Finder (The Watchers Book 6)

by Lilith Saintcrow

  Depends on if you liked it. But he couldn’t say that, so Caleb hunched his shoulders. “Couldn’t help it, ma’am.”

  “There’s another one. Before long you’ll be laughing.” Her shoulders eased, and the sudden release of tension was sweet to see. Another small victory. “Anyway, we might have to stay through closing, so could you . . .?”

  You don’t even need to ask. “We can stay as long as you need to.” He’d just have to go upstairs near closing time, push a few of the employees, and eye their security system for a few moments so he knew how to get her out unremarked. Arranging everything for a witch to work undisturbed was part of the job description. “So, one kid found near the pool and the other snatched from the zoo?” It was a chilling thought.

  “It could just be public places are where this thing hunts. If it’s Dark, and if I’m not getting my wires crossed, which could be happening.” She was back to tapping at her lips with the pen. “But the feeling just won’t go away, and I’m not sure . . .”

  “You weren’t sure it was Dark?” Or so she’d told the Council witch. A Seer’s gift wasn’t foolproof; so much could alter flashes of the future. It was nice to think some things weren’t predestined until you really started thinking about it—just like tanak-fueled longevity.

  “I have to account for the possibility; I’m trying to rule it out.”

  “Okay.” Dammit, he was trying not to sound dubious. She hunched towards the screen again, and behind the banter was a flash of something Caleb knew all too well.

  His witch was afraid. She hid it well, of course, which meant she’d had far too much practice. She’d been treating Watchers for despair—why had none of them, let alone her fellow Lightbringers, noticed how terrified she was and made some kind of note in the file, said something, done something?

  “If we can come up with a human suspect, I’ll be overjoyed,” she said, staring at the yellowed screen. It was chilly down here; she hadn’t even taken her peacoat off. At least that hadn’t gone up in smoke; she’d worn it to the zoo. “But honestly, if there was one, I think Neil would have found them.”

  “Unless he didn’t want to.” Caleb couldn’t help himself. “He was lying to you, Jorie.”

  “Yes, I heard you. But it’s not like him.” She shook her head, effectively closing off further discussion. “That’s what bothers me most, Caleb. Especially if there’s Dark involved.”

  Little Clothes

  THE LIBRARY CLOSED at one p.m. on Sundays, so Caleb went upstairs to make sure she could work undisturbed for as long as it took. Jorie seized the chance for a quick, head-clearing crying fit. Her eyes burned, hot and grainy, and she was glad her purse had a battered packet of just-in-case tissues. At least her ID and the bare minimum for daily life hadn’t been burned.

  Of course everyone would pitch in; the safehouse had plenty of clothes and other items just waiting to be used. Her photo albums, her collection of driftwood carvings, her sandalwood combs, and Aunt Basie’s crocheted afghans were in storage, for just this occasion. But her dishes, her framed prints, her grandmother’s rocking chair—all the little things she loved about daily life were gone, or if not destroyed, smoke-poisoned and grimed. Including her dance clothes, her collection of wax-dyed wooden eggs and the blue Bauer bowls that looked so beautiful sitting in mellow summer sunshine.

  Nothing was ever the same again, once broken. Just like nothing was ever the same after you found out you were a Lightbringer, and exactly what that meant. The Watchers held Lightbringers as the next step in human evolution, while some historically minded witches theorized psychic ability was a throwback to hunter-gatherer times, when a sixth sense—or a seventh, or an eighth—could help your tribe avoid danger.

  Even among psychics, Lightbringers glowed. The force and scale of their gifts, the ability to produce illumination both mental and physical, had made them Crusade targets by default. The early, semi-Inquisitorial hunters had dabbled in ceremonial sorcery, and the creatures they created to hunt what they thought were devil-worshipping excrescences were actually predators attracted to the glow that meant snacktime.

  A certain proportion of Lightbringers in an urban area was often correlated with lower crime rates, longer lifespans, and a few other beneficial effects. The Watchers said eventually, if they could just keep enough of their witches alive, all of humanity might benefit.

  But the cost was so steep. Jorie blinked furiously, forcing herself to concentrate on the microfiche reader’s glowing screen.

  She’d wondered how long it would take before she retreated into a safehouse in self-defense. It was looking like the time was quite probably at hand. At least if she got a permanent suite, she could bring some of her stuff out of storage and maybe stop drinking herself to sleep.

  Jorie wiped at her damp cheeks again, balling up used tissues. They’d have to go back into her purse; she didn’t want anyone to know she’d been sniveling.

  Never mind that Caleb would come back, take one look at her, and probably guess. Oh, he said he wasn’t disappointed, but what Watcher would be happy with all this bullshit?

  Maybe it was the tears, or the empty, head-ringing feeling of endorphins released after sobbing as quietly as possible with library dust in your nose. When she looked up again her free hand had clenched on the microfiche’s vertical control, moving the view an inch or so. Which meant Jorie saw a bold headline blatting something about “. . . ton Scandal” at the bottom corner of the screen.

  Alton scandal? I can’t be that lucky. She sniffed, heavily, and re-centered the viewer. Huh.

  Old Alton Scandal Finally Laid to Rest. The byline was one John Sieberman—and that was a newly familiar name, the reporter in the forties who’d dogged Gene Alton, old Harold’s grandson. Looked like Gene had finally consented to an interview, probably to address the implication of wartime racketeering. It also looked like shady business deals ran in the Alton family, but that was the story with most rich dynasties. More interesting was the terminology used—strange and mysterious were bandied about in almost every article about the Altons, a distressing number of which were damaged or missing.

  Jorie blinked several times, her aching eyes refusing to focus. If I didn’t know better, I’d call that a glamour. Then she frowned. Wait a minute. If I didn’t know better?

  She exhaled softly, centering herself, and looked again. The letters wavered with a strange underwater glimmer, warping this way and that.

  “Oh,” Jorie whispered. The basement, yawning cold and cavernous around her, was full of the hum of the air circulation system and the deeper electrical unsound of the microfiche reader, its bulk warming the desk. “Oh, shit.”

  The word died away, and a half-heard skittering sound brought her head up quickly, sending twin branches of pain down her aching back. Maybe it was a bookshelf groaning, or the building settling. How long had she been crouching down here, picking circles around a scab?

  Now that she was aware of it, the shimmer on the screen was glaring. It was powerful, if it affected the physical world this way. Still, by focusing and looking under the wavering, she could read a great deal of the interview.

  Which left her pretty much nowhere, since it was the usual be-kind-to-your-local-millionaire puff piece newspapers of that age excelled at. Except—

  Another soft skittering sound behind her, like tiny jeweled insect feet tapping metal. Jorie twisted in the familiar, uncomfortable chair, staring down the row of shelves Caleb had disappeared into.

  He was right upstairs. She was in no danger.

  Then why were her hands cold, and her teeth wanting to chatter? Why did a thin blade of pain slip through both her temples and twist? Why did Jorie rise, stuffing the used tissues and legal pad back into her bag, her pen dropping and bouncing under the machine?

  I’m not going after it. She backed up, her hip hitting the chair; i
ts legs dragged against cheap industrial carpet and one of its arms barked the metal desk with a clang. Jorie winced at the noise and ghosted sideways, moving like Piers had taught her—first you placed your foot, then you rolled through nice and easy, so you were balanced at every point in the motion.

  It was just like dancing. Caleb would probably make a good partner for a waltz; combat was a dancing game, too. Or at least, the Watchers doing katas or working a heavy bag made it look that way.

  The sound came again, a tiptapping rush and a clatter as it knocked something over. Now she was painfully aware of the clutter in every direction hemming in her vision, and the deep shadows in every corner. The restroom was to her left; you had to penetrate a tangle of shelves with cryptically labeled boxes and sealed plastic bags to get there. She’d used the facilities more than once, down here researching with Neil or Sol. The plumbing made a racket when you flushed, because this was an old building.

  Altamira Public Library, Downtown Branch. But it used to be the only game in town, and when it was, it was the Alton Library on Iroquois Avenue.

  Now she was trying to think if the sidewalk outside had that particular, old-fashioned curlicued iron grating over the storm drains. That style of storm drain was everywhere in the more elderly parts of Altamira. Old or new, they’d be gurgling with rain by now, if they weren’t choked with fallen leaves or other detritus.

  Another skittering, and a high-pitched, very soft, very nasty giggle came from her left. Jorie went still, her chin up and her heart hammering. Oh, gods. This isn’t good. Where’s Caleb?

  It was still a jolt to realize just how much of a coward she really was. The Watcher was upstairs; if something was coming through the plumbing, it was Jorie’s job to handle it.

  She didn’t even know what time it was down here, after staring at a screen for quite possibly hours. Was the library still open? If it was, there were children upstairs.

  Prey. She’d seen something take a child in broad, albeit rainy daylight.

  Oh no you don’t, whoever—and whatever—you are.

  Watchers could fight, sure. Lightbringers didn’t like causing pain—some of them got physically sick even contemplating the notion—but they were great at cleansing.

  Her hand dove into her bag again as a thick, burping chuckle came from an avenue of big metal shelves to her right. The skittering had become a rushing and a half-familiar miasma swirled in every direction, nose-stinging and acrid. It cringed from Jorie’s aura, and her fingers closed around a small glass spice bottle with a tightly screwed metal top.

  Once washed out and dried, it was just the right size for some salt, and there was precious little better for cleansing a space. Or for disrupting something Dark before it coalesced.

  She dragged the jar out and stumbled back as the skittering sounds lunged closer. Her head throbbed, and her throat closed to a pinhole. Her fingers were clumsy sausages, sweat slipping against the metal top, and she considered flinging the entire bottle—but there was no guarantee it would break, and she’d have lost her biggest weapon.

  Here goes nothing. “Creature of salt,” she whispered, “be thou purified.” Her fingers tingled as Power bled into the jar and what it contained, and the cap finally gave. The salt was already consecrated, but a little more never hurt.

  The skittering drew nearer and the darkness was full of pinprick-pairs, glitters of tiny eyes down low. If it was a glamour meant to terrify, it was a good one. It was stronger towards the left, where the restroom was—water was a good conductor for all sorts of energies, and if this thing slipped through the drainage tunnels—

  “Jorie!” A harsh, faraway cry.

  Maybe Caleb had noticed something amiss, or maybe it was a lure designed to make her complacent. Either way, the darkness thickened, lunging for her, and Jorie cast a handful of salt, crystals hang-flashing in midair as she pumped all the Power she could reach through them.

  Calling light, like kindness, was the easiest thing in the world. All it took was a moment’s worth of effort, and the lacework of flung mineral grains flared into green-gold sparkles, a vast sighing gout passing through Jorie and into the physical, crystalline matrices.

  The glow intensified, and she saw the creatures.

  They crouched in the flood of new light, tiny things twisted into terrible deformity, their eyes dull black glass buttons and their jaws working, serrated shark-teeth champing as they slavered and pressed forward against the thin shield of illumination. Their little paws scrabbled at the carpet, tearing gouges in its nylon and scraping concrete underneath, and Jorie realized she wasn’t going to be able to hold them off.

  So many. She stared, holding the light steady, and a tasteless wad of acid bile crawled up her throat.

  They wore clothes. Ragged, stained, and flapping, pants and shirts and small dresses all flapping obscenely as the tiny forms inside them moved in ways no human body should.

  Oh, gods. Hot acid bile crawled up and whipped at the back of her nose; she was going to vomit.

  “Jorie!” he yelled, again, sounding very far away.

  She poured out another handful of salt, dreamily. In a very short while the light would fade, and . . .

  Caleb resolved out of the darkness, his coat making hard snap as he reversed direction midair and landed amid the knot of pint-sized creatures straining at the light anchored by tiny crystals hanging in midair. The Watcher’s arrival shattered the fine thin threads of Jorie’s spell, sending the salt scattering, but each individual grain whipped towards the creatures like shrapnel.

  The Watcher had his knives out, crimson dapples dyeing the shelves as the runes in black metal woke with venomous red glow, and he actually kicked one of the things into another shelf, which teetered, groaning, on its bolted feet.

  Oh, dear, Jorie thought, and her fist closed around the salt bottle. She snapped a glance to her left, and saw the miasma retreating.

  Whatever it was, it feared a Watcher.

  The creatures let out tiny, twisted, piping giggles, scrabbling away on hands and feet. They retreated, but Caleb didn’t pursue. Instead, he backed up, a fast light shuffle ending with him in front of her, both knives out and reversed along his forearms, his coat tattered at the edges where claws and teeth had worried at tough leather and canvas reinforcement.

  He settled into still watchfulness. “Jorie?” The tanak’s harshness under her name was a deep thrumming growl. “Are you hurt?”

  “I’m all right,” she managed, shakily. “But you—”

  “Those things made you Darksick before.” He didn’t look back, but that high-powered Watcher radar was pinging in every direction. “I think we should get out of here.”

  Oh, yes. That would be nice. “The machine.” She focused on scrubbing the salt clinging to her palm back into the spice bottle, wishing her hands weren’t shaking so badly. “It’ll burn the film if I don’t—”

  “I don’t care.” But he didn’t move. “Quickly, then.”

  Of course. I’m not exactly sitting on my ass here. Her neck and temples throbbed with fresh pain—a spell without preparation or patterning, fueled by terror, was a sure recipe for a headache.

  At least it wasn’t the sickening, twisting blade of proximity to the Dark twisting inside her brain. Maybe she’d escaped the sickness—a piece of good luck she probably didn’t deserve, but she’d take it.

  She fumbled for the ’fiche reader’s off switch, found it. “I should put all the cans away.”

  “Already pushed one of the library people to come down and clean up tomorrow. Just in case.” He kept staring into the now-normal shadows at the end of the hall, but you could bet hard cash he was aware of every single thing in the entire basement, moving or not, right down to the dust particles.

  And you’d win that bet, Jorie knew. “Oh, good.” Her voice shook. But
they’ll notice the marks on the floor. Or will they?

  “We should call in,” he said, softly. “As soon as we’re out of here.”

  “No need.” Jorie’s throat ached. I don’t have anything yet. Except more questions. “We’re going straight back to the safehouse. I’m ready.”

  “Good.” He backed up another step, one knife vanishing, and half-turned. “This way, then.”

  He said nothing else. He didn’t need to.

  It was official. The disappearances were indeed something Dark.

  And it looked like it had been active for a very long time.

  Partners

  THERE WAS NO staining in her bright aura, but Caleb didn’t miss the pink in her nose or her red-rimmed eyes. Either he’d made her cry, or he’d been up dealing with the library employees while she wept alone. Neither thought would help him keep his temper, but he was a Watcher, for God’s sake, so he just set his jaw and observed every traffic law during a reasonably sedate drive through a cloudy winter afternoon back to the safehouse.

  Jorie, pale but composed, kept flipping through the legal pad of notes and scribbling on fresh pages, her hair tangling free of its chignon. And as soon as they were inside the shields, the Volvo handed over to the Watcher on parking duty, she set off not for her suite but for another quadrant of the safehouse complex that took up an entire city block, her chin up and her stride utterly determined as she passed through bright halls, painted in soothing colors. Statues of gods and goddesses glowing with Power, or art installations bright with loving care and attention, studded the sides at regular intervals, and pearly rain-washed sun came through skylights and wide, reinforced windows.

  Caleb followed in her wake, unsettled. It wasn’t like a witch to have no reaction at all to a Dark attack, let alone her house burning down, and he was just about to do something unforgivable—like grab her shoulder and demand she say something, anything—when she halted in a deserted hallway next to a fluidly carved marble statue of Ganesh and swung around. Her cheeks were deadly pale and her eyes flashed, and for a moment he thought she was going to snap Stop it, you’re not a real Watcher, get away from me.