The old man turned the coin over and over between his fingers, squinting down at it. “Yep, that’s the one. Where’d you find it?”
"In an old shoebox in the attic. Mom said not to go up there but there’s a lot of neat stuff—”
“Yeah, a lot of it was mine. Now I get the nursing home,” he muttered, disgusted.
“So what did you want it for? The coin I mean.”
A toothy grin crept onto the old man’s face. He leaned down and spun the coin on its edge. It was already glowing when he said, “Watch this.”
I knew I loved him the minute we met. His eyes sparkled, and his smile… his smile melted my heart. I won’t even go into the muscles, which bulged and flexed as he returned his sword to its scabbard.
He told me his name, and I told him mine as he gathered me up into his arms to carry me from my confinement. After asking politely. I decided then to marry him.
I kissed him as we passed the dragon’s corpse, so freshly dead that steam still rose from its mouth and nose.
That was how I met your father.
Take the book to Milton, he’ll know.
Milton, of course, virtually creams when he sees the binding. He knows that it’s not leather; not from a cow, anyway. He accepts it into his hands like it’s a Fabergé egg or a fragmentation grenade or both. He turns it over slowly, gingerly, whispering, “It’s in magnificent condition.”
I can read Milton easily, even without telepathy. He knows it’s dangerous, but he still wants it desperately. I offer to sell it to him for a price he can barely afford; I’ll come back to reclaim it from his dead hands tomorrow night.
“So, how long do you think you’ll be with us?”
He had finished surveying the apartment, and found it suitable. “Not sure. Depends on the job. Did the last tenant leave the furnishings? The ad didn’t mention—”
“Yes, poor thing, just up and disappeared one day. She’d only been here a month, so we just left the original ad up.”
“Any idea what happened?”
“Well, we asked the ghosts if they knew anything, and they said she just up and left one night: packed a suitcase and walked out the door.”
“Odd.”
“She did strike me as a bit skittish.”
“How did this get broken?” he asked, gingerly picking up the glass shards.
She shrugged. “I tripped. I was holding the glass and it flew out of my hand and hit the mirror.”
“And this wasn’t because you and your mother are fighting?”
“No.” it was an honest answer, technically. Trapping her mother in the mirror hadn’t required a fight, just words. And now that the mirror was broken, her image was gone, and her with it.
“When she comes back, I’ll tell her it was an accident. Don’t worry.”
“Thanks, Frank. You’re awesome.”
He smiled, “I really am.”
You can find a lot of good stuff in the right dumpster. There were good ones scattered around the city, and this one was his: none of the others would come to pick through it until he’d had his turn. But this time, he was interrupted.
“Find anything good?”
It was seven feet tall, beet red, with horns curling away from its temples. He’d hallucinated before on the D.T.s, but never like this. “You ain’t real.”
“I’m as real as you want me to be. How’d you like a bath, a meal, and a warm bed?”
“What I gotta do?”
The kid walked around to the front of the car again, trying to look poised and knowledgeable. Roy suppressed a smile and waited respectfully. After a moment, he added, “She was my mother’s. Never drove her much. I put some work into her a few years ago, so she runs, but I can’t promise she’ll pass inspection—”
“That’s all right,” the kid said, a little to readily. He finally asked, “How much?”
“How much you got?” It wouldn’t matter. The car wanted the kid, that had been made clear. Roy wouldn’t stand in the way. Whatever happened wasn’t his responsibility.
She was already at the window when he appeared in the shadows beneath. She taunted, “Took you long enough.”
“There are guards everywhere.”
“My Father’s guards are no threat to you.”
“If I kill even one of them, he will know someone has been here, and this will become complicated.”
“What are you waiting for, then?” She backed slowly away from the window.
It was an effort to become mist, to disintegrate his body into fine wet particles that rode the air, to rise through the cool night air to the window, and to drift inside to where she waited.
She had tattoos; all over her body, tattoos he hadn’t known were there, and as she disrobed they began to glow. Some were black and grey, and became a bright white. Others were vibrantly colored, and their colors became brilliant and then blinding.
By the time she was in his arms, his eyes were squeezed shut and he didn’t dare to open them. He imagined the figures and symbols burning from her skin and onto his. They were certainly hot to the touch, uncomfortably hot.
“Will this hurt?”
She whispered in his ear, “Not if I get what I want.”
Dennis pulled the car off onto the shoulder and rolled down the window to ask, “Now what on Earth are you doing out here in the middle of nowhere alone? Want a ride?”
The walker shrugged. “If it’s convenient.”
“I can take you into town, at least…”
“You’re very kind.”
When the walker was settled in, and they were back on the road, Dennis asked conversationally, “So, you’re one of those aliens, right?”
“That’s right.”
“That’s pretty cool.”
“How could you tell?”
“It’s a hundred and five and you’re walking through the desert. If you were human, you’d be dead.”
