Rangers

by Chloe Garner

  “Here,” he said. Right wrist. Sword wrist. More meaningful than he knew. She nodded and handed him a wooden bowl.

  “The bond is stronger if the blood doesn’t touch anything but your skin, but if you can’t make that work, you can drain into the bowl and then us that to cover your hand. It’s worse if you’re awkward and uncomfortable than if you just use the extra tools.”

  He shook his head.

  “I’m fine.”

  She pushed it into his hand.

  “You don’t have to make your mind up now.”

  She took out the bleach and poured it into a porcelain bowl and dipped the ring into it with bamboo tongs, then took it out, walked to the bathroom and poured out the bleach, then filled the same bowl with the pure water and swished the ring in it vigorously. She handed it back to him with the tongs.

  “You are the only one who should handle it until you’re done, now,” she said. He nodded, putting it on his left hand.

  “Not all the way to the base of the finger. When you’re ready, you want to wrap your hand around your wrist and hit that spot, here,” she said, finding it, “with the point. Should be the first or second segment of the finger.”

  “Okay.”

  “Clean bandage. Once you get the quantity of blood you need to cover your entire hand, you turn the ring inside out and wrap your wrist the same way,” she showed the closed hand around her wrist, “and you stop the bleeding. Done right, this should be an almost spotless procedure.”

  “Okay.”

  Her heart rate kept picking up as she got through the increasingly less-easy and into the more difficult. She stood and turned the lights off, leaving on the one in the bathroom to see by.

  “Was it this dark before, when you did it?” Sam asked. She nodded.

  “You were distracted,” she said. She took a deep breath. “Okay. Strip down. Let’s get settled.”

  “I can’t stand on you. I’ll break you,” he said. She smiled.

  “I know. There’s another posture for this one.”

  She turned and pulled her shirt over her head and slid out of the pajama pants she had put on. The air was cool on her skin. She turned, carefully looking over his head.

  “Don’t get the wrong idea,” he said. She smiled, but she didn’t feel it.

  “Over here,” she said, walking past the end of the beds. He followed her. She knelt on the floor, sitting on her feet, and motioned for him to do the same. He set the bowl down next to her and knelt, knees touching knees.

  “Closer,” she said. He scooted forward a quarter inch so that their kneecaps were applying uncomfortable pressure to each other. She laughed and looked away.

  “No, you’re still a full foot too far away,” she said. “Your knees go on either side of my legs.”

  “Oh. Seriously?”

  “It’s about intimacy and trust. Completely awkward as it is.”

  He reshifted and now, when she looked back at him, his face and his body were only inches away. She shut her eyes and forced herself to be calm.

  “So,” she said summarily. “You’ve got the blood part of the magic down. The rest isn’t that hard. You’re pledging… Well, you say what it is that you’re pledging and whatever else you need to say.”

  “That’s it?”

  “Combined with the ritual magic and the blood magic, sincerity is going to be a lot more powerful than any incantation.”

  “You were speaking in some other language.

  “Angeltongue. Power, for me, is in ritual, and the most powerful rituals I know are in angeltongue. They don’t mean a thing to you, so there’s no point even considering it. You can take as long as you want to think, but thinking about it won’t necessarily make it more right. It’s like picking the words to sever the bond. They don’t have to be that insightful. You just have to mean them.”

  “Okay.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Yeah, I’m ready.”

  “If you’re really going to try to do it, clean, there’s a path across the base of the thumb that forms a good channel and then you want to just squeeze your fingers…”

  “Sam.”

  She sighed, then looked up at his eyes.

  “Is this because you don’t want me to do this, or are you just afraid?”

  “I’m afraid.”

  He nodded. Waited. She closed her eyes, then opened them again.

  “I may have a lot stronger reaction than you did. I’ve been alone a long time. You’re used to having someone who is that close to you.”

  “Sam.”

  She took another deep breath, willing her heart rate down, then settled back on her feet and nodded, closing her eyes.

  “When you’re ready,” she said.

  “You aren’t alone any more,” he said. Her throat closed and she blinked her closed eyes once against the start of tears. There was a pause, then his breath hit her face again, smelling of his mouthwash. “Until the day that you see fit to send me away, I pledge to you my loyalty, my love, and my life.”

  His hand touched her chest, fingertips first, then his whole hand, warm, slick, and she waited.

  “Where we go, we go together. You aren’t alone.”

  He withdrew his hand, and she thought she might have heard him say something tentative, but the reverberations back and forth on the full bond almost knocked her over backwards. She gasped, and the tears that she had held back before leaked out. He felt her fear, and he was reacting to it. She could feel him reaching out to find where she was, even as her awareness asked the same question.

  “Sam?” he asked. “Are you okay?”

  She brushed the tears away with the back of her hand and opened her eyes to look at him. He nodded.

  “How did you not fall on the floor? How could you sit there and have a conversation with me?” he asked. She put the back of her hand against her mouth and shook her head. She didn’t trust herself to speak, yet. She looked down at her chest. The handprint was clear. He had made a lot neater job of it than she had. She could see his fingerprints in the thin layer he had left. He finished wiping his hand clean and she glanced at the bowl beside her. Empty. The print was already dry. She felt it settle, and she looked up again at him, overwhelmed. He picked her up as he stood and held her, rocking back and forth for several minutes as she calmed and they both - she could feel them both getting used to the new range of things they could feel. Like having another body suddenly appear outside of her own.

  Suddenly, the physical reality of what was going on struck her, and she jerked away.

  “What’s wrong?” he asked. “What just changed?”

  “I’m embarrassed,” she said, mechanical brain filling in words while the emotional side flustered about. He looked confused.

  “I’m going to go wash off. Can we talk about this in a few minutes? And can you please be wearing your clothes, when we do?”

  “Is that it?” he asked.

  “Yes,” she answered with her back to him, as she scurried back into the bathroom. “Yes, that’s it.”

  <><><>

  They found a table in the corner of the hotel restaurant and sat down. Samantha wasn’t ready to talk to him yet. He found it stunning that he could simply tell that she wasn’t, and wait.

  “I’m shy,” she finally said. He nodded. Waited. “My parents died when I was nineteen, and before that… I never had a boyfriend. I had guy friends, but… Ew. It’s all ew.”

  It was as if he could feel her skin crawl.

  “And then staying with Carter… the things I saw… the things I did…”

  “Wondered when you two were going to turn up,” Jason said, sitting. Kara sat next to him, and Samantha’s posture loosened.

  “We’re dancing tonight,” Kara nodded.

  “Absolutely,” Samantha said. “I didn’t expect you guys would dance.”

  As Kara explained that any opportunity to get drunk and grind was welcome, in this community, Sam glanced at Jason. It was done. Jason nodded, t
hen raised his eyebrows. And? Sam shrugged. Shook his head. Weird. Still trying to figure it out. Jason grinned. You love her. Sam rolled his eyes, exasperated. Jason picked up the menu.

  “Do we want dinner or breakfast?” he asked.

  “They’re both options?” Samantha asked.

  “Oh, we’re basically nocturnal, on our own,” Kara said. “Get us together en masse, and we only sleep all day. They only serve dinner in case they get any paying customers.”

  “We aren’t paying?”

  “Guests of the house, this weekend,” Kara said.

  “I’m getting steak and pancakes,” Jason said. Sam grimaced.

  “Baked chicken with vegetables,” he said. “Not it.”

  “Not it,” Kara echoed. Sam nudged Samantha under the table and she beat Jason.

  “Not it. Not what, though?” she asked.

  “You order up at the counter. No serving staff. Jason has to go order. What do you want?”

  “Omelet, cheese and ham,” she said. Kara nodded.

  “Me, too.”

  Jason rolled his eyes and stood, glaring once at Sam.

  “So where are you guys headed after tomorrow?” Kara asked.

  “Don’t know. Simon hasn’t got anything,” Sam said. “You?”

  “Disappearances up in Seattle,” she said. “Women in their mid-twenties. No bodies.”

  Sam nodded.

  “That one could be grizzly,” he said. She nodded.

  “So what did you two do last night?” she asked.

  “Played online with the Seekers,” Samantha said. Kara looked at Sam patronizingly.

  “Still king of the nerds, huh? I won’t tell Jason.”

  “What did…” Samantha started, but Sam motioned with his hand.

  “It isn’t a question you return if you don’t want to hear the answer,” he said. “Really, really hear the answer.”

  Kara grinned.

  “I can’t help it that you’re such a Puritan,” she said. Samantha hid behind her water glass for a second. Jason returned.

  “What did I miss?”

  “Sam thinks I’m an exhibitionist.”

  “How would he have found that out?”

  “Jason,” Sam said. Jason laughed.

  “All adults, Sam.” He knocked on the table in front of Kara. “You feel like making some money tonight?”

  “What have you got?”

  “Tableful of poker players,” he said. She grinned.

  “They’d seriously let the two of you back at a table again?” Sam asked. Samantha looked around the table and Sam shook his head.

  “They cheat,” he explained.

  “Do not,” Jason said.

  “I’m always up for more spending money,” Kara said.

  “Don’t ever, ever play with both of them at the table,” Sam said. “They split the profits at the end of the night.”

  “That is cheating,” Samantha agreed. Kara shrugged.

  “He’s the one who said it wasn’t. I call it winning.”

  They made it through their breakfast-slash-dinner at a leisurely rate, then Kara grinned at Samantha.

  “You want to come watch us spank some grifter wannabes?” she asked.

  “You mind if I steal her for a few hours?” Sam asked. Kara waited for more, then shrugged.

  “Sure. Just make sure to get her back by midnight for more dancing.”

  She pointed a finger at Samantha.

  “Got it? Midnight. That means no more than three times, between now and then.”

  Samantha looked confused and Sam closed his eyes and shook his head.

  “You two are a matched set,” he said, motioning to Jason.

  “I know that you’re the best there is. Am I?” Kara asked, leaning in to talk to Jason in mock-confidential tones. Samantha finally got Kara’s first comment.

  “Without any serious competition,” Jason told her. She nodded.

  “Ah.”

  Sam stood.

  “Don’t make anyone cry,” he said. Kara pouted.

  “But that’s my joy in life.”

  Samantha followed him out of the restaurant and then out of the hotel.

  “Where are we going?” she asked, looking over her shoulder. A different set of guys from the night before was standing to watch a different pair wrestle in the parking lot. She frowned at them. Sam pointed.

  “There are some trails up to the top of the foothills over there. It’s a full moon tonight. I thought the quiet might be nice for a little while.”

  She followed his gaze and nodded.

  “Looks good to me.”

  They headed out of the parking lot and up the first little hill, a nearly full moon providing plenty of light.

  “Kara catches me off guard,” Samantha said.

  “She does that to a lot of people,” Sam told her.

  “What she said about her and Jason, is that really the whole story?” Samantha asked.

  “What, that they were each other’s firsts? I try not to know things like that,” Sam said. Though he did.

  “No, is that really how they met?”

  “It’s hard to remember how we met anyone, in this business. Worked together on a gig, met at a Ranger event, crossed paths at a waystation house. Something. We met her our first year out, though, I remember that. Dad didn’t go to this kind of stuff, so Jason hadn’t met a lot of other Rangers. We were sixteen and Arthur hadn’t really put us in line yet, and she was just around. I think they hit it off immediately, and they’ve been like they are now basically ever since.”

  “He was like this at sixteen?” Samantha asked.

  “More or less. A lot less sex, a lot more attitude.”

  “And he lived in a house with a teetotaler,” Samantha said, shaking her head. He grinned.

  “Tectonic plates,” he said. She laughed.

  They crested the first hill and headed down into the little valley before the big foothill that Sam wanted to summit.

  “When we get back, I’ll check in with Simon again. See if he has anything new for us.”

  “Okay.”

  “We can stay out as long as you want, though. No rush.”

  “Say what you want to say, Sam,” she told him. He considered.

  “It feels like we’re avoiding the big deal,” he said.

  “Say what you want to say.”

  “I can tell when Kara makes you uncomfortable, and when you want to slug Jason. I know where you are like someone has got a giant spotlight pointed at you from above. I know that you’re relieved to be out of the hotel like you aren’t pinned under a car anymore, and I know that being around Kara makes you happy for reasons that I can’t actually understand.”

  “Yeah,” Samantha said. “I know. And Kara isn’t that complicated. She makes me feel included.”

  “Don’t Jason and I make you feel included?”

  “She’s a girl,” Samantha said, as if that explained everything. “Any regrets?”

  He searched.

  “No.”

  “Even if I told you that you’re even more defensive of me now that you can tell when I feel awkward, that I know that you’re attracted to Kara and hate yourself for it, and that you’re proud of Jason for being able to run a table of cards?”

  “I am not.”

  “Which part?”

  “Attracted to Kara.”

  “Yes you are.”

  He thought about it.

  “No. The idea is sick.”

  Samantha laughed.

  “If I distinguished between ‘attracted to’ and ‘interested in’?”

  He thought about how little shirt Kara tended to wear, and how well-formed her shape was.

  “Yeah,” Samantha said.

  “Fine,” he answered. They started back uphill, the shadows on the back side of the hill getting so long that he struggled to see his feet.

  “So?” Samantha asked.

  “I said fine. Yes. She’s hot.”

  “No. A
ny regrets?”

  “You mean, do I mind that you know that stuff?”

  “Sure.”

  He looked over at her.

  “Do you trust anyone?” he asked. The question startled her.

  “Is that an accusation?” she asked.

  “No. It’s a question. You’re expecting me to run screaming. Is there anyone you trust completely?”

  The flurry of response that she felt was a bit overwhelming to him.

  “No, Abby, not even you. I’m sorry if that surprises you.”

  That was regret. Deep, hungry regret.

  “I trust Jason completely. With my life, with everything, every day. I trust Arthur. I trust Doris. I trust Heather. I trust Simon. I even trust Kara without exception, except when it comes to my psychological comfort, but I genuinely believe that she thinks she’s making me a better person,” Sam said. “We have to trust each other. Any day, any one of us could turn up dead. And they trust me to not be the one to make the mistake that kills them.”

  “Every word of that was completely true,” Samantha said.

  “Of course.”

  “I used to trust everyone, but it was never that important. I just believed no one would ever mean to hurt me.”

  “We don’t tend to trust new people, or outsiders. Jason has had that drilled into his head since he was five. He’s going to take time, but every other person that I truly trust who has met you has trusted you. I watched you describe a demon to a police officer who asked you who attacked a man in a parking lot. I believe that what you tell me is the truth. All the time. You’ve got secrets that you don’t want to talk about. I’m ready when you are to talk about them, but I’m not going to ask unless you want me to, and now I can actually tell that.” They hit the crest of the hill and he stopped, watching her. “I believe that you belong here and that you put yourself on the line to help me. You couldn’t have known when you pledged what I was going to do about it. You made a guess and you trusted me. I don’t ever want you to think that that was a mistake.”

  “Carter taught me that secrets were currency. Weapons. Everything. He taught me to keep myself to myself if I wanted to live. To protect myself at all costs. That’s part of why I left him. The last person I completely trusted died two years ago, and that’s the rest of the reason. I see what you and Jason have, and I’m so jealous. I want to belong here.” She held up her hand as Sam started to assure her. “I never will. But for a little while, I can watch, and I can appreciate that it exists. And that’s enough.” She sighed, turning to face the moon. “That’s enough for me.”