An Artificial Night

TWENTY-ONE

RAJ SLAMMED INTO JULIE FROM THE SIDE, his own claws extended. I saw his face for an instant as he rammed into her, and there was a sharp, feral madness in his eyes. I’d seen that madness before in Tybalt, usually just before something died.

Blood was running down the sides of my throat. I reached up to touch it, almost wonderingly, just before my legs buckled and I fell. Something popped in my right knee. I rolled onto my side, biting back a scream. Maybe I was smaller than normal, but my knees still weren’t all that good. The Luidaeg made me younger. She didn’t take away my scars.

The other Cait Sidhe had pulled away from the combatants, giving them room to fight without interfering. Raj’s teeth were buried in Julie’s shoulder, and she was trying to claw his arm off, both of them shrieking. Cats don’t fight quietly. The two of them started rolling over each other with the fury of their attacks, moving away from me. I scrambled to my feet, grabbing the nearest heavy object—a two-by-four I could barely lift—and started forward, trying to avoid putting any weight on my right leg.

A hand landed on my shoulder, stopping me. I turned to look, scowling. The man who had greeted Raj was standing behind me, with the Abyssinian cat still perched on his shoulder. “You must not interfere,” he said. His eyes were the same clear glass green as Raj’s.

I stared at him. “She tried to kill me!”

“She failed.” He shook his head. “Now my son is fighting and must win on his own.”

“That’s idiotic.” The rules the Cait Sidhe live by sometimes seem positively suicidal. Raj was just a kid. Julie had more than thirty years’ experience on him, and a lot of that experience was gained working for Devin, where playing fair was something that happened to other people. There was no way Raj could beat that. “He’ll be killed.”

“If he can’t defeat her, he can’t hold the throne while she lives.” He tightened his grip on my shoulder, restraining me. Julie slammed Raj against the wall. “Her blood is mixed. She can’t be a Queen for this Court or any other. But she can still stop him from being King.”

“And what if she kills him, huh? What then?” Raj squirmed free and lunged, slamming into Julie’s stomach. She weighed at least fifty pounds more than he did, but gravity was on his side. She went down snarling.

Raj’s father shook his head. “If she can kill him, he was never fit to take the throne.”

“And you think that matters right now?” I demanded. Wrenching myself free, I ran toward the fight. I never made it there. My right knee buckled as soon as I put my weight on it, sending me sprawling. I dropped the board and flung out my arms.

I didn’t hit the ground. Tybalt’s hands closed on my waist while I was in mid-fall, flipping me upside down as he hoisted me to eye level. He blinked when our eyes met. I blinked back. Finally, he shook his head, expression composing itself back to its usual feline cool.

“My, Toby, you’ve changed.”

“Yeah, well.” I tried to shrug. It was impossible to do anything but dangle. “Put me down.”

“I … yes, of course.” He actually reddened slightly as he turned me over and lowered me to my feet. “My apologies.” Glancing toward the shrieking whirlwind that was Raj and Julie, he added, “I see you managed to recover my subjects.”

“Yeah. Remind me to kill you later.”

“Of course,” he said, and cracked a smile. “Excuse me a moment, will you?”

“Sure.” I leaned against the wall, trying to ignore the pain in my knee and the glare I was getting from Raj’s father.

Tybalt moved toward Raj and Julie like a shark moving through the water. I couldn’t help feeling sorry for Julie. We were friends for a long time, before an assassin’s misfired bullet killed her boyfriend and made her swear to take revenge on me for putting him in the line of fire. I don’t like to see her hurt. Still, I didn’t look away as he reached down and grabbed her by both wrists, yanking her off the ground. Julie kicked and screamed as he lifted, but didn’t manage to break free. Raj hunched down and snarled, but didn’t try to interfere. Smart kid.

“We don’t attack our guests,” Tybalt said calmly, holding Julie at arm’s length and giving her a brisk shake. She snapped at him, nearly sinking her teeth into his arm.

Bad idea. Tybalt shook her again, harder this time, and roared. The cats in the alley started to yowl, and the human-form Cait Sidhe joined in, blending their voices with his. I glanced back at Raj’s father. He was yowling with the rest. Some things run in the family.

Cait Sidhe are pretty. They’re slim and delicate and feline, and sometimes we forget that when we’re hold a tabby, we’re also holding a lion. Every Court of Cats is a jungle made of concrete and steel, and in his own Court, at least for now, Tybalt was the undisputed King. Julie knew the rules. She had to know how much trouble she was in. She still kept fighting, trying to kick him as he shook her. I guess she was trying to be gloriously defeated.

Julie never was that bright.

She snapped at him again, this time sinking her teeth into his wrist. That was the last straw. Tybalt’s patience visibly dissolved as he snarled and slammed her against the wall. She shrieked at him, and he slammed his foot into her stomach. I winced. The Cait Sidhe aren’t particularly fast healers. Their succession fights have been known to turn deadly. And people wonder why Tybalt makes me nervous.

Julie snarled again, but her rage was gone, replaced by resignation; she was just fighting back for show. Tybalt let go of her wrists and wrapped his left hand around her throat, claws barely breaking the surface of her skin.

“Are we done?” he asked, almost gently.

She snapped at the air, hissing, and he slammed her head against the wall with an audible crack. She whimpered, eyes going glassy.

“Now are we done?” The gentleness was gone, replaced by anger.

“Yes,” she whispered, licking her lips.

“You attacked my guest.”

“I did.” A trickle of blood was running from the corner of her mouth, and from the way she hit the wall, she’d be lucky if she didn’t have a concussion. Tybalt can play a little rough.

“She was here at my invitation and under the protection of your Prince.”

“She killed Ross!” Julie coughed, eyes blazing. “She needs to die.”

“Maybe,” said Tybalt. “This argument is old, and I’m tired of it. Trevor? Gabriel?” A pair of battered tom-cats leaped down from the wall, becoming human as they landed. They were massive, like linebackers with pointed ears and fangs; next to them, Tybalt looked almost small. “Our Juliet is tired. Take her to her lair and keep her there.”

“Yes, my liege,” rumbled Gabriel. He reached down and wrapped one hand around Julie’s upper arm. She hissed weakly. It must be nice to be seven feet tall and made of solid muscle, because he didn’t bother to hit her; he just hauled her to her feet, keeping his fingers in a vise-grip around her arm. She hung there like a rag doll. “Come on, Julie.”

Damn it. She isn’t a friend these days, but she used to be. Ignoring the pain in my knee, I straightened. “Tybalt?”

“Yes?” He turned toward me, distractedly licking a smear of blood away from the corner of his mouth. I was pretty sure it wasn’t his.

“Don’t hurt her.”

He blinked, staring at me. I’d managed to break his composure twice in one night; that might be a new record. “But she attacked you.”

“I noticed.” I rubbed my blood-sticky throat with one hand, wincing. “Just please, for me? Don’t hurt her.”

“The discipline of my subjects is my business.” There was a note of warning in his tone.

“I know. I don’t get to dictate. That’s why I’m asking.”

Raj picked himself up and moved to stand next to me, saying, “Uncle?”

“Yes, Raj?” Tybalt looked at him and smiled. “It’s good to see you.”

“Toby came in and got us,” he said, shivering. There was a scrape down the left side of his face, and blood was matted in his hair.

“I know. I asked her if she would.”

“But she did.” He looked from me to Tybalt, and said in a rush, “Please don’t hurt Julie? Toby doesn’t want you to, and I trust her.”

“I … see.” Tybalt looked at me, expression amused. “Are we inspiring mutiny already?”

“Not on purpose,” I said.

He studied me for a moment longer, and then said, “Trevor, Gabriel? Keep Juliet from hurting herself further. Bring her water to clean with.” He smiled faintly. “Far be it from me to challenge both my Prince and my … champion.”

The brute squad nodded in unison and carried her into the shadows, vanishing. There’s another Court of Cats, one that exists entirely on the other side of that movable darkness. I’ve never seen it. I don’t think anyone who’s not Cait Sidhe ever has.

Raj gave me an anxious look, fighting to keep his balance. His pupils had thinned to hairline slits, almost invisible against his irises. “Are you hurt?”

“Not as badly as you are,” I said, frowning.

“It’s nothing,” he said, waving a hand. And then he fell. Even the resiliency of youth will only go so far. His father was there to catch him before he hit the ground.

“Is he—” I began.

“He’ll be fine. He’s simply tired,” the man said. “My liege?”

“Yes, Samson, take your son and go.” Tybalt shook his head, adding, “Toby and I will settle our affairs.”

The other parents looked up, their returned charges cradled in their arms as they turned their attention on me. I shivered, trying to hide it. The Court of Cats isn’t the most comfortable place to be, even when I’m my normal self. As a wounded child, it was downright scary.

“You may all go,” Tybalt said, raising his voice to be heard. “Court is dismissed.”

The shadows around us spread wide, and the Cait Sidhe moved through them, vanishing. We were alone in an instant, save for a few bedraggled tabbies who hadn’t relinquished their places on the walls. Tybalt looked up, growling a single low note, and they leaped down, racing out of sight.

Tybalt sat down on the edge of an empty milk crate when the last of them was gone, then slumped over with his elbows resting on his knees. He looked at me for a long moment, and I realized with a jolt that he looked genuinely unhappy. Softly, he said, “You brought them home.”

“I promised I’d try.”

“That’s all it’s ever taken with you, isn’t it?” He laughed, almost bitterly. “Changelings aren’t supposed to have honor, you know. Didn’t your mother teach you anything?”

“Apparently not,” I said, as cheerfully as I could. “A lot of people seem to be pretty annoyed with her about that. Or maybe they’re just annoyed with her in general. It’s getting to where it’s sort of hard to tell.”

“Toby …”

“Sorry, Tybalt. It’s just been a really long day.” I sighed, brushing my hair out of my eyes. “And it’s not over yet, which isn’t making me particularly happy.”

“You have the gratitude of my Court, October.”

I looked at him sharply. That was dangerously close to thank you. “Do I?”

Tybalt didn’t seem to notice his own slip. He just closed his eyes, leaning back until his shoulders hit the wall, and said, softly, “I thought I sent you to die. After what you told me, with your Fetch appearing … I thought that you were going to die because of what I asked you to do.”

“Hey.” I stepped over and put my hand on his shoulder, needing to reach up to do it. “I was already going. Mitch and Stacy’s kids are like family. If anything happened, it wouldn’t have been your fault.”

“That doesn’t matter. I’m in your debt.”

The thought was alarming. “No, you’re not. We’re even now.”

“You’ve done more than you owed, and I won’t pretend you didn’t.” He put his hand over mine, covering it completely. Eyes still closed, he said, “All threats of death aside, I had no idea how much it would cost.”

“What?” It took me a moment to realize that he meant my sudden regression to elementary school. “Oh. The Luidaeg did it so I could enter Blind Michael’s lands. He sort of posted a ‘you must be less than this tall to ride this ride’ sign at the borders.”

“I barely recognized you,” he said.

“Yeah, about that. How did you recognize me?” The world was dismayingly full of people who didn’t bat an eye when they saw me. I’m not vain or anything, but it was nice to think folks might notice my losing all the ground I’d gained since puberty.

He opened his eyes and smiled. It was a little disconcerting to be standing that close to his smile. Thankfully, being physically under the age of ten blunted most of the effect. “No matter what you look like, you still smell like you.”

“Oh,” I said, faintly.

“Are you done now? Are the children safe?”

“I think so. But a Fetch isn’t usually a long-term houseguest. They pretty much show up when the house is about to go away.” I pulled my hand out from under his, stepping back. “In that sense, I guess I’m pretty much finished.”

“Don’t give up hope.” He offered another smile. This one was smaller, but no less sincere. “I’ve seen you manage the impossible before.”

“Yeah, well.” I glanced away, trying not to focus on his eyes. “Did you find what you were looking for?”

“Not yet.” He stood, leaning down to brush my hair back with one gentle hand. “Come see me once you’ve managed the impossible again. If anyone can … my Court is open to you.”

I felt my cheeks redden. “Tybalt, what—”

“I found my answers. I know you weren’t the one who lied to me.” He pulled back his hand and vanished into the shadows, gone in an instant.

“Tybalt! Don’t you dare say cryptic shit and then run out on me!” His exit was made; he didn’t reappear.

Bastard.

I turned and limped toward the back of the alley, trusting that Tybalt wouldn’t have left me in his Court if the exits were locked. Sure enough, the brick was misty under my fingers; I closed my eyes, stepping through. Movement was getting harder. It felt like my knee was trying to lock up. That was going to make dealing with the bridges in Lily’s knowe a lot of fun.

The mist got thicker and colder as I moved through the wall. I filled my hands with it, reweaving my human disguise as I walked. I had no interest in being mistaken for an alien invader just because my mother had the bad grace to pass on her pointed ears. It was late enough in the year that I might be mistaken for a kid who’d started trick-or-treating early, but that didn’t appeal either.

Connor was sitting on the sidewalk with his back to the alley wall when I emerged. He stood as he saw me approaching, and I was glad that my illusions were hiding the blood. Selkies don’t have an enhanced sense of smell in their human forms; I could fool him, even though I’d never have been able to fool Tybalt.

He waited until I was closer before offering his hand. “I’m sorry. I was a jerk.”

“Yes, you were.” Never stop a man from admitting his faults. Still, I paused, and said, “I was a jerk, too.”

“It’s okay. I’m just worried about you.”

“You were still a bigger jerk than I was.”

“I know.” He sighed. “I just … we lost you once. I don’t want to lose you again.”

I sighed, slipping my hand into his. Maybe he was a jerk, but he was a jerk who cared, and that’s worth a lot in my book. Besides, it wasn’t like it mattered. It would all be over soon.

He looked up, something like hope in his eyes. “Toby …”

“We’re okay.” I smiled wanly. “We need to get to Lily’s. Can you just stop being a jerk until we get there? Please?”

“I think I can manage that,” he said, and smiled. It was worth it just for that.

I left my hand in his as we walked past the car and toward the gates of Golden Gate Park. The height difference was jarring at first, but the feeling passed, and for a few minutes, everything was all right. May joined us while we were waiting for the crosswalk to be clear, Spike following at her heels, and somehow, that was right, too. The rose goblin ran ahead, and the Fetch followed behind as we walked, hand in hand, into Golden Gate Park.

I told Tybalt the truth, after all. I was almost finished.