Then where’s her Watcher? Hurt? In the car? AWOL? “Of course, ma’am. I—”
“Great. Just great. I suppose they deliberately planned this city to be impossible to navigate even with directions!” Her dark eyes were almost spitting sparks. Her aura sparkled, fizzed, and sent a jolt of sugary heat through Merrick’s entire body.
No. Can’t be. Impossible. He stood frozen to the drenched street, staring at her. It was im-bloody-possible. The only thing that could ever, possibly, conceivably feel like that was . . .
“I asked you a question, Watcher. Who the hell are you, and why were you following me?”
That snapped him out of it. She looked just about ready to fillet him with words alone. He would have far rather faced another batch of koroi. “Merrick, ma’am. Attached to the Blue Street Safehouse, Altamira. On patrol. I wasn’t following you, I saw the koroi just as you happened along.”
She eyed him with barely contained suspicion. “Perfect. Wonderful. Outstanding!” She suddenly stopped, clapped her hand over her mouth, and closed her eyes. Merrick observed this, curious, scanning the street. He had to get her under cover. The lure of a Lightbringer, as well as recent combat, would bring all sorts of Dark out to play.
“Oh, gods . . .” She made a low, hurt noise and swayed, holding onto the door. He suddenly understood why her aura was sparking so badly. Shock, and exposure to the Dark. She was probably skirting the edge of Darksickness.
Where’s my backup? Where’s her Watcher? Bloody hell.
“Ma’am?” He made his voice softer, attempting to lessen the harsh tone. “Maybe you’d best sit down.”
She swayed again, her knuckles white on the car door, and he made it to her just as her knees buckled. Caught her and lowered her down so she sat in the driver’s seat, automatically moving to block the worst of the rain as best he could. Between him and the bulk of metal, she was a little safer. Her aura touched his, slid along the edges of the red-black stain, and Merrick shivered. The feeling taunted the Dark in him, made it retreat growling.
He held his hand a scant inch above her shoulder—she was going to be soaked in a minute, the rain had intensified—and sent a flush of heat through her, the small Power charge slamming visibly through her aura. Her head dropped forward, and Merrick almost went to his knees, catching her shoulder and bracing her.
“I think I’m going to throw up.” Now she sounded very young. Who was this witch?
“If you must.” He tried to sound comforting. There was nobody else in the car. “Where’s your Watcher, ma’am? Is he hurt?”
She managed to give him an extraordinary, almost vengeful look before she dropped her head again, random curls of her hair falling down. Her braid was getting much the worse for wear, and Merrick was suddenly shaken with the uncharacteristic desire to smooth her hair back and say something comforting.
“I don’t have a Watcher,” she said to the pavement. The car was so low-slung he had no difficulty kneeling as he held her up. Damp soaked into the knee of his jeans. “I told the High Council to take them off me. I won’t—I won’t . . . oh, gods.”
No Watcher? But that was impossible. How could she be a Circle Lightfall witch, out alone after sundown, with no Watcher? Who had allowed that?
A flare of proprietary anger shocked him. He shook his head, his hair falling in his eyes and dripping down to his cheekbones. Her aura didn’t hurt him. There was only one reason why that could be. Only one, single, solitary reason why, even this close to her, the force of her light didn’t make his bones scream in agonized pain.
She was his witch.
Can’t be. I didn’t ever think I’d get a witch. It can’t be. Merrick glanced up. He scanned the street again, suddenly unaccountably nervous. “Does the car still run?”
“I th-think so, it j-j-just . . . I s-st-stalled it by standing on the brake when the k-k-kor—” Little shudders raced through her. Merrick glanced at the interior. A purse, spilled out, and a canvas bag on the passenger side floor. No room for anything else.
“Keys,” he said briskly, and checked the ignition. They were still there. The bonnet of the car was dented, and the cloth top would probably never be the same, but it appeared less damaged than he’d thought. “All right, ma’am. I’ll bring you in. You don’t have to worry. You’re safe now.”
Just as he said it, warning bells went off. He scanned the street again, and cursed to himself. The instinct of a hunted animal rose under his skin. Something else out there. If he was lucky it was only something, singular instead of plural.
“Safe?” She gave out a laugh that now sounded older than he would have thought. “Nothing’s safe, Watcher. N-nothing.”
She seemed too young to know that much about the world. “You’re safe now,” he said shortly, and pushed her upright to sit—but gently. “Can you climb over into the passenger seat?”
“I-I’ll dr-dr—”
Not right now, you’ll kill us both. It wasn’t strictly true, he could survive far more damage than she could. But his primary objective was to get her out of here, and one shocked and almost-Darksick witch wasn’t likely to be able to drive the way he could. “Can you get into the passenger seat?”
She raised her head and glared at him, then glanced down the street. Her pupils dilated, and her aura gave another extraordinary flash. Merrick bit down, his jaw freezing as she stared at the gathering patch of darkness scuttling between streetlamps, coming past the freeway offramp on Chess Street. It was a Slider, and a big one, most definitely attracted by the fight and her broadcasting. Her distress rang in the wet air like a gong, and his scars lit up with pain. But this time the pain had a softer edge—it was honeyed and spiked, and it made him suddenly acutely aware that her sweater was thin, damp, and clinging to her.
“Into the other seat.” He pushed her gently and she complied, scrambling. He saw she was wearing expensive-looking black heels, and was surprised to see her ankle under the nylons, slim and delicate and fascinating.
Goddammit, keep your mind on your work. Merrick slid into the driver’s seat and took a moment to push the seat back, she was much smaller than him and the car was tiny. But it started when he twisted the key, so he jerked the door shut, shifted, and gave it some petrol.
The car leapt forward as if it had never intended to stay still. He shifted once, twice, fished the cell phone out and hit redial with his thumb as the Slider broke into a lope behind them. With any luck, it would stop and feed on the psychic sludge of the koroi he hadn’t had time to cleanse from the air.
“Report.” It was Drake again.
“Merrick. Eastbound on Chess Street. Cancel the tow. I’m bringing the witch in. She’s in shock and I’m bloody well halfway there myself.”
“Pursuit?” Drake sounded calm. Of course, he was a Watcher.
“One Slider I can see. Nothing else. I’m going to take Eighteenth up to Blue and come in that way; less traffic and more chances to dodge.”
“Be careful. There’s a team coming out to bring you in.”
Merrick dropped the phone, shifted again, and stole a glance at the witch. She was pale, and in the dim light he could see the high arch of her cheekbone, the fans of her eyelashes as she closed her eyes, the sweet sculpted mouth pulled down as she fought nausea. A thin thread of something dark he hoped wasn’t blood traced down her chin.
“Just hang on, ma’am.” He tried to sound reassuring while glancing in the rearview mirror. The Slider had hunkered down over the remains of the koroi. “You’re safe.”
“Caro.” She gulped in air, reached over blindly, and held onto the door while he manipulated the car around a turn. The tires were a trifle splashy, but other than that everything seemed fine. He hoped it stayed that way, hoped nothing in the engine had been damaged. Power tended to make engines behave a little funny. “My name’s Caro.”
“Hallo, Caro.” He checked the street again and cursed to himself. There was something else following them, something that didn’t seem interes
ted in the remains of the koroi. “Don’t worry. You’re going to be all right.”
“Oh, I know that.” Did she actually sound irritated? “It’s you I’m worried about.”
The statement was so absurd he almost missed another turn up Sixteenth. He drifted the car into it, the scabbarded sword digging into his back. He was a Watcher, meant and trained for one thing: protection. He carried enough hardware to take on anything Dark and fight himself and a Lightbringer free; he had been taught to disregard pain very early, before he had even known Watchers existed. Why would she be worried about him?
He had no time to ask, because the Dark trailing them dove out of the night sky, and Caro screamed, a high thin sound that broke at the end. It was a s’lin, fully grown, and the air inside the car turned thick and choking as the torn Watcher wards tried ineffectually to beat the thing away. The cloth top ripped, Merrick slammed both the clutch and brakes at the same time, tearing the car into a tight circle and cutting across three lanes of traffic before slamming down on the petrol again. The street was almost deserted, headlights down at the other end, but nobody near enough to see. He reached over, his hand closing around her nape and forcing her head down just in case the claws tearing through the top of the car came close to her.
A jolt of agonized, narcotic pleasure tore up his arm. Merrick set his jaw and pumped all the Power he could spare into the torn and bleeding wards. The combination of the car’s sudden change of momentum and the flare of energy threw the s’lin free. Rubber screamed, he juggled trajectory and friction and came up with an answer he didn’t much like, twisted the wheel again. He would have to take a sharp turn on Doren to get over to Eighteenth, and there was plenty of time for the s’lin to catch them again.
Where’s my backup? And where’s her goddamn Watcher? No Lightbringer this bright should be without a Watcher. Well, don’t worry about it, not going to be a problem. If I can just get her to the safehouse it will be enough.
He considered praying, discarded it. Didn’t have time. Besides, the gods could be pleaded with, might even lend a hand, but it was up to this Watcher to make sure no harm came to her.
Cold wet air poured in through the rents in the top of the car. He let go of her, his fingers reluctant to slide free. The feel of her skin was such a relief from the constant grinding pain of the tanak that he was severely distracted, a distraction he couldn’t afford with a s’lin chasing them and the car’s engine suddenly making a sound he didn’t very much like at all.
“Don’t you worry about me, witch.” He made the turn onto Doren. Traffic was heavier here, and he hoped he could avoid police notice. That would be the very last thing he needed. “Just stay calm, and breathe deep.”
And you can pray, if you like, he added silently. The gods will listen to you more than me.
Then the s’lin drifted overhead for another pass, and Merrick forgot all about praying.
Three
She had only wanted to examine the directions again. She would have been on time, but had somehow gotten tangled up in a maze of streets and ended up getting progressively later and later, more and more lost in this strange city, and hungrier as well. Caro never thought well when she was hungry anyway. The lack of physical food detracted from her ability to keep the walls between herself and the emotions of other people swirling around her strong enough. And the lower the sun sank in the sky, the more frantic she’d become.
Then she’d been slowly aware of something lurking in the streets, something that was taking an active interest in her. The weather moving in from the sea had made dusk arrive early, and she wasn’t sure when she’d come to the attention of the koroi She’d just looked up from the map and seen the low, slinking shape between two streetlamps, recognition making her heart hammer and her palms go wet. Her instinctive reflex to get away, stamping on the gas and twisting the wheel, had probably saved her life.
Caro squeezed her eyes shut, hearing the Watcher beside her curse under his breath as rubber screamed and the car twisted around a corner. I should have my seat belt on. He should have his on too. It was a useless thought. Warmth filled her nose; she was bleeding. A nosebleed, probably spurred by the Dark.
“Backup,” he muttered. “Any time now, mates.”
The cell phone, wedged between Caro’s hip and the console between the two seats, buzzed insistently. Caro reached blindly for it—the Watcher had his hands full, and if someone was calling it was probably important. The car slewed again, and she felt the scraping, awful passage of the thing chasing them overhead, like a serrated knife slipping under the skin of an apple, tearing. Her hand closed around the phone’s sleek exterior, and she stole a glance at the man who had appeared out of nowhere.
He was much bigger than her. Most Watchers were, since the tanak gave them denser bone and muscle structure, and constant combat kept them in shape. But this Watcher had a shock of dark hair, longer than most other Watchers wore theirs, falling over his face. He glared through it with a pair of bright-green eyes glowing with furious intensity. Most Watchers developed a piercing gaze after a while, the tanak bleaching out their irises. The rest of his face was shadowed, and the concentric rings of awareness he sent out—a kind of Watcher radar—were familiar to her from a childhood spent in Circle Lightfall. He sounded a bit odd when he talked, a clipped foreign accent she hadn’t had time to place yet.
She got the cell phone free, pressed the talk button. “What?” she snapped. Images spun by outside the window: a laundromat, a teriyaki restaurant, a liquor store. Streetlamps flashed past. He seemed to know where he was going, thank the gods. Something wet and warm trickled down her cheeks—tears. More wet warm trickles on her upper lip—it was the way she always reacted to the proximity of anything Dark, with a stupid nosebleed. Thank goodness I didn’t wear the linen suit. Blood never comes out of linen.
There was a brief pause. “Ma’am?” Another Watcher’s voice. “Tell him to take Ferne instead of Blue. There’s police presence on Blue he needs to avoid.”
“Hold on.” Caro lowered the phone. “He says to take Ferne instead of Blue, because of police.” Her voice shook, tremulous. She cursed herself for being weak. He sounded so goddamn competent. It was strange to be so close to a Watcher again, hear that absolute confidence.
“Got it.” He held out his hand for the phone, Caro relinquished it, careful not to touch his skin with hers. He must be in pain from her nearness, but he didn’t show it.
He downshifted, lifted the phone to his ear. “Talk fast.” A pause. “Not yet. I’ve got a s’lin on my tail and the engine’s giving out.” Another short pause. “You got it. Thanks.” Clipped, brief, he dropped the phone again, and all but stood on the clutch and the brake. Caro let out a traitorous shriek, grabbing for the door handle to right herself.
“Sorry.” He really did sound genuinely sorry.
There was a sour taste in Caro’s mouth; she finally placed his accent and almost sighed in relief. He sounded British. Or Australian.
Well, at least I’ve figured that out. Was he following me? He said he wasn’t. He was on patrol, I was out after dark, dammit, they’re going to have a Watcher on me now. Gods, what did I do to deserve this? I just got lost, that’s all.
Her mind shivered, the chill creeping up her fingers and toes. It was a chill she was all-too-familiar with, a sign that the Dark was close, and closing in.
Then she felt it, an almost physical release of pressure. More Watchers, driving off the s’lin. The man in the driver’s seat let out a short, harsh breath, the car’s speed slackening just a bit but not nearly enough for her to let go of the door. The Miata sounded like an overworked sewing machine now—the way he drove, she wasn’t surprised. Plus, the koroi had hit with both physical and psychic force. Car engines didn’t do too well with psychic tampering, especially engines with computer chips. The car swerved, squealing, and he fought to keep it on the road. It sounded like one of the tires had blown.
“Where did you learn to drive?” she
managed around the sour nausea rising behind her breastbone.
“Army. We’re only a few blocks away, you can feel the safehouse from here. Almost there.”
“Great,” Caro mumbled, collapsing forward. She put her head on her knees, trying to remember to breathe, and promptly passed out.
* * * *
A brief starry period of unconsciousness, then Caro was vaguely aware of the car braking to a stop. The air was close and still, with the breathless feeling of Watcher wards. She heard the car door open, and women’s voices, quiet and gentle—Lightbringer voices. She tried to open her eyes, couldn’t, felt soft hands on her. Power flooded in, the softness of healers. Healers?
She was safe, then. The confusion, as she was drawn out of the car and clucked over, was equally soft.
“Is she all right?”
“Who is it? Goddess, she’s bleeding.”
“What’s that? Oh, her purse. Be careful with that.”
“Hold on. Here comes Fran.”
Running feet, more soft auras crowding around her, running with jewel-toned light. “Here, hold this, she’ll want it. And this . . . oh, my. Oh my. She’s bleeding, she must be Darksick.”
“I’m here!” This voice, at least, was familiar. She’d heard it both on the phone and in person, and it was a welcome relief. “I’m here. What’s—Oh, gods above and below! Caro!”
“It’s her?”
Fran sounded relieved. “The Mindhealer, in the flesh. Someone call up and let Drusilla know.”
Caro tried to make her eyes open again. Failed. Power curled around her, worked into her aura, trying to dispel the spreading stain of Darksickness. The trickle of blood from her nose had eased, someone wiped it away with a soft cloth.
“You found her?” Fran’s tone sharpened.
“I did, ma’am.” The Watcher’s tone was respectful, each word pulled out of him as if by force. The accent made him sound very educated, very precise. “Begging your pardon, but I have to report.”
“Oh?” A rustle went through the women. Watchers didn’t usually say that.