His first thought was of Alondra. He couldn’t wait to see her.

His second was of his Ivelisse and his other two girls. They would be heartbroken. They had barely recovered from the family’s first tragedy—how would they get through his death, too, especially as it was so random, so unlucky… and on another slippery, snowy night.

His third was that this was so unfair. He had led a just life. He had loved his wife and honored her. He had cherished his children. He had worked hard and been honest and done his level best to do unto others as he would have them do unto him. How could this happen—

Time stopped.

It was the best way to describe the indescribable.

Everything just halted where it was: The speeding semi, his fall, the pedestrians racing to get out of the way, the spinning tires of the BMW. Everything just… stopped.

Except for the snow.

The snow still fell, landing with weightless grace on what was now a tableau of chaos. And the figure in front of the BMW, the transparent, there-but-not-there figure turned its head and looked at Raul. The man’s face was so beautiful that tears sprang to Raul’s eyes, joining the snow, falling, falling, onto the ground he would never meet because he was going to be swept away by the truck’s grille.

And that was when Raul saw the whole truth.

The man was no man, and he was no ghost, either. He was an angel, with long blond and black hair that licked up around him as if it were playing in the snow, and wings, great gossamer, shimmering, rainbow-colored wings that rose up from behind his shoulders. And he had the aura, too. The glow about him, the heavenly light emanating from his form, was just as the images had always portrayed, and that glorious illumination was evidence that the afterlife was real and whoever was in charge of the universe was a beneficent God indeed, one who sent servants unto the earth that had been created, to caretake the fragile mortals that were no mistake of the cosmos, no accident of electrons and neutrons and protons colliding in a vast, cold void, but rather a conscious choice made with love.

Thus, Raul was saved from death.

He wept openly as the angel extended a hand to him, a kind and gentle hand, to right his fall, to correct his path, to rescue his life. The contact was both made and unmade, for though there was distance between them, Raul felt the touch, and it was warm, it was both mother and father, it was that of a superior being making sure that a child was not hurt by its silly absence of attention.

As he felt his body righted and moved far back on to the sidewalk, he was flooded with relief and gratitude. This unlikely moment of deliverance now confirmed the faith that had carried him through the deaths of so many, and especially of his Alondra. Yes, he thought with joy, his beloved daughter, taken too soon, was in a safe and happy eternity, and he would see her again, and the reunion would be of such exultation that any suffering on the earth below would be as the falling snow, passing quickly and of little consequence.

The angel smiled at him.

In Raul’s head, he heard a voice, deep and full of authority: Worry not, my friend. There are good years ahead for you, and when you are called home, you will be welcomed by those you miss most.

And then the angel disappeared and the world resumed its spin.

The truck whizzed by, horn blaring, waves of snow splashed out of its way as it careened through the intersection. The pedestrians cursed and yelled, shaking their fists, stamping their feet. The BMW’s wheels gained traction, and it crossed into what would have been a path of death and destruction.

Raul slammed into something behind him. A building. A granite building. Another bank, he supposed with a dim thought.

“Hey, you okay, my man?” somebody asked. “Jesus Christ, you nearly bought the farm.”

Raul said something back. Or at least he thought he did. All he could be sure of was that there was a sheet of ice on his cheeks, his tears crystallizing from the cold, the wind, the winter. He went to brush them off—

His little leather box, the one with the cross his lovely wife was going to yell at him for bringing home, was against his palm. Even though he had seen it fly from his hold in the second before he almost died.

A miracle, he thought as he looked at it.

He had received a Christmas miracle. Just in a nick of time.

CHAPTER TWO

Holy fuck,” Trez yelled as a semitrailer truck the size of a building went blasting past the front bumper of his brand-new BMW.

Like right past. Like… nearly peeling off the hood of the damned car.

As his four-wheel drive, heavily treaded snow tires abruptly grabbed at that which they had been spinning on, and a pedestrian who’d slipped suddenly righted himself out of the way of the truck, Trez decided that the definition of in-the-nick-of-time was exactly what just happened. If he’d been able to go when the light had turned, if that pedestrian hadn’t caught himself just when he had, they would both have been filing their termination papers tonight.

Which was kind of ironic.

Because about a split second prior to the almost-catastrophe going down, Trez had been debating whether or not to just drive on. And not merely through the intersection.

Having spent two decades in Caldwell, watching with his Shadow eyes the way a couple generations of humans built up the city, he knew exactly where this particular street in this particular section of town ended up.

At the Hudson River.

So if he hit the gas and kept on a direct, nonwavering course until the street ended, he could take a Fast & Furious jump off the concrete embankment under one of Caldie’s two bridges. The BMW would not last long in the free fall, the sleek car having been built to fly over asphalt, not literally fly, and soon enough, both he and all this expensive steel, leather, and plastic would be sinking beneath the cold, sluggish waters of the Hudson.

As his eyes had flashed peridot, his brain had imagined what it would be like. At first, the water would infiltrate through seams and vents, a trickle, not a rush. But that would change as he used the last of the electrical system’s power to lower the windows. After that, he would sit and wait for his drowning to take place, probably with his hands still on the wheel, maybe not, his seat belt remaining pulled across his chest, his clothes dampening and then clinging to his warm body with the clammy touch of the corpse he would soon become.

He would not struggle. He would keep his eyes open. He imagined himself feeling a calmness that had been missing since all the light in his world went out in that hospital room about twenty miles, and some distance underground, away from where he himself would die. He would be so relieved. Even as the water reached his throat, then proceeded over his mouth and into his nose and ears, even as his body temperature tried to rally against the icy submersion and failed to conserve any warmth, even as his air supply dwindled to that which was in his lungs and no more, he would be at peace.

The death throes, when they came—and they would, for his body was, as all were, evolutionarily adapted for survival, the conscious mind in charge only up to a dire point, whereupon autonomic function took over and things went haywire—would thrash him about in the bucket seat, throwing his head forward and back, his mouth opening and drawing in water as a reflex, as a desperate hope that his lungs were merely being denied oxygen as opposed to there being none available to them. He was under no illusions that it would be easy. There would be suffering from the suffocation, burning inside his body, perhaps even some last-moment panic kicked over his mortal transom by the lizard part of his brain. irst thought was of Alondra. He couldn’t wait to see her.

His second was of his Ivelisse and his other two girls. They would be heartbroken. They had barely recovered from the family’s first tragedy—how would they get through his death, too, especially as it was so random, so unlucky… and on another slippery, snowy night.

His third was that this was so unfair. He had led a just life. He had loved his wife and honored her. He had cherished his children. He had worked hard and been honest and done his level best to do unto others as he would have them do unto him. How could this happen—

Time stopped.

It was the best way to describe the indescribable.

Everything just halted where it was: The speeding semi, his fall, the pedestrians racing to get out of the way, the spinning tires of the BMW. Everything just… stopped.

Except for the snow.

The snow still fell, landing with weightless grace on what was now a tableau of chaos. And the figure in front of the BMW, the transparent, there-but-not-there figure turned its head and looked at Raul. The man’s face was so beautiful that tears sprang to Raul’s eyes, joining the snow, falling, falling, onto the ground he would never meet because he was going to be swept away by the truck’s grille.

And that was when Raul saw the whole truth.

The man was no man, and he was no ghost, either. He was an angel, with long blond and black hair that licked up around him as if it were playing in the snow, and wings, great gossamer, shimmering, rainbow-colored wings that rose up from behind his shoulders. And he had the aura, too. The glow about him, the heavenly light emanating from his form, was just as the images had always portrayed, and that glorious illumination was evidence that the afterlife was real and whoever was in charge of the universe was a beneficent God indeed, one who sent servants unto the earth that had been created, to caretake the fragile mortals that were no mistake of the cosmos, no accident of electrons and neutrons and protons colliding in a vast, cold void, but rather a conscious choice made with love.

Thus, Raul was saved from death.

He wept openly as the angel extended a hand to him, a kind and gentle hand, to right his fall, to correct his path, to rescue his life. The contact was both made and unmade, for though there was distance between them, Raul felt the touch, and it was warm, it was both mother and father, it was that of a superior being making sure that a child was not hurt by its silly absence of attention.

As he felt his body righted and moved far back on to the sidewalk, he was flooded with relief and gratitude. This unlikely moment of deliverance now confirmed the faith that had carried him through the deaths of so many, and especially of his Alondra. Yes, he thought with joy, his beloved daughter, taken too soon, was in a safe and happy eternity, and he would see her again, and the reunion would be of such exultation that any suffering on the earth below would be as the falling snow, passing quickly and of little consequence.

The angel smiled at him.

In Raul’s head, he heard a voice, deep and full of authority: Worry not, my friend. There are good years ahead for you, and when you are called home, you will be welcomed by those you miss most.

And then the angel disappeared and the world resumed its spin.

The truck whizzed by, horn blaring, waves of snow splashed out of its way as it careened through the intersection. The pedestrians cursed and yelled, shaking their fists, stamping their feet. The BMW’s wheels gained traction, and it crossed into what would have been a path of death and destruction.

Raul slammed into something behind him. A building. A granite building. Another bank, he supposed with a dim thought.

“Hey, you okay, my man?” somebody asked. “Jesus Christ, you nearly bought the farm.”

Raul said something back. Or at least he thought he did. All he could be sure of was that there was a sheet of ice on his cheeks, his tears crystallizing from the cold, the wind, the winter. He went to brush them off—

His little leather box, the one with the cross his lovely wife was going to yell at him for bringing home, was against his palm. Even though he had seen it fly from his hold in the second before he almost died.

A miracle, he thought as he looked at it.

He had received a Christmas miracle. Just in a nick of time.

CHAPTER TWO

Holy fuck,” Trez yelled as a semitrailer truck the size of a building went blasting past the front bumper of his brand-new BMW.

Like right past. Like… nearly peeling off the hood of the damned car.

As his four-wheel drive, heavily treaded snow tires abruptly grabbed at that which they had been spinning on, and a pedestrian who’d slipped suddenly righted himself out of the way of the truck, Trez decided that the definition of in-the-nick-of-time was exactly what just happened. If he’d been able to go when the light had turned, if that pedestrian hadn’t caught himself just when he had, they would both have been filing their termination papers tonight.

Which was kind of ironic.

Because about a split second prior to the almost-catastrophe going down, Trez had been debating whether or not to just drive on. And not merely through the intersection.

Having spent two decades in Caldwell, watching with his Shadow eyes the way a couple generations of humans built up the city, he knew exactly where this particular street in this particular section of town ended up.

At the Hudson River.

So if he hit the gas and kept on a direct, nonwavering course until the street ended, he could take a Fast & Furious jump off the concrete embankment under one of Caldie’s two bridges. The BMW would not last long in the free fall, the sleek car having been built to fly over asphalt, not literally fly, and soon enough, both he and all this expensive steel, leather, and plastic would be sinking beneath the cold, sluggish waters of the Hudson.

As his eyes had flashed peridot, his brain had imagined what it would be like. At first, the water would infiltrate through seams and vents, a trickle, not a rush. But that would change as he used the last of the electrical system’s power to lower the windows. After that, he would sit and wait for his drowning to take place, probably with his hands still on the wheel, maybe not, his seat belt remaining pulled across his chest, his clothes dampening and then clinging to his warm body with the clammy touch of the corpse he would soon become.

He would not struggle. He would keep his eyes open. He imagined himself feeling a calmness that had been missing since all the light in his world went out in that hospital room about twenty miles, and some distance underground, away from where he himself would die. He would be so relieved. Even as the water reached his throat, then proceeded over his mouth and into his nose and ears, even as his body temperature tried to rally against the icy submersion and failed to conserve any warmth, even as his air supply dwindled to that which was in his lungs and no more, he would be at peace.

The death throes, when they came—and they would, for his body was, as all were, evolutionarily adapted for survival, the conscious mind in charge only up to a dire point, whereupon autonomic function took over and things went haywire—would thrash him about in the bucket seat, throwing his head forward and back, his mouth opening and drawing in water as a reflex, as a desperate hope that his lungs were merely being denied oxygen as opposed to there being none available to them. He was under no illusions that it would be easy. There would be suffering from the suffocation, burning inside his body, perhaps even some last-moment panic kicked over his mortal transom by the lizard part of his brain.