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Him and his father and his brother, all out at this camp in the desert together. I remembered the glimpse I’d gotten from his hand: the barbed wire, the bright, hard blue of the sky. “What about your mother?” I asked.
He gazed at the screen without moving. At first I thought he wasn’t going to answer. “It’s a long story,” he said eventually.
“Sure, OK. ” I wished I hadn’t asked. The subject of his family seemed to be a minefield. We watched TV in silence for a while. I twisted a strand of still-damp hair around my finger. “Listen, the whole . . . angel problem,” I said at last. “It’s gotten worse recently, hasn’t it? I mean, I don’t remember even hearing about them until a couple of years ago, and now it’s like — they’re everywhere. On TV. In the papers. ”
Alex seemed to relax. “It was the Invasion,” he said, plumping up one of his pillows and settling back down on it. “They’ve always been here, but then almost two years ago their numbers just exploded. We don’t know why — if something happened in their own world, or what. ”
I watched him, taking in his dark eyebrows; the smooth line of his neck as it disappeared into the collar of his T-shirt. “Where is their world?”
“We’re not sure,” said Alex. I noted his casual use of the word “we,” suggesting a team that had been fighting together for a long time. “Another dimension, probably. They seem to be able to cross over into this one. ”
Another dimension. I always thought those only existed in science fiction — made-up stories. Like angels. “So they just — live here? The same as humans?”
He drew a knee to his chest, looping his forearm over it. Even when he was at ease, there was a sense of strength somehow, like a big cat. “Yeah. They have houses, drive cars . . . They just sort of blend right in, without anyone really noticing them. ”
I shook my head, trying to comprehend it all. “What happens if you can’t stop them?”
Alex shrugged as he glanced at me. “Humanity will die,” he said. “Maybe in a few decades . . . fifty years. The AKs are losing, you know — slowly but surely. We need something big to stop them, or we haven’t got a chance. ”
My mouth went dry. Was I supposed to be the something big, then? I thought of the hospital beds that had lined the corridor in the news program, and didn’t know what to say. “This is just . . . I can’t believe that no one knows about this,” I whispered. “Why doesn’t the government do something? Why don’t they tell everyone?”
With eerie timing, the Church of Angels commercial came on again. Alex gazed up at the screen, his mouth twisting wryly. “It’s not that easy. Most people can only see angels for what they really are when they’re being fed from, and by then they’ve got angel burn; they wouldn’t try to get away if you paid them. ”
I saw what he meant. I imagined what would have happened if I’d tried to drag Beth away while that thing was draining her; I think she would have physically attacked me.
Alex was still looking at the commercial. “Plus, the angels seem to make a point of targeting the police and the government. Quite a few higher-ups have gotten angel burn since the Invasion — that’s what first tipped off the CIA that something weird was going on. ”
“Really?” I stared at him, my blood chilling. “Who? Do you mean the president?”
He shook his head. “I don’t know, exactly. People who you wouldn’t want to have it, definitely. ”
As the commercial ended, the final image of an angel gazed out at us with a serene smile, its halo and wings a pure, radiant white. “They’re so beautiful,” I admitted softly.
“Yeah, they are. ”
I picked at a loose seam in the nylon bedspread. I didn’t really want to ask, but I had to know. “So . . . when someone has angel burn, what happens?”
Alex’s dark hair fell over his forehead as he looked at me, his expression reluctant. “When an angel feeds off someone, the effect is toxic,” he said. “The person perceives the angel as wonderful and kind, but meanwhile it’s damaging them in some way — causing some sort of disease or mental illness. MS, cancer, whatever. The more the person’s energy is drained, the more severe the burn. ”
I thought of Mom, with her vacant, dreamy gaze . . . and of the being who’d made her that way. My father. This was a part of me; it was inside of me. No wonder Alex hadn’t wanted anything to do with me at first; I could hardly blame him. I stared down at the seam, trying not to hate myself and failing.
From the other bed, I could feel Alex’s gaze still on me. He cleared his throat. “You know, from what I could tell, your mother’s one of the lucky ones. I mean, when I checked out her energy, it didn’t feel distressed or anything. She seems content. ”
I nodded. Suddenly my eyes were leaking; I wiped them with the flat of my hand. “Yeah . . . it’s always sucked for me, not having a mom, but at least I know she’s happy off in her dreamworld. ” I glanced at him and managed a smile. “Thanks. ”
A late-night talk show came on; we watched in silence as the host stood in front of the audience, making jokes for the intro. I hesitated as I thought of everything Alex had just told me.
“So, my angel — the one you saw over me — it doesn’t feed, right?”
“No, it doesn’t,” said Alex.
I looked up at him, biting my lip. “You’re sure?”
He kept his voice matter-of-fact, but his eyes told me he understood how I was feeling. “I’m positive. Your angel doesn’t have a halo, and that’s an angel’s heart; it’s where the energy is distributed from as they feed. Plus your aura doesn’t show any signs of feeding — an angel’s aura always does. ”
“So I don’t . . . hurt people when I touch them, or anything?”
“I don’t think so,” said Alex. “I mean, a half angel is something new, but I don’t see any reason why you would, Willow. Angels in their human form don’t hurt people; it’s only when they feed. And, you know, if you haven’t noticed anything in sixteen years, then I’d say you’re probably safe. ”
I let out a breath. Thank God for that. This was already nightmarish enough, without the thought that maybe I was somehow damaging people the way angels did.
On the TV, the talk show host was sitting behind his desk with a miniature skyline of New York City behind him, interviewing an actress in a tight red dress. It felt so unreal, that angels were here in our world, hurting people, and that everyone was just going about their business, oblivious. Alex must feel like this all the time, I realized.
“Can I ask you something, now?” he said.
A wariness came over me, but I nodded.
“Your, um . . . your angel,” he said. He picked up the remote, turning it over in his hand. “I know you weren’t aware of it before a few days ago. But now that you are, can you feel it there?”
I stiffened. “No,” I said flatly.
Alex nodded, looking down at his knee as he tapped the remote against it. “I just . . . wondered whether you could make contact with it, if you tried. ”
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