Finder (The Watchers Book 6)

by Lilith Saintcrow

  Sometimes being treated like a spun-glass doll was the most irritating thing on the face of the earth. “Go on, then. Have fun. Let me know if you need anything.” She struggled for an even tone. Caleb hesitated. Jorie waved her hand at him, eyeing the bottle afresh. “Just go. It’s all right.”

  He relaxed all at once, hurtful battle-ready tension leaching out of the air. The heat pump, perhaps a little aggrieved at being interrupted, switched on to warm everything up, a soft soughing. “Yes ma’am.” Caleb took a single step back, turned on his heel, and stalked out of the kitchen.

  “It’s not ma’am,” she called after him. It was his first day, but still. “It’s Jorie.”

  He made no reply, but the flare of his attention checking the wards again was answer enough. Jorie reached for the bottle, staring at her newly repaired back door.

  It was a lonely thing, being a Lightbringer, even if there were Watchers around. The Slayer would have killed her if Caleb hadn’t been here. Or the Seeker out front would have, or a million other hungry things lurking in the darkness.

  Her only crime, the only reason they wanted to kill her, was existing.

  Her stomach cramped as the fishhook of her talent twitched again, impatient now that terror wasn’t forcing it into the backseat. Come Find me. Come see. There’s something you have to do.

  Not tonight. She tipped the bottle up, took another mouthful, and prayed the liquor would act quickly.

  A Bad Habit

  ATTENDING CLASS with a hangover is getting to be a bad habit. Jorie took a long drink of water and patted her wet forehead. She set the bottle down, tossed her sweater by her place at the barre, and hurried to stand in line with the other women as Madame Charkov, blue headscarf fluttering, paced gracefully to her accustomed position, her back to the wide windows looking out on 12th Avenue South.

  “Now, ladies.” Madame clasped her long, lean hands. “We are for starting with the balancé, just as we have been working.” Her blue eyes, much darker and warmer than Caleb’s, twinkled merrily.

  The class quieted. Jorie’s favorite classmate Virginia grinned, shaking her arms free. Her coppery hair was pulled back in a tight bun, but dark damp strands stuck to her sweating forehead. Even Virgie’s freckles were flushed.

  Ballet was not for the weak. Jorie’s back ached and her left calf threatened to cramp. Her headache had largely subsided, thanks to sweat, ibuprofen, and the water she kept pouring down. Still, she felt heavy, her limbs sacks full of sand, and her barre work wasn’t up to its usual standard.

  Pale winter sunshine flooded the studio, its wooden floor resounding as dancers followed Madame, each woman placing her arms and legs just so, the balancé rising light and natural, every woman using physical shorthand to fix the movements in short-term memory.

  “Now with the music.” Madame pointed the remote control, and light, tinkling Mozart filled the studio.

  It was a relief to think only of the next few bars, her only worry the movement of her arms and legs in space. By the time the entire class was moving across the floor in twos, leaping and hanging in the air for a moment for the grand jeté, she felt much better. Dance demanded attention and precision, not to mention grace, stamina, and concentration that usually managed to block out whatever problem was rearing its ugly head at the moment—like the persistent tugging in her midriff, flaring and fading with maddening randomness. Getting sloshed and going to bed last night hadn’t been particularly adult, but it had worked.

  Well. Sort of. In an only moderately helpful way, but better than nothing.

  Class always ended too soon. The changing room was brimful of conversation and catcalls as well as the comforting, familiar smell of toe shoes, chalk, and healthy sweat. Cubbyholes crawled up the wall, a bookshelf converted for clothes and dance bags marching down the middle of the room, a bathroom set in one back corner. The blue carpet was worn and faded, smelling of dust, but Jorie loved this particular studio.

  It just felt right.

  “You want to catch a cup of coffee?” Virginia asked, freeing her hair with a practiced yank. Her aura swirled, a deep unhappy blue, and there were traces of pink around her eyelids and nose.

  Uh-oh. I’ll bet she broke up with Mark again. Jorie, struggling with her leotard, didn’t reply for a moment. “I can for a bit,” she finally said, hooking her fingers under the edge of her sweaty sports bra. “Dammit, I hate these things.”

  “I want a bowl of soup, too. I’m starving.” Virginia sighed with relief as she pulled her jeans back on, zipping swiftly and bouncing up on her toes to pull a gray sweater down from her cubbyhole. “Who’s the guy?”

  Jorie slung the bra into her dance bag and fished out her own street-clothes sweater, wine-red because she’d felt the need to reach for cheerfulness this morning. I am not wearing a bra anymore today. Life is too short to have your boobs strapped down. “What guy?”

  “The guy in the coat, the one you came in with. He watched at the window the whole time. He’s cute.” Virginia waved goodbye to fellow dancers, and the quality of sound in the changing room suddenly diminished as the teenage girls in the next class exited en masse, a flock of exotic birds with buns, tights, and soft hurried footsteps.

  “I didn’t see him watching.” Jorie peeled off her tights and dressed hurriedly, sitting with a sigh and a not-quite-theatrical oof to put her socks and shoes on. Her head throbbed once, a single beat of pain. The other Watchers never even came in, they just stood guard outside. Though I can’t blame him, rain’s been threatening all morning.

  Not to mention this was only his second day. The first one had been a doozy.

  “He was only watching the whole time. So, who is he?” Virgie was not as interested as she wanted to sound, bursting with her own tragedy to tell Jorie all about. Still, she was trying.

  I’m really not in the mood right now. She tied her sneaker laces with swift jerks. “His name’s Caleb.” He almost killed a man last night. Is that what you wanted to know?

  Jorie stopped herself with an effort. Virgie was a good friend, and she at least made an effort to ask about Jorie’s life before rattling on about her own.

  “It’s like pulling teeth sometimes, talking to you,” Virgie announced to the now-empty dressing room. Everyone always cleared out quickly after a lunchtime class, back to the daily grind. “Where did you meet him? He’s got nice eyes.”

  You should see his guns. “I met him on one of my jobs.” Which was technically the truth, going to the safehouse to pick up a new Watcher was a job since Jorie so often treated them for despair. If I don’t hurt him when I touch him, he won’t be leaving to make way for another Watcher. But he doesn’t seem to like me very much. This isn’t at all how I thought a bonding would go.

  She reflected sourly that maybe she should have paid more attention in her Watcher therapy orientation; bonding was covered for a good two days before the teacher had gone on to the more pressing problem—how to keep unbonded Watchers from killing themselves with suicidal bravery.

  I should dig up my orientation notes. Just as soon as I get everything else done.

  “What does he do?” The flush of effort had faded along Virgie’s cheeks, her freckles glaring against milky skin. She was pretty, with a charming overbite and the tendency to stare almost cross-eyed into the middle distance when she thought particularly hard about something. The air of misty concentration was fetching, especially to a certain sort of roughneck.

  “Security consultant.” Jorie told her conscience to shut up. It was technically true. This was one of her least favorite parts about being a Lightfall witch—having to lie.

  Or not exactly lie, just keep parts of the truth to herself. Splitting ethical hairs came with the territory.

  I don’t like this territory. I’ve never liked it.

  “Oooooh.” Virgie rocked back on her hee
ls, her interest well and thoroughly piqued—or at least, piqued enough to overcome her own troubles. “You’ve been holding out on me, Jorie. That’s not very friendly.”

  Neither is he, really. He barely said five words to me this morning. No, it was definitely not at all how she thought a bonding would go. Oh, she’d thought about it, of course—what witch didn’t? Lightbringers liked muscle-bound, protective men as much as normal women did.

  “It didn’t occur to me.” But Jorie relented as Virgie’s face fell. “I just feel like hell. Bad night.”

  “With that hunk around?” The redhead folded her arms, leaning against the cubbyholes. She was always ready to leave the studio first, mostly because Jorie lingered, wanting the post-class relaxation to last as long as possible.

  “Hunk?” Jorie tried not to sound baffled. He wasn’t bad looking, she supposed; the air of intensity most Watchers carried would be honey to plenty of women who couldn’t see the redblack pulsing of Dark they carried.

  Besides, every girl liked a bad boy, right? And Watchers were some of the baddest around.

  I don’t make him hurt, but maybe there’s some kind of mistake. Maybe it’s not a proper bonding; maybe it’s just that I’ve treated so many of them for despair. Her headache threatened a return and her back ached, her vision blurring with the pain. A two-hour coffee date would just exhaust her further, but she’d already promised.

  Virginia forged blithely ahead. “You’re impossible. Are you going to invite him with us for coffee? I mean, I don’t want to interfere if you had plans.”

  Jorie opened her mouth to answer—Of course, don’t be silly—but the world took on a wavering underwater quality. Her ears filled with cotton, a heavy waterfall roar echoing inside her skull, and the Finding pulled hard. Her legs folded, and the last thing she heard before her head hit the bench on the way down was Virginia’s horrified gasp.

  Worth His While

  “YOU DIDN’T HAVE to do that.” Caleb’s witch held the blood-soaked gauze pad to her temple, grimacing. “It was the women’s dressing room, for God’s sake.”

  I should have just let you go into a seizure right there on the floor? But he understood. Most of the gifted considered their talents little better than curses, and it looked like she was no exception. He put the car in gear and checked the nonexistent traffic, pulling out as ice-freighted rain spattered the windshield.

  Caleb kept his mouth shut; he also accelerated perhaps a little harder than he needed to, steering the Volvo onto West Markham.

  “Virginia’s going to tell everyone. They’ll all notice me now. I hate that.” Mournfully, she dabbed at the drying blood on her forehead; she’d hit herself hard on the temple, and head wounds were messy. The gash was closed now, thanks to Caleb—he’d felt a powerful burst of fear and disorientation as he stood in the studio’s lobby, staring unseeing through the window into the wide bright wood-floored room where just lately his witch had been a swan among blackbirds, dancing as if gravity was merely a convention.

  He barely remembered palming the door to the dressing room open and dealing with a half-hysterical redhead in his way, Jorie bleeding on the floor, curled into a fetal position as her aura pulsed and glittered, a Seer’s distress call.

  Caleb could still taste his own fear, an explosion of copper-crimson matched to snarling, well-nigh uncontrollable anger almost closing his fingers around a gun. He’d ended up going down so hard on one knee his teeth rattled, closing the bleeding wound with a swift snarling lash of red-hot Power and gathering Jorie close.

  It was day two. He wasn’t going to make it a week, let alone half a year, especially if she kept being so brave and so . . .

  He couldn’t find the word. Didn’t the woman have any mercy at all?

  Jorie sighed, a weary sound. With as much bourbon as she’d taken down, it was a wonder she’d dragged herself out of bed this morning. That kind of hooch was hard on the body, and she was just a little thing.

  “I wish you’d say something.” The wistfulness in her tone pricked at his conscience. No witch should ever be so tentative around her Watcher.

  “I pushed the redhead.” I don’t sound like I’m going to hurt someone. It’s a miracle. “You won’t have any trouble from her. Nobody else saw, I made sure of it.” Holding enough of a glamour to let a black-coated Watcher carrying a half-conscious witch go unremarked was easy; the trouble was making his hands let go once he’d buckled her in the car.

  “Well, there’s that to be grateful for. Ouch.” She shifted in the seat as he turned to go up the hill on Fourteenth; her house was close. Maybe that’s why she’d chosen that particular studio. “I would have been all right, you know. I just blanked out for a few moments. It was—”

  “What did you See?” I don’t matter, I’m just a stupid Watcher. No use in spending your energy lying to me, babe. The rain intensified, ice at its heart; he had to tap the brakes as a yellow Toyota pulled out in front of him, the man in the driver’s seat jabbering into his cell phone.

  “It’s not like that. I’m not a regular Seer.” She balled up the gauze in her right hand and squeezed like it had offended her, knuckles turning white. The radio burbled softly, classical music turned down low. He didn’t have the heart to turn it off; she apparently liked music while traveling. “It’s something I have to Find.”

  Okay. “Find.” He repeated it only so she knew he was listening. I don’t like it when the sun’s not out. Why do they have to live this far north? Things would be easier if we could get the Lightbringers to stay under cover, observe a few precautions.

  That wasn’t a thought guaranteed to keep him out of trouble. None of this was.

  Jorie stared out the window. “I have to go back to the precinct.”

  Silence. Tinny violin music slid through the speakers. The engine kept running, and he kept the car on its prescribed course. “Beg your pardon, ma’am?” It was as close as he could get to a protest. You need to get home, under cover, and go back to bed. Sleep off whatever fit of insanity this is.

  “Neil’s going to need me.” She sounded very certain. “There’s another body. Or . . . at least, that’s what I think it is.” Her aura thinned, sparkling-luminescent with pain.

  Body? There’s no way I’m going to let you near a corpse. He settled for the most obvious objection. “You’re in no shape to do more Seeing.” Or Finding. Or whatever you’re planning. It came out flat and severe, skirting the edge of disobedience.

  Skirting? No, he was in full-fledged revolt. Did your other Watchers let you behave this way?

  Let her? She was the Lightbringer; he was only the Watcher. If there was any letting, she’d be doing it, not him.

  Just remember that. Don’t get yourself in more trouble.

  He knew, miserably, that he wasn’t going to listen to any kind of good advice. Not now. Before he went back to the safehouse, either in disgrace or if by some miracle he managed to last six months without confirming what she had to suspect by now, a few things were going to change around this beautiful, misguided little witch.

  “I didn’t mean right away. I’ll have to stop at my house to clean up and get changed.” She sighed again, folding her left arm over her midriff and pressing, hard.

  It didn’t look like hangover pain. Something unsteady rose behind his breastbone, and it was official—he was in very deep trouble indeed. “What’s wrong?” It’s not disobedience; it’s asking for information.

  “There’s another body,” she repeated, as if talking to an idiot. “I know where to start looking for it.”

  You want to go traipsing off after a dead body? Not on my watch, baby. “And you think going to the police is a good idea?”

  She reached for the volume knob, turning the music all the way down. “I have to tell Neil. He can do something.”

  The cop. Distaste boiled hot
and acid in his throat. “He didn’t seem too inclined to listen last night.”

  “He’s a good man.” Defending a cop to her Watcher. She even sounded hurt.

  How did I screw this up again? Someone tell me, because I don’t understand. “He may be.” Caleb could grant as much as a hypothetical exercise, though he knew exactly what kind of cop—what kind of man—that curly-headed fucker was. He tried to manipulate you into doing something dangerous, and if I hadn’t been there, who knows what might have happened? He took a deep breath, searching for calm. The question of what another Watcher would have done in the situation was, right now, completely academic. “I don’t dispute that.”

  Except he did. He disputed it all the way down to the ground, because he’d once been just like Mr. I-Like-Mysteries, Hotcakes.

  And who, for the love of the gods, called a woman hotcakes anymore? Honey was okay, sweetheart was better, and then there was his own personal favorite for when you were serious—

  Which he could never let escape his lips, so it was best to not even think it.

  “You don’t like him.” Again, the wistful tone, dammit. It just wasn’t right for a witch to sound so uncertain of her own Watcher.

  Then again, I haven’t given her much in the way of reassurance. Big dumb idiot, Caleb. “I’m your Watcher.” He concentrated on driving. Anything else was only going to get him into trouble. In other words, it doesn’t matter if I like him or not.

  “What does that have to do with . . .” Her aura flared, sharply. “Oh. Ow.” A little hurt sound escaped her.

  A flare of red rage surprised him again. She shouldn’t be in pain, this gentle, absolutely beautiful witch. “Hang on. We’re almost there.” He almost said home instead of there; it was her home, but he didn’t have a single place in the world that the term would apply to.