Брайан Макклеллан - Blood Tally

Humans are very odd, Maggie commented.

I pulled the conversation back to my quarry. “Do you have any idea where Michael might have gone?”

“If I did, I would have told Boris.”

“Right. Is there anything you might have … overlooked? Any little details that could be helpful in me tracking down Michael?”

Sam glanced off to one side, looking even more uncomfortable than normal. “I don’t know.”

Definitely lying, Maggie snorted.

I forced Sam to meet my gaze. “You’re sure?”

“Well … I mean, Boris probably already told you this, but Michael was getting sweet on a girl at his work.”

I wrote this down, using the opportunity to cuss Boris out in the back of my head. That asshole couldn’t have at least mentioned that Michael had a job? And a girlfriend? Aloud, I said, “Where does he work?”

“At a little garden shop down in Hinckley. Mum’s Hearth and Yard. I don’t know his girlfriend’s name. I don’t …” He trailed off, looking down at his hands.

Even without Maggie saying anything, I got the distinct impression there was more information. “Sam, my job is to bring Michael back safe and sound. There are proper Hunters out there who get their kicks from tracking down and murdering runaway thralls. If I don’t find him, one of them might.” It wasn’t exactly a lie. I’d heard a story or two. But it wasn’t necessarily the truth either. “His girlfriend’s name would be really helpful.”

I could see him wrestling with the decision. Finally, he said, “I think he wrote her name down somewhere. I’ll go look around his room. Be right back.” He hurried out before I could say anything. I heard his footsteps go up the stairs, then down a long hallway to the other end of the house. I pursed my lips, feeling a little pleased and a little crappy. Maggie, thankfully, kept her comments to herself.

I’d been alone for maybe twenty seconds when I heard a shuffle in that kennel in the corner. Curious what other pets they kept, I began to walk that direction but came up short when I heard a soft male voice say, “Hey. Hey, you. Come here.”

I paused. It was hard to pinpoint the exact location of the voice. “Excuse me?”

“Shush. I’m not talking to you.”

I glanced over my shoulder, then began to peek into boxes looking for some kind of radio or phone or something. “Who are you talking to?”

“Who do you think? Genie lady, would you tell your human to shut up for a moment so we can have a conversation?”

Uhhhh … Maggie said in my head. What the hell was that?

If my hackles hadn’t been up before, they were now. Maggie?

I have no idea. I can’t even tell where it’s coming from.

“It’s coming from the kennel in the corner, dummies. Human, bring your genie lady friend over here.”

You can hear me? Maggie demanded. It was the first time I’d ever heard her speak – inside my head – to someone else. It was weird.

“Of course I can hear you. Now you, human. Alek? Come over here.”

Slowly, hesitantly, I walked to the corner of the room. It was occupied by a kennel about six foot by six foot and maybe four feet tall. At first glance, it contained a whole bunch of old towels, a litter box, and an exceptionally large cat. The cat was maybe twenty or twenty-five pounds with a sleek blue-cream torte coat. It took a few moments of watching him before the cat gave itself a little shake and I could see that the fur on his back was actually wings that blended in perfectly with the rest of him.

Holy shit, Maggie said. That’s a sphinx!

I stared cautiously at the animal. I thought sphinxes had human faces. And were female.

“That’s rude of you to talk about me like I can’t hear you both. I’m an Egyptian sphinx, not a Greek one,” the cat – or rather, the sphinx – said. “And the human face things has a little truth to it but is kind of garbled, and … I’m not going to sit here and argue with you about what I am. I just need you to open the kennel.”

I could see that the kennel was latched, but it also had a little lock on it. Nothing fancy, just the kind people used on their luggage. “Why?” I asked.

“That’s a stupid question and you know it.” The sphinx’s brow furrowed, and he licked down one leg before staring back up at me. “Because I’m not an exotic pet. I’m an intelligent being. Because Boris is a jerk and Sam is going to be back here any moment.”

It took me two seconds of thinking about my own situation, then Maggie’s situation, then this admittedly adorable catlike creature talking to me before I bent over and fixed the lock between two fingers. I gave it a single hard wrench and felt it give way. I flipped the latch for good measure, then watched the front swing open. It was in that moment that I remembered how the sphinx from the tale of Oedipus definitely used to eat people.

I could have sworn that the sphinx smiled at me. Then, with the fwip of his tail and flutter of its wings, it slipped through the kennel door and disappeared into the labyrinth of junk within the house. I eyed the spot I saw him disappear, but I didn’t have time to think about it. I heard footsteps on the stairs and hurried over to the spot I’d been standing and pretended that I’d been on my phone the whole time. Sam appeared a moment later, a scrap of paper in his hands. He gave it to me.

“Her name is Ava Holmes,” he said. “I guess they’ve been dating for six months or so. She works with Mike at the garden center.”

I took the paper. It had the one name and a phone number written on it, but nothing else. It would have to do. “Is that all you’ve got?” I asked.

“I … I think so. Honestly, it’s weird having someone in the house. You better go. If you leave me a card, I’ll give you a call if I can find anything out.”

I tried not to glance toward the kennel in the corner. I wanted to make my own exit before the open kennel was discovered. “I appreciate it.” I handed him one of my cards and let him herd me toward the front door, pretending not to notice the look of relief on Sam’s face as I left. I was soon back in my truck, glancing toward the woods, hoping to have another glimpse of the sphinx. “That was weird,” I told Maggie.

You’re telling me. Sphinx are really damned rare. I can’t imagine where Boris would get one.

“I was talking about Sam and the house. But yeah, that too.” I checked the scrap of paper, writing down the name and number in my phone so I didn’t lose it, then put my truck in gear. I was beginning to feel like letting that sphinx out of its kennel was going to come back and bite me. “At least we have a lead now. Let’s get out of here.”

I spent the rest of the day researching genealogy. Or rather, researching how to research genealogy. While I knew about DNA matches from my own work, the whole genealogy thing was way out of my wheelhouse, and I was surprised to find out that it wasn’t just a passing hobby – it was a thriving business, with millions of people into the same kind of genetic matching sites I’d tried to use. Thousands of online forums were dedicated to people trying to find their ancestors in the great, jumbled dustpan of American history that was the European western migration.

Many of those forums were dedicated to the mystery of trying to reconcile mixed-blood DNA. Apparently this was a well-known problem in the field. Nobody had an answer. But the forums did tell me something important: this was especially a problem for victims and former victims of Paronskaft.

Paronskaft was the largest of the imp companies that used to buy and sell human babies. My old nemesis, Kappie Shuteye, sat on the board of Paronskaft back in the seventies and eighties. Studying up on these forums I’d found, it turned out that mixed-blood humans were especially valuable to Paronskaft and that there were thousands of freed slaves trying to find out who their parents were.