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Lucy gave a little pout. “Oh. Well, will you still be here in a few days? Doing your psychic readings?” She bantered the words, making it clear that she didn’t believe in that stuff for a second.
“Maybe – I haven’t decided yet. ” Or decided what to do with the gaping years ahead of him, either. Not wanting to think about it, he said, “Who knows, maybe I’ll give it all up and become a violinist. ”
“A violinist?” Amanda nudged him. “No way, you look like you’re strictly an electric-guitar man. I keep expecting you to whip out your axe and start doing ‘Stairway to Heaven’. ”
Seb held back a smile. He could never resist an opening like this. “No, my father’s a classical violinist,” he said seriously. “I guess it’s just in the blood, you know?”
She blinked. “Really?”
“Yes, I was raised on that stuff. My mother’s an opera singer. She plays too, though. Piano. She says it helps her relax, so she likes to take it on tour with her – it’s so difficult getting it on flights. Because it always has to be her piano; no other one will do. ”
Amanda’s brown eyes had gone wide. “Wow – are you serious?”
“No, he’s not serious,” laughed Lucy. “Get your brain in gear, Amanda. ”
The dark-haired girl made a rueful face. “Okay, you got me, Seb. So what do your parents really do?”
“Really? They run a circus training school. ”
Lucy snickered. “You’re not going to get anything out of him. Don’t you remember from last night? Seb’s the original man of mystery. ” She squeezed his arm, giving him an arch smile. “I bet your parents are really Mr. and Mrs. Ordinary of Boring, Mexico. ”
He laughed out loud at that – if only she knew. “Yes, I think maybe you’re right,” he said.
Leaning close, Lucy traced the thin scar on his forearm, from a knife fight when he was younger. He caught a whiff of her shampoo; it smelled like oranges. “Let me guess – a swordfight with pirates, right?”
“Just a cat scratch. It was a big cat, though. ” Even without the sultry pink lights shifting through her aura, Seb was very aware that Lucy was coming on to him a little. As she touched his arm, he knew without trying that she was wondering what it would be like to kiss him; planning how she could get him on his own at the hostel later.
From long habit he started to pull gently away – and then stopped. For the last year or so, the sense of his half-angel girl had grown so strong that Seb had stopped having even flings with human girls; it had felt like he was betraying her. But she wasn’t real, she never had been – he had to get that through his head. Since giving up his search he’d been even lonelier than usual; achingly aware that he was the only one of his kind. This girl didn’t want a relationship with him, so why not? She obviously liked him – and it had been so, so long.
As if in response, he caught the sense of his half-angel girl again, like a whiff of perfume floating past. Seb’s jaw tightened. Why couldn’t she just leave him in peace, instead of taunting him with what he could never have?
He didn’t pull away. After a moment he felt Lucy’s hand slide down his arm and find his. “Maybe you can give me a psychic reading later,” she said softly, under cover of the sound of a mariachi band that had just started up.
Seb took in the clear invitation in her eyes. No human girl could ever give him the true companionship he craved; he knew that. This, right here, was the most he could ever have – and he’d take it, because he wasn’t saint enough to spend the rest of his life alone, never even feeling the warmth of someone’s touch.
Fighting the wistfulness he felt, he pushed the beautiful phantom out of his mind and let his fingers close around Lucy’s. “Are you sure?” he said. “I’ll find out all your secrets. ”
“Promise?” She smiled, and flipped her ponytail back. She said something else, but he didn’t hear what it was; in a sudden flash, a blinding white figure had come into view overhead. There was an angel cruising over the crowded stalls. Its wings burned in the late afternoon sunlight as it glided, gazing down at the shoppers.
Reflexively, Seb shifted his aura to the dullest colours he could think of, making it look stunted, unappetizing. He’d fought an angel only once before; he had no desire to ever do it again. “Come on, let’s go this way,” he said, pulling at Lucy’s hand. Amanda was lagging behind looking at jewellery; he took her arm too. “Come, there’s a stall over here I want to show you. ”
“Hey!” protested Amanda as he dragged her off. “I was going to buy that. ”
“No, don’t bother,” he said. “This stand’s better, I promise. ”
Glancing over his shoulder, he saw the angel select its victim and land, so dazzling with radiance that the marketplace seemed to fade away. The man stared at the being in wonder as it reached towards him. Smiling gently, it rested its gleaming hands in his aura and began to feed.
Seb led the girls to another jewellery stand. While they stood laughing, trying on rings, he found his gaze drawn back to the angel as it finally flew away in a shudder of light. Though he no longer wanted to be pure angel himself, he couldn’t completely hold back his old longing for their strength and power, which had seemed so desperately appealing to him at thirteen. When it came to the creatures’ feeding, he had never quite decided what he felt about it. The angels hurt people and he wished they didn’t – but they also made them genuinely happy. From the readings he’d given to people with angel burn, he knew this happiness was real, even if their health was damaged. When humans hurt other humans, there was no happiness at all – just pain and misery. At least the angels gave something back. Then Seb sighed as he wondered how the man was damaged now. The issue wasn’t an easy one; he’d never resolved it in his mind.
The girls were trying on necklaces now, admiring themselves in a small mirror.
“I like the turquoise one,” said Amanda, her dark hair beside Lucy’s red.
“Really?” Lucy cocked her head to one side as she inspected herself. “I can’t decide; I like the shell one, too. Wait, are there matching earrings?”
Seb drifted to the next stall. It sold a mishmash of things: clothes, old paperbacks, CDs. He took his cigarettes from his knapsack and lit one as he started looking over the books, arranged spine-up in long, battered rows. He’d first started reading for pleasure in the measly library of the orphanage, while checking every book they had to try and find out about others like him. There’d been nothing, of course, but he’d stumbled across a story about a boy and a horse, and been hooked ever since.
Now he found a popular science title that he hadn’t read, and propped an elbow on a shelf to his side as he flipped to its opening page. Soon he was immersed.
“I’ve got some stuff to sell,” said a voice. “You buy clothes and things, right?”
Seb didn’t look up, distantly aware that the stall owner was going through a pile of goods with someone, the two of them haggling over prices. “Man, you’ve got to be kidding – this shirt alone is worth fifty pesos—”
Deciding that he’d get the book, Seb took a final puff of his cigarette and ground it out. As he glanced over, he saw the speaker was a stocky guy a few years older than himself, holding up a girl’s light blue long-sleeved shirt. Seb frowned. The sense that he was meant to be doing something tickled over him again, more strongly than ever. A price was finally agreed; the stall owner put the shirt to one side.