks on each side, pulled them back, and caught them with a small barrette. I pulled on my jean jacket and sneakers, grabbed my drawstring bag, and went downstairs. I could hear the clatter and splash of Aunt Jo doing the dishes in the kitchen; in the living room, Mom was asleep in her favorite chair. Not a surprise: sometimes I think her sleeping dreams must be as seductive as her waking ones. Asleep, she looks just like anyone else — as if her eyes might light up with recognition if she were to open them and see me.

Gazing at her now, something tightened in my stomach.

I’m never going to see her again,
I thought.

What kind of stupid random thought was that? I shook it away, ignoring the fear that had suddenly spiked through me. Leaning over the chair, I kissed my mother’s sleeping cheek.

“Bye, Mom,” I whispered. I smoothed her pale hair back. “I won’t be gone long. I love you.”

She murmured slightly and fell still again, her breathing soft and even. I sighed. At least she seemed peaceful. I kissed my fingers and touched them to her lips before I slipped from the room. Poking my head into the kitchen, I told Aunt Jo I was going out, and five minutes later, I was in my car, heading toward Schenectady. There wasn’t much traffic, even when I got onto I-90. Once or twice I noticed a black Porsche behind me. I glanced at it in the rearview mirror. I’d seen it back in Pawtucket, too, lagging a block or so behind me when I left town. Someone else going to the church, maybe?

If they were, then they didn’t need to follow me to find the way. Miles before I even got to Schenectady, huge signs started appearing on the side of the interstate: billboards with sparkling silver letters proclaiming,
THE ANGELS CAN SAVE YOU! CHURCH OF ANGELS, SCHENECTADY, EXIT 8 WEST.
My hands tightened on the wheel. There it was, that generic image so familiar from all the commercials, of the huge white church on a hill.

When I finally pulled into the mammoth parking lot, all I could do was sit in my car and stare for a minute. I’d been to New York City; I’d seen big buildings before — but nothing quite like this. Maybe it was the way the church sat by itself, rising up from a vast landscaped lawn, but the sheer impact of it was just breathtaking. I took in the high vaulted roof; the stained-glass windows glittering in the sun. On the other side of the parking lot, I could see a complex that looked like a huge shopping mall. There
was
a mall in there, I remembered — plus apartments, a gym, a hair salon — anything you might ever need.