Gods old and dark

by Holly Lisle

  "And Pete?"

  "He's a traitor. He helped her. He's known what she's been up to all along. That's—what? Aiding and abetting? Accessory?"

  "Those are criminal justice terms," Eric said. "They don't apply within the Sentinels." He stood before them, thinking, one arm crossed over his stomach, elbow of the other resting on it, head down, forehead cupped in hand.

  Pete felt sick. Eric was looking for unanimity, and he wasn't going to get it. Which meant the vote would have to go against Lauren. He'd been sure it wouldn't—he'd been sure these idiots would see reason. That's why he'd convinced her to come before them and present her case—and he'd been wrong.

  And the start of it all had been so small. Heyr had said only one innocent thing. He'd mentioned Molly in the present tense—a tiny slip, and one he hadn't even realized was a slip.

  One slip. Pete wondered if anyone, ever, had betrayed so much with a word.

  The truth will out. Old saying, painfully correct. Whether you wanted it or not, truth would at last find its way into the light.

  Eric looked up. "There is no need to call a vote. We know in advance that we will not reach a consensus, and for an issue of this magnitude, consensus must be reached."

  Raymond said, "You know in advance that you won't get consensus in her favor. But you might get consensus against her. Why don't you take the vote anyway?"

  "Because I do know that I won't get a consensus against her. Because even if I were the only one voting in her favor, I would still vote in her favor. Therefore, there can be no agreement on this issue, and the decision on what we do about her falls to me. Without consensus, I will not take the Sentinels rogue. I will not force someone who disagrees with what we would be doing to serve. So…we cannot help her."

  Pete started to stand, to protest. His fists were clenched, his arms rigid.

  Eric said, "Sit down, Pete. The Sentinels cannot help her, and I am sorry about that, and I am deeply ashamed that we will not. I am ashamed that we are taking the cowards' road. But…if we are forced to stand on the cowards' road, we will not march on it. I will not send her away, I will not report what she is doing to the Council, and our official position on all of this is that she is our gateweaver and none of us knows of anything that she is doing that falls outside of her mandate. None of us," he repeated, and he looked at each of the Sentinels in turn. "Because what she is doing matters, and I will not take the route of Not In My Back Yard. She will stay here; we will deal with the consequences of her being here. And, just to make myself very clear, the one of you who reports her to the Council betrays all of us. No matter where you are, no matter what you are doing, no matter when you decide to pass the information on. And if you are considering betraying all of us, I will state that we in the Cat Creek Sentinels are good people. But we are not nice people. We will protect our own without qualm or hesitation."

  "So you're saying that you're going to do nothing," Raymond said. His face had gone an ugly, beefy red.

  "I'm saying that I'm going to do nothing. And that you are going to do nothing. You need to be clear about that distinction, Raymond." Eric looked at Pete. "Call her in. She needs to hear the decision."

  Pete felt sick. He rose and walked out the door, down the back stairs of the old house, past the worktable covered with lace and pins and ribbons and green foamy florist stuff, out the back door. Heyr and Lauren stood there, talking. Heyr had Jake on his shoulders.

  "They're ready for you," Pete said, and his voice gave away too much. Lauren's eyes went wide, and she turned pale.

  "They won't live to turn you in to the Council," Heyr said.

  Lauren said nothing. She walked past Pete, up the stairs. Heyr, carrying Jake, followed her, and Pete brought up the rear.

  He walked into the room to find her already at the front, facing Eric.

  "We will not help you," Eric said. "To help you, I would have had to get a unanimous vote, and I didn't get one. We will not make any move against you, either, however—you'll stay here, you'll be our gateweaver, and none of us knows anything about your extracurricular activities. We will deal with the fallout of what you're doing as if it were a normal result of what we do. No one will turn you in."

  Lauren looked surprised. "So—I'm not going to be banished or reported to the Council."

  "No, you aren't."

  "I'm still the Cat Creek gateweaver."

  "Right."

  "But with…the other thing…I'm on my own."

  "Right."

  Lauren nodded. "All right. I'm no worse off than I was before, anyway. I can live with that." She turned, took Jake from Heyr, and walked out of the room and down the stairs without another word. Heyr hurried after her, clearly unwilling to have her out of his sight for any length of time at all.

  Eric's cell phone rang. He answered it, muttered something, and said, "Pete, emergency. You're coming with me." Then he glanced at the mirror, where a gate should be but was not. "June Bug, you're supposed to have the current watch, right?"

  "I am."

  "Then go get her and get that gate reopened. The rest of you are free to go."

  "What do we have?" Pete asked Eric.

  "Shots fired. We need to hurry. Neighbors are in an uproar."

  The two of them ran down the stairs, out into the graveled parking lot. "Ride with me," Eric said.

  Usually they went in separate cars. But Pete nodded and jumped into the passenger seat in Eric's squad car.

  They pulled out with lights flashing but no siren, and Eric headed them north.

  "That meeting was bullshit," Eric said.

  "You need to get rid of Raymond Smetty and Louisa Tate," Pete said. "I think you brought everyone else around."

  "Can't. Our troublemakers already know about Lauren. We have to keep them where we can see them. But that's not what I meant. I mean that the meeting was just for show, just to convince Raymond and Louisa that the Cat Creek Sentinels aren't going to involve themselves in this. It'll keep them quiet and out of the way."

  The back of Pete's neck started to itch. "That wasn't real?"

  "Nope. June Bug came to me when she started tracking live magic from Kerras last night. She backtraced it, found the live spot on the world, and realized it was part of Lauren's work. The rest of us are already on board—we'll do whatever Lauren needs us to do. Which is what June Bug is on the way over to tell Lauren and Heyr right now. But that old saying about keeping your friends close and your enemies closer is true. I didn't want Raymond covering my back if things got bad. But I couldn't let him leave town, either. This was the only solution I could come up with."

  Pete felt better. Suddenly he wasn't carrying the whole planet on his shoulders anymore. He exhaled, and turned to Eric. "Good. That's good. So—what about this shooting?"

  "There's no shooting. We're taking the back way, and we're going to get a couple of boxes of Krispy Kremes for the station. I just needed to talk with you while I had a good idea of where everyone else was and what they were doing."

  Pete was definitely in the mood for a few Krispy Kremes.

  Cat Creek

  "So y'all are really going to help me." Lauren sat at the kitchen table watching Jake pick at the steamed vegetables he'd previously loved, and trying to adjust to what June Bug had told her.

  June Bug leaned back in her chair. "We knew going in that we would. My sister is a problem—as she has been most of her time in the Sentinels. But with the Sentinels, the only way out is to have someone wipe your memory or to die. Since both of those are…last-ditch solutions, we find ways around problems. We always have. At least Louisa isn't malicious."

  "Like Raymond, you mean."

  "I'm not sure that—long term, anyway—Raymond is a problem we can work around. But none of us right now is willing to deal with the Enigma Sentinels. His parents are still alive and still fully active, and it would be difficult to send their son back to them in Enigma with everything about the Cat Greek Sentinels removed from his mind, along with any
random memories that didn't get out of the way."

  "They sent him to us because they couldn't deal with him. I'm guessing they're hoping we'll do what they didn't have the nerve to."

  "You might be right. We've discussed that possibility, Eric and George and I. And while we all agreed it was likely, we also agreed that the price we pay if we're wrong is more than we want to deal with right now. The lower we keep our profile, the more useful we'll be to you. If we end up crawling with Council members, we're going to be tied up pretending everything is normal—and time is something we don't have enough of to waste that way."

  Lauren rested her elbows on the table and said, "So—where do we go from here?"

  "That's up to you. We'll cover for you, of course—let us know when you need to be gone, and Eric or I or George or Mayhem will always have an excuse for where you are and what you're doing, and we'll be sure we can back it up. We'll make sure it looks like you're always on Sentinel business so that neither Raymond nor Louisa can give any sort of accurate information if they decide to go over our heads. We'll lie for you. If you want us along, we'll travel downworld with you and set up gun emplacements and guard your back—Betty Kay still has the worst case of buck fever after taking out those keth, and she's just itching to get her hands on a gun again. You'll have a hard time keeping her away."

  Lauren shook her head and smiled a little. "Perky little Betty Kay, florist, unicorn lover…trigger-happy warrior. Who knew?"

  "People will surprise you."

  Lauren leaned back in her chair and stretched her legs out in front of her and played with her ponytail. "Some of them will." She sighed. "I'd like to say, 'Gee, it's so sweet of y'all to be willing to help out, but if you'll just pretend you didn't see anything, I'll be fine.'"

  June Bug waited, then laughed. "But that's not what you're going to say."

  "No, it isn't. I need an armed team to follow me in every time I go downworld. Heyr will be there, and Pete will usually be there, but you know how fast things can go to worms."

  "I do," June Bug said. "And speaking about something that has nothing to do with worms…"

  "All right."

  "How are you and Pete doing?"

  Lauren smiled a little. "I don't know where we're going with that. It's my fault—I want him, and I feel guilty for wanting him, and I'm doing a fine job of making both of us miserable."

  "I'm not the one to give advice about romance."

  "I never understood why you never found anyone. You could have."

  June Bug sighed deeply. "In ten or fifteen years, people will be saying the same things about you, you know. 'She had chances. Why didn't she find someone? She didn't have to be alone.' I was there when Brian spoke to you through Jake—it's not the sort of thing you could tell most people, but you already know you had someone once. And somewhere you have him still."

  "He told me to move on."

  "But you can't."

  "I don't seem to be able to."

  "Mama, I hate broccoli," Jake said suddenly. "I want cookies for supper."

  Lauren stared at her son, who'd been remarkably quiet, and burst out laughing. "Eat four more bites and I'll let you have some cookies."

  "Four is yuck."

  "Four." Lauren took Jake's fork from him and scooted food around on the plate, separating the bites he needed to eat off to one side. "Eat those. And then you can have some cookies."

  He narrowed his eyes and tipped his head to one side. "Four cookies?"

  "We'll see. Eat." Lauren looked at June Bug. "Not a big plus to any adult relationship. I keep him with me. Right with me. All the time. I never let him out of my sight or out of arm's reach; I don't dare."

  "You do what you have to do. Pete would be willing to work around the problems, I think, and Jake is a wonderful little boy—"

  "Yes," Jake interrupted. "I am a wonderful boy. And modest, too."

  "I was just about to say that," June Bug said to him.

  "Eat your broccoli," Lauren told her son, and to June Bug said, "Unfortunately, I've already mentioned his modesty to him," Lauren said. "Which is why he says that. He just fails to get the proper note of facetiousness in his voice when he does it."

  "Kids are immune to irony." June Bug leaned forward and looked at Lauren earnestly. "From an old lady to a young one, I'm going to give you some unwanted advice. The time goes faster than you think it ever could, and all the things you promise yourself you're going to do tomorrow pass you by. Opportunities not taken haunt you—I think that's why old people don't sleep, Lauren. The ghosts of all the chances we failed to take whisper in our minds until we could no more sleep than be young again. If you make a mistake, you can look back on it and at least say, 'I learned something from that. I tried. I failed, but I tried.' If you don't even try, all you can do is wonder. It might have been a mistake, but it also might have been the best thing that ever happened to you, and you can never know because the chance is gone, and it won't be back."

  "You think I should take a chance with Pete."

  "I think you should know that when you get old, you will regret every single thing you wanted but were afraid to try a million times more than you regret any mistakes you made in trying." June Bug stared down at her hands, flexing them, frowning a little. "I have lived a coward's life, Lauren, afraid of my dreams. Some things I wanted I couldn't pursue because that pursuit would have hurt other people. I don't regret doing the right thing. But some chances I didn't take just because I was afraid. And now I'm one of those old people, haunted by ghosts of what might have been, and I have no memories of what was to silence them."

  Lauren sat, staring at her hands.

  June Bug said, "If you have dreams you want to pursue, the time to pursue them is now. There is no perfect time, and there is no better time. There is only the time you lose while you're making excuses."

  CHAPTER 16

  Herb's Steakhouse, Bennettsville, South Carolina

  THE SENTINELS—MINUS Raymond and Louisa—met in Bennettsville at Heyr's request. Heyr had picked a steakhouse on the north side of town, a big, rambling place with red-and-white-checked tablecloths and baked potatoes the size of footballs and steaks that sizzled so loudly as they traveled from the kitchen to the tables that Lauren almost ordered one.

  But she'd eaten already, and Jake was falling asleep on her lap, and somehow she didn't think this gathering was really about the steaks.

  It was about protecting her, maybe. Heyr had been close-mouthed and strange ever since June Bug's announcement that the Sentinels were going to back her.

  The rest were eating—chewing absentmindedly on steaks that deserved better, sipping at beers slowly growing warm. In their eyes, Lauren could see worry, the recognition that each person at the table had stepped beyond the comparatively safe harbor that was the Sentinels—that with a single word, a single choice, they had moved into vast unknown reaches.

  Here there be dragons, Lauren thought. And they're coming to get us.

  It wasn't a happy prospect.

  Pete looked at her and then at his plate. Eric stared at his fork as if it were the scepter of a king. June Bug played with the keys on her keychain. Betty Kay stared at Heyr with naked lust, and Mayhem stared at Betty Kay with an identical expression.

  So not everyone was consumed by dread. Lauren found herself smiling just a little.

  And then Heyr cleared his throat, and fear dropped into her stomach like a ball of hot lead, and her arms tightened around Jake.

  "I have a proposition for you," Heyr said. "It isn't a happy one, it isn't a pleasant one—but if you accept my offer you'll be able to stand against the Night Watch, and maybe win. And you won't die doing it."

  "Not dying is good," Pete said. "I'm all in favor of that."

  Eric looked at him sidelong and said, "I'd be inclined to agree. But I'm sure there's an old saying somewhere about being wary of gods bearing gifts."

  "It's not a gift," Heyr said. "Unless you want to look at it as a gift from you
to your world and your friends and families—and to each other. It's a sacrifice."

  June Bug said, "We're back on familiar territory, then. All my life it's been 'Do this for the good of everyone else. Be a Sentinel, go along with the Council, offer up your life to service—the world needs you.' I wouldn't know what to make of a gift. But I know all about sacrifices."

  Around the table, a few soft chuckles.

  Heyr smiled sadly. "Perhaps. But I'm asking you to make the ultimate sacrifice."

  "You want us to die?" Betty Kay asked. "Like…in the line of duty?"

  Heyr shook his head. "I want you to live." At the bewildered expressions he got from that remark, he added, "Sometimes dying is easier. Usually dying is easier. And I'm asking that you don't. That you stand and fight beside me."