Dirk And Steele: The Wild Road Part 8

His hand was warm and strong. Her wrist looked very tiny in his grip, and his skin felt strange. She went still, remembering how he had told her not to touch him. Remembering the blood on her hands when she had. Blood on her sweater, in the car. Bullets on the floor.

Lannes let go long enough to turn off the water and pull down a towel. He made her drop the soap in the sink and began drying her hands. She did not resist.

"He let us in," she whispered suddenly, and Lannes stopped, looking at her. "He let us in because he knew me. Someone like me. A woman... who was supposed to be dead."

"That's not your fault," Lannes murmured, and pulled her back into the bedroom, making her sit on the edge of a dark mauve floral comforter that felt more like plastic than cloth. He walked around her and tugged down the covers. Then he knelt, studying her feet, which were still snug in the floppy socks he had given her. The fabric was grimy now, more gray than white.

He began tugging off her socks-awkwardly, like he was afraid of hurting her. The woman stopped him and kicked them off herself. Her feet throbbed. When she stretched them, the cuts in her arches felt as though they were splitting apart.

She crawled backward, under the covers. The sheets were cold. She curled into a ball.

"Sleep," Lannes whispered, standing beside the bed. "Don't be afraid."

She was afraid, more afraid than she could imagine anyone ever being. But the softness of the pillow felt good, and the room was dark, like a coc.o.o.n. She tried to say something to Lannes, but her throat would not work.

I'm sorry, she thought, exhausted.

Then she fell asleep.

Chapter Eight.

Ten minutes after the woman's breathing slowed, Lannes left the room. He tried to be quiet. She did not seem to wake as he shut the door behind him. The cold afternoon air felt good on his face and wings, as did the freedom of the open sky. Those walls, that dark s.p.a.ce-it all had been too close for comfort.

The Impala was parked just outside the room. He got in, sat in the blood-stiff leather, and took a deep breath as he unbuckled his aching wings. Driving a car meant sitting on them like the ends of a cape, but that was hard on the skin-first abrasive, then numbing. When he was driving alone, he could take frequent breaks, could stretch out his wings as he was doing now.

His chest hurt, but the bleeding had stopped soon after driving out of Chicago, and the holes had nearly closed. Regenerative abilities aside, the difficulties of being wounded while wearing the illusion were not something he had antic.i.p.ated. The damage, close to his body, could not be seen. The blood was another matter once it left the confines of his illusion. As were the bullets that had been rejected from his body.

You should never have hugged her, Lannes chastised himself. He still could not believe how easy it had been to pull her close-but then he remembered her stricken face, her despair as it had rolled through his mind, and he could forgive himself, just a little. Her pain might as well have been his. He could not divorce himself from the link between their minds.

Nothing to be done, he told himself, more concerned by the grief he had caused the woman by telling her not to touch his back. Her eyes, the way she had looked at him- like he thought she was a monster...

Slightly sickened, he turned on his cell phone and dialed. Charlie answered on the third ring. Lannes heard a little girl singing in the background, accompanied by the clinking sounds of dishes being washed. Despite the circ.u.mstances, Lannes smiled. His brother, gargoyle and domestic warrior.

"Emma trying out for American Idol?" he asked.

Charlie grunted. "She watched The Lion King this morning. You know, it has music."

Lannes did not know, not about children's movies or lion kings, but Emma was still singing, and she had a good voice.

"Your phone has been off," Charlie said, a hard note entering his voice. "I got a bad feeling a couple hours ago. So did Magnus and Arthur."

"Did you now?" Lannes tried to sound calmer than he felt, especially at the mention of his other brothers. "And what do you think happened?"

"I think someone died," said his brother. "Two of our guys caught a morning flight out of New York and got to Frederick. As soon as they made sure he was all right, they went to Orwell Price's home."

"Ah," Lannes said, feeling rather ill. "Had the police come?"

Charlie was quiet. "No. And they won't."

"Sounds like you work for the Mafia instead of a detective agency."

"I wonder myself sometimes. But I need answers. Like now."

Lannes needed answers, too. He thought of the woman sleeping less than thirty feet away-a woman he had held in his arms longer than he had ever held anyone-and told the story. Charlie did not interrupt once. It hardly seemed he was on the line.

Lannes tapped his fingers against the steering wheel. "h.e.l.lo?"

"I'm thinking," said his brother.

"Think faster. Orwell was not a normal human man. And whatever was inside this woman's brain..." He stopped, unable to put words to what he had felt. The coldness of it.

Charlie said, "Are you sure it wasn't her? Putting on a good act?"

Lannes hesitated, searching his heart. He remembered her eyes afterwards, his sense of her emotions embedded in his mind, how they fluttered as though her heart were beating itself to death in horror.

"I'm sure," he said.

"Then we need to find out what connects her to the victim. And what happened in that hotel room. You mentioned smoke, right? I'll look for mentions of fire in the news and see if we can pin down the location." Charlie hesitated. "How are you handling this? You know, such close quarters?"

"Fine," Lannes replied.

"Because you haven't been around anyone but us and Frederick in a year."

"I'm fine," Lannes said again.

Charlie hesitated. "Is she cute?"

Lannes almost hung up. "She's fine."

" 'Fine,'" said his brother. "That could mean a lot of things."

A lot. A great deal more than Lannes wished to talk about. But he stayed silent too long-too long for someone as perceptive as Charlie-and his brother very softly said, "Ah."

"Stop it," Lannes told him. "Mind your own business."

"Fine." He sounded far too mild. "Just... be careful."

"There's nothing to be careful about. I don't know the woman. And she certainly doesn't know me."

"That can be less of a barrier than you think."

Lannes gritted his teeth. "Just say it. You think I'll be played as a fool."

"If you fall, we all fall," Charlie said.

Not something he could stand to hear. "I'm going now. Call when you know something."

His brother very reluctantly said he would. Told him to lie low. Hide the car. And that was that.

Lannes did not, however, return to the motel room-nor did he move the car to a less visible location. He sat, staring out the winds.h.i.+eld at the battered door, the closed curtains, and thought about the woman sleeping inside.

He had touched her. He had held her. He had fought for her. And he had not been afraid. No thought of witches and stone, no feeling of the walls closing in. His only thought had been for the woman. Even now he was thinking of her, knowing she was close. He could sense her presence, however small, inside his mind.

That scared him. It also thrilled him in ways he could not explain. She made him feel strong. Gave him no choice but to be strong. Lannes might have been sleepwalking until now, the feeling was so raw, as though something was waking in his blood: genetic, primal, an imperative too long suppressed. It was simple, that desire. Easy as breathing. He wanted to protect the woman. He needed to protect her. A desire that went beyond his earlier, more intellectual excuses for involving himself in her welfare.

It was in a gargoyle's nature to protect, even if their kind had been forced to adapt to different lifestyles. It was safer now to ignore suffering and turn a blind eye, to exist in hiding away from others, relying on magic, subterfuge. The instinct to protect had become a liability, sternly repressed. Lannes had not realized quite how sternly, until now, and he felt as though he was committing some crime, as though his desire was somehow against his species. To protect this woman, to give her what she needed, meant putting himself at risk-his body, his secrets. This was something that had been at the back of his mind from the beginning, but it suddenly hit him hard, with terrifying clarity. He was jeopardizing the secrets of an entire species.

Charlie did it. He challenged tradition.

To save a little girl's life. A little girl who was now his daughter in every way but blood. A child unafraid of Charlie's real face, who loved him as he was. Father. Rescuer. Protector.

Lannes stared down at his hands. Human. They looked normal, were illusions he could never dream to match. He wondered how the woman inside the motel would react if she knew the truth. What would she do?

Stop. Enough. You have bigger problems. So does she.

Something had been in her head. He could still feel the tangle of its presence: cold, old, furious. Powerful. Perhaps it was the force that had stolen her memories. It frightened Lannes. Taking over minds was tricky business. To control a person over a long distance was even trickier. It took a connection, permission. Like what the witch who'd captured them had wanted Lannes and his brothers to give.

A simple yes would do. A mere acquiescence, however innocent. A person had to be ever vigilant with the mind. To do less was to lose everything. Or to be vulnerable to everything.

Lannes started the Impala's engine and drove around to the back of the motel. He parked out of sight of the freeway and walked back around the building. Clouds had begun to move across the sun, but only a scattering of them. He wondered if the woman's jacket would be warm enough.

A name, he thought, binding his wings again. She needs a name.

Lannes was trying to think of one when he felt a spark of heartache pulse along their link. He turned the corner and found the woman standing in the doorway of their room, gazing out at where the Impala had been with such a look of disappointment and hollow resignation that he almost ran to her.

She saw him coming. Her hair hung in a soft tangle around her face. Her cheeks were flushed, her eyes green as sun-bathed gra.s.s. She blinked several times, almost as though she was surprised to see him.

"Out for a walk?" she asked mildly.

"Moved the car so it couldn't be seen from the road. Police might be looking for us."

She nodded, still with a pinch of stress around her eyes, and gazed out at the barren parking lot. A strip of earth and a chain-link fence separated them from the highway. Cars roared past.

"You need to rest," he said.

"I did. A little. I heard the car start." Her mouth quirked into a sad smile. "It's a distinct sound."

"I'm sorry." Lannes leaned against the door frame feeling awkward, exposed. His wings curled tight around his back. He suspected the illusion made his shoulders appear hunched. "You thought I was abandoning you."

"Crossed my mind," she admitted. "I wouldn't blame you."

Lannes held her gaze, willing her to understand. "We need to get something straight. I'm not leaving you."

"Right. Because you're just that nice."

"Nice has nothing to do with it. You need help. Do you understand? I'm here because you need someone."

"That's being nice and dumb. I might hurt you."

"I can take care of myself."

"Can you? What's happening...it's not normal. It's not...human."

Chills raced up his spine. "Is that what you think?"

"I know it." She pressed her fist to her chest. "Here. Call me crazy, and maybe I am-"

"No, you're not crazy."

"But something took me over." She hesitated, cheeks flushed, studying his face with an unnerving intensity that made him want to search out a mirror and check his illusion for cracks. "You really don't think I'm nuts? A psychopath?"

He smiled gently. "Go. Rest. I'll warn you the next time I decide to go out."

The woman backed up, her gaze pale and hollow. " You should rest. You haven't slept since we met."

Lannes said nothing and gestured for her to precede him into the room. He locked the door behind them. The room felt darker than he remembered. More oppressive. His skin crawled.

The woman slid back under the covers of her bed. He lay down on the other mattress, his healing ribs aching, his wings smashed like a soft, articulated blanket. The mattress groaned beneath him. He thought it would be impossible for him to relax, but after a tense minute, his muscles began to sag and his breathing slowed.

Think of the woman. You need to hold it together. Walls are nothing. Walls are not stone on your skin or the bars of a cage. The witch is dead. The wicked witch at last is dead. Let the joyous news be spread, Lannes told himself, reciting from The Wizard of Oz. All he needed now was a heart and a brain, and some courage. Anything, to help the woman near him find her way home.

The woman said, "This isn't over. I'm afraid I'm going to hurt someone else."

Her certainty was as disquieting as her self-loathing. Lannes rolled onto his side. "What do you want to do?"

"I want to stop it," she said immediately. "Find who's doing this. Learn why."

"First thing you have to stop is blaming yourself."

Her jaw tightened. "It was my hands that did the deed. That puts Orwell Price's death inside me."

You take too much responsibility, Lannes wanted to tell her, but he knew what it was like to second-guess things that could not be changed. So he said, "I called my brother. Explained the situation to him. He's going to look for more information on Price."

She paled. "Did you tell him what happened at the house?"

"I had to."

"And?"

"And, nothing. I told you, he's going to help. Find the connections."