Some of them showed him as the world saw him, and he disregarded them with nothing more than a smirk. He knew that people loved masks because the truth was too frightening for small and ordinary minds.
Some of the mirror splinters showed the face of the angel. Not one face, but many faces, because an angel is different to everyone who sees it. It, not him. Angels are above gender, above sexual identity. They are above everything that defines a being as human. And he, by his own definition, was not.
There were other faces in the shattered fragments. Faces of monsters, faces of great beauty, faces of stone and metal and wood. Faces of such abstract forms that only a deeply insightful eye could see them as faces at all.
And then there was the one face that looked back at him from the largest of the shards. His true face. A face no one had ever seen or even glimpsed except when he revealed it to them.
Usually, though, the people to whom he showed his true self were so busy screaming that they could not appreciate the majesty of who he was.
He wondered if the girl would be able to see his true face when the time came. He hoped so.
He wanted her to. Just as he wanted to bring her into the family, to share with her the secrets of the Red Age, of the grigori and nephilim. He was certain that she would embrace the truth once she heard it.
A photograph of the girl rested on the floor next to that special fragment of mirror. The picture was in color, very sharp. In it the girl was standing in her bedroom, buttoning her pajama top. She had lovely red hair. It was as red as the hair of Judas the Betrayer. He reached out and ran his finger across her picture, pausing briefly at her soft young throat.
Around him the shadows crouched at the edges of the candlelight.
CHAPTER 16
The Observation Room 4:01 A.M.
Danny, the technician, took off his headset and tossed it onto the console. He lit a cigarette, put his feet on the edge of the console and crossed his ankles, and blew a stream of blue smoke into the air. Gerlach sat at a table behind him, slowly stirring packets of sugar into a coffee cup. Eight empty packets lay on the table, and Gerlach reached for a ninth.
“Some of them actually see him, right?” asked Danny.
“Some,” said Gerlach.
“Isn’t that a potential danger? I mean, it’s a small town.”
Gerlach snorted. “That’s part of his skill set.”
“I don’t follow.”
“He controls how they see him,” said the agent.
“Oh … that’s…”
“Creepy?” suggested Gerlach.
“Or something like that,” admitted Danny. “Freaky. Weird. Out there. Not sure what kind of label fits.”
The agent looked into the middle distance for a moment, then shook his head slowly. “Personally, man, I doubt there are labels for what we’re into. No one’s gone this far before.”
“Not even the Russians? I heard some wild stuff,” said the tech.
“The Russians are two years behind us,” said Gerlach. “Maybe four. By the time they catch up to where we are now, we’ll have broken through to the next level.”
“What is the next level?”
Gerlach glanced at him. “That’s above your pay grade.”
“Sorry.”
“Don’t be sorry; just don’t be nosy.”
“Yes, sir.”
“And stop calling me sir. I hate that.”
“Yes, sir … um, I mean, sure,” Danny said, then began turning off the video feeds. “Did you hear? They’re giving you a new driver today.”
Gerlach nodded. “I know.”
“Regular guy says he has food poisoning.”
“Uh-huh.”
“You believe him?”
The agent tore open the ninth packet, poured it in, and went back to stirring. “Not everyone’s cut out for this job,” he said.
CHAPTER 17
Scully Residence 6:43 A.M.
When Dana padded barefoot into the kitchen, she found Gran was at the table, hands pressed to the sides of a steaming cup of tea, buttered toast sitting cold on a plate. It was rare for Gran to be up much before noon. The radio was on, playing some old songs from World War II that Dana didn’t know.
“Hey, Gran,” said Dana as she came over and kissed her grandmother’s cheek. Even though Gran’s face was wrinkled, it was always so soft. She smelled of soap and Dorothy Gray face powder.
“There’s coffee made,” said Gran, though that wasn’t true. The coffeemaker stood empty. Dana didn’t comment, though. The teakettle was still hot enough, and she made herself a cup. Peppermint. Gran had a saying for that: “Chamomile to calm down; peppermint to perk up.”
She brought it over to the table and sat down. Gran smiled at her and pushed the toast across.
“You’re letting it get cold.”
Dana nodded as if that made sense, took a piece, bit off a corner, and munched it. She pushed the plate back to Gran. Outside there seemed to be a thousand birds in the trees, all of them joining voices to proclaim that spring was well and truly here. It was nice. Loud, but nice.
“Gran…?” she asked.
“Yes, sweetie?”