Strange Angels

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 with 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.