She nodded and said "yeah" absentmindedly.
She'd been twelve years old. Out on a hunt with Cully and Jake. Martin, her father, had already started getting sort of weird by then--he spent his time stalking around the camp muttering to himself, working his jaw as if he had marbles in his mouth, and when he wasn't shouting at everyone, he was obsessively cleaning the guns at all hours of the day and night. Though there'd been a time when Electa could hardly imagine anything better than being allowed to go out on a hunt with her father, now she'd felt relieved when he hadn't come along. And then she'd feel guilty for her relief. Her father was a great man--everyone knew that. At least, everyone who counted.

Even so, the mood was jubilant that day as their Jeep roared out of camp, sending up clouds of dust ten feet high. Cully, who was from Alabama, had let out a ringing rebel yell, and Jake had punched Electa in the arm, saying, "Hey, little sis, think you can take me? Think you can take me?" Suddenly, Electa knew that they both felt the same way she did, and the guilt left her in a happy rush.
"Yeah, I can take you," she'd said, and lunged at Jake, getting him in a half nelson. Gratifyingly,--her brother was two years older--it had taken Jake a few seconds to break free, and then he'd launched himself across the seat at Electa with a shout. The two of them fell into the back on top of the mountain of camping gear, scuffling and laughing.

Back then, before the CIA had taken over with their angel spotters and coldly efficient texts, a hunt might take weeks. As well as their camping supplies, there were a couple of crates of canned food in the Jeep and boxes of cartridges. Their guns lay tucked out of sight for now: dependable deer rifles that weren't very flashy but did the job. Cully even had his crossbow with him. He claimed it gave a cleaner shot, but Electa thought he was just showing off. It was a pain, anyway; they always had to go and find his bolt after a kill.

"If either of you breaks that stove, I'll kill you," Cully called back in his southern drawl. He spun the wheel, the Jeep skidded around a curve in a shower of sand and pebbles, sending Electa and Jake banding against its side like rag dolls. Electa knew that once they got into civilization, Cully would drive like a model citizen, ut out here it was the end of the world, with only dirt and yucca plants and lizards for company. You could do whatever the heck you liked.

"Up yours." Jake glanced at Electa with a grin. Taller and sticker than her, he had the same dark brown hair, the same blue-grey eyes. You could tell they were siblings just by looking at them.
They both looked like their mom.

She had zoned out while staring at Vexin, and she was still reminiscing, so she didn't notice

He noticed her staring and being dazed off and so tried to ignore the stare,but he felt very uncomfortable and over heated under those unfocused eyes of hers. He ran a hand through his blond hair of very soft texture,not sure if I said but it had black dyed tips,and tried to just occupy himself by drinking his milk.

That thought had brought a hard edge to the day. Electa remembered a woman who loved to sing, who used to kick off her shoes and dance along with the radio while she was cooking. When she was little, she used to tug on her jeans to get her attention, and sometimes she'd stop what she was doing and lean down to catch her hands. "Dance with me," she'd say with a laugh, spinning her around.

Electa knew that Mom was the reason they were doing this. She always had been. She was also the reason that her father was--maybe--going insane.

The Jeep bumped and rattled over the rocky soil. Driving with one hand, Cully bit off the end of a cigar, spat it over the side, and lit up. He was wearing a black sleeveless shirt, and his shoulders and arms were statue-hard, rippling with muscle. He shook his head as he took a deep puff and glanced at Electa and Jake in the rearview mirror. "The Angel Killers...hope of the free world," he muttered. "God help us all."

The drive to Albuquerque took almost four hours, so that Electa had felt dull with boredom long before they got there. She perked up as they entered the city limits. Living out in the desert like a bunch of pack rats, it was easy to forget that there was a real world out there, but not it all beckoned to her in a sparkling rush--fast food, shopping malls, movies. A billboard with someone names Will Smith on it caught her eye: a tough-looking black guy carrying a gun.

"Hey, Cull, can we go see a movie?" She asked, hanging over the front seat.
"You and Jake can," said Cully. Glancing in the rearview mirror, he smoothed his blonde hair back with his palm and grinned. "I got me some other ideas, if you catch my drift."
Women. Electa grimaced. There were several female AKs back at camp, but Cully said he liked his girls sweet, not dressed in combat gear and going out for target practice. Women who could shoot as well as he could were a touch off-putting.

The plan was to stop off in the city for one night in comfort before they started roughing it on the long drive up to Vancouver, where Martin had heard rumors of angel activity. But as they pulled into a motel, Cully stiffened. "You know what?" he murmured, getting out of the Jeep. "I think there's something going on here."

That meant angels. Electa looked up sharply. The hot afternoon froze around them, the whole world suspended.
"Where, Cull?" asked Jake. He seemed older suddenly, more serious.
"Not sure yet," said Cully, his eyes narrowed. "I don't think it's very far, though." He paused for a long moment, gazing around them at the strip mall. Finally, he shook himself. "Come on, let's get checked in and unload. Then I think we're going to have to take a little drive."

Soon, they were driving in ever-widening circles. "That way!" Electa said urgently, pointing. "There's a...a park or something, maybe two streets south. I could feel lots of trees. It's in there. It's getting ready to feed." She shivered despite herself. Angel energy felt swamp-cold, clammy. It touched your soul and seemed to leave foul fingerprints on it.
"A park? Excellent," said Cully, turning.

Sure enough, they came to a park a few seconds later. Cully parked the Jeep under a line of trees. After a glance around them, he leaned across Electa and opened the glove box. He took out a pistol with a silencer on its muzzle; there was a clicking noise as he checked the magazine then snapped it shut again. He handed the weapon to Electa. "Go get 'em, tiger," he said.
She just about dropped the pistol in shock. "Do what?"
"She's only twelve!" burst Jake at the same time.
"So? You were thirteen when you soloed, and she's better at the chakras than you," said Cully, twisting around to look at him. Jake sank back in his seat again, glowering.

Electa stared down at the gun. She had shot angels before, of course, but never on her own, without backup. There were more things that could go wrong than she could count. The main one was that the angel might spot her and attack before she managed to shoot it. She'd been on a hunt where that happened once, to an Angel Killer named Spencer. Electa swallowed, remembering Spence's vacant stare, his mind completely and forever blistered by the angel's assault. Or sometimes they just killed you, of course.

Cully was watching her. "Listen to me," he said roughly. "You'll never be of maximum use to us if you can't go out there on your own. You can do it; I wouldn't have just handed you a loaded pistol otherwise."

From Cully, this was high praise. Electa licked her dry lips. "Okay," she said. Trying to hide her shaking hands, she flicked the pistol's safety on. She wasn't wearing her holster, so she stuck the gun in her back pocket, pulling her t-shirt over it.
"Lecta...be careful," said Jake, looking worried now.
"She'll be fine," said Cully. He slapped her on the shoulder. "And if you're not back in fifteen, we'll call the looney squad to come get ya."

AK humor--you just had to love it. Her lips felt stretched over her teeth as she smiled. Then she got out of the Jeep and walked into the park. It only took her a few minutes to find the angel. She didn't even have to open her senses to do it--the moment she saw the young woman sitting under a tree, gazing reamily up at the clouds, she knew. She was wearing a light summer dress, and her brown hair was loose on her shoulders. Evidently she'd been reading a book; it lay forgotten by her side as she smiled upward, lost in her own pleasant thoughts.

That was what everyone else would see. Speeding through her chakras, Electa's perceptions shifted abruptly as a glorious being came into view, over seven feet tall and blinding white. Though its great wings almost blocked out the sun, the angel was far brighter than the sun could ever hope to be. It glowed with radiance, casting pure, dazzling light across the woman's beatific features.

Her stomach lurched. She hadn't often seen one actually feeding before. The creature had both hands buried deep in the woman's energy fiend, which was growing dimmer by the second, twisting feebly as if in protest. The angel had its head thrown back in gluttonous ecstacy as the woman's energy seeped away into its own, like water leaving a training tub. And thanks to angel burn, the woman would remember the angel as good and kind. Just as her mother had, before she'd been killed. Shoving her feelings away, Electa glanced around her. Shielding herself from view behind a tree, Electa pulled out the gun, flicking off the safety. She steadied the weapon with both hands and took aim.

Now that it came down to it, she felt very calm, with quick excitement throbbing away somewhere deep underneath. Her first solo kill. Cully was right; she could do it. What had she been worried about? She had lived her whole life just waiting for this moment.
The angel looked up and saw her.
Fear pounded through her as she and the angel locked eyes. The creature knew instantly what she was, and it screamed in pure fury, ripping his hands away from the woman's energy field. Useless and forgotten, she slumped to the ground, the peaceful smile still on her face.

Screeching, the angel sped toward her. Electa had a blurred impression of a great rushing and flapping of wings, and of wind tearing at her hair, as if the whole world was whipping past. The pistol began to shake in her hands. Shoot! she screamed at herself. But its eyes were so beautiful, even in rage. She could only stare in them and know she was about to die.

No! With the greatest effort of her life, Electa tore her attention away from the angel's eyes and focused on its halo instead. That's the angel's heart. Her father always said. Go for the center. Her hands were so unsteady, she could hardly take aim. The angel was shrieking in triumph, its terrible, awesome voice slicing through her. Its halo was the size of a saucer...now a dinner plate...now a...

She shot.

The world exploded into shards of light as the force from the fallout blew her backward, off her feet. She landed in the grass a dozen feet away and lay there stunned, the wind knocked out of her.

Now, five years later in Aspen, Electa continued to stare at Vexin. Her eyes focused again and she shook her head. She had killed more angels than she could count, especially since she had long ago stopped bothering to keep track. There hadn't seemed much point anymore once Jake was gone, taking with him the friendly competition. Electa winced before she could stop it. No. Don't go there.

Vexin was to worried about her but his teal eyes gave the normal worried on person walking down the street would have for another sitting on a random corner. He felt with a sixth sense that something wasn't right with her,she was thinking of something that bothered her.Or at least triggered a thought that would bother her.

She shook her head again. "Sorry," she muttered, because she had realized she'd been staring at him. She began to wolf down her food

Vexin shrugged. "I get it now and then." He said,but not that he meant that he got stares that where to nice. He simply finished his milk and so he soon just stares at the table.

For a moment, she just gazed at him, taking in everything. She found herself wondering what he'd looked like if he smiled. Irritated with herself, she shook her head a third time. She quickly finished her food, standing and going to pay. She went back for Vexin. "Let's go."

He gave a calm nod and carefully stood,he was a fair height but he didn't seem to really notice his own nice features. He didn't actually smile often,if ever. He didn't often feel the joy to smile.Again,if at all.

She went to the sleek black car and got in

Vexin got in as well,carefully closing the door,though he himself a little stiff,and then buckled up quickly.He was someone quite for safety.