She waited until the ticking of the clock became deafening before the reply came, soft and muffled.
“Okay.”
“Okay. I’m going to stay here beside you, all right?” She lifted up the edge of the blanket and felt out his hand, giving it a squeeze. “Now. Lights are out. It’s time to sleep.”
He said nothing. She waited. Minutes ticked past, then half an hour, and she had just decided that he had dozed off when there was movement. At first, it was just a twitch, then a shuffle. Kim lay perfectly still as he inched closer. There was no use in being nervous; she knew exactly what he wanted, and there was no harm in letting him have it. He curled up against her side, and she held him tight.
He rested his head against her chest, and both of them fell asleep to the steady drumming of her heart.
* * *
WHEN KIM ROLLED over at dawn, the electric blanket was turned off, and he was gone. Again.
Cursing felt like the appropriate response, but she swallowed the urge and leapt out of bed instead, hurriedly jamming her pistol into her waistband and smoothing her shirt over it. She stuck her feet into a pair of sandals and flapped to the front door, and she had just grabbed hold of the knob when there was a knock from the other side. Two hard, dull thuds. Kim swallowed hard to dislodge her stomach from her throat and pressed her eye to the peep hole. Ainslie. She let out a breath and opened the door.
“Were you waiting by the door or something?” Ainslie demanded. She stumped inside and dropped her huge canvas bag on the floor. “I got you a phone book. Took me all damn night. You’d be surprised how many people in Austin don’t keep Abilene phone books lying around. Imagine that. Name’s there, anyway. Only the one, though, so I’m just hazarding a guess that it’s-”
“He took off,” Kim interrupted. “I fell asleep, and then I woke up, and he was gone. Come on, I need some extra eyes.”
Ainslie leaned to one side and squinted over Kim’s shoulder. “And left a startlingly convincing facsimile in his place. Damn, that boy is devious.”
Kim blinked and turned, sheepish, to see Lenny crouched on one end of the couch, a book balanced on his knees. “Oh.”
“Didn’t g-go,” he corrected. He closed the book and set it aside. “Don’t have anywhere t-to go.” Then he looked at Ainslie. “You found Mara?”
“I found a listing for her, yeah. Not a whole lot of Demarcos in Abilene. It’s last year’s phone book, though.”
Kim shut the door and locked it and dug the phone book out of Ainslie’s bag. It was well-preserved, for a phone book, only the front cover creased. “It’s still way too early to call. We’ll wait a few hours. Do you want to try to talk to her, or should I?”
He blanched. “You,” he whispered. “She’ll b-be at school in a few hours. Have to wait for evening.”
“At school?”
“She’s a t-teacher. Was.”
Kim smiled. “Then we’ll wait until this evening. I’m not in any hurry to get rid of you, honey.”
Ainslie made a face. “You need anything else? I gotta be at work in a few hours, myself. I was thinking I’d crash in the back office for a little while.”
“Nah,” Kim said. “I seriously owe you one, though.”
Ainslie nodded emphatic agreement and departed.
“She doesn’t actually dislike you, I don’t think,” Kim told him. “She likes anyone who likes books. It’s just, you know, people get used to thinking in certain ways, and…”
He shook his head. “I know. It doesn’t bother me.” He uncurled slowly and set his feet down. “I was reading your b-book.”
“Ainslie’s book. She’s building a sort of super-encyclopedia of magic. I’m helping. That’s my thing, finding information. I can dig up references in a few hours that it would take someone else months of reading to find. Not very useful, as far as magical talents go, but perfect for a research assistant.”
He nodded patiently, but Kim could see that he had not been finished yet, and she paused to let him continue.
“About c-contagious magic,” he said softly. “Didn’t find anything to g-get rid of it, but it said you can make a… make a st-standoff.” He swallowed hard and pulled his knees up again, not meeting Kim’s eyes.
She understood that he was trying to tell her something he found extremely important, but could not understand what, and he did not go on.
“Okay?”
“You can… You c-can take something b-b-back from the p-person who took something from you.”
It took her another moment to work that out. “Okay. Once he’s dead, that shouldn’t be a problem, but I can tell Zeb to try to grab something off him first…”
“No. No, not… not him and me. I mean you. You t-take something. I d-don’t want to be like him, not even a little. I don’t know how this works. I don’t want to d-do something to you by accident, or him g-going through me to get to you. You need to g-get out of this.”
Kim sat slowly on the other end of the couch. “Take something like what?” she managed.
“He said… He t-told me once what works best is b-blood.”
“I wouldn’t want to have something like that sitting around. Just one little screw-up, a burglary or something, and suddenly some random person has your blood? That’s a bad idea.”
“Not sitting around. I mean you’d… you… you know.”
Kim blinked. That was what she had been afraid of. She fought to keep her nose from wrinkling. “Ew. No. Besides, you already have mine, and I’m not interested in being a vampire, thanks.”
“It’s been too long. Has to b-be during the same day. You wouldn’t change.”
“Doesn’t make it any less gross, sorry. We’ll think of something else. I’ve got books. Miz Ainslie’s got books. If worse comes to worst, I can start asking around with other people I know. There will be something out there, somewhere. Something that doesn’t involve hematophagy.”
She got up to brew coffee. He picked up the book and got back to reading.
Milk, sugar, and two mugs went on the counter. The coffee maker growled and sputtered. Kim cursed at it, which naturally had no effect. While she contemplated acquiring a new one, her stomach growled even louder than the machine, so she extracted a plastic baggie of congealed pizza from the refrigerator.
When she turned around to stick it in the microwave, Lenny was there, well inside her personal space. She dropped the bag, which hit the floor with a tired splut.
“Humans exchange b-bodily fluids. That’s not gross, is it?”
She stared. It took the words several seconds to click with her, but when they did, she felt her ears heat up. She pinched the bridge of her nose hard between thumb and forefinger and squeezed her eyes tight shut.
“Oh, God. Oh… Oh, my God. Are… Are you propositioning me?”
He twisted the hem of his shirt and mumbled something incomprehensible. To Kim, it did not sound like English. It did not sound like a denial, either.
“Holy crap, sweetie. Where the hell did this come from? Am I missing something, here? I mean, don’t get me wrong, I like you plenty, but… No. Okay? No Florence Nightingale effect going on here. This doesn’t need to get any messier than it already is.”
She bent to pick up the bag of pizza and skirted around him to pop it in the microwave. But the conversation wasn’t over.
“I’m not… I… I am, but not b-because…”
“No, please don’t try to explain. Just leave it alone, okay?”
“I… I stole from you…”
“And apparently, that means something completely different to me than it does to you. Listen, I know what you think you did to me, but I’m not a vampire. Blood doesn’t equal sex, for me. Believe me, if I felt violated, you would have known about it immediately. Your standoff idea doesn’t fix anything, just puts both of us in the same bad place. I don’t want to be able to pull your strings any more than you want to be able to pull mine.”
The microwave beeped, and Kim pulled out
the steam-inflated bag and dropped it onto the counter. Try though she might, she couldn’t quite tune out the guilt radiating from somewhere behind her, or the ever-present fear. Beneath those was a tiny twinge of hurt. She supposed that was justified; she had just called an intimate offer disgusting, which was probably a blow to whatever ego he had left. She tore open the bag and slid the pizza out onto a plate.
“I thought…”
“Don’t.”
“… if he t-tries to make me hurt you, you c-could… you could muh-make me stop.”
“Oh.”
She paused and mulled that over, chewing a mouthful of pizza. She refused to let him guilt her into anything and couldn’t quite believe he was capable of that kind of manipulation, but it made her terribly sad when she began to understand.
It wasn’t something he wanted – she received the impression that the idea terrified him, and given what Duran had done to him, that was understandable. It was something he was willing to endure in exchange for some iota of security. Kim was not so much an object of desire as a potentially less malicious puppeteer.
“You trust me that much?” She looked over and saw immediately that he did not, no more than circumstances forced him to. She was only the better alternative. He opened his mouth to speak, but turned away instead. “You don’t think they’ll be able to catch him, do you?”
“They… You already t-tried. It didn’t work, then.”
“And if there was any chance at all of this screwing me up, you wouldn’t even have mentioned it, right?”
The flickering glance he gave her was one of tightly reined… hope? Dread? He knew she was crumbling.
“I wouldn’t. I wouldn’t.”
“And you really think it might keep him from messing with both of us? If he does get away again?”
His forehead wrinkled, and he chewed his thumb nail in fierce concentration. “I think.”
“And reassure anyone worried about you messing with me?”
He shrugged. “Maybe.”
Kim took her time finishing off her piece of pizza while she weighed her options, and Lenny watched closely for a decision. Wondering whether she should be feeling stupid, she pursed her lips.
“How exactly would this work, if I agreed? Do I have to… bite you, or something?”
He immediately took a step back, arms folded tight around his ribs, chin tucked to his chest, protecting the pulse points. Apparently, that was a no.
“It was just a question. Bear in mind that I have no idea how you plan to get this done.”
He thought for a moment, then crossed the kitchen to where the mugs sat on the counter. His hand tightened, fingertips twisting into black claws, and he curled his hand into a fist, like juicing a lemon. A few dark, viscous drops oozed out between his fingers and pattered into the mug. When he unclenched his hand, four deep gouges marred his palm. They closed slowly.
Kim peered over his shoulder at the tablespoon or so of fluid in the bottom of the cup. It was about the color and consistency of used motor oil, and it gave off a bizarre sensation. Like feeling a vibration just below the range of hearing, Kim was half-aware of a musty, sour almost-smell. Her gag reflex did its best to kick in, and she knew there wasn’t going to be any way she could possibly swallow that by itself.
“I won’t hurt you,” she told him. “I promise. And I’ll do my best to not let you get used. And if there are any freaky side effects I should know about, now would be the time to bring that up.”
He said nothing, so she poured coffee on top of the goop, dumped in half of the sugar bowl, stirred it quickly, and chugged the scalding mixture in three massive gulps. Her eyes watered, and her stomach churned, though whether that was from the blood or the sudden influx of hot coffee, she couldn’t tell. No freaky side effects manifested immediately.
“Did that do it?”
“I d-don’t know. Did it?”
“I don’t know, either. What am I waiting for?”
“Can you feel me?”
She thought about that. She had been feeling him in a few different ways since he had attacked her, and could not be sure whether she was looking for one of those ways to intensify, or a new one to crop up. She had felt what he was feeling once or twice, had felt his wants once or twice. Now, though… There was something new. It took her a few moments to realize that it was spatial, an awareness of their relative positions. Even if she closed her eyes, she knew that she would know exactly where he was, or at least in what direction and about how far.
“Okay, yeah. I think I’ve got it. You feeling any better about all this?”
He forced a smile and nodded, and she knew he was lying. He had expected to feel better, knew logically that he stood a better chance now, and remained afraid.
“You’re really brave,” she told him, “and it’s gonna be okay.”
She fixed him coffee and finished off the other slice of her pizza. They sat together in silence, alternating between dozing and hunting through Kim’s books for a more solid solution. While he slept, she practiced ignoring the snippets of dream she caught.
And at six o’clock, she picked up the Abilene phone book and dialed Mara Demarco’s number.
The phone rang. Beside her, she was aware of Lenny holding his breath as he listened, the tension in his body, the pressure in his lungs.
There was a click.
“Hello?”
“Hello, Ms. Demarco?”
“Yes, speaking.”
“My name is Kim Reed. I understand you know someone called Leonard Hugo?”
There was a brief pause, then, “I knew him, yeah. What is this about?”
Kim felt the tension go out of the man beside her. He slumped forward over his knees, letting out a whistling breath, and dug his knuckles into his eyes. Kim could feel the lump rising in his throat and fought to keep an identical one from choking her.
“Ms. Demarco, we found him.”
“You… Oh, Christ…”
“And he wants to come home.”
A strangled noise came through the line. “You found him alive?!”
Kim glanced at Lenny’s back and bit her lip. “More or less. He’s on the mend, anyway. We were wondering if we could stop by sometime soon. I think he’d like to stay with you until he can get back on his feet, but there are some issues that might make that difficult, and it would be much easier to discuss them in person than over the phone.”
“Yes, yes absolutely! Any time! Can you come now?”
“It’s a long drive. Tomorrow afternoon?”
“Okay. Okay, sure. Yes. I’ll be out of work at four, home by maybe four-fifteen. Is that okay? Can I talk to him?”
Kim handed the phone over. Lenny took it gingerly and held it to his ear. He tried to speak, but nothing happened.
”Lenny?”
He tried again. He strained, tears welling, but nothing would come out.
“Len?”
He handed the phone back to Kim and curled into a miserable ball.
“He’s resting,” Kim said tactfully. “It’s okay, though. He’ll see you tomorrow.”
* * *
THE HOUSE WAS small but neat, wood siding painted pale blue. Dandelions grew up through cracks in the concrete driveway. A few potted ivies hung around the edges of the porch. The yard had gone to crabgrass, summer-brown and carefully cut despite the weeds. It was innocent, peaceful, quiet.
The El Camino came to a stop in front of the empty lawn. Kim checked her watch.
“We’re a little early, sorry. But I guess better early than late.”
Lenny shrank back into the seat and scrubbed the back of his hand across his mouth. “Keep going,” he whispered. “Just go. I c-can’t do this.”
“What are you going to do instead?”
He shuddered.
She gave his arm a careful squeeze. “It’s okay. You’ll do fine. I’ll back you up. She’ll be just as cool about this as you remember. People’s basic personalities don’t change, no mat
ter how long it’s been.”
He squeezed his eyes shut and rested his forehead on his clenched fists. “Unless I changed.”
There was nothing Kim felt she could really say to that. “You’re still you,” she reminded him. “Everyone changes a little bit, but you’re still you.”
Sunlight reflected off an approaching windshield and blinded them momentarily.
“There’s a car coming,” she told him. “Guess we’ll find out in just a minute.”
He dared a quick glance. It was the same old Datsun, paint faded, a few more dings and dents, but the same. He looked away before he could catch sight of the person at the wheel.
“She’s getting out,” Kim observed.
A car door slammed.
“You think you should maybe go say hello?”
He tugged on the handle mechanically and pushed the door open. The asphalt was so hot, his shoes stuck to the oozing tar, but he felt cold.
“Lenny.”
The voice pulled him out of time, back so far he could almost remember how it had felt to be safe.
“Oh my God, Len.”
It had been freezing, the last time he had seen her – “I’m going to have to keep thinking about that.” – and she had kissed him like she wanted something more, climbed into the Datsun, and disappeared into the gray West Texas pre-dawn, disappeared in a cloud of exhaust and confusion.
“It’s you. I can’t believe it’s you.”
But the woman who ran to him wasn’t his Mara. She was paler, ten years tired, still young, but not as young as she had been. She was wiser, ten years more cautious. He could tell at a glance that she was still teaching – sensible, cushioned shoes, pressed khakis, nondescript red polo shirt with a stylized mascot embroidered on the chest, once-wild hair pulled back in a no-nonsense ponytail – but the same glance told him a dozen other stories as well. The day had left her exhausted. Her chosen profession was taking its toll on her back and knees. She had picked up glasses, at some point, and she had lost a lot of weight. Even her smile had changed; it was genuinely happy, but there were layers in the expression. It still turned up in the middle and very slightly down in the corners, just like he remembered. There was still that small chip out of her right top incisor. It was still one of the most genuine smiles he had ever seen. But there was more to it, as though at least some small part of that grin was for some – any – change in the routine.
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