Page 28

She looked at her captors, first one, then the other.

“Is there a way I can at least get a message to my friends letting them know I’m alive?

” Nothing. Neither of them gave any indication of having heard her.

They simply kept moving, eyes straight ahead.

“Can I call my solicitor?” It was useless.

For all she knew, they might be robots. “I don’t even get a phone call? How about reading me my rights?”

A slight but recognizable pop let me know some representative of magic kind was arriving instead of departing.

I looked over to see Keir give John David a tiny shove away from him as the two arrived in the foyer.

John David looked as discombobulated as I felt, but before I could see if he was okay, my attention was seized by the sight of Keir being grabbed by Kagan.

“THEY TOOK HER!” he told Keir.

“Who took whom where?” Keir asked with a frown.

“ESME!” Kagan shouted.

“Where is everybody?” John David interjected, looking a little lost.

Kagan continued, intent on conveying the emergency to Keir. “I DON’T KNOW WHO TOOK HER! I DON’T KNOW WHERE THEY TOOK HER!”

“Alright.”

When Keir turned toward me for help. I shook my head to let him know I couldn’t add anything useful. He reached out to touch Kagan’s shoulder, but Kagan shrugged him off and grabbed fistfuls of his own hair at the temples.

“I don’t know what to do.” Kagan’s tone had suddenly fallen from shout to whisper.

Again, Keir said, “Keep your wits about you. We’re going to sort this out.”

“What’s going on?” John David asked. “Jarvis?” he called.

“Sir?” Jarvis was there in an instant.

“I don’t hear music.”

“The band departed, sir.”

“Departed?”

“Along with most of the guests.”

“How did I miss that?”

“Do you remember being in Bulgaria?” I asked.

“Bulgaria?” he repeated dumbly. “I think I spent time there before the First World War.”

That was not what I meant. “I think you need a hot bath.”

“Why? Am I…?” A look of horror stole over the vampire’s face as he wondered if someone was suggesting body odor.

“No. It’s not that,” I reassured him. “It’s a story that shouldn’t be rushed, and we have a situation right now that needs attention. Esme’s been abducted.”

John David looked around. “Abducted?” He sounded like that was simply not a possibility and that somebody, namely me, was either lying or attempting a payback prank. He looked around as if to confirm that he was where he thought he was. “From here?!?”

“Yes. Hard as it may be for all of us to accept, we need to focus our attention on a course of action.”

“I see,” our host said thoughtfully. “How can I help?”

“Coffee?” I ventured.

“Jarvis!” he said.

“Yes, sir.” Jarvis was still standing a few steps away in the foyer.

“Bring a full coffee and tea service to the drawing room.”

“Yes, sir.”

I thought I’d catalogued all my husband’s looks, but Keir deposited a new one into my spousal registry.

He took out his phone. “I’m calling Killian.”

With a nod, I said, “Sure. He’ll want to know what’s happened and that Kagan is, um, in a state.”

“What did they look like?” John David asked.

Good. Someone had come up with something constructive in the form of a starting point. Who would’ve guessed it would be the vampire?

“Honestly? It was so fast. There wasn’t enough time to form an impression. I can only say there were two women with shaved heads wearing saffron robes like Buddhist monks.”

“Nuns,” John David said.

“What?” I blithered.

“If they were female, they’d be Buddhist nuns, not monks.”

Keir looked thoroughly confused. “Why would Buddhist nuns want to steal Esme?”

“No idea, Keir,” I said. “Oh! Wait. I remember something. Their robes also had pink panels.”

Everyone looked at me like I was an idiot. I suppose that wasn’t especially helpful, but what can I say? I notice clothes.

“Rita, your phone is ringing,” Keir said.

“How do you know? I left my purse.” I looked around. “Oh. Over there.” It was in the corner on the seat of a velvet chair. “You can hear that?” His nostrils flared slightly like I’d insulted him. “Of course you can hear that. What was I thinking? Sorry.”

I rushed to pick up, if it wasn’t too late, because it was the kind of night when all calls must be answered. My favorite photo of Evie at twelve displayed cheerfully without regard to my current state of mind.

“Evie. Is everything ok?”

“All considered, I think so. But your hobby horse… What did you call him?”

“Thunder.”

“Right. Thunder is here.”

It seemed that it would be a night for numbskull responses. “Where?”

“Here. In our bedroom.”

“Evie. Come on. There’s too much going on for…”

“I’M. NOT. KIDDING!”

“Oh.” For no explicable reason, I said, “She’s not kidding,” to Keir even though he had no context. Unless he could hear the other side of the conversation. With his ears, that was a possibility. Someday, if things were ever normal again, I’d have to ask.

“I was just about to drift off with Rhiannon in my arms when Diarmuid let go with a string of Irish curses that, well, fortunately, I don’t yet speak Irish well enough to know what all that meant. Probably just as well.”

“Who brought him to your bedroom?” I asked.

“NOBODY brOUGHT HIM. Mom, are you paying attention?”

“I know you’ve been through a lot tonight, but try to remember I’m your mother.”

“Alright. Sorry. It’s just, like you said, been a night.”

“That’s ok. It has been.”

“Let me start over. Nobody brought him. He walked. Or trotted. Or materialized. I don’t know.”

“Wait a minute. You’re not saying my Thunder has come to life!”

After a brief pause during which I imagined her summoning patience, she said, “That is what I’m saying. Yes.”

Diarmuid was close enough to Evie that I could hear him in the background. “Tell her he used his front hooves to knock down castle doors that have been there for as long as Eire has been ruled by my family. In other words, forever.”

“That long, huh? Just a second.” I held the phone to my chest and said to Keir, “I guess Thunder came to life, broke out of The Hallows, broke down Diarmuid’s castle door, and is now standing in their bedroom.”

Without missing a beat, he said, “Right. Why is she calling you?” Keir asked.

A perfectly reasonable question. I put the phone back to my ear. “Why are you calling me?”

At that, Evie let go of a string of curses, all of which I don’t know how to interpret, then said, “First, to say I TOLD YOU I saw it move. And, second, BECAUSE HE’S YOUR HOBBY HORSE!”

“Well, first, if he’s walking around, alive, he’s not a hobby horse. Second, if he’s managed to find his way to your bedroom, he must think he’s yours .” I almost gasped. “Or. Rhiannon’s?”

I heard Evie tell Diarmuid, “Mom says the horse thinks he belongs to Rhiannon.”

“I didn’t say that exactly.”

“So, you don’t have any direct knowledge about why he’s here.”

“I do not. And I can only deal with one crisis at a time. Right now, the theft of Esme trumps Thunder galivanting through faerie. As bizarre as that is.”

“Okay. I get it. Diarmuid says he will help.”

“He’d better. You don’t need a horse in your bedroom.”

“No. Not help with the horse. With Esme’s rescue.”

“Heard that before.”

“What?”

“Never mind.” My only excuse was that the strain of events was making me snippy.

“OH SHIT!” Evie yelled in my ear.

“What? What’s wrong?”

“Thunder just took a truck-sized dump on my bedroom rug! And it stinks to high heaven! Like he’s been saving up for a long, long time!”

“That can’t be healthy for the baby.”

“Gods, it reeks!”

“I get it. It smells bad. Why is that a problem for you? It’s not like you personally have to clean it up.

Just wiggle your nose or whatever you do, make the pile vanish, and leave behind the smell of jasmine in a late summer breeze.

And fix the front door while you’re at it.

We don’t want strange things wandering through. ”

“What could possibly be stranger than a horse statue in a shop display window coming to life, making its way cross-dimension, and battering down our door so it can leave a giant, steaming pile…” She paused.

“You’re right. It must have something to do with Rhiannon.

This is about your competition with Maeve, isn’t it?

She gave my baby a dragon. So, you gave her a big white stallion with an attitude that stinks! ”

“Evie. I’m not in competition with Maeve partly because that would just be silly of me. And I did not give Thunder away. I had no idea he was magical. Neither did Dolan! Obviously!”

Keir was looking at me like he was making a mental note that I’m not one of those women who shine in adverse circumstances.

My impulse was to think of a plausible defense, but nothing came to mind.

Oh well. I’d work on repairing my reputation as a mature adult of sound mind when all had been sorted.

“But really,” I said. “I need to deal with this other thing. And you need some rest.”

“Right. Later.”

A second later, Diarmuid arrived just as Jarvis was overseeing two carts being wheeled in with every manner of additive to complement hot beverages. He did that chin jerk thing to Keir and said, “Oh! Coffee! Yes, please.”

“Diarmuid. Did you get the issue with Thunder sorted?” I asked, not liking the idea of him leaving Evie, in her weakened condition, with the kind of mess I imagined.