Four Roads Cross (Craft Sequence #5)(15)

“Slow down, college girl. You broke a lot of laws, even if you stopped bad people from doing worse.”

“You, and your Blacksuits, almost got us all killed. Or enslaved.”

“You hypnotized me and sent me into a vampire’s sickroom, knowing I’d shove my arm in his mouth. I’m only here at all because he has more self-control than either of us.”

“You—” Tara’s voice went sharp and hot, and she wheeled on Cat with one hand raised. But she stopped herself, and closed her mouth, and sat at last in the chair across from Cat’s desk. “You were telling me about the paperwork.”

Cat assembled the sheets into a pile. “Seril’s bound by the same rules as Justice—but she’s conscious, and her perspective warps things. We’ve stepped up the plainclothes officer program as a result. Used to be intelligence gathering only, moles and vice, but now it’s expanded to a double role, intelligence and oversight. The guys with families don’t like it—if they show their faces, they’re exposed to revenge and old-fashioned blackmail. Those of us who don’t have as much to lose, step up.” She dropped the papers into a wire tray. “So, much as I miss our pleasant chats, I’ll pass on the meeting.”

“The gargoyles are exposed,” Tara said.

“I heard. You talked to Gabby Jones down at the guild?”

“She won’t pull the story. She’s right not to. It is the truth, even if it’s the wrong truth.” Tara scraped one fingernail down her chair’s leather armrest. “We need to regulate the damage, which means keeping Seril and Aev’s people under wraps. I got most of them to promise to cut out the vigilantism, but Shale won’t, and Aev won’t let me stop him. So Alt Coulumb has to be the safest city in the world, starting tonight.”

“I’m beginning to get the impression this isn’t just about me coming to your meeting,” Cat said.

“You have a lot of Blacksuits booked for an operation tonight. Cancel the op. Put them on the street instead.”

“No.”

“This is a big deal, Cat. We need the city safe tonight.”

“This morning Raz helped us catch an indenture-trader in a drug bust. That gives us grounds to seize and search her ship, to save those people. If we don’t take them tonight, her crew has standing orders to sail out of reach. You want that on your conscience?”

Cat wasn’t good at reading people, but even she could see the yes in the set of Tara’s shoulders, in the angle of her head and the tension at the corners of her mouth. And even she could see the woman recoil from that yes. “No,” she said.

“I’m sorry.”

“It’s the right thing to do,” Tara told Cat, and herself.

Neither of them spoke for a while.

“Tara,” she said at last, “is it normal to hear gods in your head?”

“I’m not a person of faith,” Tara replied. “Sort of the opposite.”

“You know how these things work, though.”

“From the outside. But no, it’s not usual.”

“Seril talks to me, sometimes.”

“The gods.” Tara steepled her fingers, and in that gesture she recalled Ms. Kevarian, Tara’s teacher, mentor—and Denovo, too, the monster whose student Tara had been. “They aren’t part of time and space like we are. They’re second-order effects of humanity. We feel them. When we pray, or take the field against them, we … bind them into time. But they don’t do small talk. In general, only saints can hear their voices.”

“So I’m talking to myself.”

“I doubt it. We’ve changed. Take you, for example: you were a bit rudderless a year ago.”

“Hey,” she said, but didn’t mean it.

“And now you’re tied to a being who’s nothing but direction. Maybe that makes the difference. And Seril’s a smaller god, not spread between as many worshippers. So each one means more to her. Or maybe she thinks you’re a saint.” Tara shrugged. “I kill gods and guard them, and raise them from the dead when they die. I don’t pray.”

“But you’re hearing voices, too,” Cat said.

Tara drummed her fingers on the arm of her chair. The wall clock ticked. She nodded, once.

“At least I’m not going mad alone.”

Tara stood. “Meeting’s at seven, at the Temple of Kos. Can you come? Please?”

“We sail at eight.”

“It won’t take long.”

“Why do you want me? This whole thing’s above my pay grade.”

“We saved the city,” Tara said. “We’re responsible for it now.”

“I wish someone had told me before I decided to save it.”

Tara laughed without sound. Then she shook Cat’s hand and left.





8

The Paupers’ Quarter market closed at one, and afterward, as ever in time of crisis, Matt Adorne and the other market elders met for lunch at Cadfael’s Bar and Grill.

“It’s a travesty,” whitebeard Corbin Rafferty raged, punctuating his tirade with a long swig of dark beer. “We sacrifice to God and we pay dues to Justice. And in return they let godsdamn Stone Men,” his voice shaking, “Stone Men haunt our streets. Bloodthirsty.” He stuffed his mouth with burger, bit down hard, and gnashed. “We have to do something.”