Page 89 of Backpacking through Bedlam

“I’m always going to run into danger.”

“I know.” He smiled a little, still looking straight ahead. “I knew who you were when I bargained with the crossroads for your life, and when I kissed you for the first time, and when I married you. I’m not expecting you to change. I just want you to take me with you when you go charging wildly ahead. Please.”

“I’ll do my best.”

This time, he did look at me, his smile wider now. “That’s all I can really ask.”

The end of the tunnel was approaching. Dominic opened the door and the rest of us filed out, back in the subway stop near the Nest. The transit officer who’d originally let us in was still there, and blinked when he saw how many additional people we’d acquired. Dominic slipped him several folded bills, and he stopped looking quite so interested in us. Money really does talk.

We made our way up to street level, still toting our carriers, looking like a weird cross between a school field trip and a dog-training class. At least nothing was on fire.

“Mary,” said Sarah lightly, once we were on the sidewalk. “We’re almost back.”

Mary didn’t appear. I wasn’t sure Sarah had been asking her to. With the sort of telepathic range Sarah had now, she was probably just addressing our resident ghost babysitter so it wouldn’t startle any of us when the Nest was waiting for our return.

Sure enough: Verity and Mary were outside the convenience store when we walked up, Mary holding Olivia against her hip. Olivia waved chubby fists and reached for Dominic as soon as she saw him, burbling away in the secret language of toddlers. He handed his carrier off to Verity before relieving Mary of his daughter, kissing Olivia on both cheeks before he looked to Verity and said, “It’s done. May we go inside?”

“We’ve been waiting,” she said, and stepped to the side, making space for the rest of us to pass.

We went in.

The dragons had been arguing for hours. No, it wasn’t our fault the Covenant had taken the children: Sarah’s accounting of what she’d seen in their minds verified that. No, the three agents we’d encountered so far wouldn’t remember any of the day’s events. They wouldn’t remember us, or where they’d been, or anything about the Nest. Yes, we’d been key in getting the children back—without me breaking the charms, Sarah wouldn’t have been able to find them, and now she knew what all the others currently in the city looked like. She wouldn’t be able to distinguish them in a crowd, since her visual processing didn’t work that way, but she could feed their images to Verity, and Verity could get some crime-scene sketches done.

Yes, we’d brought the boys back in carriers for their own safety, and yes, that particular insulting choice had been proposed by Istas, who wasn’t human and thus couldn’t be held against those of us who were. Around and around it went, as Sally, Thomas, and I watched, waiting to hear how quickly we were going to be expected to leave.

And the whole time, I was taking silent inventory of the weapons we had between the three of us, and what I could expect to steal from Verity’s armory. Every hour that passed gave Thomas more time to tap fully into this dimension’s pneuma, and left him better equipped to be a useful presence in combat. Sally . . . Sally was a bit of an unexplored area, since she’d never killed a human before, and I’d been hoping to wait a little longer before she had to start. Still, the kids were back, and seemingly none the worse for wear, which could only help our case.

Verity broke away from the argument, walking over to us. “I know it doesn’t look it, but they’re grateful, really,” she said. “What you did today meant a lot to them, and to me. You didn’t have to risk yourselves for people you don’t know.”

“Except that we kind of did, since that’s why we’re here,” I said. Rose and I were going to have to talk about that. She might work for the anima mundi now, but we didn’t, and I wasn’t signing up to play errand girl and wetwork specialist for the living spirit of the world. I wanted to stay home and remember who I was when I wasn’t running. That meant I needed time.

“I hate to ask you to do more . . .” She trailed off, looking quietly miserable.

“But you’re going to,” I said.

“I’m sorry.”

“It’s fine. I knew this was how things were going to go as soon as Sarah got the locations of the other three teams. Do you need us to take out all three? Because that’s going to take a while, if you do.”

“No.” Her misery faded, replaced by an expression of grim determination. “Cara and Mary are going to take care of Liv while I head to Hoboken with Istas to take out the team there. Kitty’s the most familiar with the part of Brooklyn where the second team is; she’s heading over there with Ryan and Dominic. We were hoping you’d be willing to handle the third.”

I looked to Thomas and Sally, raising an eyebrow, and waited.

“Those Covenant assholes messed with kids,” said Sally. “That makes them worse than the crossroads, if you ask me. I’m in.”

“The fact that you already see little dragons as kids tells me you’re going to fit in with this family just fine,” said Verity, smiling.

“It’s best if we act quickly, before they realize something has happened to their absent trainees,” said Thomas. “I would prefer a few more days to recover from our trip, but needs must. Of course we’ll help.”

And like that, we were committed. One more fight, and we could go home.

“We should try to hit them all at once, to keep them from coordinating too much of a response,” I said. “And of course, we won’t know whether they’re there until we show up. They could be out running surveillance, or eating dinner, or having a meeting at one of the other safe houses. One of our teams could wind up facing all three of theirs.”

“I know,” admitted Verity. “Sarah will stay here to coordinate and keep tabs on everyone.”

Something suddenly made sense. I blinked. “That’s why you and Dominic are splitting up,” I said. “So there’s a family member with each team.”

Verity nodded. “Yeah. Sarah doesn’t project much anymore—too worried about melting someone’s brain by mistake—but Mary can move between family members quickly enough to be almost as good in a game of telephone.”