Originally Human

me up with him. "Run!"
    They came at us out of the darkness. Four, five—I don't know how many there were. They seemed splinters of darkness themselves, clothed as they were in black, their faces smeared with black. We were in full flight when we saw them, our hands clasped, bare feet slapping on the asphalt. They raced out of the trees—from in front of us. Between us and the RV.
    Moonlight gleamed on metal. A gun barrel, raised—the shot cracked out even as Michael jerked me to the left. The highway—yes, they might not want to shoot us where so many witnesses streamed by. There were trees between us and the interstate, too. Cover.
    There were also two more of them, rising from the brush like shadows. One with a rifle, one with something large and ominous held to his shoulder and pointed, oddly, off to the right.
    But the rifle was pointed at me.
    I felt the power jump into Michael. He bellowed something. A word. It slid through my brain like melted butter—hot, ungraspable. And the one with the rifle burst into flame.
    And so, with an explosion that rocked the earth, did my Winnebago.
    Michael jerked. Stumbled. Threw his arms around me, hugging so hard that all the air whooshed out of me. And the universe tilted in an impossible, sideways slide, and burst into bits—into motion—then stillness.
    I was lying on my back on something hard and rough. It was hard to draw breath. Something heavy and warm pinned me, covered me, all but smothered me. Heavy and warm and… "Michael," I breathed, and ran my hands over him. He was unconscious, but alive. My questing hands found a dart in his back.
    Anesthetic? I blinked, gathering thoughts with care and piecing them together much more slowly than the universe had re-formed itself around me. As gently as I could—he was very heavy—I eased Michael off me, sat up, and looked around.
    And began to laugh. I couldn't help it. We were back in the Village, plopped down naked on top of the node where Michael had first appeared.

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Chapter 9

    "IT'S certainly different," Erin said, dabbing at the graze on my cheek. "Not that you don't look great. You do. But it will take some getting used to."
    "Mmm." I was sitting on the closed toilet in the downstairs bathroom of Erin's house, a cozy two-story in Galveston's historical section. I knew the house well, though it has been through a lot of changes. A little over a hundred years ago, the debris from the storm surge had mounded two stories high only a block from here.
    I glanced at the mirror over the sink… which had showed me a face I hadn't seen for some time. A face ten or fifteen years younger than the one I'd seen the last time I looked in a mirror. A face surrounded by red hair, not white.
    Sex with Michael hadn't just made
me feel
young again.
    All that power… apparently a glut could undo what starvation had wrought.
    "Ouch! Be careful. I might need some of that skin."
    "Hold still."
    "I don't know why you're doing this. I'm perfectly capable of cleaning up a couple scratches."
    "Maybe I need to."
    That silenced me. She slid my robe—well, it was hers, but I was wearing it—off my shoulder so she could clean the scrape there. I don't know where the abrasions had come from. Maybe I'd skidded a bit when Michael brought us back to the one spot he knew well enough to aim for, even as the drug took him under.
    I'd used Theresa Farnhope's phone to call Erin, which would have amazed Theresa, had she known. But she takes out her hearing aids to sleep, which was why I'd chosen her trailer for my entering-without-breaking. I'd gone fuzzy, of course; walls aren't a problem when I'm like that. Erin's husband Pete had arrived with her and helped us load a bleary Michael into her Toyota, where he'd passed out again.
    He was awake now, though still dopey. I'd left him in the kitchen drinking coffee. Pete, bless him, had made a pot, walked Michael around until he wasn't staggering so much, then left to try to find us some clothes. "Your husband is a miracle," I told Erin.
    "True. Are you sure this lawyer of yours can be trusted?"
    "For this, yes." I'd called NMN's only employee, an attorney with interesting connections. He was sending cash and another credit card by courier. I expected them in a couple hours. He'd get us identification, too, but that would take a little longer. I'd sent him digital photos of both Michael and me after borrowing Pete's camera and computer.
    It takes a good deal of money to acquire such things