Finder, page 23
“Either way.” The sooner this was tied off, the safer Jorie was—and the less anyone involved with the media knew, the better. Geddoes was a liability; Lorenz would treat her as one, especially since he didn’t have a witch looking at him with big dark eyes, saying Please, not until she needs to forget and just generally turning him into a Watcher with no good sense left. “Listen to me, Jorie. We’re going to Brickpool Park to check out this mysterious theory of yours, fine. But you can’t get out of the car, even if the Finding’s bad. I’ll take care of everything else, you just have to stay with me.” And he’d break that cable if he had to, even if he had a seizure in the driver’s seat.
“I know.” She flinched again, a tiny betraying movement. “We’ll park and fog the windows.”
It wasn’t a bad idea, but he was probably misunderstanding. It took all his discipline not to say Ma’am? “Jorie?”
“Huh? Oh, not that way.” She tucked a stray curl behind her ear, shifting uneasily.
So she’d been joking, trying to put him at ease. Caleb could have kicked himself, again.
“Although that would be nice.” Now she sounded sad. “I know I’m not exactly what you might have wanted in a witch, Caleb.”
Weren’t you listening? “I told you before.” The only problem here is me letting you put yourself in danger. He freed his right hand, let it hang in empty air between them. “You’re absolutely perfect. I keep fucking up.” Shit. She didn’t need that kind of language, either. “Sorry. Look, let’s see if I can make it a little easier on you, all right?”
“You haven’t done anything wrong so far.” Her fingers touched his and his aura stretched, spreading to stain the very edges of hers. The gossamer cable winked out, and she inhaled again, a grateful instead of pained sigh. “Oh. Wow.”
“Does it help?” Traffic was clearing, the small tingle of precog against his nerves routing him around the worst spots. He swung left on Dagdala Place and the Volvo began to rise up Central Hill, taking advantage of cover provided by a lumbering bus.
“It does.” Her skin was warm and soft; the pleasure blurred up his arm and made it difficult to concentrate. “It’s amazing, I’ve never been able to... How do you do it?”
It’s simple, baby. Nothing’s gonna get to you while I’m here. At least he was Watcher enough for that. He slid the Volvo through another clear space, ignoring someone to the left laying on the horn. “I think it’s the tanak. Or the bonding.”
“Bonding.” Her fingers loosened, but when she would have pulled away—probably trying not to distract him—he pretended not to notice. “So, about yesterday. About last night, that is.”
“Hm?” I was a good boy. Tell me I shouldn’t have been, and I’ll make a note. It was extremely pleasant to pretend they were holding hands for another reason. It did no harm to dream, right? Caleb checked the rearview again. “You were in shock. I had to.”
“I’m not disputing that. Why are you turning here?”
Seventh Street would get them where they needed to go, and the tail—in a beat-up maroon Dodge, of all things—was stuck behind the bus. The car irritated him for another reason he couldn’t quite place. “Just an experiment. Coming in the south side of the park. And seeing if whoever’s following us is on his toes.”
Jorie studied him. “You look like you’re enjoying this.” It was pleasant to sense her attention, the only sunshine he was going to get today. Which was fine, it was all he needed.
“Nice weather, road trip, my witch in the passenger seat?” Keep her distracted. He changed lanes, and traffic was loosening quickly. He should have insisted Jorie have lunch before this, but she was determined. “All we’ve gotta do is hit a burger place and then a drive-in movie.”
“I think there’s one out on Highway 19.” Of course she’d know. Did she even sound intrigued by the notion?
He hoped so. “We could be there in time for the evening show.”
“And leave all this behind?” Quick as a whipcrack, and she was smiling, too.
The sensation flooding his arm hit his shoulder, spread down his chest like warm oil. It was pleasant, but the Dodge was still on them, drifting around a clot of commuters as the lights worked against Caleb, for once. Dammit. That should have worked. “Might not be a bad idea. I take you out of town, the Watchers clean up this thing—”
“And just leave Neil to whatever happened?” She shook her head. “I can’t.”
“I know.” I could drag you up north. Saint City’s probably safer, though just as damp. What with the Guardians banishing the Crusade and all four of them bonding right after each other, it was the epicenter for hope. At least among Caleb’s fellow Watchers. “You’re a good person, Jorie.”
“So are you,” she said, and he didn’t correct her. He kept his eyes on the road, steadily, and thought about taking a circuitous route. But Jorie tensed, and he felt it too—a plucking in his midsection, an echo of the Finding’s pull. “It’s getting louder. We’re going in the right direction.”
Good time to turn around and go back to the safehouse. He opened his mouth to say so, closed it and made a soft, noncommittal sound. He glanced at the mirror, and decided not to tell her the bad news.
The Dodge was still there. And a white Honda was hanging back in traffic too; Caleb couldn’t tell if it was the same one that had dropped behind the red car a block after the Volvo left the safehouse.
Interesting.
BRICKPOOL PARK was on prime downtown acreage crowning Center Hill, but every time someone made a noise about developing it, the starch-ruffled hens of the Historical Commission came out of their dusty china cabinets and descended en masse on city council meetings. Caleb knew as much from patrol orientation, and he’d been turning over everything in that short course inside his head all morning. “Mind telling me what we’re looking for?” He cut the wheel hard; the gate for this entrance was pushed into a mass of overgrowth, though the padlock dangling from its loop was shiny-new. On the north side, the jogging loop and main parking lot crouched; on this side, the hill fell away in a tangle of blackberry, ivy, and massive trees holding the top of the slope against mudslides.
That padlock—
But Jorie was speaking, so the thought died. “I have an idea.” She leaned forward in the passenger seat, and her fingers had turned cold. “Have you ever patrolled up here?”
“No.” The access road was similarly overgrown, and that was a little strange, but funding to take hedge trimmers to this little-used entrance was probably low on the list. Besides, if it grew over with blackberry suckers, the kids might not come up here and make out, and that would no doubt grant a few parents some peace of mind.
Something wrong. Caleb thought about it again. “That’s strange, though.”
She glanced at him, her hair ruffling, and she’d paled. The pulling was getting more intense. “What is?”
And if he was feeling the difference in the Finding, how much worse was it for her? Caleb slowed the Volvo; the road was narrow and cracked, paving unravelling into strips of gravel shoulder hardly big enough to deserve the name. “Just going over the geography. Downtown’s north, the Peach District west, go east and you’ve got Alton Heights and then the freeway...” He frowned at the windshield, and no lights bobbed in his rearview mirror. Had the Dodge gotten tired; were they going to come in from the north? There wasn’t another way out of the south part of the park, and no Watcher liked to be anywhere with only a single exit.
“But south is hard to think about, right?” Jorie shivered. Caleb felt the Finding again, twitching sharp and dangerous in his own guts. “I didn’t realize it until I saw Marilyn’s clippings.”
“Realize what?” He was uneasy for more than one reason. Something about the entrance bothered him, too.
Now there were headlights in the rearview, diamond pinpricks cresting a slight rise. Caleb’s nape prickled as the Volvo took a hairpin turn up the slope. Trees carrying a crop of moss fed by autumn’s damp—mostly firs, a few broadleaf maples with stark branches, cedars with their sweet-smelling boughs weighted with rain—pressed close on either side, and none of the iron, curlicue-armed streetlamps here were lit yet against a winter afternoon’s gloom. The lamps were real antique numbers, probably built to run on gas instead of electricity, and that was wrong, too—antique or scrap hunters should have already carted them away if the city wasn’t going to retrofit.
“There was a picture of Eugene Alton in front of his house.” Jorie moved again, restlessly. “Remember? I’ll bet it’s hard to think about, isn’t it?” Her fingers were icy now, and Caleb had a very bad feeling about this.
He pressed the accelerator a little. As soon as they could turn around, he was getting out of here, even if he had to hit the shoulder and make the Volvo do a little off-roading.
There had been pictures of Horace and Eugene, and Marilyn Geddoes had stared at the two side by side while Jorie, pale and handling the paper only with her fingertips, looked up from the conference table. It’s uncanny, the reporter had said.
They look just alike. Two oddly familiar men with light, center-parted, slicked-down wavy hair caught in grainy newsprint, long noses, cruel mouths relaxed into self-satisfied smirks, and light eyes under straight bars of sandy eyebrows.
The headlights in the rearview mirror swelled, a thin overworked sound as an engine guzzle-gulped at gas, and Caleb realized the south access road was supposed to be blocked off. The padlock was shiny because it had been recently replaced, but it was also a jagged busted-open mess, and he’d merely glanced at it without taking in the significance of the fact.
Which was very unlike a Watcher. The weight against his skull was the significance of that fact, struggling through layers of something alien. “His house?” Keep her talking. Might be able to get us out of here before she notices.
“Yes. The Alton Mansion, Horace built it for his wife. She died, and he went a little strange. At least, that’s what they thought it was.” Jorie tensed still further. Each word was pulled out of her, breathless and strained. “Caleb, something’s wrong.”
I know, baby. I was hoping you wouldn’t feel it. “Alton Mansion,” he said, to show he’d been listening. The words slip-slithered inside his head, refusing to settle in their proper dimensions. “Why can’t I...?”
“I don’t think any Watchers patrol there,” she said, quietly but all in a rush, a dam breaking and words spilling free. “I think Horace woke something up, or he was operating here before there were Watchers in the city. Circle Lightfall didn’t come this far west until—”
The headlights leapt into view. The maroon Dodge was right on their ass, and Caleb remembered something else, that strange slip-sliding pressure swelling as he dropped Jorie’s hand and braced for impact. There was no time to warn her.
And he’d seen the Dodge before. Parked in Jorie’s driveway, as a matter of fact.
It was Neil Harvard’s car.
Clever Little Girl
THE FIRST JOLT wasn’t that bad. The sudden screech of metal and the terrifying impact was better than the Finding roaring in her ears once Caleb dropped her hand, the fishhook turned into an anchor, dragging her beneath the waves.
It was the second thud, as the car behind them gunned its engine, driving the Volvo forward and to the left, that was the dangerous noise. A sheer drop-off, studded with ancient trees and overgrown with blackberries still wickedly green despite winter temperatures, swallowed her car, and the world turned over several times. She screamed, a pointless, useless sound, not because gravity had suddenly gone mad or switched off, but because the Finding yanked hard on all her limbs, and with it came the rushing, crackling cackle of something old and foul, exhaling reeking corpsebreath. The Volvo fetched up against a massive fir with a crashing like the world tearing itself in half, and the little things swarmed it, scrabbling into deep shade as thin winter sunlight whipped smoking weals onto their hides.
The canopy keeps the sunshine out, she thought dozily, and shapes ran like ink on greased paper before her staring eyes.
Something landed on the side of the car. Two somethings, a pair. A pair of feet in tattered loafers that had once been spit-shined, and Jorie realized she was hanging in her seat belt like a discarded toy, her head tilted as she stared through the passenger window that was now a sunroof. Smoke ran in scarves and veils, billowing behind an indistinct shape with its wingtip-soles pressed on the window, and there was another rushing, liquid, heated sound.
Fire. Uh-oh. Dozy alarm spilled through her.
The shape above made a quick, violent movement. The passenger window shattered, safety glass showering starlike, and rain slithered through the hole.
“There you are,” the thing crooned, reaching through the jagged aperture with familiar hands. “Naughty, naughty.”
The Finding filled her head, and one of the tiny things climbing all over the car squirted through the broken rear window, chittering with glee. “Caleb!” Jorie screamed, but her seat belt was sliced by tiny claws and the thing with a doll’s blank face and rows of serrated teeth snarled in her direction before turning to her Watcher, who hung bloody and lifeless in the driver’s seat.
She was lifted by clawed, terrifying hands, the stench of the thing filling the world. Worst of all was the face it wore as it tossed her over its shoulder, caveman-style. Long nose, straight eyebrows, curling sandy hair darkening under a lash of falling, icy rain.
The thing wearing Neil Harvard’s body laughed, a thick burping chuckle, and the world turned over again because it leapt, stronger and faster than a human could, bounding up the hill while Jorie’s head smacked painfully against its back.
“Now I’ve got you,” it said, and the glee in its voice was made a thousand times worse by the familiarity. “Now you’ll be good. A little old, yes. But good, good.”
Jorie fled into merciful unconsciousness.
SHE RETURNED with a violent start, sick and reeling, her stomach compressed as her head bobbled and the thing chuckled. It was talking to itself, Neil’s voice bouncing off wet concrete, and she couldn’t see because it was so dark. There was no light anywhere, and Jorie began to struggle against whatever was holding her over a strong, hard shoulder, stopping only with a hand clamped down on her leg with vicious, more-than-human strength.
“Naughty, naughty,” it said in Neil’s voice, and the Finding, having shown her what it wanted her to see, receded in a clicking rush like the tide along a pebbled beach. “Too old, yesss, but good. We can live a long time off thisss one, yesss? Yesss, and make many more.” Its long sibilants filled her ears and her nose was full, too, of coppery liquid warmth.
Nosebleed. Well, it was a car accident. “Neil,” she whispered, through the bouncing. All her breath was squeezed out when the thing sped up, the jolting wringing her lungs. He shouldn’t have been able to go for long with all her weight in a fireman’s carry—but whatever was in him granted him strength, almost like a tanak. “Neil, please. You can’t. You’ve got to fight it.”
The thing laughed, Neil’s bitter little bark but twisted halfway into a mockery of any human amusement. She wasn’t unconscious with Darksickness—maybe because it was inhabiting a human body now, maybe because the little scrambling things weren’t around. The only sound was water dripping and Neil’s footsteps, too fast and light.
Almost like a Watcher’s.
“The blood always tellsss,” the thing said. “Your friend’sss not here, little whore. He’s gone into hiding. I have you to thank, yesss. Thought there wasssn’t another one left, but she hid him from me. No matter.” It chuckled again. “I’ll keep you nissse and sssafe, though. You know he wanted to? Your friend, he wanted you ssso badly. That’s how I got in, yesss.”
Oh, God. Jorie tried to still herself, to be calm. Magick would help her here, if she could just concentrate. If the thing was inhabiting Neil’s body, there was probably a way to drive it out, and a witch worth her salt could find one.
Or so she hoped.
“Horace,” she gasped. “Horace Alton.” And I’ll bet Eugene wasn’t your grandson. You just had to stay away long enough for everyone here to forget. Or maybe this thing had gone dormant, hibernating until it was safe to come out again. Dozing for thirty years, waking to eat, then dozing again like someone on a family holiday, settled in a recliner while a football game blared.
“Clever little girl,” it hissed. “Where there’sss a will, there’sss a way. I do have a grandssson.” Another thick, burping chuckle, silt clogging a drain. “And he came home. You sssent him to me, you little whore.”
The thing began to laugh again, like it was the funniest joke in the world. Jorie throttled another scream and tried desperately, vainly, to think.
Eventually it was going to have to set her down. And when it did, she was going to hit it with everything she had.
Priority One
GETTING DRAGGED out of burning car hadn’t been on his to-do list this morning. The Volvo was a mangled mass of metal, the red Dodge on its back oddly untouched except for its crumpled front end; at least Jorie’s car had cradled him and his witch admirably.
Jorie had been alive, when taken. At least there was that, even though the Volvo was fully engulfed in flames now. Greasy black smoke poured up, tainted with Dark.
Was there anything she wouldn’t lose before this was over? Wasn’t the world tired of taking away the things she loved? It was enough to make a man sick.
Murderously, coldly sick.
Caleb’s rescuer was a relatively slim man for his height, with a hard little potbelly that had probably developed when he was twenty. Still, he had some useful muscle. They reached the top of the hill, Caleb half-carrying what had to be a detective. The white Honda this guy had been trailing Marilyn Geddoes in before seeing a familiar red Dodge and deciding to follow stood on the access road, its driver-side door open in the hissing rain, its headlights cutting a cone through falling water. “Jesus Christ,” the man moaned. His voice was familiar, a big basso growl he’d bludgeoned Caleb’s witch with over the phone. “What the fuck?”
