Chapter 8
WHEN REMUS GOT INTO THE SHOWER, the jets pounded down on him, sweeping away the grime of the last two days.
He lathered his hair, wishing that the shampoo didn’t smell so much like Sirius.
And then he felt irritated that he'd even noticed what Sirius smelled like.
The last two days had been difficult enough, without having to deal with Sirius being so stiff and cold toward him, as if it hadn’t even occurred to him that maybe Remus was a little bit more upset about all of this than he was.
The hot water felt good, vigorous. Remus stayed in the shower for a long time, savoring it and letting it wash his mind clear of thoughts.
When he finally stepped out, he dried himself off, wiped the steam from the mirror with his hand, and toweled his hair until it was semi dry.
Then he realized that he didn’t have any nightclothes. Or a toothbrush. Or toothpaste.
He felt like crying in frustration.
Great.
Now he was going to have to ask Sirius for help again.
He briefly considered sleeping in the towel instead, then thought of the logistics of that and sighed.
“Sirius?” he called through the bathroom door.
There was a pause.
“Yeah?” Opening the door a crack, Remus peered out.
“Um — I don’t have anything to sleep in. Do you have something I could borrow? And some toothpaste, maybe?”
He glanced at Remus and then away. “Yeah, hang on.”
He got up and rummaged in his bag, pulling out a couple of things.
He crossed to the bathroom and handed them in to Remus.
Their eyes met.
“Thanks.” Remus withdrew quickly inside again and shut the door.
He’d given Remus a pair of black sweatpants and a faded red cotton shirt with long sleeves.
They felt soft and worn, the way clothes get with lots of washings.
Remus tossed them onto the counter, then brushed his teeth with a washcloth and finished drying his hair.
When he finally pulled on the clothes, they were so big that they swam on him, the sleeves of the shirt dangling past his hands. He started to roll up the right one . . . but stopped as sensations washed over him.
There’s this thing called psychometry, which is when a psychic can pick things up from objects. Like, you give them dear old Aunt Grace’s wristwatch, and they hold it in their hands and can tell you everything about her.
Remus don’t know how it’s supposed to work; maybe items hold leftover energy or something.
Anyway, it had never worked very well for him — the most he usually got was a distant flicker of emotion.
But now, wearing Sirius's clothes, he was feeling something more.
Remus stared at himself in the mirror as he stroked the red sleeve. It felt comforting.
He meant, comforting beyond just the normal warmth and softness of an old T-shirt.
The energy from when Sirius had last worn it was . . . Remus closed his eyes, wrapping himself up in it like a blanket. It felt like coming home. His eyes flew open.
You’re losing it, he thought. He hates the very idea of you.
That was his brain.
His hand wasn’t paying any attention; it was still touching the sleeve, his fingers running lightly up and down it.
The energy that he sensed there felt so familiar, so safe.
He dropped his hand as if the sleeve was on fire, and the sensations stopped. Closing his mind, he rolled up both sleeves almost harshly, shoving them up his forearms.
What he had sensed was totally crazy.
He didn’t even like Sirius. Yet when Remus opened the door and went into the bedroom, his eyes darted straight to Sirius.
He was lying on one of the beds, watching TV with his arms crossed under his head, and seemed deep in thought.
Glancing across at Remus as he came in, he actually smiled, his mouth twitching upward as if he couldn’t help it. “They’re, uh . . . sort of big on you,” he said.
“Yeah.” Remus looked away from him, feeling flustered.
Sitting on the empty bed, he started to brush his hair.
“I guess I’ll take a shower, too, if you’re finished.” He took some things from his bag, then went into the bathroom and closed the door.
As Remus heard the shower starting up, he tried to forget about the sensations he had felt. Or how much even the slight smile had softened his face.
The local news came on, and Remus looked up, wondering for a second if there might be something on there about his disappearance. But they were over a thousand miles away from home.
Remus let out a breath. Were his Mom and Aunt Jo OK?
Over the last two days, he'd tried several times to get a fix on them psychically, picturing the house in his mind and trying to feel what was happening there. All he ever got was a sense of worry and slight irritation — exactly what he'd expect from Aunt Jo, now that she was left on her own with his Mom.
Remus hoped these glimmers meant they were both safe, that no one had come looking for him.
He stared unseeingly at the TV screen. Aunt Jo was sure to have called the police by now, who would have found out from Mary that he'd gone to the Church of Angels, and . . . then what? Had they found his car?
According to Sirius, the police force was full of Church of Angels members; would they say anything if they had found it? Or were they were looking for Remus for reasons of their own?
A commercial came on, as if triggered by his thoughts, and he found himself gazing at a familiar pearl-white church.
“Do you feel despairing?” intoned the voiceover.
Oh, no, not this.
Remus lunged off his own bed, grabbed the remote control from Sirius's, and switched the channel.
Another local news program, this one about a shortage of hospital beds in Knoxville.
Good — nice and safe and boring. Remus tossed the remote back onto Sirius's bed, then pulled his pillows out from under the bedspread and settled down to watch.
“Hospital staff are struggling,” announced a woman with perfectly styled dark hair.
She was standing in a hospital corridor; behind her, there were beds with patients in them lining the walls.
An orderly bumped against one as he hurried past; there was the sound of someone groaning in the background.
“What once used to be sufficient hospital space for central Knoxville’s needs has in recent months become woefully inadequate, as cases ranging from cancer to lesser-known diseases have skyrocketed. . . .”
Remus frowned and hugged a pillow to his chest as he watched, a memory tickling at his mind.
This was so familiar, even down to the shot of a news reporter standing in a crowded hospital corridor.
Then he remembered: he had watched a similar news story only a couple of months ago, about a shortage of hospital beds in Syracuse.
Hospital beds in Knoxville, Tennessee, and hospital beds in Syracuse, New York.
Two cities a thousand miles apart from each other.
The camera panned to a teenage girl in one of the beds against the wall; she was trying to smile, but you could tell how weak she was.
Remus's scalp prickled as he remembered Emmeline's reading — that was exactly how he'd seen her looking after she’d been at the Church of Angels for a while.
Sirius's words rushed back to him, about the angels’ touch leaving people hurt, diseased — and Remus realized that the two news stories weren’t a coincidence.
There wasn’t a shortage of hospital beds; there was an increase in people being sick, and it was because of the angels.
This was really happening — not just to his Mom and Emmeline, but to people all over the country.
The story ended and another one came on.
Remus sat in a daze, trying to take in the sheer scale of it.
Remus jumped as the bathroom door opened.
Sirius came back into the bedroom wearing a pair of navy-blue sweatpants, his dark hair looking towel-dried.
He dropped his clothes on the dresser and went over to his bag, while Remus tried not to stare at the sight of him with his shirt off — the toned muscles on his stomach, chest, and arms; the smoothness of his skin, still slightly damp from the shower.
With a sideways glance, Remus took in the faint line of dark hair that crept down from his navel, watched his tanned shoulders move as he rummaged in the bag and pulled out a T-shirt.
There was a tattoo on his left bicep — a black AK in gothic lettering.
God, he is so good-looking.
Heat scorched Remus's face at the unwanted thought.
He really, really did not want to be attracted to Sirius.
He pulled the T-shirt over his head, and Remus felt himself relax a little.
Taking something else out of his bag, Sirius said, “Hey . . . this is yours.”
Turning, he held it out to Remus.
Remus's eyes widened as he saw that it was the photo from his home, the one that had sat on the bookcase in the dining room: him and the willow tree.
Slowly, Remus reached out for it.
His throat tightened, remembering when his Mom had taken it — one of those brief, wonderful times when she’d actually been all there.
See the willow tree, Remus? It reminds me of you.
He traced his fingers over the glass. “But — how did you —?”
“I took it from your house,” Sirius admitted.
He sprawled on his bed, stretching a leg out and propping the other one up on the cover.
Remus stared at him in disbelief, clutching the photo in both hands as if to protect it.
“You stole it? But why?”
Sirius shrugged as he looked up at the TV, his forearm resting on his knee.
“Angels don’t have childhoods. When I saw that, I knew for sure that you weren’t an angel, so I took it. I thought I might need it.”
His blue-gray eyes rested on Remus for a second. “Sorry.”
Remus started to say something else but stopped, gazing back down at the photo.
“No, I’m really glad to have it,” he confessed. He stroked the frame and placed it on his bedside table.
Then he thought of something. “How did you get into the house, anyway?”
Sirius smiled slightly. “I picked the lock on the back door. Your aunt should get a good security lock; that one’s pretty crap.”
Remus sighed and dropped his head back against his pillows.
“Yeah, I wish I could tell her.”
There was a short silence, with only the sound of the TV.
One of those stupid court shows had come on, where people go and shout at each other in front of a judge.
“Look, Remus. . . ” Sirius paused, and Remus glanced over at him.
He was frowning, tapping his knee with his hand.
“I, um . . . I know that all of this must be really hard for you. I mean, having to leave your family, and . . . everything.”
Oh, God, don’t be nice to me; I’ll start crying.
Remus shrugged, staring fixedly at the screen.
“Yeah, I’ve had better weeks. Like the week when I had the chicken pox — that was a lot more fun.”
Sirius gave a short laugh.
The sound surprised Remus; he realized that he'd never heard Sirius laugh before.
But then Remus hadn’t been laughing much, either.
They watched the show in silence for a while. A woman was accusing her dog groomer of giving her dog a bad haircut and wanted hundreds of dollars in pain and suffering.
The dog didn’t look as if he cared either way.
“When did you first find out that you’re psychic?” asked Sirius suddenly. He was gazing at the TV.
When Remus didn’t answer, he turned his head to look at Remus.
His dark hair was ruffled, still a little damp from his shower.
Remus's muscles tensed.
He wasn’t usually self-conscious about being psychic, but he knew exactly what it meant as far as Sirius was concerned.
It was why he'd felt so torn about doing a reading in the diner, right in front of him.
“Why?” Remus asked.
Sirius's shoulders moved as he shrugged. “Just wondering. It must be pretty hard — knowing things that other people don’t know.”
Everything within Remus seemed to go still.
That wasn’t what most people said.
Most people, if they believed he was psychic at all, just went on about how fantastic it must be.
Wow, you can really tell the future? That is so cool! Can you, like, win the lottery?
Having someone actually realize that it’s not always fun was . . . unusual.
“I don’t know when I first found out,” Remus said. “I’ve always been psychic. It was more a question of . . . well, realizing that the rest of the world isn’t, I guess.”
An unwanted memory flashed through his mind: himself at five years old, out shopping for groceries with his Mom. There had been a kind-looking lady in the cereal section who’d squeezed his hand and cooed, “Oh, what a handsome little boy!” And that had made Remus feel good, so that he wanted to do something nice for her, too.
So Remus told her all about the images that he saw.
The new house that she and her husband were building. Her teenage son, who was going to leave home but then return in less than a year. Her new job, which she wouldn’t like at first, but —
She’d dropped Remus's hand as if she’d been holding a snake.
She must have said something before she hurried away, but Remus didn't remember what. He just remembered the expression on her face; it had been burned into his brain.
A look of absolute horror; of disgust almost, as if —
As if Remus wasn’t even human.
His chest went tight at the memory.
What do you know? The woman had been right.
Sirius looked back at the TV.
“Yeah . . . finding out that other people weren’t must have been tough. Like you were the only person in the world.”
“That was exactly how I felt,” Remus admitted. “But then I got to be a teenager, and it stopped bothering me so much. I guess I’d gotten used to being different. Besides, I like helping people, if I can.”
Remus stopped in confusion, realizing that they were actually having a conversation — one that wasn’t about what kind of sandwich Remus wanted.
Sirius nodded. “I could tell that back at the diner. What you did for that waitress, that was really . . . ”
He stopped, seemed to be searching for words. “Really good,” he finished at last.
He meant it.
Remus gazed sideways at him, wondering why he was talking to Remus now . . . and whether he still thought that part of Remus was just like the angels.
God, why did Remus even care?
The memory of how the energy from his shirt had felt flashed through Remus's mind, and his cheeks flushed.
“Thanks,” Remus said, looking away from him.
On the TV, another court case was coming on: as the dramatic music played, a woman strode toward the defendant’s podium, wearing a power suit and lots of gold jewelry.
“So will she get her restaurant in Atlanta?” asked Sirius.
Remus shook his head. “I don’t know. It was the nicest of her likely futures, so I hope so, now that I’ve told her about it.”
Sirius propped himself on his elbow, watching Remus. “Can you read yourself?”
“No. I’ve tried, but I never get anything. It’s always just gray.”
“Probably just as well. That would be weird, to see your own future.”
“Just being psychic is pretty weird,” Remus said. “Or at least, most people think so.”
Sirius lifted a shoulder. “Well, you’re talking to someone who kills angels for a living. That’s not exactly normal.”
Remus glanced at him, suddenly wondering what his life was like.
He was so young to be on his own the way he was, and it seemed like he’d been doing it for years.
Remus pushed the thought away.
He wasn’t about to ask Sirius any questions, not after last time.
Sirius sat playing with the remote, turning it over in his hand.
A long moment passed, and then he cleared his throat. “Look . . . I’m sorry,” he said.
Remus's head turned sharply as he stared at Sirius.
“What I said that first night —” Sirius stopped and sighed, tossing the remote onto the bed.
Scraping his hand through his hair, he said, “When I first found out, it just threw me, OK? For a lot of reasons. I don’t — I don’t think you’re like the angels. And I’ve been acting like a jerk. I’m sorry.”
A smile grew slowly across Remus's face. “Yes, you have,” he said. “But apology accepted.”
“Good.” Sirius smiled back at him.
His eyes looked slightly troubled, but it was a genuine smile. It changed his whole face.
Warmth filled Remus; embarrassed, he turned to the TV again.
The woman in the power suit was showing close-up photos of a scratch on her car, her voice trembling with anger.
After a pause, he said, “So, can I ask questions now?”
Sirius's dark eyebrows rose. “You could have asked me questions before.”
“I guess. It didn’t really feel like it.”
He thought about this; a corner of his mouth quirked. “No, I guess it didn’t. Yeah, go on, fire away.”
Remus sat up, crossing his legs. “What’s this place that we’re going to, exactly?”
Sirius shifted, pulling one of his pillows out and sitting up a little.
“It’s a camp in southern New Mexico, out in the desert. It’s where I was trained. I think Peter will probably be there now, training new AKs.”
Angel Killers, Remus remembered. “And who’s Peter, exactly?”
Remus could practically see the memories flickering across his face.
“He used to be an AK, until he lost a leg on a hunt. He knows more about all of this stuff than anyone alive.”
Lost a leg.
Remus's eyes went to the dresser, where Sirius had put his pile of clothes.
His gun lay on top, in a holster.
Obviously Remus had known already that what Sirius did must be dangerous, but now it hit him just how dangerous.
“Does that sort of thing happen often?” Remus asked.
Sirius's expression didn’t change.
Remus could feel the tension forming inside him, though, like a coiled wire.
“He was lucky,” Sirius said shortly. “The unlucky ones either die or end up with angel burn.”
Had something like that happened to his brother?
Looking back at the TV, Remus changed the subject in a hurry. “So, you lived at this place in New Mexico?”
“Yeah.” Sirius hesitated and then added, “My father was the one who started it.”
Him and his father and his brother, all out at this camp in the desert together.
Remus remembered the glimpse he'd gotten from his hand: the barbed wire, the bright, hard blue of the sky.
“What about your mother?” Remus asked.
Sirius gazed at the screen without moving.
At first Remus thought he wasn’t going to answer.
“It’s a long story,” he said eventually.
“Sure, OK.” Remus wished he hadn’t asked.
The subject of Sirius's family seemed to be a minefield.
They watched TV in silence for a while.
Remus twisted a strand of still-damp hair around his finger. “Listen, the whole . . . angel problem,” Remus said at last. “It’s gotten worse recently, hasn’t it? I mean, I don’t remember even hearing about them until a couple of years ago, and now it’s like — they’re everywhere. On TV. In the papers.”
Sirius seemed to relax.
“It was the Invasion,” he said, plumping up one of his pillows and settling back down on it.
“They’ve always been here, but then almost two years ago their numbers just exploded. We don’t know why — if something happened in their own world, or what.”
Remus watched him, taking in his dark eyebrows; the smooth line of his neck as it disappeared into the collar of his T-shirt. “Where is their world?”
“We’re not sure,” said Sirius.
Remus noted his casual use of the word “we,” suggesting a team that had been fighting together for a long time.
“Another dimension, probably. They seem to be able to cross over into this one.”
Another dimension.
Remus always thought those only existed in science fiction — made-up stories.
Like angels.
“So they just — live here? The same as humans?”
Sirius drew a knee to his chest, looping his forearm over it.
Even when he was at ease, there was a sense of strength somehow, like a big cat.
“Yeah. They have houses, drive cars . . . They just sort of blend right in, without anyone really noticing them.”
Remus shook his head, trying to comprehend it all.
“What happens if you can’t stop them?”
Sirius shrugged as he glanced at Remus. “Humanity will die,” he said.
“Maybe in a few decades . . . fifty years. The AKs are losing, you know — slowly but surely. We need something big to stop them, or we haven’t got a chance.”
Remus's mouth went dry.
Was he supposed to be the something big, then?
He thought of the hospital beds that had lined the corridor in the news program, and didn’t know what to say.
“This is just . . . I can’t believe that no one knows about this,” Remus whispered. “Why doesn’t the government do something? Why don’t they tell everyone?”
With eerie timing, the Church of Angels commercial came on again.
Sirius gazed up at the screen, his mouth twisting wryly.
“It’s not that easy. Most people can only see angels for what they really are when they’re being fed from, and by then they’ve got angel burn; they wouldn’t try to get away if you paid them.”
Remus saw what he meant.
Remus imagined what would have happened if he'd tried to drag Emmeline away while that thing was draining her; he thought she would have physically attacked him.
Sirius was still looking at the commercial.
“Plus, the angels seem to make a point of targeting the police and the government. Quite a few higher-ups have gotten angel burn since the Invasion — that’s what first tipped off the CIA that something weird was going on.”
“Really?” Remus stared at Sirius, his blood chilling. “Who? Do you mean the president?”
He shook his head. “I don’t know, exactly. People who you wouldn’t want to have it, definitely.”
As the commercial ended, the final image of an angel gazed out at them with a serene smile, its halo and wings a pure, radiant white.
“They’re so beautiful,” Remus admitted softly.
“Yeah, they are.”
Remus picked at a loose seam in the nylon bedspread.
He didn’t really want to ask, but he had to know.
“So . . . when someone has angel burn, what happens?”
Sirius's dark hair fell over his forehead as he looked at Remus, his expression reluctant.
“When an angel feeds off someone, the effect is toxic,” he said. “The person perceives the angel as wonderful and kind, but meanwhile it’s damaging them in some way — causing some sort of disease or mental illness. MS, cancer, whatever. The more the person’s energy is drained, the more severe the burn.”
Remus thought of his Mom, with her vacant, dreamy gaze . . . and of the being who’d made her that way.
His father.
This was a part of him; it was inside of him.
No wonder Sirius hadn’t wanted anything to do with him at first; Remus could hardly blame him.
Remus stared down at the seam, trying not to hate himself and failing.
From the other bed, he could feel Sirius's gaze still on him.
He cleared his throat. “You know, from what I could tell, your mother’s one of the lucky ones. I mean, when I checked out her energy, it didn’t feel distressed or anything. She seems content.”
Remus nodded.
Suddenly his eyes were leaking; he wiped them with the flat of his hand. “Yeah . . . it’s always sucked for me, not having a mom, but at least I know she’s happy off in her dreamworld.” Remus glanced at him and managed a smile. “Thanks.”
A late-night talk show came on; they watched in silence as the host stood in front of the audience, making jokes for the intro.
Remus hesitated as he thought of everything Sirius had just told him.
“So, my angel — the one you saw over me — it doesn’t feed, right?”
“No, it doesn’t,” said Sirius.
Remus looked up at Sirius, biting his lip. “You’re sure?”
Sirius kept his voice matter-of-fact, but his eyes told Remus he understood how Remus was feeling.
“I’m positive. Your angel doesn’t have a halo, and that’s an angel’s heart; it’s where the energy is distributed from as they feed. Plus your aura doesn’t show any signs of feeding — an angel’s aura always does.”
“So I don’t . . . hurt people when I touch them, or anything?”
“I don’t think so,” said Sirius. “I mean, a half angel is something new, but I don’t see any reason why you would, Remus. Angels in their human form don’t hurt people; it’s only when they feed. And, you know, if you haven’t noticed anything in sixteen years, then I’d say you’re probably safe.”
Remus let out a breath.
Thank God for that.
This was already nightmarish enough, without the thought that maybe he was somehow damaging people the way angels did.
On the TV, the talk show host was sitting behind his desk with a miniature skyline of New York City behind him, interviewing an actress in a tight red dress.
It felt so unreal, that angels were here in their world, hurting people, and that everyone was just going about their business, oblivious.
Sirius must feel like this all the time, Remus realized.
“Can I ask you something, now?” Sirius said.
A wariness came over Remus, but he nodded.
“Your, um . . . your angel,” Sirius said.
He picked up the remote, turning it over in his hand. “I know you weren’t aware of it before a few days ago. But now that you are, can you feel it there?”
Remus stiffened. “No,” he said flatly.
Sirius nodded, looking down at his knee as he tapped the remote against it.
“I just . . . wondered whether you could make contact with it, if you tried.”
Remus's muscles were rigid.
“I have no idea, and I’m not going to try. I wish it would just go away.”
A commercial came on; when it ended and the show came back, the actress was gone and a comedian came onto the stage.
He could feel Sirius's gaze on him. “I don’t know if ignoring it is going to work,” Sirius said after a pause.
“I mean it’s there, protecting you. It’s a part of you somehow.”
“Well, I don’t want it to be,” Remus said.
His voice was shaking. “God, Sirius — one of those things destroyed my mother’s mind; one’s ruined Emmeline's life. I hate it that I have something like that inside of me. So, no, I’m not about to contact it or make friends with it, or whatever. No way.”
“OK,” he said. “Sorry.”
Remus didn’t say anything.
He stared at the screen, listening to the audience laugh at jokes that didn’t seem remotely funny to him.
Sirius glanced at Remus, his blue-gray eyes concerned. “Listen, I didn’t mean to upset you or anything. This all must be —” He shook his head. “I can’t even imagine what this must be like for you.”
And it helped, somehow, just knowing that he had thought about it, that he realized how hard it was.
Remus sighed. “The thing is . . . I feel so completely human. I know I’m not; I know that. But inside, I just feel normal. I mean, OK, maybe I’m sort of weird, but still normal.”
He gave a slight smile. “You’re not weird.”
“Oh, please.” Remus rolled onto his side to face Sirius.
“Listen, when you saw the — the angel hovering over me . . . ” Remus trailed off, not even really sure what he wanted to ask.
“What?” Sirius asked.
His dark hair was almost dry now, looking soft and tousled.
Remus shook his head quickly. “Nothing.”
Sirius hesitated, studying Remus. “Look, do you want to change the subject?”
“To what?”
“I don’t know.” He motioned toward the TV. “We could talk about this comedian; he’s supposed to be getting his own sitcom soon.”
Remus snorted and rolled onto his back again, propping himself up onto the pillows.
“Yeah, if anyone’s left to see it. Sirius, doesn’t it drive you insane, knowing all of this when the rest of the world doesn’t?”
He shrugged as he leaned back against his own pillows, resting an elbow behind his head.
“Sure. But, you know — it’s just how it is. If I thought about it too much, I’d go crazy, so I don’t.”
That sounded like pretty good advice, to be honest.
As the comedian went on with his routine, Remus felt the tension inside him loosen a notch.
“What’s his sitcom supposed to be about? Do you know?” Remus asked finally.
They watched the rest of the show, chatting sometimes about the guest stars and the jokes.
When it was over, they went to sleep.
It felt weird sliding under the covers with Sirius in the next bed — so intimate, even though he was about ten feet away.
Once they were both settled, he switched off the light, and the room plunged into blackness.
They lay there in silence for a while.
The absence of light was so total that Remus couldn’t even see Sirius's bed.
“Sirius, do you think the angels are right?” Remus said quietly. “Do you think I really can destroy them somehow?”
His voice sounded deeper in the darkness. “I hope so. God, I really hope so.”
There was a pause, and then he said, “Good night, Remus.”
“Good night,” Remus echoed.
He lay awake for a while, listening as Sirius's breathing grew slower, more regular.
As Remus fell asleep, his hand seemed to creep up of its own accord to touch his arm, stroking the softness of Sirius's T-shirt.
Remus drifted off feeling the warmth of Sirius's energy wrapping gently around him.