Carpathia seemed to sense the discomfort and dropped her hand. “You’re taken, aren’t you?”
I blinked in surprise. A woman hitting on me was a first. What did she see in me that…?
“It is all right, dear,” Carpathia said with another small laugh. “I just have certain moments of loneliness, as Artemus can attest. But I never, ever cross the line when someone’s heart lies firmly with another. There is no pleasure in that.”
“See, Hattie?” Midnight said with triumph as he jumped off the table. “It’s not just us cats who know who your heart belongs to.”
Artemus suppressed a chuckle, “How long do we have before Midnight’s malady becomes unsolvable?”
“Difficult to say with these things,” Carpathia admitted while I covered up my awkwardness by busying myself with Midnight's leash. Some of his innate nighttime friskiness was returning. He squirmed and wriggled and batted at the dangling leash, his eyes as black as, well, Midnight.
"As the liebschen said, sooner would be better. Of course, while I would prefer that you grab your assistant this very moment from her home and bring her here, I would imagine that she would be less than enthused at such an abduction at this hour.”
“Or any hour,” I added, getting to my feet with my cat firmly in his harness. “We’ll see if we can’t make it tomorrow night at the latest.”
Reaching into a hidden pocket in her dress, Carpathia pulled an ancient vial that she handed to me. “Give the liebschen a draught of this. It shall help him sleep. Regretfully, this is all I have. It's not a cure, by any stretch, but it should help your beloved here get a full cycle of rest.”
“Just don’t give it to me before daybreak,” Midnight chimed in. “I’ve got a lot of gossip to catch up on tonight.” He remarked, pulling at his harness now.
“Should anything change between now and tomorrow evening,” Carpathia added. “Do not hesitate to call. I shall be by your side as quickly as I am able.”
“Even in daylight?” I asked, remembering the most famous weakness of vampire-kind.
“I'm not new here, dear. I have my ways. Now, I must bid you all a good night. My evening meal will sadly not serve itself.”
With those words, she ushered us out of the house, herself included, locking the door behind her. Carpathia went down the street with a purposeful stride. I mean glide.
“Do I want to know where she’s getting her next meal?” I asked nervously when Carpathia was finally out of earshot.
"Well, there are no restaurants or grocery stores that way," Midnight jerked his head toward the receding lady of the night.
"I think it best for us not to concern ourselves with Carpathia's eating habits right now," Artemus warned.
I yawned.
"You're right," I managed. "I mean we've already bitten off more than we can chew for one day."
CHAPTER 9
We were greeted by a cat cacophony when Midnight and I walked through the door of The Angel. Hissing, meowing, scrambling paws; all were heard coming from the upstairs apartment. Carbon was in his usual place by the fire, his eyes narrowed in barely concealed annoyance, and his kitty-hands covering his pained ears.
“Hattie, finally. Would you mind terribly telling the rest of my siblings to keep it down? I've just got the fire to my desired temperature, and those hellions are keeping me awake." Carbon glanced at his sleep deprived brother. "Er, sorry, Midnight," he mumbled sheepishly.
“What the Bast is going on up there?” I asked, unhooking Midnight from his leash.
Carbon clenched into a tight ball, clamping his front paws over his ears again
"I've no idea, but it sounds like a rugby match, and if it doesn't stop soon, then I'll be re-locating to Maude's boiler room. Now if you'll excuse me." My kitty circled a few times, found a comfortable spot and closed his eyes, still with his paws clamped firmly over his flattened ears.
Midnight charged ahead of me, taking the stairs two at a time.
I just made out his words as he reached the top step.
"It better not be him," he muttered almost under his breath.
I wasn’t exactly prepared for what I found in my bedroom. Pinned under Gloom’s paw was the tiniest little man I'd ever seen. He was roughly the size of a mouse and wearing a rather dashing outfit made out of what looked like bark. His skin tone reminded me of nutmeg. His acorn-brown eyes seemed almost too wide for his face, but maybe it was just wide-eyed terror as my cats brayed, and pawed and batted at the miniature life-form from underneath Gloom's hefty paw.
“Hey, Midnight!” the little man said in a brogue so thick, it took me a few seconds to realize he was speaking English. “Think you can explain to your friends here why Oi—“
Midnight marched right over to him and swatted the little man on the nose. “What did I tell, Seamus? Never in my home, remember?”
“Well, if this little morsel didn’t know it before, he’ll know it after tonight,” Gloom said licking her lips.
“Ah, Bejabbers, Oi don't mean none of yous any harm, to be sure,” Sean pleaded. “Oi've been helpin’ yer mistress out wit’—“
His words dissolved in a high-pitched squeak, as Gloom sprang her needle-sharp claws.
“Hattie is our HUMAN, sir,” Onyx said. “Should you make that mistake again, our sister here will make sure that every time you have a drink of something, you'll turn into a sprinkler."
As Seamus sputtered out some fast apologies, I asked, “Where did you find him?” I'd never seen a brownie in the flesh before. I was actually tickled pink at the sight of this mouse-sized pixie.
“Little brother came right through the old mouse hole in the corner,” Shade said, aiming a paw at the spot. “Would have got away with it too if it weren’t for our seriously courage-deprived brother’s sharp eyes.”
“And who was it that chased this annoying-as-Gwydion brownie down so that Hattie could talk to him?” Gloom countered.
“Hey, you might have pinned him, but I blocked off his escape,” Jet said, zipping between his spot around the trapped Seamus and the mouse hole to make a point.
I got down on my haunches and asked, “Are you the contact that clued Midnight in about the location of that gray powder this afternoon in Aurel's garden?”
“Aye, milady,” Seamus said, his big eyes all but pleading with me for mercy. “Oi’ve done business wid ol’ Midnight here long time now, to be sure. Oi gots more to share. S’why Oi’m here.”
Midnight brought his face so close to Seamus' that his cat breath misted the little fellow's eyes.
“I’m still waiting for an explanation of why you broke into my home.”
“Swear to Bran, boyo, any udder time, Oi’d wait for the perfick moment. But dis is no ordinary time, yous follow?”
Seamus' impossibly big eyes darted around to the rest of Midnight’s siblings. “Now, Oi'll be willin’ to share what Oi got wid you alls, but if this lovely lady here could just remove her paw?" He averted his gaze from Gloom, but the message was directed to her.
“I daresay, diminutive sir, that you are not yet aware that we act as ONE. We are the lemniscate; the Infiniti. We are legion."
"Gimme a break, Shakespeare," Gloom growled. "It's time we had some fun with our little catch." With that, Gloom's tail wrapped around the munchkin's throat and she waved him in the air, tossing him to and fro in front of the eager-to-play kitties. All eyes in the room widened and zoomed to black, and hind haunches wiggled in preparation for pouncing.
"Okay, okay, guys. Hold it! Gloom put Seamus down. Now." My morose cat smiled way too sweetly and dropped Seamus unceremoniously to the floor.
"Oh, lady. Thanks so very much." Seamus breathed a sigh of relief, dusting off his immaculate bark suit.
"So, it's a bargain then, is it? Oi can leave after Oi've delivered my news, is it?"
I frowned a little. Grandma Chimera always told me that no fairy ever made a contract that didn’t have a loophole to slip out of. Then again, brownies had eyes and ear
s in every mortal household they could slip into. The chances he’d heard something that earned him a reprieve were pretty good.
“Agreed,” I said. “Start talking.”
“Most gladly,” the brownie said letting out another deep breath. “If the fair lady here could just give me me personal space, is it?“
“Uh, uh,” Gloom said. “I'm staying right here, nibbles. Now, tell us what you know.”
“Aye, well, can't blame a fella for tryin’, yeah? Okay, so the powder Oi found on them steps? Not the first Oi seen of it.”
“You mean you've seen this powder outside of Aurel's estate?” I asked, getting concerned.
“Oh, aye,” Seamus said grimly. “But the reason you've heard not at all about it is because that grim powder has been used on poor wee creatures that could nae fight back." Seamus looked on the brink of tears. I waved a warning arm between him and the kitties, moving my eager cats back a few steps.
“You mean, like cats?” Fraidy asked in alarm.
“Oh, cats, to be sure. One or two, aye.”
Fraidy moaned, “We need to check the food supplies! Right now! That tuna tasted funny this morning, and it looked a weird color too. Oh, Bast, Oh, Bast. My stomach hurts. I'm gonna be sick. Hattie, feel my head, feel my head. I'm hot, aren't I?” Fraidy rammed his head into my knees, looking up at me with beggars eyes.
"Sweetie, relax. The tins were sealed. You're letting your imagination get the best of you. Please. Can you just be quiet until Seamus has finished talking? Then I'll give you some of your anti-death pills, okay? I think there are a few left." Fraidy had his own hypochondriac medicine. He was the only one that didn't know they were made out of nothing other than corn starch and arrowroot powder. Baked hard to resemble a pharmaceutical offering.
"Um, no. He took the last one this morning when the dog across the street gave him stink-eye. He thought he'd been hit by the Pharoah's Curse." Eclipse lamented. I shook my head.
Seamus took pity on my deranged cat, though. “No, no, brudder. Not a trace o' the stuff here. Oi'd have sniffed it out, to be sure."
“Really?” Eclipse asked, sounding less than convinced. “Given that it took some serious threats to get you to talk at all, I would not put it past you to leave such a critical detail out. As a method of retaliation, perhaps?”
“Hey, Oi might be a bit of a schemer, but Oi don't align with killin’, is it? An’ no creature on this fair earth deserves to go like those poor little buggers who couldn't stand up for themselves did.”
“Were there any human test subjects?” I asked.
“Naught,” Seamus said with another shake of his head. “Not unless yous count vampires and Lycans as human-like. Damn near started a row ‘tween those two kinds too. ‘Till they found out that both a’ ‘em had been used. And, badly, to be sure.”
“And they found out because a perceptive brownie passed the word to them?”
“Well, do yous ‘member what Oi said ‘bout how Oi feel ‘bout how nothin’ should die like that.”
“You wouldn’t happen to have noticed the various imbalances that keep happening around Glessie, would you?” Midnight asked, giving him a little distance but keeping a suspicious eye on him.
“Aye and it’s more than just this fair isle, Oi tells ya. This magic is widespread, is it? Perhaps across to the Mainland, even, from what Oi've heard.” the brownie said, his wide eyes filled with urgency.
“All a’ the Covens is feelin’ its touch, to be sure. A fireplace what refuses ta burn wood near a well tha’ refuses to quench a thirst on Phlange Isle. A garden that takes but a day ta grow a full crop, across from a withered forest grove that nei’er rain nor sun can help, o’er on Nanker Isle. A now-sprightly gran who weeps in sorrow that her good health can nae do a thing to help her sickly, aging granddaughter in her bed on Talisman. O'er and o'er, tha’s the kind of mischief Oi've been hearing.”
“So what’s causing all this?” I asked, tapping the floor in thought. “And does this all relate in any way to the gray-powder poisonings?”
A grin almost as big as Seamus' eyes sprouted on his face. “Oi would tell ya, milady, but that were all Oi was bound ta tell Midnight. The bargain is fulfilled.” Faster than any of the cats could respond, the brownie was gone. Zipping as fast as sneeze into the mouse hole.
In fairness to the Infiniti, they DID react. But, all they accomplished was a mass pile up of tangled fur and angry meows at the entrance of Seamus' exit. We listened to a receding pixie chuckle; then all was silent.
Gloom gave an angry meow. “Would someone tell me how that JUST HAPPENED?!” I'd never seen her so shocked.
“We were suckered by a fairy bargain,” Eclipse said matter-of-factly. “The contract explicitly stated that as long he told us everything he was to tell Midnight, he would be free to go afterward.”
“Which, as per usual, was a lot less than what he actually DOES know about all this,” Midnight said with a frustrated meow.
Gloom glared at Midnight. “Well, why didn’t you think of that, and ask some less obvious questions?” She was already walking away in a gesture of indignation.
“I’ve been awake for something like twenty-six hours, sis. As foggy as my head has gotten, I’m amazed that I still know how to talk.”
“Alright, alright,” I said, getting up and holding up my hands. “We do have the upside that Seamus did tell us some things we didn’t know before: That Snake-Iron is being used outside of Aurel's estate. That definitely counts as useful information.”
“Sure,” Midnight allowed. “But, he didn't really SAY it was Snake-Iron, now did he? He just said 'gray powder.'"
“Maybe the dimwit wouldn’t know Snake-Iron from fireplace ash,” Shade suggested, peeling away from under the shadowy bed.
“Snake-Iron was known to the courts of the Fae some three centuries before mortals ever found it,” Onyx countered, following his sister’s example in going to his own sleeping spot. “If it WERE true Snake-Iron, he would have mentioned it.”
“But that’s assuming that he wasn’t holding out on that piece of information, thanks to the bargain,” Clipsy argued back.
“Nah, Onyx has got it right,” Midnight said, shaking his head. “Seamus' a lot of things, but he was right about not taking any pleasure in watching living things suffer. He’d have said if it were actually Snake-Iron. The question is, is why is this gray powder being used on poor, harmless test subjects.”
My kitty gossip walked over to me then, laid his tired head on my foot and looked up at me with watery eyes.
“What happened to waiting until morning for that dose?” I asked, reading between the lines.
“Dealing with Seamus was more than enough for gossip-hunting for one night,” Midnight said.
I dabbed three drops of the vampire’s medicine onto my finger and offered it to my fur-baby. He licked it up obediently. I was exhausted. And, when I came out of the bathroom after brushing my teeth, my fuzzy charges had taken up their favorite sleeping places, apparently as tired as I was.
I climbed into bed and was drifting off myself when Onyx said, “Hattie.”
“Mmm?” I groaned. After everything that had happened today, I just wanted to sleep.
“Are we sure that the imbalances and Aurel’s death are connected?”
“I don’t know yet,” I grumbled, turning over on my side. “That’s why it’s called an investigation.” A paw, reaching over my face in a glorious cat stretch, came to rest on my nose.
“Well, no harm asking Ms. Poof if she’s got a friend of a friend that knows something about anything,” Shade said from atop my head. He yawned. "I'll check with my shorty tomorrow," he said, finally laying his chin on my forehead. The world fell away into darkness.
Which is what happens when your cat drapes his tail across your eyes.
CHAPTER 10
There’s only one thing more intolerable than waking up to a nudging paw (or paws.) My turn of the 20th Century phone ringing. It’s louder, mor
e obnoxious than the kitties and usually rings at a time when my sleep is the deepest. So, of course, my snoozing was ripped asunder by the ancient device. After a couple of rings, I huffed in annoyance and grabbed the receiver. I mumbled a groggy “This better be important.”
“Hat, David. Were you sleeping?” An oblivious Chief Trew questioned on the other side. “I really need to talk to you about the case.”
My irritation at the interruption was barely containable. “Don’t you have a whole station of constables for that?”
“Hat. Please.”
Huffing, I threw off the covers, (and a couple of sleeping moggies in the process) and speaking into the mouthpiece I said, “You do remember that I have a day job, right? And an assistant who’s not doing so good?”
“Millie seemed a little tired yesterday, but, are you saying there’s something more?”
I rubbed my face. I remembered then that I hadn’t told him the whole story yet.
“We think she’s got some kind of sleep-related illness. Something similar, and yet, opposite, to what Midnight’s suffering from.”
“That makes sense, given all the weirdness that’s going on around here lately. And yet Mill still shows up at the shop for work every day.” David exhaled.
“And wants to try it again this morning,” I confirmed, stretching my free arm over my head. “She’s nothing if not dedicated. Verdantia Eyebright’s watching out for her, so I’m hoping things won’t get too ugly for her.”
“Well, in even more cheerful news, no matter who I called in Talisman, it made absolutely no difference in getting the warrant for Portia’s pad. I’m telling you, Hat, that woman is so well protected by … well, everyone who matters.”
“How high up did you go?” I asked, looking at the prone figure of Midnight. He was rapidly opening and closing his eyes. He hissed in frustration and rose to his feet. Guess Carpathia’s potion had hit its peak.
“All the way to the Minister of the Interior and the answer was the same from him: back off. But, dammit, Portia’s hiding something, I know it.”
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