Angels of America: A Circle of the Fallen novella

  The drive back home was uneventful. We checked out of the motel and climbed into a silver Honda Civic. Nice and blendy. Nobody would look twice at it.

  I dumped my bag with yesterday’s clothes in the trunk and opened the back passenger side door. “Rose. Up front with me,” Katie called when I tried to get in, so I swapped places with Jack. I thought I was in trouble but it turned out she was just letting Jack have the back to stretch out and sleep. Apparently, he’d been awake half the night watching over me because of my bad dreams. Katie asked me for directions as we drove and slotted in the odd question about what had happened yesterday. To be honest, I’m still dealing with it all these hours later so I have no idea why she thought she was gonna get any sense out of me then.

  “Can I just get back home and fetch my things before we do this?” I asked and she seemed, well, not okay with that but not willing to get into an argument over it. That’s basically a win for Team Me. “I’m not even sure yesterday was real.”

  I give her some more turns to take and we pull up outside my apartment building. We can’t take the Honda down to the underground lot because it isn’t registered as belonging to a building resident, though we’d all be safer there. “Hurry up.”

  “You’re not coming with me?”

  Katie shakes her head at me and I don’t know whether to feel disappointed or elated – sad because I’m an easier target alone, happy because I can finally get some peace from these nutjobs. “I can’t keep you invisible if you’re moving. Trust me, it’s less suspicious if you go in alone.” She glances back at the boy half-curled up on the backseat with a strange softness in her brown eyes I haven’t seen before and I know what she’s about to say before she says it. “Besides, I’m not leaving him.”

  “What’s the deal with you two anyway?”

  “Me and Jack?” No, her and Zac Efron. Of course Katie and Jack. “We’re together, properly together. We had problems back in England. People died, I cheated on him, we used each other in ways that we…” Her voices cracks on the last few words and I can’t stop myself from dropping one arm over her convulsing shoulders and drawing her in for an awkward hug. I don’t want to like her; I know she saved my life and everything, but I might be in more danger because of that. Maybe I don’t know what it’s like to be that deep in love but I feel for her. Just a little. After a minute, she pushes away from me and looks at me. Where I could have sworn there were tear tracks on her cheeks is just bright, clear skin. “But we survived. He – Jack – died over a hundred years before I was born. This group of gods, basically, brought him back as a ghost. Then I died and he got made mortal again. So…while I can protect myself, I know how easily humans can get hurt, how fragile they are, and I won’t let him risk that for either of us. Do you understand, Rose? He gave up everything for me.”

  I get it. Love conquers all. All that jazz.

  She’s kinda freaking me out with all this talk of gods and ghosts. She’s even weirder than I thought. And the way she calls us humans and mortals..? Yeah, sane people don’t do that. “Do you have, like, concussion or something?”

  “Rose, there are some very dangerous people after you. Now, we’re not sure who they are or what they want with you but I know I need to get you to safety.”

  “Wouldn’t the best way to find that out be to come with me? Let them follow us.”

  “There’s no guarantee they’re even here,” she says, closing her eyes and relaxing her white-knuckle grip on the steering wheel, “but I am not willing to take that chance.”

  “But it’s okay to send me up? Alone. With no way to defend myself.”

  “I didn’t say that.” No, but she might as well have. “You only need to shout and I’ll hear you. When you die, you start noticing sights and sounds you never had the time to notice before.”

  Okay, that’s something I didn’t need to know. Katie pops the trunk so I can dart around, grab my bag and close it, and then make a lunge for the door. I catch the door just as it’s swinging closed after the mailman so I don’t have to bother punching in my entry code. It’s meant to stop any random Joe off the street wandering in but, considering the sudden appearance of both Jack and Katie, and the men in suits who tried to storm the building yesterday, it doesn’t work too well.

  “Hey Fred.”

  “Rose? You should be at school,” the older man sitting behind the desk reminds me. Call me crazy but I kinda wish I was back at school, sleeping my way through algebra.

  “Sick day. Mental health day actually.”

  He frowns and beckons me closer, leaning in so he can whisper to me with a furtive glance around. There’s no-one else in the lobby except for us two and Fred’s dog – he says it’s a guard dog but Ralfie is the softest creature you’ll ever meet. I reach down to ruffle the top of his head. “Anythin’ to do with those people looking for you?”

  “Something to do with them,” I agree. “Did they mention what they wanted me for.?”

  “Well, the men went up to your apartment and the woman stayed down here. She said you were dangerous and there was no point in me trying to hide you because they’d find you eventually. I tried to stop them but they had guns.”

  “It’s okay, Fred. I understand. They shot people at the high school too when I ran away. You tried.”

  “I don’t think they want you for a friendly chat. Where did you go?”

  “Some people are helping me out. We spent last night in some motel and now I’m meant to grab some clean clothes and go back to meet them outside. See that silver Honda out front? Can you keep an eye on it until I come back?”

  “That’s these new friends of yours.” Well, I wouldn’t go so far as to call them friends but I nod anyway. They definitely seem like allies. “You trust ‘em?”

  “I don’t have much other choice.”

  “Well, so long as they keep you alive and kicking.”

  I take a second to wonder whether I should stay to wipe his memory of this little visit but time is ticking and it’ll be better to do it on my way out. With a final scratch of Ralfie’s floppy ears, I walk over to the bank of elevators and press the call button before deciding it might be better to take the stairs. In this building, too many flights of bare concrete steps lie hidden behind a door marked ‘fire escape’. They were made for safety, not security: no windows or cameras but equally no obstacles, and I wince as my damn heels click on every step. Too loud. Anyone can hear me. Unless one of the men in suits was waiting here for me, nobody is listening – a quick glance back confirms that I am, indeed, being paranoid. I know before I even make it out of the stairwell that there’s no need for me to find my keys because I remember hearing the big guys breaking the door down as I jumped from the window. Somebody has thoughtfully nailed a piece of plywood over the doorway – even though there is nothing worth stealing inside – and some artistic souls have already tagged it with their sign – a star with lightning bolts shooting out of each point. It takes just minutes to work the flat of my keys under one nail and yank it out of the wood so I can get my fingers underneath and snap the bottom half of the wood off so I can squeeze inside. It feels so strange to be back home: like I haven’t been here in weeks, not just under 24 hours. The first thing I do is stagger through on legs that have finally started to give up, and collapse on the cream sofa I rescued from Goodwill. I don’t sit down – I cringe into a fetal position and take a few minutes to wonder at the mess my life has become. People came after me and my weird brain told me to run – turns out they really want me for something otherwise they would not still be pursuing me. And they wouldn’t have sent the big guns… whoever they are. The woman; I don’t know anything about her but something tells me she’s not in charge – she’s just as much a slave as the goons.

  It’s only when I think I’ve wallowed enough to sit up that I realize someone’s been snooping in my apartment. I mean there’s still a gaping hole
in my window, still smeared blood on my rug and furniture, the floor is still littered with food wrappers and the homework I never seem to do, but I know. Everything is exactly how I left it and that is how I know. I heard the men in suits crash through my door and am in no doubt they ransacked the place to find some clue where I was. Then they cleaned the place of their DNA (I watch cop shows, that’s what they do) and put everything back where they found it. Must’ve taken ages. Must mean I’m pretty damn important. A glance towards the broken window tells me Katie and Jack are still waiting for me on the street – I can hear the idling engine float up to me as a warm breeze ruffles the drapes complete with bullet hole front and center. I get up and shuffle into my bedroom, staring blankly at the bed. It takes every ounce of will power I own not to just crawl under the covers and let myself pretend the last 24 hours were just a nightmare and no-one shot my school up and Katie and Jack, nice as they might be, are not high on my ‘see them ever again’ list. If only that level of wishful thinking could fix everything. I sit on the bed and replace my heels with flat sandals; the heels go into my bag with my sneakers once I’ve taken yesterday’s ruined outfit out. Inside it, I shove the charger for my cell phone, my iPod and charger, underwear, another pair of shorts, a few tops (the three or four on top of the pile) and drape a pair of combats over the top of the already full bag. Once I’ve been in the bathroom and added my hairbrush, toothbrush, toothpaste and some hair ties the bag is bulging and is difficult to carry. Still, I can’t decide whether I should take my make-up bag or not. I guess it’s not essential but… You never know when you’ll have to distract the enemy by being astoundingly hot. That convinces me. I can’t think of anything else I’ll need although I know the kitchen sink would probably become essential if I thought about it for long enough. Bag diagonally over my chest, I squeeze back through the boarding over my busted door, try to push it back into place like I was never here, then take the stairs back down to the lobby. It’s nice and cool when I exit the stairwell and I pause for a minute, basking, not knowing when I’ll get to enjoy a place with full air con again. Enough of that.

  “You taking off again?”

  “Just for a while,” I promise Fred while he eyes my fit-to-burst messenger bag. “see where I end up. Hey, make sure you look after Ralfie and give him plenty of belly rubs. He’ll get lonely without them.” Right on cue, the big St Bernard trots around the desk and lifts his wet nose to nuzzle my hand. I don’t know much about doggy intelligence but I am suddenly sure he is trying to say goodbye. Will he know it’s Fred and not me tickling his tummy? “Did you board up my door?” It’s not an important question but it gets his attention on me for long enough to fix my eyes on his and he doesn’t look away. He can’t.

  “Why, no I didn’t. Those men – they came back just as I was leaving last night. They must’ve done it.”

  “So they didn’t follow us,” I mutter, more to myself than anything else.

  “There was a lady with them. Dark dress, hair up, too dark to see much else. She didn’t stay long. I saw her when I went to get my car.”

  “Did they talk to you?”

  “No. They didn’t get much out of me before. Guess they figured I couldn’t help them.”

  I knew what they did to people who couldn’t help them; Fred didn’t know how lucky he was. I hardened my stare and let the word forget fill my mind, somehow feeling it drift into the air around me. “If they come back, you haven’t seen me. In fact, I was never here. You don’t know who I am.”

  “What about your apartment?”

  “Close it up. I might come back but it’s on permanent maintenance till then.” I doubted I would come back or that my crap would still be here if, by some miracle, I do.

  “Where are you going? I’ll only worry.”

  I wince because I know Fred’s genuine. I’m not quite 17, I live alone, he has every right to be concerned about my welfare. When I first moved here, he helped me convince the manager to give me a unit to live in – she wasn’t happy about letting an emancipated teen (his idea; but calling me a runaway would’ve gone down like a brick) live here – by saying he’d keep an eye on me. He always has, and that’s why I hate doing this to him. “Fred, listen to me. You won’t care where I am. You don’t know me.” I hold his gaze for a few more moments and then, when he starts to get that glazed-over look that mean it worked, I drop it, hoist my bag and buzz myself out of the door onto the street.

  The sun’s bright and I’m still squinting after the artificial light of the lobby when I hear the door swing shut. Some part of my mind understands it represents the end of that chapter of my life: I don’t pay much attention as I shield my eyes and scan the road for the car.

  It’s not there.

  I walk to either corner of the building and even take a peek down the ramp into the underground lot.

  It’s not anywhere.

  Back in front of the doors, Katie is sitting on the curb with her head in her hands and her shoulders are heaving slightly like she is trying not to cry.

  “I didn’t mean it,” she says without looking up at me. How did she even know I was here? “Your shadow.” Whilst I’m super-glad there is a normal explanation, it freaks me out that she knew what I would say.

  “Katie, what happened? Where’s the car? Where’s Jack?”

  “Gone,” she says.

  “Gone. He just took off?” Bad feeling. These questions do not have happy answers.

  “I got called away and when I got back… there was nothing.”

  “What happened to ‘we’ve been through a lot together. I won’t leave him’?” My voice is harsh and accusing but I can’t help it. She left to take a call! Excuse me if that seems like a bit if a lame excuse.

  “These aren’t the kind of people you say no to, Rose.”

  “So what do we do now?”

  Katie rises to her feet in one fluid movement that doesn’t seem entirely human and strips her leather jacket off. It’s the first time I’ve noticed her sweating properly but, as I’m looking, her eyes slide closed and the sheen on her skin fades away to nothing. “He can’t have got far. I say we find him.”

  Nice plan. Few holes though. “There are no tire tracks. Nothing to show us where he might have gone.” An idea strikes me and I turn back to the door to my (former) home and push numbers on the keypad with clumsy fingers, too panicked now to call my co-ordination into line. Giving up – even though I’m sure I punched the right code in – I begin hammering on the door and calling for Fred to let me in. He looks up but does nothing. Ralfie lopes up to the door and starts pawing and whining at the glass. Fred tries to call him back but the dog has no plans to leave until he lets me in, and when he does, Ralfie jumps up at me and nearly knocks me over.

  “Can I help you, miss?”

  “The silver Honda that was outside – where did it go?”

  “Excuse me?” I fight down the urge the shake the old guy and take a seat beside the desk, letting Ralfie put his paws on my lap and lick my hands to death. “I don’t know you but my dog sure does. Now, what Honda?”

  He doesn’t..? Oh crap. I should’ve waited until I was sure everything was okay before I wiped myself from his memory. And if he doesn’t remember me, then he doesn’t remember anything I asked him to do. I really didn’t think this through too well but, in my defense, a big ass Civic with a sleeping boy and his superhero girlfriend in it should not have just disappeared.. “Did you see two big bouncer types get out of a black SUV?” I ask, changing tack a little.

  “Yes. There was a lady with them too. Didn’t see her very well, though, but I did see her get in another car and drive away.”

  “A silver car?”

  “You know I think it might have been. Now, why’re you asking all these questions?”

  My mouth is hanging open to explain, or try to, but nothing I can think of would get me out of here without ra
ising a million more questions. “Thanks.” As if he knows my unspoken goodbye is final, Ralfie jumps up to lick my face and pads to the door with me.

  Outside, Katie is pacing the floor in front of the apartment block. “You know, I think he might have woken up while I was gone and just started driving around looking for me.” Not even she’s convinced.

  “Katie, you know that’s not what happened. The men in suits saw us both leave the car and they muscled in and kidnapped Jack. I’m sorry but we both know it’s true.”

  “Jesus! How could I have just left him? I mean, I didn’t have much choice but… Jesus. I was stupid.”

  I can tell she wants me to pat her on the back and tell her she’s wrong but I don’t. I won’t. How can I refute her words when I totally agree with them? “There’s time for the blame game later. Right now, I guess we need to know where they’re taking Jack and chase them down.” When did I get so decisive? “Can your contacts - these… Keepers tell you where the car is?”

  Suddenly, her broken and scared face hardens into a determined mask and her brown eyes dry up, almost brittle in their hardness. A single knock could shatter her. But there’s no time to bee gentle. She shakes her head and jerks her thumb at the lobby behind me. “What about your friend in there.”

  Now it’s my turn to shake my head. “I wiped his memory before I came out the first time. He doesn’t even remember he was watching the car at all. He- what?”

  “You wiped his memory?”

  “Yeah. It’s just something I’ve always been able to do… well, ever since they tried to foster me out. If I didn’t like the family I discovered I could make them forget they’d even met me.”

  “Okay,” she says after a minute or two. “We’ll discuss this more later. I’ll get a new car later too. Plan?”

  An hour later, we’re sitting in a Green’s coffee bar with me nursing a mocha and Katie sipping at a vanilla cream frappuccino and looking at me like I’m holding some kind of many-toothed monster in my hands. Trying not to giggle at her expression, I offer her the half a mug I have left. With a slightly vomitous glare, she shakes her head. Hell no! How can she drink that crap? I imagine she’s thinking. Well, I think I imagine it but the words are so loud and clear she might have said them without me noticing. With the ghost of a grin, Katie offers me a gulp of her drink. I’m no coward so I take a slurp then go up to the counter to pick up a couple of cookies. Out of the few hundred dollars I had saved up, I’m already ten down. Saving what little cash we have would be a good idea but when have I ever done things the sensible way?

  With two muffins in one hand and jingling my change in the other, I turn around and crash into a table somebody must’ve dragged out of its normal place. Just before it tips and crockery goes flying, a guy of about college age slams one hand down on the table to steady it and grabs my arm with the other. “Watch it! You’ll hurt yourself.”

  Genius. Like the massive bruise forming on my hip right now wasn’t hurting myself. “Yeah, thanks. I didn’t realize banging into tables could have painful consequences.”

  He chuckles at that but I notice he hasn’t let go of either me or the table.

  “What, you think if you let me go I’ll attack the furniture again?” Finally, I get my balance enough to look up at him. Wavy black hair is mostly tied back in a scruffy pigtail and strands fall around an olive skinned face with bones just sharp enough to look tough but soft enough not to look sinister. A stud glints from his right ear and there’s a bar through his right eyebrow, dark and bushy over icy pale eyes. It’s a weird combination of features, teamed with a ski-slope of a nose, but it works. He’s not conventionally handsome but I can see at least two females in Green’s staring at him like he’s God’s gift to fantasies. I guess he must be cute. “Thanks. For stopping me falling flat on my face.”

  “You were twisting. Would’ve ended up on your ass.” He must have seen the confused look on my face because he adds “I wrestled in high school. They teach you how to fall properly. That was not properly.”

  “Erm…” What the hell do you say to that? “I just land where gravity takes me. My high school doesn’t do falling over classes.” Didn’t – didn’t do falling over classes. Because it’s not my school anymore. I can never go back there. That suddenly hits me like a punch to the heart. School – the only one I had ever stayed more than one semester at, even though I didn’t really care much if they kicked me out – was a memory now.

  “You’re still in school? But it’s the middle of the day.”

  Like that was news. “Long story.”

  “I’ve got all day for a pretty girl like you. I’m Matthew, by the way.”

  My brain, which usually tells me whether I can trust somebody, has gone on vacation again. It’s had a lot to process in the last 24 hours; no-one will blame it for saying ‘you’re on your own with this one, kid’. A look over my shoulder shows Katie staring out the window at the cars driving past, drawn into her own little world of deep thought. I’ve been shot at, injured, healed and basically hunted like an animal this week already, and it’s only Wednesday, so I think that entitles me to some fun time.

  “Nice to meet you Matthew Bytheway.” He grins like it’s the funniest joke he’s heard all year and uses his knee to nudge out an empty chair with his knee. “I’m Rose.”

  “Rose. Cool name. Beautiful but prickly if you hold it wrong.”

  “Yep, that’s me. Cute but deadly. You wanted to know why I’m not in school…” Matthew makes a rolling film gesture so I take a deep breath and plunge in. It’s not like I’m going to see him again. “Yesterday, two men and a woman came to my school looking for me but I ran away and they shot my principal dead and who knows how many other people. Then I got home and this girl just appeared in my apartment, like, out of nowhere. Then she got shot in the head but that’s her over there, not a scratch on her – I’m going off topic, sorry – so we – me, her, her boyfriend… maybe – jumped out of a window. I twisted my ankle but Katie healed it after she made us invisible so the men didn’t see me. She nearly bled out on a bathroom floor and then her guy got kidnapped this morning.”

  He’s quiet for a minute, picking apart the mostly eaten cookie on his napkin. “Are you actually insane?”

  “Not yet.” But I have a feeling I might be checking myself into the local psych unit when this is over. “If I was, that story would have a lot more ninjas, unicorns and spaceships in.”

  “True. I mean, why would you make up something so whacked out?”

  I tear open one of the muffins I bought and bite into it while I point out my table so he can bring my mocha back for me. The half a minute it takes gives me a few moments to close my eyes and try to calm my agitated mind. The harsh fluorescent lights in the coffee shop are not helping. The sun is shining brighter than these anyway. White lights integrated into the ceiling always give me a headache and today is no different. Sucks to be me.

  “So, what are you doing about the kidnapped maybe boyfriend?”

  “Find him,” I mumble. “Don’t know how though. Any and all ideas considered.”

  “GPS on his phone?”

  I don’t think Brits even have phones, let alone tracking systems on them. Even if, by some miracle, he does, I’m sure the people who took him would search him for a phone and trash it before they got to the end of the street.

  “Hire a PI to track him down?”

  One sensible idea and he’s suggesting silly things. Why do morons gravitate to me? Seriously, do I have some kind of idiot magnetism? “Idea considered and rejected.”

  “On what grounds?”

  Glancing down at the dregs of my mocha, I try for a smile. “On coffee grounds.” After a pause, I realize Matthew’s staring out of the window too, just like Katie. There’s nothing interesting going on outside though. “You look like you’re deep in thought. Hey, shouldn’t you be in a lect
ure or something?”

  “Hmm? Oh no, I’m not in college. Way too much like hard work.”

  Preaching to the choir, man, to the frikkin’ choir. “Why do you keep looking out the window?” I can’t resist another peek just to make sure nothing interesting started happening while my back was turned.

  “I thought it’d be weird if I just stared at you.”

  O…kay. Not stalkery at all.

  “So… where do you go now?”

  “Good question.” And it is. Katie and I came in here to refuel and try to formulate a plan: instead, all we’ve done is quietly go into some kind of shock and spill my life story to some random guy in a coffee shop.

  A hand whips into view and fastens around my wrist. I look up to see Katie trembling with nerves and glancing at the door every other instant. “Rose, we have to go. Now.” Finally noticing that we were in mid-conversation, she offers Matthew a tiny nod but doesn’t speak to him. “Come on.”

  “What..? Where..? We’re in the middle of a – are they coming for us?”

  “I know where Jack is!”

  “That’s the guy you lost, right?” asks Matthew. Respect for even edging in on this madness. “I have to say, that was careless. I thought you said you couldn’t GPS him.”

  “Even longer story.” I push my chair out and turn to head away. “Thanks for listening to my stories. Sadly all true.” Then we leave. I feel a bit guilty that I burdened him with all my crap and didn’t even say goodbye. On the other hand, he did ask. Chancing a quick glance back as the bell above the door rings out our exit, Matthew is casually watching me leave as he taps away on his phone. I can just imagine the message he’s sending to his friends – just met this freaky chick at greens. Thinks the cia are after her or something. nutjob alert. Whatever. Putting him out of my mind the minute the door closes, I turn to face Katie. “Where is he?”

  “Who was he, Rose? You two seemed to be getting on well.”

  Her accent makes everything sound so formal and 1920s dignified. That’ll take some getting used to. “His name is Matthew. I nearly fell in his lap,” I admit, feeling the back of my neck grow warm. “Because I’m an idiot. And then you were away with the fairies so we just started talking. We haven’t got time to waste, Katie, so tell me about Jack. Where is he?”

  “I don’t know.” What?! “Not exactly. But I know he’s alive and safe and somewhere close.”

  Under the noon sunshine, she looks as if she’s glowing just the tiniest bit. Whilst her skin would probably be quite tanned by English standards – I’ve heard they don’t even know what a real summer is – she’s still paler than some of the women here. Browning up nicely though… “How..?”

  “We have a connection. It’s still strong and I can pull energy from it.”

  Pull energy. Images of last night slam into me: of her flickering in and out of existence in some sleazy motel, blood everywhere, holding my hand like it was a lifeline and feeling as though she was sucking me dry. Even though they are just memories, those events could be repeated at any time. If I forget that then I’m dead. I can’t drop my guard for a second. “I’m sorry. I should have made both of you leave me last night. You didn’t ask for this.”

  “Rose, you’re my mission. If I hadn’t agreed to help you, the Keepers would take away my angel powers.”

  What powers exactly?

  “But Jack? No, he didn’t have to be in this.”

  “Would that have been so bad? Not being an angel, I mean. You and Jack could be just regular kids and have normal lives.”

  And I guess I should know what comes next but I’m still stunned.

  “If I’m not an angel, I’m nothing. I’m a body in the ground.”

  Chapter five