The Wrath of Angels

While much of the timeline of the Charlie Parker series is undetermined, this book makes it clear that much of the action takes place in 2002. With the date of publication at 2012, we can surmise that Charlie Parker's narration of his tale is about 10 years after the events.

Lorem ipsum

## Synopsis

### Part I - I prefer winter and fall...

It is late fall, and Parker meets with two people at the Great Lost Bear who tell a strange story. First, Marielle Vetters tells Parker how her father Harlan rescued a boy in the woods a few years ago who talked about a girl in the middle of the forest who wanted the boy to come and play with her. Then she and Ernie Scollay tell Parker that Harlan and Paul Scollay (Ernie's brother) found a plane outside of their town of Falls End in the Great North Woods many years previously while tracking a deer they had shot. They found a large amount of money in the wreckage and took it, along with a satchel of pages of a list, and a newspaper that dated the wreck from a year previously in July 2001. They then remembered that a strange but beautiful woman named Darina Flores came around asking about a plane, and came with a fat, ugly man with a huge goiter. Parker immediately realizes this was Brightwell.

Marielle continues and tells about the time Brightwell showed up again, this time threatening Harlan and her mother Angeline - who had Parkinsons and Alzheimers. In the middle of this encounter, Angeline woke up and confronted Brightwell in a voice "deeper than her own," telling Brightwell to that "he'll find and destroy you.... Fear him." When Brightwell ran off, Angeline told Harlan to find Charlie Parker. Parker confesses that he killed Brightwell. They give him a page of the list that Harlan had secreted away.

The scene switches to a Barbara Kelly. She sees a woman stuck on the side of the road with a sickly boy, and hatches a plot to abduct them. She lures the woman and the boy into the car and takes them back to her house to warm up. Through the interaction, we learn that Barbara Kelly is an agent of the Believers - she had met Brightwell - but was recently diagnosed with cancer, and was trying to repent. The woman identifies herself as Darina Flores and Barbara understands that Darina is there to punish her. She attempts to flee, blinding Flores before Darina and the boy catch her. The boy is revealed to have a goiter.

### Part II - What beck'ning ghost...

A couple lost in the woods is killed by a man in the middle of the Great North Woods. Before she dies, the woman notices a great collection of crows, strange symbols covering ripped out pages of holy books, and "fallen idols" - images of different gods that had been desecrated.

Parker investigates the list, and sees that it contains a collection of people, some with figures of money, some with notations of Contacted, Accepted, or Refused. Several of them had meteoric rises in their fortunes, including a conservative radio shock named Davis Tate. There is also a troika of names linked to a woman named Solene Escott, who has a twelve digit number next to her name that works out to her dates of birth and - on internet investigation - her date of death; the odd thing is that the date of death is after the July 2001 timeline when the plane went down. Her husband - Kenneth Chan - was on the list, who was noted as "Accepted." Another associate of theirs - Brandon Felice - was the only person marked "Refused," and had been killed in a random gas station hold up. The three were involved in a Department of Defense security company called Branken Developments. Shares in the company the three held together went to a firm called Pryor Investments, which had brokered a deal with the DoD when Chan retired in 2004. By 2006, Chan was dead - having been stuffed into his safe.

Parker meets Angel and Louis at the Great Lost Bear, having had them come up to Maine to resolve a case involving a woman who was being raped by her brother on a regular basis. He recruits them to help him find the airplane, which they readily agree to because of Brightwell's involvement in Louis' niece's death in the events of The Black Angel.

The scene switches to Grady Vetters - Marielle's brother - who is drinking with his friend Teddy Gattle and one of two bars in Falls End. Grady tells Teddy his father's story, and Teddy produces a business card for Darina Flores. Flores is recuperating from the burns she received at the hands of Barbara Kelly and does not get the call at first.

Parker contacts Rabbi Epstein and meets him at a kosher diner in New York. Parker fills him in on the plane and gives him a copy of the list, noting that Brightwell was after it. Epstein points out another person on the list - Calvin Buchardt - was a prototypical "white male with a conscience," better known as Calvin Book to disguise the fact that his grandfather was a virulent ne-Nazi. It turned out, however, that Calvin had been betraying his friends in liberal circles. Parker is about to leave to go to Walter Cole's, but Epstein insists he stays in Liat's apartment upstairs of the diner. Liat inspects Parker, and they have sex. The next morning, Liat and Epstein are nowhere to be found, and Epstein asks him to stay another night. Parker leaves and rendezvous with Angel and Louis.

Parker meets Epstein again that night at the kosher diner. However, the situation is more tense, and two of Epstein's "goons" join him, along with Liat, to ask Parker if he knows his true nature, insinuating that he is like Brightwell. Parker regains his composure and tells Epstein to kill him if he thinks Parker is a fallen angel, but warns him that Angel and Louis will kill them all before the night is done. Liat produces another copy of the list, this one with Parker's name on it.