Broken (Otherworld 6)

He nodded, but didn't comment. He didn't need to. Clay hated crowds, always had, and I'd always faulted him for it, chalking it up to his dislike of humans. But now, looking into his eyes and seeing my own response reflected back--discomfort not distaste--I knew I'd never again snipe at him about avoiding a crowded mall or packed movie theater.

He shifted over, his hip brushing mine. "Go on outside. Get some air."

"I'm--"

He bumped me with his hip, causing his stack of junk food to sway. "Go. Stretch your legs. There's a field out back, isn't there? Behind the building?"

"I think so."

"Find a picnic sp

ot then. Grab Jeremy and I'll meet you there."

"Thanks."

Jeremy was just outside the doors, eying one of those new SUV hybrids.

"Looking for a trade-up on the Explorer?" I asked.

"I was thinking of you."

"I have a car."

"Which is half dead, has no air bags, no child restraints, and is definitely not baby-friendly." He waved at the SUV wannabe. "This is cute."

"Cute? It looks like a minihearse. Yes, I know I'll need something new. But not that. And if you mention minivan--"

"I wouldn't dare."

I told him Clay's picnic plan.

"That's fine," Jeremy said. "I need to use the restroom. You can wait for me or, if Clay comes out first, I'll meet you both out back."

He started to walk past me, then stopped to watch a vehicle pull in a few spots down. A Mercedes SUV.

"Perhaps something like that," he said. "It's a luxury vehicle, sure to have all the top safety features, plus be quite reliable in bad weather, but not as big and unwieldy as the Explorer. I'm sure you'd find it quite peppy."

"Peppy? That's almost as bad as 'cute.' "

"It would be the perfect vehicle for a--"

"Suburban soccer mom."

A slight furrow of the brows.

"Never mind. Just..." I waved at the car. "Not me. Not now. Not ever. I'll find something. But not--" I looked at the Mercedes and shivered. "That."

He shook his head and walked toward the building.

I followed the walkway along the north side of the service center. Behind the building, the path cut on a diagonal to the southwest truckers' lot.

The whir of the huge air-conditioning unit and the distant rumble of idling trucks blocked out the roar of the highway to the north. To my right was a white storage silo. Beyond that was a swamp.

I thought the swamp was what I'd smelled when I first picked up the scent of something heavy and overripe. But the smell came on the south wind, blowing toward the swamp, not from it. The scent carried other notes too, all human--the smell of an unwashed body and unwashed clothes, male, seemingly healthy, but underlain with that faint scent of overripeness. Of...rot.

It was the same scent I'd smelled on the man in the bowler yesterday. Not sickness but rot, so faint I had to get a noseful before I was sure. I realized it was the same thing I'd smelled walking back from the restaurant after breakfast.

I dismissed it. No one--and nothing--could track us like that. We were 185 miles from Cabbagetown. Even I would've lost the trail the moment we'd driven away last night. If this guy came from where I thought he did--nineteenth-century London--well, let's just say he couldn't hop into a car and give chase.