Reg hesitated. It had been hard when Starlight had disappeared. She was used to having him around to talk to and for him to help her with her psychic work. She didn’t want to somehow lose him in the winding tunnels of the underground. She might never see him again.
But when she thought of Calliopia and how she couldn’t escape the dark, cold room on her own, Reg had to put aside her own selfish feelings about her cat. He was there to work. He was there to be a helper for her, so she would take him.
She went into the cottage to coax Starlight out and explain to him what was going on. “I’m sorry. I don’t know what you think of all of this. I thought that you’d be a house cat and be nice and safe here all the time. I never thought I’d be taking you out as protection against pixies.”
He rubbed against her, which Reg took to mean that it was alright and he wouldn’t hold it against her. Reg picked him up and headed back out toward Jessup’s car. Corvin wasn’t yet in the car, but hovering nearby.
“Reg… just before we head out… I wanted to apologize to you. Last night at the party… I’d had too much to drink. I lost control, and I know there’s no excuse for that, but… I’m sorry.”
Reg said nothing.
“I said I’m sorry.”
“I heard you.”
“Aren’t you going to accept my apology?”
“Like you said. There’s no excuse for that. And I don’t excuse it. You will pay for attacking me.”
“I wouldn’t have—”
“Get in the car.”
“Regina. We can still be friends…”
“You’re not here because we’re friends. You’re here to help get Calliopia back.”
“I know that…”
Starlight hissed at him, bristling like a porcupine in Reg’s arms.
Reg brushed by him to get into the front seat beside Jessup. She realized she shouldn’t have taken the chance of touching him, but there was no time for him to react, and a second later she was in the car with the door shut.
“Aren’t you coming, Hunter?” Jessup demanded, putting the car into gear.
“Oh, I’m coming with you.” Corvin finally opened the back door and slid onto the bench seat. He shifted around uncomfortably. “You’re not paying me enough to sit on the back seat.”
“Good,” Reg said. “You’re right where you belong.”
Jessup glanced at Reg, obviously wondering what was going on between the two of them. But it wasn’t the time to air their dirty laundry.
Jessup told Corvin what she could of their previous visit to the pixies, describing each tunnel along the way. She told him about Brannock and Demelza and the words that had been exchanged. Then she asked Reg to tell her story of seeing Ruan in front of the school. Reg explained about how she hadn’t felt any deception from him, even though she knew he was lying, and about when he had surprised her by agreeing with her that kidnapping was wrong. Corvin nodded.
“He would have grown up hearing all about fairies stealing babies. It would have been part of his family’s culture, especially since they’d experienced a kidnapping themselves,” Corvin agreed.
In her lap, Starlight stood up on his hind legs and put his front paws on the door of the car to be able to see out as they drove. He watched with interest, as if he were the navigator. As they got closer to the pixie settlement, he got more restless, alternating between looking out the side window and the front window. Then he was suddenly yowling and pawing at Jessup’s arm.
“I think you took a wrong turn,” Corvin suggested, smiling wryly.
“This is the way. It’s the only way I know of to get into the kingdom,” Jessup said irritably. But Starlight continued to paw at her, extending his claws so that he pricked and scratched her arm when she didn’t stop and turn around as quickly as he would have liked. Jessup looked at Reg. “Do you really think he knows what he’s doing? That he really has the intelligence to direct us a different way? I’ve lived here all my life and I don’t know of any other way in.”
Reg shrugged apologetically. “I have no idea. Sometimes I think he knows exactly what he’s doing, and sometimes I think he’s just being annoying. I really can’t tell the difference between the two. I brought him along because Corvin said to, but I have no idea if he even knows what pixies are.”
Starlight turned and nipped at Reg.
“Ow! Okay, okay. He knows what pixies are, and maybe he knows another way in. You choose. Follow the cat or go the way you know.”
Jessup bit her lip. She slowed down and flipped a U-turn in the middle of the road, to the noise of irritated honks from the other drivers. Starlight settled down and watched out the window. Watching him carefully, Reg gave Jessup directions, until they had wound their way all over the broken-down neighborhood and stopped on a road at the edge of a grove of trees. They must have been the only trees in the whole subdivision, and Reg wondered if that was why Starlight had directed them there. Maybe he liked the little forest with its interesting smells and sounds.
They all got out of the car. Reg was holding on to Starlight, but he clawed and kicked with his back legs and she let him go quickly to avoid getting her arms ripped up. As soon as Starlight hit the ground, he was making a beeline to the other side of the clearing.
“Follow that cat,” Corvin said with good humor. They all trailed after him, wondering where he was going to lead them. Starlight wound in between trees, then stopped at a fallen log, a big boulder, and a small hole in the ground leading to some small animal burrow.
“Uh… hate to tell you, cat, but there’s no way any of us are making it down that hole,” Corvin said. “Not even you.”
Reg knelt down on the damp ground and put her ear to the hole, listening. Detective Jessup and Corvin both looked awkward, standing there while Reg knelt by the hole.
She could hear them. It was faint, but unmistakable. The drip of the water, the murmured voices, and when she concentrated hard on Calliopia, the thread of Callie’s song, just reaching the surface.
“He’s right. They’re down here. But I don’t know how to get down to them. I think they might notice if we get an excavator out here.”
“There has to be some way,” Corvin said. “Why would he bring us this way, otherwise? This is where Calliopia is, so this is where we go down.”
He kicked at the boulder and the fallen log. He managed to lift the log up, and Reg saw the white, squirming grubs underneath.
“Ugh. Put it back down.”
“Squeamish, Regina? They’d make a good breakfast.”
“You can eat whatever you like for breakfast. I’m not surprised you’d like something disgusting like that.”
He laughed, seeming pleased by her retort. He pressed his shoulder into the rock and grunted and groaned, trying to push it out of place. It wouldn’t budge.
“I guess we dig, then,” Jessup sighed. “Let’s hope it’s not as deep as it sounds.”
⋆ Chapter Twenty-Six ⋆
I
t wasn’t easy. Jessup had a spade in her car trunk, but that was the only tool they had other than their hands or what they could improvise from the rocks and branches at hand. Corvin did most of the heavy work, deeming Reg too injured to do any shoveling, so mostly she stood around and watched for signals from Starlight and tried to see her way into the tunnels using her psychic abilities.
Eventually, Corvin hit empty space instead of rocks or more dirt, and nearly did a face plant. They helped to widen the hole and clear away any debris that could land on top of them once they went down.
The tunnel started right beside the boulder. The rock had shored up the walls, keeping it all from collapsing into itself over the years since it had gone into disuse. Jessup went first, all of them brushing dirt from their hands and faces.
“What’s going to happen when they find out that we’re in their tunnels without permission?” Reg whispered.
“I’m still going to claim the right to talk to them under the treaty,” Jessup said.
“It’s a stretch, especially if we are not coming in through the official entrance, but I’m going to make it as hard as possible to ignore us and our demands.”
They walked in silence, Starlight slipping to the front of the line to lead the way. He walked with his ears perked high, his pupils big and black in the dimness. Like the other tunnels Reg had been in, they were lit with a ghostly glow with no apparent origin.
And then their inconspicuous entrance was blown. Several male pixies stood in front of them, their childish faces angry.
“Who dares trespass on piskie land?” one of them demanded.
“We are not trespassing. We are here under the treaty,” Jessup asserted. “I am here to take custody of Calliopia.”
“Not a piskie name,” one of them pointed out.
“A long time ago, she was a pixie. And I’m sure her mom and dad hoped that she still would be, and that they could finish raising her and she’d take her place in the pixie family. But things have not worked out that way.”
The pixies exchanged looks with each other.
“Human beings are not welcome here. We have no need for a treaty.”
“There is a treaty, whether you like it or not. This is an official investigation. A missing person report was filed by Calliopia’s parents. We have determined that she is down here. You can turn her over to me. We will take care of the formalities.”
The pixie men gave no indication that they planned to get out of the way. Reg clicked her tongue for Starlight. He looked back at her for a moment, but didn’t go to her. The movement brought the pixies’ attention to the cat, as if they hadn’t noticed him before.
“The humans brought an offering,” one of the pixie men chuckled. “A feast tonight.”
“You are not eating my cat!” Reg snapped, outraged.
Starlight focused on the man who had spoken, headed straight for him. Looking alarmed, the little man stepped back to allow the cat passage. Starlight looked back over his shoulder as if wondering where his humans had gone. Reg started to follow, but the man stepped back in front of her, folding his arms across his chest.
“You are not here under the treaty,” he accused. “You have no business here.”
Reg reached her injured hand out toward him. “You know what this is? You want a closer look? You know I carry fairy blood?”
He looked nervously at the other pixies for their reactions. No one seemed too eager to challenge her. When they looked at each other for moral support, Reg thought she recognized one of the boyish faces.
“Ruan?”
The pixie ducked back to hide from her, but the others moved nervously away from him, so that Reg could see him clearly. It was Ruan. He made a warding gesture toward her. “The human does have fairy blood!” he confirmed. “She burned me without fair warning. Stay well back of her.”
She couldn’t have asked for a better reaction. All of the men took a step or two back from her. Reg was able to follow Starlight. Jessup and Corvin followed close after her, nearly stepping on her heels.
“Humans have no right to be here,” one of the pixies howled, furious about the trespass. He came after them, sharp teeth bared, hands outstretched into claws in front of him. It took a moment for Reg to register first that he was a threat, and second, that he was unarmed, except for his nails and teeth. In the time it took for her to process both of those thoughts, Jessup had raised the knife in the plastic evidence bag in warning.
“Fairy steel!” she warned. “Who wants to test its edge? As a bonus, it’s also been baptized with fairy blood.”
There were hisses from the pixies. The one who was attacking slowed, but didn’t stop. Jessup didn’t stab him with Hawthorne-Rose’s knife, but aimed a punch straight to his chest that knocked him back into the wall of the tunnel. The pixie fell to his knees, white face turning blue as he choked for breath. The other pixies laughed and swarmed him, kicking and hitting. For a moment, Reg was worried that they were going to kill him or even to eat him. Their sharp fangs glistened in the dark, and she had no idea whether cannibalism was a thing among pixies. They certainly looked vicious enough.
“Keep moving,” Jessup whispered, giving Reg a little nudge forward. Jessup waited for Corvin to pass, then brought up the rear, holding out the fairy blade as a warning to other pixies. She should have been in the front. She was the cop. But instead it was the cat who led them while Jessup defended their rear. Ears pricked, Starlight kept a steady path toward Calliopia’s cell, where every few minutes they heard her sing a line or two of her song. Then her voice would fade away, and Reg found herself holding her breath, worried every line would be Calliopia’s last.
Each time they turned a corner, a few more of the pixies fell away, until they were on their own in the dim, dank tunnels.
Finally, they reached the small, dirt-floor room where Calliopia lay on the bed, her face pale and wan, staring into the middle of the dimly-lit room.
Starlight stopped outside the door and looked at them. Reg remembered how Jessup had said that Calliopia’s family was allergic to cats, and wondered whether Starlight sensed that. She went into the room and approached Callie.
“Calliopia? We’re here to take you home. Are you okay?”
Calliopia continued to stare into the middle of the room, not looking at Reg. The chill of the room washed over Reg and she shivered.
“Callie? Callie, we’re here to help you.”
Corvin followed close behind her and looked quickly around, as if expecting another attack from the pixies from within the room.
Jessup stopped at the threshold and looked down at Starlight.
⋆ Chapter Twenty-Seven ⋆
W
hat is it?” Reg asked.
Jessup didn’t answer. Corvin looked at Reg and looked at Starlight.
“You have a very smart cat.”
“Yes, I know.”
“Why didn’t he enter?”
“I guess because Calliopia’s allergic. Jessup said that the other day.”
“I’m sure she was just being tactful. Fairies aren’t allergic to cats, they are enemies.”
“Is there anyone fairies are not enemies with?”
“Not many. So why didn’t the cat come in?”
“Well, if they’re enemies, maybe he doesn’t feel like it. He brought us this far, but he doesn’t want to have to deal with a fairy directly.”
“When was the last time you saw a cat avoid someone because they didn’t like cats? From what I’ve observed, they always show the most interest in the people who dislike them. And your tux has not been an exception.”
Reg wondered why Corvin never called Starlight by his name.
“Why does it matter? He brought us here. We need to get Calliopia and get out of here.”
Corvin walked back to the doorway and walked through. He looked relieved when he was able to walk back out without being stopped by some spell or forcefield.
“Satisfied?” Reg asked, exasperated. “Now let’s get Callie out of here.”
Corvin walked back in. Starlight and Jessup remained outside. Jessup looked down at Starlight.
“What’s going on here?” she asked him. “Where did they go?”
Reg frowned at Corvin. “What?”
“I think we might have a problem,” he said, voice grave.
Reg looked at him, then held her hands out in front of her and looked at them. “What? What are you talking about?”
“Marta?” Corvin spoke to Jessup. “What do you see?”
She didn’t look at him. She bent down to pet Starlight, looking up and down the halls for trouble. “Pixie magic,” she murmured as she stroked him. “I don’t like this. Where are they? And where did all of the pixies go?”
Starlight looked into the room, but still didn’t enter. Reg’s stomach knotted.
“Can’t she see and hear us?”
“It would appear not.” Corvin looked at his hands, as Reg had done.
“But we can go back out.
We’re not trapped. Won’t that reverse whatever spell they’ve put on us?”
Without waiting for an answer, Reg left the room, walking back out through the open doorway. But Jessup’s manner didn’t change. She didn’t suddenly see Reg, but continued to look around her, alert for trouble, trying to sort it out.
Reg reached out to touch her. But the closer she got to Jessup, the thicker the air seemed to get. Before she could touch Jessup, the air was buzzing like she was standing next to a power transformer. She could feel the hair rising on her arms and scalp. She stopped, worried that if she were actually able to make contact with Jessup’s skin, she would be zapped with an electrical shock like a bolt of lightning. She turned and looked back at Corvin, still in the room with Calliopia, nearly as pale as she was.
“Corvin? Do you know what’s going on?”
He swallowed and didn’t answer right away. He looked back at Calliopia. “I have an idea of what’s going on,” he admitted.
“What?”
“The pixies inhabit two worlds. Our world, and the world of shades.”
Reg shuddered. “What’s that? Do you mean the spirit world? Where the spirits go when they cross over?”
“No. It’s not the same thing—at least, not as far as we understand. It’s hard for humans to comprehend how the unseen worlds work and relate to each other. I don’t know how much you know about pixies…?”
“Next to nothing.”
“Well…” He considered what to tell her. “They have the ability to hide or disappear quickly. In some places, you can see them as shadows, if you are looking close enough.”
Reg nodded. “Yes. I’ve seen that.”
“Then you know more than you let on. That ability comes from the fact that they inhabit these two worlds, or two planes. They can be in the visible realm, or they can be in the shadow world. Much more difficult for us to see. Impossible for some. Easier for those who have the sight.” He nodded at her.
A Psychic with Catitude Page 15