the window. Michael was outside. Talking to another kid who was about thirteen or fourteen, he appeared to be in one piece. Safe. He was safe. The air was just air again, not heavy unbreathable chunks, and I headed for the door with a chest that ached only slightly. Although it took only seconds, by the time I reached Michael, the other boy was already gone. But he’d left something behind.
“What the hell is that?”
He’d given me one damn good scare and it put a snap in the question that I ordinarily would never have used with him. Then again considering what he held in his hand, I couldn’t be one hundred percent positive about that.
“A ferret.” Hoisting the cage to eye level, he gazed fascinated at the creature through the crosshatch of wire. “That boy sold him to me for only thirty dollars.”
“Only?” Beady black eyes and a glimmer of pointed ivory teeth turned in my direction to regard me with an ill-favored stare. “It’s like the fairy tale. I send you out for a cow and you come back with magic beans. Worse yet, stinky magic beans with sharp teeth.”
Another ill-favored glare came my way, this one blue-green. “Are you saying he smells bad?”
“He doesn’t exactly smell good, now does he?”
“And you’re making the assumption that you do?”
This was getting us nowhere in a hurry. Switching topics, I said more harshly than I intended, “I told you to get me when you were done with the books. I can see how that might sound like ‘traipse up and down the sidewalk like a bulls-eye with legs,’ but use some goddamn common sense, would you?” Immediately, I regretted lashing out. These past few days had been Michael’s first taste of freedom. It was easy to see that he would want to do some exploring on his own, and he hadn’t strayed far.
The faintest wash of dull red stained his neck as he said stiffly, “You were tired. I thought I’d let you rest for a few more minutes.”
Suddenly, regret was kissing cousins with the sudden unshakable belief that I was an utter asshole. “Ah, damn it.” Morosely, I rang a blunt fingernail off the metal of the cage. “Welcome to the family, Stinky.” Jerking my finger back, I barely avoided a nasty bite.
Michael recognized it for the apology it was and unbent enough to correct me. “His name is Godzilla.”
I groaned aloud. “That’s encouraging.”
He tilted his head curiously. “Why is that?”
That must be one of the movies that hadn’t made it to the Institute. “Godzilla is the big lizard that ate Tokyo. Famous movie monster, and from what I can tell, he had nothing on this little fur ball.” There was a bag of books at Michael’s feet and I retrieved them. While I did so, I offered gruffly, “I’m sorry for snapping, kiddo. I was worried.”
“I know.” He gave me one of his rare smiles. It took a lot of imagination to call the stoic quirk of lips a smile, but I saw it for what it was. “Babushka
“Granny, my ass.” I grumbled on in that vein as I steered him through the parking lot, stopping only to swipe another license plate for our car. Michael didn’t hear a word of it. He was too involved in a mutually rapturous conversation with his weiner-shaped weasel. It would chitter happily at him while he clucked a musical tongue back. For me it had nothing but murder in its tiny brain, but apparently my brother passed some sort of muster known only to plague-carrying ankle-biters.
I was surprised Michael would want a pet, especially one so similar to the lab animals that had died in his hands. Then again, maybe having one would help him get past that; help heal the parts of him that didn’t knit as fast as his skin and bones.
Redemption in an overly musky ferret; stranger things had happened.
Chapter 20
Tokyo might’ve been half a world away, but I was right here to terrorize, and that was more than good enough for Godzilla.
“Okay, that’s it,” I snarled. “This time that half-digested hair ball took my gun.” The bedspread twitched at the bottom and I saw a toothy grin bared at me. Somewhere under there in no-man’s-land were my Steyr— unloaded, thankfully—four socks, a pair of underwear, and my comb.
“I think I saw a public service announcement about gun safety just this morning.” Sprawled on the bed, Michael turned a page. “Carelessness and tiny paws just don’t mix.” And that was the sum total of his sympathy as he continued making his way through one of the science books that we’d bought yesterday. This one was about the thickness of a phone book, but he’d devoured the majority of it, taking in every single word like a human sponge. Lukas had been a bright kid, bright as hell, but this . . .
Smarter, faster, stronger.
I hadn’t seen any signs of the faster yet, but as for the rest . . . I felt an uneasy ripple tickle the base of my brain. Saving Michael was first and foremost in my mind always, but when he was safe, what then? There were many Jerichos in the world, in intent if not talent. If any one of them sniffed out Michael’s capabilities, we would be on the run all over again—perhaps for the rest of our lives. It wasn’t what I wanted for my brother.
But that was another worry for another time and premature at best. We might not survive long enough to see an existence beyond Jericho. Or beyond the damn ferret for that matter, a distinctly evil squeak had me adding to the thought.
I slid my foot under the bed to feel around for my gun. In retrospect it wasn’t the most intelligent move to be made. The sensation of a miniature bear trap clamping on my big toe had me hopping backward and swearing loudly. If the lamp hadn’t been bolted to the nightstand, it’s hard to say what I might have been tempted to do. Two dots of scarlet bloomed on my sock as a length of charcoal fur flowed past me to perch on Michael’s head. Under a black mask a wet, pink nose wrinkled derisively at me.
Damn rat.
As I used the opportunity to retrieve my belongings, Michael lifted up a finger and scratched the chin of his new best friend. “You should be more understanding, Stefan. Hoarding is probably a natural instinct for the ferret. Isn’t that right, Zilla?” The polecat made a contented sound, a cross between an eep and a purr, before draping bonelessly over Michael’s skull for a nap. “I really do need to get a book on ferret care and their habits. Maybe we could stop tomorrow?” He’d lowered his voice in deference to the snoozing spawn of Satan.
I didn’t know which was more annoying: that he whispered for his pet but stomped around like a drunken lumberjack in the morning when I tried to sleep, or that he wanted to take time out of fleeing for our lives to get a how-to book on his carpet shark. “Yeah,” I said with blatant insincerity. “I’ll put it right at the top of my to-do list.” Securing my weapon against thieving paws, I zipped up the duffel bag and jerked my chin at his book. “You find out anything interesting yet?”
He scooped the ferret into his hands and sat up to place it carefully on a pillow. Stretching, he then traced his fingers across the glossy pages and said, “Everything in here is interesting . . . in its way.” As if the thought unsettled him, he closed the book firmly and pushed it away.
“A little too close to home?”
“Maybe,” he admitted reluctantly only after I started to reach for the book. “No, it’s all right.” The volume was swiftly retrieved before I could get a grip on it. “This is me. This is my history. I want to do this.” That he embraced, but my part in it he refused point-blank.
“I’m a chunk of that history too, Misha, believe it or not.”
Before he could deny or give me a sympathy that was unwanted and unneeded, I sat down beside him and pulled off my sock to examine the puncture wounds in my toe. “You used to drive me crazy, you know? Typical little-brother stuff.” I brushed a thumb across my skin and wiped the drop of blood away. “You stuck to me as if I had Velcro on my ass. When I first kissed a girl, you were there, hiding in the bushes. I think your exact words were ‘Eww, cooties.’ Funny, how thirteen-year-old girls don’t appreciate that. Or thirteen-year-old big brothers for that matter.” Balling up the stained material, I tossed it over onto my bed. “Then there was the time you thought my bike wasn’t snazzy enough, boring navy blue not being your favorite color. So you painted it purple . . . with a couple of yellow stripes. And I yelled at you.” I sent my other sock the way of the first. “Not much of a surprise,
