An Artificial Night - BK 3 (6 page)

“Aunt Birdie?” Cassandra whispered.

I relaxed, looking over my shoulder. “Yeah, puss?” Spike was still turning in slow circles, growling. I wasn’t sure what had it so pissed, but I wasn’t going to get in its way.

“Did you find them?”

“Not yet. I’m sorry.”

“Oh,” she said, face falling. “Mom’s not doing so good. Will you come down?”

The tone of Spike’s snarling changed, becoming more insistent as it stopped circling and began advancing, stiff-legged, toward the boys’ room. “Not yet,” I said. “Keep your mother and everyone else downstairs, all right?”

“Okay,” Cassandra said dubiously, looking at Spike. “Your rose goblin is growling.”

“I know. Go downstairs, Cass. I’ll be there soon.”
Or I’ll be dead,
I added silently. I try not to ignore warnings, especially ones I don’t understand. Spike could be freaking out over a mouse, but it might also be reacting to a threat I couldn’t see. Assuming the worst is a good way to keep from being surprised.

She looked at me, frowning. Then she turned and went downstairs.

I waited for the sound of her footsteps to fade before following Spike into the boys’ room. Half of it was Anthony’s, decorated in spaceships and astronomical posters; the floor was marginally cleaner on that side. Andrew’s half was done up in dinosaurs and clowns, all bright colors and rounded angles. The dinosaurs I gave him for his birthday were on the shelf beside his bed, seeming small and somehow sad. The boy who loved them wasn’t here.

Spike stopped in the center of the room, tossing back its head and howling. The sound scraped at my nerves, leaving them raw. I flinched and stepped past it, moving to study Andrew’s bed. It didn’t look like there’d been a struggle: the sheets were thrown back and the blanket was shoved to one side, but that was normal. Kids sleep hard. If Andrew was taken from the bed, he either didn’t wake up, or he went voluntarily. Considering Faerie, both were options. I knelt to check under the bed before moving to poke through the closet.

Nothing looked out of place, and yet, despite the outward lack of disturbance, there was something in the air that made the room feel like it was somehow wrong. Sliding my knife back into its sheath, I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. There were other scents under the expected odors of sweat and small boy. I started focusing on them, shutting out everything else.

The smell of blood came first. Of course it did; I’m my mother’s daughter and if there’s blood I’ll find it. I identified it as Andrew’s almost without thinking, spending just enough time feeling it out to be sure that he’d been the only one to bleed, and that his wounds had been superficial at worst. There were other things layered in an undefined pattern beneath the blood, and so I pushed it aside to study them more carefully.

Mold; old, dry dust. Ash. Fire. Steel. They were faint, nearly overwhelmed by the smells of blood and plastic and fabric softener and finger paint, but they were there. And I had no idea what they meant.

Eyes still closed, I stretched my arms out in front of me and began following the scent trail, ignoring the plastic dinosaurs squeaking underfoot. The scents were stronger close to the bed. My hands hit the window, and I stopped, pressing my palms against the glass as I tried to sort through the increasingly disparate scents.

There was a distinct tang of candle wax, freshly burned and not quite dry, hidden under the stronger scents of blood and fire. “Candles?” I said, bemused. Spike snarled again, the sound climbing to a roar as the smell of ash became overwhelming. The glass beneath my hands was suddenly searing-hot, and I jerked away, opening my eyes. “What the
hell—?
”

The window looked normal, showing nothing but the front yard and street beyond. I glanced at my hands. They were already starting to blister.

I had my answer, after a fashion; the kids hadn’t run away. They’d been taken by something that made glass burn and left the scent of ashes and candle wax in its wake. Unfortunately for all of us, I had no idea what it was. The only thing I was sure of was that it was going to take more than a few missing-child flyers to get them back.

“Spike, come.” I turned away, beckoning for the goblin to follow as I left the room. Surprisingly, it came. I closed the door behind us, ignoring the pain in my hands, and turned to at least look into the girls’ room. It was much the same: messy, cluttered, and with no signs of a struggle. Their window was open, and the fresh air had wiped away any traces of the scent trail I’d followed in the boys’ room, if it was even there to start with.

Shaking my head, I walked down the stairs to where Stacy waited. There was no way I could tell her I was done, even though I knew damn well that we wouldn’t find the kids without a lot more power than I had. You don’t tell a panicking mother that her children have been taken by something you can’t identify or name; it doesn’t work that way. So I did the next best thing.

I lied. I told her I thought they might have wandered away on their own. I made a lame excuse about hurting my hands by picking up Spike the wrong way and bandaged them myself in the downstairs bathroom. The rose goblin didn’t notice or care that I’d defamed its character; it was perfectly willing to follow me through the house, although it refused to calm down. It kept stopping and snarling at nothing, rattling its thorns in challenge. I took note of the places where it stopped and didn’t touch any more windows. I
can
be taught.

Stacy stayed in the living room, clutching Karen’s hand. She’d stopped crying about twenty minutes after I arrived, but she didn’t look like she felt any better; shock can take an awful lot of forms. I was in shock myself—fortunately for me, my version of shock normally manifests as anger. Anger, I can use—I understand it. Sometimes it can even help keep me alive.

We didn’t find anything. I hadn’t really been expecting that we would, since judging by the traces upstairs, there was nothing for us to find. Anthony didn’t even put up a pretense of searching; he just followed me, trusting that I would protect him. Cassandra at least tried, but she eventually went to join her mother in the living room, taking Stacy’s free hand and sitting in silence.

Mitch stayed with me to the bitter end, combing the house for some sign that his children had left under their own power. When we’d emptied the last drawer and searched through the last closet he turned to me, expression begging for some sort of reassurance. “Toby?”

“Yeah?”

“They’re not here, are they?”

I looked down before my face could give me away. “No, Mitch. They’re not.”

“Where are my children, October?”

“I don’t know.” I looked up. “But I’ll find them.”

“I believe you’re intending to try—and that’s not enough. In a minute, we’re going to have to tell my wife that they’re missing. I saw your hands.”

“What?”

“Your hands were fine when you got here. How did you burn your hands?
Where are my kids?
” That last statement was delivered with such vehemence that I realized for the first time in years just how large Mitch was. He doesn’t usually go in for violence, but he still has eleven inches and at least a hundred pounds on me.

Sometimes honesty is the best policy, especially when you’re dealing with someone who could break you in two without blinking. “I don’t know, but they aren’t here,” I said. “I don’t think they’re anywhere this side of the Summerlands.”

The look on his face was beyond broken; he’d passed all the way into bereft. “Can you find them?”

“I can try,” I said.

“And Karen?”

Oak and ash, Karen. “I don’t know what’s wrong with her. But I can take a look.” I’m not a miracle worker; I’m just a half-blood with a talent for not getting killed. So far. The problems start when people assume that if I can survive, I can do anything. I wish they were right. It would make my life a lot easier.

Turning, I walked back to the stairs without another word. I was halfway down before I heard him following me.

Stacy looked up as we approached. She was still clinging to Karen’s hand. Cassandra was sitting on the other couch with her arms around Anthony, her chin resting lightly against the crown of his head. The pressures of the day had been too much for him, and he’d fallen asleep. Anthony nestled closer to his sister as I watched, whimpering in his sleep.

“Did you—” Stacy began. I shook my head. She pressed her free hand against her mouth. I’d never seen her look so old. I always knew her thinner blood meant she’d age faster than the rest of us, but it never seemed real before. She’d seemed too alive to show the signs of mortality. Now her children were in danger, and she was showing those signs in full. Looking at Stacy, I wasn’t sure she’d ever recover the vitality her fear had leeched away.

She still looked better than her middle daughter. Karen was practically a wax statue of herself, all the color bleached from her skin and hair. It was like looking at a corpse with faintly pointed ears, and my stomach lurched before I glanced away, trying to compose myself. Faerie corpses are supposed to be impossible. Unfortunately for my peace of mind, I know that’s not the case; it’s possible to keep the night-haunts away, if you really try. I don’t advise it.

Spike rubbed against my leg, whining in the back of its throat before leaping onto the couch next to Karen and curling up by her head. I knelt, studying her carefully.

Karen wasn’t dead, just so asleep she couldn’t find the way home. Her pulse was strong, if slow. I leaned forward to hold my cheek near her mouth and felt the unlabored movement of her breath. There was nothing physically wrong with her. She just wouldn’t wake up.

“She’s asleep,” I said, sitting back on my heels. “I don’t know why.”

Stacy stared at me, eyes wide. “Well, c-can’t you wake her?”

“Not alone.” I paused. What I was about to ask might be too much, but I didn’t see another choice. “I may know someone who can. Will you let me take her with me?”

“No!” she cried, moving to shield her daughter with her body. I rose and backed away, not arguing. Mothers aren’t always logical. I should know. I used to be one.

“Stacy—” Mitch stepped forward. “We need to let Karen go with Toby.”

“No! She’s our daughter—Mitch, how could you?” She clung to Karen like a drowning man clings to drift-wood. It made sense; in her own way, she was going under. “We can’t just let her
go!
”

“Toby will be with her,” he rumbled. “Toby? Where do you want to take her?”

“The Tea Gardens. The Undine who guards them may know how to help.” Undine are regional fae and, once they merge with a place, they can never leave it. Lily hasn’t left the Japanese Tea Gardens since she came to America.

“If that doesn’t work?” He was talking to me, but his eyes were on Stacy; he was trying to make her understand. Good man. He knew as well as I did that unless we found out what was wrong with Karen, we might never get her to wake up. That’s how it is with enchanted sleep.

“I’ll take her to Shadowed Hills. Jin may be able to do something.”

“Let her go, Stacy. Let Toby take her.” Mitch knelt and put his hand on her shoulder, engulfing it. “She’ll bring them home to us. She’ll bring them all home.” Sobbing, Stacy sat up and threw her arms around Mitch’s neck, burying her face against him.

Mitch nodded toward Karen. I moved behind them and scooped her into my arms, ignoring the pain in my hands. “I’ll call you,” I said. Cassandra stayed silent the whole time, smart enough not to interfere.

“Please.” Mitch kept his arms around Stacy, reassuring and restraining her.

Spike was sitting by the front door, thorns sleeked down. It seemed to have calmed down. I was glad one of us had. “Don’t let Anthony go back into the bedroom. It’s dangerous. And keep your hands off the windows.”

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
any
of us safe?”

“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.

F
INDING 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.