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“I think they’ll realize,” I said. “I think they’ll come.”

CHAPTERLXXXVIII

From the woods, Jennifer Parker watched the angels: three of them, the two from before and another, taller and more attenuated, its configuration less fixed, like a bare winter tree glimpsed through gray-black smoke. It was sexless, featureless, and trailed long shreds of darkness behind it, as of a tattered cloak caught by the wind—or vast wings unfurled, except this was an illusion, one that might have given rise to the concept of flighted angels. What Jennifer was seeing were shreds of reality, the fractured aftermath of the sundering of dimensions.

Such power, even if it is borrowed from another…

It hurt Jennifer’s eyes to look at the third angel, but not because of any beatific luminosity. This one was beyond light or dark and held only the void within. For the first time, Jennifer understood why the shepherds in the Bible were so afraid when God’s messenger appeared to them. Terror was the only appropriate response to such an entity.

“Keep very still.” It was Martin’s voice, whispering behind her.

“It’s not like the others.”

“No, it’s not. It’s much worse. They’ve been telling tales, those two.”

“To who?”

“A higher authority. I’d say that was what the firstborn of Egypt glimpsed before they were put to the sword, and the Israelites who were judged because of David’s numbering of them, and the Assyrianswho attacked Jerusalem. They saw amalakh ha-mashhit: a dark angel, a destroyer of men.”

The dark angel took a single step toward the woods. At the same time, its companions disappeared, leaving Jennifer and Martin alone with it. Beyond, the dead kept their eyes fixed on the water, the horizon, anywhere but on the being by the shore. Jennifer doubted they knew what was there, only that something was, its existence better left unacknowledged.

“Can it hear us?” Jennifer asked.

“I don’t think so, but it knows we’re in here—or that you are, more to the point. It’s trying to decide whether it’s worth the effort of hunting you, because even it doesn’t care for these woods. It’s also probably beneath its dignity to tangle with a child.”

No eyes were visible in the angel’s face, but Jennifer could see its head moving as it scanned the trees until, finally, it fixed its attention on where she and Martin lay. The next moment, Jennifer felt it probing at her, and less gently than the others had done. Where they had left doors unforced and locks unbroken, this one tried to rip apart the barriers she had erected to protect herself. She reached for Martin’s hand and gripped it tightly.

“Fight it,” he said. “Don’t let it in.”

“I won’t,” she said, and she didn’t, but the effort cost her. By the time the angel abandoned its attack, she was in pain, and she could not remember when last she had known pain.

The archangel folded around itself what passed for its wings, its aspect growing ever narrower until, at last, it was gone. Only then did Jennifer release Martin’s hand.

“What happens next?” she asked him, as the pain eased.

“It will inquire into you.”

“And then?”

“That depends.”

“On what?”

“On what it discovers.”

“But they still can’t force me to go with them. You said so.”

“They can’t force you, but I told you: They can wear you down until you’ll be doubting your own name and fearful of everything but the water and the release it promises.”

“So what should I do?”

“Keep to the woods. Stay out of sight. They think time is on their side, because they have eternity. But they’re wrong.”

Jennifer turned to look at him. Even in the dimness, she could see doubt on his face.

“Or,” he added, “I hope so.”

CHAPTERLXXXIX