The Fire King (15 page)

Her arm ached. So did her stump. She focused on breathing, and struggled to tighten her legs, trying not to think about how useful a fire escape would be about now.

Karr murmured, “We are almost there.”

“Good,” she muttered. “Maybe you should have put me on your back.”

“If you slipped, I might not be able to catch you.”

Soria said nothing. She was already slipping, just a little each time he moved. The pain in her left arm was growing by the second, making it hard to breathe.

Halfway up, Karr paused by a window and grabbed the edge of a sill with one hand, digging in his toes along the edge of a narrow pipe she glimpsed at the corner of her eye. With his other hand, he reached around her waist and hoisted her a little higher up his body. Soria buried her face against his neck.

“Are you scared of heights?” he murmured.

I am now.
“Just keep going, Tarzan.”

He was silent a moment. “Tar-zan?”

“A … mythical person. Raised by monkeys, lives in the jungle, swings on vines.”

“Ah.” Karr began climbing again. “He sounds like my cousin.”

Soria started to laugh—then realized he might be serious.

They reached the roof. It felt like a lifetime. Karr released her gently, and she staggered away from him, bending over with her hand braced against her knee. The sheet and jogging pants tumbled off her shoulder. She wanted to kick them, but settled for staring at bloodstains splashed on white, blood on her hand, blood on her shirt. She was sticky with it and started gagging, covering her mouth, choking with the effort to not be sick.

Karr drew near. She turned her back on him and forced herself to straighten, breathing deep, wiping her eyes. Winds shifted, blowing cool and sweet against her face. She tried to savor the sensation, but the silence of the man behind her burned.

“Go ahead,” she said. “Ask.”

“I think it would be cruel to do so,” Karr rumbled, which made her turn to look at him.

“I do not understand you,” she said.

“You do not know me,” he replied. He rubbed his hands, golden light trickling up his forearms. “Perhaps it is better that way.”

“You had your chance to go. You still do.”

“And you? Will you journey south?”

Good question. Erenhot glittered beneath them, spread like a web of jewels. She wanted to rub her aching arm, and ghost fingers tugged—but without the usual accompanying pain.

Soria glanced at Karr again: coiled and lean, golden light sparking over his chest and face, leaving behind a bloom of scales. He was a haunting, alien sight, filling her with both fear and wonder. “If I do, will you come with me?”

Karr gazed out at the city. “Thousands of years. Those are numbers I cannot comprehend. And yet I stand here and can almost believe it is true. I died, and time moved on. But that still leaves me with nothing. And no one.”

Soria could not imagine his loss. “Others of your kind could still exist. A new generation. It is a big world.”

“Never big enough,” he whispered. “When I died … there were not many of us, but there were enough. We had only each other. But they are dead now. Even if time has not passed as you said, my friends must be dead.”

Whoever his people were, whatever he had meant when he called them the mistaken children of the shape-shifters, he was right: everyone he knew was dead. His world was gone. And the enormity of that—imagining herself in his situation, waking from death into a world wholly unfamiliar, alone—was enough to make her ill in an entirely different way.

Karr turned in a slow circle, surveying the roof, and yet more of the city, finally tilting his head to watch the stars. “We had a homeland in the north, a place that was ours. I want to go there and see what I find. Even if it is nothing but dust, I want to see. Perhaps I will be surprised.

“But,” he added, finally looking at her. “If I go with you to the south, I am afraid that I will never know for certain what was lost—or what might still be found. And yet, if I do not go with you, and discover nothing … I will have lost my only anchor in this new world.”

Soria went very still. Light trickled from Karr’s eyes, washing his face in gold, as though he wore a mask made of the sun. But his silence was strong and thoughtful, and she knew he was waiting for her, because she was an anchor, because words always were and she was the only one in this world who could speak to him. Words could humanize or brutalize. She had already seen what resulted from not being able to communicate with Karr.

If you convince him to travel south, what will you expose him to? More of Serena and her cage? Or something worse? What can you live with?

Soria had been asking herself that question for the past year, and she still had no answer. “And if I go with you?”

“You have no reason to.”

“Does that matter?”

He was silent a long time. Winds buffeted them. The cold night. Soria remembered other windy nights, standing on rooftops, with Roland and others from the agency, drinking beer and eating pizza, listening to the mixed tapes that people always brought, where ribbing about the song choices was as much part of the entertainment as the music itself. All of them shrugging off the strangeness of their lives, and just being themselves: human, shape-shifter, gargoyle; male, female. Friends.

Magical times. Perfect, floating nights. Soria missed that. She missed that more than she missed Roland, who had always kept himself slightly apart. Craving distance because it felt safe to him. Big, powerful man—too frightened of his own mind and strength to do more than live behind glass windows, a cage he had put himself in. Just like Soria had. Until now.

Crazy woman. You’re asking for trouble. You might die.

And she might leave this man and always wonder what happened.

What can you live with?
Soria asked herself again.

Karr tilted his head, glancing sharply to his left. His eyes flared with light and more scales rippled across his skin. He twisted slightly, bending over as bones popped down his spine and across his shoulders, but the actual emergence of his wings was obscured by the glow that preceded them, spreading outward like tendrils of smoke. His arms and legs cracked new joints, his torso lengthening until he reminded her of some alien creature from the movies, caught between shifts; not human, not animal. It scared Soria, but she could not look away.

Until, finally, it was done. The golden light collapsed around him, revealing a sun-kissed creature that bore a closer resemblance to a sphinx than a dragon. His face remained vaguely human—leonine, rather than reptilian—while his limbs and the bulk of his body were covered in a variegated mix of scales and fur. Wings, folded along his back, were webbed and leathery like a bat. His shape-shifting was not consistent, she realized. Never the same body.

“Hurry,” he said, holding out his arms.

She hesitated, memories crashing through her: that split-second choice on the mountain highway, stopping the car to help an old man she should have recognized. Trusting that she would be safe, because she always had been, in every war zone, in every city of the world, in the company of dictators and criminals. Never a scratch. Always able to handle herself.

Her stump throbbed. Soria stared deeply into Karr’s eyes, wondering if she could trust herself this time, even after coming so far.

You could have walked away at the airport, but you didn’t. So now you’re here. Make it worth something.

She picked up the bloodstained sheet and pants, her movements slow and aching, and stepped into his embrace. His arms were stiff, as though it had occurred to him again that this might be a bad idea; but just before she could change her mind and bolt, he drew her close against his warm chest. Her fingers touched soft scales and fur, so very alien, and difficult to reconcile with his human body. She might know shape-shifters, but Karr was right: something
was
different about him, as though every time he shifted, his body was torn in three different directions.

And yet, she felt safe in his arms. Ridiculously so. It made no sense.

Karr hooked his arm under her legs, the other around her back. He lifted her easily, looking down for one brief moment. His eyes were the same, no matter what his body looked like.

“Strange woman,” he murmured. And then, without warning, he took a running leap off the building.

Soria cried out, clutching at him as they dropped into freefall. Windows passed them in a blur, lights and concrete spinning, and just before they hit the ground, his wings snapped open. Winds howled around them, cutting through her clothing. Looking down made her breathless, but she tried anyway—watching the city in brief, dizzying patches of light. It was beautiful, unearthly.

“We are being followed,” Karr said, his voice nearly swept away by the wind.

A shape-shifter.
She was certain that was what he meant. It made her think of Roland, and his secrets: his alliance with the organization that Serena worked for, his reluctance to talk about Long Nu. Little details that she picked over ruthlessly. All of it was bound together because of Karr.

Whoever hired those men wanted him alive for a reason. Same reason they needed me, in order to translate. Which means they think he knows something or can be useful. Which means I won’t be safe until he is.

Soria closed her eyes, trying to make sense of it all. A man—an inhuman man—resurrected after thousands of years. What could he possibly know that was worth killing for?

Lots of things,
she decided.
Ask how he came back to life. Find that out, and you might have all the answers you need.

Easier said than done.

There was a lake in the desert. Very small and isolated, though the waters smelled fresh, spring-fed. Karr also scented humans, goats, sheep, horses. Other creatures. None were there at the moment. He dipped his fingers into the lake, licked them, and found the taste cold and heavy with minerals.

Soria gave him a dubious look. “I will get sick. Maybe you can drink water from the wild, but my stomach is more sensitive.”

“Then how do you survive?” Karr raised his brow. “You do drink water, do you not?”

“Purified. Boiled.”

He shook his head. “We are in a desert. Drink this, or else nothing at all.”

She frowned, but scuttled down the shore and knelt. Her frayed braids dipped into the water. Karr stood behind her, surveying the land.

He had flown for an hour before needing to stop, rested and then begun again—until he had seen this place in the distance. Human fires burned several ridges over, but the air was still and quiet. No sign of the shape-shifter who had followed them from the city. A body with wings, that much was certain. Karr had no doubt he or she was close enough to track them but not so close as to be detected.

He hoped the land and sky conspired to bring the shape-shifter discomfort. This was a cold desert, and not just because of the night. He could feel the elevation in his bones: the dry air, a bite in the wind that nipped at his human skin. Fur would be more comfortable, but Soria did not have the luxury. He did not want to be unfair.

Thick, scrubby grass grew around the water, but not a stone’s throw away the landscape hardened into a rocky plain. He had flown over some areas of sand, but not many. Which was good. It was much harder to find prey among dunes. Not that he was planning on going very far.

Soria sat up, rubbing her mouth. “Do we stay or leave?”

“Stay. We both need rest.” Karr walked away, claws surging through his fingernails. “Be mindful until I return.”

“What?”

He glanced over his shoulder. “I smell goats.”

She stared, until something passed through her gaze and a faint, wry smile touched her mouth. “For petting?”

It was such an unexpected thing to say—but so clearly in jest, he found himself smiling back. “I think not.”

“Well,” she said. “Good luck. I hear they are dangerous creatures.”

“Ferocious,” he replied, backing away. “But not nearly as intimidating as your knee.”

She laughed, covering her mouth with her hand as though the sound startled her. It surprised him as well, though for a different reason. He liked her laughter.

Karr turned quickly away, breaking into a run. Golden light flowed over his skin, and he begged his body for a lion’s touch, thinking briefly of his father. He desired speed as well, to put as much distance as possible between himself and the woman. He had been unnerved before by females, had suffered every emotion from lust to anger. But what she did, in the simplest terms, was make him feel things that were utterly unexpected.

Stop,
whispered a small voice.
Stop now. There are weaknesses you cannot afford.
And even if he could, she was not the one to feel them with. She was not safe. He was not safe.

No sign of madness,
he reassured himself.
You are fine. You will be fine. Long enough to see this through.

To what end, he had no idea. He was a fool if he let himself imagine this adventure would have a happy end. All he was searching for were ghosts and chance, the faintest possibility of life. And Soria’s motives were utterly a mystery.

Human scents grew stronger. Karr kept low to the ground. It was only hours before dawn. Most would be asleep, unless there was a guard watching over the livestock. A child, probably. Or dogs. He listened carefully as he approached the settlement, but heard nothing except the occasional soft bleat and the low, content sounds of horses. He was safely downwind.

He crept over the ridge, discovering a desert patchwork of rock and grassland, an immense plain that swallowed the small round tents arrayed less than half a mile in front of him. Tiny fires burned. He saw goats inside a loose pen made of rope tied around stakes in the ground. Horses grazed freely.

A tricky business, stealing from humans. Karr preferred a wild hunt, but there was no time—and he had been without meat since waking in the tomb. No wonder he was weak. He was starving.

He was careful to stay downwind, creeping close to the ground as he neared the settlement. The goats were very near. One strike was all he needed, and then speed would do the rest.