Angel Fire (37 page)

Meanwhile, Seb had finally forced me to take a break from aura training, and he was right – after hours of no luck, my brain felt limp. Being gentle and offhand sounded like it should be the easiest thing in the world, but the problem was that it
mattered
so much. My pulse kept skipping the second my aura started to change, which then sent it snapping right back to silver. Frustrating wasn’t the word. How was I supposed to convince myself that I didn’t care about this?

At my question, I was aware of Seb’s mind opening to mine, without him really thinking consciously about it. He shook his head. “No, I never knew my father. I always knew he was an angel though – I’m not sure how. Maybe my mother told me.”

“Did you ever see him in her thoughts, like I saw Raziel in Mom’s?” I’d told Seb about Raziel, and the Church of Angels.

“Not really.” He pulled a wry face as he sprawled back against the sofa, settling himself on the cushions. “I didn’t have much of a...link with my mother, I think is the word.”

I got a sense of isolation; a brief image of a woman in her twenties who looked like him. I wasn’t surprised Seb hadn’t been close to his mother – in all the pieces of memory I’d seen, she’d either been crying while her boyfriend hit him, or shouting that it was Seb’s fault. It was a relief to glance at him now, so healthy and relaxed. I felt my gaze lingering on him, and looked away.

“How badly did your mother have angel burn?” I asked.

Seb propped his wrist under his head as he thought; the firm muscles of his arm flexed slightly. “Very badly,” he said. “It was different from your mother though. I think my mother’s mind was damaged, but she could still talk, still do things.” He knew I’d had to hide my mother’s mental illness from everyone when I was younger. Apart from Alex, he was the only person I’d ever shared that with.

“The main thing was that my mother had cancer,” he went on. “That’s what killed her.”

I nodded. He’d told me before that when he was nine and living on the streets, he’d found out his mother was dead. She hadn’t visited him even once after leaving him at the orphanage – not in all the years he was there. It made my throat tighten whenever I thought of it.

Seb stretched his white-socked foot so that it nudged at my ankle. “Willow, don’t. It’s all right.”

This happened a lot now, so that our half-psychic, half-spoken conversations would have sounded very weird to anyone else. I shook my head. “It so isn’t. I hate that you were in that place.”

“The
reformatorio
was much worse,” he said with a shrug. “And it was in the orphanage that I found out about my angel. There was a room they locked me in...he first came to me there. So it was worth it.”

He wasn’t as relaxed as he sounded. I felt his slight tension as he remembered, and got a flicker of fear – a dark, cramped room where he’d been imprisoned for days. Oh, Seb.

“Besides, I would never have started to read books without the orphanage,” added Seb. “Never. And I think reading has been to me what fixing cars is to you.”

I slowly shook my head. “You’re never going to convince me the orphanage was actually a good thing. I’ve seen it, remember? I know what you went through there.”

“Yes, I know you do,” he said softly. He gave a small smile. “You’re the only person in the world who’s ever known me.”

Our auras were mingling where his foot rested near me on the sofa; I could hardly feel where mine ended and his began. I smiled too. “Maybe that’s because you’ve never told anyone the truth in your life. A gondolier? Really?
And
you stole his cigarettes.”

Seb looked genuinely surprised. “But it’s true, what I told him. My people were Italian. There was a gondolier strike in Venice, in eighteen-forty – they came here by the thousands.”

My eyes widened. I almost said,
Really? A gondolier strike?
And then felt how teasing his aura had become, and burst out laughing. “Oh, you’re good,” I said. “Real good.”

“So are you,” said Seb, his voice casual. “Look at your aura.”

Startled, I brought it back into view. Its lavender lights had shifted to forest green, companionably matching Seb’s. “Oh!” I gasped, sitting straight up. The second I did, it flicked back to lavender. I stared at Seb. “How long has it been like that?”

“The last few minutes, maybe,” he said with a grin. “So you see, you
can
change your aura.”

I half laughed, groaning. “When I don’t know I’m doing it – great.”

But the tiny victory helped, and I started practising with Seb every spare moment I had – even in the evenings sometimes, while Alex and the others went over whatever video footage Kara had managed to take that day, trying to get the door code. I helped with that whenever I could, but I was so aware of time ticking away, and the days passing. I
had
to learn how to do this.

Not that the others seemed broken-hearted that I was doing something else. I kept trying to act normal around everyone, but knew that nothing I ever did would be “normal”, as far as they were concerned. With Seb there, I didn’t feel nearly as self-conscious about it now, at least. That prickling, too-aware feeling that I often used to get had faded away completely. It was a relief; I’d hated feeling so vulnerable and scrutinized.

Seb never said much when the others were around. If he did, it was always some mild comment that sounded innocent on the surface, but then you could see the person frowning as they thought about it, like,
Wait
–
what did he mean by that?

It made me laugh, but it also exasperated me. I knew from his hand that Seb usually got along with people perfectly well; there was just this spark of mischief in him that couldn’t resist a situation like this – everyone being so suspicious of him when he hadn’t even done anything.

“Playing with their minds doesn’t actually help, you know.” We were out in the courtyard, where there was a battered picnic table; the Shadow stood parked near the back door. In the evenings, when the rest of the team was home, we usually ended up out here, or up on the balcony.

“I can’t help it,” said Seb seriously. “I say things without thinking, all the time – the words, they just fly right out of my mouth. It’s very unfortunate. I think there must be a medical name for it.”

“Really? Maybe we should donate you to science so they can study you.”

Seb’s mouth twitched. He was sitting up on the tabletop, wearing a cotton long-sleeved shirt with his
Cinco de Mayo
T-shirt over it. “Yes, maybe. But I’m the teacher, so you can’t. Come,
querida
, try again.”

I nodded, though it was getting pretty hard not to feel discouraged. I could change my aura’s colour for a few minutes at a time now, but only if Seb was right there, sort of bolstering it up. Whenever I attempted to shift it on my own, it collapsed right back, no matter how relaxed I thought I was. My dreamy state felt like a self-imposed con now – and it was like my aura knew it. With a mental sigh, I closed my eyes, gearing myself up for another bout.

“No, stop,” said Seb suddenly. “You’re all—” He laughed as I looked at him. “Like this,” he said, hunching his shoulders tensely. “It’s a gentle thing, like play. Look, forget about changing your aura tonight. Let’s try this.”

He jumped down off the table and went over to the back door; leaning inside, he flicked off the light that hung over the doorway. The courtyard plunged into dimness, still lit by the ambient glow of nearby street lights, but much more mysterious now – shadowy.

“All right, are you ready?” said Seb as he returned. His eyes were impish.

I shook my head, smiling now. “Ready for what? Is this some secret half-angel thing?”

“Yes. Well, sort of. Here, stand up.” He tugged me to my feet. “Okay, look at my aura.”

I brought it into view. He’d shifted to his natural colours – the bright, shining silver and the deep forest green. “Now watch,” said Seb. He held up his hand, wrapped in a silvery glow. Then he whipped it through the air. A silver trail followed, so quickly it seemed to glitter. He lashed his hand back again; made gleaming circles and loops.

My mouth had fallen open. “Oh my god, let me try that—” I focused on my own aura, and a few seconds later was doing the same – swirling my hand and making silver trails all around me, as if I were one of those gymnasts with the long, streaming ribbons. I laughed to see Seb writing his name in the air; my own name followed, shimmering and vanishing in a heartbeat. We were like two kids with sparklers. I couldn’t stop smiling; I wished I’d known about this when I was a little girl. How cool would that have been, to have had a perpetual sparkler?

“That is so...amazing,” I said when we finally sat back on the picnic bench. I stroked my hand through the air, watching it shimmer, aware that this light-hearted feeling was exactly what I’d been struggling to find. “How did you figure that out?”

“Just messing around, when I was boy.” Seb sat beside me as I played with the silver glow; he looked delighted at my delight. “We weren’t allowed to talk in the orphanage at night – I’d lie in bed doing that instead.” He lowered his voice confidingly. “The other boys thought I was very strange.”

A flash of my elementary school playground: a group of girls standing in a cluster, whispering and giving me hard looks. I nodded ruefully. “Join the club. I freaked people out a
lot
when I was little. I thought everyone was psychic; I didn’t understand why people got upset when I told them things.” I glanced at Seb with a smile, wishing more than ever that we’d known each other as children. I wouldn’t have cared about the playground at all back then, if I’d had him as a friend. We could have just sat under the jungle gym and been weird together.

Seb’s expression had turned warm as he looked at me. He started to say something else, then we both looked up as the back door opened and Alex poked his head out. My heart leaped – I’d hardly seen him all day; he must be finished with the security stuff for the night.

A flicker of resignation showed on Alex’s face to find Seb and me out here together; then he smiled. “Hey,” he said, walking over to us with his hands in his back pockets.

“How’s it going with Kara?” I asked as he sat up on the tabletop beside me. I had a feeling he wanted to put his arm around me but was restraining himself; it would seem too much like
This is my girlfriend, back off
. Meanwhile, I could practically feel Seb closing off, becoming aloof and watchful.

“Not great,” admitted Alex, touching his forehead. “She keeps getting video footage that shows a number or two, but not the whole thing. We can’t even tell how many digits there are yet; people’s hands and fingers are always in the way.”

I knew; I’d seen a lot of the footage. “Are you sure I can’t help?” I said, touching his leg. “I could try looking through the videos again.”

“Maybe,” said Alex. He knew as well as I did that I didn’t get anything psychically from film – it felt totally cold and flat to me. It was similar for Seb; though he could see auras on film, he didn’t get much else. “But I think we’re just going to have to keep trying to piece it all together,” Alex went on. “Brendan’s making a spreadsheet that might help. Oh, and Kara said the church map is a lot more accurate now,” he added to Seb. “So thanks for that.”

Seb nodded. “Anytime.”

A silence fell. I racked my brains for something else to say, but it felt like a lost cause. Conversation did not exactly flow when these two were together. Finally, Seb rose in an easy motion. “Maybe I’ll go read for a while,” he said. He glanced at me. “Remember what I said. Don’t practise any more tonight, okay?”

I made a face; I’d been planning on trying again that night in the dorm, once the others were asleep. “Seb, I feel like maybe I could really do it now—”

“No, just relax,” he broke in firmly. “Tomorrow’s soon enough.”

It was frustrating, but I knew he was probably right – I needed to savour just being friendly with my aura for a change, before plunging back into trying again. “Yes, okay,” I said with a sigh.

“See you in the morning,” he said, his eyes gentle. I sensed him almost add “
querida
” and stop himself just in time; felt his flash of humour that almost had me smiling too, though it shouldn’t have. “Goodnight,” he added to Alex.

“Night,” said Alex.

Once Seb had gone inside, Alex put his arm around me, kissing my head. “Hey, you,” he murmured into my hair. I could feel that he was glad Seb had left. Though I was happy to be alone too, I wanted to say,
You know, you and Seb could get along if you just gave each other a chance
. Except I wasn’t really sure it was true. They were both such strong personalities – Seb in his quiet way, and Alex in his direct one – and neither liked being pushed around.

I caught myself; time alone with Alex was too rare to spend it thinking about Seb. I wrapped my arms around him, slipping a hand under his T-shirt and caressing the smoothness of his skin – relishing how my fingers glided over the warmth of him. “Remember the cabin?” I said after a while. “What the sunrise was like there?”

There’d been a few times at our refuge in the mountains when we’d stayed up all night talking, then sat outside with the sleeping bags draped around our shoulders, watching the sun come up – pink and golden fingers that edged up the peaks like fire from within. The memory made me wistful. I’d known then how lucky we were to have that time together, but I’d had no idea how soon it would be before we hardly even got a chance to talk.

“Of course I remember.” Alex kissed my neck. “We’ll go back someday, Willow. I mean it. If we defeat the Council...”

He stopped. I felt the worry grip him again; the grim tension that was never far away. I hugged him hard, wishing desperately I could say something that would help. We had less than two weeks now – and whether we managed to get further security details or not, we were going to have to enter the Torre Mayor and make some kind of attempt against the Twelve.

We
. Because mentally, I was including myself in the attack. I’d learn to change my aura in time if it killed me.