Originally Human by Eileen Wilks Page B

beneath the Smokey Bear hat was young, but he had his cop face down pat. He looked as friendly as stone. "Are there just the two of you in there, ma'am?"
    "Yes, me and my nephew." I held out the papers that proved me to be a law-abiding citizen.
    He ignored them. "I need you both to step out of the vehicle, please."
    This was not good. Officers never ask middle-aged ladies to step out of our vehicles for a traffic violation. "What's wrong?" I made my voice breathy, as if I were frightened. It wasn't difficult.
    "If you'll just step outside the vehicle, ma'am."
    I glanced at Michael—who had the most peculiar expression on his face. His upper lip was pulled back as if he were about to sneeze, and his eyes were fixed on the officer demanding our exit. "All right," he said in a thin voice. "I've got him."
    "Got—" I swung my head back. "Oh, my." The stone-faced cop was truly stony now. Frozen.
    "What should we do with him?" Michael asked. "I can't hold him very long."

Chapter 8
    I took a slow breath. Steady , I told myself. You've seen stranger things … but at the moment I couldn't think of any. "What did you do to him?"
    "I froze him. You can ask him things," Michael said helpfully. "He won't remember later, if I tell him not to. But hurry."
    "Ah…" I looked at the poor, frozen young man and asked, "Why did you stop me?"
    "There's an APB out," he said. It was bizarre. His mouth moved, but nothing else. His eyes stayed fixed on a spot near my left shoulder. "For your plate number."
    Great. "Why is there an APB out on my license plate?"
    "You're wanted by the FBI."
    Pete, the rat, had not been sufficiently charmed. He must have made a full report, and now someone in the government wanted to get their hands on Michael. The Unit?
    Some other corner of the bureaucracy? "This is not good news. Michael, can you make him do more than forget this conversation? Could you make him think he misread the license plate and that I'm someone else altogether?"
    "I believe so. He has no shields." Michael sounded professionally disapproving, like a dentist whose patient hasn't been flossing.
    A couple of long minutes later the trooper spoke again, his gaze still fixed over my left shoulder. "Sorry to bother you, ma'am." Then, suddenly, he came unstuck. He gave me a brisk nod and headed back to his car.
    I slumped back in my seat. "That was weird. That was so weird." I watched in the rearview mirror as the trooper's car pulled away. "If I'd known you could do that, I would have gotten you to take care of Pete."
    "I… didn't know I could, either, at that point."
    His voice sounded funny. I straightened and looked at him. His head was tilted back against the headrest, and he was almost as pale as he'd been when I first found him. "Are you okay?"
    "It always gives me a headache to do that," he said absently. "A real mother—"
    "Whoa. That's considered a very rude phrase."
    "Oh. Is the word fuck offensive?"
    "Yes, unless you're actually doing it, or about to do it."
    "Odd. There are several words with a primary or secondary meaning involving copulation that do not offend. At least I don't think they do. Screw, lay, sleep with, mate, ball—"
    "It's all in the context. Michael? You said 'always.'"
    "I remembered… a little more." He turned his head to look at me. In the muted light from the dash, his eyes had an odd sheen, almost reflective. Like cat's eyes. "I performed the same spell on myself just before I came here. I didn't know if my transit would be successful, and I couldn't let them… learn from me. So I told myself to forget. But I was rushed. Something went wrong."
    "You forgot too much?"
    "I forgot how to get it all back." The twitch of his lips might have been meant for a smile. "There are seventeen versions of this saying in the various realms: whatever can go wrong, will."
    "We call it Murphy's Law. You look wrecked." I unbuckled my seat belt and stood. "I'm going to get you some ibuprofen."
    "This is a remedy for