Devil's Advocate (The X-Files: Origins #2)(20)

“You … believe I saw her?”

Anne nodded. “Yeah. A lot of people do. I even heard a couple of teachers talking about it. Everyone thinks you’re some kind of freak, but … sure.”

The knowledge that the other students believed her jolted her, and Dana did not know how to take it.

“Craiger’s a weird town,” said Anne. “Always been weird. Maisie was weird, too. She went to all those weirdo classes at that stupid hippie shop.”

“Beyond Beyond?”

“Whatever it’s called, but yes. Always doing that meditation junk and saying she was walking through veils and—how’d she put it?—connecting with the planetary energetics. Talking with the earth spirit Gaia. Talking about how she was part of the movement to bring everyone into a new age. I don’t know. She went on and on about that stuff, and I usually tuned her out. All that matters is that after she died, she came to you.”

“Why me, though?” pleaded Dana. “We never even met. Why come to me, of all people?”

Anne studied her for a moment, her eyes hooded and calculating. “All I know is that if it happened, there has to be a reason.”

“But what reason? It’s driving me totally out of my mind.”

“Yeah, like I said, this is Craiger. Welcome to the club.” Anne flapped an arm in disgust and then just walked away, leaving Dana alone in the hall. Angelo had gone, too, and Dana felt as if she was miles and miles away from anyone she knew, or anything that made sense.

She hugged her backpack to her chest and hurried to her next class, which she was already late for.





CHAPTER 19

Craiger, Maryland

8:57 A.M.

The angel crouched in the shadows, his face and body streaked with paint and blood and grease, his eyes burning in his head, lips moving in a constant prayer that was as formless as his god.

Praying to the grigori. Praying to his blood father, a true angel born in heaven who sought now to return to earth. To save it. Protect it.

Rule it.

Listening to what his god had to tell him. Secrets. Promises. Prophecies.

Outside there was the sound of a siren screaming its way through the town. He did not care. It wasn’t the right kind of scream.





CHAPTER 20

Francis Scott Key Regional High School

8:59 A.M.

The biology teacher looked like Albert Einstein—if Einstein had spent a bad weekend in an alley after being enthusiastically mugged. That was how he looked to Dana. Mr. Newton had Einstein’s wild hair, wilder eyebrows, and a mustache that looked like it was about to leap off his face and go burrowing in the forest. He always wore an ugly green or brown suit, and everyone was positive he owned only those two suits. However, he wore an ever-changing series of brightly colored ties. Today’s tie had clockwork gears in twenty shades of gold, bronze, and silver. Everyone called him Two-Suit Newton.

Dana thought he was great. Most of the other students thought he was a weirdo, but Dana was okay with weirdos. Especially science weirdos. She was starting to think about a career in science, too. Maybe research. Maybe medicine. Maybe something else. She loved math and science, and Mr. Newton challenged her mind.

Going into his classroom after the double encounter in the hall was like stepping onto the shores of an island after falling overboard from a sinking ship. This was firm footing. She knew who she was here.

On the other hand, she was ten minutes late. Newton stopped what he was saying and peered out from under his wild eyebrows at her. Everyone else turned, too, and there was a lot of relief on their faces at any interruption. The blackboard was filled with notes about the steps required to dissect a frog. A big plastic cooler sat on the floor between rows of lab tables, the top removed, and dozens of dead frogs lay inside. Some of the other students already looked as green as the frogs.

“There is real time,” said Newton gravely, “and there is Francis Scott Key High I-don’t-care-about-science-class time, and then there is Dana Scully time.”

“Sorry,” she said.

“Not trying to escape today’s exercise in controlling the gag reflex, are we?” Newton held a scalpel and waggled it back and forth.

“No … no, just running late. Sorry, won’t happen again,” mumbled Dana as she hurried over to find a seat. Her regular lab partner wasn’t there today, but then he hadn’t been in the other day, either. The only person there who didn’t have a partner was a tall, thin, studious-looking boy with sandy-blond hair and intelligent green eyes. Ethan something, she thought. Dana felt herself turning lobster red as she climbed onto the stool beside him.

“Okay?” she asked.

“Be my guest.”

She caught a few mixed looks from the other students, but these were all sophomores like her. No seniors and probably no one close to Maisie. All her classmates would have heard would be secondhand rumors. So none of the looks were openly hostile. Small mercies.

Mr. Newton picked up a lecture in progress, explaining what they’d be looking for once they cut open their frogs. He seemed to enjoy his topic and was very animated. Then the frogs were handed out and the process began. The class became noisy with conversation and a lot of sounds of sickness and disgust.

“If you feel the need to vomit,” said Newton offhandedly, “please be so good as to use the trash can. Don’t puke on your frogs.”