Mean Streets

Charity's smile didn't exactly vanish, but it got cautious. 'Really.'

'Harry!' screamed a little voice, and Michael's youngest son, of the same name, flung himself into the air, trusting me to catch him. Little Harry was around Courtney's age, and generally regarded me as something interesting to climb on. I caught him and gave him a noisy kiss on the head, which elicited a giggle and a protest of, 'Yuck!'

Charity shook her head wryly. 'Well, come in. Let me get you something to drink. Harry, he's not a jungle gym. Get down.'

Little Harry developed spontaneous deafness and scrambled up onto my shoulders as we walked into the living room. Michael and his dark-haired, quietly serious daughter Alicia were just coming in from the garage, after putting away softball gear.

'Papa!' little Harry shouted, and promptly plunged forward, off my shoulders, arms outstretched to Michael.

He leaned forward and caught him, though I saw him wince and exhale tightly as he did it. My stomach rolled uncomfortably in sympathy.

'Alicia,' Charity said.

Her daughter nodded, hung her ball cap on a wooden peg by the door, and took little Harry from Michael, tossing him up into the air and catching him, much to the child's protesting laughter. 'Come on, squirt. Time for a bath.'

'Leech!' Harry shouted, and immediately started climbing on his sister's shoulders, babbling about something to do with robots.

Michael watched them exit with a smile. 'I asked Harry to dinner tonight,' he told Charity, kissing her on the cheek.

'Did you?' she said, in the exact same tone she'd used on me at the door.

Michael looked at her and sighed. Then he said, 'My office.'

We went into the study Michael used as his office-more cluttered than it had been before, now that he was actually using it all the time-and closed the door behind us. I took out the photos I'd received without a word and showed them to Charity.

Michael's wife was no dummy. She looked at them one at time, in rapid succession, her eyes blazing brighter with every new image. When she spoke, her voice was cold. 'Who took these?'

'I don't know yet,' I told her. 'Though Nicodemus's name does sort of leap to mind.'

'No,' Michael said quietly. 'He can't harm me or my family anymore. We're protected.'

'By what?' I asked.

'Faith,' he said, simply.

That would be a maddening answer under most circumstances-but I'd seen the power of faith in action around my friend, and it was every bit as real as the forces I could manage. Former presidents get a detail of Secret Service to protect them. Maybe former Knights of the Cross had a similar retirement package, only with more seraphim. 'Oh.'

'You're going to get to the bottom of this?' Charity asked.

'That's the idea,' I said. 'It might mean I intrude on you all a little.'

'Harry,' Michael said, 'there's no need for that.'

'Don't be ridiculous,' Charity replied, turning to Michael. She took his hand, very gently, though her tone of voice stayed firm. 'And don't be proud.'

He smiled at her. 'It isn't a question of pride.'

'I'm not so sure,' she said quietly. 'Father Forthill said we were only protected against supernatural dangers. If there's something else afoot… You've made so many enemies. We have to know what's happening.'

'I often don't know what's happening,' Michael said. 'If I spent all my time trying to find out, there wouldn't be enough left to live in. This is more than likely being done for the sole purpose of making us worried and miserable.'

'Michael,' I said quietly. 'One of the best ways I know to counter fear is with knowledge.'

He tilted his head, frowning gently at me.

'You say you won't live in fear. Fine. Let me poke around and shine a light on things, so we know what's going on. If it turns out to be nothing, no harm done.'

'And if it isn't?' Charity asked.

I kept a surge of quiet anger out of my voice and expression as I looked at her levelly. 'No harm gets done to you and yours.'

Her eyes flashed and she nodded her chin once.

'Honey,' Michael sighed.

Charity stared at him.

Michael might have slain a dragon, but he knew his limits. He lifted a hand in acceptance and said, 'Why don't you make up the guest bedroom.'

By a little after nine, the Carpenter household was almost entirely silent. I had been shown into the little guest room kept at the end of an upstairs hallway. It was really Charity's sewing room, and was all but filled with colorful stacks of folded fabric, some of them in clear plastic containers, some of them loose. There was room around a little table with a sewing machine on it, and just barely enough space to get to the bed. I'd recuperated from injuries there before.

One thing was new- there was a very fine layer of dust on the sewing machine.

Huh.

I sat down on the bed and looked around. It was a quiet, warm, cheerful little room-almost manically so, now that I thought about it. Everything was soft and pleasant and ordered, and it took me maybe six or seven whole seconds to realize that this room had been Charity's haven. How many days and nights must she have been worried about Michael, off doing literally God only knew what, against foes so terrible that no one but him could have been trusted to deal with them? How many times had she wondered if it would be a solemn Father Forthill who came to the door, instead of the man she loved? How many hours had she spent in this well-lit room, working on making warm, soft things for her family, while her husband carried Amoracchius's cold, bright steel into the darkness?

And now there was dust on the sewing machine.

Michael had nearly been killed, out there on that island. He had been crippled, forced by his injuries to lay aside the holy sword, along with the nearly invisible, deadly war that went with it. And he was happier than I'd ever seen him.

Maybe the Almighty worked in mysterious ways, after all.

Another thought occurred to me, as I sat there pondering: Whoever had sent those pictures hadn't sent them to Michael- he'd sent them to me. What if I'd put Michael and his family into real danger by showing up? What if I'd somehow reacted in exactly the way I'd been meant to react?

I grimaced around the cheerful room. So much for sleep.

I got up and padded back downstairs in my sock feet to raid the fridge, and while I was in the kitchen munching on an impromptu cold-cuts sandwich, I saw a shadow move past the back window.

I had several options, but none of them were real appetizing. I settled for the one that might accomplish the most. I turned and padded as quickly and quietly as I could to the front door, slipped out, and snuck around the side of the house in the direction that would, I hoped, bring me up behind the intruder. A quick spat of rain had made the grass wet, and the night had grown cool enough to make my instantly soaked socks uncomfortable. I ignored them, and went padding through the grass, keeping to the side of the house and watching all around me.

The backyard was empty.

I got an itchy feeling on the back of my neck and continued my circle. Had I given myself away somehow? Was the intruder even now circling just the way I was, hoping to sneak up on me} I took longer steps and stayed as quiet as I knew how-which is pretty darn quiet. I've developed my skulking to professional levels, over the years.

And as I rounded the corner, I spotted the intruder, a dark form hurrying down the sidewalk past Courtney's house. I couldn't follow him without being spotted pretty quickly, unless I cheated, which I promptly did. My ability to throw up a veil wasn't anything to write home about, but it ought to be good enough to hide me from view on a dark night, on a heavily shadowed street. 1 focused on my surroundings, on drawing the light and shadow around me in a cloak, and watched my own vision dim and blur somewhat as I did.

I half wished I'd woken Molly up. The kid is a natural at subtle stuff like veils. She can make you as invisible as Paris Hilton's ethical standards, and you can still see out of it with no more impediment than a pair of mildly tinted sunglasses. But, since it was me doing the job, I was probably just sort of indistinct and blurry, and my view of the street was like something seen through dark, thin fabric. I kept track of the pale concrete of the sidewalk and the movement of the intruder against the background of shadowy shapes and blurry bits of light, and walked softly.

The intruder crept down the street and then quickly crouched down beside my old Volkswagen, the Blue Beetle. It took him maybe five seconds to open the lock, reach into the car, and draw out the long, slender shape of a sheathed sword.

He must have come to the house first, and circled it to determine where I was. He could have spotted my staff, which I'd left resting against the wall by the front door, when he looked into the kitchen window. And I was pretty sure it was a him I was dealing with, too. The movement of his arms and legs was brusque, choppy, masculine.

I took a few steps to one side and picked up Courtney's soccer ball. Then I approached to within a few yards and tossed it up in a high arc. It came down with a rattling thump on the Blue Beetle's hood.

Lurky-boy twitched, twisting his upper body toward the sound and freezing, and I hit him in a diving tackle with my body as rigid as a spear, all of my weight behind one shoulder, trying to drive it right through his spine and out his chest. He was completely unprepared for it and went down hard, driven to the sidewalk with a 'whuff' of expelled air.

I grabbed him by the hair so that I could introduce his forehead to the sidewalk, but his hair was cut nearly military-short, and I didn't have a good grip. He twisted and got me in the floating rib with an elbow, and I wasn't in a good enough position to keep him from getting out from under me and scrambling away, the sheathed weapon still in hand.

I focused my will, flicked a hand at him and spat, 'Forzare!' Unseen force lashed out at the back of his knees-

– and hit the mystic equivalent of a brick wall. There was a burst of twinkling, shifting lights, and he let out a croaking sound as he kept running.