Authors Note: The characters in this story belong to the talented Karen Chance. The story takes place 18 months before "Touch the Dark". The fanfics "The Gift" and "Wayward Son" are related to this story. Reviews are appreciated.

Collateral Damage

Eighteen months ago….

John dropped out of the ley line, silently landing with booted feet onto an overgrown patch of grass behind a treeline. He cocked his head, on high alert as he monitored the area for signs of the ritual he expected to be performed this moonless night. Nocturnal birds called to each other, crickets chirped, and frogs croaked in the fetid damp of the nearby swamp, but that was all. A lighted window bled a tired yellow from a shack that was visible through the trees, and blinked dimmer as the night breeze wafted long strands of hanging moss to and fro, momentarily blurring his line of sight. He quickly made his way to the dilapidated cottage, listening for chanting or screams that would tell him how far along the night's event had unfolded. He heard nothing of the sort, and immediately thought himself too late. Perhaps he could not save anyone, but the still-shining light told him the occupant was still home. He crept to the window and took a quick peek through the screen, using his unnatural speed to withdraw fast enough to seem like nothing more than a draft. He recognized the middle-aged female sorting through ceremonial items on a rickety kitchen table, her face older than the image from the briefing material he had hurriedly read when assigned this mission just a few hours ago. Locate, identify and terminate. He had gotten lucky by finding the location quicker than usual. He had simply threatened several witches whose location he did know, gaining enough information to track her down while permanently pissing off an entire coven. He didn't care. He had also learned exactly what was planned for this night and time was of the essence. He did not know how many members of the coven were inside the isolated house, so he decided to lure the woman outside to finish her off. He thought for a moment and then grimly smiled to himself. He pursed his lips and mimicked the eldritch howl of a rare night creature. He eased along the side of the house and waited, certain she would not be able to resist a chance at harvesting parts of the scarce animal for her magic. A moment later she flicked off the light and murmured a spell to enhance her night vision. The door creaked open and she emerged, her knife blade held ready. She stepped off the porch and surveyed the yard and beyond for the expected animal. John stayed motionless. Something caught her attention and she glided towards the weeds, like a ghost. John pulled power and centered it in his fist, readying himself for a single killshot. Wait…wait…until she turned and presented the widest target. He hurled the spell, and bit back an oath when she swerved at the last second. He had missed. She crouched and threw an equally lethal spell back at him. He felt the sting on his ear as he leapt aside and murmured a stasis spell. She whispered and immediately countered his spell and fired more crackling magic. He wanted to end this, so he pulled power from his shields and took aim. Fuck! He silently screamed as a searing blast from behind dropped him to his knees. His teeth crashed closed and sliced into his tongue, filling his mouth with blood. He turned reflexively and launched the killspell at whoever had hit him with the noxious potion, satisfied when the woman fell with a gaping hole in her chest. He spat blood and turned back to his original target. She was gone.

His coat smoking and reeking from the unknown potion, he raced into the swamp, not wanting to give her a chance to disappear into the bayou. He slowed and scanned his perimeter, stealthily moving from tree to tree as he invoked well-honed tracking skills to stalk his prey. He did not see any trace of her. He closed his eyes and focused his supernatural hearing, opened to any breathing or beating heart in the vicinity. And he heard…over by that log…nothing, an absence of sound. Aha…there you are, witch. The fool had used an imprecise cloaking spell that masked her as well as the night animals near her, easily marking her location by the cloud of silence in what was otherwise a noisy nighttime swamp. Amateur he snorted to himself. He pulled a potion vial from his belt and whispered a spell, hitting her with the potion as her shield disintegrated. She screeched and died seconds after collapsing onto the fallen tree trunk she had been perched upon. He debated whether to leave her for the alligators but in the end he simply whispered a spell and she burned brightly, leaving only ash that drifted over her soggy grave.

John trudged through the putrid muck and returned to the yard, scanning again for any more coven members. He neared the house and was about to round its corner when he heard a most unexpected sound; and a rush of relief flooded him as he realized maybe he had not been too late after all.

"Mama?" said a trembling voice, soft enough to be inaudible to anyone else without his enhanced senses.

A young child was squatting next to the body, trying to wake the dead woman.

"Mama…you cold," the child muttered and placed a tattered scrap of blanket meticulously over the gaping chest wound. The blanket quickly soaked with blood, but the child didn't seem to notice it. John fought down a wave of revulsion. He had not expected the child's mother to be part of this.

"Mama…wake up!" the child begged, and then lay down and curled up next to the woman's body when the corpse did not respond, getting smeared with gore in the process.

John cursed to himself and activated his comm link to Corps HQ.

"Circle," stated a harried-sounding male over the comm link. "Report," he ordered tersely in a clipped British accent.

"Commander Pritkin here. Target has been neutralized and there is collateral damage. I need a pickup here."

"What's the package?" demanded the disembodied voice.

"Human child, perhaps 3 years old. Parent deceased at site."

"All teams are currently engaged. You'll have to watch the kid yourself until a team is available."

"How long will that be?" he asked, irritated.

"Half a day, maybe longer. There has been an outbreak of uncataloged creatures overrunning some ley line sinks. It's messy out there right now," said the duty officer.

"Demons? I should get over there…"

"No sir. You know the drill. Complete your own assignment first."

John let loose with his favorite profanity, hotly arguing his case. "The Corps has greater need of my combat skills right now than any babysitting skills I assure you I do not possess."

"We'll try to manage without you, Commander," the officer said dryly. "In the meantime I suggest you practice your nappy-changing skills. HQ out." The comm spell buzzed closed and John swore creatively. He studied the small weeping child, and then made another call.

"Carolyn?" he said to his old acquaintance. "I need a favor."

A few moments of silence greeted him, then an incredulous voice said "John?" over the comm link. "It's been years…"

"Yes, yes, I know. I'm calling in that favor you owe me. You remember, don't you? Those tickets I gave you for that concert by those insufferable hacks posing as musicians?"

"The Beatles. Yes, I remember. I never thought you would try to collect after all this time," she said warily. "What do you want?"

"I need to place a child somewhere safe. Are you still overseeing those children's homes?"

"Residential schools, actually. But yes, I am," she answered.

"Brilliant," he said with relief. "I have one for you. A child, approximately age 3. I'm in America, in Louisiana. Tell me the closest place," he said crisply. He heard a sigh over the comm link.

"Its night there now, isn't it? I can't confirm an available spot until I can reach the staffs. It will be a few hours."

John rubbed his hands through his unkempt hair, grumpily wondering what else would go wrong on this botched mission.

"Just get the child cleaned up, dressed and fed. Pack any clothes and toys you find. I'll call you with arrangements as soon as I can make them, alright?" she told him. "And bring some identification. It will speed up the intake process; otherwise the paperwork will take all day."

John grunted agreement and closed the comm link. He walked over to the sniffling child and frowned.

"Aren't you cold?" he asked calmly. The child wore only a thin tattered night shirt and shivered in the chill December air. The shirt was soaked with blood and stuck to skin where it had partially dried. Grey-blond hair was plastered flat on one side with drying gore and caked with dirt and dead grass. The child pressed closer to the body and did not respond. John huffed impatiently and picked the child up. He winced at the shriek that immediately followed, wondering how such a loud noise could come from such a small person. He headed towards the kitchen door and scanned the entry for any traps, then whispered a dispersal spell for the one alarm spell he found. He entered the acrid warmth of the kitchen and examined the screaming child closer. The frightened child's red and blotchy face was smeared with blood, snot and tears. John thought back and figured he had been at the site for about a half hour, and directed a memory wipe spell for that time period on the child, murmuring precisely. One had to be careful with children this young, but he was going to lose his mind if the child did not quiet down. The child went blessedly silent and the frightened face morphed into a confused face as soon as John finished the spell. They looked at each other.

"You need to bathe," he announced to the filthy child, who immediately started to scream again. Argh. Reluctantly, he whispered a compulsion spell and said "trust me". That particular version of the spell was universally forbidden for civilians to use, especially on children. The likelihood of abuse was high, hence the ban. The child quieted again and looked at him quizzically. "Right, then. Let's see about a bath." The child squirmed to be put down, and then scampered away. John followed into a narrow bathroom with cracked linoleum and rust stains on every porcelain surface and mildew crawling along the sagging wallpaper. He turned on the tap.

"Bubble!" squealed the child, pointing towards a plastic bottle shaped like a cartoon character. No Tears Bubble Bath he read on the label, and dumped half the contents into the steaming water. He peeled the bloody night shirt off, stripping the child. A girl, he noted, and plopped her into the suds. He grabbed a plastic cup from the sink and tossed it into the tub. "Wash yourself and rinse your hair. I won't be long," he told her. She was happily splashing hot soapy water over herself when he left to examine the rest of the shabby interior. He methodically searched the cramped bedroom and the kitchen/sitting area, and found a handbag with the dead woman's driver's license. He pocketed it as well as a miniature labeled photo of the child. He looked in vain for anything that could indict the other coven members. He examined the antiquated blades and goblets arrayed carefully on the kitchen table, and bristled with disgust when he confirmed the intended use of the items. His search almost complete, he went to check on the child. She sat in the cooling bath water, wet hair slicked against her skull while a few remaining suds streaked her skin. She was concentrating intently on a large bubble suspended in the air in front of her. She carefully extended her hands and smiled as the bubble followed along. John looked on in astonishment. An air mage? She was demonstrating remarkably advanced skills for such a young age. He was thoughtful as he lifted her from the tub and draped a frayed towel over her thin shoulders.

"Get dressed," he ordered as he left to search the last room. He spent some time disabling the wards he found on the door and inside the room, finally revealing potion-making paraphernalia and tidy shelves of ingredients and finished vials. He examined the materials and pocketed several vials and items he could not readily identify. He would take these back to his house for later analysis. He quickly went through the few books he found. Black magic, he thought to himself and took the books outside and tossed them on top of the dead woman. John whispered a spell, and the body and tattered blanket and books exploded in a silvery fire. The books sputtered and popped and emitted a stink like a ripe corpse as they burned. The pile was soon reduced to a smear of oily ash.

Back in the house he found the child dressed in a torn tee shirt and faded shorts. "Do you have warmer clothes?" he asked. She shook her head and rubbed a tight fist against her runny nose, mutely staring at him. A quick search verified her answer. They didn't need to waste money on clothes or toys for a child expected to be dead soon, did they? he thought bitterly. "Time to go," he decided. He picked her up, wrapped his shield around her to keep her warm, and left the house. Several strides later he turned, whispered a few words, and the house burst into flames. It would be a pile of ash and charred lumps in a few minutes. John carried her to the treeline and ripped open the ley line. They entered the pulsing red energy that pulled them north.

Coffee. First things first. Clothes for the child. Food. He watched the landscape pass below, looking for an all night diner. The child giggled and pointed at the swirls of burgundy, ruby, carmine, fuchsia, and pink that rippled around them in the line. She clapped her hands at a spectacular spray of glittering garnet sparks that erupted from a boiling scarlet spiral.

Ah. There. He pressed them towards the edge and jumped out of the line, dropping into a parking lot. Snow flurries danced around them as he carried her into the restaurant. She gazed at the holiday lights twinkling around the door and along the counter as he placed his order.

"Large coffee to go. Black," he told the tattooed waitress.

"Anything else? Maybe a coat for the girl?" snapped the waitress, too tired to be polite. John narrowed his eyes. She left to get the coffee. The child stuck her thumb in her mouth and watched him, absently feeling her shoulder for -

"Blankie!" she shrieked, all eyes in the restaurant turning to stare. "I want Blankie!"

Argh. Not again. "Quiet," he ordered and she hiccupped.

"I want my blankie," she mewled softly.

"I don't have it," he informed her. She dropped her head onto his chest and sobbed broken-heartedly.

That threadbare piece of cloth she had carefully placed over her mother? It was ash now. "I'll buy you a new one. And some new clothes. Would you like that?"

She nodded and popped her thumb back in her mouth.

The waitress returned with his coffee. She stared pointedly at the child and asked "You okay honey? You want me to call the Memphis Police? 'cause I'll do it." She glared at John and he whispered a mind wipe spell. He threw money on the counter, snatched his coffee and left.

Memphis! For several years John had wanted to visit here and listen to some of the great singers that called this city home. He rubbed his eyes and headed for the 24-hour Wal-Mart across the street. As he entered, he scanned the place with a sight he seldom used. A few telltale green flickers warned him of the presence of a few demons. The 24-hour stores were their favorite; they could get almost everything they needed and never had to go out in the daylight. John avoided them and headed for the children's clothing section. Every department they passed was brimming with red, gold and green seasonal decorations. Cheery holiday music jingled over the store's sound system. He pulled jeans, warm shirts, underwear, socks, shoes and flannel pajamas together. He grabbed a heavy coat, hat and snow boots for her and found their way to the baby department to collect a suitable blanket.

"Do you see one you like?" he asked her as he gingerly touched a few of the soft pastel-colored blankets. He glanced around in alarm when she didn't answer and found her gawking at a holiday display of stuffed animals. He closed his eyes. She had no toys. He could relate even though his own childhood had been over centuries ago. "Pick one out," he told her gently. She pointed to a soft brown bear with a pink velvet bow. John added it to the pile and guided her back to the blankets. She selected a fuzzy pink one edged with satin. He paid for the items and had her change in the restroom. Her little face glowed at her new possessions. Clutching her new bear, she followed him out of the store and back to the restaurant. This time they sat in a booth and had a leisurely breakfast while they waited for the sun to rise and for Carolyn to call him. The child had been long finished with her meal and was amusing herself by turning her fourth cup of cocoa into big bubbles of chocolate that floated across the table.

"Don't use your magic in front of people," he whispered to her as he glanced up from his newspaper. "It is safer to keep your magic a secret". He was on his third pot of coffee when Carolyn finally called him back with directions.

They switched ley lines twice before reaching Des Moines, Iowa. He found the nondescript building iced with snow that glinted in the early morning sun. The headmistress met them in her office and John handed her the driver's license and the child's photo labeled with her name and birthdate. He dropped the bags of new clothes next to her desk and sat down. He thumbed through the forms she handed to him and started filling in information.

"Watch her and let her go to a magical family if she does not show any signs of adverse magic," he instructed the headmistress as he completed the paperwork the Silver Circle required. John bent down and looked into the child's eyes. "Be good," he told her. The headmistress took her hand and led her off to her new life.

"Anjeanette?" he heard her say to the child. " 'Tis a big name for such a wee person. Let's call you Jeannie, shall we?"

End.