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Who will guard against the guardians?
But the thing that really convinces me that the apocalypse is here is the crunching of smartphones under my feet. Nothing short of the end of the world would get our eco-conscious techies to toss their latest gadgets onto the street.
The smart thing to do would be for us to grab it and run, then eat it in a safe place. But I’ve learned in the past few weeks that your stomach can pretty easily override your brain.
It’s one of the fliers from the apocalypse cults that sprang up like pimples on greased skin after the attacks.
The hybrid car I was aiming for suddenly crumples under the weight of something crashing down on it. The thunder of the crash almost makes me jump out of my boots. Luckily, it covers Mom’s scream. I catch a flash of tawny limbs and snowy wings. An angel. I have to blink to make sure it’s real.
Men with wings. Angels of the Apocalypse. Supernatural beings who’ve pulverized the modern world and killed millions, maybe even billions, of people.
And here’s one of the horrors, right in front of me.
These angels look like the type to be heavily scarred by battle wounds, but instead they have the kind of perfectly unmarred skin prom queens around the country would kill their prom kings for.
The bloodied angel must have one hell of a reputation because despite his condition, the perfectly healthy and beefy Burnt slams his sword back into his sheath.
In a civilized world where there are laws, banks, and supermarkets, being a paranoid schizophrenic is a major problem. But in a world where the banks and supermarkets are used by gangs as local torture stations, being a little paranoid is actually an advantage. The schizophrenic part, though, is still a problem.
Crazy women can sometimes fend for themselves on the streets, while wheelchair-bound little girls never can.
All I want to do is throw a tantrum like a two-year-old.
“Can you keep it down? I’m trying to sleep.” His voice is raw and full of pain, but somehow, he still manages to inject a certain level of condescension.
Someone stabbed a dead body for reasons only the insane can fathom. My mother has found me.
We now play a permanent game of I-am-crazier-and-scarier-than-you. And in that game, my mother is our secret weapon.
My mother doesn’t usually lie, but she does have a habit of being vaguely evasive.
“Penryn? Who are you talking to?” My mother sounds almost frantic now. “Just my own personal demon, Mom. Don’t worry. He’s just a little weakling.”
“Oh.” She sounds calm suddenly, as if that explained everything. “Okay. Don’t underestimate them. And don’t make them promises you can’t keep.” I can tell by her fading voice as she says this that she’s reassured and walking away. The baffled look the angel shoots at the door makes me chuckle. He glances my way, giving me a you’re-weirder-than-your-mom look.
My mother is nowhere to be seen, and I can only assume she is giving me the professional courtesy of letting me deal with my “personal demon” in private.
I shove the horrible, screaming images in my head into the dark, silent place in my mind that is getting deeper and more crowded each day. One day soon, the things I stuff in there will burst out and infect the rest of me. Maybe that will be the day the daughter becomes like the mother. Until then, I am still in control.
I see the angel rolling his eyes heavenward, like a teenager in the presence of overwhelming lameness.
He nods appreciatively as though he sees something he likes. I let myself have an internal tongue-lashing when I realize I’m pleased by his approval.
When he sees the sword, his face breaks into a glorious smile as if it’s a long-lost friend rather than a pretty piece of metal. His look of sheer joy stops my breath for a moment.
“I saved your life,” I say. He arches an eyebrow. “Questionable.” “Twice.”
Either he really is exhausted, or he’s decided to just let me carry it for him like a knight’s little squire. By the way he glances at the sword with a half grin, I’m guessing it’s the latter reason.
“Here, I’ll show you how to use it. Let me see your foot.” “That’s a pretty intimate demand in the angel world. It usually takes dinner, some wine, and sparkling conversation for me to give up my feet.”
“Raffe sounds like Raw Feet. Coincidence?” That gets a smile out of him. When he smiles, he really does look like someone you’d want to get to know. Some otherworldly handsome guy a girl could dream about. Only he’s not a guy. And he’s too otherworldly.
He leans back and gives me a bad boy, devil-may-care shrug.
But the truth is that we’re all just stumbling around in the dark. Sometimes we hit something terrible.”
“Sometimes, as we’re stumbling along in the dark, we hit something good.”
“Why were the other angels attacking you?” “It’s impolite to ask the victim of violence what they did to be attacked.”
I’m not out to save the world, just my sister.
“Hush. Shhh,” a soothing voice whispers in my ear. I feel the sofa cushions being pulled out from against my back. Then warmth envelops me. Firm muscles embrace me from the space where the cushions used to be. I’m groggily aware of masculine arms wrapping themselves around me, their skin soft as a feather, their muscles steel velvet. Chasing away the ice in my veins and the nightmare. “Shhh.” A husky whisper in my ear. I relax into the cocoon of warmth and let the sound of the rain on the roof lull me back to sleep.
When I open my eyes, the morning light makes me wish I hadn’t. Raffe lies on his sofa, watching me with those dark blue eyes. I swallow, suddenly feeling awkward and unkempt. Great. The world has come to an end, my mother is out there with the street gangs, crazier than ever, my sister has been kidnapped by vengeful angels, and I’m concerned that my hair is greasy and my breath smells bad.
But I don’t want to think about that—I don’t know how to think about that—so I shove it down into that dark, overstuffed place in my mind that’s threatening to burst any moment now.
I’ve heard plenty of wacky things in my time and you just have to learn to roll with them without directly challenging the person spewing the weirdness. Challenging weirdness is a pointless and sometimes dangerous exercise.
What I would do with angel intel, I don’t know. But it can’t hurt to gain a little knowledge. Tell that to Adam and Eve.
“So long as you don’t bleed in the shape of wing joints, you should pass for human. Oh, and don’t let anyone pick you up. They’ll know you’re not right as soon as they feel how light you are.” “I’ll be sure not to let anyone but you carry me in her arms.”
A sense of humor is one more thing I don’t think angels should have. The fact that his sense of humor is corny makes it even more wrong.
I catch myself humming what I thought was a meaningless tune. I stop when I realize it’s my mother’s apology song.
“I never kid about my warrior demigod status.” “Oh. My. God.” I lower my voice, having forgotten to whisper. “You are nothing but a bird with an attitude. Okay, so you have a few muscles, I’ll grant you that. But you know, a bird is nothing but a barely evolved lizard. That’s what you are.”
“I’ll have you know that I’ve been this perfect since the beginning of time.” He is so close that his breath caresses my ear. “Oh, please. Your giant head is getting too big for this forest. Pretty soon, you’re going to get stuck trying to walk between two trees. And then, I’ll have to rescue you.” I give him a weary look. “Again.”
Raffe makes a low sound in his throat that reminds me of a dog’s growl.
The moonbeams filtering through the window are bright enough to show the leader watching Raffe with the intensity of a wolf watching a rabbit. Or maybe it’s like a rabbit watching a wolf. But Raffe says nothing.
Your sense of judgment could use a dash of common sense.”
“My friends call me Wrath,” says Raffe. “My enemies call me Please Have Mercy.
“In case you hadn’t noticed, the whole world has gone crazy. It’s time to adapt or die.” “By throwing crazy at crazy?”
I might regularly open my mouth without thinking, but I never start a fight without consulting my brain.
When you’re small enough to have to look up at everyone around you, there’s no such thing as a dirty fight. That’s a new motto for me. I think I’ll keep it.
His grin turns boyish. “Assuming you don’t clock an angel for pissing you off.”
