"Yes, sir," said Martin.
His mind switched gears, and he remembered another avenue of research he wanted to pursue.
Nicholas Crow had shown himself to be an adept in things of spirit that most people knew nothing about. That was why he"d had Crow a.s.sa.s.sinated.
He had done it to clear his way to meeting the President-and shaking the President"s hand was a goal that remained near and dear to his heart. Ironically, though, now that Crow was no longer an obstacle, he didn"t have time to orchestrate a way to meet the President and either turn him into a drone or take over his body. He would just have to conquer the Commander in Chief some other time.
But Crow still interested him, after the fact of his death. How had the man learned the things he had learned? And why had Crow chosen such a targeted career path that led him to head the Secret Service detail that protected the President? Who Crow was, the totality of the man, seemed so . . . specific.
Long ago, Astra had scattered her teachings throughout the First Nations, sowing knowledge of the spirit realm throughout all the peoples who migrated over continents and multiplied like rabbits. Ever since that time, he never knew when something might pop up to plague him.
Had Crow learned what he had known from one of his elders? Or was it just possible that Astra herself had a hand in teaching him?
"One more thing," he said. "I want you to dig into Nicholas Crow"s background."
At least there was one good thing about his drones. When he gave an order, they never asked why. They simply did as they were told.
Martin said, "Certainly. There will already be a couple of detailed dossiers of him on file. Not only did he have the highest level of security clearance, but his murder is getting an aggressive investigation. What level of information are you looking for?"
"I want to know everything," he said. "I want to know what Crow liked to eat for breakfast. I want to know where he was born, where he grew up, and where he went to school. I want to know who he f.u.c.ked when he was a teenager, and every lover he"s had since then. I want names of friends and family members, all the important people in his life, and where they live."
He had learned a long time ago to leave no stone unturned. As busy as he was these days, it still might be very productive to interrogate a few of the people from Crow"s life.
Martin said, "I"ll have my staff compile the available data, and I"ll get it to you as soon as possible."
"Excellent." It was a good start. If the information currently on file didn"t have enough detail to satisfy him, he would have Martin"s people dig further. "When are you coming to Michigan?"
"I"ll fly into Grand Rapids this evening."
"Contact me when you get here." He punched the disconnect b.u.t.ton.
That was when he looked down at his hands, really looked at them for the first time since the cabin, where Mary had killed his former host by inducing a heart attack and forced him to leap into the body of his nearest soldier drone. Even though he was in an entirely different body, just remembering the battle caused a phantom pain to ghost through his chest.
He ignored it and turned the hands over. They were broad and callused, with thick wrists and chunky finger joints. Wiry ginger hair coated the back of the hands and arms.
His lip curled as he inspected them. This was not at all the type of body he preferred to inhabit. He typically chose young, handsome hosts with well-toned bodies, and he had a particular preference for blue eyes. People responded so well to blue-eyed handsome young men.
There might be a certain brute strength sewn into this meat, but there was no style or elegance at all to it. Oh, look, there was even more of that awful wiry ginger s.h.i.t coating the backs of the fingers.
Dirt crusted the edge of the fingernails.
Surprise and revulsion held him frozen.
He had put that filthy thumbnail in his mouth. Actually his mouth was part of the new body attached to that filthy thumb. He ran the tongue over the teeth. They felt crusted and dirty.
The last of the floating high from the restaurant murders left him abruptly. He crashed and became completely aware of his connection to this disgusting flesh.
Growling, he threw the phone on the bed and stormed into the bathroom to confront his image in the mirror.
Muddy green eyes looked back at him out of a boxy face that had a lumpy nose shaped like a potato. It had clearly been broken at least once before. His host had a short buzz cut that did nothing to disguise the fact that his hairline was receding. He bared his teeth. They were prominent and yellow.
Ugly. Ugly. Ugly.
He punched the mirror. A starburst of cracks shot across the surface, destroying the reflection. Then he s.n.a.t.c.hed up toothbrush and toothpaste and brushed the body"s teeth furiously until the gums bled. When he had finally finished, he tore off all the clothes and showered in water so hot it made the body"s skin redden.
He ignored the discomfort, just as he ignored the pain from his-NOT HIS-the body"s cut and bleeding knuckles. He didn"t have any drones with him. He didn"t have the time to search for a suitable candidate to use as a replacement. He also couldn"t afford to expend any energy on migrating to yet another new host. For the moment he would have to suck it up and suffer some time in this monkey suit.
"I owe you for this one, cookie," he whispered to Mary.
He could add it to a very long list of grievances that was thousands of years old. To tell the truth, he just never got tired of being angry.
The old proverb had gotten it entirely wrong. Revenge was not a dish best served cold.
Revenge was a dish best served with all the pa.s.sion and ingenuity one could muster.
Chapter Four.
AS SOON AS Astra had appeared by the fountain, Mary realized she was dreaming. She knew that every word they spoke to each other was as real and true as if they physically stood in the same room together.
When they finished talking and Astra disappeared, she woke up.
Afternoon sun spilled into the car. Her nap had been much too short, and her body groaned with the acc.u.mulation of tiredness and the bruising. Her left shoulder felt especially stiff, the muscles aching, but the gunshot wound was really and truly healed. She poked at the area in wonder.
She caused that to happen. A smile broke across her face. She stripped off her bandage and put the flannel shirt on properly.
Then she turned to face Michael. The visual impact of him was a shock to the senses. He was a tough-looking, tall man, broad in the shoulders and chest with lean, toned muscle. His dark hair was too short to be tousled, but a new growth of beard dusted the hard planes and angles of his face and gave him a slightly disheveled appearance. He carried himself with a hard, bright soldier"s confidence, and his presence filled the interior of the car.
She wondered if the sense of shock came because they were still so new to each other, almost strangers, or if she would always feel it when she looked at him. She suspected she would always feel it. She had seen the tiger that lived in his skin.
He had slipped on a pair of sungla.s.ses and drove with one hand on the wheel, while he leaned his head against the other hand, his elbow propped against his door.
He looked haggard and remote, locked into some private world she couldn"t reach. There was an ashen tinge underneath his tan. She didn"t like the look of it.
"Okay," she said, her tone careful. "I"m better, and I"m ready to help."
"Good. I"ll pull over as soon as I can." He spoke tersely, his face hard and expressionless.
She frowned. She had a nickname for his capacity to shut off all emotions: Mister Enigmatic. For a short while, she had thought they had banished that part of him, but it looked like Mister Enigmatic was back and doing well. She reached out to him, intending to lay her hand on his arm.
"Don"t," he said, his tone abrupt. "Don"t touch me right now."
This was not the lover who had been in her bed last night, who had whispered to her so tenderly as he moved inside of her.
She recoiled and sat in hurt silence until he signaled ten minutes later and pulled into a rest stop. He pulled the Ford into a parking s.p.a.ce some distance from the other cars, killed the engine and dropped his head back against the seat. His body went lax, and he heaved a shuddering sigh.
Mary studied him. The difference between his earlier tension and this utter wretchedness worried her even more. Ignoring his earlier rebuff, she put a light hand on his shoulder and reached out with her senses.
Pain and exhaustion buffeted her through the tactile contact. She sucked in a breath.
"Well, s.h.i.t," she said. He had stayed in a clench just to keep driving, while she was preoccupied with immature hurt feelings. She tugged at him, but he was so big and heavy, she couldn"t budge him. "Come here."
He half-leaned, half-fell toward her. She removed his sungla.s.ses, tucked his head onto her shoulder and held him tight. He put his face in her neck. "Get into the driver"s seat," he muttered. "We need to keep driving north. Let me know when we reach Petoskey."
Anger flared, quick and hot. "I"m going to help you first. You need to be healed."
He slid into telepathy, the contact thin and minimal. I don"t have the energy to argue with you. We"ve got to keep moving.
"Shut up," she said between her teeth. He reminded her of an abused animal that didn"t expect or ask for help, because it had no concept of gentler things like compa.s.sion or tenderness. She felt the urge to slap somebody. Instead she stroked his short, black hair. "I know very well that we"ve got to keep moving. I will get us on the road in a minute."
Someone tapped on her window.
She startled and twisted. A middle-aged woman peered into the car, her expression concerned. A man stood waiting nearby, holding a dog on a leash. Mary rolled her window down partway and raised her eyebrows in inquiry.
"Excuse me." The woman spoke in a pleasant soft Virginian accent. "My husband and I were just walking our dog, and I couldn"t help but notice-are you two all right?"
Michael had barely stirred at the intrusion. It was a measure of how depleted he had become. Mary could sense he had slipped into a half-conscious state. Her mind raced as she thought through their options.
"No," she said. "We"re not. He"s sick and I don"t want to leave him. Would you mind doing us a favor?"
"Why sure, sugar," said the woman. "We have a cell phone. Do you need us to call 911?"
She shook her head, her thoughts strangled with uncertainty. Should she say she was a doctor? No, that seemed too distinctive, although the situation itself was already distinctive enough that they would already stick out in the woman"s mind.
It was too late to fret about any of it now. She said, "Thank you, but I can drive him somewhere quicker than an ambulance could get here. I need you to do something else, please, if you would."
The woman didn"t hesitate. "How can I help?"
Mary slid one hand along Michael"s wide-muscled back to the pocket of his jeans, located the bulge of his wallet and pulled it out. A quick, discreet peek at the contents revealed several thousand dollars in large bills, and around fifty-five dollars in smaller denominations. She pulled out a twenty and a ten, and handed the money to the woman.
"I don"t want to leave him. Would you mind going inside and buying all the Gatorade and bottled water you can? I hope there"s a way to get change. When we pulled in, I didn"t notice if this rest stop has a snack shop or just vending machines."
"Gatorade and bottled water." The woman"s hand curled around the money but her voice had become uncertain.
It was clear the woman thought she was acting oddly. Mary didn"t blame her. She glanced at Michael lying slack in her arms. h.e.l.l, the whole thing looked odd.
She tried to look as sincere as she could. "We thought his fever had broken and it would be okay to keep traveling until we got to our hotel. Now it has spiked again, and I think part of the problem is that he"s gotten dehydrated. It may take me at least a half hour to find an urgent-care clinic. I want to get some liquids into him right away before I leave. If you don"t mind."
"Of course I don"t mind," said the woman, her uncertainty vanishing. "Do you have aspirin or Tylenol, or do you want me to see if I can buy any of those little travel packets?"
In spite of her worry, Mary smiled at the other woman"s kindness. "I have a bottle of Tylenol in my purse."
"I"ll be right back," the woman promised.
Mary watched her approach her husband, say something to him and hurry toward the nearby building. She shook her head. Her improvised explanation still seemed flimsy to her. She hoped the other woman didn"t think too hard about it.
"This has got to be the road trip from h.e.l.l," she muttered.
Feeling a surge of protectiveness, she cradled Michael"s big, heavy body close. She rested her cheek on top of his head and sank her awareness into him. He was still bleeding sluggishly from a couple of the more serious wounds. He had a nasty bone-deep gouge in his thigh.
The Deceiver had attacked them on more than one front, not only with a troop of well-trained fighters but also with hundreds of dark spirits in the psychic realm. When Michael had taken physical wounds in the fight, the dark spirits had swarmed over him. They took advantage of the opportunity his injuries gave and drained him of energy.
The damage he had taken from the swarm seemed fairly shallow. Her main concern with those wounds was there were so many of them. To her mind"s eye, they looked like dozens of claw marks. What disturbed her most were the almost imperceptible shadows that ran like fractures through his energy. Normally his spirit had an indomitable quality, a sense of boundless strength, but now there was something vulnerable, almost breakable about him.
Fresh from the lessons she had learned from healing her own body, she found it was the work of a few minutes to stop his bleeding, enhance his body"s own natural pain inhibitors and pour a lavish amount of her own energy into him.
She was spending strength she could ill afford to spare from her own overtaxed resources, but they were stronger when they could work together as a team. She didn"t know where they should go after they reached Petoskey, and Michael wouldn"t be able to tell her if he was unconscious. Besides, he had scared her when he had leaned over and collapsed. She hadn"t yet had a chance to recover from the last time he had scared her, when the Deceiver had taken him.
It was hard to leave healing him unfinished, but she did. She concentrated on cradling him close for a few more stolen moments. This might be all the reaction time she got after their recent brush with destruction, so she would have to make the most of it. She rubbed her face against his soft, short, dark hair until the woman approached with her arms full of Gatorade and bottled water.
"There was a snack shop, so I was able to buy plenty," the woman said.
"You are an angel," Mary told her. The woman handed cold bottles to her through the window. There were eight twenty-ounce bottles, three of them water. Pleased they had so much of the sports drink, Mary set the bottles on the pa.s.senger floor.
"Here"s your change."
Mary shook her head even as she opened a bottle of Gatorade. Distracted, she said, "Please keep it."
"I can"t keep your money, sugar." The woman held her hand insistently through the window.
Mary looked up, her attention caught by the woman"s genuine distress. She glanced around their shabby, cluttered car, then back at the woman, noticing the woman"s expensive clothes and carefully tended appearance. She gave the woman a crooked smile and held out her hand for the money. "Thank you for everything."
The woman lingered. "My husband thinks your best bet for finding an urgent-care clinic is to go back to Cadillac. You remember pa.s.sing through? It"s just fifteen minutes south on the highway."
"Yes," Mary lied. "I was thinking of Cadillac too."
The woman glanced at Michael. "Well, my name is Charlotte. My husband, Jim, and I will be over by the picnic tables for another half an hour if you need any more help."
"I"m grateful for what you did," Mary said. "There isn"t anything more we need. I"m just going to get some Gatorade down him before we leave. Thank you again."
"You"re welcome. G.o.d bless."
Mary"s eyes flooded with sudden dampness. She blinked them back as she watched Charlotte and her husband walk away. She had been so braced in survival mode, so busy dealing with one horror after another, that the simple kindness of a pa.s.sing stranger almost broke her composure. Then she thought of Michael suffering without complaint, rejecting her overture until the car had stopped, and she wanted to yell or hit something.
"Okay, Michael," she said gently. His heavy unconsciousness had eased into sleep. Even though she hated to disturb him she gave his shoulder a brisk shake. "Wake up. I"m not going to start driving until you get some of this Gatorade down. If you want me to drive, you"ve got to wake up and drink this."
She felt his awareness surface before he stirred. "How long have we been stationary?" His voice was slurred.
"Only for about ten minutes." Helpless to resist, she gave in to impulse and pressed a kiss to the hairline at his temple.
He lay sideways against her. He pa.s.sed his free arm around her waist and pulled her against him, the muscles of his bicep rigid as he held her tight. "You were supposed to keep going."