They took a city bus back to the bus station. The moment they saw the platform Charis shook her head. “No, if they can control cop departments they’ll shut the busses down. We have to find a less easily regulated way to get to Seattle.”

  “Well, why not take a bus? We look like hicks, right?” Dave argued.

  “Not for long, I’m afraid,” Miradon said. “Dusty’s doing a grand job, but a Seeming’s hard work—it drains the lad something fierce. He’s got plenty of power, granted, but it’ll wear off once he tires. And he certainly can’t keep it up while he’s sleeping. Imagine trying to explain to the driver why we all suddenly changed back to ourselves in the back of his bus, eh?”

  They stood on the sidewalk and looked around. They were in a cute part of town surrounded by parking garages and motels with colorful flowerbeds. A few tallish buildings promised a hint of downtown nearby.

  “Okay.” Charis faced them all, holding up her hands in a ‘thinking’ sort of way; “I have an idea. Hear me out. Thanks to that waitress, they will have descriptions of all of us. Miradon, you used your card at the restaurant, which means that card is going to be no good. But we might have a window of opportunity for just a few minutes here before they track it and turn it off. We can get you to a bank, and you can withdraw as much as possible right now. Then that card is no good, and the cops will be heading our way. Then we Zip across town, and I buy a used car on my card, which they don’t have yet. Then we drive for it.”

  Everyone nodded.

  “Then,” Dusty added, “when we get to a roadblock, I’ll do my Seeming so they won’t recognize us.”

  It sounded like a plan.

  “Okay. Miradon, come with me. The rest of you, find a park bench.” Charis grabbed Miradon’s hand. In just a few steps she sped with him around the corner exceptionally fast, and they were gone.

  “There she goes, using up her energy again,” Scott glowered.

  “Seems like she doesn’t ever run out of energy,” Dusty observed, impressed. “She is a very powerful Elogian.”

  “Probably the most powerful among us, besides the Professor,” Scott agreed.

  Dave sighed and looked around for a place to put his rear. He saw a stairwell across the street in the corner of an attractive parking garage covered in ivy. The leafy stairwell made a nice shaded open porch. Jogging across the street between cars, he perched on the bottom step and sat down to watch the world.

  Dusty followed shortly, then Scott. The skater sat beside him on the stair, Scott preferred to lean against the wall in the shade and glare at the cars trying hard to look cool. Dave noted that his tall fold-over Renaissance boots looked truly stupid with his brand new puffy jacket.

  Dave rummaged in his Super-Mart bag and pulled out his little treasure: a pack of cigarettes he’d been saving for just such a time as this. He drew one out and lit it.

  Dusty gave him a pathetic look until he gave him one. Together they smoked in brotherly silence.

  “They might guess where we’re going,” Dave mused, watching the city. He didn’t see many monsters here, but there were always signs. Sometimes literally. Creepy graffiti that wasn’t really there and looked like demonic symbols. Holes in the street that weren’t really there, which seemed to go down to a cave system running below the city. Ripples in the sky and weird lights flying overhead now and then, far away. It wasn’t nearly as bad as San Francisco, but there were still signs. “I mean, cops aren’t stupid. Now they know we’re headed North. There’s not a lot of places up here to be headed.” He looked at Scott. “So why Seattle?”

  “There’s another base in Seattle,” Scott said, not looking at him.

  Dusty blew a stream of smoke. “There’s a base in Salt Lake City too, but we’re a lot closer to Seattle.”

  Dave frowned. “What kind of base are we talking about? A library? A university building? Is it part of the school? Or is it more like, an angelic HQ? Is that how angels operate, like James Bond or something?”

  Both men smiled but said nothing.

  Dave rolled his eyes. “Right. Top secret. What happens when we find a base?”

  The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  “We’ll be able to get out of here,” Scott said, giving the city a disgusted glare as if he blamed it for all of his woes.

  Dusty added, “We’ll be safe. Most of the bases are just like the one in San Fran, a building that we own or control. They can’t see us if we are inside a base, plus there’s ways off the planet then.”

  “Off the planet. Oh, my God,” Dave groaned. “Don’t tell me we’re going to get on a UFO and fly to Rune. My brain just can’t take that.”

  “No. We’re not allowed on Rune, and the bad guys own Mars,” Scott muttered off-handedly.

  Dave stared at him, cigarette forgotten.

  “You know,” Dusty perked up, “Dave just gave me an idea; they might have a charrik out looking for us, actually. We should ask Charis when she comes back. She’s been talking to HQ this whole time. She probably knows more than she’s told us. She usually does.”

  “Yah, what do you want to do, send up a flare?” Scott sounded sarcastic, crossing his arms with a rip-stop whoosh sound.

  “They can home in on Charis’s cell,” Dusty suggested.

  “Who the fuck do you people work for?”

  They both looked at him. Scott said, deadpan, “The good guys.”

  “You said the government was involved. You’re not talking about a nice normal government agency by any chance, are you?”

  Scott added drolly, “We’re D.S.S.”

  Dusty snickered and sucked on his cigarette.

  Dave leveled an unamused stare at the kid in the boots. “I don’t think the Department of State Security has anything to do with demons who play the stock market and buy off cops.”

  “Not the Department of State. He means the Dead Saint’s Society,” Dusty giggled, finding Dave’s confusion amusing.

  Dave groaned again and buried his face in his hands. His grip on sanity was too new and fragile to take this kind of abuse. He muttered through his fingers, “If you say you work for Saint Peter, I swear to God, I’m going to strangle you with your stupid jacket.”

  Dusty laughed out loud and Scott grinned, amused despite himself. “Actually no. The head of the D.S.S. is Saint Rafael. Not Saint Peter.”

  “Rafael.” Dave clarified dryly, “Like the archangel.”

  “No, not exactly an angel…” Scott hesitated and looked at Dusty. “Well actually he is technically. But he acts more like a little mafia boss.”

  Dusty tried to help, “The officers of the D.S.S. go by code names for secrecy. They decided to use Saint and Angel names. You know, because it’s cool. But they’re just graduates of the Academy like us.”

  Dave leveled a completely unamused stare at them both. “So. A secret society, huh? Do you guys get secret decoder rings too?”

  Both of them, completely blank-faced, held up their right hands. Two identical black-silver college rings set with dark garnet stones — both carved with the same weird symbol that was already on their foreheads.

  That was it. Dave stood and took several paces to get away from them both, shaking his head. If he saw any more he was going to start questioning his sanity again. Reality just wasn’t this corny.

  He pulled out a second cigarette. “Just my luck. I get sucked into the twilight zone battle between good and evil, and the only help I get is a bunch of frat boys with secret handshakes. God, it’s not fair.” He looked up suspiciously (but not so that he’d actually see anything), wondering if God was real… and actually heard him. And if so, what then?

  Moments later Charis appeared, zipping around the corner with a grinning Miradon in tow. She had her cell phone up to her ear. “Guys! I got through to Castle!” she exclaimed.

  “Castle!” Scott jogged toward her, obviously excited by this news. “The man himself?”

  “Okay, bye Celia.” She hung up, noticed Dave’s cigarette (still unlit) and snatched it from him. She held it out for him to light for her while she talked. “Good news; we’ve got a real extraction team headed our way! One of the A-Teams! They have charriks! There’s also reinforcements with an escape vehicle in Seattle, and Cecelia is pulling strings to slow the cops down here in Oregon. We’ve got cash, and there’s a used car lot about six blocks that-a-way by the highway.”

  Scott whooped and leapt toward Charis, giving her a high-five. “Alright!”

  Dave lit his/her cigarette with a suffering grimace, then pulled out a new one for himself. He ignored most of what she had said; it was babble to him. Instead he focused on the sky where groups of lights were slowly quartering the city, like hunters looking for something. Far away he thought he could hear the laughing, chittering bats.

  Scott asked, “Who’s on the extraction?”

  “It just happens that the Gateway were headed through Seattle and have a few hours to spare.”

  “Oh wow,” Scott was exceedingly impressed, like she’d just told him that James Bond was real and was headed their way. “The man himself, huh?”

  “Yes!” Dusty threw up both fists. “We’re saved!”

  Dave glanced toward them. “Gateway, huh? Who are they, another fraternity?”

  “Only the best,” Scott hooked his thumbs in his jacket, looking ridiculously cocky.

  “They’re like this... a Team,” Miradon gestured to the group as he attempted to explain with a reassuring kooky smile. “Like an elite military team.”

  Charis pinched Dave’s cheek. “Don’t worry, you’ll like them! Come on guys, let’s go buy a car! Actually, you all stay here. We don’t want to draw attention. Dusty, come on. I want to look like Audrey Hepburn.” She finished her cigarette in a hurry and flicked the butt toward the gutter. It vanished in mid-air before hitting the ground.

  Suddenly down a side-street a police cruiser sped past, giving one ‘whoop’ with its siren just to make them all jump. The five held their breath and stared in its direction until they were sure it wasn’t coming back.

  Charis looked at them. “Okay, the rest of you, hide.” She grabbed Dusty by the hand and took off.

  Scott, Dave, and Miradon pressed themselves back into the thick ivy that hung from the wall of the parking garage until it covered their bodies. Scott pulled it around him like a curtain, and Dave hoped the skittering bugs sound that he heard wasn’t actually real.

  Miradon sent then a crooked grin through the leaves. “Isn’t this lovely!”

  They both stared at him like he was crazy.