Death's Excellent Vacation - By Charlaine Harris & Toni L. P. Kelner Page 0,108

could whisper aside, and there’s the stairs and the other oak door, too. But the sound of her scream burrowed into my head, tugged at the Heart under my skin, and I had to fight against my trueform hulking out and making things interesting.

She stopped for breath, the scream hitching into sharp little sucking sounds as she tried to get in something to breathe and push out the yelling at the same time. I backed up, my heel hitting an empty energy-drink can and sending it rattling. I had both hands up, trying to look harmless, but it’s so hard to do when you’re built like a weightlifter. Another can crunched underfoot; I stumbled. We stared at each other, Kate and I, and the screaming petered out.

We both took a deep breath, and then we spoke at the same time.

“Please don’t hurt me—”

I was a little more on the ball. “I’m not gonna hurt you—” Boy, is that a lie.

We stared at each other some more. I tried again. “Hi.” The word was totally inadequate. “How do you feel?”

Her hand flew to her throat, and her eyes got very round. Then she noticed her shirt was torn open, and a flush rose up the curve of her neck, exploding in her cheeks like New Year’s fireworks. She gulped audibly, and my heart made a funny bursting movement. It was like the movement of the other Heart under my skin, the stone that makes the change into stoneskin possible. If both hearts decided to go wiggy on me, I would be gasping and blushing myself.

She snatched her ruined shirt together. “If you have to rape me,” she managed in a queer little choked voice, “please, please use a condom.”

Uh, what? “Um.” My jaw worked soundlessly for a moment. “I, uh. I’m not gonna rape you, ma’am. I just, um, I thought this was the safest place for you.” I swallowed hard, trying not to think that her shirt really wasn’t covering much and that I’d seen what she was trying to hide—the shells of the bra, cheap black lace cupping white skin, and the mark shifting against itself. “Since they’re trying to kill you. Because you’re . . . That mark on you. You’ve had a near-death experience lately, haven’t you?”

Her eyes were full of welling water, washing out the blue and trickling down one smooth cheek. “Oh, shit,” she whispered, like she’d been punched. “You . . . you’re one of them.”

Well, that answered that question. She’d brushed up against the Big Bad recently.

“I ain’t one of them. They’re the Big Bad, and I’m stoneskin. I fight them.” Swallowed hard again. Suddenly I was very conscious of my ears poking up—I don’t wear my hat at home—and the stone walls and cans on the floor were probably weird to someone who worked at a reasonable dead-end job. “Uh, you got bit. I think you’re okay, though.”

“Bit?” She shook her head. Her hair wasn’t dishwater under the energy-efficient bulbs I have down here. No, it was gold. Spun gold. “I . . . You . . .”

Well, this is going pretty okay. “You had a near-death experience, right? Six months to a year ago, I’d reckon. Right?”

“How did you—” She was having trouble getting whole sentences out. I didn’t blame her. EvilMart probably didn’t prepare her for this. “Look, is this some kind of joke?”

Not even close. “I’ll explain everything. That mark on your chest showed up after your nearly dying. It’s changed again because it’s been triggered. You’re a Heart, and I’ve got to take you to Paris.”

Tense, ticking silence stretched between us like a high wire between buildings, bowing under the weight of a daredevil’s feet. Finally, she gulped audibly again. “Say what?”

All things considered, it was probably the only response she could make. I tried not to stare at her hands, loosening on what was left of her shirt. “The Heart of Hearts is in Paris. I’ve got to take you there. We’ll fly first class, probably.” I ran out of words.

She stared at me for another fifteen seconds, then began to laugh. When she finished with that, she burst into tears while I stood there uselessly staring. Even with her skin all blotchy and her nose all full, she was . . . Well. I didn’t even think to get her any tissues until she was covered in tears and full of snot.

It wasn’t a good beginning. She finally calmed down, and I wondered if she was