Angel Burn Read online

  Nina opened her eyes and peered under the hood. “What are you doing now?” she asked warily.

  “Getting rid all of your disgusting grime.” I showed her the wrench, which was now thick with black goo. “Want to help?”

  “Eww, no.” She sighed and leaned against the side of the car again, twiddling a piece of hair around her finger. “Anyway, what do you have to clean it for? Can’t you just shove the new one in?”

  A strand of my long blond hair fell down as I was working, and I tucked it back behind my ear without looking up. “Good idea. Then it wouldn’t have a perfect seal, so it would start sucking in air like a dying vacuum cleaner, and —”

  Nina straightened up again with a jolt. “Oh, my God! Here comes Beth Hartley!”

  Beth Hartley was one of the stars of Pawtucket High — slim, beautiful, good grades, et cetera. She was a year older than us, almost eighteen, and a senior. Even apart from that, we didn’t exactly move in the same circles. She was on every club and committee there was and basically lived at school. In fact, I think they’d shut the place down if she ever couldn’t come in for some reason. The teachers would all go on strike.

  I poured some solvent onto a clean rag and started swabbing it around the empty space where the carburetor had been. “What was it today, do you think?” I said. “Cheerleading? Prom committee? Saving the world?”

  “Willow, this isn’t funny,” moaned Nina. “She’s heading right toward us!”

  “So? I’m sure she’s seen a carburetor before.” Nina stared at me. There was a beat, and then I realized what I’d said and started laughing. “Oh. Maybe not, huh?”

  Nina huffed out a breath, looking like she couldn’t decide whether to throttle me or join in laughing. “Look, I know you don’t care, but most people already think you’re Queen Weird, you know. This is not going to help matters, believe me —” She fell abruptly silent as Beth walked up.

  “Hi,” said Beth, looking uncertainly from Nina to me. She had long, honey-colored hair and makeup that was always so subtle and perfect that you could barely tell she had it on. Which had always seemed sort of a waste of time to me — spending hours putting on makeup that looked invisible once you were done — but there you go.

  “Hi,” I said back, poking my head out from underneath the hood.

  “Hi, Beth,” said Nina faintly. “Good drama club meeting?”

  “Yearbook,” corrected Beth. “Yeah, great.” She was staring at the open hood and me under it. “You’re . . . fixing Nina’s car,” she said. It was halfway between a question and a statement.

  I nodded. “Her carburetor.”

  “Carburetor. Right,” echoed Beth, blinking her wide brown eyes.

  There was a pause. I could see Beth mentally shaking her head to clear it and then deciding that, actually, she didn’t really want to pursue the carburetor thing. She cleared her throat. “Willow, I just wondered whether you had the homework assignment for Atkinson’s class. I wasn’t there yesterday.”

  I felt my eyebrows fly up. I hadn’t realized that Beth even knew we were in the same class. Or in the same school. Or on the same planet. On second thought, scratch that — we probably weren’t on the same planet. And why was she asking me, anyway? A dozen of her perfect friends were in that class.

  I shrugged. “Yeah, sure — it’s in my red folder.” I motioned toward my schoolbag, which was sitting beside the open toolbox on the ground. “Would you mind? My hands are all —” I held them up to show her, and she blanched.

  “Great, thanks.” She slipped the folder out of my bag and quickly scribbled down the assignment. As she put the folder back, she glanced at Nina and hesitated. She started to say something and stopped. Her neck turned bright pink.

  The motion of my hand with the rag slowed as I looked at her in surprise. All at once I knew exactly what was coming; I had seen it too many times before to mistake the signs. Nina’s eyes widened as she realized the same thing. “Maybe I’ll . . . go get a drink of water,” she said, taking an ultra-casual step backward. I could tell she was thinking the same thing I was: Beth Hartley? Really? Miss Perfect?

  Once Nina was gone, Beth edged closer to me, lowering her voice. “Um, Willow . . . ” She took a deep breath, running her manicured fingers through her hair. “I’ve heard that you do . . . readings. Like, psychic ones,” she added quickly. Her face was bonfire red.

  I nodded. “Yeah, that’s right.”

  Beth seemed to catch her breath. Her expression was trying to be skeptical, but it was suddenly so hopeful and pleading that it was like having a puppy gaze at me. “Well — are you any good?” she blurted out.

  I shrugged as I started to install the new carburetor, tightening it into the intake manifold. “I guess so. I mean, not everything I see comes true, but most things seem to. And to be honest, the stuff that doesn’t is usually an alternate path.”

  She was watching me intently, taking in every word. “An alternate path?” she repeated. “What do you mean?”

  I thought about it as I tightened the nuts a bit at a time, keeping the pressure on the carburetor even. “It’s like . . . you know, you have choices in your life. And sometimes I can see several choices unfolding and what might happen with each one. But they’re not all going to happen, because you’ll only choose one of them.”

  Beth nodded slowly. “Yeah, that’s exactly what I need help with,” she said, almost to herself. “Choices.” She glanced back at the school. “Well — would you read me sometime?” she asked in a rush. “Like — soon?”

  I blinked at the thought of Beth in my house — the two really didn’t seem to go together — but then I shrugged. “Sure, OK. How about tomorrow after school? No, wait a minute — how about Thursday?” I had forgotten for a second that the caregiver was leaving early the next day, and I’d promised Aunt Jo I’d get home on time to take care of Mom. I gave Beth my address.

  “I’ll be there,” said Beth fervently. Some of her yearbook committee friends had started coming out of the school building behind her by then. Hugging her bag to her chest, she moved off to join them. “And, Willow — thanks,” she called softly over her shoulder.

  I stared after her, feeling bemused. I guess I should know better than to pigeonhole people — if being psychic has taught me anything, it’s that you really never know what kind of thoughts people might have bubbling away like witches’ cauldrons under the surface of their ordinary lives — but even so, Beth Hartley. Strange, I thought as I tightened the final nut.

  Nina reappeared, her expression practically bursting with Tell me everything!

  “She wants a reading,” I said, to ward off the inevitable.

  “I knew it!” exclaimed Nina. “I could just tell, the way she was acting all furtive.” She shook her head, looking dazed. “God. I can’t believe that Beth Hartley even believes in that junk.”

  Nina is about the least imaginative, most prosaic person in the entire world and is convinced that anything psychic is a con. Not that she thinks I’m a con, necessarily. Just that I’m conning myself. Being dramatic, making things up without realizing it, getting carried away — that sort of thing. She thinks I should be an actress, because I’m obviously so in tune with my inner child. It’s sort of amazing that we’re even friends, really. But I’ve known her since I was nine, which is when Mom and I first moved to Pawtucket to live with Aunt Jo, and I guess we’ve just gotten to be a habit with each other.

  Nina was peering in under the hood at me, shaking her head. “Willow, you do know that you should stop all this psychic stuff, don’t you? Half the school thinks you’re a witch.”

  My cheeks grew warm. “Well, that’s not my fault,” I muttered. I was almost finished, which was a good thing, because Nina was really starting to irritate me.

  “It is your fault,” Nina insisted. “You don’t have to keep doing readings, do you? No, you don’t! Here’s a radical thought — just say no the next time someone asks.”

  I didn’t say anythi
ng as I put Nina’s air filter back in place. Distantly, I could hear the football team still practicing on the field, their shoulder pads thudding against each other. “I can’t do that,” I said finally, straightening up from the car. I wiped my hands clean and started putting my tools away.

  “Why?” screeched Nina in exasperation.

  I spun to face her. “Because people have problems, Nina! All kinds of problems, and I think maybe — I think maybe I help them.”

  “Oh, my God, Willow, you are seriously deluded if you think —” Nina broke off as I grabbed my jacket and slammed her hood shut.

  “Here,” I said, tossing her keys at her. “You’ve got to prime it before you drive it again — give the gas a few pumps first.” Before she could answer, I had gathered up my things and stalked off.

  “Fine, be that way,” she called after me. “You know I’m right, though. See you tomorrow. Thanks for fixing my car, you lunatic.”

  I waved at her without turning around. My own car was a battered blue Toyota; I climbed in, piled my stuff on the passenger seat, and started the ignition. It purred like a kitten, of course. I might get awful grades, but I am good with engines.

  I pushed a blues cassette into the tape deck as I pulled out of the parking lot — OK, so the twenty-first century hasn’t quite reached my sound system yet — and headed down Highway 12 toward home. The conversation with Beth tugged at my mind, refusing to let go. She had seemed so anxious, as if getting a reading was the most urgent thing in the world.

  Choices. That’s exactly what I need help with.

  Unease flickered through me, and I frowned, wondering why I felt so apprehensive. Being psychic isn’t like everyone thinks — I’m not some all-knowing, all-seeing guru. No, I can’t predict the winning lottery number, and — ha, ha — yes, I get caught in the rain just the same as everyone else.

  The truth is, I get flashes or feelings sometimes, but I don’t tend to get anything too specific unless I have some sort of connection, like holding someone’s hand. Plus, I have to have the mental space to relax and clear my head. If I’m upset or excited, then I don’t usually get much — and, anyway, it’s not the kind of thing that you could go around doing all the time, at least not without going seriously insane. So in general I just live my life like the rest of the world, without really knowing how things are going to unfold.

  But I do get some pretty strong intuitions at times . . . and I was having one now, about Beth. I bit my lip as I slowed down for a crossroad.

  Whatever her choices were, I had a very bad feeling about them.

  “Pancakes,” said Alex, gazing down at the menu. “And scrambled eggs and bacon, with a side of hash browns. And toast.” He was starving. It was always like this after a kill; he felt as if he hadn’t eaten for a week.

  “Coffee?” asked the waitress. She was plump and bored looking.

  He nodded. “Yeah, and orange juice.”

  The waitress moved off, and Alex put his menu back in the holder and stretched. After he left Spurs, he’d cruised around until he found an all-night gym downtown. He’d bought a pass and worked out for hours, pumping the weight machines as if they were the enemy, doing reps until the sweat poured down his face and shoulders. And slowly, he’d felt the adrenaline that was shrieking through him begin to fade, giving way to a welcome, trembling tiredness.

  Finally he’d stopped, his head slumped against the crossbar of the abs machine. “Good workout?” asked an attendant. It was almost six in the morning by then, and the place was starting to fill up. All around Alex were the clatter of the free-weight machines and the sound of grunts, of feet pounding on treadmills.

  He had lifted his head and stared at the guy, hardly knowing where he was for a second. Then he nodded and managed a smile. “Yeah, great.”

  Mopping his face with his towel, he stood up. His muscles felt like water. He used to go running after an angel encounter, but it was never enough; it didn’t exhaust him. This was good. He might actually manage to get some sleep sometime in the next day or two now.

  “Man, I was watching you attack those machines,” the man said cheerfully, squirting disinfectant on the seat of a stationary bike. He wiped it down. “You were like something possessed.”

  Alex had grinned suddenly. “No, that’s everyone else,” he said. “You know — the ones I don’t get to in time.” And leaving the bewildered assistant staring after him, he’d draped the towel around his neck and gone to take a shower.

  Now he took a gulp of dishwater-tasting coffee and gazed out the plate-glass window at the Rocky Mountains. The pancake house was humming with people — laid-back-looking moms and dads wearing jeans and happy smiles, and little kids bouncing on their seats as they scribbled on their Mr. Pancake coloring place mats.

  He had been to Aspen several times, even before the Invasion. Angels seemed to like it here. Who knew why — maybe it was the fresh mountain air. Alex propped his chin on his hand as he stared out at the snow-covered peaks in the distance. In a strange way, Aspen reminded him of Albuquerque, though Albuquerque was all desert and slanting light; golden stone instead of soaring mountains. It was something about the air — the way you felt so clean and reborn just by smelling it.

  His first solo kill had been in Albuquerque.

  Alex’s coffee cup slowed on its way to his lips as he remembered. He put it down again without drinking.

  He’d been twelve years old. Out on a hunt with Cully and Jake. Martin, his father, had already started getting sort of weird by then — he spent his time stalking around the camp muttering to himself, working his jaw as if he had marbles in his mouth, and when he wasn’t shouting at everyone, he was obsessively cleaning the guns at all hours of the day and night. Though there’d been a time when Alex could hardly imagine anything better than being allowed to go out on a hunt with his father, now he’d felt relieved when he hadn’t come along. And then he’d felt guilty for his relief. His father was a great man — everyone knew that. At least, everyone who counted.

  Even so, the mood was jubilant that day as their Jeep roared out of camp, sending up clouds of dust ten feet high. Cully, who was from Alabama, had let out a ringing rebel yell, and Jake had punched Alex in the arm, saying, “Hey, little bro, think you can take me? Think you can take me?” Suddenly Alex knew that they both felt the same way he did, and the guilt left him in a happy rush.

  “Yeah, I can take you,” he’d said, and lunged at Jake, getting him in a half nelson. Gratifyingly — his brother was two years older — it had taken Jake a few seconds to break free, and then he’d launched himself across the seat at Alex with a shout. The two of them fell into the back on top of the mountain of camping gear, scuffling and laughing.

  Back then, before the CIA had taken over with their angel spotters and coldly efficient texts, a hunt might take weeks. As well as their camping supplies, there were a couple of crates of canned food in the Jeep and boxes of cartridges. Their guns lay tucked out of sight for now: dependable deer rifles that weren’t very flashy but did the job. Cully even had his crossbow with him. He claimed it gave a cleaner shot, but Alex thought he was just showing off. It was a pain, anyway; they always had to go and find his bolt after a kill.

  “If either of you little dipshits breaks that stove, I’ll kill you,” Cully called back in his southern drawl. He spun the wheel, and the Jeep skidded around a curve in a shower of sand and pebbles, sending Alex and Jake banging against its side like rag dolls. Alex knew that once they got into civilization, Cully would drive like a model citizen, but out here it was the end of the world, with only dirt and yucca plants and lizards for company. You could do whatever the hell you liked.

  “Up yours.” Jake glanced at Alex with a grin. Taller and stockier than Alex, he had the same dark hair, the same blue-gray eyes. You could tell they were brothers just by looking at them.

  They both looked like their mom.

  The thought had brought a hard edge to the day. Alex remembered a woman who loved
to sing, who used to kick off her shoes and dance along with the radio while she was cooking. When he was little, he used to tug on her jeans to get her attention, and sometimes she’d stop what she was doing and lean down to catch his hands. “Dance with me, lover boy,” she’d say with a laugh, spinning him around.

  Alex knew that Mom was the reason they were doing this. She always had been. She was also the reason that his father was — maybe — going insane.

  The Jeep bumped and rattled over the rocky soil. Driving with one hand, Cully bit off the end of a cigar, spat it over the side, and lit up. He was wearing a black sleeveless shirt, and his shoulders and arms were statue-hard, rippling with muscle. He shook his head as he took a deep puff and glanced at Alex and Jake in the rearview mirror.

  “The Angel Killers . . . hope of the free world,” he muttered. “God help us all.”

  The drive to Albuquerque took almost four hours, so that Alex had felt dull with boredom long before they got there. He perked up as they entered the city limits. Living out in the desert like a bunch of pack rats, it was easy to forget that there was a real world out there, but now it all beckoned to him in a sparkling rush — fast food, shopping malls, movies. A billboard with someone named Will Smith on it caught his eye: a tough-looking black guy carrying a gun.

  “Hey, Cull, can we go see a movie?” he asked, hanging over the front seat.

  “You and Jake can,” said Cully. Glancing in the rearview mirror, he smoothed his blond hair back with his palm and grinned. “I got me some other ideas, if you boys catch my drift.”

  Women. Alex and Jake grimaced at each other. There were several female AKs back at the camp, but Cully said he liked his girls sweet, not dressed in combat gear and going out for target practice. Women who could shoot as well as he could were a touch off-putting.

  The plan was to stop off in the city for one night in comfort before they started roughing it on the long drive up to Vancouver, where Martin had heard rumors of angel activity. But as they pulled into a motel, Cully stiffened. “You know what?” he murmured, getting out of the Jeep. “I think there’s something goin’ on here.”