11: Reading God's palms

"Liss?"

"Hello, Beatriz."

"What are you doing here?"

"You told me to visit. To surprise you."

She edged out the door a little bit, and leaned toward me.

"Now is not a good time," she said lowly.

"Why not?" I asked, slightly disappointed. Also slightly cold. I was without a winter jacket, since my usual one had been destroyed the previous night.

"Honey," called a voice from the interior of the house. "Who is it?"

Edward. Out of habit only, and not through any conscious thought, my lip curled in revulsion.

"That's why," Beatriz said. He appeared behind her in the crack of the door, and pulled it open entirely.

"Oh," he said jovially. "It's your degenerate brother!"

"We can't all marry rich," I said, smiling at him. He smiled back. It was more an exchange of bared teeth, really.

"Do let him in, darling," Edward said. "He's liable to freeze out there, and he'd make a most unattractive lawn ornament."

She rolled her eyes.

"Come inside already, Liss. I just asked our cook to make us lunch."

"Oh, no," Edward said. "Don't feed him. Strays keep coming back if you feed them."

"And that's how you domesticate them, dear," she said, before I could reply. "Sit down, Liss. We'll have tea, and those little sandwich things. You like those, right?"

"I'm not picky."

"Beggars can't be choosers, after all," Edward said. He'd taken a seat in the living room, and was picking up the newspaper. Beatriz tweaked his nose on her way past him into the kitchen, and I sat down in the chair I usually took. I sat silently, waiting for Beatriz's return, but it appeared that Edward wasn't done harassing me, yet.

"So," he said, lowering the newspaper, "You and Mabel had a good time, eh?"

"Oh, yes," I said. "We had a lovely little discussion about all of your finer points—for example, the ability to keep time. Most children learn that in third grade, Eddie—what happened?"

"Also, how is your employment situation at the moment? I heard that you scorned my secretarial position—"

"Twice, actually."

"—But have you got a job, now that your ice-cream truck season is over?"

"Yes, as a matter of fact."

"Yeah? They must have been pretty hard up for workers. Where at?"

"A soda shop."

"Oh, wow. That must pay even better than the truck."

"At least I know that I won't be begging fat old bastards for money to help me get my job back, in three years."

"At least the most important choice I have to make all day isn't, 'Should I give this ten year old her change in dimes and nickels, or quarters?'"

"Alister! Edward!"

Beatriz was standing in the doorway with a tray of sandwiches and an angry look. She stalked across the room and set the tray down on the small coffee table in front of me. "Now," she said, "we are all going to sit here, and eat lunch, and not insult each other, even if it kills both of you."

"It might," Edward replied.

"Edward," she growled, as a servant came into the room with a teapot and three cups. Beatriz arranged them on the table, and motioned Edward over. He came grudgingly. Beatriz put sandwiches onto plates, and then poured tea.

"So, Liss," she said, handing me a plate. "What have you been up to?"

"I'm just on my lunch break from work."

"Oh, are you? Do you like this job?"

"It's not bad."

"I bet it's easy for you, though, after the truck, right?"

"I bet it's not," Edward countered. "He can just ignore anyone he doesn’t feel like serving, in the truck. He can't do that in the shop."

"I don't ignore people, in the truck. If they want to buy something, I take their money. Really, you don't have much business sense, do you? You must have been out sick, when they covered that in school—it was the same day they went over how to tell time."

"Alister!" Beatriz said. "Be nice."

No one spoke for a bit. I ate my sandwich.

"So," Beatriz said, finally. "Did you hear about that big house-fire? You've heard of Hugo Hoffman, right Liss? Did you hear how his house burned completely to the ground?"

I sipped my tea. Edward watched me unabashedly.

"I heard a little," I said. "But I'm not quite clear on what happened to him. Or how they found the fire."

"Someone driving by saw the smoke. Hoffman lived way out of town. I always wondered about him," Edward said. "A bit eccentric, you know."

"Don't talk about him like that," Beatriz said. "He's dead."

"I doubt it, somehow," Edward said. "In fact, I almost bet that he set the fire himself. For fun. He probably faked his own death and escaped to a tropical island somewhere." I thrilled in this belief that Edward held—if Edward held it, surely more people did. "What do you think?" Edward asked us.

"Well, I didn't know him," I said primly.

"That's probably for the best," Beatriz said darkly. She looked up at me sharply. "He always reminded me a bit of Daddy."

"I really didn't know him, either," I said, and helped myself to another sandwich.

Beatriz nodded. Edward refrained from comment, but I could see that he'd thought of something biting to say in reply to that.

"They say it might be murder," Beatriz said after some time.

"Why would someone want to kill him?" I asked, and found myself wondering if anyone would have wanted to kill him.

"He was a tight-fisted devil," Edward mused. "But I doubt any of his employees would have done it. They all had a strange attachment to him. I could never understand why—"

"I would say the same of your employees, Eddie," I said from behind my teacup.

He gave me a fake smile.

"Cute. That's very cute. Anyway, as I was saying, I don't think an employee would have done him in. I think if anything, it was a robbery gone awry, if it was murder and arson—which I doubt. That's why I think it's so funny that they shut down the Reproduction Clinic to question those poor jerks."

"Interesting thought," Beatriz said appreciatively. "Don't you think, Liss?"

"Do you want an honest answer?"

She sighed. "Probably not."

"I do," Edward said, smiling in an amused manner, one that said all too clearly 'your words won't hurt me.'

"Oh, really?" I asked.

"Alister," Beatriz started to say, warningly, but I continued.

"In that case, Edward, I think that you're a blustering, egomaniacal sack of shit, and that you form your opinions based solely on what will make you sound more intelligent, or witty, without regard to actual basis in fact." I smiled as I said it.

Edward looked at me blandly for a second, then casually looked over to Beatriz.

"I want him out of this house," he said.

"Liss," Beatriz said. "If you don't show a little more respect, you're going to have to come back some other time."

"No," Edward said, standing. "I mean that. I want him out, right now."

"He doesn't mean anything by that, Edward. Really, he—"

"Of course he did!" Edward fumed. "I don't appreciate him saying things like that in front of you, Bee."

"Like what?" she asked.

"Like 'sack of shit?'" I wondered.

"It's nothing that his political opponents don't call him, is it?" she asked me, with laughter in her eyes.

"See?" Edward said accusatorily. "You only say things like that when he's around."

"She only says them when I'm around. She thinks them all the time."

At this, Beatriz did indeed laugh. And Edward got mad.

"Out," he said, in a final tone, pointing at the door. "Now."

"Oh, Edward," Beatriz started.

"I'm dead serious," he said.

For a second, nobody moved.

"I'll see you to the door," Beatriz said, and did.

"Visit later," she instructed me, once I stood outside. "Tomorrow, maybe. I'll take you to the movies, or somewhere."

I nodded.

The inside of my car was cold. And I wondered, if Edward chased me deep into the woods, would Beatriz come looking for me, even if he insisted that she not?

The second half of my day passed much more slowly than the first. My stomach had tightened into a knot of anticipation. I just had to make it to 9:30. 9:30.

At five o'clock, as we were closing, Sidney showed up. Perfunctory greetings were made between himself and Hugh, and then Hugh bowed out, leaving me to lock the back door.

"Awfully trusting, isn't he?" Sidney asked.

"What? It's not like I'm going to steal from him."

"But you could. And you can give me free ice cream."

"What did you come into town for?"

He grinned.

"A few last-minute supplies."

"Did you get them already?"

"No. I came to visit you first. See if I can get a ride home. I came in with Jack, but that was a long time ago, and I'm sure he's gone. And I couldn't find him, now, even if he wasn't."

"I don't care, you can come with me. What do you need to get?"

"Kerosene. Or something that burns."

"Ah. We don't have anything at home?"

"No. We did find all those old baseball bats, though. Those'll come in handy."

"I used cooking oil on Hoffman's house, you know."

"That would do. A little bit of both, maybe?"

"We don't really need it, do we?" I asked.

"Jack wants to be sure. Also… he wanted to make sure that you'd be armed, tonight."

I was a bit alarmed.

"Why? And let's go. I don't want to just stand in here." I started walking to the door, and Sidney followed.

"He's got a bad feeling," he explained. "About that kid, you know?—the one you killed. And his sister."

We stood in the alley behind the building, now.

"About Thistle?" I asked. "He doesn't have to worry about her. She's true."

"To you anyway."

"What?"

"If you're trying to hide it, Lory, you're not doing a good job," he said pointedly. "She likes you. You like her. She may say she's true, to keep you on her side, but who knows, really?"

"She's not like her brother," I said fiercely. More fiercely than I meant to. "I'm sure of it." And yet, there was a small, worrisome doubt at the back of my mind. Hadn't I distrusted her, at first? Hadn't I thought she seemed a little too eager to go back to the life she knew?

But, she'd only been with us for two weeks, after all. She'd barely had the time to adjust.

"I'm sure of it," I repeated, more softly.

Suddenly, Sidney threw an arm out in front of me, effectively stopping me in my tracks.

"Is that a person?" he whispered. "Look, huddled in the mouth of the alley. Is that a person?"

I squinted ahead. Yes, there was someone squatted down against the wall. Someone small—more a pile of rags, really, than a person.

"It's just some bum," I said. "Come on."

"They creep me out. Can we get out the other way?"

"No. It dead-ends. Come on, Sidney. It's not a big deal."

"Come on, let's go back through the soda shop and out the front, Lory."

"What's your problem, anyway? It won't bite you."

"…Fine."

He walked behind me toward the entrance of the alley. There was, suddenly, a strong smell of gardenias on the air as we approached the hunched figure. It triggered something in my mind—some memory.

"That smell," I started to say. "It's…"

"It's Gemma," Sidney hissed in my ear.

"That's right," the figure in front of us said, in a voice that crackled with both age and power, and I felt as if my legs had turned to slush. She turned her wizened face up at us and grinned. Her teeth were long, and crooked, and nearly orange, but she had all of them. "I've been waiting for you."

Sidney shrank further behind me, and grabbed at my shirt. Irritably, I shrugged him off.

"Waiting for us?" I asked, with more courage than I felt. "What for, old woman?"

She laughed. It was a confident laugh—rich with knowledge that she knew no one else possessed. She may have appeared to be a homeless crone, but she was a queen.

"Come out here," she commanded. "Step into the light, where I can see you."

We both obediently hurried past her, out of the alley and onto the sidewalk—perhaps not only because she had told us to, but also because it gave us a chance at escape, should it become necessary.

"What do you want from us?" I asked again, but this time I could not keep my voice from shaking. Gemma scared the piss out of me—pure and simple.

The first time I'd encountered her had been with Jack and Mink, back in the first few months that I'd joined. Right before Sidney had found us, actually. It had been somewhere around three in the morning, and she had been huddled in the doorway next to the bar that we were leaving. It had been a chilly October night, and Jack—in a fit of generosity—had given her his jacket.

I still remembered how she'd looked at us—her grey hair poking out wildly from underneath a stained kerchief, and her wide, staring eyes so light blue that they were nearly white, the pupils barely pinpricks, even through the only light came from a street-lamp above. And the smell of gardenias—girlish, and pure, and beautiful, and as alien on this hag as the plants themselves must be on the moon. And she'd looked at each of us in turn, as if she knew everything we'd ever done, or would do, or could hope to.

And then she had said, "Some day, I will repay you your kindness."

The next time I saw her, I was with Sidney and Mink. He had laughed, when she had told him of his impending fate.

Within twenty-four hours, he was dead.

"The shadows suit you better," she told us. "The sun will set, soon, and you'll be in shadows whether you want to be or not." She laughed. "I hope you like them."

"You said you'd been waiting for us," I said. I didn't know how I could speak at all. I was petrified of this woman who was more than a foot shorter than I was, and probably as frail as autumn leaves. But somehow, I doubted that I could harm her even if I wanted to. Even if I tried.

"And I was!" she replied. "Because I thought you should know."

Sidney clutched my arm. I glanced over at him. His eyes were wide, his lips slightly parted. He stared at Gemma liked a man hypnotized.

"Know what?" I asked.

"You are, both of you, treading a fine line. There's more to what you do than you know. The Shekinah—she sickens because of you. And she's not going to let you do this to her."

"What do you know about it?" I snapped, and she laughed again.

"Plenty," she replied. "You tread a fine line. A spider's web. And she carries a venom, when angered."

"Speak sense," I growled. "Or else just don't speak at all." The more terrified I became, the more inclined I became to speak brashly to her. As if I could intimidate her.

She laughed at me again.

"You want sense?" she asked in a voice that was suddenly lilting. "You ask for sense from me, when you can barely make sense of your own lives? You want sense from me, who speaks more sense while simply breathing than most do when reading from books considered wise? All right, my starry-eyed defender of mankind, and my saint who carried his own head six miles to witness the birth of a king. I'll give you sense: If you do not choose, now, to step out of the spider's web, one of you will be dead within the year."

And suddenly, Sidney laughed—a short, terrified laugh that reminded me of the noise a frightened horse makes.

"Within a year? That gives you a lot of room, doesn't it?"

"She said the year, Sidney," I informed him. "And it's November."

His eyes widened again.

"It will be a joyous death," she practically sang. "And you need not fear it. He who lives has more to fear, in fact, than he who dies." A smile crept over her features, like a shadow over the sun. "But isn't that always the case?" She threw her arms up, skyward. "But the night! The night is beautiful, and spinning all around us! Look up, my starry-eyed boy. Look up!"

And I did. And it was beautiful. So many stars. Milky white, and many pronged, and dancing, gyring to their own music. They were ageless—had always moved in this same pattern, to this same dance and generations of men had looked up at them, just as I did now, and wondered what they were doing up there, so far away—where they were going, why—and the crone's voice was as rapturous as the dance itself.

"She feels the cosmos," the woman intoned. "She feels the stars. She knows what you are about to do." Suddenly, her voice seemed to be right in my ear—as much as the stars were in my eyes—a whisper. "And she fears it not."

When I looked down, it seemed that an interminable amount of time had passed. But then I realized that it was not yet dark. There were no stars out. And Gemma was gone.

"We're going to die," Sidney whimpered.

"But not today," I said. And I believed it.

Laurence, being the oldest, was in the front seat. Lucas and Fabian sat in back with Holiday, who had become our fifth member after Ambrose's… disappearance.

They were silent. Holiday and Laurence—who had both done things like this before on a smaller scale—had tried to make small-talk for a little while, but had given up. It wasn't a talking moment. It was a time to contemplate what your life meant to you, because there was always a chance that you wouldn't walk away from something like this.

It was a forty minute drive, from our house and across town to the clinic. It was full night, now, and cold, and the stars were truly out.

Somehow, we'd gotten far ahead of everyone else. A way behind us I could see the headlights of Jack's van, and I could only assume that Sidney followed. I wondered how Thistle felt at that moment. What she was thinking?—about Ambrose? Did she feel guilt over him? Or was she thinking about something else?—her own mortality, perhaps. Or maybe she was looking out the window, up at the stars.

It was about 10:45 when we got to the clinic. I drove by, as instructed, and then made a U-turn when it became apparent that the building was indeed empty—as deserted as the street in front of it.

I parked in the lot behind the building—where the car was less likely to be seen by the odd concerned citizen who could be passing by—and we all got out of the car.

"Do we wait for Jack?" Lucas asked, and I shook my head.

"Get the explosives out of the trunk. The flashlights and other stuff, too. Remember, stay away from the windows, inside," I ordered no one in particular. I took the sheet of door codes that Jack had figured out and copied down out of my pocket, and found the code for the door that we'd parked closest to.

Lucas came back with the explosives and an armful of other potentially dangerous objects, including an old baseball bat, a sturdy walking stick, and a metal lamp that we'd picked up at a garage sale, sans shade and bulb.

I relieved him of the lamp, while Laurence and Holiday took the stick and baseball bat, respectively. We divided the explosives, and I opened the door just as Jack and Sidney pulled in.

"Good going, Lory," Jack said, leading his group past us, inside. Thistle smiled as she walked past, and I found that I wanted almost desperately to be going with her. To make sure that she'd be all right. I pushed the desire down, and instead led my own group in the door.

The building was dark, and quiet for a few seconds. Then, with a whoop, Jack kicked a hole in one of the building's wooden doors. And suddenly, it was chaos. Sidney's group hurried past us, to farther parts of the building. Jack's and my groups scattered, yelling to each other joyously and smashing at the walls, and disappearing into the depths of the building.

"At 12 o'clock midnight, the place goes up," Jack yelled. We'd been over all this before we left, which was good, as no one was paying attention now.

It was like recess at school after a day of testing. The Newly Dead were running wild, yelling, laughing, and destroying everything in their paths. It was loud, and destructive, and fun—a glorious release from the daily-endured pain of living among Devas.

"Lory!" Jack barked. "Either follow your group, or come find the labs with me." He turned, and ran down the hallway behind us, which the Newly Dead had ignored. After a second I followed his bobbing flashlight down the hall.

"Here," he said, stopping at last before a door. Unlike the rest of them, it was thick metal, and required a very complicated password that took him several tries to get in correctly. The sounds of happy shrieks had faded to far away, down the hallway.

Finally, the door opened—mechanically, like spaceship doors in movies, sliding away into the wall.

"Please ensure that proper hygienic equipment is in use," a woman's voice said mechanically from a speaker over the door.

"Screw you, lady," Jack said, and then, to me, "Are you ready?"

I nodded.

"This is what you've been waiting for, isn't it?" he asked.

Again I nodded.

"Come on, then," he said. "We'll make them understand."

I stepped through the door, and Jack followed, after jamming a chair from the closest office in the door so that it couldn't close again.

This main door opened into a short hallway which ended in a second door—with a second security code. Beyond this was a small circular room with four frosted glass doors. They glowed warmly, pink and yellow.

"Pick one," Jack said. I went into the first one—it seemed like an obvious choice.

An island workstation was in the middle—long, nearly from one end of the room to the other. It was covered in all manner of equipment—complicated looking machines, and more mundane microscopes and test tubes and computers.

I took a microscope, and threw it at one of the machines. Both of them broke with a satisfying crash. Behind me, Jack was pulling out drawers, and spilling their contents. I broke the rest of the microscopes, another unidentified machine, and a few computers. Jack left a fourteen on the workstation. Then we returned to the anteroom.

"My turn to pick," Jack said. "Let's see what's behind door number two."

As it turned out, doors two and three were much the same as the first room. We both left explosives in them, not bothering to waste more time destroying the machinery. The fire would do that for us.

"Last door," Jack said, back in the anteroom. This final door was the one that glowed pink. "You know what's in there, Lory," he continued.

I nodded, took a deep breath, and went inside.

We weren't, either of us, quite sure what we'd find in this last room. We had a vague idea, true. But nothing, ever, could have prepared me for what was actually inside.

"God," Jack breathed as we stepped in. And I could say nothing, only stare in horror.

They keep them in cubbies. Like a zoo. Like what they put reptiles and fish in at a pet-store—square, glass fronted containers. The pinkish light seemed to come from some sort of bulb within the tanks themselves.

And inside those tanks? Embryos. It was an embryo zoo.

"This is disgusting," Jack said. "I hadn't expected it to be this bad. It really is like a factory, like you said. Like they're mass-producing children."

I still could find no words to describe my loathing. And so, since actions speak louder, I instead swung the lamp still in my hand. It bit into the glass of the case nearest to me and shattered it, spilling the yellowish fluid that the embryos were suspended in out onto the floor. A smell like salt and blood and illness filled the air, and the embryo hung by its umbilical cord from the ceiling of its glass womb.

"May you be reborn the way God intended for animals to be born," I said softly.

"You didn't have to do that, Lory," Jack said lowly. "I told Magdalena—"

"I don't care what you told Magdalena!" I yelled, turning to him. "Would you leave them like this? Would you let them be boiled to death in their own juices when the fire comes through? It's better that we kill them now."

"They'll die anyway. …But do what you want. I won't stop you. But I won't stay to watch, either. Make sure that you're out front with your group by 11:50, Lory. Until then, go wild."

And for a while after he left, I did. I wasn't fully conscious, after the first swing, of what I was doing. Quickly, it became a mindless act of fury, with a knowledge that I was righting some wrong that had plagued me—had plagued us all—from time out of mind. Because these weren't babies, they were monsters created by scientists as mad as Dr. Frankenstein himself. And they had no parents, no mothers or fathers—they had people who had contributed genetic material, but who couldn't physically bear children. They'd traded the ability to have real children for the ability to feel the beings that were created in their image through a stream of energy and life. It was selfish. They'd taken away the bond between parent and child and replaced it with something untouchable and inexplicable. They'd traded a woman's womb for a box made of glass and plastic. Light through flesh and blood for pink light bulbs and nutrient broth. A loving hand for a pair of latex gloves and a stethoscope. They'd traded the way that nature had perfected over millions of years for a technique that someone had invented in the last two-hundred.

And so I smashed them all, until the floor was littered with broken glass and amniotic fluid, and the whole room reeked of it, and they all—hundreds of them—dangled from the ceilings of their cages—their tombs, their coffins—by their umbilical cords, like puppets without masters, and I was sick behind the single desk in the room, because it was disgusting. All of it.

After I recovered, I looked up at the clock on the wall. 11:40. Ten minutes.

I spit once more to get the taste of vomit out of my mouth, and said a quick mental prayer for the souls—indeed, if they had souls—of these beings. I wouldn't call them babies, or children—they were Devas, no matter what. And then I left a number 4 on the desk. It was my second explosive. So that they'd be cremated, at least.

As soon as I was out of the second lab door, I heard yelling. But not the pleasant, excited sound of before. No, this was panicked, frantic yelling. There was a voice that I didn't recognize, shouting over all of them, and then the strange, sickening noise of something cracking.

Self-preservation warred for a moment with group loyalty—I looked around for the closest exit. And discovered that it was the door that I had come in.

I couldn't see what was going on, but it appeared that someone had turned on a light in one of the main hallways ahead. It had better be urgent, I thought, to risk someone outside seeing the light.

And, as it turned out, it had been urgent. The Newly Dead were crowded around Jack Dandy and Sidney, and something that I couldn't see. The crowd parted to let me through.

On the floor, bleeding from his strangely lopsided head, was a Seraphim. My heart fluttered against my ribcage like a butterfly in a net.

"Lory," Jack said gravely.

"What happened?" I asked.

"What's it look like?" Jack snapped.

"I don't know," I confessed, wide-eyed. "Where did he come from?" He was a young man. I doubted if he was much older than I was.

"He came in the same door we did. Started yelling—I don't think he knew what was going on, at first. Then he realized, and made a break for the door. Sidney hit him with the tire iron."

"Is he dead, then?"

"Should be." Jack kicked him, and not softly. "He will be in… Seventeen minutes. So will we, if we don’t get out of here. Everybody! Groups! And hurry; who knows if he had reinforcements on the way!"

Laurence, Holiday, Fabian and Lucas clustered around me quickly. I glanced at Jack's group. Thistle leaned against the wall, biting her lower lip.

Before we left, I reached into my pocket and, grabbing my last explosive, threw it down the hallway and into the dark. Then I followed Sidney's group—leading my own—out to the parking lot.

Sidney's group was loading into his truck and Jack was coming out the door when I noticed something amiss.

"Jack," I said, turning to him, my heart leaping once again. "Something's wrong. It's too light out here."

His brow creased, and he gave me an are-you-an-idiot look. And then, as his eyes adjusted, he tensed.

"You're right," he said. He turned back to his group. "Everybody! Cars, now!"

Chaos ensued once more as all of the Newly Dead pushed to get out of the building and into their various vehicles. Sidney was out of his own truck again, however, and approaching us.

"What the hell is going on?" he yelled. "Let's hit it, already!"

After a moment of hesitation, Jack nodded.

"Yeah, let's get out of here, before whatever is about to happen happens."

He turned, and I started to, when a voice from behind us rang out:

"Stop right there!"

I looked around, trying to pinpoint the location of the voice, and saw Jack and Sidney doing the same out of the corner of my eye. We all seemed to realize at the same time that it was coming from behind us. It was a boy and a girl, and they'd been creeping about in the bushes planted outside of the clinic doors. They were maybe sixteen or seventeen years old. He had a sword, and even in the dim light, his hair sparkled gold.

Sachever, I realized. And behind him, Airial.

"Oh, Mother of God," I said. "It's just that kid I told you about—Sachever."

"So he didn't freeze to death," Sidney muttered.

"He's a little twit," I muttered.

"He's a little twit with a big sword," Jack said.

"What you're doing is wrong!" Sachever yelled at us.

"How does he even know what we're doing?" I wondered.

"Well," Jack shouted at them, "Whether it's right or wrong, you're going to be stone dead, if you don't get away from the building within about ten minutes. Come here. We'll talk. Or," he said, cracking his knuckles and raising the baseball bat that he carried, "fight, if you prefer."

"I'd planned on it!" Sachever said, jogging toward us.

And that was when I realized why it was so light outside: Sachever's sword was glowing.

"I… I can't let you get away with this," he said shakily,approaching the three of us. "What you're doing is evil, and you must be punished." He sounded like he was reading from a script.

Jack seemed to realize this, too, and visibly relaxed.

"Look, kid," he said. "I don't have a quarrel with you, and I'd rather not have to kill you right here—'cause you're an Animal, same as me, same as all of us. You're among friends, see?"

Airial, I noted, was still standing back a way from us. Letting Sachever do the work.

"I don't make friends with baby killers!" he shouted. "Or old man killers," he said, looking at me.

"He wasn't an old man," I said.

"And wouldn't that just be 'killers,' then?" Sidney wondered.

Sachever was looking increasingly nervous.

"So what are you gonna do?" Jack asked. "Run us through with your pointy stick, there? You'll be a killer, too, then." He smirked. "You would do it, too. You want to. I can see it in your eyes." He took a small step forward, and extended one supine hand slightly—a peace-making sort of gesture. "Have you ever thought," he continued, "that maybe you're on the wrong side? I can tell by looking at you that you've never gotten special treatment from Devas. They've stepped all over you, just like they've stepped all over us. Just like they've stepped all over all Animals. Don't you ever want to change that? That's all we're doing. We're just making sure that they can't hurt us anymore. Like they've hurt you, and your parents, and your grandparents. It's not wrong. It's justice. You don't have a problem with justice, do you?"

Sachever's resolve appeared to be wavering. He looked confused, and his sword stopped glowing, suddenly. I could understand—Jack's voice had become hypnotic and his reasoning was, of course, flawless.

"Why don't you put that sword down," Jack continued silkily, "and come with us?"

"No!" Airial shrieked from behind us. "Sachever, don't listen!"

Sachever's head snapped around to look at her, and then back to us. His eyes had hardened again, green diamonds.

Jack growled in wordless anger. "Get him!" he shouted at us.

Sidney and I moved toward Sachever as one, winding up lamp and tire iron, and ready to strike.

Sidney got to him first. He swung the tire iron around, and it clashed with Sachever's now-dull sword with a clang. Sidney, even with a far inferior weapon, was forcing Sachever's sword down.

"No so tough, are you, kid?" he sneered.

Sachever's arms shook.

"Believe in yourself," Airial shouted.

"But I can't!" Sachever yelled back. "Airial, help me!"

"Going to have your girlfriend fight us for you?" Sidney laughed. Suddenly, he swung the tire iron again, knocking the sword out of Sachever's hands.

"No!" the boy shouted. He and Sidney dove for the sword at the same time, and neither one could quite get it away from the other.

"Lory," Jack said lowly, "Get the girl."

So, while Sidney and Sachever grappled, I ran for Airial.

She was watching Sachever, and didn't realize what I was doing until it was too late. She saw me, and her eyes widened, and she started to run, but I caught her quickly around the waist, and pressed the blade of the knife I carried to her sweet throat. She screamed, but I barely noticed. She was so close to me that I could smell her hair again, and it was so wonderful—like flowers. Like girls are supposed to smell.

"Drop the sword," Jack was telling Sachever. "Or… Well," he continued cheerfully. "I'm sure you can use your imagination."

"Don't move around too much," I whispered to Airial. "Jack might not like that."

"You slimy, filthy, disgusting—" she started to say to me, but trailed off.

And Sachever didn't drop the sword. His eyes suddenly narrowed, and his shoulders heaved in breathlessness and anger.

"You can't do that!" he yelled. "That's cheating!"

Suddenly, the sword began to glow again. Not silver this time, as before, but pure gold.

"It's not cheating," Jack said chidingly, apparently not taking heed of this warning sign, "All's fair in—"

But he didn't finish the sentence, because Sachever roared a battle cry and charged him.

Jack, startled, was driven backward by the initial force of Sachever's attack. He was only saved by the metal little-league baseball bat that he still carried. The sword bit halfway through it before grinding to a halt.

"Kill her, Lory!" Jack yelled.

And again I was torn. I didn't want to kill her. I didn't want to cut a slit in her pretty neck, and she shook like a leaf in my arms—how could I kill her?

"Do it, Lory!" Jack yelled, more panicked this time. "Kill him, kill someone!"

At the exact moment that he finished saying it, Sidney's watch went off.

"Shit, that's the timer," Sidney said over it, quite calmly, and then the building exploded. With a deafening boom, hunks of plaster and stucco and tile sailed past us. A piece of something hit my back, causing me to stumble forward and lose my hold on Airial. She was gone in a second, to Sachever. Seeing that this had caused enough distraction for Jack to make it away from Sachever, Sidney and I took off running for our own cars.

"Why the hell didn't you all do something?" I yelled at Laurence as I jumped into the driver's seat. I jammed the key into the ignition and peeled out of the parking lot after Sidney. He turned right, toward home, and I turned left.

"What are you doing?" Laurence asked, scared.

"Taking another route home, idiot," I growled. "There'll be police all over, and fire-trucks." Out of the corner of my eye, I could see the light from the flames, reaching up toward the sky, like some brilliant blossom reaching toward the sun.

"Who were those people?" he asked. "We didn't know what was going on. After the Seraphim, too, I mean…"

"We didn't know what was going on, either. …I should've just killed him, like Jack said."

"Hindsight's a bitch," Lucas said.

"Shut up," I snapped.

There was silence the rest of the way home.

And, despite everything that had gone wrong, Jack was happy. And since he was happy, he decided to share with us and the Newly Dead the sweets that I'd taken from Hoffman's house, and also the stores of his personal liquor cabinet.

It was just turning into a real little party when Thistle pulled me aside.

"Lory," she said, "come take a walk with me."

"A walk?" I asked, laughing. "Why would you want to go outside? It's warm in here."

"I know, but, I want to talk to you. Please."

She looked so serious, and I couldn't think of why she ought to. Things had gone reasonably well, after all. None of us had been caught, or hurt, or anything like that.

"What's wrong?" I asked.

"N-nothing, really. I just want to be alone with you for a bit."

After a second of hesitation I nodded, and followed her out the back door.

"Lory," I heard Jack say, but—for once in my life—I pretended that I hadn't, and walked on.

I would regret that, later.

It was cold outside—two in the morning, and with a biting chill in the air that crept into my throat and stung.

"Let's go to the barn," Thistle said. "It ought to be a little warmer in there, anyway."

"Not with that big hole in the roof," I said, but followed her anyway. And then caught up, so that I could look down at her—at the way the darkness had settled over her features. Where it had pooled along the edge of her nose, and in the depths of her eyes.

She must have felt me looking at her, because she glanced up, and smiled. I smiled back down at her. The house slipped away into a fading dream behind me and there was only her. I reached down and found her hand. Her fingers felt small and thin and cold between my own. Like they might snap, like twigs.

She opened the barn door and slipped inside like a shadow. I followed, and closed the door. Although there had been no hay or animals in the barn for decades, that was still the smell that it held—and even though the barn was not especially warm, it was a warm scent, anyway.

"What did you want to talk about?" I asked.

"Can we go in the hay loft?" she wondered.

"Sure. There's a ladder against the wall, see?" I retrieved it, and with some difficulty maneuvered it into position. I held it while Thistle climbed up, and she returned the favor from the top. Once I was up she lay back, looking through the hole in the roof.

"The stars are out," she said.

"I noticed that," I said, laying down beside her and also looking up.

There was a quiet moment, and then she sighed.

"It's not that there's anything wrong, really," she said.

"No?"

"Lory, what does Jack think of me? Does he think I'm loyal?"

"I… I don't know."

"You don't?"

"I mean, I do, a bit. He must think you're loyal. Otherwise you'd be dead."

"Are you sure?" she asked. Fear was evident in her voice. "I mean, I was wondering, after what Ambrose did. But I didn't go after him, right? I did like you told me to, and stayed… stayed in the house, so that must count for something, right?"

"Yes," I said, and reached out for her hand again. "Why?"

"The way he looked at me, tonight. Especially when that Seraphim came. He kept looking at me as though it were my fault, somehow."

"I'm sure it's nothing," I said. But wasn't sure at all, really. Because she'd challenged his authority, by asking questions, and by having better answers than his were. No. I wasn't sure at all.

"Really?" she asked.

"Yes," I lied, and then turned my head away from the stars to look at her, and smiled. "Don't worry."

"I can't help it."

"Don't, Thistle. He won't do anything to you."

"How do you know he won't?"

I smiled again. "Because I won't let him."

She smiled, then, too, and squeezed my hand, and scooted closer to me.

"I've never had anyone say something like that to me, before," she said, smiling slightly.

"And I've never said it to anyone else."

Her smiled widened.

"Really?"

"Yes, really. You're different from anyone I've ever met."

"Is that a good thing?" she giggled.

I pushed myself up on one elbow, and looked down at her.

"Yes," I said honestly. "It is."

"How am I different?" she asked, reaching up to play with a lock of my hair.

"I'm not sure," I confessed. "Really, Thistle, you're argumentative. You challenge things, and people. Things I wouldn't even think of, normally…" I trailed off, thinking.

"And that's a good thing?" she asked skeptically.

"Yes! I mean…" I lifted one hand to run my fingers along the side of her face. She smiled, and closed her eyes, and I continued. "I like being with you. I think… I mean, when I am with you, it's as though other things aren't as important. It's like I can forget how bad things are."

"What do you mean?"

"I'm sorry. I'm trying to be clear. I'm no good at things like this."

"It's fine," she said, opening her eyes and smiling. "I just don't know what you mean."

"I mean that I just forget about how bad things are. Even when I'm talking with you about it. About why we need to destroy all of the Devas. It just doesn't seem so important, when you're with me. Because you're with me."

"That's sweet," she said, smiling, and I traced her lips with a finger, and then her chin, her jaw, and down her throat.

"It's the truth," I said, finally.

"I wouldn't have expected it from you."

"Expected it from me?" I asked teasingly. "It's your fault."

"My fault?" She pushed herself up on her elbows, so that our faces were only inches apart.

"Yes. Because you're so loveable."

"Loveable, am I?"

"Yes."

She laughed.

"You too."

Our lips met, and she tangled her hands in my hair and pulled me down on top of her.

"You're so forward," I breathed, when we parted.

"Why are you still talking?" she asked, exasperated.

So I shut up.