A Local Habitation

FIFTEEN

“ANY ANSWER?”

A “None.” Quentin dropped the phone back into the cradle, looking disgusted. “I’ve tried calling eight times, and no one’s picking up.”

“Sylvester said he’d keep someone by the phone. So we’ve got two choices. Either he forgot . . .”

Quentin snorted.

“My thoughts exactly. Which means something’s stopping the calls from going through. How much do you know about the phones at Shadowed Hills?”

Quentin shrugged, putting down the folder he’d been pretending to read. “They’re ALH manufacture. They were installed shortly before I was fostered with Duke Torquill.”

“Uh-huh. Ever had any problems with them?”

“No. Never.”

“But no one’s picking up, and none of Jan’s messages got through, even though we were able to call just fine from the hotel.” A nasty image was starting to form in my mind. “Give me the phone.”

“What?”

“Give me the phone.” I held out my hand. “And keep reading. We need to know whatever there is to know about these people.”

“I don’t understand why I have to do this,” he grumbled, handing me the receiver. “You’re making me go home.”

“Because I said so. Now shut up, and read.” Half-holding my breath, I punched in the number for the Japanese Tea Gardens, and waited. Shadowed Hills was a knowe. Shadowed Hills had a Summerlands- based phone system. The Tea Gardens . . . didn’t.

After our discussion in the cafeteria, Elliot had taken us to what had been Colin’s office, where I could get started on the investigative side of things while keeping Quentin out of trouble. It was a small, boxy room, with surfing posters on the walls and Happy Meal toys cluttering the shelves. The single window looked out on an improbably perfect, moonlit beach. That was a Selkie for you. He’d found a way to work inland and still be close to home.

We searched the office thoroughly, but found nothing to justify murdering the man. There was a small Ziploc bag of marijuana behind the fish tank, and a large collection of nudie magazines which caused Quentin to forget he was mad at me for almost ten minutes while he snickered. A herd of miniature Hippocampi swam from side to side in the tank, eyeing us suspiciously. The largest was no more than eight inches long, a stallion whose perfect equine upper half melded seamlessly into the scales and fins of his bright blue tail. His mares came in half a dozen colors, as brilliantly patterned as tropical fish.

The phone kept ringing. I sighed, and was about to hang up. There was a clatter and a shout of, “Dammit!” as the receiver was slapped out of the cradle on the other end. Breathless, Marcia said, “Hello?”

“Marcia?”

“Toby? Oh, thank Oberon. I found Tybalt for you. He’s—”

“Marcia, I don’t have time for this right now. I need you to do me a favor, okay? I need you to go to Shadowed Hills, and tell Sylvester I need help. I’m in Fremont, and there’s something wrong with the phones here. I can’t call Shadowed Hills.”

“Fascinating. Do go on.” The voice was dry, amused, and distinctly not Marcia’s.

I paused. “Tybalt?”

“Did you expect that you would call for me, and I would refuse? Perhaps you did. Much as I appreciate your deciding to provide me with an afternoon’s amusement, I must say . . . ‘here, kitty, kitty’? Did you really expect this to have any positive result?”

“Tybalt, this is really not the time.”

“What did you want to discuss with me that was so vital you had to send a handmaid begging at the bushes?” His tone sharpened, turning dangerous. “I don’t take kindly to being toyed with.”

I rubbed my forehead with one hand. “All right, look, my methods were maybe not the best, but they got you to wait on my call, didn’t they? I’m guessing you didn’t do anything to Marcia?”

“She assured me her activities were entirely your fault.”

“Good.” Quentin was giving me a quizzical look. I turned away from him before he could distract me, and said, “Did she tell you why I’m in Fremont?”

“No. I assume that honor was being left for you. I do hope you’re giving my counterpart the troubles you normally reserve for me.”

Oh, oak and ash. That was what I’d been hoping not to hear. Keeping my tone light, I said, “Your counterpart. I assume you mean Barbara Lynch, the local Queen of Cats?”

“None other.” The danger bled out of his voice, replaced by amusement. “She must not know you’ve elected to phone me. We’re not precisely on good terms, she and I. Silly little thing should never have taken a throne. Why, with her delicate sensibilities—”

“She’s dead, Tybalt.”

Silence.

“She died last month.”

Now he spoke, voice a low, harsh rasp that was closer to a snarl: “How?”

“We don’t know. That’s the problem.” I closed my eyes. “You didn’t know.”

“How would I have known?” The bitterness and anger in his tone were undisguised. “She held a crown without a kingdom, thanks to that Riordan bitch.”

That was new information. “What do you mean, ‘a crown without a kingdom’?”

“There were no true Cait Sidhe in her domain, only our feline cousins and their changeling children. The others left long ago, when it became clear that Riordan held no respect for Oberon’s word.”

Oberon established the Court of Cats, gave them a political structure outside the standard Faerie Courts and Kingdoms. They ruled themselves, and no political power in Faerie had any say over them. There have always been rulers who didn’t want to listen to that ancient declaration. They try to tax the Cait Sidhe, subvert them, recruit them into their political reindeer games. It wasn’t much of a surprise to hear that Riordan was one of those.

Still . . . “You can talk to my cats.”

“Your cats are my subjects, and subject to my laws. The cats of Barbara’s Court weren’t. They couldn’t reach me.”

“Where did all the other Cait Sidhe go?”

“My fiefdom. Others. But Barbara remained, stubborn to the end.” His tone turned more bitter still. “I think she liked the perversity of it. Bowing at the knee to a daughter of Titania.”

“She’s not bowing anymore,” I said, with a sigh. “I’m sorry to be the one who told you. And I’m sorry about the ‘here kitty, kitty’ thing. It just seemed like the best . . .”

“Wait. She died in Fremont, and you don’t know what killed her.”

“Yes.”

“And you’re still there.”

“Yes.”

“Are you in danger?”

I considered lying. Only for a few seconds, but still, the urge was there. Pulling his jacket closer around me, I said, “People are dying. Sylvester’s sending someone to get Quentin out, but I’m staying until we know what’s going on. I can’t run out on them.”

Again, silence.

“Tybalt?”

“You really are a little fool, aren’t you?” His tone was distant, almost reflective. “You still have the jacket I left with you?”

“I do,” I admitted.

“Good. I’ll be wanting it back.”

“I’ll try to stay alive long enough to return it. Can you put Marcia on? I need to ask her for a favor.”

His tone sharpened. “What favor?”

“Something’s wrong with the phones, and I can’t get through to Shadowed Hills. Someone needs to tell Sylvester we’re in trouble. Big trouble. Someone just tried to kill us, and they came pretty close to succeeding.” I paused. “He can probably call me from the pay phone in the parking lot. He should station someone there.”

“Consider the message relayed,” said Tybalt, in that same distant, thoughtful tone.

“What are you—”

The phone buzzed in my ear. The line was dead; he’d hung up on me.

Groaning, I turned and dropped the receiver back into the cradle. “Whatever’s wrong with the phones, it’s specific to Shadowed Hills. I got through to the Tea Gardens just fine.”

Quentin was once more pretending to review the employee files. He slanted a sidelong look my way, and asked, “What did Tybalt want?”

“To give me a headache. Still, he wouldn’t take the message if he wasn’t planning to deliver it.” I leaned over to take the folder from his hands, scanning the first page, and wrinkled my nose. Maybe the company dietitian cared about the fact that Barbara liked her field mice alive, but I didn’t. “Change of subjects. Does it say anything in here about where her office is?”

“Nope. Did you know that Colin had a doctorate in philosophy?”

I looked up. “What year, and where from?”

“Nineteen sixty-two. Newfoundland.”

“Any of the others have degrees from Canadian colleges?” I flipped through Barbara’s folder, stopping at the sheet labeled “education.” “Babs didn’t—her degree’s from UC Berkeley. Women’s Studies and English.”

“Peter taught History at Butler University in Indianapolis, and Yui’s file says she used to be a courtesan in the court of King Gilad.”

I looked up again, eyeing Quentin. “Please tell me you know what that means.” He turned red. “Good. I didn’t want to explain it. So we have basically no connections.”

“None.”

“And of the four victims, two have offices that don’t seem to exist.” We’d done Peter’s office before Colin’s. It was almost empty, containing a desk and an assortment of office supplies. The few personal touches we found dealt with football—a Butler University pennant on one wall and a foam- rubber football that he probably tossed around when he was bored. There was nothing that provided us with a visible motive for murder, and that worried me.

“One at least—I mean, no one’s actually said Barbara had an office.”

“Right.” I dropped myself into the chair by the fish tank. The Hippocampi fled to the far end, the tiny stallion swimming back and forth in front of the rest as he “protected” them from me. “Maybe she worked out of a broom closet, I don’t know. No offices means no leads. Not that we’re getting much from this place unless you like weed.”

“What?”

“Never mind.” I shook my head. “So they were telling the truth about the turnover rates. It doesn’t look like they’d lost an employee in a long time before this started.”

“So where does that leave us?”

“It leaves ‘us’ nowhere, Quentin. You’re leaving as soon as your ride gets here.”

“And what if I won’t go?” He crossed his arms, jaw set.

“Sylvester’s orders, kid. You’ll go.”

“Why are you so determined to get me out of here? I want to help. I want to—”

I grabbed the collar of my shirt and pulled it down, exposing the scar on my left shoulder. Quentin stopped talking, and gaped. I held the collar down long enough to make sure he got a good look before tugging it back into place, glaring at him.

“That was made with iron.” His eyes were wide, and scared.

“Good to see they’ve taught you what iron damage looks like.”

“How did you—”

“I lived because I got lucky, and because someone was willing to pay a lot to keep me around a little bit longer. Most people don’t get lucky.”

He swallowed, and stood. “I’m going to feed the Hippocampi.”

“Good idea,” I said, and reached for the stack of folders. I didn’t want to scare him—he was making more of an effort to do the right thing than most purebloods twice his age would bother with—but he needed to realize that this wasn’t a game. This was real, and he was going home.

The Hippocampus food was on the shelf beneath the fish tank. Giving me one last sidelong glance, Quentin opened it, shaking bits of dried kelp and barley into the water. The tiny horses flocked to the food, their wariness forgotten as they chased it around the tank. I smiled faintly and flipped the first folder open.

They liked records at ALH: everything from employment history to diet and heritage was recorded, like they were trying to paint portraits of their employees on paper. Even though was it helping us research, I couldn’t figure out why they’d bothered in the first place.

The first page of Colin’s file included a listing of family members. I found myself wondering who was going to have to tell them he was gone. Disgusted by the thought, I slammed the folder down on the desk and pushed it away. “This isn’t helping.”

Quentin looked up from feeding the Hippocampi. “What do you mean?”

“They were normal.” I indicated the folder. “All were purebloods less than three hundred years old, all lived human at some point without cutting their ties to the Summerlands—nothing out of the ordinary. Barbara was local, and Yui was from Oregon, so there’s a West Coast pattern . . . only Colin was from Newfoundland, and Peter’s last listed residence was in Indiana.”

“So what connects them?” Quentin asked, returning the Hippocampus food to the shelf where he’d found it.

He was obviously expecting some ingenious, Sherlock Holmes-like gem of wisdom, and I hated to disappoint him. Unfortunately, I had no other options. “Nothing but ALH.” That worried me. Unless our killer was basing his moves on a factor I couldn’t see, we were dealing with someone whose only motive was “here.” That didn’t bode well. For one thing, it was a strong indicator that we might be looking for a crazy person.

Insanity is dangerous. All fae living in the mortal world are at least a little nuts; it’s a natural consequence of being what we are. We have to convince ourselves that we can function in a place that’s run by people whose logic looks nothing like our own. When we do it well enough, we’re even right. The problem is that eventually, the lies stop working, and by that point, it’s generally too late to run.

“Oh,” said Quentin, sounding disappointed.

“Yeah,” I agreed, “oh.”

Something crackled in the air behind me. I didn’t pause to think; I just whirled, scattering file folders in my rush to put myself between Quentin and any potential threats. April’s outline flickered as the papers passed through her, fluttering to the floor. She watched impassively as they fell, finally asking, “Are you well?”

“Don’t do that!” I said, dropping shakily back into my seat. Quentin looked as shocked as I felt. Good. That made him less likely to laugh at me later.

“Why not?” She tilted her head, showing a flicker of curiosity. The fact that I’d just thrown several sheets of paper through her upper torso didn’t seem to bother her. Dryads are weird, but April was going for the grand prize.

“Because it’s not polite to startle people.”

“I see.” April looked to Quentin. “Is she correct?”

Wordlessly, he nodded.

“I see,” April repeated. After a moment’s consideration, she asked, “Is it my materialization you object to, or my doing so outside your immediate range of vision?”

Quentin and I stared at her. She gazed back, bland curiosity in her yellow eyes. Now that I was looking more closely, I could see that her irises lacked normal variation; they looked almost painted-on. Her lack of small detail was making her seem more and more like something that was created, not born. That probably explained a lot about her, even if it didn’t change the fact that she’d just tripled my heart rate by deciding not to use the door like everybody else.

“I object to having you appear behind me without warning,” I said.

Quentin nodded. “That’s, um, pretty much my problem, too.”

April smiled, an expression that looked entirely artificial. “Acceptable. I will refrain from abrupt materialization in your immediate vicinity without prior notification of my arrival.”

It took me a moment to puzzle through that one. “So you won’t appear suddenly?” I guessed. I wasn’t going to make assumptions with someone who seemed to view silly things like “physics” as a mere convenience.

“Yes.”

“Good.” I glanced back toward Quentin, and saw that he was starting to relax again. “Can I help you with something?”

“Mother says you are going to assist us.”

“We’re going to try.”

“Mother says you are here about the disconnection of the residents of this network.”

Silence was becoming a major punctuation in this conversation. I looked to Quentin, who shook his head and spread his hands to show that he hadn’t understood it either. “What?”

“The ones that have gone off- line. You will determine what has caused them to remain isolated from the network.”

Oh. She was talking about the murders. “Yes. We’re going to find out why people are being killed.”

She frowned, looking puzzled. Then the expression faded, and she asked, “Why?”

I shrugged. “Somebody has to.”

“That makes no sense,” she said, frowning again.

“I rarely do. It’s one of my best traits.”

Quentin snorted, trying not to laugh.

“Gordan does not trust you,” April said.

“I knew that, actually.”

“Mother trusts you.” She shook her head. “I still do not know whether I trust you.”

“I’m glad you can be honest about that,” I said. She was starting to unnerve me. There were too many little inconsistencies in the way she behaved and the way she was made, and it was getting harder to resist the urge to wave my hand through the space her body appeared to occupy just to find out whether or not she was there.

“Honesty is the only sensible option.”

Maybe for computer-powered Dryads, but the rest of Faerie seemed to be having a bit more of a problem with it. Slowly, I asked, “Why are you here?”

“Mother requested that I notify you if any company personnel exited the presence of their assigned partners.”

“And?”

“Gordan and Terrie have departed from one another’s company.”

Swell. “Message received. Where are they?”

“Gordan is located in her cubicle. Terrie is located in the cafeteria.”

“All right. Why don’t you go take care of whatever else you need to do, and I’ll see if I can explain to them why this isn’t okay, all right?”

April gave me a long, measuring look, expression alien as ever. It was like watching an anthropologist trying to figure out a foreign culture—and who knows? Maybe that’s what she was doing. “Understood,” she said finally, and vanished in a flicker of static and ozone.

“Right,” I said, eyeing the space where she’d been before turning to pull the keys out of my pocket and toss them to Quentin. He caught them without pausing to think; good reflexes.

He gave me a bewildered look. “What are you giving me these for?”

“I need to go knock some heads together. Repeatedly. I want you to lock yourself in.”

“Uh.” Quentin’s eyebrows rose, expression turning dubious. “Have you never seen a horror movie in your entire life? Splitting the party is never a good idea.”

“I got that. I also got the part where if I’m creeping around the knowe worrying about you, I’m even more likely to do something stupid. Stay put. Lock the door, and don’t let anyone in, even if they sound like me, unless they know the password.”

“April isn’t going to use the door.”

“I don’t really think April is particularly dangerous, unless you’re threatening her mom. Maybe you should see if you can get her to come back. Asking her some questions might be good for you.”

“Toby—”

“Just do it.”

He looked like he was going to keep arguing. Then he sighed, shoulders sagging, and asked, “What’s the password?”

I managed a fleeting smile as I rose and walked toward the door. “How about ‘do your homework’?”

“Catty,” he said, forcing a smile of his own.

“Exactly,” I said, and stepped out of the room. I waited in front of the door while Quentin closed and locked it, throwing the bolt with a decisive “click.” That done, I started down the hall.