Duty ghost squad book 2, p.1
Duty (Ghost Squad Book 2), page 1
Praise for Lilith Saintcrow
“Darkly compelling, fascinatingly unique. Lilith Saintcrow offers a breathtaking, fantastic ride.”
—NYT bestselling author Gena Showalter
“Wow! This is a fast read. Mainly because I couldn’t put it down.”
—Cheryl B, NetGalley reviewer on Damage
“From cover to cover, I could not put this book down. So happy to be reading a new and exciting fast-paced series from Lilith Saintcrow.”
—Neal Bravin, NetGalley reviewer on Sons of Ymre: Erik
“In the Watchers series, Saintcrow writes stories that are almost always nonstop action from beginning to end. Her women are kick-ass strong, her men ruggedly handsome and dedicated to the women they serve. It isn’t a bad combination at all.”
—CJReading
“I read Dark Watcher with growing delight. As chapter followed chapter, I never quite knew what was around the corner.”
—Ebook Reviews
Of Dante Valentine. . . .
“Dark fantasy has a new heroine. . . .”
—SFX magazine
“Saintcrow snares readers with an amazing alternate reality that is gritty, hip and dangerously mesmerizing.”
—Romantic Times magazine
“She’s a brave, charismatic protagonist with a smart mouth and a suicidal streak. What’s not to love?”
—Publishers Weekly
“This mind-blowing series remains a must-read for all urban fantasy lovers.”
—bittenbybooks.com
Books by Lilith Saintcrow
The Watchers
Dark Watcher
Storm Watcher
Fire Watcher
Cloud Watcher
Mindhealer
Finder
The Sons of Ymre
The Sons of Ymre: Erik
Ghost Squad
Damage
Duty
The Society Series
The Society
Hunter-Healer
Other
The Demon’s Librarian
Duty
by
Lilith Saintcrow
ImaJinn Books
Copyright
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons (living or dead), events or locations is entirely coincidental.
ImaJinn Books
PO BOX 300921
Memphis, TN 38130
Ebook ISBN: 978-1-61026-211-8
Print ISBN: 978-1-61026-184-5
ImaJinn Books is an Imprint of BelleBooks, Inc.
Copyright © 2022 by Lilith Saintcrow
Published in the United States of America.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer, who may quote brief passages in a review.
ImaJinn Books was founded by Linda Kichline.
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Cover design: Debra Dixon
Interior design: Hank Smith
Photo/Art credits:
Background (manipulated) © Serge Novitsky | Dreamstime.com
Man (manipulated) © Romance Photos | Dreamstime.com
:Kdsf:01:
Dedication
For Brenda Chin, a true survivor .
Epigraph
Don’t it make you want to go home?
—Joe South
Note
The reader is warned that some locations in this book do not exist. Others have been altered out of all recognition, and no similarity to persons living or dead is intended.
Good Luck
WHOEVER SAID YOU can’t go home again was more expressing a fond wish than an actuality, Paul Klemperer thought, and wished the kid behind him would stop kicking the seat. Not that he blamed the tyke; everyone had to find whatever amusement they could in the world.
It was a daily struggle, that was for damn sure.
The only thing more terrifying than being sardine-packed into an aluminum tube hurtling through the atmosphere was how normal everyone around him considered it. He’d prefer a slick dropping him in-country—except he wouldn’t, because that would mean a high chance of flying lead, and he’d caught enough of that to last him a lifetime. The chunk taken out of his left leg, close enough to the femoral artery to make it a miracle he was still breathing, left behind a scar full of relentless ache and a strange unsteady sensation when he thought about it too deeply.
He couldn’t even shift uncomfortably in his too-small seat, because the elderly lady in the middle was miserably squeezed between his window seat and a beefy businessman on the aisle. It was enough to make him wish he’d paid for first class.
The lady had a cap of fluffy white perm-curls, a tartan purse clutched with thin liver-spotted hands to her chest through takeoff and the entirety of the flight, and a faint powdery smell of some grandma cologne. She was just a bitty thing, too, and each time the businessman burped, farted, or complained she flinched.
It was enough to make Klemp want to reach over her and thwap the suit-wearing idiot on the back of his expensively oiled head, but they frowned on that sort of thing while flying commercial. The alternative was to get up, force himself past Grandma’s spindly knees, and punch the asshole into the aisle, then pick him up and toss him out of one of the emergency exits at thirty thousand feet—which might have been therapeutic for a soldier with anger-management issues, but would cause more problems than it solved. Or so Dez would say, and the good CO would probably show up to bail Klemp out of stockade with that faintly disappointed expression he wore when Boom got his hands on chemicals he shouldn’t or Jackson started talking about “exact application of force.”
The plane rattled; the old lady stiffened. A pair of bifocals dangled from an obviously handmade beaded pink-and-white holder onto her thin chest, and if her feet had reached the floor she might have pushed them down hard, like a green grunt on his first drop or a high school driving instructor trapped in the passenger seat while some enthusiastic child learned how to pilot a car.
“It’s all right,” Klemp said. “Just a little turbulence, ma’am.”
She gave him an agonized look and a tight smile, her faded blue eyes bright with fear. It was enough to make a man feel like a Boy Scout.
The businessman loosened his tie, and his elbow whapped the lady from the other side with a jolt. Klemp swallowed a bright scarlet burst of anger, scrunching himself further against the window and looking out. It gave him the willies to see the curvature of the earth in the distance, but the trees crowding the swiftly rising terrain below meant they were close to their destination.
If this was a combat drop Tax and Grey would be compulsively checking gear one last time, Boom stretching his legs out but keeping his arms folded like a genie preparing to grant a wish, Dez listening to the squawk box, and Jackson would probably be asleep—or faking it; the fucker even pretended to be out cold while Klemp was driving, and that was almost a personal insult. Klemp’s job, of course, would be to crack a few dirty jokes to keep everyone distracted and on an even keel, and Dez might even give faint evidence of a smile once or twice if he hit a good one.
If you had to go rappelling or ’chuting into hostile territory to do some hush-hush murder or mayhem for good ol’ Uncle Sam, they were the crew to do it with. Nobody would ever know—that was what black book and classified meant—but Klemp had finally decided it was a blessing. Let the civilians have their illusions and the journalists their protests; he’d settle for a few good buddies who knew the cost of “freedom.”
The kid behind him kicked the seat again, someone coughed like they had the plague, and the little old lady was finally moving, digging in her purse. The intercom crackled, the pilot’s voice like God in an old Charlton Heston movie.
“Ladies and gentlemen, we are about to begin our descent to Portland International Airport. Please make sure all seat backs and tray tables are in the upright and locked position. . . .”
Yeah, he should have paid for first class, and flown into Eugene instead. At least then he could’ve been mildly drunk and itching instead of stone-cold sober and attempting to think of a way to give the suit in the aisle seat a manners lesson.
“Stick of gum?” a dry cricket-whisper said to his right, and Klemp almost twitched.
The old lady had extracted an anemic pack of Juicy Fruit from her purse and blinked up at him hopefully, her tentative smile exposing strong teeth only faintly yellowed with age. Looked like Grandma believed in flossing.
“For the pressure,” she continued, and her hand shook slightly. “Easier on your ears, young man.”
“Sure.” He extracted a stiff, dry rectangle from the package, hoping he wouldn’t break her—those frail fingers bore a suspicious resemblance to dry sticks, and had the painful flipper-curve of rheumatism besides. “Thank you, ma’am.”
“Military?” Though she was tiny and probably scared out of her wits, no moss grew on this dame; the hesitant half-smile tiptoeing through a forest of dry wrinkles said she’d seen it all and was mostly amused by every blessed part. “Reason I ask is, you’re real polite.”<
“Try to be, ma’am. The Army insists.” The plane bounced again as he unwrapped the gum; attendants were coming down the aisle once more, making sure everything was stowed. “You ever been to Oregon before?”
“Visiting grandchildren.” She attempted to extract another stick, but the businessman shifted on her other side. The super-sized suit shoved his elbow into the aisle just in time to brush against a female attendant’s hip—a redhead, cute and perky in uniform, with wide hazel eyes and a snub nose—and the plane jolted again.
God damn it. Klemp’s hand blurred out; he caught the pack of gum as it attempted a leaping escape from the old lady’s tentative grip. “Careful, ma’am. Here, let me.”
“Oh, my stars.” She sucked in her bottom lip, those blue eyes widening, and the flash of what she must have looked like when young was gone in a moment, like lightning over the hills back home. “You’re quick.”
“Just like playing baseball.” He extracted another stick, and in short order they were both chewing nasty-ass dried sugar full of preservatives as the plane began to descend.
She pointed her toes, clad in sensible nurse shoes with thick soles, and leaned into his shoulder to get away from the suit. Klemp watched the ground get closer and closer, taking its sweet time. I’d go with you, Dez had said, but Cara and Eddie—
Don’t, Klemp had answered. Cara was a doll, as ol’ Footy Lenz would have said, and the little boy obviously thought Vincent Desmarais hung the moon. They needed him at home, and Paul Klemperer was a goddamn grownup. It was only a family reunion after a life-threatening wound putting him out to pasture, not a trip into hell requiring covering fire. Besides, he was the jokester of the Squad. This would all make a good story once he was back with the guys.
Except Dez was retired now, or so close it made no difference. Boom was getting married in a month and change, not to mention jumping through the paperwork hoops to retire as well, Tax and Grey were both on mandated medical leave for combat stress, and who the hell knew what Jackson was doing? Klemp wasn’t about to go back into another round of duck-for-cover-and-kiss-your-ass-goodbye with a commander who wasn’t Dez and guys he didn’t know, and there was no use bitching over it.
The squad was scattered, no rendezvous set. All good things came to an end, and here he was falling to earth at high speed in a tin can while a lady old enough to be his dead grandmother closed her eyes, her thin dry lips moving as she prayed.
He was trying like hell to find the funny side, but it was a losing game like everything else. Klemp made his shoulder a rock for the poor lady and kept chewing.
REACHING THE ground without turning into a fireball was always good luck, but the suit in the aisle seat was a jackass all the way through taxiing to the gate, not to mention disembarking. Klemp got his elderly neighbor’s wheelie-bag down from the overhead bin he’d stashed it in when they loaded up in Las Cruces, and even winked at the seat-kicking little bastard in the row behind them. His own carry-on was a ditty, familiar as his own limbs, and his leg wasn’t hurting too badly.
Getting off the damn plane was a relief. He spotted the suit hurrying away, obviously intent on baggage claim and inconveniencing someone else, not necessarily in that order. For a bare second Klemp thought about it—trailing the fellow, finding a good spot to get the jump, a quick shot to the kidneys, get the skull cradled just right and twist, and voila. The asshole wouldn’t be elbowing old ladies or pawing young ones ever again, thank you and goodnight.
But the grandma and her tartan purse were greeted by a heavyset man with her blue eyes and proud nose, who almost lifted her out of her sensible shoes as he hugged. His wife, beaming while she dandled a five-year-old little bit in a flowery pink dress on her hip, crowded close for an embrace while an older kid in blue Converse, denim overalls, and a red shirt stuffed some kind of electronic game in his pocket and threw his arms around Grandma, worming in and burying his face in her ribcage. They made a solid unit, and half of Klemp’s mouth twisted up in a grudging smile.
“Paulie!” someone yelled, the crowd of meet-and-greet parted, and there was his Aunt Helena, tall and spare, her greying hair pulled back in a tight thin ponytail and her well-worn cowboy boots ready to sink into someone’s backside if they gave her any sass. “Took your damn time, dintcha?”
She threw her lean, iron-strong arms around him, and because going to the airport was an Occasion she’d put on a dab of White Shoulders. The familiar scent enfolded Paul, mixed with a breath of cut grass, fresh air because she’d been driving with the windows down, harsh fabric softener on her red plaid flannel shirt, the Head & Shoulders she used religiously though she’d never had a flake in her life, and the ever-present dry rasp of cigarette smoke—Paul inhaled gratefully, and relief he’d never admit to was a fragburst in his belly.
He’d been sure nobody would bother to come pick him up, even if it was his first trip home since leaving for basic. Getting shot up and almost bleeding out on a slick’s metal deck made a man think about family; it was inevitable as gravity or a noncom getting his tighty-whities in a bunch.
“Hey, auntie.” Klemp wrapped an arm around her waist and lifted, hoping his leg wouldn’t buckle; she made a short, hoarse, delighted sound as her feet left the ground, and this was probably going to be the only pleasant thing about returning to the ol’ homestead. “I thought about hijacking the plane, but that wouldn’t make it go faster.”
“Christ, don’t say that in the airport.” She leaned back in his arms, examining him critically. “You’ll get both of us arrested, you little asshole.”
“Free showers and three squares a day,” he fired back. “Sounds like a good deal.” So far, he was doing all right.
Or at least, so he thought, until someone else laughed, clear and low and husky, and he saw who was trailing behind Helena.
Oh, God.
Social Purgatory
GET OUT OF THE house for the day, Helena had said; it’ll do you good, she said. Hel Klemperer was getting on in years, and if she had a trip to the Portland Ikea in mind it behooved Rebecca Sommers to go along, lifting and hauling—because Beck had, in Granite River parlance, been Raised Right, even if her momma took off when she was just a sprout.
Besides, getting out of that goddamn hole of a town and into a city, if only for a few hours, sounded like heaven even if the only thing on offer was the meatballs in a Swedish furniture megastore’s cafe. And, to top it all off, she was living on Aunt Hel’s charity, so she had to pitch in.
But the Ikea was spitting distance from the airport, and Helena kept checking her phone—the same phone Beck did technical support on, since the goddamn thing won’t listen to an old lady like me, Hel said, as if any piece of God’s creation would dare to set itself against her will—every few minutes while wandering amid displays of beds, couches, kitchens costing a year’s pay, and pillows in bright patterns. Beck should’ve known something was up, especially with the yearly Klemperer family reunion right around the corner.
She just hadn’t thought Hel would be this overt. Everyone in Granite River had an opinion on the Sommers girl’s life right now; she just had to bear with it.
So Beck smiled though her teeth threatened to grit like her father’s when a malefactor temporarily escaped the long arm of the law, and she met Paul’s dark, familiar gaze squarely. “Hi, Paul. Welcome home.”
He set his aunt on her worn cowboy boots, steadying her rangy frame with thoughtless, habitual care. Ever since he got his growth spurt in junior high he’d moved like that, a bull suddenly in the middle of a china shop and cautious not to breathe too hard.
That boy was gone, though, and in his place was a muscular man with a growing-out mop of curly dark hair which obviously hated every moment it had spent under military supervision, a faded black T-shirt straining at his shoulders, equally faded jeans, and a pair of desert-taupe boots laced the way every other guy who’d escaped town by signing up to get shot at had theirs. He looked at Beck like she was something caught in the tread of said boots, and she didn’t blame him one bit.
Her smile faded as they studied each other; Helena was outright beaming. She knew how to keep a secret, old Hel, but there was nowhere under heaven you could hide if she decided not to.
