"s.h.i.+t, you're kidding me? Two hot blondes with shotguns? Sweet Jesus." He glanced over at Father Peter. "No offense, Father Priest."

Father PeterZ3D felt just shook his head.

Unbelievably, the other hot blonde showed up fifteen minutes later. She was, as ever, dressed in her cheerleading outfit, which was, of course, deeply impractical, but I supposed no more so than wearing a fis.h.i.+ng vest with no s.h.i.+rt. She made a big show of the fact that she was doing us a great favor by sighing hard upon stepping out of her car and taking in the scenery with a shake of her head.

"Nice," she said in a way that implied the total opposite. She joined our group and gave us a once over. "Seriously?"

Seriously.

"Hey, Lacy. Glad you could join us," I said as warmly as I could.

"This is your army?"

"Yup." Pretending like it was a sincere question, I moved on to the introductions. "So you probably remember the Alexander brothers." She looked at them blankly. "And of course you know Father Peter and Gabe..." Wild Frank cleared his throat loudly, and I sighed. "And Frank Tinsley."

"Y'all can't be serious." She folded her arms across her chest and glared at me.

"Less is more," I said not quite believing it. "We can't have too many folks, otherwise we'd draw suspicion."

"Oh, can it, Riley. It has nothing to do with that. This was all you could find."

"Fine, yes, maybe you're right. But I still think we can do this," I said, my voice getting higher in pitch. I felt a hand on my shoulder, and I knew it was Gabe trying to calm me down.

"Lacy, you don't have to help," said Gabe. "But let us just tell you the story and then you can make up your mind."

Gabe seemed to cool her down a little, and she shrugged, I guess in agreement. Our little team gathered around the dock, which Gabe had reinforced and didn't look like it was going to collapse under our weight anymore.

Then it was time to tell the story, or at least the story as Gabe knew it. I left out all the same stuff, that Gabe had been a slave and so on. It felt a bit too private. And not necessary to convince them of my plan. I was glad Father Peter already knew the story and that I had Gabe to help me. He was amazing at making anything seem plausible and at easing people's reactions. Which was really useful when I explained everything. 'Course it helped that we were a town that had been dealing with these angels for six years now. It made almost anything fantastical totally possible: Gabe was from the 50s? Well, with the help of those old yearbooks and just the way Gabe was and talked every day...Sure, why not? Used to be an angel, now just a guy? Makes sense. Our angels aren't really angels after all? I knew it! We'd like to use these "angels" as target practice..."h.e.l.l yeah!" Well...at least we had Wild Frank on our side.

'Course it wasn't that simple, really. You could tell they were all a bit overwhelmed with everything we were telling them, but they recovered from the shock pretty darn quickly. All things considered.

"You really think if we shoot them down, we can save them?" asked Curtis after the long quiet that followed the story.

"I do," I replied. "It's what happened with Gabe at least, like killing them frees them to be human again or something. I think that there must be something special about the time and day they come. Maybe they only have a brief window of opportunity to come into our world, which is why they don't show up more often. So they look like these angel things, and then you kill them, and since they affected by our powero m felt 're dead or whatever they don't have power or magic anymore. Then when that window closes, they turn back into humans. I mean, that seems to be what happened to Gabe."

"What do you mean by window?" asked John.

"I dunno, like a crack between our world and theirs..."

Everyone sat and thought about that quietly for a while.

"I could be wrong..." I said when no one said anything.

"Makes sense," said Gabe finally. "Makes a lot of sense."

"d.a.m.n good sense," said Wild Frank enthusiastically.

"How exactly are we going to shoot these angels?" asked Lacy. It was an annoying question, only because that was probably our biggest challenge.

"We train," replied Gabe.

"We've got almost four months. That gives us a lot of time," I added.

"We should maybe figure out what everyone's level is," said John, "before creating a plan."

"Good idea," I said. I liked how everyone seemed pretty keen to get going.

Even Lacy seemed like she was interested, asking questions in a sarcastic tone that you knew she actually meant sincerely: "So, how're we going to do that, then?"

"I guess we pick a target and shoot," said Father Peter.

It was a practical suggestion. Gabe wandered over to where he'd been sitting on the porch and opened up a plastic bag. He took out a stack of paper plates.

"Figure we could tack them on to a tree, test aim and accuracy," he said. "Let's use the rifles for that." We agreed, and he and Curtis set about finding a good tree in the brush with some distance to it and attaching the plate.

Lacy wandered over to me as they were doing all this. Any time she paid any attention to me, I automatically felt nervous. And defensive.

"I can't shoot," she said quietly.

"What?"

"I can't shoot."

"I thought you said you went hunting with your dad?" I turned to look at her and was surprised to see a look of serious concern in her eyes.

"I've been with him. Twice. Was never allowed to touch the gun. Not something a lady does."

"Why'd you-"

"I lied, okay? I lied. I...didn't know, when you asked, why you were asking. Then, when you told me, I...wanted to help." She seemed deeply ashamed to admit that last part.

I sighed. "Lacy. I've only shot a gun myself half a dozen times. Not sure if Gabe has ever. That's why we're giving ourselves this much time. Look, you're head cheerleader, you have amazing coordination, and you're really disciplined. You'll be fine." Lacy nodded, but I could tell she was feeling unsure. "Okay," I said, "I'll go first, and you can see that I really don't have that much experience, okay?"

Lacy finally made eye contact with me again and gave me the world's tiniest smile. Then she turned and marched off to join the other two Alexander brothers, who seemed very happy to see her.

"Okay, we're all set up," said Curtis, as he and Gabe returned. "Who's first?"

There was a sudden loud blast from the barrel of a gun, and everyone ducked for cover.

"Frank!" yelled Daniel affected by our powermo, felt .

"d.a.m.n, missed!" said Wild Frank aiming the shotgun again.

"Stop!" said John rus.h.i.+ng over and pus.h.i.+ng the gun to one side. "'Course you missed, firing that thing."

"You can't just shoot," added Daniel his hand on his head. "We gotta take turns."

Wild Frank looked at John for a moment, then nodded and lowered his weapon.

"Well..." said Gabe, "who's second?"

I glanced over at Lacy. "Me," I said standing up. I walked over to where Gabe and Curtis were waiting, and Curtis handed me his rifle.

"I've loaded it for you," he said "Thanks," I replied, taking it. "So what do I do?" I asked.

"Disengage the safety," said Curtis showing me.

"Then aim and shoot," said Gabe.

"Aim and shoot." I lifted the rifle just as Chris had shown me way back when. It felt different from a shotgun. Having a scope was definitely handy. I looked down it and the white plate tacked to the tree around 50 feet away through the thick brush came into focus.

I thought of Chris, standing behind me, calmly showing me what to do. It reminded me why I was doing any of this in the first place.

I aimed.

I shot.

It felt different, pulling the rifle's trigger. And the sound still shocked me. But I knew I was already getting used to shooting when the recoil really didn't get to me at all this time.

"I think she hit it!" said Daniel, as I lowered the rifle.

I laughed. "Thanks for the support. You don't have to say that, though."

"No, I think you did," he replied.

I shook my head. I was glad Gabe had asked the Alexander brothers to help out. They were awfully sweet.

Wild Frank took off and crashed through the brush toward the plate to check it out, running like his life depended on it. We all watched him. He was pretty entertaining to have around when he wasn't holding a loaded weapon.

He arrived at the plate and stood still for a moment. Then: "Holy s.h.i.+t!"

"Everything okay, Frank?" called Father Peter.

"She just hit the thing d.a.m.n square in the middle, is all!" he called back.

Uh...

"So you don't know what you're doing?" asked Lacy with a look.

"I don't, I really don't. Beginner's luck, I swear," I replied in a bit of a panic.

"Sure." Lacy turned and started to walk away.

"Look, let me do it again," I said to her and she stopped. I turned to Gabe. "Let me do it again."

"Sure," he said. "Frank, get out of the way, she's doing it again."

"Yes, sir!" Wild Frank scurried far to the side.

I raised the gun again and looked through the scope. I debated purposely missing the target, but I figured it wasn't likely I could hit it twice in a row anyway.

I aimed.

I shot.

Wild Frank ran over to the target in that same frantic way. He looked. "d.a.m.n," he called out, "she missed!"

I looked at Lacy and shrugged. "See?" She rolled her eyes.

"Wait!" We all turned to look back at Wild Frank. the tears welled up3D felt "Hot d.a.m.n! Hot doggy d.a.m.n!"

"What is it?" asked Curtis.

"She didn't miss at all. Hot d.a.m.n! Girl hit the exact same spot!"

"Not possible," I said. "That's not possible, Frank," I yelled over to him.

Wild Frank ripped the plate off the tree and was rus.h.i.+ng toward us, his hair flying out behind him. "Look," he said panting when he finally reached us.

I looked, there was a hole in the middle, but it really didn't look like I'd hit it again.

"s.h.i.+t," said Curtis and he looked at me with awe.

"What are you guys seeing?" I asked. Everyone had gathered around it now, even Father Peter.

"The hole," said Gabe, "look close. It ain't a perfect circle."

"Doesn't mean anything..." I said.

"That's definitely two shots," said Father Peter, and for some reason, because he said it, I finally believed them.

"Well..." I said. "It was just crazy luck."

"I don't td Daniel.

"Come on," said Lacy. "Of course it was luck. She's not some gun prodigy or anything." Even though I knew she was saying it to hurt me, I was actually grateful for her support.

"Exactly," I said.

"Only one way to see," said Curtis. "Let's put it back up, another tree, maybe another ten feet." Gabe nodded in agreement and Curtis was off.

"This is stupid," I said, feeling really uncomfortable now, the way everyone was staring at me.

"This is awesome!" said Wild Frank and wrapped a tight arm around my shoulder. "Our very own Calamity Jane!"

Well, he had the calamity part right, at any rate.

"'Kay, all set up," called Curtis from within the brush. He ran to the side, a pretty far distance-didn't blame him-and I raised up the gun again.