Out of Nowhere (The Immortal Vagabond Healer Book 1) (17 page)

‘You could do so much!’

I shook my head. ‘Been there, tried that. People fear what they don’t understand. Then they lash out at what they fear. I’ve seen it.’ I gestured at the room. ‘Now you’ve seen it.’

I gently took her shoulders, looked into her eyes. ‘We need to go. Now. I completely understand if you don’t feel safe with me, if you don’t feel right being around me, but let me get you away from here. I’ll get you to the airport, the train station, wherever. You aren’t safe here, and I couldn’t bear the thought of these filth finding you again.’

She nodded. ‘I’ll throw some things in a bag. I can be ready in five minutes.’

‘Good girl. Where can I take you?’

‘Your place.’

While that’s what I most hoped to hear, I shook my head. ‘That’s probably not a good idea. They’ll be looking.’

‘They don’t know where you live,’ she said, grabbing a gym bag and transferring clothes from her dresser.

‘How do you know that?’

She stopped packing. The biggest, prettiest, greenest eyes I’d seen in a thousand years peered into mine, just a suggestion of tears welling up.

‘Because I wouldn’t tell them, no matter how much they hit me.’

Chapter 18

A QUICK SEARCH OF THE BODIES while she was packing didn’t yield much. I dragged the first man out of the hallway, because one simply doesn’t leave corpses in a hallway in North Andover. I pocketed drivers’ licenses and what looked like company IDs—badges with a photo and a magnetic strip—from each man. The one whose throat I’d cut had a folded piece of notepaper in his pocket with Sarah’s address on it. The handwriting looked European; they write some numbers very differently across the Atlantic. Ones and sevens are the big giveaways.

Which all qualified as interesting, but not terribly helpful. I wiped down the handle of the knife I’d used but left it on scene. If somebody found it on me later and tied traces of blood to the victims, that would be hard to explain.

I knew my prints were all over the apartment; nothing I could do about that. And, oh God, when had she last changed her sheets?

So, I could be placed in the apartment. Not too much trouble there; enough people knew we were dating. I just had to make sure I couldn’t be tied to the dead bodies.

I had blood on my shirt and jacket. A quick look in the mirror showed a splash of it on my cheek. That would be a real conversation starter if I got pulled over for a burned out tail light on the way back to my apartment.

Leaving my bloody clothes here would be like signing a confession. I went into the kitchen, washed the blood from my hands and face and found a trash bag. I took off my bloodstained jacket and shirt and stuffed them inside. I’d get rid of them once I was far enough from the scene of the crime. How much could the police tell if you washed your clothes? I hadn’t needed to cover up a crime in a long time, and technology had changed. Shouldn’t let myself get rusty like that. Sloppy.

I borrowed an oversized sweatshirt from Sarah, which fit, more or less, and would draw less attention than walking out in January in my t-shirt. Well, sober in January wearing just a t-shirt.

We drove to my apartment in silence. I took a roundabout route, keeping an eye on the rearview mirror, trying to see if anyone was following. It’s hard to follow someone who’s looking for a tail. Every turn you take, the pursuer has to either take it, or risk losing sight of you. If the same car follows you through enough random turns, heading nowhere, then you’re being followed. It could be done if they had enough cars and good communications, but I doubted that was happening here. One car waiting for the hit team, seeing the two of us leave could follow us and call for help, though.

My thoughts were a chaotic whirl. I still didn’t know what I was going to do. I’d never shown myself to someone like this. Not on purpose, at least. I was wrestling with guilt for putting Tiffany and, especially, Sarah at risk, anger at those who’d hurt them and fear of what they would try next.

Sarah was quiet. I couldn’t speak to what was going through her mind, but I didn’t imagine she was used to days like this. I was grateful that she seemed to be holding up at all.

After “how can I survive this mess?” the big question was whether I could salvage any relationship even if I could keep her safe. I hadn’t been completely forthright with her, and even if my reasons had been very good, I’d not known many women to tolerate that, even when what I held back didn’t get them beaten up.

We took the stairs, just as a paranoid precaution, and I went up three steps ahead of her. Nobody was standing outside my door, and the lock didn’t seem to have been tampered with. So far, my adversaries had worked with all the subtlety of a bat with a nail in it, but I didn’t want to bet our lives that they couldn’t learn.

Plus, who knew, I might just have killed all the dumb ones.

We walked into my apartment. Sarah dropped her bag on the couch and blew out a deep breath. ‘I need a drink,’ she said.

I wordlessly took a bottle from the cabinet and sloshed a few fingers into two glasses. She drained hers in one long swallow and handed the glass back. I refilled it and took a healthy sip of my own.

I could feel the pounding of hooves, see the sabre points getting more distinct. Worse than a squadron of Cuirassiers, the Talk was bearing down on me.

And, to stretch a metaphor, I would have only one chance to defend myself, and if I flinched or mistimed my shot, it was over.

‘Alright,’ she said. ‘I know we haven’t known one another very long, and I can see why this isn’t a first date kind of secret, but I need to know some more about you. And about this situation.’

I bought time with a sip of whisky. ‘It’s hard to know where to start. I can heal people. I’ve been able to as long as I can remember. But people get nervous about things they don’t understand, so I keep it quiet. I took a medic job because it lets me do what I do without drawing attention. I don’t know who these guys are, or why they’re after me. As far as I know, this is a very recent development.’

‘That’s not gonna do it,’ she said. ‘Who are you? Who the fuck are you?’

I heard a catch in her voice and I saw tears in her eyes.

‘I’m just a paramedic—’ I began.

‘Bullshit!’ she said, then sniffed and turned away angrily, wiping her eyes. ‘This isn’t normal, Sean. I’ve dated guys and found out about ex-girlfriends and criminal records and cheating, but not fucking supernatural powers. I’m not naïve; I know you have a past. Hell, everyone has a past, but your past clearly has more knives in it than I’m comfortable with. Jesus! I can’t even believe I’m having this conversation.’

‘I know this is hard to wrap your head around,’ I said. ‘It’s complicated. Please hear me out.’

‘You’ve got one shot. God knows why the hell I’m giving you that.’ She paused, fighting back tears, and shook her head violently. ‘No, that’s not fair. I’m really falling for you. I want this to work so much. You’d think this would be a deal breaker, but I need to give you a chance. Or I wouldn’t forgive myself.’

‘Sarah, I want to explain.’

‘And I want to believe you. God, how I want to believe you. But... Jesus Christ. I mean, I just got
beaten
. And then you killed people. Like it was something you’d done before. Done enough to get good at. And how the hell did you... fix... everything?’

‘It’s hard to explain.’

‘Try,’ she said, her eyes cold now and deadly serious. ‘Try really, really hard.’

I took a drink to buy time, to fight down my urge to babble. To focus my thoughts. This wasn’t a conversation I’d had with... well, anyone.

‘Well?’

‘I’m trying to think where to begin.’

‘How about at the beginning?’

‘That’s the part I don’t know,’ I replied. ‘For starters, I’m a lot older than I look.’

‘How old?’

‘Old enough to know better. I really don’t know. I can remember back over centuries. When I said I liked Alexandre Dumas and Mark Twain, I meant it. They were both worth knowing, and always willing to buy their round. But I can’t remember all the answers you deserve.’

She looked incredulous. ‘Shall I start with what you’ve just said, or what you’re not saying? How can you not remember? Did you hit your head? Wake up shipwrecked? What?’

‘I don’t think it’s anything that romantic,’ I replied. ‘I just think there’s a limit to how much you can stuff into long-term memory. Wait, listen.’ I quickly pushed on as I saw suspicion creeping over her face. ‘What do you remember about first grade? Probably your teacher’s name, maybe your best friend, maybe who you sat next to. But what color was your bedroom when you were five? Did you have a favorite stuffed animal? Memories fade. The big events fade slower, but they do get fuzzy with time, right?’

‘I guess.’

‘Now, instead of twenty years, think about ten times that. I remember battles, lovers, beauty, joy and trauma. I can’t remember my parents, or a childhood of any kind. I know I tried to do the village healer thing. I remember being happy at it, but needing to travel before anyone did the math on my age. I know I was driven out of a few places as a witch. I served as a soldier in a lot of places, since there’s always hurts to heal and men come and go. I did that for ages, until I found EMS. The good parts of soldiering—without sleeping in muddy holes or hand-to-hand combat. Usually.’

‘Have there been a lot of lovers?’

‘Depends on what you consider a lot. By the standards of a rock star or professional athlete, hardly any. And I would ask the court to take the time into consideration. I’m human. Probably. I need companionship like anybody else. For obvious reasons, long-term relationships can be problematic.’

‘So where do I fit on this list?’

There was no right answer. I’ve known enough women to know that. She was too smart to accept something like “none of them compare to you”. I decided to take a shot at her sense of humor.

‘Just ahead of Madame Dubarry. In a three-way tie with Lola Montez and Lady Emma Hamilton.’ I smiled.

She laughed. A sound that made me happier than the skirl of approaching bagpipes drifting over the walls of Lucknow, or the roar of Corsairs flying in to strafe the Korean hillsides. ‘Lord Nelson’s mistress?’

‘Yeah, but I used to sneak out on his blind side if he came in unexpectedly. He never caught on.’

‘Good thinking,’ she smiled, sniffing and wiping away a tear.

‘One way you’re different from all the others,’ I said seriously. ‘You are the only person I’ve told the whole truth.’

‘You don’t give this speech to all the girls?’ she asked. A definite thaw. The bantering tone was back in her voice. ‘Why only me?’

‘You’re smart, you’re funny, you’re beautiful. I haven’t felt this way about anyone in as long as I can remember. I can talk to you. Plus, there’s that thing you do with your tongue.’

‘So,’ she asked, the smile still there, but also a glint of steel in her expression. ‘What happens from here? You vanish on me? Or string me along until I get wrinkly?’

‘My hope, if you’ll still have me, is to stay with you. To keep you by my side as long as you’ll let me. I’d never have told you what I did if I didn’t trust you and care about you. And unless I find a way to outsmart these guys, a long lifespan may stop being a problem.’

‘And what about them? The ones with big knives and definite views on getting an answer?’

‘All I know is I fixed a guy’s ankle a while back. On the ambulance. He had a bad break, I repaired it so when he got to the ER it was just a bad sprain. He had the same accent as these guys. I thought it was strange because I couldn’t place it, even though it was a bit familiar. He seemed suspicious, which is odd. Usually I get away with a lot pre-hospital, since nobody knows how bad an injury really is before the x-rays. That’s one reason I like to work as a medic, not a doctor. Anyway, this guy started asking about me, and shortly after that, there was an attempt on me. That’s how I picked up that knife and got the cut on my hand that you saw the day you met me. Since then it’s been a competition to see which of us can learn about the other guy first.’

‘How’s that working out?’

‘I think we’re both pretty bad at it.’ I shrugged. ‘I’m just hitting dead ends, and the best they’ve managed is to kick in the door of a place I used to live, and beat up you and a girl from the hospital who gave me some info...’ I froze. ‘You said you had some leads on that inscription. Did you find something? Talk to somebody who knew something?’

‘I got a reply on one of the ancient language forums online. I uploaded a scan of the copy you gave me, and some professor in Chicago replied and asked about it. Said he’s seen similar stuff in old eastern European burial sites.’

‘So he asked about where you found this inscription, what it was about, and so on.’ I sighed. ‘It was a trap. They must monitor any searches on their languages, or the info they give out, and then trace the leads back. They’re looking for me, they know that the inscription you posted is from the knife I took in that first attack. Every time I look for them, I give away my position.’

Like a muzzle flash in the dark.

I turned to her, guilt twisting a dagger in my belly. ‘I am so sorry. I had no idea this could put you in danger. I just thought you might recognize an alphabet, I never expected they’d come for you.’