“Ow!”
Her pigtail was caught on a thorn. She sucked her breath in, terrified. But a few yards away Angelica stood oblivious, her hands rising and falling as she chanted.
Cloud teased her pigtail free. She brushed a line of sweat from her upper lip, glanced back up at Angelica, and froze.
Angelica had fallen silent. For the first time Cloud noticed the myriad small creatures at her feet. Squirrels, or maybe rats, something that must be a horned toad and a ponderously moving creature with a tail squat and thick as its body. A gila monster, gaudy as a beaded clutch.
Ugh! Cloud grimaced, but Angelica paid no attention to the lizard. Instead, her hands were poised above something that Cloud couldn’t see. Faster than Cloud would have thought possible, Angelica snatched at the ground. An instant later she raised her arms triumphantly. From each one dangled a snake—sidewinders, Cloud could hear their rattles as they whipped the air, and the whistling noise of their bodies writhing frantically to escape.
She’s gone nuts! Cloud swallowed, her mouth gone sour with fear and disgust. Time to check out, Sister Cloud—
She wanted to run; but Cloud had chosen her hiding spot too well. She couldn’t move without dislodging something or getting stabbed by thorns.
She moved anyway. Immediately a branch snared her tank top. An overhanging limb snagged her pigtail. Cloud yanked the ocotillo from her shirt; the fabric ripped as she lurched away. A small burst of pain as hair pulled from her scalp; then she was free again. She staggered forward, falling to her knees. Holding her breath, she raised her eyes to look out onto the patio.
Angelica was still there, her body shimmering in the violet dusk. In her hands the snakes flailed. Her voice rose, nonsense syllables that Cloud did not recognize.
Within the darkness a light appeared, a tiny flicker like a spark fallen from a burning log. As Cloud gaped the light grew stronger, until a flame leapt there, higher than Angelica’s head, high enough almost to lick at the stars. The flame spread, grew into a wall of fire that obscured utterly the serene surface of the pool. Cloud raised one arm before her eyes.
Like an earthbound aurora the wall of light flickered. In front of it stood Angelica, the two frantic serpents coiling and uncoiling in her hands, like living question marks. Like some terrible question themselves, and that awful heatless flame the answer.
There was a figure within the flames. It was as tall as Angelica, and like her it faced the eastern sky with arms raised. Save that it bore no serpents, it might almost have been her shadow—a shadow limned in flame, almost too brilliant to look upon. Angelica lifted her hands. The snakes squirmed furiously as with a cry she flung them from her.
For an instant Cloud saw them, curling and hissing like two hairs held above a lit candle. Then the sidewinders burst into flame. A searing blast, a smell like burning leather—and they were gone, vaporized as cleanly as though they’d been tossed into a furnace.
“Oh, man.” Cloud shivered helplessly. “This is some shit.”
Angelica brought her hands to her face. She clapped, just once, and took a single backward step.
“Eisheth!”
A hissing, as when hot metal plunges into water. Then the thing that stood within the flames walked toward Angelica. Cloud made a groaning sound deep within her throat.
It was like a man or woman made of fire. Light rippled about it like leaves thick upon a tree, but as it moved from the flames its bright skin faded to ruddy bronze. Its hair fell about its broad shoulders in tangled brassy strands. From its shoulders sprang two immense folded wings. While it made no sound, there was a heaviness to its tread—it moved like a creature formed of the same stone as the buttes and mesas. Its hands were crossed tenderly upon its breast. It held something there, but Cloud could not see what it was.
“Eisheth,” whispered Angelica.
The creature lifted its head, and Cloud nearly cried aloud for the sheer mad beauty of it. It had a long angular face, with high, planed cheekbones and slanted eyes, a strong jaw and jutting chin. But there was something feminine about it as well, something soft in the wide mouth and rosebud lips, the enormous eyes and arching brows. Its pupils were almost without color, pale and icily prescient, like those of a malamute. Its skin was the color of thick cream, ivory tinged with yellow, its body smooth and hairless as an infant’s.
It had wings.
“Eisheth,” Angelica repeated.
“Yes,” the thing replied, its voice a whisper. A girl’s voice, or a boy’s before the change. Its arms remained crossed; whatever it held neither struggled nor cried out.
“Do you know me, Eisheth?”
The thing bowed its head very slightly. “I do, Mistress.”
“And you have brought what I commanded you to bring me?”
“I have, Othiym.”
Othiym, thought Cloud. She dug her nails into her thighs to keep from crying out. Othiym, it called her Othiym—what is this shit?
“And the other naphaïm: they have done as I asked? They are heeding when they are called?”
“They are.”
“And they do as my priestesses bid them?”
“They do, Othiym.”
Cloud’s knees shook uncontrollably.
Othiym. Angelica was calling herself Othiym. And this other—thing, whatever the fuck it was—it was calling her Othiym, too!
The two of them were barely fifteen feet from where Cloud squatted. Behind her, past more ocotillo and the deactivated electric fence, stretched the gravel road that led to the highway and open desert. If she took off now, she could be out of sight in moments. Cloud knew she could outrun Angelica—all that personal trainer stuff was great for keeping your stomach flat and your thighs taut, but it didn’t do shit for your stamina.
But was this Angelica? And could she outrun something with wings?
“Let me see him, then.” Angelica’s voice was impatient. Cloud forced herself to look up again.
Behind the naphaïm, the fiery wall had died away. There was only the pool, still and calm as before, though streaks of lavender and green occasionally flickered across its surface.
“Now!” demanded Angelica.
The naphaïm’s wings spread into a shimmering tent of gold and bronze and black. It opened its arms. From them something staggered, something pathetically small and frail-looking. It took a few steps, stumbled, and clumsily got to its feet again.
“Hey.” The figure looked around slowly. “This isn’t the bus station.”
Oh, shit, thought Cloud.
It was a kid. A boy, no more than sixteen or seventeen. He wore standard street gear—baggy pants cut off at the knees, a paisley shirt once brightly colored but now faded to grey tears. Busted-out boots with no socks, filthy bandanna, bruised knees. Kind of a sweet face, sunburned pink where it wasn’t grey with dirt. Blue eyes, freckles: basic Midwest issue. Probably hadn’t seen a shower in a month. His hair was blond and very dirty, hanging limply to his shoulders. What Cloud could see of the rest of him was dirty as well.