Free Angel Fever by L. A. Weatherly

with wings. He gaped, lost for words.
    “No,” whispered Willow. He put his arm around her; she clung to him. “Something terrible – any second now—”
    She broke off with a cry as the angels surged forward, starkly white against the sunset of their own world. As they poured through the gate, a sound came like the cracking of a giant whip; there was an explosion of light, searing the world into a faded reflection of itself. Alex wrapped his other arm around Willow, shielding her as a wave of energy roared past; he buried his head in her hair to hide his eyes from the burning light.
    Slowly, the world returned to stillness. The only sound was the rustle of the wind through the pines.
    Alex dared a look. The sky over Denver was a solid mass of angels, their ethereal bodies reeling; some were making hasty landings, gliding down into the city. Whatever had happened, they obviously hadn’t expected it either. In the angels’ world it was now twilight, with a single star shining. Then the gash between worlds shrank as the sky seemed to knit itself together. The star winked from view, leaving blue sky and clouds.
    Alex exhaled. “Hey,” he whispered, rubbing Willow’s arm. “Whatever it was, it’s over now.”
    She had her fingers pressed tightly against her forehead; after a pause, she swallowed. “I can still sense Seb – I don’t think we were affected. We’ve always been separate from them, so I guess…” She trailed off.
    “Affected? What are you talking about?”
    She looked up then, her eyes wide and tearful. “You – you don’t know what that burst of energy meant, do you? You don’t know what he’s done.”
    Alex stared down at her with dread. He knew he didn’t have to answer; his incomprehension had to be written all over him.
    Gazing out at the angels, Willow shivered. Her tone was flat, defeated. “Alex…the angels aren’t linked any more.”

S OMEHOW THEY WERE DRIVING AGAIN – still heading towards Denver so that they wouldn’t pass the cruising army truck again too soon. It was as much thought as Alex was capable of right then.
    “Not linked,” he murmured at last. He gripped the wheel with clammy fingers. “Are you sure?”
    Willow sat statue-still. “Yes,” she said quietly. “I felt it when the energy rushed past. It’s something Raziel’s done on purpose, to protect them. He used the energy of the gate opening to…to sever their connection, somehow. I think some of them died when he did it. I could hear them screaming.”
    She crossed her arms tightly. “Anyway, they’re safe now,” she went on, her voice wooden. “We can still kill any one of them, but to destroy them all, we’d have to—”
    “Kill them one by one,” Alex finished. He saw a dirt road and took it; once out of sight, he brought them to a lurching halt. The world was battering at his skull. He clutched at his temples, squeezing his eyes shut. “Oh,
shit.
Shit, shit—”
    He felt Willow slip her arm around his waist and press close. “Alex…” she whispered.
    No other words followed. What could she say? There were millions of angels in the world, with millions more just arrived. Even with more AKs, to kill the creatures singly could take generations. Humanity would be destroyed by then; the angels would have moved on to leech off some other world.
    God, why hadn’t he attacked sooner? He’d been so positive he was right – but what if he’d done what Sam had wanted instead? They could have forgotten about recruiting new people and only picked off angels that were hunting solo. They might have done it that way.
    They really might have done it.
    Slowly, Alex scraped his hands down his face. Through the windshield was a piercing blue sky. The dirt road sliced through a grassy field, heading up into the mountains.
    Willow took one of his hands and pressed it against her chest. “Alex, please don’t blame yourself! It’s not your fault.”
    “Yeah? Whose fault is it?”
    “No one’s!” Her