A shocked silence fell. At first Fen thought everyone was having a delayed reaction to him telling them that he was turning into a monster. Then she realized they must have never heard him ask for help before.
“We’re all shifters,” Carter went on. “And we’ve all dealt with the wizard-scientists before. I thought maybe if we brainstormed and pooled our ideas, we might think of a better solution than me procrastinating on summoning Balin while I grow tentacles and extra legs and—”
He was interrupted by a trill. Precious flew in the window, with Sugar gliding behind her.
“Oh!” Fen exclaimed, delighted. “They came on their own! Now they can meet—”
She was interrupted by an ominous yowl. Batcat’s fur was puffed out until she was twice her normal size, which brought her from tiny up to small. Tail lashing, hissing and spitting, she sprang into the air and zoomed straight at the newcomers.
Sugar dove into Fen’s cleavage with a squeak of alarm. Precious let out an ear-splitting shriek and dive-bombed Batcat. Carter leaped on to a chair and snatched his dragonette out of the air, while Pete grabbed the flying cat. Batcat howled and hissed and thrashed, and Precious shrieked and squirmed, and Sugar chittered angrily, and the husky pups set up an excited barking, and the other flying cats yowled, and Blue flopped down on the floor and snored.
“Somebody, make them stop.” The voice was Ransom’s. He was leaning in the doorway, his face very pale and tense with pain. “My head is splitting.”
The pet owners leaped into action. Pete rounded up all three cats, stuffed them in an office, and threw in a catnip mouse. Fen cuddled Sugar until he stopped chittering, and Carter stroked Precious until she fell silent. Merlin prodded Blue until he woke up with a snort.
Natalie hushed the puppies, then ran to Ransom’s side. So did Roland. Together they helped him to the sofa, where he leaned back and rubbed at his forehead. The husky puppies jumped up on to the sofa, one sitting beside him and one crawling into his lap.
“I’ll get you some coffee,” said Dali, and went out.
Ransom looked up at Carter. “I have a lead for you.”
Carter scowled at Ransom. “You were supposed to be the last resort, not the first!”
Ransom shrugged, then winced. “Too late. Do you want to know what I found?”
“Iguess,” Carter said grumpily. “Like you said, it’s too late to stop you.”
Fen was touched by the bond between them, which their cranky talk didn’t obscure in the slightest. Without being asked, Ransom had decided to help Carter at what looked like a considerable cost to himself. For his part, Carter had decided not to ask Ransom to use his powers even though he was desperate for help.
Dali returned with a cup of coffee, which she pressed into Ransom’s hand. He drank it like it was medicine. Apparently it was in a way, because his pained stiffness eased and a little color came back to his face. He set down the empty cup on a coaster, took a paper out of his pocket, and handed it to Carter.
Fen peered over Carter’s shoulder, expecting a magic spell to remove a curse or a chemical formula for an antidote. Instead, it had the enigmatic words KERENZA COUCH, followed by a phone number.
Carter’s eyebrows rose as he looked at Ransom. “I know this isn’t a prank no matter how much it looks like one. So what is it?”
“It’s what I got when I looked for something that might help you. Otherwise…” Ransom shrugged. “No idea.”
“The area code’s for Iowa,” said Tirzah, who had tugged Carter’s hand down so she could read the paper.
“That’s the solution?” Fen said incredulously. “A furniture store in Iowa?”
“It’s not a furniture store,” Merlin put in. “That is, it could be. But it’s also a name. It’s from Cornwall. ‘Couch’ comes from ‘C-O-U-G-H,’ which means the color red. It’s pronounced ‘cooch.’”
“I’d be very surprised if the current holder of the name uses that pronunciation,” remarked Roland.
Everyone looked at Carter expectantly. He took out his phone with apparent calm, but Fen didn’t miss the tense way he was holding his shoulders.
“How are you going to find out if Kerenza Couch—” Fen began.
“Cooch,” Merlin put in.
Fen glared at him and went on, “If a person is safe to discuss the reason for the call?”
“It’s tricky,” said Carter. “This comes up with shifters a fair amount. You have to feel it out.”
“I thought Ransom might be a shifter when we were Marines together,” Merlin put in. “But he wasn’t yet, so when I tried to sound him out, he got the impression that I was trying to come out to him—I mean as gay, not as a shifter—and he was very nice and matter-of-fact about it. If Ihadbeen gay, I’d have felt completely accepted and—”
Carter glared at Merlin. “Will you please go eat some cookies or put a pillow over your mouth or something? I’m trying to make a phone call that’s going to determine my entire life!”
