Strange Angels

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 ghost.

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?”

I suppose he was asking because his face was in my hair, his legs twisted with mine, and he was holding onto my wrists so hard it hurt, like he had steel bands in his fingers. “Get off me!” I managed, before I was well on my way to suffocating.

“Yeah, she’s okay.” Graves cocked his head, looking at us both.

“Perhaps.” Christophe let go of me—not fast enough, I might add. The pins and needles running through my skin peaked, and I curled into a ball on the floor, whooping in a gigantic, never-ending breath flavored with the ghost of apples fighting through the moldy feather-scent. The hall light was on, a rectangle of warm yellow on the floor, and I began to dry-retch.

It didn’t feel good.

“Damn it.” Christophe made it to his feet in a single curling, fluid motion. His hair was slicked down against his head, dark and sleek. “God and Hell both damn it. I didn’t think he’d send that.”

“Who? Who would send—someone sent that?” Graves’s knees were all but knocking together. It sounded like his teeth were chattering, too, but his eyes burned feverish-green. “Holy shit. What the hell was it?”

“A wingéd serpent, come to rob the nest.” Christophe shouldered him aside and checked the window. “She must have let it in, thinking it was someone else. Or . . . What I wouldn’t give to know—” He halted, staring at the glass and the river of snow whirling down, some of it brushing the pane with little spidery sounds. “He must think she’s close to blooming. But I didn’t know he had access to a dreamstealer—only the Maharaja breed them.” Frustration pulled his tone taut, edged each word with steel.

Can I die now? I dry-retched again. It felt like all my innards were trying to crawl out the hard way. I thought I was outside. I know that house. That was where we lived Before.

Before the world changed. Before Mom—

Could I find it again? I probably could. The memory wasn’t fading like other dreams. Instead, it was sharp- etched, each individual owl feather shaded just so, every twist of the oak’s branches easily remembered, burned into the space behind my eyelids. But my body folded up on itself in revolt, each muscle locking down. God, what’s happening to me?

Christophe drummed his fingers on the window. The sound went straight through my head and I curled into a tighter ball. “If it was clear, I could track it. Especially now that it’s wounded.” He cast one bright glance over his shoulder. “That was a smart move, skinchanger, to hit between them.”

“Thanks.” Graves didn’t sound like he accepted the compliment.

I coughed, swallowed, and hoped I wouldn’t throw up for real. Would someone mind cluing me in? But it seemed pretty obvious—something hinky had come up to the window, and I’d mistaken it for Granmama’s owl.

Or had I? I’d been gone, not here at all. I knew Gran’s owl, and I knew that house. “It was from Before,” I managed, through teeth tight-locking together. I was cold as if I’d been wandering out in the snow.

Hadn’t I been?

“Get water.” Christophe grabbed Graves, shoved him toward the door, and shook his hands like they had something icky on them as soon as he let go. “Get a glass of water. Hurry.”

Graves bolted, his curlywild hair all but standing up. I heard him bouncing down the stairs far too quickly, careering off the walls.

Christophe turned away from the window and dropped to his knees beside me. “Stupid,” he hissed. His eyes were burning, and when I managed to tilt my head and look up there were dimples in his lower lip—where the fangs slid out from under the top lip and touched, ever so gently.

I couldn’t even care. I was too busy.

What, me? What did I do? My heart gave an amazing leap and settled into pounding in my chest. It was getting harder to get air in through the retching, little sips of apples mixing with the fading cloy of rotting feathers. It was funny, it didn’t seem like my body was rejecting dinner. It was more like a full-body spasm forcing a dry little sound up through the pipe of my throat and out of my mouth.

Christophe leaned down. His hands cupped my face, twisting my neck awkwardly. “You will breathe,” he said calmly. Those eyes glared blue at me, colder than a thin winter sky. Snow hissed against the window, and Graves