It ended up being a damned gas station.

Of course, angels didn’t actually use gasoline…it was basically a place where they could buy whatever kind of energy powered their wings. Either way, it did not look big enough to contain Knell or anyone.

I asked Blare to “slip” underneath the building to make sure there wasn’t some hidden laboratory on the premises. She found absolutely nothing.

“Dude, I think we’ve been conned…” she said, coming up through the ground.

I was too furious to even reply. I should have known. It was just like Toll to give me a fake address. No wonder no one answered my calls.

That snake. That 7-foot pile of filth. Next time I saw his smug face I swore I would kick it in.

“So, what now? We pay a visit to your ‘space girlfriend’?” Blare asked.

“At the risk of sounding cliché, she is not my girlfriend. But at this point, she is our only hope of finding Knell.”

It took us a few hours of wandering, but we eventually found Peal’s apartment. I didn’t know if it was what angels did, but I knocked on the door.

No answer.

“Alright, leave it to me,” said Blare, cracking her knuckles. “I’ll pop in there and let you in from the inside. Just gimme a sec.”

She disappeared into the door. When she opened it, she looked as if she’d seen a ghost. “Uh, dude…I think something’s wrong with your space girlfriend…” she said.

As soon as I stepped inside, I saw what she meant. Peal was sprawled out on the floor in the dark, murmuring incoherently.

When she saw me, she cracked a faint smile. “Fancy seeing you here,” she said. “I swear, I wanted to answer the door, but as you can see these days I am not capable of…much…”

I went over to her and picked her up. Her body was so light; it was like picking up a blanket.

“What’s…wrong with her…?” I wondered aloud.

“Maybe she’s drunk,” answered Blare. “She looks just like my mom on Saturday mornings.”

“Drunk? No, no, I’m not,” Peal muttered. “Not anymore, anyway…”

She squirmed out of my arms and picked up a box from the floor. She shook it. “Great. I’m out of patches,” she said. “I guess now I’ll just be miserable forever and die.”

Her fingertips and elbows were deep blue, as well as her toes, knees, and even the tip of her nose. Her hair was so lifeless that it hung straight down over her shoulders.

She was obviously depressed.

I sighed. “Do you…want to talk about it?”

“But I already did,” she whined. “Everything happened the way I said it would: Saint Toll gave me the boot and now I’ll never be a scientist. So I decided I’ll just…lie here and languish until I run out of money and they ship me back Home...”

“Is that really what you want?”

“No…but what I did want has already been ripped away from me. Nothing matters anymore…”

She sank into a chair and draped her hair over her face. I did feel bad for her…but I still had to get what I came for.

“Peal, there is still something that matters,” I told her. “And if you ever cared for Knell at all, you’ll pull yourself together and help us out.”

She brushed her hair off one of her eyes. “Oh, I almost forgot about him,” she said. “I guess he’s having an even worse time than I am, if he’s even still alive…and he was so cute, too…”

“I have faith that he’s still alive. But if we ever want to know for sure, we need your help to find him. You worked with Saint Toll for years; do you have any idea where he might have taken him?”

“Well…Knell is like a dangerous animal, isn’t he? So he’s probably on the lower levels…that lab on Level 4 was built specifically for Earth zoology studies; if I were Saint Toll I would keep him there.”

“Finally, we’re gettin’ somewhere,” said Blare. “Just give us all the info you have on this lab, and we’ll be outta your hair.”

As if on cue, Peal’s hair began to float again. “No…I want to go with you! After all, I’ve always done my best work out in the field!”

“Peal, you don’t have to do that. It might even make things worse for you,” I warned. “If you get caught with us, you could lose more than your job.”

“So could you.”

“I don’t have a choice. Knell is depending on me.”

“Well, I was hoping Knell could depend on me, too,” she said, rising from her chair. “After all, I said I wanted to be friends with all kinds of creatures. Angels, demons, half-demons, humans…”

She wrapped her arms around my neck. “Come on, Clarion; don’t shut me out. The moral stuff is good for my neurotransmitters.”

She gave me a peck on the cheek, then slipped off into another room.

Blare smirked. “…Yup. Space girlfriend~.”