Strange Angels

by Lili St. Crow

  The shadows kept flitting behind us. Whatever it was could have overtaken us if it was really serious about it. We were barely crawling, and I’d started to shake, hungry and sick from adrenaline all at once.

  I would have given a lot for another cheeseburger just about then. Or a strawberry shake. Or anything, really. Even some stale granola.

  But not apple pie. The thought made me feel even sicker.

  “There’s Compass Avenue.” Graves shivered, though it was warm enough with the heater blasting. “Next comes Wendell Road, and then Burke. If the map’s right.”

  I eased off the gas, ready for the truck to misbehave at any moment. The dashboard clock was still set to Florida time, an hour ahead. I was getting sick of this polar bear shit. “How do people live up here? This is insane.”

  “They dress up a lot. Do their hair. And drink. Beat their kids.” Graves shifted nervously. “They beat their kids a lot.” We rolled through two more intersections, then slowed to a creepy-crawl, the engine turning over smoothly, wipers muffled. “Why the hell are we coming out here again?”

  “Because we won’t make it out of town before dark on our own. It’s already two in the afternoon.” I peered at the sky, squinted out the windshield again.

  “We could make it. I’ve got money. We could just get the hell out of here. We could take a bus if the truck won’t—”

  “A bus. Like we wouldn’t get caught at the station waiting for the next one when the sun goes down. For God’s sake, Graves, we need help.” I wondered if I should tell him that I was seeing little darting things in the mirror. He didn’t need that to worry about. “Huh.”

  We slowed down.

  Burke and 72nd was actually a three-way intersection. Directly in front of us, where the two roads split to make a Y, a stone wall rose. There was nothing else around; the houses had petered out half a block ago and open space—weedy lots or fields, who could tell—ran away on both sides. Just over the wall on the right, a red-tiled roof peeked, little bits of color peeping out under the snow.

  “Burke and 72nd. It’s got to be that place.” I goosed the gas, pointed us toward the right fork. “Jesus. Talk about conspicuous.”

  “I’ve never been out this way.” Graves drummed his fingers on the door. “It smells bad.”

  Well, you’re the one with the super nose now. “Bad how?”

  “Rust again. And something rotting. Like a dumpster in summer.”

  I sniffed deeply but didn’t smell anything. The ringing in my head was a constant; I was used to thinking through it now. I didn’t taste anything other than hunger and the thin metal tang of exhaustion. My back hurt, my throat hurt, my arm wasn’t too happy—I was just bad all over, and ready to hand over this whole problem to someone older and more experienced.

  Why hadn’t I just given the keys to Christophe? He might still be alive if I had.

  “I wish I’d just given him the keys.” My voice broke on the last word. I snuffled up another sob, pushed it down. It was time to stop being a whiner and focus on getting us out of town.

  “I don’t.” Graves’s fingers drummed, paused. “What are we going to do, drive up to the house and walk in, announce we’re vampire hunters, and ask them pretty-please to—”

  “We’re going in to find whoever Christophe had coming to pick us up. If I’m valuable to them, they’ll help us get out of town.” Then I’m going to sleep for a week, and after that . . .

  After that, what?

  “What if they . . .” He didn’t go any further, but I knew what he was thinking.

  “Graves.” I swallowed, tried to sound hard and sure. “We’re leaving town together. Period. End of story. You got that?”

  He didn’t say anything else. I didn’t dare look at him.

  We crept along, snow now coming sideways and the truck’s springs making little sounds as the wind tried to push us into the wall. In a little while there was a driveway—obviously recently cleared—and the truck struggled through the turn as if I wasn’t controlling it. An ornate iron gate was open, swept back to either side, its curlicues heavily frosted with ice. In the middle of a vast expanse of circular driveway, a fountain lifted—some kind of shell shape with a big spike coming out of the middle. Drifts piled against the wall and the edges, but the driveway itself was clean.

  The house was three stories of massive overdoneness, a pile of pseudo-adobe. Why anyone would build a hacienda up here among the Eskimos was beyond me.

  The truck obediently turned, following the unrolling driveway. I eased it to a stop and let out a sigh. “Okay. Let’s—”

  “Holy shit.” Graves was staring past my nose, out the driver’s-side window. “Um, Dru?”

  My neck protested when I turned my head. All of a sudden every bone and muscle I owned was tired, and I had to pee like nobody’s business. Driving in a snowstorm is like pulling a sled; you work muscles you never knew you had.

  The big black gate had shaken itself free and was closing, little driblets of snow falling off like flaking skin. Ice crackled, and the sky overhead was a sheet of painted aluminum. The gate latched itself with a muffled clang, and a fresh wave of cold wind rattled it, moaning through the metal gingerbread.

  That’s either very good or very bad. I peered up at the slice of the house I could see. Warm electric lights through every window, no shadow of movement, no sense of someone home.

  It couldn’t be empty.

  “Dru?” Graves sounded very young. It occurred to me that as much as I wanted someone older and more experienced, he must want it twice as much. And I was all he had.

  The weight settled on me, heavier than ever. “I guess we go in.” If this is Christophe’s extraction point. It kind of makes sense, close to the edge of town and everything, but still . . .

  It felt hinky. Super extra hinky with a side of bad sauce.

  The engine kept running along. I could probably take out the gate with this piece of heavy metal. But if I killed the truck, we’d be out in the snow with no way to escape.

  This is where Christophe said. So why are you stalling? I put the car in park, eyed the front of the house again. The front door was a huge thing of wet black wood. They certainly like everything super-sized out here. All hail Middle America.

  I made up my mind and reached for the field box. “Stay in here. I’m going to check it out.”

  “No way. Are you crazy?” Graves shook his head like he was dislodging a bad thought. “Don’t leave me out here!”

  “Look, if I don’t come out, you drive the truck through those gates and get the hell out of here. I’ll go inside and make sure it’s safe. No reason for us both—” To get killed, I was about to say, because it was what Dad often said. “—to go in,” I amended hastily, “because someone needs to stay out here and keep the truck running in case we need to leave in a hurry. I’m trained for this.” At least, I’m better trained than you are. “I’ll do it.”

  “Jesus.” Graves stared at me. His eyes were very, very green. “You’ve got a death wish.”

  Right now I have a bathroom-and-sleep-somewhere-safe wish, kid. “No, I don’t. I want to get out of this alive and I want to get you out of this alive. Look, just stay here and keep the motor running. You know how to drive?”

  “Are you kidding?” The look he gave me qualified as shocked. “I ride the bus.”

  Oh yeah, this just keeps getting better. “Don’t worry. It’s a piece of cake.” I opened the field box, checked the gun. The clicks of the clip sliding out and back in, the safety checked, were very loud in the snowy silence, the wind suddenly hushing to a damp not-sound.

  “Oh yeah? What if the door’s locked, Dru?”

  I actually smiled. At least, the corners of my mouth pulled up. “Places like this are never locked,” I said quietly, and unlocked my door.

  As soon as I slammed the door shut the wind came back, random curls flying into my eyes, driving snow against my cheeks, white flakes sticking to them. I went around the front, n
ot looking through the windshield—if I did, I would only see Graves looking pale and scared, and I didn’t need that.

  I was scared enough for both of us.

  There were only three steps leading up to the door. Big concrete urns that might have held plants were now only mounded with snow.

  There’s nothing growing in here. It’s all concrete. I shivered—it wasn’t as cold as you’d think, but snow tickled me with little wet fingers, clinging to my eyelashes and soaking through my sneakers.

  I touched the door, closed my hand around the knob. It turned easily, and I heard a soft, passionless sound—an owl’s throaty who? who?

  I looked back over my shoulder. No sign of Gran’s owl, but the call came again, muffled like feathered wings. The truck kept running, smooth as silk. The door opened silently, snow blowing in past me.

  Through the door, then, into a foyer floored with little pieces of varnished wood all smushed together and waxed to a high gloss. I stood shivering and looking at a flight of stairs going up, a chandelier dripping warm waxen light. The gun was a heavy weight pointed at the floor. I snicked the safety lever off and wished miserably that Dad was here.

  How do you know he wasn’t? a little voice said in the very back of my head, and a cool bath of dread began at the base of my skull, sliding down my back with soft wet flabby fingers.

  I know, I told that horrible little voice. I saw where he died, I think. He left the truck right outside, and he went down a hall in an abandoned warehouse. And someone was waiting for him.

  The lights were on, but it was cold in here. Cold as a crypt. I took another two steps into the foyer, saw a hallway, and the light changed imperceptibly.

  I whirled. The door slid closed, the slight sound of its catch just like the sound of the safety clicking off. The taste of rust ran over my tongue in a river, followed by the wet rotten smell of oranges gone bad, fuzzy and leaking in a blind wet corner. The ringing got worse, filling my head with cotton wool.

  Something glinted on the floor, past a little square of rounded darkness that my eyes refused to see properly for a moment.

  Oh shit. My sneakers made small wet sounds. Little tracers of steam lifted off my skin, it was so cold. My breath made a cloud, vanishing as soon as I inhaled. I moved as if in a dream, or as if it was last night, something pulling my unresisting body forward. It hurt to bend myself over to pick up the familiar black leather billfold.

  It was thick with cash, and I flipped it open, saw Dad’s ID, him staring into the camera like he dared it to take a bad shot of him. The picture of Mom was gone, but the mark where my thumb rubbed the plastic every time was still there, like an old friend. I straightened, automatically stuffing the billfold in my pocket, and was compelled to step forward, looking at the other little thing, glittering patiently on the waxed floor.

  It was silver, and as I bent my aching knees to take a look at it my body knew, chilling all over, gooseflesh prickling across my back and down my arms.

  It was a heavy locket, almost as long as my thumb. Scrollwork on its front I knew better than my own name, even, and a silver chain, now broken, that I’d seen all my life. The scrollwork made a heart with a cross inside it, and on the back there would be little foreign symbols sketched, where they could rest against the skin.

  I touched it with my index finger, letting out a clouded breath that ended on a short sound as if I’d been punched and lost all my air. My fist closed over it and I pushed myself up, dry-eyed.

  And all of a sudden I knew something else. I wasn’t alone in here.

  Someone spoke from the hall beyond the foyer. It was a boy’s voice, more tenor-sweet than Graves’s and harsher than Christophe’s, with the same queer space between words and sounds as the djamphir’s.

  “Come into my parlor, said the spider.” A light, happy giggle, as if someone was having a hell of a good time. “And obediently, she walks in and picks up the bait.”

  I raised my head. Strings of damp curling hair fell in my face.

  There was a shape in the door to the hallway, a cloak of more-than-physical darkness clinging to it. I suddenly knew who had been on my front porch that night. He hadn’t had an invitation, so my threshold was a barrier to him. But here I was, and here he was, and why had Christophe sent me here?

  A cool bath of dread slid down my back.

  “Sergej.” I sounded normal, not terrified. As a matter of fact, I sounded pretty good.

  He stepped into the wash of gold from the chandelier, and I understood why it was so cold. The cold was coming from him, breathing out from his poreless skin with its faint tint of swarthiness. And here was another shock.

  He looked about eighteen—a little older than Graves, a little older than me. Broad-shouldered as if he worked out, and with a face chipped from an old coin—a long narrow nose, a chiseled mouth, a mess of artfully disheveled honey-brown curls. But his dark eyes were wrong. They were dusty, and far more adult than they should be. The closest I’d ever seen to eyes like that was on some city streets, where kids melted out of the shadows as cars cruised slowly past, their bodies young but something ancient shining from their faces. Kids who had seen a lot of things no kid should have to see, kids I shivered when I thought about always making me scoot closer to Dad on the truck’s seat.

  Only they were still human, those kids. And this thing wasn’t. It looked young, and I suppose if you weren’t in the habit of looking closely at things you’d just think he was lucky to have such great skin and killer lips.

  If you looked any closer, the thing looking out of those dark sparkling eyes would leer at you. Right before it ate you alive.

  He wore a thin black sweater and jeans, like Christophe. A pair of high-end black Nikes and a gold wristwatch too huge and ostentatious to be anything but real. Probably a Rolex. He looked like the Rolex type.

  I stood there staring at him, my mouth fallen open a little. I heard something through the ringing in my head. A steady thumping, like a clock ticking against the head of a giant drum, echoing. Faster and faster, a sound that made me think of a small dark space, stuffed animals, and my own stale breathing as I listened before falling asleep. I’d been so tired.

  I love you, baby. I love you so much. . . . We’re going to play a game.

  The knowledge rammed through me like a baseball bat swung by a player coming all the way up from his heels. That ticking beat was the sound of his heart. I was here in a huge pile of fake adobe with a snowstorm and Graves outside, and I was facing down a sucker all by my lonesome. A sucker who had turned my father into a zombie—and murdered my mother, back Before.

  My left hand was still a fist around the locket. The pumping, thumping sound was very close, and the boy smiled at me. A very sweet smile, if you didn’t mind looking at the needle-sharp fangs, much sharper and more grotesque than Christophe’s. But white, so blinding white. And those eyes, like pools of mud just waiting to drag you down and fill your mouth and nose with cold, cold dirt Jell-O.

  I heard something else, too. The muffled beating of wings.

  He took a step forward. “Ripe,” he said, the word contorted because of the way his teeth were now shaped. A trickle of something black slid down his chin, right below where the tip of one of his fangs scraped the perfect matte skin. “And coming so willingly to the slaughter. I’ve drunk from the veins of a thousand djamphir, but the sweetest are always the little birds, just before they flower.” A low chuckle, like gas burping and bubbling up from oozing slime.

  I raised the gun and his dark winged eyebrows flew up in mock astonishment. He looked just like a psychotic clown, and a red spark lit in the back of his weirdly shaped pupils. They were hourglass-shaped, darker slits against the black velvet of his irises, thin threads of black in the whites turning them gray. He looked almost blind.

  The owl hooted nearby, the sound slicing sharp through a sudden howling outside, the door rattling behind me, and the sucker’s eyes widened just a fraction before I squeezed the trigger and a neat h
alf-dollar sized hole opened up in his forehead.

  It was a perfect shot.

  Good girl, Dru! I heard Dad cry, and a gout of thin blackness gushed down the sucker’s face, his head snapping back like he’d just been kicked in the teeth. I heard someone screaming, thinly, and knew it was me.

  Because his head jerked back down again, sharply, and he grinned at me through the mask of rotting black ichor, his teeth saw-edged except for the fangs. His entire body coiled, compressing itself. I knew he was going to jump me and knew I had no hope of getting out of the way. The blackness ate his eyes, turning them into singularity holes under the scrim of foulness, and he leaped, hanging in the air for a long moment as everything slowed down around me and the ringing in my ears turned to an agonized shriek.

  The world stopped again, but only for a bare second. I dropped, one knee giving way and the gun fighting its way up through air gone clear and hard as a diamond. Pale feathers puffed as the owl swooped, razor claws raking the sucker’s back, and it banked away, black goo dripping from its feet—and I knew it had missed, it hadn’t hit where it wanted to, and as soon as the world snapped back up to speed the sucker was going to fall on me and bury its fangs in my neck, and I wouldn’t feel a thing until it was too late.

  Time popped hard, like a rubber band pulled back and let loose, careening across a classroom. A burst of warm air traveled across my skin, and there was a hideous wrenching sound.

  The front door exploded inward. A streak of black and denim-blue leaped off the truck’s hood, flung with sharp lances of broken, splintered wood. He flew like Superman and they collided like planets flung into each other.

  Get out of the way! Dad’s voice yelled in my ear, and I rolled, one fist full of the locket, the other weighted down with a loaded gun. Snow flew into the hole in the side of the house, the shattered door falling in bits and pieces. The headlights were on, and through the cracked windshield I could see Graves, his nose bleeding and his eyes running with green flame, clutching at the wheel like a life preserver. He must have bonked himself a good one when they hit.