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with the gargoyle’s junk TV obsession,” Nathaniel said dryly.
    “What did he make you watch?”
    “ American Idol . I was unwilling to actually gouge my eyes out, but I strongly considered it many times.”
    I snorted. “You got off easy. You should see some of the other garbage he watches.”
    “No, thank you,” he replied, and then we both went silent as he finally found a channel with the words BREAKING NEWS in the top corner.
    As earlier, the shot was an aerial view of the Loop. Any smart reporters were staying away from on-the-ground coverage. This shot was better taken from above, in any case.
    It showed the Michigan Avenue bridge that ran over the Chicago River from East Wacker. The vampire horde, that ravenous seething mass, had pushed up to the river at all fronts. The Chicago River wrapped through the Loop in a lazy L curve from Lake Michigan and roughly followed the shape of Wacker Drive. The city authorities had set up sandbag walls on the northern and western sides of all the bridges. As an added precaution, the bridges had been raised.
    There was a female news anchor giving commentary, but I didn’t hear a word she said. Obviously the hope was to contain the vampires, but I wondered what was beingdone on the south side of the Loop. There was no natural geological feature at that end to keep the monsters in.
    It didn’t matter in any case. As we watched, the vampires drove a handful of human survivors before them. The people were screaming, desperate, and when they reached the bridges they howled for the police and soldiers on the other side to help them.
    Instead, the vampires surged from behind, overtaking them. And the soldiers fired into the crowd. I turned my head away.
    “They have no choice,” Nathaniel said. “Those people are all dead in any case, whether at the teeth of vampires or the bullets of humans.”
    “That doesn’t make it any easier for me to watch the government kill its own citizens,” I said.
    “You cannot save them,” he said.
    “Yeah, I know,” I said.
    “No,” he said, and turned me to face him. “I need you to understand this. You cannot save them, or most of the other people in the city, either. This is a hemorrhaging wound and you cannot staunch the bleeding.”
    I looked into his eyes, pale as winter, so very unlike Gabriel’s.
    “I can’t stand by. I have to do something,” I said.
    “Why not? Why do you need to sacrifice yourself in some Quixotic quest to save humanity?” He pointed to the TV. “This is what you want to preserve? Reality TV? Big Macs?”
    “It doesn’t matter if you hold us in contempt. It doesn’t matter if we eat junky food and watch junky TV. It doesn’t matter if we’re desperate, selfish or vain. It doesn’t matter if we’re loving, giving and modest. It doesn’t matter if we’re not perfect. Anyway, I’ve yet to meet an angel who is.”
    “You are talking as if you are one of them,” he said. “You are not. You are more than they are.”
    “No, I’m not,” I said. “I’m human. And I’m not going to stand by and watch my own kind be wiped from the planet.”
    Nathaniel turned back to the spectacle on the television screen. “You may not have a choice.”

3
    THE NEWS HAD RETURNED FROM A COMMERCIAL break. Now the footage showed the surging vampires leaping over the raised bridges and assaulting the fortified roadblocks. The positions were quickly overwhelmed.
    Suddenly there was a massive explosion behind the sandbagged wall set up on Michigan Avenue. It wasn’t clear who had set the explosives but there was a tremendous ball of fire where the National Guard used to be.
    Flame whooshed through the crowd of vampires, and the eerie piercing wail that rose up was the sound of the death throes of monsters. The vamps that hadn’t yet leapt over the bridge paused for a moment as their brethren turned to ash.
    “Those soldiers sacrificed themselves for the greater good,” I said. “How can I do any