Dead Harvest

  When I collapsed to the pavement, Kate rushed to my side, a cry of alarm escaping her lips.

  'Damn it, Kate, you've got to keep quiet!'

  She shot me a look that would have stopped a charging bull. 'This from the guy who just busted in a car window. Damn thing sounded like a gunshot. What in the hell are you looking for, anyway?'

  I nodded toward the bag at my side. 'The gym bag,' I said. 'Open it.'

  She did as I asked. Inside was a set of women's gym clothes – sports bra, T-shirt, shorts, sneakers – as well as a set of street clothes and a towel. I snatched at the latter and missed.

  Kate frowned and pressed the towel into my hand. I held it tight to my bleeding thigh, clenching my eyes tight against the pain. 'Sam, you're not looking so hot.'

  'I'm not feeling so hot,' I replied, shivering from cold and blood loss both. 'Now hand me that belt.'

  She did, and I wrapped it around the towel, cinching it down until it hurt too much to keep going. There wasn't a hole that small on the belt, so I had to force the tine through the leather to get it to stay, but it'd do the trick.

  Next, with Kate's help, I slid on the gym shirt. Lime green, and emblazoned with a faded silkscreen for a charity 10K, it was both hideous and two sizes too small for Flynn's muscular frame, but still worlds less conspicuous than the blood-soaked undershirt I'd just removed.

  'There,' I said, 'now help me up.'

  'This is nuts – you need to rest.'

  'Look, what went down back there was certain to attract some serious attention, and sooner or later, the cops are gonna talk to somebody who saw us leave. When that happens, they're gonna start looking for us, and we can't be here when they do. If they arrest us, you're as good as dead. I am not going to let that happen.'

  'Then let's take this thing,' she said, eyeing the Taurus. 'You got that piece of shit van started; you could get this going, too – right?'

  I shook my head. 'I'm in no shape to drive.'

  'Then let me. You could ride shotgun and rest up while I get us out of here.'

  'Do you even drive?'

  'I've got my learner's permit,' she replied, defiant and sheepish in equal measure.

  Learner's permit. Jesus. 'Kate, you saw how bad shit got back there once Bishop caught our scent. I'm not going to run the risk of having you behind the wheel when he catches up to us again. It's just too dangerous,' I said, realizing as the words came out of my mouth how unintentionally parental they sounded. 'We've just got to find someplace safe and hole up a while until things cool down,' I added.

  She fell silent a moment, and made no move to help me up. 'Sam, can I ask you something?'

  I rested my head on the side of the Taurus, and closed my eyes. 'Sure, kid. Ask away.'

  'Back there, when Bishop was coming after us, he jumped from the cop to the woman, right? I mean, just like that,' she said, snapping her fingers.

  'Yeah? And?'

  'Well, look at you. You look like shit. Why not just leave this guy here and hitch another ride?'

  'Kate, I can't. He might tell them where we're going, and then we're fucked.'

  'But you don't even know where we're going – how the hell could he? Besides, that cop Bishop ditched back there, he knew the score, and I'm betting with all he's seen, this guy'd be no different. So why, then? Why, when this guy's doing nothing but hold us up?'

  I sighed. 'It's complicated, Kate.'

  'Yeah? Well, we need to get out of here fast, so uncomplicate it quick.'

  If I could have gotten to my feet then, I would have. If I could have lied, or deflected, or thought of anything that might've gotten us out of there without having this discussion, I would have. Truth was, I just didn't have the energy. I was out of fight, and she knew it.

  Some protector I was.

  'Kate, when we met… that vessel was not like this one. He was different.'

  'Different? Different how?'

  'Well, for starters, he was dead.'

  'Dead? I don't understand.'

  'You understand fine. See, most of my kind, they possess the living – after all, they're plentiful enough, and they can get you wherever you need to go. Chasing down a prisoner? Just hop a ride in a guard, or better yet a cellmate. Paranoid lunatic holed up in a bunker? If he's got himself a hostage, you're good to go. The problem is, the living are noisy. They're gonna claw and scratch and fight to regain control; it takes a while and no small amount of effort to get them to quiet down. That eventual subjugation doesn't come without a cost. It chips away at whatever it is that makes us human, and forces us to act as a demon would act – to cast aside our empathy, our humanity, and treat them as nothing but a nameless other to be used and discarded. A means to an end. Every time we take a living vessel, we lose touch of who we are. And with each vessel we discard, we leave a little bit of what makes us who we are behind.'

  'But if you only possess the dead, you get to stay human?'