Angel's Fury (11 page)

Lizzie and Kyle nodded, shamefaced, but Lenny opened his mouth in a long-noted wail. ‘That’s
not fair
.’

My eyebrows climbed.

He isn’t even going to say thanks.

Seth ignored the whining and turned to me. ‘You want to come get some DVDs?’ He tapped his sodden wristwatch; an expensive-looking Tag Heuer. ‘You’ll need to do it now if you want them for tonight.’

Grateful for a reason to leave I nodded enthusiastically. ‘That’d be great.’

He headed for the exit and I followed, careful to keep my gaze from the churning water.

As I took the weight of the door and stepped into the corridor the nagging pressure of eyes on my back made me turn. Pandra
was leaning on the rail glaring at our retreat. Shocked at the hostility on her face I dropped the door.

It crashed into the frame and Seth spun round. Instantly his hands flew up to cover his head. ‘
Gotenu!
’

‘Seth?’ I reached for his shoulder, but he dropped into a defensive crouch and batted my hand away. Confusion forced me back towards the pool.

What did I do wrong?

The door flew open behind me. ‘Get away from him, Cassie.’ Max hurried into the corridor.

‘W-why? What’s going on?’

Belinda caught up. ‘Did it set him off?’

‘Yeah.’ Max tore his gaze from Belinda so he could speak to me. ‘Just leave him for a few minutes.’

Seth huddled against the wall. My arms ached to go round his shoulders, but I held them at my sides. ‘I don’t understand.’ Frantically I looked for the threat. ‘What’s happening?’

Belinda regarded me coldly. ‘Think about it. Why are we all here?’ I stared blankly and she looked at me as if I was stupid. ‘It’s one of his past personalities.’ She gestured towards Lizzie, Kyle
and Lenny who were still arguing by the swimming pool. ‘It happens to us all.’

‘B-but everyone else seems okay.’

Max licked his lips. ‘We all have different triggers. Lenny’s is heights. That’s why he shouldn’t have been on that board. Seth’s is loud noises. The banging door set him off.’

‘Seth?’ He gave no sign that he’d heard my whisper and I bit my cheek.

Max looked sympathetic. ‘He’ll be alright. When it happens to you, you’ll understand.’

I took an involuntary step backwards. ‘It won’t happen to me. It never has.’

Belinda’s lips curled into an ugly smile. ‘Now you’re here, it will.’

I wanted to argue, but movement from Seth stole my voice. He rubbed his face and when his palms came away his eyes were clear. ‘Dammit.’ He set his jaw and I tried to stammer an apology but he waved it away. ‘You weren’t to know.’

‘Yes, but . . .’

‘I don’t want to talk about it.’ His eyes pleaded with me to let it go. ‘Do you still want those DVDs?’ He shuffled his feet. ‘Or maybe you won’t want to come with me now.’

Chilled, I rubbed my elbows. Seth’s uncertainty made him seem less like the person I’d been coming to know. Suddenly I wondered how much of that person was really him and how much some ghost.

I couldn’t think straight, so I just followed my instincts. ‘Of course I want to come.’

Seth said nothing as we climbed the stairs but when we neared his room my memory of Pandra’s angry face intruded.

If she thinks I’m moving in on her territory, she might turn on me.

Much as I wanted to get closer to Seth, I didn’t want to upset Pandra doing it. I had to ask an awkward question. I squirmed. ‘Um, Seth w-what went on with you and Pandra?’

Seth must have been expecting me to ask about his transformation. His shoulders relaxed. ‘Me . . . and Pandra?’

Embarrassment coloured my cheeks, but I pushed on. ‘She doesn’t seem to like me spending time with you . . . so, you know, I just wondered . . . were you boyfriend and girlfriend or something?’

‘God no, nothing like that. It’s just that she pretty much hates me and, right now, she likes you.’

‘That’s it?’ My voice rose.

Seth dragged his key card through the slot by his door. ‘When Pandra takes against someone she
really
does. There’s nothing half-hearted with her.’ His voice held grudging respect. ‘I don’t actually know why she hates me, but I’m on that list, alongside her real parents and a few others.’

I cast a quick glance behind us as if she would hear us gossiping. ‘Her real parents?’

‘It’s no secret, she’ll tell you herself if you ask her, but you might not want to wind her up.’ He paused with one hand on his doorplate. ‘Pandra’s a scholarship case. She’s been in and out of foster homes all her life. Her last family used to watch one of those paranormal TV shows. Pandra saw the Doctor and tracked her down. I think she’s been here ever since.’

‘Ever since . . .’ Seth made it sound like Pandra had been in Mount Hermon forever. ‘How long ago was that?’

‘Not sure exactly, she was here when I arrived.’ He shrugged. ‘From what she told me when we were still speaking, I know it’s been over a year.’

‘A year! I thought I’d be home in a few weeks.’

Seth’s eyes crinkled. I couldn’t tell if he was sympathetic, or
marvelling at my stupidity. ‘It’ll take more than a few weeks, but remember . . . Pandra has nowhere else to go.’

My fingers felt numb and I flexed my hands. ‘The Doctor lets her stay for free then.’ I thought about my own parents and the crippling financial agreement they’d had to sign.

Seth waved in the vague direction of the treatment rooms. ‘I think she’s agreed to all sorts of experimental therapies. To the Doctor she’s a sort of lab rat-cum-book subject, crossed with a surrogate daughter. Did the Doctor tell you how pleased she is with Pandra’s progress?’

I nodded but my mind raced. ‘So . . . she sees her like a daughter but does experimental treatments on her . . .’

Seth’s lips narrowed. ‘I’m not sure the Doctor sees things like you and me.’ He looked around almost surreptitiously. ‘I’m not sure she feels things the same way either.’

We regarded each other silently and the shadows in his eyes seemed to deepen. Then he shook himself free and opened his door. ‘Ignore the mess,’ he said.

Inside, Seth headed for the bathroom, already toeing off his trainers and peeling his shirt over his head. The remains of his ponytail pulled free and slapped on to his spine. The cold water
had bleached his skin but a sprinkle of coffee-coloured freckles tapered towards his waist. Quickly I averted my eyes.

‘Make yourself at home,’ he called, to the sound of waterlogged denim hitting the bathroom floor.

I glanced at the chair, which was piled high with laundry, and opted to sit on the bed. Seth emerged a few minutes later with a blue towel round his waist.

A striped dressing gown lay in a corner. He swept it up, swung it round his shoulders and yanked the belt tight. Then he dropped on to the mattress next to me. His leg did not quite touch mine, but I could feel the heat of it even through the double layer of towelling.

My little finger twitched as if to touch him but I held it still. I didn’t dare raise my eyes to his and my gaze flicked around the room looking for something to rest on.

Suddenly thoughts of Seth’s nearness vanished. His dressing gown had been covering two incredible sculptures. Wanting a closer look I rose to my feet.

The first seemed simple. It was a badge cast in stone lying on a clump of turf. The sigil itself was stark, a circle containing seven stars and a sort of broken figure eight. I tilted my head and frowned. ‘Is that
Orion
?’ The sign seemed to be following me.
Seth followed my eyes. ‘It’s the shoulder insignia of the Twenty-seventh Division of the US army. The original commander was Major General John O’Ryan. Orion, see?’

I frowned. ‘Did
you
make that?’ Seth shrugged and I took it to mean that he had.

‘Why?’ I drifted over to the stone, fingers outstretched.

He watched me touch the sculpture. ‘I was in the New York National Guard in my life before last. We all joined the Twenty-seventh in 1917.’

My fingers paused in the act of stroking a blade of grass. ‘Is that who you –’ I groped for the right words – ‘turned into back there?’ I gestured in the vague direction of the pool.

Seth shook his head and his knuckles whitened on his lap. ‘I don’t want to talk about her.’ His hand brushed the hair that covered his scar. ‘It makes me feel like I used to . . . before.’

‘Before what?’

He drew his legs up. ‘When I was younger. Look, I really don’t want to discuss it.’

He looked so vulnerable that I figured the ghost, whoever she was, still lingered somehow. I looked away, wrestling with the desire to prise more information out of him and my attention went to the other sculpture.

It was brilliant. A beautiful girl was half mired in the stone as if climbing out, or perhaps being absorbed back inside. Instead of filling in every detail, Seth had managed to only hint at certain things: the curve of her eyebrow, the line of her spine, the subtle grace of her fingers. Somehow that made her all the more lifelike. And she was somehow familiar.

‘Who’s that?’

Seth blushed. ‘It’s no one. Just a dream.’

I turned from her to him. ‘You know, I don’t think I’ve
ever
just dreamed.’

‘I know what you mean.’ He sagged. ‘With all these past lives,
I don’t know how much space there is for normal dreams.’

‘So maybe she’s someone from a past life?’

‘Maybe.’ He cleared his throat, swung his feet off the bed and headed to his wardrobe. ‘Here, take any you like.’ He opened the door with a bit of a flourish and I gawked. Despite the carpet of clothes on the floor the wardrobe was stuffed and, beneath the hangers of designer shirts, Seth had a whole library of DVDs.

Then I saw the titles and burst out laughing. ‘You weren’t kidding when you said you could lend me light entertainment.’ I knelt in front of the range and read a few of them out. ‘
Porkys
?
Ferris Bueller’s Day Off
?
American Pie
?’

Seth pursed his lips. ‘What were you expecting?’ He leaned over my shoulder and grunted as if he was seeing the selection for the first time.

My finger traced the colourful boxes. ‘Can I borrow this one?’

He checked my choice and smiled. ‘
Blackadder
? Sure. One’s missing, hang on.’

He rolled over the bed to open his own DVD player and a series-three disc popped out. I slotted it into the box set. ‘You’re sure you don’t mind?’

He shook his head. ‘It’s not like I’ve nothing else to watch. I fancy
That 70s Show
tonight anyway.’

I brandished my prize. ‘Thanks.’

Seth grimaced. ‘I don’t know about you, but I never watch the final episode.’

‘Series four?’ I rubbed my forehead. ‘Thanks for reminding me . . . you’re right, I shouldn’t watch that one.’

Gently Seth’s fingers brushed my shoulder. ‘Do you ever not dream about death or violence?’

My head felt like lead as I shook it, but at the same time all my nerves seemed to be focused on my shoulder where his fingers still lay, light as feathers.

Suddenly a bell sounded and we both jumped guiltily. Seth checked the clock. ‘You’d better go; they’ll come and make sure we’re all in our own rooms in a bit.’ He paused. ‘I was just wondering, is Cassie short for something? Cassandra maybe?’

I never told anyone my full name. It was kind of embarrassing. I fiddled with the DVD boxes. ‘Mum was into astronomy when she had me . . . It’s short for Cassiopeia.’

‘That’s unusual.’ His eyebrows twitched together.

I nodded. ‘Did you ever watch
Clash of the Titans
when you were a kid?’

‘I loved that film. Cassiopeia was the . . . queen, right?’

‘That’s right.’ I tightened my fingers on the DVD. ‘She was punished by the gods. Some say Ethiopia was drowned because of her.’ I wrinkled my nose. ‘Maybe she wasn’t the greatest person to be named after.’

Seth grinned. ‘At least she got a constellation. Set in the stars forever, that’s not so bad.’

‘Yeah.’ I raised the DVD. ‘Thanks for this.’

‘No problem.’ He opened his door for me and dropped his voice. ‘Sleep well, Cassiopeia.’

‘You too,’ I murmured.

The futility of the sentiment was lost on neither of us.

O
n the way back to my room I almost collided with Lenny.

‘Sorry,’ I said, forcing a cheerful tone. ‘I nearly ran you down. I’m Cassie.’

At the sound of my voice he cringed, then straightened but kept his head at an odd angle as if ready to duck. My hands spontaneously formed fists.

‘This is the boy’s area. You’re not supposed to be here.’ His voice grated like fingernails on sheet metal and I had to force my fingers open.

I didn’t want to argue with a little kid. ‘I’m on my way to my room right now.’

‘Huh.’ His dirt-grey eyes alighted on the box set and filled with calculation. ‘You’ve been to see Seth, haven’t you?’ He sidled nearer, rubbing his ginger hair into spikes. ‘He won’t let me in his room. He won’t let me borrow any of his DVDs either. He says they’re too old for me. They aren’t, though, are they?’ He reached for the set in my arms. ‘You won’t use them all tonight. Can I have some?’