Finder (The Watchers Book 6)

by Lilith Saintcrow

  More relief swamped her, hot and almost terrifying in its intensity. “You’re all right.” She sounded wondering, even to herself. They’d been lucky. “Thank the gods.”

  “Of course I am.” A flicker of feeling crossed his beaky face, was gone in a flash. His eyes gleamed, the tanak making a sharp, quickly controlled motion.

  “What happened?” Oh, she knew—her cursed talent had put him in danger, just like always, and she’d probably given the healers here a good scare, too. At least they couldn’t catch Darksickness from her.

  Small mercies.

  “We went to the zoo. You remember that?” He waited for her nod, his hands dangling loose and easy. At least he wasn’t standing at parade rest, like some of them did when questioned. “You were Finding something. There was Dark hiding in the drainage pipe.”

  “Drainage pipe.” A shudder went through her. The tentacles, and the thing reaching through the iron grille—oh, now she remembered, and it filled her with uneasy nausea and fresh urgency. “Yes. I’m so sorry, Caleb.”

  “Huh?” His head cocked, those toffee highlights in his tousled hair gleaming, and he managed to look baffled. “For what?”

  “For taking you down there.” She plucked at the covers. Shower. Probably have to wear these clothes again, then we can get going. “I’ll get cleaned up and we’ll get something to eat—breakfast?” She waited until he nodded. Yes, it was morning, she’d lost a whole day. Damn it. “Then will you take me home? I don’t like staying here any longer than I have to; someone else can always use the room more.” And I want to be home. Gods above, I want to be home before I have to start untangling this.

  “You should probably stay put and rest,” he said, immediately. “Healer’s orders, all right? And, Jorie . . .”

  “Hm?” She slid her feet from under the blankets, wincing a little as muscles twinged in unexpected places. “How long was I out? I’ll probably miss class again.” She suppressed a flare of irritation. Getting angry over missing a single dance class was selfish in the extreme, but she couldn’t help herself. “Did you get hurt?”

  “Jorie.” At least he wasn’t calling her ma’am. “There’s something else.”

  There always is. “Did someone else get hurt?” she whispered.

  “No.” His hands tensed, curled loosely before he forced his fingers apart with what looked like an effort. “It’s your house. I’m sorry, Jorie. Your house is gone.”

  Circle for a Reason

  “I’M SO SORRY.” Sarah’s arms crossed over her belly as if it hurt. It probably did; all Seers were empaths to a degree. The dark-haired Council liaison stood at the end of the kitchenette counter, a cup of peppermint tea rapidly cooling beside her, her braided hair threaded with ribbons as usual. “Hayley and Martina will be by with some clothes and other things in a little bit.”

  Jorie stared numbly at the pictures. Big, glossy 8x10s spread on the counter showed the devastation. Her house was . . .

  Well. It was just gone.

  She wouldn’t have chosen this kind of framing to illustrate devastation for a client. There was nothing left. It was no longer recognizable as a dwelling, just a jumble of scorched timbers and mangled ashes under a suggestion of slashing rain. The walls were skeletons, the roof had fallen in—even her garden, though she wasn’t very good at weeding, was a blackened mess. The interior was a ghostly shell, shelves and furniture reduced to charred sticks. Some parts of the fence were scorched, too. The garage was a hole, concrete floor buckled and discolored.

  “Neighbors called it in,” Sarah continued, softly. “By the time the fire department got there the whole structure was involved. The reports are behind the pictures. We’ve already started on the insurance stuff; there won’t be a problem with that.”

  Of course, that was part of being a Lightfall witch. Paperwork was handled, authorities given just enough information, lawyers retained—and what cash or paper couldn’t do, the techwitches and Watchers would handle.

  How on earth did lone Lightbringers do it, all on their own? The Watchers called them flyers because they tended to move around a lot, one step ahead of the hunting Dark. Jorie herself had been on the move, filling out forms for transferring between colleges after her parents’ car accident when the Circle found her. A Watcher had been on invisible guard duty until Dorinda had made contact, the professor Jorie liked most fixing her with a mild but paralyzing look and saying Surely you didn’t think you were the only one, hm?

  Then Circle Lightfall had closed around her and she’d had a Watcher ever since. Warmth, safety, help with tuition and the rest of the cost of living—they couldn’t replace her family; nothing could. But they tried, and every Lightbringer she met did their best to be kind.

  “My work files,” Jorie managed, numbly. She had cloud backups, certainly, but just thinking about the jobs waiting for her since she’d finished the Boyleston mess was exhausting. She couldn’t work without proper programs, not to mention hardware, and her workspace set up correctly. Plenty of her pay went into the communal Lightfall kitty since the Circle took care of her house and utility payments. It was only right, and yet she never felt like she was doing enough.

  “They recovered your desktop and laptop; the techwitches are doing what they can. Requisitions will have new computers for you, whenever you go down there.” Sarah touched her tea mug with a fingertip, gauging its temperature. A moment’s worth of attention and a few excess therms blew away, and she picked up the cup with a sigh. “Jorie . . . the fire wasn’t natural. The team who went down to collect whatever could be saved said it reeked of Dark. And you were attacked at the zoo at roughly the same time. What’s going on?”

  There it was, the question she dreaded. “I don’t know yet,” she hedged, and her gaze was drawn unwillingly to Caleb, who was looking fixedly at the tiled kitchen floor. “I do work that isn’t quite normal. Sometimes.”

  “What witch doesn’t?” Sarah’s amusement was a gentle warmth, but she had Dorinda’s penetrating look when she wanted to deploy it. Sometimes Jorie thought the Council liaison could give Dori a serious run for her money in the gentle interrogation department. “You mean with the police to catch criminals, or something else?”

  So she knows. “I catch killers.” Jorie suppressed the urge to sigh. Sooner or later, she was going to be found out, and in retrospect, her frantic secrecy seemed a little childish. Sarah had probably known all along, but just not mentioned it with a fellow witch’s tact. “Six cold cases since I moved to Altamira, and the Alton Heights Bomber.”

  “That was you? I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised.” Sarah picked up her mug, finally, visibly glad of its warmth as she curled her fine-boned hands around the thick yellow pottery. “You were also in the hospital around that time a couple years ago, weren’t you? The paperwork said a mugging.”

  “Yeah.” The bomber—Stanley Mikkels, a former Army sergeant driven past endurance by the echo of terrible, wholly human trauma—hadn’t taken kindly to being discovered. She’d been between Watchers, sleeping at the safehouse for a week while some scheduling snafus were worked out and longing for her own home. Neil kept kicking himself over not being able to keep up when Jorie took off following the Finding.

  He’d sworn to quit smoking right after that, too. Sol, back at the precinct house wading through paperwork, had given them both a good scolding.

  Neil was unhurt, of course, and had arrived just in time . . . but Jorie’s leg still ached when the weather changed, and some of her nightmares were about the screaming, the crowbar, and the blood. “I swore the Watchers to secrecy, and since I wasn’t getting hurt—at least, not badly—” What was she expecting? Yelling? Finger-wagging? Both were as foreign to Sarah as relaxation was to a Watcher.

  Sarah shook her head. Her tone was utterly gentle, as if speaking to an invalid. “You don’t have to justify it to me.
We Seers understand, you know. There’s nothing you can do when a vision wants to strike.” Sarah glanced at Caleb, whose cheeks had pinkened slightly. He looked miserable, in the way only a Watcher under discussion could. “Don’t be too hard on your Watcher, all right? He had to tell us about this Detective Harvard and the possible connection with something non-mundane. As long as it was just human criminals, well, I understand. But Dark is something different, Jorie.”

  “I wasn’t sure it was Dark, to begin with. I’m still not.” She wasn’t lying, she told her conscience. The gruesome flashes could have been metaphorical instead of absolutely literal; sometimes, even a trained psyche shied away from a too-terrible truth, taking refuge in allegory. “And the things at the zoo might not be related.” That was pretty much a fib, but Jorie couldn’t see any way around it.

  “I see.” Sarah studied her for a long moment, and Jorie tried to look a little less guilty. The Council liaison took a long sip of peppermint tea, as if bracing herself. “Well, what can you tell me about the matter?”

  Oh, ouch. “Nothing until I know for sure.” She was just following her training, Jorie told herself. A Seer’s curse was dangerous enough without adding assumptions to the mix. Most of the work that closed the cold cases was dry and dusty, slogging through old records or sending Neil and Sol to carefully, patiently question old witnesses. Division of labor, Sol called it with a faint smile when he was feeling charitable. Jorie just pointed out the most efficient path to the arrest. “I have some suspicions, but it’s confusing. It isn’t an exact science, what I do.”

  “Well, your house could have been the work of those new Slayers. Especially since one of them failed the other night.” Sarah’s mouth pulled down, and the sadness in her eyes was tinged with bitterness as well. “Or it could have been wandering Dark attracted to the shields. Either way, I’m glad you weren’t there.”

  “Me too,” Jorie lied. If she’d been home, maybe she and Caleb could have stopped the fire. Or was it wrong to feel that way, since she now had a direction to take the case in? “Listen, is there anything on the news today? Anything about missing . . . people?” Missing children?

  “Odd you should ask.” Sarah’s expression turned grave. “Or not really, I suppose. A little boy went missing from the zoo just yesterday. The news mentioned something about a custody dispute, but . . .”

  And I’ll bet the little boy had black hair, and disappeared right in front of the tiger cage. And if she saw a grainy newspaper picture of him, she’d recognize the hopeful little face and the dimple in his left cheek.

  Jorie’s throat was dry; her head gave a deep, terrible throb, and her stomach turned over. She set her own untasted tea down. “How many does that make?” Reported, let’s say. Because I know there’s more.

  It was disturbing. Why wasn’t the media screaming about missing children? Now Neil’s hints about a Channel Twelve newscaster made even less sense.

  “I’d have to get one of the techwitches to go looking. Should I?” Sarah’s shoulders came up, and she set her mug down with a click. “And is this related to the Dark at the zoo, Jorie? Even if you only think it is . . .”

  “I don’t know yet.” It’s not a lie. I’m not entirely certain, and I can’t have anyone else muddying the waters. It’s bad enough I can’t go home and scry from there. She exhaled harshly, the liquid in her cup trembling. Chamomile tea for her nerves, but she’d have preferred a slug of bourbon. Or even some vodka, beloved in her college years for keeping the gruesome flashes at bay. “I know where to start looking, though. For right now, will you let me run it down?”

  “You’ll have all the help we can give,” Sarah said, firmly. As if there was any question—but could Jorie in all conscience put any of them in danger? It was a quandary. “Will you keep me posted? Please?”

  “Of course.” Jorie couldn’t help herself; she looked at Caleb. It wouldn’t be fair to try to keep him out of it; he was, after all, her Watcher. Even if she was a disappointment. “You can give my Watcher a dedicated cell, and we’ll call in the moment we have anything at all. Or need any backup.”

  “Now that’s a plan I can get behind.” Sarah picked up her soft grey pashmina, draping it over her shoulders as if she were going outside instead of simply moving through safehouse halls at her usual brisk clip, seeking out disorder and organizing it with a few crisp words. Lorenz was in charge of organizing her security if she ever left the safehouse, but Sarah hadn’t gone out in years. The shields keep the visions from being too bad, she’d said once, with a dry smile Jorie completely understood. “Don’t try to do everything alone, Jorie. We’re a Circle for a reason.”

  I know. And someone will get seriously hurt chasing this thing if I don’t move carefully. Not to mention the prospect of more victims if Jorie didn’t work fast and smart, as Sol was always going on about. “Yes ma’am,” she said into her tea, and waited until the door closed behind Sarah before letting her shoulders drop and the circling headache squeeze her temples.

  Silence stretched tense and uncomfortable between her and Caleb. He’d been doing his best to fade into the woodwork, of course, but now there was no help for it. He was probably asking his gods why he’d been saddled with such an incompetent witch.

  Finally, he stirred. “I’m sorry,” he said, dully. “I had to tell them.”

  I’m sure it didn’t bother you to give them Neil’s name. You don’t like him, and I can’t blame you. “You did the right thing.” Certainly he’d done better than she had, and honesty demanded she admit as much. “If you need anything from Requisitions, now’s the time to get it. We have an errand to run.”

  “Oh?” It was probably all the questioning he would allow himself; Caleb tensed, muscle by muscle, a greyhound sensing a race.

  “Yes.” Jorie drained the rest of her mug. She’d need all the calm the herbs could give her, if half of what she suspected was true. “We’re going to the library.”

  She could mourn her house and losing everything she loved later. Right now, Dark or normal human, there was a killer to catch.

  Second Thoughts

  HE’D EXPECTED . . . something else. Maybe not anger, but certainly disappointment, and a short sharp Go back out on patrol. I need a Watcher who won’t tattle on me.

  Never mind that he had to report something about Dark attacking her. Maybe he could have kept his mouth shut about the possible connection to a filthy false-mouthed cop, but Caleb wasn’t betting on it. Besides, he’d be lying to himself if he didn’t admit it felt good to bring the asshole to the attention of fellow Watchers. If Caleb couldn’t do anything about Detective Harvard, maybe they could. The prospect even held a certain grim satisfaction.

  “We should have taken the bus. Or the DAX line.” Jorie stared out her window; the Volvo was just fine, of course, even after careening through the streets to get her to safety. Plenty of Watchers liked fixing mechanical things, even if the current crop of computer chips in cars tended to go haywire when Power was present. The tires had been checked, the engine cleared, and Jorie’s car ran like a dream. “Parking’s going to be awful.”

  Caleb contented himself with a nod. “Safer.” I don’t want to risk you, witch. Been doing too much of that already. And he didn’t like her tense calm—but maybe this was her way of processing disaster. He hadn’t been around her long enough to tell. “Besides, if we need to go somewhere else in a hurry, we’ll have wheels ready.”

  “That’s true.” She turned from the view of rainy sidewalks and hurrying pedestrians as they crossed Frampton Circle, aiming for the downhill route that would bring them through residential districts to the main downtown branch of the city-county library system. “You haven’t even asked what we’re looking for.”

  “Figure you’ll tell me when you want me to know.” He touched the brakes, allowing an aggressive little white Datsun to cut in front of them. Expired tags,
too. That’s a bad stop waiting to happen.

  Other safehouse witches had brought clothes and supplies, a regular flyer’s kit for Jorie. She thanked them kindly, but each time the door closed behind someone who’d hauled in a fresh load, her pretty face would turn pale and she’d blink, furiously, before raising her chin and returning to whatever task was necessary to get them out the door. Bad enough to know that she’d lost everything—there probably weren’t even knickknacks or heirlooms left after a fire of that magnitude—but to see her quietly pushing down the heartbreak and getting to work was enough to make him even more bleakly furious, if such a thing was possible.

  She’d even turned the radio off. For a dancing witch who liked music so much, that was a troubling development. He was five days in and if things kept going like this . . .

  “Normally Neil badgers me.” She shuddered in the middle of a sigh. Maybe she wasn’t as calm as she wanted him to think.

  I’ll bet he does. Caleb kept his gaze on the road. That was the good thing about Volvos; not a lot went wrong even when you put them under a bit of strain. Some of the smaller, sportier cars went irecoverably off after a single hard chase; you wanted something more dependable to squire a witch around. It wasn’t like they couldn’t have signed out any car they wanted from the safehouse’s garage, but Jorie probably needed all the familiarity she could get right now.

  “It’s a nice change,” she continued. “I should tell you, the library’s going to be boring. I need to go through some microfiche. I think something’s going on, and if I’m right . . .”