Blood Of Angels (51 page)

How unreal we must seem, we normal folk, how lacking of their bright cleansing fire. How unheroic we are, in our small-minded wish to be allowed to get on with the short lives our various gods have allotted us; in our simple desire to last our span without being shot or starved or blown to pieces over vested interests or ideals about which we neither know nor care.

Yet still they kill us. It's how they live, and it's what they do. We must resist them, always and forever. We must find a louder way of saying no.

===OO=OOO=OO===

Three days ago, one question at least was answered. For two weeks after we got back up here, Nina suffered intermittent periods of nausea. She remained quite weak and found herself prone to headaches. We hoped these were merely a temporary result of her incarceration in an old vehicle leaking fumes, but when they failed to fade, I eventually persuaded her to go see a doctor.

And we found out she is pregnant.

So I'm going to go outside now, collect Nina, and take her for something to eat. Not a salad. Something substantial and nourishing. She can be picky but I can be relentless. I'm hard to resist. Maybe we'll talk a little about what's going to happen, about the future we're going to have to find.

We're getting there slowly. I have no idea whether I'm ready to be a father. I suppose I'll find out. It's going to be a strange world to bring a child up in.

But then, I guess it always was.

My thanks first to William R. Corliss, volumes of whose
Sourcebook Project
provided background information and inspiration; and to Richard Pogue Harrison, whose
The Dominion of the Dead
helped focus some ideas. A huge thank you to my excellent agent, Jonny Geller; to Stephen Jones, David Smith and The Junction Tavern for their various forms of support during the writing of this book; and to everyone at HarperCollins for their inspired work on this and its predecessors — especially Jane, Amanda, Sarah, Joy, Kelly, Dominic, Fiona, Ingrid, Damon, Jane Harris and everyone in sales here and abroad.

Mad props to Paula, as always, and — welcome, N8.