Angel Fever

we’re finished now.”

In October I turned nineteen.

In a moment of weakness, I let Liz talk me into throwing a party. I got dressed up and smiled, and even danced a little.

But all I could feel was the warmth of Alex’s lips as they pressed against my neck – the strength of his arm around me, holding me close. Are you kidding? I’d have had to challenge the guy to a duel or something. Might have been kind of awkward.

When it was over I went back to my room and cried so hard that I ended up retching over the toilet.

It wasn’t really a good birthday.

18

“YOU READY FOR THIS?” SAID Bascal’s voice on the phone.

Raziel was in his office, going over maps for his upcoming journey to Mexico City. Annoyingly, it would take days to get there on the still-shattered roads. At least there hadn’t been a major snowfall yet, though it was now late November.

“Ready for what?” he said, distracted.

“The Angel Killers are still alive.”

Raziel’s head snapped up. “What?”

“Yeah, a group have been caught near Albuquerque Eden. They attacked some angels there, but missed one. When we went back and captured the AKs, we found a base they’d built up in the mountains.”

Raziel leaned forward, his posture hunched and urgent. “What about Fields and Kylar?”

“Don’t know yet – they weren’t there with them, at least. But listen, boss, these people have been trained. Just their bad luck one got away.” Bascal’s voice hesitated. “There’s more,” he said.

Raziel frowned while Bascal spoke, blindly taking in a Tiffany lamp across the room. “Just like Kara Mendez,” he murmured finally. Like Kara, and like those people in Mexico City, whose numbers kept growing. Why did this seem so inevitable?

“Yeah, exactly,” said Bascal. “I can tell you one thing – from the way they were acting, they sure don’t know we can’t feed from them. Anyway, they haven’t been interrogated yet – I thought you’d want to have that fun yourself.”

“Yes, thanks,” Raziel said grimly. “Have Albuquerque send them here. Immediately.”

Raziel hadn’t met a human yet who could hold up under enough pain. Apart from Kara, who was exceptional – he rather missed their little games. There was no time for such subtlety with the Albuquerque group, though.

There were seven of them; from hidden cameras, it was obvious how close-knit they were. Good. Raziel ordered two of them sacrificed immediately and made sure the others heard. Standing alone outside a door in the downstairs corridor, Raziel inspected his nails as the frantic, pleading shouts echoed and finally ended. This sort of thing was beyond crass, but necessary.

Finally he entered a room. They’d separated the AKs, and a girl – Chloe, he believed – sat huddled in the corner, crying. She flinched when she saw him.

“Do you know this girl?” he asked, holding up a photo of Willow.

Her face emptied of colour. “No, I – I’ve never seen her before,” she stammered.

Raziel smiled. “In other words, yes, you do. Everyone knows who Willow Fields is. Your lie is rather obvious, my dear. Where is she?”

Chloe looked sick. “I mean, I know who she is, but I don’t know her – not personally.”

Raziel perched on a table, one foot still on the floor;he swung his other leg casually. “You heard the screams, I suppose. Tracy and Paul, I believe, were their names?”

Her face contorted and she pressed her cheek against the wall, her throat working.

“It would be such a shame if anyone else had to die,” Raziel went on mildly. “Especially when this is all rather futile. We will find your intrepid leaders, you know. We can just do it with more deaths, or without. Which do you prefer?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she whispered.

How tedious. Raziel held back a sigh as he took out his cellphone and dialled. “Another one,” he ordered. “And I think you’d better do it in here. Chloe doesn’t seem convinced yet of how serious we are.”

It took two more AKs in the end; Raziel was tetchily wondering whether he’d have to start bringing in random strangers off the street next. But Chloe finally broke, sobbing out that the Angel Killers were in Nevada. She didn’t know exactly where; they had an underground base in the desert north-west of Vegas, about a hundred miles out. And other groups of AKs had also been sent into the field, though she didn’t know where they were either.

Raziel held back a smile. He hadn’t even asked about that last part – they’d definitely made progress. He touched Chloe’s face, his fingers lingering. She was really a very attractive girl.

“Well done,” he said. “And now suppose you tell me why you and your friends are immune to us? Is it something the AKs did?”

She stared blankly at him, shook her head. “I…I don’t—”

She wasn’t lying this time – he could see her struggling with the definition of immune when her little group had just been decimated. “Never mind,” he said, rising to his feet. “You’ve done very well to tell me about your friends in Nevada, my dear. Very well indeed.”

“Please don’t hurt them,” she whispered.

“Never,” said Raziel. “Why, the very thought.” He left the room and closed the door behind him; as he strode back to his office, a church official joined him.

“Well?” the man asked.

“Take care of her and the other two – no need for drama this time,” said Raziel without pausing.

Back in his office, Raziel’s satisfaction faded as he realized his dilemma.

As he’d long suspected, Willow was alive – alive – and was training new AKs. Even through his fury, Raziel felt a flash of hard pride – he’d known that no daughter of his could be vanquished so easily. But finding her might take a while, now that the angels’ psychic skills were so compromised; Chloe’s description could encompass hundreds of square miles.

And with all that was going on, Raziel didn’t have time to undertake the search himself.

He glared down at the map of Mexico. Unbelievably, there were now almost a hundred immune humans locked away there, with more being discovered every day. Through a sense of trepidation he hardly understood, he’d put off this journey for as long as possible – but now if he didn’t deal with it, word was sure to explode among the angels. For unless stopped, this immunity might just keep spreading throughout humanity, until angels were unable to feed at all.

It would be like a judgement.

Absurd. Even so, Raziel was gripped by a cold fear. The Council deaths had occurred in Mexico City, orchestrated by his own hand. What if this powerful, unknowing energy that he kept sensing was in response to that? What if the human immunities in Mexico City, in the Angel Killers, were somehow his fault?

No one can be allowed to know what I did, thought Raziel. Currently, not a single angel alive suspected that he’d been responsible for assassinating the Council. If they found out, it could be the thing to galvanize the despondent ones back into action, so that they banded together with those who already hated him – all of them united against a common enemy.

No, he had to go to Mexico City and could waste no further time about it – if there was any evidence against him to be found there, he had to suppress it. The problem of Willow would have to be solved some other way.

Bascal, he decided. Let him get a good-size gang together and go searching in the