World After (27 page)

The word “premeditated” comes to mind.

The fact that I’m allowed to overhear enough to start piecing this stuff together makes me worried.

Very worried.

F
ROM
WHAT
I can gather from snippets of conversation among the hotel staff, it’s not just a party, it’s a banquet. On the agenda are drinks, scantily clad Daughters of Men, and more drinks. Then dinner with more drinks. Then dancing with Daughters of Men and more drinks.

Basically, there’s a whole lot of drunkenness planned for the evening. I guess, if the angels don’t break their own rules tonight, Uriel’s backup plan must be to make sure they don’t remember that they didn’t break the rules.

Uriel glides from one group to the next, clasping hands and making sure everyone is having a good time. He offers Andi and me to those without girls on their arms, but they all politely decline without even looking at us.

I get a better notion of Uriel’s monumental task. This is not an easy crowd to manipulate. Already, a lot of the soldiers are turning down extra drinks and refusing the attentions of the women.

Some of the crowd welcome him warmly and with a brief fanning of wings. It seems like the equivalent of a salute—not so much that it takes up too much space, but enough to show respect.
They didn’t do that at the old aerie. He must have made progress in his campaign. They hadn’t called him Your Grace then either.

I’m glad to see that other groups greet him only with simple nods and polite smiles. They call him Uriel, Archangel, and occasionally Uri rather than Your Grace.

“Do you really think we’re nearing Judgment Day, Uri?” asks a warrior. He hadn’t saluted with his wings and doesn’t address him with much respect, but there’s genuine interest and—hope?—in his face.

“I absolutely do,” says Uriel. His voice has real conviction. “Archangel Gabriel brought us here for a reason. Bringing two other archangels to Earth along with a legion of warriors is nothing short of apocalyptic.”

Ain’t that the truth.

I wonder what Raffe would think of this party.

Before Uriel can go on with the conversation, others intervene, and Uriel goes back to nodding greetings and stretching his mouth with an over-bright smile.

My feet are already hurting and the party has just begun. My toes feel like they’re in a vice that gets tighter by the minute, and my heels feel like electric drills are boring into them.

I fantasize about stepping into the crowd and losing myself in it. Could I drift out to the edges and disappear?

Just as I’m thinking that, a woman screams from the beach, followed by an unnatural growl. The piercing sound gets swallowed quickly by the roar of the waves, the conversation, and the music.

Andi and I exchange a quick glance before going back to our matching poses. We mold our faces into mannequin faces—plastic and aloof. But I’m sure that if someone really looked, they could see the alert fear in our eyes.

Uriel works his way to a makeshift stage at the edge of the party. As he meanders along, he looks over at someone for a
second longer than usual. I hadn’t even realized how closely I’d been watching him until I notice a change in his attitude. His shoulders and expression freeze on autopilot as his mind switches over to something else.

The change is so subtle that I’m sure no one else noticed it, except maybe for Andi who has been watching him as closely as I have.

Uriel looks at an oversized angel on the edge of the crowd. He has snowy wings peppered with gold feathers and a matching gold mask over his eyes. He looks angelic in every sense except for the sneer on his lips.

He holds his snowy wings out a little as if insecure that he belongs here. One of his wings has the scissor notch that’s now forever etched in my memory.

Beliel.

I also recognize two angels beside him from the video Doc showed me. Their wings are shimmery bronze and copper, but I’d bet my next meal that one of them has burnt orange wings beneath that costume. It’s Burnt, the Kidnapper of Little Girls.

I clench my fists automatically and have to force them to relax.

Beliel and Uriel exchange a look. Beliel nods ever so slightly at Uriel. The archangel glances away without responding but he smiles brightly at the next person and seems more relaxed.

I do a sweep of the people around Beliel. Of course, Paige is nowhere to be seen in the sea of angels and neither is Raffe. I’m not even sure I believe what Doc said about Paige being drawn to Beliel, but apparently my heart does.

Uriel steps into another group of warriors. This one is part of the “Your Grace” crowd. Smiles and wing-fanning all around. As Uriel makes his way through the various masked and disguised angels, one of them catches my eye.

He’s a warrior with the required broad shoulders and Adonis body. This one has white-feathered wing covers flecked with
silver that sparkles in the twilight. A matching mask swirls and curves with feathers, ornately covering everything but his eyes and mouth. Even his forehead is partially hidden by his tousled dark hair.

There’s something about him that makes me forget about my heels pinching my toes, the too-close crowd, and even the monstrous Politician. Something feels familiar about him, although I can’t say exactly what. Maybe it’s the proud way he holds his head, or the way he cuts through the crowd with utter confidence, as if it’s assumed that everyone will get out of his way.

Although he doesn’t observe Beliel any more than anyone else, he moves when Beliel moves, stops when Beliel stops.

All my attention is drawn to the warrior as I look for the slightest proof of him being Raffe. If he had been in a crowd of human men, it’d be easy to pick him out as a god among them. Just my luck that we’re in a crowd of walking mountains of muscle and the kind of studliness that females all over the world would die for. Too bad there’s too big a risk of actually dying around them.

My intense study of him must tickle his spy sense because he looks over at me.

I know that, as a soldier, he probably sized up all the others around him, the weapons they carry, the best escape route. But as an angel, I doubt that he bothered to take much stock of the humans.

When he looks at me, it’s the look of someone noticing a person for the first time, proving yet again that an angel’s arrogance knows no bounds. Which, now that I think about it, increases the likelihood that this is Raffe.

He does a full evaluation of me, taking in the cut and curled hair accented with peacock feathers, the blue and silver makeup ribbons chasing around my eyes and cheekbones, the silky dress that clings to every part of my body.

But it’s not until his eyes meet mine that a jolt of recognition passes between us.

I have no doubt that it’s Raffe.

But he fights his recognition of me.

For a second, his defenses fall and I can see the turmoil behind his eyes.

He saw me die. This must be a mistake.

This glittery girl doesn’t look anything like the street waif he traveled with.

Yet…

His step falters and he pauses, staring at me.

T
HE
RIVER
of people mills around him as he stands like a rock in the channel. He stares at me, seemingly oblivious to the traffic of sparkling fabric, plumage of all colors, masked faces, and flutes of champagne flowing around him.

Time may have stopped for him but it hasn’t stopped for the rest of the world. Beliel continues to move farther into the crowd while Uriel walks closer to Raffe. If Raffe doesn’t move soon, he’ll be stuck having to greet Uriel.

The angels around Raffe fan their wings as Uriel approaches. If Raffe doesn’t fan his wings, too, Uriel is bound to notice him. Maybe he’ll stop to talk to him. Will he recognize Raffe’s voice? Walking into an angel party with demon wings is a little like walking onto a shooting range disguised as a target.

I try to warn Raffe with my eyes as we drift over to him, but he seems to be in a trance as he stares at me.

Only when it’s practically too late does he blink out of it and finally glance at Uriel. He ducks his head and turns away, but he gets caught trying to go in the wrong direction as the angels around him move forward to greet Uriel.

I can’t think of any way to help Raffe that doesn’t involve getting my head chopped off or something equally horrendous.

But if I do something to distract Uriel, he’ll likely wait until we’re in private to chop me up and feed me to his scorpion-tailed hounds.

At least, I hope so.

I take two small steps out of sync with my matching twin. I trip.

I careen into Uriel, bumping him harder than I intended.

Uriel stumbles into one of his sycophants and champagne sloshes onto his hand. He spins to look at me with a scowl. There is the promise of eternal torture in his eyes.

I almost expect scorpion monsters to jump out and grab me on the spot, dragging me into the depths of some dungeon where death minions will scuttle out to chop me to bits in the lonely darkness. I don’t need to fake my terror when Uriel looks at me.

But just as I suspected, he’ll wait to deal with me until he’s done stroking feathers or whatever it is that angel politicians do. I have until then to figure out how to get out of this mess.

By the time he composes the raw violence in his face into something more suitable for a politician and turns back to his admirers, Raffe is nowhere in sight.

It takes a few minutes before my heart slows down to normal. I keep my eyes forward and behave like a model accessory, ashamed to glance over at Andi and see the fear in her face. She’s not very useful to Uriel without me, is she?

I hope Raffe made it to a shadowy corner somewhere. I hope Paige is okay and that I’ll soon find her. I hope Mom and Clara are doing all right and are successfully escaping. And now, there’s Andi, who I clearly need to take with me when I leave because it’ll be a death sentence for her if her twin walks off or gets killed. And then there are all those people on Alcatraz.…

Too many.

Being responsible for Mom and Paige is nearly crushing me already. I take comfort in reminding myself that I am just a kid, not a hero. Heroes have a tendency to die in horrible ways.
Somehow, I’ll get through this, and then I’ll lead the quietest life anyone could possibly have in the World After.

We follow Uriel as he works the crowd and makes his way to the makeshift stage at the ocean side of the lawn. The stage has a long table with a white tablecloth on it. The cloth shivers in the ocean wind, held down by plates and cutlery. Angels are seated on either side of an empty center chair like disciples at the Last Supper.

Uriel walks in front of the table and stands in the center, looking down at the party below him. I wonder if we should find seats, but Andi and I both hesitate long enough that we just assume our trophy poses on either side of him.

As if on cue, the roar of the party quiets down and all eyes are on us. On Uriel, of course, but I’m close to him so it feels like everyone’s staring at me, even though no one is.

I find myself scanning the masses for a certain sarcastic angel.

I take a deep breath. Am I really wishing that Raffe is still here? He almost got caught already. It’ll be suicide for him if he doesn’t get out of here fast.

But I can’t help but wonder if he sees me.

I should be staring at a spot above the crowd as my pose dictates, but my eyes keep drifting back to scan the faces below us.

“Welcome brothers and sisters,” Uriel says as everyone quiets down. “We are gathered tonight to unite in a single cause and to celebrate. I have news both appalling and amazing. First, the appalling.” The audience listens with hushed curiosity.

“Until the humans attacked our aerie, we assumed that they’d been behaving as well as could be expected. But now it has come to my attention that they’ve been up to sinister things that we cannot abide.”

Uriel motions for someone to come forward. An angel drags a cowering man onto the stage. He wears faded jeans, a Rolling Stones T-shirt, and glasses. He’s shaking and sweating, clearly terrified. The angel hands over a rolled cloth to Uriel.