Bone Walker (8 page)

Still, though, my smile was crumpled. “You
don't
have anything to be jealous about,” I murmured. And, retro charm of Christopher's courting me aside, I wasn't done with honesty either. “For the record? The wrong guy was in my bed last night. Just so you know.”

A certain speculative gleam lit his eyes at that, and a grin I couldn't call anything but
male
tugged at his mouth. “Good to know,” he murmured back. I had just enough time to wonder if my Boy Scout of a Newfoundlander was aware of the one-two punch of that smile and the dimple in his chin before he leaned in to kiss me again—and this time, because the street was momentarily clear, with quite a bit more zest.
Go Team Honesty
. All at once the morning was looking up.

Which, of course, was the exact moment my phone had to buzz in my hip pocket.

Distracted, we sprang apart without quite breaking our embrace, and while Christopher didn't lose his grin, it turned distinctly sheepish. “You'd best answer that.”

He was right, of course, but Team Honesty issued a collective sigh of disappointment in the back of my brain while I fished the phone out of my pocket. A text message was waiting on the screen for my attention. I almost sagged with relief when I saw it was from Jude.

Chica I know you're on your way here don't bother I'm okay really! Go about your business. I need to resume mine from last night. Hasta!

“She seems okay, or at least as much as I can tell from a text,” I said, blowing out a deep sigh and turning the phone around so Christopher could see what our friend had written. Which was nice and all, except for the part where I couldn't quite manage to rid myself of my disquiet. Part of it was yet another stab of guilt as I remembered Jude had been dressed better than was normal for her the night before, and I couldn't help but wonder if our phone call for transport had pulled her away from an actual date. The rest was the memory of the spectral shape that had escaped Elessir leaping quite literally into her, an image I couldn't banish from behind my eyes no matter what else I tried to think about.

Christopher frowned. “Reads like something she'd write,” he agreed, but his tone was laced with doubt.

“And under any other circumstance I'd buy it. After last night, not so much, but what can we do? I can't just barge in on her if she's told me to go away, and we don't have any evidence…” Several words in I realized I was babbling, but only when Christopher's hands closed around my shoulders did it strike me as well that I'd started trying to pace along the sidewalk.

“Kendis. Breathe, lass. We'll make it right.”

When we'd first met I hadn't heard much of Christopher's most steadfast voice—not while he was still fighting the idea of becoming a Warder, after sixteen years in hiding from his own heritage. But he had that voice now. His magic rang through it, not because he was a Warder as much as he was just Christopher, staunch and unshakeable. I let his voice and power soak into me, closed my eyes, and tried to calm down.

“She's my best friend,” I croaked when I could speak.

“I know. I care about her too.” He took my hands, and at the press of his palms against mine, my own magic sparked up in hope. To that, Christopher squeezed my fingers. “And there's nothing that says you and I can't take a little stroll past her apartment. Or that we can't do a little more than most to make sure it feels okay, yeah?”

“Yeah.” Relaxing, I bobbed my head. He made sense. We were out to walk the Wards, after all, and by that argument, a walk past Jude's apartment complex was Christopher's
job
. That it was also on the way to the next bus stop we had to reach if we wanted to catch a ride north to the next stretch of the city Wards was just bonus. “Let's do this thing then.”

So resolved, we headed off towards the apartment complex where Jude lived, a few blocks and a corner or two away from the bus stop. There wasn't much to the place, at least viewed from the sidewalk: a blandly earth-toned sign with a name and logo, blandly earth-toned buildings with tiny balconies facing out to the streets, occasional political or environmental posters in the windows. The young maples along the planting strip next to the sidewalk, on the other hand, were a welcome splash of color, unfurling vivid splashes of orange, red, and gold all along the street. Christopher and I slowed our steps beside them, and I made a show of getting out my cell phone and snapping a picture of the trees in their glory.

Beside me Christopher lingered, his hand loose in mine, just enough contact to let me tap into the wash of magic he sent rolling over the buildings beside us. Through him I could sense the people who lived in this place, and who in that living shone like beacons to the sight of Seattle's Warder. Many were asleep at this hour on a Sunday morning, though some of the apartments stood empty—possibly because their residents were out at church. Only one of those sparks of life meant anything to me, though, and I knew Christopher had found Jude when I was suddenly keenly aware of her presence, as aware as if she stood before us.

“She's in there,” I said, pocketing my phone again and looping my arms around him as a car came by. It slowed and turned into the apartment complex, and so I kissed my man, the best of all possible excuses for why we might dawdle right there and then on this particular sidewalk.

“Yeah,” Christopher rasped in reply when he pulled away. His hand came up to trail along the back of my ear, a gentle touch that made my mouth go dry. Not only were my ears pointier than they'd used to be, they were more sensitive as well. That wasn't, however, enough to distract me from the regret in his eyes. “But I can't tell if there's anything odd about her. Not from here.”

I had no real call to be surprised by that; neither he nor Millicent had picked up anything from her from within arm's reach in my living room the night before. “We should go on about our business then, I guess,” I said.

“Are you sure, lass?”

“No.” The word came out as the sigh I was trying to repress, gruff and awkward. Team Honesty had its flip side, and had for me ever since I'd learned that the Sidhe had a thing against lying. I'd been uncomfortable about even the smallest of white lies ever since. “But we should go anyway. The Wards need you, and we'd better not stay away from my place for long.”

He nodded with a look on his face that made me suspect he knew exactly what that admission said about my state of mind, yet wasn't going to say a word about it. In a grateful rush I thought, for the very first time since I'd ever laid eyes on him,
I could love this man.

Right on the tail end of that, with a simplicity that stopped me in my tracks, came an addendum.
I do.

For several long moments that one concept distracted me from everything else. I'd never been swimming in boyfriends even before my changeling blood awoke. Being an African American geek chick had pretty much assured me of that, since that had been weird enough on its own. And once I'd turned into a living poster child for human-Seelie relations, my world had gotten a lot weirder. But it also now included Christopher, and I could no longer imagine it without him at its core. A strong, deep part of me was certain that between us, we could handle whatever else the world of magic, of Warders and the fey, wanted to throw at us. Tortured Unseelie bards, resentful Seelie warriors? No problem. Bring it.

Another part of me, though—the part that was worried sick about the ghostly shape last seen vanishing into Jude—wasn't so convinced.

That part of me prayed that the two of us would be enough.

Warding a city, or so I'd learned in the months since I'd met Millicent and Christopher, was a larger-scale version of the effort required to Ward a single house.
It required tapping into the life energy created by every creature, human or otherwise, who lived, worked, or did anything else within the city limits. Each and every activity that went into weaving the fabric of a city's daily existence counted towards the pool of magic that could be used to Ward it. The magic from actual city residents was best, though the lesser hit that came from people who lived outside the city but commuted into it for work was substantial. Even the fleeting glimmers of power you could get from travelers just passing through did their part.

By her personal tradition, Millicent had for the last fifty years, rain or shine, risen to travel as far around Seattle's borders as she could each morning, pouring power into the city Wards. Now that she had Christopher—and by extension, me, since I seemed to be a walking battery for his power—she'd leaped at the chance to make him cover even more territory than she could.

Two months after the fact, I understood the basic whys and wherefores, or at least I thought I did. There was a kind of music to it. Literally, since Millicent and Christopher both almost always busked whenever they went out, she with her whistle and he with the bouzouki that was seldom out of his reach. Most Warders, Millie had told me, were in fact musicians. When they were constrained to their chosen cities for their entire lives, music gave them all a way to keep from going stir crazy. Even more importantly, it channeled Warder power.

When we had time to spare, I brought along my violin and played with them. This morning, however, we had no such option. We'd left the house without our instruments, and it wasn't as if I was in a good space for playing anyway. Even with Christopher's hand in mine as we caught another bus to take us up towards Lake City Way, I had to fight down resentment.

Yeah, I know. I was out with my boyfriend on a pretty autumn morning, without anything that normal people would call a care in the world. You've probably got opinions on what violin I should have been whipping out for just such an occasion. World's smallest, am I right?

And yet. As much as I wanted to support Christopher in the work he was about to do, right then I wanted nothing more than to bolt right back to Jude's place and sit her still until I was convinced she was okay. Or, better yet, make Millicent do it for me. Meanwhile, there was the need to drag Christopher off somewhere quiet-like and tell him I loved him. Or rip his clothes off. Not necessarily in that order.

In between all of that, flashing through my brain like frames from a faltering video, I kept seeing Elessir's haggard face. That I couldn't banish it, not even on the strength of newly realized love, scared me into troubled silence all the way to 137th.

Christopher didn't seem to mind, thank God. He kept an arm loose around my shoulders during the ride, and once we paid our fares and got off, he slid his hand down to mine with companionable ease. Once he spoke, though, it was a welcome jolt to my system.

“So I'm thinking, want to head to the lake and work our way back down, then?”

I started, forced a smile, and then focused on my man. My Warder, still solemn of eye yet oddly calmer than he'd been when we'd left my house, for simply being out and about in his bonded city seemed to center him. “You're the Warder,” I said as cheerfully as I could. On impulse I squeezed his hand and let a bit of my magic roll down into the contact, hoping it would bring me something of what he felt—something of his peace. “I'm just along for the fresh air and your handsome face.”

Warmth bloomed between our joined palms, and for one long, breathless moment I let myself indulge in it, closing my eyes and narrowing my awareness until that prickling brightness took over my blood. Through it, I could sense what Christopher did and the echoes of the life of the city all around us. People were going about their business in the nearby shops and restaurants and in the cars and busses that roared past us on Lake City Way. If I stretched my senses far enough, I could note their presences all along the residential streets only a short walk away. More than that I couldn't sense. Everything else just blurred together for me, white noise filtered by the green-golden sheen of Christopher's power. I expected that after practicing blending my magic with his so often. Most of the time the din of so many lives was too much for me, and I had no idea yet how Millicent and Christopher bore it.

But I didn't expect the burst of energy that exploded like a new sun across my thoughts, standing out with painful brightness against the lesser wash of life energy around it. By pure reflex I scrubbed at my eyes with one hand while still clutching Christopher's with the other—fruitlessly, for at least in that one instant, that flare of a life left me dazzled and blind.

I had no time to ask Christopher if he'd sensed the same thing. Nor was that even necessary. Even before I'd recovered my senses, he was already moving. Only the grip of his hand kept me following him until my sight came back into focus.

“What in God's name was that?” I gasped as we hustled along the sidewalk, heading eastward.

“I don't know,” said Christopher, almost more to himself than me. His expression had sharpened with an intensity I rarely saw in him unless his bouzouki was in his hands, and distinct alarm besides. “Not Sidhe, I can tell that much from here.”

The street we followed grew narrower and more residential a few blocks to the east, and I soon caught glimpses of Lake Washington past the houses and trees ahead of us. Behind me the roar of traffic dulled but never vanished from my hearing, a jarring counterpoint to the peaceful silver of the water. As Christopher ran I kept up easily with him, about which I'd have been proud if I'd had any thought to spare. I was fitter now than I'd been before my faerie blood's awakening, more agile. And I, not Christopher, spotted the sleek canine shape bounding over the top of a hedge and sprinting across someone's yard. Living with a
kitsune
housemate as I did, the shape of the creature was instantly familiar. Its color, however, was not Jake's flawless snow-white. This
kitsune
, if in fact that was what I'd seen, was a deep red-tipped brown, like mahogany wreathed in flame.