Strange Angels

have been doing this a while.” He didn’t look at me, staring at the line going up to the counter. His face squinched up as if he tasted something bitter. “This place really reeks.”

I shrugged. It was just a regular chain coffee outlet, with hordes of overpriced crap crowding the shelves and rickety tables, the kids behind the counter scrambling to keep up with the nonfat, soy chai, double shot, sugar-free, dry foam, drip please, do you have a sugar substitute? People shuffled up to the counter, got their froofy java, and shuffled out the door, usually jabbering away on cell phones about something useless or meaningless.

None of them knew about the Real World. None of them were so scared their bones felt like water.

“They don’t have a clue.” I scooped up my not-so-hot-anymore chocolate and scraped my chair away from the table. My back still hurt, twinges running down either side of my spine like a river.

A lady the size of a pickup truck in a massive blue parka—so large she looked practically square from the back—manhandled her kid up to the counter. The poor kid looked about five, bundled up against the cold, a wide slick of snot running down his upper lip, which he kept wiping at with a crusted sleeve. He stared raptly at the wall below the counter as his mom jabbered at the tired-looking blonde girl behind the counter. The curve of the wall seemed to fascinate him, since it bulged out to hold the coffee machines off to their left, and he ran his mittened hand along it until his mother jerked him back like she wished she had a choke collar on him. He let out an indignant sound and she shook him the way a dog will shake a puppy, but without a mama dog’s gentleness.

My stomach turned into a cold lump. “Not a single goddamn clue,” I repeated, and tossed my still-full cup into the trash on my way out the door.

The cold was full of exhaust and a bitter metal tang that probably meant more snow. I crunched down the sidewalk—a sheet of deicer pellets that looked like blue rock salt lay unreeled in front of every downtown business —toward the pay phone. I was pretty sure it worked; it’d given me a dial tone earlier when we walked past toward the coffee shop.

I dug in my pocket for quarters and the number, copied onto a blank anonymous scrap of notepaper. I ran over the plan again, trying to look for weak spots or angles, anything I’d missed, and I suddenly wondered if Dad had ever felt this way. This responsible. Throat dry, stomach churning, worry like a diamond-eyed rat chewing inside my head with bright, sharp teeth.

When I was little, I used to think he could do anything. He’d show up at Gran’s every few months, sometimes with bruises or walking a little slow, and Gran would bake a cake, lay out a supper with everything he liked. It got to where I could tell when he was coming in by how early Gran got up and started cooking in the morning. She always knew before he would come bouncing up the washboard driveway, even though the house had no phone.

I remembered him picking me up and whirling around until I was dizzy while I shrieked with laughter in the front yard, a field of daisies and grass Gran hacked at with a machete every once in a while. Or him taking me out into the woods a little later and teaching me to shoot—first plinking with a BB gun, then with a .22 rifle, and last of all with a pistol and a shotgun. That was my twelfth summer, the one before Gran died.

I shook the memory away and stepped up to the half-booth. The mouthpiece slipped against my gloves, and I consoled myself that not a lot of germs would be able to live on it when it was this goddamn cold. I plugged the quarters in and dialed, then stuffed the paper back into my pocket. Leave no trace, Dru girl. Think about what you’re doing.

I waited, heart pounding, a nasty sour taste filling my throat up to my back teeth.

Ringing. The phone worked, at least. Two rings. Three. Four.

Someone picked up.

They didn’t say anything, though. Instead, there was the peculiar not-quite-dead sound of a line with someone breathing on the other end. I listened, counting off the seconds. There was faint, indecipherable noise in the background, like traffic.

One one thousand. Two one thousand. Three one thousand.

There was a hissing sound, breath escaping between tongue and teeth, not quite whistling.

Six one thousand. Seven one thousand. Eight one thousand.

“Don’t hang up, little girl.” Male. Sounded pretty young, too, but something in the spacing of the words was off. Like an accent, and unlike.

My entire body flushed hot, then chilled. I tasted wax oranges and salt, but faintly. Nine one thousand. Ten one thousand.

“Quiet as a mouse.” There was a short, bitter little laugh, as if the guy at the other end had a mouthful of something foul. “Fine. When you’re ready for more answers, come find me. Corner of Burke and 72^nd. You can just walk right in.”

Fourteen one thousand. Fifteen one thousand. I jammed the receiver back down in its cradle and stepped back, breathing heavily, all my muscles threatening to turn into noodles. Jesus. Jesus Christ.

I glanced around. The dangerous taste of oranges intensified, coating my tongue. Shit. What now? My legs took care of moving me away from the phone, hugging the building side of the walk. There were even dry patches where the building overhangs kept the snow off.

I didn’t wait to see if Graves peeled off and headed for the bus. I hoped he’d be smart.

Burke and 72 ^nd. I had to find a map. The transit center would have one, and it was a good place to lose a tail. I wasn’t sure if someone was following, but the thick, clotted citrus filling my mouth warned me. Sometimes Real World baddies can get a lock on you even over the phone line, Dad said—hey, they were psychic, too. It was why we bothered being cautious about phone numbers—and my best bet was getting enough distance to confuse whoever it was.

There hadn’t been an inked cross, so it wasn’t a safe number. But he, whoever he was, might not know for sure it was me. Hopefully he wouldn’t know if Dad had given the number to another hunter, if there had been a backup, or just who I was.

Too much you don’t know, Dru. This might have been a mistake.

Still, now I knew something. I knew where a trap was. Where there was a trap, there was a way to spring it and find out who was behind it. If I was careful, and lucky.

You might be careful, but you’re just a kid. Dad should be doing this. He was smart and strong, and if someone turned him into a walking corpse, you don’t have a chance.

But I was all there was. What else was I going to do?

Skip town. Get the hell out.

Yeah, right. In the snow. With no car. That sounded like a way to get caught by something or someone. And not a nice way, either.

I put my head down and lengthened my stride, still sticking to the building side. The sky was a freezing, aching blue, clouds blinking over the lens of the heavens. Some of them were heavy gray, a thick billowing edge trailing infinity in its wake.

I didn’t look back to see if Graves was doing what I’d told him. He was on his own for the next few hours, until I was sure it was safe for me to go home.

Until I was sure I wouldn’t bring anything home with me.

The transit center was two streets over. I stood looking at a map of downtown and finally found Burke and 72^nd on the edge, where the streets started to bleed away into the suburbs. Only one bus went out that way. I checked the sky, traced the route with my fingertips, looked for escapes. There weren’t any.

This would be a lot easier if I had the truck. Come on, Dru. Plan. Use that brain.

I stood staring at the transit map, willing it to show me something different. I needed to make sure my trail was clear, go home, and plan.

A bolt of glassy pain lanced through the center of my brain. I sucked in a breath, flinching, but it passed as soon as it had come, leaving only a ringing sound in its wake, like a wet wineglass stroked just right. Everything else was drowned in silence like deep water.

I looked up.

The world stood frozen in sharp detail. The buses were caught mid-idle, clouds of breath hanging out of everyone’s mouth, each puff of exhaust or breath solid like wax castings. A guy in a long dark coat was flicking away a cigarette butt, its smoke trailing thinly from his fingers like a leash. People stood, balanced on one foot or