"What's the difference?"
"Bigger, faster, solitary. Their babies are born fully covered in fur and able to run."
Gio laughed. "That must make it even tougher on Mom than a normal baby."
"Not as much as you'd think. Instinct tells them to lie very still and hide when Mom's not around." She gave him a sideways smile. "Do you have children, Gio?"
"No, never, more's the pity. I suppose I never met the right lady."
He said this with a playful smile that he hoped she took to be flirtatious, but all he got in return was an unexpectedly sad look.
Well, he thought, that was what he got for trying to flirt when all he had to offer a woman was a life on the run. He could tell that she was interested; their kisses in the desert had made that plain. But it was still hard to tell what she wanted, and he hesitated to push too hard for fear of sending her rocketing away like one of those desert jackrabbits on the run.
"You don't have kids, do you?" he asked.
Max laughed, but there was a bitter tinge to it. "No, life hasn't given me a whole lot of opportunity for that. I wish—" She broke off.
"You wish?" Gio asked quietly.
They had reached the motel, and Max shook her head instead of answering. She touched his arm to stop him, then took a quick look all around. "Looks like we're still clear. No sign of trouble."
"And still the only customers," Gio said, accepting the change of subject gracefully. At any rate, there were no other cars in the motel's parking.
"Single-handedly keeping these people in business," Max said.
They split the bags, with Gio taking the things meant for Javic. Max looked up at him as she placed the bags in his hands.
"I'd like to have a strategy session if you're not ready to sleep yet," she said. "Come on over to my room if you want to."
With that, she slipped into her room before Gio could ask: was thatjustan invitation to talk strategy, or something else?
He went next door and left the bags on the room's only chair. Javic didn't stir. He was lying on his side on one of the room's two narrow beds, fast asleep and dead to the world. He had stripped off the robe, draping it neatly over a chair. With his medium-longish blond hair spilling across the pillow and a T-shirt-clad shoulder showing above the thin motel blanket, he looked like anyone else. He might be a college student or a construction worker, exhausted and sinking into deep sleep as soon as he was somewhere he could get a pillow under his head.
He wasn't as young as Gio had thought at first. There were fine lines around his mouth and eyes. Maybe late 20s. The depth of his sleep suggested that it had been a long time since he had been able to sleep so deeply and completely.
Gio quietly closed the door and went next door to Max's room. She had left the door open a crack. He tapped lightly and pushed it a little farther open.
"Come on in," Max said impatiently. "I told you it was all right."
She was sitting on one of the twin beds and sorting their purchases briskly. She glanced up when he came in, gave him a brief smile, and went back to what she was doing.
However, she was very muchnotspread out on the bed half naked and inviting. So she really did mean a strategy session. Gio closed and locked the door behind him.
"Have some caffeine," Max said. She held out a bottle of cold coffee.
Gio smiled and took a bottle of water. "I think I'd like to sleep at some point."
"Suit yourself." Max cracked the cap. "Take a seat and let's talk about some things."
Like the room Gio was sharing with Javic, Max's room had two narrow beds with a flimsy nightstand between them, a single chair, a TV attached to the wall, and little else. The air conditioner rattled anemically. Gio dragged the chair beside Max's bed.
"I think we're going to need Javic in order to make plans of attack," he said. "Want me to go wake him up?"
Max shook his head. "It's not Javic I want to talk to; it's you. I think it's time for us to get on the same page about everything that's going on. Entirely on the same page. All right?"
Gio hesitated a little over his reply; it felt as if there was a lot riding on it. "I'm not withholding anything from you, Max."
"I know you're not," she said, to his relief. "Or, rather—I don't think you're trying to. There's just a lot. I know you wanted to ease me into this world of magicians and gargoyles that you live in, but I think it's time for you to start from the beginning and tell me everything. Including, and perhaps I should say especially, about this mysterious friend of yours."
