***ALEX***

Right away, as soon as we emerge in Heavenly skies, Elijah flies away as quickly as he can - which is practically the freaking speed of sound compared to us.

"Coward!" Gabe and I yell after him as he streaks away into the sunset.

"Let him go," Annie says, waving her hand dismissively.

"Yeah," Harlan says, pointing at the big old quantum-physics-breaking hole in the air above us. "We've still got a shit-ton of angry military scrivs coming after us on all sides!"

"Then let's show 'em who's boss already!" Fionna cries, charging up both barrels of fire in her hands. Juliet joins her, ready to tornado the shit out of any attackers - and, to my delight, they're going to do the Flamethrower. It's one of my favorite moves to see, especially since it's dangerous enough that we're officially banned from trying it out at school. This evening, however, the occasion definitely calls for it.

Gabe and I fly lower, down towards the lake, where we can get water to use against the scrivs. Now we can bring those scrivs who follow us as close to drowning as possible. We force the water on their heads for about fifteen seconds before they shoot us with light pulses, forcing us to fly away.

I get a fleeting glimpse of the action overhead. More scrivs are spilling out the shining hole in the sky, but nowhere near as many as the huge cluster we're all facing right now. Are they seriously going to just stay here and surround us until we're all picked off one by one? I'm starting to think, in spite of myself, that Elijah may have had the right idea by flying off. Maybe we should follow his example, but all at once, not lone-wolf style like he did. We could sure lead these scrivs on a merry chase across the sky.

That is, if we can coordinate ourselves. Which, right now, looks unlikely, given how scattered we've all become. Gabe and I flew north, towards the lake. Annie and Harlan went with their mom to the south somewhere - I think. It's hard to tell with all the light and dark elementals flying around. And everyone else is going west.

I snap my fingers Gabe's way and point at our good scrivs. Getting the idea, he turns around, catches Fionna's eye, and beckons her and Juliet to follow us. We lead our scrivs, who are still recovering from the near-drownings and near-Flamethrowings they've encountered at our hands, in the direction of Annie and Harlan. They're only too ready to do what we couldn't before - incapacitate our assailants. We do the same for them, but not without some help from Marian.

"You guys are so horribly misguided," she says to the nearest scriv as she sprays him with dark energy, coating his entire head. "You might as well be blind."

The way she delivers that line is so neutral, so deadpan, it's scary. It's like she's an alien queen. I half-expect her to shed her skin and reveal a scary sharp-toothed lizard face underneath.

Juliet looks from Marian to the scriv soldier (who's trying to get the dark shit off his head, to no avail) and back again. "Annie did that to Gideon once," she said. "I wouldn't wish that on anyone...but with these guys? I'll make an exception."

Marian tilts her head to Annie. "What did this Gideon person do to make you cocoon him?" she asks.

Annie growls to herself. "I said I was sorry!"

"Not often enough, I don't think," I chortle.

"Sure, fine, whatever," Annie says, waving her hand - and then raising her hand to block an incoming attack.

Speaking of attacks, another scriv tries to get in behind Marian by stealth, but Gabe and I are too fast for him. Together, we dive under Marian, then rocket back upwards and grab this scriv's ankles just as he gets ready to swing what looks like a solid club of light. He loses his - well, is it really accurate to say he loses his balance when there's nothing but air for him to balance on anyway? Either way, he doesn't get to hurt Marian. He does, however, get to tumble end over end and fall a few hundred feet, narrowly missing a large patch of tall trees below.

Harlan then flies up to us, a few flecks of blood on his face. "What'd I miss?" he asks. "The blood's not mine, by the way," he adds, wiping it off his cheeks to show unbroken skin underneath.

I look in the direction he came from. More scrivs are falling - at least three of them. Like the one Gabe and I just snagged, they barely manage to get their mechanical wings spread in time before they can hit the ground with a bloody splat.

"I think we can ask you the same question," Gabe says. "But we won't, 'cause we kinda need to get back to the others, don't you think?"

"I agree," says Marian. "Strength in numbers."

"They've got more numbers," Juliet points out.

"Yeah," I say, "but that won't matter so much when we lead them out of town."

Marian shields her eyes as she looks west. "Yes, that's exactly what we need to do," she says. "We just have to pass close enough to signal our friends, and if all goes well, they'll follow us before the others even realize we're gone."

"You really think so?" I ask.

"Trust me," Marian says with a grin, "Holly's got a bad habit of attracting idiots to work for him. Like that Florin kid. But at least he's not as stupid as his kamikaze father."

"Better not say that in front of him," Gabe warns her.

Marian shrugs. "I hate to speak ill of the dead, but Jensen said that a few times himself while he and Florin were in the basement."

"When were you down there?" I ask.

"Not long, but long enough."

I raise my eyebrows. "That answered a different question - 'how long,' not 'when.'"

"Whatever," Marian says, sounding like a dismissive, if more sophisticated, ten-year-old. Or like her daughter. "Let's go, everyone!"

She flies off, her path forming a sort of arc around the cloud of scrivs hovering about a quarter mile northwest of us. When Gabe and I were kids, we used to subscribe to this science magazine - I forget the title - and once, they had an article about the possibility of traveling through time by "surfing" around black holes, coming within a hair of the event horizon. The science was way beyond our comprehension - still is, in fact - but the gist of it, as I remember, is that it involves a complicated spiraling path, coming just close enough to the black hole for its relativity to distort the space-time continuum around you, thus transporting you into the future when you're on the other side. Or something. Either way, I just remember the article's included comic-strip that showed the theory better than any scientific diagram could - it showed a girl saying goodbye to her friends on the beach before she went black-hole surfing. When she came back, her friends were sixty years older, grayer, and more bearded, still carrying the same surfboards.

I think that's what Marian's got in mind with her chosen flightpath. She comes just close enough to the scriv cloud to call out to Park, who then gets the signal and leads the rest of our party out of the cloud.

And yes, like Marian expected, Holly's airborne rangers are too idiotic to follow them - and, by extension, us - right away. Or their reactions are just sluggish from the quantum leap between the two universes. Or some combination thereof. In which case, why aren't our reactions so sluggish? Maybe the sugar we stole had something else of the stimulant persuasion in it? Something even more super-effective than sugar? I'd think one of us would be able to tell if that were the case, but...you never know.

"Trust me," Annie says, "as murderous and idiotic as Holly is, he must know better than to mix other drugs into the sugar. Caffeine, cocaine, meth, etc. - any kind of stimulants would only increase blood sugar loss."

"You guys have done experiments to reach that conclusion, haven't you?" Gabe asks, crossing his arms.

"Not us personally," Harlan says, "but...yeah. That was mostly Thompson's job, God rest his soul."

Fionna flies up next to me and Gabe, the look on her face screaming "giddy schoolgirl." I don't blame her - successfully flying for the first time is a fucking awesome feeling. Even better, she's not had any face-plants or other accidents normally associated with first flight - at least, among angels - but then, she's had no time for training because of our current baptism-by-fire circumstances.

Enjoying yourself, huh? I ask as we wing our way west, the scrivs finally following us from about a mile back or so.

Hell yeah! she thinks, loudly enough that even Gabe and Juliet (the next-closest people to her after me) have to cover their ears.

Even though the scrivs are way behind us, they can still fire their light elementals over a very long distance. Bolts of white keep flying over our heads and under our wings. At one point, one of them actually hits me, and I howl in agony. Who knew light could hurt that much just from passing through my body? My left wing joint is on fire!

The pain passes as quickly as it comes, but there's still a dull throb every time I flap my left wing. I guess the light attack might not be as lethal as the dark bullet that killed Steve, but maybe it would be better if I didn't take any chances.

"You all right?" Florin asks. "Those light beams can hurt like a bitch. Even for light elementals like me."

"Uh...yeah," I say, experimentally flapping my wing a little harder until I flap the pain off. (That sounds so wrong, even in my head.) "Thanks for asking, I guess."

"Just trying to get in on our good sides, huh?" Gabe asks.

"Can't blame a guy for trying."

Somehow, while the wing suits allow Holly's army to fly a little faster than normal, they're not really gaining on us as much as I expect. We fly miles west from Tahoe - all the way to Placerville and beyond - and they're never more than a quarter-mile behind us the whole time. Even more strangely, they don't lay any more waste to the ground. Not that they really need to - there are already quite a few little fires going on throughout the forests and trees.

The mountains flatten out below us, and we find ourselves approaching Folsom Lake. I turn to Gabe and catch his eye, and he looks down at the ground, trying to spot the town of Miralo, where our Uncle James and Aunt Becky live. Although this stretch of the Sierra foothills looks largely untouched so far, I hope they've gotten out of the house, just in case the scrivs decide their sleepy gated-community bedroom town poses a threat.

I crane my neck and see looks like a flash of light on the ground. At first, I think it's a light scriv attacking us from below - it's like, did they station people on the ground to fire their own brand of anti-angel surface-to-air missiles? Then I determine that this flash is coming in a rhythm. I almost want to say it's Morse code, but it's no Morse code I can decrypt. To be fair, though, there are literally only three letters of Morse code I know - S, O, and S again.

To my right, Juliet cries out and grabs her shoulder. My first thought is that one of the light scrivs hit her too - but when she pulls her hand away, I see blood between her fingers.

"Oh shit..." I whisper.

I fly over to her, but she waves me off. "I'm okay," she says through gritted teeth.

I look down and see the tiny light again, flickering away somewhere on the ground. It looks like somewhere in Miralo...and then I hear, faintly, the sound of gunshots echoing up.

Maybe it's a survivalist who knows there are unwanted extra-universal visitors inbound - but does he think we're the invaders?

I feel something whistle past my head, coming within maybe two inches of my skull. Shit, that's a real bullet!

"Faster!" I yell to the crowd around me. "We gotta get out of here, NOW!"

Last I heard, neither angels nor demons had the power to slow down time. And yet, every time I find myself in a fight for my life, it feels like there's at least one moment where that's exactly what happens to me.

And just like the first time this happened, today, it serves the purpose of allowing me to catch an incoming bit of danger from which I have to race to protect Fionna.

She yells at me as I push her out of the way just in time to save her from another bullet.

But the danger hasn't passed.

I turn in the opposite direction and, somehow, see another bullet streaking its way into the air. In its path is Fionna, and I race to save her. Then another bullet comes after Gabe, less than a second later.

I'm not quite fast enough to push him to safety without getting hit myself.

The bullet tears through my shoulder and wing, shredding muscle along the way and making me bleed.

This time, I can't keep flying - I think the bullet might be stuck in my wing. Even attempting to move that wing sends pulses of pain through my whole body.

I fall just like the scrivs we took down over Tahoe. For the longest time, I'm scared I won't be able to recover in time to save my life.

Only when I get closer to the ground and finally see who's shooting do I force my wings open, yelling as loudly as my nerve endings do. From about twenty-five feet up, I wave my arms - this is just as painful - and call down to terra firma. "Uncle James! It's me, Alex! Stop shooting!"

I should've remembered, long before now, the fearsome gun he showed me and Gabe once when Mom drove us up here for a visit. Of course that same gun would be the one I saw from the air. Of course, of course, of friggin' course.

Uncle James looks up, peeling his eye away from his rifle's sight, and a look of horror appears on his face when he sees me slowly descending towards his backyard. "Alex? What...but...how?"

"No time to explain," I say through gritted teeth. "But...but we got more bad guys coming in, so you might wanna fire on them!"

He doesn't respond right away. Instead, he continues to stare up at the sky in shock, especially when Gabe comes up behind me and supports me as I finally come in for a less-than-soft landing. Is he even aware that Gabe's died? He might not be - I don't think Mom's been in any more contact with the outside world than I have in the last week.

"Becks!" Uncle James yells through the window. Aunt Becky peers through the blinds for a moment, then runs to the glass sliding door and pulls it open.

"James, what's going on?" she asks. "How did...oh my God, you shot Alex?"

"He's not the only one!" Juliet touches down behind us, still nursing her own bullet wound. To my surprise, Annie's been hit as well, and she's got her hand to her neck, struggling to keep pressure on what could be some nasty arterial bleeding.

Aunt Becky looks up and gasps as the rest of our group lands in the backyard - which, because most of it is taken up by a pool and hot tub, will soon run out of room for everyone.

"Everyone inside!" Uncle James orders us, pointing his gun into the air again. "I'll take care of these assclowns!"

"Allow me," Marian says calmly, stepping up to his side. She covers her ears for a moment as he fires a few shots, then fires a few of her own, with dark energy.

"What the hell?" Uncle James asks. "What, are you some kind of witch?"

"Yes," Marian says. "Keep shooting! If I add my energy to your bullets, it'll help them penetrate the enemy's armor!"

"Alex? Gabe? Boys?" Aunt Becky waves to us from the door as everyone else piles into the den.

Gabe offers to help me in, but I shrug him off. "It's my shoulder," I say, "not my knee. I can walk."

"Cheeky bastard," he growls, stepping aside as I enter the house.

Inside, Annie looks around the den and kitchen. "Where's the bathroom?" she asks. "Anywhere we can get cleaned up?"

"Bathroom...this way," says Aunt Becky. She leads us and Annie past the TV, which is blaring a news report about the ongoing scriv attacks in Sacramento, Tahoe, etc.

Before I round the corner, however, I hear more cries of shock coming from the TV - and from the den. I turn around, crane my neck, and see what looks like extra sunlight pouring through the two-story living room. Then I look at the screen and see what's got everyone so freaked - an image of a mushroom cloud rising over the flatlands somewhere.

"They nuked us?" Gabe cries. "They actually nuked us!"

"No, no, not a nuke," Harlan says.

Florin shakes his head to Gabe, then nods in agreement with Harlan. "Ultralight bomb," he says. "Like the one you guys took off me."

Park pulls the bomb from his pocket, then says, "We gotta get this back home," he says. "Before it goes off here and the angels engage in a nuclear World War III themselves."

"So cynical," I say, rolling my eyes.

"Alex?" Aunt Becky has me follow her into the bathroom, where Annie is busy using dark energy to seal the wound on her neck.

"Are you gonna do that to me too?" I ask.

"Would if I could," she says, tapping the ugly, shiny black spot she's made on her skin. "But I can't. Even when it's not in a bullet, if dark energy gets into an angel's bloodstream, it's gonna kill you."

"Even in a minute amount like that?" I ask. I tug at the shoulder of my hoodie, which also has a bullet hole in it - dammit, and it's my new one, too. Already ruined, along with my new T-shirt. What a shame.

"Can't take any chances," Annie says. "You're just gonna have to settle for a plain old Band-Aid. And something to disinfect your wound."

Fionna pokes her head around Aunt Becky, who's standing in the doorway. "I volunteer," she says.

I gnash my teeth. "Again? Okay, make it fast."

Annie grabs her outer layers and muscles her way past me. Like Aunt Becky, she's short, but works out a lot. "I'm sure you're confused as hell right now, aren't you?" she asks.

"Not to mention scared shitless," Aunt Becky says.

"Then let me explain..." Her voice trails off as she steers Aunt Becky away, back to the den.

"Band-Aids are under the sink!" Aunt Becky calls out.

"Thanks!" I respond, squatting to get them out of that cabinet. I remove my hoodie and shirt, and Fionna - along with Gabe, who's just now joining us - prods the wounds in the front and back of my shoulders, along with my wing.

"Entry and exit wounds," Gabe says. "The bullet's not in your body."

"Okay, good," I say. "Burn me, Fi."

She waits until after Uncle James fires off a few gunshots outside. Then she cauterizes my shoulder on both sides - but not my wing. "What are you waiting for?" I ask.

"I just wanna make sure I don't really compromise your flight abilities," she says.

"Oh, just do the thing," I groan, feeling nervous sweat break out on my forehead.

Fionna does the thing, making me hiss and draw in sharp, short breaths. "You okay?" she asks when she's done.

Gabe holds my wing out long enough to stick a Band-Aid to the skin near my shoulder blade.

"Yeah," I say, my jaw slackening a tad bit and my teeth no longer grinding themselves to nubs. "Yeah, I-I'm fine." I grab a second large Band-Aid and put it on the front of my shoulder, near my collarbone, before getting dressed again. Jesus, how did Uncle James not hit any part of my skeleton? That must have been a miracle shot.

Juliet goes in next, and I check her for entry and exit wounds just like Gabe did for me. Thankfully, her wing isn't hit as badly as mine, so Fionna only has to burn her twice, not three times.

In the den, everyone's glued to the screen. Florin's gone outside to help Marian and Uncle James shoot down Holly's people.

Before I can get comfortable, though, Annie's phone rings. When she answers it, she says, "Russell? Do you know what's...oh wait, hang on." She thumbs the speaker button. "Go ahead, Luca."

"Alex? Gabe? Everyone there?" Luca asks.

Everyone Luca name-dropped runs up to the phone. "Did you see that?" I ask. "That bomb, did you see that?"

"See it?" Luca scoffs. "We were there when it went off!" He stops, and we hear a number of voices arguing in the background. Russell's and Juliet's voices are in there somewhere, I think. "And...and you're not gonna believe who detonated it!"

"Elijah," I say, yet another sharp twinge of discomfort in my stomach. Either that, or I'm just hungry. I haven't eaten in hours.

"How'd you know?"

Gabe sighs through his nose. "He came back, and then...then we lost track of him."

"He's dead now?" Fionna asks.

"Don't sound so hopeful about it," Aunt Becky chuckles.

Fionna's response is automatic, even defensive. "Why shouldn't I? He killed me, so if he's dead - again - that's awesome!"

The look on Aunt Becky's face is the stuff memes are made of.

"You kinda got ahead of me there, Fionna," Annie says. "Let me call you back, Luca, all right?" She hangs up, then turns to my aunt. Okay, so...Becky, is it? Well, these guys spilling out of the sky at Tahoe, they're from what you would call Paradise, but we call the Second..."

I tune her explanation out, feeling a faint buzzing in my ears. God...how much more of this war can any of us take?