Lili St. Crow - Reckoning a Strange Angels Novel

A STRANGE ANGELS NOVEL

Praise for the Strange Angels series:

This cracking read is for youngsters and adults alike Sun

Dru Anderson is the toughest teen gal since Buffy hung up her stake! Mizz

An elegantly written thriller Bliss

It actually is a supernatural thriller. A very good one... If you prefer supernatural thrillers with a side of romance, as opposed to romance with a side of supernatural thrillers, Strange Angels is the perfect book for you Bookbag

I would give Strange Angels a 4/5 and I cant wait to read Betrayals, the sequel, which is coming out in November! Chicklish

She has managed to craft an excellent story. Her teen characters are well written and believable and she weaves suspense and horror together well Teen Librarian

A heart-stopping first book in a thrilling series Betty Bookmark

A stellar new series that will spellbind readers and leave them begging for more Compulsive Reader blog

Strange Angels is Buffy and Supernatural thrown together... St.Crows writing is sharp and contemporary, with enough sarcasm to make even the snarkiest teen appreciate Drus voice Wondrous Reads blog

The Strange Angels series

STRANGE ANGELS
BETRAYALS
JEALOUSY
DEFIANCE
RECKONING

ASTRANGE ANGELSNOVEL

LILI ST. CROW

First published in 2011 by the Penguin Group
Penguin Young Readers Group
345 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA

First published in Great Britain in 2011 by

Quercus
55 Baker St
7th Floor, South Block
London
W1U 8EW

Copyright Lili St. Crow, 2011

The moral right of Lili St. Crow to be
identified as the author of this work has been
asserted in accordance with the Copyright,
Design and Patents Act, 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication
may be reproduced or transmitted in any form
or by any means, electronic or mechanical,
including photocopy, recording, or any
information storage and retrieval system,
without permission in writing from the publisher.

A CIP catalogue reference for this book is available
from the British Library

ISBN 978 0 85738 189 7

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters,
businesses, organizations, places and events are
either the product of the authors imagination
or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to
actual persons, living or dead, events or
locales is entirely coincidental.

1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2

Printed and bound in Great Britain by Clays Ltd, St Ives plc.

For Christa Hickey, true blue.

Thanks again to Mel Sanders, Christa Hickey, Miriam Kriss, and Jessica Rothenberg. Special mention must go to Lea Day, Bookweasel and Research Helper extraordinaire as well as Hutch and Bogna. (Any errors are mine alone.) Last but not least: You, dear Reader. Let me, once again, thank you in the way we both like best.

Let me tell you a story...

People like us dont give up.

Sixten Zeiss

Stealing a car was easy. The hard part was putting up with the whining.

I cant believe were doing this, Graves muttered for the fiftieth time. I kept the speed steady, an even fifty-five. It was an older red Subaru sedan, and Id checked for insurance papers before wed taken it. Someone would be inconvenienced, but not completely out of luck.

When youre running from the king of the vampires, you cant afford to be too choosy. But I was glad Id been able to avoid being a complete douche.

Well, if youd like to hike out there on foot, be my guest. I didnt reach for the volume knob to drown him out, but it was close. Little Richard wailed softly from the speakers, robbed of all his sass. The all-wheel drive would be nice when we started to hit the hills. Or if you want to be caught without wheels when the vampires find us.

When. Not if. Because theyre going to. After all, Id stabbed the closest thing they had to a king through the heart and escaped. You dont have to be a genius to figure out that will piss a monster off.

It was a partly sunny late-spring midafternoon and we were on the freeway. I actually missed the food back at the Schola Prima. At least it had been pretty fresh, and thered been plenty of it, brought up on a tray each evening as the Schola woke and the djamphir started getting ready for another night of fun and games learning to hunt suckers.

I would groan at having to get up, blue-eyed Nathalie would laugh, and the night would start with breakfast and a hot shower while she set my mothers room to rights. And I would secretly feel glad not to be alone.

Now I just felt empty and nauseated. Plus my head hurt, and even though I was exhausted, I hadnt been able to sleep for more than a few broken hours. Id been too busy jerking into wakefulness every time the cheap hotel room creaked, or a car backfired, or the boys breathing changed. It didnt help that the moteld had paperthin walls, either.

But options are sometimes limited when youre running for your life.

Ash lay curled up in the backseat. Hed been asleep since we hit the city limits, snuggled up like he didnt have a care in the world. Id managed to get him mostly cleaned up, but he was still barefoot and greasy-haired. Hed put away even more food than Graves this morning, and that was saying something. Wed spent seventy bucks at a Dennys off the freeway for breakfast, then stopped at a McDonalds and loaded up. Cheap food, but both of them needed the calories. A werwulf and a loup-garou would heal up in a matter of hours, but only if they had enough food to fuel the metabolic burn. So both of them chowed down, and they were looking pretty pink by now.

The greasy paper and wrappings went in an already-full rest-stop trash bin four hours ago, and I hoped we couldnt be tracked from them.

Neither Graves nor Ash knew how to drive, so it was all on me. Driving wears on a body, Dad always said. It was why he taught me to spell him as soon as my feet could reach the pedals.

Silence, broken only by Little Richard going to town like he wanted to reach through the speakers and shake me for keeping him turned down. My hands ached, white-knuckled, on the steering wheel.

I didnt mean that. Graves hunched in the passenger seat, as far away from me as he could possibly get. He was pale under his half-Asian coloring. The dark brown roots of his hair showed as he ran a hand back through it, wincing as he hit tangles. I just meant, shit. I cant believe Im out.

I cant believe you got kidnapped in the first place. I sighed, easing off the gas to drift behind a red semi creeping in the right-hand lane. Big fluffy white clouds sailed across the sky, but the spring sunshine was enough to make it hot under the dome of the car. My window was half-open, and the roar of the slipstream sent me bullets of concentrated scent. Fresh-cut grass, car exhaust, blossoming things, tree pollenyou name it, I smelled it.

It was distracting. Especially with the car full of the reek of wulf and loup-garou, neither of them too fresh and one of them, at least, nervous as hell. Next hotel we used would have to have a decent shower. I reeked of nosferat, fear, and cinnamon buns, not to mention old dried rusty blood.

The fear and the blood, well, I could deal with that. But the spice scent was just a reminder of how much things had changed. Id changed. Id finally bloomed and become toxic to suckers.

Not that anyone was noticing.