The Wild Road

by Marjorie M. Liu

  “Keep that up, and I’ll be in my grave before you tell the story.”

  Lannes finally looked at him. “No.”

  Frederick sighed. “You always seem more frightened than I by the prospect of my demise.”

  “You’re not dead yet,” Lannes grumbled. “You still have another ten or twenty years in you. Maybe thirty.”

  “You should try bottling that optimism,” Frederick shot back. “I’m healthy but not immortal. I’m only human. And even if I weren’t, everyone dies.”

  Or else you sell your soul for the privilege of staying alive, Lannes thought, but that was another memory he did not want to invoke—not now.

  “I don’t have many friends,” he said instead. “You can’t blame me for wanting them to stick around.”

  Frederick made no reply. His gaze flicked sideways, and Lannes turned just in time to see a delicate hand reach for his shoulder. He flinched, jolting away, and almost fell out of his chair.

  It was the brunette. Quiet as a cat. A bombshell, a buxom woman whose assets overflowed like Niagara bound in black leather, and a gaze that, perhaps inappropriately, reminded Lannes of hot oozing oil: likely to burn, hard to clean off. Her small round face was framed by hair that curled loose around her bare shoulders. She wore a gold necklace with a charm shaped like a heart that dipped deep into her cleavage. Her eyeliner was heavy, her lips full and pink, and she had a sultry smile that should have warmed Lannes to the bone—but instead unnerved the hell out of him. He had not affected this human appearance quite long enough to appreciate a strange woman’s admiring focus.

  It made him nervous. Because even if Lannes looked human, he most certainly was not. And no illusion, no matter how fine, could hide the physical fact that beneath a guise of tanned skin and pleasant features, his real body was rather different from other—human—men.

  Wings. Skin the color of dark silver. Long black hair. A face made of craggy lines and ears that tapered to a sharp point. The only similarities between reality and illusion were his eyes and the breadth and strength of his body: broad shoulders, powerful limbs, hard muscle made for war and a height that skimmed seven feet. Lannes felt like a giant tiptoeing around fine china. Especially here, with so many people. He had been forced to bind his wings, strapping them to his body with a wide leather belt that cinched around his back and chest. Highly uncomfortable, but better than accidentally brushing against someone observant enough to notice that Lannes did not feel the same way he looked. His wings resembled those of a bat—pliant, flexible, and highly articulated, consisting of numerous small joints covered by a thin, highly sensitive membrane that draped around him like a cape.

  A gargoyle. The last of a dying race. No one could be allowed to discover his kind. He took enough risks as it was, relying on magic to walk the world.

  “Jumpy,” said the woman, her voice husky and nearly lost in the music pouring from the stage.

  “You startled me,” Lannes replied, struggling to sound polite, calm, even though his heart hammered and it was suddenly hard to breathe. He should have felt her near him, should have known she was close enough to touch, but the bar was crowded and he was not exactly at the top of his game.

  He sidled out of his chair and stood, towering over the woman. He rubbed his arm where she had touched him, feeling flesh beneath the illusion of clothing. Only his jeans were real. The rest? Nothing but a psychic trick, a mental barrier. He had rooted the illusion in his spirit, like armor in the shape of human skin.

  Up on stage, Donny Shill slid into a fast hard wail of notes, cascading against Lannes like the open sky, the long road. Freedom soared in that music. The woman smiled, flipping back her hair with one hand while the other reached again for him, ostensibly to slide those manicured fingers up his arm. Friendly, flirtatious, meant to soothe the strange man with the nerves.

  He stepped just beyond her reach. “No, thank you.”

  She looked at him with a hint of amusement. “The polite rejection?”

  “You’re lovely, truly. But I’m not interested.”

  “Girl at home?”

  “Something like that,” he lied, wishing desperately it were the truth.

  The woman sighed, mouth curling into a wry smile. “Handsome and loyal. You make me want you even more.”

  Lannes said nothing, and she sighed again, backing up a step. “Message received. But you, gorgeous, better stay out of places like this if you want to lay low. Face like yours, there’s no such thing as being left alone.” She flashed him a brilliant sultry smile and swayed away, each stiletto step timed to the music. Such great legs. Lannes watched her go, mouth dry. Kicking himself for things he could not change.

  Frederick pushed back his chair and tossed some money on the table. “You’re pathetic.”

  Lannes gave him a dirty look. “Let’s go.”

  It was a crisp September night outside, past midnight. There was no moon, but plenty of city—canyons of men and their roaring machines that filled the air with the bitter acrid scent of exhaust. Chicago smelled worn-out, bowed and surly beneath the weight of its sprawl. Lake Michigan hardly seemed to exist. Lannes missed Maine, the cold ocean winds strong enough to bear the weight of a man.

  “I don’t know why you like this city,” he muttered to Frederick, wings aching almost as badly as his heart.

  “It’s home,” his friend said simply, and struggled to swing on his suede coat. His hands shook too much. Lannes wordlessly took the garment and helped him stick his arms in. “You should stay longer. No need to rush off in the morning.”

  Lannes hesitated. “I have commissions.”

  “Commissions,” Frederick scoffed, gaze sharp. “You don’t need the money, I know that.”

  “I like the work.”

  Frederick started walking down the sidewalk toward the tree-lined neighborhood of fine brownstones less than two blocks away. Part of the Gold Coast neighborhood, near Lake Shore. “Maybe. But I know you, Lannes, and I know your kind. You’ll let decades pass with your head buried in your tools and books and ‘commissions,’ all to avoid the world, this sweet desperate world. And you’ll be alone. You’ll be alone, my friend. And I cannot stand the idea.”

  Lannes stumbled, staring. “I have my brothers.”

  “Brotherhood is hardly what I am talking about.”

  Lannes’ face warmed. “Leave it alone, Freddy.”

  “Leave it alone, as you want to be left alone?” The old man shook his head. “I have watched heads turn all night simply to take you in. For a man who wants solitude, you did a poor job of choosing your appearance. You should have woven a different mask. Become a potbellied, washed-up, breast-heavy bald man of middling years.”

  “I was in a hurry,” Lannes said stiffly. “I had to use my own face as the template.”

  “Now you’re bragging on yourself.”

  Lannes stared, incredulous. “Absolutely not.”

  Frederick made a dismissive gesture. “That was a beautiful woman back there. And she wanted you.”

  “That beautiful woman would have stuck a pitchfork in my face if she knew what I really looked like.”

  “You underestimate the ability of some people to handle the truth.”

  Lannes grunted, a familiar ache creeping into his chest. “That was not a woman who could have handled the truth. I don’t think such a woman exists.”

  “Charlie found one,” Frederick replied, rather cagily. “Or so I hear.”

  Lannes shot him a sharp look. “You’ve been talking to my brother?”

  “Here and there.”

  “Charlie never said a word.”

  “Really?”

  “Really,” Lannes said, sensing a conspiracy. “But since you mentioned it, yes, he did find someone. A lovely woman. But the circumstances were…unique.”

  Unique. Impossible. Stuff of fairy tales. Brothers, turned to stone, captured by a witch who wanted their souls. Until a human woman had broken the spell, a brave woman who killed the witch
, beating her at her own game.

  Lannes remembered. He remembered the weight of stillness. He remembered being helpless. Caged. Unable to move or scream. He remembered pain as though underneath the stone had moved needles and fire, embracing his skin, invading muscle, becoming bone.

  He remembered being alone.

  “Her name is Agatha Durand,” Lannes said quietly, struggling with his memories. “I suppose Charlie told you that. They adopted a little girl. Emma.”

  “Remarkable,” said Frederick. “And the child…I assume she knows what her new father is?”

  “She knows. Doesn’t care.”

  The old man hummed a low note and shoved his hands deeper into his pockets. “And will they have children of their own? Is such a thing possible?”

  Lannes felt like a football was pushing up his throat. “Must we talk about this?”

  Frederick hesitated. “No. I suppose not.”

  Lannes said nothing, just kept walking, careful to measure his steps so that his friend did not tire. He made no sound. His feet were bare, though he wore the illusion of shoes, brown oxfords. His soles were tough as rawhide, calluses hard as stone. He could have found shoes that fit, but he preferred the sensation of concrete. It grounded him. As did watching the world. A breeze ruffled his hair beneath the illusion, caressing his bound wings. He sank into the sensation and held on dearly, using the comfort of the wind as a line of power to enrich his senses. A quiet magic.

  I could stay another day, thought Lannes as the din of the city dimmed beneath the old trees lining the street of elegant brownstones. Golden windows surrounded him, pouring out light and voices, the clink of dishes, a dash of jazz. I can hide here as well as anywhere.

  Little comfort, hiding. Feeling like a fox in a hole.

  Frederick resided in a narrow three-story building, a single residence, one of the few that had not been converted into condos and apartments. Made of brick and stained glass, the structure was covered in thick vines of creeping ivy. An art-deco iron fence surrounded the tiny yard, and beyond, an American flag hung by the arched double doors. The air was heady with the scent of late-blooming roses. Frederick unlocked the fence, then the front door. Lannes watched but did not follow him inside.

  A look of uncertainty passed over the old man’s face. “You’re not leaving now, are you?”

  “No,” Lannes said gently, realizing in that moment just what a fool he had been. Frederick had no one, either. His wife was long dead, as were his parents and siblings. At least Lannes had his brothers. “I thought I would just…stretch…a bit.”

  “Ah.” Frederick smiled, his relief painful to witness. “Well, then.”

  Lannes backed away. “Don’t wait up.”

  “How delightfully rapscallion,” replied the old man, and shut the door.

  Lannes, thinking hard, locked the gate behind him. Ten, twenty years? Even thirty. Time went so quickly. He could rearrange some things in his life. Find a home in Chicago. Be here for Frederick. Make certain the old man did not spend his last decades without…family. No matter how odd that family might be.

  Freddy would hate you for your pity, whispered a small voice in his head. Lannes shook it off. There wasn’t a hateful bone in Frederick Brimley’s body. His father had been the same. This made it easy to trust them, even with secrets as big as gargoyles—nonhuman, a sentient, magical species hiding in plain sight, rubbing shoulders with the rest of society. It boggled the mind sometimes, even for Lannes.

  He found himself thinking about the woman from the bar. Wondering how she would react to the truth. What it would be like to just let go and be with someone. Without fear. Without question.

  It was late, the sidewalk dark and empty. He started walking and unbuckled the belt cinched around his chest, sighing with relief as his wings stretched free. They were still invisible, which was an odd thing for him when he glanced over his shoulder and saw nothing but the street. His wings were phantoms, ghosts that were attached to his back. Only the belt winked into view, but Lannes quickly wrapped the long strap of leather around his forearm and it faded again out of sight. The illusion he had cast in Maine hid anything that rested flat against his skin.

  He spread his wings against the night breeze, savoring the rush of blood through them, the stretch of the thin skin filling like sails. Not much good for anything but gliding. There was a reason birds had small bodies and hollow bones.

  But even with a high point to jump from, the city was a bad place for flight. Too many eyes. Not like on the island, or in the skies above the long rocky Maine coast. Chasing beams of moonlight while his hands skimmed the cold froth of the Atlantic. Being himself, truly himself. He missed that so much. The leaves would be turning by now. Storms moving in. Home, sweet home.

  Lannes turned at the corner and saw his car parked along the street. The Impala. It was a muscle machine, long and hard and black as pitch—a relic from the late sixties, a masterpiece of design that combined all the best of beauty and power. Classic, wild.

  Someone was trying to break into it.

  Lannes had excellent night vision. The thief was a woman. She held a dark object in her hands—a hammer, perhaps—and looked ready to smash in his window. He started running. Made no secret of his approach. The woman heard him coming. Their eyes locked—

  And his vision blurred. Just for a moment. All Lannes could see was a halo of blond hair. Stunning. Unnerving. Nothing like the woman from the bar. She looked like she was in the first stage of a panic attack, all heart and fear and claustrophobia. Powerful, overwhelming. She was a woman cornered, dangerous.

  And then her hand moved, and he realized she held a gun, not a hammer, a slender black weapon that seemed as natural to her hand as a fine glove. Lannes stopped in his tracks. Power simmered beneath his skin. Heat gathered in his chest. He was less afraid of a gun than walls, less fearful of death than capture. His heart did not thunder, but held steady, true.

  “Back off,” ordered the woman. “Do it.”

  Lannes did not move. Blood drew his eye—rusty stains on the knees of her jeans, on the front of the white T-shirt half-hidden beneath her denim jacket. Blood, crusty and smeared, covered the woman’s chin and lower cheek. Her fingers were dark with it. As were her feet. No shoes. A metallic stench wafted from her body. She looked like she had escaped a war zone. Run through hell.

  “You’re hurt,” he said quietly. “Someone hurt you.”

  “No,” she said, unsteadily. “Please. Turn around. Walk away.”

  Please. A soft, desperate word. Lannes took a step, and the woman backed up. He felt her tension, her fear, and it radiated into his body like a hot wind off a fire. Wave after wave. She was terrified of him. If not of him then of something else. Which, he supposed, was obvious.

  The top of her head was level with his throat, which placed her height at six feet, more or less. Her hair was tangled, her eyes clear and green. Fine bones, strong body. She looked like a natural athlete, a good runner. Or a chaser.

  “I won’t hurt you,” he said. “Put down the gun.”

  “Don’t,” she replied. “I’ll shoot.”

  Small thing. Being shot would not be the worst he had ever endured. Lannes very slowly reached into his jeans and pulled out his car keys. The woman’s gaze flickered between his hand and the Impala.

  Lannes took another step. “I’ll take you to the hospital.”

  Her gaze fractured with distrust, pain. He thought she might shoot him or cry, and he did not know which would be worse. He was not afraid—for the first time since arriving in this city, he was not even a bit afraid—and it was suddenly incredibly easy to remember who he was: torn, disparate, made of whole and half spirits, a creature who would rather face a woman with a gun than a woman with lust in her eyes.

  In the distance, a siren wailed. The woman flinched. Shame passed through her face, and she lowered the gun. Backed up. He followed, just one step, unable to look away from her. He had never seen such a gaze, filled with
a sudden horror and humiliation that reminded Lannes too much of himself. Two years free, he was still unable to shake the sense that he was trapped in stone. Unable to see himself in a mirror without feeling like a parody of who he had been long ago.

  “I’m sorry,” murmured the woman, still backing away. “Forget this happened.”

  If only. Lannes followed. “You need help.”

  The woman said nothing. She tucked the gun into the back of her jeans, turned and hobbled away. She left a trail of blood. Lannes did not go after her. Frozen in place, immobile in his skin. All the good strong comfort he had taken in being outside seemed to fade in direct proportion to the rise of a sudden squeezing sensation around his heart—but his heart was also straining outward, toward the woman. Inexplicable. Mystifying.

  Terrifying. He did not want to take responsibility for a mystery he could not name—this human woman, walking away from him. A criminal, he thought. Trouble. Certainly no damsel in distress. Nor was he some ironclad knight from human storybooks, the likes of whom had once killed his kind. No, no. No matter what his instincts were telling him, this was a bad idea.

  She needs you, whispered a small voice in his mind. You must.

  And then, Catch her.

  Catch her. The two words burned through his heart. More than words. Instinct. Hard, violent, instinct—the kind that had saved his life more than once. The same instinct he had ignored long ago, leading to tragic results.

  Lannes flipped his wings close against his body and moved silently across the street. Blood ran hot in his veins, his heart pounding—like during flight, like the moon in his eyes. Each step swallowed him deeper into another life, somewhere on the other side of the fork in the road. He could feel it, like magic: moments bound together to form a tapestry. A crossroads of fate bringing him here to this moment, with this woman and her gun.

  She whipped around before he got close. Her hand touched the weapon at the small of her back. Eyes narrowed, mouth set in a grim line. Fierce. But there were shadows, hollows in her face, and the harsh light from a nearby streetlamp made her look exhausted, even ghastly.