Gorgon

by Chloe Garner

  “Like what you’ve done with the place. Sent everyone away, did you?”

  “Just busy,” Samantha said. “And they heard you were coming.”

  Carter gave her a token laugh, then tipped his head to look at Abby.

  “You came, you tattled, and now we’re leaving.”

  “What’s going on with you two?” Samantha asked. Carter drew a breath, waiting for Abby to speak, but the psychic woman looked away. Carter smiled and looked at Samantha.

  “I’m busy, too,” he said evenly. “And Abby has decided that she’d prefer to go on vacation to actually do the job I trained her to do.”

  Samantha stared at him for a moment, trying to read anything that might have shown up underneath the words, but there was nothing.

  “So you’ve got her on no sleep and eelpath krav?” Samantha asked. “That’s supposed to make her more effective?”

  “It’s supposed to make her more motivated,” Carter said.

  “She isn’t one of us,” Samantha said. “You can’t expect that, and you know it.”

  “No,” Carter said slowly. “No, she’s just my pet, isn’t she? And she expects to be walked and groomed and fed on schedule.”

  Abby’s face spun back around, aghast.

  “You prick,” Samantha said. “Don’t talk about her like that.”

  “Why, because you married your animal?” Carter asked.

  He’d been getting better.

  She’d been certain he would get better, maybe not all the way up to human standards, but somewhere in the basement of humanity, at least.

  “Have you ever loved anyone in your entire life?” Samantha asked. Carter shrugged.

  “Don’t see the point,” he said, spitting the last ‘t’ at her and turning to Abby.

  “Abigail, we’re going.”

  “No,” Abby said abruptly, stepping away backwards.

  “What?” Carter and Samantha asked on top of each other.

  “No,” Abby said. “I’m not going. I want to sleep…” she shook her head, pulling at her tangled hair and shaking it again. “I want to sleep and to eat and to not have to look at you.” She was on the verge of screaming, continuing to back away.

  “Abby,” Samantha said.

  “That’s not acceptable,” Carter said. “I have much too much going on for you to abandon your post like this.”

  “I don’t care,” Abby screamed. “I don’t care. You bastard. I can’t do it anymore.”

  Carter stopped. Samantha looked quickly from one to the other, feeling Sam’s confusion just as strongly as her own.

  He’d been getting better.

  What happened?

  Carter spun to look at her.

  “You did this,” he said, his tone just as smooth and even as it ever was.

  “I what?” she asked. “You’re the one who put her on the edge of sanity. Look at her.”

  “You brought this lack of discipline into my house, and I’m fed up with it,” he said, just the edge of emotion coming through the words. “I’m better off on my own. She’s your problem now.”

  He straightened his jacket, giving a sharp look to Abby, then strode out, his patent dress shoes clicking on the stone as he walked.

  Samantha just stared, stunned into inaction for several moments.

  “Abby,” she finally whispered. Abby crumpled to the floor, sobbing.

  “I’ll get something to eat,” Sam said quietly, leaving.

  “Abby,” Samantha said again, rushing to her friend. “What happened?”

  “I don’t know,” Abby said. “He just snapped, and suddenly it was like it was back before.”

  Samantha frowned, trying to work it out.

  “Do you know if you’re safe here?”

  Abby looked up, brushing tears off her face, taking in the great stone room.

  “If Ash is safe here, I should be, too.”

  Samantha nodded. She would add a few layers of psychic-specific protection, but she had come to the same snap conclusion.

  And Carter wouldn’t leave her exposed. Even Carter at his worst wouldn’t do that. He knew what would happen if a demon managed to possess Abby.

  “Come on,” Samantha said, helping Abby up. She opened her mouth, looking for something to say, but found nothing. Abby leaned her head on Samantha’s shoulder

  “I thought things were getting better,” Samantha said.

  “So did I,” Abby answered.

  “What’s going on there?” Samantha asked. Abby shrugged.

  “You know. The usual. He doesn’t tell me anything I don’t absolutely need to know, to find the stuff he wants me to find.”

  “Sam didn’t see you coming,” Samantha said.

  “No,” Abby said. “He wouldn’t. Carter’s got me on new hardware.”

  She pulled the necklace chain from under her shirt to show Samantha the collection of pendants there.

  “What?” Samantha asked, one of them catching her eye. Her fingers found them before her sense of boundaries caught up, and she was shuffling through them, trying to work out the interactions and the counterinteractions before she realized she was breathing down Abby’s chest.

  “Sorry,” she said, stepping away.

  “No,” Abby said, raising her eyebrows. “That was exactly the reaction I was hoping for. It’s nuts. Right? It’s not just me?”

  “No,” Samantha said, eying the pendants. “I’m not comfortable holding all of those in one hand.”

  “It hurts,” Abby said. Samantha nodded. It would. The conflict of magic just on that chain would have driven an ordinary person mad.

  “And you, a psychic,” Samantha said softly. More sensitive to most magics, especially those. “Take them off.”

  Abby looked at her, uncertain.

  “Are you sure?”

  “Abby, you’re nitroglycerin. If someone looks at you wrong, you could end the world.”

  Abby choked on a sob.

  “That’s how I feel.”

  “Take them off.”

  Abby unfastened the necklace, then put her hand out. Samantha held Abby’s hand as she sorted through the pendants, just keeping the one she ordinarily wore.

  Having the necklace off, even for a few moments, was dangerous. The only other time in recent history that Samantha knew Abby had done it was to give Sam a momentary protection from a devastating curse that had been killing him, years earlier. Doing so, she’d risked the safety of the entire world, without exaggeration.

  She got the necklace back on and let go of Samantha’s hand.

  Samantha sorted through the pendants her friend had taken off, leaving one of them with Abby and putting the others into two separate pockets.

  Abby breathed a shaky breath and nodded.

  “Better,” she said. Sam returned with a plate of nachos.

  “They aren’t very good at improvising,” he said, and Abby laughed, wiping her face again.

  “You could give me raw oatmeal and I’d be grateful,” she said.

  “Come on,” Samantha said. “Let’s get a room set up for you.”

  <><><>

  Sam watched as the two women left the front room, shaking his head.

  It would be nice to have another psychic around, if only because someone would be there who understood, and having Abby specifically there would make Samantha happy. She hadn’t spent real time with her old friend since she’d left Carter, years before. Sam knew Samantha had always felt guilty about it.

  There was a problem having another psychic in the house, though, and he could feel it, even without trying.

  He couldn’t look forward any more. Like an electrified metal wall, it made his hair stand on end when he even thought about it. He watched them with his expanded consciousness all the way through the mansion to the room Samantha had in mind for Abby, the two of them talking quietly about Carter. He tried not to listen to the words; his intent wasn’t to eavesdrop, even though Samantha knew he was there. She sent him warmth. She didn’
t mind him being there.

  She rarely did.

  “I’ve never seen inside here,” Abby was saying. “The shielding is too strong.”

  “Carter did a good job,” Samantha answered.

  “He takes good care of you,” Abby told her and Samantha nodded.

  “For all his cruelty, there’s always a point.”

  “I’m glad you got out,” Abby said.

  “I know,” Samantha said. “Me, too. I still wonder, though.”

  “You thinking about if you’d stayed in New York instead of claiming a territory?” Abby asked.

  “Sometimes,” Samantha said. Abby nodded.

  “I wish you had. You’re where you belong.” She lifted her head, looking up and down the hallway. “You’d never have thought it, but this really is where you belong. In a bloody great stone fortress.”

  “It’s got Carter’s fingerprints all over it,” Samantha said.

  “But it’s you.” Abby shook her head, pushing wild black hair back out of her way. “I don’t understand you two, no matter how much time I spend around you.”

  “I don’t either,” Samantha said. Abby laughed. So did Sam.

  He loved his wife. He literally knew her inside and out. And yet, sometimes, he felt intimidated by the relationship Samantha shared with Carter, the way the two of them knew each other. Something about the power they each controlled, the things they could do, the years of training full of secrets, things she couldn’t tell him and things she just hadn’t thought to.

  “Sleep,” Samantha said, pausing at the doorway. “I’ll have someone go to town and get you some clothes and stuff. We’ll sort it out when you wake up.”

  “I’m not going back,” Abby said warningly.

  “I didn’t say you were,” Samantha said, but there was a tone there, an implication, that this wasn’t where Abby belonged. Sam wasn’t sure if he was the only one to catch it, but he could feel exactly what Samantha meant.

  He expanded his mind out again, going to watch Carter leave, but, oddly, he couldn’t see him. He looked, but whatever voodoo Carter had going on to get them in unannounced, he’d used it on the way out, as well.

  Feeling a headache coming on, Sam withdrew, scanning the property once in rapid-rewind, looking over the last few days and trying to capture all of it, then he dropped out, inside his own head again, and went to go find dinner for himself and Samantha.

  <><><>

  “Vampires,” Jason crowed.

  “Hell no,” Kara answered. “I’m not dealing with another one of your man-crushes. Sam told me how bad you were last time.”

  Jason grinned at her, looking back down at the information from Kirk.

  Annoying as the twerp was, he was damned good, and Jason was learning to ignore most of the more incendiary stuff Kirk tended to lob.

  “You know I can’t turn him down,” Jason said. He’d already said yes, in point of fact, but he wasn’t going to bring that up right this second. “He takes it personal.”

  “You can go,” Kara said. “No way I am.”

  “It’s in Chicago,” Jason tempted. Sam hated Chicago. Oddly, so did Samantha, though Jason couldn’t tell if the reasons were the same or different. So Jason never got to go, either to the conference there every year or to any of the huge number of hunts that the city tended to spawn.

  Come to think of it, that might have been why both Sams hated it.

  Free of the spoil-sports, he had no intention of turning down a trip to Chicago, and he could tell from Kara’s face that she was tempted to go along, because of the destination.

  He was going to win this one.

  “Why does that matter?” Kelly asked from the back seat.

  “You went with us, last year,” Jason said. “Didn’t you? It was before the Sams resurfaced.”

  “He was around, but you mostly had Doris babysitting him,” Kara answered. He drew his focus back in.

  “He’s hanging out at a goth club, one of those fuzzy underground ones where everyone knows everyone.”

  “No,” Kara said. “No, I’m not doing it.”

  Jason grinned.

  “We could stay a few extra days, hit the real clubs.”

  Her eyes flicked over, tempted. He nodded.

  “I bet you’ve still got that leather-and-studs vest you wore for that thing in San Diego.”

  The corner of her mouth twisted. Samantha had a closetful of black leather, and the girl knew how to make it work, but dollars to doughnuts, if he had to pick between Samantha and Kara to work a costume, Kara came out of that fight the winner every time.

  The two of them combined would have been potent.

  He made a mental note to try to work that out, sometime, then shrugged it off.

  “I’m not playing the virgin victim,” Kara said.

  “Oh, you know that’s out,” Jason answered. “Vampires aren’t about the innocent anymore.”

  “There’s no such thing as vampires,” Kelly said from the backseat.

  “Really?” Kara asked, twisting.

  “No,” Kelly told her, sounding confused.

  “According to Sam, there are only demons, angels, and humans,” Jason said.

  “She includes aliens,” Kelly said.

  “Aha, so there are aliens,” Jason said, turning to look at the angel and wagging his eyebrows. Kelly frowned.

  “What?”

  “It was a trap,” Jason said. “Sam puts aliens on the list because… well, because she’s Sam. I left it off to see if you’d add it back on, because you know.”

  “I do not,” Kelly said, indignant. “Why would I need to know that?”

  Jason frowned at him.

  “What do you mean, need to know? You don’t all just know stuff like that?”

  Kelly shrugged.

  “I don’t want to know everything there is to know. Can you imagine how much that would hurt?”

  “Hurt?” Jason said, stunned.

  “I don’t know where every grain of sand is on the planet, either,” Kelly said, evidently going for sarcasm.

  “Why would you know that?” Jason asked.

  “Someone has to,” Kelly said, and Jason shook his head.

  “Why would you want to know that?” Jason tried again. Kelly looked confused.

  “Why would you want to know if there are aliens?”

  Jason blinked.

  “Why wouldn’t you want to know about aliens?” he asked.

  “Knowing where all the sand is is a lot more practical,” Kelly said. Kara snorted.

  “I can’t believe I’m saying this, but can we talk about vampires again? They’re demons?”

  “Of course,” Kelly said. “Should I not be telling you that?”

  “No,” Jason said, feeling a little bit let down. “No, I know they’re demons. They’re just so cool.”

  “Why?” Kelly asked. “They’re agents of death who prey on stupidity and consume human blood to sate a hunger they can never feed.”

  Jason paused.

  “Exactly.”

  “Kindred spirits much?” Kara asked.

  “Ha ha,” Jason said. “You know I like them.”

  “You swear you’re going to kill this one?” Kara asked.

  “Didn’t you ever ash why they ask when they die?” Kelly asked. Jason fought not to look back at the kid. It was a good question.

  “Because vampires are supposed to turn to ash when they die,” Kara answered.

  “Why?” Kelly asked.

  “Why do demons turn to ash?” Jason retorted.

  “Ash is the only thing left after fire consumes you,” Kelly said.

  “Oh,” Jason said. Kara snorted.

  “He makes a good point,” she said. “The seekers could learn a lot from this kid.”

  “I’d hate to think what they’d say to him being an angel,” Jason muttered. Simon had taken it hard enough, and Simon was open-minded. Kirk. Man, Kirk was a my-way-or-the-highway dude if Jason had ever met one.
/>   “We have to kill the vampire,” Kelly said suddenly.

  “Why?” Jason asked.

  “What, you just want to sit, drinking with him again?” Kara mocked.

  “You have to kill him,” Kelly said. “The lifeblood of humans is sacred. You know that, don’t you?”

  “Big words, kid,” Jason said. “You’re in with the wrong crew to try to sell us something for the sake of morality.”

  “So why do you do it, if not because it’s right?” Kelly asked.

  “We do it because it’s right,” Jason said. Kelly looked confused at him in the rearview. Jason laughed. “I’ve had this conversation before. Can’t even remember if it was Sam or Sam-the-girl. We aren’t going to sit and argue it with you. It’s either right or it isn’t.”

  Kelly looked confused.

  “How do you know what’s right, if you can’t explain it?”

  Kara twisted in her seat.

  “Sick to think you can’t tell.”

  Kelly looked more confused. Jason laughed.

  “You and Sam, man. Your rules. Don’t worry about it so much. We’re gonna get the bastard. Actually,” he said, sitting up to look more carefully at the angel in the backseat, “I think you’re going to do it.”

  Kelly shrugged.

  “Fine with me.”

  “Gotta be careful with these guys,” Jason said. “They’re squirrelly.”

  “What do demons have to do with tree rodents?” Kelly asked. Kara laughed into the back of her hand, settling back into her seat. Damn, she was sexy when she laughed. Jason had to remember what the question was.

  “They’re tricky, I mean,” he said.

  “They’re demons,” Kelly said. “They’re full of lies.”

  “Yeah, I’m just saying… You’re not very good at lies.”

  “A demon can only lie to you if you listen to him,” Kelly said.

  “Can’t argue with that,” Jason answered. “Fair enough. Chicago!”

  <><><>

  They checked in at the hotel. Jason gave his name, and the clerk just handed over a pair of keys.

  “Two rooms,” Jason said.

  “You sending me away, Elliott?” Kara asked.

  “No, just not going to leave the kid out in the Cruiser all night,” he answered, taking the additional pair of keys. “It’s a rough neighborhood.”