“What are you doing up here?”

Charmian didn’t even turn around. The distinctive rustling flared in her ears, then subsided as Katherine dropped down next to her, feet dangling lazily over the edge of the wall. She peered down at the ground, wondering what her friend was looking at. Not having such good eyesight as Charmian, she couldn’t quite see. That was a job perk her type didn’t get.

“Watching.”

“You expecting action tonight?”

“Waiting for somebody to come out.” She gave a cursory nod at the building opposite, but her gaze never left the door. She was staring at it with the hungry gaze of a hawk. “To what do I owe this pleasure?”

“Micah was saying that you’re on the rampage and we needed to batten down the hatches. I just wanted to check in.”

“He exaggerates.”

“Does he?”

“On a regular basis.”

Katherine shrugged, pulling her coat tightly around herself even though she felt no cold. “He does, but you have seriously upped the quota for the last couple of days. What gives?”

“I don’t know.” Charmian let out a breath that visibly curled and twisted in the night air. “There seems to have been a surge lately, no idea why but it’s clockin’ up the overtime. Like this guy I’m following now, I wasn’t even looking for him but he brushed up against me on the street and nearly knocked me on my ass his energy was so strong. I have no idea why he didn’t land on the radar earlier.”

“Oh I don’t know, maybe, say, if somebody were distracted?” Katherine asked innocently.

Finally Charmian turned around, eyes flashing dangerously and a scowl settling in on her face. “You know.”

“I know. I’m sorry, honey.”

“Eh. I’ll do my dutiful little task and hopefully we get this one over with nice and quick.”

“You sure it was definitely him?”

“Positively positive.”

Katherine’s lips pursed and she let out a small sigh. She remembered the previous occasion all too well, it had been nice to have such a lengthy break from it. It had been so long she’d even dared hope it would be permanent. “I thought he wasn’t coming back.”

“I went to see Nathaniel – sorry, he goes by Nate now - and he ‘fessed up. They just cloaked him from me, but because of the whole guardian schtick the second he touched me I knew.”

“Yeah, that part’s always fun. So how did it feel?”

“How do you think it felt?” She snorted. “Bad.”

“No, I mean the actual touch. For me it’s the shivers.”

“Oh, that. Electric shock.”

“So did Nate say anything else useful about it?”

“No. Just that there was nothing he could do.”

Katherine kicked her feet listlessly against the brick, staring the fifteen stories down. “Am I the only one who finds it weird that he of all people decides to join the priesthood? A guy who knows full well that the religions are all wrong?”

“Ahh, I think he just still feels the need to guide people. And to light lots of candles. Pyro.”

“Heh.” Her companion let out a small smile, twisting a finger in her hair. Katherine always had been a fidget. “Are you going to push me off the ledge if I offer a little guardian advice?”

“Fuck knows I don’t make much of a guardian, all tips are welcome.”

“Maybe…” Katherine tried to think of a way to put things that wasn’t going to send Charmian raging or over the edge. “You know we can go lifetimes before we meet a charge again, even though they’ve probably been around since? We only find them if there’s a reason for us to find them, so maybe the reason this happened is he needs his guardian right now more than he needs to be cloaked from you. Maybe all this surge of activity right now is a sign that something’s happening? Something he might need protecting from?”

“What, because I’ve proved so good at that?”

“Whether it makes sense or not, you’re the only one he’s got. You know the rules; nobody else gets to do this for you.”

“Much as I hate to cut this short, I’m up.”

Charmian’s hand clapped her shoulder briefly in farewell before she hopped off the ledge and disappeared. Trying to peer down, Katherine could vaguely see the outline of people exiting the building. With a deep sigh, she closed her eyes and steeled herself for the inevitable trouble she was about to get into. This wasn’t really her fight, but Charmian had demonstrated time and time again that when Michael reappeared she lost all her usual calm and focus. It was understandable, but that didn’t stop it being a problem so Katherine pushed herself forward, beginning the freefall to the ground.

Landing softly next to Charmian in the shadows, finally able to see properly, she immediately discerned why Charmian was worried. Not one, not two but three deeply worrying auras were standing in the street, presumably waiting for a taxi. Where the usual rainbow colours ought to be circling their bodies there was a dirty streak, as if somebody had tossed a bucket of mud over them. The guy next to them didn’t seem like an innocent, but he clearly wasn’t afflicted either. That wasn’t what Charmian saw, she had her own ways of recognising these things, but however you looked at it the picture was definitely not good.

“What’s the plan?” She whispered.

“And since when were you an avenger?”

“If you can play at my gig, I can play at yours.”

“I don’t know. I can feel the bastards are young but they got a wicked hold already. Not sure anybody’s going to survive this.”

“That normal?”

“No. There are more of them and they’re getting stronger.” Charmian’s brows were knotted together in obvious worry. “I wonder if this has anything to do with Anton the other night…”

“That slime ball’s back up top?”

“Sadly. I just want an excuse to kick his ass back down there. Any excuse will do. If he so much as trips anybody he’s mine.”

“What you gonna do?”

“The old stumble and fall routine.”

“Love the classics. I’ll stay here and keep watch.”

Being relatively young to the game, Katherine had found precious few chances so far to watch Charmian and her kind at work. She knew how it operated in theory, but was still fascinated to see it actually happen. To be fair though, if she saw it happen too much she wasn’t doing her own job too well – she was supposed to rob guys like these of their chance to do ill deeds by protecting their victims. She knew that the idea was for Charmian’s touch to inflict what goes around back around upon them; the demons possessing them couldn’t take divine retribution and would die from it regardless, whether or not the humans did depended on them. Those who had managed to sufficiently resist and refrain from hurting others would be damaged (proportionately to their crimes) but live to tell the tale - those who hadn’t earned death and a one way ticket to the dark place. This type of demon didn’t force people to do evil, merely encouraged them. First Charmian avenged those they’d possessed by killing them, and then avenged their victims by forcing the human hosts to pay for their own actions. She was a living instrument of karma.

Emerging from the shadows and crossing the street, the Amazonian warrior who had been perched on the rooftop was suddenly gone and replaced by a stunning young woman in a delicate dress and chic jacket. Once she reached the kerb in front of her charges she pretended to glance at her watch, catching her heel on the stones and tumbling to the floor.  Katherine couldn’t help but smile as immediately all three men rushed to help the pretty young thing off her feet. Never let it be said that Charmian wasn’t good at her job – she knew all the tricks. They couldn’t see the golden pulses of light that passed between Charmian’s bare arms and their hands, but she could.

After some profuse thanks and smiles, Charmian set off down the street as if she was continuing on her way. Katherine quickly moved to join her.

“Well?”

“Fatty in the middle is going to have a massive coronary when he gets home. The other two… did you see how strong they were all coming off?”

“Yeah, what of it?”

“They shouldn’t have been. Asshole in the middle got death but all they earned is a financially messy divorce and being fired; something really isn’t right with this shit lately.”

“Umm…” Katherine knew she was about to tread on thin ice, but it had to be said. “Maybe this goes back to what I said about all these weird things being a sign. Michael too.”

“Justin.”

“What?”

Charmian breathed in deeply and exhaled hard, as if the word was physically painful to her. “His name is Justin now.”

“A rose by any other word,” she replied softly.

“Maybe. Look, I’ve got to get gone; I’ll see you when I see you.”

“Watch your back.”

“Watch yours.”