Caleb would lose more, but that was the way it was. Some prices had to be paid.
“What the fuck do you have to be sorry about?” Sol barked. “I’m the one who should have seen it, Jorie. God damn it, can you stop acting like everything in the world is your fault? Drives both of us crazy.” He hunched his shoulders, casting a sharp, mistrustful glance at the pool. “I mean, it used to . . . Neil . . .”
Wonders never cease. I agree with him. “That’s enough,” he said, quietly. “We’ve got a little Lightbringer to get home to her parents, and my witch needs rest.” And, not so incidentally, they had a detective to either push into forgetting Jorie Camden’s very existence, or to put somewhere Dominion and the Crusade would never find him.
Or both. He was leaning heavily towards both.
“Jorie?” Trevignan leaned forward on his squishing toes, disregarding the Watchers tensing all around him. He’d lost one of his wingtips, and his sock foot was filthy. “Talk to them, okay? I want in. I want to do what they do.”
Oh, for God’s sake. “Leave her alone,” Caleb began, but Lorenz stepped before him, effectively blocking the detective’s view of Jorie and the girl.
“We might not want a Dominion traitor,” Lorenz said quietly. “How many Lightbringers have you brought to grief, detective?”
“Shh.” Jorie stroked the girl’s wet hair; his witch was so pale she was almost transparent. “Oh, honey. Don’t worry about them. They’re just talking. What’s your name, sweetheart? It’s all going to be all right.”
The girl made a small sobbing noise and clung to her even more tightly. No Watcher liked pushing a kid, but in this case, it couldn’t be helped. At least it was a young Lightbringer, and the Circle would make sure she was guarded from afar until she was old enough to understand her talents and be brought to safety.
“I know,” Jorie soothed, as the girl gabbled something so terror-soaked it wasn’t even remotely comprehensible. “This is Rust. He’s a friend of mine, and he’s going to make it feel better. Like a doctor, do you understand?”
Rust, the medic’s kit repacked and hanging from his left hand, crouched easily before Jorie and the girl. “Hi.” He caught the child’s gaze with his own, and smiled reassuringly. His aura stretched, a redblack pulsing, and the girl’s pupils swelled. Her arms and legs went limp, and Rust continued speaking quietly, soothing her, implanting fresh memories, taking away the fear.
It was more difficult to push the gifted, but a shivering, traumatized child was no contest for a Watcher’s trained will.
Jorie’s gaze met Caleb’s, and he knew, with sickening certainty, what she expected of him. Mechanically, he turned towards Trevignan and Lorenz. “A man isn’t a Watcher because he’s got a clean conscience.” The words, pulled out of him one by one, almost hurt. “We all know that.”
Lorenz’s eyebrows rose, but he said nothing. His coat was almost ribbons below the knee, and both his hands were full of bloody scabs. Looked like he’d had to punch his way through a few of the puppets.
“I want in,” Trevignan repeated, stubbornly. “If you’re fighting those . . . those things, I want to help.”
“That’s not what we’re here for.” Caleb’s ribs ached. The tanak settled to the deeper healing, Jorie’s nearness warm oil along his nerves. He was beginning to believe he wasn’t too late, that she was still alive, that he might not have fucked up completely and irretrievably. “Watchers exist for one reason, and one reason only.”
“Lightbringers,” Lorenz said, and the two guards a moment after him.
Damn right. Caleb straightened. He could take some pride in that, at least. “And if you truly want in, there are things you’re going to have to do. The first is to give us everything you have on Dominion, even the things you don’t even know you know. It’s not going to be comfortable, and they’ll strike back at you any way they can. If you’ve got family, friends, loved ones, you’d better think twice.”
“Enough.” Lorenz’s shoulder touched his. “We’ll take care of him, Caleb. Tend to your witch.”
I am. Caleb took another step towards the detective and leaned in, knowing the tanak was filling his eyes with red glow, knowing that if he wanted to bury his knife in this man’s guts no Watcher would stop him. They might even quietly applaud. But Jorie wouldn’t.
She’d expect her Watcher to be better, and in this one small way, he could be.
Maybe.
Trevignan studied him. He was deathly pale too, and his Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed. Still, he didn’t back down. “I want in.” Quietly.
You poor bastard. You have no idea. Then again, Caleb hadn’t either, and look at him now. “Then do what Lorenz says. Double-quick. And watch your step, because if you ever become a danger to Jorie, I will end you.”
“Caleb?” Jorie, sounding alarmed.
Don’t worry, witch. See how well I obey you? “You only live because she’s a Lightbringer, and she doesn’t know what you are. But we do.” Contempt edged every word. “Keep your nose clean, Sol. That’s all.”
He turned on his heel, and thank every god every made or worshipped Lorenz and the others closed around the detective to hustle him away, because every fiber of Caleb’s body cried out for him to turn back and take care of the threat he represented.
But there was Jorie, Rust gently untangling the now-somnolent girl from her arms. The Watcher’s expression was set; the child’s aura was probably grinding glass into his bones. At least he didn’t look much worse for wear, just wet and with scraped knuckles, his hair slicked down.
Caleb’s witch, her face striped with drying blood, put her shaking hands up. Caleb blinked across the intervening space far more quickly than a normal man could, but neither Rust nor Jorie flinched.
His fingers threaded through hers and he pulled her up, then pulled her close. She fell against him, and he rested his chin atop her head. “It’s all right,” he said, just as she had to the poor kid. “Everything’s all right, Jorie. I’m here.”
“I knew you’d come,” she said into his chest, and began to shake. “I knew it.”
“Of course.” He closed his eyes, glad after all that he hadn’t killed the fucking detective.
But only because she was still alive.
Waking Up
THE YELLOW-and-cream suite was like a friendly face, quiet and serene. Sleeping without nightmares was a blessing and a shower was sheer heaven, but Jorie couldn’t stop flinching, expecting the Finding to wake up at any moment and tug at her. Even on the soft, wide, striped yellow couch, she didn’t feel safe.
Maybe she never would again.
“He didn’t have her for very long.” Sarah held Jorie’s hands, and her aura was a soft, deep comfort. “Caro’s assigned Shelby Yarrow to work with her, just in case any of the memories come back. Her family thinks she was just lost while they were shopping on Seventh Street, and are too happy to have her back to ask many questions. There’s Watchers on rotation to make sure she’s safe.”
Jorie nodded. That was one worry shelved; Shelby was a good Mindhealer. The little girl—Anna Tremblayson—would in all likelihood never remember the terror, and her parents would never know just how lucky they were. “And Marilyn?”
“Lorenz didn’t like it.” Sarah bit her lower lip. “But I thought . . . well, she has a right to know. Tara will be handling her therapy.”
Tara, another Mindhealer, would also mute Marilyn Geddoes’s memories if they overwhelmed her. Or Tara’s Watcher would push Geddoes, and the reporter could return to normal life—or as normal as an investigative reporter with just enough psychic talent to get into trouble could get. Which just left one question. “Sol,” Jorie whispered. “What did the Watchers do with him?”
Caleb, near the suite’s door, made a restless movement, almost instantly controlled. Jorie knew exactly h
ow close it had been; her Watcher had been all but vibrating with the urge to kill Neil’s partner once the detective admitted he was Dominion. Or had been approached by them, which wasn’t the same thing.
And Jorie had worked with him. Gone to his house, been alone with him downstairs at the library or in rooms going through dusty public records. They’d had dinners together, the detectives and their pet nutcase who just happened to be right so often. She hadn’t known; there had been no tang of the Crusade’s strange, fumbling ceremonial sorcery on him, and none of her Watchers had been alerted either.
The Crusade—and Dominion—were being much more careful in their recruitment now. It was still an open question whether their Slayers or Horace Alton had fired Jorie’s house, but Jorie thought the former was much more likely.
Horace had wanted her alive. And you will give me sons.
Just the thought was enough to make her shudder again.
“You know the rules,” Sarah said, gently. “He’s in their hands now. If he survives the training, he might even come back to Altamira. But he might not. It’s for the best.”
Not to mention anyone Sol cared about was in danger. The Crusade punished its renegades, if there was anything left to take from them once they left the organization’s embrace. He had an ex-wife and no children; Jorie hoped Catherine Trevignan would be all right.
The Watchers couldn’t watch everyone.
It was a rare sunny day during an Altamira winter; the windows were full of gold. Jorie’s storage container was being emptied, Watchers loading the boxes and bringing them to the safehouse. She’d choose one of the permanent suites in a few days, when she felt ready, and begin unpacking.
“For the best,” she agreed, quietly. Still, I wish I knew if he was all right. “I’m so sorry, Sarah. I never thought . . . I just wanted to help. And the Watchers—”
“Now, don’t start that. You did what you thought was right all the way through. I’m just kicking myself for not noticing that damn glamour, that’s all. All of us are, I suppose.” Sarah grimaced. “To think it was right here all the time. Right underneath us.”
Using the old drains like freeways, and taking children almost at will. “It’s over now,” she said, dully. “Except . . .”
“Except?” Sarah’s calm stayed, but it felt like a near thing. “I can tell something else has been bothering you, Jorie. Spit it out.”
“It’s not . . . well, it’s something Horace said.” I refuse to call him Neil. It wasn’t him, it wasn’t, and I don’t care what anyone else thinks. “While he was telling me what he was planning to do.”
“You’d think they wouldn’t give speeches.” Sarah managed a small, forlorn smile. “It’s the downfall of many a villain.”
An equally forlorn laugh escaped Jorie’s lips. She hunched her shoulders, guiltily. “I guess. But he said the world is no longer asleep. I know crime rates go down with enough Lightbringers in a city, and the Watchers are sure we’re turning the tide. I just can’t help but wonder what else is happening. What other effects there are.” And Tancred was already busily at work with information Sol had provided, cracking yet more Dominion and Crusade records. He’d also promised to go digging in other electronic holes since Horace Alton’s glamour was no longer eating up evidence of his unnaturally prolonged existence.
Tan hadn’t had a problem of this complexity to solve in a while, and he got restless when his talents weren’t used. He didn’t seem very happy, though; he’d all but shaken Jorie before hugging her so hard she could barely breathe. Don’t you ever do that again, Jore, he’d muttered in her ear, and the echo of Neil made her want to cry.
“Now there’s an uncomfortable thought.” Sarah squeezed her hands again, gently. The other woman’s calm returned, swamping Jorie with welcome relief. It was so good to be around other Lightbringers. “But that’s not why you’re feeling guilty, and don’t think I don’t know it.”
You’re right. “I just wonder, that’s all.” Jorie’s smile felt like a mask, and maybe Sarah knew she’d pushed as far as she could, because she let go of Jorie’s hands and reached for her mug on the white-painted coffee table.
“Wondering never hurt anyone.” Sarah took a last decorous sip and rose, smiling benevolently. “I’ve got reports to write and funding requisitions to file. We won this one, Jorie. Even though it doesn’t feel like it, we did. That thing won’t make any more puppets, and the Watchers are sweeping the tunnels just in case any survived its death. You can feel good about solving a mystery nobody even knew was happening, can’t you?”
I can try. But I don’t think I will. “I’ll do my best,” Jorie murmured, and rose to see the Council witch to the door.
Good Start
THE COUNCIL LIAISON left without even giving Caleb a meaningful look, and he was left—finally, at last—alone with his witch. No emergency breathing down their necks, not even cleanup. The Circle was handling it, and it was about goddamn time someone else stepped in to save Jorie grief.
He threw the lock and turned to find Jorie studying him, a line between her dark eyebrows and her pretty, long-fingered hands tense, wringing at each other. She put up such a good front, nobody could tell how frightened she truly was. Even other Watchers had missed it, and the unsteady feeling in Caleb’s guts wouldn’t go away when he thought about that.
So he tried not to. He took two steps and caught her hands, soothing the tension out, letting her clutch at him instead of at herself. “Easy there. It’s all right. I’m here.”
“I know.” The shaking had begun again—normal, the healers said, the body throwing off reminders of a brush with death. Time will help, Raina had told Jorie smartly, brisk but not sharp. And your Watcher. Listen to him, okay, Jore?
For that alone, he’d forgive the cinnamon-haired healer her tart tongue.
He held her hands while the trembling receded, wishing he could slide his arms around her. But that was a step too far, at this moment. So he just stood and waited, breathing with her, letting her shivers slide through him and away. The tanak, sleepy inside his bones, lifted its head for a moment, but it found nothing to fight.
Just a witch’s distress, an echo after disturbing events were put to bed. Only that. The reddening around her eyes and nose bore silent witness to her tears, only indulged in the bathroom with the water running. He longed to tell her he had a good shoulder just made for soaking up salt water, but that was—again—a step too far.
So he just waited, patiently. And finally, she asked, like he knew she would.
“I hate to push,” she said, quietly. “But . . . Sol?”
I didn’t kill him. For you, witch, because I knew you wouldn’t want me to. “He’s got a chance.” That was the unvarnished truth. “If he makes it through the training and his Trial, he’ll be a Watcher.” And he can start working off his debt.
The cop might take a bad shot in training. A tanak might find him unworthy and eat him alive. If he survived the tanak, a stray piece of Dark might do the honors. You never could tell.
“He shot Nei—he shot Horace.” Jorie’s chin lifted slightly, daring him to disagree.
And almost hit you. I could have throttled him for that, or put the gun somewhere he wouldn’t like. “He did,” Caleb agreed, cautiously. And then, because he was helpless not to, he said what he knew she wanted to hear. “He’s . . . a good man, Jorie. So was Neil.”
If it was a lie, it was a kind one. He could keep the rest of it to himself.
“He was in there. Inside Horace. Fighting.” Jorie shuddered. “I felt him in there.”
If you say so. “Then he was.” He would gladly give her a thousand little lies like that, to take the sadness away. “He’s at rest now, too. It’s likely Horace came across some books he shouldn’t have. The Gilded Age was full of that shi—uh, that stuff, and there were rumors about him f
rom the start. Probably just a pretty successful black sorcerer, feeding where he could.”
The other prospect—that it had been a type of Dark the Watchers didn’t know about, operating right in the middle of one of their territories—hardly bore thinking about, but Lorenz was doing what he could to figure it out. It was one mystery Jorie didn’t need to be anywhere near.
“I suppose.” It was painful to see her try to smile, to feel her trying to soothe him. As if he was the one who needed it. “Not bad for your first week with a witch, right?”
I’ve been drowned, almost eaten alive, and nearly had my heart stop several times. Caleb let the corners of his mouth curl up, and now he could pull on her hands, very gently. “Can’t wait to see what happens next.”
She let him reel her in, a step at a time, very slowly. As if she was a wild animal he wanted to tame, one maddened by pain and fury but willing to be helped.
Willing to be saved.
“Caleb,” she said into his chest, tense and stiff. “Are you . . . I mean, are you disappointed? I didn’t figure it out fast enough, if I’d tried another way there might have been—”
“You couldn’t break a glamour that old.” He put all the certainty he could into the words, daring to interrupt her for once. “You had to take me right up to the edge of it with the Finding, one compulsion to match the other. Nobody but you could have figured it out. You did everything you could, Jorie. Neil was dead the moment that thing saw him.”
“I think I led it to him.” The tension turned her into an iron bar, a painful confession wrenched out, bit by bit. “When he brought the files, I drew the zoo gate. I recognized it, and he probably did too, before he . . . before he left. That night.”
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