Strange Angels (20 page)

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wearing my gloves or a scarf. Snow burned my hands as I tried to struggle to my feet. My bag got tangled up, and Graves cussed me a blue streak, finishing up with, “—the hell did you do that for?”

“Boy,” he continued, bouncing up off the frozen-solid drift like he was one of those weighted-at-the-bottom dolls, “you sure know how to throw a party. I’ve been bitten, beat up, tied to a bed, James Bonded out, and now you finish off by choking a goddamn teacher !”

I didn’t try to say I hadn’t been touching her. There was no point. I’d been ill-wishing her— hexing, Gran called it, and to those with the touch it wasn’t small potatoes. I was pretty good at untangling hexes and curses, but not so good at throwing them at people, mostly because Gran wouldn’t hear of it. Cain’t hex, cain’t heal , she would always mutter, especially when the men from the county were out assessing property tax. But hexin’s a strong medicine, Dru. You mind me now.

To Gran, “strong medicine” could be good or bad, just like the laxatives she was forever talking about. Good for makin’ the mail move smooth, but too much and you shit yer brains out. Mind me now, Dru.

I’d once set out to ask her how exactly such an operation as the moving of the brain out through the digestive system was accomplished, but I’d lost my nerve. Graves reached down, grabbed the front of my coat, and yanked hard enough to rip fabric, succeeding in hauling me to my feet again. “You’d better tell me what’s going on. Or I swear to God, I’ll—” He peered down at me. “Jesus Christ. You’re leaking.”

If by “leaking” he meant “sobbing like a girl,” I guess so. I wiped at my nose with my sleeve, snorted out a bray of a laugh, and went back to sobbing. Tears slicked my face, and I shoved him away. “Fuck off ! I don’t need you complicating things! I’m dead , goddammit! Don’t you get it? I’m fucking dead !”

He shook dirty snow out of his hair. “You’re not dead. You’re too goddamn annoying to be dead. Now come on. They called 911 for Bletch—I don’t think you want to be here when that starts happening.”

Jesus, why won’t you just leave mealone ?I was about to yell again, but sirens started in the distance. It was like a slap of cold water across the face, and I realized I was indeed crying completely and messily, and I was covered in dirty snow, I was pretty sure my socks didn’t match, I was a song of different aches and pains, and I hadn’t washed my hair in two days. I felt greasy and cruddy, my back felt like it was on fire, and the heavy weight in my bag was definitely not my smartest move.

I was being utterly idiotic. The realization woke me up out of whatever stupor I’d been wandering in for days now.

I hitched in a shuddering breath, trying to get some kind of calm back, failed miserably, and didn’t protest when Graves grabbed my arm and started off down the sidewalk.

“Why can’t I have a normal girlfriend?” he asked the air over his head. “I finally meet someone I like and she turns out to be crazy. Oh, well.”

“ Girlfriend?” I half-choked, almost spraying snot out of my nose. Good one, Dru. You didn’t brush your teeth today, either. Sloppy, very sloppy. I was going to break out in a huge way after all this. It was going to be Zit City on the Anderson face. But right now my cheeks were so flaming hot it didn’t matter.

He gave me a sideways glance, and I really saw the guy he was going to be in a few years

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lurking under his baby face and the wild hair. His cheekbones were going to come out and he was going to be one of those pretty half-Asians. He already had good skin, even if it was reddened by the cold. “Well, jeez, you know.”

Was he blushing ? So was I, if the lava flow covering my face and spilling down my throat was any indication. He kept glancing at me, and I couldn’t look away. For Christ’s sake. The lunacy just would not end.

I wiped at my nose again, wished for a Kleenex. “I don’t—” I began. I don’t date. I don’t have time, even if you are one of the better kids I’ve met. And—

He shrugged, his cheeks going a deeper tomato red that had nothing to do with the snow. The flush spread down his neck, even. We were about even in that department. “It was a joke, Dru. God. Just relax, will you? Come on.” He kept dragging me. Admittedly, I didn’t put up much of a fight. But still . . . “A whole day at school ruined. You’re gonna wreck my GPA.”

“I thought you were going to take your GED anyway.” My lips were numb. My hands were too; I stuffed them in my coat pockets. The sirens whooped and brayed, getting closer.

“I want to get into a college so I don’t have to be poor . GPA still matters ,” he informed me in the tone reserved for gormless idiots. “But hey, I’ve been good all year. Might as well take a couple days off. Now, you wanna tell me what’s going on? I’ve been thinking you probably don’t want some stupid kid messing up whatever you’ve got going, but I told you, I’m in it now. I might as well know what I’m facing, right?”

I looked down at the sidewalk. My face was still sweat-hot, prickling in the cold. Feet had worn some of the snow down; deicer, rock salt, and sand had done the rest. Ice rimed the concrete, but it was pretty passable, all things considered. It was a nice clear day, clouds lowering around the rim of the horizon but not closing the lens of the sky just yet. The only problem was the cold, knifing straight through every article of clothing.

“That stain in your living room is about the size of a body.” Graves let go of my arm, but I kept walking next to him, powerless to stop. “And your dad . . . I’m not stupid, Dru.”

I know you’re not.“You wouldn’t believe me.” I was mumbling like a kid caught out after curfew.

He didn’t look at me, but his shoulders hunched. He turned the corner just as the ambulance roared by, and I followed. Once we were a block away, the siren shut off abruptly and it was possible to talk again.

Graves gave me a sidelong glance. He wasn’t red anymore, but the new weight in his gaze was uncomfortable. “Yeah? Try me.” Two steps further, and he hunched even more, an oddly fluid movement. “I keep seeing it. In my dreams. That thing that bit me.”

I hadn’t told him I’d seen the streak-headed wulf again. It just didn’t seem like good news to give him. “That’s normal. It’s like, post-traumatic stress or something.” I swallowed drily. The last of the sobs hitched to a halt. After crying that messily your head gets clear, whatever chemical it dumps into your blood giving you a lightheaded buzz.

“Is it normal that I can smell people now? Really smell them, and really smell what they had for lunch? And is it normal to be able to see in the dark? Like, as if it was day? And what about being able to move quicker than I should be? It’s like I’m dialed to superhero now. Is that goddamn normal?”

I stopped, staring at him. He kept walking, paused a few steps away, and looked over his

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shoulder. “Come on, keep up. It’s cold out here.”

“You really . . .” This is what comes of not shooting someone when you have the chance. Dad would have shot him. But he didn’t turn into a fur rug! “You didn’t change. You shouldn’t be having effects like that.”

“I thought you said I was safe.”

“I thought you were .” My cheeks were now cold, stinging wet. I shivered. Once I started I couldn’t seem to stop. The high-octane trembling ran through me like ice water. “Where are we going?”

“Nuh-uh.” He shook his head, dark hair swinging. Most of the snow had been stripped free, the rest melting, water clinging to the strands. He was a blot of black on the gray and dirty-snow day, hardly the most inconspicuous kid. “Your turn. What the hell happened to you? You’ve been set on ‘weird’ ever since you left me in that coffee shop. Not that you have to stretch very far for it.”

“I . . .” I held my breath, let it out in a sharp sigh, and decided to take the plunge. What was he going to do, laugh at me? “I saw someone. I have this . . . thing. . . . Anyway, I found my dad’s truck by following this thing I have. It tells me stuff sometimes. There was a—the wulf that bit you, it was there.” I don’t know anything about this, and that’s wrong. I should be hitting the books to find out all I can, and hitting them hard .“And a sucker showed up.”

“The thing that bit me?” His face squinched up, hard, as if he’d tasted something bitter.

“And a sucker?”

How the hell am I supposed to explain?“As in, blood sucker. We call them all sorts of names— nosferatu, undead, sucker, you know—”

“You’re a vampire hunter ? Jeez. Really? Or do they call it something different?” He sounded amused and thoughtful, rather than uncomfortable, at the thought.

“They just call it hunting. And not just vampires.” You’re taking this really well. “Other stuff, too. Whatever’s dangerous and messing with people. My dad did it; I helped. Something killed him and turned him into a zombie. Probably this sucker—they can do it. Anyway, the sucker ran the wulf off and told me to go home. He’s going to come kill me.”

“Why? I mean, doesn’t it make more sense for him to kill you there? Not that I’m in a hurry for you to bite it, you know.” He actually hopped from foot to foot like a bird, impatient. “Come on. Keep moving. Your lips are turning blue.”

“Leave my lips out of this.” But it was awfully cold, and as soon as I started moving I was reminded that I hadn’t put on a sweater, either. How had I gotten out of the house this morning? I suddenly wanted a hot shower more than anything else in the world. “They like to play with their victims. They get bored, I guess.”

“Doesn’t make much sense,” he repeated.

Haven’t you ever had a cat?“Like so much about this does?”

“It does, actually.” He slid out a pack of Winstons, offered it to me, and frowned when I shook my head. “I mean, look at all the shit on TV. It’s all over—witches and werewolves and all that sort of stuff. No smoke without fire, right? My stepdad used to say that.”

It was by far the most information he’d ever given about his family. We were just sharing all over the place, Graves and I. The houses around us watched with their prissy little doors shut tight, blinds drawn down, driveways empty. “It’s not like it is on television. You need to get that through your head right now. It’s dangerous and dirty and smells bad

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and—”

He tapped out a coffin nail and lit up, stuffing the pack back in his pocket. His breath was already a cloud of smoke. “Yeah, well, so is sex and drugs and everything else worth doing. So what’s our next move? You’re the expert here.”

I’m no expert. I’m just a kid.“I don’t . . . I mean . . . my dad did all the planning.” I couldn’t believe I’d just said something so mealy-mouthed.

“So? What would he do?” Graves’s coat flapped. He exhaled a stream of tobacco smoke. His nose wrinkled. “Gah. This doesn’t even taste good now.”

“Then why do you do it?” He would get everything together and go back to those warehouses, looking for the “scene” so I could tell him what happened. He would take me to canvass the occult stores and the bars where they know about the Real World and find out who this Christophe is and where he sleeps—if he could cajole the information out of someone. He’d barricade the house or move somewhere else. But there was no way I could find a lease on my own without some serious work, and a hotel would be expensive and full of nosy adults unless it was a flophouse, which would be expensive and full of nasty people looking to take a bite out of a teenage girl. I could make sure all the windows and doors at home were barred to evil—Gran had taught me that. It wouldn’t stop a zombie—but I had someone with me now, right?

And I had guns. And grenades.

Great, Dru. So you could blow both yourself and your new friend up? Dad told you never to mess with the grenades!

But Dad wasn’t here. I was on my own. Except, well, for Graves. Who shrugged, taking another drag and screwing his face up hard. “Habit. I’m an addict, okay? Can we get back on topic? What would your dad do?” He didn’t look like he was going anywhere. He looked, in fact, determined to stay put. It was probably a bad thing. It might get him killed. But I couldn’t help feeling relieved. I couldn’t help being glad he was around.

“He’d make a daylight run.” I was shivering so hard the words almost got chopped into bits. “Where I found the truck. He’d go back and start digging where that streak-headed wulf scuttled away to. Track it if he could.”

“Streak-headed?” He waved it away as soon as I opened my mouth, his cigarette trailing a line of smoke. “No, don’t tell me. I’ve got a better question. Was that you? Did you do that to ol’ Bletch?”

I swallowed the lie I meant to tell. “I guess so. It’s called a hex. I’ve never thrown one before.” And that’s something to worry about too. Where the hell did that come from?

I’ve never been able to do that.

But I’d never been so angry before, had I? Or so hopeless. And I was doing new things all the time now. The touch was getting stronger.

“Then how do you know it was you?” He looked down at his feet, obediently carrying him over the sidewalk. Stopped and motioned me around an icy patch; there was only room for one person to walk. “Looked to me like she had a heart attack once someone called her a bully to her face.”

“Did I call her a bully? I don’t remember that bit.” I shuffled, picking my way around the ice. The glare of sunlight off snow pierced straight through my head, and I was suddenly very aware of my empty stomach.

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There was a sound of moving cloth. “It was great, Dru. You said what everyone’s been thinking for years .”

“I’m glad you approve.” Still, I hexed her. Dammit. Gran would have a cow. Dad would take one look at my face when I got home and give me the Lecture About Using Gifts Responsibly. My bag was too heavy. I fussed with the strap, trying to get it to not cut into my shoulder.