The Wild Road

by Marjorie M. Liu

  She stumbled. He caught her. Just for a moment, the briefest of touches. And then his hands disappeared and he stepped back, leaving the glow of the streetlight for the shadows of a tree. He looked menacing, dangerous—and that was only his silhouette.

  The woman steadied herself, mouth dry. “I had to go.”

  “I got that,” he rumbled. “Do you have a place? Somewhere you’re headed?”

  She hesitated. “I can’t stay here.”

  “You didn’t answer the question.”

  The woman turned and started walking, but the pain was worse and she hobbled as though tiptoeing over hot coals, feeling ridiculous and miserable. She glanced over her shoulder. Lannes followed, close enough to touch.

  “Stop,” she said, “please.”

  “You stop. You can’t walk like this.”

  “I believe I’m doing so.”

  “How far? Where are you going?” Lannes stepped in front of her, effectively blocking the sidewalk. He was too large to go around, with cars on one side and an iron fence on the other. “If you have a place in mind, I’ll drive you. I’ll get you there safely. I promise.”

  She felt close to tears, something she was uncertain her pride could handle. “I appreciate what you did for me, but please, why won’t you just leave me alone?”

  “Because I can’t,” he said simply. “Not until I know you’ll be okay.”

  “I threatened you.”

  “I remember.”

  “I could be crazed.”

  “Possibly.”

  “Jesus,” she muttered. “Grow a brain.”

  “Too late,” he replied, a grim smile touching his mouth. “Jiminy Cricket ate it.”

  She covered her face to keep from crying—or laughing. “It’s because I’m a woman, isn’t it? No matter what I’ve done, you refuse to see me as a threat.”

  “Hardly,” he rumbled, bending near. “Women are terrifying. You, I’m sure, spit venom and eat men alive. But I’m offering you help right now, and you can take it or leave it.”

  “I left it,” she told him, peering up into his eyes. “But you followed.”

  “Well.” Lannes hesitated, frowning. “I won’t again. If you mean it.”

  She wanted his help. She wanted it desperately. But it terrified her that she could be misjudging his intentions—or that she might be overestimating her own sanity.

  “For all you know,” she said softly, “I might be a murderer.”

  “And are you?” he asked, just as quiet, with such startling directness, she swayed as though hit. She remembered the scent of blood. Felt sick.

  “I don’t know,” she whispered, trying not to vomit. “I don’t know what happened.”

  Lannes studied her in silence, his gaze unflinching. Then slowly, he took a step back, and she thought, That did it, he’s done with me, which was less of a relief than it should have been. But he stopped after that one step, paused and said, “Are you coming?”

  Her breath left in a rush. “You’re insane. I could be dangerous.”

  “You’ve certainly worked hard enough to convince me of that.”

  She shook her head. “If you want to help, give me your car. I’ll leave it someplace safe. The police will find it. You’ll have it back in days.”

  He ignored that. “Is someone chasing you?”

  She felt ill. “I don’t know.”

  “You don’t know a lot of things.” Lannes took another step, his gaze never leaving her face. “I won’t hurt you.”

  “You expect me to trust that?”

  “As much as I’m trusting you. Just for the night. To rest your feet.”

  One night. A night almost gone by now. She swayed toward him, feeling everything inside her settle quiet as death. “I’d like my gun back.”

  “Okay.” His mouth tilted into another grim smile. “When you’re ready to leave.”

  The woman wanted to say no. She wanted to turn and walk away into the shadows. She wanted to do it and know she would be okay. No matter what. Strong enough, resourceful enough.

  And you are. You’re all of those things. She felt it in her gut.

  But there was also nothing wrong with taking a risk on kindness. No matter how terrifying it might be. No matter how much the awful little voice in her head disagreed.

  Run, it kept whispering. Run far.

  “If you try anything…,” she began, and stopped, feeling ridiculous.

  “If I try anything…,” he said gently—then he also hesitated, finally sighing. “Never mind. I need some tea. Are you coming?”

  The woman said nothing, but hobbled toward him. He was a big man, no doubt strong, but he did not touch or help her, just kept his pace slow. She appreciated that. Even if he still scared her.

  She was just too desperate to care.

  Chapter Four

  While Lannes could not in good conscience disagree with the woman’s assessment that he was indeed an idiot, he knew several things about himself that she did not. First and foremost, he was a Mage—a fairly accomplished one, at that, and therefore capable of knowing certain things about other people that might not or could not be readily divulged.

  He had learned some things about the woman while she lay unconscious.

  She sat before him now in Frederick’s kitchen, perched on a stool at the butcher-block counter. Her blond hair was a fine mess around her face, and the skin around her eyes looked pinched with exhaustion. He had cleaned blood from her chin earlier, after carrying her into the house. Wiped it away with a hot rag. She had looked pained even while asleep.

  Now was little better. A small furrow cut between her eyebrows—a permanent fixture since she had awakened—and her mouth held a worried frown. She had said almost nothing since following him home. Just a nod here, a shake of the head there. Not a word when asked her name, though the anxiety that rolled from her made him never want to inquire again.

  So, they sat. In silence. Regarding each other. The woman clutched a white steaming mug of some aromatic green tea that always gave Lannes a terrible stomachache. He preferred dark brews, breakfast blends steeped in fine Irish Belleek porcelain. Bits of lemon thrown in. No sugar, which for him obscured the taste of a good tea.

  He had his own cup in front of him, half-drained. Fredrick was back in bed, though not likely asleep. Listening to an audiobook, perhaps, or keeping his ear pressed to the door.

  “This is a nice home,” said the woman suddenly, as though the silence was finally too much to bear. She glanced from him to the rest of the kitchen: cream-colored cabinets, sandstone floors and pale accents. Frederick had a woman come every day to cook for him and do the dishes. It had been that way since Clarissa died.

  “It has a lot of heart,” Lannes agreed, and added, “You can eat, you know. Sandwich, leftovers.”

  “Maybe later,” she said, but he knew she intended on bolting as soon as she was able. He had known she would try to escape when he left her alone in that room to dress, though he’d had little choice but to let her try. To do otherwise would have terrified her even more, made her feel like she was in a cage, captured. His own nightmare.

  His puzzle, too. He could still hear a single word, one small word, reverberating from her mind to his.

  Run.

  Lannes pushed back his chair and took his cup to the sink. Felt the woman watching him. Her intensity was unnerving, her eyes so piercing that he half-expected her to see through the illusion to his real face and start screaming. What he was doing, the risk he was taking…

  Frederick was right to question your actions, he thought, dragging a loaf of bread from the cabinet. This is not you.

  Not him. Not entirely. Before the witch had stolen and tortured him and his brothers, he had gone out into the world. He had…mingled, used magic to hide in plain view and had seen…wonders. He had glided through the Himalayas searching for Shangri-la. Perched atop Notre Dame under a full moon and composed lines of bad maudlin poetry. Trekked with amateurish delight through
Rome and Spain, apprenticing himself when he could to the old dying masters of the art of bookbinding. Touched the earth and skies of more places than he could count. And everywhere he had found awe and marvel and beauty—in nature, in people, in the things that people could create.

  He loved humans. That he feared and was sometimes disgusted by them as well did not lessen his appreciation. His brothers felt the same, as did their parents, though he knew quite well that many of the remaining clans, scattered in remote reaches of the world, would have preferred a little less humanity, less war and other human folly.

  “Are you a vegetarian?” Lannes asked, opening the refrigerator. He had bound his wings again, and the ache threatened to turn his mood even sourer.

  The woman said nothing. He glanced at her. She was staring at the open refrigerator with such confusion—even despair—that he felt instantly sorry he had asked.

  “No,” she finally said, slowly. “I don’t think I am.”

  It was the perfect opening—and Lannes almost took that moment to pin her down with his questions. He stopped himself, though. Remembered what it had felt like up in that room while she lay unconscious, as he touched her face—with his hands, with a washrag—enveloping her in his magic to make her sleep. Trying, as he did, to see into her mind.

  Not easy to do. The process never had been, for him. It required prolonged touching, skin-to-skin contact. He could cast an illusion, influence a body’s ability to heal—as he had done with the woman’s feet, so that she could walk. Little things here and there. But to reach into a mind was a different business, unsavory at best. This woman was his first attempt in years, and he would not have tried at all had he not been so concerned about her presence in Frederick’s home.

  But what he had seen—what he had not seen—troubled him more than it reassured.

  Run, he remembered, pulling leftover chicken and slices of cheddar from the refrigerator, along with bits of cucumber and onion. He got down a plate, careful of his strength, and made the woman a rough, sloppy sandwich that he hoped tasted better than it looked.

  He handed her the plate. She stared at it, then him.

  “Not poisoned,” he said.

  “Thanks,” she replied dryly, and then in a softer tone, “Really, thank you.”

  He shrugged, keenly aware that anything he might say—You’re welcome, not a problem, anytime—would sound trite, patronizing. Silence was safer. Lannes stepped back, pretending to busy himself with refilling the electric kettle. But he watched out of the corner of his eye as she gingerly picked up the sandwich and took a bite.

  Hunger flashed across her face. Her next bite was larger, faster.

  Lannes turned his back on her, his wings hot. His heart hot. He needed more tea. Anything to settle his nerves. He marveled that the woman could maintain such calm when he knew—he knew—what lay inside her.

  Confusion. Terror. Loss. Bigger than her body, bigger than the sky.

  He could still feel his hands upon her face, the softness of her skin. Her emotions, overwhelming him even though subconscious. And beyond her fear, something else. Blood. Smoke. Horror. Escaping down a black road, filled with a small voice whispering, Run, run, run.

  Then, nothing else. A hole. A void. So dark, so empty, it had frightened him into withdrawing. The woman was missing part of her mind.

  Stolen, not lost. Lannes could feel it. He knew the difference, had some experience with amnesia. On his travels, long ago, an old Tuscan man had suffered a minor blow to the head, lost a month of his life, an important month—a wedding, a dinner with a dying friend. Lannes had pretended to know something about medicine. Talked big, made claims about Asian reflexology that to this day still made him blush in shame. He had touched the old man, held his breath the entire time, hoping Alberto Guarnieri would not notice the difference between reality and illusion. Worth the risk, though. Alberto’s memories had still been there. Intact. Just…lost behind a wall. Sheltered. All it had taken was a minor trick to free his thoughts. Nothing but patience. Ten minutes of his time.

  This woman had none of that. No walls. No trace. This was not some dissociative fugue. It was as though her life had been erased entirely. No accident could have hurt her so badly. No blow to the head, or stroke.

  No, someone had ripped away her memories, excised them with breathtaking precision. And not just one or two memories, but a great many. Perhaps all, though he had no way to be certain. She might know her name, though he doubted it now. He was also quite certain those lost memories were gone for good. Not a trace of them remained. Not even an echo.

  The kettle began to whistle. Lannes shut it off. “More tea?”

  “No thanks,” she said, carefully standing and carrying her plate to the sink. Limping heavily. He wanted to tell the woman to stay off her feet, but she looked stubborn, and he stepped sideways in a subtle dance, trying to keep his distance. Frederick’s kitchen was large, but not big enough for a gargoyle attempting to keep a woman from brushing up against his wings.

  She gave him a curious look and turned on the faucet, dashed some liquid soap over the plate and began washing it. Lannes poured himself tea.

  “I’m sorry,” she suddenly said, glancing at him, the kitchen lights catching the gold in her hair like a halo. She was a beautiful woman, if a bit haggard. Lannes found himself leaning back against the counter merely to drink her in, and felt the base of the electric kettle burn his wing. He tried not to flinch.

  “Sorry?” he echoed, weakly. “For what?”

  She looked at him with a hint of dry humor. “Think about it for a minute.”

  Lannes shrugged. “You were desperate.”

  “I committed a crime. You don’t take someone into your home for that.”

  “Maybe I’m a Boy Scout. Delusions of Superman.” His favorite comic book character. Lannes had first begun reading the comic in the forties, along with everything else he could get his hands on. As a child, he had been dazzled with the idea of a man being able to fly—or at the very least, jump far. He had been swept in by the idea of a secret identity—glasses and a tie—transforming one of the most powerful men in the world into just another Joe Average. Hiding in plain sight.

  “I didn’t think Superman ever let anyone but Lois into his Fortress of Solitude,” mused the woman—then she stopped, frowning, and looked down at the sink.

  Lannes asked, “What is it?”

  She shook her head, fingers grazing her brow as though she hurt. “Nothing. Just…strange things pop into my head.”

  Strange things. Lannes wanted to touch her again. He needed to, if he was going to examine the cut inside her mind. That she could function, recite random facts…

  He turned away, busying himself with his tea. He was afraid to look at her. He had never been good at hiding his emotions, and what he felt—what had driven him out into the night to bring her back here—was more than he could name. But it felt like anger. Profound, terrible anger. Because he knew this. He knew what it was like to have his life stolen. To be trapped in a cage, just as this woman was trapped. Not by stone, but by circumstance. No money, no friends, no one to turn to. Violated, in ways that Lannes could not even begin to fathom.

  And the blood? The gun?

  He glanced over his shoulder and found the woman hobbling back to her stool. He moved past her, careful to keep his distance, and snagged the seat with one long arm. He placed it beside her so that she would not have to walk so far, and she gave him a tense, guarded nod of thanks.

  “There’s a bathroom upstairs,” he said. “Towels.”

  Her jaw tightened. “A lock on the door?”

  He was not offended. “Yes.”

  “Okay,” she said, her tension so raw he could taste it. Which was exactly his problem.

  He could feel the woman. Ever since he had entered her mind. Like a walnut lodged in the back of his brain, hard and unyielding. A strong presence. As though part of her had taken refuge with him when he pulled away from his examinatio
n of her memories. And no matter how hard he tried, he could not rid himself of her. Mentally, physically—it was all the same. Lannes was stuck with her. And she was stuck with him, whether she realized it or not.

  He had to find the person who had harmed her, and the only way to do that was to keep her around. Use her. Learn from her mind, if he could. He could not allow such a violation to stand unpunished or leave open the possibility of it happening again.

  And the woman…she needed help. He might not be able to explain the blood or the weapon, but he had seen enough. Felt enough. Until this was done, he would take care of her. One way or another. Even if it was just as a shadow at her back. He could track her now. That presence in his mind might as well have been a chain between them. He could follow her anywhere.

  “You’re staring at me,” she said, breaking him from his reverie.

  “Ditto,” he replied, trying to sound cool, unaffected. Feeling like an idiot. “I’ll see if I can find you some comfortable shoes. Slippers, maybe.”

  Her gaze remained steady. “I’m leaving in the morning.”

  Then we both are, he thought. “I’d appreciate you saying good-bye first.”

  A very faint smile touched her mouth. “You’ll try to talk me out of going, Boy Scout.”

  “Maybe,” he admitted, and backed away as she slid off the stool. “Think I might succeed?”

  “I hope not,” she said, and he told her where to find the bathroom.

  He went to Frederick’s workshop when he heard the water start. His friend had converted a bedroom and its adjoined study into an office that doubled as a place to indulge the craft Frederick’s father had taught him. Alex Brimley, master bookbinder: a man whose patrons had included royalty and the finest libraries and museums in the world, a clientele that had gone to Lannes after Alex’s death. Not to Frederick, who preferred scholarship, the written word, no matter the disappointment this had caused his father.

  But that was neither here nor there. Alex Brimley’s workshop still existed. Lovingly recreated from memory.

  Memories make us, Lannes thought, settling onto the large, steel-enforced stool that Frederick had bought specially for him. Memories are the bricks of our souls.