Page 42 of Peacemaker

I listened to his final message, my heart heavy. “If you’re ignoring my calls because you’re busy with those fucking supernaturals you live with, I will kill you myself.”

“Fuck him,” Shane said. “I’m going to have to kick his ass.” But his voice was hoarse. “We need to get to the city, baby hunter.”

“I know,” I whispered, stunned, near tears, horrified by all the attacks. We would have to kill a lot of turned humans when we got to the city. We would have to fight more rifters. Either the ones we’d killed hadn’t stayed down, or more of them had managed to slip through. “You and Clayton go. I have to deal with this spirit—he’s beating the shit out of my mind. I’ll be there as soon as I can get rid of him.”

If I could have, I’d have put the spirit on the backburner. But his clamoring was getting to be too much for me. The minute the crisis had ended and my mind had cleared a little, the visitor had rushed in to fill the silence with his desperation. I had no choice but to deal with him.

I was the Caretaker, and it was my job. My responsibility.

“I’ll let Crawford know we’re on our way,” Clayton said.

I turned to him before I entered the kitchen, where Jin waited, pacing the floor, throwing me dark glances. He’d already taken the kit out of the fridge and placed it on the table. “Clayton…”

He nodded. “I know.” He gave me a last lingering look, then he and Shane jogged away, off to deal with a city in crisis while I guided the spirit to his rightful path.

Damn spirits.

Yes, I was a little resentful.

“Water, Jin.” I fell into a chair at the table, then blasted opened the metaphysical doors of the way station and yanked the visitor inside.

He fell to his knees upon the floor, his hair hanging in his face, his borrowed body clean and unmarred, in direct contrast to his battered mind.

I could see those wounds. I could feel them. His damage scurried over me like a thousand spiders. I twitched and brushed that damage off, taking a deep breath as I got a grip on my reality.

Jin handed me an icy glass of water, and I nodded my thanks before downing it. Nothing had ever felt better on my dry throat, scorched and raw from the power of the demon.

I waited impatiently for the usual confusion, the questions, the disbelief. It didn’t come. The stranger simply climbed to his feet, silently, his eyes narrowed, his body tense, ready to either fight or run.

I was betting on fight.

“Who are you?” he asked. He looked around the kitchen, slowly, carefully, missing nothing. “What’s this place?”

It was not the question I’d expected. “This is the way station, and I’m the Caretaker. You were lost and wandering, and I’m here to help you find your way.” I patted the tabletop, trying to be patient, failing miserably. “Please sit and have something to eat before I set you on your true path.”

His stare sharpened. “Can I choose where I land?”

I hadn’t met a spirit like him before, and I shot a glance at Jin, unsure. He only shrugged, his eyes wide. I returned my stare to the visitor. “No. I find the true path, and I show it to you.”

He sighed.

“Do you want some water?” I asked.

“Yeah.”

“Please, sit.” I pointed my chin at the kit on the table. “There’s chocolate.”

He watched me as he edged toward the table, suspicious but hungry. In the end, the food and water won out and he perched on the edge of the chair and dug into the food. The only time he took his stare off me was when he planted it on Jin.

He smelled of the outdoors. Of Fall, wood smoke, sweat, earth.

I shuddered, suddenly nostalgic for something, but I didn’t know what. It wasn’t me, I realized, finally. I was simply picking up his sadness. His homesickness. He was missing his people and his past. He was missing life.

He ate like a man accustomed to hunkering down and taking food where he found it, even if it was in the middle of a battle. I wasn’t sure he even tasted the food.

“What’s your name?” he asked me, finally.

“Trinity. What’s yours?”