“I’ve heard things about you guys . . . strange things.”
I didn’t have to look at Blake to know a smile curved his mouth. I studied the girl standing in front of us, from her tiny designer boots to her preppy clothes to the sleek blonde hair. Her cheeks were pale, her eyes a little too wide. She said her name was Alexandria.
“Yeah, what kind of things,” I said, and bit into my apple.
She glanced over her shoulder at the other high school preps mulling around Montgomery High during lunch break, reached into her back pocket and pulled something out.
Blake bumped me aside as he snatched it away from the girl’s hand. I cursed as my half-eaten apple hit dirt.
“It can’t be . . . ” he murmured.
The girl stepped back. “W-what? What is it?”
Blake moved closer, likely giving her the iced blue intensity of his gaze. I knew that look. We’d caught another case. “Where did you get this?”
She swallowed. “My boyfriend. There’s something wrong with him. He’s not the same since last week. I’ve been finding these all over. We’re supposed to go to prom in a few days. I need help. Your kind of help. Tiffany Wiser. She told me about you. How you helped her a few months back.”
Yeah, the Tiffany girl, filed under Z for Zombie. As in, the infection of her brother. We’d caught it early enough before there was no going back for the kid.
“Okay, we’ll help you,” Blake said.
“For a price,” I cut in from behind Blake. We had to eat.
“I heard. But I don’t have much money. I work at Donna’s Diner. I close Tuesday and Thursdays. I can hook you up with some hot meals.”
Score.
“Give us your contact info. We’ll be in touch,” Blake told her.
With a look of relief, Alexandria handed Blake a paper with her number and email.
“Listen, just don’t tell anybody what you’re helping me with, okay?” Alexandria turned and jogged away.
“So,” I said, and peered over his shoulder. “What’s so interesting?” A feather. Glistening black with silver dust.
Blake ran his fingers over the fine surface. “It’s an angel feather.”
“What? That’s impossible.”
“No. It’s angel all right.”
“You mean—”
“A dark angel.”
* * *
We took the feather straight to Ozwald—Oz for short. He was our mentor, our teacher, a warlock who took us in off the streets when we’d been labeled as outcasts for being different. Feeling different. I’d been with Oz for six months, Blake almost a year. There’d been others before us who grew into their own and I’m sure there’d be more after us. But right now it was just Oz, Blake, me and Desiree who took care of the housekeeping in the old three-story Victorian house on Chapel Hill.
Oz studied the feather under a thick eyeglass, making his gray eye seem ten times bigger. “Yes, you’re right, Blake. It’s definitely Angel. Dark.” His fingers rubbed together sprinkling silver dust to the floor.
“But how? How do angels become dark?”
Oz sat back in his chair, shoving his reddish braid over his shoulder. “The ancients say they fall, for whatever reason. Unhappiness. Depression. Anger. They lose their grace completely. Their feathers begin to gray, soon turning completely black. Their gold dust fades to silver. Then they start sucking up human souls, trying to turn back to the way they once were, but there’s no turning back.”
“Is that what’s happening to the boyfriend? His soul’s been sucked?”
“Actually, if he’s leaving behind feathers, it’s likely he’s possessed by a Dark One and sucking up other people’s souls. You see, angels are a spiritual being of the other side. They cannot manifest here unless they possess someone of our world. Once they do, they can pretty much do anything.”
“How do we get rid of it?”
“I’ve never heard of anyone doing so.”
“We can’t just let it possess some sorry dude and suck people dry.”
Oz smacked his lips together. “Suppose you can’t. I’ll have to do more research. Never dealt with a Dark One myself, but others have. For now, you’ll both have to get ready.”
I shrugged. “Our fighting skills are up to par.”
“No, not that kind of ready. Ready for prom.”
“What?” we said as one.
“That prom will be a smorgasbord for that Dark One. You’ll have to keep it from sucking souls before it takes out half the high school.”
Blake sighed and looked at me. “Ever been to prom before?”
“Yeah, back in my fairy tale life.”
“That’s what I thought.” He winked at me. “Well, you got yourself your first date.”
Blake and I hadn’t actually gotten along when I first arrived at Castle de Oz. I’d had a bad attitude. Shocker, right? I’d been on the streets for months. When you live on the streets you trust no one. You fight, steal, hide. You fear. Things changed with our first case together. A teenage girl had started dabbling in black magic. Kids were losing their hair, having freak accidents, one nearly died. I’d gone undercover to try to get close to the girl, but she’d discovered what I was. A hunter. Before she could shove me into the path of an oncoming train, Blake had saved me and captured the girl.
It was then that I realized for the first time in a long while that someone had my back. We’d been friends ever since. Best friends.
I widened my eyes. Sarcasm was my thing. “Oh thank you, thank you! My life will now be complete.”
He laughed. “Smart ass.”
“Both of you must do your best to stop the Dark One before he takes in too many souls,” Oz told us. “If he manifests completely . . . ”
“Yeah, we know, we’re all doomed.”
