The overweight man behind me shifted his family-sized bag of potato chips from one arm to the other and coughed, all the while glaring at the back of the old lady’s head.
“Well, if I must choose,” she said, drawing out her words, “then I suppose I should get on with it.”
Two more people joined the line, and when I glanced back, I could see everyone growing more impatient.
My stomach rumbled again, and I thought about taking a bite of my pizza pocket before it cooled off too much.
The old lady extended an arthritic finger, but instead of pointing to a lottery ticket, she ran down the first column of tickets. Then she did the same for the second column. What was she waiting for, one of them to speak to her?
As she started down the third column, the moment her finger passed the fourth ticket, I felt a strange tickling sensation at the back of my neck. It was almost as if someone were breathing gently on my skin.
“That one,” I said, reaching around her and pointing to the ticket.
She turned to me, a startled expression on her face. “Pardon me, young miss?”
“That’s the lucky one,” I said, feeling my cheeks grow hot when I saw the clerk give me a look of warning.
“You’re too young to play the lotto,” he said.
The old woman spun back toward him and tapped the ticket. “She’s not playing it, I am. I choose that one.”
With one more glance at me, the clerk pulled the ticket from the row and rang up the purchase.
When the old woman paid for it, she put the ticket down on the counter. Using one of the coins the clerk had given her for change, she began to scratch.
“Oh, come on, lady,” the overweight man behind me said.
“Patience, young man.” She looked up at the clerk. “Everyone is in such a hurry these days. That’s the problem with the world.”
The clerk had reached his limit. “If you could step aside, ma’am, there are other people in line.”
“But I’m not finished,” the old woman said. With a quick look at me, flashing a bright smile, she handed the ticket to the clerk. “It seems the young lady was right. It’s a winner.”
The clerk narrowed his eyes as he looked down at it. “A hundred bucks,” he said. “Huh.”
“I’ll take it in twenties,” the old woman said. “It may not be enough to pay for my sister’s medication, but every little bit helps.”
The clerk dealt out the bills to her, and she scooped them up in her gnarled hand. Before she stepped out of line, she faced me.
“Thank you for your help, young lady.” To my surprise, she held out a twenty-dollar bill to me. “At least this will pay for your snack.”
Numbly, I accepted the money. “Uh, thank you,” I said. I hadn’t assisted her for any other reason than to get her to hurry up, and wasn’t sure I should be taking a reward for it.
Before I could say anything more, she ambled away, and the clerk cleared his throat.
“Is that everything, miss?”
Behind me, the overweight man peered over my shoulder. “You wouldn’t happen to know which of the other tickets are winners, would ya?”
“Uh,” I said. “No.” I gave the twenty to the clerk. “Just these.”
After I got my change back, I hurried out of the store, aware that the other customers in line were talking about what had just happened.
I started down the street, wanting to put as much distance between me and the convenience store as I could, but then I stopped short.
I wondered if that tickling sensation was the flip side of the intuition that had upset my stomach, only telling me that something good would happen rather than something bad.
If that were the case, then I wouldn’t have to panhandle for enough money for a bus ride to Denver.
My first thought was going to a casino. With this ability, I could clean up. Then I realized they would never let me in the front door, even if I tried to make myself look older.
The only other option I had was to get someone to help me. I didn’t want to let anyone know what I could do; if I fell in with the wrong person, things could get bad in a hurry.
Back in the parking lot, I saw the old lady still in her silver Buick. She was going through her purse; I assumed she was looking for her car keys.
Before I could change my mind, I raced over to her.
“Hello, Ma’am,” I said.
When she looked up, her eyes widened in surprise. “Oh, hello, dear.”
“I couldn’t help but overhear your sister is sick.”
“Yes. Terrible thing. She’s been beside herself since the doctor told her. I asked my pharmacist about the cost of insulin. Outrageous!”
“I think I might be able to help you, if you can help me.”
“Help me?” she asked, then looked at her purse. “Oh, the lottery ticket?”
“I have a system,” I said. At the doubtful look she gave me, I said, “I have a relative who works for the lottery company. He gave me a few hints on how to pick winning tickets.” Even if I wanted to tell the truth, she wouldn’t believe me.
“A system, you say?”
“You can make enough to cover her prescriptions. I just need a couple hundred bucks to get a bus home.”
“Home? Why don’t you ask your family to help you?”
“They don’t know I’m coming. I was at a camp, but I hated it there.”
The old lady pursed her lips in thought, but she came to a decision quickly. “Ordinarily, I wouldn’t do anything like this, but my sister is in a bad situation. After all, half the profits of the lotto go to charity, right?”
“Right,” I said, though I really didn’t know if that was a fact or not.
“By the way, my name’s Maggy Higgs.”
“Serena,” I said.
Maggy smiled and nodded toward the passenger seat. “Hop in.”
Chapter Fourteen
After a few hours, Maggy and I had made a little over two-thousand dollars from a dozen different convenient stores.
Assuring me that was more than enough to pay for her sister’s insulin for a year, she handed me a stack of bills for my share, and she offered me a real meal and a place to sleep for the night.
“I’ve really got to get back home,” I said.
“You’re such an angel,” she said, and it was all I could do to keep my face blank. Here I was using her, and she was giving me compliments. She asked, “Are you sure there’s nothing I can do to help you? I could phone your folks, let them know you’re coming.”
“They don’t know I’m not at the camp,” I said, hating that I had to lie to her. “You could drop me off at the bus station.”
She agreed to give me a ride.
On the way there, I thought about my ability while Maggy gabbed on about her sister.
I couldn’t tell the future. Maggy had wanted to play one of the regular lotteries, but when she filled out the card, I had no sensation telling me which numbers to pick. The scratch tickets were already pre-set when they sat in the display.
In the medical center in Middleton, my upset stomach didn’t happen until Mr. Ulrich was right there. This morning, the illness didn’t strike me until I was about to get in the pickup—the fight at the dormitory had already been underway. If I’d had a premonition, I would have been aware of danger before it started.
Still, if I could sense if something was going to affect me for good or bad, then that gave me an advantage.
Maggy dropped me off at the station.
Once we said our goodbyes, I went and purchased a ticket to Denver on the next bus, which was leaving before midnight. With two hours to wait, I curled up on the end of a bench and closed my eyes.
I was on the verge of falling asleep when I felt a sharp cramp in my gut.
After everything I’d been through, I wasn’t going to ignore the warning. Opening my eyes again, I scoured the lobby, looking for signs of danger.
No one seemed to be looking in my direction
.
An acid taste rose in my throat, and I thought I was going to throw up. As calmly as I could, I stood up and walked to the washroom. My stomach twisted painfully, and I realized that it was a warning. Like the medical center in Middleton, the bus station had bars over the windows.
I turned back and cracked the bathroom door open just as two men entered the station through the main doors. I let the door ease back, but kept it open a hair and looked out.
One of them was a very large, bald man with dark, mean eyes. He scanned the other passengers waiting in the lobby. He wasn’t a Grigori: I didn’t feel that electric tug.
The other person was Mr. Ulrich, and he seemed upset. Was he angry? Afraid? He’d always seemed kind and concerned for my well-being, but he worked for an organization that put Jenny—who was as twisted a person as I’d ever met, even in the Center—in charge of a camp of kids. Since she, a teenager, was a higher rank than Mr. Ulrich, I had to assume that he was little more than a servant to the Grigori. He would have to do as they commanded, and I didn’t trust their intentions.
It was better to avoid Mr. Ulrich and his new partner.
The two of them headed toward the ticket counter. It was a safe bet they were going to ask if anyone had seen me.
I had to get out of there, somehow, but the moment I opened the door, one of them might spot me.
Despite my urge to run for it, I held still.
The clerk, after listening to what Mr. Ulrich said, nodded and made a waving motion to the lobby.
Both Mr. Ulrich and the large man looked around again.
I bit back a curse. Now they knew I was here. There was no way they were going to leave without searching the station thoroughly. How long before they investigated the ladies’ room?
Mr. Ulrich and the other man separated and began to walk around the station, taking a good look at anyone wearing a hoodie or a hat.
I had to figure a way out of this. My father would never have made this kind of blunder.
The thought of him gave me an idea.
I spotted a fire alarm on the wall beside the washroom doors. When I was sure Mr. Ulrich and the large man were looking away, I reached out and pulled it. It was a prank I’d played once before in school. I knew the sprinklers wouldn’t kick on—the modern ones wouldn’t unless they detected a rise in heat or smoke. The sound, on the other hand, was loud and shrill.
Automatically, everyone in the station jumped to their feet, and several people raced for the exit.
Keeping an eye on my pursuers, I quickly fell into step beside a man and a woman who were leading their young boy to the doors. I hoped I would blend in and look like one of the family.
My stomach stopped churning, and the sense of relief as I got out of the building unnoticed was enough to make me dizzy.
Under the cover of night, I walked away from the bus station and never looked back to see if anyone was following.
* * *
I wasn’t going to walk the five hundred miles to Denver, but it was clear the Grigori were on the lookout for me. I had to avoid the most obvious places to find a ride out of Salt Lake City.
There was no way I had enough money for a taxi, and I was still too nervous to hitch. Even with the powers of the Grigori inside me, I’d heard too many horror stories about getting into the wrong vehicle.
As a semi roared past me, I got the notion that I might be able to stow away in the cab of one of the large transports, if I could find one that was heading to Denver.
The first thing I did was to find a phone booth, and opened the telephone book to trucking companies. I ran my finger down the list, and when I felt a tingle on the back of my neck, I stopped and read the address.
As long as I paid attention to the signals I was getting from the angel I was hosting, I would be fine.
* * *
I spent six hours cramped in the sleeper compartment of the only truck in the transport company’s lot that gave me a tingle when I touched it. It was all I could do to stay silent during the trip, but the driver—a skinny man with a mullet-style haircut and two-week’s stubble on his chin—never even looked in the back. He spent the entire trip listening to a self-help book on tape, and repeating the instructor’s lessons aloud.
It was early afternoon when we arrived in Denver. I slipped out of the cab when the driver went into the warehouse office to check in.
No one noticed me as I casually walked away.
I found another phone book and looked up the address of my father’s apartment. I headed there after stopping at a taco truck for a quick and greasy diner.
My father had a one-bedroom apartment in a building with twenty-four units. According to the directory in the lobby, his unit was on the top level in the corner facing the Rockies and their snow-topped mountains.
I knew the apartment would be locked, and even if I thought I could talk the building manager into letting me in, I didn’t want to chance revealing who I was.
I waited at a park a few blocks away until nightfall. When I got back to the complex, I headed to the back of the building. A huge garbage bin stood near the entrance to the underground parking area, very close to the bottom rung of a fire escape. I climbed up on top of the bin, staying alert for any ill sensation in my stomach, and then jumped onto the ladder.
Once I’d reached the top level of the building, I made my way to the patio of my father’s apartment.
Just in case the place wasn’t vacant—though my senses didn’t warn me there was danger—I looked through the patio window. The front room was dark, but there was some light coming in from the streetlights. There wasn’t much in the way of furniture, and I saw a number of packing boxes scattered around the kitchen and hallway.
I tried the glass door, but it was locked. The only furniture on the patio was a chair and a round table made of thick plastic. The table was too heavy for me to lift, and the chair was too light to break the glass in the door.
On the neighbor’s patio, I saw a potted tomato plant that looked like it had enough weight to smash the glass. Making sure no one next door happened to be looking outside, I reached around the divider and grabbed the pot.
Hefting it, I was about to pitch it against the glass, but then stopped. Even above the noise of the traffic on the street below, the sound of breaking glass might bring someone to investigate.
Why couldn’t I try using the abilities I’d inherited from my father? I’d performed impossible acts over the past few days, mostly unintentional. Maybe I could use my power over water to get into the apartment, somehow.
When I’d taken the plant from the patio next door, I’d noticed a watering jug. Reaching around the barrier between the two apartments, I grabbed the handle of the container and tested it. Unable to stop myself from grinning when I felt the weight of it, I picked it up and brought it over to the glass door of my father’s place.
The latch on the door unlocked with a simple sliding motion, but it had to be done from the inside.
I had no way of knowing if my idea would work, but I tried anyway. Lifting the spout of the watering jug as high as I could, I tilted it so that the water coming out would pour directly into the crack where the door met the frame.
Under normal circumstances, most of the water would splash away and run down the glass, but I focused on making all the water seep into the crack. Instead of it running down inside the rail, I imagined the water holding form until all the space between the door and jam was filled.
Then I willed the water to hammer down on the latch.
To my surprise, the door clicked open.
Quickly, I slipped inside.
* * *
My delight in how easy it had been to break in vanished after I searched the apartment. I went through all the dresser drawers, closets, cupboards, and cardboard boxes. The only things I found were clothes, souvenirs, and a few financial records.
It occurred to me that his apartment was nothing more than a place to sleep when he wasn’t at work. I
f he had a hobby, I couldn’t find any evidence of it here. There wasn’t even a television anywhere.
If my father had written anything down about the nature of his powers, or that he’d found someone like him, then he’d either brought it with him to Middleton—which I doubted—or he’d kept it somewhere else. Either he didn’t think his apartment was a safe place, or he didn’t spend enough time at home to keep anything important there.
Near the front door, on a hook, there was a single key on a chain. I picked it up and looked at the etching on it. It was a six-digit number, but there wasn’t any indication what kind of lock the key opened. It could be for a bank or a storage facility. I hadn’t seen any receipts for a storage service, and I didn’t think going to his bank and asking if he had a deposit box would work.
I couldn’t think of any other possibilities at the moment. I was exhausted and feeling frustrated by the constant roadblocks. I put the key in my pants pocket.
Even though I’d always considered myself to be on my own, for the first time, I started to feel truly alone.
Pulling a comforter out of a cardboard box, I crawled on my father’s bed and wrapped the blanket around me.
I had no place to go and no one to turn to for help. The Grigori were looking for me, and after what had happened at Anak Acres, they were likely to lock me away under their control until they decided what to do with me.
I went over a number of desperate scenarios as I lay there in the dark.
My grandmother had shown me some kindness, but even if I contacted her, I was sure my grandfather would simply turn me over to the authorities again.
Henrietta had given me a place to stay and paid for my first trip to Denver out of the kindness of her heart. I could try calling her and asking if she had any ideas. I knew she would try to help, but then I realized that if I did so, I might be putting her at risk with the Grigori.
Maggy had helped me—or, rather, we had helped each other—but she was simply a kind old lady. I didn’t want to get her involved in my mess.
The truth was, there was no one to turn to. I was on my own, as I’d always been.
The Complete Book Of Fallen Angels Page 69
