Strange Angels

by Lili St. Crow

  “Some icing.” He flipped immediately to the indexes, I noticed. “Wow.”

  “Yeah.” I took a deep breath, another sip, and pulled my attention back to the page.

  The djamphir can use a variety of means to kill a wampyr, of which the most popular in folklore is a hawthorn stake. . . .

  It was a productive afternoon, even though I took down enough coffee to feel jittery by four o’clock. I closed the last book with a sigh. We were as ready as our small collection of texts could make us.

  “So we’re fairly sure?” Graves kept repeating “fairly” as if it were an exotic foreign word. “I’m not going to get all hairy, like that thing we saw?”

  “Nope. According to this, the loup-garou’s a skinchanger, not actually a werwulf. Congratulations, you bucked the odds. About all you’ll have is a hunger for raw meat.” I shuddered. “Which you might even be able to eat, with the boost to your immune system.”

  The way he squinched up his face made me smile.

  “Yeah, I’ll get right on that dietary change. But nothing about girl . . . djamphir?” He tasted the word, rolling it around on his tongue, and bolted the last swallow of his coffee. It had to be cold by now.

  I looked out the front window at the mess of the front yard, bits of brown grass showing through like mange wherever he and Christophe had scuffed the snow all the way down. The sky was lowering, threatening still more as sundown approached, and the radio gave faint squawks about a weather advisory. Why they would bother now, after days of this stuff, was beyond me.

  Bits of wood were thrown in an arc, the porch railing completely shattered and flung out in an oddly perfect line. They’d hit it hard.

  “Nope. Nothing on that.” I didn’t mention anything about my mother. It was nobody’s business, even with Christophe’s dark hints. I always thought I’d got the touch from Gran, along the Anderson side.

  Now that I thought about it, nobody ever mentioned Mom’s family. It just wasn’t talked about. I didn’t even know her maiden name, though I could probably dig up their marriage certificate. It was probably in the fireproof box.

  But I wondered, and it wasn’t a comfortable wondering. It was like having one of the legs your world rests on whomped away, and I wasn’t too steady already.

  All the legs of the table were getting chopped out from under me. Mom. Whomp. Gran. Whomp. Dad. Whomp.

  If this was a cartoon, I’d be teetering on just one leg with my face twisted up in a picture of dismay.

  It was late. Evening was gathering in the bluish shadows, even the reflection of light off the snow fading. Under the coffee jitter, exhaustion and sleeplessness plucked at my eyelids. My arms and legs were heavy, my shoulder hurt, and I knew I should probably take something for the way my back was twitching and sore.

  “You hungry?” Graves asked, and I came back from staring at the front yard and realized I was. But given the choice between going to the store and getting some information under my belt, the information was probably the better bet. You had to be alive to eat, after all. I could always go tomorrow.

  Which reminded me, there was the money situation to think about. And—

  There was a flurry of taps at the door. Light, mocking taps.

  I jumped, letting out a thin little cry, and Graves flinched, knocking over his empty coffee cup. The door swept open, and I dove for a gun, my right leg prickling because it had gone to sleep. I rolled, my aching back fetching up against the ammo crate, and clicked the safety off.

  I didn’t even think about it. Graves stupidly crouched right where he was, his eyes as big and green as a kid’s, flicking nervously between me and the doorway. The air around him shimmered faintly, stilled.

  “Easy, little birdie,” Christophe called down the hall. “I can smell your adrenaline, you know. Come help me carry this in. I hope there’s some coffee left.”

  Graves looked at me. We hadn’t even seen him approach, I’d just been staring out at the front yard. You could see the walk and the driveway, for Christ’s sake. Did he just show up out of thin air? Even in the daytime?

  Yeah. Pretty obscene. I clicked the safety back on and let out a breath I hadn’t been aware of holding. Dad would have kicked my ass for it, of course—holding your breath while under fire is a bad idea. You can pass out or just not think clearly if you’re starving your brain of oxygen. There were even stories about people passing out because they were holding their breath in combat.

  I was lying there on the floor, feeling a cold draft tiptoe down the hall and into the living room, and all of a sudden I felt very, very lonely.

  “Come on out, little rabbits,” Christophe called cheerfully. I could just see him grinning. “Come see what Dyado Koleda brought you, eh?”

  What the hell is he talking about?

  Graves pushed himself up. “Jesus,” he whispered. He edged through the doorway into the hall, and I realized that he was trying to stay out of my field of fire.

  Smart kid.

  “There you are.” There was the crinkle of plastic bags. “Help me with this. I stopped at the grocery store. The air smells of snow again, and not just a little bit, either.”

  “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 wit
h a shotgun, for Chrissake. And Graves could 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 out of 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 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 snow-reflection 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 two-story 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 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 g
host.

  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.

  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 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?”