Angel Burn

“THIS IS SO EMBARRASSING,” muttered Mary.

She was leaning against the driver’s-side door with her arms crossed over her chest, shaking her head in disapproval.

“Do you want it fixed or not?” Remus demanded. His voice came out muffled, because his head was buried somewhere deep in her Corvette’s engine, along with most of his upper body. He was trying to replace her carburetor, but her engine was so filthy that the nuts were practically welded in place with gasket grime — which is black and gross, in case you’re wondering.

“Would you hand me that wrench? The one with the yellow handle?”

Mary grumbled to herself as she crouched down to rummage through his tools.

“I can’t believe you actually have a toolbox. I can’t believe you brought it to school with you.” She shoved the wrench into his hand.

“Fine — should I stop? Just say the word.” Remus had already removed her air filter by then and disconnected the fuel line and vacuum hoses. They were in the school parking lot because he had figured it would be easier doing it there than in his garage at home, which was stuffed to the gills with old boxes and bicycles and crap that his aunt keeps meaning to throw out but hadn't gotten around to yet.

Remus had clearly reckoned without the embarrassment factor, though. Story of his life.

“Remus! Don’t you dare,” hissed Mary, pulling at her curly hair.

“Look, don’t get all sensitive. Yes, I want it fixed; I just didn’t know that you were going to do it here — that’s all.”

She glanced furtively over her shoulder at the playing field, obviously keeping an eye out for Scott Mason and his gang of swaggering football heroes.

The school day was long over with, but football practice was still going strong.

Meanwhile, the student parking lot was like an empty gray ocean around them, with only a few stray cars dotted about here and there.

“Just be thankful I didn’t do it at lunchtime,” Remus told her.

“I do have some sense of decorum, you know. Oh, come on, you —” he gritted his teeth as he struggled to turn the wrench, putting all of his weight on it.

All at once the nut gave way. “Ha! Success.” He spun it free, then pulled the old carburetor out and checked it against the new one. Perfect match. Which was sort of a miracle, given that Mary's Corvette practically belonged in the Smithsonian.

Mary wrinkled her nose.

“Decorum? You? Don’t make me laugh. Like, what are you wearing?”

“Clothes?”

“Remus. You look like . . . I don’t know; I don’t think there’s even a word for it.”

“Really? Cool.” He grinned as he wiped his hands off on a piece of wadding.

“That means I’m unique, right?” Despite the heat in the air, he was wearing a long-sleeved checkered flannel shirt with his favorite pair of battered jeans.

His green knitted sweater was draped over Mary's open hood, out of harm’s way.

He'd bought most of it at Florian's, which had to have been his favorite store ever.

Mary closed her eyes and groaned.

“Unique. Yes, you could say that. Oh, my God, Hogwarts is so not ready for you.”

This was so true that it wasn’t even worth debating. Instead he took a screwdriver and started to scrape clean the area where the old carburetor had been, getting rid of all the old dirt and gasket material. Beyond gross. Picture a coal pit that’s fallen into an oil slick.

Mary opened her eyes and peered under the hood.

“What are you doing now?” she asked warily.

“Getting rid all of your disgusting grime.” He showed her the wrench, which was now thick with black goo.

“Want to help?”

“Eww, no.” She sighed and leaned against the side of the car again, twiddling a piece of brown hair around her finger.

“Anyway, what do you have to clean it for? Can’t you just shove the new one in?”

A strand of his curly blond hair fell in his face as he was working, and he brushed it back from his forehead without looking up.

“Good idea. Then it wouldn’t have a perfect seal, so it would start sucking in air like a dying vacuum cleaner, and —”

Mary straightened up again with a jolt.

“Oh, my God! Here comes Emmeline Vance!”

Emmeline Vance was one of the stars of Hogwarts High — slim, beautiful, good grades, et cetera.

She was a year older than them, almost eighteen, and a senior. Even apart from that, they didn’t exactly move in the same circles. She was on every club and committee there was and basically lived at school. In fact, Remus thought they’d shut the place down if she ever couldn’t come in for some reason.

The teachers would all go on strike.

He poured some solvent onto a clean rag and started swabbing it around the empty space where the carburetor had been.

“What was it today, do you think?” He said.

“Cheerleading? Prom committee? Saving the world?”

“Remus, this isn’t funny,” moaned Mary.

“She’s heading right toward us!”

“So? I’m sure she’s seen a carburetor before.” Mary stared at him. There was a beat, and then he realized what he'd said and started laughing.

“Oh. Maybe not, huh?”

Mary huffed out a breath, looking like she couldn’t decide whether to throttle him or join in laughing.

“Look, I know you don’t care, but most people already think you’re King Weird, you know. This is not going to help matters, believe me —”

She fell abruptly silent as Emmeline walked up.

“Hi,” said Emmeline, looking uncertainly from Mary to Remus.

She had long, honey-colored hair and makeup that was always so subtle and perfect that you could barely tell she had it on.

Which had always seemed sort of a waste of time to Remus — spending hours putting on makeup that looked invisible once you were done — but there you go.

“Hi,” he said back, poking his head out from underneath the hood.

“Hi, Emmeline,” said Mary faintly. “Good drama club meeting?”

“Yearbook,” corrected Emmeline. “Yeah, great.” She was staring at the open hood and Remus under it.

“You’re . . . fixing Mary's car,” she said. It was halfway between a question and a statement.

He nodded. “Her carburetor.”

“Carburetor. Right,” echoed Emmeline, blinking her wide brown eyes.

There was a pause. Remus could see Emmeline mentally shaking her head to clear it and then deciding that, actually, she didn’t really want to pursue the carburetor thing. She cleared her throat.

“Remus, I just wondered whether you had the homework assignment for Atkinson’s class. I wasn’t there yesterday.”

He felt his eyebrows fly up. He hadn’t realized that Emmeline even knew they were in the same class.

Or in the same school.

Or on the same planet.

On second thought, scratch that — they probably weren’t on the same planet. And why was she asking him, anyway? A dozen of her perfect friends were in that class.

He shrugged. “Yeah, sure — it’s in my red folder.” He motioned toward his schoolbag, which was sitting beside the open toolbox on the ground.

“Would you mind? My hands are all —” he held them up to show her, and she blanched.

“Great, thanks.” She slipped the folder out of his bag and quickly scribbled down the assignment. As she put the folder back, she glanced at Mary and hesitated. She started to say something and stopped. Her neck turned bright pink.

The motion of Remus' hand with the rag slowed as he looked at her in surprise. All at once he knew exactly what was coming; he had seen it too many times before to mistake the signs. Mary's eyes widened as she realized the same thing.

“Maybe I’ll . . . go get a drink of water,” she said, taking an ultra-casual step backward.

Remus could tell she was thinking the same thing he was: Emmeline Vance? Really? Miss Perfect?

Once Mary was gone, Emmeline edged closer to him, lowering her voice.

“Um, Remus. . . ”

She took a deep breath, running her manicured fingers through her hair.

“I’ve heard that you do . . . readings. Like, psychic ones,” she added quickly. Her face was bonfire red.

Remus nodded. “Yeah, that’s right.”

Emmeline seemed to catch her breath. Her expression was trying to be skeptical, but it was suddenly so hopeful and pleading that it was like having a puppy gaze at him.

“Well — are you any good?” she blurted out.

He shrugged as he started to install the new carburetor, tightening it into the intake manifold.

“I guess so. I mean, not everything I see comes true, but most things seem to. And to be honest, the stuff that doesn’t is usually an alternate path.”

She was watching him intently, taking in every word. “An alternate path?” she repeated. “What do you mean?”

He thought about it as he tightened the nuts a bit at a time, keeping the pressure on the carburetor even.

“It’s like . . . you know, you have choices in your life. And sometimes I can see several choices unfolding and what might happen with each one. But they’re not all going to happen, because you’ll only choose one of them.”

Emmeline nodded slowly. “Yeah, that’s exactly what I need help with,” she said, almost to herself.

“Choices.” She glanced back at the school. “Well — would you read me sometime?” she asked in a rush. “Like — soon?”

Remus blinked at the thought of Emmeline in his house — the two really didn’t seem to go together — but then he shrugged.

“Sure, OK. How about tomorrow after school? No, wait a minute — how about Thursday?”

He had forgotten for a second that the caregiver was leaving early the next day, and he'd promised Aunt Jo he'd get home on time to take care of his Mom.

He gave Emmeline his address.

“I’ll be there,” said Emmeline fervently.

Some of her yearbook committee friends had started coming out of the school building behind her by then. Hugging her bag to her chest, she moved off to join them.

“And, Remus— thanks,” she called softly over her shoulder.

He stared after her, feeling bemused. He guessed he should know better than to pigeonhole people — if being psychic had taught him anything, it’s that you really never know what kind of thoughts people might have bubbling away like witches’ cauldrons under the surface of their ordinary lives — but even so, Emmeline Vance.

Strange, he thought as he tightened the final nut.

Mary reappeared, her expression practically bursting with Tell me everything!

“She wants a reading,” Remus said, to ward off the inevitable.

“I knew it!” exclaimed Mary. “I could just tell, the way she was acting all furtive.” She shook her head, looking dazed.

“God. I can’t believe that Emmeline Vance even believes in that junk.”

Mary is about the least imaginative, most prosaic person in the entire world and is convinced that anything psychic is a con. Not that she thinks Remus was a con, necessarily. Just that he's conning himself.

Being dramatic, making things up without realizing it, getting carried away — that sort of thing.

She thought he should be an actor, because he's obviously so in tune with his inner child.

It’s sort of amazing that they're even friends, really. But he's known her since he was nine, which is when his Mom and him first moved into the area to live with Aunt Jo, and he guesses they've just gotten to be a habit with each other.

Mary was peering in under the hood at him, shaking her head.

“Remus, you do know that you should stop all this psychic stuff, don’t you? Half the school thinks you’re a wizard.”

His cheeks grew warm. “Well, that’s not my fault,” he muttered.

He was almost finished, which was a good thing, because Mary was really starting to irritate him.

“It is your fault,” Mary insisted. “You don’t have to keep doing readings, do you? No, you don’t! Here’s a radical thought — just say no the next time someone asks.”

He didn’t say anything as he put Mary's air filter back in place. Distantly, he could hear the football team still practicing on the field, their shoulder pads thudding against each other.

“I can’t do that,” he said finally, straightening up from the car. He wiped his hands clean and started putting his tools away.

“Why?” screeched Mary in exasperation.

He spun to face her. “Because people have problems, Mary! All kinds of problems, and I think maybe — I think maybe I help them.”

“Oh, my God, Remus, you are seriously deluded if you think —” Mary broke off as he grabbed his sweater and slammed her hood shut.

“Here,” he said, tossing her keys at her. “You’ve got to prime it before you drive it again — give the gas a few pumps first.”

Before she could answer, he had gathered up his things and stalked off.

“Fine, be that way,” she called after me. “You know I’m right, though. See you tomorrow. Thanks for fixing my car, you lunatic.”

He waved at her without turning around.

His own car was a battered blue Toyota; he climbed in, piled his stuff on the passenger seat, and started the ignition. It purred like a kitten, of course. He might get awful grades, but he is good with engines.

He pushed a blues cassette into the tape deck as he pulled out of the parking lot — OK, so the twenty-first century hasn’t quite reached his sound system yet — and headed down Highway 12 toward home.

The conversation with Emmeline tugged at his mind, refusing to let go.

She had seemed so anxious, as if getting a reading was the most urgent thing in the world.

Choices. That’s exactly what he needs help with.

Unease flickered through him, and he frowned, wondering why he felt so apprehensive.

Being psychic isn’t like everyone thinks — he's not some all-knowing, all-seeing guru.

No, he can’t predict the winning lottery number, and — ha, ha — yes, he gets caught in the rain just the same as everyone else.

The truth is, he gets flashes or feelings sometimes, but he doesn't tend to get anything too specific unless he has some sort of connection, like holding someone’s hand.

Plus, he has to have the mental space to relax and clear his head. If he's upset or excited, then he doesn't usually get much — and, anyway, it’s not the kind of thing that you could go around doing all the time, at least not without going seriously insane.

So in general he just lives his life like the rest of the world, without really knowing how things are going to unfold.

But he does get some pretty strong intuitions at times . . . and he was having one now, about Emmeline.

He bit his lip as he slowed down for a crossroad.

Whatever her choices were, he had a very bad feeling about them.

~~~~~~~

“Pancakes,” said Sirius, gazing down at the menu. “And scrambled eggs and bacon, with a side of hash browns. And toast.”

He was starving. It was always like this after a kill; he felt as if he hadn’t eaten for a week.

“Coffee?” asked the waitress. She was plump and bored looking.

He nodded. “Yeah, and orange juice.”

The waitress moved off, and Sirius put his menu back in the holder and stretched.

After he left Spurs, he’d cruised around until he found an all-night gym downtown.

He’d bought a pass and worked out for hours, pumping the weight machines as if they were the enemy, doing reps until the sweat poured down his face and shoulders. And slowly, he’d felt the adrenaline that was shrieking through him begin to fade, giving way to a welcome, trembling tiredness.

Finally he’d stopped, his head slumped against the crossbar of the abs machine.

“Good workout?” asked an attendant. It was almost six in the morning by then, and the place was starting to fill up.

All around Sirius were the clatter of the free-weight machines and the sound of grunts, of feet pounding on treadmills.

He had lifted his head and stared at the guy, hardly knowing where he was for a second. Then he nodded and managed a smile. “Yeah, great.”

Mopping his face with his towel, he stood up. His muscles felt like water.

He used to go running after an angel encounter, but it was never enough; it didn’t exhaust him. This was good. He might actually manage to get some sleep sometime in the next day or two now.

“Man, I was watching you attack those machines,” the man said cheerfully, squirting disinfectant on the seat of a stationary bike. He wiped it down.

“You were like something possessed.”

Sirius had grinned suddenly. “No, that’s everyone else,” he said. “You know — the ones I don’t get to in time.” And leaving the bewildered assistant staring after him, he’d draped the towel around his neck and gone to take a shower.

Now he took a gulp of dishwater-tasting coffee and gazed out the plate-glass window at the Rocky Mountains. The pancake house was humming with people — laid-back-looking moms and dads wearing jeans and happy smiles, and little kids bouncing on their seats as they scribbled on their Mr. Pancake coloring place mats.

He had been to Aspen several times, even before the Invasion. Angels seemed to like it here.

Who knew why — maybe it was the fresh mountain air. Sirius propped his chin on his hand as he stared out at the snow-covered peaks in the distance. In a strange way, Aspen reminded him of Albuquerque, though Albuquerque was all desert and slanting light; golden stone instead of soaring mountains. It was something about the air — the way you felt so clean and reborn just by smelling it.

His first solo kill had been in Albuquerque.

Sirius' coffee cup slowed on its way to his lips as he remembered. He put it down again without drinking.

He’d been twelve years old. Out on a hunt with Peter and Reg. Orion, his father, had already started getting sort of weird by then — he spent his time stalking around the camp muttering to himself, working his jaw as if he had marbles in his mouth, and when he wasn’t shouting at everyone, he was obsessively cleaning the guns at all hours of the day and night.

Though there’d been a time when Sirius could hardly imagine anything better than being allowed to go out on a hunt with his father, now he’d felt relieved when he hadn’t come along. And then he’d felt guilty for his relief.

His father was a great man — everyone knew that. At least, everyone who counted.

Even so, the mood was jubilant that day as their Jeep roared out of camp, sending up clouds of dust ten feet high.

Peter, who was from Alabama, had let out a ringing rebel yell, and Reg had punched Sirius in the arm, saying, “Hey, bro, think you can take me? Think you can take me?”

Suddenly Sirius knew that they both felt the same way he did, and the guilt left him in a happy rush.

“Yeah, I can take you,” he’d said, and lunged at Reg, getting him in a half nelson. Gratifyingly —his brother was two years older — it had taken Reg a few seconds to break free, and then he’d launched himself across the seat at Sirius with a shout.

The two of them fell into the back on top of the mountain of camping gear, scuffling and laughing.

Back then, before the CIA had taken over with their angel spotters and coldly efficient texts, a hunt might take weeks. As well as their camping supplies, there were a couple of crates of canned food in the Jeep and boxes of cartridges.

Their guns lay tucked out of sight for now: dependable deer rifles that weren’t very flashy but did the job. Peter even had his crossbow with him. He claimed it gave a cleaner shot, but Sirius thought he was just showing off.

It was a pain, anyway; they always had to go and find his bolt after a kill.

“If either of you little dipshits breaks that stove, I’ll kill you,” Peter called back in his southern drawl.

He spun the wheel, and the Jeep skidded around a curve in a shower of sand and pebbles, sending Sirius and Reg banging against its side like rag dolls.

Sirius knew that once they got into civilization, Pete would drive like a model citizen, but out here it was the end of the world, with only dirt and yucca plants and lizards for company. You could do whatever the hell you liked.

“Up yours.” Reg glanced at Sirius with a grin.

Taller and stockier than Sirius, he had the same dark hair, the same blue-gray eyes. You could tell they were brothers just by looking at them.

They both looked like their mom.

The thought had brought a hard edge to the day. Sirius remembered a woman who loved to sing, who used to kick off her shoes and dance along with the radio while she was cooking.

When he was little, he used to tug on her jeans to get her attention, and sometimes she’d stop what she was doing and lean down to catch his hands.

“Dance with me, lover boy,” she’d say with a laugh, spinning him around.

Sirius knew that Mom was the reason they were doing this. She always had been. She was also the reason that his father was — maybe — going insane.

The Jeep bumped and rattled over the rocky soil. Driving with one hand, Pete bit off the end of a cigar, spat it over the side, and lit up.

He was wearing a black sleeveless shirt, and his shoulders and arms were statue-hard, rippling with muscle. He shook his head as he took a deep puff and glanced at Sirius and Reg in the rearview mirror.

“The Angel Killers . . . hope of the free world,” he muttered. “God help us all.”

The drive to Albuquerque took almost four hours, so that Sirius had felt dull with boredom long before they got there.

He perked up as they entered the city limits. Living out in the desert like a bunch of pack rats, it was easy to forget that there was a real world out there, but now it all beckoned to him in a sparkling rush — fast food, shopping malls, movies.

A billboard with someone named Will Smith on it caught his eye: a tough-looking black guy carrying a gun.

“Hey, Pete, can we go see a movie?” he asked, hanging over the front seat.

“You and Reg can,” said Pete. Glancing in the rearview mirror, he smoothed his blond hair back with his palm and grinned.

“I got me some other ideas, if you boys catch my drift.”

Women. Sirius and Reg grimaced at each other. There were several female AKs back at the camp, but Peter said he liked his girls sweet, not dressed in combat gear and going out for target practice.

Women who could shoot as well as he could were a touch off-putting.

The plan was to stop off in the city for one night in comfort before they started roughing it on the long drive up to Vancouver, where Orion had heard rumors of angel activity. But as they pulled into a motel, Peter stiffened.

“You know what?” he murmured, getting out of the Jeep. “I think there’s something goin’ on here.”

That meant angels. Sirius looked up sharply. The hot afternoon froze around them, the whole world suspended.

“Where, Pete?” asked Reg. He seemed older suddenly, more serious.

“Not sure yet,” said Peter, his eyes narrowed. “I don’t think it’s very far, though.” He paused for a long moment, gazing around them at the strip mall. Finally he shook himself.

“Come on, let’s get checked in and unload. Then I think we’re going to have to take a little drive, gentlemen.”

Peter got them a room and parked the Jeep so that it was right outside their door. The three of them worked automatically, carrying their gear in and piling it onto the floor.

They left the rifles in the Jeep. When everything else had been unloaded, Peter threw a tarp over them. “OK, let’s go,” he said. He swung himself back into the driver’s seat and started up the engine.

“You both know the drill. Sirius, you sit beside me. Reg, in the back.”

Sirius saw Reg start to protest and then think better of it. Peter might joke around a lot, but you didn’t question his judgment unless you wanted a black eye.

Sirius slid into the front passenger seat, his skin prickling with excitement. Though he’d been on perhaps a dozen hunts by now, the thrill hadn’t lessened any. And maybe it was petty of him, but he knew that part of the thrill was realizing how good he was.

Reg might be older and bigger than he was, and just as good a shot, but he couldn’t tune in as quickly as Sirius, or as strongly. When it came to that side of things, Sirius had taken to all the weird stuff their father had taught them just like coming home.

As Peter cruised slowly down the busy Albuquerque street, Sirius closed his eyes and relaxed, moving his focus smoothly up through his chakra points.

As his consciousness rose above his crown chakra, another world opened up before him. He could feel the energy fields of every living thing nearby — the woman in the car next to them; the guy standing on the curb waiting to cross the street; his German shepherd, straining at its leash.

Their energies all touched his own, and he felt them briefly and moved on, probing in ever-widening circles.

Distantly, he heard Reg say, “Peter, are you sure you felt something?”

“Shut up —” Peter started to say, then broke off as Sirius' eyes flew open and he sat straight up.

“That way!” Sirius said urgently, pointing. “There’s a — a park or something, maybe two streets south. I could feel lots of trees. It’s in there. It’s getting ready to feed.” He shivered despite himself.

Angel energy felt swamp-cold, clammy. It touched your soul and seemed to leave foul fingerprints on it.

“A park? Excellent,” said Peter, turning.

In the rearview mirror, Sirius could see Reg looking at him, impressed and a little jealous.

“Good one, bro,” Reg said.

Sure enough, they came to a park a few seconds later. Peter parked the Jeep under a line of trees.

After a glance around them, he leaned across Sirius and opened the glove compartment.

He took out a pistol with a silencer on its muzzle; there was a clicking noise as he checked the magazine then snapped it shut again. He handed the weapon to Sirius.

“Go get ’em, tiger,” he said.

Sirius almost dropped the pistol in shock. “Do what?”

“He’s only twelve!” burst out Reg at the same time.

“So? You were thirteen when you soloed, and he’s better at the chakras than you,” said Peter, twisting around to look at him. Reg sank back in his seat again, glowering.

Sirius stared down at the gun.

He had shot angels before, of course, but never on his own, without backup. There were more things that could go wrong than he could count. The main one was that the angel might spot him and attack before he managed to shoot it. He’d been on a hunt where that had happened once, to an Angel Killer named Spencer.

Sirius swallowed, remembering Spence’s vacant stare, his mind completely and forever blistered by the angel’s assault.

Or sometimes they just killed you, of course.

Peter was watching him. “Listen to me,” he said roughly. “You’ll never be of maximum use to us if you can’t go out on your own. You can do it; I wouldn’t have just handed you a loaded pistol otherwise.”

From Peter, this was high praise. Sirius licked dry lips. “OK,” he said. Trying to hide his shaking hands, he flicked the pistol’s safety on. He wasn’t wearing his holster, so he stuck the gun in the back of his jeans and pulled his T-shirt over it.

“Sirius. . . be careful,” said Reg, looking worried now.

“He’ll be fine,” said Peter. He slapped Sirius on the shoulder.

“And if you’re not back in fifteen, we’ll call the loony squad to come get ya.”

AK humor — you just had to love it.

Sirius' lips felt stretched over his teeth as he smiled. Then he got out of the Jeep and walked into the park.

It only took him a few minutes to find the angel. He didn’t even have to open his senses to do it— the moment he saw the young woman sitting under a tree, gazing dreamily up at the clouds, he knew.

She was wearing a light summer dress, and her brown hair was loose on her shoulders.

Evidently she’d been reading a book; it lay forgotten by her side as she smiled upward, lost in her own pleasant thoughts.

That was what everyone else would see.

Speeding through his chakras, Sirius' perception shifted abruptly as a glorious being came into view, over seven feet tall and blinding white. Though its great wings almost blocked out the sun, the angel was far brighter than the sun could ever hope to be.

It glowed with radiance, casting pure, dazzling light across the woman’s beatific features.

Sirius' stomach lurched. He hadn’t often seen one actually feeding before.

The creature had both hands buried deep in the woman’s energy field, which was growing dimmer by the second, twisting feebly as if in protest. The angel had its head thrown back in gluttonous ecstasy as the woman’s energy seeped away into its own, like water leaving a draining tub.

And thanks to angel burn, she’d actually remember the angel as good and kind. Just as his mother had, before she’d been killed.

Shoving his feelings away, Sirius glanced around him. They were in a section of the park away from any paths; the nearest people were a couple of teenage boys about a hundred yards away, throwing a Frisbee.

Shielding himself from view behind a tree, Sirius pulled out the gun, flicking off the safety. He steadied the weapon with both hands and took aim.

Now that it came down to it, he felt very calm, with a quick excitement throbbing away somewhere deep underneath. His first solo kill. Peter was right; he could do it. What had he been worried about?

He had lived his whole life just waiting for this moment.

The angel looked up and saw him.

Fear pounded through Sirius as he and the angel locked eyes.

The creature knew instantly what he was, and it screamed in pure fury, ripping its hands away from the woman’s energy field. Useless and forgotten, she slumped to the ground, the peaceful smile still on her face.

Screeching, the angel sped toward him.

Sirius had a blurred impression of a great rushing and flapping of wings, and of wind tearing at his hair, as if the whole world was whipping past. The pistol began to shake in his hands. Shoot! he screamed at himself. But its eyes were so beautiful, even in its rage. He could only stare into them and know that he was about to die.

No! With the greatest effort of his life, Sirius tore his attention away from the angel’s eyes and focused on its halo instead. That’s the angel’s heart, his father always said. Go for the center. Sirius' hands were so unsteady, he could hardly take aim.

The angel was shrieking in triumph, its terrible, awesome voice slicing through him. Its halo was the size of a saucer . . . now a dinner plate . . . now a . . .

Sirius shot. The world exploded into shards of light as the force from the fallout blew him backward, off his feet. He landed in the grass a dozen feet away and lay there stunned, the wind knocked out of him.

“Man, if that wasn’t just about the messiest kill I ever did see,” observed a drawling voice.

“I was about to shoot the damn thing myself.” Suddenly there was a strong arm around his shoulders, helping him to his feet.

Sirius staggered and stared at Peter in confusion. He tried to speak, but the power seemed to have left him for the moment. His head was throbbing as if an anvil had been dropped onto it.

"You’re going to feel terrible for a good week, probably,” said Peter conversationally, putting away his own gun.

“Don’t believe in doing things speedily, do you? I thought you were waiting for the son of a bitch to fly into you.”

Sirius laughed shakily. Now that it was over, he felt almost giddy with relief — and then his emotions swung to the other extreme, so that he had to clench his fists to keep from bursting into hysterical tears.

Jesus. It had almost got him. It had really almost got him.

Peter squeezed his shoulder. “You did good,” he said seriously, dropping the banter.

“It’s tough when they see you. Stay here. I’m just gonna go check on our lady friend.”

He jogged toward the woman, stopping only to pick up Sirius' pistol and shove it in the back of his jeans first. Sirius leaned weakly against a tree as their voices floated toward him.

“You OK, ma’am? You look sort of peaked.”

“Oh . . . oh, I’m fine. You won’t believe me, but I’ve just seen the most — the most beautiful, amazing thing. . . .”

Sirius closed his eyes. The angel was gone now; he had killed it — but the woman’s words chilled him, anyway.

Yes, the most beautiful, amazing thing. She’d have a cherished memory now for the rest of her life, and at what cost? Insanity, perhaps? That happened a lot — schizophrenia taking her life over, until she was screaming back at the voices in her head.

Or how about cancer? That was always a good one: the angel’s feeding touch causing the very cells inside of her to wither up and die.

Or MS, so that she’d eventually lose the use of her limbs and end up in a wheelchair, until finally she died of it. Or Parkinson’s or AIDS or any other ailment you could think of — there was no telling with angel burn; the only certainty was that she’d been inexorably poisoned, and no matter what form the damage would take, the quality of her life would go firmly downhill from now on.

And ironically, she would never see the connection between this and the angel. In fact, she’d probably think that the angel had been sent to help her in her time of need.

Peter reappeared. “She’s on her way home, happy as a clam — for now, anyway. Come on,” he went on, dropping his hand on Sirius' arm.

“Let’s go find your brother, so you can brag you got your first solo kill. Might even brag on you a little myself.”

“Why?” Sirius asked raggedly. The words felt like sand in his throat.

“I did everything wrong! I waited too long to shoot. I looked into its eyes. I —”

His headache threatened to blind him as Peter lightly cuffed the back of his head.

“None of that, boy,” he said. He draped an arm around Sirius' neck as they started walking back to the Jeep.

“Didn’t I just tell you that it’s hard when they look at you? You did good. You did good.”

Now, five years later in Aspen, Sirius stared out the window at the Rocky Mountains, seeing the dry, rugged hills of New Mexico instead.

As it turned out, only a handful of angels had ever seen him again; it had just been sheer bad luck that it had happened his first time on his own.

But it hadn’t mattered. He’d gotten over his nerves, and now he had brought down more angels than he could count — especially since he had long ago stopped bothering to keep track.

There hadn’t seemed much point anymore once Reg was gone, taking with him the friendly competition between the two brothers.

The thought winced through Sirius before he could stop it. No. Don’t go there.

“Here you are,” said the waitress, appearing with his breakfast. The plates clinked against the table as she set them down in front of him.

She produced fork, knife, and spoon from her apron, and clattered those down as well. “Would you like some more coffee?”

“Thanks,” said Sirius. She refilled his cup and bustled off, and he eyed the food tiredly, wondering why he had wanted so much. But he needed to eat for the fuel, if nothing else.

He might get another text any minute, sending him off to God knows where. Or it could be as long as a week from now. A week full of long, pointless hours that he’d somehow have to fill — which usually meant boxy motel rooms and crap TV shows.

Ignoring the happy families sitting all around him, Sirius lifted his fork and began to eat