Strange Angels

descended.

It was the funniest thing. He did look like an angel, back from the dead. I choked on a sob, stared in wonderment.

The truck whined, chain-clad tires clattering, and heaved back. Thin light fell through the hole in the door, the walls on either side busted too. The engine died and Graves was scrabbling out of the truck. I was only barely aware of this, because the fight was still going on, and I was beginning to get the idea that it was more than a little one-sided.

And our side wasn’t the winning one.

Sergej knocked down the wulfen like they were bowling pins and Christophe moved in again. He was shouting, but my ears were ringing too badly to hear it. He feinted, reversing to claw at the sucker’s face as they closed, and I suddenly knew how the next few moments were going to play out. Christophe was slow and wounded, even though he was moving faster than anything human had a right to, and Sergej . . . He jerked a hand in a careless sweep and a wulf went flying, hitting the wall with a crunch of bones snapping and sliding down.

Cold air swarmed across my face, full of the smell of snow and coppery blood. Sergej spread his arms, inhaling as I did, a cloud of darkness crawling down from his eyes to bleed into his mouth, sliding down his throat in thin rivulets. The air popped and prickled with ice; the world slowed down again as Graves’s hand closed around my arm and what he was shouting roared into my ears.

“Come on, Dru, let’s go!”

My chest expanded, ribs popping as I took in the deepest breath of my life. Christophe crouched, fingers tented on the blood-slick floor, and his sides heaved. He looked very tired, and the blood coating him dripped, droplets hanging in the air as he gathered himself.

The wulfen didn’t pause. They were still circling the sucker, clawing at him, but something invisible parried their strikes. The one who had hit the wall was just lying there, the fur running off him and the face—a young boy’s face—rising out from under its sliding textures.

The ringing came again as I shook free of Graves’s clutching fingers. My hands snapped out, hard, as if I was throwing a dodgeball, and something flinty and hot hit me in the stomach, boiling like water just after you throw macaroni in. The locket burned against my palm, silver scorching.

Gran’s owl, glittering snowy white, arrowed over my head like a bullet, a streak of feathers and a cruel curved beak. Black claws extended, and this time it didn’t miss. It caught Sergej right in the face, raking hard and sharp as the second hex I’d ever thrown in my life smashed into him with a sound like a huge Chinese gong I’d seen on a game show once. Glass broke, tinkling, the chandelier overhead veering drunkenly, lightbulbs popping. Christophe hit him at the same time, a leaping roundhouse kick that came all the way up from the floor and cracked against the sucker’s jaw as the owl sheared away, its wings snapping once as it turned on a dime and shot away like a pinball.

“Come on!” Graves yelled, hauling me as the sucker flew backward. The wulfen followed, and the one knocked into the wall shook himself and leaped to his feet, the fur flowing back down over him, bones crackling as he changed once again.

I stared, my mouth hanging open like I was some sort of idiot.

“Get her out of here!” Christophe roared, and Graves pulled me along as a massive sound—like a pipe organ being smacked with the world’s biggest feedback squeal and pumped through every amplifier, from every crappy garage band ever put together—tore the air into shivering bits.

I didn’t resist as Graves dragged me. The gun was still in my hand, dangling, and I had locked my fingers outside the trigger guard the way Dad always told me to. Crashing sounds deeper in the house and high yapping howls from outside told me we weren’t alone. Shadows filled the door, and Graves had to put up his arm, elbow out, like the prow of a ship. I crowded behind him, clinging to his waist with my free arm as the wulfen poured past. Their eyes flamed with yellow and their fur touched me, sandpaper-rasping, thin iron-gray winter light falling around us as the wulfen somehow twisted and ran like ink on wet paper. They poured past us, unlikely saviors, and I began to think we might have a chance.

It ended, my arm fell away from him, and Graves dragged me down the steps, his fingers digging into my arm right where I had a bruise. The pain jolted up through my neck, exploding in my head, and I found out my cheeks were wet. I was making little hitching sounds and my throat burned. Snow whirled down, blanketing the world. The wide expanse of driveway was starred with paw prints fast blurring under the onslaught. There would be no proof of them in a few minutes.

They didn’t even touch us. And Christophe . . .

He was right. Dad and I were amateurs. There was no way we could have fought something like that.

And my mother . . .

Graves was swearing steadily, in a high breathy voice. He opened the driver’s door and shoved me in, hopped up after me. It was still warm, and I collapsed against the passenger window, glass cold against my fevered forehead. I stuffed Mom’s locket in my pocket, shoving it deep like a secret. My fingers were numb, and my palm burned.

“Jesus Christ,” Graves said. “Are you okay?”

No. No way was I okay. I licked my lips with a dry tongue. “Christophe?” I whispered.

“Scared the hell out of me,” he whispered back. “Showed up with those wulfen things; guess they’re on his side after all. Told me to drive right through the wall, that you’d die if I didn’t. Got up on the fucking hood and flew. Far out.” His arm snaked over my shoulder. “Far fucking out. Dru?”

I peeled myself away from the nice cold glass and collapsed against him, burying my nose in the soft warm spot between his shoulder and his throat. He hugged me, resting his chin on my wet hair, and this time it was okay that we were both crying. We clung together like shipwreck survivors, and snow covered the cracked windshield with soft, deadly kisses.

CHAPTER 28

I had my face in Graves’s narrow chest, and I was okay with that. He smelled good, and he was warm. The tears had trickled away, and his chin still rested on the top of my head. The windows were screened with breath-fog and with snow clinging to every surface it could find.

I could hear Graves’s heart, too, ticking away. Just like a clock, but without the eerie meanness of the sucker’s pulse. It was a clean sound, and it meant I wasn’t alone. I hadn’t been this close to anyone in a while.

Except him.

The door opened and a blast of chilly air scoured the inside of the truck cab. Someone climbed into the driver’s side. It was a bit of a crowd, but the truck was big and the bench seat was long.

There was a long silence, a jingling sound as someone touched the keys in the ignition. Graves said nothing, so I figured it was okay.

And really, I didn’t care. The whole world could have gone up in flames at that point and I wouldn’t have given a rat’s patootie.

A breath of apples touched the cold stillness. “Please tell me she’s all right,” Christophe finally said.

“She’s okay.” Graves didn’t move. His chin settled more firmly atop my head and his arms tightened a fraction, that was all. “A bit beat up, but still breathing. She seems okay.”

“Thank God.” The djamphir let out a long, shaky breath. There was a scraping sound, and the engine turned over. The truck settled into running again, and the heater came on. Cool air poured through the vents. “Thank God again.”

“What happens now?” Graves wanted to know. I did too, but I didn’t feel like picking my head up and looking at either of them.

A slight sound of wet material as Christophe shrugged. “I take you out in the field and you get extracted. She’ll go to the Schola. I’m going to vanish.”

“Because there’s a traitor,” Graves supplied, and I was glad he was talking so I didn’t have to.

“Yes.” Christophe laughed, another bitter little sound. “This was my safe zone. There was no way Sergej