Mean Streets Read Free

if it isn’t?” Charity asked.
    I kept a surge of quiet anger out of my voice and expression as I looked at her levelly. “No harm gets done to you and yours.”
    Her eyes flashed and she nodded her chin once.
    “Honey,” Michael sighed.
    Charity stared at him.
    Michael might have slain a dragon, but he knew his limits. He lifted a hand in acceptance and said, “Why don’t you make up the guest bedroom.”
     
     
     
    By a little after nine, the Carpenter household was almost entirely silent. I had been shown into the little guest room kept at the end of an upstairs hallway. It was really Charity’s sewing room, and was all but filled with colorful stacks of folded fabric, some of them in clear plastic containers, some of them loose. There was room around a little table with a sewing machine on it, and just barely enough space to get to the bed. I’d recuperated from injuries there before.
    One thing was new—there was a very fine layer of dust on the sewing machine.
    Huh.
    I sat down on the bed and looked around. It was a quiet, warm, cheerful little room—almost manically so, now that I thought about it. Everything was soft and pleasant and ordered, and it took me maybe six or seven whole seconds to realize that this room had been Charity’s haven. How many days and nights must she have been worried about Michael, off doing literally God only knew what, against foes so terrible that no one but him could have been trusted to deal with them? How many times had she wondered if it would be a solemn Father Forthill who came to the door, instead of the man she loved? How many hours had she spent in this well-lit room, working on making warm, soft things for her family, while her husband carried Amoracchius ’s cold, bright steel into the darkness?
    And now there was dust on the sewing machine.
    Michael had nearly been killed, out there on that island. He had been crippled, forced by his injuries to lay aside the holy sword, along with the nearly invisible, deadly war that went with it. And he was happier than I’d ever seen him.
    Maybe the Almighty worked in mysterious ways, after all.
    Another thought occurred to me, as I sat there pondering: Whoever had sent those pictures hadn’t sent them to Michael—he’d sent them to me. What if I’d put Michael and his family into real danger by showing up? What if I’d somehow reacted in exactly the way I’d been meant to react?
    I grimaced around the cheerful room. So much for sleep.
    I got up and padded back downstairs in my sock feet to raid the fridge, and while I was in the kitchen munching on an impromptu cold-cuts sandwich, I saw a shadow move past the back window.
    I had several options, but none of them were real appetizing. I settled for the one that might accomplish the most. I turned and padded as quickly and quietly as I could to the front door, slipped out, and snuck around the side of the house in the direction that would, I hoped, bring me up behind the intruder. A quick spat of rain had made the grass wet, and the night had grown cool enough to make my instantly soaked socks uncomfortable. I ignored them, and went padding through the grass, keeping to the side of the house and watching all around me.
    The backyard was empty.
    I got an itchy feeling on the back of my neck and continued my circle. Had I given myself away somehow? Was the intruder even now circling just the way I was, hoping to sneak up on me ? I took longer steps and stayed as quiet as I knew how—which is pretty darn quiet. I’ve developed my skulking to professional levels, over the years.
    And as I rounded the corner, I spotted the intruder, a dark form hurrying down the sidewalk past Courtney’s house. I couldn’t follow him without being spotted pretty quickly, unless I cheated, which I promptly did. My ability to throw up a veil wasn’t anything to write home about, but it ought to be good enough to hide me from view on a dark night, on a heavily shadowed street. I focused on