I spotted the first one soon after we entered the city, gliding serenely over a neighbourhood a few streets away. As we got further in, I kept seeing others here and there, circling and occasionally diving downwards in flashes of light. I even saw one feeding on a dingy sidewalk as we passed by, not ten feet away. My scalp went cold; I couldn’t take my eyes off it. The old man being fed from stood smiling dazedly; the angel was brilliant white, almost seven feet high, its wings blinding in the sun. It was surreal, the way people on the sidewalk were just shoving past the man; how none of them could see what was so painfully obvious to me.

The next light turned red and we came to a stop. Alex glanced over his shoulder, pushing his visor up. “We should start thinking about where we’re going. Any ideas?”

I swallowed. Not even Alex could see what I saw – not unless he shifted his consciousness up through his chakra points. Feeling very alone suddenly, I looked away from the feeding angel, thankful that the thing was too distracted to notice me. “No, no ideas,” I said.

Then, as the traffic started up again, I thought of something. I raised my voice over the noise. “Wait – can we go to that square, the one I dreamed about?”

“Yeah, I guess,” Alex called back after a pause. I knew he was thinking about the hunting angels I’d seen in my dream, and wasn’t crazy about the idea – but he didn’t argue.

It was nearing sunset, the sky spectacular with the pollution: wild streaks of red and pink that swirled across the grey dusk like oil on water. I’d have known the city was seething with angels even if I couldn’t see them – on almost every street corner, silver and blue Church of Angels signs were painted on the sides of buildings like giant billboards. And lots of people were visibly sick. As Alex stopped for another light, I watched a young woman pause on the sidewalk, gripping a street light for support. It could have been a coincidence, of course. She could have just had a dizzy spell or something. But I really doubted it. And if it was this bad here now, what was it going to be like in a few more weeks, now that the Second Wave had arrived? I bit my lip, hating the thought of it.

Slowly, a massive stone cathedral loomed into view above the other buildings. It had two ornate bell towers; they stood to either side of a central dome, where a golden angel perched on one foot, lifting a garland towards the sky.