Then she flowed into Esmeralda. She’d invested a lot of time and energy wrapping Esmeralda tight in the golden threads of her love, like a bug in a spider web. Ashleigh, the great golden spider, moved in to claim her prey.
Ashleigh looked out through Esmeralda’s eyes. Darcy was backing away, gaping at her, with a sheen of spit on her chin.
“Oh…” Darcy said. “Oh…GRODY! Why were we doing that?”
“Ashleigh’s task on Earth is done,” Ashleigh said. “She’s back with the angels now, Darcy.”
“But…but where are we?” Darcy looked out at Charleston, and down at the rioting mob below, where people were overturning the temporary vendors’ booths and punching each other at random. “What’s happening? Why, I mean, where—”
Ashleigh put a hand on Darcy’s arm, soothing her a little with her loving energy, though Ashleigh didn’t have much energy left to spare. She was starving. She needed calories.
Below them, the crowd roared, and they smashed windows up and down the street.
“Come on, Darcy,” Ashleigh whispered. “Let’s go inside.”
“Darcy?” Tommy asked. “Why did you call her Darcy?”
“That’s my name, Mr. Angel, sir,” Darcy said.
“You relax, too,” Ashleigh said to Tommy. She led Darcy inside and shot Tommy a warning glance back over her shoulder. “Darcy, you look so troubled.”
“Will someone just tell me where we are?”
“We’re in a safe place. Sit down on this nice bed and relax.” Ashleigh guided her to the bed. “Good. Now just lie back and close your eyes.” She pushed a little more love into the girl.
“But…” Darcy said.
“Sh,” Ashleigh said. “You just stay right there. When you feel a little better, we’ll explain everything. Remember, we’re angels. We’ll watch over you. Just close those pretty eyes and relax now.”
“Okay.” Darcy closed her eyes.
Ashleigh picked up Esmeralda’s purse—she would need the girl’s driver’s license and the rest of her identity. Then she glanced at Darcy’s big canvas purse. Her two-hundred-thousand-dollar PayPal card was in there, and assorted other things she might want. She dropped Esmeralda’s purse inside it, then slung the big purse over her shoulder.
“Okay,” Ashleigh said. “Let’s go, Tommy.”
“What’s happening here?” Tommy leaned in close, looking into her eyes. “Ashleigh?”
“We decided to leave poor Darcy to her own life,” Ashleigh said. “Esmeralda agreed I could share her body, for now.”
“I don’t know if she would agree to that,” Tommy said.
“Tommy! Esmeralda loves me.”
“Making people feel love is your power.”
“That really hurts,” Ashleigh said. “You know how hard it is going through life, not sure whether somebody loves you for you, or just because your stupid magic touch makes them feel that way?”
“I never thought of that.”
“The three of us belong together, Tommy,” Ashleigh said. “I know she loves me because we all love each other. It’s not a trick. It’s a thousand lifetimes together. You’ll understand. I’ll tell you all about it. But right now we have to get the fuck out of Dodge before Jenny Mittens turns it all the way up and kills the whole city with us still inside it. Okay?”
Tommy looked at Darcy lolling on the bed, and then he looked carefully at Ashleigh.
“I guess I don’t have a choice,” he said.
“That’s right. Come on. It’s time for Jenny to show the whole world what a horrible thing she is.”
Ashleigh led the way into the hall, and Tommy closed the door behind them.
As Jenny stared into bright spotlight from the police car, a sudden, profound fear came over her. It was dread and paranoia and confusion all mixed together. The crowd around her suddenly reminded her of the lynch mob in Fallen Oak, the wave of mounting tension just before the explosion, when they’d killed Seth and tried to kill Jenny.
Her heart pounded in her chest, and she panicked and ran away from the police.
“It’s the girl wearing the gloves!” a voice boomed high above her. Jenny looked up toward the voice, which actually seemed to come from the roof of the Mandrake House, or maybe one of the darkened balconies. “See her? She’s the one! You have to get her! You have to stop her! You have to kill her!”
All around Jenny, the unfriendly faces of the crowd turned toward her, like they were compass needles and Jenny was magnetic north. They pointed at Jenny.