Angel Fever

between the lines of shortwave news broadcasts. He wished to hell they’d been wrong.

“Thanks,” Kara mumbled, dropping back against the pillows. “Of course, they don’t say all that – but if you don’t have angel burn and can see what’s going on, it’s obvious.” She gave a humourless laugh. “They put me in A1. Guess I should have been flattered – only the young, good- looking people with fresh, pretty auras went there. I mean, we were popular with the angels. Not that anyone ever stayed in A1 very long…” Kara’s throat moved, her brown eyes lost in that other time.

“So yeah, it didn’t take them long to notice that none of the angels could feed from me. I guess I piqued their interest a little. I spent the last seven months in Austin locked in a hospital room while the angels tried to figure me out.”

“What – you mean examining you?” Cold crept across Alex’s scalp. His eyes flew to Kara’s left shirtsleeve – underneath, there lay an AK tattoo identical to his own. Once, the angels might not have known what the letters stood for; they sure as hell did now.

“Don’t worry, I got rid of it before I even got to Austin,” Kara said wearily. She lifted the sleeve of her faded T-shirt, and Alex winced – where her tattoo had been was now a series of long, jagged scars.

“Oh Christ, Kara…” He couldn’t say any more.

She dropped the sleeve. “I had to. People know who the AKs are now, after what happened in Mexico City – they hate all of us. I did it with a piece of metal I found and managed to keep it hidden until it healed a little. Not that it made any difference once they put me in the hospital. Raziel knew it was me.”

“Raziel?”

Her mouth was a bitter line. “Yeah. Your girlfriend’s father. He kept coming all the way down from Denver to poke and prod at me himself.” She shuddered. “Alex, how you can even stand touching her, when—”

“Shut it,” he said sharply. “She’s nothing like them, and you know it.”

“Fine. Whatever.” Kara wiped her eyes. “So, yeah, ol’ Raz was pretty interested in what makes me tick… because I guess it’s more than me just not being tasty to them. They can’t – they can’t seem to read me.”

Alex’s eyes narrowed in confusion. “What are you talking about?”

“They couldn’t read me. It drove them crazy. Drove him crazy, especially. For weeks – months – if it wasn’t him, it was one of the others. They strapped me down so I couldn’t struggle and they’d hold my hand, and I could feel their minds creeping into mine – so cold and slimy – over and over…” She choked to a stop.

Oh Jesus. Alex rubbed a fist against his forehead. He guessed he couldn’t blame her for hating anything that reminded her of the angels.

“They were trying to find out about us, weren’t they?” he said. “Whether Willow’s still alive or not.”

“Yeah.” Kara swallowed hard. “I told them you were all dead, killed in the Mexico City quake. It was true, for all I knew – I just didn’t want them to get anything about the base here, no matter what. Finally they started on more…physical methods.”

Alex’s fist was still tight. With his other hand, he gently touched Kara’s bruised cheek. “This?”

Without the dramatic make-up she used to wear, her beaten face looked young and exposed. “No, that was after I escaped – there was a bandit I stole the truck from. He didn’t want to give it up, but I was pretty desperate – believe me, I gave as good as I got. The angels are…subtler than that. You don’t want to know, okay?”

Taking in the slight quiver of her mouth, Alex knew she was probably right. With a bitter anger, he longed to destroy every angel who’d touched her.

“Anyway, they’ll be pissed off that I escaped,” Kara said, triumph clear in her tone. “Since they couldn’t get anything from me, they were going to use me at the Salt Lake Eden founding celebration. Like, look who we caught! What do you think we should do with her, oh noble Salt Lake Eden people?”

Alex could just imagine: it would have been like a scene from ancient Rome, with them tossing Kara to the Church of Angels’ lions. A silence stretched out between them. From the clock on the wall, Alex saw that it was after two in the morning.

“How did you get away?” he asked.

She shook her head; he could see how exhausted she was. “It doesn’t matter – it was while they were transporting me to Salt Lake Eden. But, Alex, listen: there’s something I haven’t told you.” She groped for his hand again; he enfolded hers in his own.

“What?” he urged.

Kara shut her good eye for a moment; finally she opened it again. “Before they put me in the hospital, I managed to get out of A1 a few times and tried to escape – once I made it as far as the lowest sector in the city, where they keep people who are in really bad shape. And, Alex – Cully was there. I was with him when he died. He knew something.”

10

AT THE NAME OF HIS old mentor, Alex straightened slowly. Cully had been the best Angel Killer he’d ever known – practically a father to him. The news that Cully’s angel burn had finally killed him was almost a relief; Cull would have hated what he’d become.

“What do you mean, ‘he knew something’?” Alex asked.

Kara fumbled in her jeans pocket and produced a cellphone. “Here,” she said, handing it to him. “I managed to hide it. Have you got a charger?”

The phone was identical to Alex’s – he’d bought them both the previous December. “Yeah, I’ve got one,” he said, staring down at the silver case. “What’s on it? A video?”

Kara nodded, her gaze sorrowful. She knew what Cully had meant to him. “He was ranting pretty badly, and he kept mentioning you. Alex, he was worried – he kept saying, ‘We can’t let him figure it out’.”

Alex tucked the phone into his own pocket. Obviously, Cully had realized the deaths of a few angels could destroy them all. Don’t worry, Cull; I screwed that one up good, he thought. The angels are totally safe now, for ever.

“You think you know what it is,” Kara said, watching him.

“Yeah,” he admitted. “And it’s all over.” He told her what had happened. The words tasted bitter.

Kara swallowed but thankfully didn’t comment. “I don’t know, Al…what Cully was saying didn’t seem related to the angels being linked or not. He kept talking about Martin too.”

Alex frowned. “Dad?”

“Yeah. Something about an idea that Martin had had… I couldn’t make head or tail of it. Just watch. Maybe it’ll help, somehow.” Her eyes fluttered closed then, her bruised face gaunt.

Frankly, Alex doubted it – his dad had been pretty out of it those last few years before he died. He sat studying Kara for a long moment, his emotions jumbled.

“Listen to me,” he said finally. “If you’re staying, then I don’t want to hear a single word about Willow and Seb. They’re part of the team – end of story.”

Her good eye reluctantly opened. “I know,” she said after a pause. “It’s just a gut reaction; I can’t help it. But I’ll keep it to myself.”

Alex realized that was probably the best he was going to get from her. Maybe when what she’d been through had faded a little, she’d come around. Unfortunately, she had all the time in the world to do so now, with no end to any of this in sight.

He rose. “Get some sleep, okay?”

Kara lay watching him, her muscles tense. “You’ll watch the video?”

“Yeah, I’ll watch it.” At the door, Alex paused. “Hey – I’m really glad you made it,” he said.

Kara’s smile was a ghost of smiles he remembered. “Me too.”

The temptation to go crawl into bed beside Willow, forgetting the whole world as he drew her into his arms, was almost overwhelming. The weight of the phone in his jeans pocket wouldn’t let him do it.

Alex headed for the comms room instead, where he’d stowed all their old phones in a cabinet. After he’d plugged in Kara’s cell, he sat with his thumb hesitating over the buttons. He wasn’t looking forward to seeing Cully