Vengeance’s voice rumbled through the space. “The angels kill the monsters. Let the blood be on us.”
Ube lifted his hand without looking back at Vengeance. “We not talking to you yet,” he said, flat and hard.
“Look, it’s not like we’re the ones doing this,” Hibiscus said. “I wouldn’t be pitching some shit as wild as this, you know that. But we can’t ignore that these creatures showed up in our world with a mission that they sound pretty certain of carrying out. All I’m saying is, the tide is turning in our favor. Why can’t we ride the wave into a better future?”
Alex raised her hand. “Well, first of all, the wave is made of blood.”
Hibiscus whipped his head around and snarled at her. “So what? How much of our blood has been spilled on Lucille’s streets? Is their blood worth keeping inside their bodies while ours is not?” His eyes were burning with rage. “I say it is enough! The angels say it is enough!”
Ube reached out and placed a hand on his arm. “Hibiscus—”
“No!” He shook off Ube’s hand, furious tears wet on his cheeks. “They are killing us, and they won’t stop! I’m done arguing with y’all about this shit. I’m with the angels. We’re gonna hunt these motherfuckers down, and y’all can be part of making our world safer or you can sit here and bitch about the ethics of stopping murderers.” Hibiscus turned to Vengeance, his face set. “Tell me what I need to do.”
The angel looked down at him and stretched its mouth into that terrible smile. “Welcome, little hunter,” it said, then it looked at the rest of the Assata kids. “Who else hunts with us?”
The girl in red and the boy with long braids glanced at each other, a silent exchange passing between them before they both stepped forward. “We’ll hunt,” she said, then glanced apologetically at Ube. “For Chijioke.”
“And Eddie,” the boy added. “For everyone we literally just acknowledged at the vigil.”
Ube didn’t say anything, but he looked so lonely sitting there as more and more of the Assata kids stepped forward to join Hibiscus and the angels. Bitter wanted to speak up, but she knew she had no right to, not in this space, not even though she’d painted Vengeance into existence, called it into being, and set off this whole cascade. Assata lived in a different world, one of blood and death and unlikely hope, and that was the world the angels had come for. Bitter was just the gate, someone on the border. Who was she to tell them not to seek justice for everyone who had been lost, especially when this looked like the only way justice was ever going to be served? It felt heavy, inevitable, like an avalanche with an old grudge. None of this felt right, but everything that was happening in Lucille was so wrong in the first place that it skewed reality sideways. Was it even possible to make the right choice under these conditions? Assata just wanted the people to be safe, and so did Bitter, and even though she had an unpleasant feeling that the angels weren’t the saviors they claimed to be, she also had nothing else to offer, so what was there to say? Nothing.
Blessing came up next to Bitter and slid an arm around her. “It’s going to be okay,” she said. Bitter dragged in a deep breath as they watched Assata splinter before their eyes, two-thirds of the group going with Hibiscus while the last third hung back.
“This is not good,” Alex muttered, folding her arms. Ube was speaking softly with the Assata kids who chose not to hunt, and those who had volunteered were now gathering around Hibiscus and Vengeance.
“We hunt together,” Vengeance was saying. “Human and angel.”
The other creatures came forward, still holding their compressed forms, false humanoid shapes that did little to reassure. Alex’s angel was still metal, slippery and reflective with mercury eyes. “Do not be afraid,” it said.
The girl in red braced herself and stepped closer to it. “I’m not,” she answered.
Vengeance smiled emptily. “Good.” Bitter watched as it matched up the rest of the angels with the Assata kids, forming small hunting packs.
“Where are you going to go?” she asked, and Vengeance swiveled its long neck in her direction.
“That is for the hunters,” it said. “You can still join us, child.”
She shook her head. “I don’t want to watch people die, even if they are monsters.”
A few feet away, Blessing let out a little scream and jumped back as one of the other angels vanished from the atrium, taking along the Assata kids it had been matched with. They blinked out of the air like a dream, leaving gasps and shocked faces in their wake.
Alex’s eyes were wide as she poked Bitter’s arm. “They can do that?!”
Bitter was just as startled as everyone else. “Apparently so.”
Vengeance hummed an amused sound. “We travel for the hunt,” it explained. “Through time and space. The humans will be safe.”
The rest of the Assata volunteers took deep breaths as the angels reached out and touched them, vanishing in a silent breath, blank air where they once were.
Ube looked distraught. “I’m going to check on the children,” he said, turning away from the disappearings. The Assata kids who chose to stay behind gathered around him to leave as well, and Hibiscus looked on but said nothing. It was Vengeance who broke the thick and sudden silence, its cool voice slithering through the atrium as it snaked its neck toward Ube.
“Would you like to be healed, child?”
Ube stared back at the angel, his face blank. “What?”
Vengeance reached a long smoky limb out to the boy, yellow eyes intent. “So you may walk.”
Bitter could almost feel Alex’s hackles rise as she took a step toward the angel, her fists tight. Ube flinched and moved away from Vengeance’s reach. “No!” he said. “Why would you even ask that?”
Alex cut in sharply. “There is nothing wrong with Ube,” she said, and the rest of the Assata kids murmured in agreement, even Hibiscus.
The angel’s eyes flickered between the humans. It seemed confused. “He does not wish to be whole?”
Blessing put her hand to her mouth, aghast. The air in the room was sharp now, tense. Alex took a deep, furious breath, but Ube shook his head slightly at her and swiveled his chair around, bringing himself up to the angel. Vengeance towered above him, inhuman and terrifying, but Ube’s face was calm. When he spoke, his voice rolled through the space like the night sky was pulled out of his mouth, strong and certain.
“I am not broken,” he said. “I am already whole.”
Vengeance swooped its long neck down, bringing its face level with Ube’s. Bitter felt a pang of anxiety. Was it going to hurt Ube for disagreeing? Was it going to ignore him and do whatever it wanted to his body anyway? She could still remember the almost unbearable heat that had flushed through her arm when Vengeance had healed her cut, back in her room. What would that feel like for Ube—like being burned alive?
Ube wasn’t backing down, not even with the angel’s many eyes fixed intently on him. “I am already whole,” he repeated, his voice softer, more intimate, as if he was telling Vengeance a secret. A taut moment of silence passed before Vengeance reared back and up, its smoke glitching.