Chapter Seven
Joy stared in shock.
Holly’s arms dropped as fear entered her eyes.
Before another word could be uttered, Joy grabbed Malcolm and brought him to the ether with no intention of bringing him out until he explained, but he took control of their flight and pulled them into a dark underground alley in a city somewhere.
She released him and set herself down at least twenty feet awaybefore solidifying. She itched to ask him what he meant, but her tactics rarely worked. Instead, she waited.
Malcolm simply stared at her though she wasn’t sure if he actually saw her. His hands were fisted and his body still.
There was a lone light over a door at one end of the alley and what looked like a couple of mechanized dumpsters of some sort, not that they helped since trash lay everywhereand from the movement of one pile, she’d bet there were plenty of rats. It was an unforgiving place.
“Welcome to Glasgow’s underbelly, forty-five years in the future.” Malcolm’s voice surprised her, the tone almost sneering.
She returned her gaze to him. He’d solidified as well and had thrown his hood up over his head. Like that, with the backdrop of the darkness, he seemed sinister.Is he?Maybe that’s why they were testing him. Maybe she’d be asked to report.
“Why did you bring us here?”
He opened his arms. “This was my life.”
She widened her eyes. “You lived in an underground alley?”
His chuckle was harsh. “No. My home was far from here. This is where I worked. I was a Watchman. Trained to kill or take-in the criminal element, whichever was easier. Sanctioned by the city toclean it up.” He gestured toward a dumpster. “Clean-up the human trash.”
She shivered. Malcolm’s normally dark eyes seemed to glitter with an amber light. “Is that what you meant when you said you killed people after your wife died.”
He stepped closer to her as he shook his head. “My wife didn’t die, though I hope she did soon after I did. It was Blair’s death that sent me over the edge.”
She should have known he’d have more than one love in his life. That bothered her for an irrational reason that she wasn’t about to investigate now. “I think I’m confused.”
“I’m sure you are. Allow me to enlighten you. I worked in this environment until Blair was shot. While she was with me, I had some semblance of what was normal. She was my consummate.”
“What is that?” This is where she washaving a hard time understanding.
He paused as if surprised by her question then he nodded. “A consummate is someone you commit to love for the rest of your life, a true soulmate. A wife is a person you plan to live with but you have no idea how long that will be. This was how it was set up in my lifetime since marriage among people of your lifetime stopped averaging more than ten years.”
“Oh.”That was a sad state. Maybe not marrying Alan had been a good thing after all. “So, Blair was your consummate and she was killed by…” she held out her hands, “this.”
“Aye, this. This environment and my profession. It was the shooter’s understanding of what I was that caused her death.”
“A Watchman.”
He looked beyond her as if she hadn’t spoken. “He knew I had the right to kill him and he wasn’tabout to take that chance. As a Watchman, I wasn’t allowed to hunt down criminals, only take them in or take them down as I came across them committing a crime. The shooter ran while I held Blair, lying to her and telling her she would be okay.”
Joy wanted to take him in her arms and sooth away his pain, but instinct told her that was far beyond her ability.
“That night I resigned. I had a shooterto catch and no one was going to stand in my way.”
She gasped. “You turned vigilante.” Now she understood what he’d meant by saying he’d gone rogue.
At her words, his gaze came back to her. “I began wearing this cape to cover my face from all but the vermin I killed. It took me months, but I finally found the shooter. He was well aware of who I was before he died.”
Joy took a step back. Itwas so at odds with her life and her time. She didn’t understand it. She had lived helping the loved and treasured die, while he’d lived sending the hated and feared to their deaths.
Malcolm ignored her. “But my victory was hollow. Blair was still gone and without her, I’d lost all sense of what normal was. I slept all day so I could prowl these alleys at night for prey.”
He blinked as if suddenlyremembering where he was. His lip quirked up on one side, an odd look for what he’d told her. “I did bring the crime rate to its lowest level in history.”
