Mindhealer

by lillith saintcrow

  Living in Saint City had spoiled her. They didn’t have to worry about the Crusade so much there. Theo and the other Guardians kept those particular fanatics out, though it was a scramble these days with all the other Dark boiling into the city—

  Skritch-skritch. Skritch-skritch. A thin, evil scratching came from the door. The ward Merrick had snapped over it started to smoke and pulse. Caro felt a moan rising in her chest, killed it. “We’ve got to go. Please, Merrick. We have to go right now.”

  “Just stay calm,” he whispered back. “Nice and calm, love, I’m here.”

  Irritation cut through the sinking dread as the glass needles jabbed even more viciously at her head. You idiot, you could get killed! I promised I’d never let another Watcher die because of me! She raised her hands, put them flat on his back, and shoved. It did no good—it was like pushing a brick wall. He didn’t even have the grace to pretend he noticed.

  “We have to go,” she whispered, even as the floorboards groaned. The defenses locked down, sheets of cascading energy snapping into place, any breaches now sealed. The air vibrated—Watchers, sweeping the entire safehouse, teams going out to clear the streets. An unpleasant reminder, as if she needed one, of the danger she’d been born into. “Please, Merrick!”

  He might have said something, but the door exploded out in matchwood splinters, peppering the wall opposite with smoking bits. The Dark thing crashed through, skidding, and she screamed.

  Merrick moved, blurring as the laws of physics bent. The knives were reversed along his forearms, black steel glowing with thin crimson-flame runes reacting to the Dark. The blades actually cast dappled red reflections against the walls. Why are his knives glowing like that? Caro swallowed the last half of her scream and searched frantically for some way to protect him.

  He made no sound as he crashed into the Dark. It snarled and let loose a shattering psychic wail. Caro’s hands clapped over her ears, but it did no good—the sound drilled inside, scraping, burrowing, twisting. Blood slid down from her nose as her legs gave out and she spilled to the floor, her knees grating against the hardwood.

  Then in the dim light of the hallway, another Watcher, a tall brown-haired man, rose up. His face was set and grim, he made one swift movement down with one of his own incandescent knives, twisting as it buried in the Seeker’s flesh. There was a snap! and the thing slumped, twitching. The reek of it was immense, a psychic sludge of bloodthirsty hatred and feral hunger, with the extra nose-tainting tang of bitter almonds. Caro had smelled that before.

  The Crusade. But how? Of all the witches the Crusade hated, they hated healers and Mindhealers the most. Had she brought it here? Had the Master at Saint Crispin’s managed to catch her scent and track her here? But there was another layer to the stench—rotten eggs. Sulfur. She felt her stomach rebel, was glad she hadn’t eaten much.

  “Caro! Caroline!” Fran’s voice, high and unsteady. “Let go of me! Caro!”

  “I’m fine,” she heard herself say. “Frannie?”

  The air witch slid along the wall, keeping well away from the dead hulk of the Seeker, shaking her gray head and stumbling. Then she ran for Caro.

  Caro, on her knees, leaned back against the wall. Her stomach revolved unsteadily. I think I’m going to throw up. No. Please don’t let me throw up. “Fran.” Her eyes were fixed on the slumped shape of the Seeker, already starting to run like a lump of clay in swift water. It looks wrong. Why does it look wrong? This is all wrong. A Seeker shouldn’t be able to break through the wards! Nothing Dark should be able to!

  Merrick rose from the psychic sludge, shaking himself like a cat who has just received an unwelcome shower of rain. It was a fluid, horrible movement, because his face was wet with blood and his left arm was obviously dislocated. A long gash in his jeans, on the left leg, slashing down—That could have hit an artery, Caro realized, and a rushing sound filled her ears.

  “Caro!” Fran had her shoulders, shook her. “Are you all right?” Her face was chalk-white, her eyes seeming very dark instead of their usual blue.

  “Fine.” Blood dripped from Caro’s top lip, wet and warm, her nose was full of warm liquid copper. Her teeth chattered. “Merrick?”

  “He’s okay.” Fran spared a single look over her shoulder. She wore another long purple sweater over a primrose silk nightgown. Her silvery hair tumbled down past her shoulders. “Look, he’s up and walking around.”

  But his face is all bloody and his sh-shoulder—Caro watched as the Watcher reached up absently with his bleeding left hand, feeling around the dislocated joint, his arm flopping strangely. A shrug, a flare of Power, his fingers turning to iron—and the joint popped back into place. Part of a tanak’s gift, the ability to heal. If it hurt, his face made no sign of it.

  Instead, he stood in quarter-profile, looking down at the Seeker, his body still between the Dark thing and the two witches at the end of the hall. He’s making sure it’s dead. Oh, gods. A fresh jolt of nausea speared through her.

  The brown-haired Watcher spread his fingers. Power rose and crackled, cleaning the psychic debris from the air. The Seeker turned to smoke, shredded, and was gone. The stink vanished slowly, leaching away bit by bit. It was a relief.

  Then Merrick’s shoulders slumped and he made a low hurt noise. He turned sharply, his coat flaring. Not toward her—but toward her door. He was going to make sure another one wasn’t lying in wait in her room.

  “Let me,” the other Watcher said, the knife disappearing into a sheath. “Check them.”

  Merrick paused, nodded, and turned back. His eyes were glowing, blazing out from under the blood-drenched strings of dark hair sticking to his forehead. He saw her at the end of the hall, and his scarred face froze.

  She barely even saw him move before he was kneeling next to Fran, careful not to touch the other witch. He dug in a pocket—not even seeming to notice the blood on his face—and brought out, of all things, another handkerchief, this one pale blue. “Got too close,” he murmured, as if to himself, and offered it to her. “Sorry.”

  He’s sorry? He got his shoulder dislocated, and he’s all torn up and bleeding and he’s sorry? She shook her head, unable to find the right words.

  He used the handkerchief to dab at the blood dripping from her nose, exquisitely careful. The contrast between the deadly fighter, moving between her and the Dark, and this gentle scarred man whose green eyes were dark and concerned as he tried to blot the blood from her face, was jarring. She would never get used to this. After decades in Circle Lightfall she was still unprepared.

  She found her voice, finally. “I’m fine,” she managed, reaching up to take the handkerchief. His fingers brushed hers. She didn’t miss the way his eyes narrowed, the sudden sharpening of his attention. “Take care of yourself.”

  “I’m more worried about you.” He looked like he meant it, too. He was staring at her as if he could see nothing else. “Head hurt?”

  “A . . . a little.” Her voice shook. Behind him, she could sense other Watchers sweeping the halls. The brown-haired Watcher had vanished into her room. Fran grabbed her hand, his fingers sinking in. “It—a Seeker. The Crusade—”

  “Don’t worry.” Merrick sounded utterly calm. “You’re safe.”

  “But—” Her eyes jagged over to Fran’s face, back to Merrick’s.

  Merrick’s lips firmed and his eyebrows raised slightly. It was maybe the first moment of complete accord she’d had with another person since Eleanor’s death. Fran already looked scared half out of her mind, there was no need to make it worse. “My head hurts,” Caro settled for saying, in a pale little voice. It wasn’t a lie. Her head felt as if demented Christmas elves were smashing the inside of her skull with glass spikes.

  The Watcher’s fingers hovered less than an inch from her wrist. Warmth slid into her aura, gentler than the usual heat-jolt. Instead of a bolt to the solar plexus, this was a satiny curtain wrapping around her. The curtain tightened, sending a shiver from her toes all the way up to
the roots of her hair.

  “Don’t go into shock,” he said quietly, as more Watchers arrived. The air turned electric-hot, prickles racing over her skin. Fran shivered too.

  “Brigid’s Tears, Caro.” The Council witch shook her hand a little, grabbed the handkerchief, and wiped Caro’s upper lip, cleaning the blood off and pressing the wad of cloth firmly against her nose. “You and your damn nosebleeds. I swear we could hire you out as a Dark detector, just follow the trail of bloody Kleenex.” Fran’s voice trembled, humor used to deflect fear but not doing a very good job of it.

  Dear gods. A jolting laugh worked its way free. “Would it be better if it was tampons?”

  “Caro!” Fran managed to sound scandalized and relieved all at once. “Well, at least now I know you’re all right.”

  Caro’s eyes met Merrick’s. His jaw was set. A muscle flicked in his cheek. He looked furious.

  She swallowed. “How many of these do you have?” She sounded like Elmer Fudd. How bany of dese do you hab?

  That earned her a flicker of a smile, his incandescent eyes darkening. “Mum was always after me never to go out without a rag.” His tone was even, murderously cool.

  “Caro, tilt your head back. It will help with the bleeding.” Fran was fussing now. She’d be all right. Once Fran hit “fuss” mode, the crisis was over.

  Oh, gods, I hope nobody’s been hurt. She pushed Fran’s hand away, peeled the handkerchief away from her face. “Fine. I’m fine. Go check on everyone else. I’m all right.” I’m lying. Her stomach did another rolling barrel-dive, she had to swallow hard.

  Fran levered herself to her feet and did as she asked. Merrick’s fingertips still paused above Caro’s wrist, sending another shockwave of warmth through her aura.

  She took a deep breath, lifted her hand slightly so her skin met his fingers. He went utterly still, his eyes blazing again. “Thank you,” she whispered.

  His hand curled around hers, turned it palm-up. His skin was warm and callused. She smelled iron and dark Power and the faint citrusy smell that followed him around.

  “For what?” He asked it softly, but his eyes scorched her.

  “It’s a Seeker,” she answered, just as quietly. “The Crusade. You know it is.”

  He nodded. His hair fell over his eyes, tacky with drying blood. “Or maybe not. It doesn’t smell right. But one thing’s for certain, it was after you.”

  The bottom dropped out of her stomach yet again. I don’t want to throw up here. Please don’t let me throw up here. “How do you . . .” It was a useless question.

  “It came straight for a third-story window in the most protected part of the safehouse.” His face was level and cold. “And it didn’t choose to go the other way, toward the other Lightbringers. It came this way. For you.” His eyes paled, turning piercing green. “Good thing you have me, witch.”

  “You could have died.” Her eyes burned. Her voice was so tiny, almost useless. Stop it, Caro. For God’s sake, stop it. Grow a spine.

  His face went still. “I know what I’m doing.” He let go of her hand, finger by finger. Rising to his feet like a dark wave, he offered her his hand. “Want to stand up?”

  She shook her head, helpless. “I don’t think I can yet.” And all the gods help me, but I’ve got to get you away from me. I’m too dangerous.

  There was the ghost of a smile, and she realized that even with the scars he was actually quite handsome. “I’ll stay with you then. Until you can.”

  Eight

  “It was similar to a Seeker, but no type we’ve ever seen before. It came right through the wards.” Oliver stared straight ahead, a muscle in his cheek flicking once. “Right through the goddamn wards. And went for your witch.”

  The Watcher dormitory was a long, low room, the beds marching in even progression down either side. A chest crouched at the foot of each for clothing and weapons, personal effects, and the infrequent cache of ammunition. The windows were privacy-tinted. This was the first floor and the least defensible area of the safehouse. The Watchers gathered at the east end, a half-circle of straight-faced men in long black leather coats, swords riding their shoulders and the hard glitter of Power in their eyes. Power also whisked and slid along the bare white-painted walls, where an occasional movie poster broke the monotony. Most Watchers weren’t big into interior decoration. In any case, this was only a room to sleep and occasionally clean and re-consecrate one’s weapons in, nothing more. The altar at the west end held a low fluid statue of Mithras holding sword and book, the whip at his belt. Most Watchers adopted a personal god after a while, but Mithras was the god they made communal offerings to before attending the greater ceremonies of the eight Sabbats the witches celebrated.

  It seemed to work. The Bull took care of his own. Some of the Watchers visited churches, synagogues, or mosques whenever the need arose; any god a Watcher wanted to pray to was acceptable. But Mithras, worshipped by Watchers since the early 1600s in rites that even at the beginning had taken on a tenor and flavor quite different from the original Roman devotions, seemed to be the one most gravitated to.

  “I know.” Merrick’s shoulder ached. The tanak burned inside his bones, healing stretched tendons and melding together sliced flesh. His scars tingled.

  Caro was in the infirmary, being checked out over her protests while her room was cleaned and re-shielded, the wall and window repaired. All in all, everyone was taking the first breaking of a safehouse’s walls in two hundred years quite calmly. It simply meant more shielding, figuring out how to close up whatever loophole had allowed the thing to smash the window. Panic had been avoided.

  Merrick’s nose still smarted from the stink of the thing. It smelled like bitter almonds, sulfur, and some other dry noxious scent he couldn’t quite place. Almost like the thing that had burst out of Caro’s patient and tried to kill Merrick’s witch. And yet, Caro hadn’t mentioned anything strange about the smell. Nobody else had remarked it either, nobody but Merrick. Which was odd.

  Very odd.

  He pulled himself back into the present. “There’s something else. Whatever it is, it smelled almost like that goddamn thing at Saint Crispin’s.”

  A ripple ran through the assembled Watchers. This was an informal meeting, word-of-mouth would pass everything along through the safehouse when they were finished. It was a relief to be among other Watchers. He didn’t have to be so bloody controlled. Didn’t have to hold himself so still and cautious. But still, the tanak twisted inside his bones, and all he wanted to do was go back to Caro, reassure himself again that she was all right. Convince himself that she was still alive.

  Oliver let out a short, frustrated sound. “A new type of Seeker, maybe? Incubated in normals and psychics instead of built through ceremonial magick?”

  Each Watcher mulled this over. Merrick felt a cool bath of dread work its way up his back.

  “Fucking awful.” This from Ellis, a short tensile Watcher with a brown crew cut and glaring hazel eyes, his thumbs habitually tucked in his belt. “Used to be the best thing, to kill created Seekers. That way the Knight takes the backlash.”

  A murmur of agreement.

  “It could have killed the Mindhealer,” Oliver said finally. “Stay close to her, Merrick. Don’t let her do anything foolish.”

  My friend, you might as well ask me to stop a tornado by saying “pretty please.” “Keeps threatening to send me back to the Council.” He laced the words with casualness.

  The Watchers stilled again. They knew, of course, about Caro’s refusal to have a Watcher, even if they didn’t know the particulars. “She’s your witch,” Harris Blue said. “Can’t send you back to the Council’s jurisdiction. Under the regs, you’re hers. Lucky bastard, she can’t send you back.”

  I know, but I’m not sure how lucky I feel. “Duty. Honor. Obedience.” He didn’t need to say more, each man in the room understood. If Caro gave Merrick a direct order to leave her unprotected, he would have no choice but to damn himself by disobeying
. Leather creaked as they shifted, and most eyes turned to the altar at the other end of the room. A harsh god, a stringent god, who required superhuman restraint and endurance; but they had it to give, didn’t they? And the redemption he offered was more than any soul-eaten man believed he deserved.

  Oliver’s eyes lit with the bleached fury of his own tanak. “They don’t understand,” he said quietly. “It’s up to us to protect them. But—” He held up a hand for silence, got it. “They’re right. They’re better than we are, will always be better than we are. Protecting them doesn’t mean we can turn into the fucking Crusade. So we fight the good fight. You just stay on that witch and keep her alive, Merrick.”

  He nodded. Oh, you’d better believe it. The thought of anything happening to Caro made his stomach go sour and his fists want to clench. “If you run across another one of these things, remember they’re vulnerable to the knives. Damn near explode when touched with consecrated steel. Don’t know why the Mindhealers could smell it and why I can now, but . . . I could track one of these buggers if I had to.”

  “No tracking.” Oliver shook his head. “Your responsibility is the Mindhealer.”

  “Right.” Relieved, Merrick straightened. “I’d better get back to the infirmary.”

  “Good work, Watcher. Honor.”

  “Duty,” Merrick responded, and the meeting began to break up. His shoulders tightened as he ducked out into the hall and took to the stairs, heading for the infirmary on the second floor, below Caro’s rooms. In the most protected part of the safehouse.

  Why the hell did that thing come straight for her window? And more importantly, why could he smell it? She hadn’t mentioned its stink, and Merrick was surprised that apparently nobody else smelled it either. Reeking of sulfur and that other dry horrible smell, enough to make a Watcher’s eyes water. Sometimes acute senses were a curse.

  Was it because while he’d fought the thing, he had, as always, no time to keep himself separate from the hard cold animal inside his head? The one down at the very bottom, the one that could track?