Gorgon Read online

  “I can do a bell,” Samantha said again. Carter shrugged.

  “Suit yourself. Let me know how it goes.”

  “Do your job, Aspen,” Samantha said. His cheek twitched. Point, Samantha.

  “I want your psychic.”

  That was unexpected.

  “You mean my husband,” Samantha said.

  “Not my problem if you’re screwing him on the side,” Carter said, reaching over the counter to get a box. He offered it to Kara. “Granola bar?”

  “No thanks.”

  He offered it to Jason, and Jason took one.

  “I don’t remember the last time I ate,” he said.

  “I bet you don’t,” Carter answered.

  “No,” Samantha said. Carter shrugged.

  “It’s only fair. I gave you mine.”

  “You ran her off. All this time, all the terrible things you’ve done to her, you finally managed it. I can’t even imagine what the final straw was.”

  “All the same,” Carter said. “Those are my terms.”

  He spread his arms to rest his elbows on the bar, his foot twitching a slow beat in the empty air in front of him. Let his eyes drop for a minute, then blinked, slow, to look at Samantha. A challenge. A dare. An ultimatum.

  “It’s fine,” Sam said. “I’ll do it.”

  “No, Sam,” Samantha said. “I can’t.”

  “We’ve done it before,” Sam said. “It’s not like I could help you from here, anyway.”

  “That explains a lot,” Jason said.

  “Shut up,” Samantha said.

  “I’m just saying…” Jason said.

  “Shut up,” Samantha said more emphatically. The corners of Carter’s mouth twitched up.

  “Then we have a deal.”

  “No,” Samantha said. “They nearly killed me last time.”

  “Not true,” Carter scoffed. “When something nearly kills you, I always hear about it. This wasn’t anywhere near that exciting.”

  “You do?” Jason asked.

  “Of course,” Carter answered. “Why do you think I’m as good at this as I am? I know everything important.”

  “Cool,” Jason said.

  “Don’t encourage him,” Samantha growled. Why was Carter doing this? He had no particular interest in Sam. They’d never gotten along, as far as she knew, though she did know they’d had a few private conversations that hadn’t been completely antagonistic.

  Carter preferred to be on his own. As much bravado as he put on, saying it, she knew it was ultimately true.

  Sam was trying to reassure her that it would be fine, but she didn’t like leaving Sam on his own in her world, under the best of circumstances. The idea of leaving him with Carter when she had no idea what Carter wanted with him made her feel sick.

  “He doesn’t leave the apartment,” Samantha said.

  “Sam,” Sam said.

  “I can live with that. He’s on his own for feeding himself,” Carter said.

  “And you don’t do anything just to punish him for fun,” Samantha said.

  “Would I do that?” Carter asked. Samantha glared at him and he chuckled, unbuttoning the cuffs of his dress shirt and rolling them up to expose the angeltongue symbols there. He put his arms back up behind him, casual, in control.

  “Fine,” he said. “He only does work that’s specifically relevant to what I’ve got going on here.”

  “What is going on here?” Samantha asked.

  “Not important,” Carter said. “I’ll even do my best to keep him off spikes.”

  Great. She hadn’t even considered that. If Carter actually needed a psychic, the odds of random psychic traps went up to near-inevitability.

  “No,” she said. “I’m not leaving him exposed like that.”

  “You mean he’s still a toddler out there in the wide world of psychic-ing?” Carter asked. “You still have to hold his hand?”

  “No one ever held Abby’s hand,” Samantha said. “You just let her get hurt.”

  “And look where she is now,” Carter said with a cool smile. He had perfect teeth. Sometimes that made her angry.

  “At my house,” Samantha answered. She saw the blow hit. Point, Samantha.

  She wasn’t winning, but it wasn’t a shutout, either.

  “Those are my terms,” Carter said. “I’ll get started getting everyone on planes, if you’re ready.”

  She looked at Sam and let the flow of conversation happen. She’d have to wear her hairpin the whole time, basically, because the bond had a tension on it that made substantial distance physically painful to both of them. They’d be restricted to talking by phone, and he would have to trust her to take care of Jason. Would he? Yes, he would. There was no way she would convince Carter to let Jason stay. Not in the best of times, and even less so with him on a time break. If Jason stayed, Sam’s usefulness to Carter would diminish to almost nothing, and there was no way Carter didn’t know that.

  She would have to leave him here, blind, both of them trusting the other to take enough care to stay safe.

  Neither of them were content with it, but as the bouncing, wordless conversation wound itself down, they both knew it was the best they were going to do. He wasn’t much help to her, either, with Jason around, other than the obvious staying-sane stuff, but Jason actually wasn’t bad at that, either. She would be okay. Her worry for Sam was much more urgent, but he brushed it away gently. He would be careful, and he trusted Carter. For as much of a pain as he was, Samantha did, too. He kept his people alive.

  So that was that.

  “Okay,” she breathed. “Okay. We’ll do it.”

  <><><>

  She’d pulled him into the little room off of the main room, a glorified closet that, surprisingly, Carter hadn’t yet emptied of her stuff from when she’d lived with him. Three walls were still lined with clothes, trunks of various other things under the hanging clothes, and a bed filling the rest of the floorspace. It was tight, but it was private and it was hers, and being in this space made her much calmer.

  “I don’t like it,” she said.

  “He’s calling,” Sam said, letting his vision drift out in the apartment. Samantha pulled his glasses off. Sometimes he forgot he was wearing them.

  “Sorry,” he said.

  “I don’t like it,” she said again. “He’s not going to do anything to go out of his way to keep you healthy. You saw what he did to Abby.”

  “It’s done,” Sam said. He understood her concerns. Intimately. All the same, he couldn’t quite understand what she thought Carter was going to make him do that was that risky. If he ever got concerned, or tired, or bored, he’d just quit. No worries. She was frustrated at his lack of seriousness, and he mentally shrugged at her. “It’s done,” he said again. She sighed and sat on the bed.

  “I don’t like it.”

  This time it was different. She was thinking about herself, that inward pull of possessiveness and loss. He echoed it at her. That one, he was with her on.

  “Maybe he really does need me,” Sam said. She shook her head.

  “He’s just punishing me for taking Abby in,” she said. Her relationship was dizzyingly complicated. She trusted him. Completely. More than she trusted Sam or Jason. When the whole world failed, Carter would come through. At the same time, there was such a deep pit of bitterness there, long years of antagonism and cruelty that made every word, every expression, every desire questionable. It isn’t paranoia if the world really is out to get you.

  “It’ll be fine,” Sam said. “You were a kid.”

  She gave him a withering look.

  “You think that’s it? That if I’d been ten years older, it wouldn’t have happened like it did?”

  Yes. He did. He tried not to say it, which just brought more attention to the thought. She probed at it, finding that it wasn’t a hesitant or rushed opinion.

  He really did think that.

  Her mouth dropped open.

  “You think you can handle
him.”

  Yes. He did.

  Damn.

  She shook her head.

  “All right, then. This I’ve got to see.”

  “He’s a jerk, but…”

  “You think he hasn’t got a bite,” Samantha said. “I get it. You’ve gotta see it for yourself. We can make that happen.”

  He shrugged.

  “So we’re good?”

  “Yeah,” she said, some of her joviality dimming. “Just be careful.”

  “I’ll be okay,” he said. She shook her head.

  “Don’t make promises you can’t keep.”

  “You know I will,” he said with a sideways smile and she sighed.

  “Yeah. I just want you back as you, not some half-broken-in psychic who works for Carter.”

  “Abby would be insulted to hear you say that,” Sam said.

  “No she wouldn’t,” Samantha said quietly.

  Sam looked around the room.

  “There aren’t any windows in here,” he said.

  “Really?” she said. “That’s what you’re thinking about right now?”

  He was, now, yeah.

  He’d never seen his wife naked; she was skittish and that was just as far as they’d made it. She’d only have sex with him in total darkness.

  A closet seemed to fit the bill.

  “Seriously?” she asked again. He grinned. Shrugged. She pursed her lips.

  “It does seem appropriately irreverent,” she said, finding her hair pin in her pocket.

  <><><>

  Samantha found an event caterer and a conference room that seemed big enough and far enough away from normal people to hold all of them, and late that night, the gray were assembled, moody and combative as ever, waiting to hear why Carter had dragged them away from their established lives.

  Samantha stood with Jason, Kara, Isobel, and Kelly at the side of the room while the dozens of people from out of town picked over the buffet. There would be conflict. There always was. Doris’ idea of feeding the beasts, though, seemed to have helped the last couple of times she’d done this.

  Jason was on his third fragment as of two hours ago, and acting strange.

  Carter was leaning on the podium with his arms crossed, Sam next to him.

  “He’s my psychic, now,” he’d said as they’d arrived. Samantha had found no profitable argument to that, so she’d made it clear she was not going to accept it without a fight, then let it go. She liked that Sam was taller than Carter, and that it still clearly bothered Carter. As she thought it, she saw Sam stand up a fraction taller, smiling.

  “The rainbow said you’d be looking for cover,” Spake said.

  “Hi, Spake,” Samantha answered. “Did you have a good trip?”

  “The man next to me on the plane was trying to be a demon.”

  “I see.”

  Spake nodded, rolling his jaw in a circle.

  “Miranda says hi,” he said.

  “Tell her I said hello,” Samantha answered, and he nodded.

  “I did.”

  He wandered away and Samantha shook her head. At least Spake didn’t pick fights.

  Ian and Peter were arguing about something to do with what happened when mages got in a three-way fight.

  “You don’t understand,” Peter was saying. “I’ve seen it. They don’t just go light-dark-neutral. It’s all over the map. They’re mages.”

  “But the most powerful way to do it would be to go pure,” Ian said. “It’s set up to have the best leverage.”

  “Don’t know what to tell you,” Peter said. “That’s not how it goes.”

  “Maybe you just hang out with stupid people,” Ian said.

  “Maybe you just don’t have a freaking clue what you’re talking about,” Peter answered.

  “I could show you, if you wanted,” one of Peter’s people said coolly.

  “Like to see you try,” Ian’s lieutenant answered, drawing a dagger.

  At least they were in New York and they’d been on planes. It made bringing and carrying most of the bigger weapons, at least, more risk than it was worth.

  The mage spoke a sequence of words that Samantha didn’t catch, and the lieutenant dropped the knife with a curse. Samantha saw Sam put his hand on Wrath protectively. That magic wouldn’t work on Wrath, she reassured him. Wrath was much better warded than that.

  “Hell of a shindig you people put on,” Lange said, coming to stand with Samantha. “Always good to see the family.”

  “How has no one stabbed you yet?” Samantha asked Argo’s protégé. Once he’d been accepted, Lange had chosen to live in New York rather than in Texas with Argo simply because he could, and he and Samantha were as close to friends as it got, in this crowd.

  “Heard your boy broke it,” Lange said, glancing at Jason.

  “Everyone does it once,” Samantha said. Lange shrugged, brushing dark hair back over his shoulder.

  “Not you,” he said.

  “When have I ever been everyone?” Samantha asked. Lange’s hawk eyes caught Kara and he turned.

  “Have we met?” he asked her.

  “You were drunk,” Kara answered. “You dance well for how sloshed you were, though.”

  Lange grinned.

  “That sounds about right. I’m Lange.”

  “Is that your made up name or your real one?” Kara asked.

  “You look like the kind of chick who has tattoos I should know about,” Lange said.

  “Oh, I am,” Kara said.

  “Believe me,” Jason added, giving Lange a casual grin.

  “No offense, dude,” Lange said. Jason checked Anadidd’na and pursed his lips.

  “She’s her own woman. Give it your best shot.”

  Kara’s eyes never left Lange, that same flashy, daring look she gave most guys. Samantha shook herself as shivers went down her back, then returned her attention to the conference room as Lange continued to hit on Kara.

  Hellspeak caught her attention and she found one of Argo’s people casting at Bane, who seemed unconcerned. The less concerned, the louder the young man cast, until Argo started shouting at him to shut up. Another of Argo’s people charged Bane, realizing that his weakness was obviously not magical but physical, and Bane raised his hand and said a single word that Samantha didn’t catch. The second man went rigid and tipped over.

  Samantha sighed.

  “Your show,” Carter said evenly. He and Sam had crossed the front of the room while she’d been watching Bane.

  “No backup at all, huh,” Samantha said. Carter pursed his lips and shook his head, flicking a smile at her as he allowed Lange to take his attention.

  She went to the podium, standing next to it rather than behind it, and took the entire room in.

  Argo and Ian were shouting at each other, and several of their underlings were already fighting. Mitch was tolerating, with some exasperation, one of Ian’s people going on about how weak he was, and Samantha had a flash of gratitude that her territory didn’t border Ian’s or Argo’s. A lot of these rivalries stemmed as much from border disputes as personality issues.

  She stood.

  Licked her lips.

  Focused.

  Shoes didn’t help. She took them off. Gross as the idea was to her, she needed to be barefoot; she peeled her socks off with her toes, then turned up the cuffs of her sleeves, taking a breath and focusing harder.

  Pulled power.

  The first draw was easy, like sinking in water. The second was like going under, just a push. Her breathing evened all on its own, and she felt the room draw in toward her, gravity.

  “This isn’t over,” she heard Argo growl, then the room was quiet.

  “No one saw that,” Jason said.

  “Saw what?” Samantha answered without looking.

  “Exactly,” Jason said.

  “Kelly, did he just hit a fragment?” Samantha asked.

  “No, he just lit his eyebrow on fire,” Kelly answered.

  “What?” Sam
antha asked, turning her head.

  “I said no one saw that,” Jason complained to Kelly.

  “But I did,” Kelly answered.

  Samantha refocused.

  “What?” she asked again, looking at Jason. “How did you light your eyebrow on fire?”

  He cleared his throat and jerked his head toward the room and she shook her head.

  Focused again.

  “I’m tracking a demon,” she said.

  “Again?” Ian asked. “Can’t you do any of your own kills?”

  “Not my kill,” Samantha said. “Jalice came to get me. The demon I’m tracking built a huge underground complex just outside of New Orleans.”

  “Slacking?” Ian asked at Peter.

  “I only do the city limits,” Peter said. “That’s plenty and y’all know it.”

  “So it was Argo’s miss?” Ian asked.

  “They didn’t tell me,” Argo said. “She was infringing my territory, if it was my side of the border.”

  “It wasn’t,” Samantha said.

  Ian and Argo looked at Bane, along with the less discrete half of the room, but everyone knew better than to explicitly accuse him.

  “It was a gap,” Samantha said. “She was right on the line between Argo and Bane, out in the middle of a swamp no one has been bothering to track.”

  “That’s the whole state of Louisiana, technically,” Bane said. No one argued with him, although it was hardly true. It was a dig at Peter, and Peter didn’t rise to the bait.

  “This isn’t the first time she’s done it,” Samantha said. “If I’m right, I’ve cleared out her work twice before, and both times it was on a boundary where we don’t have tight control.”

  “Sounds like you need to get better at sealing the deal,” Ian said.

  “Or you need to do a better job policing your boundaries,” Argo said.

  “Mine?” Ian asked.

  “I heard she did one of these in Colorado,” Argo said.

  “And Arizona,” Samantha said. “There isn’t a one of us who doesn’t have some history of her on one of our boundaries, if my source is right.”

  “Who’s your source?” Bane asked. “More demon hunters?”

  “No,” Samantha said. “Someone else.”

  “The rugrats you went slumming with to find the two of them?” Ian asked, indicating Jason.