After paying the bill, I walked out to my car, opening my fortune cookie as I went. It was empty. Charming. A light rain misted around me, and fatigue crept in around my edges, not surprising considering the last twenty-four hours.

 I couldn't find a parking spot when I arrived in Queen Anne, which indicated some sort of sporting event or show going on nearby. Grumbling, I parked seven blocks away from home, vowing to never again lease an apartment that only had street spots. The wind Seth and I had felt earlier was fading, normal since Seattle was not a wind-prone city. The rain picked up in intensity, however, further darkening my mood.

 I was halfway home when I heard footsteps behind me. Pausing, I turned to look back but saw nothing save slick pavement, blearily reflecting streetlights. No one was there. I turned back around, starting to pick up my pace until I did a mental head slap and simply turned invisible. Jerome was right; I did think like a human too much.

 Still, I didn't like the street I'd chosen back; it was too deserted. I needed to cut over and walk the rest of the distance on Queen Anne Avenue itself.

 I had just turned the corner when something impacted me hard on my back, knocking me forward six feet, startling me so much that I shifted back to visible.

 I tried to turn around, flailing at my attacker, but another blow hit me in the head hard, knocking me to my knees. The sense I had was of being struck by something hand and arm shaped, but it packed a punch, more like a baseball bat. Again, my attacker hit me, this time across one of my shoulder blades, and I cried out, hoping someone would hear me. Another strike swiped the side of my head, the force pushing me over onto my back. I squinted up, trying to catch sight of who was doing this, but all I could dimly discern was a dark, amorphous shape, bearing down on me fast and hard as another blow made contact with my jaw. I could not get up from that onslaught, could not fight against the pain descending on me harder and thicker than the rain around me.

 Suddenly, brilliant light filled my vision—light so brilliant it hurt. I was not alone in my assessment. My attacker recoiled, letting me go, and I heard a strange high-pitched scream emitted above me. Attracted by some irresistible lure, I looked toward the light. A white-hot pain seared my brain as I did, my eyes taking in the figure moving toward us: beautiful and terrible, all colors and none, white light and darkness, winged and armed with a sword, features shifting and indiscernible. The next scream I heard was my own, the agony and ecstasy of what I had seen scorching my senses, even though I could no longer see it. My vision had gone white-whiter-whitest until all was black, and I could see nothing at all.

 Then, silence fell.

 I sat there sobbing, hurting physically and spiritually. Footsteps came, and I felt someone kneel beside me. Somehow, despite my blindness, I knew it was not my attacker. That person had long since fled.

 "Georgina?" a familiar voice asked me.

 "Carter," I gasped out, throwing my arms around him.

 CHAPTER 17 

 I woke to the sound of Aubrey purring in my ear. Sensing my consciousness, she moved closer and licked the part of my cheek near my earlobe, her whiskers gently rubbing against my skin. It tickled. Squirming slightly, I opened my eyes. To my astonishment, light, color, and shapes came through to me—albeit in a blurred, distorted manner.

 "I can see," I muttered to Aubrey, trying to sit up. Immediately, myriad aches and pains screamed all over my body, making the motion difficult. I lay stretched out on my couch, an old afghan tossed over me.

 "Of course you can see," Jerome's cold voice informed me. Aubrey fled. "Though it'd serve you right if you couldn't. What were you thinking, looking at an angel in full form?"

 "I wasn't," I told him, squinting at his dark-clad shape pacing in front of me. "Thinking, that was."

 "Obviously."

 "Lay off," came Carter's laconic voice from somewhere behind me.

 Straightening up and peering around, I made out his fuzzy form leaning against a wall. Peter, Cody, and Hugh also stood nearby in the room. It was a regular, dysfunctional family reunion. I couldn't help but laugh.

 "And you were there, and you were there..."

 Cody sat down beside me, his features materializing into sharp focus as he leaned in to study my face closer. Gently, he ran a finger along one of my cheekbones, frowning. "What happened?"

 I sobered up. "Is it that bad?"

 "No," he lied. "Hugh was worse." The imp made a nondistinct noise across the room.

 "I already know what happened," snapped Jerome. I didn't need to see the demon's face in detail to know he was glaring at me. "What I don't understand is why it happened. Did you actually try to come up with the most dangerous situation possible? 'Hmm, let's see... dark alley, no one around... ' That sort of thing?"

 "No," I shot back. "I wasn't thinking of that. I wasn't thinking of anything except getting home." I related the evening's events to the best of my ability, beginning with the footsteps, ending with Carter.

 When I'd finished, Hugh sat down in an armchair across from me, pensive. "Pauses, huh?"

 "What?"

 "The way you tell what happened... you got hit, pause, then another one, pause, then another one. Right?"

 "Yeah, so? I don't know. Isn't that how fights work? Punch, draw back, get ready for another? Besides, we're talking about breaks of, like, a second or so. Not real breathing time."

 "There was nothing like that for me. I had slashing too. It was an onslaught. A stream of blows, continuously. It defied understanding or ability. Definitely supernatural."

 "Well, so was this," I countered. "Believe me, I couldn't fight against it. It wasn't some mortal mugging, if that's what you're suggesting." Hugh simply shrugged.

 Silence fell, and I gave the imp a sidelong glance to the best of my limited vision's ability. "They're looking meaningfully at each other, aren't they?"

 "Who?"

 "Carter and Jerome. I can feel it." I turned to Carter, suddenly wondering if my trip last night had been for naught. "I don't suppose you salvaged the shopping bag I had on me?"

 Walking over to my kitchen counter, the angel produced a bag and tossed it to me. My depth perception still off, I missed, and the bag bounced off the couch onto the floor. The book slipped out. Jerome snatched it up in an instant and read the title.

 "Fuck me, Georgie. Is this why you were out skulking in dark corners? This is what you nearly got killed for? I told you to lay off the vampire hunter investigating—"

 "Oh come on," cried Cody, jumping up in my defense. "None of us believe that anymore. We know there's an angel doing this—"

 "An angel?" I heard heavy amusement and even a scoff in the demon's words.

 "No mortal did that to me," I agreed hotly. "Or to Hugh. Or to Lucinda. Or to Duane. It was a nephilim."

 "A nephi -what?" asked Hugh, startled.

 "Isn't that a character on Sesame Street?" Peter spoke up for the first time.

 Jerome stared silently at me for a moment, then finally demanded, "Who told you about that?" Not waiting for an answer, he turned toward the angel. "You know you're not supposed to—"

 "It wasn't me," retorted Carter mildly. "I'm guessing she figured it out on her own. You don't put enough faith in your own people."

 "I did find out on my own, though I had help."

 I briefly detailed my string of leads, how one had led to another, from Erik to the book at Krystal Starz.

 "Shit," muttered Jerome, after listening to my spiel. "Fucking Nancy Drew."

 "Okay," said Peter, "compelling chase or no, you still haven't told us what a nephilopogus is."