through dawn, thus proving that iron poisoning and blood loss are the best knockout drugs known to man.
At least I wasn’t bleeding, thanks to Devin and Lily. If I could get through a few hours without someone deciding the world would be a better place without me in it, I might actually start feeling like a normal person again.
Levering myself into a sitting position, I fumbled for my robe on the bedroom floor, and frowned as I realized the cats weren’t demanding to be fed. “That’s weird.” Cagney and Lacey
There was no reply.
Frowning, I pulled on my robe and left the room, scanning for signs of my feline roommates. “Girls? Kitty- kitty? Hey, not funny, you two . . .” They still didn’t answer. At least my leg was holding up my weight without much of a complaint.
Devin was gone, as I’d expected; he hadn’t even bothered to leave a note. Only the mug on my hallway table, sides caked with thick yellow gunk, proved that he’d actually been there. I picked it up and paused, throat tightening. The light on my answering machine was blinking.
“Please, not again,” I said, and pressed the button. The machine beeped.
“October, this is Pete.” My manager sounded deeply unhappy to be talking to my answering machine. Considering how difficult it was to get decent help on the night shift, I couldn’t blame him.
“Oh, crap,” I said, leaning against the wall. I knew what came next. I’d been hearing it a lot since I got out of the pond.
“I covered for you as best I could, but you’ve been a no-call, no-show for two nights now. I’m afraid we’re going to have to let you go. Your last paycheck will be mailed to the address we have on file.” He hesitated, adding, “Whatever this is . . . I just hope you’re all right.”
The message ended.
“Gunshot wounds, iron poisoning, missing cats, dead friend, and now I need to find a new job,” I muttered, pushing away from the wall and swallowing my relief at the fact that it hadn’t been something worse. No one else was dead. After the things that had been happening lately, that was a mercy in and of itself. “Damn it, Evening. Couldn’t you have found yourself a flunky who didn’t have to pay the rent?”
I walked into the living room, wincing when I saw the gun on the coffee table. Someone was really trying to have me killed, and the gun in my living room suddenly looked like a symbol of the entire damn mess. I kicked the coffee table with my good leg, sending the gun sliding across the floor to vanish behind the curtains.
“Screw you, Evening!” I shouted. “Screw your duty and your dying and . . . and your going off and leaving me to deal with this alone!” I stopped, fury spent as quickly as it had come. It wasn’t doing anyone any good. Not even me.
The silence that followed my outburst was followed by a familiar, if muffled sound: Siamese voices, raised in angry protest at their mistreatment by the world. “Girls?” The yowls led me to the front door. I opened it, and the cats came racing inside, ears flat against their heads, eyes wide and wild. I stared at them. “Jeez, girls. Were you out there all night? You know there’s a reason you’re not allowed to go outside!”
Cagney looked up at me, ears still flat, and yowled again. I sighed. “Right. You got out when Devin brought me inside.” Lacey added her voice to the choir, both of them beginning to twine around my ankles. I don’t normally mind them being friendly. I also don’t normally have a hole in my thigh and a case of iron poisoning threatening to dump me on my ass. “Yes, I know,” I said, stepping over them on my way to the kitchen. “You nearly froze to death out there, you haven’t been fed since the fall of Rome, and I’m evil. How about you let me get to the kitchen without breaking my neck?”
The cats seemed unimpressed by this offer and complained all the way into the kitchen, stopping only after their bowl was full of mashed-up artificial fish. The last of Devin’s yellow gunk was caked on the inside of my coffeepot. I scraped it thickly into my mug and shoved the mug into the microwave, asking, “You two need anything else?” The cats didn’t answer.
I rinsed the coffeepot and filled it with water, studying my reflection in the toaster. I looked like hell. My skin was pale, the skin around my eyes looked bruised, my neck was livid with scrapes and bruises from its encounter with the seat belt, and somehow I
Sleep, healing potions, and a little company. I half smiled as I filled the coffee machine, setting it to percolate. Maybe it was wrong of me to go looking for a silver lining in the current stupid mess, but if there was one, it was in the bridges I was starting to rebuild. Sylvester had missed me. Shadowed Hills was willing to welcome me. And Devin . . .
I touched the side of my neck, remembering the touch of Devin’s lips. Devin still cared. In his own screwed- up way, he’d never stopped.
The ding of the microwave snapped me back to the present. Withdrawing the mug, I sipped the gingerbread-scented goo and waited for the coffee to finish. The iron in my blood still had me weak and befuddled, but time and not getting myself killed would take care of that. In the meantime, at least the stuff Devin had left me was helping to keep me on my feet.
The taste of roses tried to rise in my throat, seeming thinner and weaker than before. I wasn’t the only one being slowed down by the iron poisoning. I shoved it down as hard as I could and took another large gulp of Devin’s gingerbread slime before topping off my mug with coffee. No matter how much I wanted to stand around and dwell on things, the fact remained that I was on a very real deadline, and the trail to Evening’s killers was having more and more time to get cold.
The gingerbread slime was substantially easier to stomach when mixed with coffee. I topped the mug off again, adding six spoonfuls of sugar before heading for the hall. The day looked pretty simple, really. I’d call Sylvester and let him know that I was still alive. Then, when Devin’s kids showed up, I’d head for Home, and I’d tell him everything. The hope chest, the key, the curse Evening slapped on me before she died, everything. He had the pieces I was missing about the way things had changed in the years I missed, and between the two of us, we might just have enough to end this whole damn mess.
The mixture of coffee and healing potion was sweet and sharp on my tongue, and it tasted like surviving to see tomorrow. I was reaching for the telephone when the doorbell rang.
I tensed, turning to stare at the door before slowly, grudgingly relaxing. Devin told me he’d be sending his kids in the morning. It was past noon; I should’ve been expecting them. Tightening the knot on my robe, I walked over and opened the door.
Gillian was standing on the doorstep.
I hadn’t seen my little girl up close since she was two years old. She was just a shape through a telephoto lens, a figure that I took clandestine pictures of whenever I got to really feeling sorry for myself and used my old job skills to catch up with the daughter I’d lost. That didn’t matter. There are some people you know no matter how far apart you are.
She was taller than I was—just by a few inches, but still—with the coltish build of a girl who wasn’t quite done growing. She had her father’s thick, dark hair, with the slight curl I’d always loved, and his Italian complexion. Even her eyes were his. She didn’t look a thing like me, and I loved her all the more for that.
I must have made some sound of surprise, because she looked up and smiled. I would have given everything I had, and more, for that smile.
“Gilly?” I whispered.
Her smile grew. “Hi, Mom.”
“Gilly,” I repeated, like I was trying to convince myself. “You’re here.”
“I hope you don’t mind?” She bit her lip, smile dying as quickly as it came. “I got your address off one of the letters you sent to Dad. I thought maybe you wouldn’t mind if I stopped by for a little while. Just to say Merry Christmas, and everything.”
“Mind? Why would I—no! I mean, no, I don’t mind a bit. You can stay just as long as you want.” The words were coming too fast, getting tangled around each other. I forced myself to slow down. “I mean, of course. Please, come in. Come in.”
Still smiling, she stepped past me into the living room. I closed the door, wanting to scream and laugh and cry and jump around. I settled for folding my hands behind my back, watching her avidly.
Gilly looked around the room, and frowned. “Mom? Are you okay?”
