Caine, Rachel-Short Stories

by Rachel Caine

  "Holly!" His tone was sharp with concern. He was concerned. About me. I came back from about a thousand miles away and realized that he was frowning, totally focused on me. "Can you hear me?"

  I laughed. I couldn't help it. It came out a strained, strangled gasp. "Yes," I managed to say. "I hear you, Andrew. We stopped him."

  "Then I expect there's a tale to be told about why I'm back here." He released me from his stare to turn it on the room around us. "Well, this place don't get any prettier."

  He remembered that, too? Unbelievable. "How do you feel?"

  "Feel?" His gaze came back to me, electric and warm, and his lips curved into a smile. "Alive would say it fine. But I'm not alive, I know that. You've brought me back again. Why?"

  I turned away to pick up a stack of clothes from the pile nearby. Hospital scrubs for now, nothing fancy. I handed them to him, and he considered them for a few seconds.

  "Clothes," I said. It was unnecessary; he clearly knew what they were, but I was rattled. I was all too aware of Detective Prieto at the viewing window, seeing me lose my cool.

  That earned me another fey smile from Andrew. He had a nice face–a little sharp, with a pointed chin. In certain lights, in certain moods, he would look sinister, except for the humor in his eyes. "I know we're well acquainted, but a bit of privacy?…"

  I turned my back. I heard the faint sound of his bare feet slapping the cold floor as he stood, and the rustle of fabric moving over skin.

  He was way, way too fast. Too well adjusted, for any newly revived corpse. He had continuity, and that meant he remembered all the trauma of the first resurrection.

  "How long?" he asked. "How long have I been away this time?"

  I cast a look over my shoulder, and found he was adjusting the fit of the pants on his hips. Except for the slight, indefinable distance in his eyes, he could have been any hospital attendant. He looked completely… alive.

  "About a year," I said. "Andrew–"

  "Feels like yesterday," he said, and looked down at his hands. He flexed them carefully. "Awful strange, not knowing that,"

  "We have work for you," I said. I was sticking to my script, even though Andrew had lost his. "I'll help you understand what you need to do. How do you feel?"

  "Holly, my sweet, I'm annoyed you're not listening to how I feel." He frowned, and I was right, he could look menacing. "Which shouldn't be true, I think. No corpse revives so quickly as to be annoyed over such minor things." Andrew should know. He'd been a better witch than I ever could be.

  "You're no ordinary person," I said. My heart was pounding, my palms were sweating, but I sounded as cool and soothing as any clinical practitioner. "Are you in any pain?"

  "No."

  "None at all?"

  "Miss Holly, I've been in your shoes." His gaze moved to focus on them for a second, smiling. "Never ones so dainty, maybe. But there's no need to treat me like an invalid. I'll let you know when I start feeling it."

  I stared at him. He stared back, challenge in those bright blue eyes. He was an average-looking guy in a lot of ways–pleasant features, except for that sharp, aggressive chin; sandy brown hair that had grown into a style that seemed both modern and antique–shaggy, certainly. He had a sharp ridge and twist to his nose, as if he'd broken it early in life.

  I tried to get my mind back to business. "If you start feeling anxious or drifting, tell me. I don't know what the police need you for, or how long it will take, but you need to have a dose–"

  "Each hour, yes, Miss Holly. I'm the one who wrote up the damn rules. Police, you say?" That seemed to give him pause for thought. "Why us, again?" Us, not just him. Andrew assumed instantly that we were a team.

  I didn't want to be a team. It had hurt so much the last time around, I couldn't imagine how bad it would be this time, when I knew him. When I cared.

  I opted for neutral topics. "Detective Prieto is waiting to brief us."

  Detective Prieto entered the room, and both of us turned to look at him. "Mr. Toland," he said, and nodded stiffly. "I won't say thanks, since I know you didn't really have a choice in coming… here." Nice way to avoid the whole death/life conundrum. "But I'm giving you a choice for the job. If you don't want to do it, we'll end this right now."

  Andrew had lost his smile. His eyes were narrowed, hard-focused. That was how he looked when he fought, I thought. And yes, he could be intimidating.

  "It's no small matter if you picked me," he said. "I slept a hundred and thirty-some-odd years before Miss Holly here brought me back the first time, and I'll allow as how that job was worth the trouble. I expect this one's just as raw."

  "Yes," Prieto said. Now that he was face-to-face with the soul he was about to send into torment, possibly horrible death, he seemed deeply uncomfortable. "I need you to help us save lives."

  "Didn't expect you brought me back for a pony ride, mister. Fine. I'll do it."

  "Andrew," I said quietly. "Hear him out before you agree to anything."

  "Don't need to. Like I said, I wouldn't be back here if it wasn't bad."

  "All right," Prieto said. "We have a credible terrorist threat against a protected group of individuals here in Austin. Four are already missing, and we've got intel about the next one to be abducted. We think these people are being killed, but we haven't found remains yet."

  Andrew studied him for a moment in silence, then said, "I understood little of that, 'cept you have four missing and some dead. I ain't equipped to solve your crimes, so I don't think that's what you need me for, is it?"

  "We need you to protect one of the people on the list of potential victims."

  "Wait a minute!" I blurted, horrified. The resurrected–even disposables–weren't bodyguards; they were weapons. Point them at a clearly defined objective, and let them go achieve it, no matter what the damage. Disposables didn't have a self-preservation instinct, so they were perfect for sending in on suicide runs.

  Bodyguarding was completely different. For one thing, it was likely to be long-term, much longer than a disposable ever lasted. Days. Weeks. Months, even. "Wait a minute," I repeated. My voice was loud enough to ring off the morgue steel. "What the hell? Since when did the resurrected join the force? This is something any cop in Kevlar could do, right?"

  Prieto gave me another look. This one was blank and cool. "We've tried that," he said. "Didn't go so well, which is why we decided to go with somebody with nothing to lose, like your friend here. Our intel says the attack's going to come in the next few days. Fact is, when we booked the job in the first place, we were planning to protect a completely different person. While you've been preparing, we lost two more of the targets, and the teams of cops assigned for protection. So I don't give a shit about your problems, lady. I lost four of my own officers protecting these–people. Least you can do is your job."

  "But you can't–"

  Andy interrupted me. "Who'd I be protecting?" Prieto had been waiting for the question, and he seemed to take a special kind of pleasure in saying, "It's her. Holly Anne Caldwell. These fucking freaks are taking out witches."

  We left the viewing room to go down the hall to a small airless conference room, where Prieto had set up shop for the night. He had folders.

  He had a lot of folders.

  I knew every one of the victims. Shayle Gallagher had been the first–he'd been taken right out of his flower shop (like me, he only moonlighted at the resurrection business), and there had been signs of a vicious struggle. Could have been robbery or a hate crime, so that hadn't raised too many unusual flags at first, especially with no body found.

  Two weeks ago, though, Harrison Wright had failed to show up to work at his medical practice, and his multimillion-dollar estate showed signs of the same brutal attack as at Gallagher's store.

  Lottie Flores had been the next victim, and she'd disappeared the day after I'd taken the case from Sam.

  "We kept it out of the news," Prieto said. "Wasn't easy. Oh, and Sam agreed we shouldn't interrupt you w
hile you were working."

  Sam agreed? I was going to have a talk with Sam. One involving a punch in the mouth.

  "You said there were dead officers," Andy said.

  Prieto nodded. "My guys had missed a scheduled check-in. When backup arrived, their car was empty. They were found in the Flores house."

  "Why not bring one of them back, find out just what went on?"

  Prieto looked grim. "We thought about it, but the families wouldn't sign off, and by then, we were knee-deep in missing resurrection witches. Didn't think we should waste the time trying to convince anybody."

  I looked at the photos of the two dead police officers, and felt my stomach twist. They'd been beaten to death. That wasn't easy to do with any cop, but you could at least see how the five-foot-five, petite woman could have been overpowered. Not her partner, six-foot-four and big enough to intimidate pretty much anyone. He looked like he chewed nails as vitamins.

  "Neither one got a shot off," Prieto said. "No sign of Flores in the house, but we found blood and the same smash-up indicating a struggle. Blood in the bedroom turned out to be hers."

  Lottie's house was neatly kept. Most of the damage was confined to her bedroom–bed pulled sideways, covers wrenched half off, blood smeared on the sheets and floor, leading down the hall. She'd been dragged out.

  I hated Lottie. I had good reason; I'd been her apprentice for three resurrections, before I'd transferred to Marvin Jones, my permanent instructor. I'd hated every filthy second of being around Lottie and watching her work. I'd lodged a complaint against her with the Board of Review; nothing had come of it, of course. There weren't so many resurrection witches running around that they could afford to turf one just because she was–let's face it–a psychopath.

  Even with all that, it still made me cringe to think about what that had been like… and what might still be happening to her.

  The next file was even worse, because I had no reason at all to dislike Monica Heitmeyer; she was a nice older lady specializing, like me and Lottie, in resurrections, but she mainly did family gigs, reconciling loved ones. As far as I knew, she'd never done any work with the police. She was in the feel-good business.

  Two more dead officers at her house, these two killed in the backyard. One had a snapped neck. The other looked like a sack of raw meat. Someone had used him for punching practice. Monica, like Lottie, was missing, but she'd left behind a lot of blood.

  Andrew hadn't said anything. His eyes had gone dark and cold, and whatever he was thinking, he kept it to himself.

  "What makes you think I'm next on the list?" I asked.

  "Not a hell of a lot of witches in your line of work in Austin," Prieto said. "Most of them are already gone. It's down to you and the other one–"

  "Annika," I said. "Annika Berwick." I knew her slightly, not well enough to have much of a feeling for how well she'd handle something like this. Annika was frail, nearly seventy, a sweet old grandmother of a witch who'd informally retired from practice last year. "You're protecting her, right?"

  "Sure they are," Andy said softly. His gaze hadn't left Prieto at all. "They leave you open, you're the next target. That the idea, Detective? Holly's your damn stalking horse."

  Prieto didn't answer. The truth was that he probably had strike teams ready to roll, and full surveillance, but he wanted it to look like he wasn't coming anywhere near us.

  He wanted everyone to think that we were all on our own.

  "Have you talked to Annika?"

  Prieto nodded. "She's good."

  I didn't know about Annika, but I knew how I felt about it, and good didn't exactly ring true. I desperately needed a shower and a gallon of Ben & Jerry's ice cream to deal with this.

  All of this explained why the Police Department was willing to spend the exorbitant cost to have Andrew Toland brought back. Resurrection witches were a rare breed, and valuable. Six in a city of more than six hundred thousand; there were fewer in Dallas, only a couple hanging tough against a storm of fundamentalist persecution. Austin remained the home–and refuge–of the weird.

  Didn't feel like home right now.

  I turned to Andrew. "You don't have to do this," I said. "I can release you. I should release you. This isn't your fight, it's mine."

  He gave me a look that drilled right into my core. "No, it's not. They were right to bring me into it, Holly. This is how the war starts–put down those who might fight, and do it early. Nobody left to fight when the evil comes calling." His blue eyes took on distance and chill. "I've seen it done."

  It had, in fact, been done to him. "It's still not your problem."

  "True enough," he said, and there came that slow, warm smile again, breaking my heart. "Still. I think you're my problem."

  We didn't speak on the drive back. I heard the jingle of the bottles in my case in the backseat; I'd been watching Andy for any sign that he needed a booster, but he seemed fine. Better than fine, actually. The spell that bound him here also bound us together; I knew I'd feel some sense from him if–when–he began to feel pain, or drift.

  So far, nothing. It was like being with anyone. Any living person, that is.

  "The last time," Andy said. "I know we got the killer. What about the girl? Did I get her out?"

  I shuddered. I couldn't help it, and I couldn't hide it. All of a sudden, the realities of it crashed down on me, and the lockbox of feelings blew open, and I was shaking like a leaf in a storm.

  I dimly heard Andy asking me what was wrong, but I couldn't tell him. I pulled the car over into a vacant parking lot, threw it into park, and stumbled out with my arms wrapped around myself for comfort. The warm humid air didn't help. I was coming apart.

  I heard Andy's passenger-side door slam, and quick footsteps on the gravel, and then his arms wrapped around me fast and hard. "Hush," he murmured, with his lips against my hair. "Hush, now, Holly. It's not so bad as that."

  But it was–oh, it was. His question had opened up Pandora's box, and I couldn't keep any of it under lock and key anymore. "She–she–oh, Andy, I'm sorry–"

  "She died," he said, and pushed me back far enough that he could look into my eyes. His were dark, all pupil even under the streetlight. "Feared she would. Couldn't get to her before he cut her. All I could do was try to get her to you before it was too late."

  My heart just broke. He remembered, but he didn't know. I'd resurrected Andrew last year to deal with a witch out of Chicago who'd been on the run, who'd taken to abducting girls he fancied, killing them, and reviving them over and over for his fun.

  Andy had gone in to stop the witch, and save the last girl before it was too late.

  He'd accomplished part of it–the witch was dead, and Andy had made damn certain the bastard couldn't come back. The girls he'd enslaved were gone as well.

  But that last child, all of sixteen… She'd died in Andy's arms as he used the last of his strength to try to get her to safety. It had felt like it was all for nothing, because of that. It wasn't–the witch wouldn't be hurting anyone else–but it had felt hollow. Horribly empty.

  I hadn't realized until just now why it had felt so awful. It had been the tragedy of the girl, yes, but it had been Andy. Andy's stunning courage.

  I'd felt him go, and it had felt like losing someone I loved.

  I burst into tears and buried my face in his hospital-style shirt. He smelled sterile, astringent, not living at all, but it didn't matter. He felt real.

  And I could not be in love with a dead man. I just could not. No matter how close we'd gotten before. No matter how good this felt just now.

  Andy smoothed my hair with gentle strokes, not speaking. I felt him touch his lips gently to the top of my head.

  "I remember, you know," he said at last. "You were there all the time, Holly. You were all that kept me moving, at the last. You were the light."

  That only made me cry harder. I was thinking about him wounded and dying, struggling to save that girl. About how I'd kept him alive, alive, alive thro
ugh all the pain and agony.

  Until I hadn't.

  It hadn't been Andy who'd faltered… It had been me. I hadn't been strong enough for him, in the end.

  "She was dying before I ever got to her," he said. "And she's peaceful now, Holly. So let it be."

  I couldn't stop crying. His hand rubbed my back in slow, gentle circles.

  "I don't think you understand what it was like waking up today, seeing you." His fingers touched my chin and tipped it up. "If I need to die for you, I will. But let's not spend the time in tears."

  I could feel his heartbeat. See the fast pulse moving under his skin. I could feel our souls touching, intimate in ways that mere living people couldn't achieve, and I understood just how deep this went between us.

  I pressed my hand over his heart, feeling the strong, steady pace. "You can't stay with me," I said. My voice, normally so steady, sounded soft and uncertain. "We don't get second chances, Andy."

  He smiled. "Sure we do," he said. "What's this, if it ain't a second chance? Or, more proper for me, a third?"

  And he kissed me. Warm lips, blood-warm, tasting of the potion that I'd given him. Toxic, something in me warned, but I didn't care.

  Andy's thumbs stroked my cheekbones, and his big hands seemed so certain about what they were doing.

  I was kissing a dead man, and I didn't care a bit. I wanted to keep on kissing him until the sun burned out.

  The memory of the harsh, bloodstained photographs Prieto had shown us flashed across my eyes, and I pulled free with a gasp, stepping back.

  "What?" he asked. He took my hands, but didn't try to pull me into his arms.

  "It's not safe," I said. "We're not safe. We need to get inside."

  Andy smiled–a real, full smile. "You think I can't protect you, Holly?"

  "I don't want you to have to."

  He nodded out into the dark. "Ain't the only one. Prieto sent a couple of fellas on our tail. They're parked over there, watching us."

  I shuddered. Somehow, that made it even worse, both that there were eyes on us, and that I was putting Prieto's men at risk just by being such an easy target. "Let's go home."