Fallen

Book 3: Missing Girls and Mystery Monsters

Chapter 5

- Deadly Secrets -

As Danny Carver left the coroner's office in Fremont, he tried not to be annoyed, but so many things were irritating him. The respectable shirt that Ava had talked him into wearing, along with the shoes she had 'borrowed' from a shop for him, chafed against his neck at the collar, and he hated the way the gel in his hair felt. Despite his attempts to look like a medical student, he knew he wasn't fooling anybody. His voice wasn't particularly deep for his age, and he just looked far too young to be a college student despite the fact that he had impressed the coroner with his use of medical terminology.

It wasn't just the false identity that annoyed him. The coroner hadn't seen his sisters since they had first spoken to him - and talked him into allowing them to see the bodies. Something which both he and Ava hadn't been able to accomplish, despite the angel's best attempts to use what she probably thought were feminine wiles on the older man. It wasn't that she had failed miserably or made a fool out of herself... she just didn't appear to know how to handle certain things. She seemed to think that staring at a person would make him more inclined to do her bidding, when actually it just made her look like she was desperately trying not to blink.

She was also one of the things annoying him, though not on purpose, and he knew it wasn't her fault. She was just infuriatingly calm in her attempts to be logical. With every hour that passed, his worry for his sisters grew stronger, and yet despite how hopeless the situation was becoming, Ava continued to be unemotionally calm, like a frigging android or something. There was no sense of urgency to her, and he got the impression that she didn't particularly care whether they found Merry and Pippin or not.

Ever since their talk last night, she had been even quieter than normal, and he wondered if something had happened to her whilst he had been asleep. When she'd woken him at six o'clock he asked if the ghosts had put in an appearance, but she said there'd been no sign of them. He believed her, because he didn't think she could handle ghosts without making enough noise to wake him, but she was much less chatty today, and seemed less inclined to offer her opinion.

"That was a complete waste of time," he told her, turning to face her. She was wearing a grey pencil-skirt, white blouse and matching grey jacket, and looked quite neat and official. Unfortunately, she had not yet mastered walking in the heels she'd taken from the same shop where she'd stolen his shoes, and now that she was outside the coroner's office and out of the man's sight, she took the shoes off and carried them in one hand to walk barefoot down the street.

"I must unfortunately agree," she sighed. "How do your sisters manage to talk people into telling them things they ordinarily would not?"

"Practice. Lots and lots of practice. But what do we do now? We've already been to the last crime scene, and found absolutely nothing."

"We must have missed something." A frown marred the pretty face of her vessel, and made him feel a little less angry at her. She was concerned, he realise, just hiding it well. And when she spoke again, it was with obvious frustration. "I just wish I knew what we were looking for! I have a feeling that we're missing something of great importance, but I don't know what it might be. We've already checked out the crime scene, and spoken to the last person to have seen your sisters. We've done what any other hunters would do. What are we missing? If Merry and Pippin were here, Danny, what would they do next?"

He thought about it for a moment, but didn't like the answer he came up with. It was a measure of last resort, something his sisters would be loathe to do, and something he wanted to avoid at all costs. Instead, he made another suggestion.

"They'd probably ask you to do that Twilight Bark thing," he told her. "You know, ask the animals around if they've seen anything."

"I can certainly try," she said, though she did not sound convinced. "But we don't know for sure that your sisters disappeared from this area, and the best I can do is a couple of hundred metres around me. Perhaps we should report them missing to the local police, as well."

Danny shook his head. "No way. We try to keep a low profile, stay off the police radar. Out here, we're on our own. We don't have the benefit of The Trust's contacts, so we keep our heads down. Besides, what can the police do that we can't? Whatever monster has taken my sisters, they would be helpless against. And they've already got a handful of murders to be concerned about; they wouldn't give a missing persons report the attention it needs."

"Alright," she agreed. "I'll check with the animals, if you think that's best."

He watched as her eyes turned silver, and studied her face whilst her attention was elsewhere. Sometimes, he struggled to believe that an angel, a being thousands upon thousands of years old, was inhabiting the body of the beautiful young woman standing before him. After meeting her for the first time, he'd dragged up everything he could possibly find about angels, studying the lore, searching the bible for information, even looking at random third-party sites on the web. What people 'knew' about them differed greatly. New age spiritualists believed that angels were helpful and benevolent entities who watched over them personally and offered guidance, whilst traditional Christian schools of belief generally agreed that angels were divine messengers and fierce warriors who mostly only did what God asked of them regardless of whether it was of benefit to mankind.

Having gotten to know Ava more over the past couple of days, he was far more inclined to agree with the traditionalists. Though Ava was pleasant enough, and seemed to care about humanity in general, the way she spoke of her brothers and sisters led him to believe that not all angels shared her beliefs. She'd mentioned that very few angels were on Earth, but she hadn't said that all of those angels were working to stop the apocalypse. Surely, if other angels were trying to stop the end of the world, she would be working with them, wouldn't she? The fact that she had been cast out of Heaven and exiled to Earth probably meant that she was lonely for the company of her own kind, and yet she avoided talk of other angels as if fearful that conversation about them might draw their attention. There were so many more questions he wanted to ask her, about specific angels and events mentioned in the bible, about Lucifer, about the apocalypse... but he knew this wasn't the time for such conversation.

She looked so eerie, so... unearthly... with her silver eyes, and not for the first time he wondered how powerful she truly was. She'd told him she was cut off from Heaven's power, yet the things she could do seemed almost beyond belief. From teleportation to communicating with animals, her powers seemed unlimited, but she had assured him several times that she was very limited in what she could do. Overall, she was a complete contradiction. An old being in a young body. Wise, yet often oblivious and sometimes naïve. Incredibly intelligent, but not always quick to understand.

"It's done," she said, and her eyes changed from silver to blue just as a mother and two of her kids walked past. One of the kids stared at Ava for a moment, but was soon dragged on by his parent. "I've sent a general message to all of the animals in the vicinity, conveying the image of your sisters and requesting information on their whereabouts."

"Thanks," he said, feeling some small measure of relief. Ava's Twilight Bark had worked remarkably well when they had been searching for Kayleigh Sumner, and with any luck it would soon yield more results. "I don't know what I'd do if you weren't here, Ava."

She nodded in acceptance of his gratitude, and started to walk down the street, seemingly unconcerned by the cold concrete beneath her bare feet, and the strange looks given to her by passers-by. He walked beside her in silence for a moment, wondering if she had any more tricks up her sleeve.

"Will you tell me, now?" she asked suddenly.

"Tell you what?"

"Tell me what you aren't telling me," she said, slowing to look at him as she walked. Despite the fact that she was shorter than him, he felt as if she was looking down on him, judging him.

"I don't know what you're talking about," he said, hoping she would drop the subject. But she didn't.

"One of the things you do not know about angels, Danny, is that we can detect auras, especially auras of people we spend any length of time with."

"Sounds like new-age nonsense to me," he said, hoping to derail the conversation.

"It isn't new-age nonsense, it's scientific fact," she replied patiently. "Do you know what your brain is?"

"Uh... a brain?"

"The human brain is basically a collection of electrical impulses suspended within a conductive cerebro-spinal fluid. The human body is full of nerves and synapses which transmit electrical signals, and angels are very good at sensing and manipulating electrical fields. Humans believe their emotions are nothing more than their internal feelings, but emotion is much more than that. It seeps out from your soul, conveyed on your faces, within the tone of your voice, and reflected by the changing energy patterns of your body. The more familiar we become with a human, the easier they become to 'read'. I know that you are hiding something from me, Danny. When I asked what your sisters would do next, were they here, you concealed your thoughts, and I saw that change reflected in your aura. Under normal circumstances I would not hesitate in allowing you to keep your secrets, but the safety of your sisters is at stake here. I don't know why you suddenly felt... uneasy... but I think you should tell me, so that we can discuss it."

He mentally cringed at her words. If she could read his aura, she probably knew everything he had been thinking and feeling since he'd first met her. She'd know how nervous he felt around her, how he'd secretly fancied her ever since she'd first teleported into the bedsit in Knott, how he wanted to earn her trust and respect, and win her friendship. He thought he'd been doing so well, keeping his crush on her a secret, but she'd probably known all along.

"Please stop feeling guilty," she said. "I can't read minds, only auras. Whatever secrets you and your sisters have are yours alone. I knew from the moment I first met Merry and Pippin that they were very secretive, but I didn't push them into telling me anything they were not comfortable with. Now, I fear we don't have that luxury."

He almost gave a sigh of relief, but then caught himself before he actually did. Avariel didn't know about his crush on her. He was safe, for the moment. One of his worst fears was that she'd find out, and of course she'd find it all very amusing. To think, that a guy like him could fancy an angel - it was laughable! So relieved was he that his secret was safe that he didn't even bother trying to hold back what he had hidden before.

"There's one more thing I can think to do," he told her. He fell silent as a few shoppers walked past, bags of their purchases hanging from their arms, and waited until they were out of hearing range before lowering his voice and continuing. "I could contact the Keeper at the Trust Headquarters in London. The Trust often have access to powerful magics, and they've been known to cast a locator spell, on occasion."

"Why didn't you do this in the first place? It could have saved us a lot of time and effort." There was no irritation in her voice, only genuine curiosity.

"I'm not supposed to contact the Trust myself. I'm just a kid." He wasn't able to fully keep the bitterness from his tone. All his life, people had been telling him that he was 'too young' to go out hunting with his parents or sisters, that he could do it 'when he was older'. And despite the fact that he'd had exactly the same training as Merry and Pippin, the 'when you're older' excuse never seemed to disappear no matter how old he was. His sisters had gone on their first hunt when they were just thirteen years old, accompanying their father on a mission to exorcise a demon. When Danny had turned thirteen, he'd been given a book about subterranean monsters and told he'd have to wait for his first hunt. Three weeks later their father was dead, along with his mother, leaving Merry, Pippin and Grandfather Charlie as the only family he had left.

"I disagree," Ava said. "You're a young man, not a kid, and I believe you've earned the right to contact this 'Trust' of yours."

"They won't see it like that," he said glumly. Already, he could hear Albert's disapproving words in his mind.

"A man would not care about the disapproval of another, if his family safety was at stake," she pointed out. "Besides, your Trust is all the way in England. What could they possibly do to you here?"

"Cut us off," he said immediately. "Revoke our status as Trust members, remove our access to the Trust library, and funding, and all the other resources they have."

"And what's more important to you? Maintaining your links to the Trust, or getting your sisters back?" She stopped walking to look him straight in the eyes, and he felt as if she was peering right into the core of his soul. A flight of fancy, he told himself. "This is one of the things I was talking about last night. You know what might happen if you contact the Trust, and you have to weigh that against the possibility that you might never see your sisters again. I can't tell you what decision to make, Danny, but I promise I will support whichever one you decide. I know what it's like, to have to make hard choices, and face the repercussions, but you won't have to face them alone."

"You already know what decision I'm going to make, don't you?" he asked.

"The same one I would make," she nodded.

"Alright." He took a deep breath, standing a little taller. He could do this. He could make decisions. He could break the rules if it meant finding his sisters. "Then let's do it."

o - o - o - o - o

He had to admit, setting up a secret base of operations in a quiet location on the other side of the country had been a good idea. Already he was coming to think of the possibly-haunted-house as 'home', which was an interesting feeling. Never in his life would he have imagined that he could find a home in any place but England; he hadn't even liked the US, for the first few months he'd been in the country. Now, it was starting to grow on him, just a little. There was something so uniquely... American... about Americans. He just couldn't put his finger on what it was.

"Tell me about this Keeper," Avariel commanded.

Danny hesitated. Not only was he not supposed to contact the Trust on his own, he also wasn't supposed to talk about it with anybody. The identity of hunters and Trust members was something of a closely guarded secret out of necessity. But then again, it wasn't as if Ava was just anybody. She was an angel, and she was the only friend he'd made since coming to America. He was fairly sure the usual rules didn't apply to her. After all, there was absolutely nothing stopping her from travelling to the Trust's headquarters and learning all of this for herself. He was quite sure that nobody within the Trust even knew that angels existed, much less how to defend against them.

"His name's Albert Golding," he told her, as he waited for his laptop to boot up. "He's a great hunter, one of the greatest to have ever lived. When he was younger, he travelled all over Europe, learning from other hunters, honing his skills. He took over as Keeper for the Trust in Britain about ten years ago, when he retired from active hunting. I've met him twice. Once last year, at my grandfather's funeral, and two years before that, when my parents died."

"I find the concept of the Trust to be... intriguing," Ava admitted. "How long has it been in operation?"

"Since the dark ages, I guess." He wasn't too sure of the details himself. All he knew was that the Trust was old.

"And how are its Keepers chosen?"

"It probably varies from country to country," he said. "In the UK, the current Keeper names a successor, usually a retired and accomplished hunter who can be trusted with the responsibility."

"I see."

The laptop login screen appeared, and he typed in his password and waited for his applications to load. Butterflies danced in his stomach, and he tried to push them away. This was no time to be nervous. Ava was right; with Merry and Pippin missing, it was his responsibility to report in to the Trust, even though he wasn't technically a registered hunter. But his family had always been hunters, which he liked to think gave him some small right to request assistance.

"You can talk to Albert Golding on your computer?" Ava asked.

"Yeah, I can Skype him. Let's see... nearly eight o'clock here means it'll be mid-afternoon over in England. Shouldn't be a problem. But... err... would you mind standing behind the computer? Albert might see you if you're next to me, and explaining... well... you..."

"I understand," she said. She left his side and went to stand beside one of the windows, on which she had painted one of her Enochian warding sigils. He didn't know what that particular sigil meant, but it certainly made her feel a lot safer.

He loaded up Skype and dialled a number from the top of his head. For security reasons, the Trust's Headquarters wasn't saved as a contact on the computer, just in case it was stolen, but every hunter worth his or her salt knew the telephone number for HQ by heart. Now, as the program dialled and began to call England, he tried once more to fight back the nerves in the pit of his stomach. He had every right to call, he told himself.

Just as he thought nobody would answer, the ringing tone stopped and the line was opened. Albert's wrinkled face appeared on the laptop screen, and the elderly man glared at him from behind thick black-framed glasses. Though Albert's sight wasn't what it used to be, his mind was as sharp as ever. Danny tried to swallow the lump of fear in his throat as the microphone in England started transmitting.

"Daniel Carver?" Albert asked, squinting at the screen. His voice was tinny through the laptop's speakers. "Is that you?"

"Yes, Mr Golding," he replied, trying to sound as respectful as possible. Nobody disturbed Albert Golding unless they had good reason to. So far, not even Pippin and Merry had contacted him with an update on the American situation. They wanted solid evidence before they bothered him.

"Why are you calling me, boy?" Albert asked. "Where is Pippin?"

"I'm very sorry to have to contact you like this, Mr Golding," Danny told him, "but my sisters are missing. I was hoping you could perform a locator spell for me."

"Missing? How long have they been gone for?"

"A couple of days. They just disappeared without warning, right in the middle of a job. If you wouldn't mind—"

"What job?" Albert Golding interrupted.

"Just something I picked up in the papers."

"Is this related to those omens your sisters are supposed to be investigating?"

"I don't know," he said, confused. Why wasn't Albert more concerned about Merry and Pippin's disappearance? Why wasn't he trying to console Danny, to reassure him that his sisters would be found? "We'd only just started the job when my sisters went missing, Sir."

"Tell me about the job."

Danny was stunned to silence. He hadn't called Albert to debrief the man, but to ask for his help in locating his family. Why couldn't Albert just do the damn locator spell and let him go? Finally, he found his voice. "Several bodies have turned up, torn to shreds, bits missing, as if something's been feeding. There's no connection between the victims, and all I've been able to rule out is werewolves. Sir," he said, allowing a pleading tone to enter his voice, "I think my sisters may be in real trouble. Please, will you do the locator spell? I have to find them."

Albert did not reply immediately. Instead, he moved closer to the camera on his end, his face becoming larger as he stared through Danny's screen. "Are you somewhere safe?" he asked.

"Yes," Danny replied, frowning. What did it matter where he was? The only thing of importance was finding his sisters.

"And are you alone?"

He managed to avoid looking up at Ava, who was watching him from beside the window. "Yes."

"Listen to me very carefully, Danny," Albert said, his voice quiet as if he feared being overheard. "I am going to wire you two thousand dollars. You will go immediately to the nearest airport and catch the first plane—any plane—out of America. I don't care where it's going to, but as soon as you arrive at your destination, you contact me again and I'll book you a flight to Heathrow. I'll have a driver waiting for you there."

"What?" he asked. His skin went cold, goosebumps rising on the surface, and at the same time he felt an angry heat welling within him. "I'm not leaving America, not until I've found my sisters!"

"I'm sorry, Danny, but your sisters are dead."

He felt his head begin to swim, his vision blurring around the edges. No. Albert was lying. His sisters couldn't be dead. They couldn't. They were the only family he had left. As annoying as they were at times, he loved them dearly. He needed them as much as they needed him, and he would rather stay in America alone, searching, than return home to the safety of England and the Trust.

"As long as you are in America, you are in grave danger," Albert continued. His tone was harsh, no sympathy to be found, not even in his ageing eyes. "It's time for you to leave."

"No," he told the Keeper, his voice barely a whisper. Then, more strongly, "No. I'll believe my sisters are dead when I see their bodies, and if they are dead, then I'm not leaving this country until I've given them a hunter's funeral. If you know what has my sisters, then you better tell me what it is, because I'm going to track it down and kill it." He knew that his words sounded violent and boastful, but he didn't care how unfeasible the idea of him tracking down and killing monsters sounded. He wasn't going anywhere until he'd saved or cremated his sisters. And he was so angry, that even the thought of his sisters being killed couldn't bring tears to his eyes.

"It's a family curse, Daniel," Albert said, more gently now that he realised Danny couldn't be ordered or bullied into leaving. "Why do you think you have no family left? It's the curse that's taken your sisters, and if you don't return to me immediately, it will take you too."

Danny briefly looked up at Ava, saw the surprise on her face, and knew it was mirrored on his own. Nobody had ever mentioned anything about a curse to him. The idea was preposterous. Albert had to be lying... but why?

"What curse?" he demanded.

"It doesn't matter. All that matters is your safety."

"If there's a curse on my family, then you need to break it."

"This curse cannot be broken," Albert said quietly. "Don't you think we haven't tried? Your grandfather was a good friend to me, and I watched him try time and time again—and fail each time—to end the curse. But it's hopeless. Come home, Daniel. We can keep you safe."

"Do you truly believe that this curse will take me next?" he asked.

"Yes."

"Good! Then I'll be waiting, and I won't be unprepared! Whatever it is, I'll fight it, and I'll beat it, and I'll get my sisters back."

"No. You will die, and the last of the Carver bloodline will die with you. I'm giving you a direct order, Daniel. Get on a plane. Leave America. Come home."

"Or what?" he asked, narrowing his eyes at the white-haired Keeper. "What threat can you possibly make that is worse than losing my sisters and my own life?"

When Albert did not reply, Danny knew he had won, and felt a moment of triumph. Then, a small warning light flickered in the bottom corner of his screen. With two clicks of his mouse he had disconnected the modem, and he pulled the power cord from the back of the laptop, closing the screen.

"Why did you do that?" Ava asked.

"He was trying to trace my location. I should have used a proxy. Luckily, I don't think he managed to get very far in the tracking procedure." Still, he mentally kicked himself for not being more careful. He wouldn't make that mistake again.

"I'm sorry about your sisters, Danny," she said quietly.

"There's nothing to be sorry about. My sisters are alive," he insisted. He didn't care whether it was optimism or denial, but he would not, not, believe that his sisters were gone.

"Your Keeper sounded sure of his words."

"Maybe, but that doesn't mean he was telling the truth. He was lying about something."

"What makes you so sure?"

"Couldn't you tell?" he asked, looking up to see a lack of understanding in her eyes. "I just... I know he's hiding something. Nobody has ever mentioned a family curse to me before. Don't you think that's strange? And something spooked my sisters, in Fremont. Do you think it's just a coincidence that they disappeared on this job? Why would Albert be so interested in what job we were working, if it was a curse at work? Curses strike usually without warning, and a curse by itself isn't enough to make two people disappear. A curse just summons something to do the disappearing on behalf of someone, or something, else."

"This is why I'll never make a good hunter," Ava sighed, taking the seat at the table next to him and looking a little disappointed. "I told you before, angels lack the instincts humans have. I would have taken what Albert said at face value, and seen no reason to question his words."

"Sometimes you just need to look a little deeper," he told her.

"I guess so. And now, I suppose, we have to look deeper at this case. It seems that in our haste to identify the entity responsible for taking your sisters, we may have overlooked the fact that they are the biggest clue we have."

"My family are not cursed," he insisted. "Somebody would have mentioned it to me, by now."

"Are you sure?" she asked. "If you don't mind me asking, how did your parents die?"

"A boating accident," he said tersely. He did not like the insinuation that his family might be cursed. Albert was lying. He was sure of it. "They were hunting a kelpie in winter, their boat hit a log and capsized, and they died of hypothermia before they could be rescued. Nothing kidnapped them, or ate them, it was just hypothermia."

"And your grandfather?"

"Coronary Heart Disease. He was an old man. He spent the last two months of his life in hospital and died peacefully in his bed. I was there. I watched him go. And my other grandparents are still alive, so there's definitely no curse."

She frowned in confusion. "Your... other... grandparents? But I thought your grandfather was the only family you had, apart from Merry and Pippin? If you and your sisters have additional grandparents, why did you say you are alone?"

"They're not our grandparents, they're my grandparents," he explained, trying to be patient, reminding himself that Ava was still pretty new to humanity.

"I don't understand," she replied blankly.

"Look," he sighed, "there's not much to tell. Their names are Winston and Vivienne Yarwood, and they're civilians. They don't have a clue about monsters, or hunting, they just thought my dad was a long-distance lorry driver, and when their daughter Sarah—my mum—married my dad, they pretty much disowned her. I met them once when I was six and I barely remember anything about them. They didn't even come to the funeral."

"So... you and your sisters do not share the same mother?"

"No. Their mother died when they were two years old. Three years later our dad remarried, to my mum, and I came along a couple of years after that."

"This could be a clue." There was an eagerness in her eyes that had not been there before. "What do you know about your sisters' mother, and their side of the family?"

"Very little. Nobody ever really talked about them. I don't see how it matters anyway."

"Please, Danny, humour me," she pleaded.

He groaned silently, unable to resist her hopeful expression. "Alright, I'll tell you what little I know. Merry and Pippin's mother was called Emma Harper, she was the daughter of Frank Harper, a well respected hunter, and Norma Harper, who was a civilian. Norma died in childbirth, and Emma was raised by her dad to become a hunter. She met my dad, Peter, when they were quite young, and they fell hopelessly in love and got married. Merry and Pippin were born, and for a while, everyone was happy. But when my sisters were two years old, there was some kind of accident. I don't know what happened, but Emma and her dad were killed, leaving my dad a widower. Grandad Charlie—my dad's dad—once told me that my dad was heartbroken after that, and he used to go off hunting for weeks at a time, leaving Merry and Pippin with Grandad Charlie and Grandma Anne. They were hunters, too. It was on one of his trips that he met my mother, Sarah, and eventually they got married, and my mum became a hunter too, though my Grandad didn't really approve."

"Why not?"

"Letting civilians in on hunter secrets isn't really considered a sensible thing to do. In Britain, and in most of Europe, hunters tend to marry other hunters, and it's all more or less a family business. Sometimes civilians join up if they've seen something that they can't forget or ignore, but mostly civilians don't have a clue about any of it. Again, thanks to the Trust."

"So," Ava said, "Merry and Pippin's mother and grandfather died when they were two, and their grandmother died in childbirth. So perhaps it's the Harper side of the family that's cursed, and not the Carvers."

"If that's true, then why would Albert say I'm in danger? I'm not related to the Harpers by blood."

"Like you said, he's probably hiding something. But at least we're making progress. All we need to do now is figure out what kind of curse we're dealing with, and break it."

"Just like that," he scoffed. "Despite the fact that my grandfather, and the Trust themselves, haven't been able to do it. Do you know something they don't?"

"No. I just know that a curse is something we can deal with, one way or another."

He looked at her for a moment, at her newly hopeful expression, and the relief in her vivid blue eyes. If he didn't know better, he'd guess that she was actually glad that his family was cursed. "I don't understand why you're so relieved," he said. "I'd rather deal with a monster than a curse. At least you can kill a monster. Undoing a curse is much trickier."

"It could be worse," she shrugged.

"How?"

"It doesn't matter."

"I think it does," he said. She looked uncomfortable, and he decided to press the matter. "C'mon, Ava, tell me what's on your mind. I told you when you asked me."

"Well..." she said hesitantly, "I do know of one being that can easily take people and conceal them from me."

"What is it?"

"Another angel."

"I don't get it."

A look of guilt passed across her face. "I had to consider the possibility that other angels had taken your sisters, to keep me occupied in an attempt to prevent me stopping the apocalypse."

"Ahh," he said, understanding dawning in his mind. "You thought it was your fault my sisters had been taken. And now that we're 'just' dealing with a curse, it absolves you of your guilt."

"A little," she admitted. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to celebrate your misfortune. I am just relieved that I'm not the one responsible for this situation."

"I understand. I'd feel the same in your position. But why would other angels want to prevent you from stopping the apocalypse?"

"That's a long story for another time," she said. "Right now, we have to concentrate on finding your sisters. Do any of your books deal with the subject of familial curses?"

"Some." He glanced at the pile of musty old tomes on the coffee table by the sofa. There was enough material there to keep them reading for weeks, and even if they found the right curse, there was no guarantee there would be a counter-curse for it. He looked back to Ava, and tried to decide how much he truly trusted her. He had a plan, but it would rely greatly on the angel. "I have an idea."

"What is it?"

"Well, curse or no curse, I'm certain something in Fremont took my sisters. And Albert seemed convinced that I'm next. So I say we use that to our advantage. We use me as bait to lure it out, and turn the tables on it."

"That is a terrible plan, Danny," she said, sounding unimpressed.

"Do you have a better one?"

"Not yet. But given time, I'm sure I can come up with something safer."

"I'll tell you what, then. We'll go back to Fremont, back to the RV, and go with the bait plan. You have until whatever it is shows up to think of something better."

"I really don't think that's a good idea at all. We have absolutely no idea what kind of horrible being this curse has conjured up, and no way to defend against it. You could be kidnapped, or even killed."

He leant forward across the table, pushing out all fear and doubt, to look her squarely in the eyes. "They're my sisters, Ava. They've always looked out for me. I won't do any less for them."

She returned his gaze for a moment without blinking even once, and then nodded imperceptibly. "Very well. I understand. Family is important. We'll do this your way. What should we do first?"

A small sigh of relief escaped his lips, but now that she had agreed to his plan, his nerves returned. Up until now he had been looking to her to lead the way, relying on her knowledge and wisdom to guide him. Now she had just handed over the reins, and he worried what might happen if he dropped them. He realised, though, that he couldn't show how worried and afraid he was. A leader had to be strong and show confidence in their own plans. He just wished he'd paid more attention during his first and only read-through of Sun Tzu's The Art of War.

- o -