“It’s so tacky.” Jenna pushed her fingers through her hair, attempting to curb the waving mass. It was the first time Michael had seen her outright grin, and the sight threatened to take his breath away. “I love it.”
Then so do I. He couldn’t say it, of course, but he could think it all he wanted. “I’ll get us a room.”
“Does this place have a pool?”
For a moment he thought she was seriously asking, but then he caught the light, amused lilt in the question. “We’re in the desert, baby.” It wasn’t a bad Elvis impersonation, even if he did say so himself. His mouth curved up into a half-smile. “They all have pools.”
Her laughter dipped every inch of him in electric honey. It felt so good he almost missed the turnoff, but at least he was doing something right.
Or at least, so he hoped.
Hundred Other Considerations
Whatever credit card Michael had must’ve been a good one; as soon as the middle-aged woman at the massive old-growth front desk got an eyeful of the small black plastic rectangle they were immediately treated like royalty. It was sheer heaven to walk again, not to mention hear something other than engine-hum and the weather report. It was even better to drop onto an over-pillowed king bed and stretch her limbs in every direction, as if she was eight and making a grass-angel in the backyard again. The place was just so bizarre, thick blue carpet patterned with golden fleur-de-lis, frosted glass wall sconces with gilded edges, wallpaper with stamped golden roses on an indigo background—completely over the top.
Mom would have loved it.
“I don’t even want to gamble,” she said to the ceiling. “I just want to walk around and find something to eat that isn’t fast food.”
“There’s no shortage of options.” Michael glanced at the suite, closing the door behind the well-tipped bellhop. Maybe working as a cook had taught him to be generous. “The casinos generally have good restaurants to keep everyone inside. The longer you stay, the more you spend.”
He didn’t unpack, and she only did so enough to take a shower. Desert dust had worked its way into the truck, and her hair took to extreme dryness just the same way it took high humidity—as an excuse to rise up in rebellion. What clothes she had left from their shopping trip were basic, but blessedly clean. It was a good thing Los Angeles was close, she was going to run out of panties at this rate.
It was a town built to disorient, but she was already so far away from the familiar it seemed almost normal. The sensation of a world slipping away underfoot, of regular rules not applying, turned everything—even the cheap plastic and tacky glitter—into a strange, gem-studded wonderland. It felt both exotic and blessedly mundane at once to step into a streamlet of people ambling in front of the vine-choked hotel, Michael looming at her left shoulder. Jenna could be completely anonymous in a crowd that didn’t care she was being hunted, or that she’d been a down-at-heels waitress a few days ago. And when she reached down, blindly, to grip his hand, suddenly she was part of a unit, boy-and-girl vacationers walking the Strip.
Michael didn’t seem to mind. In fact, his fingers laced through hers and he was smiling pretty much ear-to-ear when she stole a glance over her shoulder.
Happiness looked good on him. He let her set the pace, let her wander without continually tugging for her attention or squeezing brutally when he wanted to stop. In fact, he seemed more than content to simply follow along, occasionally leaning forward to look at something in front of her. Tall and buzz-cut, with his high-collared, hip-length leather jacket on even on a relatively balmy desert night, he looked like off-duty security, a cousin to the beefy men in suits and earpieces at almost every door. They tipped their chins at him, a salute he returned each time with a tiny, tight nod.
The casinos swallowed them. Everyone she passed seemed to be smiling, some bemused by the glitz and others delighted by the alcohol and flash. Employees hummed around in different crisp uniforms, and they were smiling too.
Funny, Jenna didn’t remember everyone in Vegas being in a good mood last time. Far from.
It didn’t matter. There were the glowing slot machines, the serious players with their good-luck objects and drinks arranged according to strict rules, and the heady ratcheting sound of the roulette wheel. Sometimes she could almost hear Mom’s delight, pointing out the unexpected or hilariously garish—fantastically costumed employees or hustlers, gaudy machines from franchises that died decades ago, a blown-glass chandelier in violent vile colors dangling over a fake marble foyer, an honest-to-gosh Venetian canal trapped inside a building. Drinks everywhere, a laughing knot of college kids on some kind of break, grannies with reading glasses dangling on their chests and the grim demeanor of soldiers battling for a lost cause, Michael a solid warm wall when she stepped back in a hurry to avoid a slinky-gowned blonde cocktail waitress with a full tray and a mission.
He caught her waist, gentle fingers all but humming with leashed strength. This close, she could almost feel the marks on him moving, lines tickling as they ran through skin and flesh.
No, there was no almost about it. The waitress switched away on a pair of impossibly high red heels, and Michael’s breath ruffled Jenna’s hair.
She should have been afraid. She should have been downright terrified, this close to a big male so obviously used to violence. Instead, she felt a strange comfort like in the early days when Eddie was sweet and attentive, before breathless tension filled every corner and everything she did irritated him. Safety washed over her, a feeling so novel she almost closed her eyes to soak in it.
“You all right?” Michael’s voice rumbled in his chest, and Jenna let out a shaky exhale. She nodded, watching the blonde reach a crowded roulette table and start distributing drinks with high speed and a certain bored, habitual style that shouted professionalism. Cocktailing was good, there were great tips as long as you could put up with the harassment.
“A little overwhelmed,” she said, and his hands tightened a fraction. “Just…it’s pretty crowded.”
“Want to go back, get something from room service instead?” He breath tickled her ear—of course, he didn’t want to shout. “Or takeout?”
She tried to figure out if he wanted to, or if he’d be angry if she said yes, or any of a hundred other considerations a woman had to take when dealing with a man. “Yes?”
“Then we will.” But he didn’t let go of her immediately. His touch lingered, and he held her hand, again, on the way back to the Wisteria.
The lobby was deserted except for two bellboys joking at the front desk with the same middle-aged woman who had checked them in. A bright dart of unease lodged in Jenna’s throat, and she looked hurried away.
“Everyone’s smiling.” She wanted to fold her arms defensively, but couldn’t with him holding her right hand. “It’s kind of weird.”
“They can feel the closeness of the Principle.” Michael looked down at her, his right arm out to hold the elevator door even though there wasn’t any need. It was an old-fashioned gesture, and caused a funny flutter in her chest.
Thank goodness he didn’t insist on climbing the stairs; he said the elevator was safe enough. Funny how two little words could be a comfort, or none at all. Her stomach flipped as he touched the button for their floor, and she should probably reclaim her hand…but she didn’t want to.
She didn’t want to at all. “Michael?”
“Hm?” He glanced up as the metal box began to move. If he grew his hair out a little, it would look a lot better than that short, angry chop-cut, but there was no way to tell him so without sounding bitchy. “What do you feel like eating?”
“I don’t…” She blinked, her eyes watering. Her unease crested, more than a small sharp dart. Now it was a cold, greasy flood, and her heart began to hammer. “That’s weird.”
His shoulders stiffened. The elevator’s lights flickered, and his fingers, still warm and safe in hers, tensed. “Jenna?”
“Ugh.” Her temples ached, her neck suddenly too
tight. It felt a little like heatstroke, but that was ridiculous; desert nights were cool and they’d just come from the mountains, besides. “Maybe I’m just dehydrated.”
“Headache?” The elevator slowed, and he pulled her aside, so gently she barely realized they were moving. He had her tucked in the back corner of the elevator now, and the fuzzy realization that it was in case the monsters had found them threatened to turn her stomach fully upside down.
Ouch. It took concentrated effort to nod, the pain a sudden spike rolling down railroad tracks inside her skull. “Yeah. I…it’s sudden—” I should have known. Nothing good ever lasts.
“It’s all right.” Michael dropped her hand, leaving her bereft, and stepped in front of her, facing the doors. “Everything’s fine, lumina. All you have to do is stay where I put you.”
Funny how even that bit of chauvinist bullshit sounded reasonable and entirely rational when he said it. Tears welled, tracking down her cheeks, and her shoulders hunched as her head gave an amazing flare of pain. “I shouldn’t have gone out,” she gasped. “They find me, right? I knew we shouldn’t—”
“Don’t worry, Jenna.” Maddeningly calm. “We’ll get our stuff and go. Might even be best.”
“You paid for the night.” God, why was she worrying about that? Her head gave another amazing, pounding flare of pain, but she straightened, breathing through it. She’d had tons of practice, after all. “Ouch.”
“We don’t have to sleep here. I just thought you could use the rest.” The doors opened, and he beckoned her into the hall. “Relax, lumina. You’re with me.”
That’s great, but what if you get stabbed again? She wasn’t sure she could scrape up whatever-it-was that had saved them last time again. She didn’t even know what she’d done.
The room was just as they’d left it; Jenna cast a longing glance at the huge bed and hurried to grab his large duffel. Michael took it from her, though, lifting as if it weighed nothing and slinging the strap diagonally across his body. He grabbed her rolling suitcase, too, tugging the zipper closed the rest of the way and locking it with a swift motion. He glanced at her, nodded, and headed for the door, beckoning her along. “Stairs.”
Great. She tried a pale smile. “How did I know?”
“I can carry you if it gets bad.”
It wasn’t so much the idea as his patently serious tone that wrung a small laugh from her, ending on a gasp as her headache mounted. It was all so sudden. She hurried after Michael, the duffel like a familiar fellow soldier riding his back, and the stairwell echoed with their footsteps—his deliberate and almost soundless, hers a terrified pitter-pat.
It was only four floors, but then they had to go through the lobby to reach the entrance to the parking garage. Halfway across that echoing expanse, her head turned into a volcano and she halted, staring, as the bellhops at the front desk both turned in unison, tiny trails of black steam-smoke rising from heads and hands and toes. Behind them, the woman at the desk raised her chin, her face a pale somber moon instead of a broad, laughing apple-doll’s. The fumes wrapped around her as well, and her nametag glittered uneasily.
Three gazes swiveled unerringly in Jenna’s direction, and it took her a moment to figure out what was wrong.
All six eyes were tarry black from lid to lid; Jen’s feet tangled with each other. The almost-fall snapped her gaze aside, and it was a good thing—Michael told her later that those black gazes could hypnotize. It was, she later learned, how a Corruptor kept a new host still for long enough to infect it.
Or, if it could not, long enough to kill.
Wouldn't Mind Winning
It was a good thing they’d gone out; if Michael kept her in the room they might have been trapped again. Especially with a Corruptor on their trail. The hissing stench-beasts made wonderful trackers, slipping from one host to the next, sniffing their way along their quarry’s trail, and driving their mortal shells mercilessly. This one was mid-grade, its fumes thinned by division of control among three soul-eaten corpses.
Jenna almost tripped; his hand closed around her elbow and he righted her gently, absently. The Corruptor’s gaze glanced off his marks and their invisible bolstering of muscle, skin, sinew; Michael snapped a glance at the walkway to the parking tower.
Clear enough. Maybe the Principle had arranged a chance at escape, too.
Three no-longer-mortal mouths moved in unison, giving birth to a peculiar, distorted hiss. “Sssoftling,” it said, a chorus of moaning and feedback lingering under the word. “I ssshall sssuck you dry.”
“Jenna.” His hand found the truck keys, pressed them into her warm, soft palm. “Go.”
“Michael…” His name rode a small breathy sigh. She winced again as the Corruptor flexed, the two bellhops stepping away from the desk and the woman behind it sinking down. The woman was preparing to leap the over the obstruction, that much was obvious, and the bellhops were moving with the dreamy twitching of the unclean. At least a Corruptor couldn’t use sliptime until it stopped riding host bodies and coalesced.
There still remained the problem of how it had come in the front door. That meant there was a fourth mortal somewhere nearby, possibly dead but most likely held in reserve to overwhelm a legionnaire—or strike at the lumina who reeled unsteadily, clutching at a handful of sharp metal keys. Her old, battered leather purse swung daintily; he hoped she didn’t have anything in the suitcase she couldn’t stand to lose.
“Jen.” Her name filled his mouth, sweet as apples. “Go to the truck. Now. Drive out of here.” Michael’s back was alive with gooseflesh.
“I can’t leave you,” she whispered.
He was the only familiar thing in her world anymore, so it was only to be expected. Still, her reluctance warmed him all the way through. “I’ll find you, lumina.” He took a step, another, testing the weight of his duffel—easy to fight even with that, it wasn’t as heavy as armor. His hands flickered, and the gun-butts filled his palms. 9mms would barely make a dent in most unclean, but if he could kill each mortal host and isolate the Corruptor, he could force it to take physical form.
And then he could kill it with something else, something sharp and glowing with grace.
“Sssoftling,” it hissed again, all three mouths moving in a chorus of sticky, sickness-laced satisfaction. “Look at me. Look upon your doom.”
“Go,” Michael said, hard and loud over the siren song. “Don’t look back. Just drive.”
Jenna’s trembling threatened to infect him. “I can’t leave you.” It was a thin, croaking whisper.
He gently shouldered her aside, every nerve alert. Where was the fourth host? It couldn’t be in the parking tower, that was too far away for the Corruptor’s control.
“Look at usss,” the Corruptor repeated, and the middle-aged woman leapt atop the front desk, muscle and bone creaking as it obeyed an inhuman imperative. “The Legion has forsssaken thee!” A whine under the words carried a note of desperation, and Michael saw what he’d hoped for—a pair of wingtips lying like stuffed sandbags behind the swinging half-door that blocked off customer space from the employee realms.
Ah. The Corruptor had driven its last host right behind the desk, and dropped the corpse to jump into the woman. “Go,” he said again, fiercely. “Go, Jenna!”
She stumbled away, making a beeline for the walkway to the parking tower as Michael leapt, both guns tracking the bellboy on the right as the Corruptor concentrated, its fumes distilling into deadly smoke. He fired twice, the bellboy on the left hissed, showing blunt human teeth warping into filed points as the Corruptor yanked on cell structure and muscle-strings to turn mortals into something closer to its natural form. Right Bellboy screamed, a long cheated howl as bullets tore flesh, tumbled off bone, and exited in a splatter of steaming, blackened chunks. “Run!” Michael yelled, and landed hard, snapping a shot at the woman atop the desk to keep her from springing at Jen’s trail. The Corruptor drove the woman’s body down, Left Bellhop streaked for Michael with unho
ly speed, and he did not have to win, he only had to hold them long enough.
I wouldn’t mind winning, though. Time to go to work. Two bullets in the Left Bellhop, not enough to put him down since both were glancing shots, the thing was streaking forward not in sliptime but with the hysterical, spooky speed of a berserk mortal. Most of all, he didn’t mind the casualties. The mortals were already dead, the Incorruptible was not going to join them if he could help it; he was just glad she wouldn’t see this.
Straining, boots leaving black marks on the faux-marble lobby floor, he skidded aside and snapped off another shot at the thing on the desk. The woman’s body was swelling obscenely, poison gathering in mortal flesh, and long training averted his gaze just in time as its mouth opened and a jet of slippery smoking ectoplasm bulleted past him.
The toxin wouldn’t kill him and any blinding by venom was only temporary, but it still hurt like hell and more importantly, could not be permitted to slow him down. Dodging the splatter, he met the remaining bellhop with a crunch, driving it down as the thing sought to scurry past him and onto Jen’s thin sparkling thread of cleanness and clarity cutting through the stink of mortal flesh turned to unclean will. A quick hard stamp, the thing’s sponge-rotten skull breaking—pushing the cells to behave unnaturally without the Principle’s light touch weakened them past easy repair—and the Corruptor howled, suddenly forced into one body instead of three.
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