Angel Fire (47 page)

Raziel was in the parking lot behind the cathedral; when Charmeine had called, he’d been about to drive back up to Silver Trail to go over proposed blueprints for the first Camp Angel. “Excellent,” he said, resting his forearms on the roof of his black BMW. “So she believes you then.”

Charmeine sounded more tired than ever. She managed a low laugh; it tickled at his ear. “Oh, yes. It was a case of ‘fish, meet barrel’. I thought you said the woman was a trained CIA agent.”

The day was cold, with a gun-metal sky; Raziel climbed into the car for warmth and settled against the comfortable leather seat. “Now, now, give her some credit,” he chided. “Hardly anyone knows Nate worked with her. It must have seemed quite the definitive proof that you’re a rogue too. So she’s got the information now?” From what he’d gleaned from Willow, Kylar actually hadn’t been doing badly on his own, though Raziel knew he still needed several crucial pieces of information.

“Yes, everything they’ll need,” said Charmeine. “Plus one or two little details that’ll get your Angel Killers trapped inside the building once they’re finished, so that we can take care of them.”

“Perfect. But she hasn’t actually made contact with Kylar yet, has she?” Raziel was sure she hadn’t; Willow’s thoughts lately had been preoccupied with the plan to try to get the information from the Church. That and her love life, which was fascinating in a sickly way.

“Not yet,” said Charmeine. “I thought it would be best if she could track him down on her own if possible, so that it doesn’t seem like I know too much. Fortunately there’s a mass demonstration scheduled in the Zócalo around the same time as that special service at the cathedral you said they’re going to – she’s already decided it’s a likely place for him to be, with so many angels liable to be around. So with luck, they’ll encounter each other. If not, I’ll have to tell her my rogue angel powers have figured out where they live.”

Raziel frowned. “Just stay away from the team yourself,” he cautioned. “My— The half-angel is extremely psychic.”

Charmeine’s tired voice snapped with irritation. “Raziel. She’s what, seventeen? I know I’m under daily psychic attack here, but come on – you don’t think I could outwit a complete novice?”

In the car, Raziel was still shaking his head at himself for his near-slip. “There’s no need to take chances, that’s all.”

“Fine, I wasn’t intending to go near them anyway. People who can shoot halos make me nervous. Which reminds me; you really might have told them to ease off a little. There’ve been over twenty angel deaths in two weeks here – and that’s with not as much feeding going on as usual, now that the roots the Twelve have been putting down are starting to take affect.”

“Oh?” said Raziel uneasily. “Is anything going to be done about it?”

“No, I don’t think so. Angels here are up in arms, but there’s not much that
can
be done, the way they’re striking – there’s never any knowing where, or what time.”

Raziel was unsurprised; Kylar was nothing if not a good strategist. “Well, I’ll do my best to reign them in,” he said. “But they’re very keen, you know.”

He heard Charmeine snort. “Thanks, that’s good of you,” she said. “Anyway, in a few more days it might not even matter any more.”

“How are you doing?” Her weary tone worried him; she sounded like a woman struggling to hold on.

He could almost see her making a face. “All right, I suppose. But I’m glad the reception’s soon. I’m counting the hours until I don’t have to keep up a psychic barricade any more.”

Anxiety prickled over him. “It’s getting harder for you to hold them off, isn’t it?”

Her voice turned crisp. “Don’t worry – I can hold out till the bitter end, I promise. Meanwhile, I suppose you’ve heard about Tyrel.”

“Yes, I’ve heard,” said Raziel shortly. The news in the angel community was that the Council had recently appointed Tyrel to run the Church of Angels in Mexico – an angel who’d been a hated adversary of Raziel’s for eons. Doubtless, this was exactly why the Twelve had appointed him.

“Well, we’re going to have the last laugh,” said Charmeine. “You’ll be travelling down for the fun, won’t you?”

Raziel gazed at the mountains, looming sharply against the blue sky. No matter what other consequences the attack might bring, the Council would soon be dead – and if their deaths killed him too, he wanted the last sight he ever saw to be the twinkling shards of their destruction. Thinking of their TV appearance, with their thinly-veiled death sentence to him –
That is our promise
– he gave a hard smile.

“Oh, I’ll be there,” he said. “I’ll book a flight tonight.”

“Good. Because you know, I think we actually have a chance. It just feels
different
in this world, doesn’t it? We might really survive this.”

Once he and Charmeine had hung up, Raziel took his laptop out of his briefcase. With a silent click of a button, he turned it on and opened the files from Project Angel, the covert CIA department which had funded and overseen the Angel Killers. He’d managed to take it over months ago; the special agents now all had angel burn, or had been killed.

Except one.

A few strokes on the mouse pad, and a photo appeared on the screen: a résumé head-and-shoulders shot of an intense-looking young woman with shoulder-length brown hair. Sophie Kinney – a junior agent who’d been quickly elevated by the angelic invasion of her department; she and the traitor Nate had barely made it out in time to save their lives. From his exploration of Willow’s thoughts, Raziel knew about Sophie’s role the day the Second Wave had arrived. She and Nate had taken Willow to the cathedral by helicopter; Nate had stayed behind to help Willow with the attack on the gate – and been killed, as it turned out; the memory filled Raziel with satisfaction. Meanwhile, Sophie had escaped to a safe location. Smart girl.

But she’d been seen by the security guard at the back door. The same security guard who she’d later tracked down to question in disguise, in an attempt to find out where Kylar had gone – because as far as she knew, he was the only Angel Killer left in the world. Raziel’s response to the security guard’s worried email had praised him for his devotion to the angels and asked him to keep his encounter with Sophie confidential.

Just send me the contact details that were left with you, and the angels will take care of the matter,
he’d finished. And he had done so to perfection. His email to Sophie had, he thought, been something of a masterpiece.

I understand you’re looking for Alex Kylar. So am I. I was a friend of your former colleague Nathaniel, and share Nathaniel’s goals. There are several of us in Mexico City – where, as you might not be aware, there have been multiple angel killings recently. We believe Alex Kylar is here, and that he’s formed a new group of Angel Killers. There are further details that I cannot disclose via email, but as a matter of extreme urgency, we feel that you, our group, and his need to join forces in order to battle the threat that faces this world.

As he’d thought, Sophie had taken some time to respond – he smiled as he imagined her frantically checking out what details she could on her own, before she’d finally, cautiously written back – but eventually she’d bitten, and he’d deftly reeled her in. And now she was down in Mexico City, in touch with Charmeine the friendly rogue angel – and doubtless very, very excited that she and Kylar were about to rid the world of the angel menace. Bringing back Sophie’s image, Raziel smiled.
No need to thank me,
he thought.
Really. I’m only too happy to help you find him.

Because Kylar knew Sophie. He may not like her, but he knew her. He’d trust information that came from her. And that, thought Raziel as he snapped off his laptop, was the only way to beat Kylar at his own game.

Seb really couldn’t believe that Willow’s boyfriend was this stupid.

As the team took the Metro to the Zócalo, Seb stood beside Willow in the crowded subway car. Dozens of angel wings surrounded them, looking bent and bedraggled in the throng. The team was scattered throughout; Alex stood with Kara and Wesley, half a car-length away. He and Willow had barely spoken since officially breaking things off the day before – when they’d had to, they’d been cool and professional with each other. Now Willow stood quietly as the train sped them all towards the cathedral, her face expressionless. The crystal pendant she’d always worn was gone from around her neck. Though she’d made it clear that she didn’t want to talk about what had happened, Seb could sense her anger; the depth of her hurt.

The train lurched. Willow grabbed his arm briefly to steady herself, then offered him an apologetic smile; conversation wasn’t an option with the noise. She was wearing make-up, which she never did. It made her look older, though no more beautiful. As Seb smiled back, he wished that he had the right to put his arm around her for no real reason, just to feel her pressed closely to his side. And he thought he could cheerfully throttle Alex, who
had
had the right, and apparently cared so little about it that he was willing to break up with Willow simply for being friends with him. Seb mentally shook his head in disbelief. God, if Willow was his – if he could be with her the way he longed to be; if he could actually go into a room with her and shut the door and tell her how he felt with words, with his lips; hear her say the same things back while she stroked her fingers through his hair – then he wouldn’t care
who
the hell she was friends with. Who in his right mind would? No matter how much Willow cared about him, she would never cheat on Alex, never; did the
cabrón
not
know
that?

By now, Seb had a lot of practice in keeping thoughts like these buried. As he entertained himself with fantasies of dragging Alex to one side and telling him in great detail exactly what an idiot he was – perhaps throwing in a punch now and then to emphasize the point – the uppermost part of his mind was busy concentrating on the car around them; the advertisements; the people. Willow could have sensed what he was feeling if she’d tried, but Seb knew she wouldn’t. From the start, it was as if they’d had an agreement: he wouldn’t make the fact he was in love with her too obvious, and she’d pretend not to notice it.

As the train rattled its way through the tunnels, Seb supposed he should be glad that Willow and Alex had broken up. But it was obvious how deeply they were still in love with each other. Even across the crowded car, he could sense the emotional ties that bound them; he was sure they’d manage to patch things up soon. Meanwhile, feeling how much pain Willow was in was agony to Seb, so that he found himself in the bizarre position of wanting to pummel Alex until he saw reason and made things up with her. Seb smiled wryly. He wouldn’t really have believed it, but he wanted Willow’s happiness more than he wanted his own.

He wasn’t a saint, though; sometimes it was all he could do not to just pull Willow into his arms and start kissing her. And he prayed with everything he had that she’d get Alex out of her system soon and see what was so blindingly obvious to him. Because thinking of her dream – of the whole sequence of events that had led him to her, spiralling back through his life for years – Seb couldn’t believe that fate had brought them together only to be friends. It was clear to him that he and Willow were meant to be, not just because they were both half-angel, but because of who they both were, their personalities. It was as if their souls had been crying out for each other their whole lives.

Seb knew if Willow never felt the same, he’d deal with it somehow – being in her life as a brother was a lot better than not being in her life at all. It was becoming more difficult by the day, though. He’d never have dreamed he could fall
more
in love with his half-angel girl. But actually being with Willow in person, feeling the effortless depth of their connection that was like nothing he’d ever experienced – and knowing that it could still be so much more; a whole world more, if she’d only open her eyes and see it too – Seb let out a breath as the train started to slow. He wasn’t sure if it made things better or worse that he thought he’d caught glimpses of attraction from her sometimes; thoughts so fleeting, it was as if she had no control over them. On the whole, he thought it made it worse, given how much she was in love with Alex. And it definitely made it harder for him to be brotherly towards her.

That’s exactly what you’re going to do though,
he told himself.
Until she tells you she wants something different, you are only her brother
. He glanced down at Willow’s red-gold hair, her face. She’d see it for herself someday, he thought. She had to.

She just had to.

The train reached Zócalo station; the doors unfolded with a pneumatic hiss. “I guess this is it,” murmured Willow, her forehead creased with apprehension.

“This is it,” agreed Seb, pushing his thoughts away.

They jostled off the car. Everyone in the world seemed to be going to the Zócalo. Alex and the others had exited further down; the group rejoined each other near the station stairs. As they started up, they could hear a thunder of voices chanting: “El DF
is dying! Funds for doctors, not angels!
El DF
is dying! Funds for doctors, not angels!
”

The Crusaders rally, Seb realized. As they came out onto the Zócalo, they could see it – a solid, fist-waving mass of people gathered near the Palacio. Their auras were blood-red, merging together and throbbing towards the sky as the people chanted, so that the crowd looked like a single, angry creature. Seb stopped in his tracks, neck prickling. He’d seen auras like that before – usually around street gangs before a fight. Never around thousands at once.

Nearby, hundreds of people wearing angel wings had gathered, screaming just as furiously: “
The angels will provide! If you have true faith, the angels will provide!
” Though mostly damaged, their auras were a furious red too, straining towards the Crusaders. Dozens of grim-looking security guards patrolled the edges of the crowd, while overhead several angels cruised, with glinting wings.