Mindhealer

by lillith saintcrow

  “Yes ma’am.” He moved to obey, cursing himself. What was she about to do now? She wasn’t leaving the safehouse, and she wasn’t in any obvious danger; but how was he going to stop her?

  “It’s not mum. It’s Caro.” Now she sounded arch. “While you’re at it, you can tell me what you know. I’m going to find out anyway, so you might as well make it easy on yourself.”

  He stole a glance at her. She sat cross-legged on the blue carpet, the bowl in front of her and her quick fingers sinking the candle into its holder and setting it upright. With her hair pulled back but still wildly curling and her mouth just slightly pursed, she looked like a pre-Raphaelite Ophelia, her skirt pooling on the floor around her. Her aura ran with golden pinwheels, a glow that should have hurt him. He didn’t deserve to touch this beautiful woman. She was far braver than any Watcher. A Watcher had the benefit of weapons and predatory instincts. She only had her faith in the inherent goodness of the world to protect her.

  And her Watcher. That had to be worth something, didn’t it?

  Conscience struggled with obedience, both of them on the same side in some ways. It was the original no-win situation.

  “You won’t listen.” He cringed. Did that really come out of my mouth? Good one, Merrick. Dammit, you’ve held your tongue in worse places than this, just shut up!

  He opened the window slightly, smelled the chill of winter rain. The room looked in on the commons and the gardens, drenched green cut with wet supple stone paths. The quivering in the wards reminded him that this room had already been broken into once by a new Seeker, incubated in a helpless victim. The other Lightbringer infected with the thing had died, even with a safehouse full of Lightbringers seeking to heal her.

  “I’ll listen,” she said quietly. “Please, Merrick.”

  He stared unseeing out the window. Duty. Honor. Obedience. I am a Watcher. I protect, I defend—do I even protect her from herself?

  Christ. I’ve been infected with that damn honor complex. That was the trouble with being a Watcher—you ended up believing in it, holding yourself to a standard bound to cause you grief. “The Crusade’s found another partner to play with. They’re trying to breed their own version of Watchers, probably since zombies aren’t enough anymore. They want the things immune to Lightbringer magick, so they picked psychics and a Lightbringer to test-incubate them. That’s all I know.” His hands curled into fists. “I’m warning you, Caro. If you try to go running off to get yourself in trouble, I’ll do what I have to.” Even if it makes you hate me.

  Silence. He felt more than heard the snap and sudden intense flare of Power as a candle flame guttered into life. Then the charcoal began to spark, the saltpeter in it igniting, and he smelled something familiar.

  Mugwort. She was burning dried mugwort.

  He whirled away from the window, finding his witch cross-legged on the floor, her eyes closed, the charcoal burning in the incense holder and a pile of dried mugwort fuming on top of it. The candle was white, and the sparkle of Power shimmering around it told him she’d done this before.

  “What the bloody hell are you doing?” He tried not to sound flabbergasted.

  “I brought something out of the Watcher. Asher,” she said calmly, her eyes closed. A tendril of golden hair fell in her face. “A Mindhealer can do that, especially if the patient is unable to face whatever traumatized him or her. The best way to deal with it is to scry what happened so you know how to help the patient.”

  “Caro.” The table in the small dining space rattled, the Cezanne print over the fireplace moved uneasily against the wall. Good gods above. Why does she have to find the worst, absolutely most dangerous thing to do wherever she is? “You’re courting backlash. And if the Watcher couldn’t face it—”

  “Are you going to come over here and anchor me, or are you going to stand there and glare?” She took a deep lungful of the smoke, it was a time-honored way to sharpen the psychic senses and induce clairvoyance. Unfortunately, its use could also tip a witch into backlash by tempting her to go too far, especially when she had already exerted herself. Caro needed a few days of rest before she tried anything this difficult.

  Merrick tipped his head back and felt his scars burn as his jaw worked. What was it about this witch that could drive him to the very brink of his control? He had never in all his life been so tempted to grab a woman and shake her.

  When he was sure he could speak without snarling, he filled his lungs and tried one last time. “Caro, this is dangerous. Please, wait. Just a couple of days, until you’re stronger.”

  “I can’t wait, someone else may be attacked,” she returned, in that soft inflexible voice. “I’m here in the safehouse. Nothing’s going to happen to me. That’s what you wanted—me locked up inside the safehouse all safe and sound, right? The longer I hold onto this, the more concentrated the jolt will be when I finally scry it. This is the less dangerous route. And if you’re anchoring me, you’ll be able to pull me back, won’t you? You did last time.”

  You don’t bloody well understand. You almost died, Caro. And I almost died with you. I thought I was ready to die, but I know I’m not ready to lose you.

  But it was too late. He could feel the Power trembling around her, swirling, readying itself; a Lightbringer magick that should have run hot acid into his marrow. Instead, it wrapped around him with all the soothing comfort of a warm blanket.

  He found himself pacing across the room, his boots making no sound against the carpet. Merrick sank down behind her, breathing in the fumes of burning mugwort. Spice, green tea, and the smoke of incense. He laid his hands flat against her supple sweater-covered back. “I’ll anchor you.” His voice sounded harsh even to himself. “Just . . . be careful.” And if I feel the slightest twinge, I’m going to drag you back.

  It was too late. She had fallen into a trance, her aura dilating, golden pinwheels racing through its glow. Merrick watched as the pinwheels covered his own hands, sliding through the crimson-black blaze that covered a Watcher, and felt a slow creeping fire of velvet pleasure slide up his veins to his shoulder. Do other Watchers bonded to Mindhealers feel this? The borders of his mind meshed with hers, the link suddenly full-blown and raw. He caught a flash of fading anger before the schooled tranquility of magick folded over her.

  He felt her attention curve forward, the water in the jade bowl soft and receptive, touched faintly with the salt she’d sprinkled to purify it. Then the shift, as if something foreign had been introduced, a ball she juggled from mental hand to mental hand with a sure, deft touch. What the hell is that?

  Something she’d taken, she said. From the Watcher. Something even a Watcher wasn’t able to face? Or something she didn’t know if the Watcher would survive to tell?

  I don’t like this. Helpless, Merrick’s fingers tensed against her back. He felt the fragility of her spine, the muscle over her ribs, her bones so delicate under his broad, callused hands. She just woke up. Why is she doing this?

  She stiffened, the water in the jade bowl rippling. Merrick felt it again, the complex transferal of Power. Caro’s touch was light and definite, a memory that wasn’t hers rippling and unfolding in the water before her, tiny figures moving through a dark alley, voices heard in another room . . .

  Merrick’s eyes drifted closed. He heard.

  “—kill them.”

  “Christ is our glory, God smiles upon our work.”

  “The witch?”

  “Eliminated. She might be able to affect the process. It should be triggered as they try to heal this abomination.”

  “They will suspect.”

  “They may suspect all they like. We will still overpower them, with God’s grace.”

  “Here. The picture—.”

  Burst of static like a radio dial twisted to the blank space between stations. Maddening, the bursts of words, coming too quickly to make sense.

  “Success. All it requires . . .”

  ‘But . . . true . . . no . . .”

&nbs
p; “ . . . woman . . .”

  Then Caro broke away and slumped, shaking, against his hands as the smoke swirled into almost recognizable patterns. The smell of burned candle-wax brushed the air under the herbal rush of mugwort; the candle had snuffed itself and water trembled in the jade bowl. Shudders poured through her, peaked, were driven back as heat rushed through Merrick’s palms, an instinctive burst of Power to bring her out of shock and keep her warm.

  He had to catch her as she slumped again, and found himself pulling her onto his lap. It was the only way to make sure she didn’t fall over and hit the floor, but he still felt a guilty twinge. “Caro?”

  “I’m all right,” she murmured, in the sleepy, slurred tones of a witch in shock. He sent another heatflush through her, this one less gentle and more powerful, watching it explode through her suddenly thinning aura. “Just—whoa. Wow.”

  “Are you all right, then?” He was suddenly, critically, aware of the difference between his voice and hers. Even mumbling, her voice was beautiful, a soft restful bell; his was inordinately harsh and crisp. “Talk to me, Caro.”

  “Fine.” She settled against him, curled into his lap with her head on his shoulder, and Merrick swallowed dryly. I’m not made of stone, I can’t—it’s been a rough patch for us all. Just let her get her bearings. Stay under control. “I should go . . . talk to—” She sighed, closing her eyes.

  “Stay with me.” He sent another slamming tingle of heat through her, relieved when her eyes drifted open and she gave him an irritated glance.

  “I’m fine.” Her aura thinned out further, and a bright red trickle of blood slid down her upper lip. Her nose was bleeding again. He pressed his palm to her cheek, the touch of her skin sending a shock of liquid fire up his arm. Her eyes rolled back into her head and her aura drained almost to transparency.

  “Caro!” Another heatflush, but this one did no good, and his chest began to ache. It was a preliminary, a warning. He’d felt this pain before. Pain like a tearing spike through his ribs. Pain like half of him being torn away. “Caro!”

  She didn’t answer. She was sliding into shock, and the heatflushes weren’t working. An aura force wouldn’t work either. It would just jolt her body with the equivalent of several cups of coffee and overload her, sending her paradoxically further into shock.

  Christ. Dear gods. No, please, no.

  He found himself on his feet, Caro cradled in his arms. Her hair fluttered as he dumped her on the bed. His coat slid off the end of the bed, little bits of metal gear inside clanking as it hit the floor. She was in shock, had stretched herself too far, and now he was going to have to bring her out the traditional way.

  Skin on skin.

  The gods are kinder to me than I deserve, he thought, and unbuckled his weapons harness.

  Thirteen

  She was cold, so cold. Her fingers were numb, and she felt tingling prickles flooding her arms and ice dragging behind them. Lassitude swamped her, weighted her entire body, heavy and sluggish, going numb, going down, sinking.

  Drowning. Water closing over her head. Falling. Going down into darkness, into a softness that was icy and yet comforting, no more struggle, no more striving, no more pain.

  Knowledge beat under her skin—she had to wake up. She had to warn Fran. She had to . . .

  What? What did she have to tell Fran? It was too hard. She couldn’t care. Her skin was made of lead. She felt someone’s hand against the side of her face, hot as a live brand, scorching so badly she cried out, weakly. Someone’s voice, ragged and pleading.

  Heat, painful and stabbing, tore against her chest. It scorched through the cotton wool surrounding her, the foggy sense of something not quite right. Sudden tearing, as if her sweater had stuck to her skin and was being ripped off an inch at a time. She heard a muttered curse, cloth moving—sheets? Clothes? What was happening?

  More warmth, stealing painfully into her arms and legs, stabbing needles as if the nerves were waking back up. Did my entire body fall asleep? What happened?

  “Caro,” he whispered into her hair. “Caroline.”

  Her head hurt, with a fuzzy far-off pain that intensified, as if demonic Christmas elves were pounding against the inside of her skull, sending waves of twisting, piercing needles down her neck, down her back, up her arms from her fingers, up her legs from her toes. She almost convulsed, the pain was that bad. It crested, thousands of tiny electrified pins stabbing into her skin, retreating, then stabbing and shocking her again.

  The pains receded, bit by bit. Warmth crept after, stole in, she was beginning to feel more like flesh than insensate stone now. Beginning to wake up from the slow, creeping languidness of shock. Warm hardness against her, a different texture than cloth, an insistent probing against the outside of her hip. Felt familiar. Where had she felt this before?

  The last time I felt this warm, I was in bed and—

  Her eyes flew open and saw the white ceiling with its brilliant reflective speckles embedded in the paint. Even the thin layer of paint on the walls and ceiling had a protection laid over it, and she wearily wondered what it was like to live with no idea of danger, no need for a Watcher to boss you around or stay so harmfully, constantly alert. Caro found herself on her back, her bones aching as the shaking pain of shock receded in fits and starts, flushed out by Power and the unrelenting drenching warmth that penetrated down to her aching bones, sealing her back in her body. Warmth coming from the body that curved against hers, his arm laid over her, his aura melded tightly to hers.

  Merrick lay next to her, his eyes closed, rainy afternoon light picking out the fine charcoal fans of his eyelashes, the flush along the edges of his scars. The shape of his lips, his mouth set and grim.

  And he was completely, utterly unclothed.

  So, for that matter, was she. Well, except for her amber necklace, lying warm and forgiving against her breastbone.

  Shock. I went into shock, and he had to bring me out. Oh, dear gods.

  Knowing this was the traditional way of bringing a witch out of the dangerous languor of shock and having it applied to her were two very, very different things. Nowadays, Watchers didn’t use this method unless they were bonded, or unless the situation was an extreme emergency. The heatflush and aura force usually worked, especially since the Watchers had grown more skilled and powerful at applying them. A witch had to be nearly dead and in extreme peril before a Watcher would try skin-on-skin.

  Witches were generally very easy in their bodies, especially those raised by Circle Lightfall—but still. A flush began at her collarbone and crept up to stain her cheeks. She lay unmoving, heat pulsing on her face, and thought two different things.

  First, I’m warm. I haven’t felt this warm and safe since . . . oh, since that affair with the poet. Even then I didn’t feel this safe.

  And second, He’s beautiful. He’s really, really beautiful, and he’s my Watcher. Mine.

  And judging by the insistent poking against her hip, he was more than interested in her. She could feel, like a haze over hot pavement, the intensity of the pleasure striking home through his nervous system. No wonder she’d all but drowned in it when he’d kissed her. They were linked. Somehow, pulling her out of the space-between had tied him to her on a psychic level as well as a physical one, made her sensitive to him. Mindhealers were exquisitely sensitive to Watchers anyway, but she had never thought a Watcher felt this. It was a subject of whispered excitement among teenage witches, what exactly a Watcher felt when the right witch touched him. Now Caro knew those hurried, giggling conferences really had no way of approaching the truth. It was a sheer miracle he managed to stay so impassive, if that was what he was feeling.

  She moved slightly, bumping her hip against him, and almost gasped at the flood of sensation that caused. His face didn’t move. Damn.

  “Merrick?” The whisper died in her throat. She could feel the fine humming voltage of arousal going through him. He was actually sweating. He smelled really good, male with the darker n
ote of leather over the top of it—clean and healthy, with a slight spice of city night and cold wind and the citrus note that followed him around. It was a comforting scent, she decided, and snuggled a bit closer to him. His throat worked as he swallowed, but he didn’t move.

  Why won’t he look at me? I haven’t been nice to him, true. Maybe he doesn’t like feeling this way. He doesn’t have any control over it; it might scare him.

  The thought of Merrick being scared of anything made a laugh catch in her throat. She lifted her left hand, sliding the covers away. He’d obviously stripped her down and gotten her into the bed, then set about warming her up. Which had succeeded very nicely.

  Now Caro had to figure out what to do with this infuriatingly British hunk of Watcher in her bed.

  He didn’t move when she reached across to brush his hair back. “Merrick?” Her breath caught, saying his name. “Hey, you alive in there?”

  She could feel that he was most definitely alive. Her own pulse was skyrocketing. It had been a long time, as the saying went, and a witch had needs.

  But he’s a Watcher. He doesn’t have any control over it. Caro, for God’s sake, you have to be the responsible one, and you have to remember—

  Caro clapped a lid on the voice of her conscience, something she had no idea, until that very moment, she could do. Then, decisively, she touched Merrick’s unscarred cheek with her fingertips, slowly and soft. Her arm felt heavy, not obeying like it usually did. She would be a little slow until her body shook off the lingering effects of shock.

  It could have killed her. That deep languor had been her bodily systems shutting down one by one, literally losing the will to live. Like hypothermia, the dangerous sleep of a woman caught in a snowstorm. She could have died.

  His eyes drifted open, caught hers, and Caro lost her breath. She had never noticed before how his bleached, intense irises had a thin darker border, or how they seemed to speak with a single glance. She’d never gotten close enough to see that two of the scars extended up under his hair, or that his stubble was charcoal like his eyelashes, and that despite the scarring, and maybe because of it, he was extremely attractive. He would have been too pretty before. Now he looked beautiful in the way anything complex and deadly was beautiful, the pattern of scales on a cobra’s back or the rigging of a clipper ship.