Strange Angels sa-1

by Lili St. Crow

  Graves shivered, and so did I. I pulled the quilt closer around my shoulders, leaned into the counter. “How did a werwulf end up working for a sucker? Aren’t they enemies?”

  “Sergej,” Christophe said quietly, “is an expert at breaking things to his will. Even wulfen. Ash has been his for a long, long time.” The silence following this was only broken by the sound of the saucepan moving, and the chuckling hiss of snow against the window, until Christophe shook his head and continued. “If we could catch Sergej in the open, we could probably kill him. Especially if we had a svetocha. A fully trained daughter of one of our best.” The milk sloshed back and forth in the pan. “I don’t think you realize just how rare you are, Dru.”

  Sends his minions. Would they happen to include a burning dog, too? Or was that something else? “What about the burning dog?”

  “Burning dog?” Christophe sounded thoughtful. “Tall and black, before it ignited?”

  I thought of its glassy darkness before it inhaled and lit up like a burning Christmas tree. “Yeah. Big teeth. And it was huge.”

  “Big as a horse,” Graves said.

  “Ah.” Christophe said nothing more.

  “That’s where the streak-headed wulf—Ash—first showed up. Following the burning thing.”

  Christophe nodded thoughtfully. “Ash and a tracker. How did you—”

  “We drowned it in a fountain,” Graves supplied helpfully. He actually sounded proud. “Then Dru shot that wulf-guy. After he bit me.”

  Christophe was very still for a long moment. “Ash and his trackers have been the death of many a good soldier of the Order. And two raw, untrained—”

  “Yeah, we kicked his ass.” And nearly died. But I kept that part of it to myself. My ribs twinged a little as I moved. “Wait a minute. How many of you guys—Order guys—are there?”

  Christophe drew himself up, unconsciously straightening. “A few thousand Kouroi here in the States. More in Europe. Quite a few in Asia. We’re all over.”

  You are, huh? “How come I’ve never heard of you? Dad and I have been pretty much all over the continent and I’ve never heard a single thing about you guys.”

  “If you know how to listen, you probably have. Your father’s friend August Dobroslaw in New York, for example. He’s one of us.” A dismissive half-wave with his hand, and Christophe went back to keeping the milk moving as if it was the most interesting thing in the world.

  I felt like I’d been pinched somewhere numb. August. I’ve been thinking about him lately, too. I nodded. “Then I can call him and he’ll verify your story.” My hair fell in my face. I lifted the hot chocolate and sipped it gingerly. My tongue got burned. I had to suck in a long breath. Snow spattered against the windows, and I shivered. I was still cold. The wind had a hungry sound again tonight, and I wasn’t feeling safe even with Graves next to me.

  Even with Christophe standing in the kitchen fiddling with the saucepan. “Do it and find out.” His shoulders dropped. “If he does verify my story, as you put it, you think you could be a little nicer?”

  “I’ll try.” It was my turn to sound sarcastic. Graves made a restless movement next to me, and I bumped him with my shoulder. Letting him know I was with him.

  It helped me, too. The pressure of his arm against mine was comforting.

  Graves drew in a deep, dissatisfied breath. “I want to know something. How are these things finding Dru?”

  Silence, broken only by the sound of small snow pellets hitting the window. It was a hell of a good question.

  The zombie found me because Dad knew where I lived. The streak-headed werwulf might have been watching the truck, and in any case he’d gotten a good noseful of me at the mall—which didn’t explain how he’d arrived at the mall. If the burning dog was a tracker, as Christophe said, that explained some things—but not where it had picked up my trail in the first place.

  And what about whoever was knocking on the door before dawn? I hated to admit it, but that bothered me the most. Why hadn’t whatever-it-was tried to get in? Unless the warding had kept it out, which meant it could have been a sucker. Maybe even this Sergej.

  The name sent cold little fingers sliding up my back. I had more to think about. Like how exactly had Christophe found me?

  And the thing, whatever it was, that had opened up my bedroom window and sucked my breath out? A snake with wings, Graves had said.

  Dreamstealer, Christophe called it. Revelle.

  I was still cold, gooseflesh spilling up my arms and down my back. Had it been a dream, or had I been outside my own body? That was a creeptastic idea, and something all too likely—it was just the way the touch could work. Gran would have known what to say about it. Hell, even Dad might have had a clue. I could have asked him some questions.

  “Have strange things been happening to you lately, Dru?” Christophe poured hot milk into his mug, picked up the spoon, and stirred it. The saucepan was set aside, every drop of fluid gone. He’d gauged the amount just right. “Things you didn’t know you could do? Strange things, strong things, things you shouldn’t know suddenly clear as day to you?” He turned and leaned against the counter, his eyes glowing slightly. The kitchen was dark but the dining room light was on, and his hair still looked sleeker, lying close to his head without all the highlights reflecting.

  “Other than hexing my teacher and having the world stop like a movie on pause?” I shrugged. “I’ve always been weird. My grandmother called it “the touch”. It’s gotten stronger. But all of this is weird, even for me.”

  “That’s saying something.” Graves took a huge slurp, made a low half-swallowed belching sound, and I was surprised into laughing. He gave his own peculiar painful laugh, too, and I felt a lot better.

  Christophe studied us, his face shut like a book. “Then you’re close to blooming, Dru. Becoming a full svetocha.” He blew across the top of his mug. “I wish I knew. . . .”

  Blooming? I let Mom’s quilt slip down a little. My hands were warmer now. “You wish you knew what? We’re in a sharing space right now; you might as well ask.” Graves bumped me back with his thin shoulder, and the urge to laugh hit me again. You know how it can just suddenly bubble up at the most inappropriate times? Like you’re just sitting there, and a thought hits you sideways, or the absurdity of the world just smacks you out of nowhere and you have to swallow a giggle?

  Yeah. Like that. I swallowed the sound; it stuck in my throat and threatened to turn into a belch. My shoulder burned dully, and my back was stiff. Getting knocked around and having someone lying on top of you doesn’t do much for back pain.

  “I wish I knew how your father thought he was going to train you or hide you long enough for you to survive into adulthood. Among other things.” Christophe sighed, and set down his mug with a click. “I’ll be in the living room.”

  And just like that, he walked away. He moved down the hall like he knew the house better than I did, and a few seconds later the formless mutter of the television blurred through the hiss of snow.

  “I don’t like him,” Graves half-whispered.

  “You already said that.” I took another scalding gulp of hot milk and sugar. There isn’t even any real cocoa in this. It’s all just artificial flavor. For a moment I thought about Gran’s hot chocolate and I wished, suddenly and fiercely, that I was five years old and safe again. And then I thought of Gran always washing the floors with herb mixes meant to keep evil away, and I wondered how safe I’d really been. “I’ll call August tomorrow.”

  “Then what?”

  How the hell should I know? But I did. I finished swallowing and leaned against the counter, watching the pattern of whirling white outside the window. “Then I’m going to find out everything I can about this Sergej guy. If Chris is right, and he killed my dad . . .” I swallowed the sudden lump in my throat.

  Graves didn’t think much of the notion, even half-formed and unstated. “Then what? If he’s right and they’ve been chasing him for so long, what the hel
l are we going to do?”

  We? But I suppose it never occurred to Graves that he might want to sit out whatever was going to happen next.

  No. Of course it hadn’t occurred to him. I’d thought of ditching him more times than I could count, and I suddenly felt like a complete asshole for it.

  My chest felt funny, tight and warm at the same time. “My dad wasn’t a dumbass. He taught me a lot. Maybe he taught me something these guys don’t know.” Dru, you’re lying.

  But what else could I do? If Christophe was telling the truth, this Sergej guy—those cold insect feet walked up my back again—turned my dad into a zombie. You don’t just forgive something like that, do you?

  But I was just a kid, and I was seriously out of my depth here. I’d shot a werwulf, yeah, and done a lot of running away. And I’d found the truck, but that was more Gran’s owl than me.

  If this was a game, I was losing pretty badly. I should probably get the hell out of the stadium while I was still alive.

  “Oh.” Graves’s shoulder bumped mine again, hot milk slopping inside my cup. Warmth stole back into my fingers and toes, finally.

  Still . . . “But maybe these Order guys could teach me something too. And you. There’s got to be something good in being stuck on superhero, right?”

  He sighed heavily. “If it makes me fall asleep and then wake up craving two whole greasy pepperoni pizzas, man, I don’t know.”

  I actually laughed, cupping my mouth in my hand to keep it down.

  “I noticed something, too.” Graves didn’t even crack a smile, and motioned toward the living room. “He’s not answering your questions, really. I mean, not completely. Not like he doesn’t have something to hide, you dig?”

  I guess not. “If he is who he says he is, he’s got reasons not to.” But I met Graves’s eyes, and we stared at each other for ten seconds or so, the meaningful type of stare that can happen when you know someone and eye-talk is more efficient than spending a half-hour stumbling with words. Snow slid against the window, and a thread of cool draft touched my cheek. I was going to have to put a real back door on soon, even with the almost-enclosed porch out there.

  Graves shrugged. “If you say so.” I still don’t trust him, his green eyes said. There was hardly any hazel left, and the contrast was startling against caramel skin. Seen in profile, his nose looked proud instead of just too damn big for his face. When he shivered a little and hunched his shoulders, I had the sudden urge to put my arm and Mom’s quilt around him, and just stay there for a while.

  The thought made me feel warmer, but I didn’t do it. Instead, I finished my hot chocolate. It was still too hot, but it didn’t feel like liquid lava going down. “I’m going back to bed.”

  “Why don’t you call this August guy now?” Graves hunched his shoulders even further.

  “Because it’s nighttime in New York, and if it’s night, he’s out hunting.” I shuffled around the breakfast bar and put my mug in the sink. “Hey, Graves?”

  “What?” Cautious, his shoulders still hunched.

  He must be used to people trying to get rid of him, I thought, and the sharp jab of pain that ran through me twisted all the way down. “Thanks. You got that thing off me, right?”

  He stared into his hot chocolate like it held the secret to the universe. “Yeah, well, the window was open and it was really cold.”

  What does that have to do with the price of tea in China? But then I realized what he meant. It even called a creaking, half-painful smile to my face, and the last of the cold and goose bumps flushed away on a wave of welcome heat.

  No problem, Dru. First one’s free.

  CHAPTER 25

  As soon as I woke up the next morning, grainy-eyed and feeling like I’d been beaten with a lead pipe, I stumbled downstairs and ate some cereal standing up. Graves got up while I was doing that, took one long look at me, and headed for the living room. I heard him say something to Christophe, and they both went out the front door.

  The smell of apple pies didn’t quite fill the house, but it was there, a thread under everything else. It was kind of hard to take Christophe seriously when he smelled like baked goods. I wondered if other djamphir smelled like Hostess Twinkies and sniggered to myself.

  Then I remembered Christophe kneeling in the snow with a shotgun to his shoulder, facing down a streak-headed wulf and all but laughing, and the sniggers dried up.

  I yawned and padded to the chipped yellow plastic phone attached to the wall. There was one number, at least, that I had memorized, because it was so easy. And, well, you don’t forget a guy who can snap a flame off his fingers while other guys could only flick boogers. Especially not when you spend a month in his apartment while he’s out with your dad, dealing with a demonic rat infestation.

  And another month while your dad is off doing who-knows-what, coming back all beat-up and scary looking. August liked my omelets, and I must’ve cooked hundreds of them for him.

  The phone rang five times before he picked up and cursed. August’s voice was nasal through the line, laden with Brooklyn wheeze, every vowel cut short like it personally offended him. “This better be good.”

  “Hi, Augie.” I tried to sound cheerful. “It’s Dru.”

  “Holy . . .” There was a sound of sliding cloth, paper, and a clatter like he’d just dropped a knife. It didn’t take him long to recover. “Hi, sweetheart. I miss your omelets.”

  I’ll bet you do. You ate two of them a day because you wouldn’t bring home anything but eggs and vodka. It was an adventure getting you to buy some bread. “I miss your coffee. Hey, August—”

  He was quick on the uptake. Something probably didn’t sound right to him. I probably didn’t sound right to him. I didn’t even sound right to myself, with a dry stone trying to lodge itself in the back of my throat.

  “Dru, honey, where’s your dad?” And why isn’t he the one on the phone, was probably what he wanted to say.

  “He came down with a bad case of reanimation.” I tried to sound flip and offhand, but I think I succeeded only in sounding scared. And tired. And like I just got up.

  August actually choked, and I heard a metallic sound as if he’d dropped something else. “What? Holy fu—uh, I mean, damn. Where are you now, kid?”

  Oh, no you don’t. “I want to ask you a few questions. First, are you part of the Order?”

  A long ticking silence crackled in my ear. Finally, I heard the click of a lighter and a long inhale. I could see his apartment, the full ashtray on the spindly kitchen table, the window that looked at a blank brick wall, the walls loaded with protective items from different cultures—African masks, ojos de Dios, a heavy silver crucifix. I could almost hear the traffic outside his building, but that could have been because it was clearly audible through the phone. “Holy shit. Where are you?”

  Like I’m going to tell you until I know what’s really going on. “Are you a part of the Order, August? Yes or no.” My dad didn’t raise an idiot. You know that.

  “Of course I am, what did you think? Where are you, honey?”

  I told him, and he sucked in a long harsh breath.

  I knew that sound. It was an adult getting ready to Deal With Me. I never in a zillion years thought I’d be relieved to hear it.

  August didn’t mess around. “Where’s Reynard? He should be there. Put him on the line.”

  Oh wow. “Christophe? He’s out on the porch having a cigarette and bonding with my friends.” In other words, Graves is keeping him occupied so I can make this little phone call. “You know him?”

  “He’s only one of the best the Order has. Dru, you have to get out of there. Tell Christophe it’s a red zone and you have to be gotten out of there.”

  I’d never heard August sound frightened before. “Because of Sergej?” The name stung my tongue, and I wondered if it was because of the touch or because I knew it was a sucker.

  It was the first sucker’s name I’d ever known. Some people who know about the Real World won�
��t say them. They’ll use initials or code words.

  August almost choked. “Goddammit, Dru, this is serious business. Get Reynard and put him on the line.”

  Finally, someone was going to deal with this. An adult. A real adult. “Fine, you don’t have to yell. Hang on.” I dropped the phone on the counter and stamped down the hall to the front door, jerked it open.

  Graves’s head swung around—he had a cigarette halfway to his mouth and looked pale under his perpetual tan. He was wearing my gloves, though they were a little too small for him, and the edge of his long black coat flapped as the wind cut across the porch, rattling the bits of dead plants that hadn’t been iced down. His hair was a wind-lifted mess, but Christophe, calm and immaculate, wore the same sweater and jeans. He stood near the hole in the porch railing, his head up as if he was testing the wind. Blond highlights streaked through his hair again, and they almost seemed to move.

  The cold cut right through me, and I wondered if he could teach me how to walk around in the middle of it so easily. “August wants to talk to you.” It was like carrying messages for Dad, and I didn’t have to name the feeling swelling behind my heart.

  It was relief, getting stronger with every second. Here was someone more experienced than I was, even if he was my age. Just what I’d wanted, right? Someone who could tell me what to do now that the lines that kept my life on track had vanished. Between August and this guy, things would get Under Control. It would be Handled. It would be Dealt With.

  Chris gave me an odd look as he passed, his blue eyes darkening and apple spice drifting in his wake, and I shivered. Graves pitched his butt out into the snow, the glow of the cherry vanishing in a gray glare caught between cloud-hazed sky and white-shrouded ground. “He checks out?”

  I nodded. Something dry and hot caught in my throat. “Yeah, he checks out all right. Come in, it’s freezing.”