The Dark Storm (3 page)

“It’s not garbage, Katie; it’s the required material for the class.” He adjusted the large stack of books he was carrying. No sooner had he gotten them into a comfortable position than a hulking young man bumped him and knocked all the books on the floor.

“Watch where you’re going, nerd,” the young man said over his shoulder, never breaking his stride.

“Oh, why don’t you grow up?” Katie called after the young man. “Are you okay?” She bent down to help Gabriel pick up the books.

“Yeah, I’m cool,” he lied. He was more angry that he’d let Katie see what happened than at the actual offense. While she was helping him pick up the books a strand of her hair brushed his face. He inhaled deeply of her scent. He loved the way Katie smelled. She had a naturally sweet scent, like a flower, mixed with whatever she used in her hair. It was a smell that he would always carry in his memory. Again Gabriel found his mind wondering,
What if … ?

“Gabriel, you’ve gotta learn to stand up for yourself,” she told him, placing the last textbook atop the pile. “With all these books you carry around I’d bet you’re as strong as an ox.” She pinched his biceps playfully and found that his arm felt like coiled steel.

“I do stand, when I believe in the cause,” he told her.

“What can be a better cause than keeping people from picking on you?”

“The greatest battles are fought with our heads and our hearts,” Gabriel said as if he was imparting some great wisdom to her.

“Well, your heart can’t keep from getting your head cracked.” She knocked on his forehead softly. He was still
giving her that blank-puppy look of his, so she let it alone. “Getting back to what I was saying, I know that nothing short of a miracle is going to get me over the hump in Professor Garland’s history class.”

“Then you’d better get yourself over to the church and start praying,” Gabriel said, continuing down the hall.

“Hold on, Gabe.” She caught up to him. “I was kind of hoping—”

“No, Katie,” he cut her off.

“You didn’t even let me finish.”

“Doesn’t matter; the answer is still no.”

“Gabe, I just need a little help.” She stroked his cheek.

The heat from her body and the heady scent of her perfume brought a tingling sensation below his waist. Katie was a beautiful girl. She stood a hair over five-three and had sandy blond hair. Gabriel had often fantasized about what it would be like to be with her, even just once, but he knew they would never be more than friends.

“Nothing doing, Katie.” He shook the fog from his mind. “The last time you got me to help you with something I ended up doing the paper for you while you talked on the phone.”

“That is so untrue. I helped out.”

“Katie, handing me a textbook doesn’t count as help,” he informed her.

“Gabriel, I
need
this. If I don’t pass this class I’ll have to stay here for the summer and take it again. My parents are treating me to Rio and I don’t want to miss out. Please?”

Gabriel looked into her pleading blue eyes and felt his heart flutter. Katie was a spoiled rich girl from the Howard Beach section of Queens. As the daughter of two renowned surgeons, she was afforded the best that life had to offer. Most of the other students frowned on her and the other girls in her privileged circle, but in his two years
at the university Gabriel had learned a different side of her. Katie was really just a girl trying to crawl out from under her parents’ shadows and find her own place in the world. It was the child-like innocence, beneath the shallow exterior, that had drawn Gabriel to her and forged the bond between them.

“Okay,” he conceded. “I’ll help you out this one last time, Katie.”

“Oh, thank you!” she squealed, kissing him on the cheek. “You’re the best, Gabe.”

“Yeah, yeah.” He blushed. “I’ve got some research to do at the library, so meet me there around ten.”

“Tonight? Gabe, it’s Friday. Can’t we meet earlier?”

“No, we can’t. I told you, I’ve got research to do.”

“You and your research.” She pouted. “I don’t see why anyone would give a shit about languages that no one uses anymore anyhow.”

“Well, I give a shit. Those are my terms, Katie. You can show or not; it’s up to you.”

“All right, you big wet blanket. But you’re still the best friend a girl could ever have!”

“Whatever,” he said, trying to hide the smirk on his face. Gabriel looked around to see if anyone was watching, and when he was satisfied that they were alone he decided to finally make a move on Katie. “Listen, I was wondering if you—” Katie’s ringing BlackBerry cut his question short. She answered the phone and was immediately engrossed in what the person on the other end of the line had to say. Katie finger-waved good-bye and walked off down the hall, chatting away on her phone.

“… wanted to catch a movie this weekend,” he said to the space where she had been standing.

During the day Hunter College’s massive library was usually bustling with students, but at night it was a ghost town. It was rare for students to be in the building after dark and nearly unheard of for a Friday night. This didn’t apply to Gabriel Redfeather. The library was one of his favorite places, especially at night. He had worked out an arrangement with the custodian to tutor his daughter in exchange for the use of the library after hours. During the wee hours, Gabriel could do his research in peace.

Gabriel was a certified genius. He had numerous scholarship offers to universities all over the country and abroad, but he chose to attend Hunter. His major was history, but his love was linguistic studies. It was something Gabriel had become interested in as a child, and it had followed him into young adulthood. Hunter wasn’t the best school in New York, but it was a respectable university with a slightly smaller campus than some of the others in the city, which suited him. Besides that, attending Hunter allowed him to stay close to home to help his aging grandfather.

Settling into one of the rickety wooden chairs, Gabriel thumbed through a book on South American cultures. Currently he was researching a long-forgotten tribe that was said to inhabit the hills of Argentina. Gabriel pored
through photos of wall markings and was scribbling onto a notepad, trying to decipher the language, when the lights flickered and died.

“Shit,” he cursed. The room was completely dark, save for a sliver of light coming from the adjoining hallway. When he stood to look for a light switch, he heard footsteps. “Who’s there?” There was no answer.

Gabriel felt his way along the tables and chairs until he found a bookshelf. Placing his back to it, he scanned the darkness for the intruder. The only light was the slither seeping under the door from the hall. Gabriel caught something break the beam and disappear behind the quantum physics shelves. His heart began to quicken. He rubbed his palms against his jeans, in an attempt to remove the film of sweat that coated them. He looked around for a weapon but doubted that the
Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary
would do him much good, despite its massive size.

Craning his neck, he made one last attempt. “All right, this isn’t funny. For the last time, who’s in here?” In response to his question, a shadow darted at him. Time suddenly moved at a crawl. The blur of darkness slowed and he was able to make out the shape of a man. Gabriel grabbed a handful of clothing and twisted his body in the direction the blur was moving. The momentum of the lunge propelled the shape over Gabriel’s head and sent it crashing into the table where he had been studying. Not bothering to identify his attacker, Gabriel made a mad dash for the exit. When he got within feet of it, the room was flooded with light.

It took his eyes a while to refocus, but when they did, he made out the shape of a man standing in the doorway. Gabriel spun around to make for the second exit and froze. Lying on his back near the overturned table was Gabriel’s good friend Carter.

“What the hell, Gabe!” Carter said, still lying on his
back. Carter was a six-two junior, who played shooting guard on the basketball team. He had a kind heart but was deadly in a fight. A year and a half prior, Carter was about to flunk off the team when Gabriel helped him to pull his grades up. They had been friends ever since.

“This fool put you on your ass, C.,” the young man said standing near the light switch. Vince also played on the basketball team, but he and Gabriel weren’t friends. Vince was amongst the number of students who often ridiculed Gabriel for his bookish nature.

“Carter, what the hell is wrong with you?” Gabriel asked, helping him to his feet.

“Damn, kid. I was just coming in here to play a prank on you, and I get tossed into a bookshelf. I’m the fastest guy in the division, and you dodged me. How the hell did you do that?” He rubbed the knot that was rising under his tapered Afro.

This was a question Gabriel honestly couldn’t answer. Ever since he was a child he had always had keen reflexes. He was always quicker and more agile than most kids his age. It wasn’t something he could explain; he just was. This was part of what had made him such an asset in his late parents’ carnival show.

“Carter, how’d you let this nerd do that to you?” Vince asked, strolling over.

“Watch your mouth, Vince,” Carter warned. “I’m the only one who can give Gabe shit.”

“It’s cool, man,” Gabriel said, casting a glare at Vince. “What’re you two jokers up to?” He turned his attention back to Carter.

“I came by to ask if you wanted to hang out tonight. A bunch of us are going down to this spot in the Village called Six-Six-Six or something like that.”

“Yeah, Carter’s mom is away for the weekend, so orgy at his place,” Vince added.

“Man, why don’t you shut the hell up?” Carter snapped. “Yeah, Mom Dukes is gone, so we got somewhere to slide if we get lucky, you wit’ it?”

“I can’t,” Gabriel said, picking up the books Carter had knocked over. “I’ve gotta study and Katie needs my help with a project she’s got coming up.”

Carter and Vince shared a look. “Gabe, Katie left with Molly and June about fifteen minutes ago. Guess she took a rain check on your little date.” Vince placed a hand on Gabriel’s shoulder and had it knocked away.

“Knock it off, Vince,” Carter snapped at him. “Gabe, it’s Friday, man. Those dead guys will still be here on Monday. Just come out for a little while.”

Once again, Katie had set him up to be the patsy. It amazed him how she would be able to barhop and be in the library studying simultaneously. Those pleading eyes and angelic face did him in every time. He looked over at the pile of scattered books and decided he would think of himself this night.

“All right already, just let me clean up around here and lock up.” He glanced at his watch, which read: 9:52. “I’ll meet you guys there at quarter to eleven.”

“That’s my dawg.” Carter slapped him on the back. “For a minute you were beginning to scare me. You keep poking around with these dead guys and you’re gonna find yourself in a Kelly Armstrong novel,” he joked.

“Hardly.” Gabriel blushed. He’d often imagined himself as a dashing sorcerer or brave werewolf. “Those are fictional novels; what I study is
real
.”

“Whatever, man. Just make sure you’re at the spot,” Carter said, heading towards the door.

Vince let his stare linger on Gabriel before he turned to follow Carter. “Who knows?” he called over his shoulder. “You might even get laid tonight.” His mocking laughter still rang in Gabriel’s ears long after they had left.

In a back alley not far from where Gabriel found himself cleaning up Carter’s mess, an old man sat huddled near a Dumpster. His dingy white beard brushed the lap of his worn jeans as he sat cross-legged, rocking back and forth. A cat that had made the mistake of passing too close to the man hissed and darted off under a fence. The man smiled and stood, heading for the mouth of the alley.

The leather on the soles of his dingy running shoes slapped against the concrete beneath but made no sound. Even as he walked through the shallow puddles the rain had made on uneven ground, there wasn’t even a splash. At the mouth of the alley he leaned against the wall and waited for the inevitable.

He smelled her before he had actually seen her. It had been quite some time since he’d smelled her particular fragrance, but he would know it anywhere. Hugging the shadows to him, he waited for her to pass.