A Little Rhine Must Fall (2 page)

I like to think that there is balance in the world. You get either beauty or brains. The lucky ones end up somewhere in the middle, like me. Good looking enough,
and
rather smart. Having an ability was a plus, but there was also a negative. The more I used my Voice, the closer I came to immortality. Sarah thought it would be “awesome” to live forever. I thought that remaining forever young, while my husband and children grew old and died, would be horrific. Which was why I would have to tell Mark someday. Fat chance I could avoid ever using my Voice. Being a Guardian meant I was constantly in situations where
not
using it would have an immediate and deleterious effect on my health.

The movie ended while I was still pondering the problem. To tell, or not to tell? Cassidy had, amazingly, made it all the way through the entire thing and was excitedly retelling parts of it to me as we headed out to the car. I couldn’t understand half of what she was saying, but I smiled and nodded and said “Uh-huh. That’s great, honey,” and words like that.

“This was the best day ever!” Megan sang, swinging on my hand. “You are the bestest Mommy I ever had!”

I laughed, “I’m glad you enjoyed it.”

Cecily’s phone beeped and she dropped back a few feet to answer it.

“Can we get slurpees, Mommy?” Megan asked.

“Urpees!” Cassidy echoed.

“You just had popcorn and candy
and
slushies!” I tickled them as I said each word. “I think that’s enough sugar for one day.”

“What happens if you eat too much sugar?” Megan wanted to know.

“You bounce so high you land on the moon.” I said seriously. Megan spent the rest of the short walk giving me suspicious glances and staring up at the sky. She was trying to see if I was serious, and wondering if she should try to eat a bunch of sugar and land on the moon. I hid a grin while I buckled them into their car-seats.

Cecily climbed into the passenger seat, a serious look on her face.

“What’s up?” I asked.

“That was Svobodova.”

I groaned. She was the vampire representative to the Synod. They were the group within the USB that made all the tough calls. Like who lived or died. “What does the Synod want now? We just finished a job. Don’t we get the weekend off?”

“They don’t want us. She just wants to see me.” Cecily was refusing to meet my eyes.

I shot a quick glance into the back seat. Megan and Cassidy were busy discussing the movie. “Is that bad?” I asked quietly.

Cecily stared out the window.

“Cecily!”

“I don’t know.”

I started the car and backed carefully out of the parking space. “Well then. Let’s not borrow trouble.”

She was eerily silent on the drive home. She’d never been called in alone to the Synod before (that I knew of), but then I’d only been a member for a few months. It wasn’t like I knew what was normal or usual. As if a group of supernatural beings using a cell phone to call a vampire in for a meeting qualified as “normal.” Sometimes I couldn’t even believe that I was seriously thinking about stuff like this.

I was
not
going to worry though. For all I knew, they were calling her in to congratulate her on a job well done. There were no witches currently sitting on the Synod, and there was little love lost between the witches and the other member species. So, while the WAND was unhappy with my separating Pravus from his head, the Synod had clearly sanctioned the hit and there was nothing the WAND could do about it.

Cecily lived in the house next to mine, a leftover from days when she had been assigned to secretly monitor my activities. Life must have been pretty dull for her, watching me play in the backyard, take toddlers for walks, yell at the dog, and go grocery shopping. Come to think of it, life had been
great
! Dodging spells, fighting witches, and lying to my husband was highly overrated.

Cecily was out of the car and over to her own driveway before I had switched off the engine. “Thanks for the movie!” she called over her shoulder and disappeared into her house. Fine, if that was the way she was going to be, fine. I didn’t need to know what was going on. I wasn’t worrying at all. I was calm and cool and collected.

The girls raced ahead of me into the house and I followed slowly, still not worrying about anything. How bad could it be? If they were angry with Sarah and me, they would have called
us
in. It was probably nothing.

I tripped over a basket sitting just inside the front door. It was wicker with a cloth lining and huge red bow. Tied to the bow was a large printed card that read, “For Piper.” Huh? I opened the lid and looked inside. Empty.

“Mark?” I called. “What’s this basket?”

“Come see, Mommy!” Megan shrieked with joy.

I hurried into the living room. Mark was sitting on the couch with the girls on either side. Otis, our huge orange tabby cat, was sitting on the coffee table in front of them, staring intently.

“What is it?” I asked, coming around the back of the couch. I stopped. Sitting in Mark’s lap was another large cat. She was a brown and black spotted tabby. Mark was scratching her ears and she was purring and rubbing her face on his hand.

“Isn’t she pretty?” Megan asked.

I was frozen in mid-step. This was
not
happening. Mark looked up and grinned. “She was in a basket by the front door. You must have a secret admirer.”

I took a shaky breath. The cat had a hoop earring piercing her right ear. She looked up at me and winked.

:Hello, Piper:

Chapter Two:

Bastet

“What are you doing here?” I spoke before it hit me that I hadn’t
heard
the cat say anything. At least, not in the traditional way.

“What did you say, Hon?” Mark asked, still scratching Bastet’s head. It
was
Bastet. It had to be. What were the chances of there being
two
cats in my life that wore an earring? I’d met Bastet at the USB conference. She had surprised me, not only with her command of the English language (which you have to admit is rare in felines), but also her support for my membership application.

:We came to see you, Piper:
the voice in my head spoke again. Since I only saw one of her (which was quite enough), I assumed she was still using the “Royal We.”

She went on,
:We need to talk:

I cleared my throat. “Umm, Mark?”

He stood up, dislodging Bastet from his lap. She immediately sat up tall with her tail curled around her feet. Classic Egyptian goddess pose. Which made sense, since that was exactly what she was. I didn’t know everything she was capable of, but at the conference she had been responsible for maintaining a magic-free zone. I figured you had to be pretty powerful if you were the one who could cancel out thousands of magical abilities.

:Why is this cat staring at us?:
the voice, Bastet, asked. Otis was engaged in a non-blinking stare competition with her. He didn’t like to go outside and this was probably the first time he’d seen another cat in years.

“He’s not used to strange cats,” I answered.

Mark smacked my butt as he walked by. “I know,” he laughed. “I don’t think Otis knows what to make of her.” He headed to the kitchen and grabbed a beer. “How was the movie?”

I was still stuck staring at Bastet. With the Synod calling for Cecily and goddesses showing up in my living room, perhaps there
was
something to start worrying about.

“What are you doing here?” I asked again.

“Huh?” Mark reappeared from the kitchen. “I’m getting a beer. Why?”

:We told you. We came to talk to you:

I looked uneasily at Mark. “Can you hear …?”

He laughed. “I know, right?” For a second I thought he could hear Bastet talking and I prepared to flip out. “What a purr!” he finished. He scratched her under her chin. “This is one champion purr-er!”

Now that I stopped to listen with my ears I could hear it too. A low, happy rumble. Otis gave a little meow and inched a little closer. His front toes were almost hanging over the edge of the coffee table.

“I think he’s in love,” Mark said and gave him a friendly head ruffle. Otis shrugged it off and kept staring at Bastet.

Mark set his beer on the counter, scooped up the girls, one under each arm, and headed for their room. “Come on ladies,” he said over the squealing, “tell me all about the movie while we get ready for bed.” They disappeared around the corner but I could still hear shrieks of laughter and banging furniture. Mark’s idea of getting the girls ready for bed was to rile them up into a hysterical frenzy and then get upset when they wouldn’t settle down and go to sleep.

I sank down on the couch next to Bastet. “Bastet?” I asked.

She started licking one paw.
:Who did you think it was?:

My eyes narrowed. “Don’t get smart with me, young lady! You’re the one who showed up at my door in a basket with a bow. What’s going on?”

She sounded pleased.
:
We
thought it was a genius idea. We like your husband. He knows how to give a good scratch:

“What are you doing here, Bastet?”

:You’re being rude, Piper:
she was whispering. I’m not sure how you whisper mentally, but that’s what it “sounded” like.

“Huh?”

:Aren’t you going to introduce us?”

“To whom?” This conversation was surreal. Maybe I’d lost it. Maybe all the vampires, and witches, and near-death experiences had finally made me snap. I wasn’t sitting on my couch talking to a telepathic cat. I was nice and safe in a padded cell, cuddled up in a straight-jacket, with nothing to worry about.

:That handsome cat over there:
she was simpering.

“Otis?” He looked at me with wide yellow eyes and blinked.

Bastet stopped licking her paw and meowed at Otis. He flipped his tail around a couple of times and twitched his whiskers.

:If we had known that you co-habited with such a gorgeous beast we would have visited sooner!:

I shook my head to clear it. If I wasn’t insane, I had only a few more minutes of privacy before Mark came back out. I needed to find out what was going on. Fast.

“Why are you here, Bastet?”

She purred.
:We’re going to live with you for a while:

“No. You’re not.”

:Yes. We are:

This was getting ridiculous. “Why? Why do you want to live with me? Don’t you think I have enough trouble with a vampire next door and a skunk-ape living around the corner. Not to mention having to lie about what I am!?”

:Annabeth is living in this neighborhood?:

Figures she would be keeping tabs on me. While dealing with Pravus, we’d run into a skunk-ape named Annabeth and her son, Harry, and had gotten them membership into the Were group of the USB. Annabeth had been living in a rundown trailer outside of podunkville, hiding from a crazy cryptozoologist named Floyd. Floyd had found her, but, with my help, was now working with her to fleece the hopeful Cryptid believers of their hard earned cash. He was still crazy, but at least he now understood the importance of only presenting unverifiable evidence to various Cryptid newsletters and collectors. I also suspected that he might have a little crush on Annabeth, which made him even more protective of her.

Originally, she and Harry had been staying with Cecily, but vampires and skunk apes don’t mix well, and Annabeth moved out as soon as she found a house to rent. I wished that she had picked a different neighborhood, but I hadn’t been consulted. The last home-owner’s association newsletter had an article warning about a large animal being spotted in the community park at night and to keep small pets indoors. I didn’t want to know about it and I wasn’t going to ask.

All of this was way off the point, though. Right now I needed to know why Bastet was here and why she wanted to stay.

“Are you in some sort of trouble?” I asked, suddenly concerned. Whatever trouble would send an Egyptian goddess on the run was not the sort of trouble I wanted showing up on my doorstep.

She yawned, a big pink yawn with lots of sharp white teeth.
:Trouble?:

I glared at her and jumped back a bit when Otis hissed at me. “Whoa, buddy! No need to get so protective! She won’t answer my question!”

:We need a place to stay for a while. Are you so lacking in hospitality that you would deny us?:

I just opened my mouth to tell her what I thought of the idea when Mark came back in the room. I clamped my lips shut and gave him a sick smile. “Down already?”

“Yup,” there was a loud crash and some giggles from the girls’ room. “Down and fast asleep.” He picked up his beer and sank down on the couch between me and Bastet. “What do you think of this little lady?”

:We like your husband. He is far nicer than you:

“Ha!” I said.

“Ha, what?” Mark started rubbing my neck. “Shall we keep her? Where did she come from?”

:You can stop rubbing that ungrateful female and scratch us instead:
Bastet rubbed her face on his knee.

“Stay away from my husband,” I warned her grimly.

Mark laughed, “Jealous of a cat, sweetie? I still think you’re the most beautiful maiden in the land.” He gave me a kiss, but stopped rubbing my neck and started petting Bastet.

:He likes us better:

“No, he doesn’t.”

“What?” Mark was puzzled.

This was getting confusing. I couldn’t carry on two conversations like this without sounding insane. I would just ignore Bastet and focus on Mark until he went to bed. Then I would pin her down and rub her fur the wrong way until she told me what she was doing here.

“So, Piper,” Mark was giving me an odd look. “What do you want to do with this cat here?”

I made a face. “Keep her?”

“You don’t sound like you want another cat.”

:She’s a little crazy.
Everyone
wants us around:

“I’m not crazy!”