Originally Human

eyes stayed fixed on a spot near my left shoulder. "For your plate number."
    Great. "Why is there an APB out on my license plate?"
    "You're wanted by the FBI."
    Pete, the rat, had not been sufficiently charmed. He must have made a full report, and now someone in the government wanted to get their hands on Michael. The Unit?
    Some other corner of the bureaucracy? "This is not good news. Michael, can you make him do more than forget this conversation? Could you make him think he misread the license plate and that I'm someone else altogether?"
    "I believe so. He has no shields." Michael sounded professionally disapproving, like a dentist whose patient hasn't been flossing.
    A couple of long minutes later the trooper spoke again, his gaze still fixed over my left shoulder. "Sorry to bother you, ma'am." Then, suddenly, he came unstuck. He gave me a brisk nod and headed back to his car.
    I slumped back in my seat. "That was weird. That was so weird." I watched in the rearview mirror as the trooper's car pulled away. "If I'd known you could do that, I would have gotten you to take care of Pete."
    "I… didn't know I could, either, at that point."
    His voice sounded funny. I straightened and looked at him. His head was tilted back against the headrest, and he was almost as pale as he'd been when I first found him. "Are you okay?"
    "It always gives me a headache to do that," he said absently. "A real mother—"
    "Whoa. That's considered a very rude phrase."
    "Oh. Is the word fuck offensive?"
    "Yes, unless you're actually doing it, or about to do it."
    "Odd. There are several words with a primary or secondary meaning involving copulation that do not offend. At least I don't think they do. Screw, lay, sleep with, mate, ball—"
    "It's all in the context. Michael? You said 'always.'"
    "I remembered… a little more." He turned his head to look at me. In the muted light from the dash, his eyes had an odd sheen, almost reflective. Like cat's eyes. "I performed the same spell on myself just before I came here. I didn't know if my transit would be successful, and I couldn't let them… learn from me. So I told myself to forget. But I was rushed. Something went wrong."
    "You forgot too much?"
    "I forgot how to get it all back." The twitch of his lips might have been meant for a smile. "There are seventeen versions of this saying in the various realms: whatever can go wrong, will."
    "We call it Murphy's Law. You look wrecked." I unbuckled my seat belt and stood. "I'm going to get you some ibuprofen."
    "This is a remedy for pain?"
    "Yes."
    "Good. The nearest ley line is thin, hard to draw from with my head pounding. And the Houston node is too distant to reach directly."
    "Houston has a node?"
    "Of course. So many people could not live so closely without one. They would become insane. Though that node is well below the land surface, and the energy is badly scattered. I suspect electricity… ah." His eyes lit up. "You brought me the Coke to drink."
    He had the oddest gaps in his knowledge. I had to show him how to use "the Coke" to swallow pills. Then, abruptly, I shut off the engine and told him I was going outside to think.

    THERE'S so little real night left in the Western world. Here, halfway between Houston and San Antonio, the sky was hazy, the stars thin. But the moon was fat and profligate with its borrowed light. I started walking along the curve of road that denned the rest area.
    There were trees. I could hear a dog barking somewhere, far in the distance. And all those noisy fireflies on the interstate swishing by, making good time on their way to wherever. The grass was soft beneath my feet and the breeze held a pleasant, green scent, but I missed the smell of the sea.
    I ached.
    Lord knows I should have been thinking about the fix we were in. I tried, but my intentions kept scattering, then re-forming, lined up behind one thought like iron filings obedient to the pull of the magnet.
    I could have him. I could have Michael. He was willing, and I hadn't seduced him into it. I didn't have to worry about hurting him.
    Not physically, that is. I moved slowly, watching the restless branches of an oak nibble the moon into lace. But that had never been my real worry, had it?
    I'd long ago learned control. Whatever vital force I consume—and it's not the soul; that's a ridiculous superstition—a healthy body can easily replace it as long as I don't drink too deeply. Rather like a dairy farmer, I like to think, I dine on what