When the Stars Threw Down Their Spears: The Goblin Wars, Book Three (14 page)

“Not this time, Mrs. Santini,” Teagan said. “In fact . . . I think you and Lennie should go to New York. Visit your sister.”

“Abby?” Mrs. Santini glanced at her niece in alarm. “What’s really going on?”

“It’s like a war between Families,” Abby explained. “Only with demons.”

“Demons.” Mrs. Santini sat back. “Leo said something like that, too.”

“The Wylltsons are different, Zia,” Abby said. “Really different.”

“I live beside them for twenty years, and you’re telling
me
they’re different? I know they’re different.”

“The thing is,” Teagan said, “they’re coming for us. They will hurt you if you try to help us, Mrs. Santini. Please . . . please take Lennie to New York.”

“You let me worry about Lennie. I can protect him. And my neighborhood, too.”

“No, you can’t,” Teagan said. “You really can’t. You don’t understand how bad these creatures can be.”

“Creatures? I thought you said demons.”

“Whatever,” Abby said. “Ask Leo. He’ll tell you all about them. I think Tea’s right, Zia. Maybe you should go for a little while.”

“And leave my neighbors and my niece to the demon creatures? You girls go home,” Mrs. Santini said. “And don’t worry so much. I’ll take precautions. Nobody’s hurting my Lennie. Go on now.”

Abby motioned toward the door.

“Aiden, are you ready?” Teagan asked when she reached the living room.

“Yep.” He had both of his hands behind his back.

“What are you holding?”

“A whip,” Aiden said, pulling it out. “I traded Lennie my light saber.” Lennie gripped the light saber as if he was afraid Teagan was going to take it away. The object in Aiden’s hands was a real whip, and the braided leather showed quite a lot of wear.

“A whip won’t make a very good night-light,” Teagan said.

Aiden tugged on her sleeve until she leaned down where he could whisper.

“Lennie needs my light saber. He doesn’t have a night-light, and he’s scared.
I’ve
got Lucy and Finn.”

She couldn’t argue with that. “You’ll have to talk to Dad about it.”

Aiden nodded, and Lennie turned the light saber on.

“You’re going to run it out of batteries,” Mrs. Santini said from the kitchen door. “I’m not buying you new batteries every day, Lennie. You just turn that off until bedtime.”

“Okay.” Lennie clicked it off. “It’s a good night-light to keep me safe?”

“Yep,” Aiden said. “Bye, Mrs. Santini! Bye, Lennie!”

He held Teagan’s hand and skipped down the steps to the sidewalk. Abby’s phone chirped as they reached the street. Teagan could tell from the look on Abby’s face that something was terribly wrong.

“Oh, no.” Abby’s hand went to her mouth and she nodded, then turned away from Aiden.

“What’s wrong with Abby?” Aiden asked.

“We’ll find out later. Why don’t you go show Dad the whip and ask if you can keep it?” Teagan crossed the street and let him through the front door, then waited on the steps for Abby.

“That was Rafe,” Abby said. “They found Molly . . . She’s dead. She was in the river, close to where they found the lunch lady. Kyle did something to her. It happened while Rafe was locked up, so he’s not a suspect anymore.”

“I’m going to go take a shower,” Teagan said. “And change into clean pajamas before I go to bed.”

“Tea . . . are you okay?”

Teagan just shook her head. She left Abby to tell the others and went upstairs. She didn’t want to see anyone, talk to anyone. Especially not Finn. Because he’d been right—there had been no hope for Molly.

Teagan sat down to take off her shoes and noticed the dark brown stain all up the side of the left one. Kyle’s blood. Somehow, when she’d knelt beside him, she’d gotten one foot in his blood. If her pajamas hadn’t been a little too long, everyone would have seen it. She’d worn it all day: to the police station, while she ate dinner . . . at the Santinis’.

She kicked off her shoe and started to strip off the sock, but the blood had soaked all the way through, sticking the fabric to her skin as it dried. She peeled it off and threw it in the corner, then quickly stripped and turned on the shower. She stepped in, but her knees felt too weak to hold her up. She found herself sitting on the floor of the shower while the water rained down around her.

Molly Geltz, who’d been brilliant at math and awkward in life, and who’d thought it would be totally cool to be a freegan. Dead. Teagan took a washcloth and scrubbed her ankle, crying gently at first, and then harder.

Molly had died because she was Teagan’s friend. A friend like Mrs. Santini and Lennie, who was probably turning on his toy light saber right now to keep the bad guys away.

Teagan hung her head and let the water run down her back as she sobbed. She watched it spin before it went down the drain, mixing with Kyle’s blood and her tears, flowing through the dark sewers until it mingled at last with Molly’s blood in the dark river.

PART II: ROSEHILL

Twelve

R
OSEHILL
Cemetery. It was the first thing Teagan thought of when she woke the next morning. She needed to go to Rosehill.

She had to blink twice before she could focus on her phone.
That’s what happens when you cry yourself to sleep
. But she was done crying. She had to be. She was Highborn, and she had to start thinking like one. Thinking like her mother.

Rosehill Cemetery had a secret—a wildlife preserve along the back fence. It was exactly the kind of place Mag Mell would reach out to. And if the trees were connecting with Mag Mell, she’d have to stop them before anything else came out. Before they could kill any more girls like Molly. She could take Maggot Cat’s body there to bury it, and listen to the trees.

Abby, Roisin, and Grendal had already left the room before she woke up.

She found the
cat-sídhe
in the hallway outside the bathroom door.

“Roisin’s in there?” Teagan asked.

“And Abby.” Grendal pulled his tail protectively around himself. Abby tripped over him at least once a day, no matter how hard he tried to stay out of her way.

“Does Roisin understand about the Dump Dogs now?”

The
cat-sídhe
sighed. “She doesn’t want to.”

Teagan echoed his sigh. She remembered the dinner in Yggdrasil’s hall that she had witnessed. Compared to the creatures that had come to that party, the Dump Dogs looked friendly. Roisin had been locked up in that hall for most of her life, and she’d had very few friends.

“They have been a long time,” Grendal said. “What are they doing?”

Teagan considered. “Was Roisin crying this morning?”

Grendal nodded.

“Abby’s Magnificent Morning Makeover, then. She’s fixing Roisin’s face.” Being a friend. Which was just what Roisin needed. She was fascinated by all things Abby. Her shoes, her clothes, her phone.

“Fixing?”

“Abby’s own kind of magic. Better life through beauty products and girl talk.”

“Tea?” Abby pulled the door open. “I thought I heard your voice.” Roisin leaned around her to peer into the hall, and Grendal screamed.

Roisin’s hair was pulled back tightly in a ponytail, and her face was coated in white cream. Her eyes were still ringed red from crying, but the corners of her mouth turned up. Abby’s magic was working, even if the Highborn girl couldn’t understand a word she said.

“It’s all right,” Teagan assured the
cat-sídhe
. “It washes off.”

“Oh, Grendal’s here?” Abby looked in the direction where she thought he might be. “Tell Roisin I’m taking her to Smash Pad, okay?” she said loudly, as if Grendal were deaf instead of invisible. She looked back at Teagan. “School’s closed.”

Of course it was. The police would still be trying to figure out what had happened even if they had no bodies. Only they did. They had a body.

“You okay?” Abby’s brows drew together. “The newspaper said they were going to have volunteer grief counselors at school on Monday.”

Ms. Skinner would be the first in line to volunteer, no doubt. She had advised Teagan’s parents not to take Finn in, had wielded her social worker’s power like a weapon to try to have Aiden removed from the home, and she would know that Teagan was involved with the events at the school yesterday. She’d want every grisly detail. Teagan didn’t even want to think about having to talk to the woman.

“You want to come in here with us?” Abby offered.

“No,” Teagan said. “I want some breakfast.” And to get going.

“You got an appetite. That’s good. How about coming with us to Smash Pad? I’m taking Thomas and Roisin. Highborn are totally into shopping, right? Plus, I got a toenail-painting appointment scheduled this afternoon. I want someone there who can see things I can’t, if you know what I mean.”

“That’s a really good idea,” Teagan said.

“I know, right?” Abby sounded pleased. “Plus, I can get those two some decent clothes and probably some modeling jobs. So, you’re coming?”

“I need to sort some things out,” Teagan said. “Maybe spend some time alone.”

Abby’s phone dinged. “Timer. We’ll talk later, right? I need to take care of Roisin. Get this off her face.”

“We’ll talk.”

When Teagan got downstairs, Aiden was standing in the middle of the living room. His new whip stretched like a snake from his hand to the floor. A dead snake. Mr. Wylltson, still in pajamas and robe, was looking as perplexed as his son.

“I’m better,” Teagan said before he could ask. “What’s wrong, Aiden?”

“It doesn’t work.” Aiden swung the whip like a lasso, and Mr. Wylltson leaned out of the way.

“I think you need more wrist action, son. Let me try again.”

“Where’s Finn?” Teagan asked as her father took the whip. She’d talk to her dad about Rosehill after she’d had breakfast.

“Patrolling,” Aiden said. “Finn and Thomas are patrolling for bad guys.”

“Good.” She should be with them. Hunting. Teagan followed her nose into the kitchen instead. Mamieo was at the stove, cooking eggs on one burner and frying bacon on another. Raynor was sitting at the table with a cup of coffee and a crisp, new
Car and Driver
magazine.

“Good morning,” Teagan said.

“It might be,” said Mamieo, pointing her spatula at the window, “if not for that.” Gil was clinging to the windowsill, his nose pressed against the glass, his tufted ears alert. She could see Joe behind him, trudging slowly across the yard.

“I’m used to a quiet cup of tea and a peaceful talk with the Almighty in the morning,” the old woman went on. “Not being ogled like a pasty pie.”

Raynor didn’t look the least bit interested in the phooka.

“I’ll talk to Gil,” Teagan said. The phooka boy dropped from the window and ran over as soon as she stepped out the door. Beyond him, Joe reached the wall, turned, and started trudging in the other direction.

“What’s that smell?” Gil asked. “It woke me up.”

“Bacon. Why are you hanging on the window? I thought Mamieo was the Scary One. I thought you wanted to hide from her.”

“That was before
bacon
.” Gil said the word reverently. “I just wanted to look at it.”

Teagan decided against telling him what bacon was made of. He had been horrified by a plate of pigs’ feet at a butcher’s stall in Mag Mell. Tea still didn’t understand how a creature who was mostly human—all but his ears and trotter—would shudder at the sight of severed pig parts, yet want to hunt and eat small children.

“Mamieo thinks you’re looking at her. She isn’t used to phookas.”

“Can she get used to them? I want to come in.” He looked around the empty yard, and his ears swiveled in opposite directions. “Phookas shouldn’t walk without a pack.”

“If you promise not to eat children, you can come inside and have breakfast with the rest of us.”

“You won’t bend me?” Gil asked. “
Make
me promise I won’t eat children?”

“I haven’t decided yet.” Tea knew he wouldn’t have a chance with a whole houseful of people watching him. And he’d already promised not to leave the yard. But if he hunted children after he went back to Mag Mell, wouldn’t it be her fault?

Gil wagged his ears thoughtfully. “Does
Finn
promise?”

“Mac Cumhaills don’t eat children.”

Gil considered this. “What if he wanted to really, really bad?”

“No,” Teagan said. “Finn knows that eating children is wrong. He wouldn’t do it.”

“He could take one bite to see what they tasted like, then let them go. That would only be a little wrong.”

“Wrong is wrong. Are you going to promise?”

Gil looked longingly at the kitchen window.

“No.”

“Your choice. If you don’t, you can’t come in and eat bacon with the rest of us.”

“My choice,” the phooka agreed sadly. “No bacon. No friends. Just Joe.”

The tree man stopped, stared at his feet for a moment, and then started pacing again. She wished she could help him. If he had been an animal, she would have had some idea of what to do for his burns.

“Joe?” Teagan said. “What are you doing?”

“Just planning.” He squatted slowly and pressed his hand to the grass. “It might storm tonight. The soil needs to be ready.”

The air did smell like rain. The humidity was bringing up the smells of leaves and loam. She had a sudden flash of the joy that had filled her when she’d run with the phooka pack through the forests of the night. Hunting. She needed to find Finn and head to Rosehill, to the wild. The desire to run—maybe even to howl—was almost overpowering.

“Do you need any help?” she managed instead.

The tree man glanced at her, then did a double take. “I’ll get it done. You have enough to worry about, Highborn.”

“Stay away from the window, Gil,” Teagan instructed. “No more peeking at Mamieo.”

She stepped inside, shut the door, and leaned against it.

“Trying to keep the phooka out?” Raynor asked.

“No, he’ll behave. He wasn’t looking at you, Mamieo. Just the food. He’s really hungry.” Phookas were always really hungry.

“That’s all? I’ll put a plate out the back door for him,” Mamieo said. “Tell John Paul and the rest that I didn’t cook this breakfast to let it go cold. If they don’t get in here, I’ll feed it all to the phooka.”