“Fine, I wasn’t intending to go near them anyway. People who can shoot halos make me nervous. Which reminds me; you really might have told them to ease off a little. There’ve been over twenty angel deaths in two weeks here – and that’s with not as much feeding going on as usual, now that the roots the Twelve have been putting down are starting to take affect.”

“Oh?” said Raziel uneasily. “Is anything going to be done about it?”

“No, I don’t think so. Angels here are up in arms, but there’s not much that can be done, the way they’re striking – there’s never any knowing where, or what time.”

Raziel was unsurprised; Kylar was nothing if not a good strategist. “Well, I’ll do my best to reign them in,” he said. “But they’re very keen, you know.”

He heard Charmeine snort. “Thanks, that’s good of you,” she said. “Anyway, in a few more days it might not even matter any more.”

“How are you doing?” Her weary tone worried him; she sounded like a woman struggling to hold on.

He could almost see her making a face. “All right, I suppose. But I’m glad the reception’s soon. I’m counting the hours until I don’t have to keep up a psychic barricade any more.”

Anxiety prickled over him. “It’s getting harder for you to hold them off, isn’t it?”

Her voice turned crisp. “Don’t worry – I can hold out till the bitter end, I promise. Meanwhile, I suppose you’ve heard about Tyrel.”

“Yes, I’ve heard,” said Raziel shortly. The news in the angel community was that the Council had recently appointed Tyrel to run the Church of Angels in Mexico – an angel who’d been a hated adversary of Raziel’s for eons. Doubtless, this was exactly why the Twelve had appointed him.

“Well, we’re going to have the last laugh,” said Charmeine. “You’ll be travelling down for the fun, won’t you?”

Raziel gazed at the mountains, looming sharply against the blue sky. No matter what other consequences the attack might bring, the Council would soon be dead – and if their deaths killed him too, he wanted the last sight he ever saw to be the twinkling shards of their destruction. Thinking of their TV appearance, with their thinly-veiled death sentence to him – That is our promise – he gave a hard smile.

“Oh, I’ll be there,” he said. “I’ll book a flight tonight.”

“Good. Because you know, I think we actually have a chance. It just feels different in this world, doesn’t it? We might really survive this.”