He snatched for the scruff of Snack’s neck, but Took grabbed his wrist before his fingers could make contact. On the bed Snack crawled up onto the little girl’s chest, put her muzzle on the child’s chin, and purred bloodily against white, rosebud lips. Red smeared the dead skin like lip gloss, shone, and slowly sank down under the surface. The pale folds of skin were—maybe—a little less perfectly pallid afterward.
“She’s a demon, remember,” Took said after a second where nothing else happened. He loosened his grip on Pally’s wrist. “Maybe let her work.”
Pally pulled his hand away and stepped back. His face was creased into a frown. “What is it doing, Took? What kind of animal is this?”
“A good cat, I guess,” Took said to the first. “And I don’t know what she’s doing, but what harm can it do to leave her to it? Nora Aron spent too many hours in that box. If she’s just in some unending sleep, then let her hear a cat purr for a while.”
Pally’s face softened with an emotion that almost reached pity, but pulled up just short—for the little girl, or that’s what Took chose to believe.
“When I was a boy, they said cats stole the breath of babies,” he said. “But what need does a dead child have of breath. Very well, as long as the creature does no harm, I will leave it to its business.”
“Speaking of which,” Took said. “Do you plan to do anything with…. Nora… in the next few days? As long as Madoc lets me use it, I need to use the VINE jet to go over to California.”
Pally paused as he glanced toward Took’s throat and then away. “I think Madoc would allow you a lot.”
For a blank second, Took didn’t remember. Then he reached up and rubbed his throat. He’d healed faster than usual from the burns. The tight skin on his hands and the scorch in his throat was already gone, but the bite lingered.
“I don’t…. it wasn’t exactly planned,” he said. “It’s not why he asked me back.”
Pally slapped him on the shoulder. “When I was young, human resources were what we threw into the grinding machine of a war,” he said. “I don’t plan to question your life. I’m just glad that whatever made you pull away from us is undone now.”
“I don’t know that it is,” Took admitted. “I just…. Did you ever wonder who took me, Pally?”
He got a sharp side-eye for that. “No,” Pally said with a dry bite to his voice. “That never occurred to anyone.”
“Jokes now?” Took asked. “Fangs really make me so different?”
Pally tilted his head in acknowledgment but switched back to the previous question. “It was someone in VINE, someone you knew,” he said confidently. “Human or not, you were well trained and had a native paranoia that served you well before. It had to be someone you trusted enough to let them get close to you.”
“Like a Biter?”
“No,” Pally said. “We were questioned, our whereabouts pinned down and dissected. We know you were taken from the parking garage, you flashed your pass when you drove in but never made it upstairs, and none of us could have gotten there and back to our stations in time. None of us could have done this to you, Took.”
That didn’t make sense. Took rubbed his throat as he swallowed hard, the dull ache of the half-healed bite sharp in his head. West had told him that the Biters had obstructed the case, refused to cooperate, and that they’d focused outside VINE. That it could have happened anywhere, anytime. Took didn’t remember the parking garage that day. His life as a linear thing ended the night before and started again with Madoc’s arms on him. Everything in between was scattershot and disorganized, like a broken Magic 8 Ball.
“Not even Madoc?” he asked in tight, raw voice. “Where was he?”
A flash of anger tightened Pally’s jaw, a touch of contempt sharp as a knife in his eyes.
“That question is unworthy of you both,” he said coldly. “Do you really think that Madoc, of all of us, would ever have hurt you?”
No. Yes.
“Sometimes.”
Blood had dried to a scab on Pally’s lip. He picked it off and flicked it away. “Then I will answer you, so that you don’t wound him with this. How could Madoc have done this, when he had left for New York the night before? He was with the Senate when you were taken. Even dhampirs cannot occupy two spaces at once.”
New York? Took could feel the blank space in his head, the ache of it where he thought he knew the boundaries.
“That was…after…the weekend,” he said. “I was taken on Friday? After Kip’s party, when I told you all I’d moved in with West?”
The coldness lingered on Pally’s face, but the pity was definitely for Took now. He put his hand on Took’s shoulder.
“I wasn’t there, but I recall. Madoc was dour, but you weren’t the first to reject him. He weathered it, went to New York, and before you could change your mind, you were taken.”
Took made himself take a breath and let it out. He needed something internal to concentrate on, something he couldcount.West had lied to him. It didn’t make sense. Took had told West about his suspicions, and he’d had to fight to convince him to listen when it sounded crazy.
The pressure in his head made it feel like the stitches in his brain were going to rip. Maybe his answers were down there with all the crud he’d forgotten, but he didn’t think he could live with them.
