Into the Woods

by Kim Harrison

  “Neither would the Withons,” Trent said, his exasperation turning into a weary elation, but Jenks had already zipped off. He should have told Jenks what to look for. Why did he keep treating him like an accessory? The man was more efficient than Quen at thinking on his feet and had more endurance than one of his racehorses.

  From inside the tiny boat, Lucy began to cry, scared upon waking up in a rocking, shifting world of color and sound after her bland sterile room at the Withons’. Treading water, Trent looked in the direction that Jenks had gone, hearing a boat but not seeing it. He carefully pulled back the protective cover, using his weight to lean it enough that he could see in.

  “Hi,” he whispered, and her eyes fastened on him, her momentary confusion at finding him with his hair plastered to his head passing at the sound of his voice. “We’re going to be okay, Lucy,” he said, and she kicked at him as if disagreeing. “You watch, Jenks is going to get them, and we’ll be okay.”

  A marine horn tooted, and he looked up, waving at the row of people standing at the railing of the two-story whale-watching boat, binoculars all aimed at him. His heart pounded, and he felt a wash of protectiveness pass through him. Lucy’s eyes drifted, finding Jenks as the pixy spiraled down, dusting heavily. “I told them you were waterskiing and the boat crashed,” he said, darting off his first landing place that was within Lucy’s reach.

  “Excuse me?” Trent pushed the damp hair from his face.

  “Seriously, I told them you misjudged the tides, and your boat drifted off while you were out walkies with your kid,” he added, kicking at the air-filled cradle. “You’re going to have to explain it from there. I don’t know what you’re going to tell them about her ears.”

  Trent frowned, thinking it was a bad story to begin with, but the chugging of the boat’s engine was growing loud, and Jenks darted off as helping hands reached over the side of the boat. Some were brown from the sun, others white with age, but he smiled as he accepted them, feeling reborn as they took first Lucy, then himself, dripping from the water.

  It was a confused babble of excitement as tourists cooed over Lucy, making her cry until he took her back. The men surrounded Trent, talking of tides and past fishing excursions, and he sniffed, saying as little as he could, accepting the blanket that someone offered him, and then the diaper and cleaning cloths from someone else, cheerfully given from a worn diaper bag. No one remarked upon Lucy’s ears, no one asked what they were doing in the water. For the first time, he felt accepted as a person, and the new emotion soaked into him. The difference had to be Lucy.

  Finally all the questions were answered, all the women pacified, all the men in a corner still talking of the dangers of being on the water, all the kids distracted by Jenks on the far side of the boat. The sun was warm, and he held his daughter in his arms, both of them in borrowed clothes, both swaddled in blankets against the stiff wind.

  Finding no eyes on them, Trent slipped to the lee side of the wind next to the boathouse, settling into the patch of sun with a tired sigh. The soft thrum of the engine worked its way up into him, as he sat with his back to the wall, his feet propped up most ungentlemanly on the seat so he could hold Lucy more securely.

  Smiling, he looked down at her sleeping, her soft frown easing as he touched her tiny hand with a single finger, watching the way the wind shifted her fair hair about her pointy ears. “I think we’re going to be okay, Lucy,” he whispered, and he leaned his head back, eyes shutting against the bright sun, listening to the wind and water, peace and exhaustion working together to ease him into the first good sleep in days.

  They would be okay. He believed it to the bottom of his soul. Rescuing Lucy was the easy part. Surviving the next twenty years was going to be a little more chancy. After today, he thought he could do it with help, and now he thought he had the courage to ask for it.

  Lucy would give him strength.

  BEYOND THE HOLLOWS

  Pet Shop Boys

  I originally wrote “Pet Shop Boys” as one of two possibilities for an anthology. I don’t submit to many anthologies, but this group came to me through my agent, impressed with my Dawn Cook titles, and asked me to try my hand at writing about vampires. This was before the dual nature of Kim and Dawn had been revealed, and I was so tickled they asked that my automatic no turned into a yes. I worked up two shorts, trying to get as far away from the Hollows vampire mythology as I could. Under the advice of my agent that “Pet Shop Boys” had the potential to become a series, I retained it to sit in my cabinet until now.

  I’ve long loved the idea of the fey living in a world twin to ours, passing through to snare the unwary when the veil was the thinnest. Bringing vampires into the mix was the icing on the cake.

  ONE

  Good luck with the puppy,” Cooper called as the boy leaned back against the glass door, the bells ringing as he tried to push it open. It wasn’t until the boy’s dad lent a hand that the night air slipped in with a dusting of snow and they got outside, their new bundle of yaps and wet spots on the carpet wiggling in the boy’s arms.

  “And have a merry Christmas,” he muttered as the door jingled closed behind them. He didn’t like selling dogs and cats when there were strays that needed homes, but the owner, Kay, insisted on always having dogs, and sometimes cats. The Lab pup was the last of the litter, and the shop now felt empty without the soft snuffing and hush of paws on newspaper.

  Tired, Cooper rubbed the back of his neck, head bowed as he came around the counter to hang up the six collars the father and boy had been deciding between. Snatching a fold of newspapers, he knelt by the open-topped mesh corral to wad up the used paper and lay new for the next litter. The bubbling of the fish tanks and twittering of finches slowly returned the pet shop into the peaceful haven that had convinced him to work here at minimum wage instead of taking the professor’s assistant job he’d turned down three years ago.

  Kay might have had something to do with it, though. Sex in jeans with her own money, she seemed to enjoy his company but kept him totally at arm’s length. He didn’t get it. Every time he was tempted to bag it, she gave him just enough encouragement to stay. God, he was a chump. He didn’t want to be thirty and still cleaning up someone else’s dog crap.

  Grimacing, he rose to throw the papers away, pushing through the sheets of milky plastic that separated the back room from the store. The storage room/office was cold—it had been snowing all day with only the dog people coming in since it had become dark. He was tempted to flick the Closed sign around early, but Kay would give him hell for closing before eight.

  It’d give me an excuse to talk to her, he thought as he trashed the papers and grabbed the disinfectant spray. Kay spent most of her time in the back when she was in. Cooper was the one who actually ran the place—except for the dogs. Kay brought them in from some exclusive breeder. The cats were from a local shelter.

  The warmth of the store was welcoming as he slipped back through the plastic curtain. A quick spray, and the round kennel was clean, all evidence of the dog erased under the scent of bleach. Cooper straightened with a sigh. Twenty-five and a pet shop geek. He’d swear Kay wasn’t gay—the occasional flirting suggested otherwise. Maybe it was him.

  The sudden whirling of the birds in their cages brought his head up, and the hair on the back of his neck pricked. Feeling like winter had slipped in under the door, Cooper turned to the big plate-glass windows dark with night and the peaceful falling snow in the streetlight. His eyes widened at the little girl, no more than nine, standing in the middle of the aisle: white tights, little black shoes, and a coat made of black fur. Her vividly red hair was straight under a matching fur hat, and her hands were hidden in a muff.

  “Oh! Hi!” Cooper stammered, pitching his voice high as he looked for a parent. “You surprised me! How long have you been in here?” She must have come in while he was in the back, but he hadn’t heard the bells ring.

  The little girl beamed. “Did I?” she said cheerfully, seeming t
o think it funny to have scared a grown-up. “May I see the kittens?”

  Cooper nodded as he set the spray bottle on a back counter, trying to hide his annoyance. He liked kids, but not when their parents dropped them off as if he was a babysitter—especially fifteen minutes to closing. “Sure, but don’t let them out, okay?”

  Huffing a sigh of preteen independence, she strode confidently to the multistory cat cage. Crouching, she made a tiny trill of sound, and two gray heads and one black one popped up from the sleeping pile. The kittens fell over themselves to reach her, pressing against the mesh and meowing. “They like me,” she said shyly, endearing as she glanced at him with her green eyes.

  Cooper stood with his arms over his chest and looked at his watch. He couldn’t kick her out. It was cold outside. “Is your mom around, sweetheart?” he asked. There was a discount store across the street, but it was closed. Maybe the bar down the way. The girl seemed as if she was used to being alone.

  “I want the black one.” She looked up, her hair framing an almost triangular face and lips too red for such a little girl, fingers pushed into the cage as far as she could get them. “She looks like me.”

  Cooper dropped back a step and smiled. He didn’t see the resemblance, but he wasn’t nine years old. “You can have her if your mother says it’s okay. Why don’t you go get her? We close in five minutes.”

  The girl pulled her hand from the cage and stood, her eyes alight. “I’ll trade you for her.”

  Oh, for crying out loud . . . Cooper glanced at the Open sign and sighed. He’d dealt with children before. “My boss won’t let me trade. Is your mother at the bar, honey?” He was getting the oddest vibe from the kid, a weird mix of wealth and abandonment, like a child of privilege raised by a rich drunk, a child never lacking for anything except a constant source of love, forced to take it in overindulgent spurts when sobriety hit.

  “I’ll trade you.” The little girl confidently got to her feet and reached into her muff. “His name is Leonard. He bites, the little brat. I wanted a cat so we could play, but Mama picked a dumb bat. See?”

  Cooper’s eyes widened when her thin fingers opened to show a mouse-size wad of fur coiled up and its eyes tightly closed. She’s got a bat! he thought, images of rabies and needles racing through him. “Oh, sweetheart,” he said, swooping to the nearby display stand for a rodent box. “Put it in here. You shouldn’t ever play with a bat. Never, ever.”

  “See! That’s what I told Mama!” she said triumphantly as her little white hand dropped the dead or unconscious animal into the box, and Cooper closed it, stifling a shiver as the animal’s tiny nails scraped. “She thinks bats are safe ’cause they can fly, but I like cats. They can sneak around even in the day.”

  Oh my God, Cooper thought, wondering if he should take the little girl in the back to wash her hands. A bat that let you pick it up wasn’t healthy. Who the hell was supposed to be watching her? “Honey, do you know your mom’s phone number?”

  “You want to trade?” she asked, innocent eyes wide.

  A chill took him as he patted her head. “If your mother says it’s okay. Do you have her cell number?”

  From the front of the shop, a feminine clearing of a throat startled him. Snatching his hand from the little girl, he spun to the woman standing just inside the door, arms over her chest and her hip cocked as she looked severely at the little girl.

  The bells didn’t ring, he thought as the little girl scuffed her shiny party shoes, the black kitten settling in her arms and almost disappearing in the girl’s fur coat. How . . . , he thought. How did she get the cat out of the cage so fast?

  “Emily, I told you to wait for me,” the woman said as she approached, her narrow hips swaying and pointy boots making a decisive tap on the oak flooring. But for all of Cooper’s worry that she’d seen him touch her daughter, the woman was clearly amused, her angular face and small nose showing a delightful good humor. The family resemblance was obvious, from their red hair to the deep green of their eyes, skin so pale as to make their lips blood-red.

  Cooper’s face warmed, and he stepped away from the little girl. He shouldn’t have touched her, but by God, a child shouldn’t be running around with a dead bat in her pocket.

  “I was careful, Mama,” the little girl said defiantly. “I waited until the dog left.”

  “I’m not angry about the dog,” the woman said as she laid a possessive hand on her daughter’s shoulder. “You can’t sell Leonard, no matter how you dislike him.”

  “He bites!” she protested. “I hate him! You always take his side, and it’s not fair!”

  “Ma’am, any bat that lets you pick it up is ill. I have to turn it over to Animal Control,” Cooper started, wanting them out of his store but having a legal responsibility, too.

  “The bat is a pet,” the woman said. “It has never seen the night sky but for today.” Her eyes narrowed in a staged severity as she glanced at her daughter. “You and I are going to have a chat, young lady.”

  Cooper hesitated, and the woman extended a long slim hand for the box. He couldn’t help but notice there was no wedding ring, and her smile held a sly evaluation as his eyes rose from it to find she had seen him look.

  “Please,” she said, her voice softening. “The bat isn’t ill. I wouldn’t allow my daughter access to disease-ridden vermin. What do you take me for?” She laughed, throwing her head back to show her long, beautiful neck, and the birds fluttered, clinging to the mesh and twittering.

  Uneasy, Cooper handed her the box. “A pet?” The woman obviously wasn’t a drunk; she looked thin from aerobics and Pilates, not alcohol. “I think he’s dead,” Cooper added, and the woman’s expression fell.

  Jerking, she popped the box open, her eyes closing in relief as she brought the bat out and held it for a moment before carefully placing it in her coat pocket. “He’s sleeping,” the woman said in relief, shooting an angry look at her daughter, who was now holding the kitten like a baby, rocking back and forth and crooning.

  “Please, Mama,” she said, her loving gaze fixed on the kitten. “You never let me have anything.”

  The woman’s eyebrows rose. “Don’t I just? Well, how would you like me giving you a year’s grounding?”

  “Mama!”

  “Put the cat back and wait for me outside, or I’ll make it two!”

  Emily puckered her lips, and Cooper thought he was going see a temper tantrum to end all tantrums, but when her mother cocked her head, the little girl lost her bluster. “I waited and waited,” she whined, swaying petulantly to make the hem of her coat hit her legs. “I was patient, just like you said. You never let me have anything!” But it was soft in defeat, and Cooper took the kitten, feeling awkward as the little girl stomped to the door and pushed the heavy door open, the bells making only a dull thud against the glass as she went out.

  Cooper shivered in the draft before turning back to the woman. Damn, she was striking, her cheekbones high and her eyes wide and full of a questioning depth as she waited for Cooper to stop watching her daughter skipping across the snowy parking lot to the late-model Jaguar.

  “Sorry,” he said, embarrassed for no reason he could fathom. He wasn’t the one with the kid running around with a bat.

  She smiled to show very white teeth. “Don’t be,” she said, reaching to touch his shoulder before turning to the window. Surprised, Cooper froze. “I know how this looks,” she said softly, watching Emily dance in a puddle of light with her arms raised to catch the drifting snow, her chiming laughter somehow making it through the glass. “Emily is a precocious thing. I appreciate you not calling the authorities. The bat is part of a well-maintained colony. He isn’t ill, just ill-tempered. Teething.”

  With a small sigh, she started for the door. Cooper touched his arm, feeling as if her hand was still there. He couldn’t help but watch her legs in her black nylons, gaze rising to her round, very grabbable ass, and then to her thin waist, all shown off by an expensive-looking leather coat
. He sighed as well, for an entirely different reason, flushing when the woman paused, clearly having heard him. Poised before the door, she turned. “The snow is beautiful tonight. Are you free?”

  “Uh, no,” he muttered, suddenly uneasy. Kitten still in his arms, he went behind the counter. The woman was gorgeous, sexy, and sophisticated. What would she want with him?

  Hand on the door, she looked to her daughter, a wistful expression on her face. “She misses her father.”

  “Really.” He didn’t know what to say, and he perched himself on the worn stool. He couldn’t help but look. But that was as far as it was going to ever go. Right?

  “She’s been watching your store for months,” the woman said, her heels tapping a curious tat-a-tat, tat-tat beat as she came back to him. “Her heart has been set on a kitten, but I won’t allow her to take a stray. Must not start bad habits. It’s sweet, really. She thinks you’re immeasurably brave for taking care of dogs. She calls you the dog master.”

  Cooper nodded, looking at a clipboard of fish inventory as he began cursing himself. A lonely, rich, beautiful woman was coming on to him, and he was looking at fish totals? But with a young child and a dead or divorced husband, she would have enough emotional baggage to ground a plane. He didn’t want to become involved no matter how good the sex might be, even crazy good. “No harm, no foul,” he said, jaw clenched.

  “Well,” the woman said as she stood before him, her hands spaced wide on the counter, “you’re being extremely nice about it. I feel as if I owe you dinner at least.”

  Cooper glanced up, but his refusal hesitated at the look in her eyes: hesitant, hopeful . . . vulnerable. “No, really. It’s okay,” came out instead his intended, “Sorry, I’m busy.”