Tyger Tyger (11 page)

"John," Finn said, "I have some things to ask."

"Things?" Teagan repeated.

"Where ... where did you bury Aunt Aileen?"

"Aileen never wanted to be buried," Mr. Wylltson said. "She said it was a waste of good land to put a coffin in it. She was cremated."

"Mamieo said she would be. This is a hard thing to ask, but I need to take that"—Finn pointed at the urn—"to Mamieo."

"She needs our mad money?" Aiden asked.

"Mad money?" Finn looked confused.

"Whenever we have pocket change, we put it in the jar," Teagan explained. "We're saving up for a rainy day."

Finn ran his hand through his hair. "I need Aunt Aileen's ashes. It's more important than I can say that I take them away from here."

"You can't," Aiden said. "Mommy wasn't in the ashes. They were just for remembering. We put them in the park so it could remember her, too."

"That would explain it, then," Finn said.

"Explain what?"

"That." Finn pointed out the window. Abby would have called the guy standing in the open gate to the alley "totally Abercrombie." He had the hair, the bod, and the attitude.

"What's he doing in our yard?" Mr. Wylltson asked.

"It," Finn corrected. "What is it doing in your yard. It 'poofed' into the park right behind you. I watched for it all the way here but didn't see it. It must have come the back way."

A BERCROMBIE boy walked across the yard to the back door and put his hand to the knob. Teagan knew the back door was locked; she'd checked it before they had started out to find their dad. But it opened, and he stepped inside.

"What's this?" He smiled at Teagan. His eyes were black from lid to lid, like pools of dirty motor oil. "Do I know you? Tell me your name."

"Don't tell it anything," Finn said. "Especially not your name. Names give them power over you."

The oil-slick eyes went to Finn, and narrowed. "Someone who knows the ways of the Sídhe?"

"The stink of goblinkind, you mean," Finn said.

"Goblin? Such foul language." Abercrombie boy tsk-tsked. "We are the Sídhe, and you were made to entertain us."

"Who are you?" Mr. Wylltson demanded. "And why did you just waltz into our house?"

"I waltz wherever I want ... unless someone is strong enough to stop me." He made his fingers into a gun and pointed it at Mr. Wylltson. "You're not, old man."

"Get out of our house," Mr. Wylltson said.

"You were walking in Mag Mell," the
sídhe
said. "How did you do that? No human can walk there unless Mag Mell
remembers
them. But it can't remember you. I'd know if you'd been there before." He tipped his head and sniffed. "Something here smells like ... old magic. Who are you people?" He turned to Teagan again. "You look so familiar. I think I'll take you with me. Fear likes to play with the pretty ones."

"Fear?" Teagan backed away.

"Fear Doirich, the Dark Man." Finn had a knife in his hand, and Teagan didn't know where it had come from. He didn't look a little scary anymore. He looked a lot scary.

"Finn!" Mr. Wylltson said sharply. "That's not necessary—"

"It is." Finn moved between Teagan and the goblin. "This thing isn't human. It doesn't follow your rules. You heard what the man said, goblin. Get out of this house. You're not welcome here."

"Finn?" the goblin spat. "The
Mac Cumhaill?
Keep the girl while you can. I'll take the little one first. He'll cry the longest." It spun toward Aiden.

"No!" Teagan shouted. Finn threw his knife as the goblin lunged. Mr. Wylltson shoved Aiden aside, and the
sídhe
caught his arm instead of Aiden. Tea saw Finn's knife sink hilt-deep into its back. And then it exploded. The force picked Teagan up and slammed her against the wall. She scrambled across the floor to Aiden, who was holding his ears.

"Where's Dad?" Aiden asked.

Finn's knife was lying in the middle of the floor. There was a misting of what might have been blood in a spatter pattern on the wall, but the goblin and Mr. Wylltson were gone.

Finn snatched up his knife and headed for the door.

"Where are you going?" Tea said.

"After them. Come on—it's not safe here."

Teagan grabbed Aiden's hand and followed Finn, barely keeping him in sight. He was waiting for them by the gate to the library park.

"Is this where the bad guy took Dad?" Aiden asked.

"I think so," Finn said. "But we can't follow them in. It will be dark soon." Even as he spoke, the air under the trees began to shimmer like a heat mirage.

"That don't look good," Finn said.

"What is it?"

"I've never seen anything like it, but something is happening, that's sure," Finn said. "We'd best get out of sight."

"My wild house!" Aiden dropped to his knees and scrambled into the overgrown trumpet vines. "We can hide in here."

"Get in quick, Tea. I'm right behind you." There was plenty of room in the wild house, but it was a little hard to see out.

"Good. It's good to have iron bars about us." Finn's knife was still in his hand. "The
cat-sídhe
don't like it, at least. Hush, now, not a sound."

Two shadows stepped out of the shimmering air. They were shaped almost like humans, but their heads were rounder, with ears like cats'.

Aiden sucked in his breath, and Teagan put her arms around him. He was trembling as he turned to hide his face in her shirt, but he didn't make a sound.

The shadow men grew darker as they walked toward the gate. They didn't move like humans. Their joints seemed to be in the wrong places, as if they were intended to walk on all fours rather than upright, and they had a strange bounce in their step. They passed within feet of Teagan, close enough for her to see that their hands were on backwards—the thumbs where a human's little finger would be—and that each long digit was tipped with a claw.

People walking down the sidewalk didn't seem to notice them. None of the drivers on the road turned their heads to look.

The taller shadow walked into the middle of the street, bent over, and stuck its head into the pavement as if it were looking for something beneath the surface of a pond.

A pothole the shape of the shadow man's shoulders appeared in the asphalt, and at least one driver saw it. He swerved to avoid the hole and narrowly missed a woman on a bike. She smashed into a parked car and fell sideways into the gutter.

The shadow man pulled his head out of the street, and the pothole disappeared. The smaller shadow man walked over to the cyclist, who was cleaning gravel out of her palms. It tipped its head one way, then another, as if it were studying her. It reached down, and for a moment Teagan thought it was going to help her up, but its hand didn't stop at her skin. It went right into her chest, all the way up to its wrist. It twisted something, then pulled its hand out.

The taller shadow watched, and when the short one was done, they both walked off down the street.

"Aiden?" Tea asked after the shadows had turned the corner. "Was that what touched Mom?"

"Yes." Aiden was crying. "It touched Mama ... like that."

Teagan scrambled out of the wild house and ran to the woman. She had finished with her palms and was examining her bike for damage.

"I saw what happened," Teagan said.

"Did you get his license plate?"

"No," Tea said. "Listen ... I think you may be more badly hurt than you think. You need to go to the doctor."

"I've spilled my bike before," the woman said.

"This time ... there might be internal injuries," Tea said.

"I'm sure I would feel it. Thanks for stopping, though. Bye." She swung her leg over the seat, climbed on, and started to ride away.

"You have your cell phone?" Finn was holding Aiden's hand and keeping one eye on the park. The shimmer had disappeared.

"Yes," Teagan said.

"Call 911."

The bicyclist made it halfway down the block before she wobbled, twisted violently, and fell over. They waited beside her until the ambulance arrived. Teagan saw them pulling a sheet up over the woman's head as Finn led her away.

"We can't go back to your house tonight," Finn said. "Those two, I think they're hunting."

"For us?"

"Most likely. And they won't be the only ones. The one that took your dad has set them looking."

"That goblin's not dead? But your knife..."

"The goblin just went back to where it came from and took your da with it."

"Where?"

"We'll have to follow to find out, won't we? But we can't go after them at night, if we can go at all." He looked around. "We need to get low fast. They'll go to your house, of course. The safest place might be the hole we were in, behind the gate. They wouldn't expect us to stay that close."

Teagan looked around at the dark openings to doorways and alleys. The shadows could be anywhere, dark against the dark, impossible to see.

They followed Finn back to the library and back into the wild house. Aiden was crying quietly, so Teagan pulled him onto her lap and wrapped her arms around him. Her cell phone vibrated.

"Tea." Abby's voice sounded insanely normal. "I'm on my way over—"

"No," Tea said too quickly. "Don't do that. I mean, I'm not home."

"That doesn't matter," Abby said. "Your dad can let me in. The shoes are in your closet, right?"

"No one is home," Teagan said. "We're spending the night somewhere ... else."

"You're all having an overnight somewhere? What's going on, Tea?"

"Get off the phone," Finn said.

"Was that a guy's voice?" Abby asked. "It didn't sound like your dad. Why's he telling you what to do?"

"I'm..." Teagan looked around "...camping out. I'll tell you about it tomorrow. I can't talk now, Abby. But I'm okay. Really." Teagan flipped her phone shut and turned it off.

"Talk in daylight," Finn said without looking at her. He was definitely staying as far from her as possible. "Quiet, now."

Aiden tugged on Teagan's sleeve. He moved into a patch of light from the streetlamp.
Scared
, he signed in ASL.

Me,
too
, Teagan signed back.

Suddenly Aiden jerked and flailed. Teagan grabbed him, and Finn's knife flashed as he turned, looking for the danger.

What was it?
Teagan signed.

A
spider crawled on me.

We have to be quiet and still,
Teagan signed emphatically.
Very still. Even if spiders crawl on us.

She moved Aiden into the very center of the wild house, between her and Finn, and kept her arms around him. It was a good thing it had been unseasonably warm all week.

As the darkness deepened she focused on the patch of yellow light underneath the streetlamp. If shadows or
cat-sídhe
came up the street, they'd have to walk under the light. She'd see them. If something came from the park, though ... There were long stretches of darkness there, like paths across the lawn to the trees. Had the shadows made any noise when they passed? Teagan tried to remember, but she couldn't. Sometime past midnight, she felt Aiden go slack with sleep.

She was still awake when the hunters came back, walking through the grayness before dawn. One of them was licking its claws like a child with honey on its hands. Teagan tried not to think about what could stick to a shadow to be licked off later. They walked straight to the trees, the dawn air shimmered, and they were gone. Still, she didn't move or say a word until the sun came up. Finn was sleeping with his head on his knees, and Aiden was curled up beside her. The park looked perfectly peaceful in the bright morning light. A robin searched for worms on the lawn.

"Finn," Teagan said softly. He lifted his head. "We need to talk before Aiden wakes up. You said the goblins serve Fear Doirich. Do you mean the man in the story Dad read to us when you came to our house?"

"The same. The goblin god who cursed Fionn for marrying Muirne."

"But that was prehistory. It's legend and myth."

"Tell that to the goblin who stole your da. He was probably around when that 'myth' was happening."

"What will they do to Dad?"

"I don't know." Finn rubbed his chin. "But the sooner we find him, the better."

"I think we should take Aiden to Mrs. Santini's house," Teagan said. "Before we go after them."

"If there were any safe place," Finn said, "I would send you both. You heard what the goblin said. It was telling the truth. They walk where they will. Mrs. Santini couldn't stop the thing if it came for your brother."

"Who could?"

"Mamieo." Finn waved a fly from Aiden's sleeping face. Finn seemed relaxed in the morning light, more settled. Almost the Finn she'd met four months ago. "She might be able to keep him safe."

Teagan fished her phone out of her pocket. "Call her."

"Call Mamieo?" Finn shook his head. "The woman doesn't own a phone. She borrows one when she has need. She expects me to meet her in Gary, Indiana, after I've collected ... well, you know what I came for."

"You think all this has something to do with my mother's ashes?"

"I do," Finn said. "But don't ask me what." His stomach growled.

"Hey!" Aiden sat up quickly. "I heard something."

"Just my belly, boyo," Finn assured him. "It hasn't been near food for two days. We'll eat before we go on. My kit's back at the house anyway."

"Where are we going?" Aiden asked.

"To find your da, I hope." Finn crawled out of the wild house.

A little old lady walking her poodle gave Teagan a startled look when she crawled out of the bushes behind Finn.

"Shocking, isn't it?" Finn picked a twig out of Teagan's hair. "The way youth behave these days?"

The old lady pulled the dog to the other side of the street, looking straight ahead as if they didn't exist.

"Some people are not born friendly," Finn said.

When they got back to the Wylltson house, the front door was still unlocked and the back door still hanging open. The kitchen smelled slightly of rotten eggs, and flies buzzed around the blood spatter on the wall. Finn's kit was on the floor where he had left it. He checked through it while Teagan made peanut butter sandwiches for breakfast. Finn ate three and inhaled two glasses of milk. Aiden didn't want to eat at all, but finally managed a half a sandwich when Finn told him he couldn't come with them if he didn't eat.