MY MIND swirls with what I just heard. Not even the angels know why they are here. Does that mean there’s room to convince them that they should leave? Could Raffe be the key to igniting an angel civil war? My mind stretches to make sense of angel politics and the opportunities it might present.
But I rein in my thoughts. Because none of it will help me find Paige.
“You spend all that time talking to him, and ask only one question about my sister?” I glare at him. “He knows something.”
“Only enough to be cautious.”
“How would you know? You didn’t even pump him for information.”
“I know him. Something has him spooked. This is as far as he’ll go for now. And if I push, he won’t even go that far.”
“You don’t think he’s involved?”
“In kidnapping children? Not his style. Don’t worry. It’s damned near impossible to keep a secret among angels. We’ll find someone who’s willing to tell.”
He heads for the door.
“Are you really an archangel?” I whisper.
He gives me a cocky grin. “Impressed?”
“No,” I lie. “But I have some complaints I’d like to file about your personnel.”
“Talk to middle management.”
I follow him out the door, giving him my death-by-glare expression.
AS SOON as we push through the club’s double doors, we’re out of the stifling heat and noise. We head into the cool marble foyer toward a row of elevators. We take the long way through the room, staying near the walls where the shadows are thickest.
Raffe makes a quick stop at the check-in counter. A blond servant stands behind it in a suit like a robot, as though his mind is elsewhere until we come near him. As soon as we’re in smiling range, his face animates into a courteous and professional mask.
“What can I do for you, sir?” Up close, his smile looks a little stiff. His eyes, although deferential when looking at Raffe, turn cold when he looks at me. Good for him. He doesn’t like working for the angels, and he likes humans cozying up to them even less.
“Give me a room.” Raffe’s arrogance dial is cranked all the way up. He stands at his full height and doesn’t bother to do more than glance at the man as he talks. Either he wants the clerk intimidated enough to not ask any questions, or all the angels behave like that toward humans and he doesn’t want to be remembered as being different. I’m guessing both.
“The top floors are already all taken, sir. Will something a little lower be all right?”
Raffe sighs as though that’s an imposition. “Fine.”
The clerk glances my way, then scribbles something in his old-fashioned ledger. He hands Raffe a key and says we’re in room 1712. I want to ask for an extra one for me, but think better of opening my mouth. Based on the women trying to find escorts into the building, I have a suspicion that the only humans allowed to move around on their own are the servants. So much for asking for my own room.
The clerk turns to me and says, “Feel free to take the elevator, miss. The power is reliable here. The only reason we use keys instead of electronic cards is because the masters prefer it.”
Did he actually call the angels “the masters”? My fingers turn cold at the thought. Despite my determination to grab Paige and get the hell out of here, I can’t help but wonder if there’s anything I can do to help bring down these bastards.
It’s true that their control of what was once our world boggles my mind. They can power lights and elevators and ensure a steady supply of gourmet food. I suppose it could be magic. That seems to be as good an explanation as any these days. But I’m not quite ready to throw away centuries of scientific progress to start thinking like a medieval peasant.
I wonder if, a generation from now, people will assume everything in this building is run by magic. I clench my teeth at the thought. This is what the angels have reduced us to.
I take a good look at Raffe’s perfectly formed profile. No human could look that good. Just one more reminder that he’s not one of us.
I catch a glimpse of the clerk’s face as I look away. His eyes warm just enough to let me know that he approves of the grim look on my face when I look at Raffe. Smoothing his face back to polite professionalism, he tells Raffe to call on him should he need anything.
The short elevator hall leads to a vast open area. I take a quick peek after pushing the button for the elevator. Above me are rows and rows of balconies that go all the way up to the glass domed ceiling.
Angels circle above, flying in short hops from floor to floor. An outer ring of angels spirals up, while an inner ring of angels spirals down.
I suppose they do this in order to avoid collisions, just the way our traffic patterns look organized from above. But despite its practical origins, the total effect is a stunning array of celestial bodies in a seemingly choreographed air ballet. If Michelangelo had seen this in daylight with the sun streaming down from the glass dome, he’d have fallen to his knees and painted ’til he was blind.
The elevator doors slide open with a ding, and I tear my eyes away from the splendor above me.
Raffe stands beside me watching his peers flying. Before he shutters his eyes, I catch something that might have been despair.
Or longing.
I refuse to feel bad for him. Refuse to feel anything for him other than anger and hatred for the things his people have done to mine.
But the hatred doesn’t come.
Instead, sympathy trickles into me. As different as we are, we are in many ways kindred spirits. We’re just two people striving to get our lives back together again.
But then I remember that he is, in fact, not a person at all.
I step into the elevator. It has the mirror, wood paneling, and red carpet you’d expect from an elevator in an expensive hotel. The doors start to slide shut with Raffe still standing outside. I put my hand out to keep the doors open.
“What’s wrong?”
He glances around self-consciously. “Angels don’t go into elevators.”
Of course; they fly to their floors. I playfully grab his wrists and spin him in a drunken circle, giggling for the benefit of any who might be watching. Then, I waltz us both into the elevator.
I press the button for the seventeenth floor. My stomach lurches with the elevator at the thought of having to escape from such a high place. Raffe doesn’t look so comfortable either. I suppose an elevator might seem like a steel coffin to someone who’s used to flying the open sky.
When the door opens, he quickly steps out. Apparently, the need to get out of a coffinlike machine takes precedence over the issue of being seen coming out of an elevator.
The hotel room turns out to be a full suite with a bedroom, a living room, and a bar. It’s all marble and soft leather, plush carpet and picture windows. Two months ago, the view would have been breathtaking. San Francisco at its finest.
Now it makes me want to weep at the panoramic view of charred destruction.
I walk over to the window like a sleepwalker. I lean into it with my forehead and palms on the cool glass the way I might with my father’s gravestone.
The charred hills are strewn with leaning buildings like broken teeth in a burned jawbone. Haight-Ashbury, the Mission, North Beach, South of Market, Golden Gate Park, all gone. Something breaks deep within me like glass being crunched underfoot.
Here and there, plumes of dark smoke reach into the sky like the fingers of a drowning man reaching up for the last time.
Still, there are areas that don’t look completely burned, areas that could house small neighborhood communities. San Francisco is known for its neighborhoods. Could some of them have survived the onslaught of asteroids, fires, raiders, and disease?
Raffe pulls the curtains closed around me. “I don’t know why they left the curtains open.”
I know why. The maids are human. They want to mar this illusion of civilization. They want to make sure no one ever forgets what the angels did. I would have left the curtains open too.
By the time I pull myself away from the window, Raffe is hanging up the phone. His shoulders sag as exhaustion seems to finally catch up with him. “Why don’t you hit the shower? I just ordered some food.”
“Room service? Is this place for real? It’s hell on Earth now and you guys order meals through room service?”
“Do you want it or not?”
I shrug. “Well, yeah.” I’m not even embarrassed by my double standard. Who knows when I’ll get another meal? “What about my sister?”
“In due time.”
“I don’t have time, and neither does she.” And neither do you. How much time do we have before the freedom fighters hit the aerie?
As much as I want the resistance to hit the angels as hard as possible, the thought of Raffe being caught in the attack churns my stomach. I’m tempted to tell him about seeing resistance fighters here, but I squelch that idea as soon as it comes. I doubt he could stand by and not set off the alarm for his people any more than I could if I knew the angels were attacking the resistance camp.
“Okay, Miss Short-on-Time, where would you like to look first? Should we start on the eighth floor or the twenty-first? How about the roof, or the garage? Maybe you could just ask the clerk at the desk where they might be holding her. There are other intact buildings in this district. Maybe we should start with one of them. What do you think?”
I’m horrified to find that my determination is melting into tears. I keep my eyes wide open to stop them from falling. I will not cry in front of Raffe.
His voice loses its edge and turns gentle. “It will take time to find her, Penryn. Being clean will keep us from being noticed, and being fed will give us strength to search. If you don’t like it, the door is right there. I’ll take my shower and eat while you search.” He heads for the bathroom.
I sigh. “Fine.” I stab my heels along the carpet past him to the bathroom. “I’ll shower first.” I have the good grace not to slam the bathroom door.
The bathroom is a quiet statement of luxury in fossil stone and brass. I swear it’s bigger than our condo. I stand under the hot spray and let the grime wash away. I never thought a hot shower and hair wash could be so luxurious.
During long minutes under the shower spray, I can almost forget how much the world has changed and pretend I’ve won the lottery and am staying the night in a penthouse in the city. The thought doesn’t bring me as much comfort as remembering life in our little suburban house back before we moved into the condo. Dad was still taking care of us then and Paige hadn’t lost her legs yet.
I wrap myself in a plush towel that qualifies more as a blanket. For lack of anything better, I slip back into the slinky dress, but decide the hose and heels can sit in the corner until I need them.
When I come out into the bedroom, a tray of food sits on the table. I run over and lift the domed cover. Boneless short ribs smothered in sauce, creamed spinach, mashed potatoes, and a hefty slice of German chocolate cake. The smell almost makes me faint with pleasure.
I dig in first and sit down as I chew. The fat content of this meal must be out of this world. In the old days, I would have tried to stay away from all of these dishes, except maybe the chocolate cake, but in the land of cat food and dried noodles, this meal is to die for. It’s the best meal I can ever remember having.
“Please, don’t wait for me,” says Raffe as he watches me stuff my face. He grabs a bite of the cake on his way to the bathroom.
“Don’t worry,” I mumble through a mouthful, at his back.
By the time he comes back out, I’ve scarfed down my entire meal and am having a hard time trying not to steal some of his. I tear my eyes away from the feast to look at him.
Once I see him, I forget all about the food.
He stands in the bathroom doorway, steam drifting languidly around him, wearing nothing but a towel draped loosely around his hips. Beads of water cling to him like diamonds in a dream. The combined effect of the soft light behind him from the bathroom and the steam curling around his muscles gives the impression of a mythological water god visiting our world.
“You can have it all, you know,” he says.
I blink a few times, trying to grasp what he’s saying.
“I figured we might as well double up on our meals while we can.” There’s a knock at the door. “There’s my order now.” He heads out to the living room.
He’s talking about both servings in front of me being mine. Right. Of course he’d want his dinner hot. No reason to leave it cooling while he showered, so he must have ordered mine, then his, just before I got out of the shower. Of course.
I return my attention to the food, trying to remember how badly I lusted after it only a moment ago. The food. Right, the food. I shovel in a giant mouthful of the rib meat. The creamy sauce is a sensual reminder of rare luxuries once taken for granted.
I walk out into the living room and talk with my mouth full. “You’re a genius for ordering this much—”
The albino, Josiah, walks into the living room with the most beautiful woman I have ever seen. I finally get to see a female angel up close. Her features are so fine and delicate that it’s impossible not to stare. She looks like she was the mold for Venus, Goddess of Love. Her waist-length hair shimmers in the light as she moves, matching the golden plumage of her wings.
Her cornflower blue eyes would be the perfect reflection of innocence and all that is wholesome, except that there’s something sliding behind them. Something that hints that she should be the poster child for the master race.
Those eyes assess me from the top of my wet and stringy hair to the tips of my bare toes.
I become acutely aware that I was overenthusiastic when I shoveled the rib meat into my mouth. My cheeks bulge and I can barely keep my lips closed as I chew as fast as I can. Rib meat is not something I can swallow in one lump. I hadn’t bothered to brush my hair, or even dry it before diving into the feast after my shower, so it hangs limp and dripping onto my red dress. Her Aryan eyes see it all and judge me.
Raffe gives me a look and rubs his finger on his cheek. I swipe my hand across my face. It comes away smeared with meat sauce. Great.
The woman turns her eyes to Raffe. I have been dismissed. She gives him a long appraising look as well, drinking in his near-nakedness, his muscular shoulders, his wet hair. Her eyes slide over to me in a quick accusation.
She steps close to Raffe and runs her fingers down his glistening chest.
“So, it really is you.” Her voice is as smooth as an ice cream shake. A shake with ground glass hidden in it. “Where have you been all this time, Raffe? And what have you done to deserve getting your wings cut off?”
“Can you sew them back on, Laylah?” asks Raffe stiffly.
“Straight to business,” says Laylah, strolling over to the picture window. “I make room for you in my busy schedule at the last minute, and you can’t even ask me how I am?”
“I don’t have time for games. Can you do it or not?”
“In theory, it can be done. Assuming all the stars align, of course. And there are a lot of stars that need to align for it to work. But the real question is, why should I?” She throws back the curtains, shocking my eyes again with the panoramic view of the destroyed city. “After all this time, is there any chance you haven’t been lured to the other side? Why should I help the fallen?”
Raffe walks to the counter where his sword lies. He slides the blade out from the scabbard, managing to make the gesture non-threatening, which is quite a feat considering the sharpness of the double edge. He flips it in the air and catches it by the handle. He slaps the blade back into its sheath while watching Laylah expectantly.
Josiah nods. “Okay. His sword hasn’t rejected him.”
“Doesn’t mean she won’t,” says Laylah. “Sometimes they cling to loyalty longer than they should. Doesn’t mean—”
“It means everything it’s supposed to mean,” says Raffe.
“We’re not made to be alone,” says Laylah. “No more than wolves are made to be solo. No angel can endure such solitude for long, even you.”
“My sword hasn’t rejected me. End of discussion.”
Josiah clears his throat. “About those wings?”
Laylah glares at Raffe. “I don’t have kind memories of you, Raffe, in case you’d forgotten. After all this time, you show up in my life again with no warning. Making demands. Insulting me by flaunting your human toy in my presence. Why should I do this for you instead of sounding the alarm and letting everybody know you had the nerve to come back?”
“Laylah,” says Josiah nervously. “They’d know it was me who helped him.”
“I’d keep you out of it, Josiah,” says Laylah. “Well, Raffe? No arguments? No pleas? No flattery?”
“What do you want?” asks Raffe. “Name your price.”
I’m so used to him taking charge of a situation, so used to his pride and control that it’s hard for me to see him like this. Tense, and under the power of someone who’s behaving like a scorned lover. Who says celestial beings can’t be petty?
Her eyes slide to me as if she wants to say her price is to have me killed. Then she looks back at Raffe, weighing her options.
Someone knocks on the door.
Laylah stiffens in alarm. Josiah looks like he’s just been condemned to Hell.
“It’s just my dinner,” says Raffe. He opens the door before anyone can scramble away.
In the doorway stands Dee-Dum, looking professional and detached even though he can’t miss seeing all of us in one glance. He’s still in his butler’s outfit with the coattails and white gloves. Beside him is a cart bearing a silver-domed tray and silverware laid out on a folded napkin. The room fills once more with the scents of warm meat and fresh vegetables.
“Where would you like this, sir?” asks Dee-Dum. He shows no sign of recognition, no judgment about Raffe’s near nakedness.
“I’ll take it.” Raffe picks up the tray. He also shows no sign of recognition. Maybe Raffe never noticed the twins at the camp. There’s no doubt that the twins noticed Raffe.
As the door closes, Dee-Dum bows but his eyes never stop tracking the scene in the room. I’m sure he has every detail, every face, memorized.
Raffe never turns his back to him to show his scars, so Dee-Dum might still think him human. Although I wonder if he saw Raffe at the club with his wings displayed through his jacket slits. Either way, Obi’s people can’t be happy that two escaped “guests” of their camp ended up in the company of angels at the aerie. I wonder if Raffe were to jerk the door open right now, would we find Dee-Dum with his ear to the door?
Laylah relaxes a little and seats herself on a leather chair, like a queen taking her throne. “You appear uninvited, eat our food, make yourself at home in our place like a rat, and you have the nerve to ask for help?”
I meant to keep quiet. Getting back his wings is as important to Raffe as rescuing Paige is to me. But watching her lounge in front of a panoramic view of the charred city is too much for me.
“It’s not your food, and it’s not your place.” I practically spit out the words.
“Penryn,” says Raffe in a warning voice as he puts the tray down on the bar.
“And don’t insult our rats.” My hands clench tight enough to score nail marks on my palms. “They have a right to be here. Unlike you.”
The tension is so thick I wonder if it’ll smother me. I may have just blown Raffe’s chance to get his wings back. The Aryan looks like she’s ready to break me in half.
“Okay,” says Josiah in a soothing voice. “Let’s just take a timeout here and focus on what’s important.” Of all of them, he looks the most evil with his bloodred eyes and unnaturally white everything else. But looks aren’t everything. “Raffe needs his wings back. Now all we need to do is figure out what Beautiful Laylah can get out of this, and we’ll all be happy. That’s all that matters, right?”
He looks at each of us. I want to say I won’t be happy, but I’ve said enough.
“Great, so Laylah,” says Josiah. “What can we do to make you happy?”
Laylah’s lashes sweep down coyly over her eyes. “I’ll think of something.” I have no doubt that she already knows her price. Why be coy about it? “Come to my lab in an hour. It’ll take me that long to prepare. I’ll need the wings now.”
Raffe hesitates like a man about to sign a deal with the devil. Then he walks back into the bedroom, leaving me to be stared at by Laylah and Josiah.
The hell with it. I follow after Raffe. I find him in the bathroom, wrapping his wings in towels.
“I don’t trust her,” I say.
“They can hear you.”
“I don’t care.” I lean against the doorjamb.
“Got a better idea?”
“What if she just takes your wings?”
“Then I’ll worry about it then.” He puts one wing aside and begins wrapping the other in a matching towel that’s practically the size of a sheet.
“You’ll have no leverage then.”
“I have no leverage now.”
“You have your wings.”
“What should I do with them, Penryn? Mount them up on the wall? They’re useless to me unless I can get them sewn back on.” Raffe rubs his hand over the two folds of wings. He closes his eyes.
I feel like a jerk. No doubt this is difficult enough without me reinforcing his doubts.
He glides around me through the doorway. I stay in the bathroom until I hear the front door close behind the pair of angels.
