The Host (The Host #1)(182)

“Where now?” he asked, tense.

“See if this road continues around the back. The tanks will be by a loading area.”

Jared drove slowly. There were many souls here, going in and out of the facility, some of them in scrubs. Healers. No one paid us any particular attention.

The road hugged the sidewalk, then curved around the north side of the building complex.

“Look. Shipping trucks. Head that way.”

We passed between a wing of low buildings and a parking garage. Several trucks, delivering medical supplies no doubt, were backed into receiving ports. I scanned the crates on the dock, all labeled.

“Keep going… though we might want to grab some of those on the way back. See—Heal… Cool… Still? I wonder what that one is.”

I liked that these supplies were labeled and left unguarded. My family wouldn’t go without the things they needed when I was gone. When I was gone; it seemed that phrase was tacked on to all of my thoughts now.

We rounded the back of another building. Jared drove a little faster and kept his eyes forward—there were people here, four of them, unloading a truck onto a dock. It was the exactness of their movements that caught my attention. They didn’t handle the smallish boxes roughly; quite the contrary, they placed them with infinite care onto the waist-high lip of concrete.

I didn’t really need the label for confirmation, but just then, one of the unloaders turned his box so the black letters faced me directly.

“This is the place we want. They’re unloading occupied tanks right now. The empty ones won’t be far… Ah! There, on the other side. That shed is half full of them. I’ll bet the closed sheds are all the way full.”

Jared kept driving at the same careful speed, turning the corner to the side of the building.

He snorted quietly.

“What?” I asked.

“Figures. See?”

He jerked his chin toward the sign on the building.

This was the maternity wing.

“Ah,” I said. “Well, you’ll always know where to look, won’t you?”

His eyes flashed to my face when I said that, and then back to the road.

“We’ll have to wait for a bit. Looked like they were almost finished.”

Jared circled the hospital again, then parked at the back of the biggest lot, away from the lights.

He killed the engine and slumped against the seat. He reached over and took my hand. I knew that he was about to ask, and I tried to prepare myself.

“Wanda?”

“Yes?”

“You’re going to save the Seeker, aren’t you?”

“Yes, I am.”

“Because it’s the right thing to do?” he guessed.

“That’s one reason.”

He was silent for a moment.

“You know how to get the soul out without hurting the body?”

My heart thumped hard once, and I had to swallow before I could answer. “Yes. I’ve done it before. In an emergency. Not here.”

“Where?” he asked. “What was the emergency?”

It was a story I’d never told them before, for obvious reasons. It was one of my best. Lots of action. Jamie would have loved it. I sighed and began in a low voice.

“On the Mists Planet. I was with my friend Harness Light and a guide. I don’t remember the guide’s name. They called me Lives in the Stars there. I already had a bit of a reputation.”

Jared chuckled.

“We were making a pilgrimage across the fourth great ice field to see one of the more celebrated crystal cities. It was supposed to be a safe route—that’s why there were only three of us.

“Claw beasts like to dig pits and bury themselves in the snow. Camouflage, you know. A trap.

“One moment, there was nothing but the flat, endless snow. Then, the next moment, it seemed like the entire field of white was exploding into the sky.

“An average adult Bear has about the mass of a buffalo. A full-grown claw beast is closer to the mass of a blue whale. This one was bigger than most.

“I couldn’t see the guide. The claw beast had sprung up between us, facing where Harness Light and I stood. Bears are faster than claw beasts, but this one had the advantage of the ambush. Its huge stone-like pincers swooped down and sheared Harness Light in half before I’d really processed what was happening.”

A car drove slowly down the side of the parking lot. We sat silent until it had passed.

“I hesitated. I should have started running, but… my friend was dying there on the ice. Because of that hesitation, I would have died, too, if the claw beast hadn’t been distracted. I found out later that our guide—I wish I could remember his name!—had attacked the claw beast’s tail, hoping to give us a chance to run. The claw beast’s attack had stirred up enough snow that it was like a blizzard. The lack of visibility would help us escape. He didn’t know it was already too late for Harness Light to run.

“The claw beast turned on the guide, and his second left leg kicked us, sending me flying. Harness Light’s upper body landed beside me. His blood melted the snow.”

I paused to shudder.

“My next action made no sense, because I had no body for Harness Light. We were midway between cities, much too far to run to either. It was probably cruel, too, to take him out with no painkillers. But I couldn’t stand to let him die inside the broken half of his Bear host.