House Immortal Read Free Page B

for him. For him and what he’s left behind on this property. I come offering protection.”
    It was a dramatic sort of thing to say, and he had a nice, deep, dramatic sort of voice for it. Chills did that rolling thing over my arms.
    But there was only one problem.
    â€œHe’s dead,” I said.
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œMy father, Dr. Case, has been dead for years.”
    That, more than anything, seemed to take the starch out of him. He exhaled, and it was a wet sound as he tried to get air back in his lungs. I almost reached over to prop him up, afraid he might just pass out and further mess up the clean of my kitchen floor.
    He was a big man, but, like I said, I’m strong.
    â€œAre you certain?” he asked.
    I’d been twelve years old when the men from House Black, Defense, and House White, Medical, came to the farm. I’d hidden like my father had taught me, up in the rafters of the barn. I’d watched those men kill him. Kill my mother too. I’d watched them search our house and carry out boxes. I’d watched them pick up my parents’ bodies, put them in a black van, then use our garden hose to clean up the drive so not even a drop of their blood was left for me to cry over.
    My brother had come home from studying the old skills—electrical tinkering, metalwork, analog and digital system repairs—out on the Burnbaums’ homestead about three months later. He’d found Mom and Dad gone, and me and Grandma trying to hold the place together. Right then, he’d started his crazy crusade for information and histories that had eventually made him unofficial head of House Brown.
    The same crazy crusade that had left me alone on this farm for three years with an addle-minded grandmother, a two-headed farmhand, some impossible creatures, and the communication hub for the scattered, off-grid House Brown folk my brother promised to look after.
    My brother might still be alive, but not my parents.
    The image of their bodies being carried away flashed behind my eyes again.
    â€œI’m very certain,” I whispered to the stranger.
    â€œI . . .” He swallowed hard, shook his head. Didn’t look like that helped much. His words came out in a slur. “I thought . . . I should have known. Sooner. We thought . . . all our information. That he lived.”
    â€œNeds,” I called.
    The stranger’s eyes rolled up in his head and he folded like someone had punched him in the ribs. I put my hands out to catch him, got hold of his jacket shoulders and pivoted on my heels, throwing my weight to guide him down to the floor without knocking his head too badly.
    I crouched next to him. This close, I thought maybe there was something familiar about him.
    Neds strolled over. “What are you going to do with him, Tilly?” Right Ned asked.
    â€œI don’t know. Check his pockets, will you? See if he has a name. If he’s really House Gray, we might have trouble on our hands.” I was already pushing his hand to one side so I could get to his wound. It was deep and bad. Might be from a crocboar. Might be from any number of beasts that grew up hungry and mean out on the edges of the property.
    I could mend him enough to get him to a hospital hours away in my old truck on these old roads. If he hadn’t lost too much blood, he might survive.
    I stood. “I need the sewing kit. The medicines.”
    â€œTilly,” Right Ned said. “I don’t think that will work.”
    I was already halfway across the kitchen toward the bathroom, where I kept all the supplies for taking care of Neds and Grandma.
    â€œTilly,” Left Ned snapped. “Stop and listen, woman.”
    I did not like being bossed around by that man. Either of them. I turned.
    Neds hunkered next to the stranger, his shotgun in easy reach on the floor beside him, his shoulders angled so the shirt stretched at the seams. He’d pushed the