Lightbreaker

V

It was hard to say what Pender believed and what he already knew. A Watcher trait: you could never really be sure they didn't know more than you, even when they seemed to be clueless. Some of the lieutenant's reactions seemed too forced, too naive, to be true; while at other times he appeared genuinely puzzled.

I couldn't decide which was better.

After he left, I considered my dearth of options. Regardless of what Pender did with the information about Doug, he knew who I was and, eventually, a report containing my name would be filed with the head office in Paris. After that, it was just a matter of time before the wrong person realized the record of my death was a premature one.

He'll come. It wasn't like Antoine to leave matters unresolved. He'd want to finish our business. The wound had long been healed but, for a second, the skin on my stomach tightened. The invasive memory of cold steel. He'll need to finish it, and not just for Watcher honor.

Was there enough time to find Kat? Doug's trail was about to become a clusterfuck of police interest. I wouldn't be able to get anywhere near him without Pender's knowledge. I needed another approach.

I was still rolling that conundrum over in my mind when the door clicked. A pair of uniforms looked in. 'Mr. Markham,' one of them said. 'Please come with us.'

I did so dutifully-up two elevators, and through a number of long windowless hallways. A pair of thick doors disgorged me into a receiving area, and I discovered we were above ground. At a caged window, I signed for my personal effects; then, plastic bag and coat in hand, I was led through a security station, and found myself in the lobby of Seattle Police Headquarters. My uniformed guide nodded at my uncertainty, and pointed toward the door. 'Have a nice day,' he said.

Through the tall windows fronting the building, I saw Pender waiting on the front steps, wearing a full-length wool coat against the wind and Seattle damp. Hands clasped behind his back, head tilted up as if he had just stepped outside to check the weather.

I sorted through the plastic bag for my belt and shoelaces. After threading them through their respective places, I slipped on my coat and dumped the remaining items into my jacket pockets. The wind teased at me as I exited the building, like a coy lover blowing through the hole in my shirt. I tugged at the lapels-the coat fell awkwardly across my shoulders and back. It had seen better days. I had seen better days.

'Patientia beneficium qui exspecto,' Pender said to me by way of greeting.

I hesitated, and then inclined my head a fraction. 'So I've heard.' It was an old society saying: those who watch reap the rewards of patience.

'I should leave you in custody, Mr. Markham.' His eyes tracked the cars on the road, registering and cataloguing. 'Drop you in a hole; forget about you for a few days.' The echo in his voice said it all. A few days. He finally looked at me. A grim smile flattened his lips. 'But what would I learn from watching you in a small box?'

'My sleeping habits,' I said.

'Exactly, and I don't really care much about them. I'm more interested in what you do when you're awake, when you are on the prowl.' He looked at the street again. 'Besides, how far do you think you can run?'

'Far enough,' I said.

He nodded at that. 'Probably. But that wouldn't solve your local problem now, would it?'

'No.'

His voice dropped to a feigned stage whisper. 'So what's to be gained by running?'

He had a point. One that had been nagging at me while I was in the room. If I bolted and went to ground, I could probably disappear. I had done it once before.

But she's here, the Chorus reminded me, tugging at my groin, lighting up my lower vertebrae. I was close. Close enough that I could find her in a day or two. If I got lucky. If Pender watched, and didn't act. If he waited to call Paris. If. .

A feral smile tugged at my lips, as the series of possibilities became untenably convoluted. Loops within loops, cycles cutting across each other. And, in that confusion, the simple clarity of all of our actions: I sought to seal the circle of my history; Antoine would come, seeking to do the same for his. We all want resolution, in the end.

You two will always mirror each other.

I pushed aside the memory of that voice from Paris, focusing instead on something the Old Man drilled into us. 'Sapienta est aspicio ut sapiens.' Wisdom has its way, but only for those who are wise enough to receive it.

Pender smiled at the words. 'Vidui.'

I'll be watching.

'Wouldn't want it any other way.' I walked down the steps to the street. My car was back on the peninsula, parked by the side of the road. It was a long walk, even with the ferry ride across the bay. I didn't need the car so much as I wanted to chase my trail. The ritual where Doug had been separated from his body had taken place across the bay, out in the woods somewhere. While Pender and his monkeys chewed up Doug's trail in Seattle, I could still find his friends.

I only wanted one of them anyway.

I paused at the sidewalk and looked back. Pender, true to his word, was still Watching. I glanced across the street before I turned toward downtown and the waterfront.

Pender wasn't the only observer. The detective, the man whom Doug had invaded and used to shoot me, was watching too. He was sitting in the car parked across the street.

Most of the rain had blown over the Puget Sound and the city during my incarceration. As I stood on the upper deck of the west-bound ferry, the wind pushing the storm east was a persistent pressure on my face. It smelled clean; the pollution in the air had been dampened down by the rain. I could smell wood smoke and pine trees-rural civilization on the edge of the wild.

The ferry staterooms were too small for me right now, a claustrophobic reaction to the time spent in the tiny room at the police station. I needed to smell the forest and the fresh air; I needed to have my face scoured by the wind. Like soap and water, water and soap. While my father had wanted to cleanse the natural world from his skin, I sought its touch. I needed its blessing.

I had only been in custody for six hours. A sign in itself of Pender's position within the SPD. The man could get things done. Of course, I didn't expect any less of a Watcher in the field.

Eventually, the detective joined me on the upper deck. On my walk down to the ferry terminal, I had tried to make it easy for him to follow me. I didn't want to get all the way out to Bainbridge Island, and discover he hadn't been able to follow my trail.

He was several inches taller than me and a good decade older, with a face permanently creased from exposure to the Seattle weather. His hair was short, and there were patches of gray at his temples, streaks that descended into his wide sideburns. While he still seemed like nothing more than an aged bull awkwardly stuffed into a suit, up close I could read a deep weariness-an infection that ran down into the marrow of his bones.

His overcoat was thick and warm, clearly the one piece of clothing he had put some thought into. Underneath, his suit coat was too light for the season, and his tie was too garish to be anything but a designer knockoff. Solid shoes though. A working man who kept track of the days and weeks. Checkmarks on a calendar, months blacked out as they vanished into history. The steady march toward retirement.

In complete disregard of the ban against smoking in public places, he slipped a cigarette into his mouth and cupped one large hand around the end. I looked at his knuckles as he worked the lighter-an angrier and more misshapen tale told in their knotted surfaces than the story pounded into my hands. Boxer, maybe; football, probably. Given his size, my guess was defensive lineman. Just during college and then he gave it up to chase felons and murderers.

He sucked deeply on the cigarette, making sure the tobacco caught. A blur of smoke flickered out of his mouth and vanished, whisked past his collar by the wind. 'Detective John Nicols,' he said, offering me his hard hand.