Jesus Christ, everything’s not even close to all right. “Is that what you See?” he croaked, his throat dry as a desert stone.
“Sometimes.” Her mouth turned down a little. That was distracting, because the temptation to kiss her until it relaxed was almost irresistible.
“How do you . . .?” The question died. He was still clutching her hard enough to bruise fine, delicate skin. Caleb was lying on the floor, and she was trying to comfort him. He tried to surge to his feet and failed, almost knocked her over, as a matter of fact. Stopped, steadying himself on his knees. Give it a second. You’ll be okay, Watcher. You could fight now, if you had to. “I’m fine.” His voice still refused to work properly, a harsh rasp. “You. See those things. Jesus.”
It wasn’t right. No witch should ever see shit like that. She shouldn’t even know those horrific things existed.
“It’s all right.” Still trying to soothe him, her curls beginning to spring up now that her hair was drying. “Don’t worry. Everything’s okay, you just need a deep breath or two.”
There was a slight click, and the back of Caleb’s neck itched. He lifted his head, slowly.
Detective Neil, the fucker who lied to Caleb’s witch, had his back to the wall. Sweat gleamed on his face, dampened the hair at his temples, and greased his hands.
He had his service revolver out, and leveled.
Caleb’s rage slipped its leash, a wash of blinding red. A tiny, thread-thin voice, with all Jorie’s soft, sweet huskiness, tried to tell him the gun wasn’t directed at her but at her Watcher. Which was okay, he supposed—except it was pointed in Jorie’s general vicinity, and that could not be allowed.
Ever. Especially not while Caleb was alive.
He was barely aware of moving. Jorie let out a short blurting cry, and the next thing he knew, Caleb had the gun twisted out of the detective’s human-weak fingers and had him against the wall, arm cross-braced across his lying throat. “Lie to her, will you?” The words were barely human, a tanak’s growl edging each syllable with razor wire. “Go ahead. Lie again.” If you can. If you have the breath once I finish throttling you.
“Caleb!” Jorie, utterly horrified. “What are you doing?”
“He’s lying, witch.” His attention centered on the threat to her, the threat he was going to remove one way or another. “Aren’t you. You have a suspect. You have a clue.” You have more than that, I’d bet my knives on it. “You want her to do something else for you.”
“Caleb.” Very carefully, Jorie approached, sunshine against his back. He tensed as she took another step toward the danger this fucking normal-core asshole represented. “Let him go. Please.”
The cop’s face was brick-red. Neil choked, and Caleb found he didn’t care. “Let me give you a simple pointer, fatboy. You don’t lie to my witch. And let me give you another. You don’t fucking point a gun anywhere near her. Clear?”
“Caleb. Let go of him right now.” Firm and calm, but with an undertone of hysteria he didn’t like at all. “That’s an order, Watcher.”
He would have to push the man to forget she’d mentioned Watchers. All things should be so easy, yet the tanak growled inside his bones. Pain spiked, roiling under his skin. She’s in danger, he thought desperately, staving off the thing’s restlessness. This man is a threat.
But the cop was only human. Normal. He wasn’t enough of a threat to make a Watcher break out in a sweat.
Then why am I holding him against the wall? And I’m sweating, too.
“Caleb.” She was very close, and her aura thrummed with distress. “Let go of him. He can’t breathe.”
I don’t care. But Caleb did care that she sounded so upset at the notion. His arms loosened and he dropped the cop—but not before making certain the revolver was safely in one of his pockets.
Looked like Altamira police hadn’t updated to Glocks yet. It figured.
The detective fell straight down, his knees smacking hardwood with soft, painful thumps.
“Oh, Neil.” Jorie pushed past Caleb and knelt beside him, reaching to help. Her earrings glittered, and her skirt pooled gracefully. “I’m sorry.”
She was apologizing to this liar. The rage almost broke free again, circling, looking for an outlet.
Calm down, Watcher. You’re going to do something she can’t forgive, if you don’t. He took a deep breath, suspecting it was too late. The horrible things she Saw reverberated inside his skull, writhing and taunting. If there were gods, why would they make Lightbringers so soft and gentle, and yet allow them to suffer that? It was a mystery, one well past his understanding, and it almost pushed him into rage again.
Control returned, one small thread at a time. I think I just did something really, really stupid.
It wouldn’t be the first time, but still.
“Jesus Christ!” The detective was having a hard time keeping up with current events, so to speak. “His eyes—what the fuck? What the fuck?”
“It’s all right.” Jorie’s aura stretching soothingly, calm and soft. Her hair, working free of the chignon, was a cloud of damp-drying silk. “I can explain. Take a deep breath, Neil. Please.”
Neil tried to push himself into the wall, away from Jorie’s hands. “Don’t. Touch me. Don’t.”
The growl rose under Caleb’s skin. He tried pushing it down, but the windows rattled, framed pictures vibrating against the walls.
Jorie glanced up. “That’s enough.” She didn’t sound angry, just exhausted. At least she was calm—a hysterical witch might drive a Watcher into one of the blackest of rages, attempting to kill whatever was tormenting her. “Go get a glass of water. Bring it to me.”
He didn’t want to leave her alone in a room with the lying sonofabitch, but it was an order. The tanak rose inside his bones, a warning of barb-wire pain if he dared disobey further. He could argue that she was in danger, but he knew better—and if he did, so did the thing in him that made him a Watcher.
The thing he’d all but begged them to train him to take, the thing he’d accepted because it was a chance to atone, the thing he couldn’t blame for what he’d just done. It hadn’t been the semi-Dark almost-parasite forcing him.
It had been, simply and solely, his own stupidity.
Christ. I’ve fucked up. Caleb backed up on unsteady legs, turned on his heel. Each step toward the kitchen was like the beat of a drum announcing a life sentence.
I really shouldn’t have done that.
It was too late now, wasn’t it.
Difference, Wanting
NEIL WAS STILL shaken.
“You’re all right,” Jorie told him. Her hands were stiff and cold, and her heart pounded so hard she felt a little woozy. “You’re at my house, you’re okay, nothing’s going to happen to you.” She sounded like a Watcher orienting a frightened witch. Did they ever feel this way while saying the same words?
This . . . unsteady?
“What the fuck is he?” Neil’s ribs heaved, his face screwing up like a child with a bitter lollipop. “His eyes were red, Jorie! Fucking red!”
And glowing. You forgot the growl, too, and the way he lifted you up like you were made of paper. Right after he finished having some sort of seizure on the floor. Well, my life is never boring. There was no help for it, Caleb might even have to push Neil to help him forget a few details.
Most “normal” people didn’t want to know about the truly strange, or the almost-invisible. Plenty of times they forced themselves to forget or were wise enough not to open their mouths and be taken for kooks, but a push would make sure, and it would keep her—and all her fellow Lightbringers—safer.
Jorie exhaled sharply, wishing her pulse would calm down. She’d gotten all her cardio for the month in the past half-hour or so. “He’s my protection, Neil. He won’t hurt you, I promise.”
>
“He held me up against the fucking wall!” Neil pushed her tentative, helping hands away. “What the fuck are you doing here, you nutcake?”
It was only to be expected that his anger would fasten on her. She was the safest, closest target, and that was how humans coped with the irrational.
Still, it hurt, and it was the one of the dangers a Watcher was supposed to protect a witch from. They couldn’t cover everything, though. Nobody could, even with a tanak, guns, knives, swords, and whatever else. “I live here, Neil.” A little bit of wry humor might help defuse the situation. “Remember?”
Neil wasn’t willing to be defused. “Jesus.” His hand made a swift, abortive movement, patting at his empty shoulder holster. “He’s got my gun!”
“He’ll give it back in a moment.” Once he’s sure you’re not going to use it on me. “Look, you know I’m . . . different. I can do things other people can’t. So can he.” It had to be the most laughable reduction of a complex situation she’d ever heard, but going into specifics with a detective seemed like a bad idea even on a night full of nothing but terrible choices. “He thought you were threatening me.”
Neil looked past her and visibly shrank as Caleb’s shadow fell over them both. “Water.” The Watcher’s voice was a husk of itself, as if his throat was dry.
She didn’t blame him.
“Thank you.” She took the glass, and wished she had a good idea of how to handle this. “Leave his gun on the coffee table, please. Go out and check the street.” It was a transparent excuse to get Caleb temporarily out of the house, and if he dug in his heels over it, they were going to have even more trouble.
The Watcher simply nodded. He was deathly pale, and his eyes glowed fiercely. No trace of red, but the blue was paler than it had been, and the tanak twisted under his skin. It was always disconcerting to see rippling under flesh as the symbiote twitched. He slid across the room, stumbling fluidly with a Watcher’s uncanny grace, as if the floor was rolling underneath him.
Or as if the tanak was still moving, forcing him to obey an order. If the creature could tell she wasn’t in any danger but he was resisting, it would punish him.
Or maybe her aura hurt him after all. Even if she didn’t want it to.
“Jesus Christ.” Neil waited until the front door closed to push past Jorie and scramble to his feet. He made it to the coffee table and retrieved the gun in a trembling hand. He brushed the folders together with a few quick, sloppy motions. “Fucking nutcase. Fucking red-eyed . . . Jesus.”
Red-Eyed Jesus. Isn’t that a band name? Another pale attempt at humor, one she didn’t dare voice.
Water trembled inside the glass. Jorie stayed on her knees, half-twisted to watch Neil’s blundering passage. He had to holster the gun to get the files together; the legal pad lay on the floor, and he glanced but didn’t bother to grab it. Instead, he twitched guiltily when he caught her looking.
The haunted, hunted look was a first on him. Jorie’s free hand lifted, her fingers reaching as if to bridge the gap between them. Her aura stretched too, trying to dispel the fear.
Neil blundered away, his calves pushing the coffee table towards the couch. He was running when he hit her front door. It slammed behind him, and a few moments later, Jorie heard his red Dodge’s door slam too. The engine caught, and he burned rubber down her quiet street.
Her heart ached. Neil probably wouldn’t talk, but visiting him after this to make sure would be awkward.
And painful. She’d learned a long time ago people didn’t really want to know she was different. They didn’t really want to know about the Watchers either, and that not-wanting was one of Circle Lightfall’s best allies. Those who believed either envied a witch’s gifts, had gifts of their own that were just as much curse as help . . . or they hunted witches for reasons she couldn’t even begin to understand.
She didn’t understand why they were called gifts, either. There was nothing joyous or even pretty about the effects. Unless you were a healer, and dear gods, why couldn’t she have been born that way?
Her throat was full, and her cheeks were wet. “Damn it,” she said softly, to her empty living room, and creaked to her feet like an old woman, shuffling to the coffee table. Half the water went down in one long gulp, and she set it on the table because she suspected some of it might come right back up. The only thing that resurfaced was an acidic half-burp, though.
Still, the drink steadied her. She only wished it was bourbon, or something similar. Crawling into a bottle and never coming out might not be very mature, but she saw the attraction.
It took her two tries before she could bend enough to get the legal pad off the floor. She stared at the drawing, a small sound driven from her lips as if she’d been punched in the stomach. She dropped down on the couch, all the starch leaving her legs again.
There, in bold blue penstrokes, was the Altamira skyline seen from a certain parking lot. She recognized the buildings, the concrete walkway, and the half-shell bus shelter. The lot led into the Altamira Zoo, the gates just visible. A scrolled-iron sign over the gates dripped with rain, and she’d slashed thin drops of precipitation across the page.
The picture was unfinished, and good luck completing it now. The tugging in her stomach had disappeared.
She couldn’t even feel grateful for that. “Damn,” Jorie whispered again, and wiped at her cheeks. Even while she wept, she was careful not to get any droplets on the paper.
To Be Kind
HE DIDN’T COME back into the house until dawn. Jorie spent the entire night uselessly tossing and turning; she could feel him out in the darkness, moving from one part of the neighborhood to the next. Prowling like a wounded tiger, instead of a hawk in a cage.
Sleep was an impossibility, so when the sun rose she was in the kitchen, listening to the coffeemaker burble and scrambling eggs. She dropped the spatula when the kitchen door swung open, and snatched it up again just as quickly, tucking a dark curl behind her ear and taking a deep breath.
She even sounded halfway normal. “Come in and dry off.”
“Oh.” Caleb shut the repaired door with a decisive click. “I, um. I . . .”
She leaned against the stove’s warmth, took him in from head to toes. He wasn’t quite dripping, but his hair was damp-dark and the sullen rage was back, circling under the tension in his jaw and the bleached-blue glow of his eyes. A dull red stain lingered high on his cheekbones from the chill, though he was putting out enough heat a thread of condensation touched the kitchen window. His shoulders were straight, neither hunched nor thrown back, and he looked utterly, completely miserable.
“Come on.” It really wasn’t that hard to be kind, she reflected. Anyone could do it; all it took was a little patience. “I don’t know how you like your bacon, so I did half of it mushy and half cremated. The hash browns and eggs are almost done. There’s orange juice at your place at the table, and the coffee will be up in a moment. But you will have to take your coat off. Some dry clothes would probably be a good idea, too.”
“Apology.” He inhaled sharply, as if the word hurt him. “I owe you an apology. I—”
Or I owe you one. At least I don’t think Neil’s going to tell anyone. If he did, though, Caleb would have to deal with it—and that was purely and simply Jorie’s fault. “I am not discussing this until you eat,” she said firmly. “I’m not sending you back to the safehouse just yet, and I’m not going to yell at you. Precious lot of good that would do, wouldn’t it? Just get cleaned up for breakfast.”
“Ma’am.” His mouth worked for a second. “I—”
“It’s not ma’am.” Her hold on her temper frayed, but held. After all, this was only his third day. “It’s Jorie. And you’re Caleb, and you’re going to go clean up, then sit down. We’re not talking about this until after breakfast. I’m hungry. Go.”
; Wonder of wonders, he obeyed. It was a good thing, too. He probably wasn’t going to like what she had to say, and it would be best if she got them both fed first.
Brittle Calm
HE’D EXPECTED tears or anger, but this brittle, firm calm was something else. Of course, most Lightbringers tended to blame themselves before someone else. But still, he’d almost killed a detective in her living room. A Lightfall witch would understand just how close it had been.
She’d also understand that if the detective went mouthing off about Jorie’s “boyfriend” and hidden talents, it was a Watcher’s job to shut him up. One way, or another.
Caleb also expected a short hop back to the safehouse, sent to the dorms to anticipate the worst before . . . what?
He’d committed an indiscretion, as one of his trainers used to put it. Stone had been a master of understatement; maybe that was why they’d had him training so many junior Watchers. The old man was bonded too, the lucky bastard. Maybe that was why he possessed the most even temper possible when you had a tanak grinding inside your body, hunching at the bottom of your brain like some horror-movie basement beast.
Caleb washed up in the downstairs bathroom; a few moments’ worth of concentration had him dry and clean, even a tingle inside his mouth to keep his teeth fresh. He ignored the toothbrush still in its packaging and the unopened tube of Crest; maybe he’d known he wouldn’t be here long.
Maybe he’d even wanted to be provoked.
Right on time, something—either his anemic conscience or well-fed self-loathing—piped up as he trudged back into the dining room. You wanted to kill that cop. Indiscretion isn’t the word that applies, Watcher. You could be put on notice for this, and—
Finder (The Watchers Book 6) Page 11
