When the Stars Threw Down Their Spears: The Goblin Wars, Book Three (24 page)

“This looks like a giant owl pellet.” Mr. Wylltson squatted beside the blob.

“A what?” Mrs. Santini asked.

“An owl pellet,” Teagan repeated. “Owls eat mice and small animals, and digest everything but the hair and bones. They cough those up. You find them beneath owls’ nests. You can break the pellet open to find out what they’ve been eating. Find me a stick, Lennie.”

“So, we got a giant owl?” Abby looked at the eaves.

“No,” Teagan said thoughtfully as Lennie handed her a stick. “Hyenas do the same thing. They swallow their victims— bones, hair, and all—then cough up what they can’t digest. Let’s see what this creature has been eating.” Teagan broke the pellet open. She wrinkled her nose. The owl pellets she had dissected at school had all been baked to sterilize them. This pellet was fresh enough to be wet inside and smell of digestive juices. She pulled it apart just enough to be able to tell that it was formed of gray hair. Long gray hair.

“What’s that?” Finn pointed at a piece of pink and white. Teagan flicked it with the stick, and it bounced toward Finn’s boot. He skipped back to avoid it.

“Teeth,” Aiden said.

Two human teeth . . . and a piece of molded pink plastic.

“It’s someone’s bridgework,” Mr. Wylltson said.

The Dump Dogs
had
been full of meat that morning. And now that they’d cleared their bellies, they would be hungry again.

Mrs. Santini shone her flashlight out over the yard. “I heard a noise over there.”

Finn followed the beam to the flower bed beneath the window. “Dog tracks.” He kicked at the soft dirt. “Big ones.”

The shape shifters had been looking right in the Santinis’ kitchen window.

“I’m going with you tonight, Finn,” Teagan said.

Twenty-one

T
EAGAN
closed her eyes and tried to relax. Mrs. Santini had refused once again to consider leaving. But she had agreed to call if she saw or heard anything at all. And Teagan has insisted on checking every single one of the Santinis’ windows to make sure they were locked. Now she had to stop worrying. She
had
to sleep if she was going to hunt goblins with Finn tonight. At first, her dad wouldn’t even consider it, but eventually Raynor had reassured him that not even Dump Dogs could hurt the part of her that stepped out of her body when she bilocated, and that Finn would be safer with her along.

She’d decided to leave her body sleeping on Finn’s mat in the basement, where it wouldn’t disturb Roisin or Grendal, with her mother’s paintings watching over it from the walls. Abby, Mamieo, her dad, and Finn were waiting for her in the kitchen. Seamus was already patrolling the streets in his minivan, watching for any sign of otherworldly creatures.

And she couldn’t sleep.

It wasn’t worry about the Dump Dogs that was keeping her awake. It was the voice of the Burr Oak crying out for someone to come and make things right, and the memory of her mother that had come with Zoë’s touch.

No wonder the
cat-sídhe
caught hold of lines from poems and grown men wandered away from their families. Glimories. The
longing
for what was lost was as sharp as the blade of a knife.

Teagan threw the covers aside and stood up. There was only one way she knew of to turn off her brain—guardian angels could give the gift of sleep to those who needed it.

She padded barefoot past the clothes she’d set out to wear— clothes didn’t come with you when you bilocated—to the door that separated the art gallery, with its hissing dehumidifiers, from the tiny laundry room under the stairs.

Voices were drifting down the laundry chute from the kitchen above her.

“Your grandfather and I used to go hunting together.” Mamieo’s voice. “All alone in the night, with the fat moon hanging over us. Ah, and wasn’t it romantic?”

“It’s not like that, Mamieo,” Finn said. “You’ll see when she comes upstairs.”

“Hello,” Teagan called up into the darkness. “Could you please ask Raynor to come down for a minute?”

“I’ll ask,” Finn called back.

Teagan was back on the mat again before the angel made it down the stairs. He looked slightly green in the dim studio light.

“Insomnia?” he asked, settling on the floor beside her.

“Yes.”

“What would you like me to do? Explain the workings of internal combustion engines until you fall asleep?”

“I was hoping you could just say, ‘Go to sleep,’ like you did in the park,” Teagan said.

“No one ever seems to love me for who I am. Only for what I can do.”

“Please, Raynor. You know I need to go with Finn.”

Raynor laced his fingers together and rested his chin on them. “All right. But first, we need to have the Talk.”

“Dad already gave me the Talk. And if one more person mentions canoodling—”

The angel frowned. “Do you realize that your entire culture is obsessed with sex? Delightful as the subject is, there is a bigger story here.”

“Then what is this about?”

“What you told the lawyer: ‘With great power comes great responsibility.’”

“I was quoting a
Spider-Man
movie, Raynor.”

“I know. I saw it at the Skyview Drive-In with Brynhild. I was celebrating installing a new windshield. It was amazing.”

“‘The Talk’ is a
Spider-Man
review? I really need to go to sleep, Raynor.
I need to hunt
.”

“I’m trying to be culturally relevant,” Raynor said.

“By talking about old movies?”

Raynor cast his eyes heavenward. “Couldn’t you have sent one of the messenger angels? You know I’m not good at this!”

There was no sound but the dehumidifiers’ hiss.

Raynor sighed. “Let me try again. I was responsible for the death of every creature in the park. I heard the trees cry out. I heard the screams of every creature that lived in them, and the cry of the Creator who loved them.”

Teagan wanted to put her pillow over her head and block out his words. Had the willow’s branches been laced into unthinkable beauty in the seconds before it died? Had it been whispering petitions, like the Burr Oak? And all the little creatures . . . the squirrels and mice had burned.

“They were
loved
,” Raynor said. “I knew how much they were loved. If I ever took a life without understanding that, I would be one of the fallen. Choice is the greatest power any creature can have. Our choices create the future. I had to choose between the living creatures in the park and the children of Chicago.”

“But . . . isn’t the Almighty in control of everything you do?”

“Do you seriously believe that the Creator of Creation controls my every action? Or the actions of Mab and Fear Doirich?”

“No,” Teagan admitted. “I don’t.”

“My choices aren’t perfect,” Raynor said. “They are just the best I can do. Currently, things seem to be
trending in the right direction
, as Mamieo Ida would say. In this household, at least, and that’s because you are living in the future created by the choices of those who came before you. This is a long story, and one that isn’t over yet. It began before Maeve chose to love Amergin, even though she knew it meant they would die. Mamieo Ida chose to step into a storm to save a frightened child. Your father chose to love your mother, even through her episodes and stay in the mental hospital—”

Teagan pulled the covers up to her chin.
If we never loved, then maybe we would never feel pain
. That’s what her dad had told her.
Love anyway. It’s worth it
.

“—and it will go on through you.”

“Why are you giving me the Talk just now?”

“Because your choices aren’t going to be perfect, either, but you’ve got to keep trying. Because what you have here is the best chance I’ve ever had to finish this.
Keep trending in the right direction
. Go to slee—”

“Raynor!” Teagan sat up quickly. “Why is it you have been . . . wary of me since the first time we met? It’s not just that I’m Highborn, is it? Because Aiden is too, partly, and you love him.”

The angel drew a ragged breath. “I knew someone very like you once. She’s living the future her choices created. It’s hell.”

“Mab.” She saw a flash of pain in the angel’s eyes. “Hell for her, or for you, Raynor?”

“For both of us. Go to sleep, Teagan.”

For one moment longer she was aware of the mat and the pillow, then sleep settled over her like a weight, pushing her down until she couldn’t make her muscles move. Her mind was completely alert—it was as if its ties to her body were disconnecting.

The last circuits between her mind and body shut down, and Teagan’s bilocate form sat up, stretched, then stood, looking toward the stairs to make sure the angel had gone.

She quickly put on the clothes she’d laid out by the foot of the mat, along with an old pair of shoes, then adjusted the pillow and pulled the blanket up to the chin of the body sleeping on the mat. Nothing—not cold or sound or pain—could wake it until she returned, because everything that was
her
had stepped out of it.

“Hey, Bright Eyes,” Finn said, and her dad and Mamieo turned to her as she reached the top of the basement stairs.

“Good lord.” Mr. Wylltson gripped the side of the table.

“Saints preserve us!” Mamieo crossed herself, and then her hand went to the pocket where she’d put her nitro pills.

Abby’s mouth was hanging open. Teagan had never seen her speechless before.

She didn’t have to check a mirror to know what the problem was; her eyes
were
bright. They were glowing like molten gold.

Mamieo pulled out the bottle and struggled with the cap.

Finn took it from her, opened it, and shook out a pill. Teagan glanced at Raynor. The angel was hiding in his work, exhausted from having to use so many words.

“They unsettled me the first time I saw them, too,” Finn told Mamieo as he handed her the pill. “But it’s Tea, just the same. As dear to you as your own flesh, remember?”

Mamieo popped the tiny pill in her mouth.

Abby still hadn’t said a word, but she was shaking her head.

Mr. Wylltson came around the table and touched his daughter’s face. “You’re . . . cold.”

“The warm me is fine,” Teagan assured him. “It’s sleeping downstairs. This body doesn’t generate heat, or use food for fuel. I’m not sure what it’s made of, but I am sure Finn’s right. This is even more
me
than the part that’s sleeping.”

“She has no heartbeat,” Finn said. “No body heat. Your da and I were discussing canoodling, Tea”—he waved at the gaping laundry chute—“you might have heard. As you can see, John, the kissing would be . . .” Finn pursed his lips, apparently searching for a word.

“It would be what, exactly?” Teagan asked.

“Unsettling,” Finn said. “As we’ve discussed before.”

Mr. Wylltson shook his head. “Raynor, you’re sure Tea can’t be hurt when she’s . . . like this?”

“She should avoid salt in the eyes and being pierced by iron. But if anything happens to the body she is wearing now,” Raynor said, “she’ll just return to the one sleeping downstairs. That’s the one that needs watching over. She could be trapped away from it, and it would eventually die.”

“What about the
sluagh
?” Mr. Wylltson asked. “The creature that came looking for her the last time she stepped out of her body.”

Raynor scratched his head. “That’s a good question. I’m not sure whether it could eat her soul or not.”

“I can outrun it, Dad,” Teagan said. “I can outrun anything when I’m like this. And Finn has dealt with
sluagh
before.”

“Several times,” Finn assured him.

“This isn’t all right.” Abby had found her voice at last. “I thought it would be, but it isn’t.”

“Abby?” Teagan went over to her. “It is me, really.”

“I know that, right?” Abby took her hand and frowned. “Aren’t you freezing? I got a sweater that would totally go with those eyes.”

“I don’t need it,” Teagan said. “I don’t feel the cold.”

“So how am I supposed to take care of you when you’re like this, Tea? What am I supposed to do with this?”

“I couldn’t have put it better myself, Abigail,” said Mr. Wylltson. “I can’t believe I’m giving my daughter permission to run wild with a boy all night. Where are you going, exactly?”

“We’ll start with Rosehill,” Finn said. “And if the Dogs aren’t there, we’ll take to the streets and alleys. I’m betting they’ll be hunting street people. It looks like it’s going to storm, and I know the hidey places the homeless head for on nights like this.”

Teagan turned to the window. She could see Joe’s black silhouette against the low clouds tinted orange from ambient city light. The rain he had promised had not arrived yet, but Finn was right. Teagan could feel the storm building.

Gil ran past the window and did his tumbling trick with the cinder-block wall.

“Not again.” Finn shook his head. “No. Raynor’s right here. He can peek out at the creature.”

“It will break his heart if we leave without him.”

“We’ll go out the front, then.”

“Mrs. Santini is going to be watching the street,” Teagan said. “I don’t want her seeing me like this.”

“Does the woman ever sleep?” Finn asked.

“I don’t believe so,” Mr. Wylltson said. “Sophia always seems to know what’s going on.”

“You just want him to come along because you can’t stand the idea of the creature throwing himself at the wall all night.”

“That’s true.”

“If he tries to hold my hand, I’m sending him back.” Finn leaned over to kiss the white puff of hair on top of Mamieo’s head. “We’ll be careful. And I’ll have your daughter back before the rosy dawn, Mr. Wylltson.”

“Teagan,” Mr. Wylltson said, “if you do find the Dump Dogs—”

She pulled her cell phone out of her pocket and held it up.

“Good.”

Abby was making a strange noise in the back of her throat as they went out the door.

“That went well,” Finn said, pulling it shut behind him. “Don’t you think?”

Joe had finished tearing out the sod before he went to sleep. Teagan’s feet sank into soft dirt as she stepped into the yard. It was going to be a lovely mess of mud when the rain came, but right now it smelled of good earth.