Maybe.
Maybe, hell. Almost certainly. Which means I could find these things. Doesn’t take much to find something that stinks that bad.
He reached the infirmary and nodded at the Watcher on duty, a lanky blond with the unlikely moniker of Cougar, and entered the world of the Lightbringers again.
Caro was on a cot at the far end, the statue of Hygieia glimmering soft and alabaster above her. White candles glowed under the statue, and soft murmurs filled the air as the healers on duty moved between the beds. As usual around healers, the air smelled of green growing things and spice, and Caro’s bright golden glow was surrounded by the green wash of earth witches.
Her hair glowed, messy and streaked with gold. She pushed a few stray tendrils back and made a short, sharp movement as if annoyed.
His heart leapt. He literally lost all his air. She was beautiful, her dark-blue eyes wide and expressive, her face with its sharp classic lines softening when she thought nobody could see. Even the clear purity of her skin made his breath catch. When she pulled the red cardigan up—she still wore the tank top she’d been sleeping in, a battered cotton number silkscreened with a print of Buddha—over her pale shoulder, buttoning it swiftly and grimacing at the healer who was evidently scolding her, Merrick not only lost his breath but pretty much all of his good sense as well.
If he had to list the worst moments in his life, she was beginning to star in one or two of them. Thinking about her anywhere near something as violently dangerous as the thing they’d just killed—Seeker or not, he still wasn’t entirely sure what it was—made something hard and cold rise up inside him, threatening the control that was so bloody necessary for a Watcher to do his job. She was foolhardy enough to give him the cold sweats. If it hadn’t been for the other Lightbringers talking some sense into her, she might have gone haring off after the other victims and gotten herself in even more danger. Was he prepared to do what was necessary to keep her safe?
It means direct disobedience if she orders me away. It means betraying the Watcher’s oath of obedience, breaking my sworn word. Means going back to what I was before. Do I want to go that far?
He watched as she gave the healer fussing over her a quick apologetic smile, eyes suddenly sparkling. She still held the bloody handkerchief, and her cheeks were stained with high hectic color. As soon as the healer—a plump, blonde green witch in a long dark-blue dress—turned away to pick up a tray, still shaking her head and evidently not finished with the scolding, Caro’s face fell. She closed her eyes and almost swayed.
Merrick’s heart stopped. He stalked forward. The healer, used to Watchers, merely glanced up and nodded a greeting. Caro swayed again, and Merrick closed his hand around her shoulder, steadying her.
She looked up, startled, and in that instant he saw the fear lurking in the bottom of her eyes. It tore at him, an unsteady pain somewhere under his sternum. She shouldn’t have to be afraid, especially with a Watcher around. She should be as fearless as she wanted everyone to think she was.
Do I want to go back to what I used to be? He let go of her as soon as she was steady, and settled himself to watch as the green witch turned back with a cup of medicinal-smelling herbal tea. “For your nerves, Caroline, and I want you to drink it all.”
Do I really want to? Merrick’s face tingled as his scars reacted to the green witch’s glow, burning with pain. He glared out from under his hair, his hands plunging into his pockets and turning to fists. You’re damn right I do.
For her, I would. I will.
* * * *
“No.” Caro scowled stubbornly, her eyes lighting with a flash of familiar-by-now fire. “I won’t cower in a hole. We have to find out what’s going on.”
The Council witch sighed, clasping her hands together and leaning forward onto her desk. A flood of morning sun fell across her shoulders. Merrick’s eyes felt dry and hot. His neck felt as if someone was ramming iron rods down along his cervical spine, his shoulder muscles tight and tense as cables. Caro, once she was checked out at the infirmary, literally hadn’t stopped moving since. She stalked the safehouse corridors waiting for morning, and when morning hit she paused only for coffee and a Danish before heading to the Council witch’s office. And Merrick privately thought that the Council witch had expected this.
He was beginning to think he should tie Caro up just to make her get some rest. He tried to figure out if there was a way to justify it without running foul of the Watcher vow of obedience.
Francine spoke very slowly and calmly. “You’re not doing any good, Caro. I’m simply suggesting that you stay at the safehouse for a couple of days while we get the preliminary investigation out of the way. You’ve already triggered one Dark parasite coming out of a victim. If you attempt to examine the other victims, you may well trigger another. And if there’s a new type of Seeker in the city—if the Crusade is mounting another campaign, you’re safer in here than anywhere else. You should get some rest, and you should stop pulling my chain. I am not trying to make life difficult for you. I am trying to solve a mystery that could kill more people if we don’t go carefully.”
“Careful, careful, cautious,” Caro chanted, frustration evident in her tone. She paced in front of the Council witch’s desk, her arms crossed and her knuckles white as she dug her fingers into her upper arms. “Let me at least go and take a look at them. They’re patients, for God’s sake, I have to do something!”
“You want to do something? Quit yelling at me so I can get some work done. Go look after your Watcher, he’s still got blood in his hair. Call your brother, so I don’t have him breathing down my neck every twenty minutes. Teach a class of Seers how to shield themselves. There’s plenty to do, Caroline, even for you.”
Merrick braced himself for the explosion.
Caro stopped pacing. She stood still for fifteen full seconds, her aura snapping and crackling. Then she dropped into a chair across the desk from the Council witch, who still hadn’t moved. “I’m sorry, Frannie.” She sounded sorry, too. Merrick’s hands began to unclench. “I’m just . . . gods. I’m sorry. I’m being a bitch.”
“Mmh.” The other witch didn’t agree or disagree. “I know how you feel, Caro. I wish there was something useful I could do instead of all this damn paperwork and coordinating. You feel responsible? I do too. I didn’t call you, even though I knew I should. I didn’t want you to be worried. You have enough to deal with, and I’m sorry I’ve laid this burden on you. I’m sorry you’ve come here and had to face this.” Her eyes dropped to the paper-choked surface of her desk, Merrick breathed in dust and paper and binding-glue; and the smell of Caro’s perfume. “I did what I thought was right, and now another innocent woman is dead and you’ve been attacked.”
“It’s not your fault, Fran.” Caro leaned forward, her hair glinting in the thin wintery sunlight falling through the window and spangled with dust. “You didn’t do anything to poor Colleen. I’m sorry, I’m such a hotheaded—I mean, I just want to help. I don’t want anyone else getting hurt.”
“Neither do I. Believe me, neither do I. Look, go get some breakfast and take a nap. Do you want a different room?”
Caro shuddered, but her chin lifted. “No. I’ll stay in that one. I’ve already unpacked, I don’t want to pack again just to move down the hall. They’re not going to scare me that easily.”
You should be scared, Caro. You just don’t know it. It may be that the Crusade has a new type of Seeker that can pierce a safehouse’s walls. Merrick moved slightly, uneasily. He was glad Caro hadn’t asked him to wait outside.
Both witches looked up at him. Caro was deathly pale, fever-spots standing out in her cheeks. Francine looked far older than she ever had, her mouth pulled into a tight line.
“What do you think, Merrick?” Caro’s gaze was worried and hopeful. She bit her lower lip as soon as she said his name.
I think you’re entirely too brave for your own good, love. And I think you should be tied up and locked in a basement with m
e standing guard until we can figure this thing out. He cleared his throat, acutely conscious of the dried blood still in his hair and the bloody stain of his aura. “When we were at Saint Crispin’s, you asked me if I could smell it. Smell the thing. I did, for a few moments. And that thing that attacked you smelled almost the same to me. For my money, it’s all part of the same bloody puzzle, and the Crusade is mixed up in it somehow. I think you should get some rest, and we should be very, very careful. Whatever this is has been brewing for a while. We’ve all been a little off. The Watchers, I mean.” Then he shut his mouth, aware of having said far more than he’d intended.
The fever-spots drained out of Caro’s cheeks. “I thought it smelled like that too.” The tiny, breathless voice she used tore at his chest. “You’re sure?”
He made himself nod. “Could be my subconscious playing tricks,” he admitted, without any real hope. “It looked like the thing at Crispin’s. Smooth instead of with a Seeker’s pelt, red eyes, and four claws instead of three on each foot. No tail.” Memory rose under his skin, knowing he was the only defense between the thing and his witch, the knives glowing in his hands and adrenaline pouring through his blood. “Also, knives hurt it more than the average Dark. They seem to react to blessed steel, for some reason. It’s remarkably vulnerable to Watcher combat-magick.”
Francine let out a short sigh. “That will teach me to overlook a Watcher at the scene,” she remarked to thin air. “Anything else, Merrick?”
He mentally replayed the footage again. “No ma’am. I reported to Oliver. He was going to bring you a summary as soon as he finished interviewing some of the others.”
The Council witch nodded. “Go get some sleep, Caro. You look about ready to fall over. Merrick, thank you.”
Summarily dismissed. He tried not to feel happy about it. Caro pushed herself wearily up out of the chair.
“I’m sorry, Frannie. Why don’t you smack me when I get like this?” She sounded genuinely contrite, her soft voice easing some of the pain in Merrick’s tense shoulders.
“Are you kidding?” Fran waved a hand. “It’s best to just let you blow yourself out, like a hurricane. Never lasts very long. Anyway, if I laid a hand on you, your Watcher might object.” She dredged up a laugh, pulling a file folder across the desk and opening it. “I’ll have the files brought up to you later. Go, get some rest.”
Caro nodded. Her shoulders slumped, and—wonder of wonders—she reached out blindly, as if for support. Merrick moved closer, let her slide her hand into the crook of his leather-clad arm. “All right, all right. I’ll try to get some rest. Shouldn’t be too hard.”
Fran didn’t reply, apparently absorbed in the file folder. Caro sighed and led Merrick from the room.
The hall outside was dim and silent, the safehouse just beginning to wake up. Caro walked with her head down, Merrick navigating them through the halls. He had almost worked up the courage to speak when she beat him to it.
“That thing could have killed you,” she said, so quietly he almost had to strain to hear her.
He shrugged. If you only knew what I was before, maybe you wouldn’t worry. But he couldn’t tell her. “It didn’t.”
“But it could have,” she persisted.
“So could a car wreck or a plane crash.” Though it would have to be a hell of an event to even dent me. He didn’t mean to sound sharp, but the sentence came to a clipped, abrupt end. Or getting deep into enemy territory and realizing I’m being tracked and my support’s gone. Or coming back to base and realizing I’ve been sold out, or even any mission I went on thanks to the bloody Army or the mercenary field. At least here my worthless life’s spent protecting something worth fighting for.
“Listen to me.” She stopped, and after a quick check of the hall Merrick did too, automatically moving between her and the stairwell door. “Vincent was my Watcher. He was the one that noticed me in a foster home and got me and my brother out. And I repaid him by getting him killed. A belrakan broke into my house and killed him, coming for me. I’d only been in the damn house two weeks. If I hadn’t moved out of the safehouse, if I hadn’t had Vince with me . . . he wouldn’t have died.” She wasn’t looking at him; she was staring at the floor.
Merrick swallowed his response. Waited.
“I won’t have another Watcher die because of me,” she whispered. “I won’t. Vincent was a good man, and he saved me. You’re a good man too, and I won’t have you die because of me.”
It was such an exotic statement his jaw almost dropped in sheer amazement. A faint tingling rushed up his throat, and his face began to burn with a heat that wasn’t the agony of his scars. Him? A good man? Christ, he’d joined the Watchers to atone. No good man needed atonement.
She seemed to expect an answer, and Merrick cast frantically about for one. Think quickly, old man. “I don’t know about your Vincent. But if there’s one thing I’m not, Caro, it’s good. I’m a Watcher, I know what I’m doing, and I’m going to keep you alive.”
He would have said more, but the words—and that’s all you need to think about, witch. Calm down and just let me do my bloody job, will you? I want to stay near you, I’m going to stay near you, and if I have to break my oath as a Watcher and turn in my knives to do it I will—wouldn’t come. He settled for taking a deep breath, wondering what it was about this fragile-looking witch with her sharp tongue that could drive him to the brink of his carefully trained control. He hadn’t felt this unsettled since his first night in sniper training. Then, marginally calmer, he tried one last time.
“Your Watcher knew the risks. We all know the risks. You’re my witch, and if you want me to go invisible, you say the word. But I am not leaving you. Is that clear enough even for you, Caroline?”
He knew it was a mistake as soon as it left his mouth. No Watcher should ever say such a thing, especially to his witch. But the damn woman was so bloody stubborn it was a wonder he hadn’t shaken some sense into her yet. His hands ached, his scars tingled, and the frustration mixed with the overpowering need to touch her again, to feel that velvet-wrapped spike of pleasure flooding up his arm and jolting through the rest of his body. Tangled, tattered, and exhausted, she was still beautiful.
And he was in trouble, because she looked up, tears glittering in her indigo eyes again. The red cardigan slipped off her shoulder, she impatiently yanked it back up. She said nothing, but blinked furiously and owlishly, her chin lifting just a little.
Christ, Merrick, good one. She’s been attacked twice in twenty-four hours, the last thing she needs is you arguing with her and acting like an idiot.
“I’m not like you.” His throat ached with the words. “I’m good at survival, you have no idea how good. Just trust me, love. All right?”
Her shoulders slumped even further. “I’m tired,” she answered, in a tiny voice that hurt him to hear. “I just want to sleep.”
“Right then.” He took an experimental step, then another, and she followed. He led her through the halls, vaguely unsettled. That didn’t go well. And she’s being too bloody docile now. I don’t trust this.
But as they navigated the morning hush, she laid her head against his shoulder and leaned into him, and Merrick realized he wasn’t just in deep water, he had already drowned. There was no going back.
Nine
She thought she’d have trouble sleeping during the day, but as soon as her head hit the pillow she was out. She only woke up six hours later because a familiar voice was raised, almost breaking.
A young male voice, perhaps the only person who could call her up out of a dead sleep. “What the—who the hell are you? She’s my sister, and I’ll wake her up if I damn well want to!”
Caro groaned, turning over, and buried her head in the pillow.
Merrick’s voice, instantly recognizable, his accent making the words crisp and no-nonsense. “She’s sleeping. She’s exhausted, sir, I can’t—”
“Best to just let him.” Yet another male voice, also familiar. She tr
ied to remember where she’d heard it before, lost in the muzzy hinterland of sleep. “Or you’ll get the sharp tongue from both sides.”
“I could do without that. She’s tired, be careful.”
Someone jumped on the bed and Caro gasped, slamming into full wakefulness. Her hands jerked up to defend herself, a childhood reflex. Trev grabbed her, shook her by her shoulders, and proceeded to give her a sloppy, wet kiss on the cheek.
“That’s for scaring me,” he said promptly. “Good morning, you’re in bed early. Where’d you get the Watcher from? Why didn’t you call me? Dammit, Caro, you’re getting flighty in your old age. I had to cancel a gig to come down here, I hope you know. Elise is furious.”
“Elise is always furious,” Caro mumbled. “Go ‘way.” She shook off her brother’s hands and turned away, grabbing the pillow again and dragging it over her head.
“No way, baby. I’m here, and I’m not going anywhere until you tell me everything. Have you eaten yet? You probably haven’t. Hey, Keenan! Turn the lights on and bring the groceries in. I’m gonna make you an omelet, Caro. Spinach, mushroom, Havarti, and dill. Your favorite.”
“Go away,” Caro moaned. “Or I’ll order Keenan to make you.”
Keenan—it must have been him, since Trev was still on the bed—opened the drapes. Pearly light flooded in, the cold late-afternoon glow of a winter storm moving in. “This window was just repaired,” he remarked quietly, his pleasant light tenor harsh with the undertone of a tanak’s rumble.
“I called in and got Fran, and she promised to have you call me.” Trev nudged Caro none too gently. “You didn’t. Care to tell me how the Miata got all smashed up and you got a Watcher?”
“It’s not my fault,” Caro groaned into the pillow. “Leave me alone or make me some coffee.”
“Coffee. You hear that, Keen? She wants coffee.” Trev was probably rolling his eyes theatrically.
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