When the Stars Threw Down Their Spears: The Goblin Wars, Book Three (8 page)

“And these creatures are loose in Chicago?” Mr. Wylltson asked.

“We saw five of them at least,” Teagan said.

“They’re nocturnal,” Thomas said. “Not at their best while the sun is up. They were probably just curious.”

And a little hungry. The female had taken a bite or two of Maggot Cat, even if carrion was not her first choice for food
.

“What does ‘nocturnal’ mean?” Aiden asked.

“It means they sleep during the day and come out at night,” Seamus said. “They’ve probably gone off to sleep somewhere.”

Aiden put his hands to his head and squeezed his eyes shut. It was his way of saying
La, la, la
,
I can’t hear you
to the music in his head.

“Let’s discuss the Dump Dogs later, shall we?” Mr. Wylltson suggested.

“So you sent Isabeau back to face Mab,” Thomas said, changing the subject. “I feel sorry for her. We used to get along. Isabeau was fun.”

“
Isabeau?
”
Roisin’s eyes flashed. That was one word at least she understood.
“Isabeau?”
She picked up a book from the arm of the couch and threw it at Thomas’s head.

Teagan didn’t need any translation for that. She’d felt exactly the same way when Isabeau had snuggled up to Finn. The
sídhe
girl was clearly accustomed to bending men to her will. Roisin turned and fled up the stairs before Thomas had a chance to recover.

The
lhiannon-sídhe
started to follow her, but Grendal stepped in the way.

“She’ll be back. She didn’t believe that the Dump Dogs ate dead people,” the
cat-sídhe
said. “I smelled it in Mag Mell, but she didn’t believe. Roisin doesn’t like . . .” The
cat-sídhe
scratched his head, clearly searching for words.

“To be wrong?” Thomas suggested. “I’m learning that.”

“Yes,” Grendal agreed. “But she’ll get modified. Aileen got modified, yes?”

Teagan wondered where he had picked up that word.

“Grendal said Mom got modified.” Aiden looked at his father. “Is that true?”

Mr. Wylltson looked from Aiden to the stairs, trying to figure out the context.

“‘Modified’ as in she changed? Yes. My wife was amazing, but”—he glanced at Teagan—“she was fierce beyond belief if she felt she was right about something. It took her some time to learn that she wasn’t always as right as she thought she was.”

Mamieo laughed. “You should have seen her when she first came from Mag Mell, pratie. She was determined to have her own way in everything. I was that certain the girl had been raised by wild beasts.”

Grendal made a sound halfway between a cough and a growl.

“What did you do?” Thomas asked when the
cat-sídhe
had recovered.

“Loved her,” Mamieo and John Wylltson said at the same time.

“Fiercely,” John Wylltson added softly. “I loved her fiercely from the first moment I saw her. It was the only thing to do.”

“Yess,” Grendal agreed, then turned and started up the stairs. They were too high for him to climb like a human would, so he hopped from step to step like a thin-tailed kangaroo.

“Did you know my wife well?” Mr. Wylltson asked the hat rack near where Grendal had been standing.

“Dad,” Aiden said, “the
cat-sídhe
went upstairs.”

“Of course he did.” Mr. Wylltson looked at Seamus. “You can see them, can’t you?”

Seamus nodded.

“Of course you can.” Mr. Wylltson’s face pinked.

“Did the news mention any students taken to the hospital?” Teagan asked. Her dad wasn’t the only one who could redirect. She hated seeing him embarrassed in front of Seamus.

“The news was reporting that they transported
a
student to the hospital,” Thomas said. “He was listed in critical condition.” Teagan felt a small wave of relief. At least Cade had made it that far.

“How about Molly? Have they said anything about a girl named Molly?”

“Nobody’s mentioned a Molly.”

“All right,” Seamus said. “I’ve met a very strange family; seen a couple of Highborn with relationship issues, a
cat-sídhe
and a sprite; and heard that you are all in more trouble than can be dealt with. But no holy angel. You know what I think? I think a sane man would walk out that door, and keep walking.”

“That’s true,” Mr. Wylltson said. “Things are much more serious than I’d thought when Mamieo invited you. You don’t need to be involved. I wish to God none of us did.”

Seamus looked around the room. “You are all going to”— his eyes rested on Aiden, and he hesitated—“need to build traps. Really good traps.”

You are all going to die
. Teagan was sure that was what Seamus had started to say. He just couldn’t bring himself to say it to a six-year-old.

Aiden took his hands from his head. “That’s what I said!”

“The angel’s in the kitchen,” Thomas offered. “I’m afraid he’s having a little difficulty reconciling himself to being in the same house with me.”

“Because you’re
lhiannon-sídhe
?”

“Because Thomas killed Raynor’s brother,” Mr. Wylltson explained.

“He killed an angel?”

Aiden folded his arms and frowned. “
On purpose
. But Dad says we have to let him stay because he loves Aunt Roisin.”

Six

“T
ECHNICALLY
, he killed himself,” Thomas said. “I was just the catalyst. Geert was a musician and a poet with a touch of melancholy, which made it simple to inspire certain thoughts.”

“Come on.” Mamieo took Seamus by the elbow and dragged him toward the kitchen. “I’ll introduce you to Raynor.”

Teagan followed them. The Wylltsons’ kitchen was huge, stretching across the whole back of the house. Raynor was on his knees in the corner that had once been her mother’s art studio. His blue work shirt and jeans showed evidence of living in the park for days, but his blond hair was neatly pulled into a ponytail as always, and his round glasses gave him a quizzical, wizardly air. Some of the motorbike parts he’d been collecting—the frame and rims, gas tank and handlebars—were together now, but the engine was in pieces, spread across newspaper on the floor. Tea realized this was the
stuff
he had gone back to salvage from the park. He’d been hiding the parts in the bushes and working on it at night.

“Raynor!” Mamieo put her hands on her hips.

The angel pointed a greasy finger at John Paul Wylltson, who’d just stepped through the door behind them. “He said I could.”

“In the
kitchen
, John Paul?”

“He said he needs to keep his hands busy.” Mr. Wylltson glanced back toward the living room, where Thomas sat. “It keeps his mind off . . . other things.”

It was a large motorbike, even for such a huge kitchen. Raynor was taking up well over half of the room. Teagan was sure there were more parts now than he’d had at the park. Perhaps he’d found some kind of delivery service. She saw a box with a label from California that had definitely not been sitting out behind the library. It had just been opened.

Seamus stepped forward. “Mamieo claims you’re a holy angel.”

“Only the Creator is holy,” Raynor said, wiping his hands on a red grease rag. “But I am an angel.”

The lawyer’s eyes went past him to the parts scattered over the floor, and his face paled. “My God, that’s an Indian Four!”

“Just an angel,” Raynor said. “We’ve established that. But yes, it is a 1930 Indian Four.” Raynor pulled a magazine page from his pocket and unfolded it. The shiny red motorbike in the photograph had only the vaguest resemblance to the things spread over the papers, but the four massive cylinders and the lettering on the gas tank were recognizable enough.

Seamus said, “It will bring you at least sixty thousand on the open market when you’ve finished restoring it. Do you have a buyer?”

“I’m not going to
sell
it.” Raynor took a protective step toward the frame. “I’m going to ride it.”

Seamus reached out and touched the lettering on the tank. “I’ve dreamed about this motorbike since I was a kid.”

“Lots of people dream of the Indian Four,” Raynor said. “One of the most beautiful motorbikes ever made. She’s got a seventy-seven-cubic-inch engine—”

Teagan edged toward the kitchen door. Once the angel got started on engines, you couldn’t shut him up. Her mind was moving almost as fast as it had in the cafeteria. First, she was going up to her room to change out of the pajamas she’d worn in the park overnight. Then she’d try to call Molly, then check in with Agnes at the zoo, because Molly wasn’t the only one who was missing—Oscar had been taken, too. And Agnes could check on the cultures Teagan had collected from Maggot Cat while she was at it. His corpse had been putrefying at an unreasonably fast rate. Teagan stopped. Gil was in the backyard with a cut on his throat where Mab had tried to slice it open. If Maggot Cat’s condition was any indication, it was possible that an infection would be much, much worse for the phooka than it was for creatures of this world.

Teagan was sure that Maggot Cat had died because he had little, if any, resistance to the tiny fauna in this corner of creation. She wanted her phone, a shower, and clean clothes desperately. But she couldn’t have them until she’d taken care of the phooka. She’d need to get her first-aid kit from the bathroom and get out the back door without Seamus following. She didn’t want to explain the wounded phooka to him. Not yet. She eased out of the kitchen.

Thomas was still sitting on the couch staring at the stairs. Roisin had clearly not come back down.

“Thank you for coming to check on me, Thomas,” Teagan said.

“What?” He dragged his eyes away from the stairwell. “When?”

“When I was at the police station. You landed on the window—”

“Afraid not.” The shape shifter shook his head. “I was watching Aiden, remember?”

Terrific. Her dad talked to hat racks and she talked to birds. No wonder Seamus thought they were an unusual family.

“Did you see someone who looked like me?”

“Never mind.” Teagan headed down the hall. “I was just getting the first-aid kit.”

She took her small emergency kit—the one she carried with her if a neighbor called with a sick or injured pet—from the bathroom closet and checked the contents. There were nitrile gloves, sterile bandages, hand sanitizer, saline wash, scissors, tweezers, Q-Tips—everything she might need for a minor emergency situation with a small animal. She found a clean washcloth, filled a plastic basin with hot water, and tried to walk back through the living room and kitchen without anyone noticing her. Thomas was still staring morosely. In the kitchen, Mamieo was filling Raynor in about the police station while her dad and Aiden listened; Seamus was still mesmerized by the motorcycle. She made it all the way to the back door before she realized that she couldn’t open it. Not with her hands full.

“Where are you going?” Mr. Wylltson asked.

“Just stepping out to take care of Gil’s neck.” Teagan held up the supplies.

“Gil?” Seamus shook himself away from Raynor’s motorbike. “The phooka?”

“Yep,” Aiden said sadly. “I’m not allowed to play with phookas.”

“I’ll come along,” Seamus said. “I’ve never seen a phooka.”

Aiden started after them, but Mamieo caught his collar.

“I wasn’t going to play with him,” Aiden said. “I was just going to watch Teagan.”

“We’ll watch from the window,” Mr. Wylltson said. “You are not allowed to go into the yard.”

“Rats,” Aiden muttered.

Raynor opened the door for her, and Seamus followed. The smell of burnt wood was noticeable as soon as she stepped into the yard. Joe was in the far corner, all seven feet of him leaned up against the fence, his brows drooping like Spanish moss above his round yellow eyes. He had been well camouflaged in the park, his bark-like coat as well as his skin blending into the shrubbery. Now half of his body was darkened and charred, his long, lichen-gray beard as singed as Mr. Wylltson’s eyebrows.

Joe was indigenous to this corner of creation, made of the stuff of this world. Anyone who looked hard enough could see him, though they might mistake him for a shrub. The phooka curled at Joe’s feet was a different story. Gil was as invisible as a
cat-sídhe
to those who weren’t gifted with second sight.

“Welcome,” the Green Man said after Raynor had introduced Seamus. “Any friend of Raynor’s is a friend of mine.” He turned to Raynor, more slowly than Teagan had ever seen him move. “He is a friend, isn’t he?”

“I think so,” Raynor said. “Shouldn’t you be sleeping?”

“I’ll plant myself somewhere soon. This little one needed watching. He’s a long way from home.”

Gil could have been a wild boy painted by Raphael, beautiful in face and form except for his long, tufted ears and his left hand. Teagan couldn’t call it deformed, exactly. It was pink and perfectly formed—for a pig’s trotter. Gil’s human right hand was pressed to his wounded neck, and his eyes were closed but he couldn’t manage to keep the lashes still.
Feigning death
, Tea realized.

“Phookas are the broken ones,” she said when she saw Seamus staring at the boy’s two-knuckled hand. “Twisted by the Dark Man for his own amusement.” Gil was going to need some clothes. Currently, he wore nothing but a rag wrapped around his middle. Only the mild winds of May and June blow in Mag Mell. Never the winds of October in Chicago.

Joe creaked as he turned. “What happened, Tea? I persuaded Mag Mell to let you carry iron into realms where no iron belongs. I made a way for Finn to follow you.” His hair shook like leaves in a gentle wind. “I thought you would bring Fear out, and Mag Mell would be well again.”

“I’m sorry, Joe,” Teagan said. “Things were so different from what I expected. Mab is trying to destroy Fear Doirich. The Dark Man is going insane.”

“He’s killing her,” Joe said. “Killing Mag Mell. She was weeping. I heard the willow cry out before—” He shrugged his charred shoulder.

“I’m so sorry,” Teagan said again.

Joe lifted his eyes to the buildings beyond the fence and across the alley. “Plans can go wrong. Even very good plans.”