lashing tail, sat at the bottom of the stairs curving up to the second floor. The third was yellow, hugely obese, and curled around the base of a lamp. The lamp sat on a table that rested against a wall covered with patterned paper. With roses, roses, and more roses under the yellow film of age, cats, and paper flowers, this place had old lady written all over it. I wondered where she was. Maybe she was staying with her kids until the storm blew over.
“You’re not much of an animal person, are you?” Michael pushed his hood back and bent over to give the tabby a pat on its head. “Nice kitty.”
Feeling another sneeze coming on, I buried the lower half of my face in the crook of my arm to muffle the wet explosion. “That nice kitty is suffocating me,” I said nasally before straightening. “Stay here. I’m going to check out the house and make sure we’re alone.”
I did a quick run-through of the place. Everything was old. The furniture, appliances, rugs—all dated to several decades before my birth. Even the quilts on the beds were faded and worn; the afghans raveled and covered with fuzz balls. It definitely belonged to an old lady. Two bedrooms, a bathroom with a claw-foot tub and cloudy mirror, and a sewing room made up the second floor. After a quick look around, I concentrated on scooping up two blankets, a quilt, and a pillow before heading back down the stairs.
Michael was sitting on the bottom step, leaning against the wall. He was fast asleep and he wasn’t alone. One of the cats had seized the opportunity to curl up in a convenient lap. Annoyed at the competition, Zilla had crawled out of the ski jacket and was currently racing up the banister. I let it go. If anyone was a match for three cats, it would be that damn ferret. “Misha.” I shook his shoulder lightly before shooing off the cat. “Come on.”
His eyes opened, just barely, and he allowed me to shepherd him to the couch in the living room. The cushions sagged from years and years of use, but he didn’t seem to mind as he dropped onto it. He could’ve used one of the beds upstairs, but if we had to make a sudden getaway, being on the ground floor would be best. As Michael slithered out of his jacket and with clumsy fingers worked on removing his gloves, I helped him with his shoes. The laces were too encrusted with ice and snow to untie and I didn’t even try, simply pulling them off. The socks went too, a sodden pile on the rug. “All right, kiddo. Down you go.”
He obeyed without argument, showing me how exhausted he truly was. Michael had shown that he wasn’t one to let me fuss over him, at least not without some self-deprecating or distancing remark. But now . . . he was like a tired five-year-old, obedient and docile. It brought back memories. God, did it. Lukas had been able to sleep anytime, anywhere. There had been many times I’d hauled him from an unconscious heap on the floor to lift him into his bed without waking him. His name had changed, but inside he was still Lukas. It was like they said. The more things change, the more they stay the same.
In the here and now I slid the pillow under his head and piled on the blankets. “Sleep for a few hours. I’ll keep an eye out.” His eyes closed, but his mouth twisted downward. A hand slipped out of the blankets to move his thumb back and forth across the rough texture of the worn cotton in a self-soothing motion. It wasn’t sleep. It wasn’t even a good imitation. I thumped his chin lightly with a finger. “I said sleep, not mope.”
With eyes still closed and a voice thick with a fatigue he couldn’t completely fight, he said softly, “I told myself I couldn’t get attached.”
Confused, I eased from a crouch to a sitting position on the floor. “Misha . . .”
He ignored me. “After John . . . I couldn’t do it. Wouldn’t. People go away; they die. I knew . . . know better than to get attached to anyone.” There was anger underscoring the words, anger and resignation. “Why did you make me?”
Ah. Damn. The kid could make me happy as hell and rip me up inside all in one fell swoop. Trust was a ridiculously hard step for even the well-adjusted. For the rest of us walking wounded, it was nearly impossible. But Michael had already demonstrated that impossible wasn’t a word that applied to him. That didn’t make the wonder any less for me. He was coming to accept me, to trust me. And because of that, he now was also terrified of me. The one person he remembered relying on had left him . . . had died. It was one thing to be deserted by someone you cared for; it was a completely different circle of Hell to be abandoned by your family . . . by your brother.
“I’m your family, Michael. I won’t leave you,” I promised. “And I won’t die. Not until I’m knee-deep in dentures and adult diapers.”
“You can’t know that.” His eyes opened, and the challenge in them was clear.
“No?” I rested my shoulder against the couch. “I knew I’d find you, didn’t I? I know lots of things. I knew you’d get me a god-awful ugly coat. Hell, I’m practically psychic.”
He gave a disbelieving snort, pulled the blanket back over his shoulder, and rolled over to present his back to me, physically. It was too late to accomplish the same emotionally. I rearranged the blankets over his shoulder and received a brisk smack of my hand for my troubles. Sighing, I sat back and took my own jacket and shoes off. As I worked, I said firmly, “I moved Heaven and Earth to find you, Misha, and I’m not giving you up. If I have to live forever to prove that to you, so be it. If Dick Clark can do it, so can I.”
Under the quilt his shoulders relaxed. It was probably from an approaching sleep that couldn’t be denied, but I took it as a positive sign nonetheless. I stood and looked down at him. “A couple of years and you’ll be sick of the sight of me. You’ll change the locks while I’m at the store. I’ll be homeless.”
He didn’t hear me. Breaths deep and even ruffled the threads of the fraying patchwork cloth by his mouth. With the lightest of touches I brushed his hair aside. The wound was half healed. By morning the skin of his forehead would be smooth and untouched. It made me wonder. I’d made the sincere if unrealistic promise to stick around until the end of time, but how long would he live? Would he age at the same rate as your average human or would the ravages of time be wiped away by Jericho’s genetic tampering? For that matter, if he had children, would he pass on to them his heritage? Would they be like Michael?
Questions for another time, I thought, as the yellow cat appeared to wind around my ankles. This time was spent on more important things . . . such as watching over my brother as he slept.
And sneezing.
Chapter 27
St. Louis was gray and miserable with an icy rain that wouldn’t relent. It didn’t bother me; it was better than the snow of Boston. I didn’t even mind the monotonous swish of the windshield wipers, although the nauseating country music station Michael had become so fascinated with was beginning to wear on my nerves. As I had predicted, he’d recuperated from the accident completely by that next morning and was just as anxious as I was to hit the road. To that end, we’d taken the car sheltered in the attached garage. It was an older sedan, but with not too many miles on it—an only-to-church-on-Sunday car.
The car ran and that’s all I cared about. I left eight hundred dollars for it on the kitchen table under a cow- shaped creamer. Head down, the porcelain bovine grazed placidly on the field of greenbacks. I’d given a self- conscious shrug at Michael’s curious look and said nothing. He’d seen me steal a few cars now, but this one belonged to an old lady who wasn’t exactly living in the lap of luxury. She needed transportation for herself and the dander-ridden fur balls.
Unfortunately, Michael found his own fur ball before we left. There we were . . . one big happy family again —Stinky, Sneezy, and Country Joe. I looked over as Michael gazed dreamily out of the window, his lips shaping the words of a song we’d already heard three times in the last two hours. “Why country, kid?” I asked with a nearly physical pain. “Seriously, why?”
“You mean you don’t like it?” He unwrapped a candy bar and inhaled the scent of chocolate as if it were a fine wine. “It’s great. Every song is a story and in every story the singer has worse luck than we do. How can you not appreciate that?”
There was something to be said for that, but I’d suffered enough twanging in the past few hours to last me for the rest of my life. “I don’t know. Maybe my bleeding ears are the problem.” I switched the station and then sneezed. “Goddamnit.” We’d left the cats behind, but they hadn’t left us. The upholstery was covered liberally in a layer of white, gray, and yellow hair, and I hadn’t stopped sneezing since Boston.
A froth of tissue was automatically passed my way. “We should’ve bought another box.” Michael returned to his candy bar. “Or five, although I’m not sure it would help. The mucous river cannot be dammed. See the villagers flee in fear.”
I kept one steady hand on the wheel and blew my nose. “Smart-ass.”
