by Susan Ee
The lights stab my merely human eyes. I can’t imagine how painful it must be for the angels.
Then the giant speakers screech their feedback – the loudest and most piercing feedback I’ve ever heard, even through my noise-canceling headphones. All that intense noise blasting straight into the angels’ hypersensitive ears.
The angels slam their hands against their ears. With their eyes and ears assaulted, they’re staggering in the air, neither attacking nor flying away.
The angels’ exceptional night vision and sharp hearing is working to our advantage. Their superior abilities are their weaknesses now. They can’t turn it off. The intense lights must be killing their eyes. And that noise – hell, it almost makes my ears bleed with the sharp blast.
It helps to have Silicon Valley geniuses in your crew.
Freedom fighters with rifles pop up everywhere – beside the stage, along the bridge walkways, and behind the bridge supports. Although I can’t see them, there should also be snipers settled beside each spotlight and on platforms hidden beneath the bridge.
Gunshots ring through the night.
While the angels are staggering in midair, trying to see and think enough to get away from the god-awful noise, our fighters are shooting them down into the water. After what I saw when we fought angels in the sea the other day, it’s a good bet that most of them can’t swim.
By now, the great white sharks of Northern California should have found their way to the bloody bait we cast into the bay during the show. Here, sharky, sharky . . .
The feedback from the speakers changes and begins blasting death metal music so loudly into the sky that I swear the bridge suspensions are vibrating.
The twins were in charge of the music selection.
I catch sight of them on the side of the bridge, each with an arm raised, holding up their forefingers and pinkies in a devil sign, head-banging to the beat. They’re mouthing the words to the garbled voice screaming over the intense electric guitar and drums blasting out of the speakers. They might look pretty badass if it weren’t for their hobo clown outfits.
It’s the loudest party the Bay Area has ever heard.
62
Those of us on the ground crew help reload the bullets for the gunners. The goal is to try to knock the enemy out of the sky and into the shark-infested waters, but if some of them happen to fall onto the bridge, we’ll be ready for them.
I hope.
The lights turn off all together, plunging us into darkness. Doc and Sanjay insisted the lights flash to keep the angels from adjusting to the light and to continue to keep them blind. So the lights are on timers to turn off and on according to their guesses as to the angels’ ability to adjust.
Our snipers have infrared goggles to see in the dark, but there weren’t enough to go around to the ground crew. With all the death metal blasting through the air and my double-layered soundproofing, I can’t hear anything either.
We’re in the middle of a battle for our lives – blind and deaf. I freeze, desperately trying to sense something. It feels like we stand vulnerable in the dark forever.
Then the lights turn back on, blasting our eyes with their intensity. I squint, trying to see through the blinding glare.
Angels begin to fall onto our bridge. We work in groups to shove them off the edge while they’re still debilitated. Let the sharks sort them out while they thrash in the water.
I’m hoisting a net with a team of guys, ready to toss it over an angel, when I see my mom wandering around in the middle of all this, shouting to herself. I drop the net, letting the three other guys handle it, and run over to frantically try to get her under cover.
She’s too busy to listen to me. After a few seconds, I realize she’s shouting commands to the shaved cult members.
The cult members are tackling the newly landed angels off the edge of the bridge. Their robes flutter in the air as they wrestle and fall over the edge with them.
They also swan dive from the bridge as the angels fly low and get near. They grab onto the angels in midair like human projectiles. The angels, not expecting the extra weight of someone dragging on their wings, plunge into the water – pinwheels of arms and legs and wings. I hope those bald people can swim.
My mom shouts out commands like a general in battle, even though no one can hear her. Still, her message is clear if only because of her arm motions as she rhythmically dispatches her people into graceful swan dives off the bridge.
For those who dive, there’s good motivation in catching themselves an angel, because the angel will slow down their fall, and they will have a chance of surviving the dive. The ones who miss their aim are on a suicide mission.
I worry about my mom diving as well, but she seems to have no shortage of volunteers waiting for her command. The woman has a job to do in the middle of all this battle, and she doesn’t look like she’s about to abandon it.
Hopefully, her job will keep her from obsessing over what’s happening with Paige. As worried as I am, I know that if my sister weren’t fighting to win over the locusts, they’d be attacking us right now along with the angels.
We’re doing way better than I imagined, and I’m beginning to let myself believe that we might have a shot at winning this battle. I can almost hear the people cheering in my imagination when I see the sky darken with more angels.
It’s a new wave of them. And it’s a much larger group than the one that’s already here.
On the way toward us, some of the angels swing low over the water, capsizing boats and giving their drenched and wounded comrades a hand. The winged warriors in the bay climb onto the capsized boats as the humans frantically swim away. They cling on awkwardly like drowning hawks, shaking their wings out and spraying the bloody water off them.
The gunners follow the new angels with streams of bullets. Angels continue to get shot out of the sky and into the shark-infested bay, but the new group hovers out of reach like spectators. They see what’s happening with their fellow warriors, and they stay back.
I’m wondering what they’ll do next when I notice that the angels are split into three groups. The first is the one that came right after the locusts. I catch glimpses of Uriel shouting in that group. The second is the mass of wings hovering at a higher altitude than Uriel’s group. I can almost feel their cold eyes glaring down at us, watching and judging.
Then there’s the smallest group. Their wings are dark and tattered. They could hardly be called angels. A white-winged Adonis swoops across them.
It’s Raffe with his Watchers.
If one group is Uriel’s and the other is Raffe’s, then who are the others? Are they spectators here to watch the blood hunt?
It hits me that the real battle is only just beginning.
Even if Uriel wanted to back off and try again another time, he can’t now, not without everyone in the host knowing that he backed down. What kind of blood hunter would he be?
Uriel and his angels must realize it at the same time I do, because they suddenly dive-bomb us.
The music is still blaring. The closer they get, the louder it is for them, but they commit to their attack.
The lights turn off, pitching us into the dark.
I feel the makeshift stage thunking with the weight of bodies landing hard around me.
The lights turn back on.
Around me are three angel warriors. They leap up, punching blindly as they spin in place with their eyes shut. They can’t see, and the noise must be pounding their heads into mush, yet they’re ready to fight.
Angels land all over the bridge. Some are crashing, lying broken on the concrete. Enough of them make it, though – uninjured enough to kill the nearest human even as they’re adjusting to the light and recovering from their impact.
A bloody fight erupts on the bridge. People everywhere are running or fighting. The gunners aren’t sure what to do, and they stutter in their aim. They can’t open fire on the bridge without hitting our own people, and the angel
s above us are mostly out of easy range.
The angels don’t even pull out their weapons. Either they’re worried about my little trick with the sword I no longer have or they’re so confident that they don’t bother with weapons.
We can’t beat angels one-on-one. We had anticipated the ground crew having to fight some angels who landed or fell onto the bridge, but not the entire angel host. That was as far as our planning skills and time allowed.
People are getting slaughtered as angels punch our fighters off the bridge or break their backs or kick them into oblivion. People use their handguns or rifles to shoot at the angels despite the risk of hitting other people.
I raise my knife against an angel who heads my way. It feels really flimsy compared with the sword I used to have. I don’t know if he can see me now or not, but he has murder in his eyes. He knows he’s going to kill. It’s just a question of who.
If I’m super lucky, I might be able to fight him off and maybe even the warrior after him, but it’s not a long-term survival strategy. By long-term, I mean the next ten minutes.
We’re screwed.
63
Knowing we signed up for this doesn’t help even if we all knew our chances of survival were close to zero. Actually being faced with death is totally different.
My hands are trembling and clumsy as I brace for a fight. I try to calm down so I can fight effectively, but adrenaline screams through my veins, making me jittery.
As I calculate my best options, I see motion out of the edge of my vision. Another angel has snuck up on me. His wings are golden and his face chiseled, but he looks at me with the cold eyes of a killer.
Before I can figure out what to do, snowy wings blot out the angel.
It’s Raffe.
And he has two of his Watchers backing him up.
My heart races even though I thought it was already going full speed. He has his back to me as if completely confident I won’t attack him, despite the fact that we’re enemies.
He punches the attacker, then grabs him and tosses him off the stage.
I let out a deep breath. My hands shake with relief. Raffe is fighting another angel, not humans.
He whips out his sword, ready to strike. I step back-to-back with him, slicing at the other angel coming at us. His Watchers step to each side of us, making a defensive perimeter around us.
The angel I’m fighting leans back to avoid my slice. I swipe my feet under his, and he goes down, landing hard. He’s probably not used to fighting on his feet.
My opponent rolls away from me, blindly finding a new place to fight.
Raffe turns to me.
It’s the first time I’ve seen his face look less than perfect. He’s squinting in pain and blinking rapidly.
He came to help me.
Through all the screaming noise and blinding lights, he came.
I dig into my pocket and pull out a handful of industrial-strength earplugs. He looks at the orange plugs in my hand, then back at me. I grab one and push it into his ear.
He understands and puts one into his other ear. I know they don’t help a lot, but they must help some, because his face relaxes a little. He gets the attention of the two Watchers beside us who also pluck earplugs out of my hand and put them in their ears.
I give Raffe a quick hug. I don’t care who sees me at this point. Raffe might, though.
As if to prove it, he glances up at the sky. The rest of his Watchers and hellions are hovering above the fight where the noise is less. And beyond that is the cloud of winged spectators. I’m sure it’s just my imagination, but I sense the arctic winds of disapproval coming down at us from the spectators above.
He came down to help us rather than hunt us even though the entire angel host was watching.
Raffe makes a twirling gesture to his two Watchers. They nod.
The two Watchers jump into the air and make the same twirling gesture to the rest of the Watchers hovering above.
Raffe’s entire crew dives down through the painful noise and blinding lights and lands on the bridge.
When angel meets Watcher, they’re like two feral cats meeting each other in an alley. They raise their feathers, making their wings look spiky and larger than before.
At first, our freedom fighters assume that there are just more enemies to fight and withdraw into a more defensive position against them. But when they see the Watchers attacking Uriel’s angels, they waste a second, watching the scene unfold with slack jaws.
I raise my arms and whoop even though no one can hear me. I can’t help it. With Raffe’s group, we now have a fair shot of fending off Uriel’s attack.
Everyone else must feel the same way, because all around me, people shout and raise their arms in a war cry.
The lights turn off again, throwing the world into utter darkness.
I stand still, not having anywhere to hide while the angels can see and we can’t. Someone brushes by me in the dark. I want to hunker down and cover my head, but I just have to trust Raffe and the Watchers to keep me alive.
When the lights turn back on, Raffe is fighting beside me. He and his two winged opponents flinch as the light hits them.
There are more people alive than I’d hoped. The Watchers did the fighting for us while we were blind. Now they’re all blinded, and it’s our turn.
I rub Raffe’s arm to let him know it’s me and take the sword out of his hand. During the disorienting few seconds while the angels are covering their eyes, trying to adjust back to the light, we humans attack.
I cut and slice the angels closest to us while other people attack single angels in groups large enough to overwhelm them. Raffe’s Watchers fought while we were helpless. Now we fight while they’re debilitated.
We’re working together as a team, Raffe’s group and my people. We bridge their weaknesses and they bridge ours. We’re a weird, ragged, mismatched group compared with the perfectly formed, powerful, beautiful angels, but we’re still beating them back.
Adrenaline is pumping through my blood, and I feel like I can fight ten of Uriel’s angels. Screaming my head off in a war cry, I run for the next squinting angel who is shielding his eyes.
Raffe falls to the ground wrestling blindly with two angels who are working together to hold him down. I stab my blade through one’s back, and Raffe kicks off the other.
I feel like we have a real shot at beating them back with all of us working together.
But the glorious elation ends too soon.
The cloud of spectator angels begins coming down on us, hard and fast.
64
It’s not surprising that the spectator angels are jumping into the fight now that Raffe and his Watchers are defending humans against other angels.
As the spectators begin diving, the fog around them begins churning. The angels falter in their flight and look around.
A cloud of locusts bursts out from the fog surrounding the angels.
I search the chaos for a glimpse of my sister but don’t see her in the swarm of wings and stingers.
A bloody body drops from the center of the locust cloud.
There’s a heart-stopping moment when I can’t see any details. I want to shut my eyes in case it’s Paige. Instead, my eyes are glued to the body as it falls.
I can’t see anything until the body gets close enough. When it does, there’s just enough time for me to see who it is.
Iridescent wings flutter in the wind. A scorpion tail. A white streak in flowing hair.
Then he smashes onto the asphalt.
I can breathe again.
Paige. Where is she?
In the sky, the swarm of locusts closes in on the angels. Paige sits regally in the arms of a locust followed by the rest of the swarm.
We all stare. Paige is covered in blood. I hope it’s mostly White Streak’s. She drips blood from her mouth. She’s chewing something.
I don’t want to think about that. I’m careful not to look too closely at White Streak, who lies
broken on the bridge.
The old leader is dead.
I can’t get my mind around it. My baby sister – queen of the locusts.
Paige lashes out with her voice and hand with a fury that reminds me of Mom. I can’t hear what she’s yelling, but she sweeps her arms, and the cloud of locusts follows.
They crash with the spectator angels in a tumbling mash of perfection and monstrosity. Blood starts raining down on us as stingers and swords clash.
My sister is keeping the spectator angels from coming down on us. Doc and Obi were right about her.
A surge of pride and fear swirls inside me. My baby sister is a savior.
Then the lights turn off again, and we’re plunged into darkness.
I feel a hand grabbing Pooky Bear out of my grasp, and I know Raffe has the sword again. I crouch down low to stay out of the way and cover my head. I just have to trust him to keep me alive while I’m blind and deaf.
Behind my closed eyes, I see the impression of my sister riding a locust in battle.
65
When the lights turn back on again, I see someone trying to climb up the broken edge of the bridge from below. He has his mouth open in a frantic scream. Whatever it is he’s trying to get away from is worse than what’s on top of the bridge.
I run over to help him up. His hand is sweaty, and he’s trembling. I can’t hear a word he says, so I lie on my stomach at the crumbling edge and look down. I can see the bottom of the hideaway net strung below the bridge.
The net is broken. People cling to it in clumps, as if trying to get away from something. They’re all staring wide-eyed at the turbulent water below.
The sea churns and explodes as a multiheaded sixer beast shoots up in a cascade of water. Its six living heads all have their mouths open like a misshapen fish jumping for bugs.
One of its heads sees me and snaps its jaws.
The apocalyptic monster grabs and bites several people with its six live heads. It then disappears back into the bay with the bleeding, squirming victims.