I catch a glimpse of the clerk’s face as I look away. His eyes warm just enough to let me know that he approves of the grim look on my face when I look at Raffe. Smoothing his face back to polite professionalism, he tells Raffe to call on him should he need anything.
The short elevator hall leads to a vast open area. I take a quick peek after pushing the button for the elevator. Above me are rows and rows of balconies that go all the way up to the glass domed ceiling.
Angels circle above, flying in short hops from floor to floor. An outer ring of angels spiral up, while an inner ring of angels spiral down.
I suppose they do this in order to avoid collisions, just the way our traffic patterns look organized from above. But despite its practical origins, the total effect is a stunning array of celestial bodies in a seemingly choreographed air ballet. If Michelangelo had seen this in daylight with the sun streaming down from the glass dome, he’d have fallen to his knees and painted ’til he was blind.
The elevator doors slide open with a ding, and I tear my eyes away from the magnificence above me.
Raffe stands beside me watching his peers flying. Before he shutters his eyes, I catch something that might have been despair.
Or longing.
I refuse to feel bad for him. Refuse to feel anything for him other than anger and hatred for the things his people have done to mine.
But the hatred doesn’t come.
Instead, sympathy trickles into me. As different as we are, we are in many ways kindred spirits. We’re just two people striving to get our lives back together again.
But then, I remember that he is, in fact, not a person at all.
I step into the elevator. It has the mirror, wood paneling, and red carpet you’d expect from an elevator in an expensive hotel. The doors start to slide shut with Raffe still standing outside. I put my hand out to keep the doors open.
“What’s wrong?”
He glances around self-consciously. “Angels don’t go into elevators.”
Of course, they fly to their floors. I playfully grab his wrists and spin him in a drunken circle, giggling for the benefit of any who might be watching. Then, I waltz us both into the elevator.
I press the button for the seventeenth floor. My stomach lurches with the elevator at the thought of having to escape from such a high place. Raffe doesn’t look so comfortable either. I suppose an elevator might seem like a steel coffin to someone who’s used to flying the open sky.
When the door opens, he quickly steps out. Apparently, the need to get out of a coffinlike machine takes precedence over the issue of being seen coming out of an elevator.
The hotel room turns out to be a full suite with a bedroom, a living room, and a bar. It's all marble and soft leather, plush carpet and picture windows. Two months ago, the view would have been breathtaking. San Francisco at its finest.
Now it makes me want to weep at the panoramic view of charred destruction.
I walk over to the window like a sleepwalker. I lean into it with my forehead and palms on the cool glass the way I might with my father’s gravestone.
The charred hills are strewn with leaning buildings like broken teeth in a burnt jawbone. Haight-Ashbury, the Mission, North Beach, South of Market, Golden Gate Park, all gone. Something breaks deep within me like glass being crunched underfoot.
Here and there, plumes of dark smoke reach into the sky like the dark fingers of a drowning man reaching up for the last time.
Still, there are areas that don’t look completely burned, areas that could house small neighborhood communities. San Francisco is known for its neighborhoods. Could some of them have survived the onslaught of asteroids, fires, raiders and disease?
Raffe pulls the curtains closed around me. “I don’t know why they left the curtains open.”
I know why. The maids are human. They want to mar this illusion of civilization. They want to make sure no one ever forgets what the angels did. I would have left the curtains open too.
By the time I pull myself away from the window, Raffe is hanging up the phone. His shoulders sag as exhaustion seems to finally catch up with him. “Why don’t you hit the shower? I just ordered some food.”
“Room service? Is this place for real? It’s hell on earth now and you guys order meals through room service?”
“Do you want it, or not?”
I shrug. “Well, yeah.” I’m not even embarrassed by my double standard. Who knows when I’ll get another meal? “What about my sister?”
“In due time.”
“I don’t have time, and neither does she.” And neither do you. How much time do we have before the freedom fighters hit the aerie?
As much as I want to have the resistance hit the angels as hard as possible, the thought of Raffe being caught in the attack churns my stomach. I’m tempted to tell him about seeing resistance fighters here, but I squelch that idea as soon as it comes. I doubt he could stand by and not set off the alarm for his people any more than I could if I knew the angels were attacking the resistance camp.
“Okay, Miss Short-on-Time, where would you like to look first? Should we start on the eighth floor or the twenty-first? How about the roof, or the garage? Maybe you could just ask the clerk at the desk where they might be holding her. There are other intact buildings in this district. Maybe we should start with one of them. What do you think?”
I’m horrified to find that my determination is melting into tears. I keep my eyes wide open to keep them from falling. I will not cry in front of Raffe.
His voice loses its edge and turns gentle. “It will take time to find her, Penryn. Being clean will keep us from being noticed, and being fed will give us strength to search. If you don’t like it, the door is right there. I’ll take my shower and eat while you search.” He heads for the bathroom.
I sigh. “Fine.” I stab my heels along the carpet past him to the bathroom. “I’ll shower first.” I have the good grace not to slam the bathroom door.
The bathroom is a quiet statement of luxury in fossil stone and brass. I swear it’s bigger than our condo. I stand under the hot spray and let the grime wash away. I never thought a hot shower and hair wash could be so luxurious.
During long minutes under the shower spray, I can almost forget how much the world has changed and pretend I've won the lottery and am staying the night in a penthouse in the city. The thought doesn't bring me as much comfort as remembering life in our little suburban house back before we moved into the condo, before Paige lost her legs, and Dad was still taking care of us.
I wrap myself in a plush towel that qualifies more as a blanket. For lack of anything better, I slip back into the slinky dress, but decide the hose and heels can sit in the corner until I need them.
When I come out into the bedroom, a tray of food sits on the table. I run over and lift the dome cover. Boneless short ribs smothered in sauce, creamed spinach, mashed potatoes, and a hefty slice of German chocolate cake. The smell almost makes me faint with pleasure.
I dig in first and sit down as I chew. The fat content of this meal must be out of this world. In the old days, I would have tried to stay away from all of these dishes, except maybe the chocolate cake, but in the land of cat food and dried noodles, this meal is to die for. It's the best meal I can ever remember having.
“Please, don’t wait for me,” says Raffe as he watches me stuff my face. He grabs a bite of the cake on his way to the bathroom.
“Don’t worry,” I mumble through a mouthful, at his back.
By the time he comes back out, I’ve scarfed down my entire meal and am having a hard time trying not to steal some of his. I tear my eyes away from the feast to look at him.
Once I see him, I forget all about the food.
He stands in the bathroom doorway, steam drifting languidly around him, wearing nothing but a towel draped loosely around his hips. Beads of water cling to him like diamonds in a dream. The combined effect of the soft light behind him from the bathroom and the steam curling around his muscles gives the impression of a mythological water god visiting our world.
“You can have it all, you know,” he says.
I blink a few times, trying to grasp what he’s saying.
“I figured we might as well double up on our meals while we can.” There’s a knock at the door. “There’s my order now.” He heads out to the living room.
He’s talking about both servings in front of me being mine. Right. Of course, he’d want his dinner hot. No reason to leave it cooling while he showered, so he must have ordered mine, then his, just before I got out of the shower. Of course.
I return my attention back to the food, trying to remember how badly I lusted after it only a moment ago. The food. Right, the food. I shovel in a giant mouthful of the rib meat. The creamy sauce is a sensual reminder of rare luxuries once taken for granted.
I walk out into the living room and talk with my mouth full. “You’re a genius for ordering this much—.”
The albino, Josiah, walks into the living room with the most beautiful woman I have ever seen. I finally get to see a female angel up close. Her features are so fine and delicate that it’s impossible not to stare. She looks like she was the mold for Venus, Goddess of Love. Her waist-length hair shimmers in the light as she moves, matching the golden plumage of her wings.
Her cornflower blue eyes would be the perfect reflection of innocence and all that is wholesome, except that there’s something sliding behind them. Something that hints that she should be the poster child for the master race.
Those eyes assess me from the top of my wet and stringy hair to the tips of my bare toes.
I become acutely aware that I was overenthusiastic when I shoveled the rib meat into my mouth. My cheeks bulge and I can barely keep my lips closed as I chew as fast as I can. Rib meat is not something I can swallow in one lump. I hadn’t bothered to brush my hair, or even dry it before diving into the feast after my shower, so it hangs limp and dripping onto my red dress. Her Aryan eyes see it all and judge me.
Raffe gives me a look and rubs his finger to his cheek. I rub my hand across my cheek. It comes away with meat sauce. Great.
The woman turns her eyes to Raffe. I have been dismissed. She gives him a long appraising look as well, drinking in his near-nakedness, his muscular shoulders, his wet hair. Her eyes slide over to me in a quick accusation.
She steps close to Raffe and runs her fingers down his glistening chest.
“So, it really is you.” Her voice is as smooth as an ice cream shake. A shake with ground glass hidden in it. “Where have you been all this time, Raffe? And what have you done to deserve getting your wings cut off?”
“Can you sew them back on, Laylah?” asks Raffe stiffly.
“Straight to business,” says Laylah, strolling over to the picture window. “I make room for you in my busy schedule at the last minute, and you can’t even ask me how I am?”
