Finder (The Watchers Book 6)

by Lilith Saintcrow

  And possession.

  He cut through the small chittering beasts, disregarding their clutching claws and stabbing, worrying teeth, and still, reaching the high vaulted main tunnel, he was almost borne under a wave of small bodies married to a rushing, waist-high current. The storm had settled on Altamira like a brooding bird, one of winter’s watery wheelbarrows emptied over the city, and all metropolitan veins were pressed into service to carry excess fluids away.

  There were two sharp barking shots, and Caleb surfaced in a spluttering rush. Now it was time for swordwork, and bright metal clove a puppet in two as the thing leapt like a dolphin, lunging for his face. Another shot took one on his back, uncertain lighting making it a helluva trick to fling lead and not break open Caleb’s skull, and he glared at paper-pale, shaking Sol Trevignan. The detective’s stance was braced and careful despite the water foaming at his knees, making his triangle and choosing his shots, and maybe he even had enough ammo to give a good accounting of himself before the puppets dragged him down.

  “Didn’t I tell you to stay put?” Caleb yelled, and didn’t wait for an answer, lunging across the current. He gained solid footing on the other side, and Neil’s trail was a highway of reeking darkness. There was a faint breath of gold at its edges.

  Jorie. She came this way, no more than a few minutes ago. Thank you, gods.

  He’d made quite a dent in the puppets. Now, his sword a bar of silver and a crimson-glowing knife reversed along his other forearm, he threw himself at the knot massing for another attack. Splashing and cursing behind him—the goddamn cop didn’t have the sense God gave a tit-hog, as Caleb’s grandfather would say.

  Don’t think about that. Half-step, sword sweeping overhand, cleaving yet another a puppet in two and noting the spill of sawdust-like stuff from its interior, knife flickering in to stab or retreating to brace his other hand, Caleb danced through the clotted, clinging mass of tiny things, breaking through their defensive line and taking off down another crumbling tunnel.

  More sounds—disciplined shots, thumping, the high unnerving tinnitus-ringing of combat sorcery over the rushing water. Another burst of gratefulness filled his chest, was shoved roughly away.

  Backup had arrived. They’d found the entrance, which removed his last remaining worry about the glamour over the mansion.

  A witch had shown them the way, and the Watchers were at work. Now all he had to do was find her.

  Hold on, baby. It was all he could think, his only prayer in the dark. The tanak could sense the temperature difference between the puppets and surrounding air, and it jerked Caleb’s arms and legs ruthlessly into position to meet them. He didn’t fight it—it was symbiote instead of parasite, and the difference was the willing cooperation of its host.

  He didn’t care if the tanak ate him, as long as Jorie was alive.

  Just hold on. I’m on my way. Do whatever it takes, just survive until I get there.

  A guttural roar burst from the tanak, filled Caleb’s chest and throat, and he hurled them both deeper into the dark.

  No Creativity

  GREAT GREEN GLASS skylights let through filtered rainy light, a winter Monday fading as early dusk swooped in from the east. The Memorial was old but it had been built to last, and its aesthetics were a graceful nod to classical antiquity.

  Smaller wading areas flanked the deeper rectangular Olympic-sized main pool, shell-shaped hot tubs along the far wall where senior citizens congregated during swim time given over to their age group. Gantry-like lifeguard chairs stood sentinel, their inanimate faces shamefully averted—there was nobody to witness this, and who knew how many other terrible acts they had stood mutely over?

  Jorie had swum here herself, especially during physical therapy after the Heights Bomber case. Her gorge rose, hot and stinging, as she realized what lay underneath. How many times had she been here, listening to children’s playful screams bouncing off water, concrete, the lifeguard chairs, the racks of pool noodles and beach balls brought out for exercise classes or Kid Swims?

  And this thing had been hiding there all the time, creeping in the dark, covering itself with ancient sorcery and eating where it pleased.

  The thing filling Neil’s body hadn’t even noticed her skidding out of the locker room, her abused boots sloshing. It was, after all, busy trying to lower a small, struggling thing into the water.

  The killer was in the shallow end trying to drown a new victim, a little girl whose aura scintillated desperately as she thrashed.

  Jorie didn’t hesitate. She ran, wet jeans and water-filled boots rasping and sliding, and reached the edge. Her body knew what to do, flattening into a skimming dive, and she hit him hard with flesh and Power both.

  No you don’t, she thought, deliriously, as the water closed over her head. You won’t take my friend, and you won’t kill anyone else.

  Not if I can help it.

  Her body again knew what to do, rolling in chlorinated fluid; her feet found the bottom and she stood up, blowing her nose and mouth clear with a crimson-stained huff, her arms closing around the struggling little girl. The child was an octopus one moment, a starfish the next, throwing her limbs wide, insane with fear as Jorie lifted her free of dragging water and waded for the stairs. Hurry, hurry, if you can just get her out—

  “Bitch!” The thing gurgled behind her, a geyser splattering foulness. Jorie lunged for safety, the child finally realizing what she was doing and turning octopus again, arms and legs wrapping around her rescuer so tight black flowers bloomed in Jorie’s vision and her throat throbbed with pressure.

  Help me out here, kid. But there was no help—the child was so small, so defenseless, and counting on the adult in the room to fix things.

  Jorie wondered pointlessly if this was how Watchers felt during a fight right before the thing struck, Neil’s familiar hand closing in her long, dirty, dripping hair and yanking hard. There was a tearing near her scalp, Jorie screamed, and the child in her arms did too.

  Psychic, they were all psychic, he’s been eating psychic kids—

  He dragged her back and forced her under the water, Jorie’s hands beating ineffectually at the weight, the child a millstone around her neck. Her lungs were on fire, her throat burning from the chlorine, her eyes wavering as her body began to fight for air, for life, for anything, her aura giving one powerful scorching blast . . .

  . . . and then she was free, breaking the surface again as the thing howled with Neil’s voice.

  “Oh you biiiiiitch, you fucking whoooooooore . . .”

  Funny how the words for a woman who wouldn’t do what a man wanted, a woman who refused to quietly lie down and die, were always the same. They have no creativity, she thought, dreamily, whooping in a huge beautiful breath of blessed air and surging for the steps again. She’d stung it with light, and that was important, but she had other worries right now.

  The little girl, spluttering wildly, clutched at her neck; Jorie’s arms closed around the child. Don’t worry, I’m here. You’re going to be okay. I’m going to make it okay.

  The steps leading into the shallow end slipped underfoot; her boots went out from under her and Jorie tried to push the girl onto dry land. Thank the gods I don’t have to get to a ladder, that’s really nice—Jorie heaved one more time, desperately, and the girl scrambled screaming for safety. She was producing an amazing amount of noise, both physically and otherwise; if there were Watchers around they’d come see what the fuss was.

  “Joriiiiiie,” the thing in Neil’s body moaned. “Joriiiiiie help meeeeee . . .”

  Jorie floundered, turning, but it wasn’t Neil. The thing wearing his face cut the water with eerie, stuttering speed, and its hands were now claws. Its face was an ancient root left moldering in a damp corner, fuzzed with rot and drawn into a rictus. It grabbed her, and blood flowered in churning foam.
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br />   No breath, no Power left, her arms and legs turning leaden as it dragged her deeper and shoved her head underwater—it wasn’t used to being fought, this thing. It was a coward, preying on children and the helpless, and a great, burning, wild anger filled her and flashed away.

  I’m going to die. The realization was quiet, a blooming flower fed by anoxia. It wasn’t so bad, she decided. Peace, and an end to striving.

  The Finding twitched inside her once more, and she knew what she had to do. One small thing before the darkness took her.

  Jorie went limp, opened her arms, let the water fill her throat. She concentrated.

  And the Power, the thing the gods had given her, the talent she cursed so often . . . answered.

  Light, Strong and Sure

  HE HIT THE DOOR hard, not caring if it was locked or otherwise. All he was concerned about were the marks of his witch’s presence—blood on the railings, wet footprints, the scent of her a thin green-golden thread vibrating atop foul air. Maintenance and equipment lockers flashed by, he took a hard right, and Caleb found himself bursting through another door and into the atrium of an old building, his nose full of the reek of chlorine.

  For a moment he was a kid again, taken to the pool on a summer’s day, floating in heavily bleached stillness. Then he heard the screaming, and he had a choice—there was probably a way to get into the main pool area without going through a wall, but he had no time because his chest cracked, and whatever the thing had been saving Jorie for, he was doing it now.

  Caleb’s knees bent. He gathered himself, the tanak pulling on all available Power, fueled by agony, fury, and the fresh pain as Caleb’s heart stuttered, Jorie suddenly so close and in terrible, terrible danger.

  Force unleashed, the world shattering around him, and glass whickered deadly through air gone close, hard, and hot. The shrapnel peppered the pool surface, scarred the concrete, and somehow avoided a crying child with a Lightbringer’s aura clinging to the top of the stairs leading into the shallow end.

  Neil Harvard, or whatever was wearing his skin, had Jorie underwater. The surface of the pool ran and rang with golden light, and Caleb didn’t hesitate. Metal glittered in his hand as he cleared the steps, hitting water that began to hiss-boil from the heat the tanak was throwing out, Power turned to pain to more Power, and he could have killed the thing if he hadn’t chosen instead to drop his left-hand knife, his fingers sinking blindly into Jorie’s wet seaweed hair and dragging her head above the surface.

  More Power crunched along his skin, burrowed through his nerves. Lightbringer magick threaded through the pool, spreading and replicating itself; Jorie coughed, spraying blood-laced water from nose, mouth, throat. The tanak roared again, compressing and clearing her lungs, then forcing them to fill with air instead of fluid.

  And Caleb, his momentum not yet fully shed, drove the bright blade of his right-hand sword through Neil Harvard’s heart. It was a good clean shot, just avoiding ribs, metal singing with stress as the Power along the blade pierced a shell of dark, ancient foulness.

  Pop. Pop. The gunshots sounded like faraway firecrackers. Neil’s head exploded, the shrapnel now bone and brain matter instead of glass, and Caleb snapped a glance over his shoulder.

  Sol Trevignan had somehow managed to keep up. And now, tears slicking his wet cheeks, his grubby tan trench coat in ribbons, he dropped the gun and lunged for the child, gathering her from the pool’s golden embrace.

  Jorie coughed. The light was coming from her, and the thing in Neil’s shattered body howled. Steel banished evil, of course, and it couldn’t hop into a Watcher or a witch said Watcher was shielding. Locked in a physical form, it could be killed, and Jorie, quick-thinking, had done what was necessary to trap it.

  She had blessed the water, and even while drowning, held the light strong and sure.

  “Jorie,” he found himself saying, cradling her as he retreated from the thrashing, hideous thing trapped in a blessed pool. Foam curled, stinking black, scorching on the golden waves, and steam hung in thick veils. Broken glass glittered everywhere. “Jorie, baby, it’s all right, let it go. Let it go, it’s dead, let it go.”

  “Neil,” she sobbed, and coughed. “Neil.”

  There’s nothing you can do for him. Caleb pressed his lips against her wet temple. One of his boots found the stairs. He was going to have to go back into that foul, churned-up mess and find his left knife, but that didn’t matter.

  All that mattered was his witch, limp in his arms, sobbing as she repeated another man’s name, over and over.

  Clean Conscience

  LORENZ PRESSED the knife hilt into Caleb’s hand. “This is yours, then.” He glanced over the pool, where Watchers were combing the deep end, Power smoking and crackling along their clothes as they rose to breathe, making certain no trace of the thing remained in the water. Traces of gold still clung to the surface; it probably hurt like hell to go in there, Lightbringer magick scraping at the tanaks, but none of them were complaining. The price of greater strength and endurance was denser bone and muscle, too; they had to expend a great deal of Power to rise instead of sinking.

  Rust had the child, and was checking her and Jorie for damage. The little girl, sobbing, clung to the only woman in sight, and each time Rust moved, she flinched. Caleb’s witch merely blinked, cuddling the girl closer, and the other Watcher kept talking, saying soothing little commonplaces while he opened a medic’s kit and took blood pressure, swabbed at cuts, and bandaged both of them.

  Of course, Rust had been with Jorie for six months. He was who she was familiar with; there was no reason for Caleb to feel anything other than relieved.

  And Jorie’s dark gaze followed Caleb, wonderingly.

  Once Rust was assured the two Lightbringers—for the little girl’s aura was green and she had all the marks of an incipient healer—were safe enough, he turned to the other civilian. Two Watchers stood over Sol Trevignan, and if he so much as breathed wrong, they would probably put a bullet in him and call it good.

  Caleb was tempted, but he had other things to do. “Glad I made enough noise,” he said, finally, since Lorenz seemed to expect something from him.

  The head Watcher relaxed a bit. Maybe he thought Caleb was going to go off.

  A Watcher with a threatened witch wasn’t going to be the steadiest. Especially when said witch had almost been drowned by . . . whatever that thing was.

  It bothered Caleb that he didn’t know exactly, but that could wait.

  “All this time.” Lorenz looked away, over the pool. The thin unhealthy foam shrank on its surface, lapped by the golden light, and each time the Watchers dove, they dispelled a little more of the crap. “Right under our noses.”

  And it took a witch, a reporter, and a couple normal cops to hunt it down. Yeah. “It was here before Watchers,” Caleb muttered. “Had plenty of time to sink its claws in.”

  Lorenz, wet clear through and badly bruised over half his set, severe face, was just as disturbed as Caleb. It showed in the uneasy flicker of the tanak under his skin. “Was it Dark? Or something else?”

  Caleb shrugged. Don’t know. Don’t care. All that mattered was Jorie, who lifted her chin.

  “No,” she said softly. So she could hear them. “Human, once. Maybe Horace Alton came across some old books, maybe he just made a bargain with something that was already here.” Her shudder matched the girl’s; the kid was clinging so hard, it was a wonder Jorie could breathe. “His wife left after whatever he was doing came to light, probably with the child they wanted, and he . . . I don’t know.” She shook her head, black hair stiffening into wild curls as it dried. He wanted to take her out of this caustic steam and shattered glass, but she didn’t look ready to leave. “They wanted children. And he got them, by hook or by crook. Maybe for her, but more likely because it was . . . hungry.”

  “You’ll li
ve,” Rust said, harshly, and Sol Trevignan nodded. He looked like a man in a nightmare, and Caleb couldn’t care less.

  “Jorie?” The detective moved like he wanted to approach her, but both Watchers guarding him tensed, the one on his right—Drake, his reddish hair standing up in stiff spikes—dropping a casual hand on Sol’s shoulder. He didn’t squeeze, but he didn’t have to.

  “It’s all right,” Jorie said. “It was his partner, he has a right to know. Besides . . .”

  Besides, he shot Neil in the head. Shot his own partner. Caleb swallowed a flare of unwilling, nasty satisfaction. “Let him.” The words were harsh after the restful music of Jorie’s. “But be careful. He’s Dominion.”

  “Weren’t you listening? I’ve been feeding them bullshit for two years.” Sol shook off Drake’s hand, and the Watcher let him go. “What the fuck was that thing, Camden?”

  Of course, he’d fixate on her. Not only was she the only halfway familiar thing in this situation, but she was also the most tempting target.

  Jorie was kind. And this man couldn’t wait to get hold of that kindness, and probably hurt it, because he was afraid.

  “Either a black sorcerer or a man infected with something Dark.” Jorie regarded him sadly. “Sol . . . I’m so sorry.”

  It was interesting, Caleb thought, to see a man deflate. All the fight went out of Trevignan, and the detective probably didn’t even notice that her Watcher had drifted into range, and hadn’t put away his left-hand knife yet.

  It would be a sacrilege to stab a stupid human traitor with a blade made by his own hands, a tangible mark of his oaths as a Watcher, the blade that was a physical reminder of his devotion to the bare chance of finding a witch to bond with and once he had, a reminder not to fuck up his one shot at redemption. But right now, Caleb didn’t care. If the man so much as twitched in Jorie’s direction, or if he said one more shitty thing to her, he was going to lose his liver.