Incorruptible

by Lilith Saintcrow

  That was the heart of it. She did trust him. It was hard not to, especially when he’d thrown himself protectively on top of her not once but twice, fought off monsters, and even kept his hands to himself the whole time.

  “If you insist they’ll take me along.” He hit the turn signal, merging with traffic going northeast and reaching for a fresh bag. “But, Jenna—”

  “I plan on insisting, then.” Her stomach had closed up. Good thing there were only crumbs left of her scone. The pink sedan peeled away to the left, its blinker still going, tick-tock. “Unless you’d rather not be saddled with me.” Which could very well be the case, she admitted.

  Once she wasn’t hanging around, would the demons leave him alone? It was a helluva consideration, as Dad might have said.

  “It’s not that.” Michael shook his head before digging out a hash brown patty. Anyone else might look distracted, eating while driving. He, however, looked incredibly alert for someone who hadn’t even slept last night as far as she could tell—just stood near the window, watching, while she tossed and turned. Maybe he slept on his feet. “I just want you safe, that’s all.”

  “Well, I’m not sure about these guys. But I am sure about you. Okay?” She tried a sip of tea, burned her tongue. “Ugh. I do have a question, though. How do they know to pick us up?” Yes, I’m an idiot, I only now worked up the courage to ask.

  But she still didn’t have enough to ask if the monsters would leave him alone if she wasn’t around. The Subaru in front of them hit the brakes but Michael, observing a safe following distance as usual, only had to let up on the accelerator too slow enough.

  “I called in.” He glanced at her again, a worried blue flash. “Burner phone. I’ll toss it once we’re picked up.”

  “Oh, so you get to have a phone.” The tea was burning her fingers through the cup. If there was magic in in the world why couldn’t it do something useful, like making sure she didn’t get scalded?

  Michael let the Dodge slow further. Traffic was knotting up. “They could track yours.”

  “I know.” She swallowed a burst of uncharacteristic annoyance. “What’s to stop them tracking yours?”

  “It’s a burner. The only thing I’ve ever called on it is the Legion drop-line.” Was it mild irritation in his tone, or did he just have too much McMuffin in his mouth?

  “It was a rhetorical question.” Mostly. Or, really, it wasn’t. She was just…well, this was a road trip, and you couldn’t have one of those without at least one small argument. Human beings trapped in a small moving box for hours got cranky.

  But was he strictly human? Or just human enough?

  “Sorry.” The thickening traffic still moved at a good clip, and he veered between lanes seemingly at random, never slowing. Spaces just opened up for the red truck, a bubble of free pavement. At least that was a practical magic. “We’re close. Any headache?”

  “Nope. Just a burned tongue from my tea.”

  “Oh.” But instead of looking relieved, his face fell, and he continued chewing.

  The rendezvous point was another motel, a middle-sized Golden Inn near the airport. The Rockies frowned in the distance, a huge change from the plains and very welcome. She’d read about people going mad with all the space and grass, but hadn’t really believed it until now. Being chased by nightmare monsters certainly broadened the perceptions.

  Michael drove through the parking lot with excruciating slowness, eyeing the lobby and the corrugated tin awning in front of its double glass doors. “Room 303,” he said, finally. “Looks like a good call, plenty of exits. Airport’s close too, so they’ll probably hustle you out there and load you on a chopper.”

  “A helicopter?” Get on the choppah, an old movie actor barked inside her head. She couldn’t remember who, only that Dad had loved the line and used it at every opportunity. “Or a bike?”

  Thinking about Dad didn’t make her think of Mom and the accident, for once. Instead, she wondered how Rach and Sam and Kitty and Belinda and Evan were handling her disappearance. Maybe they didn’t even notice; she wasn’t anywhere near the center of their tight-knit group. Just an orbiting particle on the fringes, especially after Eddie had finished, patiently but ruthlessly, cutting everyone out of her life.

  She hadn’t fought too hard, already suspecting she was bad luck they were better off without. Now she knew, and she hoped her friends were oblivious to her absence.

  It seemed kinder that way.

  “Helicopter.” Michael pulled into a parking spot, still gazing out the windshield. He didn’t look like a man who had just eaten sixty dollars’ worth of fast food. There weren’t even any crumbs on his navy T-shirt or dark jacket. “They should’ve sent one for you right away, I don’t know why they waited.”

  “We can ask.” Jenna’s fingers were cold, despite the tea cupped in them. It was a drinkable temperature now, so she took another hasty swallow and almost swallowed air with it.

  She couldn’t do anything gracefully. Some days were just like that.

  “You can, once we reach the Eyrie.” He peered at the block of concrete, brick, and sloped roof to shed snow in the winter. Any trace of amusement or uncertainty had fallen away, and he looked like a man contemplating a complex and potentially dirty chore. “It’s pretty quiet. Let me get out first, okay?”

  “Sure.” You’re such a gentleman. It would have sounded snide, though she meant it. It would be difficult to find a more fitting illustration of chivalrous; they should just put his picture in the dictionary. “Should we take our luggage?” A regular, prosaic, everyday question, probably ridiculous, but she couldn’t stop talking.

  Jenna realized she was afraid of what silence might bring.

  “Uh, we can get it on the way out if you want.” Michael’s gaze moved over the motel, jumping from one point to the next. He reached for the door handle. “Once we land they’ll get you everything—clothes, a new phone, you name it. You’re a lumina, they’ll get you anything your heart desires.”

  Was it nervous chatter? Maybe he didn’t like the quiet either.

  “Sounds too good to be true,” she muttered, but he was already out of the truck.

  At least they didn’t have to go through the lobby to reach the rooms. Instead, there were concrete staircases at both ends of the building; he climbed first, almost going sideways and glancing behind them frequently. It wasn’t until they passed Room 302, the brass numbers on its door corroded, that he stiffened and Jenna shuddered, realizing what he was looking at.

  The door to Room 303 was open, just a fraction. It creaked as Michael pushed it wide, and Jenna peered over his shoulder.

  “Oh, God,” she whispered.

  Looked like they weren’t the earliest birds, after all.

  A True Defender

  Thin pitiless sunlight made a rectangle across cheap carpet, and Michael had to blink a few times before he could distinguish how many bodies were in the room. Looked like a four-man team, and now he could see a star of breakage on the inside of the double storm windows, invisible from the parking lot because of the angle. There were holes battered in the walls on either side, too—diaboli tunneling in or the team trying to escape, who could tell? He wasn’t here for forensics.

  “Come on.” He grabbed Jenna’s arm, drawing her into the uncertain cover of the room. His boots made a heavy sound against sodden carpet—ichor and blood, splattered everywhere. They hadn’t been satisfied with a hit-and-run, no, this was a vengeance raid. The legionnaires, all of them in standard black-tac gear, were dismembered, scattered across two twin beds. The antique television on a heavy graceless dresser was a shell of itself, its innards exploded from sliptime flex. One of the team had made a stand in the bathroom and lay spilled in that doorway, the body savaged and the head missing.

  It took some doing to overwhelm four legionnaires. Hadn’t they posted a guard on the roof? Not that it would have done much good, with this many diaboli. Had a hazazel been here, too?

  That was
n’t the only strangeness. There should have been more legionnaires—if it had been a full extraction team, where were the rest? Also, there wasn’t nearly enough ichor, and what bits of rotting unclean he could see were inconclusive.

  Think, Michael. Think. What he did next was important, and it had to happen fast. It was no longer enough to move. He had to move quickly, and well.

  Jenna had gone transparent-pale, her lips slightly parted, and she stared at the bodies with wide, uncomprehending dark eyes. “Lumina.” She didn’t look at him. Was it shock, or were the diaboli moving in? “Jenna, listen to me.”

  She probably didn’t even hear him. Her expression had a dreamy, wandering quality he didn’t quite like, either; she should never have to see something like this. She should already be in an Eyrie, wrapped in silken safety, listening to the legionnaires tell her how beautiful she was, how valued.

  “Jenna.” He had to get her attention off the carnage. “Stand right there, okay?” He grabbed her other arm, too, and quelled the urge to shake her. “Jenna!” Here he was, practically yelling at an Incorruptible.

  What was going on?

  “Michael?” She focused on him, blinking, and a little sense stole back into those huge, wounded dark eyes. “What…who…”

  “I don’t know,” he said, grimly. “But I’m going to look for ammo. Do you have a headache?”

  She shook her head, the slow motion of a woman in nightmare’s grip. Her parka’s hood brushed her shoulders, a thin rasping sound. “N-no. I…Michael, these…these people...”

  “Legionnaires.” He didn’t mean to sound curt, but these were his brothers, and their fate a reminder of what could happen to him in a heartbeat. Or—unacceptably—to her. “I’m getting ammo and whatever gear I can. I need you to be a lookout and tell me if your head starts to hurt.”

  He didn’t really need her keeping watch, but it was better for her to look at the parking lot, the door, anything other than this. He backed her against the wall out of sight, and pointed at the walkway. “Watch that,” he repeated. “Don’t take your eyes off it, and if you feel anything, even the tiniest bit of a headache, say something. Okay?”

  She nodded, her lips moving soundlessly. She’d gone chalky, and shivered. Michael turned away and began searching.

  That was when he found out their tags were gone. Diaboli didn’t often take those, they settled for simply savaging the bodies—so the legionnaires couldn’t heal and rise again—before scurrying away into the dark.

  I don’t like this. He stared at one corkscrewed body, attempting to make the wounds match a diabolo’s claws or teeth, and came up blank. He’d be sure his eyes were fooling him if not for the missing tags, and the persistent, aching feeling of wrongness. That sensation had been his unwelcome companion since the beginning of this trek, growing larger and larger.

  Now it was a monster, strong and vicious.

  “May the Principle keep you,” he said, finally, doing one last sweep to make sure he wasn’t just overlooking the damn tags. There was another wrongness—their ammo was gone, as well as anything he could use. Michael let out a shaky sigh and rejoined Jenna, who had shut her eyes and slumped against the wall, one hand on the open door’s knob, clutching like she’d fall over if she let go. Her knees trembled visibly, too. “Lumina. Let’s go.”

  “They’re all dead,” she whispered. “Right?”

  “But we’re not,” he reminded her, grimly. “And I’m gonna keep it that way.”

  “What do we do now?” When she finally opened her eyes, the open, aching vulnerability printed on her face made his entire chest seize up as if he’d just been stabbed again. Even with the parka’s bulk, she was so small.

  I do not know, my lady. But he had to decide. He was the one trained for this, he was the Legion’s only presence here, and he was going to keep her safe. “We drive.”

  “Okay.” Her chin rose slightly, and it hurt to see that fragile bravery. “We drive.” Her gaze moved past him, and he moved with thoughtless, twitching speed to block it.

  “Don’t.” He shouldn’t bark a harsh command at an Incorruptible, but he had no choice. “Look at me instead.”

  She did.

  “It’s going to be all right,” he lied, bending slightly over her, making sure she couldn’t see. It was an outright falsehood, and worrying that it might twist him away from the true path of the Principle was a waste of time and energy. “I’m not going to let anything happen to you.”

  “That’s nice.” Her tongue crept out, dabbed her chapped lips, and a bolt of something hotter and sweeter than grace went through him. “But you might not be able to stop it.”

  “The hell I won’t.” He straightened his arms—why had he taken her shoulders again, and why was he holding her at arm’s length? He didn’t want to.

  What he wanted to do was lean forward and touch those chapped, pale lips with his own. Fold her in his arms and hold fast, hoping his heat would warm her. He realized his palms were slippery and his body was taking notice of her nearness in the most pleasantly uncomfortable of mortal ways.

  It was official. He was deviating from the Principle, just when she needed a true defender most.

  “Look.” He was hoarse, his throat full of something too dry to be anything but fear. “We’ve done all right so far. We’ll keep moving, and they won’t catch us.” More lies. More deviance, and he was helpless to halt either.

  “Okay.” Those big dark eyes swam with hot salt water and a single tear welled out, tracing the soft curve of her cheek. “Okay, Michael.”

  He couldn’t tell if she believed him, but that was beside the point. He had work to do. The first step was getting them back on the freeway.

  The second, he decided, was just as simple. He dug in his pocket as he ushered her through the door, closing his fist around plastic and thin glass with a heart of circuitry.

  He made a fist as he checked the parking lot, and on his way down the stairs, he crumpled the burner phone like a wad of paper, dropping it in a corner. Jenna perhaps didn’t notice, stumbling behind him with her hand pressed to her mouth, and it was just as well.

  Kindness Does

  The heat was turned up as high as it would go, but Jenna couldn’t stop shivering. I-70 began to climb with a vengeance, and by the time she remembered she had tea, it was stone-cold. The morning commute was well underway but they had escaped the city’s confines early, and by the time the sun was directly overhead the truck was taking long shallow curves between rising foothills. Clearcut slopes alternated with thick timber, and Michael drove with his eyebrows drawn together and his hands tight on the wheel.

  He said nothing. If he was angry, it didn’t show, but she thought it was possible he was furious.

  Very possible, indeed.

  Each time Jenna shut her eyes the motel room rose before her, full of twisted, shattered bodies, blood and that nasty amber stuff smeared on the broken walls. How had nobody heard it? Or was there nobody left in the entire motel? Had the monsters gone room to room, a murderous housekeeping?

  Her imagination just worked too goddamn well sometimes. “How did nobody hear that?” she managed, after taking a huge gulp of cold Earl Gray with cream. It wasn’t pleasant, but she needed the caffeine. “Why weren’t the cops there?”

  “Whatever happened, it was fast.” Michael glanced at her. His jaw was set, and muscle flickered in it during his long silences. “Could be there’s nobody left in the entire motel. We didn’t check the lobby.”

  Well, hearing her own thoughts spoken aloud didn’t help the squirrelly, panicked feeling under her ribs. “Oh. Yeah.” She took a deep, shuddering breath. “Did you know them?”

  “No. But they were legionnaires.” He paused, maybe weighing the advisability of explaining corpse identification methods to her dumb ass, maybe struggling with grief, she couldn’t tell. “We’re all brothers.”

  “I’m sorry.” And she was. The whole thing was hideous. “It’s my fault, you know. I’m bad luck
.”

  “What?” That earned her a very blue, very startled glance, and the Dodge wavered slightly as if the steering wheel had trembled. “Why would you say that?” He reached for the heater knob, but it was turned up as far as it would go.

  How could she explain? First Dad, then Mom, then…everything afterward, a round-robin of disappointments, failures, derailments. The only commonality among them was her, and she knew it. “If it wasn’t for me, you’d still be safe at home.” She cradled her tea, gently, as if being careful now would change anything.

  That earned her another sideways glance, but he had to return his attention to the road in a hurry. He did twist the knob for the fan, turning it down. The windshield was clear again, and some feeling had begun to creep back into her fingers and toes.

  “You’re Incorruptible,” he said, finally, settling into the bench seat. “Things are drawn to you, but it’s not your fault, you didn’t ask for it. The Principle seeks to order and to heal.”

  Was that what it did? “It doesn’t do a very good job.” She looked out the window as another town flashed by, spreading from the interstate like a tumor. The mountains, patiently standing, waited for waves of time and people to wash over them. The truck engine kept up its steady humming, finding little difficulty in taking the hills. Really, whatever was under the hood sounded like a beast. Michael was a fantastic mechanic, to add to all his other talents.

  Jenna could wait tables, work a dancer’s pole, tell a Mondrian from a placemat, write a paper on French revolutionary pamphlets, and take a punch from a small-time hood of a boyfriend. Nothing even remotely useful among her skills, no sir.

  “You don’t know all the people you’ve helped.” His shoulders relaxed a little, then a little more. “I saw you at work, you know.”

  Now she had to think about the crushed, ravaged SunnyTime. Strange, now she could remember all the crumpled bodies, not just the trucker’s. In fact, she suspected she’d see them again, in Technicolor, as soon as she fell asleep tonight. Assuming, of course, that she was alive when the sun went down.