I took off my sunglasses to show my eyes were gray, not possessed silver, and he nodded and pulled up a chair. “Sorry. Georgie told me they got that thing out of you, but . . .” He shook his head at the memories. “Seeing is believing.”
“You’ve got that right.” I planted the muzzle of the Glock, hidden under the red plastic tablecloth, in his abdomen. “You know, I felt pretty forgiving when you died to save our lives. I’m feeling a little less than that now that you’re still walking around.”
He rested his hands carefully on the table. “I can see that. I think I’d probably feel the same way.”
I half expected Niko to reel me in. For him to say that Samuel hadn’t known what the Auphe were capable of. That we barely had ourselves. But Niko had spent a week looking for me then, not knowing where I was . . . if I was still even alive. An entire week of that. I’d been possessed, but in my mind Nik had had the worst end of it by far. Now he sat, his eyes impenetrable. “Samuel,” he said, voice empty. “I thought you died with honor. I see I was wrong about one. Now I have to wonder at the other.”
Promise, who had never known Samuel, remained silent. Robin, who had, drawled, “Order him the tuna casserole. That will kill him faster than any bullet.”
“In this place? I’d say you’re right.” Other than speaking, Samuel didn’t move. He was mostly as I remembered him: calm, easygoing. A trustworthy sort of guy, if you were into that sort of thing. I hadn’t been then, and he damn sure hadn’t earned it now.
“What are you doing here?” I asked flatly. “I get what you’re doing over there.” I jerked my head at the church. “But what are you doing here?”
“Because I do owe you, and I know it.” He added seriously, “Then there’s the Auphe. They’re back and that’s trouble for more than just you. It’s trouble for the Vigil too. You do know about us, right? Our psychics were able to pick up that you were poking around. Investigating. Something about a mummy. They weren’t able to get a clearer picture.”
“Psychics.” Niko gave a quick glance back toward the church.
“No, not like Georgie. If only,” Samuel said ruefully. “Ours are much weaker. They have no future sight, but they can pinpoint when something has happened as it happens. They know when we need to get moving.”
“To do what?” I demanded. The Vigil did exist. Wahanket hadn’t lied. He was a killer, but he wasn’t a liar. Good to know. Gotta have your priorities straight.
“Clean up. We don’t always get there in time, but mostly we do. And if it’s a mess someone else, like the Kin, will clean up, we let it alone. Those mutts are damn good about cleaning up after themselves. I have to give them that.” It made sense. The Kin didn’t want attention any more than their human Mafia counterparts did.
Samuel tapped his fingers on the table, but kept the rest of his hands still—respecting the gun. “Basically, we’re supernatural janitors.” He gave a self-deprecating smile. “At least that’s what I consider us. The Vigil found me when they were cleaning up that Auphe mess we were all caught up in. The collapsed warehouse was explained as a gas-main explosion. That’s why I’m alive today. The Vigil.”
“Yeah, we read about the so-called gas-main explosion. So you escaped? It didn’t look that way from our point of view,” I challenged.
“I didn’t escape, not entirely.” He moved his hand, very carefully, to knock on his leg just below his knee. There was a hollow sound. “My leg was crushed. They did their best to save it, but I lost it below the knee.” He flashed a slow grin. “But half is better than nothing, not to mention the fact that I’m alive and that’s damn amazing in my book. A miracle, one I know I didn’t deserve.” He placed his hand back on the table. “I knew about the Auphe, so it was recruit me or commit me. The Vigil’s been around a long time and they have their philosophy. I don’t totally agree with it, but I’ll take it over a mental institute any day.”
“And what is this no doubt fascinating philosophy?” Robin dropped the offending menu and pushed it away.
“We protect the human world from the knowledge of the supernatural one. People couldn’t handle it. If they found out, there’d be war, and no matter who won, the results wouldn’t be pretty.” He focused in on Niko. “You wouldn’t want the entire world knowing about your brother, would you? I doubt he’d last long. It might take the military, but they’d get him sooner or later.”
“So you just clean up?” I said skeptically, basking in the whole right to exist. Whoopee for me. “Wipe up after some monster’s snack. You don’t interfere?”
“We make exceptions, but they’re rare. Only when a nonhuman is so overt, so out there in what he’s doing, that he’ll give away the secrecy we’ve kept so long. There might not be as many nonhumans as humans, not that we know for sure, but there’s no guarantee humans would be on the winning side. Keeping the secret is everything, you understand? Everything. If we have to kill a werewolf or boggle who can’t bother to hold their buffets in private, we will.”
“Watching us for thousands of years. The pucks must have given you quite the show.” Promise clasped her gloved hands on the table.
“I’ll bet we did.” Robin curled his lips smugly, not ashamed at all. “We should’ve charged admission.”
“So, what of the Auphe?” Promise continued, ignoring Goodfellow. “They grow more bold all the time. What are you doing about that?” she demanded.
“Not a damn thing,” Samuel admitted. “By the time our psychics know where they are, they’re already gone. We’re hoping you can succeed where we’ve failed. The Auphe were mad—don’t think I don’t remember—but they’re worse now. They have to go before it’s too late and the world wakes up and sees them. There’s only so many fake escaped-mental-patient stories you can put out. But if we can’t find them, we can’t stop them. . . . Making the assumption we’re even capable of stopping them.” He exhaled with the confession. “They’re the Auphe.”
And that said it all.
I pulled my gun back slowly and slid it back under my jacket. “Nik?”
“It’s an interesting story.” Niko didn’t look particularly interested. “What I don’t know is why you’re bothering to tell it to us, and why now.”
“It took me this long to get up and mobile again. To be trained. And like I said, I owe you.” With the threat of being shot gone for the moment, he slipped a hand in his pocket. Placing a card with a phone number on the table, he said, “Call me if you need me. Any time. I have a lot of making up for what I did to you guys. Not to mention the entire Vigil owes you for taking care of Sawney Beane. He was the damn definition of overt and psychotic as the cherry on top. He had to be taken down, and I don’t think we could’ve done it.”
And that’s how all the bodies had gotten cleaned up a week ago when we were fighting the supernatural mass murderer, why none of his victims’ pieces had turned up in the park, the college, or were discovered by subway workers. The Vigil had tidied up but good. Niko had been right. Our mystery janitors and the Vigil were one and the same.
He rapped a fist on the table and gave me an amused smile. “I tried to talk them into recruiting you and Niko, you know, but they say you’re our biggest annoyance. You cause us quite a bit of work.” Pushing halfway up with one hand on the back of his chair, he asked curiously, “Am I leaving?”
It was a good question. Niko considered him for several seconds, then gave impassive permission. “You’re leaving.”
“You’ll call if you need my help?”
“You’re leaving,” Nik repeated, his voice cooling even further.
Samuel nodded in acceptance. “If you change your mind.” He pulled a few bills out of his wallet and let them fall by Niko’s plate. It was only when he was at the door that he called back over his shoulder, “Sorry about the coat. Hope that covers it.” The door shut behind him and he headed back toward the church.