The Medium

Chapter Sixteen-2

But he did know him. It took some digging to recognize the memories that weren’t his, the dreams Sebastian had projected into Lenny’s head through the bond he forced on him.

“Don’t hurt him.”

She tilted her head, eyebrows drawing together in a frown.

“He’s sick,” he explained. “He’s n-not evil. Just very sick.”

“I’ll take that into consideration,” she said. He believed her.

“He’ll run,” Lenny told her. “Then he’ll w-wait. Then he’ll c-come back to p-pick them off one at a t-time. Not you. He d-doesn’t take revenge, just g-gets rid of threats. You’re not a threat, now.”

He doubted Sebastian meant to kill her. The monster probably wouldn’t have objected if Lenny had managed to bleed her to death, but Sebastian was generally more interested in neutralizing than causing pain. Torture was recreation, not business. Lenny wondered whether Sebastian had hoped he would maim the wizard, cripple her and get himself killed by her friends. Take her out and tie up a loose end in one go.

The cowboy muttered in a low voice to someone across the state. Lenny could hear him clearly but didn’t listen.

Kim waved a hand in front of his face. He did his best to turn his attention back to her.

“So I’m not in immediate danger,” she clarified. “Not unless he wants to use me to get at someone else. What about Zeb and Coyote?”

That was a trickier question. It was obvious both men were dangerous, but it was also obvious the wizard was the head of their group. Sebastian had tried to take her out already, and he was smart. He would know better than to stick around long enough to find out whether she was down for the count. He would probably leave Austin immediately, hang out somewhere else while he waited for a chance to come back and start killing. When he did come back, Kim would be in danger. He wouldn’t kill her straight off, but he might decide to have fun with her, which could be worse. Then he would turn to her friends, seeing them as… what? Rogues looking for vengeance, most likely.

Lenny shook his head. “Not yet. But eventually.”

“How long?”

“No idea. C-could b-be years. He’s not exactly short on t-time.”

“Or it could be days.”

It was possible. He nodded.

She blew out a breath and gritted her teeth so hard, he could hear them creak.

“Still can’t make a plan,” Coyote said from the chair he’d taken. He tapped his cane against the side of his leg. “Not until we know what he knows. If he thinks I can track him, he might come back to make sure I can’t. If not, he might stay away a while, then probably go after Amarillo first. They’re the ones actively pursuing him. And the chindi bastard says you’re not a threat. Well then, neither am I. We can sure as hell look like we gave up.”

“Might at least give us a chance to regroup. I’m not feeling so hot. Tea will help, but it’ll still take a while before I can really hex the snot out of an attacker again.”

“And there’s the question of this contagious magic. And your mother…”

They talked. Lenny tried to listen. The least he could do was correct them if they went horribly wrong. But it was obvious he’d already been as useful as he was going to be. They talked strategy, made plans, talked about people he didn’t know and places he hadn’t seen. He sat against the wall and faded into the background.

He woke up horizontal with his neck and shoulders stiff. Someone had thrown the electric blanket over him, and it had been there long enough that he was warm almost all the way through. That was probably the only reason he didn’t panic, since part of him was insisting he was somewhere else, it was all a dream, an illusion, a game. Sebastian would do something like that, give him hope just to snatch it away. Or worse, construct this sad hallucination to make Lenny prove his loyalty. He’d already failed that test a hundred times.

But Sebastian would never make sure he was warm.

He pushed himself up. His head felt like it was full of water, and he had to wait for it to stop sloshing before he was able to stand. The living room was empty, and only one heart beat nearby. Only one?

He didn’t go running to see what was wrong. He couldn’t. If something was wrong, it could only be Sebastian, and if he stayed still and quiet and pretended to be somewhere else, it might not hurt too badly when Sebastian came for him.

Kim came out of the bathroom with her hair wet and a square of fresh gauze taped to the side of her throat. She didn’t look like she thought anything was particularly wrong. At least, not immediately. She saw Lenny and stopped dead, took a step back, and frowned.

“Um,” she said. “Everything okay?”

He struggled for a reasonable answer. She watched him before moving into the kitchen.

“You drink coffee?” she asked.

“I g-guess.” He wasn’t sure what that had to do with anything. He followed her into the kitchen. The sun came in brightly through the window, still the pinkish gold of early morning. “Where…?”

“The guys? They went to go pick up Coyote’s materials. They should be back in a bit.”

“But…”

“It’s okay. Coyote needs his stuff to tell where somebody is, but it’s a lot easier to tell where somebody’s not. For instance, anywhere within a given radius. You were right about Duran taking off. No telling when he’ll be back, but we’ve got a little breathing space for the time being.”

“How m-much?”

“At least a hundred miles. If he’s smart, he probably headed someplace big like Houston or Dallas.”

She filled the coffee maker with water, then started scooping grounds into a paper filter. It felt very familiar, watching her.

“Anyhow,” she continued. “We couldn’t get a hold of Tony or Edith last night, but their people in Amarillo said they’d give us a call as soon as they find anything out. The tentative plan is for Coyote to go with them to nail Duran. I’m not in fighting shape, so I’m taking care of you, and Zeb’s hanging out to make sure nothing goes wrong. Again.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Yeah,” she said. “I know. That’s the weird thing. Does the word uszkodzony mean anything to you?”

It was familiar, Slavic, but he couldn’t be sure what it meant. “No. I don’t know. I d-don’t think so.”

“How about broken?”

Oh. She wanted to know what was different, what was wrong with him. The same thing Sebastian had wanted to know, the little fact that had turned Lenny from a point of interest to a target. He shook his head. It was a lie, and Sebastian would have seen through it, but Kim didn’t. She sighed, pursing her lips, and turned to pour coffee. She loaded hers with cream, and Lenny loaded his with sugar.

“I guess I’m asking why you didn’t kill me. You definitely could have. I get that you probably didn’t want to. You don’t seem like the kind that gets off on that. But my understanding is that what you want doesn’t really enter into it when you’re like that. So what gives? Has that ever happened to you before?”

“No.”

She heard something in his voice and turned around to study him. He let his mug warm his hands and refused to look at her.

“What’s wrong?”

He didn’t answer. She took a guess anyway.

“You’ve never lost it before, have you? I mean, other than…”

“C-couple times. Had a friend there to help, though. No one g-got hurt.”

She watched him, waiting for him to go on, but he didn’t want to, and she heaved herself up onto the counter with a grunt.

“Okay,” she conceded. “Okay, so don’t tell me. It’s not like I’m doing my best to save you, or anything.” She grinned. “Anyway, you’re going to have to stick around until they have a chance to talk to you some, but after that, I figure you’ll probably want to go back to whatever you were doing before. You guys, like, keep secret accounts and extra identities and all that fun stuff, right? Starting over somewhere shouldn’t be too much trouble.”

She kicked her legs, swilled down the rest of her coffee, and poured herself another cup.

“Actually,” he said, “I’d rather just go home. If it’s all the same to you.”

Her grin faded. She pushed her hair out of her face and bit her lip.

“That’d attract an awful lot of attention,” she said quietly, almost to herself. “I mean, you don’t want cops getting involved and finding out things they shouldn’t. And someone is bound to remember you. You disappear and then come back, someone’s going to ask questions.”

That was true. But Lenny already knew he couldn’t go back to teaching—he could feel eyes on him and hear laughter when he thought about it, and he could guess that any attempt would end in a breakdown. He felt liquefied. He didn’t have the strength left to hold his own in a classroom, to meet deadlines, to exist in a world that needed him to accomplish something. It didn’t seem likely he could do much of anything. Trying to carve out a new place among strangers wouldn’t be possible. He needed someone he could trust, someone who already knew him and would be willing to hide him.

“Mara’ll help.”

“That friend of yours?”

“Different friend. She d-doesn’t know, but I was g-gonna tell her anyway.”

“And she’ll be okay with a vampire?”

“Dunno about okay. She wouldn’t be scared, though.”

“Okay.” She sounded skeptical. “We’ll see about digging up a phone number for her. Probably shouldn’t try having any involved conversations over the phone, though. We’ll just tell her you’re not dead and, I don’t know, that you need a couch to crash on, or something.”

She slid off the counter, sloshing her coffee on the floor, and moved past him into the living room. He followed. She bent and shoved some books around and came up with a headband.

“Okay,” she said again. She pushed her hair out of her eyes and snapped the headband into place. “Are you from Austin?”

“Abilene.”

“Not too far. I think I can drive you when it gets down to it.”

She reminded him of Mara. Shorter, darker, younger, but she shared that matter-of-factness and that sense that there wasn’t much anyone could do to really upset her. Unshakeable. She was also in the know and didn’t seem to care that he was dead. He thought he could probably like her a lot, if he could only manage to trust her.

Three sharp raps sounded at the door, and Kim went perfectly still. A small pistol appeared in her hand, seemingly from nowhere, and Lenny heard her stop breathing. She held up a hand to keep him where he was, even though he doubted he could’ve moved even if he’d wanted to, and sidestepped a pile of books to press her eye to the peep hole. He saw her shoulders relax, and she opened the door, but the person outside didn’t come in. It wasn’t hard to guess why.

“Hey,” Kim said. “Itzli, right? You guys got our message?”

She leaned on the door, showing Lenny a small man with a hard, sharp face. His chest was bare under his windbreaker.

“Swung by the regional office…” He paused and tilted his head to one side, shooting a glance past Kim at the other man. “They had your message. The others went on to Amarillo. I’m to help you if you need it.”

“Don’t need anything. Just wanted to let you know Duran was here last night, briefly. Coyote can confirm he’s no longer within a hundred miles of Austin, but he did come back here.”

“And that was when you had your incident?” His eyes moved from Lenny to Kim, then back to Lenny.

He was off, bordering on crazy. Lenny could hear it in his voice and see it in his eyes. Something vital had been ripped out of him, and it made him volatile. If Lenny’s guess was right, though, it also made him a nightmare for Sebastian.

“Just a little incident. It’s all taken care of. I’m sorry about your friend, by the way. Or more than a friend?”

“Hetty was mine.”

The guess was right. Itzli wouldn’t stop until Sebastian was dead. Lenny thought about Kate, and he could understand that. Nothing Sebastian had done to him had hurt as badly as losing half of himself. Itzli was going to be deadly.

“I’m sorry,” Lenny told him.

He nodded. “You know,” he said.

Kim looked at Lenny, frowning, then turned back to Itzli. “We’ll get him. If you stay in town a while, Coyote’s going to be tracking Duran as soon as he’s got his stuff together. We can point you in the right direction. Zeb said something about taking him out long-range. I don’t know if he meant sniping him or what, but it sounds like the best idea, to me.”

“I’ll be in town,” he said. He gave her a local number and said he would check back later. Then he left.

Kim closed and locked the door as Lenny took an end of the couch, and she came to join him. “I know you don’t want him hurt, but you know he won’t stop hurting other people unless someone makes him stop.”

He just wanted to go home. He couldn’t protect himself, or Sebastian, or Kim, and he wanted to go home, so he told her so.

“Okay,” she said. “Would your friend be home on a Saturday morning?”

He nodded and gave her the number, and she began to dial, but he stopped her. He picked up a manuscript, a huge bundle of papers titled Dietary Requirements of the Palo Duro Jackalope.

“What’s the matter?” she asked, holding the receiver away from her ear.

He pointed to the cover page. “Is… is that the d-date? February sixteenth…” The year made his throat close.

“No,” she said. “Seriously, that’s like, two years a-…”

He could feel her tense beside him when the realization hit her.

“Oh. Oh, God. When…?”

“Eighty-seven,” he whispered. The stack of papers slipped out of his hand as ten years slipped out of his life. He didn’t even try to catch them.