Out of Nowhere (The Immortal Vagabond Healer Book 1) (29 page)

I rolled over. ‘I’m sure most are. I used to think all of them were. That I was some unique freak. But I guess there’s no reason there can’t be more people like me, living in secret. I’ve done a good job staying out of the spotlight, maybe others have too.’

She thought for a while. ‘It makes sense when you think about it. I just never bothered to think about it before.’

‘No reason you should have. There’re lots of rumors and myths and scams. I automatically dismiss faith healing as bullshit, and I can actually do it.’ I paused for a long moment. ‘There’s been a time or two that people tried to burn me as a witch. Because I did things they couldn’t explain. Lots of people did get burned, or hanged, and most were probably accused out of jealousy or revenge, but maybe some of them really did have special abilities.’

‘More things in heaven and earth, Horatio.’

‘Exactly. Lots of stories came out of Hungary and Romania where Doors and his merry band come from. Old gypsy legends, dark, scary tales.’

‘You think the legends began with… with people like you and Doors?’

‘I don’t see why not.’

‘Maybe you had brothers and sisters,’ she said. ‘Maybe you still do.’

That made me sit up and think. ‘How about someone like Harry Houdini, or Rasputin?’ she asked.

‘The Mad Monk?’

‘Sure,’ she said. ‘Think about it. He was the only one who could stop the Czarevich’s bleeding. You could probably do that.’

‘I probably could.’

‘And when they tried to kill him, they, what? Poisoned and strangled and stabbed and shot him and then drowned him to finish him off, right?’

‘That’s the story.’

‘Well, maybe he was your cousin.’

‘I think I was happier five minutes ago when I didn’t have any family that I knew of.’

‘See, now you have an embarrassing relative like the rest of us.’ She smiled. ‘It humanizes you. Oh, I didn’t mean...’

‘It’s OK.’ I grinned. ‘I know what you meant.’

‘I think we need some booze,’ she said. ‘There’s a little shop across the street. I’ll just be a few.’

‘You should stay here. We should lay low.’

‘I need to think. I can’t do that without sleep, and I can’t sleep after a day like this without numbing things up and making myself relax. That means booze, a long hot shower and falling asleep in your arms.’

‘I’m flattered,’ I said. There wasn’t much chance they’d find us here, and we needed a plan, which would be a better plan if it was made after a night’s sleep.

I groaned as I sat up, reaching for my coat.

‘You stay here,’ she said. ‘You’ve done more than enough moving around on that ankle for one night. I’ll be fine. It’s fifty yards away.’

‘Then take this,’ I advised, pulling the Browning from my bag.

‘Paranoid.’

‘It’s gunmetal. It’ll accent your boots nicely. Just tuck it in your purse. Please,’ I said. ‘If you don’t, I’m gonna have to limp along. I can’t help it.’

‘Fine.’

I reluctantly watched her walk out the door. I could see the entrance to the store across the street, so I kept my eye on her as she walked over. I turned out the room light so I wouldn’t get any glare on the window, raised the blinds and took out the MP5 I’d appropriated at Bob’s place. Set to semi-automatic, it would be accurate as far as the store if anyone did try to grab her. I took up a firing position behind the bed, resting my elbow on it.

It was long odds they could know we were here, but I wasn’t taking chances.

She soon emerged from the store and walked back across the street without being detained, tailed or kidnapped. Without getting into the jeep and bugging out on me either, which made me happy. I stashed the gun as she reached the door.

‘I forgot about the liquor rules in this backwoods state,’ she said, putting a bag down on the table and extracting two six-packs of beer. ‘You can buy ammunition at a gas station, and beer and wine pretty much anyplace, but you can only get hard liquor at a State liquor store. Madness.’

‘We’ll make do somehow,’ I said.

‘I’m just going to have to spend more time getting drunk tonight than I’d planned on.’ She opened a beer for each of us.

‘It’s OK,’ I said. ‘We have all night.’

She got halfway through the first beer before she started talking. Mostly about Uncle Bob, and she cried a bit. Then after the second beer she began to talk freer and faster, still mostly about Bob and old memories, but now with laughter. Eventually she treated me to a gloriously intoxicated, rambling monologue about her childhood, her life, her hopes and plans and dreams.

I mostly just listened. She needed to talk. I made reassuring noises when she paused, kept drinking so she wouldn’t feel self-conscious about her own intake. She’d been through an awful lot the past week. She needed to talk it all out.

When we finally went to bed, she lay on her side, pressing against me, trying to get as much of her body in contact with mine as possible. I think she needed to feel protected and secure. I curled around her, draping my arm over her and holding her.

That seemed to be enough. I felt her body relax against me and she soon began to snore. I thought it was a cute, ladylike drunken snore, but I may be biased.

The next day, I felt physically awful. I’d pretty much expected to, after my shootout in the snow and drinking too much. Sarah was at least as bad, shuffling around the room like a blonde zombie.

‘Oh, God, my head,’ she moaned. ‘I haven’t been this hung over since college. I need to go down to the desk and get us some coffee.’

‘Drink a big glass of water first,’ I said. ‘You’re dehydrated, and coffee will make that worse. Pop a couple ibuprofen too. I have a big bottle in my bag.’

‘Can’t you just heal the hangover?’

‘Sorry,’ I replied. ‘There’s no real damage, just dehydration. I can give your body a little jolt to help it recover, but you need some fluid first.’

She filled a glass from the bathroom tap and drank it down. ‘OK, I need to throw some clothes on and go get us some coffee, or my brain will explode and leak out of my ears. I’ll drink more water after I get some caffeine.’

‘OK. You want me to come along? Help carry stuff?’

‘Stay here, nurse the wounds. After we eat I need you to give me a head rub and undo the damage I did last night.’

She returned soon with two large coffees and a few pastries. The complimentary “Continental breakfast” that most cheap hotels think will fool anyone who hasn’t been to the Continent. The pastry was fairly decent, and the coffee and burst of sugar would help the poor battered brain cells.

After the coffee, I did press Sarah to drink some more water, and gave her the promised head rub, quieting nerves, encouraging the cells to recover, and blunting the diuretic effects of the caffeine, since the last thing she needed was more dehydration.

‘You’re a liar,’ she said.

‘What do you mean?’ I asked, trying to keep the horror out of my voice.

‘You said you couldn’t heal hangovers. I feel almost human.’

‘You get used to it,’ I smiled.

‘Ha, ha. Anyway, you’re sweet, even if you are a mutant freak.’ She kissed me. ‘Fortunately for you, I’m very open minded about that kind of thing.’

‘What other kinds of things are you open minded about?’ I wondered, pulling her close.

‘Let’s see about some real breakfast first. I can be only so open minded without something more substantial.’

We found a little breakfast place in town and ate a leisurely meal, letting the final effects of last night’s drinking fade away. Feeling mostly better, we went back to the room. Sarah spent some time with her computer, and I tried to think of ways to turn some vague ideas into an actual plan. Planning ways out of things, I’m good at; planning quick and dirty squad level actions, I’m very good at. Planning confrontations, less so.

‘Find anything new?’ I asked.

‘I don’t know how relevant it is, but there’s a commendation to one of Doors’ family for his service in Operation Eiche in World War Two. When the German paratroopers sprung Mussolini from prison. Not surprisingly, he disappeared after the war.’

‘Huh. Figures. Guys who can teleport would make good commandos. And the family’s love of black leather trenchcoats. They’d never have been able to resist the Reich.’ I thought for a minute. ‘Hey, did he fight at the Bulge?’

‘Doesn’t say. There’s not much else, just a copy of the commendation. I guess the clan is proud of that. Why do you ask?’

‘Just wondering if I’ve shot at any of his family less recently than last week.’

‘I thought you fought in the Pacific.’

‘I did,’ I said. ‘I fought with the Marines at Guadalcanal. I got wounded in one of the Japanese night assaults on Henderson Field. We slaughtered them, but a few got in among our holes. One bayoneted me. More times than was necessary, the prick. One of the thrusts damaged my spinal cord. I was paralyzed.’

I winced at the memory. If old Manila John hadn’t shot that bastard, he might still be stabbing me.

‘Got sent home, discharged. I wasn’t sure I’d heal, but in a few weeks I had feeling, and in a month I could walk, so I escaped from the veterans’ hospital, changed my identity. That was in October of forty-two. By the next spring I was healthy, so I joined the army, went to Jump School, wound up a replacement in the 101st Airborne. Missed D-day, but not Bastogne.’

‘You went back to fight after being paralyzed?’ she asked. ‘Are you just a slow learner?’

‘The military is a good place to hide. And I’m good at soldiering. I knew I could make a difference, that more guys would make it home alive with less bad wounds if I were there. More of them could avoid getting shot in the first place with me to give them pointers. I wanted to go back in the Marines. Maybe be an instructor, but the Corps was too small a world, too many of the Old Breed would recognize me and wonder how I was walking around after that wound. As it was, it surprised everyone that I lived through the night.’

‘Amazing.’ She shook her head.

‘I like the camaraderie.’

‘You miss it?’

I took a long moment to compose my thoughts before answering. ‘In the normal world, I’m alone,’ I said. It shocked me to hear how hollow my voice sounded when I said it. ‘So often alone. Friends, lovers, all go by in the blink of an eye. It’s hard to get close to someone, and if I do they expect more honesty than I can afford. Deserve more honesty than I can afford. They start to wonder why I don’t seem to look any older. They start to ask questions, and then it’s time to move on.’

She reached out and squeezed my hand. I looked into her eyes and saw tenderness, sympathy.

‘I can give other people a touch of immortality. Do a little maintenance at the cellular level, hold back the slow onslaught of time, but most people aren’t ready to accept that. They’d have to choose to run or to watch their friends and family grow old in front of them. It’s tough on people. On me too, but at least I’ve had some time to get used to it.’ I shook my head.

I went on. It was important to me that she understand this. ‘There’s a closeness you feel in a combat unit. A closeness built of need, both for teamwork and for someone to lean on in what are probably the worst moments of most men’s lives. But it only lasts for a short time, then guys muster out or get transferred. So for me, it’s perfect. Closeness without anybody being around long enough to do the math and wonder why I don’t look any older. I get pretty much the same bond working the ambulance. Especially in a busy city, working for a crap company. We back each other up, we trust each other and depend on each other, because we know we have to. Management sure as hell won’t,’ I shrugged. ‘It’s nice to get that closeness without the bad food, sleeping in a muddy hole, and constant physical danger. Or quite so much physical danger.’

She gave me a long look. Not keen and penetrating like before, but soft and gentle. Full of concern. ‘I had no idea. I never thought of how lonely you must feel. You seem so well adjusted.’

‘I’ve learned to adapt.’ I smiled. ‘Years of practice.’

She hugged me. Held me close. ‘You don’t tell this kind of thing to a lot of people?’

‘You’re the first,’ I said. ‘So far as I can remember.’

After a moment she drew back from the embrace. ‘Why me?’

‘I just feel differently about you. I think I love you. I’m not sure I ever really loved any of the others. Not the same way, at least.’

She took my hand and led me to the bed, then kissed me. Not with the fierce passion of previous times, but tenderly.

‘I think I love you, too,’ she said. I opened my mouth but she stopped it with a kiss.

‘No,’ she said after a second. ‘No witty banter, no soliloquies, no comparisons to Mata Hari or Helen of Troy. Let’s just be a man and a woman who’ve said the words. And meant them. Let’s just pretend we aren’t on the run, we aren’t in danger and we really can spend the rest of our lives together, and that we both mean the same thing by that.’ She kissed me again, her fingers moving to the buttons of my shirt. ‘Just for today.’

Chapter 32

THE NEXT DAY, SARAH GOT AN E-MAIL from Bob. At least,
she
knew it was from Bob. I’d have deleted it, thinking it was spam; Sarah knew Bob well enough to spot hints in the subject line. The body of the message was just my name and a phone number I didn’t recognize.