Ube gave her a smile that didn’t have an ounce of amusement in it, like he had more information than he was asking her for. “We gon’ have to have a talk about what the fuck y’all been doing at Eucalyptus.”
Alex flinched at the restrained rage in his voice, but her eyes were locked onto Vengeance, her face pale. “Is that—”
“Yeh, that one’s mine,” Bitter replied. “It looking real different now, though.”
Vengeance tilted its head, and its mouth stretched into an empty, seeping smile. “Touching,” it said, its voice thick and grating. “To be claimed.”
Bitter took a curious step forward. “Why you shape so?” she asked, gesturing with her hands. “Like a person?”
Vengeance dragged its blank gaze over the gathered Assata kids. “It makes it easier for humans who are not gates.”
Blessing stepped closer to Bitter and Alex, taking their hands in hers so the three girls were standing like a chain. “What’s going on?” she whispered, fear in her voice. “Is that a monster?”
Vengeance growled so hard and quickly that the room trembled, dust falling from the ceiling.
Hibiscus stepped forward, stretching an arm out to protect the girls. “Cool down,” he said to the creature. “They’re just asking questions.”
It stepped forward. “You are afraid,” it said.
Hibiscus swallowed hard. “I’d be a damn fool not to be. But you said you weren’t here to hurt us. I want to make sure that doesn’t change.”
Bitter turned her head. “It said that?”
Ube nodded. “Yeah. It showed up talking some shit about being a hunter and killing monsters, telling us not to be afraid.” He looked at Bitter, and his eyes were black accusations. “You said this one is yours, Bitter. It called you a gate? What did you do?”
She hadn’t even known that he knew her name. Bitter’s voice got stuck in her throat. She’d already had to tell her secret to Blessing and Alex—did she have to tell it to this terrifying prophet of a boy too? With nearly all of Assata watching? Eddie wasn’t there, and that sent a tendril of worry through Bitter. She hoped her friend was okay.
Ube was waiting for an answer, but Bitter didn’t want to open up about the most private part of her life in front of these strangers. On the other hand, Vengeance was there. Vengeance was there, in half its force and righteous rage, and she couldn’t wish or hope or paint it away, or pretend that it hadn’t told her exactly what it was planning to do. Her blood was still a faint brown crust along the edge of its mouth.
“I made a painting,” she said to Ube, because that was true, at least.
He glared at her. “That is not a painting!”
Bitter folded her arms and looked down at her feet. “It’s complicated,” she mumbled. Vengeance had called itself an angel, and so had the creature in Alex’s studio, but Bitter was having a hard time accepting that. The woman and man she used to live with had statues of angels all over their house, and they would pray to archangels, even, but all of it was light and ivory robes and pale-skinned men with blond hair gazing blank and benevolent. Angels weren’t this, whatever this was. Angels were what Ube had said at the vigil—good people who would die for the revolution, who had died for the revolution. Bitter didn’t believe that Vengeance being here was bending Lucille all the way down to the language, like it had claimed.
Ube turned back to Vengeance, bravely meeting its yellow gaze. “I’ma ask again,” he demanded, and his voice shook only a little. “What are you? Why are you here?”
Vengeance swelled, its shape glitching and losing some form. Smoke leaked out around it. “Child, I have answered. The world changes when the angels return. Show me your monsters. We will hunt them. We will kill them.”
Hibiscus looked at Bitter. “It’s been talking about monsters since it got here. You got any idea what it means?”
Bitter didn’t take her eyes off what she had made. Vengeance’s limbs were elongating back to their original length, its body stretching obscenely. Murmurs were breaking out from the rest of the Assata crew, fear growing in their eyes as they watched the creature warp into its first form. “Theron. The police. It wants to … get rid of them. The monsters.”
Hibiscus raised his eyebrows. “Word? That’s not a bad idea.”
Blessing elbowed Alex. “See? I’m not the only one who thinks so.”
“It wants to kill them,” Bitter snapped.
Hibiscus seemed unmoved. “Yeah, it’s been very clear on that, actually.” He didn’t look scared. Instead, his eyes were thoughtful as he watched Vengeance expand, the humanoid shape loosening and swelling into the column of smoke Bitter had painted. “Bringing the war to them,” he said. “We’d be an army they’ve never seen before.”
Vengeance heard him and snaked its long neck over, yellow eyes glinting. “Yes,” it hissed. “A war and an army. The host of righteous fire.” The other figures stood back and rustled their forms, spiking the buzz in the air. They looked small next to Vengeance’s smoke-filled heft, but Bitter had no desire to see them unfold into whatever their actual shapes were.
Ube came forward, keeping his voice low so the rest of Assata wouldn’t hear. “We not tryna start a war,” he said.
Hibiscus laughed. “Who you kidding? We already in a war. If these … angels have come to give us a hand, I say we take it. What other option is there—to keep throwing ourselves against the city and watching them kill us? How many more deaths will it take, Ube?”
“This is reckless. We don’t know what they really are. We don’t even know where they came from.” Ube’s face was tense, his jaw sharp.
Vengeance glanced at him. “We came from the gates,” it said. “Eucalyptus leaks divinity. The threshold opens with blood.”
Ube looked even more stressed. “What the fuck does that mean?”
Alex grimaced. “It wasn’t just Bitter,” she said. “I made a sculpture, but I didn’t know about the blood. It was an accident.”
“That’s not the explanation you think it is,” Ube snapped.
Bitter stepped in. “They need blood to come through.”
Ube’s eyes flicked between her and Alex. “These … things came through your work?”
Blessing pressed her fingers to the bridge of her nose. “Dammit,” she said. “That’s why it mentioned Eucalyptus. That’s how they’re getting here, through everyone’s pieces at school.”
Vengeance rumbled in its stretched throat, a deep and jagged sound. “Song and story,” it said, “blood and anger.”
Alex was shaking her head. “That shit ain’t possible. You can’t get everyone to bleed on their art on the same night! The school would be chaos if that had happened.”
“You are human,” Vengeance countered. “We can get you to do many things. There are things happening tonight that you know nothing of.” It glanced over at Bitter. “Tell them the truth. It is not complicated.”
Bitter worried at her lip, feeling the metal of her ring against her teeth. “I called it,” she said. “I wanted help. I wanted all this to stop, so I painted it and then I called it through. But I eh know it was going to be like this!”