Mitch frowned. “He can sleep in the room with us for now. He won’t like it, but he’ll do it, and it might make Stacy feel better.”
“Good. I don’t know exactly what’s wrong with his room, but I don’t want him near it.” I looked down at Karen. “It’s not safe.”
“Are
“I don’t know,” I said. Mitch watched blankly as I turned and walked away. There was nothing left to say; even good-bye would have been too final. Spike dogged my heels as I walked to the car, Karen cradled in my arms. Inside, Stacy started to wail. I flinched, but no one came out of the house.
It took ten minutes to strap Karen into the passenger seat; the bandages made my hands clumsy, and the pain was getting worse. Burns hurt for a long time. And still no one came out of the house. Spike jumped into Karen’s lap once she was settled, and I got into the car and drove away.
FOUR
FINDING DAYTIME PARKING in Golden Gate Park isn’t easy. I finally had to park behind the snack bar, wedging my car into the space between the dumpsters and the side of the building. I tried to be careful, but I still hit the wall at least twice. I’m hard on my automobiles. The latest was a battered brown VW with a bumper covered in political stickers that were outdated well before I disappeared. At least the new dents were unlikely to show.
I got out of the car, locking my door before turning around. I wasn’t expecting anyone to be standing there, so I didn’t have time to stop before I collided with Tybalt. He grabbed my shoulder, steadying me until I no longer looked like I was going to fall.
I stepped backward, yanking myself out of his grasp. “Tybalt.”
“October.” His expression was composed to the point of being unreadable. “This is an interesting choice of locales. I was unaware of your love for the smell of rancid grease.”
“Nowhere else to park,” I snapped, pushing past him. Opening the passenger side door, I began trying to undo Karen’s seat belt. Spike was curled on her lap. It chirped at me before jumping down to the pavement, rattling its thorns at Tybalt. “What do you want?”
“Isn’t the pleasure of your company enough?”
I looked up, eyes narrowed. “Hasn’t been for a while now, has it?”
“You know, in that brief absence, I’d almost forgotten how much you frustrate me.” Tybalt sighed. “I had my reasons. I apologize if my disappearance troubled you.”
Given the amount of time I’ve spent avoiding Tybalt over the years, I couldn’t think of a good response to that. I settled for placing one hand on Karen’s shoulder and glaring.
When he worked at it, Tybalt could be the most infuriating person I’d ever met. Being a cat, he worked at it a lot. He was pureblooded Cait Sidhe, powerful enough to hold his position as the local King of Cats—not an easy thing to do, given the literal viciousness of Cait Sidhe politics. He might have been less annoying if he wasn’t every bit as good-looking as he thought he was. Black streaks in his brown hair suggested the stripes on a tabby’s coat, and his eyes were a deep, clear green, made slightly alien by feline pupils. He had a cat’s casual elegance and an athletic build, combined to irritatingly good effect with the sort of face that made women give him pretty much whatever he wanted. It wouldn’t have been so bad if he’d had the decency to freckle or at least tan, but I guess freckling is beneath the Cait Sidhe.
Tybalt and I have a complicated relationship, and it seems to get worse as often as it gets better. He was civil, even friendly, when we were tracking a murderer through Tamed Lightning … and he disappeared as soon as we were done. I hadn’t seen him since, despite spending several nights wandering the alleys of San Francisco searching for the Court of Cats.
I tried to tell myself that I just wanted to give him back his jacket. I’ve never been good at believing my own lies; I wanted to see him, nothing more or less than that. It was ironic, in a way, because if somebody had asked six months ago how I’d feel about Tybalt deciding to mind his own business and leave me alone, I would have answered “relieved.” When he actually did it, I was hurt. I wasn’t sure how to deal with that, so I went for the easy option. I got pissed.
He looked at my expression and sighed again. “I take it my apology isn’t accepted?”
“Was there a particular reason you decided you needed to vanish?” I finally got Karen’s seat belt undone and hoisted her out of the car, trying to balance her against my side long enough to let me lock the door. Spike barely jumped clear fast enough to avoid being stepped on.
“I had business to take care of.” Tybalt moved almost too fast for my eyes to follow, suddenly taking the bulk of Karen’s weight. “Let me help you with that.”
I eyed him but didn’t object as I finished locking the door. “What do you want?”
“Do I have to want something?”
“You haven’t spoken to me in more than two months, so yeah, you have to want something.”
“Good to see you haven’t changed,” he said, the ghost of a smile tugging at his lips. He eased Karen fully into his arms, holding her easily. “Where are we going?”
“There’s no ‘we’ here, Tybalt. Karen and I are going to see Lily. You can go wherever it is you go when you’re not bothering me.”
“And here I thought you’d missed me.” His smile remained, growing a bit more solid as he said, “You’re still wearing my jacket.”
“Yeah, well. It was the only thing I wasn’t worried about damaging.” I forced myself to keep looking at him, denying the urge to blush and look away. “What do you
He looked at me, smile fading. “I need your help.”
I hadn’t expected that. I blinked. “What?”
“I need your help.” He looked down at Karen like he was addressing his words to her instead of me. “Five children vanished from the Court of Cats this morning.” His tone was infinitely weary. I stared. “Three were changelings living with their fae parents. One was a quarter-blood living with her changeling mother. The last was pureblooded.” He glanced up at me, and now the weariness was in his face as well as in his voice. “It’s my brother’s son. The only royal Cait Sidhe born in my fiefdom in the last sixty years.”
“They just vanished?” My mouth was suddenly dry. Spike rattled its thorns, almost like it was punctuating the question. Cait Sidhe tend to be even more nocturnal than most fae; their feline natures usually keep them unconscious through the days. “Are you sure?”
“The quarter-blood is the youngest—she’s only six, and she’s still living as a human. Her mother woke to find her missing and notified the Court, thinking we might have taken the girl. That was enough to make us check on the others.”
Oh, oak and ash. Pushing the panic down to keep it out of my voice, I asked, “Why are you coming to me with this, Tybalt?”
“I could say a lot of pretty things that don’t mean anything, but the fact is, you’re the only person I could think of.” He kept looking at me gravely. “You’re good at this sort of thing, October. And more … you owe me a debt.”
I blinked. “What?”
“Asking you doesn’t put the Court in a position of owing one of the local nobles.” Another smile—a bitter one—ghosted across his lips. “There’s only so much my subjects will tolerate. It’s my responsibility to get the children back, but I can’t endanger our sovereignty to do it. Please. Do this, and there are no debts between us. Everything is paid.”
Tybalt had helped me hide a very powerful artifact after the woman who owned it died. He’d held me in debt ever since. For him to offer my freedom …
“Help me get Karen into the Tea Gardens, and we’ll talk,” I said, raking my hair back automatically and wincing as the gesture pulled on my bandages.
Eyeing my hands, Tybalt asked, “What have you done to yourself now?”
“I touched a window,” I said. “Come on.”
