Strange Angels

CHAPTER 14

I sat on the stairs again, listening to the heater run and the silent un-noise of snow outside. I heard Graves moving around—the toilet flushing, water running, shuffling feet and creaks I hadn’t had a chance to learn in this new place yet. Each house has its own set of sounds, and each person sounds different.

He didn’t sound like Dad. But still, just hearing someone breathing and walking around was better than nothing. Way better than nothing.

My eyes were hot and grainy. I stared at the gun in my hands. Nine-millimeter, dead black, and heavy, its nose sleek and sharp. It was a good gun.

What are you going to do, Dru? Go back to high school and be prom queen? What the hell. Why not?

The answer was right around the corner—I just couldn’t think of it. There was something I was missing, something I was trying not to think. It had to do with that door, and the concrete corridor, and the dream hanging heavy in my head, like a lead bowling ball.

Someone turned Dad into a zombie. While he was out hunting. So someone knew about what he was doing, right?

But who could know? What had he been after? He hadn’t said anything to me.

The questions revolved inside my head. Then the thing I’d been forgetting since waking up slid into place with a click like racking a bullet into the chamber.

Contacts. Dad had contacts. I should call someone.

Relief so intense it was ridiculous poured through my entire body at the thought. Someone adult, older than me, better-armed and more experienced, who could come out and . . .

. . . do what? Set up housekeeping? Adopt me? Take me on as an apprentice? Make everything okay?

Yeah. Sure. None of the other hunters Dad had let me hang around with were in the least parental. But they were older, right? And they’d be interested in something that killed him. They were his friends. Combat buddies. Comrades in arms.

Right?

I closed my eyes. Leaned against the wall, dangling the gun in my right hand.

The stairs squeaked. Graves shuffled down each one like it hurt. There was a dragging sound.

I didn’t open my eyes.

When he sat down beside me I was only mildly surprised. We sat like that for a few minutes, until my eyelids flew up and the world came rushing back into my head again.

He had Mom’s sunrise quilt from my bed wrapped around his shoulders, and his face was set. He’d pushed his hair behind his ears. He was barefoot. The house was warm enough now.

The messy lacerations of wulfbite were closing, angry pink instead of bleeding crimson or the crusted yellow. The blue-black mapping of his veins had vanished. Their bites heal really, eerily fast. Nobody knows why.

The ticking silence of the heater filled up the space between us. We both fit on the step, he was so birdlike thin.

I’d told him I was sorry. Did he have any idea how sorry I was?

He sat there for a while, fidgeting in that way of his. Then he spoke, quietly. Almost gently, as if I was crying. “Why’d you do that?”

I had to. “You might have changed.”

“Changed.” He said it so flatly I almost might not have known it was a question.

“Into a werwulf. Like that thing back at the mall that bit you.”

“A vherr-what?”

“A werwulf.” I considered spelling it for him, decided not to. “As in howl at the moon, silver bullet, Lon Chaney type of thing. Only it’s not really like that. They’re responsible for some disappearances, but mostly they eat a lot of raw meat and play head games with each other. Humans aren’t enough fun. Plus they’ve got a running feud with the suckers.”

“Suckers?”

You don’t even want to know. Dad never even wanted to know. “I had to know if you’d change.”

“So you tied me up and asked if I was a virgin? Help me out here.” He shifted, wrapping the quilt more tightly around his bare shoulders. He was shirtless. Of course—his shirt was ruined and his coat was probably still wet.

I glanced down. He wore a pair of my workout pants. They hit him at mid-calf and sagged around his narrow waist. Boy had no hips at all. “It’s near twelve hours. Generally, if you don’t change by then there’s a reason, and you’re probably safe. If you’re bitten while you’re a virgin, some of the transfer of werwulf stuff doesn’t get done. It’s all theory, but virgins have a higher incidence of not changing.” I watched him out of the corner of my eye, waiting for the leaning backward that would tell me he’d stopped listening. People don’t want to hear about the Real World, and if you ever try to explain, they just quit listening real early.

He didn’t move. Just stared at me. I took a deep breath and forged ahead. “It has to do with magic, I guess. Stuff like that. See, when a werwulf bites and doesn’t finish his kill, there’s an . . . an imprint, I guess you could call it. If you’re a virgin, the imprint doesn’t get made right. It’s like you’re a closed door, and once you have sex that door is opened and some things can take hold. Infect you, almost.” I looked down at my knees, just talking to hear myself talk now. Or maybe I was afraid of what he would say once I shut up. “Congratulations. You’re mostly safe from wulfbite for the rest of your life. Like . . . like an inoculation.” It was a pretty good explanation, and about the sum total of my knowledge of werwulfen. The silent house ate the words. I couldn’t think of anything else to tell him.

“Well. That’s comforting.” He swallowed so heavily I heard it. “Look, Dru, I—”

“I’m glad you didn’t change,” I said all in a rush. “Because I don’t know what I’d have done.”

“Shot me.” The raw edge of anger smoked under the words. I closed my eyes against it, leaned against the wall. “I guess. Right?”

Yes. No. I don’t know. I shot someone else. Hopelessness turned into a rock inside my chest.

“Dru?” As if I wasn’t listening.

“Fuck off.” Don’t lecture me.

He persisted. “That was real, wasn’t it.” It wasn’t a question, but he was still trying to convince himself. “I saw a huge-ass dog burning and running after you. I saw the thing that bit me, and the bite’s closing up like I’m Wolverine or something. It was real.”

“Bingo. You get a prize.” The gun was so heavy. If I let it slip through my fingers and tumble down the stairs, what would it do? Probably go off and kill someone else. Just my luck.

He asked the question that got everyone in trouble. “What else is real?”

You don’t want to know. “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.” Some things you just have to see for yourself. But you’re not going to see it, are you? You’re going to head for the door and leave me to get through this myself. It’d be better for you if you did, I guess. Sour heat boiled in my throat. I pushed it down before it could make my eyes prickle.

“You could tell me and see. I mean, I was okay with everything else, wasn’t I?”

Wind mouthed the corners of the house. It wasn’t as lonely a sound as it usually was, because someone was sitting right next to me. “You got bit for it. I’m sorry.” There they were again, those two pale little useless words.

“Well, you’re an interesting chick, Miss Anderson.” When I didn’t reply, he moved, bumping his shoulder against mine. “Did you feel me up when you were tying me down?”

What? My jaw threatened to drop. “Um, no. Did you want me to?”

“Well, it would have been nice.” His shoulder bumped mine again. “Can I ask you something?”

I didn’t answer. He was going to ask me anyway. People don’t say that if they don’t want to pry something out of you.

But he surprised me. “What happened to your dad? I mean, really happened?”

“He got t-turned into a z-zombie.” I thought I was going to choke on the words, but they came out. Hoarse and broken, but they came out. “Someone did it to him.” There it was. Someone had beat Dad up bad, and then turned him into one of the reanimated.

I’d said it out loud now. Any chance of waking up and finding it all just a Really Bad, Really Lifelike Dream was now straight in the scupper, as Gran always said.

“A zombie. Okay. Whew. All right.” Graves let out a huge sigh, like he’d just finished carrying a heavy container up a steep hill. “So what are you gong to do?”

How the hell should I know? “Make some lunch, I guess.” I used the wall to push myself up to my feet. The heater clicked off. “You want something to eat?”

“I wanted to ask you something else.” His chin tilted up a bit, and he met my eyes. The skull and crossbones earring fell back, touching his hair. He’d taken off the necklace, and his muscle moved in his bare chest under the quilt. “You got anyone you can call? Like your mom or something, since your dad’s . . .” Graves had to swallow before he said the word. “Dead? He’s dead, right? That’s what zombie means.”

I shrugged. “It means dead and reanimated. My mom’s dead, too. So is my grandmother.” Everyone’s gone. They all keep disappearing on me. The words were full of old bitterness. “I’m going to make lunch. You must be hungry.”

“So you just live here by yourself? In this house?” He was a persistent one. He scrambled up off the steps, wrapped himself up in the red-and-white quilt like a mummy, and shuffled after me.

“For a while. Until I can’t anymore.” I led him into the kitchen and flicked the light on, setting the gun on the counter within easy reach. “Pretty much all I feel like making is grilled cheese. You want some?”

His eyes roved the surface of the counters like he was looking for contraband. “Why was that dog thing after you?”

That was another question that bothered me. I shrugged. “I don’t know. Do you want some goddamn lunch or not?”

“Sure, I’ll take some. If you promise not to hold a gun to my head.” By the time I rounded on him he was smiling, and had both his hands up in hey, man, I’m harmless mode. “Just kidding, Dru. Lighten up, okay?”

Lighten up? I stared at him like he was crazy before getting the cheese and butter out of the fridge. I tied him down and nearly shot him, and he’s telling me to “lighten up”?

The grin widened, his eyes very bright green now, no hazel tint left. He shook his hair down over his face and puckered his lips, making kissing noises. That strange heat crawled up my cheeks again. It got to me and I laughed, with the butter in one hand and the cheese in the other. We had bread in the freezer—it probably would have frozen on the counter too. That’s a good way to keep it fresh down South, especially if you eat a lot of toast. Or grilled cheese.

“That’s better.” He leaned against the counter, wrapping himself more securely in the quilt. “We’re in the same boat, you know. I don’t have anyone either. Not anyone I can call or anything. I’ve been on my own since I was twelve.”

Great. What am I supposed to say to that? I got the frying pan out. He didn’t mention the plywood and taped-down blankets over the back door. I didn’t mention the closing and healing flesh on his shoulder. We were mostly silent, and the wind moaned against the corners of the house.

But I opened up a couple cans of tomato soup and dumped them in a pot, and I didn’t feel quite so lonely. Having someone in the house—someone who wasn’t going to leave just yet—helped. I even poured him a glass of milk.

Call me domestic.