Angel Fever

Epilogue

MY MOTHER’S BURIAL TOOK PLACE five days later. It was the day after we’d buried the Pawntucket fighters, in the same old cemetery outside of town. I’d always liked it there – it was so quiet. Some of the headstones in the cemetery had mellowed with age, and in the summer the oak trees cast a dappled shade.

There weren’t many of us present. Alex and me. Nina and Jonah. A few others. Seb wasn’t: he’d left to go after Meghan. We’d spoken to the Idaho AKs on the shortwave by then – Meghan was heading to Tulsa to see her family. Seb hadn’t been in contact with her yet. He said you couldn’t tell a girl you loved her over the radio. I closed my eyes briefly, wishing him luck as hard as I could.

Aunt Jo wasn’t at the funeral either. Now that the angels were gone, she seemed much more bitter, and had stayed on at the lakeside cabin. I hoped that she could find peace.

I hoped we all could.

My grandparents were buried in the cemetery; they’d died before I was born. As everyone said a few words at my mother’s graveside, I found myself studying their double headstone with its stark black letters. In a strange way it was comforting – as if they’d take care of her.

I was the last to speak. I hadn’t planned what I was going to say. But I talked about how Mom used to play the guitar when I was little. How hard she’d tried to be there for me as she grew sicker, and how often she’d failed. How amazing it had been whenever she opened her eyes and really saw me.

“Mom, I wouldn’t have traded you for anything,” I finished softly. “So much of me is you. Thank you.”

“You okay?” whispered Alex, as I went and stood beside him again.

I nodded, leaning against him as he put his arm around me. “Yeah,” I murmured. “I really am.”

I held his hand tightly as they lowered Mom’s coffin into the cold ground. I’d dreaded this moment all my life, but now that it had come, it was impossible to feel too sad.

Mom was finally free.

In the spring, Alex and I went back to our cabin in the Sierra Nevadas.

What we’d planned as a one-month break stretched seamlessly into two. Neither of us could get enough now of simply lying on the grass, listening to the wind in the pines. Or sitting up for hours talking. Or taking our sleeping bags outside and sleeping under the stars, our bare limbs entwined.

Slowly, I was getting used to having the angel part of me so diminished. There were days when I thought it would have been easier if she’d just vanished. But then, touching her shining presence, I knew I’d rather have this little bit than nothing at all. And being at the cabin, with its total peace, was healing.

Being with Alex was healing.

One day in June, we were lying on the grass, soaking up the sun. All Alex had on was a pair of shorts; his eyes were closed, his hands folded on his tanned stomach.

“Hey, have we figured out yet if I’m an older woman or not?” I said drowsily. I was lying beside him, my head against his.

He grinned and made a lunge for me; I gave a laughing shriek as he pulled me on top of him. “I think you’re just two weeks younger than me now,” he said, nuzzling at my neck. “You’re catching up.”

“I’ve done all the catching up I’m ever doing.” I drew a blade of grass across his perfect mouth. “You are not going into another dimension again. Ever.”

“Oh no! How am I going to live, now that you’ve squelched my dream?”

“You’ll manage.”

There was a vibration in my shorts pocket as my cell went off. I hardly ever remembered to charge it up here – we had an extension that ran off the truck’s battery. I slid off Alex and pulled the phone out. A message from Seb:

We leave tomorrow. Can’t believe it’s really happening. Text me and let me know you’re alive. xx

I showed the text to Alex; he grinned. “Hey, so they’re really doing it.”

“Yep,” I said, smiling at the screen. “They’re really doing it.”

It had been weeks after Seb left before I found out what happened with him and Meghan. Finally I’d received a letter in Pawntucket from him that had gone on for pages about his journey. I’d scanned it impatiently, knowing he’d done this to torture me.

It ended: Then I got to Tulsa. Well, I think that’s all for now. I will write again soon, and you must write to me too. I hope you and Alex are both well. Love, Seb.

“What?!” I yelped. “Oh, Seb, you are in so much trouble—” And then I saw his postscript, in tiny letters…and a grin burst across my face.

Meggie said yes. I didn’t know I could be this happy.

Seb had been busy these last few months, though. He’d never been able to get the street girl he’d once saved out of his mind – or, I suspected, the street child he’d once been himself. Now he was about to head back down to Mexico; he planned to start a centre to help street kids who’d been left even more destitute by the quakes.

And Meghan was going with him.

I texted back:

Alive and well. So excited for you both, querido. You’re going to do a wonderful job. xx

I glanced at Alex as I put my phone away. “He’s making me feel incredibly lazy, you know. He’s been setting this up for months.”

“Lazy’s good – for now, anyway.” Alex laced his fingers through mine. “God, Willow, if anyone deserves a break, you do.”

I gazed out at the unchanging mountains. And for the hundredth time, I was glad that no one was aware of what I’d done. Even with Jonah’s broadcast, all most people knew was that after the earthquakes, humanity had started spontaneously marshalling – and then the angels had “perished”.

After the battle, Alex and I had stayed on in Pawntucket for a few months, helping to rebuild. The work was long and hard, but after a while the town square didn’t have that defeated look any more. It made me smile every time I saw it.

People everywhere had been doing the same thing: tearing down the trappings of the Edens, fixing roads, clearing away the ruins. The Denver Church of Angels had been razed to the ground. Now, a few months on, there was electricity again, phone service, the internet. But already the world felt like a very different place, though it was too soon yet to tell what direction it was heading in.

And – I guess inevitably – there was also the small, continued existence of the Church of Angels. Even now that everyone knew the truth…some people couldn’t bear to give up the beautiful creatures who’d ensnared us.

Thinking of the angels now, just a dimension away, I knew their fate was in their own hands. Paschar’s vision was right: I was the one who could have destroyed them.

I’d just tried to choose a better way.

“Are you sorry?” I asked softly, turning to look at Alex. “I mean, not that the angels are gone, just…everything’s so different now. Especially for you. You trained your whole life for something, and now it’s over with.”

Alex was still lying on his back. He shrugged, eyes half closed. “Yeah, it’s weird. But I’ll figure something out. Maybe I’ll start a bungee-jumping business.”

He could if he wanted to – now that everything was over with, Alex had been able to access his old bank account, with the funds he’d received for being an AK for years. We wouldn’t be hurting for money anytime soon.

“I could definitely get into bungee jumping.” I flopped down and crossed my arms on his bare chest. “Hey, if the CIA starts back up, you could always work for them again.”

He opened his eyes and studied me with a slight smile. “Are you sure you’re not as psychic as you used to be?” he said finally.

I blinked; I’d only been kidding. “You mean you’ve heard from them? But when?”

Alex sat up, carrying me with him. “A few days ago, when we drove down for supplies. They’d gotten my cell number somehow. It was when you went to the drugstore, remember? My phone went off, and it was them.”

“Oh,” I said faintly. I could guess what was coming next.

Alex’s toned stomach was creased as he sat leaning forward, running a blade of grass between his fingers. “The thing is…they’re starting up a paranormal intruder division. They want me to run it.”

The words echoed inside me. The whole time we’d been up here together, I’d been imagining us having a quiet, peaceful life from now on – the thought of it being taken away before it had barely begun made me want to cry.

“So…I guess that would pay a lot,” I said at last.

“Yeah, it sounded like they’d give me a blank cheque if I wanted it.”

I cleared my throat. “And – it’s what you love, right? I mean, it’s what you’ve done your whole life; it’s part of who you are. I totally understand that.”

Alex looked up in surprise. “Willow, I told them no.”

“You…really?”

“Yeah, of course.” He snorted and tossed the grass aside. “It’s just so typical of those guys. When there was an actual paranormal intrusion, Dad struggled to get any funding – and now that there’s no intrusion whatsoever, they’re throwing money at it.”

I hated mentioning this, though knew I had to. “But Alex, won’t you get bored eventually if you’re not doing something exciting? I mean, you could probably do whatever you wanted for the CIA. Hunt terrorists or fight crime or—”

“Willow, no,” Alex interrupted softly. He put his hand on my cheek. “Listen to me,” he said. “I have been worrying about saving the world since I was five years old. I never had a choice, and that was okay – it was just what had to be done. But now the world’s finally getting back on track; it doesn’t need me any more. That means I can do—” He stopped, shaking his head with a sudden grin.

“Anything,” he said.

All at once the sun shining down seemed even brighter. “You really don’t want the CIA job?” I asked.

Alex looked like he was trying not to laugh. “What gave it away? Anyway, what about you? The CIA would snap you up in a second, if they knew what you’d done.”

I smiled and stretched my legs out. “I think I’ll pass.”

We sat basking in the sunshine. A hawk was circling high overhead; the only other movement was the clouds drifting across the sky.

“You know what I’d really like to do?” Alex’s blue-grey eyes had turned thoughtful.

I’d just started to brush the grass from his warm back. “No, what?”

“I’d like to travel.”

I stopped mid-motion and glanced at him in surprise. “Is there even a single state you haven’t seen?”

Alex nodded, leaning back on his hands as he gazed out at the mountains. “All of them. I was always on the hunt before – I never got a chance to just enjoy any of it. I’d like to see the country again and…” He shrugged, looking a little embarrassed. “Well, see exactly what it is we’ve saved.”

I began to smile as I imagined it. I swiped the rest of the grass from his back and then slowly caressed his spine.

“You know what?” I said. “I like the sound of that. A lot.”

Alex’s gaze flew to mine. “Really? You want to?”

“Yeah,” I said. “I think I do. We can take the truck and go all over.”

He cupped his hand behind my neck and kissed me softly, then pulled me onto his lap with a grin. “Nah, let’s get a couple of motorcycles. I’ll teach you to ride, and you can be a biker chick. You are going to look seriously hot in leather.”

I laughed and twined my arms around his neck. “Okay, deal. But you’re not allowed to have one of those big biker beards, so don’t even think about it.”

“I can’t have a beard?”

“No. Definitely not.”

“Hmm. We may have to negotiate this one.” Alex took a strand of my hair and tickled it across my face. For as long as I’d known Alex, he’d looked so much older than his age – weighed down with responsibility for the whole world.

Now his stormy eyes were simply…happy.

For a moment, as the breeze whispered, I thought of my mother. Alex’s family. Sam. Everyone who’d fallen in battle; the groups we’d sent out; Alex’s old friends who’d died years before.

And I knew that this was what we’d all been fighting for: the freedom to find joy in the world, now that we still had a world to enjoy.

My heart felt almost too full for speech. I touched Alex’s face, tracing the dark arch of one eyebrow, and finally cleared my throat. “So how’s this for a plan? We’ll spend a few more weeks up here, then hit the road for a while. Then after that…just be together.”

He took my hand and turned it over. Slowly, he kissed my palm; my pulse skipped at the feel of his summer-warm lips. Below, the mountains shone like a new dawn.

“Who said you’re not as psychic any more?” Alex said softly. “You just read my mind.”