“We’re not here to eat. So just order something and sneer at it like you normally do,” I ordered.

Promise, in one of her hooded cloaks, was sitting across from me and farthest from the window. Niko sat next to her, eyes moving from the people in the place to the street outside. He was always on watch. He’d taught me, and I was good enough. But there was good enough and there was Nik.

He tensed minutely and that was something I was good at picking up on. I turned back toward the window, blinked, then narrowed my eyes. “Holy shit.” When a dead guy shows up at a memorial service and he’s not the one being eulogized, you take notice.

“Samuel,” Niko said. “Unexpected.”

“Unexpected” was the word for it. Samuel had once worked for the Auphe, keeping close to me while in a band that played at the hole-in-the-wall bar I’d worked at—keeping an eye on me from feet away. Even the Auphe couldn’t do that. But then he had changed his mind, had died to save us from them. He’d worked for them in the beginning for the promise of saving his brother. I couldn’t say I might not have done the same. And I hope I would’ve died to make up for the mistake like I thought he had when I found out how horrific a mistake it was. But now he was standing in front of the church. Alive. It was his brother that they were holding the service for, and I wondered why George had never felt the need to bring up the fact her uncle was still alive. I knew the answer to that the instant I asked it. She thought it was his decision to tell us.

And that’s what he was there to do.

He looked away from the church over to the diner. He saw us immediately through the glass. He saw us, because he’d been looking for us. One of the little things George was willing to share—that we would be there. Where’d she draw the line? Between what was little and what was big? How did she know? How did she know she couldn’t look at our future, hers and mine, but she could look at this? And why did both of us have to be so damn stubborn?

Either way, it was over. No point in thinking about it now . . . or ever again.

I watched as Samuel crossed the street toward us. He was a tall black guy with a close-shaven goatee, big and tough . . . now moving with a limp. He hadn’t had that before. His head was shaved too, new as well. It showed a half-moon scar behind his ear, clear as day—the same kind that Niko had described on the guy following Seamus. Samuel hadn’t seen me since the days before Niko and Robin had managed to get the Auphe-hired hitchhiker out of my head. So when he hesitated after coming through the door before moving over to us, I understood it. Darkling had been every bit the son of a bitch the Auphe were, and when it had squatted inside me, I hadn’t been the safest person—safest thing—to be around.

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.”