Part 7 (1/2)
Those were not upset colors. ”I want to talk to you.”
”All right.” The door creaked closed, shutting out the bit of moonlight. The grease-and-beef smell of fast food entered with him. ”Let me fix the window first so we can have some light.”
”Light would be good.” To her disgust, her voice cracked.
Soft footsteps approached, along with his colors and the food smells. She felt his hand on her cheek. ”Action is easy,” he said softly. ”Waiting is harder. Has it been bad, waiting here?”
”It isn't exactly bringing out the best in me.”
”Hold this.” Paper rustled as he pressed a paper bag into her hand. ”I'll cover the window.”
The greasy-fries scent from the contents of the bag hit her smack in the reptile brain. Her stomach growled as his colors moved to the dirty window. The thunk of a hammer twice announced progress in the window covering.
All at once there was light. A ball of it, rosy and welcoming, perched in the air behind Nathan's head as he turned to her.
”Ah that's not a flashlight.”
”You'd call it mage light or fairy light.” When he crossed to her the light followed like an obedient puppy. It wasn't bright”maybe the equivalent of two or three candles”but was plenty for her to see the blanket draped over his arm. She didn't see the hammer she'd heard him use. ”It's a simple trick. You could learn to summon one, if you wished.”
”I do wish, but later. Nathan””
Again he touched her, lightly this time and just on her arm. ”You have questions, things you need to say. But we should eat first.”
Her stomach seconded the idea. ”Is that blanket for us to sit on?”
”Yes.” He spread it out. ”The drinks are in the car, as well as a few other things. I'll get them.”
”What car?” she demanded.
”That was my decision. There's no blame to you for it.”
Which meant he'd stolen the car. ”Did you steal the supplies, too?”
”No. I prefer not to steal, but that wasn't practical with the car.”
She sighed, weary with change, fear, and decisions. Too weary to sort through the wrongs and rights. ”I'll help bring things in.”
”You can, but I'll have to take down the wards first.”
”Do you mean I can't leave until you do that? That I've been trapped in here all this time?”
”Eh.” He rubbed his nose, looked at the floor. ”Well, yes. I'll fix that later, all right?”
She settled unhappily on the blanket.
When he opened the door, the mage light winked out”no gesture or incantation needed. Every time he returned”first with c.o.kes, bottled water, and two grocery sacks, then with sleeping bags”the light popped back on, too.
She wanted one.
It was an odd and hasty picnic. With the first bite Kai discovered she was beyond hungry, well into ravenous. She devoured most of the burger and half the fries before speaking again. ”I shouldn't have run. I shouldn't be here, hiding. I'd like to help you catch the creature, but””
”They've released your name to the media.”
”What?”
”I heard it on the radio. Knox gave a press conference and spoke of the warrant for your arrest. I suspect your image was on the television news, but I didn't see that.”
She put down the uneaten portion of her hamburger, her knotted stomach rejecting the idea of food.
Nathan reached for her hand. ”Kai. If you don't hide, you'll be in jail by midnight. I don't know if you'll be safe there, if the chief will take the steps to a.s.sure that you are. There's ill-feeling toward all Gifted right now, and””
”And I'm the wicked witch the house is about to fall on. No one objects when she gets flattened. G.o.d!” She shoved to her feet clumsily, knocking over her c.o.ke. His hand shot out, catching the cup before it finished tipping in a motion so quick it blurred.
She stared at his hand. He had long, blunt fingers and a wide palm, with a sprinkling of dark hair at the wrist. Such a human hand, in spite of the speed with which it had just moved. She dragged her gaze back to his face. ”Why would it want to look like me?”
Nathan rose much more gracefully than she had. ”I don't know. There's a link, though. It may select its prey ahead of time and take their shape.”
Her eyes widened as fear pooled in her belly.
”I won't let it get to you.” He closed the distance between them, setting his hands on her shoulders. ”If it does come for you, I'll stop it. Kill it, I hope, because we can prove your innocence with its body. If it remains in its natural state, the shape of the mouth and teeth will match the bites on Shaw's body. If it doesn't, its transformed body will still prove that it could have worn your face.”
”Posthumous vindication isn't that appealing to me.”
He squeezed gently. ”Do you think I'd let it harm you? There are beings, creatures, I couldn't be sure of stopping, but this isn't one of them.”
”I love your confidence, but you don't know much about chameleons.”
”I know ma.s.s is conserved when they change form. This one looked enough like you to fool someone who knows you, so its ma.s.s is similar to yours. If it comes after you, I can stop it.”
She chewed on her lip, trying to think her way past the fear. If she gave herself up to the police, she might be in danger from other prisoners, maybe even the guards. If she hid out, the monster might come after her.
The chameleon was certainly the bigger danger, but here she had Nathan. In jail she wouldn't. And they needed the chameleon to prove she wasn't the killer. ”Do you Change? Like a lupus, I mean.”
”Eh. No. I've had a human body and brain for more than four hundred years now. I can't go back to my hound body, not on my own.”
Four hundred years? She'd known he'd lived much longer than a human, but that that would take some getting used to. ”Tell me.” She reached for the hand on her shoulder, clasped it. ”Tell me how you came to be here. How you came to have that human body and brain.”
”My queen sent me, and I needed a human form for the hunt. We knew it would take time for me to track the Kai, are you going to allow me to keep you hidden here?”
”Yes.”
Relief stripped him naked. She'd never seen his face so raw with feeling. ”May I is it all right to hold you?”
She didn't bother with words. Arms were better, and hers slid around him as naturally as if they were already lovers. His arms answered, wrapping her breath-stealingly tight for a second, then loosening. He ran his hands up and down her back, buried his nose in her hair. ”I have wanted this,” he said fiercely. ”For so long, I have wanted” His breath shuddered out.
Silence wrapped itself around them then”a silence of heartbeats and breaths settling into a shared rhythm. Kai closed her eyes so she could absorb the feel of him through muscle, scent, and skin.