Free The Wild Road by Marjorie M. Liu Page B

company.”
    “Why did you let us in?” Lannes asked. “Do you know this woman?”
    The old man ignored his questions. “You said you were told to find me? Who did that?”
    “It was on a note,” replied the woman carefully. “Some…odd things have been happening to me. We hoped you could explain them.”
    “Explain odd things?” Orwell laughed, but it was tinged with nervousness. “That’s rich. Did Simon send you? Mr. Simon Says?”
    Lannes frowned. “As she explained, your name was on a note left on my doorstep. Who’s Simon?”
    “A nobody. Just like me.” The old man shot the woman a thoughtful look. “He wouldn’t have sent a girl. He doesn’t like girls.”
    “You recognized me,” she pressed.
    “You look like someone,” Price admitted. “But she’s dead.”
    The woman tensed, but Orwell turned and shuffled deeper into his living room. He kicked aside some clothes and stooped with a groan to pick up a can of beer on the floor by the sagging couch. Taking a long drink, he gave Lannes and the woman a hard look.
    “So,” he said. “Mind if I see the note?”
    Lannes very carefully unfolded it from his pocket, but he did not move. This felt wrong. Not just the mess or the tight space, but the air when breathed seemed to enter his heart instead of his lungs, and it was as though he could taste the miasma of darkness that had settled over this house like an illness, or death.
    Bad vibes.
    The woman also did not move. Her stillness felt the same as that of a fox sniffing out a trap-sharp, smart, hunted. Good instincts. Lannes held up the note like a sign, uncertain the old man’s vision would let him see it but unwilling to go any deeper into the house.
    The old man took another drink of beer and squinted at the note. Then he took a step closer, and another. Until he stopped, staring. Calm enough, on the surface. Perfectly calm. So calm he looked like a mannequin, plastic and frozen.
    “Where did you get that?” he asked, and Lannes realized something in that moment that made him want to take a slow careful step out of Orwell Price’s house: he could not sense the old man’s mind. Not a hint nor trace of it. It was like standing in the presence of the dead, of something empty and hollow.
    Impossible. Lannes was a poor mind reader, but at least he could feel minds. He could sense the weight of thoughts. Orwell Price had none. This confused Lannes at first. And then it frightened him. Normal people did not put walls in their minds. Normal people would never consider it necessary. Normal people would not have the mental strength to do such a thing.
    Which meant that the old man was…something else.
    I should have listened to Charlie.
    Lannes took a risk on the woman. He touched her arm, wrapped his fingers lightly around it, grateful for her thick sweater, and tugged slightly. She glanced at him but did not protest as he made her move toward the door.
    “Don’t go yet,” said Orwell, quietly. “I still haven’t heard about that note. Interesting handwriting, don’t you think?”
    “It’s just writing,” said the woman, as Lannes stuffed the paper back into his pocket. “Unless you recognize it?”
    “I recognize a lot of things,” Price whispered, knuckles white as he crumpled the beer can in his fist. “I recognize the morning, and the shit taste in my mouth when I open my eyes after a bad night’s sleep. I recognize the pain in my gut when I’ve eaten something I know is bad for me, and I recognize, too, that I have no self-control. But sometimes a man needs to eat some shit. No matter what it costs.”
    Lannes stepped in front of the woman, his wings straining against the belt. Power gathered in his chest and his skin tingled. Every instinct was pulsing. The walls were closing in. He put one hand behind him and pushed the woman back toward the door.
    “The note,” Orwell whispered. “Goddamn that note.”
    He threw aside the beer can. It hit the television. In the same swing,