Carrie Vaughn - Kitty Steals the Show

“You couldn’t get him,” I said.

She held her chin, eyes crinkled with thought. “There has to be a way, I can’t just leave a wish hanging like this.”

“Um … can you tell me where they found him?” I said. “That’ll be good enough.”

Someone jogged on the path, and I froze, wondering how I was going to explain all this, but he never turned his head.

“You’re saying I just have to tell you where he is, not fetch him.”

“That’s right.” Hurry, hurry …

She said, “It’s down the river at least five hops, then you have to wiggle up a bit, to one of the places where there isn’t a single tree left—”

Cormac pulled a map from his jacket pocket, unfolding as he went. “You think you could point to it?”

Her gaze darted over it and she pursed her lips. “Hmm. How novel.” After a moment, she pointed. “There.”

Well east of the city, downriver. Just a spot on a map.

I frowned. “I don’t suppose you have an address?”

She crossed her arms and pouted. “Addresses, bah. By the way, have you asked yourself whether or not I might be lying?” She was smiling, but it wasn’t pretty.

“I’d be no worse off than I was before,” I said, and she slouched, the wind taken out of her sails. Wings? She didn’t seem to have wings, not that I could see anyway. I sighed. “This has to be right. Thank—” Cormac squeezed my arm and shook his head. You didn’t thank fairies. Hmm.

“Right. This’ll work,” I said, and the queen offered a brief, mysterious bow.

I called Caleb. “I think I have a location for you. A place called Creekmouth?”

His voice sounded tinny, distant, like he was in a car. “It’s an industrial park, part of the port system. That’s not good,” he said. “Where’d you get this information? How do you know he’s there?”

“Um … fairies told me?”

He sounded surprised. “And you trust ’em?”

“They owed me a wish.”

“Ah, right,” he said.

“You believe me? Or, you believe in fairies?” I asked.

“I knew they were out there,” Caleb said. “Though it doesn’t do for a bloke like me to run around saying he believes in fairies. The thing you’ve got to remember about them—they’re not human, so don’t think you understand them. You, me, Ned, Marid, all of us—we all started out human and were changed. We might turn out quite different, but you can still suss us out at the heart of it. But them? They never were human.”

“We’ve been having this conference on the paranormal and we missed this whole part of it that isn’t even human ?”

“Not my concern,” he said. “Where are you?”

“Hyde Park,” I said. “The Peter Pan statue.”

“Typical,” he huffed. “Walk north, you’ll end up at the Lancaster Gate tube stop, we’ll pick you up in about fifteen minutes.”

“How far away is this place?”

“It’ll take time to get there,” he said. “I’ve got a couple of people I can send to scout ahead.”

It would have to be enough. I shut off the phone and looked around to say good-bye to the queen and her folk, but they were gone.

I blinked at Cormac and Ben. “Where’d they go?”

“Vanished. Poof,” Ben said, flicking out his fingers.

“Just like that?” I said.

“Hard to tell,” Cormac said. “I wasn’t quite looking at them.”

“Yeah,” Ben agreed. “I thought I just glanced away for a minute.”

That shouldn’t have surprised me at all. “We have to get moving, Caleb’s going to pick us up.”

Nightfall gave the mission even more urgency—we’d be dealing with vampires soon. Njal would know that Harald and his mate had left him. Other vampires would call on werewolves who were no longer there.

When we got to the intersection, the lights and traffic nearly blinded me after the relative peace and darkness of the park. I spotted Caleb when he flashed headlights, and we piled into the back of the car. Michael, one of Caleb’s wolves, occupied the front passenger seat. They nodded at us in acknowledgement.

“You all right?” Caleb asked.

“Yeah. For now. How are Harald and his mate?”

“Her name’s Karin. Poor kid, too scared to even talk, but she seems relieved to be here. They’re safe, still resting. I’ve got someone staying with them who’s very good at this sort of thing.”

“Good.” I sighed.

Caleb knew his way around the city and steered confidently through the maze of streets. I was lost in moments. Nothing in this city was set up on grids. I imagined London’s citizens laying out medieval streets based on curving them around random trees, barrels, horses, whatever, that they didn’t want to bother moving. What other explanation could there be? He managed to avoid the worst of the evening traffic, until we were on a wide—even relatively straight—highway. The central congestion of the city gave way to suburbs, parks, industrial sections, dockyards. I caught glimpses of the river now and then, a wide, dark band reflecting lights.

The phone rang. Now I hear from everyone. “Hello?”

“Kitty. Ned here. We have some catching up to do, I think.”

“Yeah. I don’t even know where to start.”

“I’m hearing some very odd rumors. Did you really rescue those two wolves from Njal?”

“I guess we did,” I said, bemused.

“I’m getting visits, calls—foreign Masters wanting to know if I’ve really withdrawn neutrality, why Masterless wolves are running around, why their own wolves are standing up to them, asking them to keep out of the war. They’ve been talking to each other, haven’t they? And Vidal of St. Petersburg asked if I’ve really killed Roman. I admit I was cagey with him, and he seemed so pleased … Whatever you did this morning has everyone flustered.”

I closed my eyes, enjoying a second’s worth of victory. No one knew what was happening—our enemies couldn’t unite. We’d bought ourselves time. Maybe even allies. Any of the Masters who’d been waiting to see who was stronger in the coming conflict might side with Ned, now.

“I hope … I hope this works out,” I said.

“‘Stiffen the sinews, summon up the blood, disguise fair nature with hard-favour’d rage,’” he said. “Where are you and your pack now?”

“In a car with Caleb, heading east to look for a friend who’s gone missing.”

“Your Sergeant Tyler, yes? What happened?”

“He was kidnapped out of his hotel room earlier this afternoon. We’re following a lead that says they’ve taken him to Creekmouth.”

“That isn’t good.”

“That’s what Caleb says.”

“You’ll need help.”

“Any you can spare. But you’ll never get there in time, they have a huge head start, it’s miles away—”

“Oh, have no fear at all about that.” His tone held a wicked smile.

“What—”

He hung up. I stared at my phone.

“That was Ned,” Ben said, a statement. “What’s happening?”

“I’m not sure,” I said, frowning. I wanted to blame my exhaustion and muzzy-headedness on jet lag but wasn’t sure I still could, a week later.

While I’d talked to Ned, Caleb had gotten a call, and had driven the last mile or so with his phone pressed to his ear. He put it in a pocket and glanced at me in the rearview mirror. “I think we’ve found him. But we don’t have a lot of time.”

“What? Why not, what’s happening?”

“I told you there’s a shipping dock—they may be trying to smuggle him out of the country.”

WE LEFT the highway and turned into a clutter of warehouses. This wasn’t the pretty postcard, touristy part of London. This was east of the city, along the river, past the bridges and castles and giant Ferris wheel and twenty-first-century development. London was still a busy international port, full of big steel warehouses, concrete docks, cranes, industrial sites, refineries. It seemed otherworldly, like we’d entered some industrial hell. A dystopian Terry Gilliam film.