Hunter, Healer

by Lilith Saintcrow

He probably thinks I'm going to go postal. I just might.

  Silence ticked by as he wrestled with himself. Finally, he took a deep breath.

  "Carson buried a compulsion in her,” he said, forcing the words out through his teeth. “Of course. The fucker knew he couldn't take her from me, so he cracked through the first few layers of her shielding and planted a compulsion. God dam mit.” How could I be so stupid? I saw it, all the signs were there.

  "What compulsion?"

  "Isn't it obvious?” Del opened his eyes, and Henderson took a step back, sending his chair over to smack on the wooden floor as if he suspected Del was going to come after him. Yoshi groaned, probably catching the tension in the air. “She's heading to parts unknown, and she's going to get picked up by Sigma, pretty as you please. God- fucking-dam-mit."

  "What's going on?” Yoshi yawned and stretched, dislodging the comm-unit. It made a small tinkling sound as it hit the desk. “Not another crisis. Please.” He yawned again. His black hair stood up in wildly-gelled spikes.

  "No worries.” Del's boot heel ground into the floor as he turned, Eleanor ducked aside from the door, obviously not wanting to be in his way. “I'll bring her in."

  "Del—” Henderson began.

  Fuck off and die. She's mine. She belongs to me. I'm going to bring her in. “No, Daniel. I'm the best bet. Sigma won't catch me again, and I stand the best chance of catching her. Jump-off's in ten minutes.

  I'm taking a car and some gear, and I'm going to bring her in if I have to slaughter every fucking Sig in the western hemisphere to do it."

  "Del—"

  Don't you understand? Have I not made it clear enough? “No.” Just one clipped harsh word, but it stopped Henderson in his tracks.

  Eleanor put her hand over her mouth, her eyes wide and haunted. Christ, he wanted to say, quit looking like that. I'll get her back. I'll bring her back.

  He was halfway to the door before Henderson spoke again. “How are you going to find her?” The old man sounded weary.

  "I trained her,” he tossed over his shoulder, gathering speed. “And besides, I've got to find her. She'd find me ."

  She did find me. She brought me back. Goddammit, why didn't I see it? All the signs were there—unconscious for a long time for the compulsion to sink in and replicate to set up a ricochet, the shaking, the guilt, and the uneasiness. She was vulnerable—not enough sleep and worrying herself sick thinking I didn't want her, thinking she's to blame for everything.

  "Del? Delgado!” Henderson actually yelled, but Del was already gone. He was running, not bothering to pace himself. She had several hours’ worth of jump on him, and it was up to him to narrow that gap and find her before the compulsion Carson had planted brought her into a Sigma net.

  Hang on, angel. I'm coming. And when I find you I damn sure won't make the same mistake again.

  I'm not going to let go of you until you're safe—and until you're exactly sure of how much you mean to me.

  * * * *

  Del grabbed a map, his duffel, and his kitbag; Yoshi showed up right behind him with a roll of cash and an emergency identity.

  "Here.” The slim Japanese man shoved the documents into Del's hands. “Henderson's climbing the walls.

  He's got me running chatscans and everything."

  "Thanks.” Del stuffed it higgledy-piggledy into his kitbag. “Car?"

  "Take the black one.” Yosh dangled the keys. His dark eyes were wide and anxious. “She hasn't been herself lately. Too wound up. Bad case of combat jitters.” Del snatched the keys. Yoshi didn't flinch.

  “There's something you should know."

  "If it's more of your goddamn Sun Tzu, can it. I've got a serious—"

  Yoshi grabbed Delgado's arm. “Listen to me, Delgado. Justin. Listen to me."

  It was so utterly unlike Yoshi that it penetrated the fog of worry and rising anger. Delgado took a deep breath. When he opened his eyes, Yoshi's hand fell away. “I'm listening,” he muttered through clenched teeth. “Make it quick."

  "She loves you.” Yoshi's mouth was a straight line. “Don't hurt her."

  That anyone thought he would harm her hit him like a fist to the gut. Christ, she was the only thing he cared about. Why would he even contemplate hurting her?

  "Hurt her? I'm going to bring her back .” No matter what I have to do. Goddammit, I'm an idiot, a stupid, idiotic moron. I should have seen it, should have seen the warning signs. Compulsion is Carson's goddamn motherfucking specialty. I should have seen it.

  "Be gentle.” Yoshi looked more worried, his eyebrows drawing together and his mouth turning down.

  "Gentle as I can. But if they so much as touch her I'm going to—” His pulse spiked again, he had difficulty bringing it under control. So much to do. So little time.

  "Go.” Yoshi let go of him. “Think about it. She loves you ."

  "Fine, thank you.” I don't know if you're right about that, kid. Someone like her isn't going to love someone like me. It's ridiculous. “Ammo?"

  Yoshi handed over five clips, and Del stashed them in his kitbag as Yoshi said, “Call in if you need directions to a cache. Keep in contact. We'll send as many teams as we can—"

  "No, you'll just get them killed. Just me.” He slung the bag across his body, picked up his duffel and stepped past Yoshi and out into the hall. “Tell Henderson not to worry. I'll bring her back safe and sound."

  The other man didn't reply. Del hoped he was praying. He barely saw the rest of Headquarters on his way down to the garage. He was too busy trying to breathe through the massive ball of panic in his chest.

  Just stay alive, angel. Just stay alive until I can get to you.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Four days later the green slopes of the Santiago City Veteran's Cemetery lay drowsing under mist and the shadows of rain clouds. Dripping trees stood guard over the silence of the dead, fog sliding between slender boles of lamp posts and the thick green-clad lines of cedar and juniper. Rowan, safe in the shadow of a large cedar, scanned the cemetery once again. She'd parked on the east side, in the warren of back streets she knew from growing up, and jumped the fence. Her head was stuffed with pain and the persistent wrapping of cotton-wool. She'd barely slept, impelled by the sudden, irrational, but undeniable desire to see her father's grave, for maybe the first and last time.

  I never even got to go to his funeral. Someone else took the flag draped over his coffin. Someone else was here, probably his friends from the VA and the Moose Lodge. Maybe Marta from the bridge club. I think Dad really liked her.

  She breathed in the familiar wet air of Saint City—green and damp and smelling of vegetation and the salt breath of the bay, growth exploding from rain-soaked ground and held cupped in air full of humidity. And under that smell of saturated Nature lurked the other smells of cities: car exhaust, humanity, desperation, money, danger.

  Tears lodged hard and unforgiving in her throat. Memory turned like a wheel, shattering inside her head.

  Her father, grinning as he lifted a six-year-old Rowan into his arms. Teaching her how to change the oil filter in Tuna, Mom's old silver Volvo. Celebrating with a bottle of Dom Perignon when Rowan had graduated from college, and celebrating again with a supper at La Tourelle's in the University District when she graduated from nursing school. Dad's hands, veined and old, chopping garlic for chicken noodle soup, and his younger hands bandaging a scrape on Rowan's knee. And his hand solid and firm on Rowan's shoulder, as they watched her mother's coffin lower into the ground. Rowan had sobbed into a handkerchief, numb with grief and wondering guiltily why her talent hadn't warned her of her mother's death, while her father's weeping was done privately. How much had it cost him to be strong for her sake? She had never thought about it until now.

  They were so in love, she thought. Her mother had been laughing and affectionate, a counter to her father's stalwart military rectitude. Dad hadn't been distant or severe, just ... well, too martial to engage in spontaneous hugs or celebrations. Despite th
at, Rowan had never felt a moment's worth of uneasiness about her parents’ love for her or for each other. It was the one thing that had saved her sanity in the face of her freakish talents and her inability to control them. The unconditional acceptance of both her mother and father had reassured her at every turn.

  Her best friend, Hilary, was buried at Mount Hope. Much as she wanted to visit the grave, Rowan didn't think she could stand seeing Hil's name on a headstone. Although it was anybody's guess when she would have another chance to come back and visit.

  Fury rose inside her again, rage and the weird twisting headache that seemed to burrow into her head, impelling her through the increasing haze of exhaustion. She decided it looked safe enough and slipped out from the shelter of the cedar, brushing bark off her hands. Each step was a struggle. Even the slight hill up to the section housing her father's simple white marker seemed to steal the breath from her lungs and the strength from her legs. She was gasping by the time she fought her way up the slight rise, glad nobody was among the headstones to hear her.

  Justin had given her the photos and the map of her father's gravesite, trying in his own way to help her deal with the shattering grief. The thought of Justin tore at her head. For some reason the headache got worse when she thought of him. No amount of pain medication or quiet meditation would make the headache go away. It was as if her head was a large glass pumpkin balanced on her wobbling neck. It invaded her sleep, this harsh sucking pain, until she could barely think straight.

  She checked the markers. No. No. No.

  Oh, God. God help me. There it was.

  Major Henry Price, US Marine Corps. His rank, his date of birth and death. The carved letters were rough under her fingers as she knelt, tracing her father's name.

  "Oh, Dad,” she whispered. “I miss you. God, how I miss you."

  He'd liked Justin, liked him almost immediately. Of course, Justin had chased off that Sig in the parking lot. At the time, neither she nor her father had any idea that a government agency would be trying to kidnap or kill her. Now Rowan wondered how much of Dad's liking Justin had been a small push , nothing harmful, just enough to insert this seemingly innocent stranger into their lives.

  Her head gave another sharp twist of pain. It hurt to think of Justin. But what else could she think of?

  What else—and who else—did she have left?

  Nobody, that's who. Sigma had robbed her of everything.

  "I'm going to make them pay.” Her voice shook as her fingertips brushed the P, the R, and the I in Price .

  Dad believed in honor and truthfulness. It would have hurt him to think that the government and country he'd fought for was responsible for the things Rowan had seen Sigma do. Broken bodies, battered minds, psions screaming as they suffered through Zed withdrawal—a whole parade of horror unreeling through her memory. If she hadn't seen it with her own eyes, been shot at, lived with the suffocating fear, she might not have believed it. Probably wouldn't have believed it. It defied belief.

  "Anton.” That was the name of her enemy. Colonel Anton.

  But if you want to know who's in charge of the program, it's Anton ... Sig Zero-Fifteen ... the worst Sig installation in the country.

  Where's that?

  New Mexico.

  Henderson had cautioned her never to go near White Sands in New Mexico, or near Mount Shasta in California. “Big Sig installations, like Langley. Just isn't worth the risk,” he'd said, and his face had been so grim she hadn't asked more. She should have asked more, maybe she could have done something sooner, maybe stopped this endless parade of pain and death.

  The sight of her father's headstone blurred as tears slid down her cheeks, welling up hot and acid from the deepest part of her grief. Oh, Daddy. I'm going to do what I can. I'm so sorry.

  It occurred to her that this was her fault too, this bare white stone with the bloodless carving on it—nothing to tell how her father was one of the greatest cooks alive, how he could turn anything into a feast, how he loved books on hauntings, the unexplained, psychic phenomena, all sorts of woo-woo, and how just the sound of his voice could make a little girl feel safe and special. There was nothing here but this chunk of rock, carved with birth, death, name, and rank. No color, no life , her father's comfortable old age in the house he'd paid for with the daughter he loved all cut short by the goddamn fucking Sigs.

  Because his daughter was, to put it kindly, a freak.

  Rowan straightened. She scanned the cemetery again. No sign of any activity except herself, the fog, and the silent trees keeping watch over the brave dead.

  "I love you, Daddy,” she whispered, and wished she had time to visit her mother's grave. It suddenly didn't seem right that they were buried in separate cemeteries, her mother on Mount Hope with Grandma Parker, and Dad here. They should be together.

  Yet another thing Sigma would pay for.

  Rowan ghosted through the cemetery, found a handy spot and muscled herself over the high stone wall. If there were video cameras or the like, let them see her. She hadn't been here before because it was too dangerous, the one place Sigma could be sure of kidnapping her. It was anticlimactic to show up and have nothing happen. Of course, Sigma couldn't be watching all the time, and they probably were busy with the teams Henderson had sent out to cause havoc all over the US in order to cover the withdrawal to Headquarters.

  She found the car—the faithful blue Subaru, this time with Missouri plates instead of Georgia—undisturbed and got in, resting her aching head against the steering wheel for a moment. Justin.

  Thinking of him hurt, but it paradoxically made the pain easier to bear. She was used to missing him, true, but the brief period of being near him again drove home just how much she missed him. It would have been just as true to call her Delgado's shadow. She had never felt very comfortable away from him for very long. He was the only stability in her fragmented world.

  Her fault, again, that he'd been taken and tortured, suffered God-knew-what that he didn't want to talk about, not even to her. Self-loathing crawled over Rowan's skin like the soft maggot fingers that had squirmed inside her brain.

  When she surfaced, staring at the world outside the car, the fog had thickened. She twisted the key in the ignition and was rewarded with a softly-purring engine. She switched on the headlights and spent a few minutes driving aimlessly down the hills. When she found herself on the very north end of Smyrna Avenue, she knew miserably what she was about to do, and couldn't stop herself. It was like a train wreck or an automobile accident. She simply could not look away. She drove down Smyrna, stopping at stop signs and creeping through uncontrolled intersections, passing the laurel hedge that blocked the sight of the dilapidated old Taylor house. She didn't want to look. Gooseflesh stood out hard and knobbed on her arms. A right on Ninth Street, two blocks ... and she brought the car to a halt, her heart rising in her throat.

  The neat, well-kept two-story house they had worked so hard on was now a shambles. Rowan made a small, hurt sound in the back of her throat as she stared at the broken windows, and the lawn rank with weeds. Nobody had bought the house. Had it stood abandoned since that night? Yellow crime scene tape fluttered on the porch where Rowan had sat so many summer evenings, where her mother had almost fallen off while watering the roses—and oh, the roses themselves were dead or dying, brown rot all over their lovely leaves and stems. Dead leaves clustered under the old oak trees, and a fallen branch lay buried in weeds and leaves. The door was broken down, barred only by the yellow crime scene tape.

  She wondered if anyone had cleaned out the fridge, if her books were still upstairs swelling with moisture from the damp coming in through the front door and broken windows. And if there were still stains on the kitchen floor. Big, dark, bloody stains.

  There were no cars behind her, but Rowan started violently as if hearing the blast of a horn. She sat upright, wiped at her eyes with the back of her hand. More tears spilled down her cheeks.

  Got to get going. She checked o
ver her shoulder for nonexistent traffic and pulled out, hoping she wasn't weaving. Her vision ran and blurred with both pain and tears. She navigated with ease through familiar streets, each new change—the Martin's house was repainted, and yards were redone, businesses had gone up and others had faded—slamming into her stomach like a badly taken punch. Each time she lost a little more air.

  Oh, Justin, she thought, ignoring the spike of pain his name sent through her. I need you. I'm sorry.

  Then she hit the freeway heading south. She would cut east past the state line and start wending her way into the land of desert, rattlesnakes, Four Corners, and White Sands. She just had to get close enough to Sig Zero-Fifteen and get herself arrested or caught, and Sigma would take care of the rest.

  And then, Rowan could get her revenge.

  * * * *

  Four days later she woke in the middle of the night, her breath coming short and harsh in her chest, the soft maggot-writhing voice whispering inside her head. Sweat cooled on her skin as Rowan sat up, gasping, reaching blindly for a light, any light. The lamp on the two-drawer nightstand next to the bed toppled alarmingly before she could catch it and find the button to turn it on. When it finally clicked, the hotel room resolved itself into horrid pink and beige around her.

  She let out a coughing breath as her head twisted with pain. Justin? Instinctively, she had reached for him again on waking. Why did thinking about him hurt her head so much? What was wrong with her?

  Rowan found herself clutching the phone, her fingers poised above the keypad. She laid the phone back in its cradle, hoping she hadn't dialed. Who would she call? There was nobody to call. If she called in, Henderson would have a fit and probably officially throw her out of the Society. And Justin ... What did he think? Did he think she had betrayed them?

  Never. I never would.

  But if they started to torture her or injected her with Zed, how long would she be able to hold out? She had no illusions about her capacity to deal with torture. Justin might be able to endure the unspeakable, but Rowan knew very well she couldn't. Though she had, since joining the Society, done some amazing things when forced to. If they tortured her before she could get her revenge, she would just have to see how strong she truly was.