Angelfall

Penryn drives slowly to the checkpoint for the aerie until she can’t go any further. She notices the considerable number of women in nice dresses and makeup near the aerie entrance. The fence is makeshift and would be easy to push over, but everyone respects it; Penryn sees why when she sees humans on the other side with cattle prods, poking those who get too close. To her alarm, she sees that one of them is her mother, who is zapping people with glee and fear. Penryn suspects she doesn’t see her victims as people, but as demons or monsters. Penryn drags herself away from the temptation to help her mother and moves on.

Penryn joins a crowd of women begging for entry and trying to catch the eye of the guards. People are placing bets on which women get in. She asks Raffe what will happen if she doesn’t get to go through, and he assures her she will because she is beautiful. She approaches the two angels at the gate, and they look her up and down and wave her through, shocking her. She drives the car, with Raffe hidden, inside the aerie.

Raffe directs her to a 1920s-style nightclub surrounded by women in party dresses and angels in tuxedos. Raffe gets out and offers her his arm, but both are nervous; Penryn notices that the angels are dressed, strangely, in 1920s-style clothing, which Raffe explains is the aerie’s current style. Penryn questions why they aren’t restraining themselves around human women anymore, but Raffe doesn’t have a satisfactory answer; he simply seems displeased. Due to Raffe’s appearance as an angel, they go into the aerie untouched.

Penryn surveys the inside of the former hotel, which is filled with humans and angels of both genders. Three muscular angels with swords enter, and Raffe immediately pulls Penryn aside and touches their foreheads to disguise themselves in an intimate moment, keeping his back to them. Penryn notices his downcast mood and tries to distract him from it by kissing him, and to her surprise, he kisses back, quickly transforming it into a sensual experience. When they break apart, he insists he doesn’t even like her and she turns red with humiliation. Raffe leaves, and Penryn feels other angels staring at her, so she steels herself and suppresses her emotions, knowing their relationship is going nowhere. She follows him through the building into a different room.

Penryn enters a room filled with scent and noise and feels like she has been launched into the 1920s. The angels are partying, served by human men and a human band and lounging with human women. Penryn spots Raffe with a human woman in a black dress draped over him, acting possessive of him; he is drinking copiously already. He dismisses the woman. Penryn follows his gaze and sees a large booth filled with dangerous-looking angels and glamour girls. Raffe nods to an albino angel in the group and says that Penryn needs to go get his attention and convince him to follow her to the men’s room. Penryn protests, but his serious demeanor convinces her to agree.

Penryn, having little idea how to seduce someone, notices an angel that looks like a politician and smiles at everyone with genuine kindness—yet is surrounded by women with expressions of terror. He sees her and moves toward her, but a waiter steps in front of her and distracts him. As Penryn thanks the waiter, she realizes he is Dee or Dum, one of the redheaded twins, but he shows no sign of knowing her. Penryn realizes she must move quickly, or the resistance might ruin any chance of rescuing her sister.

Penryn notices that the table of partying angels, approached by the Politician, has grown quiet and awkward after he leaves. She waits until they resume their conversation before approaching the albino angel, who has no women around him. As she gets close, she realizes why—his eyes are red, with minimal sclera, making him look terrifying. She senses his discomfort with himself immediately, having seen it in Paige’s disabled friends, but also senses that he is just as strong as the others.

Penryn approaches and compliments his eyelashes, pretending to be drunk, and then spills wine on his white suit. He resists her attempts to “help” and goes to the bathroom to clean up. Raffe closes the bathroom after him with an out-of-order sign and confronts him inside; Penryn sneaks in to observe. Raffe introduces the angel as Josiah; Josiah pretends to not know him and tries to leave, but Raffe stops him, stating that he made him a soldier instead of a “slave.”

Josiah explains that the aerie is very much against Raffe now—revealing that Raffe is Raphael in the process—and explains that after Gabriel’s death, a political vacuum for the role of “Messenger” has opened, and Uriel and Raphael, despite the latter’s absence, are considered the leading candidates for the role. Raffe’s men are loyal to him, if only because they’d rather kill him themselves than let someone else kill him. Josiah explains that most angels believe Raffe is either dead or fallen, having committed sin with a human woman, and the Nephilim—the monstrous, cannibalistic children—are proof of his fallenness. Raffe insists that the children are nothing like Nephilim, but Josiah retorts that he and the fallen angels are the only people who know what the original Nephilim looked like.

Josiah further questions Penryn’s place in Raffe’s life, but Raffe sharply denies any relationship between them. Josiah tries to convince Raffe to leave, but Raffe reluctantly reveals that his wings have been cut off and he needs surgery. Josiah tells him that the only person who can help is someone named Laylah, which fills Raffe with dread. Josiah reluctantly agrees to talk to Laylah and tells them to hide in a room until he is ready. Josiah goes to leave, and before Penryn can speak up, Raffe asks if he knows anything about kidnapped human children; Josiah insists he doesn’t but is clearly lying.

Penryn wonders about the state of angelic politics but decides it doesn’t matter. She is angry that Raffe did not press Josiah for information about Paige, but Raffe insists Josiah is too afraid of something to give a serious answer anyway.

Raffe demands a room from the human at the front desk and receives room 1712. Penryn resists the temptation to ask for her own room, knowing it’d be denied. The man advises Penryn to take the elevator, and he and Penryn exchange expressions conveying their negative feelings about being in the aerie.

In the center of the hotel, angels fly in intricate patterns from floor to floor under a glass ceiling. Raffe watches them fly longingly, and Penryn fills with sympathy against her wishes. She invites him into the elevator with her, but he is reluctant to use the elevator since it would give him away. She pretends to drunkenly swing him into the elevator as an excuse.

In the suite, Penryn goes to the window and stares in horror at the burned, destroyed remnants of San Francisco before Raffe closes the curtains in irritation. He orders food from room service and tells her to take a shower, but she insists they must find Paige. He mocks her rush at first before gently telling her that they need to take care of themselves before they can find Paige. She angrily agrees and goes to shower; when she returns, a luxurious meal awaits, which she consumes quickly.

When Raffe steps out of the shower, she is quickly distracted and enamored by his attractiveness without his shirt. She grows confused when he tells her, “You can have it all, you know” (210), not realizing at first that he is referring to the food. Embarrassed, she eats his portion but is interrupted halfway through by Josiah and a beautiful angel woman with blond hair and golden wings—Laylah.

Laylah approaches Raffe and flirts with him, but he asks her directly to sew his wings back on. She questions if he deserves his wings back, and he picks up his sword, pointing out that if he had fallen, he would not be able to use it. She retorts that no angel is meant to be alone for long—if they are, they fall. He denies this assertion, and she asks him to give her a reason to not turn him in immediately. He asks her to name her price.

One of the twins shows up and delivers more food, and Penryn notices them observing every detail about the room. After he leaves, Laylah agrees to perform the surgery for an unnamed price later and tells Raffe to give her the wings and go to her lab in an hour. Penryn argues that they can’t trust Laylah, but Raffe insists he has no choice, and turns over the wings to her.

After Laylah and Josiah leave, Penryn asks Raffe about the Messenger. He explains that God commands the Messenger, who communicates to the other angels; God speaks to no one else. He reveals that it would be ironic for him to become the new Messenger since he is agnostic. Penryn is stunned, but eventually realizes that it makes just as much sense for him to be agnostic as a human. She also realizes that the angels may be acting entirely on the command of one person who isn’t God and that they would follow those orders blindly.

Raffe disguises his back and prepares to leave for Laylah’s lab. He tells Penryn to find Josiah and leave the aerie if he doesn’t return by morning. Penryn grows nervous, especially since Raffe refuses to take his sword, but she doesn’t get the chance to warn him about the resistance attack before he leaves.