Originally Human (7 page)

Moonlight gleamed on metal. A gun barrel, raised—the shot cracked out even as Michael jerked me to the left. The highway—yes, they might not want to shoot us where so many witnesses streamed by. There were trees between us and the interstate, too. Cover.

There were also two more of them, rising from the brush like shadows. One with a rifle, one with something large and ominous held to his shoulder and pointed, oddly, off to the right.

But the rifle was pointed at me.

I felt the power jump into Michael. He bellowed something. A word. It slid through my brain like melted butter—hot, ungraspable. And the one with the rifle burst into flame.

And so, with an explosion that rocked the earth, did my Winnebago.

Michael jerked. Stumbled. Threw his arms around me, hugging so hard that all the air whooshed out of me. And the universe tilted in an impossible, sideways slide, and burst into bits—into motion—then stillness.

I was lying on my back on something hard and rough. It was hard to draw breath. Something heavy and warm pinned me, covered me, all but smothered me. Heavy and warm and… "Michael," I breathed, and ran my hands over him. He was unconscious, but alive. My questing hands found a dart in his back.

Anesthetic? I blinked, gathering thoughts with care and piecing them together much more slowly than the universe had re-formed itself around me. As gently as I could—he was very heavy—I eased Michael off me, sat up, and looked around.

And began to laugh. I couldn't help it. We were back in the Village, plopped down naked on top of the node where Michael had first appeared.

Chapter 9

"IT'S certainly different," Erin said, dabbing at the graze on my cheek. "Not that you don't look great. You do. But it will take some getting used to."

"Mmm." I was sitting on the closed toilet in the downstairs bathroom of Erin's house, a cozy two-story in Galveston's historical section. I knew the house well, though it has been through a lot of changes. A little over a hundred years ago, the debris from the storm surge had mounded two stories high only a block from here.

I glanced at the mirror over the sink… which had showed me a face I hadn't seen for some time. A face ten or fifteen years younger than the one I'd seen the last time I looked in a mirror. A face surrounded by red hair, not white.

Sex with Michael hadn't just made
me feel
young again.

All that power… apparently a glut could undo what starvation had wrought.

"Ouch! Be careful. I might need some of that skin."

"Hold still."

"I don't know why you're doing this. I'm perfectly capable of cleaning up a couple scratches."

"Maybe I need to."

That silenced me. She slid my robe—well, it was hers, but I was wearing it—off my shoulder so she could clean the scrape there. I don't know where the abrasions had come from. Maybe I'd skidded a bit when Michael brought us back to the one spot he knew well enough to aim for, even as the drug took him under.

I'd used Theresa Farnhope's phone to call Erin, which would have amazed Theresa, had she known. But she takes out her hearing aids to sleep, which was why I'd chosen her trailer for my entering-without-breaking. I'd gone fuzzy, of course; walls aren't a problem when I'm like that. Erin's husband Pete had arrived with her and helped us load a bleary Michael into her Toyota, where he'd passed out again.

He was awake now, though still dopey. I'd left him in the kitchen drinking coffee. Pete, bless him, had made a pot, walked Michael around until he wasn't staggering so much, then left to try to find us some clothes. "Your husband is a miracle," I told Erin.

"True. Are you sure this lawyer of yours can be trusted?"

"For this, yes." I'd called NMN's only employee, an attorney with interesting connections. He was sending cash and another credit card by courier. I expected them in a couple hours. He'd get us identification, too, but that would take a little longer. I'd sent him digital photos of both Michael and me after borrowing Pete's camera and computer.

It takes a good deal of money to acquire such things after midnight, as well as those connections I mentioned. But NMN has a good deal of money. Around twenty-six million, last time I checked. Almost anyone can get rich if they live long enough.

"Getting fake ID for a client isn't part of most attorneys' job descriptions," Erin said, capping the peroxide. "So either this guy is a sleaze, or he works for sleaze. So how can you trust him?"

"The sleazes he works for—aside from me, that is—don't encourage questions. And they value loyalty. I imagine he'll tell them, but he won't tell the FBI or the Azá." I shrugged. "I don't plan to use the IDs he sends for long."

"Good grief. You're talking about the Mob."

"I didn't say that." I stood and studied myself in the mirror. I could pass for thirty-five, which was unsettling, but useful. They'd be looking for the fifty-year-old me, not this one. I touched my cheek.

"I liked your old face," Michael said from the doorway. "But this one is pretty, too."

I turned. His face hadn't changed. It was still beautiful enough to break hearts. He wore a pair of Pete's jeans, rolled up at the ankles. They were too big at the waist, too. "How wobbly are you?"

"I can walk," he said grimly. "I had better not try to run or work magic. They knew what they were doing. Sedating me was the best way to render me useless."

"They went to a lot of trouble not to damage you. Just as you suspected they would." Either the Azá knew who and what he was, or they had pretty clear instructions from their goddess.

"Instead they destroyed your home."

I wanted to tell him it didn't matter, but my throat closed up. My pot, my little yellow pot, the one thing I still had from Ginny…

"It's my fault," he said bitterly, pushing away from the door. "My fault that you lost everything."

"Not everything." Just the things that mattered. I still had heaps of money.

Erin was worried, but trying to be matter-of-fact. "You couldn't have known what would happen. Probably couldn't have stopped Molly, either, even if you had known."

"Perhaps not. But I should have realized… they traced me through the nodes and ley lines. Through my use of them. They must have."

I thought with dismay of my own use of node energy—through Michael. "Is that possible?"

"Theoretically, maybe." Erin was frowning. "Michael's energy is so distinctive, even I could pick it up when I studied the node. But I don't see how anyone could trace his location that way."

"It's possible," Michael said grimly. "Probably not humanly possible, but it can be done."

"The goddess, you mean." Dismay ripened to fear. "But she isn't here. She can't cross. I don't know why, but she can't. But if she's found an avatar here—"

"I don't think so," he said, a frown creasing his brow. "No, if she had an avatar she would have taken me herself. If only I could remember more!" He ran a hand over his face as if he could rub away the weariness. "I think, if she could reach a world heavily congruent to yours, or plant an avatar in one… Dis or Faerie are the closest."

Much too close, I thought.

"Dis, probably," Michael went on. "Faerie doesn't care for outsiders, and they have strong defenses. Dis is more chaotic. She might have made a deal with someone there."

Erin's eyes widened. "My children. God, Michael, my children are asleep upstairs—"

"They're safe," he said quickly. "I haven't used magic since I brought us here. I have a low-level connection to whichever node is nearest, yes. I can't sever it. It—it isn't possible. But even an Old One would have trouble finding me this quickly when I'm not drawing power."

I felt cold. "But she could find you? Even if you don't use magic?"

"I don't know. I think… eventually. If I stay in motion…" He shrugged, helpless to offer certainties when so much was unclear. "It would take tremendous power to locate me when I'm not using a node. A goddess has great power, but if she is in Dis, either personally or through an avatar, she must reserve some of that for defense. They are not friendly in Dis."

The sheer understatement of that made me strangle on a laugh.

Erin didn't see anything funny in the situation. She was looking at Michael with something close to fear. "Who are you, that a goddess would go to such lengths to capture you?"

"It's not who I am, but what I know. Or am supposed to know." He grimaced.

I sighed. "I need coffee. And then, I think, Michael and I had better leave. Just to be sure."

There were no lines around Michael's eyes, but when they met mine just then they looked old. Old and terribly sad. "No, Molly," he said gently. "I must leave. Not you."

WE adjourned to the kitchen. It's possible to break a heart in the bathroom, but a good argument demands a better setting. "You're limping," I told him severely as we headed down the short hall.

"It's nothing. An ache where she wounded me."

Apparently even Michael couldn't mend perfectly what a goddess had ripped up. "If you think that hurt," I muttered, "wait till you see what I can do."

"Molly." He stepped a pace into the kitchen and put his hands on my shoulders. "I do not want to part. You know that, don't you? But my presence has already cost you too much. Your home, your belongings—"

"Things. Just things," I said fiercely. "And they're gone now, so it's too late to worry about them. Some of them did matter, yes. Sometimes I hold too tightly to things. That's because I can't hold on to people." They died, they left, and now Michael wanted to leave. It was too soon. I wasn't ready.

"I understand your fear," he said quietly. "But I am more of a coward. I don't think I could stand it if I cost you your life."

I closed my eyes for a second. "Michael. You're forgetting something." I looked at him again and held out my hand… and made it go fuzzy.

He stared. "I didn't… God. I didn't have to do it, did I? I forgot. All I could think was that he was going to kill you." Abruptly he pulled away.

Erin tapped me on the shoulder. "Here. Want to tell me what you're talking about?"

She held out a mug of coffee. I took it and watched Michael pace. "They herded us," I said. "Kept us away from the RV. I think they used a bazooka on that, but heaven knows I'm no expert. Maybe it was one of those one-man rocket launchers."

"They blew it up so you couldn't escape," Erin said impatiently. "You told me that. What did Michael do that has him upset?"

"Saved my life."

"How?"

"I'll fill you in later," I said, though I wouldn't. Not about everything. Words of power are a myth, a legend, like the alchemist's stone—a tantalizing shortcut people have dreamed over for centuries. They don't exist. All the experts agree on that.

I wasn't about to try to change anyone's mind.

I was beginning to think Michael was something of a walking myth, himself—but a confused, unhappy myth-man at present. I gave Erin back the coffee mug and went to him.

He stood with his back to me. "It's forbidden, what I did," he said very low. "Except in the last extremity of self-defense. I wasn't in danger, but you… I didn't think. Perhaps the one I burned had knockout darts, too. Even if you hadn't dematerialized, he might not have killed you."

"And the others?" I put my hands on his shoulders, which were tight and tense. "Do you think they would have left me alive to tell the authorities what they'd done?"

"They couldn't have hurt you if you'd stayed immaterial."

"Their goddess could. She cursed me. She could remove the curse, or just ignore it. I don't know how much knowledge and power she's invested in her followers, but I wouldn't want to bet my life on the chance that they couldn't touch me."

"They came for us with guns, not magic."

"Because you could have stood off any magic they were likely to possess. You were their target, so they used what would work against you. If we'd hung around, we would have found out what they could do to me."

After a moment his breath sighed out. He turned his head to look at me. "All the more reason you shouldn't come with me. They may be the only ones who could truly harm you."

"Define 'harm.'" My hands wanted to tighten on him, to clutch at him and hold him. My voice wanted to plead. I wouldn't. Not for the sake of my pride—a costly indulgence, pride. Sometimes worth the price, but not this time.

But tears and pleading have a price, too. One Michael would have to pay, along with me. "I've granted you the dignity of making your own decisions," I said levelly. "Even when I disagreed, or didn't think you knew what you were getting into. What gives you the right to take this choice from me?"

He said nothing, just looked at me. I tried to stay with my breath the way the Buddhists say, but my chest was squeezed so tight with waiting that every breath hurt. If he understood, even a little, what mattered, what had kept me sane all these years—

All at once his mouth quirked up. "Do you ever lose an argument?"

I laughed—or meant to; it came out more like a sob. Then my eyes were shut tight against the tears and his arms were tight around me. He rubbed his cheek against my hair. "We'll go to your sorcerer, Molly. And pray he knows how to fix things, because I don't."

Chapter 10

AS soon as our clothes, cash, and Visa arrived, we left. I called my attorney collect and changed the location for the courier to deliver the ID; I'd meet him at a nearby McDonald's in about five hours. Then we walked. For hours, we held hands and walked around Galveston, sometimes talking, sometimes in silence. As it grew light we attracted some glances, but mostly smiling ones. I didn't look that much older than him now.

We'd decided against a hotel, though we were both tired. We didn't want to be separated, but passion was too new between us. It made us unsteady, and Michael couldn't draw from a node. Easier to live with exhaustion than temptation.

At ten-thirty that morning, we were on a plane headed west. I'd called Cullen and told him enough to whet his curiosity. I slept most of the way. Michael slept some, too, but he was wide awake and back to his usual self by the time we landed. Full of questions.

"Are all airports ugly?" he asked, pausing to frown at the boarding gate we disembarked into. "This could be decorated."

"Parts of them are. The people behind us don't want to stop and study the walls, Michael."

"Oh. Of course." He started moving again. "I would like to have a closer look at the way they connected this tube to the airplane. Most ingenious. Not now, I know," he said, favoring me with a smile sweetened by amusement. "Maybe later?"

I couldn't help smiling back. "Maybe."

We made it to the concourse with only a few questions along the way. "I think I didn't travel much, before," he said as we headed to baggage claim, where Cullen would meet us. "But I wanted to. So now I want to absorb everything, all at once. Were you and this sorcerer lovers, Molly?"

I stumbled over nothing.

His hand was instantly there, steadying me. His eyes were oddly gentle. "Am I not supposed to ask?"

"You startled me, that's all." I shook my head. "Unlike you, I don't always tell the truth. But I'll try to, with you. Cullen and I have had sex, yes. But we were never lovers."

He studied my face a moment, then nodded as if he understood the distinction. "I would like it if you did not kiss him. Sexually, that is. I realize that kisses are not always sexual. Would that be difficult for you? I feel… uncomfortable when I think of you kissing others the way you kiss me."

"Michael." I cupped his cheek in my palm. "While I'm with you, I won't want to dine on other men." Though I might have to, if we couldn't find a way for Michael to safely use node energy… but I wasn't going to think about that, not now. "I certainly won't kiss them."

A smile broke over his face. "Thank you, Molly." He reclaimed my hand and started walking. A little boy on the plane had taught him how to whistle—somewhat disturbing my sleep, I might add—and he did that now, whistling happily and without any discernible tune.

My heart was thumping as if we'd just negotiated some dreadful precipice. I cleared my throat. "You need to remember to call me Sandra."

"That isn't your name."

"It's the name on my ID."

"I will think on it," he told me.

CULLEN Seabourne is the most physically perfect man I've ever known. He's blond, slimmer, and taller than Michael, with a pleasant but unremarkable tenor voice. But people don't listen to Cullen. They stare at him, startled out of courtesy by such sheer, masculine beauty. He's well aware of his effect on others and capable of using it to get what he wants, but looks don't really matter to him. Magic does.

I didn't trust him, not completely. But I liked him, and, oh, but he was a pleasure to watch. Heads turned in baggage claim as he approached us. Among other things, Cullen is a dancer, and he moves like music made solid.

"Hullo, darling," Cullen said as he sauntered up. "Still in one piece, I see, in spite of ninjas and bazookas and such. But you have a new look. Nice," he said, reaching out with lazy grace to stroke one finger down my cheek. "But surprising." He leaned toward me.

"No kissing," I told him firmly.

"No?" He pulled back, quirking one eyebrow. Sometimes I think everyone in the world can do that except me. "How interesting. I have a few questions."

"I'm sure," I said dryly. "But not here, I think. You brought your car?"

"You don't think I'd trust my delicate skin to a taxi driver, do you? And you indicated a need for privacy." Deliberately he turned to face Michael. "This would be the mystery man."

"Yes. This is Michael."

Who was staring. "You," he said, "are most unusual."

Cullen's eyes narrowed. After a moment of study he said, "So are you. Though I'm damned if I can say what you are. Not quite human, I think?"

"No. But then, neither are you. I've always wanted to meet one of your kind." Michael turned to me with a smile. "Did you know this is the only realm with Lupi?"

Oh, yes. That's another thing that Cullen is. A werewolf.

CULLEN was currently living in a dilapidated little shack in the mountains outside San Diego. At least, that's where he took us. I'm not sure he actually lived there. It looked ready to fall down, but it sat almost on top of a node.

"Quite small," he told us as he pulled his dusty Jeep to a stop in front of it. "No more than a trickle, really. But enough for my purposes, since I'm the only one using it. I'm trusting you rather a lot," he added, sliding me a glance as he climbed out. "I never bring people here."

"I'm paying you rather a lot. Besides, you're eaten up with curiosity."

"True." He flashed me a grin, then turned to Michael, who was studying the land around the cabin. "See anything interesting?"

"Just your wards. Nice work," Michael said politely. "That low one—it's to keep out vermin? Insects and such?"

Cullen went very still. "Oh, yes, I am definitely curious. Shall we go inside?"

The inside didn't look any more solid than the outside, but it was slightly cleaner. There was only one room.

"Sit," Cullen said, rooting around in a cupboard. "I originally trained in Wicca, if that means anything to you." He took out an athame, two vials, and a small silver bowl.

"Yes," Michael said, seating himself at the small wooden table. It looked sturdier than the walls of the shack. "It means you're grounded in the basic energies of your realm, which is the best way to begin. With sorcery, though, I assume you're self-taught?"

"Mostly. Now and then I run across a tantalizing scrap, or cut a deal with one of my reclusive compatriots. We don't trust each other, of course, but we're equally desperate for knowledge. There's a man in Africa doing good work, a woman in Singapore… I've a contact or two in Faerie, as well, though they're a closemouthed lot." He gestured with the hand holding the bowl. "Sit down, Molly. I'm going to try a little creation of my own in a minute, a combination of truth and seek spells. First I have questions."

I sat. All of a sudden I wasn't at all sure I'd made the right decision, coming to Cullen. But what choice did we have? "I've told you how I found Michael."

"Questions for him, love, not you." He sat in the third chair, put his tools on the table, and looked at Michael. "You say you don't remember who and what you are, where you came from."

"I remember pieces. Not the whole."

"Yet you saw what I was right away. You saw my wards—and knew what they were, too."

"I gather that most people in this realm do not see the
sorcéri
." He gave the word an odd pronunciation I hadn't heard before.

"No. No, they don't. You really aren't from this world, are you?"

"That much I'm sure of."

Cullen drew a deep breath, let it out slowly. "I have a feeling you know a helluva lot more than I do about magic. Why come to me?"

"My knowledge isn't always accessible. I want to see if you can hide or disguise my use of the nodes. They—the Azá—track me that way. Molly hopes you can restore my memory."

"You sound doubtful."

"I am. I can tell you the spell I used to forget, but I don't know if you will be able to devise a counterspell. I cannot, but being self-trained, you are accustomed to creating your own spells."

"That will help." Cullen's eyes glittered with excitement.

Michael gave him an assessing look. "You'll get nothing from me without my cooperation. Even with it, there is some danger."

Cullen gave a bark of laughter and leaned back in his chair. "Danger? For what you could teach me, I'd risk hurricanes, lightning bolts, and an IRS audit."

I was feeling worse about this all the time. Cullen glanced at me. "Don't worry, love. If my conscience—an elastic creation, admittedly—snaps under the strain, you can still count on my sense of self-preservation. I know very well you'd make a bad enemy."

"So would I," Michael said mildly. "But we won't be enemies, will we?"

"I hope not." Cullen's grin was little short of feral. "Oh, I do hope not."

TRUTH spells were not safe to use on Michael. This time, the backlash lifted Cullen off the ground and slammed him against the west wall. Boards cracked, broke. He landed half-out, half-in, sprawled in the debris of the wrecked wall.

My ears were ringing, though I hadn't heard a thing except for the wall breaking. I jumped to my feet. "Cullen!"

Michael's hand snatched at me. "Wait. The roof…"

I looked up. Things were leaning alarmingly. "Hold it," I told him, and hurried to Cullen. He was pale, motionless, and slightly bloody—but blinking thoughtfully at the sky now overhead instead of rafters. "Your boyfriend packs a punch, love."

I exhaled in relief. "At least you don't have amnesia."

"No, I remember well enough what happened." He pushed up on one elbow, winced. "At least one rib. It's a good thing I'm Lupus."

There were scraping noises behind me, and a grunt. "I think that will hold." Michael sounded dubious. "The blow was unintentional, Cullen. I am sorry."

"You have amazing reflexes, then." He took the hand Michael held out, grunting as Michael pulled him to his feet, and rubbed his side. "Or maybe… not reflexes. Defenses. Put there by someone else."

Michael was very still. "You're talented. Given the tools you have to work with, extremely talented."

"You're a construct, aren't you? Made, not born."

"Yes."

That one word dropped into the well of silence it created even as it was spoken.
So many words have power
, I thought dimly,
not just the magical ones
. My voice, when at last I broke the silence, was small. "Michael?"

"I am sorry." His voice was remote. He didn't look at me.

"And you've remembered more than you're admitting." Excitement radiated from Cullen like heat from a stove as he moved closer to Michael. "I only caught a glimpse—but there's so much inside you! Knowledge—vast amounts of knowledge. Power—"

"Knowledge is power," Michael said sadly.

Cullen stopped in front of Michael. "
What are you
?"

"I cannot tell you." At last Michael turned to me. There was grief in his eyes, old grief and fresh, the raw mixed with scars from other earlier woundings. "Not
will
not, Molly. Cannot. The way I am made, some things are not possible for me."

"You could have told me more than you have." I made it a statement, not a question. I was already sure.

"When we met the state cop, much came back to me. Not everything—I am still in pieces, and they don't all fit together. But that I was made, not born… yes. I could have told you that."

"You didn't trust me?" I whispered.

He lifted one hand as if he would touch me, then let it drop. "The place where I've lived is a good place. Not a world as you are used to worlds, but there is much beauty, much to learn. But it is remote. Few are able to cross, and the others who live there are further from human than I am. I was… lonely."

I swallowed hard. "Did you think I wouldn't understand loneliness?"

"I wanted you to see me as a man. Not a thing."

My breath huffed out. "Good grief, is that all? You
are
a man."

"This is not the body I wore before I came here. Things there are much more fluid. I… borrowed the pattern for this body from a friend."

I shook my head. "Great Mother of Heaven! You think I'm fooled by that delicious body of yours? I was pretty sure that wasn't your original form. Good grief—you scarcely knew how to walk when you first arrived."

Hope woke in his ocean eyes. "You were supposed to assume it was my wounds hindering my movement."

"I did, at first. But this is my area of expertise, Michael. If anyone in this realm or any other knows about men, I do. Made or born, you are definitely a man."

"Then—you do not mind what I am?"

"I started out human, then became something else, too. You started out something else, then got some human mixed in." I shrugged. "What's to mind? You're Michael."

He whooped, grabbed me, and whirled us both around, kissing whatever part presented itself—my hair, forehead, shoulder. Quick, peppery kisses that stung life into me. Laughing, I seized his face in my hands, and kissed him back.

Until hard hands thrust the two of us apart.

"Good lord," Cullen gasped, one hand still on my shoulder, one on Michael's. "It's not that I wasn't enjoying the show. I can't remember when I've gotten this hard watching others kiss, being more interested in participating than spectating. But you were drawing down hard from the node, Michael—and Molly, I thought you couldn't
take
without intercourse?"

I gaped at Michael, appalled. "I'm sorry. I didn't—I don't know how I did that."

He shook off Cullen's hand, and ran his own hand through his hair. "It's my fault. I'm supposed to control when I draw. If
she
was watching…"

"Well." Cullen shrugged. "It's a small node. Wouldn't be easy to spot, even drawing like you were, and I stopped you fast enough. I'd say it's unlikely anyone could have located you, but we don't have guarantees, do we? You'd better not do it again. However…" His eyes gleamed. "We do have an idea. At least, I do."

He stopped there, dragging it out. "Well?" I snapped.