LITMIR.BIZ

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to do what you’re told, I’m afraid. It’s just the way this works.”

      The girl sniffled. “What about the little boy?”

      “What little boy?” Dwyer asked.

      “He comes into my head, just like you do. Only I can see him. I can’t see you, I can only hear you, but I can see him. And he needs me, and I want to help him, but I don’t know who he is or where he is or how to help him. Is he with you?”

      “No,” Dwyer said. “Listen, as far as I know, that other vision, that boy, it’s not real, love. It’s likely comin’ from a different part of your mind—your imagination, maybe. I’m thinkin’ that’s all it is. It’s not real, not like me.”

      “He seems as real as you. He seems—he seems more real than you.”

      “Go up to the corner, Crisa, or your head’s goin’ to start to hurt again.”

      “Sometimes it hurts even when I do what you tell me.”

      “That can’t be helped, Crisa. It’s a malfunction, and one I’ll fix just as soon as I see you. I promise. Go to the corner now, lass.”

      The camera went dark, and Gregor thought the woman had closed her eyes. She moaned softly, and there was static and snow on the monitor, and then a shape. A human shape. A small one. It grew clearer as Gregor watched, until it took the form of a boy.

      A boy he knew very, very well.

      It was Matthias.

      “I can’t help you anymore,” the girl moaned. “Briar’s looking for me. Good night.”

       Briar!

      Gregor backed away, stunned. Who the hell was this Crisa, and what kind of connection could she possibly have to Matthias? One thing was certain. She was a CIA plant. Somehow she’d been fitted with a camera and some sort of communications equipment, and inserted into Reaper’s gang of do-gooders—because that was, as far as he knew, where Briar remained.

      And somehow, he couldn’t imagine how, she knew Matthias. She knew his son.

      1

      “There you are,” Briar said, her tone flat and uninterested as she leaned against the doorjamb. The little snowflake was standing on the sidewalk, blinking in the darkness like a doe caught in a spotlight. The perpetually confused look on her face was just as irritating as it always was. “What the hell are you doing outside, Crisa?”

      The girl seemed to draw her focus away from wherever the hell it had been—Neverland, probably—and pin it on Briar at long last. Her hair was in its usual style. Briar’s initial opinion was that it had been combed with an eggbeater, and that was still the most accurate description. It was pale brown with blue highlights, short and unevenly cut. Her hair-care regimen seemed to be “fold in the mousse and beat until stiff peaks form.” She was heavily made up tonight, which was rare. Too much eyeliner, thicker on one eye than the other, bright green eye shadow, lashes like a spider’s hairy legs, straight lines of blush from her chin to her ear on each side of her face, and plum-colored lipstick. She wore a long-sleeved maroon shirt, made of the same material they made long johns from, with a lacy cream-colored camisole over the top of it—a combination that made no sense whatsoever. From the waist down, she sported a blazing orange broomstick skirt and a pair of red Converse high-tops.

      As she took Crisa in, Briar came damn close to laughing, and that was something she never did. Besides, even she wasn’t heartless enough to want to kick a puppy. Okay, maybe an ordinary puppy, but not a brain-fried vampire-woman-child like Crisa.

      The girl still hadn’t answered her question. She was just staring, blinking those great big brown eyes as if she didn’t understand Briar’s language.

      “Hey.” Briar trotted down the three steps to the sidewalk and snapped her fingers in front of Crisa’s purple lips. “Ground Control to Major Tom. You reading me?”

      “Huh?”

      “How come you’re outside?”

      “Oh. I don’t know, he told me to.”

      Briar frowned a little harder. “Who told you to?”

      “I don’t know.”

      Suddenly alarmed, Briar clasped Crisa’s shoulder in a grip that was as tender as it was protective, and she didn’t bother to ask herself about that, or about the way her gut and fists clenched simulta-neously as she sought to drop-kick whatever asshole had been messing with her Crisa. She sent a quick glance up and down the sidewalk, along with her senses, in search of enemies. Mortal or vampire, it could be either type. God knew their little band of white-hats had made enough of both kinds. She didn’t see or sense anything, though.

      “Crisa,” she said, focusing again on the girl. “It’s important that you tell me who told you to come outside.”

      “But I don’t know.” The girl’s eyes began to dampen, and she pressed a hand to her forehead. “Please don’t be mad at me, Briar.”

      “I’m not—” Briar bit her lip, realizing she’d barked the words at the girl. She softened her tone and tried to bank her frustration. “I’m not mad. Listen, you said someone told you to go outside. Was it someone in the house?”

      “I don’t think so. More…in here.” As she said it, Crisa pressed her other hand to her head, cupping it between them. “God, it hurts.”

      “Your head hurts?”

      Crisa nodded, eyes closed.

      “So it was a voice in your head that told you to come outside?”

      “Yes. A man’s voice.”

      Someone communicating with her, mentally, Briar thought. It had to be a vampire. Few mortals could manage telepathy with any real effective-ness.

      “Did he say anything else to you, Crisa? Did he ask you to do anything else?”

      Crisa nodded, lowering her hands to her sides, opening her eyes. “He wanted me to walk to the corner and look around. But then the boy came, and I got…distracted.”

      “A boy came?”

      Her nod was slow, her gaze turning inward. “He comes all the time,” she whispered, almost to herself.

      “In the real world, Crisa, or is he in your head, too?”

      “In my head. But not like the man. I can see the boy. I can feel him. He’s more like a dream.” She squeezed her eyes tighter. “It hurts, Briar!”

      “Okay. Okay, come on, let’s get you inside.”

      “You’re not mad?”

      “No, you nutcase. Why would I be mad? It’s not your fault you’ve got a party going on in that head of yours, is it?”

      “N-no.”

      “I’ll bet Roxy can help you out with that headache, if you want. She and Ilyana are all into all that hocus-pocus shit. Healing with their hands. I imagine it makes ‘em feel like a little bit more than plain old mortals.”

      “They’re not plain. They’re Chosen.”

      “Still, a mortal’s a mortal’s a mortal, right?”

      Crisa nodded, the movement choppy as they moved down the hall. “Will Reaper be mad?”

      “No one’s mad, okay?” Briar sought to reassure her, and then decided to add a little enlightenment to boot. Hell, it couldn’t hurt. “Besides,” she said, “what do you care if anyone is mad at you? Toughen up, Crisa. If someone gives you crap, you give it right back and then some. Understand?”

      Crisa looked at her and smiled just a little. “Yeah. I’ll give it right back.”

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