He flailed his arms.
He used the new words, rearranging them into a number of different patterns.
Nothing worked.
Climbing up and over a snowbank, he brushed off the end of a bench and flopped down onto the cleared spot.
The pigeons settled happily.
His vision slightly impaired by a fan of tail feathers, Samuel watched a police car make a tight U-turn across Carlton Street and pull up more or less in front of him. The driver’s name was Police Constable Jack Brooks, his partner, Police Constable Marri Margaret Patton. They sat and stared for a full minute. He could feel their mood lightening as they studied him, and he knew he should be glad he’d added a little joy to their day but, preoccupied by the sudden warmth dribbling down behind his left ear, he found he didn’t much care.
Finally, they got out of the car and waded through the snow toward him, valiantly but unsuccessfully attempting to suppress snickers.
“Are you, uh, all right under there?”
Samuel sighed and spat out a feather. “Sure,” he answered shortly.
“Have you tried standing up?”
He stood. Wings flapped. He could see PC Patton’s lips move, but he couldn’t hear what she was saying above the noise. He sat down again. The pigeons settled.
After a moment of near hysterical laughter, the police settled as well.
Fighting to catch his breath, PC Brooks managed to gasp, “Are you feeding them?”
“As if.” If he was feeding them, he could stop. And they’d leave. “They want to be with me ’cause I’m an angel.”
“An angel?”
“Yeah; I guess it’s that dove thing.”
“These are pigeons.”
“Same old.”
As three birds squabbled over position, PC Brooks got his first unobstructed look at facial features and knocked five years off his original estimate of the young man’s age. “What’s your name, son?”
“Samuel.”
“Samuel what?”
“Just Samuel.”
“And you’re an angel?”
“Yes.”
“If you’re an angel, where are your wings?” Beside him, he heard his partner smother a snort.
Samuel sighed and spit out another feather. “I’m not that kind of angel.” Without much enthusiasm, he added, “But I can make my head light up.”
“Maybe next time.” Frowning slightly, PC Brooks took a closer look, found his gaze met and held, found himself watching the gold flecks in the brown eyes swirl into soft luminescence. He blinked and forced himself to look away. “What are you on, Samuel?”
“Concrete and fiberglass.”
“Uh-huh. Look, son, it’s Christmas Day, why don’t you go home.”
“I can’t!”
The pigeons took flight, circled once, and settled again.
PC Patton took her partner by the sleeve and dragged him a few steps away. “It’s not against the law to be covered in pigeons,” she reminded him, grinning broadly.
“I know.”
“Neither is it against the law to impersonate an angel.” She glanced back over her shoulder. “Whatever he’s on…”
“Concrete and fiberglass.”
“…he’s not a danger to himself or society, and he’s probably fairly warm under there.”
“But it’s Christmas.”
So it was. She sighed, watched her breath blossom in the frosty air, and turned back toward the bench. “Why don’t you get in the car and we’ll take you somewhere you can get some Christmas dinner.”
“Can the pigeons come?”
“No.”
That was the best news he’d heard in a while.
The pigeons, who recognized the police as Nice Dark Targets, refused to cooperate.
Samuel finally backed up about twenty feet, raced forward, and flung himself into the back of the squad car, giving PC Patton about six seconds to slam the door before the birds caught up. When the first bird hit the window, she almost peed herself, she was laughing so hard.
Darkness had emerged just outside Waverton for a reason. The tiny town was not only far enough off the beaten track that a Keeper wouldn’t stumble on it by accident, it was fairly close to the bloated population base along the Canada/U.S. border—there was a limited amount of trouble that could be caused without active human participation and darkness didn’t like to waste time. Parts of central Russia, Africa, and Nevada also fit the geographic criteria, but appearing in any of those areas would have been redundant at best.
She found a pair of denim overalls, black canvas sneakers, and a nylon jacket in what had been the office of J. Henry and Sons Auto Repair. While appreciative of the chaos she could cause walking around naked, keeping a lower profile seemed the smarter move. The outfit wasn’t stylish, but it was serviceable.
Although to her surprise, she was a little concerned that the overalls made her look fat.
Which soon became a minor problem.
Once in the world, she should have been able to move instantaneously from place to place, but something seemed to be stopping her. It didn’t take long to figure out what. While walking the four and half kilometers into town, she decided that staying as far away from the light as possible was no longer an option; her new plan involved finding him and kicking his holier than thou butt around the block a few times. What had he been thinking?
Actually, given which set he’d gotten, she had a pretty good idea of what he’d been thinking.
“Men,” she’d snarled at a hydro pole, left forearm tucked under her breasts to stop the painful bouncing. “They’re all alike.”
The power went off in half the county.
Which made her feel only half better.
She’d planned on finding a ride south as soon as she got to Waverton, twisting the weak and pitiful will of some poor mortal to her bidding. Unfortunately, there was no one around; the only thing moving on Main Street was the random blinking of a string of Christmas lights hung in the window of one of the closed businesses. She could have shot a cannon off in any direction and not hit a soul. And if she’d had a cannon, she would have shot it off.
As she didn’t…
The bank
