When the Stars Threw Down Their Spears: The Goblin Wars, Book Three (20 page)

“Gums?” the
cat-sídhe
asked.

“The skin of your teeth,” Teagan explained. Grizabella opened her mouth and belched. Serious Dumpster breath . . . with a slight bouquet of latte. The businessman beside them might not have been able to see or hear the
cat-sídhe
, but he could definitely smell it. He put his hand to his face, covering his mouth and nose.

Teagan tried not to do the same. She didn’t want to offend the creature. “I am fairly sure you have mange, but I’m not sure which kind. If I get you a special shampoo, would you use it?”

The businessman finally turned to her. “Excuse me?” he said through his cupped hand.

“I’m talking to my invisible friend,” Teagan said. “You can’t see her, but she’s riding on my lap.”

“Sure you are,” he shouted, rubbing his bald dome with one hand. “I don’t for a moment believe that! I have had it with young people like you—”

The bus brakes hissed, and the driver stood up. “One of you two is getting off at this stop,” he said. “I don’t care which one. I drive a peaceful bus.”

“I’ll go,” Teagan said. It was only a half mile to the zoo from here, and she didn’t mind walking. She wrapped one arm around Grizabella, picked up her bag with the other, and managed to squeeze out past the man, who barely moved his legs. She imagined that the purple nitrile gloves had something to do with the way the other passengers got out of her way.

She set the
cat-sídhe
down as the bus pulled away.

“I need to find out what kind of mange you have if I am going to help you.”

“Howwww?”

“If you let me scrape off some skin flakes, I’ll take them to work and look at them under a microscope,” Teagan said. “Then I’ll know what kind of medicine you need. It won’t hurt.”

Teagan took a new tongue depressor out of her first-aid kit and scraped some skin flakes from the
cat-sídhe
’s back, then put them, along with the stick, into a large paper Band-Aid wrapper.

“That should do it.” She peeled her gloves off and dropped them in the first garbage can she saw.

“Will I grow fur?” Grizabella asked.

“Yes,” Teagan said. “If the medicine works. But it will take a few weeks.”

“Why are you with the bad man, Highborn?” Grizabella asked as she hopped along beside her.

“The bad man?”

“The Mac Cumhaill.” Grizabella spat. “He kills and kills and kills.”

“
Cat-sídhe
kill and kill as well,” Teagan pointed out. She tried not to imagine Grizabella squeezing a hatchling to death, sucking the breath from a baby, or whispering lewd suggestions to a street person.

“He kills ussss.” The
cat-sídhe
jumped up onto a cement planter, which brought her almost eye to eye with Teagan. “You told him no.”

“I don’t want to kill goblins.”

“Why?” Grizabella asked.

“I tricked a water goblin to her death once,” Teagan said.

“Good.” Grizabella nodded. “Water girls are nasssty.”

“It was the most evil thing I’ve ever done.” She could still hear the fear in Ginny Greenteeth’s voice as she begged for her life, her screams as the hellhounds took her. “I hope I’ll never kill anything again.”

The
cat-sídhe
reached up and touched Teagan’s face. “Other Highborn think you are sssick,” she said, patting her cheek. “Very sssick. Because of the way you think.”

Teagan laughed. “Tell me something I don’t know.”

“Okay,” Grizabella said agreeably. “The shadowsss that came out of the park want an abode.”

Eighteen

“S
HADOWS
came out?”

“Yesss. But the light was too bright,” Grizabella said. “Sssso they’re . . . melty bits and melty pieces. The Dogs put all of the little pieces in a jar and stirred them with a stick.” She pantomimed stirring a cauldron. “We hear them talking, but they can’t hurt us. Not without an abode.”

“What is an abode?” Teagan asked.

“Sssskins and bonesss.”

They needed a body? Teagan made a mental note not to leave her own skin and bones lying around where they could find them.

“Do you know where they are now?”

Grizabella shook her head as they reached the entry to the zoo.

“I don’t want you to follow me inside,” Teagan said. “I have friends in here that might catch your mange. But I won’t be too long. If you wait here, I’ll try to bring you something that will help.”

“Yesss,” the
cat-sídhe
hissed again. Teagan looked back once to make sure she wasn’t following her. Grizabella was perched like a ginger-tufted gargoyle atop the zoo sign, staring after her.

When Teagan was far enough away that she was sure the
cat-sídhe
couldn’t overhear her, she sat down on a bench and dialed home.

“Raynor’s Rescue,” the angel said when he picked up. “Tell me where, I’ll be there!”

“Raynor’s Rescue?”

“Angel humor,” Raynor said. “What do you need? You don’t sound like you’re in trouble.”

“I was just talking with a
cat-sídhe
—”

“Of course you were. Pleasant chat?”

“Not really.” She explained what Grizabella had said, and there was silence on the line. “Raynor? Are you there?”

“It’s possible that some part of them made it out. I had to shield your father from the fire, so there were places . . .”

“Some
part
of them?”

“They would have become . . . less than alive.”

“Less than alive, but not dead? How does that work?”

“I’m surprised that you don’t know the spectrum between alive and not alive.”

“If we were talking biology, I would have an idea,” Teagan said. “Living creatures are in a state between birth and death. They carry on metabolic activities that produce molecules and energy needed to sustain them. But I don’t think shadows work that way.”

“True,” Raynor said. “But we can use the analogy. Is a bacterium alive?”

“Yes. Even though it’s one cell, it does everything I mentioned.”

“Is a virus alive?”

“Not exactly. Viruses are more like little computer programs that take over the processes in a living cell. They borrow life.”

“Exactly,” Raynor said. “We’ve got a virus out there looking for a life to borrow. Did your
cat-sídhe
friend happen to tell you where these melty shadows are?”

“Yes. The Dump Dogs put them in a jar and stirred them with a stick.”

“Terrific. Let’s get off this line now in case Mamieo needs to call.” Raynor hung up.

Teagan dialed Abby. She was probably in the midst of painting a rich and powerful toenail at the moment. Whoever’s it was, it was not as important as this. To her relief, it was Thomas who answered the phone.

“Abby is busy at the moment, Tea.”

“That’s okay. I needed to talk to you, anyway.” She explained what Grizabella had told her.

“I’ve seen something similar,” Thomas said. “The shadows all fade eventually. When they reach a certain point, they attach themselves to a Highborn. It’s the only way they can move from place to place.”

Teagan realized she had seen it herself. Highborn with shadow men dogging their steps, melting into the ground when they stopped walking, leaping up again when they moved. Borrowing movement, if not life.

“I’ll keep my eyes op—”

“Tea?” Abby had taken the phone. “I am so quitting this job. This guy gets his toe painted, right?
And then he wants me to blow on the paint to dry it
. I’m not blowing on some fat old guy’s toes. Not even for art school.”

“There have to be other jobs,” Teagan said, trying to shift mental gears. “You could talk to Leo—”

“I tell the Turtles about this guy, they’ll take him to some dark alley and use paint remover on him, you know what I’m saying? This job pays better than any of the others I’ve had, and if I don’t save, I won’t get to art school. This is killing me. You know what? I’m going to talk to Zia Sophia. I knew you’d—Wait. You called me. So, what do you need, Tea? Oops. Got a customer, gotta go.” She hung up. That was okay. Thomas would fill her in.

Teagan stood and walked toward the clinic building. There was something
tickling
at her. She stopped, closed her eyes, and focused on it. A melody, muted as if it were playing inside an unopened music box.

She opened her eyes and turned, scanning for the source of the sound. The old Burr Oak. Of course. It was older than the zoo. Maybe older than Chicago. Its branches and autumn-rusted leaves drew her like a shrine would draw a pilgrim.

She hesitated before she stepped under the canopy. There was no shimmering, no scent of Mag Mell. But this tree was awake.

Dry leaves crunched beneath her feet as she walked to the trunk. She pressed her palms to the rough bark and was instantly filled with melody. The voices she’d heard all around her in the pools of Mag Mell had spoken of creation, of art and music. This song was a petition.

Teagan leaned her head against the trunk, and the music moved through her as if she were part of the tree, roots in this world, twigs laced into . . .
unspeakable goodness and beauty
. She drew in her breath. The Burr Oak was holding hands with the Creator of Creation, its voice crying out for the creatures all around. Little ones, lost ones, wild ones, locked in cages. Calling out for someone to come who would make things
right
.

She took a shaky step back and forced herself to breathe. No wonder Grendal had gone to help her mother when he’d heard Yggdrasil’s whisper. Any creature with a heart would have gone. Teagan wanted to step inside the tree like the dryads in her mother’s books, make it her home and the prayer her own.
Make things right
.

A breeze rattled the leaves above her, singing through the branches like an Aeolian harp, sending rusty leaves tumbling down like a blessing around her. She was still shaky when she punched in her entry code and stepped into the clinic.

Agnes, the vet tech, was hunched over the computer desk, her head in her hands.

“Agnes?” Teagan said. “What is it?”

“Oscar’s not coming back. He’s gone.”

“He’s dead?”
Like Molly. The goblins had taken Molly and Oscar because of her
.

“Maybe. I don’t know.” Agnes said. “Not that we know of. He never arrived in Texas. The shipper lost him.”

“How can you lose a live animal shipment?”

“That’s what I want to know.” Agnes waved at the computer. “Max was on the phone as soon as they took him. You know that senator you helped talk to Cindy and Oscar a few days ago? She was all over it as soon as she heard. She made calls. We all made calls. Nobody ordered the transfer. It was a mistake.”

Agnes was crying. “He’s in a box with only enough water for a couple of days. If I don’t find him, he’s going to die . . . unless he ended up in the hold of an airplane. Then he’s frozen to death already.”

“We don’t know that he’s dead.” Teagan pushed away the thought of Molly, dead before Teagan had even made it to Mag Mell. Before she’d had a chance to do anything.

“Have you seen Cindy?” Agnes asked.

“Not yet.” Teagan slid her backpack off.

“Anyone who believes that animals don’t grieve . . .
shit
.” Agnes pulled a tissue out of the box on her desk. “They can die of grief.”

“I was going to take care of my patients here before I visited Cindy,” Teagan said.

“I’ve already taken care of them. I wasn’t expecting you today, not after what happened at your school. I checked your cultures, too. It was
Streptococcus
. What exactly happened at the school? Are you all right?”

“I’m okay.”

“I heard they found your friend Molly dead. If I believed in unicorns and glitter farts, I would think this had something to do with me,” Agnes said.

“You?” Teagan asked.

“Strange things are happening in Chicago. What’s the common denominator? I am. I helped Molly with a project once.”

Teagan blinked. She had completely forgotten that she’d introduced Molly to Agnes the year before, when Molly needed help with a lab. “I packed Oscar up. It’s irrational, I know. But I can’t shake the feeling that I’ve done something to cause this.”

“That
is
irrational,” Teagan said, thankful at least that Agnes hadn’t worked her into the equation. “And a little paranoid.”

“I know.” Agnes sat up straighter. “I was just having a minor meltdown.” She tapped her keyboard and blew her nose. “It doesn’t have to be fart related. Maybe one of those paranormal nutjobs I’ve debunked is doing this to mess with me.”

“A joke?”

“A hacker must’ve broken into the system. They sent orders for the pickup, and once they had Oscar, they started moving him around. All they had to do is access the shipper’s files. I can’t find him.”

The Sídhe used the Internet. Kyle had told her as much. They’d tracked her friends and found out about Oscar through her Facebook page.

“I won’t quit until I find Oscar. If a hacker took him, there must be a way.”

“I hope so,” Teagan said. “Thanks for taking care of my patients. I need to look at a slide or two. Then I’ll go see Cindy.”

Teagan went down the hall to the lab. She tried not to think about Molly and Oscar as she prepared slides of the skin scrapings. Not to think about Cindy, grieving for Oscar. It didn’t work. She stopped and pressed the tears away before she focused the microscope.

Both slides showed the same tiny arachnids covered in white spiky armor, crawling on the skin flakes. Sarcoptic mange, then—the contagious sort. If Aiden thought worms were scary, it was a good thing he couldn’t see these eyeless little beasts. Just looking at them made her itch all over, even though she knew they rarely infested people. Revolution would kill them, and any fleas Grizabella might have as well, but it was a prescription medication.

“Is Dr. Max here?” Teagan asked Agnes when she’d cleaned the slides. “I need a prescription.”

“He’s downtown raising hell,” Agnes said. “What do you need?”

“Revolution.”

“I agree. An animal rights revolution. But I suppose
you
mean the medication. We have some samples you could take. You don’t need a prescription for those.”