Free Originally Human by Eileen Wilks Page A

FBI or the Azá." I shrugged. "I don't plan to use the IDs he sends for long."
    "Good grief. You're talking about the Mob."
    "I didn't say that." I stood and studied myself in the mirror. I could pass for thirty-five, which was unsettling, but useful. They'd be looking for the fifty-year-old me, not this one. I touched my cheek.
    "I liked your old face," Michael said from the doorway. "But this one is pretty, too."
    I turned. His face hadn't changed. It was still beautiful enough to break hearts. He wore a pair of Pete's jeans, rolled up at the ankles. They were too big at the waist, too. "How wobbly are you?"
    "I can walk," he said grimly. "I had better not try to run or work magic. They knew what they were doing. Sedating me was the best way to render me useless."
    "They went to a lot of trouble not to damage you. Just as you suspected they would." Either the Azá knew who and what he was, or they had pretty clear instructions from their goddess.
    "Instead they destroyed your home."
    I wanted to tell him it didn't matter, but my throat closed up. My pot, my little yellow pot, the one thing I still had from Ginny…
    "It's my fault," he said bitterly, pushing away from the door. "My fault that you lost everything."
    "Not everything." Just the things that mattered. I still had heaps of money.
    Erin was worried, but trying to be matter-of-fact. "You couldn't have known what would happen. Probably couldn't have stopped Molly, either, even if you had known."
    "Perhaps not. But I should have realized… they traced me through the nodes and ley lines. Through my use of them. They must have."
    I thought with dismay of my own use of node energy—through Michael. "Is that possible?"
    "Theoretically, maybe." Erin was frowning. "Michael's energy is so distinctive, even I could pick it up when I studied the node. But I don't see how anyone could trace his location that way."
    "It's possible," Michael said grimly. "Probably not humanly possible, but it can be done."
    "The goddess, you mean." Dismay ripened to fear. "But she isn't here. She can't cross. I don't know why, but she can't. But if she's found an avatar here—"
    "I don't think so," he said, a frown creasing his brow. "No, if she had an avatar she would have taken me herself. If only I could remember more!" He ran a hand over his face as if he could rub away the weariness. "I think, if she could reach a world heavily congruent to yours, or plant an avatar in one… Dis or Faerie are the closest."
    Much too close, I thought.
    "Dis, probably," Michael went on. "Faerie doesn't care for outsiders, and they have strong defenses. Dis is more chaotic. She might have made a deal with someone there."
    Erin's eyes widened. "My children. God, Michael, my children are asleep upstairs—"
    "They're safe," he said quickly. "I haven't used magic since I brought us here. I have a low-level connection to whichever node is nearest, yes. I can't sever it. It—it isn't possible. But even an Old One would have trouble finding me this quickly when I'm not drawing power."
    I felt cold. "But she could find you? Even if you don't use magic?"
    "I don't know. I think… eventually. If I stay in motion…" He shrugged, helpless to offer certainties when so much was unclear. "It would take tremendous power to locate me when I'm not using a node. A goddess has great power, but if she is in Dis, either personally or through an avatar, she must reserve some of that for defense. They are not friendly in Dis."
    The sheer understatement of that made me strangle on a laugh.
    Erin didn't see anything funny in the situation. She was looking at Michael with something close to fear. "Who are you, that a goddess would go to such lengths to capture you?"
    "It's not who I am, but what I know. Or am supposed to know." He grimaced.
    I sighed. "I need coffee. And then, I think, Michael and I had better leave. Just to be sure."
    There were no lines around Michael's eyes, but when they met mine just then they looked old.