“I’m fine.” His tail, still twice its normal size, lashed against her leg. “I was startled. I hit the nasty on the other side of that shield and I overreacted.”
“And what are you doing now?”
“He’s a part of this.”
“Are you out of your walnut-sized mind? He’s a bystander!”
“Granted, but you’re going to need his help.”
“For what? With what? With her?”
“Maybe. I don’t know yet.”
“You are out of your mind! Do you know what that is in there?”
“Excuse me?”
“What?” Dean’s voice pulled Claire’s attention back across the hall.
Caught between a cruel and capricious sea and an unwelcoming hunk of rock, Newfoundlanders had turned adaptation into a genetically encoded survival trait. True to his ancestry, Dean had progressed from stunned disbelief through amazement to amazed acceptance by the time he’d interrupted.
When he saw he had their attention, he said, “I could still hear you. Sorry.”
“Well, she wasn’t exactly keeping her voice down,” Austin pointed out.
Dean met Claire’s gaze almost apologetically. “The cat talks.”
“The cat never shuts up,” Claire replied through gritted teeth.
“He seems to think I can help.”
“Yeah, well when I need something cleaned or cooked I’ll let you know. OW!” Sucking on the back of her hand, she glared down at Austin. “What did you scratch me for?”
He retracted his claws. “You were being rude.”
“Scratch me again and I’ll show you rude,” she muttered.
“You’re frightened, that’s understandable. Even I was almost frightened. You think you can’t handle this, you think it’s too big for you…”
“Stop telling me what I think!”
“…but that’s no reason to take it out on him.”
“You’re frightened?” Dean ducked his head to get a better look at her face. “You are frightened.”
Obviously, she hadn’t been hiding it as well as she’d thought.
“Of what? Oh…” The talking cat had temporarily driven all thoughts of their other discovery out of his head. “Of her?” Evil, the cat had said. Rubbing the lingering, greasy feel off the arm that had been closest to the bed, Dean found that easy to believe. “Don’t worry.” He straightened where he sat. “On the last of it, she’ll have to go through me to get to you.”
“Foreshadowing,” Austin muttered.
Giving the cat a warning squeeze, Claire realized that Dean’s offer was in earnest. He was the sort of person who went out of his way to pick worms off the sidewalk and put them back onto the lawn. She drew in a deep breath and let it out slowly. “First of all, I can take care of myself. Second, if you ever face that woman awake, you’d better hope she kills you immediately and doesn’t play with you for a while. And third, there’s nothing you can do.”
“The cat said…”
“He says a lot of things.”
“You said you’d explain.”
“After I’d dealt with her. And I haven’t.”
“I could help you with her.”
“You don’t know what’s going on.”
“I would if you explained.”
“I’ve had as much as I can take of this,” Austin grumbled. “I’ll explain.” Wriggling out of Claire’s arms, he crossed the hall and locked a pale green stare on Dean’s face. “Do you believe in magic?”
“That’s an explanation?”
“Just answer the question.”
“Sure.”
“Sure? What kind of an answer is sure? Do you or don’t you?”
Dean shrugged. “I guess I do.”
“Good.” Stretching out, Austin ripped at the carpet. “Because that’s what we’re dealing with.”
“Magic?”
“That’s right. The woman in the room behind you was put to sleep by magic.”
Dean shifted a little farther down the hall. Drawing his knees up, he laid his forearms across them and frowned. “Like Sleeping Beauty?”
Austin’s ears went back. “The opposite. This time the bad guy—her—got put to sleep by the good guys.”
“Why?”
“How should I know?”
“I just thought…”
“At this point we don’t know much more than you do.” He frowned thoughtfully. “Actually, we know a whole lot more than you, but we don’t know that. The important thing for you to remember is that, if you’re lucky, the woman in there is the worst thing you’re ever going to come in contact with. She’s evil sleeping in size eight pumps.”
Dean’s eyes widened. “How do you know her shoe size?”
“I don’t.”
“But you said…”
“I was making a point,” Austin sighed. “Which obviously didn’t make it through your thick head.”
Watching the cat stalk back across the hall and rub his head against a denim-clad hip, Dean suddenly remembered the feel of a body clutched tightly against his. Under normal circumstances, it wasn’t a feeling he’d have forgotten. His ears turned red as he realized just which bits had gone where and he suspected he should apologize for something. “Uh, Ms. Hansen…”
“You might as well call me Claire,” she interrupted wearily, picking at a loose thread in the cleanest carpet she’d ever seen. “If Austin’s right…”
“And I am,” Austin put in, not bothering to glance up from an important bit of grooming.
“…we’re going to be working together. That is,” she added after a moment’s pause, “if you still want to keep your job.”
Austin snorted. “Weren’t you listening to me?”
“Dean has to decide for himself if he’s going to stay.”
Dean shifted nervously under the weight of their combined attention. “What is it we’ll be doing together?”
Claire put her cupped hand over the cat’s muzzle before she answered. “Fighting evil.”
“You’re a superhero?”
Austin jerked free. “Don’t,” he suggested sternly, “give her ideas.”
“No, I’m not a superhero. I don’t even own a pair of tights. Are you blushing again?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Good.”
“I am one of the good guys. And this is a bad situation. The woman in there…” Claire nodded toward the broken door. “…is only half the problem. Somewhere in this building is a hole in the fabric of the universe.”
About to protest that there were some stories even a dumb Newfie wouldn’t believe, Dean hesitated. They’d found a dust-covered woman, dressed in 1940s clothing, asleep in room six and he’d just had the situation more
