Angel

Page 48

 

  Pulling up the Church home page, Jonah gazed at the photo of the half angel, Willow, with her long blond hair and elfin face. And for the first time, he wondered exactly what sort of danger she constituted to the angels.

  It was late afternoon. Raziel had disappeared to his living quarters; Jonah was alone in his office. He sat looking at his phone. It would be a simple enough call to make, and surely once he’d done so, these terrible doubts would go away. Suddenly he felt that he’d give anything to return to the time when he’d had no reservations at all.

  Flipping through his Filofax, he found the number he needed and dialed. It was after business hours in New York, but he knew someone would pick up in the residents’ quarters.

  “Hello . . . Church of Angels Schenectady,” said a man’s voice.

  Jonah sat up. “Yes, hi — this is Jonah Fisk, from the main office, in Denver. Could I speak to Beth Hartley?”

  “Beth? I think she’s still on cleaning duty. ”

  “Would you mind getting her, please? It’s important. ”

  Jonah sat tensely in his chair as he waited. His office was very still, very quiet. The small painting of the angel hung across from him, softly illuminated by a dimmed light. He took in the fluid lines of the angel’s wings, its gentle, loving face. Its very beauty seemed to taunt his suspicions, tingeing him with guilt.

  “Hello?” said a girl’s voice.

  Jonah explained who he was. “I’m sorry to bother you,” he said. “I just need to ask you about Willow Fields. ”

  Beth sounded cautious. “What about her?”

  Jonah cleared his throat. “Well . . . what happened, exactly?” Beth went silent. Hating himself, he added, “Please, I need to know. It’s important — the angels have asked. Was she a friend of yours before all this happened?”

  “No!” said Beth, her voice startled. “We — we were mostly in different classes; she was a junior. She was always pretty strange, but seemed nice enough. And she was supposed to be psychic, so . . . I went to her for a reading. ”

  Jonah sat without moving as Beth described the encounter, finishing with: “She saw my angel; she knew exactly what had been happening. But she — she told me horrible things. I mean, really horrible things. ” He could hear tension running through the girl’s tone, like a thin steel wire.

  “Can you tell me what?” asked Jonah. He reached for a pencil on his desk and fiddled with it nervously, tapping it against a yellow legal pad.

  “I don’t really like talking about it,” said Beth. “But if the angels have asked . . . ” She took a deep breath. “She — she said that my angel wasn’t good. That he was . . . killing me and that I should get away from him. She got really insistent about it, in fact. She said that if I joined the Church, I would keep getting sicker and sicker. ”

  Jonah cleared his throat, his thoughts whirling. “I see. And . . . you haven’t, of course. ”

  “No, of course not!” said Beth. “I mean — yeah, I’m pretty tired sometimes, and my muscles ache, but I think I might just have the flu or something. I’m fine. I couldn’t be happier. Do you know if she’s been found yet?”

  “No, not yet,” said Jonah.

  “Oh,” said Beth. “I was hoping —” She sighed. “I just really hate the thought that she’s out there and that she might hurt the angels. ”

  “We’ll get her soon,” said Jonah distantly. “Thanks for your help, Beth. The angels be with you. ”

  After he hung up, he sat at his desk for a long time, looking at Willow’s smiling photo and trying to take in what he had just found out. Willow had thought that Paschar was a danger; she’d tried to stop Beth from joining the Church because she was worried about what it might do to her. Far from being an evil threat, it sounded as if Willow had actually been concerned about Beth and trying to help her.

  And now the angels wanted her dead.

  Jonah stared blindly at the screen, hating the thoughts that were icing through his mind. The angels had saved him. They had saved him; there was no doubt at all about that. Yet he was starting to wonder if maybe he was the exception.

  Who could tell him what was really happening? Who could he go to for answers?

  A thought came to him; he stiffened. Slowly, he clicked his mouse a few times and pulled up an e-mail on his screen. Since the assassin’s disappearance, Jonah himself was no longer responsible for dealing with the problem of the traitor angels — but when information came to Raziel by e-mail, he was still often copied in on it. Now he sat gazing at the three-line e-mail with its brief contact details, his heart thudding. The very idea was repugnant: to actually talk to one of them? Yet if he really wanted answers, this might be the only place he could find them.

  I can’t, thought Jonah, clutching his temples. I’m just getting it all wrong. I’ve got to believe in them. What else do I have?

  But there were Raziel’s laughing words. The woman slumped against the wall, her face drained. And the smiling girl on the website, who had tried to warn someone that an angel was hurting her.

  It felt as if the whole world was ringing in his ears.

  Jonah reached for his pencil and the legal pad. His hands shaking slightly, he glanced back at the e-mail and wrote down a phone number.

  The camp lay in the southern part of the state, twenty miles out in the desert: a hard, scrubby land with bare, flat-topped mountains rising up from the horizon. There were no signs or roads, but Alex knew the way like he knew his own face in the mirror — though he’d never imagined making the drive in a boatlike Chevy that belonged back in the seventies with sideburns and bell-bottom jeans. He kept the speed low as the car moved slowly over the rough ground, watching the temperature gauge and praying that the radiator wouldn’t overheat. It already felt like it was nearing a hundred outside. And, just to make things even more fun, the car seemed to be out of Freon now. Even with the windows rolled down, it was stifling.

  The tension from when he’d picked the glass out of Willow’s hair had faded with the morning, and he and Willow talked easily on the journey. Her slim arms were glowing with a faint sheen of sweat as she sat with her bare feet propped up onto the dashboard. “I wish I had a pair of shorts,” she said, fanning herself.

  “We can probably get you some at the camp,” said Alex. “Someone should have something you can wear. ”

  Her green eyes looked thoughtful. “Are there female AKs?”

  Alex nodded. “Sure, some really good ones. In fact, women tend to take to the chakra work better than men. ” He went silent as they came to a dried-out riverbed, concentrating as he guided them over the rocky ground. A lizard sat on a nearby boulder, observing them with a contemptuous stare. Do you really think that thing’s going to make it? Good luck, sucker. Hope you enjoy being buzzard meat. Christ, all they needed was to break an axle out here. Not even Willow could fix that.

  The Chevy groaned as it struggled up the riverbank, and Alex winced, wondering if they were going to have to walk the rest of the way. Then, with a sudden straining heave, the car made it up and over. He let out a breath.

  Willow pulled her long hair off her neck and knotted it back in a bun. She cleared her throat as she finished. “You know, I’m sort of nervous about this. ”