Seanan McGuire - An Artificial Night

“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.

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.”