Strange Angels (25 page)

“How’d you come up to the door without us seeing you?” Graves wanted to know. I swallowed drily and put the gun back on top of the ammo crate, pushed myself to my feet. My leg ran with waking-up tingles, like fork tines jammed into the muscles.

“I’m very sly.” Christophe sounded in a hell of a jolly mood. “Now come on, beast of burden. Carry some of this. Where’s Ksiniczka ? The princess?”

“Dru’s finishing her coffee,” Graves informed him, sarcasm dripping from every word. He came stumping down the hall with his hands loaded with shopping bags. I saw something green poking out of one. “We’ve been doing research.”

“Oh, good. Stretching your minds like good little children. Your guardian angel is pleased.” The front door closed, and there was more plastic rustling. “And?”

Graves didn’t reply, just stamped past the stairs and into the kitchen. I stepped out into the hall and was greeted with the sight of Christophe in a fresh sweater, navy blue this time, with white stripes on the sleeves. It made his shoulders look a little broader, and his jeans were clean and dry. His hair all but glowed with blond streaks, and his eyes burned with sheer good cheer.

The smell of fresh apple pies filled the hall. I felt even more frizzy and hopeless.

“I brought weapons. But you can help carry these.” He indicated the six shopping bags clustered around his booted feet. A backpack dangled off his shoulder, and a wide leather band crossed his chest. The blunt end of a shotgun poked up over his shoulder.

“You went grocery shopping with a shotgun?” I folded my arms, my stomach twisting with hunger.

He spread his hands, still grinning, teeth white in the shadow of the hall. “People see what they want to see, Dru. You know that. I brought canned soup. Bread. Some of the things I saw in your kitchen, and some others.”

What do you want in return?I stayed where I was. “What do I owe you?”

That made his smile even wider, if it were possible. “Nothing at all, little bird. Nothing at all. May I come in?”

What is it with these boys buying me food?I shrugged. “Doesn’t look like I can stop you. There’s nothing in the books about girl djamphir .”

“Books.” He shrugged. “And anyway, the books your father was likely to find wouldn’t have such secrets in them.”

I don’t like the way he talks about Dad.But I just took a few steps forward, grabbed three of the bags, and turned on my heels.

“Dru.” Short and sharp, he said my name like a challenge. All the good humor had drained from Christophe’s voice.

I looked back over my shoulder. He stood with his back to the door, his teeth and hair glimmering. He looked impossibly finished for a seventeen-year-old. God. Kids with guns. I had enough hardware to start an insurrection in my living room, and this kid was wandering around with a shotgun, for Chrissake. And Graves could

Create PDF
files without this message by purchasing novaPDF printer (
http://www.novapdf.com
)

probably wreak some serious havoc if he was angry enough and the change had him. Where were the adults who were supposed to handle this thing?

All dead like Dad, maybe?It was a nasty thought. “What?”

After a short, searching pause, he shrugged. “Nothing. I hope I brought what you needed.”

I hope so, too. But I don’t have any clue what I need now. Although that shotgun is a good start.“Thanks for stopping by the store. I don’t know how much longer I can stay in this house, though.”

“Oh?”

You’re not my first visitor, Blue Eyes.I just swept on down the hall and let him chew on that.

CHAPTER 23

I woke up outof a sound, dead sleep, a dream I couldn’t quite remember about the dark hole in the closet receding as soon as I opened my eyes. The window was full of the weird directionless nighttime shine of streetlamps reflecting off fresh snow, and Gran’s white owl fluffed its feathers and stared at me.

I was nice and warm, and Graves was breathing quietly on his cot. There was a faint sound—the television, downstairs. The soundless sound of someone breathing there, too. Comforting. And a little bit scary.

I’d thought I wouldn’t sleep with Christophe in the house. But as soon as my head touched the pillow, I’d gone out like a light.

The owl stared back at me. The smell of moonlight chased the fading tang of oranges across my tongue.

I slid out of bed, quietly, hissing in a soft breath as the temperature differential touched my skin. Even with the heater on, it was colder outside the warm nest of my bed. I stepped into sweatpants and pulled them up over the thermal bottoms I’d been sleeping in, yanked my tank top down, and fisted crusties out of my eyes with the other hand. I slipped past Graves, who made a slight sound as if he was dreaming, and ghosted down the hall, avoiding the squeaks. The stairs unreeled under my feet, and I was a shadow in the hall. Blue television flickers painted the wall; as I passed the door to the living room, I saw Christophe in Dad’s camp chair, a shotgun—probably the same one I’d seen before—

across his knees, his head dipped forward as if he slept. The television was turned way down, a black-and-white war movie I was sure I’d seen before unreeling between bursts of static.

That’s not right. It shouldn’t be static. We have cable.The thought was slow, moving through pudding.

Carpet, the boxes still piled in the hall, and a bullet hole shining with television light. They all looked very sad and quiet, refugees from a former life. The front door was glowing. Thin threads of bright, cheery, summer-sky blue outlined it and scribed a complex pattern across its face, like tribal tattoos. I watched, fascinated, as they swirled like oil on water. Everything was dead silent now, the world wrapped in cotton.

I eased forward. Step by step, bare feet floating an inch above the cheap carpeting. There was a little slip-slide to each footstep, as if I was in a cartoon and someone had tied pats of butter to my feet. The door loomed larger and larger. I was on a conveyor belt sliding

Create PDF
files without this message by purchasing novaPDF printer (
http://www.novapdf.com
)

toward it, and my hand came up without my volition, stroked the locks. The two deadbolts moved silently, and my hand closed around the knob. Don’t do it, Dru. Don’t go out there.

I wasn’t planning on going anywhere, was I? Oranges ran in rivulets across my tongue, fresh instead of waxed, and the shock of tasting them made my head hurt faintly, as if something had slid a thin metal tube through my skull. The knob hissed and slid like water on a hot griddle under my touch, and the blue lines on the door drew together, swirling uneasily.

The door opened silently, swinging wide, curtains of blue parting just slightly to let me through. I stepped out gingerly, still floating. Funny, but it didn’t seem so cold anymore. The porch was bare, a section of railing torn loose, dead plants in plastic pots under a light scrim of frost, icicles clustered from one end near a gutter’s drainpipe. They shivered, those swords of water, as my gaze blew across them.

The stairs unreeled under my feet. It was snowing again, big fat flakes whirling down in patterns I didn’t have time to study; they looked like the tribal tattoos on the door, rivers of frozen stars. A humming had begun in my middle, like an electrical cord plugged into my belly button. The line of force was almost visible, snaking away across the humped drifts in the front yard, beginning to lose their peaks and valleys under a blanket of fresh white.

Where am I going?

There was a soft explosion of sound overhead, wings flapping frantically, and Gran’s owl glided past, the eerie snowlight picking out faint dappling on its feathers. It circled, cutting a tight little figure eight with its wingtips, and slowed, floating down the street. The line attached to my belly snapped taut and began to pull me faster. I leaned back, my heels lower than my toes as if I was waterskiing, and the sense of motion was weird—but not weirder than my hair hanging down, no breeze touching my cheeks or skin. I’m the Girl in the Bubble. Wow.A dreamy giggle boiled up inside my throat, died away. The world twisted like dribbles of paint on a spinning paper plate, darkness and snowreflection whirling together, and the owl banked again, wings outstretched and the pattern of eyes on its underside glaring through me for a moment. It dipped, then brushed past my head. I felt the wind of its passing kiss my cheeks and forehead, my hair stirring slightly before dead air returned.

It was weird, skating through the streets, the line at my belly unreeling, sometimes snapping me left or right, dragging me up over hillocks of piled snow and dropping me on their slopes, each landing curiously cushioned so it didn’t jar me. Across streets, through alleys, once up and over the curve of a snowed-in car—the thought of someone waking up in the morning to find footprints running up over their car was hilarious, in a slow, disconnected way.

But I’m not walking. I’m surfing. Snow-surfing. Wow. The owl made a soft passionless who? who? sound, and the tugging at my belly slackened. The line kept humming, but it didn’t pull me. Instead, I found myself looking at a twostory frame house. Old and dilapidated, it had once been yellow. A massive, naked, gnarled oak tree stood in front, its twisted limbs reaching for the sky. Why does that look familiar?I studied it for a long moment, cocked my head. The owl settled on the tiny strip of broken roof over the porch. The snow was deep, drifting up

Create PDF
files without this message by purchasing novaPDF printer (
http://www.novapdf.com
)

against the steps and swallowing them.

But I knew what those steps would look like. I knew what the porch would say if I stepped on its old groaning wood, and the screen door—busted off its hinges, plastic yellow crime-scene tape old and faded and fluttering over the yawning cavern leading into a front hall—I knew what sound it would make if it had still been whole. The hinges had squeaked one long, long note, a heehaw! Like an amused donkey. There would be stairs inside, right off the narrow foyer. Up those stairs and to the left, there would be four doors: a bathroom, probably mildewed by now since the door was all busted open, a main bedroom and a smaller bedroom, and a closet. I know this house. Somehow I know this house.I stared as the owl mantled, then tilted its head and made its soft call again. Its yellow eyes were old and terribly, terribly sad. I moved forward, each footstep slip-sliding worse than before, as if butter was melting under my feet. It was hard—the air grew darker and darker the closer I got. And there, at the bottom of the oak tree, was a scorched place where the snow lay discolored and sunken. A moon-silvered figure lay under the darkness, terribly still, crushed under the running shadow.

What is that?

The owl called a third time, a new note of urgency in the soft tones. I put out my hands as the buzzing in my belly got worse, a hornet’s nest in my gut, rattling and scraping. Wait. I know something. I know this house—

The world shivered. I looked down at my hands and realized I could see right through them. Faint snowlight shone through my translucence, the curve of my forearm like glass full of solid smoke.

I was a ghost.

The owl spoke one final time, only that wasn’t right, because it wasn’t a soft hoot. It was a bell. A loud, rasping, heavy sound; the hornets had broken out of my belly and were swarming. Stinging needles rammed through my fingers as I reached the shadow of the oak tree, its branches buzzing like a rattlesnake’s tail right before it decides to hell with this and launches itself to bite.

“What the hell ?” someone said, and I thrashed up out of unconsciousness, snapped free of wherever I’d been like a rubber band popped off expert fingers, and came out swinging. 0

1

2

The window was open. Cold air drenched the room. Christophe twisted my wrist, deflecting the punch; Graves let out a high-pitched cry and the room was full of the sound of beating wings for a moment. But not soft, feather-baffled wings—no, this sound was leathery, rasping against the air.

Christophe and I tumbled to the floor while Graves wrenched the window closed. “Jesus Christ !” Graves kept repeating, in that same high-squeaky voice. It would have been funny if my entire body hadn’t been pinned-and-needled, every square inch of skin stinging. “What the hell was that? What was that thing?”

I froze. Here I was in my own room, it was cold, and I was still in my thermal bottoms and tank top. My bed was thrashed out of all recognition, Graves’s cot was overturned, and the room was full of a dry rotting scent, like molding feathers.

“ Revelle,” Christophe said, grimly. His eyes burned blue, and he kept his hands clamped

Create PDF
files without this message by purchasing novaPDF printer (
http://www.novapdf.com
)

around my wrists, lying on top of me as if it was the most natural thing in the world. His skin was warm, and he was heavier than he should have been. All the breath left my lungs in a huff. “Dreamstealer. Hush, little bird, just a snake in the nest.” This was whispered into my hair, a hot circle of breath against my shivering scalp before he raised his head. “Is it clear or snowing?”

“Snowing.” Graves locked the window and shuddered again, wrapping his arms around himself so his elbows and shoulder blades made sharp-shadowed angles. “Jesus. It just came in, and Dru—”

The hollow between Christophe’s throat and shoulder moved slightly, and the tingling heat coming off him drowned me. “Shush. Dru? Talk to me. Are you all right?”

I suppose he was asking because his face was in my hair, his legs twisted with mine, and he was holding onto my wrists so hard it hurt, like he had steel bands in his fingers. “Get off me!” I managed, before I was well on my way to suffocating.

“Yeah, she’s okay.” Graves cocked his head, looking at us both.

“Perhaps.” Christophe let go of me—not fast enough, I might add. The pins and needles running through my skin peaked, and I curled into a ball on the floor, whooping in a gigantic, never-ending breath flavored with the ghost of apples fighting through the moldy feather-scent. The hall light was on, a rectangle of warm yellow on the floor, and I began to dry-retch.