“I want to see him. Can we go see him? I bet he won’t even recognize me. He’s probably taller than me by now. Where is he, did you say? Where’s Web?”
Christian and I exchange worried glances. “He’s with Billy,” I say again, slowly. “He’s still a baby, Ange. He’s not even three weeks old.”
She stares at me, then at Christian. “Three weeks?”
“We’ve been taking good care of him. He’s great, Ange. I mean, he cries. A lot. But outside of that he’s the best baby.”
“But—” She closes her eyes, brings a trembling hand to her mouth. She laughs again, wildly. “So I didn’t miss it. Every day I thought, I’m missing it. I’m missing his life. All those years I wondered.” Her eyes lift to mine. “But you brought me back.”
I knew time worked differently in hell, but I didn’t expect this. Angela had been gone for ten days when we decided to go find her, but it sounds like, on her end, she’s been gone for longer.
Much longer.
She stumbles, and Christian and I catch her between us, guide her to a hay bale, and sit her down. She grabs my wrist suddenly, and I’m flooded with the tangle of her emotions, amazement and relief and rage, a deep desire to see Web, to hold him and smell that place behind his ears, a fear that it won’t smell the same, that place, or that she won’t be the same. She’s fractured now, she thinks, a broken doll with glassy eyes.
“Ange, it’s okay,” I say.
“Thank you for coming,” she murmurs, then shakes her head, brushes her bangs out of her eyes, and looks up at me earnestly. “Thank you,” she tries again. “For coming for me. How did you find me?”
“Yes, how did you find her?” booms a voice from behind us. “That’s the part I couldn’t figure out.”
Angela looks up. Then she bends her head to her knees and groans, a dying, hopeless noise.
I spin around. There, standing in the shadows at the back of the barn, is Asael.
He looks like Samjeeza, I think. They’re both tall, but that’s kind of a given for angels, with coal-black, glossy hair. This man’s is cut so that it ends just past his ears, a bit wavy whereas Samjeeza’s is straight, but they have the same deep-set amber eyes. I see Angela in his face, too, something about the Roman nose with the slight hook at the bridge, her full bottom lip. And there’s something else about him that strikes me as familiar, but I can’t put my finger on it.
Lucy is standing beside him, arms crossed, looking pouty.
Jeffrey stands up. “Luce? Mr. Wick?”
Mr. Wick. Lucy’s dad. The man who owns the club and the tattoo parlor.
“Hello, Jeffrey,” Asael says. He takes a step forward. I counter by summoning a circle of glory around us. I’m so tired. It starts to waver immediately, but before it goes out, Christian replaces it with his own glory. I sigh with relief. At least for the moment we’re safe.
Asael stops short, annoyance on his face, like we’ve done something incredibly rude. He looks first at Jeffrey, who’s staring at him all freaked out, the way you naturally would if you ever encountered your girlfriend’s dad in a random barn in another state, then at Angela, who doesn’t move or raise her head, then at Christian. Then me.
“I don’t believe we’ve met,” he says, lingering on me. “I’m Mr. Wick.”
“You’re Asael,” I say. “You’re the leader of the Watchers,” I say, for Jeffrey’s sake. “A Black Wing.”
Asael turns his hands up imploringly. “Why must you insist on such labels? Black, white, gray, what does it matter? Jeffrey, you know me. Have I ever been unkind to you?”
“No,” says Jeffrey, but he’s starting to look queasy, confused.
“It does matter,” I say to my brother. “Good and evil exist, Jeffrey. They’re real. This guy is about as evil as they come. Can’t you feel it?”
Asael laughs like the idea is preposterous, and Lucy joins in.
“Come on, Jeffrey,” she says. “Come back with us. You don’t belong with these people. You belong with me.”