Darkest Night - Smoke and Shadows Part 30

Tony sighed. "Who fed your cats?"

Her eyes widened and the nailed-to-a-blackboard expression was replaced by the dawning realization that the world hadn't actually ended-even though it might be better for some concerned if it had. "Oh, s.h.i.+t."

He grabbed her arm as she tried to rush by him. "Wait. I'm coming with you."

Her car had been parked a couple of blocks away. After he'd thrown on some clothes, they'd all but run to it. Arra'd burned rubber out of the parking spot before Tony'd barely got his door closed.

Finally buckled in, he sank down in the seat and wondered where he should begin.

"How did you get into my apartment?" The door had been locked, the chain still on when they left.

"I'm a wizard. I have powers."

Well, duh. "You teleported?"

"I got a demon to carry me through . . . GREEN!" The light obediently changed. "... the Netherh.e.l.ls and emerge in your apartment."

f.u.c.king great. He'd done the demon thing. It was how he'd met Henry-ripped up by said demon and in desperate need of blood. "Seriously?"

"No. I suppose you could call it teleporting. The senior among us could move ourselves from point to point over short distances. It's what made us start thinking about other worlds."

"Why?"

"We had to be moving through something, didn't we?"

"I guess." He closed his eyes as she inserted the hatchback into a s.p.a.ce maybe an inch larger than the car. When he opened them again-after the g-forces had returned to normal- he noticed something on the dash. "Is it magic that keeps this car going without gas?"

"What?" Her gaze dipped to follow his line of sight. "No. The gauge is broken, so I fill up based on mi ... Get out of the d.a.m.ned way! I am in no mood to take prisoners!"

Silently urging the SUV in front of them to give it some gas, Tony frowned. "You were a senior?"

The pause lasted long enough he knew the answer had to be important. Or the SUV was about to be moved over a short distance.

"I was."

He breathed a sigh of relief when the sport vehicle turned. "Like Dumbledore or Gandalf?"

"Less hairy."

His frown deepened. Arra wasn't young, but he wouldn't have said she was old. Kind of in that in-between who-the-h.e.l.l-can-tell age. If he'd had to guess, he'd have looked at the gray and the lines around her eyes and mouth and said mid-fifties but mostly because it seemed like a safe number-after a certain age it was always safer to guess low. But no matter what she looked like, Arra wasn't human. Not from this world at all and who knew how they aged where she came from. And she was a wizard-they probably aged differently. "Were you the senior? The head wizard?"

Both of her fists came down on the steering wheel. "These lanes are wide enough for transports and you're in a f.u.c.king GEO! Pick a lane and stay in it!"

The Geo swerved to the right so abruptly it looked as though a giant hand had come down and shoved it to one side. Tony couldn't be absolutely sure one hadn't.

"No."

"No?" One hand clutched at the dash, the other at the side of his seat, his fingers almost a joint deep in the cheap vinyl, and he was still being flung about within the loose confines of the seat belt.

"No, I wasn't the senior."

Her emphasis was slightly different than his. Almost bitter. Had she thought she should be? Tony added that new question to the bottom of the list and returned to the top.

"Why were you in my apartment?"

"Honestly, I'm not sure. You and your Nightwalker are the only people on this world who know me and the sun was up . . ."

What there was of an answer sounded like truth, so he let it go. "Where did you go yesterday?"

Her sigh was deep enough to lightly mist the inside of the winds.h.i.+eld. "Whistler. I had a foolish idea of finding CB and telling him everything."

Again an interesting emphasis. Everything? He had a suspicion Arra's everything included a few somethings he didn't yet know about, but before he could ask, she continued.

"I saw him with his daughters and I realized that a man who has no idea he's being played by an eight year old and an eleven year old couldn't help me."

"Harsh."

"Perhaps. There's always the chance I just chickened out at the last minute and ran."Given her history, Tony found the latter more likely. "Uh, you know that if the police stop you, you'll be a lot later getting home."

"The police don't see this car."

"d.a.m.n."

"I move from world to world and this is what impresses you?"

"This, I understand. And ..." Another light changed after only a moment of red. "... I was also impressed by the maggots."

The corner of her mouth he could see twisted up into a close approximation of a smile.

"Fair enough. What happened to the girl?"

"What girl?"

"Kate."

"You know about Kate?"

"I was there. I saw. I needed to see." Her tone lengthened the list of questions even further-although the new ones hadn't quite acquired actual words.

"Henry took her home." At least he a.s.sumed Henry took her home. He'd been dropped off first and although Kate was sprawled across pristine upholstery in the back seat of the BMW still totally out of it, she was smiling. He'd reminded himself he trusted Henry, had stripped and fallen into bed. Sleep hadn't been long in coming and he really wished he hadn't thought about sleeping. Images from the dream played out like a slide show in his head.

Arra's voice disrupted the show. "You found a way without me."

"It's easier with you."

"Not always."

Okay. Enough was enough. "Stop doing that!"

"Doing what?"

"Adding another layer. Talking to you is like opening one of those nested doll things. You open one and there's another. I get that you're thinking things through, working out old s.h.i.+t-really I do get that-but every time you open your mouth, you're saying six or seven things besides the stuff you're saying out loud, but you're leaving me to figure out what those things are! How come I have to be the hero and figure all this s.h.i.+t out?" Whoa.

Where had that come from? He didn't even feel better having said it.

"Maybe I should just drive."

"Yeah. Maybe you should."

Arra screeched into her parking place at the co-op, turned off the car, tossed Tony her keys, and disappeared. Damp air rushed in through the open window to fill the empty s.p.a.ce. He swallowed as his ears popped. "Guess I'm taking the scenic route."

It took him a while to lock up the car and figure out which key went where. By the time he got to the apartment, Whitby had his head buried in a bowl of food, but Zazu was nowhere in sight. Dropping his backpack by the door, Tony followed Arra's voice into the living room to find her with her b.u.t.t in the air and her head nearly under the couch. Wincing, he looked away.

"Look, I said I was sorry. What more do you want?" The wizard was sounding increasingly desperate with every word.

"Is everything okay?"

"She's making me pay."

"Pay?"

"For abandoning her." Shuffling backward on her knees, Arra straightened. "No one does guilt like a cat."

"And you were only gone one night."

From the way Arra narrowed her eyes she'd picked up the subtext. Just think of how she'll feel if you abandon her for good. But all she said was, "Grab that catnip lizard out of the basket. It's her favorite toy."

Tony grabbed the stuffed animal that looked the most like a lizard and tossed it across the room.

"This isn't a lizard, it's a platypus!"

Say what? "Who the h.e.l.l makes catnip platypuses?"

"Platypz. I get them at a local craft fair." She ducked back under the couch. "Zazu, sweetie, see what I've got for you."

"It's almost quarter to ten. We don't have time for this."

Arra shuffled backward again. "Don't tell me, tell her."

Tony snagged the platypus out of the air as she tossed it back to him. As Arra stood and headed for the kitchen, he suddenly realized she expected him to coax the cat out from under the couch. "I don't know anything about cats!"

"Good. Maybe a fresh approach will work."

He thought about refusing, decided there was no percentage in it, and took up the position. Zazu glared at him from what was clearly just out of reach. Wait a minute. Just out of Arra's reach ... He wasn't tall but he had a good four inches on her.

Grabbing the cat by a foreleg he started to slide her across the hardwood floor and nearly lost his hand at the wrist.

Owl G.o.d d.a.m.n it! Bad idea!

Except that it seemed to have worked. Whether she was satisfied now that she'd drawn blood or whether she was so mortally insulted she wasn't staying under the couch for another moment, Tony couldn't tell-nor, he supposed, did it matter. Point was, as he nursed his injuries, Zazu swaggered toward the kitchen, tail in the air.

Tony followed with a little less swagger, sucking his wrist.

"That Nightwalker of yours teaching you bad habits?"

"What? Oh." A final lick and he let his arm fall to his side. "No. And he's not mine."

She tested the temperature of the alcohol in the pot and began adding herbs. "Does he come when you call?""Well, yeah, but ..."

"That's more than you can say about cats and most people would tell you that these two are mine."

"Most people?"

"Some people know better. Pa.s.s me the bay leaves."

As he handed them over, Tony wondered just how disturbed he should be about finding the smell of warm vodka and catnip comforting. A sharp pain in his right calf drew his attention down to an imperious black and white face. "What!"

Arra snickered and, stirring with her right hand, tossed him the paper bag of catnip with her left. "Try this. Why so jumpy when I showed up at your place this morning?" she continued as he tossed a handful of the dried leaves on the kitchen floor.

"Why was I so jumpy?" He stared at her in disbelief. "I don't know, maybe because I'm in the middle of breakfast and this wizard who might have been taken over by shadow- based on the whole ditching and disappearing thing-suddenly appears in my apartment!

Not to mention being caught with my d.i.c.k waving around."

"Ah, I see."

At first he thought she was laughing at him, but what he could see of her expression looked serious.

"Still have my thermoses?"

"In my backpack."

"Get them."

If anyone had reason to be jumpy ... He set the pair of thermoses on the counter by the stove. "You know, I've got to say, this morning, even after I knew you weren't shadow- held, I was concerned about you."

"Why?"

"You looked b.u.mmed."

"b.u.mmed?" The first soup ladle of potion splashed into the first thermos with a hollow sound. "I suppose that's as good a word as any." The sound grew higher pitched and less hollow as the thermos filled. "The shadow from Alan Wu touched me before I destroyed it. Only for an instant, but in that instant I knew what the shadow knew." She set the first thermos to one side and began filling the second. "It is one thing to extrapolate the probable fate of your home; it's another entirely to see it."

"I'm sorry."

"About what?"

He shrugged, made uncomfortable by the question. "I'm not sure. It's a Canadian thing."

Her snort sounded more like the Arra he'd started to know. Setting down the ladle, she wrapped her hand around each thermos in turn, singing out the vowels she'd used to make the first potion sparkle. After the whole beam-me-up-Scotty, now-you-see-me- now-you-don't it seemed unnecessarily . .. twee. She snorted again when he mentioned it.