She looked into the mess of showcases. It seemed like a logical and presentable organization until you hid a criminal somewhere in its midst. Then it suddenly became an overgrown jungle with pockets and hiding places galore. She inched forward, the cane gripped in both hands. Mariel had shown her plenty to defend herself against an unknown assailant, but she needed it to happen. Her nerves were fraying the longer this went on; too long without action and she might just collapse.
She stepped forward and moved around a cabinet, slinking low and pushing open its large bottom door. She prodded it open with the end of the cane. Empty. She reached down, grabbing the small handle with her fingers and pulled it back closed. Something darted out in her peripheral vision. All her brain identified was a hood and oversized clothing.
They were running away from her, not toward. Her throat went dry: they were headed for the common room. There was no way she was going to be able to find them if they slipped in there. Then she and Joe both would be in danger until it was over. She had to do something. She needed a moment to think – but there were no moments left to spend. Her instincts took over and before she knew it, she had already let the cane loose, turning end over end as it chased the intruder down the aisle, faster and more efficiently than she ever could have.
She heard the cane connect with the back of the hood: a loud, echoing crack. The figure crumpled and Ren shuddered at the awful sound. She wanted to feel bad, but at the same time, felt relief that the moment had passed and the crisis was over.
Unless there’s more than one intruder. She hated her brain for having that thought, but she remained cautious just the same. Watching the collapsed figure, she moved to the window and waved Joe in.
The two girls stood over the crumpled heap, trying to decide what to do. Ren had already put Joe on alert as well; though they were both pretty sure this one was acting alone.
Black hoodie, gloves, and running pants. Definitely a thief.
Ren knelt next to the body, grabbing a shoulder. She heaved back, rolling the thief over onto its back. She corrected herself; it was definitely a he. She could see the broad chest and the firm jawline.
“Joe, get something to restrain him.” Joe nodded and turned back to the common room.
She was going to suggest duct tape, but her voice abandoned her. All other thoughts that had been passing through her mind stopped dead in their tracks and gave their full attention to this moment.
Ren had one hand in a firm grip on the shoulder of the hoodie still, the other hand ready at a moment’s notice to bring the cane up if she needed it, but she almost lost both as the hood fell back off his face.
He looked a few years younger than her, late teens at the oldest. He had short brown hair, cropped close in the military style. But it wasn’t his hair that startled her – it was his face.
His brow was angled sharp as it curved toward the bridge of his nose. The nose itself was flat and wide and slightly rounded, but not like any other nose she had seen on a human face. His nostrils flared strangely from beneath the rim of his nose, rather than the sides. At first glance, his upper lip appeared to be swollen, but on a second inspection, it was split in two by an indentation and each half was more pronounced – like a cat’s.
Exactly like a cat’s.
His skin was covered in a short layer of fuzz – very much like fur – that gave his features a soft glow. She turned his head, almost expecting cat ears. To her disappointment, they were almost human. They were, however, pointed, set further back on his head, and curved deeper.
It didn’t seem possible, but she was staring down into the face of a cat person. There was no other way to say it. She fought the magic of the moment and tried to pocket it away so she could gush later.
“What are you?” Her words were soft, stunned. Her brow creased with curiosity. He might have had the upper hand if he had rushed at her, not away. “What were you up to?” She looked around the room, from where he had been hiding, trying to will the answer to appear.
There was a gasp and a coo behind her as Joe returned with the tape, letting it fall to the carpet with a thud.
“He’s beautiful. Is he-“ Joe’s eyes darted quickly between Ren and the collapsed figure.
“I don’t know what he is. But he’s definitely our burglar.”
“Cat burglar.” Joe snickered. Ren rolled her eyes, trying to hide her smile.
She gestured to his wrists and Joe grabbed them, Ren taking his ankles and they began to shuffle him out of the room. As they crossed the threshold, Ren eyed a chair to put him in. She gestured with her head and started shuffling in a new direction. They doubled up on the duct tape bindings, not certain how strong he was, or how capable. To the casual observer, their use of tape might seem excessive, but for them, it was best to be cautious. They were careful to keep the tape to clothed areas – it was bad enough pulling hairs when removing a bandage, she couldn’t imagine the pain of taking the tape off his fur. When they finished, they eyed their handiwork and sat down, both curious about how long he’d be out.
As they waited, Joe cooed. “Do you think Mariel will let us keep him?”
NINE
Joe’s fascination with their acquisition did not let up, even after two hours of silent slumber. She would find excuses to get up, studying him. She would watch carefully for minutes, making sure he was still unconscious, squinching up her face and tilting her head this way and that. She leaned in for better looks, ever closer. Carefully, cautiously. She moved like a lion tamer about to tempt fate by putting her head in the animal’s mouth.
“You know, he’s weird… but he’s really cute.” She looked to Ren for some sign of agreement. Ren could only raise an eyebrow over her book. “I don’t mean like cute-cute, I mean adorable. Like I just want to pet his cute little nose.”
“Relax, Joe.”
“What?” She was much too close, even with his bindings. “Oh, right.”
Joe went back to her spot on the couch, waiting impatiently. The knock to his skull was more severe than they presumed. Ren had leaned on the conservative side of estimates, but she had heard the sound. She knew how solid the contact was. She was hoping that she hadn’t put him in a coma. She tried to remind herself that he had broken into their home; he had threatened their safety. It had been her only recourse. Ren felt bad for what she did, but mostly because Joe was right: he was adorable. It was hard to think that she had done harm to something – someone – so cute. She shook her head and tried to pry the thought loose. She wasn’t going to be able to play tough if she kept thinking about his fuzzy little nose.
The room fell into a calm, the only real sound in the room being Joe’s needles sliding against each other. It was a hobby Colette had started her on years ago, and she had found it both relaxing – as Colette had hoped – when she was doing well, and frustrating when she did badly. Keeping watch and knitting quickly without looking at her work was a recipe for ultimate disaster; as was apparent in her furrowed brow and gnashing teeth. Ren was trying to look calm. She continued to stare at the pages in front of her, occasionally turning to a new one, but she wasn’t reading. She was trying to solve a riddle in her head. It seemed too coincidental, all these things happening at once.
First, Mariel and Colette leave on their trip. Then, she and Joe leave the house. Months without anything more volatile than a child putting chewing gum under the lid of an antique hope chest, now they were neck deep in a confrontation that would only get worse the moment he woke. She pursed her lips in frustration. Nothing was adding up yet; that meant that pieces of the puzzle were still missing.
Finally, after hours fearing the worst, he moaned slightly and his head lulled to the side. Joe perked up a bit too much in reaction to this. Ren snapped her book closed, hard, grabbing Joe’s attention as Ren signaled her with one flash of a look. He raised his head, large wide eyes opened slowly, then blinked hard. They didn’t reopen.
“No, no, no. Come on. It’s about time you woke up, don�
��t you think?” Joe looked back at her and Ren realized that her voice was not completely her own. She had stolen the note of authority Mariel usually spoke in. She had no desire to hurt him, but she would play tough as long as she was able. She needed answers and if it came down to intimidation, she might have to try it. She needed answers.
His eyes fluttered open again, and he gave the room a once-over with little recognition. His brain was still stunned. He blinked again, his eyes widening as his vision tracked back in the direction they had come. Though Ren tried to hold it in, they both gasped. His eyes were stunning. There was no sclera – no white to speak of at all – just a brilliant green and gold iris. The shimmering emerald pools each held one black oval stone deep within them. A stone that quickly disappeared into a thin black slit that sparked with fire and life as he came to.
He tried to move, whether to leap or charge, she wasn’t sure, but the shoulders led and the legs followed, neither getting very far before his limbs met resistance. It didn’t matter how quickly he had been forced back into his seat by gravity; they had both reacted. Ren had flinched and Joe leapt back. He tested his bindings twice more before he bared his teeth, glaring at them both under a heavy, angry brow.
“If you would just relax, we could get this all under way.”
Ren played as cool as she could under the circumstances. She had to admit to herself that she didn’t expect this much fight from him right away.
Someone really let the cat out of the bag on this one. She fought down a smile, but it still crept through. She’d have to find a time to work that in later.
He was panting, still trying to resist the bonds that contained him. He snapped his head back and forth between the two girls growling low and long.
“You’re not going to get anything from me.”
Ren shrugged. “Fine. You won’t get anything from us either. You’ll probably waste away to nothing in here, tied to that chair. How long do you think you can hold out?”
Joe leaned in; it was a good line to follow. “Better yet, how long do you think you can last before your butt goes numb? That’s where the real torture begins.”
Ren was not ready for the sudden tangent, but it appeared that he wasn’t either. When she caught Joe’s eye, she nodding, urging her on.
“That’s one of those old church chairs that the altar boys sat in during mass. They’re fine if you only need a minute or two to rest between sacraments, but murder on the glutes if you have to sit in it for any reasonable length of time. Sitting there is bad enough, but then you feel that nervous need to move, even just a shift of the weight.” Ren was having a hard time keeping a straight face, but she had to admit, Joe was good. The burglar’s face kept with her, his eyes only moving away for a moment, then snapping right back to her. She stumbled onto a very convincing argument. It was insane, but she was making it work. “Once it’s in the muscles, the pain is in every movement. Good luck with that.”
He shifted uncomfortably. The anger seemed to be gone from his eyes, but neither girl was about to let up their guard.
“Do you have a name? Something we can call you by at least?” Ren had accepted her role as ‘good’ cop, although she wasn’t sure that Joe couldn’t do both with this act.
“It’s going to be weird trying to talk to you if we have to refer to you as ‘Boy’ or ‘Guy’ or ‘Strange person that broke into our home’.”
He said nothing, his head bent at an uncomfortable looking angle as he stared downward.
They gestured back and forth over him, playing out a silent debate of what to do next. Ren realized she had no plan beyond where they already were. If he wasn’t going to talk of his own accord, she couldn’t see herself forcing him to do so. She could be forceful, but not torturous. Joe on the other hand, by the pantomimes she was making, was suggesting some creative forms of serious harm. Ren could only repeat the same motion over and over, meeting Joe’s disappointed pout time and again.
They were so focused on interpreting each other’s gestures; they almost missed the first step in the right direction.
It came in a small sigh and a long exhale, followed by a single word.
“Tau.”
They looked back and forth, gesturing again.
Ren cleared her throat. “Well, that’s about the last thing I was expecting.” She scrambled for another question before he decided that way all the conversation he was in the mood for. “Um, how are you, Tau?”
He raised his head. His eyes sparkled, the anger rekindling a fire behind them.
“I am tied to an uncomfortable chair that you promise will only get worse. This is after an awful headache and a possible concussion. How do you think I am?”
Ren was taken back, feeling like she needed to go on the defensive. She paused and let the moment pass. He was playing with her. Maybe he was used to being in troubling situations. They were going to have to drive home the point that they would not be intimidated in their own home.
“If you hadn’t broken in, this conversation wouldn’t be taking place. At all. So don’t blame us for your misfortune.” Josephine intervened, showing an aggression that was not typically hers. Ren let her have it. It was probably cathartic, and it seemed to be helping their cause as well. “Next question: what are you?”
He tried to glare, but resigned as he looked up at them.
“I am a Massay. My granddad used to say our people could be traced to ancient Egypt when Bast walked the Nile delta. She offered herself to men of superior power and skill, promising a family worthy of their superiority. She gave life to the Massay, her children.”
Ren and Joe looked at each other.
“Bast. As in the Cat Goddess?”
He peered at Ren. “Does my face imply another deity?”
Joe jabbed Ren, laughing softly.
“Legend says that in the beginning, the Massay grew up side by side with their human brothers. But when the old ones were forgotten, prejudice began. My ancestors were treated like freaks, driven from their homes by angry mobs. First driven from Lower Egypt, then from Egypt completely. Many travelled south, deeper into Africa. The rest sought new lands, travelling into Asia. There, the remaining travelers parted ways. Most headed further east, finally settling in China. The smallest group – the strongest of us – turned to the north and the west, eventually finding refuge in the forests of Eastern Europe.”
“With the gypsies?” Ren’s question was not necessarily meant for the open air, but it slipped out anyway. Tau shook his head with a small smile.
“The gypsies learned their way from us.” The smile faded as he looked away. “It’s hard to set up roots when your people are the source of the werewolf myth.”
Ren and Joe looked at each other. It stood to reason: in the dark, glowing eyes and fangs could be anything, though eastern Europe is not necessarily known for large cats in their wilds.
The thought aside, they could only stare. His resignation had turned into full disclosure. They had no idea what to make of it. Even if he was making the whole thing up, he spoke with such certainty, such ease that it was clear he believed what he was saying.
“So, you’re a… cat person.” Joe curtailed.
“In layman’s terms, sure. But I hardly consider myself anything as lowly and ordinary as a ‘person’.”
“Fine. You’re a being whose lineage traces back to a god. Sure. That doesn’t explain why you broke into our home.”
“I had no choice.”
“There is always a choice.” Ren spit the words, angered by his sudden case of pride.
“Right, but the alternative wasn’t much of a choice, so here we are.”
Ren feigned a pout. “It’s always a bummer when the other option isn’t grand larceny.”
His eyes rimmed with red as he stared hard up at her. “Putting myself at risk here meant keeping my sister safe.”
He cleared his throat and looked away as Ren’s breath caught in her own. She looked to Joe instinctively, her hands cl
enched tightly together at the terrible thought.
“Panya was kidnapped and I was given specific instructions to steal a journal.” Ren felt that pang again, the alarm ringing in her brain. “I will never see her again, unless I find that journal. I –” He coughed, his emotions getting the better of him. “I can’t let her down.”
Joe and Ren shared a look; Joe seemed confused and concerned. Ren knew that now was not the time to divulge that she might know exactly what he was referring to. Could it be hidden away after all? As far as she was aware, there was only one that was not accounted for. It wasn’t likely he was looking for any of the journals that were on display.
“Well, we can’t just let you go.” Ren ran a list of pros and cons in her head. She weighed the various factors of letting him go and was not really thrilled about any of the outcomes. “But we might be able to help.” Joe and Tau both looked equally shocked. Joe’s eyes only wanted to know whose brain was suddenly occupying the space in Ren’s skull.
“First I’m beaten, now you want to help? Just tell me what you want.”
“You broke in, we reacted. You’re lucky she showed you mercy. You are in no position to be making demands.” Joe was exercizing her bravado, and while Ren appreciated someone in her corner, filling the air while she stammered, it was really just dumb luck that she got the upper hand.
No one needs to know that part, though. Just like no one needs to know there is a journal missing.
What had become of the journal in question? What did its absence mean? Why wasn’t Mariel here to handle this one thing? How would she react to this? Had Mariel been keeping secrets? Ren clenched her fist and hoped that it was for her own protection. But she wasn’t confident that was the case, not yet, and this wasn’t the time for such small worries. There was a bigger issue at hand. Someone was after something in their house. Something important enough to already be missing. Where was it? Who moved it? And who is after it now?
House of Thirteen Page 11
