Thank God Caro’s brother hadn’t come this way yet.
Caro’s eyes met his.
“A ward, probably put together by a Bishop,” he said softly. “Meant to kill a Lightbringer. And I’ll bet there’s something inside that office, love. Let’s hope it’s not the Council witch.” His thumb stroked her cheek, a fiery spill of pleasure jolting up his arm. “Let me deal with it and clear the room. Stay here?” He made it a question instead of a command, hoping her stubbornness wouldn’t flare. He would put her under a keepsafe and trap her here if he had to.
She blinked, once. That was horrible, because a tear spilled out of one eye, tracked down her cheek, and touched his hand. Then she nodded. Her eyes suddenly swam with more tears. Her lips trembled, and Merrick took a moment to lean forward and press a gentle kiss on her forehead. If I’m going to be thrown out of the Watchers, I might as well make it worth my while. He softly pried his fingers away from her face. His right hand reached for his sword—not the best weapon in close quarters, but he had the knife in his left. A little more steel never hurt anything.
And if it was one of those new Seekers, the knife would do it more damage than his sword.
He left her standing slumped against the wall, hugging herself, and eased toward the door. The ward resonated with her nearness, a few more steps and she might have been in the critical zone, easy prey for it. The Live Knights of the Crusade were generally not psychic. It fell to the Bishops to use centuries-old ceremonial magick texts forbidden by the Church to create fun little objects—like a little bag of goodies to hang on a door to ward it; or an amulet to give a Live Knight the ability to see psychic energy or control the Seekers; or the geometric tattoos that gave the Live Knights control of the zombies. Each amulet or physical object took them months to create, and that was one of the reasons the Crusade hadn’t overwhelmed the Watchers. It was also, according to the Watchers, one of the reasons why the Crusade hated witches so much. What came easily and naturally to a Lightbringer required years of study and sacrifice for a Bishop. Psychic ability tended to shut down in the presence of the fanaticism the Crusaders were chosen for—if they had any ability in the first place, that was.
He walked softly, as if the warding was a wild animal he didn’t want to spook. The analogy was apt. He’d dealt with plenty of canny beasts in his time, and it wouldn’t take much for this warding to be a pitfall for a Watcher as well as a witch.
His aura hardened, battle-tested combat shielding springing into place, the tanak giving out a slow steady growl of rage. The sound thrummed in the air, rattled the door, and made the Crusade warding shiver.
No time like the present, Merrick thought, and gathered himself. Then he hurled himself forward, shattering the door and the ward in one movement, ducking under the strike—slow, human, clumsy—of the Master’s broadsword and taking in the chaos of the office with one swift, merciless look.
The Council witch was a crumpled, bloody shape in the corner, books flung everywhere, papers scattered, the desk all but reduced to firewood, and the flowers from the mantel—lilies—scattered from their broken vase. Sharp sounds bolted against his ears—gunshots, someone had a gun and Caro was right out there in the hallway. Stay put, please God, just let her stay put until I clear this. His sword came up in a short propeller-like movement, carving into flesh with a solid chuk.
Then the scream and time slowed down. Because he had smashed into the Master, greater muscle and bone density sending the man—average height, close-cropped brown hair, familiar face, vest with the white cross of the Crusade blazoned on it under his coat and the broadsword in his capable hands—flying across the room to crash into the wall. And then, pivoting, looking for the gunshot, he saw the other Master crouched over the Council witch’s prone, smashed body, knee down, Glock 9mm in hand, taking careful aim not at Merrick but at the door.
The door.
The door, where Caro stood framed, her hand clapped over her mouth and her eyes huge and luminous, her aura glittering with the golden pinwheels of a Mindhealer. The low bulletlike shape of something Dark, stinking with sulfur and brimstone, streaked for Merrick’s witch, the thin etheric threads of its connection with the Council witch’s battered body snapping as it lunged to rip, devour, kill. Splinters flew from the doorjamb—the Master’s aim had been thrown off by the sudden jolting of the Dark parasite he had been planning to put into Francine now leaping for Caro, slipping the chain of ceremonial magick that smoked and glittered around its low, unhealthy neck.
Merrick’s knife left his hand, glowing with crimson force as he flung all available Power behind it. The blade turned into a red streak painting the air and flushing the walls with rosy light as he hurled himself forward, what a choice, either the bullet would get her or the Seeker-thing would. Another coughing roar as the Master crouched over the Council witch pulled the trigger again.
Caro screamed, the sound muffled through the hand over her mouth, her aura flashing. Sudden thumping impact snapping through his ribs—he’s using hollowpoints, dammit, as the bullet meant for her smashed into Merrick’s chest and exploded, blood flying. He met the Seeker with a jarring, rib-shattering thud. Caro had fallen, was backpedaling furiously, her foot tangled in the green silk of her skirt. The Dark parasite imploded under the force of Merrick’s second knife, glowing with volcanic force. Get up, get up, get up! chanting in his head, the only thing that mattered was the Master with the gun.
Another thudding impact, this one tearing into his back, the sound of breaking glass. Caro’s despairing scream turning into his name as her shoulders hit the wall opposite the office door. He fell, his head hitting the floor with stunning force. A cool drench of night air roaring through the room. Merrick rolled, gun coming free, hands blood-slick, incredible piercing agony in his chest, smell of copper blood mixing with foul sulfur, the bitter-almond reek of the Crusade, and the dying, cloying scent of smashed lilies.
Get up, he told himself. Get up. But his body would not obey him. The tanak roared in wounded fury, pumping adrenaline through his bloodstream, shocking his heart into beating, squeezing the cardiac muscle with pure Power as it repaired rips and gouges, sealing bleeding and snapping his ribs back out into place, small pieces of bone stabbing him as he tried to breathe with one lung turned to a bloody mess and punctured with bits of bone. The pain rolled over him, a crested breaker of red-shot darkness, and he fought for consciousness even as his wounded body refused to comply for a single heartstopping moment.
Get up, where’s that fucking Master, get up and kill him before he can hurt her. Get up, you idiot, get UP!
Then she was beside him, sobbing, her hands on him, sending shockwaves of acid pleasure spurring through his nervous system.
“—gods.” Her voice sounded very small after the thunder of gunfire and the Seeker-thing’s snarling. “Oh gods, Merrick, oh my God, please, don’t die—”
Are you joking? I can’t die, I’ve got too much to do. He wanted to speak, couldn’t find the breath, rolled onto his side and convulsed, blood and clear fluid blown free of his ruined lung through his mouth and nose as the tanak repaired the organ in one swift vicious lunge of Power. Then, another convulsion, drowning, he was drowning in his own blood. He couldn’t breathe, it was imperative that he breathe and get up and kill the bastard who would be coming for the witch—his witch—who caught his shoulders and tried to help, offering a tide of soft, deep Lightbringer magick that spilled through him and tore into his wounds, old scars and new dipped in honeyed fire and scored deeper than his flesh, all the way down to his bones.
I’ll do whatever you want, he thought, clearly and pointlessly, just keep her safe. I’ll obey, I’ll be a good boy, just keep her safe.
Silence. Caro’s soft sobs. Pain turned to Power, spurring more rage that twisted into more pain as the wounds healed, that transmuted into more Power. Cheap fuel, the tanak taking the agony and transforming it into a quick excruciating repair of major functions. All he needed was time.
Merrick pushed himself up to his knees, shoving Caro aside, the gun coming up as he scanned the office. Window broken, a grapple and line dangling out into the night air. The wreck of the bookcases and hacked-apart desk. The slumped and wounded body of the Council witch in a blood-drenched yellow nightgown. And the Crusade Master he’d thrown against the wall gasping like a fish as he flopped, ribs and arm apparently broken, making a small wet sound of a human animal in pain.
Another sheeting of agony providing fuel, and Merrick found the strength to get up. Running feet in the distance. He’d made a hell of a lot of noise. Good. He could use a little backup.
“Merrick!” Caro caught him. “My God, he shot you!”
Of course he shot me, love. But that bullet was intended for you. He swayed on his knees, eased the hammer back down. The tanak snarled again. Even Caro’s touch couldn’t dilute the strength of this suffering.
“Christ, is that what happened?” he managed weakly before doubling over to retch again, his scars afire and his face contorted with pain. Immediately he felt the bite of guilt. He shouldn’t have said it. Got to keep my mouth shut.
Her hands, against his chest, flooding him with Power. He pushed them away weakly, straightening again. If she gives me much more she might drain herself, go into backlash or shock.
“I’m fine, I’ll live.” Distract her. “Check the Council witch, Caro. She’s hurt.” God, thank you. Thank you. I will obey, I will never question my duty again, thank you for saving her. “Go on, love. Go.”
She wasn’t listening, stubborn Caro. She caught his bloody face in her hands and leaned forward, her kiss landing on his cheek, another on the corner of his mouth because he moved, looking around her. No, the Master was gone. Had he been a Bishop? Likely, maybe, though the Bishops had been awfully quiet since Piers, Jack Gray, and Dante had all bagged Bishops three in a row—the White, the Red, and the Black. Had the Crusade finally started training more than five Bishops? Maybe. He would have to talk to Oliver, see what the—
Caro’s next kiss landed squarely on his mouth. Merrick caught her shoulder with one hand, reholstering the gun with the other. Gently, so gently, he pushed her away. “Go check the Council witch, Caroline. I’m all right.” Got to check that window. I can track that bastard, find out where they’re hiding. We need to sweep every inch of this city, and the tech witches have to crack the Crusade firewalls again. So much to do, thank you God, she’s alive. I will never disobey again.
She stared at him, and he was taken aback once more by how fragile and stunning she was. Her indigo eyes brimmed with tears that spilled and tracked down her cheeks, her hair tangled madly and glowed with streaks of pure gold, her slender ribs flared and contracted with deep, sobbing breaths. It was hard to fathom how small she was, her force of personality made her seem so much taller. Not now. Now she looked frightened to death, pale, trembling, and saying his name between little hitching sobs. It was unexpectedly sweet, and he felt more guilt for being so nastily glad that she evidently felt something for him. Maybe it was just nothing more than a Lightbringer felt for any broken or wounded creature, but if she felt sorry for him he might have half a chance.
“Check her,” he repeated harshly, wondering if he could lever himself to his feet. Of course I can. All things should be so easy. Get up, Merrick. The danger isn’t over. The one you knocked into the wall is right over there. Might even be getting a little surprise ready for you and your witch. So get up, get the hell over there, and take the bastard apart.
The running feet drew closer. Booted feet, other Watchers, the air pressure inside the office dropping as Merrick gained his feet in a convulsive, agonized rush. He brought Caro with him by the simple expedient of grabbing her arm and hauling her upright, hoping his bloody hand wouldn’t foul her. Pushed her gently toward the Council witch, which incidentally put him between his witch and the last remaining Crusader, the man from the chapel at St. Crispin’s. Merrick had one knife left, and it was in his hand as he limped toward the fallen Crusader, whose breath bubbled wetly in his throat. Must have broken a rib or two, eh, old sport?
He noted, clinically, that he’d taken the man’s hand off with his sword. Won’t be using those fingers to kill a Lightbringer anymore, will you? The rush of clean, cold fury that thought caused filled his scars with fire and brought him fully upright, every color standing out crisp and clear in his vision now, his boots moving soundlessly through drifts of paper and smashed books.
“Merrick!” Caro’s voice, frantic. “Help me, she’s fading.”
In a second, love. I should have killed this bastard the first time around. He took another step, saw the man’s eyes were open and glazed with shock. The white cross on his bloody chest heaved, the left side of his ribs smashed in. It was a wonder he was still alive, between that and the spreading pool of blood from the stump of his right hand. You stopped me, didn’t you. You were whispering “no,” and I obeyed. I should have killed him. Maybe the Council witch would be alive if I had.
“Merrick.” Her tone wasn’t sharp, but she sounded as if the air had been punched out of her. “Leave him alone. Please. Help me. Please.”
She was pleading with him, he realized. Begging her own Watcher, something a witch should never have to do. Merrick’s fingers ached around the knife hilt, thin crimson lines running in the black steel, a Watcher’s most sacred weapon. Sacred because it was made with his own hands, in a ritual unchanged since the days of Gideon de Hauteville and Jeanne Tourenay, Gideon the knight and Watcher who had started this whole bloody, impossible thing. A knight’s honor, a man’s honor. Merrick found himself wondering how a sixteenth-century knight had sworn himself to obedience in an age when women were considered property.
Didn’t matter. Not to Merrick, at least. Duty. Honor. Obedience.
The Crusader bubbled in another breath, his mouth working like a fish’s. He would die soon. And oh, how Merrick ached to speed that process up.
Caro made a single small, pained sound. It sounded remarkably like another sob, a hopeless sound. “Oh, Frannie,” she whispered, “hold on. Please hold on.”
Merrick’s arm ached as he forced himself to sheathe the knife. It went reluctantly back into its dark home, and he consoled himself with the thought of Caro tilting her head back, the taste of the shallow depression above her collarbone, her soft inhale as her body went liquid under his. Next time I’m going to have to be a little slower, if there is a next time. Make it last.
The tingle of Lightbringer magick made his scars come alive, throbbing with something too intensely pleasurable to be called pain. But only because it was her doing it, and he realized something else—the proximity of the Council witch wasn’t filling his nerves with acid. Which meant she was probably damaged beyond repair.
He turned back, every step now fighting against the compulsion to finish the man off. Slowly, making the half-dead body scream for mercy before he was through. Merrick found his hands were shaking. He paced back to his witch, kneeling at her side and examining the damage just as four other Watchers made their presence known by spilling in through the ruined door. And Merrick realized, as he pointed at the window and gave the few clipped words that would suffice to send a team out after the fled Crusade Master, that he had taken the door off its hinges and shattered the wall on either side, leaving a hole like in an old cartoon.
Strangely enough, the thought made him want to laugh, even as he clasped his witch’s shoulder and sent Power garnered from the agony of his own wounds roaring through her. He had gone through the worst, might be kicked out of the Watchers, and his witch was probably never going to calm down—but she was alive. The laughter came from a place too deep to be healthy, and had a screaming panicked edge Merrick didn’t like. So he swallowed it and watched as Caro worked on the Council witch, more Lightbringers arriving as the Watchers secured the room and the orders were given for every room,
every closet, every inch of the safehouse to be checked and re-shielded.
Duty. Honor. Obedience. He repeated it to himself, and watched and waited for the axe to fall.
* * * *
“You’ve got to get some rest,” Trev said quietly. “She’s going to be fine. I’ll stay right here, so will Keenan.”
Caro slumped in the chair by Fran’s bedside, her cheeks hollow and her eyes shadowed. She bit gently at the nail of her right middle finger, worrying it, her lips tense and bruised-looking. Her hair was still a tangled mess. She made no response. Her gaze was fixed, her hands loose when she wasn’t chewing at a fingernail, and her bare feet—she had tossed her sandals somewhere—lay neatly on the floor underneath her chair. One small line between her eyebrows gave her a thoughtful look, and her aura was luminous and thinly sparkling with pain.
Trevor tried again. He leaned close to her, touched her shoulder awkwardly. For a moment, Merrick saw how lost the boy was without the steady compass of his sister’s annoyance and crispness, and he began to understood why Caro tried her best never to show any fear. She had probably learned to act fearless very early in life, using certainty and brittle chill to act grown-up and calm her younger sibling.
Merrick’s blood was still on her hands. So was Francine’s. And a thin thread of dried blood traced her upper lip. The change from her high heels and tamped-down professionalism to this picture of silent, numb grief was almost too much to stand.
“Caro? I’ll stay. We’ll be right here, and we’ll send someone if she wakes up or needs anything. You’ve got to get some rest.”
She still didn’t respond to the note of almost-panic in the boy’s voice. That disturbed Merrick more than anything. Trev gave him a quick, imploring glance.
Fran was in a curtained space in the infirmary, guarded by Watchers and visited hourly by healers. And Caro had maintained a silent vigil here, dry-eyed and silent, her misery radiating out in high-pitched waves. It was, Merrick reflected, almost enough to drive a man mad.
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