“I don’t know that any death is good, sir,” Franny replied. “He died brave, if that’s what you mean. His actions saved a lot of people.” He gestured toward the nave of the church. “A lot of them are here tonight. Reunited with their families because of your son.”

Maxine Norwood and the tiny joker girl Julia were quietly crying. Julia fluttered over to him, her feet scarcely seeming to touch the ground. “Jamal was sick. Why the heck did he go?”

“Jamal was a law enforcement officer. He knew his duty and he did it.” Franny swallowed hard. “I am sorry for your loss,” he said formally. The recommended course for grief calls was to leave it at that, but he felt he couldn’t. This death had been personal for him, too. “I didn’t know Jamal long, but we became friends. I’m grieving for him, too.”

Maxine gave him a quick hug, and Bill gave him a buffet on the shoulder. Julia hugged him around the waist. He accepted the comfort offered by this physical contact. He needed it after what he’d heard in Baba Yaga’s hospital room.

Franny headed for the door. Bill called after him, “Don’t know what you two did over there, but you seem to have unleashed hell.”

Franny hunched his shoulders, dug his hands into his pockets, and fled.

Friday

FRIDAY

IT WAS A LONG and restless night, ending at first light. The Angel had slept fitfully, and was stiff, sore, and hungry when she awoke.

The fog glowed phosphorescent green, eerily energized by its unknown source, but it was shot through with other colors as well. Brief bursts of colors, acinetic white like a burst of fireworks, arterial red like a burst of blood from a severed jugular, pops of green like the lures of the fish who live so deep under the sea that the phosphorescence they themselves generate are the only light they ever see. Once during the night she’d awoken to what she thought was a rumble of thunder and saw a long, sinuous beast, a snake or maybe an eel, with fantastic mouth feelers twitching before its wide-opened jaws, swimming through the night, its lolling tongue lifting a human-sized and -shaped object. She thought she heard a feeble but terrified scream but she was tired and her eyes still smarted from the touch of the fog on the previous day and after she’d blinked both the shape and its perhaps imagined victim were gone.

“Hey, guys,” a feeble voice came from the back, “I gotta pee.”

“Well, go pee,” the Angel managed.

“Can you give me a hand?” Bugsy asked. “I’m kind of tired. Really tired.”

“I’m not?” the Angel said, but she got out of the SUV and went around to the back door and half helped, half dragged Bugsy from the vehicle.

“Why am I so tired?” Bugsy complained. “I didn’t lose that many wasps.”

He leaned on the Angel as they shuffled a few feet away.