by Amy Lane
Suriel put the chocolate and pastries down and started taking the chairs and setting them up. Edward stood from his spot in the back, and Harry nodded at the chocolate and pastries.
“Starbucks?” Edward said, sighing. “Oh, I feel so guilty. The girls get donuts as soon as Linda gets here.” He yawned and scratched at the back of his head, sending his normally impeccable hair standing straight up. “Where’s Francis?”
“Being kept safe from the big scary white man,” Harry told him gravely, and Edward’s mouth compressed, flashing his dimples.
“Well, that’s of critical importance,” he said, and while his voice was sober, his eyebrows were not, and Harry had to turn away before he burst into laughter.
One at a time, the young women woke up and were helped off the truck. Edward, Harry, and Suriel spent a few moments with each one, finding out if she had any family who would be looking for her, finding out where she most wanted to go.
Most of them did have people, and Harry and Edward kept cell phones charged in the front because invariably some of them wanted to call a sister or mother or auntie. The others just shook their heads sorrowfully and looked away.
All of them were assured they’d have a place to go, a job, a home, a shelter.
All of them were told they had a reason to hope.
When the minivans started driving up, Harry and Edward—and Francis, in their heads as he was getting his tummy scritched—had made plans for each girl based on what they’d learned in their short time conversing.
The first van, driven by a woman Harry knew well, came right up front. The woman got out—she was in her fifties now, with a perky red-dyed housewife do and comfortable hips. Harry still remembered when she was a terrified fifteen-year-old hopping out of the back of the U-Haul they’d used back then.
“Harry!” she chirped, trotting to where he stood frantically trying to finish off his pastry. “Edward!”
“Linda!” they cried, and both went in for hugs, and she bussed them on the cheeks for good measure.
“So cute,” she said fondly. “And where’s Fran—?” Harry pointed to little Inez, Francis still held tight to her chest. “Oh,” she murmured. Francis did seem to do that to people. “I see.” She grimaced then. “You boys were supposed to be in last night—did anything happen?”
“Not to speak—”
“Yes,” Suriel said from Harry’s elbow. “This thing they do is dangerous. Harry almost died again.”
Linda looked concerned but not surprised. “Yes. He got hurt rescuing me, as I recall.” She smiled sweetly at Suriel. “A long time ago—but the Youngbloods, they gave me a new life.” She grabbed Harry’s hand and squeezed. “It would be wonderful if they could do it for another hundred years or so, right?”
Harry looked away, embarrassed. Linda had been an accident. Not her rescue—they’d gotten her from a shipment of girls on the East Coast and relocated her in New Mexico with a foster family almost immediately. Twenty years later, she’d heard about an underground network of people helping to rescue and relocate human trafficking victims, and now divorced, with children in middle school, Linda had wanted to help.
Harry had been her contact, and after her initial surprise at seeing him—unaged—she’d laughed quietly to herself. “I saw Edward change into a ginger tomcat when he thought we were sleeping,” she’d said, while Harry was still stammering up a lie. “I thought I was imagining it for the last twenty years.” Then she’d dimpled at him—still pretty, always irrepressible. “Can you turn into anything interesting, Harry?”
Harry had turned cat and wound about her ankles, and she’d been one of their best contacts since.
“We love our jobs,” he said, embarrassed. “And I’ll try my best.”
She rolled her eyes and held her hand out to Suriel. “Linda di Martino. I haven’t met you before. Are you and Harry…?” She dimpled again, and Harry laughed, embarrassed.
“Suriel’s helping us out for this one run,” he said, trying to keep control of the conversation. “But we’re happy to have—”
“Just one run?” she asked Suriel, brushing Harry off like any auntie would brush off her nephew, mostly because nephews often lied to keep aunties happy. “The way you’re looking at Harry, I’m thinking you’d like more than that.”
Suriel ran a possessive hand down Harry’s back. Harry gasped and looked at him, helpless to stop any of it—the rush of warmth, the betraying hope, the heart-quaking desire for more. “It’s complicated,” Suriel understated. “I would, if I could, be with Harry forever—no matter what he chose to do with his time.”
Oh heavens. Harry opened his mouth to… to control the conversation, and all that came out was a pitiful meow.
From his very human throat.
Linda turned to him, delight written in the crinkling of the lines around her eyes and the creases around her wide, smiling mouth. “Oh, Harry. You two are so in love I can smell it.” She closed her eyes and inhaled briefly. “Eucalyptus, leather, ambergris, and tea.”
Harry wrinkled his nose. “Suriel smells like eucalyptus and tea—”
“And you smell like leather and ambergris!” Suriel said happily. “Oh, Linda—what a wonderful gift! Can you do that with everyone?”
She winked. “Sadly, yes. My children have it too—they follow their noses, and it keeps them out of danger.” Some of her joy faded, and Harry remembered exactly how Linda had been trapped as a child: she’d found a little boy, used as bait, and “helped” him find his mother.
His “mother” had been one of the most notorious child pornographers of her time.
When she’d finally started talking to adults, she’d told first Harry and then Emma, “How could I know? The little boy smelled like milk… but she… she….”
Harry knew exactly what she’d smelled like; he’d been the one to kill her. It had been milk once—but any mother who’s had a kid spill milk in the back of a minivan knows that it goes through a series of smells after that, with vomit being on the high end of the repulsive scale.
That’s what evil smelled like.
“Well, I’m sure their mother helps,” Harry said kindly.
Linda shook herself. “Speaking of—we have donuts and coffee and hot chocolate in the back. Let me set up—the others are coming.”
And sure enough, as she spoke, a few more cars on the road turned into the school.
The next two hours were busy time—all the boys were ready for it. Harry got Inez to put Francis down and go help Linda, and the cat stalked behind a truck and came back, soft brown hair pushed back into a queue, jeans and a blue button-down scrounged hastily from Edward’s clothes so he didn’t look like the “scary white man” that had so frightened Inez. Francis was as unobtrusive as a human as he was as a cat. Inez was so taken with helping pass out coffee or chocolate, with donuts and fruit for every girl, that she didn’t even see him. Some of the other girls looked at him, frowned, spoke to each other, and then frowned again, but none of them pointed their fingers and shouted “Cat!” “Gato!” or “Belyy kot!” so Harry reckoned Francis had been filed away as a hallucinatory part of a generally bad experience.
After over a hundred years doing this, they’d learned that was most often the case.
Their charges had escaped a terrible situation. The hope that it was over took all their strength.
As the temporary foster parents drove up, the boys would tell the escapees about the people they were being matched with: did they have children, what would happen next. Would they be introduced to the legal foster system, or would it be easier to keep them under the radar. Some of the girls were in the country illegally or had parents who weren’t citizens yet. Those girls were often too scared to go to the authorities, even if they had a chance to escape, and it was the boys’ job to calm them down, convince them that they would just be in the custody of people who wanted what was best for them. Very often, those young people were returned to their families with a minimum of fuss and some contact informa
tion to help the girl or boy transition back into their home life.
Sometimes it was easy.
Not always.
Harry and his brothers were the first line of information, letting the people they’d rescued know that it was perfectly fine to be not okay.
The work was intense—particularly that first morning, when their charges began to see them as humans, as allies, as people they could go to for help. Edward had produced a pack of specially crafted business cards the boys gave to each evacuee. The cards themselves had a special phone line that Emma and Leonard monitored when the boys were out on a run and the boys monitored frequently when they got back. It wasn’t the number that was peculiar about the cards—it was who could see it.
It had taken three tries—and a teeny bit of blood spilled from all the Youngbloods, save Bel—but they’d managed to produce a business card that couldn’t be read by a predator. Not just a sexual predator—a political predator, a bully, a blackmailer—anyone who would take advantage of their very particular situation would not be able to see the number on the card.
The cards were hole-punched and put on tiny leather thongs with a charm of safekeeping attached. The charms were tied around the necks of stuffed teddy bears for the especially young charges, and tied around the wrists of the older ones, with the admonition not to lose the number and not to lose the charm.
The charms would keep them safe—or ping the awareness of the Youngblood who had given the charm, should the newly freed prisoner be threatened again. They weren’t foolproof. The family couldn’t keep everybody safe, no matter how hard they tried.
But the boys could go home after a mission like this one and sleep, knowing they’d done some good in the world.
Most of the time.
John Hartford had been a stunning teenager, with knife-edged cheekbones, black hair, and black-lined brown eyes. As an adult his hair had lightened, and he’d put on enough pleasant roundness for his cheekbones to lose their edge. He looked far more ordinary now, but his shy, happy smile as he welcomed the two boys who’d been with this group was of much better use that day. After some careful questioning—by both Edward and Linda—they’d decided John was their best bet.
And he had a concern as well.
“Heya, Harry.” John’s grip was especially strong. Harry had taught him that as he’d been transitioning to real life over twenty years earlier. John hadn’t been forced or trafficked onto the streets. He’d been young and hungry and desperate. Harry had been the one who’d pulled him, sobbing, from a corner of an alleyway as they’d been hustling a roomful of terrified teenagers into a tourist van.
“Nobody made me,” he’d gasped. “But I’m so hungry….”
Harry had helped John rescue himself, found him an apartment, gotten him a job, helped him with school.
Turned down—very gently—the advances John had made, long after the hero worship had faded.
Truth was, Harry had liked John too much—but he hadn’t loved him. Not enough to give up his immortality or his family, at any rate. But living with him as he grew old and died would have hurt worse than Harry could endure.
John had never met anyone, never married.
But he hadn’t grown bitter either.
He’d helped the Youngbloods year after year and said it was the best thing he could do with his life. Harry would do anything he asked.
“Hello, John. Do you have everything you need?”
John looked at the boys—fourteen and fifteen, sober-eyed and terrified.
“I’d better. I have the feeling these two will be with me for a while.”
Harry nodded. “Yes, I think so. How’s Anya and Krista?”
Four years ago he’d taken in two girls, both of whom would be nearing twenty soon. John had helped both girls start college and learn to live on their own, but he wouldn’t have just left them. Not John.
“Anya’s missing,” John said bluntly, looking like he wanted to cry. “A week ago. She was going to a party, and she told Krista she’d be home by midnight. Two o’clock rolled around and Krista was hysterical. We checked everything—the warehouse where the party took place, the surroundings. I even called the police, but they didn’t take it seriously. I tried to explain that this girl wouldn’t just go on a bender or take off with a boyfriend, but they weren’t buying it.” John smiled tiredly. “Krista’s been living back with me this last week. She’s ready to help with the boys—” He nodded to where his foster daughter was talking to Linda while helping with breakfast cleanup. “—but she’s not doing well at all. She and Anya were each other’s worlds.” Krista, short, stocky, with black hair cut close, looked worried and tired, and Linda was obviously trying to keep up the girl’s spirits.
But Harry could see both John and his daughter were trying damned hard to keep their shit together for the two boys they were going to take in.
“I’ll call Emma,” he said softly. “We’ll see what we can do. Our ways might not work, you know, since it’s been so long—”
John nodded, eyes bright. “Thanks, Harry. I know this isn’t technically your problem, but—”
“You’re extended family,” Harry said, squeezing his shoulder. “It’s absolutely our problem.”
John’s eyes started to spill, and Harry hugged him tight for a moment, saddened beyond words. Then John pulled back, wiping his eyes, puzzled.
“Harry, why are you calling Emma when she’s on her way down? I talked to her last night when she called about the drop. She said she’d be there toward the end. How come you didn’t know that?”
Harry’s eyes grew so large they lost focus. He blinked a couple of times and turned quickly, finding Edward with a glare.
Edward smiled sweetly, not perturbed in the least. Francis walked up and bumped his elbow, whispering in his ear. Edward nodded, and Francis looked back at Harry and gave a winsome grin, as though he had no idea what Harry could be so upset about, but God knew it wouldn’t be anything they had done.
“Harry?” John said, a little alarmed.
“Harry.” Suriel’s voice was more of a caution.
Harry glared at him. “Did you know?”
Suriel didn’t look guilty in the least. “Of course I did. I told them to call while you were injured yesterday, because you would need some time.”
Harry gaped at him and then turned to John. “John, I promise, someone will help you. I wouldn’t just—”
John cocked his head a little sadly at Suriel. “Is that who you’ve been holding out for?” he asked, the tired lines on his face easing into a melancholy smile. “He’s lovely, Harry. I’m flattered you even thought about me at all.”
Harry looked at him wretchedly. “You were my very good friend, John. You know tha—”
John held up his hand and then leaned in to kiss him on the cheek. “I do. And I know Edward and Francis can help me look for Anya. If she’s there to be found, your family will find her. If she’s not….” His voice cracked. “If she’s not, I have family to comfort me.” He wiped a palm over his eyes. “I’m going to go….” He waved his hand in the direction of Edward and Francis and wandered off. Harry watched him go with an ache in his heart and then rounded on Suriel.
“Was that really necessary?” he asked, guilt pounding him hard. For a moment, just a moment, he’d been excited about spending time with Suriel, just the two of them alone. And then he’d remembered who he was, who they were, and how they didn’t get vacations.
“It was,” Suriel said somberly, putting his hand over Harry’s chest. “For this.”
“To heal?” He didn’t even have a scar from the wound that had shattered his ribs and ripped out part of his lung.
“No. To beat. You cannot keep doing this thing with your family if you don’t make your heart whole.”
“That man needs me!”
“He does! But if Francis and Edward can’t find his daughter, she is not to be found. You know that as well as I do. And in the meantime, there is always one
more emergency, isn’t there? One more mission. One more lost child you need to save, because the lost child that’s inside you is still screaming. I may not have long down here, Harry, but by God, you and I are going to fix you whether I leave or stay.”
And Harry couldn’t seem to find words. He opened his mouth and closed his mouth and opened it again.
“So what are you and I….”
Suriel’s expression was joy and serenity and self-satisfaction, all rolled into one. “We are going to make love, Harry. I know it’s been a while for you, and I’ve never done it myself, but we’re going to let Edward and Francis find Anya, and we’re going to have a vacation.”
It was like every cell in Harry’s brain shorted out. His body lit up, all nerve endings and anticipation, and his brain, his fighting, busy brain, just shut down.
He stared at Suriel, at a loss, and his eyes fixated on, of all things, Suriel’s wide, mobile, lush mouth.
Just his mouth.
His lips.
The way they’d felt on Harry’s lips, in the desert darkness.
Suriel’s smell, eucalyptus and tea.
Under Orders
HE WAS still gaping at Suriel when the final car rolled up. Most of the rescuers had left with their charges by that time, and only John, his daughter, and Linda and Inez remained.
Suriel looked away, breaking the spell, and a great smile took over his face, the expression Suriel reserved for one person in the world.
“Oh hell,” Harry grunted, finally noticing the brand-new Honda Odyssey. “Emma and Leonard are here.”
Francis walked up behind him and bumped shoulders. “You like seeing them,” he said quietly. Then he started to radiate the same sunshine joy Suriel was. “Bel!” he cried. “Beltane—they brought him!”
Francis rushed to the Odyssey waving his arms and jumping up and down, showing more emotion in that moment than he did during an entire year not in Bel’s company. Edward wandered up and eyed him with the same uneasiness Harry showed.
“That… that is very interesting,” he said softly.