His eyes look up into mine. In them, I catch a hint of gratitude, a hint of loss, a hint of worry.

“Not that…you didn’t look right before. I mean, you always look…magnificent.” Magnificent? I almost roll my eyes. What a dope. I don’t know why I said that. I clear my throat. “Can we go already?”

He nods. He hides the teasing smile but I can see it in his eyes.

“Drive past that crowd and up to the checkpoint.” He points to our left, where it looks like a crowded, free-for-all market. “When the guards stop you, tell them you want to go to the aerie. Tell them you heard they sometimes let in women.”

He climbs into the back seat and crouches in the shadows. He pulls the old blanket over himself, the one that used to wrap his wings.

“I’m not here,” he says.

“So…explain to me again why you’re hiding instead of just walking through the gate with me?”

“Angels don’t walk through the checkpoint. They fly directly to the aerie.”

“Can’t you just tell them you’re injured?”

“You’re like a little girl demanding answers to questions during a covert operation. Why is the sky blue, daddy? Can I ask that man with the machine gun where the bathroom is? If you don’t stay quiet, I’m going to have to dump you. You need to do what I tell you, when I tell you, no questions or hesitation about it. If you don’t like it, find someone else to pester into helping you.”

“Okay, okay. I got it. Geez, some people are so grouchy.”

I start the engine and inch out of our parking spot. The homeless guys grumble, and one of them bangs the hood with his fist as he slides off.

CHAPTER 27

I drive through the crowd on Montgomery St. at a speed that’s maybe half of what I could do on foot. People get out of the way, but reluctantly, and only after giving me assessing looks. I check the doors again to make sure they’re locked. Not that the locks would stop anyone should they choose to break the windows.

Luckily, we are not the only ones in a car here. There’s a small line of cars waiting at the checkpoint, surrounded by a mass of people on foot. Apparently, they are all waiting to cross the checkpoint. I go as far as I can and stop at the end of the line of cars.

There is an unusually large percentage of women waiting to cross the checkpoint. They are clean and dressed as though going to a party. Women stand in high heels and silk dresses among the ragged men, and everyone behaves as though that’s normal.

The checkpoint is a breach in a tall chain-link fence that blocks the streets around the financial district. With what’s left of the district, it wouldn’t be too hard to permanently fence it off. But this is one of those temporary fences made of self-standing panels. The panels are connected together to make a fence, but it’s not embedded into the asphalt.