The Fire King by Marjorie M. Liu

He stood on two feet, but just barely, and his body was tense, coiled. Almost shaking. Not with anger but something else. Grief, perhaps. No way to know for certain—just a feeling, an instinct. Soria knew about pain.
    “I doubt anyone could force you,” she said softly.
    Karr’s chest heaved with a deep, rumbling growl. “Try.”
    I won’t give you the satisfaction.
But Soria found herself walking toward him anyway. She stopped, shoulder to shoulder, as he had done to her, and leaned against him ever so slightly. He was huge beside her, muscles lean and rippling, hard as rock. A force of nature.
    He had his back turned to the city, but she gazed at the lights, at the modern human sprawl, and could not think of two more ill-fitting pieces than Karr and Erenhot.
    Man out of time,
she thought, grieving for him just a little.
    “Stay or go,” she said, not looking at him, not needing to as he quivered in silence. “But I will return to this spot as soon as I can.”
    “Do not bother,” he replied. “You are one of them.”
    “We are all ‘one of something.’ ” Soria smiled sadly. “But I was looking for more.”
    And without another word, she left Karr behind and walked toward the city.
    Erenhot was like most other modern Chinese cities: it looked better at night, when the shadows could hide the rough-and-tumble sprawl of squat buildings that were more concrete than glass. Soria felt cold looking at them as she walked down the sidewalk, skirting parked cars and old bicycles. Green taxis whizzed by, dinosaurs glued on top of cab lights. She had caught a ride in one near the outskirts of the city, after a long, stumbling walk that made her feel like a refugee, years lost in war and wilderness.
    Her ribs throbbed, and a headache was building. She’d had the cabdriver drop her off in the area where foreign businessmen liked to spend time—which also happened to be the sleazy side of town. No real surprise. Music thumped from inside nightclubs, neon nights flickering wildly in the shape of a rainbow. Several other bars lined the road, as well as closed shops bearing advertisements written in both Cyrillic and English.
    Foreigners were everywhere, mostly white men, walking with beer bottles and cigarettes in hand. Some of them gave her curious looks, but most were too drunk to see straight. Soria kept her head down, walking quickly. She heard Russian spoken, French, some English—all three were easy to understand. Long-term exposure tended to make some languages permanent in her mind. She had spent several months in France and Quebec, and one of Dirk & Steele’s agents was Russian.
    But the words felt empty, the speech patterns dull. Her mouth wanted to coil vowels and purr rumbling growls, and so she let it, speaking to herself, trying to hold on to a dialect that was already fading from her mind a mere hour from Karr’s presence. It made her angry. Linguistically, she wanted more. Speaking his language was like eating cheesecake after a life spent dieting on oatmeal. Both were soft, both comforting; but she was used to oats, and had never realized she was tired of them until now.
    You shouldn’t have left him,
she berated herself.
He doesn’t know anything about this world.
    Though, she supposed Karr was smart enough to figure some things out. Like, how to stay out of sight. She had no doubt he was a man who could survive quite easily in the most remote regions of the world, invisible unless he wanted to be seen. Perhaps it was better this way. He was being hunted.
    And now, so are you.
    Soria needed a telephone. She thought about scamming a call from one of the foreigners walking the street—most of them probably had cell phones that would call out of the country—but bloodstains had spattered her white shirt, and a red crust remained on her left hand. She did not want to risk the chance of anyone asking too many questions, or contacting local police for help.
    A hotel was the best place to make an