Chapter 2 #2
He spread his hand over her shoulder, let a little tingle of power slip across the gap and into her.
If he hadn’t already known she was lirai, it would have been confirmed by even a cursory touch.
The radiation effect crawled up his arm, narcotic honey, and there didn’t seem to be any internal injuries.
It was a moment’s work to get the lirai over his shoulder.
He’d have to go slowly, but Jake would watch his six and engage any hostiles.
A nice early evening jog across rooftops, with a bouncing, deadweight burden.
At least she wasn’t throwing up, or screaming. Small mercies, indeed.
The only kind a Son ever got.
* * *
The grey stone bulk of the Islington frontier temple was easily reached if they paralleled the freeway, and they were back too early for a finished patrol.
Which meant lean iron-haired Ignatius met them in the great hall, hands clasped behind his back as he paused on the main staircase, right on the landing where the two separate flights met like a pair of stately, dusty, red-carpeted rivers.
A bust of Pallas Athena glowed, staring over his head with the set look of a lirai listening to the Flame.
“Father.” Erik halted, snapped to attention—or at least, as well as he could with an unconscious woman over his shoulder. Jake gave a crisp salute, no doubt his own little joke. “We found a lirai.”
Ignatius did not move for several moments. Beneath the dusty black of his preferred cassock lingered body armor and one or two little surprises; the lone Father of a satellite temple often stayed at home ready for a call from higher up, but that did not mean he was unready.
Ever.
“Yep, just happened across her in an alley,” Jake added. “What are the chances, huh? Erik knocked her right out of her shoes.”
“She was in the way,” Erik muttered, and wished he could elbow his Younger.
Father didn’t like chatter.
Ignatius’s pale eyes—very similar to Jake’s, though all three of them were orphans—narrowed slightly. “And is she sealed?” he inquired, in his driest, most passionless tone.
That took the wind out of Jake, but probably not for long. “Nosir,” he said. “Erik said to bring her home.”
If there was a punishment involved in that particular judgment call, Erik wouldn’t have wanted his Younger to suffer it anyway.
Still, it rankled a bit. “No internal injuries, sir, but she came across a shadowbeast. Looked like a leaper; it had a pelt and non-venomous claws but its bite was otherwise. It stood its ground.”
“Ah.” Ignatius nodded. “Very good, then.” He descended the rest of the stairs, soundless despite heavy boots. “And you are certain she is of the Dreamers?”
“Yessir.” Come on over and take a look, was what Erik wanted to say, but that was a little past the line of obedience and good sense. Jake could probably say it, but then again, a Younger could say anything.
It was the perk of his position. Probably the only one, just like making the call when they were on their thankless grinding patrols was Erik’s.
Ignatius halted only once, glancing quizzically at Erik, who realized what he wanted.
“Hey, Jake.” He shifted a little but didn’t want to let her slide free.
Little brother got the girl off his shoulder, and that was when Erik finally saw the lirai’s face.
She lolled, not so much deadweight now but perhaps nearing consciousness, hair falling free in a long sheaf of tangled waves and outright curls.
The humidity probably had something to do with that.
Strong nose, good cheekbones, her underlip a little fuller than the top one, charcoal eyebrows and long eyelashes.
Vivid bruising crawled up her face, those matted lashes fluttering as she tried to regain consciousness, and Erik was once more aware of how filthy he was.
Her pashmina was never going to be the same, but at least it had kept her a little warmer.
Ignatius’s narrow hand hovered over her closed eyes.
The great ring on his left third finger glinted, a scintillant of the Flame trapped by a Dreamer’s will in heavy, glassy hematite.
The signet was a gift from another lirai, one with plenty of seals and a suite of their own, sending a Father out to hold a frontier temple.
“Be at peace, Dreamer,” Ignatius said, softly, and the woman was deadweight again. “There lieth a blessing.”
“So it is,” Erik murmured; Jake’s ritual response came a half-second later, overtaking Erik’s and finishing first, too. As usual.
“We will need to make arrangements.” The Father of their trio glanced at Erik. “Take her to the smaller liraim. Jacob, come with me.”
“Yessir.” Jake unloaded her into Erik’s arms with a wink. “Gonna make our Snow White nice and comfortable. Maybe she’ll sing to the birds when she wakes up.”
“Unlikely.” But Father’s mouth twitched slightly, as if he found the image amusing. Which meant the Younger was doing his job, reminding other Sons what it was like to be human. “Good work, lads. We might survive this yet.”
That’d be nice. Frontier temples had much higher casualty rates, since they didn’t have a lirai or two inside to remind the Sons of what they fought for. This city was too large for a mere trio to keep clean of garden-variety predators and the Mad God’s faithful monsters.
But they tried.
Erik still couldn’t salute, but Ignatius didn’t expect him to, for once.
Instead, the closest thing to a real parent Jake and Erik now had set off to the left, heading for his study, and Jake made a face before following, boots leaving dark streaks on the foyer’s slate tile.
Father wasn’t going to be happy about that, but Erik wasn’t going to try to ameliorate that shit as an Elder should. Not right now.
Instead, he looked at the woman’s slack, bruised face. She was going to have a hard time with this, snatched from a relatively normal life and thrust into an entirely new, nightmarish world.
The fact that her new protectors would be able to at least visit a bigger temple for the first time in decades was beside the point, and the squeamish gratefulness Erik was doing his best not to feel at the prospect was yet another sign that he wasn’t a good person.
Then again, the good didn’t survive a mad god’s mark or the Sons’ training. You had to be a bastard to fight the nightmares, from the Dreaming or otherwise.
“Don’t worry,” he muttered, though she couldn’t possibly hear him. “Let’s get you a little more comfortable, lirai. I’ll take care of your face. Must hurt.”
He knew, miserably, that she was going to hate him. Why bother fighting that particular battle, among all the rest?
Still, as he carried her up the stairs—almost grateful for enhanced musculature granted by the alien god whispering at the bottom of every Son’s brain, because hauling around an adult’s deadweight was no joke—he exhaled harshly, and the familiar slight tingle of cleaning-sorcery crested over them both.
Being a Son had some benefits.
The power, not so incidentally, would add to the healing he’d poured into her body earlier to make sure she didn’t have any critical injuries.
By the time he reached the second floor, the bruising on her face and ribs was going down. He could feel it, high-pitched waves of physical misery blunted, receding. She’d still feel like shit when she woke up, but nothing was broken and she wouldn’t have any visible hematomas.
Just the aches.
She was going to hate all of them except for maybe Jake, and after she was delivered safely to a bigger temple Erik would no doubt be reassigned to another satellite, fighting yet another series of losing battles until he died with his guts torn out in some filthy hole or alley like the one they’d found her in.
Still, another Dreamer would help hold back the tide. Maybe Ignatius’s higher-ups would even grant their trio a break for finding their first potential.
Finally, after all this time.
The woman’s breathing was soft, scarcely detectable even with heightened senses, but her pulse was strong and sure.
Whatever else she’d been born as, she was lirai, and once burnished by the Flame her very presence would block the Mad God’s persistent cajoling whisper even more.
Not to mention providing waves of incandescent force for Sons to beat back the monsters, expanding safe zones and making their long-ago victory fractionally deeper.
Not total, of course. But every potential rescued and Flame-triggered bought them a little more time.
And every Son, from the Fathers to the youngest, was well aware that was well worth fighting for.
Even if they were all damned.