Strange Angels

The garage door opened and Graves hopped in. “It’s getting colder,” he announced. “And I’ve got the last boxes in. Have to hand it to you, Dru, it’s packed tighter than Bletch’s . . .” The words died.

Christophe pulled. I came up in a rush—he was strong. Not regular wiry-strong, or even as thoughtlessly twitchy-strong as Graves had been with the werwulf imprint burning in him. He pulled me up as if I was a piece of paper, and the only thing scarier than the strength was the sense of restraint, like he could crush my wrist if he chose to. I ended up too close to him, and he pulled again, as if he wanted me even closer.

I stepped away and twisted my hand, breaking toward his thumb. That’s the weakest part of any grip. My shoulder protested, and so did my back. I was going to have to find some aspirin or something.

He did let me go—but I wasn’t sure, suddenly, that I could have pulled away if he hadn’t let me.

He wasn’t that strong before. Or was he, and just not showing it?

Graves stood stock-still, watching us both.

“Keys, Dru.” Christophe’s teeth gleamed in the weird stormlight, one of his wide feral smiles. “The sun’s fading, and if I can feel it, we can bet Sergej can too.”

I struggled with this, briefly. I drove when Dad got tired, so I knew the truck better than anyone else right now. I knew how it shimmied when it hit a certain number of miles per hour and how to tap the brakes in snow; I knew how it was likely to wriggle its butt when it was packed to the gills and a whole host of other little things. I also really didn’t like the idea of handing over my keys to this kid, no matter how much August vouched for him.

But August had. And I’d wanted someone to take care of me, hadn’t I?

I just hadn’t thought it would be some kid my own age, no matter how mature he seemed. If this was the “best” the Order had . . .

And I didn’t trust him enough. He was just too . . . dangerous. “Where are we going?” I finally said.

“The extraction point’s in the southeast section of town. Burke and 72^nd. If you’d have come down there when I invited you, before Sergej knew for certain you even existed, I could have gotten you out of town and safe in the Schola in a trice.” Another easy shrug. “But we have to work with what we’ve got, now. Give me the keys, Dru.”

My bag lay on the counter. I dug in it for a moment, and my keychain jangled as I finally fished it out. “It handles weird when it’s loaded. I should drive.”

“Dru.” Christophe’s tone was icy. “If you want to get out of this alive, you’d best do as I say.”

Well, gee, when you put it like that . . .

“Wait a second.” Graves took two long swinging steps forward. His hair all but snapped and crackled with electricity. “She’s driven the thing before, all the way across town in a whiteout. And it’s her truck.”

“I didn’t ask you to yap, dog-boy.” Christophe made a sudden swift movement, but I saw him coming and yanked the keys back.

It was a close thing—his fingers grazed mine and I skipped nervously to the side, clearing the breakfast bar and dragging my bag with me. It fell, the strap fetching up against my free hand, and everything inside it shifted. That put me between the two of them, and right in the cold draft from the garage.

Get the situation under control, Dru. “Let’s get this straight.” I had to clear my throat, because the look on Christophe’s face—eyebrows drawn together a fraction, eyes burning, mouth in a tight line with no hint of a smile—made him look twice as dangerous.

And, I had to admit, very pretty, especially with his hair shifting back and forth. That smell of his should have been ludicrous, but it just made me hungry.

I wet my lips with my tongue, a quick nervous flick. “It’s my truck, I’ll drive. You’ll stop making nasty comments to my friend. We’ll all get along until we get out of town, and when we do that you can go back to your Order and Graves and I will be on our way.” The wind shifted again outside, its moan veering toward a crescendo. The yellow-green light made everything look bruised, and a queer ringing under the sound of the wind threatened to fill my ears.

I tasted wax oranges, and my vision wavered for a bare half-second.

Not now, dammit. This is important. I pushed it aside and kept my gaze locked with Christophe’s, daring him.

Once, in this little podunk outside St. Petersburg, we’d run across a huge beast of a dog guarding a place we really needed to get into. Dad didn’t have the touch, but he showed me something else that day. He called it “starin’ down, before the throwin’ down, honey.” It meant just looking at the thing in your way as if it was no bigger than a pea, making up your mind that it wasn’t going to scare you or move you.

Dogs can smell fear, and sometimes people—or things from the Real World—are the same way. But ninety- nine times out of a hundred, a dog can also smell when you’re the alpha. It takes the same kind of flat look and decision to be fearless as facing down a bunch of jocks bent on harassing someone.

Shoulders square. Heart thumping, but not too hard. Eyes glazed with dust and buzzing with what I hoped was power. I gave him the look I’d practiced in the mirror so many times, and pretended I was Dad, grinning easily in a bar frequented by the Real World, hands loose and easy, one of them resting on a gun butt and the other just touching a shot glass, while I sipped at a Coke and pretended not to notice.

It should have been Dad there. He would have sorted Christophe right out.

“Where do you think you’re going to go that Sergej can’t find you?” He made another grab for the keys, but the world slowed down and I was quicker again—just by a fraction, but still. Graves sucked in a breath and I skipped backward again, hoping he had the sense to move.

“I’m not so sure he’s the problem, Chris.” I ducked through my bag’s strap and backed up again. Another few steps would get me to the door to the garage, and if I took my eyes off him I wasn’t so sure he would stay put, either.

There were a whole lot of things I wasn’t sure of anymore.

The djamphir’s hand made another swift move; my eyes darted instinctively, and things got very confused. I heard a snarl and a clatter, my feet shot out from under me, and the keys were ripped out of my hand. Something very warm and hard clamped around my throat, and Graves let out a high, yipping yell. Glass shattered.

Christophe’s hand tightened just a little, and I choked, staring up at his three-quarter profile as he looked toward the other window, the one that looked at the bit of greenbelt running at an angle beside the house.

The window he’d just thrown Graves against. Right over the spindly little kitchen table that had been here when we moved in.

He looked down at me, fangs sliding beneath his upper lip, his eyes burning. The highlights had bled out of his hair, slicking it back against his head, and his eyes were actually glowing in the bruised, ugly light slanting through the kitchen.

“I’m being patient,” he hissed, the t’s lisping slightly because of the fangs. “I’ll get you and your pet through this alive, but you have to do what I say. Got me?”

How did he do that? And the other thought, so loud I could have sworn I said it out loud. Could he teach me that?

“Sonofabitch,” Graves growled, and the obscenity shaded into a low sound that rattled broken glass as cold wind spilled into the room, laden with the flat iron tang of snow and violence. “Dru? Dru?”

He didn’t even sound human, though it was recognizably my name.

“As soon as the sun fails out here, all your neighbors will wake up.” Christophe’s fingers weren’t cutting off my air, but there wasn’t any space to wriggle, either. “I only wounded the dreamstealer; it probably crept through every window on the block and laid eggs in their sleeping bodies before dawn rose. When those young hatch, they’ll be hungry, and here you are. Such a nice little morsel.” He cocked his head slightly. “On the good side, Sergej probably doesn’t know you’re alive, but he’s suspecting, since his expensive little assassin didn’t come back, and as soon as the sun fails he’ll—Stay where you are, dog-boy!” He lifted his free hand and pointed, probably at Graves. The growling subsided a little, but it was the sound of a wolf getting ready to spring,