None of that helped him now. The unclean were on the hunt. They would swarm this place as soon as they discovered it, and with no Eyrie within range…when had the closest one been shuttered?
Michael hadn’t known. Hadn’t checked, either, since there was no reason to. He hadn’t had a call from another of the Legion in easily three decades, probably longer.
“You don’t have to worry,” he said, aware it was almost a lie. Still, he was worried enough for both of them. “I know what to do, lumina. Don’t fight me.”
She did, but in the end it made no difference.
Nothing to Say
Rain splattered the windshield, the freeway was stop and go, and Jenna’s skin crawled. What was even worse was the pressure weighing down her arms and legs, threatening to black her out if she struggled too hard. It was like swimming in deep mud, and the drying, sugar-sticky grit all over her didn’t help.
The cook stared at the road before them, his lips a thin line. In profile, he was barely handsome, the lines and angles too severe; muscle swelled under his torn shirt. He hadn’t even bothered to pack, just hustled her to the truck after he’d crushed his computer. He’d held the door for her, solicitously lifted her in when she tried to avoid it, even buckled her seat belt—and plucked her cell phone from her skirt pocket.
They can track this, he’d said, and folded the biggest expense of her current life into his big, scarred, callused fist. A flexing, his forearm swelling with corded muscle, and more noxious plastic-burning smoke rose from his hand. He dropped the resultant mess in the middle of his huge, echoing garage with its bright red tool chests and giant hoist like a giant insect rearing to strike, and there went her phone. There went her entire life. She had only her purse and her work uniform, and the latter was beginning to stink bigtime.
Nothing reeked like terror. Flat, metallic, creeping out of her pores in tiny, hateful drops—oh, she was stewing in the stuff, and had been for years.
“I’m sorry about that,” Mike said for the fifth time, watching bright crimson taillights like he suspected they were about to start some mischief. “I didn’t mean to scare you. We just can’t be tracked.”
From outside, they looked like an ordinary couple looking mistrustfully a screen of winter rain turning to sleet, maybe even a pair of carpooling coworkers. Just like every time she sat in Eddie’s Camaro, her hands folded in her lap and her throat dry, listening to him calmly, pleasantly tell her that he was going to fuck her up when they got home if she wasn’t careful.
Be careful, Eddie always said. Stay on the straight and narrow, honey.
Oh, how she’d tried.
“We’ll stop in the next town big enough to provide cover.” Mike leaned forward, hands easy on the wheel but his blue eyes narrowing, and a space opened up in the left-hand lane. He nosed forward, and another space magically appeared on the right. Somehow those spaces kept appearing, and though the rest of the freeway was in ruby-eyed gridlock, the truck crept forward at an idle.
Jen shut her eyes. The darkness behind her lids wasn’t comforting; she opened them again. Even the inside of the Dodge’s cab looked like it was wavering under pressure, or maybe it was just that her eyes kept filling with hot water. Tiny trickles laced her cheeks, cutting through crusted ick.
Bob. Sarah. All the customers, people whose only crime was the bad luck of choosing Jenna’s diner to grab a quick bite in. She was a curse, she couldn’t help it, and now more people were dead.
“Get you a shower, some food.” Another space opened up, and Mike exhaled softly. The invisible wavering inside the cab grew more pronounced. “I apologize, lumina. I should have moved the moment I found you.”
Found me? Even her brain was mud-swimming, maybe she was just as stupid as Eddie had always averred. “You just got hired,” she said carefully, spacing the words out so they didn’t slur. The draining lassitude retreated if she didn’t fight. If she just sat quietly, it was even kind of pleasant. “But you didn’t have to work there. Right?”
“I was looking for something to keep me occupied.” Maybe he didn’t mean it to sound so dismissive. “I didn’t know…well, it’s been a while. I’ve never run across an Incorruptible on my own before.”
“In…corruptible?” If she concentrated, she could lift her arm. Maybe she could even get the truck door unlocked before he noticed, but she wasn’t betting on it.
“It means—”
Dozy irritation sharpened inside her ribcage. “I speak English, Michael.” I even majored in it, after premed. Then she almost flinched—it wasn’t wise to piss off a guy who could crush a cell phone in his bare hand.
It wasn’t wise at all.
“Yes. Uh.” He coughed slightly, and another space opened up. The truck began to roll a little faster. “The unclean can’t infect you, you bear a piece of the Principle.”
“The whatsis-now?” If she concentrated on one thing at a time, she might even get through this.
Assuming there was an end to it. Assuming there would ever be an end to the violence swallowing her adult life. Maybe it started with the accident—the burning car, the sickly-sweet odor of roasting—or maybe it had started before, when Dad got sick. Damn coffin-nails, he’d said with a pained, terrified grin, and he hadn’t bothered to stop smoking.
He’d probably wondered what the point was. Diagnosis didn’t mean dead, but good luck getting Alan Delacroix to quit puffing on something so slender as a chance of survival.
“Strange things happen around you.” Mike glanced at her, blue eyes dark. “They’ve happened all your life.”
Jenna flinched. Was he reading her mind? Be careful, her mother’s voice whispered in memory. If anyone suspects… Mom never quite said what, but then again, she didn’t have to
“Life is strange,” Jenna said cautiously. “I’m just an ordinary person, that’s all.” Super normal. Nothing to see here, just move along.
“Sure.” Amazingly, the cook smiled, a tight curve of thin lips. His chin was too strong and his cheekbones too high, and his mouth hadn’t relaxed since the world had veered off course and cola syrup sprayed everywhere. In the failing light he looked almost ugly. “Keep telling yourself that.”
“You’re crazy,” she whispered. Her hands knotted against each other, sticky and sweating. “I won’t tell anyone, I promise. Just let me go.”
“Let’s say I took the tacium off and you managed to elude me.” The truck hung between two lanes for a brief moment, working its way to the far left. “And somehow you managed to get home with every diaboli in the city looking for you. They would be waiting for you, lumina. They won’t just kill you, they’ll try to rip the Principle from your flesh.”
“Principal?” She had a mad internal vision of the petty ruler of her high school, florid-faced and football-crazed, waving his scarf at a pep rally. “I’m a waitress.” She had finished college, but she’d never picked up the graduation paperwork. After Mom was dead, what was the point? Switching from premed to a literature degree had been yet another bad decision.
One among many.
“The Principle moves the world,” he said, like he was quoting. “It is order, it is beauty, it is light.”
“Wait. Back up.” She took a deep breath, wishing she could roll her window down. Acceleration pushed her back into the bench seat. It was strange, traffic between the bridges and the curves on the uphill going west was usually a solid mass until well after seven, but great clumps were breaking free and rising, jewels of light against sodden cinder-gray. “Those things. In the diner. What…Jesus. What were they?” How can you see them too?
“Diaboli. The unclean.” His fingers tightened on the wheel, scarred knuckles whitening, and Jenna’s mouth turned dry. She could imagine the damage those big, capable hands could do. “They fear the Incorruptible, but what they truly hate is the Legion.” He touched the accelerator, backed off a bit, and the truck slid through another sudden hole in traffic. “That’s me.”
Which told her al
most nothing. “Okay.” If she’d hallucinated, he had too, which was faint comfort. Jen decided to switch directions. “You’re a legion?” It sounded faintly biblical, but Mom had never sent Jenna to Sunday school.
“A legionnaire.” Mike’s tone said he expected that to clarify matters.
Oh, for heaven’s sake. “You don’t look French.”
“I was, for a few years.” Eddie would have told her not to get cute, but Mike merely gave another pained half-smile. He didn’t reek of fear, just of hot oil and sugar, with the faint rasping undertone of adult male adrenaline. “We like the military. Structure. A job.”
“Your job isn’t kidnapping strangers?” She couldn’t help herself. Waving, rain-soaked shadows cast by moving headlights slid over her dirty skirt, touched her knees.
“I’ve extracted you.” How could such a big lump of male sound so… so pedantic? “I’m here to protect you, too. If I hadn’t been there, what do you think would have happened?”
Oh, she could imagine. She’d been seeing it in her nightmares for a long time. “I was doing just fine before you came along,” she muttered, dropping her gaze to her lap.
“Were you?” He didn’t sound sarcastic, just curious.
Oh, God. “No,” she said, bleakly. There was no reason to keep lying, to him or to herself. At least it didn’t seem like he got pissed off easily. “At least I’m pretty sure Eddie won’t find me now.”
“After we get to the Eyrie, we can send someone to track him down.” He eased the truck to the right again, into another magically opening space. “If you want.”
That sounded incredibly unappealing. Why on earth would she want anything else to do with Eddie, for God’s sake? “And do what?” Jenna tried closing her eyes again, but they flew open when the Dodge lurched. It had a good suspension, but they were beginning to speed up.
“Whatever you want.” He leaned forward a little more, windshield wipers marking time between the words. “Looks like it’s clearing up. I know I haven’t been exactly reassuring. But you’re safe with me, and as soon as we get to the Eyrie you’ll understand.”
“I want to go home.” She sounded like a querulous, overtired child, even to herself.
“That’s not an option.” Gently, almost kindly. The truck leaned forward again, and each spin of the tires took her farther from her apartment. It also took her away from the mess of the SunnyTime, and she was grateful for that, at least. “You got any family, ma’am?”
If I did, don’t you think I would have said so by now? Jen stared out the window. Eddie would snarl at her—don’t ignore me, goddammit. It was a surefire way to provoke him, especially on a bad day—and hadn’t she wanted to, sometimes, if only to clear the air when the tension got too bad? Living on tenterhooks from one moment to the next, never sure when he was going to snap… sometimes Jenna just wanted it over with.
If this guy was going to, why not just get it over with, too?
On the other hand, he’d driven off those horrible things. Had hunched over her, a warm heavy shelter, while the world broke into pieces.
There was a strange relaxation in knowing the worst had happened and she was helpless in its grasp. Jenna leaned sideways as far as she could, resting her feverish temple against cold windowglass and watching the raindrops bead up, merge, vanish. Traffic was, indeed and bizarrely, clearing, and instead of crawling at an idle the truck was managing something akin to a slow jog.
Mike stopped talking. Maybe he knew there was nothing to say.
Dead Letters
Once they lifted out of the bowl near the river they made good time, and Jenna was sound asleep when they hit freeway speed. The tacium helped, no doubt, and unconsciousness was the best thing for soldiers after a battle. It provided a buffer, and let the body try to forget. Of course Incorruptibles weren’t precisely soldiers, but the basic principle remained.
At least, he hope it did.
Michael would be denied such release for a long while. A few days ago he’d been soul-numbingly bored; now he had too much to do. How could he have missed the closest Eyrie being shuttered? His bank accounts were filled from the common well punctually each month and the supply drops came like clockwork too. Someone had to know he was still operating in the region, right?
Or—and the cold trickle of dread down his spine intensified the more he considered it—maybe the Legion’s bureaucratic machinery had become electronic, and no officer or centurion was checking the rolls. Worst of all was the prospect that there were no officers or centurions to check, that the Legion was moribund and his stipend hadn’t failed because his needs were so modest.
He had forgotten some of his own personal investments over the years, too. They no doubt still existed in a ledger or two watched by no living eyes.
Dead letters. Wasn’t that the term?
Grace filled the truck cab, mouthing his dirty skin and ripped clothes. He shouldn’t have waited to extract her. What the hell had he been playing at? Mortality? Normalcy? Hoping Jenna would notice something unusual about him and approach, a thin, curious cat flinching at the slightest sound?
A centurion—let alone a higher officer—would find much to fault in Michael’s handling of the situation.
You let a lumina be attacked. Not only that, but you allowed your temper to frighten her. He’d be lucky to be posted to some remote location once she was safely delivered, barred from any grace at all, much less the raw honey-soft power radiating from the other side of the cab.
And that was another thing. He was sure now, she had the Breath. No wonder she was powerful—but how had she survived its triggering? It generally took a Celeres or a life-threatening incident to loose the deep slow wellspring magnifying the Principle within an Incorruptible. After it awakened, they were slightly more durable, though not nearly as much as even a grunt legionnaire.
The Principle made them Incorruptible, but it was the Breath that made miracles. Without proper care and nurturing, those miracles could burn the mortal frame from the inside, grace eating up its fragile vessel. She needed an entire Eyrie around her, a hard shell around a glowing pearl.
What she had was one stupid, muzzle-headed legionnaire who had all but waved her in front of the diaboli and then been caught unprepared. Flatfooted, as the saying went.
There was no shame in a fault as long as discipline was accepted. Obedience to the Principle was true, and skewing away from that path made for diaboli.
“I will do better,” he murmured. The wet road hissed underneath tires, icy pellets at the heart of sleet-drops stacking in patterns at the edge of wiper-range. He had time to redeem himself before they reached the Eyrie.
Hopefully. After all, she didn’t know any better. That was a thought unworthy of a legionnaire, but…
Michael set his jaw and glanced at the dashboard clock. In another hour or two, he would start looking for a reasonable place to spend the night.
He hadn’t been this far from his city in many a year, and it unnerved him. Not nearly as much as it unnerved her, though—his lumina woke when the truck’s engine halted and peered at a towering granite-sheathed stack of a hotel, rubbing at her eyes like a maiden in an illustrated fairytale.
Did mortal children still read such things? He didn’t know.
Jenna exhaled, shakily. “What the hell is that?” If she noticed the tacium had loosened its grip, she made no sign. Of course, she was calmer now, so its weight was a protection instead of sedation.
“Hotel.” Michael eyed the shining lobby visible through water-clear glass doors, bellhops and valets hurrying about other guests’ business with only a token glance at the truck. You couldn’t tell, anymore, who had money and who didn’t. Modernity had granted some small leeway; a rich man who traveled without ostentation might be simply eccentric instead of a miser. “Let me do the talking, all right?”
“Oh, sure,” she muttered. “Can’t have them knowing I’m kidnapped.” The tacium did not flare, since she made no attempt to struggle ag
ainst its grip. She did, however, dart him a small, mistrustful glance, clearly gauging his response.
“You’re not kidnapped.” Michael tried for a flat, informative tone. Of course she was upset, and tentative. It had been an upsetting day all the way around. He decided an encouraging smile would give her the wrong impression entirely, settling for a neutral expression and bare honesty. “I’m your protection. Consider me a bodyguard.”
“Yeah, okay.” She shook her head, reaching for her purse. “Sure. About ten years too late.”
“I’m sorry,” he repeated, dismally. It was all he could say. Michael popped the door, reaching for his wallet. Grace prickled and surged; a young carrot-haired man in a red-and-black valet uniform swallowed whatever he had intended to say. It wasn’t a true glamour, just a little illusion to cover exhaustion, stickiness, and torn clothing.
And, incidentally, to send the subtle signal that Michael and his charge were a couple on vacation who tipped well if the employees hustled. There was a certain patina to those who made a service worker’s time worthwhile, and Michael certainly had the resources to do so. Now would be a good time to start rectifying some of his mistakes by performing every expected duty with exemplary generosity.
“Sir.” The valet’s grin went from pained to wide in a single heartbeat as the illusion took hold. “Welcome to St. Armand’s.”
“Thank you.” Michael glanced at the other side, where a bellhop was greeting his lumina with cheerful obliviousness. Jenna clutched her purse to her chest and stared over the truck’s wide, sleet-speckled hood. Her eyes were huge, but the illusion turned her into a fashionably slim debutante in a brand-new greenish skirt and blazer. Illusion couldn’t cover up the awful color, but it made the fabric look good and the cut even better.
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