“Go to the SUV,” I tell him. “Be ready to drive up.” This time Rain doesn’t argue, doesn’t hunch his shoulders.

  Some intuition tells me to stay here on the first floor and allow Gabe to take care of the angel’s body on his own. Fifteen minutes later, he comes up, his expression cold and distant. The black backpack hangs on his shoulder, and he carries the body, bundled in blue tarp, in his arms.

  I already know what his expression means.

  “Bring the SUV up to the driveway,” I say into my earpiece and then clarify for good measure. “Headlights off. Back into the driveway. Get as close to the front door as possible.”

  “I know that,” Rain snaps through the com. “What’d she say?”

  Gabe shakes his head solemnly. “War travels a lot. Goes from town to town recruiting. He has a home somewhere, but Abby doesn’t know…didn’t know where it is. Only his inner circle knows.” He pulls in a long breath. “She was low level. Only met him the one time. She gave me the names and numbers of two other people in her Bible group. They’ve been in longer, but she doesn’t think they know much more.”

  “There’s a chance though,” Rain says immediately. “Where are they? Here? In town?”

  I look Gabe over, trying to assess his mental state. I should have handled it.

  He notices my look. “I didn’t hurt her….but she was just, just…so scared.”

  “She killed at least six people,” I tell him.

  “It was Mark,” he says. “After he died, she just didn’t care anymore.”

  He understands her. That’s what makes him such a good interrogator, and why it hurts him so much.

  “Everything clean downstairs?” I ask Gabe to pull him into the present. His expression hardens as he focuses. We’re still on a mission, and he knows that.

  “Yep.”

  “We’re running out of time. It’s been over 24 hours since she was taken.” Rain’s voice is frustrated through our com. Gabe winces. These are the heavy words neither of us have spoken.

  “Gabe’s coming out,” I tell Rain calmly. “Help him load up the body. I have one more room to take care of upstairs.” I give Gabe a look. “Start researching the two names she gave us,” I tell him. “I want a good idea of what we’re dealing with by the time we get to the next location.”

  He nods, grim-faced, and I walk purposefully upstairs, back into Mark’s office and hang up on our conference call. I had to give this – the Totem’s best lead – a chance, but now we’ve run out of time. I pull up the dial pad on my phone and make the call I’ve always known I would have to make.

  “Your face can’t have healed that fast,” Danielle says after the first ring.

  “I need to know where my sister is. Where War took her.”

  A sigh. “You know the rules.”

  “This is my family. The rules don’t apply.” I keep my voice hushed. “Do you know where she is?”

  I wait. Is she going to play games? Hang up? My last hope flickers, a tiny candle floating down a rushing river.

  “War and I, we had history, but that was a long time ago,” Danielle says. “I don’t run with his stupid cult, and I don’t know where she is.”

  I’m gripping the phone so hard that I can feel the press of plastic in the bones of my fingers. “Can you find out?”

  Another pause.

  “Can you?” My voice is a growl.

  “What will you give me if I can?”

  I knew this was coming. Danielle always has a price, but I’m prepared. I’ve been prepared. I offer Danielle the one thing I know she can’t refuse. She makes a slight noise, a little choked laugh. Then she says, a little breathless, “I’ll call you as soon as I have an address.”

  Chapter 26 – Maya

  I doze fitfully, my back against the wall as the hollowing hunger fights to dominate my discomfort. At first the loud, confident steps are part of my dream, something big, dark, and mean chasing me. The door bangs open, and I startle into consciousness, confused, disoriented, and scrambling to stand in the cramped corner. My leg alights with pain. My head smacks the ceiling, and I cry out as my right leg buckles. For a moment, I press my palms hard into the floor, pressing, pressing against the pain.

  “The Lord punishes you,” a solemn voice states. I glance up. The light from the hallway paints shadows all across War’s broad frame. He wears a fine dark suit, clearly tailored to fall perfectly along his thick limbs. His wide, fleshy face is still, but when I meet those dark eyes, I know that he, at least hasn’t changed.

  “I have come for your confession, my child.” Amusement glitters in his eyes, but his words are deep and sad as if I am an unfortunate lamb who has wandered out of his flock. A diminutive figure enters the room. Max. Already, I feel his mental fingers reaching into my mind.

  I crawl out as far as my chains will allow. Pulling in a deep breath, I stand, putting as little weight as possible on my right leg. I wish War hadn’t seen me crawl; wish I was wearing a dozen more layers of clothing so his beady eyes couldn’t run so gleefully across my body.

  I tilt my chin up. Is it time for my cleansing? My righteous punishment? Did War get to pick the method? Flaying. I bet he would insist on doing it himself, too. Peeling me like an orange. Making himself a gruesome Maya mask.

  Max’s fingers dig into my brain, ripping at my memories. I close my eyes and fight the battle I know I will lose. I can’t stop him, but at least I make every memory a prize that he must earn. And this time at least, I have a basic plan. I line up all of my memories of War and let Max unwrap those first. He sees the day I spent with War in Peoria two years ago. I show him the way War scoffed at the religious fervor of a handsome angel named Nicolas. Next up is a memory of War grabbing Heather around the throat hard enough to leave bright bruises on her pale skin. And finally, I release my memory of Raven, the terrified teenager War kidnapped and turned into an angel against her wishes. I give Max all my memories of Raven’s tears, her thin, trembling shoulders, and the unrelenting lust in War’s gaze.

  When these memories are all viewed and discarded, Max plows on, his blunt blows quickly breaking through my weakening resistance. My brain is as tired as my body, and the memories flow even as I try to hold them back.

  Please stop, I think to Max.

  He shakes his head. I can’t.

  War is not who you think he is.

  Our Prophet has told us of his blemished past.

  It goes on for a long, long time, or at least it feels that way. He pushes deeper and deeper into my mind, batting away my cries and anger, ripping so many memories out of my mind. Max does stop, eventually, his face white, the breath beating out of him in heavy pants. I’m wobbling, clenching my teeth to keep standing. My mind feels so bruised and broken. Max turns to War, bows his head, and I watch a small smile curl up on War’s mouth. He nods, and nods, and nods. And finally, he reaches over and drops a big paw on Max’s shoulder.

  “Thank you, my son,” he says. “Though the Lord has blessed you with an amazing gift, I am most thankful for your righteous heart. The path to salvation is yours.”

  Max looks up at War with shining eyes, and I can’t understand how a fucking psychic can’t see through the clouds of bullshit in front of him.

  “War doesn’t let you look through his thoughts, does he?” I ask Max softly.

  “Max does not need to see my mind. He needs only to see my heart,” War intones. He’s gotten clever in the time since we last met, a cleverness that scares me even more than his muscled shoulders and rough hands. War bows his head to Max, and I feel the pulse of the psychic’s joy through my fading connection with him.

  “Now, I must spend time with our guest alone. Even her soul may be saved at this late hour,” War says. With a slow, heavy walk, Max leaves the room. I tried to make it hard for him, but in the end it didn’t matter. He invaded my mind, and stole something that was sacred. I wish again that I had been able to plunge my dagger into my throat when I had the chance.

  “Tarren,” War says. “Gabe. Rain. Francesca. Lo.”

  I try to keep my expression blank. An oily smile oozes onto War’s face, finally breaking his performance. He steps closer, right on top of the white line of tape. “I know their names now,” he says. “I know what their faces look like.” He taps his temple. “I will find them, and then I’ll make an example out of them in front of all my congregations.”

  I stare at him calmly. This, at least, is a toothless threat. War can do whatever his sick little brain can imagine to me, but my brothers are safe. Rain and the Totem are safe. The comfort of it gives me a small boost of strength, enough that I ask the question that has been burning inside of me for years.

  “How do you convince them to follow you?”

  “You know, that’s a funny story,” he says and clasps his hands behind his back. “You could say I was divinely inspired…by you.”

  I almost tip over, but then I realize that he’s toying with me, a big Cheshire cat with tiny me under his paw.

  “After you killed that pretty boy Nicolas, I had to clean out his room. You remember Nicolas, don’t you? Our divine martyr.” War bows his head in mock sympathy. “He showed me the path. When I read his journals, his notes, the Lord spoke to me, changed my heart. Nicolas opened the path of Revelations, the path to the Rapture.”

  “You don’t actually believe any of it,” I accuse him.

  War is quiet, just for a second, but it unsettles me. War is not someone who parses his words. “I’m going to admit something to you,” he says. “Something I’ve only told Heather, but I feel like you and me have a special bond.” He affixes me with his dark eyes. “When I started this, I thought it was total bullshit. Diamond’s followers were in disarray, and I wanted to take over. Everyone always followed Nicolas like he pissed gold and flowers. I wanted that power, so I started preaching his sermons. And you know what happened?”

  “Your boob popped out,” I say.

  “People started following me. More and more of them. And when I looked out into their eyes, saw their faith shining through them, it made me believe. I realized that I was a tool of God.” His voice shifts to tones of wonderment. “Even though my heart is corrupt, even though I’m the same wicked bastard I’ve always been, I am still a divine instrument. I AM the prophet.”

  “Oh my God,” I say, because I always assumed it was an act, all the religiously inspired world domination War was spouting, but now I see that some twisted part of him actually believes.

  “As for why they follow me,” War continues, “that’s easy. I never had to convince my followers of anything. The truths I preach, that the world is corrupt, that angels are special, divine – these are things they already wanted to believe.”

  War takes a step across the white line of tape. “We all want to be special, Maya, and I think all of us secretly think the world is burning away, little by little. I give my brothers and sisters God’s permission to feed. To take life. I make it noble. They want to follow.”

  One more big step forward. I can almost reach him. Am I strong enough to kill him? I have to be. Suddenly he moves. Fast. I’d forgotten how fast a full, well-fed angel could move. His arms are around me, bear hugging me, drowning me in his woodsy cologne. He lifts me off the floor, and his mouth is on mine, hard, his tongue forcing its way through my lips. His skin is hot, rough against my face, and his tongue is like a writhing squid.

  I bite down ferociously, and he tosses me hard into the wall. I land in a crouch, chains tangled around my limbs, right leg exploding in pain. Blackness beats against my eyes, but I have to be ready. I have to kill the bastard if it’s the last thing that I do. I press my back against the wall and gather the loops of chains in my hands. I can strangle him, if only…but War is laughing, stepping back over the white line.

  “Still got plenty of attitude left. I like that, but you might want to conserve your energy.”

  I stay in my defensive crouch.

  Now the grin on those fat rubber lips turns malicious. “Have you figured it out yet? What she’s going to do with you? The great cleansing?”

  He sticks his tongue out, touches it, and sucks the blood off his finger. “I like it rough, but something tells me you won’t be able to put up much of a fight much longer. Maybe I’ll come back in a few days, see how if you have any spirit left.”

  Days?

  War walks toward the door, swings it open. I don’t see Square Head. Maybe War sent him away so he could stick his tongue down my throat in peace. He pauses right on the threshold.

  “Tarren. Gabe. Rain. Francesca. Lo.” He laughs, a big, forced laugh and pulls the door closed with a slam.

  ***

  Another day passes by, the wedge of sunlight from the window traveling farther and farther away from me across the room. Today I follow it, dragging my body forward, curling as much of myself into the light as I can to feel the faint buzz of energy that it gives me. Such a weak amount of energy, but the hunger grows loud, twisting my memories, flickering just on the edge of them. When the light slides across the white line of tape where I cannot follow, I retreat back to my corner, back to my bucket and the water bottles Square Head replenishes every morning.

  I understand the cleansing now, how useless it is to chase the sunlight.

  I curl up into the corner, careful with my throbbing right thigh, and turn my face into the corner of the room. Closing my eyes, I try to forget about the window, the sunlight that I cannot reach. Instead, I replay that night in the park over and over again, watch Gabe arc into the air on his swing, his laughter whooping after him. I count the 32 fireflies one by one.

  I feel the hum in my mind, the warm, soft care of his mental approach, before I hear Gem’s steps. I am not exactly sure anymore whether or not he is my enemy, so I crawl forward, push myself to my feet when I have enough space, and greet him standing when he walks through the door.

  Gem.

  Or what’s left of him. I know I’m staring, but the cancer has eaten away at him faster than even his robust healing powers can defeat it. Our biological father, Grand, pumped him full of angel bone marrow, enough to give Gem great and far-reaching abilities, but there was a price to pay. There’s always a price. His face is thin, hardly more than a skull wrapped in skin on an impossibly thin neck. His blue eyes look huge, set deep in their hollowed sockets.

  “I know how I look,” he says.

  “I can’t turn my brain off,” I tell him. “You’re just going to have to stop snooping if you don’t want to hear what I’m thinking.”

  He tactfully doesn’t mention the strong urine smell in the room, but he can’t shield the revulsion in his mind or the strong wave of pity that rolls through our mental bridge and laps at the edges of my mind.

  I can’t free you, he thinks to me.

  I didn’t expect you to. It’s foolish to lie to a psychic, I know, but I need this lie for me too.

  You were hoping, though.

  You don’t owe me anything. You already risked yourself by getting Gabe out.

  Gem shrugs. It was within my power, and I do owe you. For Fiona.

  I nod, remembering the tiny, fragile angel on her pretty farm in the middle of the Nevada desert. It’d been hard to convince Gabe to spare Fiona’s life and the lives of the two angels she protected even though he eventually believed that they didn’t feed on humans. Harder still to lie to Tarren and pretend that the farm was empty.

  I’ve been back there, twice, actually, I think to Gem.

  I know.

  Course you do. I tap my head.

  Fiona told me, Gem thinks to me. One of our members, Peter, he came and took a look at the set of mirrors you gave them, the Prism.

  I nod. I’d convinced Lo to make me a backup Prism, and as soon as it was done, I’d driven to Fiona’s farm. I remember how Raven’s face had split into the widest, most beautiful smile when I set up the Prism and directed a beam of concentrated sunlight into her body. Just thinking of the Prism makes my body vibrate with hunger.

  Peter’s been building them for our members, Gem continues. It’s making a difference. A big difference.

  Ironic, isn’t it? I think back at him. We’ve found a solution. A way for angels to live without killing humans. We’ve solved the great fight.

  Gem slowly shakes his head. It’s odd how much he looks like Grand and yet has none of our father’s proud bearing. I’ve been trying to convince War to see it that way, but he wants blood. He wants domination.

  I look at Gem, and try not to remember how few clothes I’m wearing in front of my half-brother. What are you doing here? With him?

  Gem slowly lowers himself to the ground. He moves like an old man, and I’m afraid for him, that even one small slip will shatter his bones. His eyes jump up to meet mine. I’m not that far gone.

  Out loud he says, “Time for you to give up your secrets.” He says it in a way like he’s trying to be intimidating, but nothing about it works. Not when his blond hair has flopped into his eyes and he looks out of breath just from sitting on the floor.

  I stare at him.

  Oh right, he thinks absently. I’m here to pump you for information. Play along.

  Square Head is just outside. I suppose he expects some entertainment.

  “I won’t tell you anything,” I growl at Gem, maybe a little over dramatically.

  “You don’t need to speak. I’ll find what I need on my own.” Gem gives me a wan smile and brushes back his hair. His is not a handsome face, not with that wide forehead and weak jaw, but when he smiles something happens. His face seems so comforting.

  Comforting. Well, that’s something, I suppose, he thinks to me.

  Have you been here the whole time? I ask. Then, a horrible realization comes crashing through the distracting hum of my hunger. Max! The word is as shrill as a scream in my mind. He’s been in my head, seeing my thoughts. What if he saw you? What you did in Peoria? How you saved Gabe? More anvils of obviousness are dropping. God, what if he saw Fiona’s farm and Raven?