An Artificial Night od-3, Page 2

  The fae disdain for daylight made shopping for Andy’s birthday present an adventure in and of itself. I’d finally managed to make it to a toy store downtown just before closing, where the clerk assured me that no four-year-old boy could ever have enough plastic dinosaurs. Since I’d been out of bed for less than half an hour, I was groggy enough that I would have agreed to buy the kid a box of plastic forks if it meant I could get out of there and go for coffee. The dinosaurs were in the back, in a bag covered with gamboling cartoon clowns. I hate clowns.

  I was lucky: it was late enough that the roads between San Francisco and Colma were basically clear, and I pulled up in front of Mitch and Stacy’s house with almost five minutes to spare. From the sidewalk, the house looked dark, silent, and totally deserted. Living in Faerie has taught me a lot about how deceptive appearances can be.

  The edges of the lawn glittered as I walked toward the house, betraying the presence of an illusion spell. I stepped across the boundaries, and the house was suddenly blazing with lights, the air sharp with the smells of sugar and finger paint. Braziers were mounted on stakes all around the lot, with pixies fanning the tiny flames that kept the spell alive. Shouts and peals of happy laughter filled the air. The party, it seemed, was still in full force. I grinned and walked on, Barghests and Danny’s attempt to meddle in my social life forgotten.

  The side gate was open, invitingly decorated with a bouquet of bright balloons. I veered that way, ducking under a crepe paper streamer and into the backyard where chaos reigned.

  At least ten kids of varying ages and species were racing around like they were jet-propelled. Most of their attention was on the jungle gym, where there was some sort of pirate game going on. It seemed to involve chasing each other up and down the slide while shouting, “Shiver me timbers!” A dun-colored Centaur cantered around the structure, crying, “Avast ye!” and trying to grab the others whenever they came into range. Jessica was directing the action, too absorbed by her six year old’s autocracy to do more than wave distractedly at my arrival.

  Cassandra was on the porch, struggling to read while children shrieked and zoomed around her. It seemed like a battle she was doomed to lose.

  I walked over to sit down next to her, one eye on the wild rumpus. “Hey, puss.”

  She brightened. “Aunt Birdie!” Being nineteen and highly aware of her own dignity, she took great care in putting her book down before she hugged me. “You came! Andy’s going to be thrilled.”

  “Couldn’t miss the fun,” I said, returning the hug.

  Cassandra was the only one of Mitch and Stacy’s kids born before my disappearance. She’s the one who originally decided my name should be “Aunt Birdie,” since she couldn’t pronounce “October.” She’s short, plump, and pretty, and has her mother’s gently pointed ears, tipped with tufts of black fur. She gets her coloring from her dad’s side of the family, though, with Mitch’s blue-gray eyes and unremarkable brown-blond hair.

  It’s hard to look at her and not see my own little girl, the one I lost when Simon cast his spell on me. I’ve been working on it. Cassandra deserves better than to be judged by who Gillian might have grown up to be.

  Not that Gillian’s been willing to let me see who she actually is. My daughter isn’t dead. She just refuses to let me be a part of her life.

  “Well, it’s really good to see you,” said Cassandra as she let me go.

  I settled back in my seat. “Good to see you, t—”

  My statement was cut short as Andrew slammed into me from the side and flung his arms around my neck. “Auntie Birdie!”

  Cassandra laughed. “Aren’t you glad I outgrew that?”

  “You have no idea,” I said, and ruffled Andrew’s hair. “How’s our birthday boy?”

  “I’m four!” he said, showing me the appropriate number of grimy fingers. Towheaded, freckled, and filthy: all the ingredients needed for “ridiculously cute.” Children shouldn’t be allowed to be that adorable. There ought to be a law. “We’re having a party!”

  “I noticed.”

  Cassandra groaned, muttering, “People in Oregon noticed.”

  “We’re gonna have cake, and ice cream, and presents, and—”

  A rising shriek was coming from the direction of the swings. I shifted Andrew to my lap as I looked up. Cassandra rolled her eyes. “Incoming.”

  “Aunt Birdeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!” Karen raced toward us. I braced for impact. At eleven, Karen never seemed to be able to make up her mind about whether or not she was too grown-up to tackle me. I got off lucky this time; she skidded to a halt and declared, “You came!”

  “I did,” I agreed. “You look like you’ve been wallowing in the mud.”

  She looked down at herself. She was coated with filth from the waist down, and muck caked her hair. “Wow. You’re right.”

  “So what have you been doing?”

  Gleefully, she crowed, “Wallowing in the mud!”

  I sighed. “Right.” Andrew was snuggling into my lap, getting dirt all over my jeans. I thought about moving him and decided not to bother. It was his birthday. He could get me dirty if he wanted to. “What’s up?”

  “We’re playing pirates,” she said. “I’m the first mate! Jessica gives orders and then I make bad people walk the plank.”

  “Good for you. So what’s Andy?”

  “He was my parrot, and then he was a shark. Now he’s … what are you now, Andy?”

  “M’a rowboat,” he said sleepily.

  “Do rowboats nap?” I asked.

  “I wish,” muttered Cassandra. “They’ve been trying to drive me crazy all night.”

  “Really? How are they doing?”

  She flipped her ponytail over her shoulder, rolling her eyes. “Amazingly well.”

  “I see.” I tickled Andrew until he stopped yawning and started giggling, then set him back on his feet. “Go be a rowboat.” He laughed and ran for the swings, Karen close behind.

  “How do they get all that energy?” I asked as I stood.

  “They never stop moving.”

  Cassandra grinned. “I have no idea. If I knew, I could skip freshman physics.”

  “I’m gonna go let your folks know I’m here. You need anything?”

  “Can I have a tranquilizer gun?”

  “No.”

  “Okay. Just tell Mom we need to cut the cake soon, or I may kill them all.”

  “Got it. Give the kids sugar before you kill them. Because that’s gonna calm them down.” I winked and turned to head inside.

  If the party seemed hectic in the yard, it was even worse when packed into the confines of Mitch and Stacy’s cluttered living room. School pictures and crayon art covered the walls, while toys, domestic mammals, and small children got underfoot when least expected. The furniture was covered with clear plastic sheeting, but that would just delay the damage, not prevent it.

  Stacy was positioning chairs around a series of folding tables when I walked in. Anthony, their nine year old, was helping her, looking harried. The party was clearly getting to him, and just as clearly wasn’t getting to his cheerful-looking mother. “Toby! Good, you’re here,” she said, unsurprised by my appearance. “Get the cake.”

  “Got it,” I said, shaking my head as I moved toward the kitchen. If I’d been juggling that many kids, I would have demanded whiskey and duct tape instead of offering them things bound to make them even more hyperactive. But that’s Stacy.

  As a quarter-blooded changeling, Stacy was aging faster than any of us, but she wore it well enough that it didn’t seem to matter. Her chestnut hair was pulled into a ponytail and a paint-stained apron was tied around her waist. All the kids take after her to some degree—Jessica looks like a miniature version of her mother—and they could have done a lot worse.

  Mitch was in the kitchen unpacking the cake, a three-tiered monstrosity covered in sugar dinosaurs: clearly our friend Kerry’s work. It would take hearth-magic to make realistic sugar reptiles that small. “Hey,” he
said. “Help me with this.”

  “Sure.” I stepped into position, taking one side of the cake. “How many kids are here, anyway?”

  “Nineteen.” He laughed. “You should see the look on your face! It’s a party, Toby.”

  “Most parties don’t involve the entire kindergarten.”

  Mitch just laughed, muttering a quick charm to light the candles. We could hear Stacy’s voice drifting from the living room, calling the kids to come in and sit down as we carried the cake through the kitchen door. A dozen different off-key renditions of “Happy Birthday” promptly burst forth. The Centaur was singing in German, while a tiny Snow Fairy with ice in her hair joined in with what sounded like a Japanese pop song. Welcome to birthdays in Faerie.

  Flanked by a Goblin and a Hamadryad and beaming from ear to ear, Andy leaned out of his chair to blow out the candles with one surprisingly strong breath. Everyone started to cheer. I clapped my hands, laughing.

  Happy birthday, kiddo. Happy birthday.

  TWO

  THE BIRTHDAY PARTY was more draining than I expected. Too many memories of Gillian and the few birthdays we’d shared before I disappeared, too many little laughing ghosts waiting to ambush me. I got home a little after midnight and crawled straight into bed, where I lay awake, staring at the ceiling, until sometime after four. I’d been asleep for less than an hour when the telephone rang, jolting me awake.

  I bolted upright, sending the cats tumbling off my chest as I groped around in the dark to find the phone. I glanced at the clock as my hand closed on the receiver. 5:34 A.M. Whoever it was had better have a damn good reason for calling, or they were going to suffer. “What?”

  “Morning, Toby! I didn’t wake you, did I?”

  I suppressed the urge to swear. I only know one person who would risk physical harm by calling me that close to dawn. “What do you want, Connor?”

  “Hey, nice voice recognition; you got it on the first try. How are you?”

  “Do you know what time it is?” Most fae are notoriously late risers, as in “after sundown if at all possible.” That’s most of us, not all. Selkies are skinshifters. They don’t have any real magic beyond some basic illusions and the power contained in their skins. Dawn messes with them just like it messes with the rest of us, but daylight doesn’t bother them. Once the sun’s up, they’re fine. As a consequence, they have an annoying tendency to be morning people.

  Exhibit A: Connor, who cheerfully said, “Half past five.”

  “Right.” I groaned, wiping the sleep from my eyes. The cats had retreated to the foot of the bed, shoving Spike out of the way as they curled up in the warm spot it had created. Sadly chirping, Spike slunk toward me. “Now explain why I should let you live.”

  “I’m too cute to kill.”

  “Try again.” Spike tried to crawl into my lap. I shooed it away as I swung my feet around to the floor. The rose goblin gave me a wounded look and began grooming its thorns.

  “How about I say I’m taking you out for breakfast? My treat.”

  “Uh-huh.” If Connor hadn’t been married, that statement would have had me leaping for my clothes no matter what time it was. With things the way they were, I wasn’t thrilled. “What does Raysel think of this plan?”

  He hesitated before saying, “She doesn’t exactly know.”

  I sighed. “Then I’m not going to breakfast with you. Raysel would kick my ass.” Rayseline Torquill was Connor’s wife, the daughter of my liege lord, and every interaction I had with her went a little further toward convincing me that she was certifiably crazy.

  Raysel’s madness wasn’t her fault, which made it difficult to blame her for it, no matter how much it complicated things. She and her mother were kidnapped shortly before I was turned into a fish, and they were missing for almost as long as I was. They came back a few years before I made it out of the pond. Jin says they just appeared in the garden one day, returning as suddenly and unexplainably as they came.

  If anyone knows what happened to them during those missing years, they haven’t told me. Luna came back quiet and a little sad, and Raysel … Raysel came back broken.

  Maybe it would have been different if I’d managed to avoid Simon’s spell and keep myself from being transformed. Maybe, if I’d been just a little better at my job, they would have come home as healthy and happy as they left it. Maybe. Even in Faerie, time doesn’t run backward, so I guess we’ll never know for sure.

  “It’s not like we’d be doing anything wrong,” he said, a note of pleading in his tone. “It’s just breakfast and we’ve been friends since before Raysel was born.”

  “Skipping the part where you haven’t exactly been subtle about liking me, that woman thinks I’ve done something wrong when I breathe.” Raysel has hated me since I came back. The fact that there was a time when I’d have happily hopped into bed with her husband might have something to do with it, but it seems to go deeper than that. She acts like I’m her worst enemy, and I have no idea why.

  “Please.” Now the pleading was much harder to ignore.

  I hesitated. “What’s the deal?”

  “What’s the deal?” He laughed. The sound was brittle.

  “I’m standing at a pay phone on Fisherman’s Wharf because I spent last night sleeping on the beach. My wife is nuts, but it’s a diplomatic marriage, so I can’t leave her, and most of my friends from Roan Rathad are afraid to come near me because they’re so sure she’s going to kill them—and me—one day. I’m lonely. I spend all day, every day, watching my own back, and I’m lonely.” More quietly, he said, “I’m sorry about the kiss. It won’t happen again. But I need a friend, Toby. I need a friend so badly you wouldn’t believe it.”

  He sounded desperate. More, he sounded sincere. Connor’s always been good at covering misery with apparent cheer, and I was starting to suspect that he’d been getting even better since he married Rayseline. Shoving my hair out of my eyes, I sighed. “All right, you win. We’ll do breakfast. Where do you want to meet?”

  “Mel’s okay?” The change in his tone was immediate enough to make me feel bad for wanting to avoid him. Raysel wasn’t that big a deal. I mean, if I can hang around with the Luidaeg, I can handle Rayseline Torquill.

  “Mel’s is fine.” Mel’s Diner in downtown San Francisco is a purveyor of classic Americana, from the ever popular fried egg sandwich to the fat-saturated roast beef platter. There are no surprises at Mel’s. I like it that way.

  “Meet you in an hour?”

  “Better make it two.” I stood, grabbing my robe off the floor. “I need a shower, and the sun isn’t up yet. I can’t go outside safely until it is.”

  “Oh, right. You’re a wimp.”

  “And you’re a skinshifting bastard.”

  “I love you, too. See you at Mel’s!” The line went dead. Connor and I have been competing for the last word for a long time, and he’s finally starting to catch up. I need to work on my phone-slamming skills.

  I tied my robe and started for the hall, rubbing at my eyes. There was no way I was getting back to sleep. Spike and the cats followed me to the kitchen, where the astronomical calendar on the fridge informed me that dawn was scheduled for 6:13 A.M. I’d had to go to the Science Museum bookstore to find a calendar that listed times for sunrise and sunset, and it was worth the effort. Knowing exactly when the sun would rise meant I could have a cup of coffee without worrying about timing things wrong and scalding myself. I’d get through sunrise, take a shower, and meet Connor for a plate of something bad for me. It was starting to look like it might be a decent morning.

  There was a knock at the door.

  I turned, frowning. No one knocks on my door before dawn. Most of my clients are fae and wouldn’t risk being caught out so close to sunrise, and I don’t take human clients who seem likely to show up after midnight. “The hell?”

  I started for the door, stopping as I caught a flicker of motion out of the corner of my eye. The cats were huddled under the coffee table, tails
bushed out and ears slicked flat. Spike had vanished completely. “Okay. That’s weird.”

  There are certain basic rules of survival in my world. One of them is that you don’t live to a ripe old age by ignoring the warnings you get from your pets. Cats who live with the fae tend to get a little touched by strangeness, and the things that get that kind of reaction from them are usually looking for worse reactions from me. Reactions such as screaming, running, or going for a weapon. Whoever or whatever was out there probably didn’t intend anything good.

  Feeling increasingly paranoid, I looked back toward the door as my visitor knocked again. I didn’t want to deal with a potential threat before my morning coffee, but whatever it was wasn’t going away. Just swell. I reached into the umbrella stand and pulled out my baseball bat as I approached the door. A girl can’t be too careful if she’s addicted to breathing, and I’ve found that being hit in the head with a stick of aluminum is enough to daunt most monsters, at least for a moment.

  “Who is it?” I called. My mother’s blood taught me about monsters, but both sides of the family taught me that I’d get smacked if I forgot my manners.

  “Candygram.”

  I eyed the door. Whoever it was didn’t just scare my cats, they also quoted bad comedy routines: truly the stuff of terror. Something about the voice made the back of my neck itch. I ran through a quick catalog of options in my head but couldn’t connect it to anyone I knew. Shifting the bat behind my back in case it was one of my neighbors, I opened the door. And froze.

  Considering some of the things—and people—I’ve found on my doorstep in the past, I didn’t think I could be surprised anymore. I was wrong.

  She stood about five foot eight, with long, almost gangly limbs and the sort of curves that get lost in anything shapeless. Her stick-straight brown hair fell to her shoulders, failing to conceal her dully pointed ears. She had the sort of pointed face that doesn’t get called pretty, even on a kid. Striking maybe, or dramatic, but never pretty. Her eyes were beautiful, though, large and bright, with gray irises so pale they seemed to echo the colors around them. I knew those features pretty well. After all, I saw them in the mirror every morning. It was like looking at a photograph, only this photograph was answering my openmouthed shock with a smirk and a tip of an imaginary hat.