She tried again to fold space but it slipped through her fingers. She couldn’t get a grip on it. Couldn’t concentrate. Couldn’t breathe. The shame and horror were too heavy. Like elephants mating on her chest. They crushed the air from her lungs and didn’t stop. They squeezed and squeezed until everything went dark.

The Angel awoke, not quite sure where she was. Her head was buzzing with an almost subliminal noise, a buzzing like a herd of Bugsy’s wasps stirred up and angry, and it was making it difficult to think. The heat washed over her like a furnace.

She sat up, leaning on one elbow. She was in a small room, once an office. All the furniture in it—a desk, uncomfortable-looking plastic chairs, a cheap, worn sofa, and filing cabinets that had definitely seen better days—were pushed to the room’s edges, clearing an open space for the mattress she was lying on. It was fairly clean with only a couple of blood and some less identifiable stains on it and she’d been tired as a dog, so she’d fallen asleep immediately. Even the bad dreams she’d had all night hadn’t woken her, nor could she now remember their content. But they still bothered her, fragmented images from them still popping up disconnected in her mind.

The events of the last evening now flooded into her mind, of her coming into her kingdom and defending it from the mad interloper who thought only in terms of mathematics. He’d gotten only what he deserved from her hands. In fact, his death had been merciful. She was recalling it in intimate detail when the first explosion rocked the foundations of her headquarters.

The Angel sprang to her feet and ran into the great room of her headquarters. Her subjects were running in panic and crying out for help. The sight of her only seemed to increase their distress. They ran to her, imploring her aid, threatening to overwhelm her. Shrieking at them, she struck out with her fist, hurling them away with her superior strength. She knew that she didn’t need her sword to deal with this rabble. They fell to the floor, scrabbled aside, ran to escape her wrath.

The Angel made her way outdoors and climbed to the top of the earthen ridge Earth Witch had left when she’d scooped out the parking lot in front of the store. She turned, facing west from where she thought the initial explosion came, and lifted her face to the sky. The buzz of giant insects was in the air and she could see a group of half a dozen helicopters hovering over Talas, raining down death and destruction in the form of rockets and bombs.

She didn’t know where they came from, she didn’t know why they were attacking, but she was driven by some primal, previously unfelt need to protect the city. There was something precious at its heart, something that whispered an urgent demand and promised unutterable delights as a reward.