For he will command his angels concerning you
to guard you in all your ways.
On their hands they will bear you up,
so that you will not dash your foot against a stone.— Psalm 91, Vv 11-12
With Atoziel and Helophel establishing their alibi in Bradford, Magariel enjoying a concert, and Blakely doing his forensics, Excel and Boriel find themselves at something of a loose end. Being Servitors of Lightening, they decide to find out what Alex's reaction to the attack on the club is by bugging his house, basically by sneaking up and attaching a bug to his front window. They find Alex and Amanda having a smoochy evening, showing no evidence of having heard that anything has happened at Giuseppe's. After listening for a while they decide to resonate.
Excel determines that Alex does actually believe that he loves Amanda — at least for now, the Seraph adds darkly — and then has something of a revelation about Amanda. She does love Alex very much, but thought for a while that he was not close to her at all. She couldn't blame him for that, since she has had (and still has) other infatuations, and had resorted to streetwalking to make ends meet. Since then, she has come to the conclusion that he is just undemonstrative, except in bed where he — and she — is very good.
Boriel has less success, drawing a blank with Alex, but getting a good solid resonance on Amanda, much to everyone's surprise. Amid suggestions of overspill from Excel's intervention, Boriel learns that she has been a hooker (which she considers bad); a good mother (good); has let her fancy wander (dishonourable); has hooked Alex (honourable); has lost mail while working as a temp that saved trouble at that firm (honourable); and has deliberately lost someone's paycheque (dishonourable, however much he deserved it).
At around 2am the concert finishes, and Magariel decides to ping her resonance on David to make sure that he isn't in imminent danger. He isn't — but he is in short term danger. Something will happen within a matter of days, on a rather shorter scale than will happen to Jennifer. This is alarming. After breaking up with the other kids, she goes to an all-night cafe and starts on another project — writing a slushy romance story so that she has an excuse to track Jennifer's mother in her professional capacity.
Eventually the angels meet back up to discuss matters. There is a lot of discussion as to how and whether to kill Alex/Hezekiah; Excel's opinion is that Amanda would be more hurt by his death than by the relationship, while Magariel knows from conversation that David puts up with him but doesn't think much of his mother's choice in boyfriends. After some argument, these two convince the others to try to redeem Alex.
During the day, Magariel engages in a reverend rite of shared joy with Helophel — oh alright, they have sex — before checking into the YMCA as Maggie and switching vessels to Ralph. There is much amusement at the morning papers, which have caught up on the story of the attack on the club and are having a field day with reports of the "Black Leather Assassin" at work. Some of the more imaginative reporters are linking the deaths to other gangland murders in the Chinese community, Helophel's vessel being distinctly oriental. Blakely is delighted when the forensics team discovers tiny traces of blood in the boot of Giuseppe's car; it had been cleaned very well, but not quite well enough.
Mid-afternoon, Magariel suddenly becomes aware that David is in immediate danger, and hurries over to Beverly Road. His resonance leads him to the school at the end of the road, where some building was being done over the Christmas break. Some of the scaffolding is down, and Magariel can just barely hear the echoes of a Disturbance. The police are already present, and to Magariel's consternation PC Wells is one of them. Getting closer, Magariel sees Amanda arrive, and also see that David is trapped under the scaffolding by his legs, with Zack (who had obviously been helping him) in a rather worse state. Jennifer is also there, dazed but otherwise unharmed.
At around this time, Helophel in her guise as the quiet oriental cleaning lady notices that Alex gets a phone call at work which sends him hurrying out. She wastes no time in phoning Atoziel, who trails the demon. Alex arrives in Beverly Road and starts comforting Amanda, who is in turn comforting David, who is shocky and worried more about Zack than himself. Atoziel also arrives and is spotted by Magariel, who briefs him then stations him to keep the rest of the angel pack off the site, to avoid being any more suspicious than they already are. Magariel then returns to the scene, where paying attention to Amanda's obvious distress, Alex starts comforting David himself. After a little dithering (at David's obvious distress) he also checks out the badly hurt Zack. There is a small Disturbance from Alex, and to Magariel's questing eyes Zack seems to be a bit better. Magariel also notices that PC Wells seems to have noticed this, though he can't tell whether or not Wells heard the Disturbance.
Eventually the ambulance arrives, and the boys are carefully extracted from the collapsed scaffolding. The paramedic's verdict is that David is bruised but fundamentally unbroken, while Zack was "bloody lucky." The pair are taken to hospital; Jennifer tries to go with them but is flatly forbidden.
Magariel and Blakely arrange that Blakely will tell Maggie when he officially knows that this has happened. While they are waiting, Boriel fits them with wires so that he can listen in. Meanwhile Atoziel heads off to resume his investigations into Wells' background.
Eventually Blakely finds out about the accident (since it involves the sister of someone recently murdered, DS Martins doesn't rule out the possibility that the two were related), and gives Magariel a reason to swap vessels yet again and go to the hospital. There she finds the boys sitting up in neighbouring beds in a private room, with Alex and Amanda attending. Conversation is somewhat muted at this time.