The Wild Road

by Marjorie M. Liu

The woman rubbed her hands together, felt they were sticky, and stared at the odd dark puddle collecting against the Impala’s leather seats beneath Lannes. It took her a moment to figure out what it was.

  “Oh, God,” she whispered. “You are bleeding.”

  “It’s fine,” he rumbled. “I’m fine.”

  She saw no wounds, nothing that could be the source of all that blood. “Lannes—”

  He cut her off. “Orwell recognized you.”

  His abruptness, and his words, took her off guard. “I don’t know how. You have to believe me.”

  “Belief isn’t the issue. I want to know why. Why that note changed everything when he saw it.”

  “I’m being played,” she said instinctively, still staring at the blood leaking onto the seat. It was very strange, the way it looked, almost as though it were coming not from his body but out of thin air.

  “Look at me,” Lannes said sharply, glancing at her before returning his gaze to the road. “We’re going to figure this out.”

  “You just saw me kill.”

  “It wasn’t you.”

  “There’s no way you can know that.”

  “You know it.” He shot her a grim look. “Tell me I’m wrong.”

  She leaned back against the passenger door, feeling as though she were seeing Lannes for the first time. “How could you know that?”

  “Maybe I have an instinct,” he muttered, looking uncomfortable. “Or maybe I just believe in strange things.”

  “No,” she whispered. “You watched me kill an old man. A normal person…a normal person would call it as they see it. They’d believe they know what I am. Murderer. Psychopath. Not…not something else. Not innocent.”

  Lannes said nothing. She could not bear to ask. Saying the words, speaking of what had happened in Orwell Price’s home, would feel like reliving it again. Which she was already doing—tasting every nuance, trying to understand how and why. Had someone truly been controlling her? How was such a thing possible? It was easier to believe she was crazy.

  She looked down again at the blood on his seat. Just blood and no wounds. As though the air was bleeding. She closed her eyes, dragging in a deep breath, and heard several metallic clinks that made the hairs on the back of her neck rise. She looked again, searching for the source of that sound, and saw steel glinting on the car floor behind his heels.

  Bullets. Slick and red.

  The woman began to reach down, but Lannes knocked the slugs away from her.

  “Don’t,” he said.

  “Don’t look? Don’t touch?” she asked him, beginning to tremble. “What is this?”

  He shot her a fierce look. “Nothing.”

  “Bullshit.”

  “Let it go,” he growled. “Please.”

  Please. She had used that word on him, with the same pleading anger. It hurt to hear almost as much as it had hurt to say. The woman leaned back against the passenger door, the seatbelt cutting into her neck, and stared at Lannes’ profile. He was too big for the Impala. He drove with his shoulders hunched, slouched in the seat. He crowded her with his broad shoulders.

  Words filled her. She swallowed them, turned away to stare out the windshield like some head on a stick, all feeling gone from her body, nothing but eyes and ears. Her heart was dead. She could not feel it.

  Lannes drove south out of Chicago. The woman did not care. She sat very still and kept her hands curled in her lap. Hands that still felt filthy.

  Two hours later, after driving just below the speed limit through a countryside of wide-open spaces, Lannes pulled off the highway, bought gas and drove into the parking lot of a one-story brick motel lined with blue doors.

  Lannes pushed open his door and uncurled himself from the driver seat. The woman also stumbled from the Impala, trying not to hiss as her feet throbbed. The air was cold. Her eyes felt dry and were burning. Lannes hesitated, glancing at her over the roof of the car, but she did not walk around the hood to join him.

  “We need to rest,” he said. “A place to think.”

  “Okay,” she said.

  He hesitated. “I don’t think it’s safe to get two rooms.”

  The woman thought it might be a great deal safer to have two rooms—safer for him, anyway—but she said nothing, and after they stared at each other for a long moment, he went inside the front office to rent a room. She watched him go. Wondered distantly whether if it would be one bed or two. It did not matter. She was more afraid of herself than of him now.

  In the end, it was two beds—in a small white room with orange curtains, brown carpet, and a television that was bolted to a plastic dresser that had been carved with hearts and arrows. The woman hobbled straight into the bathroom, socks flopping. She fumbled with the soap, digging her nails under its paper wrapper, tearing it free. Ran the faucet until the water steamed. She washed her hands. She scrubbed her skin until it was red and burning, and did not stop.

  She made the mistake of looking into the mirror and found nothing but a stranger, a woman with haunted hollow eyes and pale cheeks lost behind tangled hair. A woman who might forget herself at any moment.

  A large hand reached in and closed around her wrist. Lannes rumbled, “Stop. You’re hurting yourself.”

  His hand was warm and strong. Her wrist looked very tiny in his grip, and his skin felt strange. She went still, remembering how he had told her not to touch him. Remembering the blood on her hands when she had. Blood on her sweater, in the car. Bullets on the floor.

  Lannes let go long enough to turn off the water and pull down a towel. He made her drop the soap in the sink and began drying her hands. She did not resist.

  “He let us in,” she whispered suddenly, and Lannes stopped, looking at her. “He let us in because he knew me. Someone like me. A woman…who was supposed to be dead.”

  “That’s not your fault,” Lannes murmured, and pulled her back into the bedroom, making her sit on the edge of a dark mauve floral comforter that felt more like plastic than cloth. He walked around her and tugged down the covers. Then he knelt, studying her feet, which were still snug in the floppy socks he had given her. The fabric was grimy now, more gray than white.

  He began tugging off her socks—awkwardly, like he was afraid of hurting her. The woman stopped him and kicked them off herself. Her feet throbbed. When she stretched them, the cuts in her arches felt as though they were splitting apart.

  She crawled backward, under the covers. The sheets were cold. She curled into a ball.

  “Sleep,” Lannes whispered, standing beside the bed. “Don’t be afraid.”

  She was afraid, more afraid than she could imagine anyone ever being. But the softness of the pillow felt good, and the room was dark, like a cocoon. She tried to say something to Lannes, but her throat would not work.

  I’m sorry, she thought, exhausted.

  Then she fell asleep.

  Chapter Eight

  Ten minutes after the woman’s breathing slowed, Lannes left the room. He tried to be quiet. She did not seem to wake as he shut the door behind him. The cold afternoon air felt good on his face and wings, as did the freedom of the open sky. Those walls, that dark space—it all had been too close for comfort.

  The Impala was parked just outside the room. He got in, sat in the blood-stiff leather, and took a deep breath as he unbuckled his aching wings. Driving a car meant sitting on them like the ends of a cape, but that was hard on the skin—first abrasive, then numbing. When he was driving alone, he could take frequent breaks, could stretch out his wings as he was doing now.

  His chest hurt, but the bleeding had stopped soon after driving out of Chicago, and the holes had nearly closed. Regenerative abilities aside, the difficulties of being wounded while wearing the illusion were not something he had anticipated. The damage, close to his body, could not be seen. The blood was another matter once it left the confines of his illusion. As were the bullets that had been rejected from his body.

  You should never have hugged her,
Lannes chastised himself. He still could not believe how easy it had been to pull her close—but then he remembered her stricken face, her despair as it had rolled through his mind, and he could forgive himself, just a little. Her pain might as well have been his. He could not divorce himself from the link between their minds.

  Nothing to be done, he told himself, more concerned by the grief he had caused the woman by telling her not to touch his back. Her eyes, the way she had looked at him—like he thought she was a monster…

  Slightly sickened, he turned on his cell phone and dialed. Charlie answered on the third ring. Lannes heard a little girl singing in the background, accompanied by the clinking sounds of dishes being washed. Despite the circumstances, Lannes smiled. His brother, gargoyle and domestic warrior.

  “Emma trying out for American Idol?” he asked.

  Charlie grunted. “She watched The Lion King this morning. You know, it has music.”

  Lannes did not know, not about children’s movies or lion kings, but Emma was still singing, and she had a good voice.

  “Your phone has been off,” Charlie said, a hard note entering his voice. “I got a bad feeling a couple hours ago. So did Magnus and Arthur.”

  “Did you now?” Lannes tried to sound calmer than he felt, especially at the mention of his other brothers. “And what do you think happened?”

  “I think someone died,” said his brother. “Two of our guys caught a morning flight out of New York and got to Frederick. As soon as they made sure he was all right, they went to Orwell Price’s home.”

  “Ah,” Lannes said, feeling rather ill. “Had the police come?”

  Charlie was quiet. “No. And they won’t.”

  “Sounds like you work for the Mafia instead of a detective agency.”

  “I wonder myself sometimes. But I need answers. Like now.”

  Lannes needed answers, too. He thought of the woman sleeping less than thirty feet away—a woman he had held in his arms longer than he had ever held anyone—and told the story. Charlie did not interrupt once. It hardly seemed he was on the line.

  Lannes tapped his fingers against the steering wheel. “Hello?”

  “I’m thinking,” said his brother.

  “Think faster. Orwell was not a normal human man. And whatever was inside this woman’s brain…” He stopped, unable to put words to what he had felt. The coldness of it.

  Charlie said, “Are you sure it wasn’t her? Putting on a good act?”

  Lannes hesitated, searching his heart. He remembered her eyes afterwards, his sense of her emotions embedded in his mind, how they fluttered as though her heart were beating itself to death in horror.

  “I’m sure,” he said.

  “Then we need to find out what connects her to the victim. And what happened in that hotel room. You mentioned smoke, right? I’ll look for mentions of fire in the news and see if we can pin down the location.” Charlie hesitated. “How are you handling this? You know, such close quarters?”

  “Fine,” Lannes replied.

  “Because you haven’t been around anyone but us and Frederick in a year.”

  “I’m fine,” Lannes said again.

  Charlie hesitated. “Is she cute?”

  Lannes almost hung up. “She’s fine.”

  “‘Fine,’” said his brother. “That could mean a lot of things.”

  A lot. A great deal more than Lannes wished to talk about. But he stayed silent too long—too long for someone as perceptive as Charlie—and his brother very softly said, “Ah.”

  “Stop it,” Lannes told him. “Mind your own business.”

  “Fine.” He sounded far too mild. “Just…be careful.”

  “There’s nothing to be careful about. I don’t know the woman. And she certainly doesn’t know me.”

  “That can be less of a barrier than you think.”

  Lannes gritted his teeth. “Just say it. You think I’ll be played as a fool.”

  “If you fall, we all fall,” Charlie said.

  Not something he could stand to hear. “I’m going now. Call when you know something.”

  His brother very reluctantly said he would. Told him to lie low. Hide the car. And that was that.

  Lannes did not, however, return to the motel room—nor did he move the car to a less visible location. He sat, staring out the windshield at the battered door, the closed curtains, and thought about the woman sleeping inside.

  He had touched her. He had held her. He had fought for her. And he had not been afraid. No thought of witches and stone, no feeling of the walls closing in. His only thought had been for the woman. Even now he was thinking of her, knowing she was close. He could sense her presence, however small, inside his mind.

  That scared him. It also thrilled him in ways he could not explain. She made him feel strong. Gave him no choice but to be strong. Lannes might have been sleepwalking until now, the feeling was so raw, as though something was waking in his blood: genetic, primal, an imperative too long suppressed. It was simple, that desire. Easy as breathing. He wanted to protect the woman. He needed to protect her. A desire that went beyond his earlier, more intellectual excuses for involving himself in her welfare.

  It was in a gargoyle’s nature to protect, even if their kind had been forced to adapt to different lifestyles. It was safer now to ignore suffering and turn a blind eye, to exist in hiding away from others, relying on magic, subterfuge. The instinct to protect had become a liability, sternly repressed. Lannes had not realized quite how sternly, until now, and he felt as though he was committing some crime, as though his desire was somehow against his species. To protect this woman, to give her what she needed, meant putting himself at risk—his body, his secrets. This was something that had been at the back of his mind from the beginning, but it suddenly hit him hard, with terrifying clarity. He was jeopardizing the secrets of an entire species.

  Charlie did it. He challenged tradition.

  To save a little girl’s life. A little girl who was now his daughter in every way but blood. A child unafraid of Charlie’s real face, who loved him as he was. Father. Rescuer. Protector.

  Lannes stared down at his hands. Human. They looked normal, were illusions he could never dream to match. He wondered how the woman inside the motel would react if she knew the truth. What would she do?

  Stop. Enough. You have bigger problems. So does she.

  Something had been in her head. He could still feel the tangle of its presence: cold, old, furious. Powerful. Perhaps it was the force that had stolen her memories. It frightened Lannes. Taking over minds was tricky business. To control a person over a long distance was even trickier. It took a connection, permission. Like what the witch who’d captured them had wanted Lannes and his brothers to give.

  A simple yes would do. A mere acquiescence, however innocent. A person had to be ever vigilant with the mind. To do less was to lose everything. Or to be vulnerable to everything.

  Lannes started the Impala’s engine and drove around to the back of the motel. He parked out of sight of the freeway and walked back around the building. Clouds had begun to move across the sun, but only a scattering of them. He wondered if the woman’s jacket would be warm enough.

  A name, he thought, binding his wings again. She needs a name.

  Lannes was trying to think of one when he felt a spark of heartache pulse along their link. He turned the corner and found the woman standing in the doorway of their room, gazing out at where the Impala had been with such a look of disappointment and hollow resignation that he almost ran to her.

  She saw him coming. Her hair hung in a soft tangle around her face. Her cheeks were flushed, her eyes green as sun-bathed grass. She blinked several times, almost as though she was surprised to see him.

  “Out for a walk?” she asked mildly.

  “Moved the car so it couldn’t be seen from the road. Police might be looking for us.”

  She nodded, still with a pinch of stress around her eyes, and gazed out at the barren
parking lot. A strip of earth and a chain-link fence separated them from the highway. Cars roared past.

  “You need to rest,” he said.

  “I did. A little. I heard the car start.” Her mouth quirked into a sad smile. “It’s a distinct sound.”

  “I’m sorry.” Lannes leaned against the door frame feeling awkward, exposed. His wings curled tight around his back. He suspected the illusion made his shoulders appear hunched. “You thought I was abandoning you.”

  “Crossed my mind,” she admitted. “I wouldn’t blame you.”

  Lannes held her gaze, willing her to understand. “We need to get something straight. I’m not leaving you.”

  “Right. Because you’re just that nice.”

  “Nice has nothing to do with it. You need help. Do you understand? I’m here because you need someone.”

  “That’s being nice and dumb. I might hurt you.”

  “I can take care of myself.”

  “Can you? What’s happening…it’s not normal. It’s not…human.”

  Chills raced up his spine. “Is that what you think?”

  “I know it.” She pressed her fist to her chest. “Here. Call me crazy, and maybe I am—”

  “No, you’re not crazy.”

  “But something took me over.” She hesitated, cheeks flushed, studying his face with an unnerving intensity that made him want to search out a mirror and check his illusion for cracks. “You really don’t think I’m nuts? A psychopath?

  He smiled gently. “Go. Rest. I’ll warn you the next time I decide to go out.”

  The woman backed up, her gaze pale and hollow. “You should rest. You haven’t slept since we met.”

  Lannes said nothing and gestured for her to precede him into the room. He locked the door behind them. The room felt darker than he remembered. More oppressive. His skin crawled.

  The woman slid back under the covers of her bed. He lay down on the other mattress, his healing ribs aching, his wings smashed like a soft, articulated blanket. The mattress groaned beneath him. He thought it would be impossible for him to relax, but after a tense minute, his muscles began to sag and his breathing slowed.