Chimera

Chapter 26

The trip to St. Louis was uneventful. I could see myself saying it. I could hear the words as if I had. The trip was uneventful. Uneventful.

Yeah, it would’ve been nice.

The bastard hit us from behind. It wasn’t Sevastian, soaked in blood, or Jericho looming dark and menacing against the white background of the blizzard. It was just some random son of a bitch who couldn’t drive. Maybe he’d forgotten to put on his snow tires or maybe he wasn’t paying attention. Six of one, a half dozen of the other—it all equaled a world of hurt for Michael and me.

The roads were covered in a thick slush growing more treacherous by the moment, but they were still passable. The streetlights had flickered on early as a combination of the storm and approaching dusk conspired to make the gloom midnight thick. It was one of those helpful streetlights that we hit head-on. The blow from behind was massive and the SUV leaped forward as if swatted by a huge paw. We slid into what felt like a never-ending spin, swapping the front of the car for the tail God knew how many times. There are things to do in that situation, I know, but given that I was from Florida, they weren’t exactly second nature to me. Tapping the brakes, turning into the curve, it all sounds good. But when you’re caught in a whirlwind of metal and glass, it’s not that easy. To give credit where credit is due, they might not have been meant for collision conditions.

Hitting the pole was almost a relief to the sickening motion. The airbag against my face muffled the crunch of metal and the wind-chime splintering of glass. There was the taste of chalky powder in my mouth and a faint burning of my skin, but that was overshadowed by the searing band—the seat belt—slanting diagonally across my chest. “Michael?”

Coughing at the talc, I shoved at the white material as it deflated. “Michael, you okay?”

He was fighting with his own airbag with panicky uncoordinated movements. “He’s here,” he choked. “He’s here.” Lunging at the door, he struggled with the handle. I stopped him with a hand on his arm, not that he would’ve gotten far with his seat belt fastened.

I’d already checked the rearview mirror to see the man who had hit us. He was a big, bearded lumberjack in a delivery truck. “No, Misha. No. It’s not Jericho. It was just an accident.”

He was still pushing at the door, and I moved my hand from his arm to his shoulder to give him a gentle shake. “Listen to me, kid,” I said firmly. “We were in a wreck. Somebody slid on the ice and hit us.”

It finally seemed to penetrate and he sagged under my hand. “An accident?”

I nodded. “Just a dumbass who rear-ended us. That’s all.”

Michael had been so calm and composed since his rescue, even when facing down Jericho in the parking lot where I’d been shot, that I was momentarily surprised by his distress now. But the sudden shock of the collision had shaken me, and it was bound to have disoriented him. Then I saw the trickle of crimson winding its way down his face and it was all the more clear. Swiping my thumb across the welling of blood in his right temple, I revealed an inch and a half laceration. He must have struck his head on the side window when we hit. The new tightening in my chest had nothing to do with the pressure from my seat belt.

Michael blinked at his blood on my hand and exhaled a steadying breath. “Oh.” He rubbed at his forehead with the back of his hand, wiping blood away. “It’s okay. I’m a fast healer, remember?”

Who was reassuring whom here?

“You guys okay?” A cold reddened face appeared at our demolished windshield. A thick brown beard bristled around a mouth chapped by the elements and large gloved hands were clapped for warmth. “Goddamn, I’m sorry. The truck got away from me. Frickin’ weather.”

Pulling the sleeve of my shirt over the heel of my hand, I carefully mopped at Michael’s still sluggishly bleeding cut. His pupils were equal. There was no bloody discharge from his nose or ears. Those were all good signs. All those overwrought medical shows on TV said so. “We’re fine,” I said brusquely. “Now go away.”

Suffering patiently under my makeshift first aid efforts, Michael allowed his eyes to meet mine. He knew as well as I that we were in trouble—big trouble.

“Fine? The boy’s bleeding.” The man pulled a cell phone out of his pocket and started punching buttons. “I’m calling 911.”

An ambulance and police—that was everything we didn’t need. I was in a stolen rental car with a kid I couldn’t prove was related to me, and I still had no idea of the extent of Jericho’s connections with the government. The scrutiny of the authorities, no matter how casual, was something we couldn’t afford. Grabbing a rumpled and worn shirt from the backseat, I folded it, put it in Michael’s grip, and manipulated his hand to the cut. “Hold pressure there, okay? I’ll be right back.”

I undid my seat belt and opened the door to climb out. My legs felt oddly anesthetized, as if I were walking on unbending lengths of wood. My dismal expectations were fulfilled. The SUV was totaled. It wasn’t moving another inch, much less carrying us away before the police arrived. Big trouble had transmuted into catastrophe.

While I was taking stock, Paul Bunyan had just gotten through to the operator to report the wreck. Instantly I swatted the phone out of his hand and wasted no time in kicking it out of sight into a distant pile of snow. He gaped at me, his breath puffing white clouds in the air between us. “What the hell did you do that for?”

I ignored him and turned to examine his truck. It seemed fine except for a bent grille and a few dents, but then I saw the right tire was deflated. The crumpled fender had punctured it. Things just kept getting better and better. Around us the street was empty. Since we’d left the mall the storm had only gotten worse. Not many people were risking the roads. Swearing, I moved back to the car. I leaned in and said regretfully, “Misha, I’m sorry, but we have to go.” Our transportation was trashed and Bunyan’s truck wasn’t any more mobile.

With the wad of cloth still pressed to his head, he gazed past me out into the curtain of snow and sighed. “Seems about right.” He was pale but had returned to his familiar collected self, the confusion having cleared. Whether it was his accelerated healing or pure force of will, I didn’t know. Knowing Michael, it was a combination of the two, with a heavy emphasis on will.

“Put on your new coat. I’ll get all our bags.” All that I could carry.

“I said, what the hell are you doing?” A meaty hand fastened on my shoulder and spun me around. “That kid is hurt. You’re not taking him anywhere.”

When you needed one, Good Samaritans were nonexistent, a myth. But try to flee a hit-and-run from the victim end and you were tripping all over them. “Look, pal.” I peeled his hand from my shoulder. “I know you’re trying to do the right thing, and that’s great. But this isn’t your business.”

“When you drag a hurt kid off into a blizzard, I make it my business.” The scowl was full of righteous anger and his fists were clenched at his sides. He was a good man trying to do the right thing; it wasn’t his fault it happened to be at the worst possible time.

“I don’t want to hurt you,” I offered sincerely. I expected the comment to be in vain, and it was. The guy was nearly four inches taller than I was and had at least sixty pounds on me. He wasn’t threatened by me in the slightest, and it showed.

“Buddy, the hurt that’s going down is going to be all over you. Now get away from the car and the kid, you hear me?” The fists were coming up now, and I didn’t wait to see if he would have second thoughts. A true Good Samaritan rarely did. Truth, justice, and the American way—for them it wasn’t only a comic book code; it was a way of life. It was admirable, courageous, and inconvenient as shit.

I laid out Mr. Admirable with a quick blow to his spreading gut and a hard clip behind his ear. It was easy. A Good Samaritan didn’t stand a chance with a professional bad guy. He went down instantly, an over-the-hill Goliath toppled by a highly disreputable David. The snow and slush cushioned his fall and I quickly turned him over to keep his airway unblocked. He wasn’t unconscious, only profoundly dazed. He’d come to in a few minutes, long before he became hypothermic. By then we’d be on our way; desperate and directionless but on our way. “Sorry,” I murmured, stripping off his thick wool scarf and shoving it under his head. “The boy will be all right. I promise.” I doubted he heard me, but then again, wasn’t I really saying it more for my sake than his?

“Stefan?”

Michael’s voice drifted to me through the hush. “Coming.”

He was wrapped in his new coat, the price tag still attached to the sleeve. It was a dark blue ski jacket with a hood that framed his face. The cut on his head, although angry and red, had stopped bleeding and once again I was grateful for the unusual healing speed of the chimera. “Here.”

He was holding out another coat in my direction as well as a ski jacket—the one he’d been teasing me about over Chinese food. His threats weren’t idle. It was purple, the same purple, in fact, of his hideous shirt. The precise color I’d hoped not to see again and I was going to be wearing it for a while. “What a pal,” I snorted as I slipped it on and zipped it up. “Did you happen to get me matching gloves?”

“They’re in the pockets.” His eyes brightened despite the line of pain creasing his forehead.

A wonderful thing, revenge . . . when you’re not on the receiving end of it. Tossing pride and masculinity to the winds, I put them on and gathered everything I could carry from the backseat of the SUV. I had to leave the books, food, and most of the clothes, but everything else fit in my duffel bag. “You have the rat?”

He patted the front of his coat. “I have him, but he’s not happy.”

The weasel could join the crowd. Our circumstances didn’t have me jumping for joy either. I slung the strap of the bag over my shoulder, moved up the street away from the cars, and scanned the area around us. We were in an industrial area with warehouses, chain-link fences, and empty lots. Everyone had left early trying to beat the weather; the parking lots were deserted. It’s an often-overlooked yet basic fact of the car theft business: It’s hard to steal what isn’t there. I didn’t see any alternative; we were in for a walk.

“We have to get moving, kid. You up for it?”

Barely ten feet away from me, he was nearly lost to sight behind a veil of white, but I saw his nod. He joined me with head down against the gusting wind. As he reached my side, I saw he had a bag from the mall in his hand. “Misha.” I shook my head, hating to deliver more bad news. “You’ll have to leave it. We have to move fast and you’re already hurt.”

He gave an obstinate thrust of his jaw. “No. I can handle it. It doesn’t weigh much.”

True, it was only clothes. It couldn’t weigh more than five pounds. But trek a mile or so through knee-deep snow in whiteout conditions and those five pounds would soon feel like fifty. On the other hand, I all too easily saw that pile of mall trash through his eyes. Aside from the ferret, it was the first thing he’d bought just for himself. It was the first step on a road that led to independence, something he hadn’t dared imagine for himself back in the Institute. And now I wanted him to throw proof of that treasured step aside. Michael had lost so much in his life. Damned if I wanted to add one more thing to that list, no matter how much of a burden it was at the moment.

“Goddamn, you’re stubborn.” I snatched the bag from his hand and scowled at his knowing expression, wise beyond his years. When it came to Michael, I had sucker written all over me. In a few years, if we survived, I’d undoubtedly be signing over everything I owned to the kid with a glazed and sappy look in my eye. “I’ll take Einstein and Freud. You just concentrate on staying upright. Now come on.” I took a step, then looked over my shoulder and ordered seriously, “Hang on to me. I don’t want to lose you in this. Popsicles don’t make good brothers.”

His hand fastened on to the back of my coat. “You won’t lose me.”

There was a promise I intended to hold him to.

We’d taken only a few steps when I heard the faint groan and bellow of our Good Samaritan coming around. I increased my speed while monitoring the tension of Michael’s hold on me. Within seconds we were out of sight in the whiteout conditions. Safe from discovery from Bunyan or any cops that would soon arrive, I concentrated on slogging through the snow. Murderous colleagues aside, I missed Miami. I missed the sun. I missed the warm air. Here there was only what felt like the next ice age. It abraded skin and numbed face and limbs.

I followed the walls of the looming buildings when I could. They shielded us to a certain extent, but not enough. We had coats and gloves, but we were still in jeans. The snow pushed its way up my pant legs to pack tightly against my skin, and sneakers did nothing to keep my feet from aching fiercely before losing feeling altogether. We kept moving for nearly thirty minutes before the district began to change from industrial to residential.

“You still kicking, kiddo?” Michael’s grip on my jacket hadn’t wavered, but the weight of it had increased. I’d slowed accordingly, as much as I could, but taking a break had been out of the question. The weather had deteriorated rapidly. The snow was falling harder than a warm-blooded creature like me thought possible; it was knee-deep and drifting dramatically in the fierce wind. Boston seemed determined to give the Antarctic a run for its money.

“Walking is hard enough.” He sounded winded. “Kicking . . . out of . . . the question.”

I looked back at him to see his face drawn with cold but resolute. He was shorter than I by a few inches and was having a more difficult time. What was knee-deep for me was almost thigh high on him. I stopped walking and turned to face him. “Seriously, Misha, you okay?” I lifted his hood an inch or two to see that his cut had scabbed over. It was like time-lapse photography; I could practically see the healing taking place.

“I’m fine. Just tired.” He made an aggrieved face. “And cold. It was never cold at the Institute.” He was waxing nostalgic for his prison; that couldn’t be a positive sign.

“Yeah, I hear that place was like a Caribbean resort.” I pulled his hood back into place and hefted the plastic bag with a leaden grip. “Buck up. We’re almost there.”

“Almost where?”

I shifted and pointed across the street at the nearest possibility, a house that huddled as an amorphous shape in the storm. The porch light twinkled dimly in the murk, hopefully advertising that no one was at home. “There.”

His hand latched on to the duffel strap across my back. “Why there?” He was trying so desperately not to lean against me that I made up my mind. The possibility was now a dead certainty. We had come as far as we could go. If we were lucky, the place would be empty. And if we weren’t lucky, it wasn’t as if it would be the first time that day. I would deal with it.

“Because it’s the closest.” I started across the street, keeping the pace slow and easy.

“With logic like that . . . how can we go wrong?” Breathing heavily, Michael plodded at my side, lacking the strength for the sarcasm that the statement deserved. I switched the bag to my other hand and grasped his arm with a supportive grip. I expected him to be mulish as always and protest that he didn’t need any help, but he didn’t. I was beginning to suspect his improved healing ability used up a considerable amount of energy when it was in full swing, as it was now. “If it’s the closest,” he murmured, stumbling a bit, “why doesn’t it feel that way?”

“Bitch. Bitch. Bitch,” I said with grimly determined cheer as I steadied him and kept us both moving. “I’m showing you a winter wonderland and this is the thanks I get.” Dropping my hand from his sleeve, I wrapped my arm around his shoulders and took the majority of his weight. “You liked it fine when we were building snowmen at the motel.”

“I’ve changed my mind.” He leaned heavily against me, his legs beginning to shake. “Snowmen suck.”

My lips curled despite our situation. Cursing, pornography, and obstinacy; under that shockingly mature façade the teenager just kept breaking out, bit by bit. “I guess maybe they do,” I said placatingly as we reached the front of the house. Two-storied and sprawling, it was separated from the others on the street by a large lot and a literal wall of trash. Old tires seemed to make the majority of the divider, but I was only guessing by the shapes under the snow. The house itself was old and in a better neighborhood would’ve been considered a historical treasure. Here it was one more pile of crap two or three years away from being condemned, razed, and replaced with a parking garage.

Warped and uneven, the ancient wood of the stoop was as rippled as the incoming tide. But it was somewhat protected from the icy onslaught by a shingled overhang. That left the surface clear enough that Michael breathed a sigh of relief to be on more or less solid ground. Knocking sharply on the door, I kept an eye on him as he rested against the wall of the house. “Don’t lean too hard,” I advised. “You might take the wall down.”

“There was a crooked house. . . .” His smile was equally as crooked as he began to regain his breath. “A lady was reading nursery rhymes to the children at that bookstore.”

“Clowns and nursery rhymes, the two creepiest memories of any childhood.” I knocked again in case some elderly person as decrepit as their house was meandering their slow way down from the top floor. When that didn’t happen, I stripped off my gloves, pulled out a card from the wallet I’d taken from Pavel before we’d left the mansion, and went to work. I wished I had something more high-tech than that asshole’s credit card.

The card, despite being maligned, did the job. A few jiggles had the old lock giving way with a rusty creak and then we were in. Closing the door behind us, I sneezed immediately. The dust was thick in the air—dust and something far worse for my sinuses. I sneezed three more times and didn’t have to rely on the winding motion around my ankles to identify the type of fur floating in the flickering lamplight. Cat.

“Ah, damn it.” I rubbed at my stinging nose with the back of my hand.

“What’s wrong?” Snow was sliding off Michael and melting into a puddle on the wood floor. There were so many other stains—cat urine from the smell—that I didn’t think we needed to worry about one more.

“I’m allergic to cats.” I carefully nudged away the one now gnawing at my shoe. It was gray with black stripes, a huge puffball of long hair, pumpkin orange eyes, and rampant feline dander. Another one, white with a lashing tail, sat at the bottom of the stairs curving up to the second floor. The third was yellow, hugely obese, and curled around the base of a lamp. The lamp sat on a table that rested against a wall covered with patterned paper. With roses, roses, and more roses under the yellow film of age, cats, and paper flowers, this place had old lady written all over it. I wondered where she was. Maybe she was staying with her kids until the storm blew over.

“You’re not much of an animal person, are you?” Michael pushed his hood back and bent over to give the tabby a pat on its head. “Nice kitty.”

Feeling another sneeze coming on, I buried the lower half of my face in the crook of my arm to muffle the wet explosion. “That nice kitty is suffocating me,” I said nasally before straightening. “Stay here. I’m going to check out the house and make sure we’re alone.”

I did a quick run-through of the place. Everything was old. The furniture, appliances, rugs—all dated to several decades before my birth. Even the quilts on the beds were faded and worn; the afghans raveled and covered with fuzz balls. It definitely belonged to an old lady. Two bedrooms, a bathroom with a claw-foot tub and cloudy mirror, and a sewing room made up the second floor. After a quick look around, I concentrated on scooping up two blankets, a quilt, and a pillow before heading back down the stairs.

Michael was sitting on the bottom step, leaning against the wall. He was fast asleep and he wasn’t alone. One of the cats had seized the opportunity to curl up in a convenient lap. Annoyed at the competition, Zilla had crawled out of the ski jacket and was currently racing up the banister. I let it go. If anyone was a match for three cats, it would be that damn ferret. “Misha.” I shook his shoulder lightly before shooing off the cat. “Come on.”

His eyes opened, just barely, and he allowed me to shepherd him to the couch in the living room. The cushions sagged from years and years of use, but he didn’t seem to mind as he dropped onto it. He could’ve used one of the beds upstairs, but if we had to make a sudden getaway, being on the ground floor would be best. As Michael slithered out of his jacket and with clumsy fingers worked on removing his gloves, I helped him with his shoes. The laces were too encrusted with ice and snow to untie and I didn’t even try, simply pulling them off. The socks went too, a sodden pile on the rug. “All right, kiddo. Down you go.”

He obeyed without argument, showing me how exhausted he truly was. Michael had shown that he wasn’t one to let me fuss over him, at least not without some self-deprecating or distancing remark. But now . . . he was like a tired five-year-old, obedient and docile. It brought back memories. God, did it. Lukas had been able to sleep anytime, anywhere. There had been many times I’d hauled him from an unconscious heap on the floor to lift him into his bed without waking him. His name had changed, but inside he was still Lukas. It was like they said. The more things change, the more they stay the same.

In the here and now I slid the pillow under his head and piled on the blankets. “Sleep for a few hours. I’ll keep an eye out.” His eyes closed, but his mouth twisted downward. A hand slipped out of the blankets to move his thumb back and forth across the rough texture of the worn cotton in a self-soothing motion. It wasn’t sleep. It wasn’t even a good imitation. I thumped his chin lightly with a finger. “I said sleep, not mope.”

With eyes still closed and a voice thick with a fatigue he couldn’t completely fight, he said softly, “I told myself I couldn’t get attached.”

Confused, I eased from a crouch to a sitting position on the floor. “Misha . . .”

He ignored me. “After John . . . I couldn’t do it. Wouldn’t. People go away; they die. I knew . . . know better than to get attached to anyone.” There was anger underscoring the words, anger and resignation. “Why did you make me?”

Ah. Damn. The kid could make me happy as hell and rip me up inside all in one fell swoop. Trust was a ridiculously hard step for even the well-adjusted. For the rest of us walking wounded, it was nearly impossible. But Michael had already demonstrated that impossible wasn’t a word that applied to him. That didn’t make the wonder any less for me. He was coming to accept me, to trust me. And because of that, he now was also terrified of me. The one person he remembered relying on had left him . . . had died. It was one thing to be deserted by someone you cared for; it was a completely different circle of Hell to be abandoned by your family . . . by your brother.

“I’m your family, Michael. I won’t leave you,” I promised. “And I won’t die. Not until I’m knee-deep in dentures and adult diapers.”

“You can’t know that.” His eyes opened, and the challenge in them was clear.

“No?” I rested my shoulder against the couch. “I knew I’d find you, didn’t I? I know lots of things. I knew you’d get me a god-awful ugly coat. Hell, I’m practically psychic.”

He gave a disbelieving snort, pulled the blanket back over his shoulder, and rolled over to present his back to me, physically. It was too late to accomplish the same emotionally. I rearranged the blankets over his shoulder and received a brisk smack of my hand for my troubles. Sighing, I sat back and took my own jacket and shoes off. As I worked, I said firmly, “I moved Heaven and Earth to find you, Misha, and I’m not giving you up. If I have to live forever to prove that to you, so be it. If Dick Clark can do it, so can I.”

Under the quilt his shoulders relaxed. It was probably from an approaching sleep that couldn’t be denied, but I took it as a positive sign nonetheless. I stood and looked down at him. “A couple of years and you’ll be sick of the sight of me. You’ll change the locks while I’m at the store. I’ll be homeless.”

He didn’t hear me. Breaths deep and even ruffled the threads of the fraying patchwork cloth by his mouth. With the lightest of touches I brushed his hair aside. The wound was half healed. By morning the skin of his forehead would be smooth and untouched. It made me wonder. I’d made the sincere if unrealistic promise to stick around until the end of time, but how long would he live? Would he age at the same rate as your average human or would the ravages of time be wiped away by Jericho’s genetic tampering? For that matter, if he had children, would he pass on to them his heritage? Would they be like Michael?

Questions for another time, I thought, as the yellow cat appeared to wind around my ankles. This time was spent on more important things . . . such as watching over my brother as he slept.

And sneezing.