Finale

shown up to steal his spoils of war. Needless to say, I had to stab him, and a few others, in their wing scars. Hope your mom doesn’t notice I pruned a few branches off the tree
outside. They made excellent stakes.” His mouth twitched mischievously.
    “She’ll be home any minute.”
    Patch nodded. “I’ll take care of the body. Can you get the electricity running? Fuse box is in the garage. Check to see if any of the switches are tripped. If they cut the wires to
the house, we’re going to have a lot more work on our hands.”
    “I’m on it.” I stopped halfway to the garage and turned back. “Dabria showed up. She offered me a flimsy story, saying you told her to get me out. Do you think she could
have been helping them?”
    To my astonishment, he said, “I called her. She was in the area. I went after the fallen angels and told her to get you out.”
    I was speechless, both from shocked disbelief and irritation. I didn’t know if I was angrier that Dabria had been telling the truth, or that she was clearly following Patch, since
“in the area” was hard to pull off when you considered my street was one mile long, ours was the only house on it, and it dead-ended into the woods. She probably had a tracking device
on him. When he’d called her, she’d probably been parked a hundred feet back, clutching a pair of binoculars.
    I didn’t doubt Patch was faithful to me. Likewise, I didn’t doubt Dabria hoped to change that.
    Figuring now wasn’t the time to blow this into an argument, I said, “What are we going to tell my mom?”
    “I’ll—I’ll take care of it.”
    Patch and I turned toward the mouselike squeak coming from the doorway. Marcie stood there, wringing her hands. As if she sensed how weak this made her look, she dropped them to her sides.
Flinging her hair off her shoulders, she jutted her chin and said with more self-assurance, “The party was my idea, which makes this just as much my mess as yours. I’ll tell your mom
some losers showed up to crash the party and started destroying furniture. We did the only responsible thing: canceled the party.” It looked to me like Marcie was working hard to avoid gazing
at Baruch’s body lying facedown on the rug. If she didn’t see it, it couldn’t be true.
    “Thanks, Marcie,” I said, and I sincerely meant it.
    “Don’t sound so surprised. I’m in this too, you know. I’m not—I mean—I
am
non—” Deep breath. “I
am
one
of—you.” She opened her mouth to say more, then abruptly shut it. I didn’t blame her. “Nonhuman” was a difficult word to think, let alone say aloud.
    A knock at the front door caused Marcie and me to jump. We exchanged a brief look of uncertainty before Patch spoke.
    “Pretend we were never here,” he said, slinging Baruch over his shoulders and hefting him toward the back door.
And Angel?
he added in mind-speak.
Erase Marcie’s
memory of seeing me here tonight. We need to keep our secret watertight.
    Consider it done
, I responded.
    Marcie and I went to answer the door. I’d just turned the knob when Vee sashayed inside, pulling Scott with her, their fingers entwined.
    “Sorry we’re late,” Vee announced. “We got a little, ahem . . .” She shared a secret, knowing look with Scott, and they both burst out laughing.
    “Distracted,” Scott finished for her, grinning.
    Vee fanned herself. “You can say that again.”
    When Marcie and I simply stared at them in somber silence, Vee glanced around, becoming aware of the vacant and trashed house for the first time. “Hold up. Where is everyone? The party
can’t be over yet.”
    “We got crashed,” Marcie said.
    “They were wearing Halloween masks,” I explained. “Could have been anyone.”
    “They started destroying furniture.”
    “We sent everyone home,” I added.
    Vee examined the damage in wordless shock.
    Crashed?
Scott spoke to my mind, clearly not buying my acting skills and sensing there was more to the story.
    Fallen angels,
I answered.
One in particular tried his best to make me swear fealty. It’s okay,
I added quickly when I saw his face contort with anxiety.
He
didn’t succeed. I need you to get Vee out of here. If she hangs around, she’s only going to start asking questions I can’t answer. And I need to clean up before my mom gets
home.
    When are you going to tell her?
    I flinched, Scott’s straightforward question catching me off guard.
I can’t tell Vee. Not if I want to keep her safe. Advice