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  Neither of us had mentioned a destination, as I had only the vaguest of directions toward the radio station and Midori preferred to trust fate with our path. We were pretty much heading north, though slightly to the west. It wouldn’t be that long before we actually did cross into Canada. Mostly we were following the road.

  There was no sign of some sort of super-angel or whatever Midori had been expecting, but she remained adamant. “I can feel something coming, I’m telling you.”

  With her luck, she’d be absolutely right. But I didn’t want to deal with another angel, even if this time I was slightly better prepared to take one on. Water melts them, huh? How cliché. And probably not all of them, actually, as I had seen a few angels in the rain before.

  It was one in the afternoon, according to Midori’s watch, that I spotted Gav again. I don’t think she noticed him, but he certainly noticed me and disappeared a second later. But as we continued, he emerged again with a slightly subdued step.

  I nudged Midori softly. “Hey. Look over there. That’s this kid who’s been following me since before the camp. I thought he had stopped.”

  “Is he human?” she asked curiously. “You’d think a human would want to spend time with us.”

  “I think he’s just weird. He certainly is convinced I can’t see him sneaking about.”

  “Why don’t you ask him to join us? The more the merrier, right?”

  “I don’t think he’ll accept. I think he actually prefers slinking around like that. But don’t think I’m letting that stop me,” I said. Then I called over to him. “Hey, Gav! We can still see you, you know!”

  He ran deeper into the woods as soon as he heard my voice. “I still know you’re there, you loser.”

  “You’re not suppos—okay, fine, you win. I’ll come out.” He was wearing the same outfit as when I had last seen him. Not like I changed my outfits much these days, either, but at least I washed them. His clothes were caked in mud and ash.

  “Hello there, Gav,” said Midori.

  “Hi, Midori. Hey look, you guys, I’m not really supposed to be hanging with you right now. I got other things to do.”

  “And here I thought your only matter of business was stalking me! Do explain.”

  Midori put a hand on my shoulder. “Don’t question him. If he has other things to do, so be it. We may cause more harm than good in the long run if we pursue interaction with him.”

  “Oh, who says? I’d rather settle things once and for all. So tell me: what are you doing? Who do you work for?”

  “I’m a lone wolf by nature, and I’m certainly not working for anyone or even working at all. I just got lots of things to attend to that lie in the border between the woods and this highway, and by a crazy coincidence, it trails you guys exactly.”

  “Like shape-shifting immortal deer, right?”

  He clicked with his tongue. “You got it! Well, not really. But you’re almost correct, so I’ll give you the point this time. Bye, ladies!” He ducked back into the thicket.

  “We should leave him be. I worry for him.”

  “You’re worried about him? What about us?”

  “He seemed frightened.”

  “By what? I swear, you see every living thing as a wounded puppy,” I said. I handed her my bag. “Don’t think I’m letting him go, by the way. Wait here.”

  I entered through the gap he had trampled in the bracken and began my pursuit, hoping he had taken the logical path of straight forward. At some point he probably realized I was following, as I had never seen him in this deep before. However, perhaps he hadn’t been fleeing after all. Just waiting.

  At the end of the path he had weaved and I had followed; he was standing still. A field had opened up very suddenly. A beaver pond filled most of the open space, and an unmarked building took up the rest.

  Gav watched me carefully with unwavering eyes. “Sorry for the strange setting. Had to get you alone somewhere with a lot of space,” he said. “Are you ready?”

  10

  “COULD YOU have phrased that any freakier?”

  “Sorry,” he apologized. “What I mean is—look, forget it. I do want to talk to you, though.”

  “Without Midori.”

  “Not without her, per se, but rather with you alone. I have nothing against her. She seemed nice.”

  “Well, then, spit it out. What’s up?”

  “Uh, you had the questions, right? Why don’t we work off those?”

  “Are you actually going to answer me?”

  “Well, let’s hear what you’re asking first before I make any promises.”

  “All right, who are you? Why have you been following me? Why do you know so much about the angels? Who do you really work for?”

  “That was a lot to take in! This will take a moment to sort through.” He sighed. “I guess we have the time. I’ve told you my name, Gav, which is sort of a real treat since I never intended to. I’ve been following you for ages now because… well, I feel inclined to.” He paused and took a deep breath. “I don’t know, to be honest. I found you on the sixth day of the angels, when that angel went into your house and killed your family. I saw you faint, I ran in to check you were okay.”

  “But you didn’t stay to talk with me. You left me alone while I went mad, and I only saw you once I left.”

  “I actually was gone at that point. Came back just in time for you to leave. And I never talked to you because I—uh—don’t like people. I don’t like talking. It’s not how I do things. So I settled with just watching.”

  “And about the angels?”

  “I have no idea what you mean. I know just as much as you. Perhaps a bit more because I prefer to observe rather than barge in. The camp was the most obvious ploy I’ve ever seen, and even you realized it after a while.”

  “There’s something far too casual about you and the angels that I really don’t want to delve into. But sometimes I worry….”

  “That? You think I’m an angel stuffed into a human body? I like to imagine I come off as a bit more realistic than those idiots. It’s nice to see someone praise my observation and preparation skills, but I don’t like being accused of being a monster for them. And to answer your last one, I seriously don’t work for anyone. I’m just a human, similar to you, who is out here doing his own thing.”

  “Why did you disappear after that one time in the camp? I was looking for you.”

  “Fex saw me. I had to leave.”

  “Oh, really? Is that so?”

  “Yes. He saw me talking to you, so I had to lie low. It didn’t help that you were yelling at me either.”

  “Really. And lastly, about the super-deer—”

  “Is that what we’re calling it now?” He smirked. “I told you once and I’ll tell you again. Stay away from that hell beast. It’s an angel trying to lure you to touch it, and you definitely should never touch it.”

  “You shouldn’t touch any angel, right?”

  “Absolutely. I saw you out there fighting that gelatinous one. What a stunning combination of terrible decisions and good moves. You’re lucky you didn’t die.”

  “I’m somehow not surprised that you were spying on us bathing this morning, pervert.”

  “Pervert?” he asked, pausing for a moment. “Oh. Right. It’s not my fault you ran around naked for the first half of the day. If it helps, I am quite asexual. Now, is that all you have for me to answer?”

  I thought about it, but I couldn’t figure anything else to ask. He really hadn’t clarified anything, but there was no way for me to form my feelings into questions.

  “I guess so.”

  “Have I proved myself fine and in need of no more investigation by you?”

  “That’s asking quite a lot of me. I’m not exactly happy with you.”

  “So what else do you need to know before you feel like you can trust me?”

  “Nothing. I just—I barely know you. Why would I trust you at all?”

  “I will answer any ques
tions you have until you trust me.”

  “That’s not how trust is formed. How about I just go back?”

  “No, I insist. I want you to not feel threatened by my presence.”

  “I have nothing left to say.” I gave an exaggerated shrug to emphasize my point.

  “No, really, really, really, I seriously insist,” he said, looking around nervously.

  “What is going on? Is this some sort of trap? A trick?”

  “No, no, no! Of course not. I just mean—I uh… I want to be close friends with you, and I wish for this to go as well as possible. Let’s be friends.”

  “You’re not going to just be my friend by… asking me. That’s like the most awkward thing I can think of.”

  “I-I’m sorry.”

  “I think I’m going to go.”

  “Wait!”

  “No. See you later, I guess.”

  Suspicious, suspicious, suspicious. That was all Gav was—or rather, continued to be. And by suspicious, I mean: there was no way he should have known Fex’s name.

  He appeared genuinely human, certainly more real than any of the other “humans” I had met, but there was no doubt that he was working with them somehow. Maybe without his knowledge, if such a thing was possible? I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t hoping he was somehow innocent. I wanted to find as many humans as possible, even if it would make traveling very hectic. But I couldn’t even pretend he was fully normal, and I was definitely not about to allow him to travel with us. Except from his safe stalking distance, since I couldn’t really help that.

  Midori was leaning against a truck, appearing to have dozed off, but she sprang awake as I stepped back onto the road.

  “How was it?”

  “He’s untrustworthy. I want nothing to do with him.”

  “He was just doing his best.”

  “You seem very keen on him, and you barely had a chance to glance at him.”

  “I’m very good at first impressions.”

  “Well, this is one time where you’re wrong. Actually, you were wrong about most things so far. Kasos, the camp, the jelly angel.”

  “I’ve noticed that,” she said, “but I politely disagree.”

  I couldn’t change her mind about it, not to mention it’d be really pointless to even try. We headed out again.

  There’s only so much walking to do before you tire of it. I really hoped the rest of my life wasn’t going to be walking on highways and walking in the woods. But what can you do, right? Just head straight down the path.

  Gav didn’t reappear. I wanted to secretly hope we were going to leave him behind, but then I remembered we were following a very straight and predictable path, and even then I didn’t want to leave him. Not quite yet.

  “Look up,” said Midori, very quiet suddenly.

  It was like—and no matter how much I repeat it, I cannot stress it enough—a hot air balloon show of angels above us. They were clustered right above our heads, hovering and jittering like a swarm.

  “They look agitated,” she said. We had stopped to look, but I itched to get away from them as soon as possible. Being this close was never good.

  “C’mon, let’s hurry.”

  “Why? I want to know what’s bothering them.”

  “They’re not animals. But if you really want to stay and observe, maybe together we can observe what happens when I shoot a flare at them.”

  “Erika! I said no guns. That flare is for signaling only.”

  “I bet they’d explode. They must be full of hot air, after all they do just sort of float there. We should find out. I bet guts will go everywhere.”

  “No!”

  “So you think they don’t have any guts? Very interesting theory that we should totally test as soon as possible.”

  “No way!”

  I laughed. “You’re like a crazy animal rights activist. These things aren’t harmless little bunnies. They are totally able to kill us.”

  “By comparing them to humans you’re finally admitting they’re beings who can show emotion and intelligence,” she pointed out.

  “Yes, but at least I know they can handle themselves and that we should just leave them alone—and get as far away from here as possible.”

  “You’re overreacting. They’re all crowded together like this because they’ve been spooked. I want to see what’s spooked them.”

  “Again with the frankly suicidal desire to see some sort of mega-angel or whatever. Let’s just leave them alone and start praying we never see that thing.”

  “It might be too late for that.”

  “See? This is what I meant! If we had just left—oh goddammit,” I said, realizing what she meant. I looked behind me.

  Something was pooling out of the shadows. It wouldn’t be a bad guess to say it was some sort of angel, but it didn’t seem to have much of a corporeal form. It was like an oil slick or a glass of spilled water that was rapidly advancing on us. While most of its body was a solid black, now and then there were portions of diluted gray and translucency, like watercolor ink.

  While it was very much a dripping blob, it weaved in a serpentine fashion toward us, curling infinitely just beyond my line of sight.

  Neither of us dared to move, as that seemed like a pointless waste of energy. In horror, I felt my heart pound, and I reached for Midori’s hand, finding it and gripping it tight.

  It did not attack us, but did acknowledge our presence. It began to circle us, its body ringing itself like a snake. Up close I could see the bubbly texture of its skin and the pockets of air like scales that lined its upper side. It did not appear to have a headlike appendage, as when I spun in circles to look for one I got too dizzy to continue.

  Its body formed a pillar around us, and for a moment it seemed like it was going to seal itself off. Instead it stopped some twenty feet tall and paused.

  Then I realized this thing wasn’t interested in us, it seemed to only have eyes for the flock of angels gathered above like gulls. Carefully, a dripping tendril formed from its body, and then fifty more all at once. These tentacles crept around the panicking angels, before striking faster than a flash of lightning. It had almost been like a whip, wrapping around the angel’s entire body and dragging it straight into the giant creature’s body.

  Not all of the angels were drawn in. A few had somehow eluded attack, or otherwise were too high up. The tentacles began to reform immediately, and curiously tested themselves around the angels, who, for whatever reason, refused to flee.

  There was a sudden and very human shout compared to the shrill calls of the angels and the hissing of the oil snake. Gav swung out of nowhere—and I do mean nowhere, considering he was about twenty-five feet in the air—and landed on the creature’s body.

  “Hi!” he shouted down to us, oddly unharmed by the creature’s muck.

  “Hi?” I managed, very much confused.

  He jumped on top of the creature once, ran its entire length in a circle, jumped again, paused, and finally lit the whole thing on fire. Why did everything end up dying in fire these days?

  Where he even got the flames was beyond me, but suddenly I was standing in a literal ring of fire, and while the walls were surprisingly spacious they were still on fire. My eyes began to sting from the smoke, and Midori brought me to the ground.

  A strong arm grabbed me around the waist and attempted to lift me up. I clung to Midori in a moment of heat-caused delusion. I stuck to the burning ground blindly, and felt Midori leave my side. Finally I was lifted, but by what I had no idea. By Gav, obviously, for there really couldn’t have been anyone else, but there are certain things you have to ask yourself in life. For example: how was Gav going to explain his sudden ability to leap twenty-five feet in the air and carry people with just one arm?

  “Rope” was how he explained it. “Or more accurately, steel cables. Accidentally dropped it all when bringing Erika down, though.”

  The creature’s body was still burning, having collapsed into what was
essentially a pile of… whatever it was made of. Parts of it seemed to have hardened, and I imagined it would turn into a little mountain when the next rain came.

  “That’s ridiculous.” I said, shaking my head. It really made no sense, but I didn’t feel like dwelling. “But what is—was that thing, though? Not an angel, right?”

  “Correct. I call them demons. They’re a lot heavier than the angels, and more or less made of liquid.”

  Midori stayed quiet, but I saw her lips tighten.

  Gav sat us down to talk and check for injury, but we were all fine. Still, he insisted on sharing fresh bread and clean water with us from his brand new backpack.

  “You came back,” I said.

  “He never left,” interjected Midori.

  “She is about right, yes. I never said I was going to stop following you, so why do you sound so surprised?”

  “Somehow I was expecting—I don’t know, not this.” I held my tongue, unsure if it was wise to speak my suspicions. Maybe there was some sort of value in not making him aware? There had to be. Instead, I decided to see what information I could shake from him by pretending to be oblivious at the game he was trying to play.

  “I changed my mind,” he said.

  “I’m sorry?”

  “I changed my mind, I mean, about following you. I’d like to travel with you, if that’s possible. Power in numbers, yes?”

  I had to grit my teeth in order not to laugh. More and more he was slipping up. I’d be damned if he wasn’t an angel at this point. Maybe one who had done a bit more research on humans, but certainly not to be trusted. “I don’t know about that. What do you think, Midori?”

  There was some ill-thought logic in trusting Midori, the unaware angel, on her opinion on what was likely another angel. There was probably a mistake in trusting her at all. I knew it was a stupid thing to do, and I had no defense. I wasn’t some logical mastermind. I was a seventeen-year-old girl who had spent the last few months in utter isolation. I was going to stick with Midori until it bit me in the ass. Whatever.

  “I really like you,” said Gav before Midori could respond. She closed her mouth and pouted again, silent.