Speed of Light (22 page)

I heard the frisk and squeak of rat conversations. I’m sure they were all around us. They probably came to watch the show.
Who is the crazy girl digging?

“There’s nothing here, Juliet.” Fara’s voice blew across my spine and I shivered.

“Keep digging.”
I won’t give up
.

“Are we digging up the entire floor?”

“If that’s what it takes.”
My mother? My father? Where are they?
“I’ll know.”

Fara snorted. “You don’t know too much right now, cookie.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” I threw down my shovel and straightened, my hands fisting.

“You’re believing a Hashshashin over our kind. She’s playing you.”

“With me? She’s playing with me?”

“No, like a settar, a guitar. She say do and you do.” Fara’s fingers steepled, her palms pressed together in an entreaty I couldn’t allow.

“My mother is caught in the window because her bones are lost.”

“And you think she is here? That she would want you to give up your friends’ lives and safety for this? For her?”

I shook my head. “She’s in pain, not at rest. And they don’t care. They want to stop the Nocti more than they want to help my mother.” If I heard another homework assignment or lesson about fighting this grand battle of good and evil, I was going to hurl.
I’m all I can count on
.

“They’ve risked nothing for you?”

“Of course they did.”
At the beginning
.

“Ignored your questions for help?”

“Yes!” I shouted.
They should know how important this is
.

“Really? You have asked them? Told them of this great Asura and the threats she makes of you?”

“No.”
Never. They’d never understand
.

“Meridian, she uses you? Asura wants only what is best for you?” Fara’s voice stayed level and calm, sending my pulse racing.

“No!”
You don’t understand
.

“She is honest? You do her wishes and she will give you truth?”

“No!”
Dammit, just leave me alone. Help me or get out of my way
.

“Why are you so angry at these people who love you?”

My heart stuttered and I felt the hair on my arms rise. A soul found me. I tried to sit down quickly but said instead, “Fara—” My knees gave out, but I stood at the kitchen window, holding the hand of a young girl.

“Where am I?” she asked me.

I thought quickly. “You are going on an adventure.” Explanations like these were new to me.

“Where?” she asked.

I pointed. “Through that window.” I watched kids and maybe her family members gathering. Outside my kitchen, we were at a park, in the summer, with a jungle gym and puppies running everywhere.

“Can I have ice cream?” she asked.

“Go find out.” I lifted her up and over the sill. I tasted chicken nuggets and tater tots.

She raced toward a couple. “Mommy! Daddy!”

“Juliet! Juliet!”

I turned and saw Auntie holding my mother’s hand. My mother seemed to speak out of the side of her mouth not crisscrossed by scar tissue. Quietly, so low I couldn’t hear her. I wanted to climb across the window and join her. Wrap her arms around me and have her sing me to sleep.

“She says she’s okay, to stop. She’s”—Auntie frowned—“in the shade.”

Mom shook her head. I heard yelling; a commotion brewed in the world behind me.

“Trust them. Meridian’s heart is your heart.” Auntie raised her hand, and in a moment I was back in the cellar, in my collapsed body.

Cold water soaked along my back, chilling my flesh. I blinked, trying to shake off the confusion that rattled me every time I moved back and forth to the window. Meridian said it got better with time and use, but I wondered. She’d only just begun staying on her feet a few weeks ago.

Fara’s voice was full of heat and spice. I blinked up at her.

“You can’t kill me with a shovel,” Ms. Asura offered.

“How about a knife?” Fara asked.

I realized I lay in Fara’s lap.

“Ah, Sleeping Beauty is awake.” Ms. Asura stood above us. The side of her face was puckered and webbed, but her mouth was untouched. Her black hair was loose and fell over her shoulders, seeming to ripple without wind. “Tsk, tsk, tsk.” She clicked her tongue. “It looks like you don’t trust me, Juliet.” She glanced at the holes we’d dug.

I swallowed past the bread crumbs in my throat. “Why do you think that?”

“Ah, you’re almost adorable when you’re imprudent.” She toed a shovel handle. “Digging around for the past, are you? Don’t think I’ll tell you where to find your mommy
and daddy? Or are you trying to find Kirian here? Pity how they can’t move on.”

I sat up, freeing Fara. I reached into the mud for a rock, anything.
Nothing
.

“Leave her alone.” Fara stood, holding a knife in front of her, planting her feet.

“Or what? You’ll cut my steak into small bites for me? You two are suited for each other. Congrats.”

I opened my mouth to speak but she cut me off.

“Stupid—”

“Hello? Is someone down there?” From the shadows above us, a flashlight sliced across my vision.

I knew that voice.
Who is it?

“Juliet? Fara? Are you okay? Who are you?” His voice dipped deep into his chest.

“Sergio!” Fara called out. “Go back out, call the police.”

He clamored down the stairs. “You need to leave,” he said to Ms. Asura, and picked up a shovel. As he moved toward us, we became a threesome.
But the odds aren’t in our favor. The odds are never in my favor
.

“Who are you, little hero?” Ms. Asura licked her lips and clacked her teeth.

“You’re trespassing,” he said to Ms. Asura, tossing his cell phone in my direction. “You can leave or you can explain to the police why you’re bullying these girls.” Sergio protectively stood between us and Ms. Asura.

“Ooh, I know when I’m outwitted,” Ms. Asura cackled. “I’ll leave.” She held her hands open in front of her. “Please don’t call the police. Please, please.” She moved
back toward the stairs but paused near the top step. “I left your cat with a present. Thank yourself I didn’t kill her. Yet. Just a warning, Juliet, dear. Don’t fail me. You have four days left, or your friend here and an army won’t be able to protect that ragtag band of annoyances.”

“What did you do to Mini?” I shouted. Fear wicked up my spine and brought bile to my throat.

“What I did to your mother so she’d tell me where you were hiding with your daddy.”

“You bitch,” Fara spit the words.

“Get out of here!” Sergio yelled, shifting his weight.

“Thank you. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have dinner reservations with my beau. Find it, Juliet, or … Well, you’re not too smart, but I do think you have quite the imagination, don’t you?” She picked her way outside.

I threw up and tried to catch my breath. Adrenaline tasted metallic and bitter like old onion salts. I asked myself for the millionth time,
What do I do?

I
sat on the floor with Custos half leaning against me, half draped across my lap. She let me tend her while Tens and the veterinarian worked on Mini. I barely registered that Custos was trusting me at her most vulnerable. Rumi blubbered, unable to do more than cry.

Dr. Jones shaved most of Mini except for the tip of her tail and her ears. After injecting her with general sedation, the doc cleaned and stitched all of the cat’s numerous puncture wounds. Shaking her head, Doc said, “I don’t know how she survived this. The blood loss alone should have killed her.”

Please be okay. Please be okay
. I kept my hand on Custos, trying to reassure her.

Custos whined and nudged my hand with her head. I focused on petting her, giving what little comfort she asked for.

Minerva looked like a mummy all wrapped in tight white dressings. We were instructed on how to give her oral pain medication from a needleless syringe.

Dr. Jones continued. “Let’s keep her as medicated as she needs to be for the next few days. We don’t want her moving around and tearing her stitches.”

We’d laid Mini on a makeshift bed on the floor so she wouldn’t accidentally fall off the furniture. With the wraps and the meds, her reflexes were impaired at best. Why didn’t she disappear and heal herself? Were the coyotes the Nocti equivalent of our creatures?
Why didn’t Custos and Mini simply vanish to a safe place? Why stay and fight?

“I don’t think she’ll ever have claws again. It looks like she lost parts of each digit. And you say this happened how?” the vet asked.

“Poor cat, what ailurophobe cat hater would do this?” Rumi wiped his eyes on a handkerchief.

Tens answered Dr. Jones, “We don’t know. But coyotes were attacking her and then us. She was up in a tree.”

“Maybe they yanked her off the tree?” Dr. Jones shook her head. “I wish animals could talk, tell us the whole story of what happens to them.”

“Me too.” I smiled. Sadly, I really wish that. Tens hadn’t received more information from Mini since February; I
rarely got Custos to stay in the same physical space as me, let alone give me any gifts of knowledge.

Dr. Jones finished tending Custos, who needed a few stitches and antibiotics. “Call me if you need anything else. If Mini’s condition changes at all.”

Rumi walked her out to her car, helping carry her toolbox and bags of accoutrements. I shut the door to the cottage.
Leave it to Rumi to know a house-call veterinarian
.

“What time is it?” Tens stretched his legs straight and leaned back against the couch.

“It’s after three.” I checked the rooster clock hanging in the kitchen.

The birds would soon be coaxing the sun from its hiding place.

“That’s why I’m so tired.” He rolled his head on his neck; the popping sounds made my toes curl.

“Where is Juliet?” Rumi reentered, asking. “Wouldn’t she want to be here?”

“We called Tony, but Juliet and Fara are missing. As is his car,” I said.

“He must be worried sick, going fantod.” Rumi trembled.

“There’s something going on. I’m afraid for her,” I said.

“She battles the energumenical demons of her experiences, doesn’t she?” he asked thoughtfully.

“I think not knowing her parents is harder on her than she lets on. And now thinking that her mother isn’t at peace? I think that’s tearing her up.” But maybe there was more to it?
What am I missing?

Running footsteps had Tens bouncing up and reaching for his gun. Juliet knocked at the door as she flung it open.

“Where is she?” Juliet was covered in dirt. Her braid hung limp and wet down her back. Mud crusted and flaked off her with every movement. She smelled like sewage and ammonia.

“What happened to you?” I asked.
You look horrible
.

She shook her head and collapsed near Mini. She cried quietly, plaintively.

Fara was right behind her, looking as bedraggled and smelling worse. “Asura.”

Ms. Asura?
Tens and I exchanged a glance. As I opened my mouth to question them, Sergio barged in, talking on his cell phone. “Right, yes, I agree. I’m sorry. I thought I was helping. No, I don’t know who she was.”

For our benefit, Fara explained, “He’s talking to Nelli on the phone. Rumi, can you call Tony, please?”

“Sure, lass.” Rumi leapt into action.

Juliet kept whimpering, tears and snot flooding her face.

“Tens?” Fara jerked her head at Tens, who then disappeared with her out the front door.

Rumi and I tried to soothe Juliet, but she wouldn’t relax into any of our touches. She was drawing away.
I can feel it, but I have no idea how to stop it
. It was as if she had to decide of her own free will to be one of us.

“What happened?” I asked Sergio, unsure if he knew anything or even if he could be trusted.

“I, uh, well, I wanted to see the old foster home, Dunklebarger?” Sergio blushed. “I know I shouldn’t have been trespassing and everything, but working with Nelli made me curious and I thought, you know, I could maybe find something useful.” He paused.

“So?” I pressed.

“Um, I, uh, heard voices and shouting and saw flashlights in the cellar, and I thought maybe I should call the police, but then I heard Fara’s voice and Juliet and I kinda stormed in.” His cheeks pinked.

“Who was in there with them?” I kept my voice even, trying to make sure there was not a hint of my adrenaline evident in my tone.

“A freaky-looking scarred homeless lady. Right?” He turned to Fara as she and Tens walked back in.

“Yes, I think she was living there.” Fara moved toward Juliet. “Thank you for your help,” she said to Sergio.

“Can I give you a lift home, my boy?” Rumi asked, understanding my silent plea to get Sergio out of here so we could speak freely.

“That would be great, thanks. I left my bike out at Dunklebarger. Um, I hope you feel better.” Sergio stumbled over his feet and seemed to think better of approaching Juliet.

“DG,” Juliet muttered.

“What were you doing there?” I asked Fara.

“We went to look for—”

Juliet interrupted Fara, asking, “What happened to Mini? Who did this?”

“Merry, we’re going to be late.” Tens’s expression was drawn and troubled.

I glanced at the clock. Six-thirty. We had been summoned to the cemetery by the Woodsmen of the World. “You still want to go?” I asked.

“I think we have to.”

I glanced at Juliet who was watching Mini sleep as if she couldn’t hear us.

Fara saw the direction of my gaze and said, “We’ll stay and watch Mini. Try not to worry.”