Electa opened the door. With the four of them inside, the cabin seemed even smaller than usual; Agent Kinney was obviously noticing the narrow bed with its joined-together sleeping bags.

Vexin stayed closer to Electa than the other two people, pretending he didn't notice Agent Kinney noticing the narrow bed and joined sleeping bags. But his flushed face gave away that he noticed her noticing.

"Call us Sophie and Nate, please," said Agent Kinney as she took a seat in one of the chairs at the table.

Electa propped her rifle against the wall without responding. She had no intention of getting chummy with these two until she knew what was going on. She went to sit on the bed, leaning against the wall and tapping her fingers on her knee. "How did you find us?" she asked.

He murmured the names to himself, not sitting down just yet. He wondered why he'd felt a coming of something dangerous, but yet these two had shown up.

"Remote viewing," said Nate. "I've been trying to get a psychic fix on you for weeks; it's not easy when there's no personal attachment. Finally, I saw that you were up in the mountains somewhere. I kept thinking it was the Rockies; I wasted almost a week scanning them before moving farther west."

He listened, curious. But he didn't like the idea of angels being able to remotely view.

"Remote viewing? If you can do it, then that means..."

"It's a specialized skill, but I'm sure theyre trying," agreed Nate. "You're just lucky that we found you first. Though it would have saved a lot of time if we hadnt lost you outside of Phoenix."

He stuck to listening, he would talk if needed but was getting very nervous and a little fidgety with his hands.

"How long has Project Angel been infiltrated?"

"About four months," said Nate. "Some of the agents in the field had already died or been subject to angel burn by that point. The rest were dispatched by the angels or are now missing, presumed dead."

Electa had known it already, but it was like a hard kick to the chest anyway. "Right," she said finally. "So how come I wasnt dispatched?"

Nate gave a sad smile. "Because you were the best. So the angels decided to use you for their own purposes--doing away with traitors like me."

Electa's spine straightened as she came away from the wall. "What?"

"That's right," said Sophie. "For the past four months, every hit you've done has been an angel sympathetic to humans, who was working to help save them."

"You're insane," she said shortly. "I watch them, remember? Every single one was about to feed."

Nate shook his head. "No, they were going to do something called marshaling, where they place psychic resistance into a human's aura. It can act as a protection against feeding angels. In the right conditions, it can also be passed on to other humans through auric contact--almost like a virus, but with positive effects."

Electa's mind raced. She thought back to her last hit before shed received the order for Vexin: T. Goodman, approaching the drunken businessman on the sidewalk.
Don't be afraid. I have something to give you.
Electa swore.

Vexin went pale, realizing that the explosion he'd felt before meeting Electa had been the death of a nice angel. One that wasn't horrible. 'Maybe...my dad is not a bad one. Is that why he's with my mom? Why he had me and Vincent? Speaking of that, how the heck did he have us if I'm... if he's... '