“It has definite potential,” allowed Raziel. Since the dramatic Second Wave TV footage, the demand for all things angel was exploding. A gated community where families could purchase homes and enrol their children in schools devoted to the angels would take off like wildfire.

And as he’d thought before, the idea would allow for another possibility, one he’d been mulling over for some time – something that, if the Council knew about it, he was sure would cement whatever plans they might now have in place for him. It didn’t exactly go along with their vision of angels not giving into their baser urges.

“Yes, I’d like to go ahead,” he decided. “I’ll be in touch soon to discuss the building work.” Though everything had now been cast into uncertainty, Raziel still held out hope that soon there wouldn’t be a Council to worry about. Meanwhile, in the same spirit of reckless defiance that had caused him to say too much on TV, he refused to put his various schemes on hold.

Fred seemed almost incoherent with gratitude and excitement; he stammered his thanks non-stop as they made their way back across the fields. “Think nothing of it,” said Raziel, shaking his hand when they reached his black BMW. “You have the angels’ gratitude.”

One of the angels’ gratitude, anyway. Grimly, Raziel checked his phone again as he got in his car.

For distraction on the drive back to Denver, he found himself exploring the psychic link with Willow once more. When both she and Seb, the half-angel boy, had gone looking for the spark of Raziel’s energy – even if they hadn’t known that’s what they were looking for – he’d cloaked it even further, putting so many shields and disguises in place that even a pure angel would have struggled to find it. Now Willow’s angel self seemed puzzled by her former fears, and Raziel was free to wander about the girl’s mind without causing even the least misgiving. Willow’s own spark of energy within him remained unsuspected by her, which was fortunate: if she ever stumbled on the risks to humanity that destroying the Council now posed, the Angel Killers would never go ahead with the attack.

Willow was currently talking to Seb, trying to learn how to disguise her aura’s colours. It had been news to Raziel that this was even possible. The boy seemed unusually gifted with auras – though who knew what “usual” might be when it came to half-angels.