Chapter 2

Pain. It was the first sensation Alex felt when his senses returned. He had a hazy memory of being in and out of it but now he finally felt like he had a grasp of where he was.

A familiar figure was sitting in a chair next to his bed, her long hair falling over her shoulders as she leaned forward and smiled at him. "Finally," she told him, "I thought I'd have to stare at your unconscious baby face forever."

"Noma," he said and the sheer effort brought back the dull pain in his chest.

He tried to sit up but she stopped him. "Easy there, soldier. Those broken ribs won't take kindly to being jostled around for the next few weeks."

"Great," he sighed, but all too happy to obey. "Anything else I should know?"

"Like Michael suspected, you punctured your lung, but they were able to repair it without major surgery. And there's a pretty nasty gash in your arm. You'll be right as rain in, oh, maybe two months?"

"Is he here?" Alex's eyes searched the room.

"Michael? No. What's going on between you two?"

"You don't know?"

"Know what?"

"He completely lost it when he found out Becca Thorn was doing experiments on higher angels in her lab. He killed three AAC guards and then Becca. Then he vanished without a word."

Her eyes went wide, disbelief on her face. "Are you sure? He wouldn't do that."

"Yeah, that's what I would've said if I hadn't seen it with my own eyes."

"You were there? Why didn't you stop him?"

"Don't you think I didn't try? He's a frickin' archangel. He threw me across half the room."

Realization was starting to spread across her face. "Ah, now it's all starting to make sense. That's why he sent me to get you out of that cave."

"I haven't thanked you for that yet, have I?"

She gave him a mischievous smile. "I should be mad at you. Didn't I tell you not to come after me?"

He grinned back at her. "Well, technically I didn't so much come after you as I was going after Gabriel."

He knew he owed Noma the details of the last few hours, so he started to give her an account of what happened.

By the time he had told her the whole story, he was truly exhausted. Emotions chased through his mind, jumbling into a blur of overwhelming confusion. He was thankful when she patted his leg and told him to get some rest.

Stealing a last look at her, he realized that his initial feeling of betrayal at her true identity had given way to something else. He closed his eyes with the comforting feeling that a higher angel was watching over him.

Michael's wing beats became slower as he approached the deserted city. San Francisco had once been magnificent but now the Golden Gate's broken remnants stuck out like the crumbling bones of a long dead corpse.

Dawn lay over the bombed ruins of the docks and Michael made his way to the rendezvous that Uriel liked to call "up north". He found her slumped in a worn brocade armchair, her long, blond hair unkempt, her eyes bereft of her usual feistiness. Michael feared the worst.

He didn't bother with a greeting. "Gabriel?"

She met his gaze. "He's alive," she said in a low voice. "Barely."

"What did he say?"

They both knew who 'he' was. "He's lost a lot of blood and the wound won't close. Not even the pinfeather may be able to help him now."

Michael closed his eyes and hung his head. This may well have been his fault. If he hadn't left Furiad's blade so carelessly in the wrong hands…

Uriel's angry words pulled him from his reverie. "How did the Chosen One get his hands on an Empyrean blade? This could only have been your doing!"

"It was Furiad's blade," he said hollowly.

"That doesn't answer my question."

"The humans kept it when they pulled it out of me."

"And why didn't you ensure that it found its way where it belonged? Before it was too late."

Yes, why? The truth was, he had been preoccupied at the time, and more important things had required his attention. In the end it had become irrelevant and eventually forgotten. A grave mistake—one that might be costing his brother his life.

"Does it matter now?"

She shot him a fiery glance, then looked away. Michael idly stepped through the discarded items that littered the floor, poking at a shard of broken china with the tip of his shoe. He kept a wary eye on Uriel, wondering…

"Why were you with him in the cave?" he asked her.

She was taken aback for a split second, then quickly recovered. "We were having a talk."

Michael narrowed his eyes. She never could lie to him very well. "You had chosen a side. His side."

"So what if I did."

"Uriel, this changes everything."

"Does it? Our brother is on the brink of death. None of that matters now."

"Why did you side with Gabriel?"

She shook her head incredulously. "Do you even have to ask? Don't we all want the same thing?"

"And you honestly believe that by waging war against humanity, it will bring Father back?"

"Oh, humanity," she said disdainfully. "His glorified creation. Don't you see? It's the markings that I cared about. You—you had clearly lost your way, Michael, hanging on to a doomed notion of hope in an ephemeral people who are precipitating their own downfall. And then you even laid waste to that when you killed your own beloved. How could I put trust in you?"

He looked away and focused on a mural that covered the wall opposite him. He suddenly felt utterly alone and he realized there was nothing to be accomplished here. He'd lost Uriel too.

"Wait," she said before he had even made an attempt to leave. Their connection had not been completely severed. "The Chosen One, is he...?"

"Alive? Yes."

With that he spread his wings and made his exit, no clear idea where to go next.

Noma was still by his bed when Alex awoke the next morning. He smiled a small smile at the light snores coming out of her mouth and the way she had curled herself up awkwardly in the visitor's chair.

She awoke when the nurse came to check on Alex's IV, injecting something into his IV line. The nurse gave the two of them a quick smile and came back a few minutes later with a tray of food and drinks that Alex and Noma dug into with fervor.

Noma put down the empty plastic cup that had previously contained something akin to rice pudding. "I don't suppose Claire knows that you're here."

Alex gave her a guarded look. "No, and she shouldn't."

"Why?"

"Because she's better off without me."

"Bullshit."

He lowered his head, studying a faint stain on his otherwise spotless bed sheet. "It's complicated."

"That's something you say when you're evading the really important shit. What is it you're not telling me?"

"Noma, I can't."

"Yeah, that's what I'd expect you'd tell someone like Ethan. Come on, it's me. I mean, I just saved your chosen ass from a deadly archangel attack."

He couldn't help it and let the half smile crack at the corner of his mouth. He wavered for a moment, trying to make up his mind, but he also knew that if there was one person left in the world he could trust, it was Noma.

"You remember when you were making fun of me for hooking up with Claire Riesen? Let's just say we didn't exactly use protection."

She gaped at him. "No way. You knocked her up?"

He let out a hollow chuckle. It sounded a lot less big of a deal than it was. His expression darkened when he thought back to the last conversation he'd had with Claire.

To Noma, he said, "And you know what the worst thing is? She wasn't even going to tell me. And I can't even blame her. The child deserves a family. A father who can raise them and give them what I never had."

"You're not seriously thinking of William?"

"Come on, it makes perfect sense."

"You haven't heard?"

"Heard what?" he asked.

"William is gone."

"Gone? What do you mean?"

"No one knows. There's rumors that he's one of Gabriel's acolytes. I think there were plans to have him executed but he's nowhere to be found. Half the city is out looking for him but I suspect Consul Whele made sure he's long gone."

This threw Alex and somewhere in the vicinity of his stomach a solid knot started forming.

Claire. With her father gone and him leaving her with that letter, now she had lost William too. He bit his tongue to staunch the emotion that he didn't want Noma to see.

She could still see right through him. Her voice was sympathetic. "Are you sure you don't want her to know you're here?"

He thought about it, processing the new information. "What would that change, Noma? I'd still be a shitty father to my child."

"Come on, you don't know that!"

"Yes, I do," he said forcefully, and instantly regretted it when it sent a wave of pain rippling through his chest. He grimaced and added, "The child would have a constant target on their back. People close to me end up injured or dead. I can't put that on my child. I just can't."

"So you'd prefer that your kid grew up without a father, is that it?"

He pressed his lips together before he answered, "That's still better than the alternative. At least they won't be stuck in V1, like I was."

She met his gaze. "You know, it's not that I don't get it, but I still think it's not a decision that you should be making alone."

He looked at her pleadingly. "Please don't tell her. Please."

She gave him a long look and finally conceded. "Okay."

He nodded and then met her eyes. "So what happens to you now? I exposed you to the Senate as a higher angel. You can't go back to the AA Corps."

"Don't worry about me. For now I'm gonna simply be your babysitter, so you better get used to my ugly mug staring at you for extended periods of time."

He sighed theatrically. "Oh great…"

She gave him a smile. "Hey, it could be worse. It could be Louis."

Alex's face fell. "Louis is dead."

When she looked at him questioningly, he added, "Michael killed him. Consul Thorn used him as one of her test subjects. Sawed off his wings, cut open his chest. It was pretty gruesome. He asked Michael for mercy, and Michael never thought twice about it."

Noma got up from her chair, taking a few steps away from Alex as if she was suddenly repulsed by him.

He reached out with one arm towards her. "Hey. It's not my fault. I may be human, but I would never, never condone such a thing."

She closed her eyes and nodded slowly. "I know. It's just so wrong."

Yes, he mused, it was. Sadness swam in Noma's eyes as she looked at Alex. "I need some air."

He didn't see her again until a whole day later.