“At your house?” Larry suggested, pointedly walking to the front door as he spoke. He was still barefoot, and he still didn’t pay any attention to the glass crunching under his feet.
My own feet, punctured by the spines on the fae’s back, were oddly numb. That should have been a good thing, because they’d hurt like the dickens when I’d first regained my human shape. But I lived in the land of cheatgrass, where the arrowhead-like seedpods could burrow into paws and fester out months later. I hadn’t had it happen, but my cat had. I needed to remember to look at them—or have someone else look at them.
I’d wait until tomorrow, I thought, shivering a little as the autumn air blew in through the broken window. I looked at Adam—who was watching me.
I shrugged and followed Larry out of the house. Adam shut the door. It looked as though a good wind would make it pop open again, but if someone wanted to get into the house, there was a gaping hole where the window used to be.
All three of us walked to the SUV.
“You have reason to warn us away from the seethe?” Adam asked.
“Not warning you away,” Larry disagreed. “But I have some things you need to know. I’m not willing to talk where I can be overheard. Not on the phone.”
Adam looked at me.
I needed to find Stefan. Horrible, horrible things could be done to people who are as tough as vampires were. I recalled his voice, “Hic sunt wolves.” The edge of fear in it made me think that finding him was urgent.
I rubbed my forehead and realized that my hand was a little sore, too. Had I really heard Stefan? It didn’t matter. We still needed to find him.
I looked back at Stefan’s house with the broken door and broken front window.
“Larry?” I asked. “Why didn’t you just come through the door?”
“The window was easy,” he said. “And people expect you to come through doors. I don’t much like doing things people expect me to do. That trait contributes to my long life.”
I thought of Marsilia in her black smoke gown, and of Stefan’s house being emptied and invaded. All the questions and none of the answers. Perhaps I should make a decision that would contribute to my chance of living a long life.
“Maybe invading the seethe should be done in daylight hours,” I said. “And probably we should bring some backup.”
Adam raised an eyebrow. “Invasion? My intention was to knock on the door. Just like we did here.” He looked at Stefan’s broken front door and made a thoughtful noise. “There is a very good chance it might end up the same way this one did.”
“Let’s not do that now,” I suggested.
Adam said, “All right. We’ll go to our house.” Adam looked at Larry. “Would you like a ride?”
There was no sign of another car.
“I have one,” Larry said, giving a whistle.
Out of the shadows on the far side of the shrouded Mystery Machine trotted a largish pony wearing neither bridle nor saddle, her hooves clopping on the driveway cement. She was one of those odd, found-only-in-ponies colors. Her body was seal brown, and her thick mane and tail were a light, almost silvery gray.
As Larry swung aboard her, she gave me a wicked look, pinning her ears and crinkling her nose. Larry soothed her in a language that was not Welsh (which I’d grown up hearing people speak) but related somehow. Cornish, maybe. I’d heard him use it before. Someday I’d ask him what it was.
He should have looked ridiculous on such a small animal—his legs dangled almost to her knees—but they suited each other. She sidled and he followed her movement with the grace of a born horseman. Bran’s son Charles rode like that.
“I will meet you at your house,” he said—and they were off at a brisk canter.
Horses make noise when they run, the impact of their weight hitting the ground and the strike of the hoof. They make more noise when they run on hard surfaces like roads and sidewalks. Larry and his pony made no noise at all.
—
Larry was sitting on our front steps when we drove in. He had taken the time to change into more usual clothing—boots, jeans, and T-shirt. Behind him, Tad leaned against the door, as if he were blocking Larry’s way in. Their body language made me think that they weren’t friendly.
“Magic ponies travel fast,” Adam observed to me, though I was pretty sure his attention was on the tableau on our porch.
“I wouldn’t have gotten on that pony if you paid me,” I said, hopping down to the ground and shutting my door as quietly as I could. We were a ways from the neighbors, but sound travels in the night. I didn’t want to wake anyone up.
Keeping the neighbors happy when your house is often filled with a pack of werewolves is both vital and difficult. Not many people are crazy about werewolves running around. Pack magic can sometimes help keep the noise down, but we weren’t fae, who could manage illusions to hide the damage when we were attacked.