Angel Fever (10 page)

“Think it’s just a fracture…at least there shouldn’t be any danger of it puncturing the lung there,” Claudia muttered. “I hope.” Finally she nodded. “Okay, I think that’s it – you look really dehydrated, though. Let’s get you into bed and onto a drip.”

She brought out a green hospital gown. “Here,” she said, placing it on Kara’s lap. “There’s a bathroom just there, if you want to get changed.”

The gown slithered to the floor as Kara eased herself off the table, clutching its edge for support. “No, I’ll keep my own clothes.”

Claudia blinked. “But you need to rest. You won’t be very comfortable if—”

“I said no.”

Claudia looked at Alex; he shrugged. “Forget it. Let’s just get her into bed.”

There were three hospital beds in an adjacent room. Claudia drew back the covers of one, and Alex helped Kara into it; she sank against the pillows. Then as Claudia readied an IV drip, Kara’s good eye flew to Alex’s in alarm.

“It’s just to get you hydrated again; it’s all right,” he said. Kara swallowed and nodded. She made no protest as Claudia eased the needle into her forearm and taped it into place.

“Okay,” said Claudia, holding a hypodermic up to the light as she filled it. She reached for Kara’s arm again. “I’ve got something here that will help you sleep—”

Kara’s thin hand shot out and grabbed her wrist; Claudia gave a startled squeak. “Touch me with that thing, and I’ll stab you in the neck with it,” said Kara in a low voice.

Alex had lunged at her first movement; he gripped Kara’s wrist hard. Finger by finger, she let go of Claudia. “Trust me, you don’t even want to try it,” he said. “Do
not
threaten my team, now or ever again. Claudia, you’d better go. Thanks for your help – I’ll call you if we need you.”

She nodded, still pale. Seb stood leaning against the doorway; she brushed against him as she hurried out.

“I should go too,” Seb said, straightening.

There was a chair beside Kara’s bedside; Alex dropped into it. Kara had collapsed back against the bedding, her good eye closed again. “I’d better sit with her for a while,” said Alex, rubbing a hand over his face. “But, yeah, you go on to bed.”

Seb shook his head as he glanced at Kara. “It’s not that. She doesn’t want me here. Goodnight,
amigo.
”

Before Alex could respond, Seb had slipped out, silent as a ghost. Alex looked at Kara with a frown. Since arriving she’d hardly acknowledged Seb’s presence, but now he saw her relax a little. At the sound of the outer door closing, she turned her head to look at him, twisting at the sheet’s hem with a fretful hand.

“Willow’s here too, isn’t she?” she asked. “Alex, how can you bear to have them around? How?”

Alex’s jaw tightened. He seriously thought the question of whether half-angels could be trusted should have been settled a year ago, when Willow and Seb had almost died trying to halt the attack on the Seraphic Council. His instant anger faded slightly as he took in Kara’s bruises again.

“Look, I don’t know what you’ve been through, but you’re way off base,” he said. “I’d trust Seb with my life, and Willow… Christ, Willow
is
my life.”

Alarmingly, Kara seemed close to tears. “The whole time he was standing there… Oh god, his energy is so similar to theirs that it makes me sick. And for you to actually
be
with one of them – for you to—” She broke off, her thin frame shuddering.

Alex started to reply, then stopped short. This so wasn’t about Willow and Seb. He reached for her hand, held it between both of his. “What’s happened, Kara?”

She swallowed. “I’ve been in an Eden.”

Alex’s spine stiffened – he should have guessed. “Where’s Brendan?” he asked after a pause. “Is he alive too?”

Kara was staring up at the ceiling; as she shook her head, a single tear ran down her swollen cheek. “No. When we were trying to get out of Mexico City, the quake hit. The van crashed, and he was injured – really badly – internal stuff. I managed to steal another car, and we got out. I kept telling him to hold on, kept thinking he might make it… Finally we got into Texas, and there was a makeshift hospital set up for people who’d been injured in the Houston quake. He died there. He hadn’t even been conscious most of the trip.”

Alex let out a long breath, remembering Brendan – his shock of reddish hair; his wiry body and incessant talking. Incongruously, he thought how weird it must have been, to have travelled so many miles with Brendan without hearing him talk the whole time.

Kara wiped her cheek. “Then before I could leave the hospital, some soldiers came and said they were taking everyone to a refugee camp. I didn’t want to attract attention by saying no; I thought I could escape on the way. But I couldn’t. They took my gun, and once we were at the camp, we were watched every second.” She gave a bitter laugh. “The others were just happy to be someplace with food and electricity. They couldn’t see all the angels – all the feeding that was going on, day and night. After three months, almost everyone in the place had angel burn.”

Alex’s veins chilled. “How did you avoid it?”

Kara looked haunted. “I don’t know. They tried. They kept coming down to – to choose me, and I’d see them looking so beautiful and feel their minds linking with mine…” She gave a convulsive shudder.

“And then what?” Alex asked intensely. “They just gave up and flew away again?”

“Yeah.” Kara let out a strangled laugh. “Maybe I don’t taste so good.”

Alex’s thoughts were whirling. It sounded as if Kara had been marshalled – something an angel named Nate had told him about. Before the Seraphic Council had executed them all, there’d been a group of angels sympathetic to humans. They’d been trying to marshal as many people as they could: place a small bit of resistance in human auras, making them unpalatable to angels.

But Kara would have realized. It wasn’t something an angel could do without being noticed.

His attention snapped back as Kara started talking again, her voice thick and halting: “Anyway, I kept trying to escape – never managed it. Then they moved us all into Austin Eden.”

She let out a shuddering breath. “Things were kind of chaotic in the refugee camp, but once we got to the Eden… Alex, you wouldn’t believe how
organized
that place is. It’s the same in all of them, I guess. They’ve got different sectors, and the one you’re assigned to determines how often you’re allowed to be fed from. Because, like, if you’ve got a skill the angels need – say you’re an electrician or something – then they don’t want you to get too weak, so they keep track…”

She went into a sudden coughing fit, and Alex rose hastily to get her a glass of water. She drank it with his arm around her, holding her up. The news about the sectors was something they’d long suspected, from reading between the lines of shortwave news broadcasts. He wished to hell they’d been wrong.

“Thanks,” Kara mumbled, dropping back against the pillows. “Of course, they don’t
say
all that – but if you don’t have angel burn and can see what’s going on, it’s obvious.” She gave a humourless laugh. “They put me in A1. Guess I should have been flattered – only the young, good-looking people with fresh, pretty auras went there. I mean, we were
popular
with the angels. Not that anyone ever stayed in A1 very long…” Kara’s throat moved, her brown eyes lost in that other time.

“So yeah, it didn’t take them long to notice that none of the angels could feed from me. I guess I piqued their interest a little. I spent the last seven months in Austin locked in a hospital room while the angels tried to figure me out.”

“What – you mean examining you?” Cold crept across Alex’s scalp. His eyes flew to Kara’s left shirtsleeve – underneath, there lay an AK tattoo identical to his own. Once, the angels might not have known what the letters stood for; they sure as hell did now.

“Don’t worry, I got rid of it before I even got to Austin,” Kara said wearily. She lifted the sleeve of her faded T-shirt, and Alex winced – where her tattoo had been was now a series of long, jagged scars.

“Oh Christ, Kara…” He couldn’t say any more.

She dropped the sleeve. “I had to. People know who the AKs are now, after what happened in Mexico City – they hate all of us. I did it with a piece of metal I found and managed to keep it hidden until it healed a little. Not that it made any difference once they put me in the hospital. Raziel knew it was me.”

“
Raziel?
”

Her mouth was a bitter line. “Yeah. Your girlfriend’s father. He kept coming all the way down from Denver to poke and prod at me himself.” She shuddered. “Alex, how you can even stand touching her, when—”

“Shut it,” he said sharply. “She’s nothing like them, and you know it.”

“Fine. Whatever.” Kara wiped her eyes. “So, yeah, ol’ Raz was pretty interested in what makes me tick…because I guess it’s more than me just not being tasty to them. They can’t – they can’t seem to read me.”

Alex’s eyes narrowed in confusion. “What are you talking about?”

“They couldn’t read me. It drove them crazy. Drove
him
crazy, especially. For weeks – months – if it wasn’t him, it was one of the others. They strapped me down so I couldn’t struggle and they’d hold my hand, and I could
feel
their minds creeping into mine – so cold and slimy – over and over…” She choked to a stop.

Oh Jesus. Alex rubbed a fist against his forehead. He guessed he couldn’t blame her for hating anything that reminded her of the angels.

“They were trying to find out about us, weren’t they?” he said. “Whether Willow’s still alive or not.”

“Yeah.” Kara swallowed hard. “I told them you were all dead, killed in the Mexico City quake. It was true, for all I knew – I just didn’t want them to get anything about the base here, no matter what. Finally they started on more…physical methods.”

Alex’s fist was still tight. With his other hand, he gently touched Kara’s bruised cheek. “This?”

Without the dramatic make-up she used to wear, her beaten face looked young and exposed. “No, that was after I escaped – there was a bandit I stole the truck from. He didn’t want to give it up, but I was pretty desperate – believe me, I gave as good as I got. The angels are…subtler than that. You don’t want to know, okay?”

Taking in the slight quiver of her mouth, Alex knew she was probably right. With a bitter anger, he longed to destroy every angel who’d touched her.

“Anyway, they’ll be pissed off that I escaped,” Kara said, triumph clear in her tone. “Since they couldn’t get anything from me, they were going to use me at the Salt Lake Eden founding celebration. Like, look who we caught! What do you think we should do with her, oh noble Salt Lake Eden people?”

Alex could just imagine: it would have been like a scene from ancient Rome, with them tossing Kara to the Church of Angels’ lions. A silence stretched out between them. From the clock on the wall, Alex saw that it was after two in the morning.

“How did you get away?” he asked.

She shook her head; he could see how exhausted she was. “It doesn’t matter – it was while they were transporting me to Salt Lake Eden. But, Alex, listen: there’s something I haven’t told you.” She groped for his hand again; he enfolded hers in his own.

“What?” he urged.

Kara shut her good eye for a moment; finally she opened it again. “Before they put me in the hospital, I managed to get out of A1 a few times and tried to escape – once I made it as far as the lowest sector in the city, where they keep people who are in really bad shape. And, Alex – Cully was there. I was with him when he died. He knew something.”

A
T THE NAME OF HIS
old mentor, Alex straightened slowly. Cully had been the best Angel Killer he’d ever known – practically a father to him. The news that Cully’s angel burn had finally killed him was almost a relief; Cull would have hated what he’d become.

“What do you mean, ‘he knew something’?” Alex asked.

Kara fumbled in her jeans pocket and produced a cellphone. “Here,” she said, handing it to him. “I managed to hide it. Have you got a charger?”

The phone was identical to Alex’s – he’d bought them both the previous December. “Yeah, I’ve got one,” he said, staring down at the silver case. “What’s on it? A video?”

Kara nodded, her gaze sorrowful. She knew what Cully had meant to him. “He was ranting pretty badly, and he kept mentioning you. Alex, he was worried – he kept saying, ‘We can’t let him figure it out’.”

Alex tucked the phone into his own pocket. Obviously, Cully had realized the deaths of a few angels could destroy them all.
Don’t worry, Cull; I screwed that one up good,
he thought.
The angels are totally safe now, for ever.

“You think you know what it is,” Kara said, watching him.

“Yeah,” he admitted. “And it’s all over.” He told her what had happened. The words tasted bitter.

Kara swallowed but thankfully didn’t comment. “I don’t know, Al…what Cully was saying didn’t seem related to the angels being linked or not. He kept talking about Martin too.”

Alex frowned. “Dad?”

“Yeah. Something about an idea that Martin had had… I couldn’t make head or tail of it. Just watch. Maybe it’ll help, somehow.” Her eyes fluttered closed then, her bruised face gaunt.

Frankly, Alex doubted it – his dad had been pretty out of it those last few years before he died. He sat studying Kara for a long moment, his emotions jumbled.

“Listen to me,” he said finally. “If you’re staying, then I don’t want to hear a single word about Willow and Seb. They’re part of the team – end of story.”

Her good eye reluctantly opened. “I know,” she said after a pause. “It’s just a gut reaction; I can’t help it. But I’ll keep it to myself.”

Alex realized that was probably the best he was going to get from her. Maybe when what she’d been through had faded a little, she’d come around. Unfortunately, she had all the time in the world to do so now, with no end to any of this in sight.

He rose. “Get some sleep, okay?”

Kara lay watching him, her muscles tense. “You’ll watch the video?”

“Yeah, I’ll watch it.” At the door, Alex paused. “Hey – I’m really glad you made it,” he said.

Kara’s smile was a ghost of smiles he remembered. “Me too.”

The temptation to go crawl into bed beside Willow, forgetting the whole world as he drew her into his arms, was almost overwhelming. The weight of the phone in his jeans pocket wouldn’t let him do it.

Alex headed for the comms room instead, where he’d stowed all their old phones in a cabinet. After he’d plugged in Kara’s cell, he sat with his thumb hesitating over the buttons. He wasn’t looking forward to seeing Cully near death. At least the last time he’d encountered Cull, the man had looked in perfect health, even if he was feverishly devoted to the angels.

Finally Alex started the video. The quality was grainy; Cully was lying on a cot in what looked like a crowded warehouse, packed with other sick people.

Alex grimaced, unsurprised that this was how the angels treated their followers when they neared death. He wouldn’t have recognized the spindly man on the cot – until he saw Cully’s eyes: the vivid blue of a Georgia sky.

Kara’s voice was just audible. “Hey, I didn’t catch all that, Cull. Can you tell me again, straight from the top?”

Cully was turning his head restlessly. His voice was still deep, with a southern resonance. “You’ve got to stop Alex from doing it – you’ve got to. He’s smart; he’ll figure it out…”

And then Alex stopped noticing anything except the words Cully was saying. The video was just over a minute long. When it finished, he slumped back against the office chair. His heart clubbed against his ribs as he stared down at the phone.

Jesus. No way. This could not be true; there was just no way.

Finally, in a daze, he reached for the phone and hit the
Play
button once more. As Cully’s monologue filled the small room again, Alex wasn’t surprised that Kara hadn’t understood what he was talking about – it was all half-finished phrases, allusions to things that only Alex and his brother, Jake, had known. Along with their dad, whose insane idea it had been to start with.

But if what Cully had said was true…maybe it wasn’t so insane after all.

Alex listened tautly. Cull’s voice was clear, despite the background noise of groans and people talking. “It can be done, like Martin always said. I took over where he left off, back at the camp. I had to. Couldn’t help myself; I didn’t care what might happen. Took me so long, and I got so close – then I got sick and ended up here.”

It all made perfect sense to Alex…and the part that had made the hairs at the back of his neck prickle had even more effect this time. Cully, his head rolling feverishly, said: “I just
left
it there. You’ve got to tell the angels, Kara; they’ve got to go fix it so it’s not there any more. If Alex finds it, he could do what Martin was planning – it’s really possible, I’m sure of it now. He was always better with the energy work than anyone else. We gotta keep him away or it could all be over – the angels gone for ever…”

Alex stared at the now-still screen; an image of Cully’s face, slightly blurred, gazed back. A memory came: himself and Jake having dinner with their father. Martin was pointing his fork at them.

“Mark my words – this will be what finally defeats them. Nothing we’re doing
here
will do any good.”

Jake had winked at Alex out of their father’s vision. “Yeah, but, Dad, even if you ever finish this thing, won’t the burst of energy just kill you the second you try to go through? Kinda like, I dunno…a giant bug zapper?” His voice was innocent.

Alex had been fourteen; black humour when dealing with their father had become standard operating procedure. He’d snorted, trying unsuccessfully to turn it into a cough. Their father’s latest idea was deranged on so many levels that you had to either laugh or go crazy yourself.

Fortunately, Martin had been too busy glaring at Jake to notice. “Don’t be ridiculous,” he’d snapped. “I’m telling you, I just need to be in their world for a
few minutes,
and I can defeat them! What I sensed was definite—”

It had been more than Alex could take. “Dad, come on,” he’d protested, putting down his fork. “It doesn’t matter what you sensed; there’s no way you could get over there in the first place! The angels can change to their ethereal forms when they cross. If
we
tried to go through, it would just kill us. You know that! You’re the one who told
me
that.”

His words were a spark setting off a powder keg. When Martin finally released them, Jake had been seething.

“Next time you start arguing with him, I’m going to strangle you both,” he’d grumbled on their way back to the dorm. “Why do you bother? He’ll never listen.”

Their footsteps were steady on the cement. Alex shrugged testily. “Because it would just be suicide. Can you imagine the burst of energy if he tried it? This whole place would blow sky-high.”

Jake had given him a look of exaggerated patience.“No it wouldn’t, because – listen carefully, little brother – the idea that he could ever make his own gate is
a complete freaking delusion.
”

Now his brother’s words seemed to reach across time and space to find Alex again.

“Maybe it wasn’t a delusion after all, Jake,” he murmured, touching the phone’s smooth casing. Because, unbelievably, it sounded as if Cully had nearly finished what Martin had started.

The thought brought a chill. Of course, there was always the chance that Cully had gone crazy with angel burn; maybe nothing he’d said could be trusted. Yet somehow Alex doubted it. The last time he’d seen Cull, the man had been as sane as anyone, apart from his devotion to the angels.

Alex massaged his suddenly pounding temples and tried to recall a time when Cully had been wrong. He couldn’t. John Cullpepper had been a slow-talking southerner with a quick, sharp mind; when it came to angels especially, no one in the world had known more than Cull.

And he’d thought Martin’s plan to defeat them was really possible.

On the screen, Cully’s blue eyes seemed locked on Alex’s. As Alex gazed down at his old mentor, he knew that the plan’s feasibility was only part of it – because what he’d told his father was true. Cully had known, too:
I didn’t care what might happen.

If Alex tried this, the attempt to get there would probably kill him.

He sat motionless for a long time.

He wasn’t afraid of death – he’d been raised knowing he could lose his life every time he went on a hunt. If anything, he was surprised to still be alive at nineteen. This, though – to deliberately take odds that he knew were likely to kill him – Alex let out a breath. Yeah, this felt pretty different.

He touched the bracelet Willow had given him, unconsciously tracing its strands. He wanted to live – and to actually do this thing would be insanity. Yet underneath everything was a lake of deep, pure relief. Finally, there was something he could try that might fix what he’d broken in the world – some
action
he could take, instead of just training other people to go out and die.

If Cully was right, this was their only hope.

Alex knew then that he’d decided. It was worth any odds.
I don’t have a choice, Cull, do I?
he thought grimly. Ironic, that Cully had shown him a possible solution when he’d been trying his best not to.

At long last, Alex straightened. His muscles felt heavy. A glance at the clock showed it was three thirty in the morning – he’d been in here over an hour. He started to return Kara’s phone to his pocket, then stopped mid-motion. No. Bad idea. He stowed the phone in the cabinet and locked the door.

As Alex shut up the comms room, he knew that the sooner he left for New Mexico, the better. If this thing was possible, then he wanted to move fast, before the angels did any more damage. And more than that…the longer he hung around here thinking about the probable outcome, the harder it would be to go. The only thing he’d ever wanted for himself was a life with Willow.

Willow. He went still as the promise he’d made came back: that he wouldn’t put himself into danger without telling her. Dread touched him, and he swallowed. Danger – yeah, this probably qualified. Oh, Christ, how could he tell her this and then make himself walk away from her? Imagining the look on her face, he knew that dying would be easier.

Slowly, Alex started back to their bedroom. His footsteps echoed in the empty corridor.
I have to tell her the truth,
he thought.
I promised her.

But with every step, he was aware of Kara’s phone locked in the cabinet, becoming further away by the second…and deep down, he realized he’d left it there for a reason.