When the Stars Threw Down Their Spears: The Goblin Wars, Book Three (16 page)

“Unemployed?” Abby suggested.

“Unconventional,” Mr. Wylltson offered.

“Unconventional.”
Finn looked relieved. “That’ll do. But I will never harm Teagan or let harm come to her, John Wylltson. Where there are gateways, there are goblins. Will you allow your daughter to go goblin hunting with me?”

Mr. Wylltson leaned against the back of the chair and studied Finn. “Nothing,” he said finally, “can prepare a man for a question like that.”

Teagan held up her cell phone. “Fully charged. Angel on speed dial. I really do need to take a look at those woods.”

“I suppose if she must go looking for goblins in the woods, I’m glad you will go with her. But . . . a steak knife?”

“Oh, for heaven’s sake!” Mamieo said. “Turn your backs, all of you. You, too, Raynor, angel or no.”

“Why—” Finn began, but she fixed her birdlike glare on him. “Yes, Mamieo.” He turned to look out the window with Teagan.

Joe was standing still in the far corner of the yard, his head down. Gil had finished the food Mamieo had given him. He ran full tilt at the cinder-block wall at the back of the yard, then straight up it, pushing off with his legs when he reached head-height to drop in a backflip to the ground before he ran the other way.

“Wow,” Teagan said.

“Pfft,”
Finn said. “It’s not as hard as it looks.”

Gil saw them watching and did it again.

“You’re not thinking of taking the phooka with us, are you?” Finn asked. “Oh, you are. This isn’t Mag Mell, girl. Think what would happen if we lost him.”

“Think what might happen if we leave him. Joe is falling asleep. And if Raynor does have to go somewhere—”

“You can turn around now,” Mamieo said primly. When they did, she was holding a delicate dagger in her hand.

“And where’d you get that?” Finn asked.

“I had it about me,” Mamieo said primly. “I don’t go about unarmed, boyo.”

“It took you three full minutes to find the thing,” Finn pointed out.

“Was it lost?” Aiden asked.

Mamieo flushed. “It was not. But I’ve got the phone now, so I don’t need it.”

“Thank the Almighty.” Finn took the knife and slipped it into his boot, then pulled Seamus’s jacket off the back of the chair.

Mamieo flushed. “I’ll expect it back as soon as you’re home. And if you lose the wee blade—”

“I’ll be careful, Mamieo,” Finn assured her.

“You’re not going to wear that jacket,” Teagan said.

“No worries.” Finn shook the ugly thing. “We’ll be needing something to wrap the body in.”

“You two be careful,” Mr. Wylltson said. “And no—”

“Canoodling!” Aiden crowed.

“As if we’d have a chance with the phooka along,” Finn said.

“Oh, you’re taking the invisible boy?” Mr. Wyllton asked. “Excellent.”

Teagan pulled the back door shut behind her, then had to open it again to hand in the plate Gil had left on the porch.

“You must admit, they are a cute couple,” Thomas was saying to Abby. She pulled the door firmly shut again.

Joe was still standing in the corner. Either he was snoring or he’d been colonized by bees.

“We’re going hunting, Gil,” Teagan said. “Do you want to go with us?”

“Hunting god?” Gil asked, and ran at the wall again.

“Hunting a door into Mag Mell,” Finn said when the phooka landed his flip. “So we can toss you through.”

“I’ll go with Teagan.” Gil gave her name almost as much reverence as he’d given
bacon
.

“Stop that,” Finn said.

“Teagan, Teagan,
Teagan
,” Gil said.

Finn caught his arm. “You’re going to have to stay with us.”

“I promise to stay with
Teagan
.” Gil pulled his arm away. “As long as we hunt. If I find a door I might go home, and Teagan might go with me.”

“She will not be going with you,” Finn said.

“She likes to run.” Gil peeked sideways at her. “Highborn like to hunt with phookas.”

Teagan had a sudden urge to drop everything, go to Mrs. Santini’s, and take her up on her offer of advice.
How exactly do you discourage a phooka, Mrs. Santini? Yes, unfortunately I did tell him I love him as a friend. . . .
Instead, she lifted the lid of the plastic trunk where Mr. Wylltson kept his garden tools.

Should
have kept his garden tools. There was a dead black widow spider, an old pair of work gloves, half a bag of fertilizer, and a hand trowel.

“It’ll do,” Finn said when she held it up. “We wouldn’t want to carry a bundled body and shovel through the streets anyway.” She shoved the trowel in her pocket.

Finn handed her the jacket when they reached the back gate.

“I might need my hands free, if we meet any uglies,” he said, pushing the gate open.

Finn didn’t have to point out where he had hidden Maggot Cat’s body. Four
cat-sídhe
were gathered around a garbage can a few yard lengths down the alley. They’d pushed it over; trash bags and Maggot Cat’s body had spilled out.

Teagan winced. “You put him in a trash can?”

Fourteen

“R
IGHT
on top,” Finn said defensively. “It had a lid to keep the creatures off of him. This lot is good news, though.”

“Good news?”

“They wouldn’t be here if the Dump Dogs were about, would they?”

The
cat-sídhe
looked up as Teagan moved closer. Their fur was oily, as if they’d spent too much time hiding under cars. A few of them had patches of scaly-looking bare skin as well, and the one kneeling by Maggot Cat had a weeping sore on its back.

They appeared to have been collecting trash. One held a section of a blue silk lei, another a yellow cheeseburger wrapper. Grendal would have approved of that. He was obsessed with cheeseburger wrappers. It took Teagan a moment to figure out that what looked like yellow straw clutched in the third
cat-sídhe
’s fist was the hair of a severed Barbie head. She couldn’t tell what the fourth
cat-sídhe
carried; it was small and he held it protectively in both hands as he backed away from them.

The one who had been kneeling by Maggot Cat stood up but held its ground. “Go away,” it commanded.

“Yessss, go away,” the others chorused.

Teagan felt her muscles start to obey, then shook it off. She was sure she would always feel the tug of their voices, but she’d learned to ignore them. It just took practice.

Gil had apparently never practiced. He ran three steps back toward the house, then turned and ran back to her, caught between the
cat-sídhe
’s command and his own promise to stay with Teagan.

“Help!” he squeaked as he ran another circle. “Help me, Teagan!” Finn caught his shirt, but the
cat-sídhe
had gone quiet.

“Teagan,” the brave one said.

“Oops.” Gil put his hand and his trotter over his mouth.

Finn started toward the creatures, but Teagan caught
his
shirt.

“Wait,” she said. “They haven’t done anything.”

“Yet,” he said, but he stayed put.

“Tea-gan,” the brave one said again.

“Tea-gan,” the others repeated. A fifth
cat-sídhe
she hadn’t noticed jumped up on a box on the other side of the alley and stood like a meerkat trying get a better view.

“And I thought old Maggot was hideous,” Finn said. The cat on the box was bald, except for a tuft of long ginger hair on the top of its head and a few random hairs on its tail. Its skin was a sickly gray-pink and as wrinkled as a Donskoy’s. It even had the roll of hanging fat around its lower belly that was the earmark of the Donskoy breed.

One of the four in the group in front of them turned to see what they were talking about. It yowled when it saw the pink cat. The four
cat-sídhe
dropped their trash treasures and picked up rocks, sticks, and cans to throw at the creature. At least two rocks bounced off its bare hide before it gave up and dropped behind the box.

“Pleasant bunch,” Finn said. “Have you had enough of them yet?”

“I have.” Gil started forward. “Get sticks and hit them.”

“No.” Teagan caught his arm.

“He ssssaid you would help him, Tea-gan,” the brave
cat-sídhe
said.

“He came too late. But I might not have been able to help him even if he’d come sooner. I’m sorry.”

“Who said she would help?” Finn let go of Gil. “Maggot Cat?”

The
cat-sídhe
looked at one another.

“Bill Bailey,”
the brave one said.

“Bill Bailey,” Teagan repeated. There was something familiar about that. “What’s
your
name?”

“
Pfft
. They’re not telling you
their
names, girl,” Finn said.

“No,” Gil agreed. “They won’t tell you anything.”

The cat hissed at Finn and ignored Gil, looking directly at Teagan.

“Peter, Augustus, Alonzo, or James,” it said, pointing at each of his companions and then himself.

Teagan blinked. Kyle may have changed her DNA, but nothing could change the fact that she’d been raised by a librarian and an artist. The creature was quoting T. S. Eliot in a context that almost made sense.

“‘All of them sensible everyday names,’”
she said, finishing the couplet.

The
cat-sídhe
murmured to one another, peering at her and nodding as if she’d given them a secret password.

“What is this about, then?” Finn asked.

“‘The Naming of Cats,’” Teagan said. “From T. S. Eliot’s
Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats
.” Apparently aging detectives were not the only creatures who could find glimpses of what once was, memories wrapped up in story or dream. “Dad liked the book. Mom liked the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical,
Cats
, better.”

“You’re kidding me.”

“No. She took me five times.”

“I meant about the poem thing. You’re telling me the beasties read books?”

“Maybe not,” Teagan said. “But they might have seen the stage production.”

“Is your fever back, girl?” Finn pressed his palm to her forehead. “You think the creatures gathered here to discuss the theater?”

The one called Peter looked up at him. “Break a leg,” he said.

Teagan laughed, and Finn gave her a horrified look.

“It’s a joke,” Teagan explained. “He made a theater joke. It means good luck.”

“Marrroww,” Alonzo yowled, saliva spilling from his jaw and hanging in long strands. “Maaaarrowwww!”

Finn pointed at him but looked at Teagan, his eyebrows up.

“Or maybe not,” Teagan said. “It might mean something else to them.”

“And you think they told you their real names, just for the asking?”

“Of course not. The cats in the poem have three names—common names, special names, and secret names that only the cat knows. But they are being friendly. They gave me sensible, everyday names to use.”

“Don’t go making friendly back at them,” Finn warned.

“They started it.” Teagan took Seamus’s coat from him.

“Make her stop,” Gil said. “She shouldn’t talk to
twisty cats!
”

“She talks to phookas,” Finn countered. “There’s no stopping the girl.”

Teagan walked slowly toward the dead
cat-sídhe
. The others backed away, but not too far. One crept closer as she knelt and covered the body with the hideous coat.

“Pretty,” the
cat-sídhe
whispered.

“Are you kidding me?” Finn asked. Teagan ignored him and focused on the cats.

“We were going to bury
Bill Bailey
,” she said. “But this isn’t a good place. We were taking him to the woods.”

The
cat-sídhe
reached out carefully and touched the checkered fabric.

“Warrrm?” one of the others asked in a whisper. It was never cold in Mag Mell.

“Yessss,” Peter whispered back, then looked up Teagan. “Yessss. Bury him.”

Teagan tucked the coat around the body carefully so that she wouldn’t have to touch it as she picked him up. He smelled worse than he had the day before, but wrapping him tightly in the coat seemed to help.

“Let me carry that.” Finn made a face. “I won’t have you traipsing through the streets like a goblin undertaker. It’s unbecoming.”

The entire
cat-sídhe
chorus went wild when he reached for Bill Bailey’s body.

“I’ll carry him,” Teagan said. “He’s not heavy.”

Finn led the way up the alley. He was clearly watching for the Dump Dogs.

Teagan walked beside Gil, who kept stopping to gape at everything around him, from Dumpsters to fire escapes on the backs of buildings. The
cat-sídhe
came in a group behind them, like a funeral procession, each clutching his piece of trash. She caught a glimpse of the hairless cat dodging from Dumpster to trash pile behind them.

“Go by the park,” Teagan suggested as they reached the mouth of the alley. “It’s on the way.” Before she stepped out onto the sidewalk, she tucked the coat under her arm so that it would look less like she was carrying the body of a child.

Gil took one step onto the pavement, then jumped back into the alley as a car went past.

“What was that?”

“Just a car,” Finn said. “You came this way yesterday, didn’t you? You must have seen cars.”

“Joe carried me. I was hiding my eyes. What do
cars
eat?”

“Not phookas,” Finn said. “Just stay close to us. You’ll be fine.”

“No.” Gil shrank back. “I can’t walk by those things.”

“I’m walking by them.” Teagan started down the sidewalk.

Gil followed her, emitting a horrible squeaking sound that made even the
cat-sídhe
edge away from him.

“Stop,” Finn said. “Stop, Tea. He can’t learn to do it himself if you force him.”

Teagan flushed. She’d forgotten that Gil had promised to stay with her. She walked back until the phooka boy could duck into the alley again.

“I can’t do it.” The phooka swallowed a sob. “I can’t! The ground is
wrong!
”

“Here.” Finn reached out his hand. “You pulled me through the water, boyo. I can pull you down the street. If you want.” Gil grabbed Finn’s hand like a drowning man and squeezed his eyes shut.