The slap of energy was like crashing into a brick wall. My eyes bulged; I couldn’t catch my breath. Images were hurtling past almost faster than I could take them in. White light, spiraling in a flower. People staring in awe, face after face flashing past. A strange world with gleaming towers and robed beings. Wings opening and closing. Someone screaming. Hunger.
The hunger raged through me, sapping every other emotion. It needed to feed. Needed to. It needed —
The man dropped my hand, and I sagged limply against the doorjamb, all strength gone from me. I couldn’t speak; I was panting as if I’d just run a mile. “What are you?” I whispered finally.
He stared at me without speaking, all pretense of friendliness gone. I could feel menace coming off him, but there was fear there, too, curling around it like a snake. Not taking his eyes off me, he wiped his hand off on his shirt. Abruptly, he turned and left, jogging down the front steps. A sleek silver car sat parked beside the curb; he got into it, slammed the door shut, and drove away into the night.
As the sound of his car faded, I could hear the creaking of crickets, the faint drone of traffic from the highway. My thoughts were in chaos. At first I didn’t move, then belated fear rocked through me and I banged the door shut. My hands trembled as I locked it.
I rushed back into the living room. Mom was still sitting in the armchair, still looking absently into space. I stood watching her, hugging myself as I tried not to shake. Wishing so much that she’d look up and say, Willow, is everything all right? Tell me all about it, sweetie. How can I help?
“Who was that?” asked Aunt Jo, glancing up from the TV.
“No one,” I said faintly. Knowing that it wouldn’t do any good, I dropped to my knees in front of my mother, clutching her hands in mine. “Mom? Are you there?” I said in a low voice.
Aunt Jo was gaping at me like I’d lost my mind. “What are you doing?”
“Nothing. Just . . . talking to Mom.”
She sniffed. “Well, good luck. I don’t think she’s feeling very talkative tonight.”
I didn’t reply as she went into the kitchen. I just kept kneeling in front of my beautiful, broken mother, rubbing her hands between my own. “Mom? Mom, can you hear me? Please?”
Briefly, her eyes flickered. “Willow?” she murmured.
“It’s me, Mom. I’m here.”
She sighed and closed her eyes. A lock of hair fell across her face, and I smoothed it away, stroking her brow. Soon the soft smile returned to Mom’s lips, and I knew with a sinking heart that she had left again. She was back in her own world, looking at beautiful, mesmerizing things.
Frustrated, I sank back on my heels, longing for her to really communicate with me. But it would never happen; I would always be the one trying to reach her and never quite succeeding. You’d think I’d be used to it, after so many years. And I was, pretty much — only there were still times like now, when I felt a rush of sorrow and disappointment so strong that it almost knocked me off my feet. Even trying to read her didn’t help, because her mind was so . . . fragmented. Full of rainbows and clouds and snippets of memory. I found it such a depressing experience that I’d only tried it a handful of times.
God, I hated my father, whoever he’d been. I knew from Aunt Jo that before he appeared on the scene, Mom had been normal. I don’t know what that man did to her, but she was never the same after, she’d told me once. The doctors can say catatonic schizophrenia all they want, but I know the truth. He broke Miranda’s spirit. . . . He broke her mind. One time when I’d tried to read Mom, I’d caught a glimpse of my father in her thoughts, and he’d looked so creepy that the thought of being related to him made me feel sick. At least he’d decided to take off and never be involved with either of us. It was the only good thing he’d ever done, as far as I was concerned.
Aunt Jo came back in, carrying a plate of cookies. “Willow, you must have eaten half the pack last night,” she said crossly. “You know these are my favorites; you shouldn’t be so selfish.”
I let out a breath, still gazing at Mom. “Sorry,” I murmured, getting to my feet. As Aunt Jo turned the volume up, I kissed Mom’s cheek. Then I went upstairs to my bedroom, holding my elbows tightly as I picked my way around the piles of clutter that seemed to breed on the stairs and landing.
Closing the door behind me, I stared unseeingly at my room — my bed with the swaths of lavender chiffon draped across the bedposts, the purple and silver walls that I’d painted myself. Beth’s angel was real, all right. She must have gone straight to it after she left; she must have told it everything — and then it had come here, looking for me. My thoughts spun like tires on ice. God, who could I tell this to? Who could I go to for help? Nina would just laugh at me. Aunt Jo? Ha.
OK, calm down. Think this through. I took a deep breath and sat on the bed, forcing myself to go over the mixed-up images that I’d seen in Beth’s second future, trying to remember every last detail. In one of the snippets that had flashed past, this thing had been at the Church of Angels, and then later there’d been others like it.
Were they really angels?
My scalp prickled. I rose quickly and went over to my desk to switch on my computer. It’s an old one that I bought with some of my reading money, and it takes forever to warm up. When it had finally finished humming and whirring to itself, I logged on to the Internet. “Church of Angels” brought up millions of hits. I clicked the first link, ChurchofAngels.com, and a state-of-the-art website loaded onto my screen. There was the familiar pearl-white church from the commercials, awash in sunshine. Church of Angels. Hope for the millions . . . including you, said the text underneath it. I grimaced. I know that plenty of people get a lot from religion and that’s great for them, but anything promising “hope for the millions” gives me a pretty bad feeling — and now, after Beth’s reading, it gave me an even worse one.
I clicked a button at the top that said, FIND OUT MORE. A video panel appeared, loading a Church of Angels commercial. I pushed PLAY, and a gray, rain-beaten field came into view, grass moving slowly with the wind. Do you feel despairing? intoned a voice-over. The camera went into a long shot. A white church appeared in the field, and the camera panned back to reveal hundreds of people weaving up a hill toward it — and now the church looked huge, larger than the mightiest cathedral. The sun came out, dancing brightly on the white stone. The people stopped and gazed upward, smiling, basking in the rays.
Do you feel that God has forsaken you? Well, have faith . . . for even if there is no God, there ARE angels.
“The angels saved my life,” a middle-aged woman told the camera, her brown eyes shining with rapture. “They are pure love, and what they’ve done for me, they can do for you, too.” I felt a twinge of unease. She looked and sounded exactly like Beth.
Steepling my hands in front of my face, I stared at the monitor. The commercial played so often on TV that I should have been able to recite every word of it. Usually I just tuned it out, but now I listened carefully. When it finished, I hit PLAY and ran it again. It all seemed so slick. So polished.
Remembering that I’d heard there was a Church of Angels in Schenectady, about seventy miles away, I brought up its information . . . and found myself gaping at the screen in disbelief. This wasn’t just a church — it was practically a whole town, with apartment buildings next to the cathedral and even a small shopping center. The website said that it was over five thousand residential members strong and growing. Five thousand. That was almost a third the size of Pawtucket. If you joined the Church of Angels, then you’d never have to set foot out in the real world again.
Maybe that was the appeal.
I rubbed my temples. I’ll talk to Beth again at school tomorrow, I decided finally. OK, her first future wasn’t great, but it was a lot better than that coldness relating to the Church of Angels. If I just tried harder, maybe I could make her see it.
And then, somehow, I’d figure out what to do about this being that had latched on to her.
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RAZIEL STOOD BESIDE the sweeping white railing with his hands behind his back, gazing down at the expanse below. The main cathedral of the Church of Angels, on the outskirts of Denver, Colorado, used to be the largest sports complex in the Rockies. Bought and transformed by thousands of human devotees, it was now a soaring space of worship, with long, gleaming white pews and a graceful domed ceiling. People sitting at the back were mere flyspecks to those in front. Unobtrusive white speakers sat nestled on each of the pink-and-white marble pillars throughout the cathedral, so that the sermons in praise of the angels could be boomed out to everyone, and ornate stained-glass windows lined the walls, displaying angel images almost two stories tall. Raziel’s gaze lingered on one of these. It was in the Pre-Raphaelite style: a radiant burst of white and gold showing a trio of angels, wings touching, reaching their arms out toward the viewer as if to say, Come to us.
Yes, indeed, thought Raziel with a satisfied smile. Please do. And the humans did, of course, by the millions.
He flexed his fingers. Like all angels, Raziel’s human form was unusually attractive, though difficult to pin down as to age. In appearance he might have been anywhere from twenty-five to forty-five, and he was tall and slender, with jet-black hair and arresting dark eyes. He knew that his features — in particular, his high forehead with its sharp widow’s peak — were seen by humans as being artistic and sensitive, which amused him no small amount.
It was between services at the cathedral now; far below, tourists and devotees walked slowly through its vast space, drinking it in and taking pictures, or sitting hunched on pews praying. Raziel scanned the small moving human figures, wondering idly if he was in the mood to feed. It had only been a few hours, so it would be somewhat gluttonous of him, but with such a variety of human energies on display, it became difficult to resist. And the things were always so grateful to one afterward. It was rather sweet.
Deciding, he focused his attention onto his body, feeling its molecules begin to tremble as he rearranged his energy, shifting it upward into the ethereal plane. With a smooth, practiced shudder, Raziel’s human body vanished as he took on the alternate form of his dual nature: a radiant angel of shimmering bluish-white light, seven feet tall.
Dazzling in his beauty, he stood where he was for a moment, stretching his wings. In this elevated state of existence, he could see the humans’ auras: glowing outlines of light that surrounded each person, wavering like colored soap bubbles as they moved. With a slow shifting of wings, Raziel took off from the balustrade, gliding lazily under the domed ceiling, scanning them. Mentally, he discarded the humans whose auras looked somewhat gray and stunted — they’d been fed on many times already, and their energy wouldn’t have the same strong, powerful rush as those who were uninitiated to an angel’s pleasure. Besides, the stunted ones whom he hadn’t fed on himself would have a flavor of other angels to them. At times this held an almost forbidden thrill, but he was in the mood for something pure. Pristine.
He smiled to himself as he spotted the perfect one: a young boy of twenty or so, whose energy glowed a vibrant blue-green. Circling above him, Raziel reached out with his mind, locking energies. He felt the immediate jolt and capitulation; the boy’s expression became a puzzled frown, like someone hearing a tune he couldn’t quite place. Turning, he caught sight of Raziel for the first time, hovering above him. His eyes widened as he stood rooted to the spot, gazing up slack-jawed at the angel that only he could see.
Gracefully, Raziel spiraled and landed in front of him. His radiance burst over the boy, illuminating him like a stage light. “I have come for you,” he said, knowing that even sotto voce, his words would resonate in feeble human ears like the ringing of cathedral bells.
The boy began to tremble. “I — I —”
“Yes, you and only you,” said Raziel, advancing with a smile. His voice had a light English accent. Like many of the angels, Raziel often found himself unconsciously taking on aspects of past energy donors. The accent had been with him for years; the life force from that human had been particularly intoxicating. He moved toward the boy, gleaming robes of pure white swirling gently about his “ankles.” A long time ago, they hadn’t used to bother manifesting the robes — angels in their divine form didn’t need them — but humans seemed to place such innocent stock in the detail that it felt heartless to deny them.
With a contented sigh, Raziel stretched out his ethereal hands and touched the blue-green aura. As other humans trundled obliviously past with their cameras and bags, the young, hopeful energy surged through him, filling him, feeding him. Oh, lovely. As he indulged, images from the boy’s life flashed past, along with his hopes, his dreams. They were as pedestrian as most humans’; Raziel disregarded them and focused on the pure pleasure of feeding. The blue-green aura began to shudder as it slowly diminished, graying and collapsing in on itself. The boy, on the other hand, had a wondering, dazed expression as he looked up at Raziel, basking in the angel’s beauty along with the soothing serenity that Raziel knew washed over humans with his touch.
“I always knew,” the boy murmured, tears filling his eyes. “I always knew there were angels. . . .”
“How prescient of you,” said Raziel, withdrawing at last. He could feel his halo glowing more brightly as the buzz of new energy pulsed through him. Smiling at the boy with something like affection, he reached for him again, resting his hand on the bowed head. “Stay with us,” he said. “We have work for you here.” The youth would never be the same again, of course, but Lailah would appreciate him once he recovered a bit. Raziel’s friend loved young energy almost as much as he himself did, collecting it the way humans did bottles of wine.
“I will!” gasped the boy. “Oh, I will!”
As Raziel unfurled his wings and lifted upward again, breaking the mental connection that allowed him to be seen, he heard someone say, “Steve? What is it?” And the tear-choked response, “I’ve seen an angel!”
Spiraling once, Raziel caught sight of a slim woman with chestnut-brown hair kneeling on a pew, head bent onto her clasped hands in prayer. Though somewhat damaged, her energy was trying feebly to restore itself; there was a rose-colored tinge to its grayness. As Raziel watched, she looked up at the stained-glass windows, a euphoric smile on her face. Oh, now, that’s nice, thought Raziel, scanning her body. Was she a resident? He’d have to summon her to his chambers sometime soon and enjoy pleasure of a different sort. Not all angels in this world explored the gratifications their human form could offer, but Raziel had been a connoisseur for centuries.
On the cathedral floor below, Steve’s friend hugged him, saying, “Praise the angels!” Raziel soared back to his chambers, gliding neatly through white stone walls into an office of soft, gleaming wood and gray carpeting, with antique books lining one wall. Landing, he focused his mind and drew his energy downward, bringing it back to the human plane. With a shimmer, his physical body manifested itself again, complete with the expensive pants and crisp white shirt he’d been wearing. Though it took practice, clothes were only molecules of a different sort; it was merely a matter of focusing on them as well when one made the initial shift.
Sitting at his desk, Raziel looked up at a knock on the door. “Come in,” he said.
The paneled wooden door opened soundlessly, and a young man with a tumble of dark curls entered, his footsteps sinking into the rich carpeting. He bowed his head. “Sir, Lailah is here to see you.”
“Oh, excellent.” Pushing aside the tedious pile of Church of Angels paperwork, Raziel leaned back in his leather office chair. “Send her in, Jonah.”
Jonah backed respectfully out again, and a moment later Lailah strolled in. In her human form, Lailah had long, gleaming auburn hair and large blue eyes. Her attributes were, as usual, firmly on display in a tight black suit with a plunging neckline.
Raziel winced to see her smoking a thin brown cigarillo. Some of the angels felt that Raziel himself had gone disgustingly native, but really — there were lim
its. “Do you mind?” he said shortly, sliding a crystal ashtray across the desk at her.
Lailah rolled her eyes but extinguished the cigarillo. “Have you heard?” she asked as she sat down.
“What? About the Second Wave finally being scheduled?” Raziel settled back in his chair again, stretching his long legs out. “Good news, isn’t it? The Council’s little experiment worked out, after all. We could have told them so.”
Lailah laughed out loud; it was the sound of silver bells. “Yes, I think most of the First Wavers have been surprised that being here isn’t exactly a hardship. They’ve taken to feeding off humans with gusto.”
Raziel smiled. He reached for a nail file on his desktop and began to shape his nails. “Well, one does get a taste for the things. Addictive creatures, aren’t they?”
“It goes both ways,” said Lailah, looking around her at the plush office in satisfaction. She herself had one almost as large. “They seem quite addicted to us, too.”
Like Raziel, Lailah was one of those angels who had always savored the taste of human energy. For centuries, angels like them had passed between the two worlds, gorging themselves on the human life force — a pastime seen as revoltingly base by the majority of angelkind, who preferred to stay at home and feed more sedately from the ether of their world. But then the Crisis had come, and everything had changed: the angels’ world was now dying, taking its life-sustaining ether with it. When the Seraphic Council’s plan to save them all had been unveiled two years ago, there had been an appalled outcry, but no one could think of any alternative. The angels’ resources were dwindling fast; they needed to feed on energy to survive. And while the ether in the human world wasn’t suitable to sustain them . . . the energy from the humans themselves was.
Raziel and Lailah had both volunteered to be included in the first experimental wave of angels who would move to the human world permanently. Why not? Raziel liked the place anyway, and it gave him a certain amount of kudos as a selfless volunteer. For the majority of First Wave angels, though, the move had been solely a matter of necessity. And although most had found it repellent at first, feeding on humans on such a grand scale seemed almost entirely safe so far. Not only could angels in their human form blend in with the rest of the population; they couldn’t be easily harmed in that form — and normally, the only humans to see them in their divine form were victims dazzled by a feeding angel’s beauty. The little band of angel assassins that roamed the country was an annoyance, but a minor one; their numbers were pitiably few. Primarily, the angels knew that to come here was the route to their salvation.
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