House Immortal Read Free Page A

under the gray coat he wore, was high collared, buttoned, and might have once been white. That, along with his dark gray breeches and military boots laced and buckled up to his knees, gave him a distinctly historical sort of look.
    Gray clothes meant he was claimed by House Gray, one of the eleven powerful Houses that ruled the modern world’s resources, from technology and agriculture straight on up through defense, fuel, medical, and the gods we worshiped. Gray ruled the human resource—all the people in the world, except for those who claimed the twelfth, powerless House: House Brown. Loosely democratic, House Brown was made up of people who lived off the grid, scraping by without the comforts and amenities of the modern world. House Brown was barely recognized by the other Houses.
    I was House Brown, but I wore green, Agriculture, when I needed to trade with nearby businesses. No one from House Gray, or any other House, had ever come to my farm.
    I had changed out of my filthy hunting clothes into a pair of faded blue overalls and a checkered shirt. It wasn’t at all House Brown or House Green compliant, but, then, I’d been off grid and below the radar all my life.
    Just the way my brother wanted us to be.
    â€œUnless you’re here to sell me something,” I said as I leaned the door shut a bit. “In which case I’ll just save you what air you’ve got left and say no, there’s no Matilda Case living here.”
    He didn’t smile, but his eyes pulled up a bit at the bottom and something that looked like humor caught fire in them. That’s when I noticed the color of his eyes: cinnamon red, like mine when I was injured.
    I took a step back, startled, and he took a step forward.
    Neds racked a round in the shotgun he’d had propped by his knee and then all of us in the kitchen held perfectly still.
    Well, except for Grandma. She just kept on singing her knitting song about sunshine through lace and liberty’s death, her fingers slipping yarn into knots, smooth and liquid for a woman of her still-undetermined years.
    â€œNot a single step closer,” Left Ned said, his voice always a little colder and meaner than Right Ned’s. “You have not been invited into this home.”
    The stranger looked away from me, and I thought maybe for the first time he noticed that there was a house, a room, and people around us. A whole farm, really: 150 acres tucked back far enough in the rolling hills of Pennsylvania that the nearest fill-up station was thirty miles away.
    He certainly noticed Neds—both heads of him. And the gun.
    Since Left Ned was talking, I knew he was willing to bleed up the stranger a little more if that’s what it took to keep him out of the house.
    â€œI’m looking for a doctor,” the stranger said. “Dr. Renault Case.”
    â€œHe doesn’t live here anymore,” Right Ned said calmly, everything about his voice the opposite of Left Ned’s. “If you need someone to take you to a town doctor, I’d be willing. But there’s no medical man here to help you.”
    The stranger frowned, sending just a hint of lines across his forehead and at the corners of his eyes. “You think I came here for help?”
    I nodded toward his gut. “You are bleeding rather strongly.”
    He looked down. An expression of surprise crossed his face and he shifted his wide fingers, letting a little more blood ooze out, as if just noticing how badly he was injured. If he was in pain—and he should be—he did not show it.
    Shock, maybe. Or expensive drugs.
    â€œI didn’t come here looking for help from Dr. Case,” he said, cinnamon gaze on me, just on me, and the sound of his blood falling with a soft
tip tip tip
on my wooden floor. “I came here to warn him.”
    â€œAbout what?” I asked.
    He hesitated.
    Left Ned spoke up. “Say it, or get walking.”
    â€œHis enemies are looking