Strange Angels

looking at the stain on the living-room carpet, snarling at Graves when he tried to get me to eat. I’d managed to get the engine-block heater on the truck plugged in so it wouldn’t freeze, even though the garage door was still broken and useless. That was about all I could do other than roam through the house like a madwoman, staring at everyday objects as if I’d never see them again.

I spent the nights crouched in the living room with the blinds up, my back against the wall, looking out at the wasteland of snow that was the front yard and jerking myself into wakefulness every time I dozed off. After the first night I figured I’d better put the gun down, and when Graves nagged me about going to school—probably because he thought I was getting a little weird—I told him I would to shut him up.

I didn’t have the heart to tell him he was sharing a house with someone marked by a sucker. I mean, why rain on his parade? I tried to get him to go back to the mall, somewhere, anywhere away from me. It wasn’t safe around me, but he stubbornly refused, and what could I do? Beat him up? I could, but why expend the effort?

I was so tired. So, so deathly tired. At least during the safe hours of sunlight at school I was surrounded by other people, and I was fairly sure I could sleep.

Bletchley, however, had other ideas. “Are you with us, Miss Anderson?”

I stared at the whiteboard at the front of the classroom. It was a valid question. Was I with them? I didn’t think I’d ever been with them. Not the normal people, at least. Maybe there were one or two of them who had what Gran called “the touch.” Maybe there were even a few of them who’d seen something weird or inexplicable, but they’d probably forgotten it as soon as they—

“Miss Anderson?” Bletchley was delighted. Her egglike eyes swam behind her spectacles, and she picked at the bottom of her sweater—the blue one with knitted roses, this time.

I just kept seeing Dad’s face, half-chewed, the bony twitching of his fingertips. Blood on snow, and feet in heavy boots resting lightly on the unmarred top crust. The streak-headed werwulf snarling, its top lip lifting. And the hiss of the burning dog as it landed in the fountain, sulfur and stink and—

“No,” I said finally. “I don’t think I’m with you, Bletch.”

In front of me, Graves slid down in his seat as if making himself smaller. I almost thought I heard him whisper, shit.

I heartily agreed. But I was too tired to deal with Bletch’s crap. My eyes were full of sand and my entire body hurt.

A ripple went through the classroom. Bletchley stiffened and opened her mouth, but I was awake now. A nice nap ruined, not like first and second period, where I’d just put my head down on the desk and tuned the entire world out.

“As a matter of fact,” I continued flatly, “I was just wondering why I was sitting here listening to you, when you obviously don’t like anyone under twenty-one very much. It’s like you only think real life starts when you can legally buy a beer or something. But then I realized another thing. You’re scared of us.”

“Miss Anderson—” Bletch began, but the words just kept spilling out. Despite the thin little voice in my head telling me that I shouldn’t be saying the things I was thinking. Even if they were true.

Adults probably listen to that voice a lot. Did Dad ever stop telling me what he was thinking? What hadn’t he told me?

I opened my mouth and had no idea what would come out next. “You probably thought teaching would be easy. A whole classful of helpless little snots for you to bully.” I grabbed for my bag, made it to my feet, and almost knocked the whole desk over. Barked my hip a good one, and it added to the garden of bruises and scrapes all over my body. Pretty soon the sucker-boy would find me and I wouldn’t feel anything ever again. “More every year, and they’re always so easy to push around. Because you’ve got the power, right?”

“Sit down!” she hissed. Bright spots stood out on her withered cheeks, just as if someone had stamped her with one of those ink things they pop on your hand at clubs to prove you’ve paid the door fee.

I wasn’t going to sit down. She probably didn’t think I would, either, but maybe she figured it was worth a try.

“You’ve got all the power, and nobody would listen to us anyway. Because we’re just kids. Who cares about us?” I ducked through my bag strap. It was too heavy, but that was because of what was in it. Graves made a restless movement, his hair and coat rustling.

Bletch inhaled and opened her mouth again to tell me to sit down or shut up. If I gave a damn, it might have even stopped me—that’s what they count on, the hard teachers. They count on the weight of authority to get to you before a protest can even get halfway out of your mouth.

Fury ignited behind my breastbone, a hot glow like coals blooming into something sharp and dangerous. It was the same old crap—someone thinking they can push you around because you’re young, because you’re helpless. You had to just sit there and take it because you were under a certain number, because you weren’t a real person yet; you could be picked up and dropped like a toy, left behind or thrown away—

“I don’t think so,” I continued, right over the top of her. “I think every goddamn kid you ever bullied is going to haunt you one day. And I hope you choke on it!” I didn’t realize I was yelling until I had to fill my lungs with a gasping sound that would have been funny if not for what happened next.

Bletch’s eyes bugged out of her head. She buckled, grabbing at her desk with one claw, the other clutching vainly at her throat, and made a hoarse, inhuman cawing noise.

The first one to start screaming was a pretty little brunette in the front row. I thought her name was Heather; she was wearing, of all things, a cheerleader’s uniform. Why she bothered with umpteen feet of snow on the ground was beyond me. But right now her face was distorted with shock, and she let out a shriek that might have done a train justice. The sound made a few kids jump, and another one—a brunet boy with a thick neck and a jock’s varsity jacket—let out a high-pitched squeal that harmonized oddly.

I finished gasping for air and stared at the teacher, who folded down like a piece of wet laundry let loose from the line. She thudded to her knees, and her face turned a weird plummy color. The bugging of her eyes began to seem natural and inevitable, but a faint alarm sounded in the back of my head. Other kids were screaming now too.

My gaze snapped away to the whiteboard. It was chattering madly against the wall, held on only by brackets. The instant I looked at it, there was a hollow cracking sound, and it fell, slamming onto the floor and actually breaking, a gigantic rip zigzagging horizontally across it.

A sensation like steam escaping through a valve slid through me, a sense of exquisite release.

Bletchley gasped and fell on her side, but regular color started to return to her face. She was breathing now. Someone retched in the back row, and my head snapped aside as if I’d been slapped, my cheek stinging. The air was thick with crawling electricity, suddenly hot as summer and humid like a thunderstorm was approaching.

Graves sat utterly still in the middle of kids who were getting up out of their chairs or screaming. His eyes were green flame, and his earring winked, a single silver star. His mouth was slightly open, as if he’d just had a hell of a good idea and was giving it such deep consideration the rest of his face had declared a vacation.

I turned around, my legs shaking like I’d just finished a hard five-mile run, and made it to the door. A new noise cut through the bedlam—the chimes for class ending, ringing in the middle of the hour. Now that was weird.

I let out a jagged sound that might have been a laugh, and fled.

* * *

I was four blocks away and still moving at a pretty good clip when his hand tangled in my coat, getting a good handful of my hair too, and he yanked me backward. I’d’ve gone down in a heap if he hadn’t shoved me upright, but as it was I overcorrected and we both fell over into a small mountain of dirty scudge-snow shoved aside from the street. I wasn’t wearing my gloves or a scarf. Snow burned my hands as I tried to struggle to my feet. My bag got tangled up, and Graves cussed me a blue streak, finishing up with, “—the hell did you do that for?”

“Boy,” he continued, bouncing up off the frozen-solid drift like he was one of those weighted-at-the-bottom dolls, “you sure know how to throw a party. I’ve been bitten, beat up, tied to a bed, James Bonded out, and now you finish off by choking a goddamn teacher!”

I didn’t try to say I hadn’t been touching her. There was no point. I’d been ill-wishing her—