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  “That was a mistake,” Samantha said, her voice husky. The demon turned his head to look at her, bemused.

  “Was it? Was he your friend?”

  “You’re torturing an angel.”

  Kelly made a mewling noise, and Samantha’s rage stoked.

  “It’s all I find they’re good for,” the demon said, turning to her. “But if you’d rather, there are others in the room I can work on.”

  Samantha’s head dropped as her body continued to focus itself around the bright ball of hot power in her chest. Her arms hung in front of her, curled in so that her fingertips touched. She sent a quiet note of concern to Sam about Lahn, and he went to stand next to her, taking the sword gently from her. Her knees buckled, but instead of dropping, her weight came off of them, and she slowly rose in the air.

  “What is this?” the demon asked. The words came to Sam as if they had always been there.

  “This is Lahn,” he said as the demon backed away from him. He held up the blade, letting the dusty lighting catch the blade. “In the hands of Anadidd’na Anu’dd, this is a very powerful weapon. Anu’dd anadidd’na parroah’na lahn.”

  The demon hit the wall of the shed, staring with wide eyes as Samantha hovered behind Sam. Sam could feel the roiling power, contained, but ready. She wanted to destroy the demon. That was what it was there for.

  “Where is Brandt?” he asked. The demon shook his head. Sam felt the tug as Samantha agreed with him. He held Lahn up to the light again, then put it, edge down, under the demon’s throat. The mark on the door should have been enough to keep him from glitching, but he had. The mark on the door should have prevented him from glitching well, no matter what, but he had done that, too. He was powerful and he was capable, but Samantha held him by force of will with his back against the shed wall as Sam applied force to Lahn and slid the thick angel blade down the demon’s chest, skinning him by inches.

  “Where is Brandt?” he asked again.

  “No,” the demon answered. Sam pushed harder, reaching the lower reaches of the demon’s ribcage. Lahn bounced against the rib and plunged into his abdomen. The demon turned his head up and away, pulling, but Samantha held him fast. Lahn hissed and burned as she cut through the demon’s flesh, and he choked on a yell.

  “You know who she is?” Sam asked, his voice calm. He felt nothing but the drive to finish it. This was work.

  “I do now,” the demon said bitterly.

  “You know what she can do?”

  The demon’s eyes flicked back to her, and he nodded, then gasped as Lahn hit his spine and began scraping down again.

  “Where is Brandt?”

  “Chicago. Search for ginger root,” the demon said, hands shaking against the wall. Sam felt affirmation from Samantha and he pulled Lahn loose.

  “Maryann, you need to go outside and glitch far, far away from here,” Samantha said, voice trancelike. Sam broadened his view of the room to find the girl standing with her back in a corner. She darted out the door and Sam broadened his view again to watch until she glitched away. Samantha felt him see it, and she released the ball of energy. She dropped to the ground like a cut flower as the demon’s ash scattered across the floor, and Sam went to her, letting go of his vision.

  “She’s fine, Sam. Let me up,” Jason said, hoarse. “You’ve got a lot of explaining to do.”

  <><><>

  They packed and headed straight for Chicago. Samantha had slept in the back seat of the car and Kelly had lain, still as death, in the far back where Sam had moved him before Sam and Jason went to pack. They’d said quick goodbyes to Doris and her children, promising to come back as soon as they could, and they were gone.

  About an hour out, Samantha woke up.

  “You feeling okay?” Jason asked. She curled tighter into a ball and closed her eyes.

  “Just spent.”

  “Would you check on Kelly?” Sam asked. “He still isn’t moving.”

  Jason kept his eyes on the road as Samantha rolled to where she could see over the back of the seat. He’d woken to the sound of Kelly screaming, and it had shaken him.

  “He isn’t ashing,” Samantha said. “He doesn’t know how to repair himself yet, but he’ll figure it out.”

  “You can’t just fix him like last time?” Sam asked. She flopped back into the seat.

  “Not after what the demon did to him. Lahn put things back together. He’s got stew for innards right now.”

  Jason had noticed, when Sam had finally checked on the kid. He felt guilty that he had demanded to be the first one Sam paid attention to, and that Sam’s default had been to check on Samantha next, when clearly the kid was in the worst shape.

  “Actually,” she said, sitting up a bit further. “Pull into the next town. We should leave him here while he recuperates.”

  “Oh, he’s gonna love that,” Sam said.

  “You’re sure he’s okay?” Jason asked.

  “I promise,” she answered. “I don’t know how long it’s going to take him to heal, but he’ll make it. If I had to, I could fix him myself, but I’m so tired.”

  Jason found an exit and they left the angel in a bed in a little roadside motel. Samantha pulled a strand of her hair and tied something to it, saying Kelly would know what to do with it to find them, and they were on the road again.

  Samantha stretched out across the back seat again and appeared to be nearly asleep.

  “I have questions,” Jason said.

  “Go ahead,” she said.

  Sam looked back at her and then at Jason and nodded. She was okay.

  “What did you say?” he asked Sam. Sam knew what he was talking about.

  “Anu’dd anadidd’na parroah’na lahn,” he said. “It’s her mark, flipped over. It means I bring word from the bonded champion of righteous victory. Her. It means I’m her psychic.”

  “Her mark,” Jason said.

  “Anadidd’na anu’dd parroah’na lahn,” Samantha said. There was a rumble underneath it, somewhere in the part of his brain that understood ideas rather than words. “I am the bonded champion of righteous victory.”

  “Didn’t Carter say something about a mark, once?”

  “Yeah. I wouldn’t take his.”

  Jason looked at Sam again, then back at the road. There was a quick, silent conversation there.

  Did you really?

  Yes.

  And?

  It’s complicated. It’s good.

  “They were hung up on the fact that you haven’t marked me, weren’t they?” Jason asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Why haven’t you?”

  “It interferes with freewill. I won’t.”

  “You marked Sam.”

  “And he drank himself unconscious most nights,” she answered. “So?”

  “Interferes how?” Jason asked, surprised at her hostility.

  “You can’t do anything without extreme force of will that you know I wouldn’t want you to do,” she said.

  “So Sam’s in the clear,” Jason said. Sam grunted at him, and Jason grinned.

  “Your first nature is always to do what you know I would want you to do,” she said, ignoring him.

  “Is Abby marked?”

  “Yes. He had to, to keep her safe.”

  “So it isn’t just a power grab.”

  “No, you get a certain umbrella of power from the one who marked you. Abby wouldn’t be safe without it. Some people get themselves marked, just for the power.”

  “So if you marked me, it would be that much harder for them to snatch me again?”

  There was a long pause.

  “Yes.”

  “And your people wouldn’t see me as an outsider?” Jason asked.

  “Everyone is an outsider with us. It’s kind of a badge,” she told him.

  “Sam,” he said firmly.

  “Yes, fine. It would make you mine, and not one of us, but one of ours.”

  “Sam is one of yours?”

  “Yes.�
�

  “And if I asked you to do it?”

  “No.”

  “Why not?”

  “I won’t. I didn’t mark you when you went to Hell to get Anadidd’na. If there was ever a time you needed it, that was it. I’m not going to do it now.”

  “Why not?”

  “It interferes with freewill.”

  Jason didn’t like the sound of that, but it wasn’t as big a deal as Samantha was making it. He pushed harder.

  “So?”

  “Interference with freewill is one of my cardinal sins. I’m a Shaman. I want you to have all the information, and then act on it. Me making you do something is wrong.”

  “But you wouldn’t make me do anything,” Jason said. “Isn’t that what you just said?”

  She sighed.

  “You don’t want to know what this fight would be like, if I’d marked you.”

  “Fine,” Jason said. “Sam, tell her she should mark me.”

  “I don’t want to be in the middle of this,” Sam said. “But I don’t think it’s that big a deal.”

  “Because I’m bonded to you,” Samantha said, sitting up. “I can’t do anything to hurt you. I just… can’t. I feel everything I would do to you. It would be like hurting myself. You guys have no idea how cruel Carter can be to Abby. Or Argo to Lange.”

  “You wouldn’t do that, Sweetheart,” Jason said. “You aren’t them.”

  “It doesn’t make it not wrong,” she said. “I won’t do it.”

  Jason smiled at the road. That was the girl he knew. She settled lower in her seat again.

  “Besides. Sam really is mine. No offense. You aren’t mine. I don’t want to change that.”

  Jason glanced at Sam, who lacked any signs of offendedness. Jason smiled to himself again. They were each other’s, sure enough.

  “Is Carter marked?” he asked, unable to just drop it.

  “Yes.”

  “And?”

  “He wasn’t his own man until the one who marked him died. It drove him crazy, the first year and a half I lived with him.”

  Jason nodded. He could imagine having someone else’s agenda coming first would be maddening; he had only wanted to talk about it in the theoretical, but Samantha’s adamance had surprised him.

  “So you two are kind of a big deal now, aren’t you?” he asked, changing the subject.

  “What do you mean?” Sam asked.

  “I’ve never seen you that heartless before,” Jason said, glancing at his brother. Concern. He wanted to make sure Sam saw it.

  “I know,” Sam said. “Things changed while you were gone.”

  “She do that a lot?” Jason asked.

  “No. That’s the second time.”

  “What is it?”

  “Righteous fury,” Samantha said.

  “She gets angry, and then it’s like a bomb goes off. All of the demons in range ash,” Sam said.

  “That’s hella cool,” Jason said. “Why doesn’t she do it more?”

  “Don’t know,” Sam said. “I think it’s a thing.”

  “You could ask me,” Samantha said.

  “Could be useful,” Jason said.

  “I know,” Sam answered.

  “That guy was afraid of you,” Jason said.

  “Afraid of her,” Sam told him.

  “No, I saw it. It was you, to,” Jason argued.

  “I did have Lahn,” Sam said.

  “Right, about that, too. She lets you have her, now?” Jason asked.

  “First time,” Sam said.

  “Really?”

  “Really.”

  “Why?”

  “I think that’s a thing, too,” Sam told him.

  “What kind of thing?” Jason asked.

  “When we fight together now, it’s like we’re more and more the same person,” Sam said.

  “You’re sighting for her, aren’t you?” Jason asked. He’d suspected after the fight in Houston, but hadn’t had an opportunity to ask. “She sees things she couldn’t.”

  “I’m impressed,” Sam said.

  “Me, too,” Samantha said. “Not that it matters.”

  “Yeah, I’m using my ability to see things… I use my visions to fight,” Sam told him.

  “That’s awesome, man. Can you see the future, too?” Jason asked.

  “You know it doesn’t work like that,” Sam said.

  “Still, if you could see what you were supposed to do before you did it… Wouldn’t that make you invincible?”

  “I’m never going to be invincible,” Sam said.

  “Nah, that’s my job,” Jason conceded, grinning.

  “You’re pretty scary, yourself,” Sam said. “How did they grab you?”

  “Don’t remember. I suspect that’s the answer.”

  “Knocked you out first thing,” Sam said. “That’s how I’d do it.”

  “You never were one for a fair fight.”

  He heard his brother laugh, and he grinned again.

  “Why fight fair?” Sam asked. “Seriously, though. Against Ian. How did you do that?”

  “I don’t know. I’ve never been like that before. It’s like when you bent time the first time. You can do that now, can’t you?” Jason asked.

  Sam nodded, and pulled his hair back up off his face.

  “It’s like when you bent time for the first time, only the next thing. It was like nothing he could do would be fast enough or strong enough. It was…” Jason had been heading for ‘weird’, but it wasn’t the right word. “It was awesome.”

  “How did you feel?” Samantha asked.

  “He never had a shot,” Sam said.

  “No. I don’t think he did,” Jason said.

  “How did it feel?” Sam asked.

  There was a word that occurred to him, but it didn’t make any sense. Poetic and meaningless.

  “What did you just think?” Sam asked.

  “What?”

  “You just thought something and didn’t say it.”

  “Dammit, I hate when you do that.”

  “After all this time, I’ve earned it. What did you think?”

  “Gray. I felt gray.”

  Samantha drew a sharp breath.

  “Why do you say that?” she asked.

  “So what else can you do, now?” Jason asked.

  “I don’t know. Stuff. You were gone a long time. I mean, you speak a new language, now,” Sam said.

  “So do you,” Jason said.

  “I guess I do. I kind of forgot. She wouldn’t teach me hellspeak,” Sam said.

  “It’s because she’s got a filthy mouth,” Jason said, grinning at the road.

  “It’s colloquial,” Samantha said.

  “What else do you do?” Sam asked.

  “I don’t know. I’m still figuring it out. She seriously hulked out at him, though?” Jason asked.

  “Got angry, smashed him. Yeah, that about sums it up,” Sam said.

  “Dude.”

  “You guys are hilarious,” Samantha said.

  “She’s adorable when we ignore her, isn’t she?” Jason asked.

  “It drives her crazy,” Sam said frankly.

  “I guess it would. I guess it does, when you two do it to me,” Jason said.

  “I don’t mean to,” Sam said.

  “Not your fault. I get it.”

  “Thanks.”

  Samantha sighed in the backseat, and Jason grinned again.

  “So what did it mean, ginger root?” he asked, looking in the rearview at Samantha.

  “Oh, now you’re going to talk to me?” she asked, raising an eyebrow.

  “You’ll get no sympathy from me,” he answered, and she glowered at him.

  “There are various ways to hide, and the easiest and most common ones involve a key. Ginger root is the key.”

  “How did you guys find me this time?” Jason asked.

  “Maryann found you,” Sam said.

  “Really?”

  “Yeah. We were try
ing to figure out how to track you down, and she just turned up. I followed her to you, and then Sam followed me,” Sam said.

  “You can follow demons?” Jason asked, casting a quick look at Sam. That could be useful.

  “I’m getting better at finding specific things,” Sam said. “Demons are easiest.”

  “So the thirsty man?” Jason prompted.

  Sam shook his head.

  “I’ll keep trying, but the world just goes out of focus.”

  “Weird.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Have you tried to find Brandt?”

  “We kept looking for him, here, but I couldn’t find him. We thought he’d gone back across when he killed you. I guess he was just hiding,” Sam said.

  “You know what ginger root means?” Jason asked him.

  “Broadly speaking, yes. In this case… not a clue.”

  “I’ll take care of that part,” Samantha said from the back seat.

  “And then what? What are we going to do when we find him?” Jason asked.

  There was a long pause as Sam turned all the way around in his seat and looked at Samantha. Jason sat up to look at her in the rearview.

  “This is one of those conversations I’m not in on, isn’t it?” Jason asked.

  “I don’t want you two to be there,” Samantha said. Sam nodded.

  “That’s what she’s been saying since she woke up,” he commented.

  “What does that mean?” Jason asked him.

  “It’s hard to explain. She doesn’t want us around. I can tell,” Sam told him.

  “That’s just because we’re annoying,” Jason grinned.

  Sam gave him a flicker of a smile, then shook his head.

  “No. She’s going to do something she doesn’t want us to see.”

  “I know I’ll probably need help capturing him, but then I want you gone,” she said.

  “Why?” Jason asked. Her eyelids raised as she looked back at him in the glass.

  “Because I’m going to find out why they want you.”

  <><><>

  When they reached the city limits, Samantha moved over behind Sam and put her hands over his eyes. They smelled of ginger and earth.