Out of Nowhere (The Immortal Vagabond Healer Book 1)

by LeClerc, Patrick

  ‘I appreciate it,’ I said. ‘But I’ve already gotten you in enough trouble. And you’ve lost enough.’

  ‘It’s not my aiming eye. And you came for me when the sane thing would be to run. Even hurt, even when it looked like I might have sold you out.’

  ‘Didn’t seem like you’d do that,’ I replied. ‘And I was sure you wouldn’t put Sarah in danger.’

  He looked at me for a long moment and nodded.

  ‘Be careful, please.’ Sarah gave him a hug.

  ‘Girl, you been laughing at my backups for my backups for a long time,’ he said, grinning, ‘but now I’ll be so far off the radar it’ll make my off-grid house look like downtown. I have hideouts and stashes that nobody knows but me. I’ll track down some info and send it to your email. Then you’ll have a bargaining chip.’

  ‘Thanks again,’ I said. ‘I still have your Browning, by the way.’

  ‘Keep it. I’ve got plenty of guns and that one can’t be traced back to me. Just in case you need to drop it at a crime scene.’

  ‘If you go back home, there are a few MP5s,’ I said. ‘I noticed you don’t have any submachine guns.’

  ‘Never know when you might need one,’ he replied. ‘You keep each other safe, hear me?’

  ‘Loud and clear.’

  Chapter 30

  WE DROVE ON FOR SOME TIME in silence. A light snow began to fall. Not enough to make the driving bad, just a few flakes swirling in the glare of the headlights. I studied Sarah’s face as she drove, facing resolutely forward. I couldn’t read anything in her expression.

  ‘You gonna be alright?’ I asked.

  ‘Probably not,’ she said. ‘Right now I’m just numb. And we need to think, to plan. I don’t have time for a breakdown.’ She shrugged. ‘I don’t know if I’m just putting it off, or for how long.’

  ‘I’m so sorry,’ I said. ‘You’re coping like a trooper. I’ve seen men break under a lot less.’

  She gave a tight smile. ‘Thanks. It helps that you’re here. I feel safe with you. It sounds crazy, even to me. But I wouldn’t have believed anybody could fight like you do. If I hadn’t seen you beat these guys, I’d be a terrified wreck.’

  ‘I’m glad you feel that way.’

  ‘You know,’ she continued, ‘until I met you, I’d never seen a dead body outside of a funeral home. Now I’ve seen you kill eight people. I’m not sure if it bothers me. I know you had to, but you did it without a second’s hesitation. I also know you can be gentle and charming. You just don’t fit my idea of a cold-blooded killer.’

  I didn’t know what to say to that.

  ‘Have you killed a lot of people? Have you always had a good reason?’

  ‘Yes,’ I sighed. ‘And yes. I was a soldier for a long time. I killed men in combat. Most of them were strangers, and probably men I might have liked if I’d met them in other circumstances. Calling a battle a fair fight would be a stretch, but any man who shows up armed on the battlefield has to understand that he’s accepting certain conditions and risks. I’ve never killed without a good reason. Before this week, I hadn’t fired a shot in anger since Korea.’

  ‘Is following orders a good reason?’

  ‘Not by itself,’ I replied. ‘And for a guy who’s spent so much time in uniform, I’m not very good at following orders. I’ve ignored stupid orders, pretended I didn’t hear a few others. Just kinda shook my head at the squad when some lieutenant said something unacceptable and worked around it. I’ve never killed civilians or prisoners.’ Not real prisoners anyway. That German machinegunner at Belleau Wood who took out half the squad and thought we’d forgive and forget just because he put his hands up when we got within grenade range—well, he didn’t count. No point in bringing that up.

  ‘Have you ever killed anyone to protect your secret?’

  ‘No. I’ve left town in a hurry a few times, but I’ve never killed anyone just to keep them quiet.’

  She drove for a while in silence. ‘I guess I’ll see how I feel about that when things settle down.’

  I didn’t know what to say to that, so I said nothing. I hoped she’d still want to be with me after this, but it wouldn’t exactly be a surprise if she didn’t.

  I didn’t think much about my reaction to killing. I’d gotten past the point where it bothered me. If it ever had. It wasn’t that I didn’t have a conscience, or that I was incapable of feeling guilt. I just understood that, sometimes, it was me or him, and, well, it was gonna be him.

  I knew not everyone could be that way. I’d known soldiers who would shoot high, or just hide in their holes and not fire. I’d known men who fell apart afterwards because they’d killed people in combat. Maybe that’s evolution. Maybe thousands of years of socialization has made resorting to violence more of a liability than an asset. I guess an oily, backstabbing speech from Marty is a more likely threat than a leopard dropping on you from the branches, or a longship full of axe-wielding Danes descending on your village. What used to be an essential survival trait is now a good way to get you jailed or, at the very least, fired.

  I felt less guilty about shooting one of Doors’ gang of thugs than swatting a mosquito. They weren’t just men trying to kill me because we wore different uniforms. They crossed a line. After what they did to Tiffany and Sarah and Bob, I wanted an excuse to shoot more of them.

  Sarah suddenly pulled off onto the shoulder, one of those areas on the side of the highway cleared so people could ooh and ah at the mountains without bouncing off a guardrail. She put the car in park and turned in her seat to face me.

  ‘What would you do to me if I said I couldn’t take this anymore?’

  ‘To you? Nothing. I’d try to talk you out of it, probably beg and grovel and embarrass myself, but I wouldn’t do anything to you. What makes you ask that?’

  ‘If I said I was going to talk to the police or the papers, give a full statement in return for protection and immunity. You’d let me walk?’

  ‘I’d be devastated,’ I said, ‘but I wouldn’t try to hurt you or kidnap you. I understand this is a lot for you to take in. I’d just ask you to drop me at the nearest bus station. I know this is tough. I desperately want you to stay with me. More than anything. But if you want out, I swear I won’t try to stop you.’

  ‘What if said I was going to drive us to the State Police barracks right now and turn you in for a half-dozen murders? I’m a woman. Alone. Out in the woods. You have a gun, you’re stronger, you know how to fight. You wouldn’t do anything?’

  ‘I’d use the full force of my charm, eloquence and smouldering male sexuality to convince you not to, but I’d never deliberately harm you in any way.’ I put out a hand to touch her. ‘I’d like to say you have nothing to fear from me, but that’s kinda misleading, considering the danger I’ve put you in. But I’d never hurt you. I’d face jail or the FBI or Doors and his goons before I’d raise a hand to you.’

  She looked at me for a long moment, her green eyes fixed on mine. I noticed that she was looking through her glasses rather than over them. My heart hammered worse than when there were guys shooting at me.

  ‘I’m pretty sure I believe you,’ she said at length. ‘You’re either very sincere, or the best liar I’ve ever met.’

  ‘Can’t a man be both?’ I asked.

  That brought out the ghost of a smile. ‘Let’s go,’ she said. ‘We’ll get out of this mess. Then we’ll have a talk about things.’

  We drove for some time in silence, until we arrived in Twin Mountain. Ski season in full swing, we had to look around for a bit to find a vacancy. We finally found a small motel with a room for rent. It stood back off the main drag, across the street from a convenience store, and wasn’t exactly four stars, but was clean and cheap enough to survive on the overflow tourist trade from the big places.

  Chapter 31

  WE DRAGGED OUR BAGS INTO THE ROOM and I crashed on the bed. I’d been getting better, but the fight in the woods and rescuing Bob had set me back.

  �
�I was thinking,’ she began.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘You and these teleporter guys inherited your talents from your parents—they’ve been passed down through the family. What happens if someone with a talent has a baby with someone who doesn’t?’

  ‘I’m not sure,’ I said. ‘Maybe it’s recessive and the kid could carry it and never know, or maybe it could manifest in a small way. The guy who got me out of Doors Imports said something about not being pureblood so he could only go so far. Maybe that’s why Bob can dowse, or why some people claim to have ESP. Maybe they have a tiny bit of the ability from some distant ancestor who could do really impressive stuff.’

  ‘I always thought those guys were con artists.’

  I rolled over. ‘I’m sure most are. I used to think all of them were. That I was some unique freak. But I guess there’s no reason there can’t be more people like me, living in secret. I’ve done a good job staying out of the spotlight, maybe others have too.’

  She thought for a while. ‘It makes sense when you think about it. I just never bothered to think about it before.’

  ‘No reason you should have. There’re lots of rumors and myths and scams. I automatically dismiss faith healing as bullshit, and I can actually do it.’ I paused for a long moment. ‘There’s been a time or two that people tried to burn me as a witch. Because I did things they couldn’t explain. Lots of people did get burned, or hanged, and most were probably accused out of jealousy or revenge, but maybe some of them really did have special abilities.’

  ‘More things in heaven and earth, Horatio.’

  ‘Exactly. Lots of stories came out of Hungary and Romania where Doors and his merry band come from. Old gypsy legends, dark, scary tales.’

  ‘You think the legends began with… with people like you and Doors?’

  ‘I don’t see why not.’

  ‘Maybe you had brothers and sisters,’ she said. ‘Maybe you still do.’

  That made me sit up and think. ‘How about someone like Harry Houdini, or Rasputin?’ she asked.

  ‘The Mad Monk?’

  ‘Sure,’ she said. ‘Think about it. He was the only one who could stop the Czarevich’s bleeding. You could probably do that.’

  ‘I probably could.’

  ‘And when they tried to kill him, they, what? Poisoned and strangled and stabbed and shot him and then drowned him to finish him off, right?’

  ‘That’s the story.’

  ‘Well, maybe he was your cousin.’

  ‘I think I was happier five minutes ago when I didn’t have any family that I knew of.’

  ‘See, now you have an embarrassing relative like the rest of us.’ She smiled. ‘It humanizes you. Oh, I didn’t mean...’

  ‘It’s OK.’ I grinned. ‘I know what you meant.’

  ‘I think we need some booze,’ she said. ‘There’s a little shop across the street. I’ll just be a few.’

  ‘You should stay here. We should lay low.’

  ‘I need to think. I can’t do that without sleep, and I can’t sleep after a day like this without numbing things up and making myself relax. That means booze, a long hot shower and falling asleep in your arms.’

  ‘I’m flattered,’ I said. There wasn’t much chance they’d find us here, and we needed a plan, which would be a better plan if it was made after a night’s sleep.

  I groaned as I sat up, reaching for my coat.

  ‘You stay here,’ she said. ‘You’ve done more than enough moving around on that ankle for one night. I’ll be fine. It’s fifty yards away.’

  ‘Then take this,’ I advised, pulling the Browning from my bag.

  ‘Paranoid.’

  ‘It’s gunmetal. It’ll accent your boots nicely. Just tuck it in your purse. Please,’ I said. ‘If you don’t, I’m gonna have to limp along. I can’t help it.’

  ‘Fine.’

  I reluctantly watched her walk out the door. I could see the entrance to the store across the street, so I kept my eye on her as she walked over. I turned out the room light so I wouldn’t get any glare on the window, raised the blinds and took out the MP5 I’d appropriated at Bob’s place. Set to semi-automatic, it would be accurate as far as the store if anyone did try to grab her. I took up a firing position behind the bed, resting my elbow on it.

  It was long odds they could know we were here, but I wasn’t taking chances.

  She soon emerged from the store and walked back across the street without being detained, tailed or kidnapped. Without getting into the jeep and bugging out on me either, which made me happy. I stashed the gun as she reached the door.

  ‘I forgot about the liquor rules in this backwoods state,’ she said, putting a bag down on the table and extracting two six-packs of beer. ‘You can buy ammunition at a gas station, and beer and wine pretty much anyplace, but you can only get hard liquor at a State liquor store. Madness.’

  ‘We’ll make do somehow,’ I said.

  ‘I’m just going to have to spend more time getting drunk tonight than I’d planned on.’ She opened a beer for each of us.

  ‘It’s OK,’ I said. ‘We have all night.’

  She got halfway through the first beer before she started talking. Mostly about Uncle Bob, and she cried a bit. Then after the second beer she began to talk freer and faster, still mostly about Bob and old memories, but now with laughter. Eventually she treated me to a gloriously intoxicated, rambling monologue about her childhood, her life, her hopes and plans and dreams.

  I mostly just listened. She needed to talk. I made reassuring noises when she paused, kept drinking so she wouldn’t feel self-conscious about her own intake. She’d been through an awful lot the past week. She needed to talk it all out.

  When we finally went to bed, she lay on her side, pressing against me, trying to get as much of her body in contact with mine as possible. I think she needed to feel protected and secure. I curled around her, draping my arm over her and holding her.

  That seemed to be enough. I felt her body relax against me and she soon began to snore. I thought it was a cute, ladylike drunken snore, but I may be biased.

  The next day, I felt physically awful. I’d pretty much expected to, after my shootout in the snow and drinking too much. Sarah was at least as bad, shuffling around the room like a blonde zombie.

  ‘Oh, God, my head,’ she moaned. ‘I haven’t been this hung over since college. I need to go down to the desk and get us some coffee.’

  ‘Drink a big glass of water first,’ I said. ‘You’re dehydrated, and coffee will make that worse. Pop a couple ibuprofen too. I have a big bottle in my bag.’

  ‘Can’t you just heal the hangover?’

  ‘Sorry,’ I replied. ‘There’s no real damage, just dehydration. I can give your body a little jolt to help it recover, but you need some fluid first.’

  She filled a glass from the bathroom tap and drank it down. ‘OK, I need to throw some clothes on and go get us some coffee, or my brain will explode and leak out of my ears. I’ll drink more water after I get some caffeine.’

  ‘OK. You want me to come along? Help carry stuff?’

  ‘Stay here, nurse the wounds. After we eat I need you to give me a head rub and undo the damage I did last night.’

  She returned soon with two large coffees and a few pastries. The complimentary “Continental breakfast” that most cheap hotels think will fool anyone who hasn’t been to the Continent. The pastry was fairly decent, and the coffee and burst of sugar would help the poor battered brain cells.

  After the coffee, I did press Sarah to drink some more water, and gave her the promised head rub, quieting nerves, encouraging the cells to recover, and blunting the diuretic effects of the caffeine, since the last thing she needed was more dehydration.

  ‘You’re a liar,’ she said.

  ‘What do you mean?’ I asked, trying to keep the horror out of my voice.

  ‘You said you couldn’t heal hangovers. I feel almost human.’

  ‘You get used to it,’
I smiled.

  ‘Ha, ha. Anyway, you’re sweet, even if you are a mutant freak.’ She kissed me. ‘Fortunately for you, I’m very open minded about that kind of thing.’

  ‘What other kinds of things are you open minded about?’ I wondered, pulling her close.

  ‘Let’s see about some real breakfast first. I can be only so open minded without something more substantial.’

  We found a little breakfast place in town and ate a leisurely meal, letting the final effects of last night’s drinking fade away. Feeling mostly better, we went back to the room. Sarah spent some time with her computer, and I tried to think of ways to turn some vague ideas into an actual plan. Planning ways out of things, I’m good at; planning quick and dirty squad level actions, I’m very good at. Planning confrontations, less so.

  ‘Find anything new?’ I asked.

  ‘I don’t know how relevant it is, but there’s a commendation to one of Doors’ family for his service in Operation Eiche in World War Two. When the German paratroopers sprung Mussolini from prison. Not surprisingly, he disappeared after the war.’

  ‘Huh. Figures. Guys who can teleport would make good commandos. And the family’s love of black leather trenchcoats. They’d never have been able to resist the Reich.’ I thought for a minute. ‘Hey, did he fight at the Bulge?’

  ‘Doesn’t say. There’s not much else, just a copy of the commendation. I guess the clan is proud of that. Why do you ask?’

  ‘Just wondering if I’ve shot at any of his family less recently than last week.’

  ‘I thought you fought in the Pacific.’

  ‘I did,’ I said. ‘I fought with the Marines at Guadalcanal. I got wounded in one of the Japanese night assaults on Henderson Field. We slaughtered them, but a few got in among our holes. One bayoneted me. More times than was necessary, the prick. One of the thrusts damaged my spinal cord. I was paralyzed.’

  I winced at the memory. If old Manila John hadn’t shot that bastard, he might still be stabbing me.

  ‘Got sent home, discharged. I wasn’t sure I’d heal, but in a few weeks I had feeling, and in a month I could walk, so I escaped from the veterans’ hospital, changed my identity. That was in October of forty-two. By the next spring I was healthy, so I joined the army, went to Jump School, wound up a replacement in the 101st Airborne. Missed D-day, but not Bastogne.’