Lightbreaker

He would come home from teaching and obsessively wash his hands. Before he left in the morning, he would repeat the same ritual-soap and water, soap and water-until they were pink and shining. Innocent. Purified.

I glanced down at my hands, resting on the table. My knuckles, broken more than once; the scars on the back of my right hand, ugly kisses left by steel and bone; the twisted piece of flesh at the base of my left thumb. The things we learn from our fathers: our hands betray what we have done.

'And yet,' Pender noted, 'you never finished school.'

I shrugged, putting my hands in my lap. 'My sister was always better at applying herself.'

'Chelsea married an investment banker from Barcelona, didn't she?' The question was rhetorical; I knew he had the specifics on the page. 'Migel Guastera. She hasn't been back to the States since your father's funeral in '02.'

'That seems about right.'

'You don't talk much?'

'Differences of opinion make casual talk sort of pointless.'

'You don't like her husband?'

'I've never met him.'

'Does your sister work?'

'She does art restoration. Local galleries in Barcelona, mainly.'

He raised an eyebrow. 'With your line of work, there's no overlap? No reason for regular contact?'

'There's a lot of people doing art restoration out there; and I don't have a lot of reasons to visit Barcelona.'

'And your business on the peninsula last night had nothing to do with art or antiques?'

I shook my head. 'Visiting an old friend.'

'He'll confirm this?'

'Why wouldn't he?'

Pender gave me a toothsome smile that didn't extend to his eyes. The dart and feint of our conversation was entertaining him. It was a game he thought he could win. I was starting to tire of it. What would he do if I slapped him with the fact that I knew he was a Watcher? Testis sum. I am a Witness. It was a passphrase used in the Witnessing rituals of the Journeymen. It would definitely abort our little conversation, but would it get me out of this room without creating further complications?

He's going to call Paris anyway; you're running out of time.

'Douglas Rassmussen,' I said, opting for a different distraction. Stay away from Paris.

'Pardon?' He closed the file.

'That's his name. The traveler. That's the guy you should be talking to.' I leaned toward him. 'He left the boat in another body, which means there's another charred corpse waiting for you to find. Not to mention how he gets back into his original body.'

'Back to his body? What do you mean?'

'He wasn't acting alone.' The flickering colors, the sensory impressions stolen from Doug, danced in my head. 'It was some sort of ritual. He wasn't bodiless by accident. He had help transcending his natural state.'

'I thought you said there was only one spirit?'

I sighed and looked away. Was he being intentionally dense, or did he just not have any idea what psychoanimism was?

Be sure.

'He and his friends are doing rituals of separation. They've learned how to split the light from the meat. Completely. This isn't astral projection; they are separating soul from body. I think he was trying to get back to his body; I think that was the whole point of their ritual.'

'Why? What was the point?'

'To prove his worthiness, to prove that he was ready to join their inner circle.' To prove he could survive the experience.

Some of the sly amusement dropped away from Pender's face. 'They're organized?'

'It didn't happen spontaneously.'

'You seem to know a lot about this sort of ritual.'

'He possessed the old man, bent him to his Will.'

Violet dots swam in his irises as he waited for me to give him more information. 'And?'

'It's an abomination. It kills the body and the spirit. Our journey to enlightenment isn't a path that requires innocents to suffer. That's not knowledge.' He was Watching me now, gauging my unconscious reaction. I gave him little to read, just verbal propaganda drawn from a few thousand years of Roman Catholic history and an expression full of shock and horror.

A corner of his mouth twitched. 'Is that part of your religious upbringing, Mr. Markham, or are you trying to impress upon me the depth of your compassion?'

'My compassion.'

'Ah,' he nodded, and I managed to keep a straight face. 'Yes, of course.' He touched the corner of his mouth as if to stop the twitch. 'And, when you had your talk with this transgressor, were you going to ask him to vacate the old man's body?'

'It was too late for Mr. Summers. I was trying to stop him from possessing another body. The woman in the Acura. Your detective. The driver of the car that. .'

Pender's gaze fell toward the closed folder. One of the pages inside had to be the field report from the police on the scene. His fingers moved idly on the cover, tracing some mental pattern in his head. 'A Cadillac,' he offered. 'The car that hit you was a Cadillac SRX. He was controlling the driver's body?'

'Yes.'

'And you think his possession has killed this person as well?' His interest seemed piqued, as if I had finally offered enough information that he couldn't dismiss the possibility that I was the smaller problem here. Now there was something larger to deal with than just an adept performing an Act of Will in public.

'Even if he just possessed her long enough to return to his real body-wherever it had been taken-she'll be severely touched. And she'll know who they are.' I nodded. 'Yeah, if Doug doesn't burn her out, they'll kill her.'

'Do you know who they are?'

'No, just the one guy. Douglas Rassmussen. Son of Frederick and Amber.' I spelled the last name for him. 'I don't know who his friends are.'

Something passed through his eyes, something he hid almost as instantly as it flared. I was left with a momentary spasm in my gut as if the ground had unexpectedly rippled beneath me. The name meant something to him.

'Well,' he said, standing up. 'I'll look into it.' He held up the folder. 'I'll check the databases.'

'What about me?'

'I haven't decided, Mr. Markham. You're a wild card and I'm not sure I should let you run free in this city.'

'My business is almost finished,' I said. 'There would be no reason for me to stay here after I was done.'

'You never did tell me what your business here was.'

'Looking for an old friend,' I said. 'A woman.'

His tongue touched the edge of his lip, almost mocking me. 'She break your heart?'

'Sort of.'

'Financial dispute?'

'No.'

'Pity. Financial disagreements rarely end in bloodshed. Just lawyers.' He shook his head as he walked to the door. 'Matters involving heartbreak. .?' He punched in a code on the door's security lock. As he opened the door, he left me with a parting observation. 'They always seem to produce collateral damage.'