Laura Anne Gilman

by Heart of Briar

  The water that rushed over her, contrary to expectation, wasn’t cold. It wasn’t hot, either, but warm enough that she wanted it to go on and on forever.

  It didn’t. She waited a minute, in case the bag needed time to refill, then pulled the cord again. Another gush of water rushed over her, and this time she remembered to rinse out her hair before the waterfall ended.

  “Here.”

  She took the towel being offered and then yelped. “Damn it, Martin!”

  He stepped back, looking down at his boots. “Sorry. I just...” He looked up again, and the bastard was smiling. “You’re good to look at.”

  Just that. No apology, no stuttering excuses, just that statement.

  She swallowed down her outrage, aware that it was just the two of them there—unless there were others, hiding? Invisible? The thought gave Jan the skeeves even more than being alone, and she shoved it away, wrapping the towel around herself as a protection.

  “It’s generally polite to wait for an invite before you look,” she said, tartly.

  “All right.”

  He stood there, waiting, and Jan—despite herself, despite everything—laughed. He had no shame at all, none. “Go away, Martin.”

  He heaved a sigh, and ostentatiously turned his back and walked away. Jan didn’t trust him not to change his mind, though, and so made quick work of drying off and getting back into her clothing. She considered going commando rather than putting her underwear back on, then wrinkled her face and wore them, anyway. The jeans had dirt on them, and the shirt was sweat-grubby, but they were decent enough for now. Her apartment was out of reach—she didn’t want to think about her apartment, or the damage that must have happened during the attack—and god alone knew when she’d see another department store.... She could rinse them out when they got to wherever they were going.

  Where the hell were they going?

  “Don’t,” she told herself, feeling the sense of being punched threatening to strike again, the past few days jumbling together into one massive panic attack that she couldn’t afford without her asthma meds. “Don’t... Just keep moving. Think about what it all means after you survive. Otherwise you’re going to curl up and not move again, and that’s not going to solve anything, and it sure as hell isn’t going to bring Tyler home.”

  As pep talks went, it sucked, but her breathing evened out again, and she could walk back to the Center without feeling the sky falling in on her or her insides spilling out. Right then, she’d take that as a win.

  When Jan reached the remains of their campfire, the blankets she’d slept on were rolled up, the fire pit itself cooled, and the grass already starting to regrow in the charred soil.

  “No magic. Right.” No wonder the other campfires had disappeared by morning. The National Parks department would love to learn how to do that. And they’d save a fortune reseeding the baseball fields every year....

  She realized then that Martin was nowhere to be seen. Jan scanned the clearing, frowning, and then saw him. Or she assumed it was him, anyway, since there hadn’t been any horses in the Center when she’d woken up. He turned and trotted toward her, a smooth gait that was eerily reminiscent of the way he walked. At a distance, less stunned than she had been the first time he’d transformed, she could see where he was different from a real horse: his neck was longer, his body more compact, and his legs looked as though they were hinged differently. But the main difference was in the eyes: as he came up to her, she could see that they were still Martin’s eyes.

  It was creepy as hell, a reminder that she was alone with something not-human. That she was up to her ears with things not-human.

  As though sensing her discomfort, he stopped a pace or two away, and lowered his head to crop at the grass, casual-like.

  “Toba died to save you,” she whispered, reminding herself. “The bansidhe carried you to safety. AJ rescued you, fed you. Martin’s here to help you. You can’t trust him...but he won’t hurt you.”

  It wasn’t enough, but it gave her the strength to walk up to Martin, who was still nibbling at the grass, and cough slightly to get his attention. He lifted his head and looked at her, then dipped his head at the piece of black fabric on the ground near the folded-up blankets.

  “If you’re so magic, how come you have to use soap and campsite showers?” she wondered, not expecting an answer. If he could talk in this form...that would be too freaky, she decided. There had to be limits.

  Martin snorted, an impatient sound, and indicated the fabric on the ground again. She bent down and picked it up, letting the narrow strip run through her fingers. It was soft, some kind of cotton, maybe, a hand span wide and about the length of her arm. “What is it?”

  He snorted again.

  “That’s not much help.” She looked at it more carefully and sighed. “A blindfold?”

  Apparently, yes. She was supposed to blindfold herself before they did anything else.

  “What, because there’s something that’s going to freak me out, now? Seriously?”

  Martin just waited.

  “I am so very much not liking this. I just want that said.” But she tied the fabric around her eyes, anyway, and waited.

  A warm body brushed against her, and she reached out instinctively, her hand coming to rest on what had to be Martin’s shoulder. Haunch. Whatever it was called in this form. Once her hand landed, he pushed against her again, not quite knocking her off her feet.

  Clearly, even without words, she understood: he wanted her to get on his back.

  Jan hesitated, remembering the warning from AJ. She wasn’t supposed to do that, not get on his back. That was the one thing that had been made clear: it was dangerous. Dangerous enough, out of all this, to get specific mention.

  Martin made a noise that rang out, a descending nicker of impatience, and gave her another push.

  “All right. Fine. But if you throw me, or anything, I swear, I’ll make a coat out of your hide.”

  Another push, this one gentler, and her fingers were clenching in his short, coarse mane, his body somehow encouraging her up, even as her arms pulled and her legs swung. And then—like magic—she was on his back, legs dangling to either side.

  She’d never had more experience on horseback than the occasional pony ride as a kid, but she didn’t think it was supposed to feel like this, as though the inside of her knees had melded with his sides. As though someone else was posing her, her body canted forward, her arms angled and her hands buried themselves in his mane, the longer strands wrapping around her wrists.

  Unlike those pony rides, there was a sense that she wouldn’t fall, that she couldn’t fall. Martin would hold on to her.

  And then he moved forward, not a walk or a trot but a jolting run, and Jan leaned forward against his neck and tried not to think about how fast they might be going—or where. Riding blind—literally—was not an experience she had ever wanted, and she wasn’t enjoying it now.

  Where were they going? Into the trees? Jan flinched in anticipation of branches hitting her or running into a tree, or...

  Martin’s body flexed underneath her, his hide rough and warm under her cheek, the muscles in her legs and arms aching with the unfamiliar exertion. He took another stride, and she took a breath, the stride lasting the length of a heartbeat, then another, and another, until she wasn’t sure if it was her heart or his hooves making the beat. Blind, she had no option but to trust him.

  And then he leaped, her heart leaping with him, a sense of weightlessness unlike anything else, even the moment of takeoff in a plane, even being carried by the bansidhe. But before Jan could decide if she enjoyed it or not, they were coming down again, landing with a hard splash.

  Jan had barely enough time to realize they were underwater—where the hell had there been water that deep?—before water filled her nose and ears, forced its way into her lungs, and she blacked out.

  * * *

  She came to again with a start, coughing even though her lungs were cle
ar of liquid. Jan drew in a cautious breath, half expecting an asthma attack to hit her, but everything was working properly, no coughing or wheezing. Slowly, without moving again, she tried to take stock. Alive, check. She was on her back, staring at a popcorn-textured ceiling that had seen better years. Her fingers ached, and when she lifted them to look, the knuckles were red-swollen with coarse strands of black hair caught under her nails and still wrapped around her fingers.

  Martin’s mane.

  “Ow.” She flexed her fingers carefully, wincing, and the strands fell onto the sheet covering her, dark against the over-washed cotton.

  She sat up gingerly, feeling her back and shoulders protest, too, and looked around. She was alone in the room. Naked. Naked, damp-haired, and alone in a small room that held only the narrow bed, a single straight-back chair and her.

  Getting off the bed was an effort; nothing seemed broken or torn, but she was wobbly-legged, and her stomach told her it had been a while since she’d eaten. It took a moment to remember her last meal: the plate of probably-rabbit and salad, by the campfire.

  Her clothing was draped over the back of the chair. She reached for them and then stopped. They were clean. Laundry-clean, smelling not of the soap she’d used in the forest-shower, but of ordinary detergent.

  Someone had washed them while she slept.

  It was hard to put a sinister interpretation on that—what was she supposed to do, demand her sweaty, muddy clothes back?

  Standing naked in the middle of the room, Jan reached overhead and stretched, then tried to touch her toes. Her lower back hurt more than her shoulders, she determined. Flexing slightly, Jan decided that her thighs were achy, but there was no actual pain.

  Wherever Martin had taken her, she hadn’t been on his back for very long.

  “Or, magic,” she said out loud, trying to be reasonable about it. “You were under water, after all.”

  Underwater and not dead. The sensation of not being able to leave his back, legs and butt like they’d been glued there, Martin refusing to let her go. Magic, she thought. Yay. Now to figure out where they were and what the plan was.

  “Which you’re not going to find standing around here,” she told herself, reaching for the clothing again. The clothes were not only clean, they still had the lingering warmth that said they’d been in a dryer not so long ago. So they hadn’t been here long?

  Dressed, she found her silver bracelet resting under the clothing—the metal had been polished, so bright it looked brand-new. So that answered the question about silver and supernaturals, anyway. She slipped it onto her wrist, considered her still-muddy sneakers, then shook her head and left them there.

  Her bladder was insisting—loudly—that she find a bathroom before anything else, even worry.

  Thankfully, the door farthest down the narrow hallway was open, revealing familiar ceramic shapes. So far, it was all ordinary, in a way that should have been reassuring, but wasn’t. She used the toilet with relief and then borrowed the single toothbrush without guilt, scrubbing her teeth and tongue until her sinuses tingled from the spearmint in the toothpaste. The reflection that greeted her in the mirror looked bedraggled and slightly frantic, but clean. She touched her hair, running fingers through it without hitting any tangles.

  Her hair always tangled when she washed it. Always. And the wind that had whipped through the damp strands when Martin started running...

  “Magic,” she said again, finding that somewhat easier to deal with than the idea that someone had carefully brushed out her hair while she’d been unconscious. Clean clothes were okay, but that was...creepy.

  “Still. Nothing broken, nothing too bent.” She looked at herself in the mirror again. “If there’s coffee and Wi-Fi somewhere, I might make it.” Tyler used to say that, when he woke up at her place. Every time. Her throat tightened, and she bit down on her tongue to stop the tears.

  “No. None of that. Find Martin, figure out what you’re going to do, then do it. No crying. No stopping.”

  AJ didn’t think they had a chance. Maybe supers could do that, keep going even when they knew they were doomed. She had to believe they had a chance. Otherwise, she’d give up now, curl up and not move again.

  She looked for mouthwash in the medicine cabinet but found only a half-empty box of adhesive bandages, some off-label aspirin and a sticky, half-full bottle of cherry-red cough syrup. The cabinet below the sink had a plunger, a six-pack of toilet paper and a bottle of cheap gin. Or at least, she assumed it was cheap; it was in a plastic bottle, and the name on the label was one she didn’t recognize.

  “Nice place you brought us to, Martin,” she muttered, and went in search of her companion. The hallway led to two other bedrooms, as bare of furniture as the one she’d woken up in, with small windows that looked out onto another house, with its shades drawn, and then to a large living room, which at least had the basics of a sofa, a wooden rocking chair and a television.

  The TV was on but muted, and Martin was nowhere to be seen. There were larger windows here, but before she could examine the view, she was interrupted.

  “You’re awake. Good. I made breakfast.”

  Apparently, he had been in the kitchen. She crossed the living room, trying not to notice the pale blue—bansidhe-colored—carpeting underfoot, and followed him into the kitchen. Like the rest of the house, it was bare-bones and distinctly un-lived-in. Unlike the others, it smelled good. Bacon and eggs and coffee.

  She sat down at the small kitchen table, careful with her weight until she was certain the rickety wooden chair would hold her. “Where are we?”

  “Shannsburgh,” he said. “Little town in the middle of nowhere you want to be. A friend of mine owns this place, lets me use it when I need to. Between tenants right now, so we don’t have to worry about anyone showing up.”

  “You have human friends?” The question slipped out before she could think about how it sounded.

  Martin served up the bacon and eggs on a plate and put it in front of her. “Some. Not many.” He didn’t seem to have taken offense.

  Jan picked up the bacon, looking at it curiously, surprised that a vegetarian would cook meat. Not that she was complaining, at all. She took a bite before he could change his mind, and the morning got better immediately. The savory crispness overwhelmed the freshness from the toothpaste, but she didn’t mind.

  She was pretty sure it was fake bacon, though.

  He sat down opposite her, a mug of coffee in his hands. “It’s difficult. I like people. I really do. And not just in that way, despite what everyone thinks. And people like me. But...” He shrugged, sipped his coffee. “I’m a kelpie.”

  That word again. A water-dwelling, horse-shaped supernatural; she’d gotten that much from observing, even without the unhelpful and now aborted internet search. “And that means what, exactly? AJ warned me about getting on your back—” she thought admitting that was safe enough “—but I did okay.... I mean, other than passing out.” She thought about asking now how long they’d been in the water, how long she’d been under water, but suspected it would just make her hyperventilate.

  “I’m a kelpie,” he repeated, as though that should be enough explanation.

  It wasn’t. She picked up her fork and started eating while she waited.

  “It’s... I like people,” he repeated, then his entire face lit in a faint smile. “Some people, anyway. I want to keep them with me.” The smile faded. “That...doesn’t end well.”

  “Because...?” AJ’s warning and the feeling she’d had when Martin had first shifted, being drawn to get on his back, and the smell of water, and the memory of water filling her lungs, it all stirred and swirled and she put down her fork and stared at him. “Because you go underwater. And they can’t get off your back. And you drown them.”

  “It’s a thing.”

  “A thing?” Her voice rose in disbelief.

  “A thing. Yeah.” He shifted, clearly uncomfortable with the direction the conversation
had taken. “Look, I don’t pick on you for your habits, do I?”

  Picking up women and killing them was only a habit if you were a sociopath. “I...” Jan decided that if she followed this particular discussion any further, she’d definitely start to hyperventilate, and since she’d left her spare inhaler in her bag, that—

  “Oh, god, my bag.” It was easier to focus on that than what Martin had just admitted to. “My computer. Where’s my laptop?”

  “The water ruined it. I’m sorry. I have someone bringing another laptop. You can work on another laptop, right?”

  “Yeah. It should be fine.” She’d used the same password on all of the accounts, since she didn’t care if someone hacked them. “Someone?” She took another bite of her breakfast, and her stomach rumbled, urging her to eat more, faster, now.

  “I said I have friends. Human ones.”

  Friends who knew better than to get on his back. Maybe the friends could get her a new inhaler. Or go to her apartment and get her meds. Shit. Oh, shit. She forced herself to calm down. If she stayed calm and stayed still, she’d be okay. The last attack had been set off by the dust in the warehouse; this place was empty but clean. She’d be okay. She’d get his friends to refill her prescription, and she’d be fine.

  She’d been on his back. And not drowned. Had that been why the blindfold...? Or was that just so she wouldn’t panic when they went into the water?

  “Your friends...they know what you are?”

  He shook his head and reached out to touch her hand, the one holding the fork, and stilled while she talked. “No. Only you.”

  Jan felt a shift of something inside her, weirdly warming. She’d never had anyone’s secret before. Not like this. Never mind that he’d told her under duress, that she was here only to save Tyler; she had a secret of his, something his other friends didn’t know.

  Yeah, that he was a murderer. A serial murderer, probably, if...

  She started eating again, focusing on the food rather than what she was feeling.