*****
Nate Lee
From far down the block, I watched the two big men bracket Silk. She stood between them, and all I could see of her was the flutter of her cloak in the wind. I slowed. If these were friends of hers, I'd wait until she was alone again. But their posture wasn't that of friends. They loomed over the woman, and then I caught the scent of her fear.
I smiled.
This was the opportunity I'd been waiting for. I ran toward them, moving only as fast as a speedy human could move. I didn't want to attract any attention to what I planned to do. I reached them as they dragged the struggling Silk into an alley. And I was on them before they knew I was there.
Once we were hidden from sight, I stopped pretending to be human. I broke the arm of the one holding Silk and flung him head first into the wall at the end of the alley. Silk screamed as she fell into a mound of trash, and the noise of her fall hid the sound of the man's skull bones cracking against the bricks. He fell heavily, and I knew he'd never rise again.
Meanwhile, the other man had turned to me with an expression of outrage on his face. I grinned at him. It was clear that he wasn't used to having anyone interrupt his amusements.
He reached for me, and I tossed him after his fellow. His neck snapped with a sharp crack as he too smashed headfirst into the wall.
Silk was on her hands and knees, too shaken to have regained her feet or to notice what I'd done. I grabbed her hand and pulled her up.
"Come on," I urged. "Run before they wake up."
They would never wake, not in this life, but Silk didn't know that. I charged out of the alley, dragging her along with me as if I expected the two who had accosted her to come after us. But I slowed my run to something she could keep pace with as I followed a twisting path through the streets of the city. There weren't many people out on this cold and windy afternoon, so we had a free run past red brick and leafless trees, past empty shops with boarded up windows, and parks full of dead grass. At last, I felt Silk's steps slowing as the adrenaline burned away and fatigue caught up with her. I slowed as well, then stopped.
"I think we lost them," I said, panting as if I too were tired.
We were standing in the shadow of a statue of some forgotten general. His sword was a broken stump, and bird droppings masked his face. But there was a stone bench nearby, so I led Silk to it and sat down beside her.
I turned to her and, for the first time, I looked fully into her face. It was a face that set my heart pounding like a mortal youth suddenly stricken with his first love. I had not seen those features since the time of my own beginning. It was her face, my beloved's face, Laheese reborn.
Her eyes were dark and fringed with long lashes. Her features were even but not perfect enough to be called beautiful. Her mouth was firm and set with strength of will. She was Laheese come back to me after all these thousands of lonely years.
"Thank you," she said, and even her voice was the voice I remembered. "But you shouldn't have taken such a risk. If anyone saw us, your life is forfeit."
I smiled at her, my first real smile is so very long. "No one saw us," I said. And if they had, I would deal with them in my own way.
But she frowned at me, and her dark eyes were serious as she said, "I can see you're a stranger. Believe me, you won't live long if you cross the Brownshirts."
I almost laughed out loud. I would never worry about how long I had to live. But I needed to make the most of this time with her. I needed to win her trust so I could learn her heart's desire and be free of my curse. That was why I wanted her trust, wasn't it?
"You're right," I said. "I'm a stranger here. Just passing through. My name's Nate Lee. What's yours?"
"Silk," she answered. "Just Silk, nothing more." She looked at me with measuring eyes and then took pity on what she thought was the ignorance of a stranger. "That means I have no family, no clan. I'm what we call a solitary, a person who belongs nowhere and to no one. One who means nothing."
"That seems a lonely way to be," I said. I was fascinated by the golden color of her finely textured skin. I could look at her forever and never regret the time. Surely, the humans were right, and this was my beloved reborn.
Silk shrugged and pushed her hair away from her face. "It's the way things are here."
"I have no family either," I volunteered. So far as I knew, I was the only one of my kind, whatever that kind might be. "But that doesn't matter much where I come from."
"And where is that?"
"Around," I said. "I can usually find work as crew on a freighter. Sometimes I find a planet I like and stay for a while. Sometimes, my luck runs out, and I'm grounded on a place like this."
"Bad luck, indeed."
I smiled at her with sly eyes. "Maybe not," I said.