Dark Duets Part 17

Looking vaguely perplexed, Rhymer nodded. "They came from one of the others. It collapsed or something-I'm not entirely clear on the concept and it's not like they feel as if I ought to be included. Their escape, though, tied them to or was dependent upon some other form of life."

"Like what?"

"Like h.e.l.l," he said. "Not your scriptural one exactly, though I expect our version of h.e.l.l came from them, too."

"Hold on . . . Judeo-Christian tradition comes from elves?"

"I know how it sounds."

"Not to a history major, you don't."

"All right, history major, just suppose that a lot of people with influence, advisers to the powers that be, were . . ."

"What?"

"Were not really people, d'ye see? Suppose the Yvag had colonized them?"

"Skinwalkers, that's what you meant?"

"Yeah. They move in, take control of certain people-the ones who make laws, the ones who decide for everyone else, almost never the central person, almost always the advisers."

" 'Never kings but always kingdoms,' " she repeated back at him.

"Exactly. If they were kings, they'd be in view. But manipulating the king? They stay in the shadows."

"Was the driver-?"

"He was one, yeah. I know, he's not someone in a position of power like, but they need others, too, to do simple tasks, move the glamoured ones around."

"Minions?" she said, smiling for the first time.

"Aye," agreed Rhymer, "minions is a good word."

Jesus, she said to herself, I'm having a conversation in which elves, the multiverse, and minions are serious talking points. And vodka is not involved. She took a breath. "But why did that skinwalker bloke look so . . . so dead?"

"Because he was dead the instant an Yvag took him. When they move in, they rip the human soul out. Whoever that person was is destroyed. Shredded. From that moment forward, the body is dead and only the Yvag is alive. The corpse maintains the appearance of being alive as long as the Yvag is inside, but once it's gone then the magic is broken and the body becomes what it really is-dead and rotting flesh. The longer the Yvag occupies you, the faster you turn to dust when it leaves. Understand, this magic is difficult, it requires a lot of energy and sometimes it slips. Every now and then you see a person who looks more dead than alive, and it's probably an Yvag whose control has slipped. Which is the other reason they choose to keep to the shadows."

"What do you mean?"

"Sunlight is nae good for dead skin. It speeds the corruption."

"Sounds like vampires."

He nodded. "What people call vampires are almost always Yvags."

"Almost always?"

Rhymer gave her a crooked grin. "It's a strange, big universe, la.s.s."

"Yeah, yeah, there are more things in heaven and earth . . ." Stacey shook her head, trying to make sense of this. "The driver . . . the Yvag left him?"

"You could look at it that way."

"Which is to say you killed him."

"The Yvag, if I'm lucky. The driver . . . wasn't really there."

"Why?"

Rhymer twitched, ducked his head as if she had finally hit a nerve, a place he couldn't go or explain. In the end all he said was, "It's what I do."

She squinched up her face. There was something he had said-tossed off so casually it had flown right past. She rewound the conversation, listened, came to the moment when she'd freaked, and there it was. "Ten centuries. What was that about you living for ten centuries?"

"Well, give or take a decade . . ."

"Please tell me you're at least cool enough to be a Time Lord."

"A what?"

"Sigh," she said aloud.

"I know it's impossible tae believe-"

"No, see, that's the problem, I completely believe it. I just don't want to be a part of it!"

"I'm sorry you are."

She chewed her lip for a moment. "The way you fought? What was that? Kung-fu? Judo?"

"Gutter fighting," he said. "Bit of this and that."

"Nasty."

"It's not supposed to be nice."

"So . . . for a thousand years you've been messing it up with them, right? Interfering with this-this-"

"t.i.thing."

"t.i.thing. How often do they have to do that, pay this t.i.the to h.e.l.l?"

"Part of a cycle. Here, it's every twenty-eight years."

"And you've been keeping people like me from getting taken."

He had a strangely anxious look on his face now and only nodded.

"No wonder they want your head. So in all that time, you must have saved like, what, five, six hundred people?"

He said nothing, staring hard at the road ahead.

"Rhymer, G.o.dd.a.m.n it. How many have you saved?"

"Counting you, seven."

"Seven hundred people? Really?"

"No," he said softly. "Just seven."

He met her gaze then, and the misery in his look spoke for him.

Very quietly, she said, "I think I want to go home now."

"Ye can't," he replied. "Not for twenty-one more hours, or you're just handing yourself to them."

"Oh, really? How's that different from sticking with you?"

"Staying with me means you haven't given up," said Rhymer. "And when they come for you again, we're going tae make them pay dearly."

A moment later he added under his breath, "For a great many things."

7.

Stacey awoke with a jolt.

She hadn't even realized that she'd fallen asleep. She sat up, brain muzzy, tongue thick, skin clammy. She had drool on her chin and wiped it away as she glanced at Rhymer. He was watching the road.

"How long was I asleep?" she asked. She rubbed at her eyes.

"About three hours. You've been through a lot. Magic wears a body out every bit as quickly as exertion."

" 'Magic,' " she echoed. "Right. Not a dream. d.a.m.n."

Outside, the sky was cloudy, and she didn't recognize anything in the brown-and-green landscape. They had left the A68 at some point.

"Are we there yet?"

"No, we've still got a bit to go," murmured Rhymer. "Sorry, but we couldn't just keep going straight. They would have come at us from ahead, so I've been s.h.i.+fting direction, zigzagging roads to keep them from being able to predict where we're heading."

"Where are we heading? Do we have an actual destination, or are we just going to drive around until these Elvis thingies get bored?"

"Yvags," he corrected.

"Whatever. Where are we going?"

"I've a place. But going there will only work once, and I want tae make sure they don't have sight of the car when we turn off."

As if to accentuate his point, a car roared up from behind to pa.s.s on the straightaway. As it came abreast it seemed to hold for a moment, and the driver gave them a hard stare before accelerating ahead.

She saw that Rhymer was watching the car, too. She gripped his forearm.

"Oh, G.o.d . . . please don't tell me that's one of those bleedin' skinwalker things?"

"Can't tell from here," he said. "You can bet they have every available one out listening for your sigil."

"Listening for it," she repeated, trying to grasp the concept. Her stomach gurgled. "For f.u.c.k's sake . . . we're being chased by monsters and here I am starving. I didn't eat last night. What is it, noon?"

"We'll get some food as soon as it's safe and-"

"I'm going to need some real shoes, too. Can we stop somewhere, some town center? Just for, like, half an hour?"

He didn't look happy at the prospect. "What is it about women and shoes?"

"Oh, mock me for being a cliche, that'll help."

"Sorry."

"I need something I can run in. We are fleeing, right?"

"Right. We'll see about getting better shoes, but understand me, la.s.s, we take our lives in our hands every time we stop."

"I get that," she said soberly. "I really do. But if we are stopped-by them I mean-I'm no good running through woods and across fields in heels or bare feet."

"Still safer to keep moving," he said.

"Look, you can't seriously expect me to stay in this car for thirty hours! Besides . . . they could run us off the roadway out here and n.o.body would so much as notice. In a town there are lots of people. Doesn't that make it harder for them?"

He looked at her critically. "You were surrounded by a couple of hundred people at that tavern last night."

"Club," she corrected. "That still doesn't alter the fact that I can't run through the woods barefoot."

Rhymer seemed to weigh that. "All right," he said, and suddenly turned left, heading, so the sign indicated, for the village of Marfield.

"Thank you. Can I try Carrie again?"

He handed her the disposable phone. The signal was lousy, but it rang, dumping her immediately to voice mail. Stacey ended the call as she had done the previous time. Carrie not answering her phone was a bad sign, and Stacey imagined that a car had struck her while she sat stupefied in the parking lot last night. Last night? Christ, it seemed like days ago.

They arrived in Marfield on Creightontown Road, first pa.s.sing a small hotel and cafe called the Rowan, and then shortly as they crawled along the main street of the village, a shoe shop. He pulled over and parked across from it. She got out, ran barefoot across the road.

The shop seemed to specialize in Doc Martens, but she found a pair of red sneakers that fit. Rhymer paid, producing a thick wad of bills from his pocket. When he caught her staring at the money, he leaned close and said, "Picking the pocket of a skinwalker isn't actually theft."

"Jeez," she said. Then her stomach grumbled again, much louder this time. "If I don't eat soon, they won't need that effing sigil to find me. They'll just follow the hunger pangs."