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  I had to kill time, and I felt I had some sort of obligation to kill it in just one way: walking and looking at everything I saw. Even if those things began to feel like they were meshing into the same thing over and over again.

  What was Midori doing now? Had she found anything more interesting to occupy herself with? Knowing her, she had found the library or had ventured out and spent time with the angels. Actually, I couldn’t really say “knowing her.” I didn’t know her. We had only been together for a few days, and even if there was an unspoken agreement that we would stay together, we hadn’t really become friends. We were caught somewhere in between, and even if we had grown close remarkably fast, we had yet to really know each other.

  Chances were she was doing the same thing I was. Walking and looking. Though I bet if she ran into those sickly looking angels, she would have stopped and investigated.

  The rumbling hadn’t gone away. It was growing, if anything. The sound of it shook me and reverberated through my chest. Sometimes there were other sounds mixed in, like screeches and growls.

  Then everything erupted. Like a geyser it sprang out of nothingness so quickly it was like I had blinked it into creation. It started as a quick stream of liquid, but it reformed itself into a great ball-like mass. Its color was almost clear at first, but it shook itself steady and other colors started spreading like ink in water.

  The body was about done forming. It had taken a sort of frozen form, gravity-defying droplets suspended in the air next to it, and odd icicle-like protrusions on the bottom of its body. There wasn’t a traditional head, or anything that even suggested a head. Mostly, it was just a ball. A giant eye on the center of its body opened.

  It had perched itself in the park where the sick angels had been resting. The largest of them was missing, but the others remained. The demon-creature drifted from one to the other, each time enveloping their bodies with a glob of goo and each time sucking the goo back to reveal no remains at all. Considering the demon’s mass never increased, I had to wonder what it did with the bodies it took. Did angels even have bones? No matter what they were made of, I’d expect it impossible to just absorb them like that.

  I let the demon be. Unfortunately, it did not let me be. At first I thought I was home free, as I had slipped back around the corner and walked fast down the street, taking as many odd turns as I could. But then I saw it—following my path like a hunting dog. It was gigantic, its top slipping over the roof of some of the buildings and its body nearly running against the walls of the street. It was slow, however, and I probably could get away just by running and winding a confusing path.

  This thing following me was a threat to my life, but I wasn’t feeling particularly frightened. There had been worse. This great ball could kill me, yes, but in the same sort of way a cabinet might: with very little chance.

  If anything, this seemed to be a boon. It was early, but surely this demon would be the solution to the death of the camp. All I had to do was lead it in and make my escape. The angels were probably too dull to know what had hit them.

  But then again, I wanted this to be clean. At least a few would escape from this lumbering beast on my heels, and surely at least one would report my presence to the higher-ups or whatever. At the very least, there would be survivors. And I couldn’t have that.

  Which still left me with my original problem: how to kill this thing. It didn’t look like it could bleed. It certainly wasn’t about to get tired and rest. And it didn’t even have skin to speak of, the eye being the only obvious weak spot.

  My weapon of choice was always going to be something flashy and dynamic. I detoured into a gun shop, skimming the back counter until I found the owner’s still-loaded shotgun. I turned off the safety and aimed, waiting for the demon to approach.

  How long was the range of these things, anyway? I waited until it was close, perhaps far too close, before firing. The shot knocked me back, and I staggered, struggling to stay upright.

  There was no effect. Was I missing? I fired a few more times, slowly getting used to the pace of the gun’s mechanisms, when I ran out of ammo. Unwilling to reload a so-far useless weapon, I dropped it on the ground and ran.

  My firing had let the demon gain great ground, advancing at what seemed to be a quickening pace. Its body of suspended animation started to rumble and gurgle, foaming with bubbles that burst from its center like a stop-motion film.

  I ran, starting to feel a little bit scared. I got back into zigzagging like it was a pursuing crocodile, but the demon had gained new drive. It was set on me now, and it followed with dead-set precision.

  Outrunning it was easy, but not for long. Even if I hadn’t run out of steam in a couple minutes, it was definitely accelerating. It was only when it got dangerously close—close enough I could feel the chill its body radiated—that I dove to the ground and grasped for the first thing lying around to swing.

  It was a shovel. There are a number of questions as to why a shovel was lying in the middle of the street, but I know this: the demon did not like being hit with the shovel. I struck it just as high as I could swing, but still felt the satisfying shatter of the eye that adorned its body.

  Like glass, the cracks grew and splintered at an ever-faster rate, and when they reached the very top the whole eye came crashing down in a flurry of crystal.

  The impact didn’t appear to cause any grievous harm. In fact, there wasn’t even a sign the eye had ever been there, other than an empty spot on its body. But the demon acted as if it had, and stopped for a few moments.

  I used this to my advantage, and picked up my lead again. I took the shovel with me, though I doubted I’d catch another lucky break. The rest of its body seemed unlikely to shatter.

  Now I just needed to finish the job. Had the demon even sustained injury? It was back on its metaphorical feet once again and continuing at the same rapid pace. Seeing as physical weapons were the ones that seemed to work best against these things, I tried throwing a piece of pavement at it, this time ducking to grab and throw it, and continuing to run forward in one fluid movement. When I looked back, nothing had happened. The rock had probably just bounced off, or else been absorbed.

  My next idea was based on what Fex had said earlier, that fire was their weakness. This was a demon, not an angel, but they appeared to be very similar nevertheless. Plus Gav had used fire against that last demon.

  The trick about fire was that I couldn’t just pick it off the ground; I needed to make it. And though I did have some lighters in my bag, I was doubtful I could light them and throw them while running, and especially doubtful that a single lighter would be enough to light such a giant creature aflame.

  Still, I made a tricky series of moves that allowed me to hold my bag on my chest so I could fish a lighter out. I slipped it into my pocket.

  The best place to go had to be a park. Grass was generally flammable, and hopefully it would spread enough that the whole demon would get roasted.

  Before I could really start searching for a suitable place, I felt the ice of the demon’s presence down my spine, and looked back once more to find it hovering just a few feet away. How had it snuck up on me like that?

  My hands shook and my teeth clattered. Was it going to eat me? It was straight above me now, and while there was no obvious aperture it could use to consume me, I suspected it would find a way. I struggled with the lighter, nearly dropping it at first, then failing to light it three times.

  At last when I had a flame, the cool breeze knocked it right out. This demon was sure taking its time—at least it felt like it was. The next flame I created I cupped with my hand, and raised it slowly until the fire met the watery flesh. With a sudden jerk, the lighter was sucked out of my hand and floated, still aflame, through its body.

  I watched with befuddlement as the flame rose with a murky light through the body. Then, reaching what seemed to be high above me, it exploded. Everything burned, and I dashed out from under it as the demon came crashing to
the ground. I had to keep moving, as the floating liquid finally became just that: liquid. It flooded behind me, and no matter how regular it looked now, I wanted nothing to do with it.

  At the center, cocooned together with sticky crystalline threads, were the bodies of the sickly angels from the park. They were dead and slowly burning to ash.

  16

  AS NIGHT fell upon the lakeside town, I decided how I was going to burn everything down. To be honest, with the way things were going it seemed like I could do anything and it would somehow burst into flames.

  But for now, I was using oil. I was going to sneak into camp, creep around with a can and spread the oil around the perimeter several times. I’d just have to drop a single match for the whole place to burn, and the wall of fire would assure no escape.

  I regrouped with Midori at our designated spot, already having gathered all needed supplies. I had been early, actually, having prepared and started waiting almost immediately after killing that demon. Since then I had sat idle, listening on and off to the radio in hopes of a new broadcast. So far, nothing.

  I explained everything to Midori, and she gave a much more subdued reaction than I had hoped for. “Okay,” she said.

  “What happened? Where did you go?”

  “Nowhere much. Just enough walking to last a lifetime, and even more nostalgia.”

  “You’ve been here before?”

  “No, it’s more of a nostalgia for everything else. Humans and human life,” she said. “Think of it. Our life now is what, wandering on highways, eating canned foods, and burning angels up? What kind of existence is that?” She looked almost confused.

  “Well, at least there isn’t any more war. Or famine. Or homework,” I said, trying to cheer her up. It seemed to have the opposite effect.

  “I’m not in the mood to kill anything right now. I never have been, and you can’t convince me there’s anything good about killing angels. They’re the only other lives out there, and even if they’re strange, I… just want someone to talk to,” she said. “You do the burning; I’ll wait here.”

  I wanted to remind her that she could always talk to me, but I guess that didn’t really matter to her.

  The sun was setting, but in these fall months it wouldn’t take long for it to disappear behind the horizon. Her last sentence had been a farewell, an instruction for me to leave, but it wasn’t time yet. Instead it was more of a metaphorical good-bye, in that she sat next to me but stared straight ahead to the moribund angel camp.

  “Do you hear that?” asked Midori suddenly, not turning to look me in the eye.

  “Hear what?” I clicked the radio off and focused, but I heard nothing. “No. What is it?”

  She didn’t answer the question. “Isn’t it time to burn everything?”

  “I think it’s still early.” Midori’s behavior lately had been bothering me, but I couldn’t think of a polite way to ask why she was acting so strangely. I didn’t want to be too pushy, but I didn’t like feeling ignored either.

  So I opted to do nothing.

  “I guess it’s fine. It’s dark enough.” The sun was still blazing a twilight orange, creating a wonderful filter of honey glow that illuminated everything. I highly doubted anyone was asleep yet. If the angels had even the slightest clue that a fire was threatening them, they’d get up and leave. I had to hope the fire would be faster than they were.

  The large can of oil was a tad unwieldy, but perhaps that was due more to my own nerves than the liquid sloshing about inside it. I made a long trail from where Midori and I had been hiding to the camp. Once I got close enough, I walked slow and careful. I could hear voices from all over the camp, even more from near the center where I glimpsed a fire pit.

  This camp was laid out a lot different from the others, in general being more spread out and lively. It took me a long time to finish creating the circle of gas, which was obviously helped by my caution. I did see a couple angels on the border of the camp, and a couple times I had to stop and hide while one entered. No one seemed to be leaving, luckily. I’d hate for there to be any stragglers.

  It was finally dark by the time I finished. That was good in a sort of sick way, since I was about to light up the night with a bonfire of the dead. When I closed off the circle I just made a run for it, figuring anyone who saw me would be too late to think anything of it.

  “We’re all set,” I said, jumping back next to her. “Should I just go ahead with it?” Midori didn’t answer, so I took action. It seemed like something that should have had more fanfare, but all it amounted to was me lighting a match.

  And dropping said match.

  Fire travels very quickly, unbound by many of the limits that exist for solid matter. It erupted so suddenly I was quite unprepared for the burst of heat it gave off, but the fire didn’t last long. It followed the trail at lightning speed, scarcely catching nearby grass on fire.

  It almost looked like it wasn’t going to work. The ring lasted for just a short time before the oil had all been burned. But luckily, enough fire seemed to have caught on the surroundings to last. Everything began to burn.

  Most of the tents were made of plastic, and couldn’t really burn. But maybe they were melting in the heat, for I could see them collapse. The ground below the tents was all sand, another thing that doesn’t burn. But something was definitely burning, because the fire was raging on.

  The smell started to reach me before the sounds. Plastic fumes and the scent of burning flesh engulfed me and stung my eyes. We probably should have been farther away from the fire.

  “Let’s get going,” I said to Midori, but she didn’t look up from the radio.

  The blaze was too large and lasting too long. What was it subsisting on? Could bodies really sustain a flame for that long? Or was something else at work? I watched carefully as a couple Watcher angels flew in and started circling the camp. They weren’t any threat, coming in so late, but I had to wonder their exact purpose. Recording it for later examination, perhaps, but for who?

  Far away in the smoke of the fire, the shapes of the angels had become obscured, turning them into nothing more than shadows through the fog. But there were more of them. I saw a lot of movement in the smoke, on the ground, and in the shadow of the flames. The angels were swarming now. I guess I hadn’t really killed that many of them.

  The sky was much darker now. The only light was the fire, but that light stretched straight into the sky, and was light enough. Midori stared pensively. I had to wonder if we’d ever get anywhere.

  “You’re right. We should go,” said Midori suddenly. She placed both her hands on my shoulders and faced me, eyes on the ground. “But I need to show you something first.”

  “I WENT downtown,” she told me, leading the way in the dark by pulling me along by my hand. The empty storefronts distressed me even more now, and I needed that support. “I think it’s best if I show you before I explain anything else.”

  “Can you at least give me a hint?” We were moving fast enough that the growing breeze hurt my skin. It was a wonder Midori could even find her way in this darkness.

  She stopped at a white and flattish building just a single parking lot away from the lakefront. There was a sign on the door, but Midori opened it too fast for me to read. She took me inside, past a little reception area and down a hallway. There she slammed open a glass-windowed door and brought me inside.

  It was a studio. A recording one.

  “Why are we here?” I asked. The place was derelict, and a small window from the technical booth brought in a very small amount of moonlight.

  “This radio of yours. What is up with it?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “The radio! The voices!”

  “You mean like Angel Radio? With Emil and Naomi and Ada?”

  “Precisely,” she said.

  “What of them?”

  “‘What of them?’ Stop pretending you have no clue!” She paused suddenly. “Oh God. Don’t you have the sl
ightest clue?”

  Her tone began to worry me greatly. “What do you mean…?”

  “The radio, Erika. There is no radio broadcast. You’ve been turning on pure static every night now. I thought at first that was the point of it; that you liked hearing white noise to sleep. But it’s bigger than that, isn’t it? You’re hearing voices. You’re imagining people. You’re legitimately crazy.”

  “What?” I said. It was all I was able to say. “What?”

  “I took you here because I wanted to prove to you that there is no Angel Radio. This place has been used, however.” She flicked the light switch, and the lights slowly dimmed on. “I’ve found scripts and notes and even coffee mugs around this place. That broadcast we heard, the one from New Haven? It’s real. I was thinking we could camp out here and wait until they arrive for tomorrow’s broadcast, but I’m starting to feel uncomfortable with the idea of being in the same room as you.”

  “Look, that sounds like a plan,” I said, trying to keep calm. “But while I don’t know what’s up with Angel Radio, I know it’s real. The announcers are too alive to be fake. The information they give is too true to be made up by my mind. Even if they’re not this station, who cares? There’s more than one station in the state, you know.”

  “Yes, but that’s not even a shortwave radio. It’s an emergency one, and can only pick up nearby signals. And you’ve been hearing that broadcast for far too long now.”

  “It’s real.” I gritted my teeth. It defied all logic to deny it, yet here I was. “I know it is. I’m not ‘hearing voices.’ I know that they’re real! Maybe you’re the crazy one here, yeah? Maybe you’re the only freak who can’t hear them, ever thought of that?”

  “Erika…,” she said, trailing my name for far too long.

  “I don’t want to be near you either. In fact, I think I’ll sleep outside tonight, so I don’t have to worry about your creepy insomniac angelic ass watching me, Sarah!” I shouted as I stormed out the door.