Lynn found the poise to remind Pascal of a certain drunken evening back at the University of Wisconsin, when he had been visiting some older freshman friends and she had gone out for some beers–and then some other intoxicants–with her young classmates. Lynn had taken some time off to work her way through school, and as a result she was a 24-year-old freshman, three years married to Lafe Tarragon, which she was already beginning to view as a possible mistake.

The irony was that they were trying to get pregnant. Todeschlagi couldn’t get pregnant with humani, and Lafe was beginning to claim Lynn was barren, “defective,” as she said, still bitter. Lafe had had two girlfriends who had ended up getting abortions, and so he knew there was nothing wrong with him. And then there he was, this deep-voiced young Texan, whose outer soul spoke to hers in a way Lafe’s never could. He told her he was 19 (he was 17), and caution fell by the wayside. She had always been certain somehow that Rita was his and not Lafe’s.

By the time this was sorted out, Rita was home from the movie. She had been good enough for the ice cream and was at her best and most polite when introduced around–Pascal was presented as himself, with no confusing description added, and she failed to notice that he stared at her for the rest of the afternoon. I was sure that it would  turn out all right in the end: Lafe Tarragon was too busy dodging the child support issue to pay any more attention to the younger of his escaped trophies, and Pascal would spoil her senseless–if, however, Adrian would let him. In general, Rita was over-supervised, in both her and my opinion–but then, I suppose that if there were people who would kidnap an archimago’s cat to make a political sneer, the little girl of his good friend needed to be safe as well.

As everybody was leaving, Etienne buttonholed Terry, who had emerged from his office with Dante, still scowling.

“You have *snf* got to either change your vacuum or *snf* get more competent staff. I’ve been miserable *snf* all afternoon. It’s as if that damn cat was in the *snf* room.” He sneezed. I sorta felt bad.

That was the last exciting thing that happened until the next week, which was Christmas, which was all it was hyped up to be, in my opinion. Miles of different sorts of string and oceans of rustly paper! And all those beautiful toys hanging from an actual real live in-the-house tree! True, I got yelled at a whole lot, even by Sasha, and some creep who shall be nameless got the idea from a certain veterinarian that the thing to do was to pass out squirt bottles and soak me for exploring my environment. Sadists. That tree was the most marvelous thing I’d ever seen in my year of life, but . . . I hated getting wet.

“And you wanted to have the tree up early this year,” Sasha said to Terry, after scoring a sharp hit on my backside.

“Yeah, yeah, whatever. Next year I get to win for a change. She’ll be older then too. Yeah, you better wash, you furry maniac.” Terry brandished his own bottle. It was beneath me to notice this.

It was late Christmas night, and all the wonderful mess was cleared away. My daddies were cuddled on the couch, each with a glass of eggnog in one hand and a squirt bottle in the other. They were having entirely too much fun. I started giving the tree a wide berth, which they found funny as hell, and high-fived each other at. Humph,  I thought, and decided to look in on the cubs, who had been given two or three new games to play and were deep in the middle of some forbidding-looking fairy-tale forest. No joy there. I decided to go to bed early, but stopped halfway up the stairs. My outer soul was picking up something odd.

There was a rap at the door.

I heard a good-natured swear from the guard room, and Matt peeled himself off. I stayed at his heels, poised to flee. I knew who it felt like it was out there, but what did it mean? He looked through the door and his outer soul went cold. He went in to consult with Terry and Sasha.

Sasha ran upstairs and got his gun, and Terry hit the panic-button charm that had Pharaoh gating into the study within no more than ten seconds.

There was another little rap at the door. It sounded desperate. So we opened it.

Steffi and Hans stood shivering on our doorstep.

“Merry Christmas,” she said. “I know the timing leaves much to be desired, but is there any chance you would grant us asylum?” She looked around at our faces, even mine. Tears came into her eyes, and she looked over her shoulder. “It is just that this is the safest place I could think of. Please, please; there must be something you can do for us; for all of us. Please?”

Terry took a deep breath. He may not have been a master politician, but I could see him spelling it out for himself. Then he said something rude under his breath, and opened the door wider.

“Come on in, ma’am. Steffi, right? I take it you’ve quit the Kaiserin part.”

She laughed. “You are so right.” She eeked as she stepped all the way in and saw Sasha still wary with his weapon, a small sleek silhouette of death in the study. He didn’t holster it until Pharaoh reassured him that there was nobody else in the vicinity, and I was just as glad. I chose his lap as Steffi started to tell her story.

Things around us were starting to feel more normal after a few minutes–Joel got down a couple of mixing bowls for Hans to have some water and some leftovers; Steffi got some eggnog and complimented the tree, easing off her high-heeled slingbacks. All she had with her was her dog and a very large purse–she dumped it out to prove her candor–all it had in it besides purse-stuff was two sets of underwear.

“All I dared jam in.” Although she had been gated to the United States, she also had her passport–Swedish–and a thick bundle of other important-looking documents.

“I trust that this house has baffles which should defeat the spell which will fetch me home, yes?” Pharaoh nodded. She relaxed. “Good; I thought it would. That’s why this was my first choice. But I should not be missed for another little while or so.”

Pharaoh muttered under his breath and I could swear something in the air changed.“You can’t be gated out of here without my permission now. Not even the Prince of Firenzi can break this one. I had him try.”

She flashed him a huge grateful smile, and told us of her escape.

The Kaiser had elected to spend Christmas in the States with various bigwigs. At this moment, he was at a party in Boston in the King of Proinsias’ house. Steffi had feigned a headache and gone back to the hotel–and immediately left again, Hans in tow.

“I told the guards I would just take him on a walk around your Boston Commons, and they know that our walks are very long. They are not the Lions, who are still boycotting the Kaiser; they are hired men who were grumpy at being dragged around on Christmas. I told them I’d pull my panic tag for the sorcerer if I needed him, and they accepted that. I could hardly believe my luck. Thank God the little American money I had was enough to get me on the train. I can’t believe I’m here.”

I blinked. Even as she spoke, our house was surrounded by what pinged like a dozen people, and there was a thunderous knock on the door. So much for “another little while or so.”

“Now, you know that’s taking off paint,” complained Sasha.

Hans asked me, “Can your people keep her safe?”

“Oh please,” I said, with a yawn. Inside, I was terrified. The pounding continued.

Pharaoh sighed and said something under his breath that sounded like a proverb. There were a couple of cries of pain outside, and most of the men disappeared. The knocking stopped, then continued, although it sounded a little less bold.

“Do these idiots really not know how well archimagi are protected?” Pharaoh asked. “Especially archimagi who’ve had a recent security breach?” He went to the door and opened it. He didn’t look very threatening, standing there with his hands on his hips, wearing the loudest holiday sweater I’d ever seen and (I blinked) a brand-new pair of bunny slippers. (Those had to have come from Hiroshi. I didn’t know who else had the nerve.) But there was a sort of no-color rippling force shield in front of him. Every now and again it would throw out a fat spark, as if it were in a bad temper, and as one of the bunnies was tapping its toe, maybe it was.

We couldn’t ping a thing on the other side of the shield, so I ignored Sasha’s hiss calling me back, and went to look, sitting on the stairs behind Pharaoh so as to have a good vantage point while avoiding easy grabbing range. As I had expected, on the other side of the door was the Kaiser, with two other men who looked a bit wild-eyed. One was tapping at his phone and snarling at it in German because it didn’t seem to be connecting him to anybody.

“May I help you, Your Excellency?” purred Pharaoh.

“Where is she?” he demanded. He pushed against the shield but cried out in anger, shaking his hand as if it had been burned.

“Ah-ah-ah-ah,” Pharaoh warned. “Oh, by the way, everybody else you had trespass on our grounds is now in the clink over in Lion Country, awaiting interrogation. Their phones will have been confiscated.”

Terry came up behind him. He was as calm as he had been twenty minutes ago, when the biggest threat in his life was my going after a 19th century lace ornament. “You should skedaddle, Wilhelm. As of five minutes ago, there is no Grail slavery in the District of Nova Terra. I just abolished it, by executive fiat. I may have no control over anything else you do, but by thunder, any one of your Toadie Grails who asks one of our District Centers for asylum will get it, and you’ll find out just how long the Nova Terran claws are should you lay a finger on any of our citizens. No, make that my citizens. Get the picture, Willy?”

I wondered what this would do to Lynn’s membership in the Order, not to mention all of the other small permutations of more benign Grail slavery, such as a Grail daughter needing her father’s permission to marry. I’d always thought that one sounded kind of romantic. Whatever; it was over now. Terry never did things by halves if he really decided to get off his ass and do them. I decided I was proud of him. Moreover, underneath the shock, I could tell that Pharaoh and Sasha were proud of him too.

Pharaoh closed the door in the Kaiser’s face, then reopened it. “Within forty-eight hours the lady will come, under guard, to retrieve her reasonable personal effects. They will be undamaged, and you will not be there. I will be there. I don’t like you. Think it through. Good evening, and Happy Christmas.” He closed the door again while the Kaiser’s eyes were still popping. He turned to Terry and clapped him on the shoulder warmly. This turned into a hug and some whooping, and even Sasha had some hugging to do.

Steffi, however, was in shock, and just sat there fondling Hans’ ears, tears streaming down her face. Pharaoh came in and knelt at her feet.

“Did I give a reasonable ultimatum?” he asked. “You needn’t worry, you know. All the worrying is over. Now it’ll just be the usual tiresomeness of a divorce. And we’ll help you through that. I know some excellent people.” Hans gave a sudden lunge and licked his face, which made him look happy and embarrassed. He stood up, taking Steffi’s convulsive nods and sniffles as an affirmative.

“Meanwhile, I should go roust out Dante, because you’ve just destroyed our peaceful Christmas night by breaking rules and changing laws, and the tighter a package we hand the Nesh in the morning, the better. Eh what? I shall also get on to the Crucio,” he added.

Terry groaned. All of that hadn’t occurred to him, you could tell. But it was a sort of happy groan.

“Ok, Pharaoh, get on that. Meanwhile, Steffi, let me show you a guest room. And I’m pretty sure that if you don’t mind kicking around in guys’ sweatpants, we can give you jammies and whatnot. Pharaoh, is the yard safe for the pup?” he called into the study.

“Perfectly,” came the answer.

“Sweet! Asylum all round.”

The Council trickled in over the next hour or so, some less than thrilled at losing their holiday, some tickled to death at the new legislation. There was some argument–they were Th’nashi, it was part of their biological processes to help the blood stay down or something–but Terry was firmer and more serene than I’d ever seen him. Yup, proud.

Steffi semi-collapsed from everything, seeing as it was dawn for her body clock anyway, and Hans snuffled in content as I jumped over him to lick the trails of dried salt on her face. I fell asleep tucked under her chin. She was smiling. It seemed the least I could do.

We didn’t get to see much of Lynn for the next while. She was busy being sucked into the Order. Dante’s child psychologist friend had a side specialty in a’thanila children, and as she already had a rapport with Rita, it was decided that Dr. Morris would break the news to the spud–in the comfort of our house, with pretty near the entire dai’yadi on call for reassurance if needed.

Plans went pretty well, until one night Devon said, in a mimicry of Rita’s little girl voice, “OK, guys, I got it. Mommy and everybody are vampires. And I’m a vampire too. But what about Daddy? He’s not a vampire. My magic vampire g’nah would have known.” In a more normal tone, he went on, “It’s only what every kid wants to know as soon as they figure out their particular sperm and egg aren’t the ones claiming credit. Like it or not, guys. Sirs,” he added. Devon was a’thanila himself, which gave his opinion extra weight. (Terry had only brushed off mild embarrassment at having forgotten Sean’s irregular origin. He was really bummed when he realized he didn’t know his favorite man-at-arms as well as he thought he had.)

“Kid’s got a point.” Meeze rested his elbows on the table. “Pascal Chatte’d’garcon has to come into this picture. Terry, you know him, don’t you?”

“Not well,” Terry admitted. “His brother married my cousin as soon as it was legal up here–two weeks after Sean and Eamon, to be exact. I saw Pascal at the wedding, and his main topic of conversation was trying to get me to pull some strings for his band.”

“Band?” queried Pharaoh. He was in a testy mood because I’d slipped in playing with his yarn earlier and bitten it clear through. He hated joins and knots when it was something poofy like boucle or baby yarn. Worse, the cubs had gotten me wound up into dangercat mode and in the thick of things I had also whacked him one with a not-quite-velveted paw. A sheepish Devon had had to spit out a stream of their fy’zhan venom, the one they injected when leaving a bite, which caused the rapid healing. (Their own venom didn’t work on themselves.) As he had rubbed it in, he had spoken to me in quite a sharp tone, and I had chosen to lurk behind Meeze’s chair tonight, where there was the braid as entertainment.

“Pascal sings. Beautiful bass. His band does this really eclectic mix of things that incorporates bluegrass with conservatory.” There was an odd tone to both Terry’s voice and outer soul.

Meeze mrr’ed almost as if he were a cat. “What aren’t you telling us? This isn’t like you. Give.”

“Yeah,” Sasha said. “People try to milk you for contacts all the time. If you handled the Neshies with the same skill, the Crucio would be handing you a Good Conduct medal.”

Terry ignored this, while I felt the others fang their lips to keep from snickering. “Pascal is Adrian’s little brother. As in, Ado is our age: pushing forty-something. But Pascal is the son of Adrian’s stepmother: Twenty-something.”

There were whistles and a guffaw or two, but Meeze said, “No, Rita is thirteen. He can’t be.”

“Well, a very low thirty-something, then. Keep the cubs locked up around the woman, is all I can say.” He sounded fierce. The dai’yadi by now all knew the story of Terry getting nabbed by the cops on the verge of proposing to his Aria, so people drew their own conclusions about the scandalized anger in his voice and forbore to comment on it.

Meeze said to Sasha, “I’m having trouble with this picture of Lynn-the-cougar. Are we sure Pascal’s the father?”

Sasha nodded. “Sure enough for Maury Povich.”

Terry groaned as Devon crowed, “Pascal, you are the father!” Pharaoh started to squeak and bounce and point his finger, getting up from his seat to put his hand on his hips, bending forward with his pointing hand in Meeze’s face as he did a little dance of vindicated joy, complete with yelps and tosses of his head. I came around the table to watch, leaping up to the back of the couch for a better seat. He really was perfect, but then it was a favorite knitting show of his.

When he was through and had enjoyed the hilarity and applause he had deserved, he sat down and put up his hands for silence. When the other men (notably excepting Dante, who had sat in a humorless thundercloud the while) indicated he might continue, he said, “But seriously a bit. Now imagine the tears of the maiden who is proved to have been mistaken. I think that’s closer to what our Lynn will give us, don’t you? How can we do that to her, calling ourselves Lions and gentlemen?”

Devon said, “Oh, I don’t know. When they get up and run around the studio and then off the set, that’s pretty funny.”

Dante snarled, “That is because we have objectified other humans to a lowest common denominator in order to make ourselves feel better about our own miserable, laughable, little lives.” Really, this man was no fun at all sometimes. Priests, bah. And psychologists, worse.

Meeze said, sounding thoughtful, “But part of why we enjoy laughing at this rather simple plot is because that’s what they get. These humans irresponsibly made a baby, and now they have to face the consequences, and if you think about it, a few minutes of national humiliation ain’t nothin’ compared to having to help sell band candy. Like it or not, Lynn’s going to have to face up to this, and, well, not to be a hardass, but it’s not like we haven’t seen her cry before.” This got him a few dirty y’rais, but he was speaking the truth.

Dante said, “At some point this week, Lynn will be getting enough biological information for her to figure out that Rita can’t be Lafe’s child, if indeed she’s ever thought she was–women usually know. Not always, as that dreadful show proves, but still. She’ll have access to Rita’s Chattie record if she thinks to ask for it.”

Devon’s outer soul went firm with purpose. “Oughtn’t we to be thinking of Rita here? Surely it’s more important that she know her father than whether or not her mom’s embarrassed. And what’s so embarrassing? That he was a young guy? With all due respect, sir and elder brothers, maybe you wish you had it going on that way. Sure, she’s on the heavy side, but she’s a really pretty lady, and super nice.” He looked around the table and got a weird, lopsided grin. “Do you mean to tell me that you’ve never had feelings for somebody older?” To both his and my delight, several people shifted in their seats–Dante Fabrizio positively went red. Devon grinned and leaned back. “‘Nuff said.”

“Don’t get any ideas, cubling,” laughed Meeze.

“Why not?” Devon said. “She’s in the Order. It wouldn’t be a breach of chastity.”

“Because it would really upset me, that’s why,” snapped Terry. Devon was feeling pert enough to answer back, but every older Lion in the room y’raied him.

“Moving right along,” said Sasha, looking as amused as I had ever seen him, “seeing as Etienne and Adrian are due for a visit this coming Tuesday so Tennie can make his report on the Nesh’s latest round of hijinks, I suggest that maybe Pascal get invited too, so we can play this out and get it over with. Because I am willing to guarantee that Lynn will be happy to bury it in paperwork for as long as possible to avoid a confrontation–for somebody who’s good at them, she avoids them; that’s the post-traumatic stress, and I hope we all agree that it’s bad to pile more on that load. Better far to have it out in the open. And if she runs off the set, well, I’ve run after her before.” He was referring to winkeling her out of the laundry room that time she was overcome by all the naked men, and people smiled.

I was not quite as pleased. Etienne Dangerstreet was the Archimago’s Voice to the Nesh’vai, meaning he was Terry’s proxy on that body–and often spy. Etienne was good enough for a human, I supposed, but he was the only regular visitor who was allergic to me, and so I spent those council meetings shut up in the basement. It had taken Pharaoh a while to catch on that I’d gotten to like hearing what went on at the Tuesday meeting, as it was my main shot at keeping some kind of track of the politics–which, may Bast forgive me, had started to interest me. But when he figured it out, he would zap me an earbug spell before the meeting started. Better than nothing; at least Terry was scrupulous about getting me my fair dose of lox.

Adrian, Etienne’s husband, was a nice sort, though. He liked cats and had taken to coming down to the basement to visit with me. It was a bit distracting if I was trying to listen to something complicated, but he tended to come with a pocketful of some fancy treats from one of those pet boutique places in New York. Its unfortunate name was “Dogering and Catering,” but they were yummy little bits, and it gave the big fellow great pleasure to spoil me with them. I hoped Pascal was nice too, now that he was joining the family.

When Tuesday rolled around, Adrian came downstairs as usual, armed with my treats and a good book. For the heir to one of Contract’s most prestigious Houses, he hated politics and avoided it whenever possible. A Classics scholar by training, the good book was usually Latin or Greek, and he would curl up and wait the meeting out, sometimes disrobing and taking advantage of our excellent tub. But today his thick black eyebrows were set in a scowl, and the dark-sky eyes were pained.

“Hello, Eureka. Congratulate me; I just found out I’m an uncle.” Ah. But what was so bad about that? I still wasn’t getting the point of all this fuss. Cats don’t care about fatherhood–the tom is almost always a long-forgotten episode of pain and annoyance. It’s the kittens that count. Now, don’t get me wrong–I was alive to the human necessity of having two parents and all, and could sympathize with Rita’s right to know her pedigree–sometimes I wondered about mine: Did my patrician Russian Blue mama get frisky one night and muddy up her owner’s plans for pricey purebred kittens? I would never know, and really didn’t care. But Lynn and Pascal, now! So she was older. Big deal!

But I nuzzled Adrian to show I sympathized with his mood, and curled up by him to listen to the argument upstairs, which was about some jackass in the Nesh’vai trying to get a special Statute passed which would make it illegal to make a humani vai’ada. The penalties made my fur stand on end: For example, a humani blundering onto our secret would be disappeared and their body mined for blood for those unable to Hunt. Barbaric! Even Terry was up in arms about it–”This is the sort of thing I keep my Neshie points for, instead of nitshit stuff like the Pit,” he said. Sounded promising. I hoped.

After the meeting, my earbug spell expired, and Adrian went back upstairs for what was going to pass for a friendly gathering, but was really a social trap for two unwitting parents–at least I hoped it was unwitting on both ends. I didn’t want to miss this real-life drama, but unless they opted to have the scene in the tub . . .

Wait a minute. I remembered hearing a lot of mouse sound in the dining room; it had seemed to be coming from a particular corner. I had sniffed it out already–there was a gap in the floor of some six inches square, hidden by the ancient mahogany sideboard. And right underneath in the basement was a rack Sasha used to store old equipment on. (He had used to boil down bits of ex-Th’nashi at home for various forensic Lion business, but Terry had put a revolted stop to it long before they’d gotten me.)

It was the work of a minute to hop up there–there was a lot of mouse poop–and hardly any trouble to ooze my way through the hole. What a lot of dust bunnies were in the back here! Even the professional housekeepers had been missing it. I held my breath and body-surfed through it, until I was out and in the dining room proper. I wanted a bath now, but I needed concealment. Everybody was in the kitchen–everybody, meaning Sasha and Terry and Dante and Adrian and Etienne–the cubs were in their room. I sidled from shadow to shadow along the sideboards until I reached the area behind the huge flatscreen in the living room. I moved the remote with careful nudges so it wouldn’t betray me, and voila! I was just in time, as people started to come in to the dining room at the ring of the doorbell.

It was Pascal Chatte’d’garcon, and his ping pronounced him as an innocent lamb led to the slaughter. I peeked out to get a look at him, and after a moment, I could sort of see why Terry had been so scandalized.

Not only was he indeed a good bit younger than Lynn, he was what humans deemed very handsome. His eyes were the same dark-sky color as Adrian’s, and he topped his 6’2” with the same dark curls, but they dangled down the nape of his neck, stopping right at the maximum length Contract sumptuary laws allowed a man not a Lion. He had a sort of muscular grace that reminded me of Hans–he wasn’t trained to be a fighter, but it wouldn’t take much work to get him into shape for it. And even a cat could see that he was Rita’s father, much as we had all thought she looked like Lynn.

He approached Terry with a disarming grin. “Hey Terry, how’ve you been? Any luck finding somebody willing to listen to my demo?” He had his brother’s Texan drawl, but it was softer, deeper, with its corners rounded off in voice school.

Terry found this as wearisome as most professionals did, but this time he was ready to do some appeasing. “Have you seen the new Rude Mechanicals video? The one for their cover of ‘Amie’? Because the couple who did it find your concept intriguing. I know you’ve got your guy with the camera, but–” He stopped and answered Pascal’s incredulous grin with his own. “Want their info?”

“Oh man, you know I do!”

“Step into my office.” They did so, Pascal beginning to bubble up over the edges.

“Oh great,” said the morose Adrian. “Like any chick he knocked up fourteen years ago can compete with that. What were you thinking?”

Dante smiled. He had been impressed with this part of the plan. “That people with good self-esteem are more generous and compassionate.”

“Ha! Like you know Pascal and his swelled head! He’ll treat her like she was lucky to see the gold on it shine.” Adrian had made himself a huge roast beef sandwich. “I saved a scrap or two for Eureka,” he said as he tucked in. “I might just go downstairs and stay with her for this whole show.”

“Now Ado,” Etienne said, his rock-hard gymnast’s hands kneading his shoulders, “just eat your sandwich and hush.” Etienne was an inch shorter than Sasha, all springy ginger curls and purposeful motion. He had cleaned up at the ’72 Olympics in parallel bar and went back to grab another medal eight years later, when a lot of young gymnasts were already starting to age out. If Terry gave him his head with the Nesh’vai, things would be different in Nova Terra. Adrian ate his sandwich and hushed.

“Ia tser– oh, wait, no, never mind. Lynn’s here,” called Devon. I could feel his flush. I supposed it would be only fair to give the kid a week or so to get used to her change of status.

“What’s wrong?” she asked him as she passed.

“Uh, no big. I’ll explain it to you someday,” he laughed.

“Thanks for arranging the big day out for the rugrat,” Lynn told him. “Matt and Joel are brave men.” They were going out to some big anime movie and then for ice cream–if she were good. The big plan was to have her be her sparkliest when she swung by Uncle Terry’s house and bumped into the tom who had sired her. Devon bowed and said nothing, ushering her into the living room with a grand gesture.

I kneaded my paws in irritation as her outer soul soared when it caught wind of Dante’s: His was more polished, less open enthusiasm. I hoped it was just his being English or something, but I was pretty sure she cared more than he did. But he did, at least some; I had to admit that. I sighed. Maybe he was just a little tense, under the circumstances.

“Cara, do you know Tennie and Ado?” Everybody knew she didn’t. “Etienne Dangerstreet, Terry’s cousin, and his official representative to the Nesh’vai. Adrian Chatte’d’garcon, his husband.” Handshaking all around.

Everybody was standing or sitting right in front of the TV, so I didn’t dare peek, but I could tell from Lynn’s confusion that a) she knew something was up and b) this Adrian guy reminded her very strongly of Somebody Else.

Then the punchline hit, as Somebody Else strolled out of Terry’s office, still talking shop with great animation.

Adrian said, with the dash and charm of a true cavalier, “Pascal, mon frere, may I present you to this charming N’vai’tt lady?” From Pascal’s twitch, I gathered that Adrian had laid hands on his person as if seizing a cobra.

“Milady, this is my brother, Pascal Chatte’d’garcon. Pascal, this is Arianlyn Lannon, N’vai’tt Tarragon.”

There was a pause while Pascal was confused and Lynn very slowly became embarrassed. Even scared. Bastards. They didn’t know their tomcats. He had no idea who she was–it had been over a decade–and meanwhile I was betting, knowing both Lynn and over a hundred high school reunion commercials, that she was counting every pound she’d gained since she saw this macho tidbit last. But she said “How do you do?” and sank down in a polite little heap on the edge of the sofa. Her outer soul reminded me of the way it had pulsated back when we had been kidnapped–only this time she’d been trapped by her so-called friends. I wanted to claw somebody.

There was small talk, there were hors ‘d’oeuvres, and then after about twenty minutes Lynn sat bolt upright and said, “Rita!” Her outer soul had gone from coquetting around Dante to outright hiding behind him, but now it zeroed in on Terry and shook. He couldn’t feel it–it was part of her being a fy’foxi that made her touch almost as light as a Crucio’s–but he heard her remark, and I’m sure her face spoke volumes.

“Yes, Rita,” Terry hissed. And everybody else but Pascal cruised to a dead stop. He was in the middle of an anecdote about his band and hadn’t heard a thing, but the ambience of the room sank in within a few words. I edged out just a morsel, figuring that at worst I’d be busted and used for much-needed comic relief. But I wasn’t.

Lynn got up and tried to slap Terry in the face. Of course, his reflexes were too fast for her and he caught her wrist. She pulled away with such violence that she almost fell over, seeing as he let her go as soon as she did. They stood facing each other, panting. Then she spun on her heel, looking for Devon.

“Call the boys,” she snapped. “Have them drop her off at home.”

“Um,” said Devon. Then he shook himself and ran his fingers through his mane of long hair. “No. Not doing it. She needs to know. She may not find out until the thing with Dr. Morris next week, but she’s Th’nashi now. Worse, she’s a ruling daughter of Chattie now. Her business, mom. Not yours.”

Pascal’s eyes widened. Finally, he got it.

“Adrian Michael, did you get this nice lady in the family way? I thought you were gay!”

Or not.

There was another timeless pause, then Lynn began to laugh, joined by Meeze and Pharaoh, and then Etienne. Sasha rubbed the bridge of his nose, and Terry got up and slammed out of the room. Dante followed him. Last of all, Ado slid down on the floor beside me and whooped until he was red in the face.

Pascal didn’t see why exactly this was funny, but he grinned and went over to Lynn, smothering her in a hug.

“Welcome to the family!”

I shook my head to clear it as hard as I could, then I shook it again in dismay: My yearning was making me hallucinate. Then I realized that Hans was rigid with attention, and at last the Kaiser was turning with a frown toward the passageway outside of the room.

It hadn’t been a hallucination: Sean Michael, Lion McPherson, the Prince of Firenzi came into the room, with Pharaoh Quartermain right behind him. Pharaoh was dressed in the clothes I’d sometimes seen in his gym bag: black pants, low boots, and a sleeveless white shirt. Fighting clothes. I could smell blood. Not his.

The Kaiser spun with a snarl. “What are you doing here?”

Sean bowed. “In the States, we have an old saying: ‘When Lions come calling, they call to collect.’ Loses something in translation, but we’ll try to be clear.”

The Todeschlagi sorcerer Lion lunged low, a spellfront crackling through the air like a wave of wind bending grain. It got caught in a fine spiderweb of light and erupted in a pyrotechnic display, the smell of burning dust filling the room. Pharaoh laughed. Then the Toadie clutched his head and screamed. A filament of his own spell had rebounded on him somehow, and he was wrapped in a membrane that glittered like new plastic with oil on it. It faded away, leaving him half-curled in a corner, moaning. Pharaoh went over to him and curled an aristocratic lip. He bent down and took something from the man’s shirt. He straightened, tossed my mouse up in the air, caught it, and put it in one of his pockets with a nod to me.

Rudolf dove at Sean, proving he hadn’t recognized him. Bad move. Even I knew what would happen next on that one. Always understated, the Prince of Firenzi was just wearing jeans and a sweater, but he didn’t need fighting clothes, because he was rumored to be an even more talented gater than the Crucio himself. Sean stretched out a lazy-looking hand, and as his palm brushed along Rudolf’s back, the German disappeared. Bast alone knew where Rudolf had gone.

I liked Sean. Just because he was Meeze’s cousin didn’t mean there was much resemblance beyond the wicked dance in their eyes–Sean’s mother had been a Black British girl, or so I had heard, and had run away to the States when the noble House refused to acknowledge the pregnancy. She had died having him, and the humani midwife had adopted Sean, none the wiser. Still, he looked royal–tall, dark, with long curls escaping his Lion braid to frame a shrewd, handsome face. He had been a District Attorney in California before taking over the Headship of the House, and only fools tangled with him.

Apparently the Kaiser was more of a fool than he looked. “You intrude here, my Firenzi brother. This is House business, and it need not involve you unless you have come to apologize for any part you have had in withholding my property from me.”

At “apologize,” Sean’s crisp-cut eyebrows rose and he looked genuinely delighted. “Property? What property? Eureka belongs to my brother in the Order Sasha Van der Linden. She must have misled you–she doesn’t have permission to stay out after school, so she’ll be coming home with me.” He made eye contact with me and bent down, wiggling his fingers and clicking his tongue. I made a beeline into his arms.

“Lynn!” I panted. “Save Lynn too!” Sean paid no attention to my mew; he just stroked me, making a shh-ing noise.

“Got the mouse, Pharaoh?” His companion nodded. “Sloppy, but fortuitous, that. You neutralized most of the tags we’d put on Lynn–although you missed mine, my Todeschlagi brother–and you wiped the kitty clean, but you completely overlooked the little widget Pharaoh puts into his mice so we know which couch they’ve been kicked under. Saved us some time. My tag lets me call Lynn to me–but his was a nice shiny locater beacon.”

Pharaoh stepped forward, mayhem in his eyes, outer soul ice. “Lynn, are you all right?” He shot Steffi a look of measured calculation that had Hans on his feet, growling. Lynn stood up.

“Yes, so far. The . . . Kaiserin here has explained a lot of stuff to me. I’d have rather had it from all of you, though.”

He gave a little Japanese bow, as if to admit she was right. “We were working on it for quite soon. We hadn’t planned on your joyriding off to Germany on us.”

The revolting Graf rumbled, “But you seem to have misunderstood some vital facts about the lady’s ‘joyride.’ She has been brought home to her rightful owner, the Kaiser. He in turn is loaning her to me. I know nothing of any cat, but you are intruding on my time with the lady.” He stepped forward–or tried to. I don’t know which exact part of his anatomy Pharaoh was squooshing, but it looked miserable.

“Let me go!”

“Graf Geiger,” Sean almost cooed, “we are doing you a great service by preventing you from laying unchaste hands upon the person of a Lion of Mercy.”

“I want none of you! Give me the woman, or I warn you I shall take my anger out on her person, if you care.”

He flew backwards and hit the wall so hard that a crack appeared in the plaster.

“Oops,” said Pharaoh.

To do him credit, the reeking man was on his feet and was gearing up to charge Pharaoh like a bull. Pharaoh let him–at least, he let his flailing fists brush some part of the air he was breathing.

“Tsk,” said Pharaoh absently, as he stepped out of the way. “Seanie, did you see that? The nasty man laid hands upon my leonine person.”

“Tsk,” agreed Sean.

Pharaoh leaned over as if to tie his shoe, the other leg extended behind him. It made full contact with Geiger’s chin, and over he went.

“God, but you need to bathe,” Pharaoh muttered. He enclosed the quivering hulk in a bubble of air that at once made the room a more pleasant place to be.

“What I had meant,” Sean continued in the same pleasant near-hum, “is that you’ve played fast and loose with this Lion of Mercy.” He indicated the baffled Lynn. “Fy’foxi. Not yours. Ours. Since sperm met egg. Congratulations, Herr Kaiser–you’ve just stolen a Grail from the Order. Historically speaking, it’s been a capital offense. Let’s hope that ignorance of the law, etc. stands you in good stead. At any rate, you’ll be using a private service for your House guard from here on out, mm?” He stepped forward and offered Lynn his arm, still holding me in the other, and looking over his shoulder at Pharaoh.

“Coming?”

“How can I refuse a free trip home? And Germany is always so dismal this time of year.” Pharaoh came over to us and put his hand up to scratch my ears. And–

–we were home. Back in Terry’s study, with him sitting behind his desk looking surprised–

–and a huge Todeschlagi standing by the window. Over Sasha, who was sitting on the windowseat, eyes hollow.

I snapped. I don’t know what I was thinking. I flew out of Sean’s arms and straight at the Toadie’s face, claws extended. Luck was there in the room with us, though, because once more I found myself floating in midair, Pharaoh yelling, “He’s a good guy, Eureka! He’s one of us!”

Oh.

When I calmed down (which took a little bit, as I just clung to Sasha and whimpered for a while, during which he claimed he didn’t whimper back but was lying) I was introduced to Rainer Nachtgang Hermann, Lion von Richter, who came from New York and was pretty much the heaviest guard the Cohort had to put on the archimago in light of the recent shenanigans. Nacht was a gentleman and a scholar about it, and even petted me afterwards. Carefully.

Meanwhile, Lynn was sobbing so hard in Terry’s arms that after about ten minutes of it, Sasha faded off and came back with a shot, which she didn’t even notice. I only noticed because he handed me to Pharaoh while he did it, then took me back while I shivered myself into a fitful sleep.

Daddy. Home.

When I awoke, I was still half in Sasha’s lap, curled up on one of the big leather chairs in the study. He had the dregs of a screwdriver in a thick crystal glass next to him on the table, which meant it had been a true red-letter day for him in terms of stress. Sean and Pharaoh had the windowseat, with Meeze sitting half astride the chair that matched ours. Terry still had an arm around Lynn on the little couch. The office had never been so crowded; I could ping Nacht von Richter standing guard outside of it.

“ . . . But now we know that Toadie Grails can cloak their sorc vibe really well,” Terry was saying. “Doesn’t that give us a leg up?”

Pharaoh swirled the ice in the bottom of his Coke. “It’s Hobson’s choice as to whether it was John Salvatori’s bad in not checking in with the District Sorc’s office to register as a Master–and remember, it’s not required everywhere; we’re just regulation-heavy–or my bad in still being distracted from our tiffy and not deep-pinging a stranger.” Humans often likened his high cheekboned face to looking like a cat’s, and indeed he looked most attractive when miserable like this. I hopped down and went over to him. He gathered me up and for the first time buried his face in my fur. His huge green-gray eyes were damp. “Glad you’re okay. Bastards,” he muttered.

I put it together that they were trying to figure out what to do with Salvatori–from the Toadie’s point of view, he was just dotting an “i” and crossing a “t” by reporting an unregistered Grail to his Kaiser; and the horrible part was that if Lynn hadn’t had the extra fillip that made her a fy’foxi–and hence Order–he would have been right, at least in Contract law. He had been questioned with professional thoroughness that I suspected had bordered on zeal, and had nothing to do with my abduction–that was all Kaiser-side.

Poor Knute Riddersley had also been dragged out of his sickbed and interviewed. The Councillor for Culture was a good man, and nobody seriously suspected him of any hankypanky at all–in fact, when he found that Salvatori was betraying a fellow into Grail slavery, he had been livid.

Beyond that, he was a stubborn member of House Windhaven, which had sheltered a number of Toadies fleeing the Contract pogrom, and he had told the Lion team where to stick it and that if it had come down to loyalty tests, he was resigning. Terry had sent him the most apologetic email possible and was trying to coax him out to tea for the next day. The next day! I looked at the big grandfather clock. It was only six p.m. Even counting my dead-out catnap, the whole adventure and aftermath had only taken five hours.

A messenger came for Sean with a little package. He held it up to Sasha and said, “This is the same sort of tag the rest of my friends have. It’s in a charmed cat treat. Shall I?”

Sasha choked. When Devon had come in with Terry that afternoon and found poor Joel unconscious in the entryway, the first thing they had done was call for me–they’d been thinking home invasion of a more routine sort, and had only begun to worry when the call to Pharaoh to pull my tag had produced bupkis. But the sorcerer had noticed in the process that one of the mice he had made for me was very, very far away. Even though Lynn had left her books and computer, the enormity of the true crime hadn’t even occurred to Terry. Not until my mouse had shown up in Germany.

Sean had been Pharaoh’s next call then, because he and Meeze had asked the Prince to put his fancy-schmancies on the Tarragons as the final fool-proof backup plan some weeks ago, and he had confirmed that Lynn was also in Germany. But instead of reaching through the leys and seizing her–which could be a terrifying experience even for Th’nashi expecting it–they decided to call instead; or as Sean put it, “to call collect.”

“Yes, brother. Please. And . . .” Sasha hesitated, then continued in a husky voice, “Thank you.”

Sean unwrapped the morsel of wax paper and proffered it to me. It smelled just like a small Italian meatball, and didn’t seem to have any sorcerous vapors arising from it, so I ate it. Nothing happened. I licked my whiskers and looked askance. Everybody laughed, with that sort of humor that is the best type, combining relief and a sort of joy at the normalcy of the universe after all.

“You mean I’ve eaten one of those?” asked Lynn. Her voice was a ghost of itself, from a combination of all the crying all afternoon and Sasha’s shot.

“Yes,” Sean said. “So have Meeze and Dante, of course, being my cousins, Eamon and our daughter, for obvious reasons, and Pharaoh, who wanted to see what it was like.”

“How do they work?”

For the first time, Sean looked a little uncomfortable. “There’s a small–a very small–amount of, well, me inside there. A sliver of my stomach lining. It’s charmed to form a little island inside others’ stomachs–no discomfort involved, though. Thus, I can always find . . . myself.”

“Oh,” said Lynn. “And, ew. And thank you,” she said in a softer voice.

I agreed with her whole-heartedly.

The office door burst open, and Rita ducked under Nacht von Richter’s huge arm. “Mommy! Where have you been all afternoon? I’ve been emailing you and everything!”

Lynn stepped back into Supermom with nary a quiver. “Busy, sweetie. Tell me,” she said, gathering the eyes of the other adults, “do you still like meatballs?”

Sean said, “Rita loves my meatballs.” He smiled, and Lynn relaxed. For a moment, I thought there were going to be more waterworks, but she grabbed it by its scruff.

“Are we having meatballs for dinner?” Rita asked. As if on cue, my own stomach grumbled, undoubtedly piqued at having to wrestle with the feisty scrap of human DNA. Everybody laughed again. Sean bowed to her, and headed out to the kitchen. The office began to empty. Dante came in the front door, and Lynn fell into his arms and sobbed all over again, which took Rita aback and made Terry’s eyes narrow.

He steered Rita along. “Go pester the cubs, halfpint. Mommy’s had a bad dissertation day. She’ll be fine after dinner.” His face met Dante’s and turned it into half a question.

Dante nodded. “Besides, then we have to explain to our newest little brother what it is to be a N’vai’tt of the Order. Should be shiny and distracting,” he added in a low tone. Terry nodded, unconvinced and worried and jealous. I wove around his ankles and told him to feed me. Sometimes shiny and distracting is my job too.

Lynn sank down on a couch with me in her arms. I was trying to ping and smell with all my might, but it was almost impossible–too much new stuff. Too many people frequented this place; and there was a thick overlay of Hans as well. Hans! Would he prove a friend? Probably not; if I were a gift to the Kaiserin his loyalties might be conflicted.

But at the least, he’d give me some information. Lynn and I were prisoners of war, I figured, and as such, our first duty was to escape. Information was the first step. I wriggled free and trotted toward the strongest Hans-smell. But my way was blocked by an invisible barrier. There was German coming along the corridor; I caught the word “Katzenklo.” And then Hans was there anyway, along with the Kaiserin. Everybody stared at each other–well, the Kaiserin didn’t make eye contact with Lynn; she just looked sad.

“Ja, sie braucht ein Katzenklo,” the Kaiserin said. “Aber nur in den Laden gehen, ja?” Her eyes reddened.

Hans said, “They are talking about going back and stealing your litter pan. Steffi is trying to get them to go to the store. Like honest people.”

“Hans, what are they going to do with us?”

He sighed. “I told you to bury her like a bone. The Kaiser is even now on the phone talking to people and trying to decide who gets the treat. You, on the other hand, will stay with us. You’re the lucky one here. Steffi will spoil you rotten. And I too will make you as welcome as I can. This is shameful! Unworthy of any honor! But we can make the best of it.”

I nuzzled him in thanks, trying not to think of Sasha’s face when he realized I wasn’t there anymore. I shook myself. As Hans reassured me, I wasn’t in any danger of anything other than heartbreak. Lynn, though! I looked down at my slender paws. I wasn’t even full-grown yet, and I had already seen what a simple spell could do to me.

The Kaiserin was standing still, looking awkward as Lynn rocked back and forth on the couch and sobbed. Then she sort of wobbled over and sat next to the crying woman, putting out a tentative hand which trembled.

“Oh my dear,” she murmured. “Oh my dear, how frightening! You had never gated before?”

Yow, I’m a dummy, I thought. That part of it hadn’t even occurred to me. As if seeing the feline pal levitated hadn’t been bad enough.

“I . . . don’t . . . know . . . what you mean,” gasped Lynn. The bodyguard fished out a tissue with bad grace. She took it and blew her nose. The Kaiserin made an angry shooing gesture and said some more sharp things in German to the two of them, and they went off. I crouched next to Lynn, and Hans lay at our feet. I could feel Lynn trying to calm herself. Ivy League brains didn’t tend to go all to mush, as a rule, I told myself. But I could now see how someone might go a little crazy with this intrusion of the uncanny into a life that had already pitched a few curve balls.

An older woman came in, carrying a tray with a pitcher of ice water and a box of tissues. She had severe features which seemed marked with sadness, and her outer soul thought this was all a dreadful shame. She too was a Todeschlagi Grail–was the bastard trying to collect them all?

“Danke schön, Mildred.” The Kaiserin turned to Lynn. “Please, my dear. You must bear up and not let this make you sick.”

“Where am I?” Lynn demanded. “Who are you? What’s going on?”

“I am Steffi von Falkenrath, the Kaiserin of Todeschlag–and that means nothing to you, am I right?”

Lynn shook her head.

“You are in one of our buildings in Berlin, and we . . . I . . . will explain as best as I can.”

“Berlin,” whispered Lynn. She rose and looked out of the window. “How is this possible? Is this even human technology? Are you aliens or something? What do you want with me–with us?” She gestured at me.

“The kitty is meant as a gift for me which will double the slap in the face meant for the Archimago of Nova Terra. You have no idea who that is either, do you?” Steffi sighed and muttered something in German under her breath that needed no translation to come across as “Great. Stick me with the hard job, why don’t you?” But she sighed and got about it.

“Your name is Lynn, yes? I am glad you are clever. For you are correct; this was alien technology. Everyone you have met here is technically an alien–but many of your friends at home are as well. The archimago I mentioned is your friend Terence Riverly, and he is one of the most important of our people.”

“Am I a hostage?”

Steffi made a face and a shrug. “No, liebschen. You are what I am in cold reality; what Mildred is. We are prisoners. We belong to the Kaiser, my husband.” She made herself meet Lynn’s eyes. “You are very valuable chattel. You’re probably lucky Wilhelm is so fond of me, else you might have found your one of a kind self installed as Kaiserin, to be shown off. But no,” she corrected herself, “you will need to be hidden away. Listen to what I tell you, and be brave! You do not know it, but you were bred to be a warrior. Hear the whole thing out.” She poured herself a drink of water and bent to pet Hans for a second for courage. And then she began to tell Lynn the story the Crucio had told me, all about how the Th’nashi came to be.

She even called for one of the guards to come kneel at their feet and demonstrate the alacrity with which the cruel curves of the Toadie fangs could plunge out from behind the false canines. Lynn listened, enraptured despite herself, as her own outer soul brushed against Steffi’s and realized that every word was true.

“We Todeschlagi were meant as a refinement on the original genetic work Chatte’d’garcon did to blend us with the humani. We are bigger, stronger, faster, and yes, just a bit smarter than the average Th’nashi.” She laughed without humor. “We are even better looking. Think of your friend Artemisio de Medici. He is one of us, you know–his Firenzi princess mother had an affair with one of our sailors. He is true Todeschlagi type: beautiful, brilliant–he even has the my’vaht hair some of our Lions have which would trip them unless kept cut–goodness knows why they bothered to throw that in. It is as if everything the Lions had, they wanted to make more so. Super soldiers. And yes, even that measures a little extra. Or so I am told. Wilhelm would probably have me shot if I did research.” She quirked her lips. It was a joke, if a small one, and Lynn smiled. She was getting her brave back.

Steffi’s eyes darkened, however, as she confessed how the Todeschlagi had behaved during the Second World War. Were they not the true Master Race? They had hitched their wagons onto Hitler, forming a super-elite company of the SS, and had planned to in turn conquer the Aryans themselves, once the humani had done all the heavy lifting. But they had forgotten that the Th’nashi had failed to conquer the humani back when they had come; and they were not the only Lions to enlist.

“We had no shame. And when the Th’nashi held their own war tribunals, they tried to wipe us out. Even our innocents. The only people to survive had already fled the Fatherland, prophesying that we faced a similar fate to the gypsies and the Jews, or protesting what the rest of us were doing. Today, out of some two million Th’nashi, only 246 are of Todeschlag.

“No, 247 now. For you are one of us, liebschen. I am sorry.” She stopped to appraise what effect this would have on the American woman. But Lynn only nodded a slow assent.

“Yes, I believe it. I’ve never felt entirely human. Or do I mean humani?”

Steffi sighed with some relaxation. This was going better than anybody had hoped–at least on our side. We’d been selling Lynn short.

But Steffi wasn’t finished. “This is unpleasant, but I am here to assure you that there is nothing to help it: My husband is deciding which of his nobles he wishes to gift you to. He sees you as an object, and because–forgive me–you are past your first beauty, they will see you as one as well. You will be a curiosity, used for your blood. And yes, maybe for other things.” She stretched out a hand in pleading. “Please understand me–they want you to resist. They want you to fight. They want nothing more to break the will. Do not give them one to break. I have seen toy Grails mutilated. Badly,” she whispered.

A woman came into the room, bowing to the Kaiserin. They said a few things. Then Steffi turned back to Lynn and said, “This is Dr. Klein. She wants to take a DNA swipe of your cheek. We are trying to solve your mystery. Will you allow it?”

Lynn said, “I suppose so, especially as I suspect you’re asking permission just to be nice.” Her voice was hollow, outer soul fighting shock. She opened her mouth and let her cheek be scraped, while Steffi pinged shame.

There was a bustle in the hallway and the Kaiser entered with three other men, looking proud of himself. I couldn’t help but growl under my breath.

“Shh!” whispered Hans. “When he is in a power mood, he would as soon throw you in the river and then scream at Steffi for the rudeness of her cat. Do not do anything to anger this man, I pray you!” It was hateful to know that the hundred pounds of death at our feet was afraid of that smarmy bundle of thieving human garbage. I subsided. Then I realized, upon closer stealthy ping, that Hans was not afraid of the Kaiser at all; he was just a pragmatist. I wondered what would happen if the little tyrant were ever without his bodyguard, and was stupid enough to make Steffi unhappy. Then I shook the thought off. Whatever else Wilhelm von Falkenrath was, I doubted stupid was on the list.

I recognized Rudolf and the sorcerer, but the Kaiser also had a strange man with him. He was biggish, but not a true Lion-type. He radiated something nauseating that the women picked up on too. Steffi had caught her breath very softly when she had seen him, and an arrow of anguish went from her outer soul to Lynn’s. She stood up now.

“No, Wilhelm, please. Please give our guest a little time to acclimate–I have told her much of who we are, but not enough yet. Give her that. Please. Let her stay with me some days.”

He laughed and folded his hands as he had back at the party. “No, dear heart. The Graf is eager to take her now.”

“In fact,” the other man frowned, “you overstepped yourself by telling her anything at all. I had been counting on–surprising her. But I will still have some surprises.” He fanged in a big smile. The Th’nashi lost and regrew new fangs on an average of four times a year; the clean new ivory looked very out of place in his hungry mouth, with its mossy teeth. The man stank of unwashed flesh and careless toileting and the last several meals he had had; I noticed that even the Kaiser stood apart from him, meaning that he offended even human noses. In fact, Steffi had mentioned that Todeschlagi had a good sense of smell for Th’nashi–as good as a good humani: I wondered that the humans could stand this man at all, especially as his outer soul dripped of even worse.

And they were going to give Lynn to this human abyss? She was frozen with the sudden realization. I felt dizzy. I wanted this to be a nightmare; I wanted to go home.

The Crucio was only in with Terry for seventeen minutes, but it was enough. Terry slammed out to put the tea kettle on; through the open door I could just hear Dante sitting at the desk making phone calls. They were assembling the Council. I hopped off Devon’s lap as he got up to help prepare things.

This should be good, I thought in anticipation, but in sad reality it was a huge letdown. After five hours of arguing, the status remained quo. The Crucio could go screw; Nova Terra was keeping its hands on the purse for now.

“It’s not like he can give orders. He said so himself,” Terry said with belligerent defensiveness.

“But it’s not like His Lordship goes about making timid suggestions either,” pointed out Dante in a weary tone. Terry had gone so far as to accuse him of supporting the engineering solution because his father was the head of the firm with the most attractive bid. He apologized for it almost as soon as it was out of his mouth, but Dante had had enough at that point and had snapped that it was that level of administrative reasoning that made him the fine archimago he was. The room had hunkered down and gone very small, and three people at the table noticed my dismay and reassured me with their outer souls–reassuring themselves at the same time; I felt a little squozled from the simultaneous pressure.

Pharaoh was there, of course, and was what I’d never seen in him before: what Meeze called “batshit furious.” He told Terry all about himself in terms of his utter inability to understand that sorcery was the lifeblood underpinning Contract, and mocked his stupidity over the basic equation of the more sorcerers playing at being steel girders, the fewer sorcerers available to, say, administer a precisely-delivered microstroke to somebody who’d seen some clumsy ass bite their neighbor in full daylight. The room was also very quiet for this, but the best/worst part was when Pharaoh did what the Art of Rhetoric calls descending to ad hominem, meaning he made it personal, and said that if Terry really cared about Nova Terra’s resources, he wouldn’t have sucked so many of them down on his trip to the pen.

Pharaoh was very angry. He was out of his chair, poised to take it right back. Problem was, Terry didn’t know even as much about Pharaoh’s personal life as I did, so he had no material. It was probably just as well: Terry carried an illegal gun (which was on Sasha’s long list of grievances), just to be a badass, and practiced with it at the range to the Lions’ discomfort–but one rainy afternoon Pharaoh had told me a little about his life before Nova Terra. He had been the District Sorcerer of Badlands, meaning the deserty cowboy places, and had laid out three would be gunslingers in those canyons.

So what Terry did instead was accuse him of being lazy, and if there was a shortage of sorcery, it was up to the District Sorcerer to make good. Pharaoh called him a — (just that, meaning he opened his mouth and raised a finger, but nothing came out, because his brain was in gear despite his temper) and gated out in a huff. Good thing I was hiding in back of the TV instead of on his knitting bag.

All in all, it was a nasty meeting, and I predicted it would take a lot of soaking in the tub for people to get over it.

Pharaoh gated back in later on that evening. Terry was down in the tub ignoring the fact that Sasha had gone back to work so as to ignore him, and I suspected at least half the Council were having a post-meeting venting session over at Dante’s. I had better ears and a sharper outer soul than the cubs, who had caught the zeitgeist and had been quarreling over what to watch on TV all night, so I padded into the study.

“Ah, good; I was wondering how to get your attention. His Nibs is in the tub, yes? Anybody else home?”

“Devon. Joel.”

“Joel?” My best pronunciation of “Joel” and the Cat for “cat pan” were lamentably close. I nodded.

“Good.” He tossed off a sorcery which pressed upon my ears until I swallowed and made them pop. It was a silencing spell. The study had one charmed into its door, but Joel had just enough sorcery that he’d notice it being used.

“I just wanted to thank you a hundred times over for having the presence of mind–and unselfishness–to bring the Tarragons up to His Lordship. Of course old Ratty had the answer, he knows all sorts of things–don’t ever call him Ratty, it’s his family nickname–and now I’m in an awkward position.” He sat on the floor across from me, his outer soul in turmoil.

“Can you think of any way to get this information across that won’t either give you away or give me credit for a discovery I didn’t make? Because I can’t.”

I had already wondered about this, but Pharaoh taking credit didn’t bother me at all. It was the way of things, since Puss in Boots and long before that.

“You do it. I approve.”

He smiled, but was still uncomfortable about it, bless his honest soul. I went up to him and rubbed my chin on his, kneading his chest with my forepaws. He snuggled my shoulders.

“It’s nobody’s business what I talk to the Crucio about. Dante at least knows that he and I go back a long way; I’ll just steal your lines and say I decided to bounce the problem off him because he was handy.”

I purred encouragement.

He rubbed my ears. “And then I don’t suppose you have any grand thoughts on how to break it to Lynn.”

I did. “Dante. Friends, man woman friends. Yes?”

“Yeahhh, trouble with that is, it gets a little daytime romance there.” What was wrong with that? I cocked my head.

“Handsome vampire getting to like a lady, has dreadful secret, makes clean breast to lady before falling on one knee. She’s going to expect the falling on one knee part.” I wanted to argue around this, but he had a point. Not Dante, then.

“You!” Then I remembered. “No. Terry. Terry Lynn kittens before.”

“Grad school is hardly kittens, love.”

Damn that unattainable spell. We really needed to work on his vocabulary. “Kittens mating time. Before. Terry tell me. Lynn tell me. New York.” Many cat owners have recorded our saying proper nouns, with detractors saying it was just within our repertoire of yowling, and “N’Yaaahhh’k” indeed was yowly, but he got the drift.

“I’ll be damned! That throws a new light on some weird subtexts I’ve wondered about. There you are then. Eureka, we’ve done it! No, you’ve done it!”

“Crucio,” I pointed out, and he hugged me.

We agreed that it needed to wait a few days until Pharaoh and Terry made it up–which wouldn’t be a big deal, both of them being the sunny temperament type–and then maybe a couple more until the very idea of the Crucio’s input wouldn’t set Terry’s back up as a matter of course. He gated home, and I went back in to the cubs.

They were watching “Buffy” reruns, and as usual arguing about whether or not Angel would have made a good Lion. I thought I’d fast for two days to see Buffy smack down with either Pharaoh or Eamon, who were fighting masters–and toss in a mouse to see it with nebbishy Taillefer Araimfres, Sasha’s assistant, who was not only a fighting master but the one who specialized in those Lions–mostly Todeschlagi–who could fight at extra high speed. So the evening ended in content. I felt very proud of myself.

The next morning was Tuesday, and we had our usual breakfast Council meeting. People were subdued and held themselves down to a barebones recitation of the necessities. They were politer than usual because there was a newbie there, one John Salvatori, who had just come over from Europe to advise on immigration–American Contract was always getting a slow, constant leak from the Old Countries. Salvatori had just been hired on by Knute Riddersley, the Councillor for Culture, who had a bad cold made worse by last night’s bickering, and Knute had sent him on alone today. He was a nondescript older man whose main interest for me was that “Salvatori” notwithstanding, he was a Todeschlagi Grail, the first I’d met other than Lynn (and the Kaiser and Kaiserin). Presumably they got rented out for other things than as blood donors and sex slaves.

Tuesdays had become extra special because Lynn had taken to coming over in the afternoon to work on her dissertation in the peace and quiet of the huge mahogany dining room. If I were there, she would make occasional comments to me, which was how I was beginning to learn a lot of otherwise useless information about the Other in Jules Verne and H.G. Wells. Terry pretended to her that the Council meetings all had to do with the charitable foundation that handled the bulk of his fortune, and so she thought nothing of them all trailing out as she came in, completely ignorant of the fact that Devon had called out, “Ia tseradiae!” before letting her through the door.

Salvatori gave her a sort of fish-eyed look as he passed her, which worried me, until I recalled that the Shield of Adamant protected her from other normal Toadies as well. Unless they were master sorcerers, I reminded myself. But this guy didn’t give off the sorc vibe–and if he were a sorcerer, he would have had to check in with Pharaoh’s office as part of his own immigration, and I doubted Pharaoh would have then just let him loose on the Council. I put the fish-eye down to either sizism or racism–as did Lynn, whose eyes narrowed as she set up her computer.

But something about her seemed to niggle at Salvatori; as he left, I heard him ask Dante who she was. An old friend of the archimago’s, he was told, and he left it at that; but I still made a note to try to talk to Pharaoh about it next chance I got.

Lynn settled down with her laptop and a back-breaking stack of very old books, and I curled up to kick around my favorite catnip mouse, which was the one Pharaoh had made for me when I’d gotten spayed. There was quiet in the house for several hours.

I must have dozed off in a happy catnip haze, because I was awakened by the doorbell. It was Salvatori, who told Joel he was missing a glove. He popped his head into the dining room, but instead of doing anything sensible such as returning to his seat, or so much as asking Lynn if she’d seen it, he opened a slick-looking cell phone and said, “Ja, sie ist hier.” In a moment, I felt two massive presences gate onto the doorstep.

Uh oh. My German was pretty much limited to “Ja wohl, Herr Commandant,” but I didn’t like this at all. Joel opened the door and cried out in pain at once. There wasn’t much of a scuffle, and I snarled at the bullies who had taken out their own little brother while invading his post. Or could these Lions be held to any standards at all? They stood admiring the dining room; I recognized the sorcerer who had brought Hans into the party.

Lynn had heard Joel cry out–more so, she had pinged it, whether she had the vocabulary to say as much or not. She was standing at the table, pale with fear.

“Who are you? Why, you’re Lions–no, you can’t be Lions,” she said, sounding the disgust I felt. “Is Joel all right? What do you want?”

“We are the Lions of the Kaiser of Todeschlag, who wishes very much to make your acquaintance. It would seem to be several years overdue. Did you really think you could hide forever?” the non-sorc said.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about!”

The non-sorc gave a brutal laugh.

“So you say.” (The bastard could ping her truth as well as I could.) “And if it turns out that you are just some poor a’thanila left homeless because you were invisible, it will go better for you. But not for the Archimago of Nova Terra, hiding you here in his very house. The Kaiser is furious. Come along, meine Frau.”

“But what about–” Lynn was smart enough to bite the word “Rita” off in time, although in truth the goons wouldn’t have dared to lay a finger on a Chattie–or would have packed her off with a grovel as soon as they’d run her DNA for themselves and found out that she was a daughter of the ruling house.

No such protections for Lynn; no relatives had turned up for her at all–which, Sasha said, probably meant that whoever had dumped her on a doorstep hadn’t meant to be found afterward. The irony was that they might well be nobility: it took pull to stay out of the Chattie database.

In fact, I was the only protection Lynn had, and I opted to freeze like a bunny. I knew my claws and teeth were useless against thugs who could immobilize little Joel with a couple of blows. Besides, somebody had to tell Pharaoh what had happened!

But to my horror, the sorcerer stepped forward and scooped me up. I was too far in shock to protest, holding myself limp and wide-eyed in his arms. Did he know cats were sentient and meant to remove the only witness? I began to struggle furiously, but only for a moment, as he held me away with the spell Meeze had used on Duke that long-ago afternoon: I fought against empty air. Had I survived the Roamans’ closet, only to come to this?

Lynn gasped in shock at seeing me so suspended. Tears filled her voice. “Oh my God! Please, put her down! Don’t hurt her! I’ll come quietly.”

The sorcerer grinned. “I know you will. But she will too. The Kaiser is on new medication, and he has given the Kaiserin permission for a cat. It is only fitting that one she so admired be her own now. It will make a point with the archimago; he will feel a little of the sting of having somebody steal what is his own.” He leaned over and put my mouse in his pocket.

There was the cold; the song of Bast in the utmost distance did nothing to warm that. When it was over a few seconds later, I felt myself dropped to the floor. I raced to Lynn, who gathered me in her arms, sobbing. We and the two Lions were in a well-appointed room looking out over a strange city. I recognized the tall needle in the skyline from a documentary.

We were in Berlin.

Thanksgiving came and went. My stitches fell out by themselves–well, ok, maybe with a little help from my teeth, but by then they had done their job and I was right as rain, and back to screaming the occasional curse word at Duke as he passed by in the street. The caulk in the kitchen stopped that mouse incursion, but I was poised; moreover, I was trying to figure out how to carry the war up to the attic.

People still went back and forth and up and down about the Lynn/Rita/a’thanila situation, but nothing got done–other, that is, than that they became good if awkward friends of the household. Lynn even got up the nerve to bare all in the tub in the basement, the masculine beauties of Lion Quartermain, et al. notwithstanding. True, at first she chickened out and hid in the laundry room, but then Sasha came home and stripped in front of her, pointing out that bodies were bodies, and friends didn’t mind much what other friends came packed in. This shameless play of the castration card did the trick, and now Lynn just threw small objects at Meeze, who teased her about her harem. (Seeing as the feistiest Lions got was marital chastity, it wasn’t much of a harem. Lynn privately informed me that she got as much action as I did.)

After a while, the political snarl our dai’yadi was always in got tired of the Tarragon situation and began to focus on how to pressure Chatte’d’garcon into policing a new-fangled Web entity called Bookface or Facecrooks or Spacebook or something, which had been born that spring at about the same time I was, and which the local college kids were going nuts over. Terry was on the thing, and kept insisting that it had mammoth potential to Change The World As We Knew It, but Chattie wasn’t listening, despite his increasing franticness over its apparently endless possibilities for leaking information the Th’nashi would rather keep secret. Chatte’d’garcon was happy enough to keep an eye on the world’s email, and I suspected that not getting caught at that by other people doing the same thing was maxing them out as it was. Or at least that’s what they complained about. In other words, business as usual.

Or at least it was business as usual, until one December afternoon Eamon Davenant came in with a peculiar look on his face and outer soul. He tapped at the door to Terry’s study, where Terry was chatting on Friendnook and I was sleeping on the windowseat, secure in a nest I had made from an old afghan. Terry sang, “Come in!” and Eamon did. As a rule, he was pale for a Knightsblood-Firenzi; most of them favored their Italian parents, but Eamon’s mother was whispered to be the Queen of the Assassins and a Knightsblood princess and I guess her genes had more mojo. They showed now with all claws–there wasn’t a drop of blood in his face.

Terry whistled. “Look like you saw a ghost, man. What’s wrong?” His outer soul reached out and did the equivalent of putting an arm around his shoulder; to my surprise the undemonstrative Eamon squeezed back for a second.

His Irish brogue was thicker than usual. “I did, sure as I stand here, and talked to one too. Well, not a proper ghost what’s dead and gone. But it was fey, all the same. My g’nah is sprained from feeling after it and not getting anywhere.”

He went to the wet bar and poured himself a shot of whiskey. “I was walking over here as I usually do, and the light was casting my shadow before me on the bricks. And then out of nowhere came a great big shadow, swallowing mine, the shadow of a tall man. But there was not a soul to be pinged up and down the street.” He downed the shot. “Made all my hair stand on end, I tell you. I had no idea what I’d be facing when I turned around, but I felt a fool, as the last thing I expected should have been the first in my mind. It was the Crucio.”

“The Crucio! What did he mean by it? What did he want?”

Eamon gave a shaky laugh. “You, man. He wants to talk to you. Ever so nice about it. But firm. Said he had just been over at the Pit, and was enjoying a walk in the neighborhood. Said he’d always liked university towns. Sounded downright sad that he’d never gotten to go himself. But he recognized me as being Sean’s Prince Consort, and knew that I served on Nova Terra’s Council. And would I please ask the archimago to be at home to him in about two hours. Then he got a call, apologized like a gentleman, and gated out. I tell you, I was afraid people were seeing me talk to myself and the thin air, because the only bit of me that knew he was there was my eyes. And hardly my ears–his voice, yes, but nary a heartbeat.”

I too had noticed the Crucio’s lack of normal body noises. I guessed it would be considered not the thing for his tummy to rumble in the middle of an audience of state. I was willing to bet my ears that he didn’t fart. Which must get uncomfortable, I thought.

Terry was turning even paler than Eamon. “I haven’t seen the Crucio in the three years since he anointed me as archimago, and that’s suited me fine. Did he give any hints about what he wanted?”

Eamon gave him a sharp look, his self-possession returned. “If he’d been touring the Pit, I’m betting that has something to do with it. Pharaoh has been bitching about the trouble it is, keeping all those sorcerers on one job.”

“Mm,” said Terry. “Don’t know what he expects out of me. It’s not as if I can roll up my sleeves and pitch in.”

Eamon said nothing and his face did not move, but I caught a whiff of his outer soul’s–contempt, I must say to be honest. I knew why. Even I knew that Terry had the power to make the sorcerer version of the Pit stop; he was just intimidated by the Nesh’vai, the Congress-like body of power-grabbers who sneered at him as a weak archimago without the stones to scruff them into shape. Their lack of respect only grew worse the more he knuckled under to their bullying. It was a constant low-grade gripe of Sasha’s, who had once volunteered to me that it would be nice if he respected the person he slept with.

Gay marriage had been legalized in Massachusetts that spring, and although as Lions Eamon and Sean had been claiming themselves to be happy enough that the Order recognized their relationship, they had dropped everything and pulled out all the stops to have a massive wedding the week after the law was signed. Just as heterosexual weddings made certain of their acquaintance fidgety, Eamon and Sean’s had inspired an outbreak of no eye contact, working late and a lack of talking about it in our house.

Although part of me loathed the idea of gossiping about my daddies, part of me yearned for the ability to just curl up in Pharaoh’s lap and get his full take on their relationship. I was afraid that they lacked tenderness–but somehow I couldn’t see them spending such on other men. Mainstream TV was still tiptoeing around gay relationships as anything other than a curiosity or subject for rather tedious humor, so I had no source of advice whatsoever. It made me worry.

But this had nothing to do with the impending visit of the Crucio. I hoped, oh how I hoped, he’d have a few minutes for me!

Terry twiddled about a pencil. “So what do I do, run around and make sure the house is tidy?” he asked in irritation.

Eamon shrugged. “You might try getting out your file on the Pit and running over the arguments supporting your decisions to keep the status quo. Other than that, maybe do your deep breathing exercises. Either way, he didn’t imply in the slightest that he needed my presence, so I’m out of here.” He rinsed out his glass, and left.

“Crap,” said Terry to the mid-air. He then burst into a flurry of purposeful-looking activity: opening drawers and getting out folders, opening files on his computer, and flipping through his Rolodex. After about twenty minutes of frantic mumbling, he struck himself on the forehead, which meant that he had forgotten to do something in a spasm of stupidity, and dialed up Dante. They had a long conversation, which started in him indeed running over those arguments for knuckling under to the Nesh’vai, morphed into Terry fretting in free-form anxiety while Dante presumably said calming things, and ended in their agreeing that Dante himself should be there, both as Privy Councillor, and as “somebody who can keep me from punching the officious so-and-so in the mouth.”

He then paced back and forth for a while before slamming out to wait for Dante on the lawn, then slamming back in to get his jacket to do it in, and returning to pace back and forth in the driveway.

“He seems very agitated,” the Crucio remarked in a mild tone.

I told my fur to lie back down where it belonged and turned from the window. The Crucio had done the expected thing–well, what I had expected–and used the gatepoint beside the study door. He smiled at me in genuine pleasure.

“How are you, Eureka?”

“Very well, thank you sir. Sir! We may only have a minute, and it’s been fretting me. We’re trying to keep a Grail hidden from the Kaiser. Do you have any advice you could maybe pass on to Pharaoh?”

The Crucio’s impassive face cracked into a brief fit of misery. “I can’t get involved in House politics, no matter how odious, unless things get so out of hand that Contract itself is threatened. How has this fellow escaped detection so far?”

I explained, “She’s a she, and she has an extra layer of inhibited q thinggummies, and was raised by humani. She’s middle-aged and has had a very hard life. We’re afraid she’ll go nuts if she even finds out she’s Th’nashi, let alone that she’s a Grail slave.” I was about to go into the Rita part when he raised an autocratic hand.

“By inhibited q thinggummies, do you mean the Shield of Adamant?”

“Yeah. She’s a f’something. It’s rare and special.”

“Fy’foxi–Hang on.” Outside, Dante had shown up, and the two of them were about to enter the study.

Terry opened the door and started. “My Lord!”

The Crucio bowed, his heavy silk jacket making a swirl. It looked as if it should smell nice of something exotic, but of course, it didn’t.

“Your Grace, would you do me the rare favor of according me a few moments of privacy? I have unfinished business that I fell into of a sudden.” I could tell that Terry was finishing the sentence “while waiting for you, you numbskull” by his blush. He nodded and closed the door.

The Crucio turned back to me and mewed in satisfaction, as if he put archimagi on hold for cats every day. (Maybe he did. He was the Crucio.) “Fy’foxi, I was saying. I’m surprised at Pharaoh; surprised at Lion Davenant. My brothers here in the Order are deficient in their Stricture. Because of their historical espionage potential, fy’foxi in fact belong to the Order. It’s still Grail slavery, damn it all, but seeing as it keeps those rare Toadies away from the Kaiser’s whim, nobody complains very loudly. So your lady is safe enough from her House. As for the question remaining as to how to explain to her that she’s an alien vampire to begin with, that I can’t help you with.” He flattened his hands in front of his human ears in a shrug.

I leaped off the windowsill and rubbed his boots in ecstasy before remembering myself. He laughed, and his outer soul played this nifty little counterpoint with his hands that tickled my belly while he rubbed my throat.

“If only the rest of today’s business in Nova Terra would be solved so easily, I’d go home and count it an excellent day. I’ll be sure to give Pharaoh all the details, and if I have any general ideas on how to bring her home, I’ll toss those in. She must be brought home, though. Half of that hard life of trauma has been thinking she’s mad when she’s just had g’nah; you can count on it.”

He straightened up and sighed. “Eureka, I really will try to check in with you time and again. You’ve done a good deed today. But I believe in playing fair with my archimagi, and unless you’re a member of the Council of Nova Terra, it really wouldn’t be appropriate for you to be at this interview. Especially if you decide to make me laugh or something.” His eyes twinkled, and I sighed. I hated to say goodbye to him. But when he opened the door so the Archimago of Nova Terra could re-enter his own study, I slipped out, feeling mournful and abandoned.

Most of the time I was sufficient unto myself, pursuing my own thoughts and living my own life. But sometimes, no doubt about it, I was lonely. Even these rare conversations with other species were big treats. Did we need another cat? Noooo! “Don’t wanna share,” I muttered to myself. I went into the guardroom next to the office.  Devon and Joel were having a spirited argument about why Joel couldn’t call his girlfriend and tell her he’d just seen the Crucio. Devon made a lap for me without even thinking about it, and I jumped into warmth.

But was it enough?

Matt had let a small torrent of people in. One of them, a middle aged woman with a nice smile, said something appreciative in German that sounded like some version of “Ooh, look at the pretty kitty,” and I preened myself up to my full height and came over to say hello.

“Ach du lieber, nein!” snapped a monster of a Lion. He was the biggest human I had ever seen—as tall as near-seven-foot Meeze and built like Dante wearing a Crucio for a suit. Some of it might have been fat, but I wouldn’t be the one to bring the topic up. He interposed himself between me and the rest of the party. My admirer blushed and mouthed something that I took for “I’m sorry!” at me.

“It’s all right, Rudolf,” said a soft-voiced man from somewhere down near his elbow. “I have taken my pills.”

By this time, my daddies had come down behind me and Sasha was glowering up at the cat hater, who said something very fast and nasty-sounding in German.

“Das wird genug sein, Rudolf!” The short man’s voice was no longer soft. Rudolf subsided, glaring at me.

The Kaiser (who else could it be?) extended his hand to Terry and then to Sasha. “My apologies for Lion Hofmann. I have a little allergy to the kittycats. Nothing life-threatening, I assure you, and I have taken my antihistamines. I am Wilhelm von Falkenrath and this is my wife Steffi. We are the Kaiser and Kaiserin of Todeschlag. And you are?” I noticed he didn’t introduce the other four people, but that was okay, because they were all biggish Lions who looked like they wanted to understudy for Schwarzenegger or Van Damme.  One was indeed also giving off sorcerer vibes–these were the security Meeze had complained of the prior evening. They made Terry’s “staff” of slender six-foot twenty-year-olds look like a joke. I was almost sorry we didn’t have Privy Councillor Dante on hand to bulk up our impressiveness.

“Terence Riverly, Archimago of Nova Terra, and my Grail Consort, Alexei John, N’vai’tt Van der Linden.” N’vai’tts were the Grails and humani in the Order; Sasha very rarely went by the title, unless it was required by fancy Th’nashi party rules, like this.

Sasha added, “And this is Eureka. We’re sorry; we weren’t told you were allergic. Come on, girlfriend. Basement for you.” This was the usual drill in cases like this. He gathered me up against the Kaiserin’s protests.

Not good enough for Rudolf. “But the air, the air is the same, yes?”

“We’ve just vacuumed,” said Terry, waving a hand about the place in a vague manner.

“We are accustomed to people asking about permission for their animals,” said Rudolf, adding “sir,” at a glare from the Kaiser. “I cannot see why the animal cannot be put outside for the evening.”

Before Sasha could begin an adequate reply to “permission,” let alone the rest of it, the sorcerer Lion broke in.

“If you will have your animal, then we will have ours.” He went back outside and came back with what had to be the hugest Doberman on the planet.

“This is our little Hans. He will be only too delighted to spend the party with us, and play together with your enchanting cat.” He smiled, flashing needle-like fangs which seemed nastier than any I’d seen so far–sure, Meeze had the cobra-like Todeschlagi fangs, and yeah, he used them as occasional punctuation–all the Fangs did–but this was the first hint of Boris Karloff I’d gotten. I shivered.

For reasons known only to Bast, most dogs bred to guard are big, sloppy puppykins when not in immediate kill mode, and Hans was no exception. After a fast sniff to catalog my daddies and Matt, who was still hovering, Hans stepped forward and got a big slobbery inhale of myself. I didn’t say any of the things that came first to mind, like “Get one drop of your saliva on me and your nose will need a slipcover,” because in Cat all that stuff comes out in hisses, and I didn’t want to give the Toadies the satisfaction. Instead, I gave him a feather-light tap on the nose, letting my paw linger for a moment, and said sotto voce, “Note the velvet? It’s deliberate. You play nice, I’ll play nice.” None of the humans detected anything other than the playful kitty batting at the puppy, which was my plan.

“Alles es gut!” he panted. “I only chase the cats to amuse my humans. It gives me little pleasure to frighten somebody so much smaller than myself. It is too much, how you say, like playing cat and mouse.” He sat back and his eyes twinkled. A smartass. Could be worse. Much worse.

“Touché,” I admitted. “That said, if you want to put the fear of all the gods into any of our mice, feel free. I’ve been under the weather for the last couple of days.”

He cocked his head. “I am sorry to hear it, Fraulein.” Very polite, very sincere. Put the Kaiser and his Lions on the miles-long list of people who should take lessons from their dogs. I did wonder whose foot had come down and kept him from being a bully, though, and then I caught Hans giving the Kaiserin an adoring look and figured it out.

Sasha put me down with slow, deliberate care. I went up to Hans and sniffed noses. “Let’s not give your men the show they want, hmm? Your mistress-lady seems a very good sort indeed.”

“She is the sun, the moon, and the Hunter, and I am the star at her heel,” he panted. “Would you let her caress you? She would love a cat beyond all things.” He sounded sad at not being as big a universe to her as she was to him.

I went up and gave the big love to the Kaiserin’s ankles and she laughed like a happy little child. But, “Steffi, liebschen, if you touch the cat you will have to wash your hands with the special soap,” hummed her husband; and so she just stood there with shining eyes.

“He’s a treat and a half,” I remarked to Hans. We strolled into the living room, him sniffing for all he was worth and chuckling at the faces of a few of Terry’s Councillors and other Th’nashi Beautiful People, all of whom were invited as camouflage for what was really no more than a high-level butt sniff.

“Ugh! Do not get me started. I don’t know why she married him. She gave up her cat to her roommates, but cried so at night that they got her a puppy. Me, obviously. I am four now, but I feel as if I were fifteen.”

“They mistreat you?” I gasped.

He shrugged with his big nose. “I cannot say mistreat. But there is a love of power. They expect me to play Big Mean Dog. It gets tiring. Wilhelm, he’s maybe not so bad in and of himself. The cat allergy is really pretty severe–say, before we leave, would you be so kind as to roll all over me? If they were stupid enough to try a play like this, it would only serve them right. They will have to give me a bath.”

I choked with laughter. “You’ve got yourself a deal. But you were saying?”

“It’s not so much Wilhelm as the structure of the House. You know that Todeschlag had allied itself with the Nazis, yes?”

“I’d heard something about that somewhere. And that something dreadful was done after the War to punish them, but I don’t know the details.”

He chortled without humor, a low woof that made some of the humans uneasy. “Chatte’d’garcon set up the world’s biggest spay/neuter clinic. For humans. And hanged people by mouthfuls. It set out to eradicate the House. To punish genocide, Contract committed genocide itself.”

I gasped. This didn’t sound like the bumbling Contract I knew. Or thought I knew.

He nodded. “By the time they figured out what I must say was an obvious moral issue, it was almost too late. Today there are less than 300 Todeschlagi left, and that number has grown–almost everybody in the House who survived the onslaught intact bred in a frenzy. It’s a good thing that the genes tend to be dominant. The only House more or less sure of taking the litter away from us is the Chatties themselves.”

Hence Rita, I thought. Aloud, I said, “I would think this would make Todeschlag a little less ready to offend.”

He laughed again. “Ah, but you see, you are thinking in terms of ‘lessons learned.’ The lesson learned was not that ‘You have perpetrated a horror,’ but ‘we are all monsters, it’s just that you got caught at it.’ Or something to that effect. The result is that the House is very defensive, very back-to-back, and they play up the Nazi kitsch purely because it pisses people off. Unfortunately, nice liberal American Th’nashi by and large feel much guilt over what their parents did to the poor Toadies, so the Kaiser is making hay while the sun shines, I heard someone say once. This is just one more night to try to make a little political capital.

“It helps that very few Th’nashi are Jewish,” he ended, with another humorless little bark.

I realized that I was enjoying myself hugely, having a real conversation with another thinking being. It was my first one since meeting the Crucio. I saw that I had an opportunity to myself answer the question that burned in all our heads.

“What about the Grail slavery?” I asked. “Or is that just fluffed up to sound scary?”

He looked sad. “Nein, Fraulein. It is very real. My mistress is one of only fifteen Gralen known to the House. The rest–and there are less than fifty–are all men. She has an invisible leash.”

“But he’s a Grail himself!” I cried. “What does he need her for?”

“Prestige,” he said. “Your two men, do they love each other?”

I didn’t know how to answer that, partly because I didn’t know what the answer was. I opted to return truth for truth. “Sort of. I don’t know. They’ve been together on and off since they were kittens. I know they would die for each other without thinking about it,” I said, realizing that that was truth. “So maybe they do. But I’ll tell you what, Sasha isn’t property. Not even close.”

“Then he is lucky.” His cruel-cut ears twitched. “Steffi wants me. I will do my party tricks now, with a canape on my nose.” He sighed. “What we will not do for love, eh?” He cocked his head. “Pardon me, Fraulein, but I have never had such an edifying conversation with a cat. Do your people love as well?”

Oy. “We do; we’re just . . . different. We also don’t have good places to put canapes,” I added. He laughed, this time from the belly, and trotted off to his mistress. I went to watch. It was quite the thing. He turned into a dog of stone, sitting there for over fifteen boring minutes trying not to look cross-eyed at a piece of garlic sausage that had the poor fellow drooling on the rug. Then he also fell over dead when shot and shook paws with everybody who was brave enough. As dogs go, he was really quite beautiful, and the Kaiserin got many compliments.

He managed to slip away right before they left, though, and true to my word I rolled all over him, even letting him tickle my belly with that huge snout until I giggled.

“He will be sneezing for days now,” Hans said with satisfaction. “He won’t dare to touch her. She will be able to sleep alone.” A dark chill wafted off his outer soul that made me shiver.

“Hans, do you have any humans to talk to?” I asked. I wanted to trust him. He shook his head, looking at me as if I were nuts.

“I’ve taught a nosy sorcerer about a dozen words of Cat,” I explained. Leave the Crucio out of it, I figured. “Anyway, not that I could get it across, but I was wondering: We have found one of your Grails. She’s older than your Steffi, raised among the humani. My people are afraid she’ll go mad if she is brought home. What do you think?”

“Hide her like a bone,” he said with dismal promptitude. “She is a woman. That makes her valuable. Does her father live?”

“I don’t know.”

“He would only be consulted for politeness anyhow. She would belong wholly to Wilhelm. No, she does now–home or not. Is she beautiful? Most of our people are good-looking.”

“I’m bad at that, but I like her face. She has had a hard life, but her outer soul speaks of benevolence.”

He looked sad. “Hide her like a bone.”

“But why? What would Wilhelm do to her? Beat her? She has dark skin; does that matter to your people?”

He wrinkled his muzzle no. “Well, perhaps some of the older people. Not Wilhelm; he’s a controlling bastard, but I have never pinged any racism in him. No, he will not beat her, but he will sell–no, a better word is rent–rent her to one of his Fang lords. For politics. And because he can.”

“You mean he’d just pick this woman out of her life here in America?”

“What is that clever thing you Americans say? In a New York minute. She would be lucky to see the outside of some great house again.”

Steffi von Falkenrath came up and put her hand on his collar and he sprang to attention. She looked over her shoulder and bent down next to me. She buried her hands in my fur and scritched me all over, kissing the top of my head, which for once I didn’t mind. Then she clucked at Hans, who mimicked her kiss with a playful lick, which I didn’t mind as much as I thought I would.

And they all left, first the Todeschlagi, and then the rest of the guests. At last it was the Tarragon conspiracy: Sasha, Terry, Meeze, and Pharaoh. They muttered half-words at each other and all filed down into the basement, stripping out of their tuxes willy-nilly. They all got into the tub and stared at each other through the steam. Then:

“Other than the Cat Hitler guy, they weren’t so bad, I guess,” ventured Terry. There were noises.

Pharaoh said, “And he’s a Grail himself, which might give him some insight. I can’t say that I’ve met any others to ask about. Is the Kaiserin also a Grail, or is she humani, Meeze? I didn’t feel right poking hard.”

“Grail. I’m saying conspicuous consumption there. I’m not Mr. Touchy Feely”–there was a general snort–”but I don’t think there’s any love lost between those two.”

“I concur,” said Pharaoh, when it was clear that the other three were looking at him as being the one with the social observation skills. He turned to me. “Eureka, I certainly hope the poor lady got you alone and got some kitty petting in.” I flirted my ears forward in a yes, and he beamed to himself while the other men laughed at the thought.

He continued. “Beautiful dog, though. Also the Kaiserin’s, note. Now the Big Bad was a devoted dog owner himself, but I get an overall sense of gentleness from her.  I think that if things were left up to her, we’d have no worries. But they’re not. Moreover, I also picked up on some unhappiness, and it might not be purely personal, if you follow me.”

“I wish you’d let me bring Sean into this,” complained Meeze for the jillionth time.

“Maybe later,” Terry said with finality.

To my relief, they decided to keep the Tarragon situation tabled for now. Not as “buried like a bone” as Hans might like, but better than waltzing her up to the von Falkenraths with her pedigree clenched in her teeth and a bow on her head.

We all staggered up to bed far later than I liked. Possibly inspired by the unhappy marriage they had seen, Terry and Sasha did the love-making thing that night. Pharaoh had given me the delicate addendum to Sasha’s story that the criminals had left him enough nerves to be able to enjoy such. Sometimes humans have all the luck. I waited until they were done, then crawled into the spot above Sasha’s pillow where he liked to be able to brush against my purr, and we all fell asleep. I dreamed of being chased by Hans and presented to Steffi as if I were a mouse.

“Sir? Phone.” Devon was perturbed. I burped, glad that my barbecue had come up through my front half. Pharaoh really should patent that tummy-rubbing thing. Terry scowled, but we all were grateful that Contract had given us the evening off while we entertained our a’thanila guests.

Dante was helping Lynn into her sweater, and Rita had already been sent off home with a mass of foil-wrapped leftovers. Terry took the phone Devon handed him and held up a hand, y’rai’ing Dante into a wait-a-minute.

“Oh, hey Meeze. What’s up? . . .Nope, should I care? . . .The what? The WHO?” He sat straight up, eyes like saucers. “Where is he now? What the hell is he doing here? . . . His nephew? Is that for real?” He mouthed something to Sasha that I couldn’t catch, but which made Sasha freeze.

Terry put his hand over the phone. “Dante, swing back when you get Lynn settled.” He y’rai’ed him toward the door. The big blond took the hint.

“Come, Lynn. I’ll pop my head in here later.” They were gone.

As soon as they were out of ping range, Terry went back on the phone. “They were just here. The Tarragons. They went home with Dante.” He looked around and spotted Pharaoh and I curled up on the couch. “Pharaoh’s here. Do you–”

Pharaoh interjected, “Is there something special about our guest I’m not supposed to know about?” He batted his eyes. Terry growled, a real vampire growl caused by his vibrating his hemaepoeita, the little organ under his chest that processed Sasha’s blood every other night or so.

“Never mind, Meeze. Let’s save time and deal him in. Now, he didn’t say he was headed over here, did he? . . . Good. . . . Have a cub sign out a car and drive you over. Pronto, as you say.” He hung up and buried his head in his hands, then looked toward the kitchen, where Joel was doing the dishes, Devon having drawn the short straw to scrub the grill outside. Pharaoh waved a sheet of spell at the door and my ears flattened by reflex. Joel’s little clinks and splashes and humming stopped as if a radio had been turned off. We were soundproof now.

“The Kaiser of Todeschlag just showed up to tour the Pit. He’s in town for the weekend because his nephew is giving a big talk at MIT tomorrow night.” Terry looked at Pharaoh. “This spells out ‘Grail slavery’ for Lynn.”

I could feel the sorcerer’s alarm. “Say not so. She isn’t even home yet–and I gather the idea is to keep it that way?”

Sasha shook his head. “Not only is that cutting into her rights as a Th’nashi, but it’s political suicide if–no, when the Kaiser finds out we’ve been keeping her away from him. Sooner or later the truth comes out. It always does, and I can’t even begin to figure out the ramifications of an archimago being more or less at war with the head of a House.”

Pharaoh said, “Tell Sean McPherson. If Firenzi can protect her–”

“No!” snapped Terry. “That will only complicate things. I won’t have Aria–Lynn, I mean–made into some political toy.”

“She already is, if you’re right about everything. Moreover, she’s being played for a chump. I say we should bring her home–tell her everything–and let her make her own decisions.” Pharaoh’s tone was icy. “This isn’t like our other damsel in distress.” He gestured to me. “We can’t keep two women–and yes, in a very few years Rita will be a woman–locked safe up in the house. And there isn’t any surgery which will rescue them.” He looked at Sasha. “Is it both of them? What House is Rita?”

Sasha shook his head. “I grabbed her glass tonight. We’ll have that answer tomorrow morning.”

Pharaoh said, “I know the very term ‘Grail slavery’ is enough to make one sick. But does anybody know how the Kaiser construes it? How does he treat his Grails?”

Sasha said, “I know he makes the Order and Chatte’d’garcon sign contracts if they use any, say for antivenin production–oh, yes, Toadies secrete both Toxins K and F, remember, and in large quantities. It’s a lot easier to use a Toadie Grail as a donor than a toxic Fang.” I reflected that Terry had probably been lucky that he went to jail that romantic night. If he had bitten Lynn, lacking the natural resistances of Houses Knightsblood, Firenzi, or Todeschlag itself–Terry was House Proinsias, like most Irish Th’nashi–it would have killed him in seconds. Unless he’d happened to be carrying the fragile and expensive antivenin, but somehow that seemed to be too organized an idea for the junkie he’d been at the time.

Terry asked, “Do you know any?”

Sasha shrugged. “Not sure. To paraphrase my role model, I’m a doctor, not a sorcerer. I can’t tell a Todeschlagi Grail from a humani, and neither can you, fancy-ass archimagisterial anointing package notwithstanding. Did you get any hits?” This was to Pharaoh, who had his Lion cell phone/organizer/toy thing out. It was hooked up to the Lion database via technology Chatte’d’garcon hadn’t leaked to the general public yet.

“No, although I can’t swear for my personal contacts. I don’t keep them racially organized,” Pharaoh almost snapped. “You asked, I’m assuming, whether he were coming over here, and were told he’s not, am I right?” Terry nodded. “Well, how about issuing him an official invitation at some time the Tarragons are well out of the picture? Let’s get a feel for the man. And who knows, maybe he’ll be nice enough to bring his Grails with him.”

The back door opened, and when Pharaoh felt the air pressure change, he lifted the corner of his spell. Meeze was heard exchanging pleasantries with the cubs. He had been invited to dinner, but had begged off, claiming “Lion stuff” as Terry put it. Now he poked his head in to the dining room.

“Is this too solemn for me to grab some leftovers? Dining hall had franks and beans tonight. Too gassy for me. I’m running on peanut butter and jelly.”

Terry waved. “Sure, Meeze, go ahead and see what’s left. I sent some of it off with the Tarragons. I think we’re out of ribs, but I did three whole chickens worth too. Lynn asked where the army was, which is cold hard proof she’s never been around Lions before.” The redhead heh’ed, and in a couple of minutes emerged with a plate. Leftovers weren’t encouraged, as enough people were in and out of the huge fridge to make any such confusing in a hurry, so Meeze had also grabbed the tub of potato salad so as to finish its contents. I burped again, reminding myself to just ignore the good smell.

He tucked in as the situation was explained to him. Then he shook his head. “Too risky to have him come here. The best place in Cambridge will be the talk itself. The Kaiser is trying to butter the nephew up to come work for him, so he’ll be there tomorrow night. There’ll be a reception–social schmooze time.”

Terry shook his head. “No. I have my limits, and anybody who knows anything about me will know that I don’t do lectures. It’ll look too suspicious, sailing in with half my court to hear somebody talk about the mating habits of flatfish.”

“Uh, it’s thermodynamics.”

“Even worse.” I turned a giggle into a burp. Like a lot of smart people, Terry worked very hard against anything that seemed remotely intellectual if he thought it might be boring.

The archimago rolled his pale gray eyes. “Why not throw a party here?”

“Because the Tarragons live across the street, and von Falkenrath’s security almost slid something up my royal Firenzi butt this afternoon as it was. I foresee him possibly sending out a team to canvass the surrounding area–and one of them is a very good sorcerer.” Meeze fished out an olive and looked around for me, but Pharaoh fended it off with a hand.

“She has three behind the TV as it is, and is as full as a tick.”

“Which is bad for her system. It’s still not up to full speed. Pharaoh’s been rubbing her tummy for twenty minutes now,” groused Sasha. Thank Bast the man had never had any human offspring. He would never have let them breathe their own air.

“That is the most grotesquely spoiled cat I’ve ever met,” said Meeze. Terry and Sasha both complained in those loud voices that meant they suspected he was right, but I just burped again. The man was only expressing an honest opinion.

I was getting sleepy. I struggled into a sitting position and immediately felt the barbecue shifting southwards. Oh dear. I wanted to hear the end of this conversation, but I might miss some from being in the pan. In fact . . . I slid off Pharaoh’s lap and jogged into the bathroom in the office as quickly as dignity and my creaking midsection would allow.

When I re-emerged, it was a done deal. Dante had come back while I was gone and had taken the news about his new friend’s Th’nashiness in stride. He had good news: He had already made his own dinner party for the next evening between Lynn and the child psychologist. They would be far away from any snooping Todeschlagi. “We were hoping to borrow a cub to watch Rita. She’s too far away from so’fir’aa to worry about, so she can be here in all safety.”

I flicked my ears at Pharaoh in the way I had taught him meant, “define, please.” He complied by muttering something to the knitting which had replaced me in his lap that looked like counting or something innocuous, but in reality sounded loud and clear in my ear.

“So’fir’aa is Th’nashi puberty. You either turn into a Fang–a vampire–or your body starts producing a lot of the hy’fa fragment in your blood, ready to be bitten.” I camouflaged a nod with a yawn to signify I’d gotten the message.

Meeze said, “I’m sure Joel can pitch in.”

“No,” said Terry quickly. “Let’s give poor Joel the night off. Instead, let’s just have some of the gamers on. We can plug the whole bunch into the Nintendo. Or the Playstation, or whatever we have in there.”

“I still think it’s so wrong that a media head like you doesn’t game,” murmured Meeze. I stifled a snicker. The truth was, he had tried a number of times, but was really bad at it.

And so it was. I hid in all my best spots in succession that next day, as the heavy housework crew came by. Sasha sent his tux out to the cleaners. Perhaps the most elaborate preparation was assigning Pharaoh to just happen to run into Lynn in Harvard Square and walk her home, hanging about and chitchatting while she got ready for her dinner with Dante and his friend, and then walking her over there (Dante lived about half a mile away), all so he could shield her with a spell that would “humanify” her to anybody looking. They passed right by the house and it made me blink, I can tell you.

Rita was only too happy to be tucked up with Bart and Matt for the evening. The loo in Terry’s office connected to the guard room on one side, so the visiting dignitary wouldn’t even realize she was there. If he did, he’d be truthfully told that she was being babysat, and if he happened to ask more about it, Terry had enough half-truth on tap to bore the average casual seeker. This included that Rita was House Chatte’d’garcon, of all things—Sasha was vibrating about that. Still on the Official Secrets List was that her blood father was in fact a son of the House itself. His brother was in line to inherit the Headship.

“So we’ve got House politics on top of us anyway,” Terry had sighed when Sasha gave him the news. “I wish there was some way I could get Lynn to confess about stepping out on Lafe so we could begin to take the temperature there—might be the very last straw if this Chattie bastard draws her into another custody battle, this one in Contract.”

“No, that’s the least of our worries. You keep forgetting that you’re the archimago. You can swing in with a decision on that one if it comes to pass. Although God forbid you do one of the things you’re anointed to do.” Sasha was in an evil mood. His assistant, Taillefer Araimfres, was running things at the morgue that evening, and despite poor Dr. Araimfres being excellent at it, Sasha’s greatest character flaw was that he was a lousy boss: a control freak micromanager. A couple of cases were being prepped that night that Sasha had had his own heart set on, which meant he would go in extra early on Monday morning and re-do almost everything Dr. Araimfres had done. I had met this quiet ginger Lion once and had liked him—I could tell he owned a ferret. So I told him in detail that he needed to go get a job where he was appreciated, but all he had done was to give my ears a surreptitious rumple and tell me I was a pretty kitty. Enough to madden one, sometimes.

But instead of grousing back, Terry mumbled that there was that, if it came to it. A bad sign, if he were so worried that he’d consider pulling rank. My daddies tied each others’ bow ties and—unusual thing—gave each other kisses for good luck. Then the doorbell rang and I was off downstairs at a reasonable fraction of my usual speed. We were on!

I awoke to a tantalizing smell and a corresponding grumble in my tummy. Terry had fired up the grill in the back yard and had just laid a slab of love on. I emerged to see who was where.

A familiar ping in the basement encouraged me to use the pan down there–Pharaoh was in the tub, hair done up in a tidy knot on top of his head. He waved, and I flirted my tail, but I didn’t stop to chat–ever since the surgery, when I awakened with a full bladder it was pressing against sore places.

Damn it! I had forgotten, or rather failed to realize, that the pan they’d fixed up in the bedroom had to come from somewhere. I yammered a string of dismayed stupidities at myself, doubling back and whimpering at Pharaoh as I went past. He caught my desperation.

“Want a lift to the loo, m’lady?”

I ran over to him and meowed a loud assent, wiggling a little from paw to paw as I did so. He laughed and put a hand out toward me. There was just an instant where I saw an invisible net springing from his hand. (Yes, I know, but I don’t know how else to put it.) I sniffed the gating smell, and then, oh joy, there I was in the study. But the bathroom door was closed. Lynn Tarragon was in there.

“Hurry u-u-up!” I screamed, my wiggle now a dance. I really didn’t think I could make it up the long flight to the master bedroom. To my surprise and joy she opened the door. I saw that it had been a reach-over, her still being on the pot herself. What a princess! “I would do the same for you any day,” I reassured her, sweet relief filling my souls from inner to outer.

“It’s all good, Eureka. Been there. They moved everything around and it still kinda hates you. It should go back to normal. You’re lucky you don’t have the other problem–some people wake up not being able to go at all. It’s an anesthetic thing.” She sounded so matter-of-fact that I perked up my ears in suspicion.

“Can you speak Cat?” I asked. No answer other than a smile at my questioning purrup. I realized that Lynn just automatically treated everybody with respect and didn’t even talk down to, well, me. It was as if she didn’t know how. A rare gift.

We both finished our business and exited together. I realized that Pharaoh had really screwed up by gating me into Terry’s study with a “tseradi” in the house. I didn’t know how I was going to get this through to him, but at the least he needed to be told it had been a Bad Thing, and I guessed I could get that across. Lynn sort of followed me as I headed off to the basement, there being nobody else in sight and the only person in the yard being Terry singing to himself over the grill. It was something about it being a marvelous night for a moondance–why, that no-good plagiarizing fink! That was the song Duke was singing for me! How did Terry get hold of it? It took me a few minutes to realize that the likely path of plagiarism had gone the other way, Terry not speaking Cat. Bah. Nobody can be trusted these days.

Pharaoh was out of the tub, sitting on one of the redwood benches surrounding it, putting in his contact lenses. He looked up as we both came downstairs. I headed over to him; Lynn froze on the bottom two steps. I realized that they probably didn’t know each other, as the sorcerer hadn’t been there the previous times Lynn had visited. Then I noticed that Pharaoh was naked, and caught on that Lynn at least was embarrassed.

“Oh, ah, hello. Sorry. Just wandering about. Didn’t know there was a tub down here. I’ll be . . .” She turned to go, heat radiating from her skin.

Pharaoh called after her, “Oh no, please don’t go! I don’t mind a bit. I’ll just be a jiff. Give me just one second . . . There!” He blinked to center the contact. He stood up, all grace and Lion muscle, and bowed.

“Pharaoh Hiroshi, Lion Quartermain.” His hair undid itself and tumbled at his feet; he tossed it back over his shoulders as he straightened up. It was black and glossy, catching the highlights from the muted track lights which were echoed on his still-damp skin.

“Lynn Tarragon. I’m a mother–I mean a grad student–I mean, I’m a friend of Terry’s.” Poor Lynn was still dying of embarrassment, her eyes fixed on a spot about two inches above Pharaoh’s head. He grinned, and went over to his clothes, getting dressed quickly but without the slightest fuss. She relaxed a little when his boxer shorts went on, but only a very little.

“How do you know Terry?”

“Ah, um, we had some classes together here at Harvard. I live across the street now.”

Pharaoh put on his wifebeater and looked around for his overshirt, which I had appropriated in an automatic fit of absent-mindedness. “Shoo, Eureka!” I wasn’t shooing, and bit into the soft chambray, hugging it with all paws. It was a game we often played. I wanted to make sure he noticed me.

Lynn noticed him, I think. She kept making these little sounds as he laughed and his muscles flexed while trying to dislodge me. Her outer soul was giving off an impressive amount of embarrassment and what I was breveting as sexual frustration, sketching that theory in based on what I got off the cubs while watching certain music videos.

Saved by the blowhard! I heard Dante Fabrizio come in the front door and call through the house. After a moment, he reached the kitchen and went out onto the patio. Lynn followed him, almost fleeing up the stairs.

“I’ll see you–I mean, I’ll see less of you–I mean, oh dear.” She exited, closing the door at the head of the stairs as if she had trapped a djinn down there. What the what was her problem? I mewed at Pharaoh in frustration. Somebody needed to brief him on this woman; but it looked as if somebody had needed to brief her on him. Was she really such a goody-good as to be that body shy? She had lost every bit of a poise I had thought as much a part of her as her fur–if she’d had proper fur.

“I’m very pretty,” said Pharaoh, complacent. He was braiding his hair into the workaday Lion plait, beads round his neck and both sneakers tied in bows too short to play with. “No, really. Artemisio looks like a guardian angel, and Dante ain’t half bad, but as far as naked goes, I win hands down around here. It makes the whole thing ever so much worse when the unexpected naked person is really pretty. You instinctively want to admire them, but that would be impolite. And the vibe from that poor dear is that she hasn’t been laid in months. Neither have I, of course, but she hasn’t got a vow of chastity to blame it on. What a pity; she looks like quite the armful. What do you think of her?” He picked me up and we headed upstairs, pausing in our now usual spot.

“The question is, what do you think of her? Gating me like that. I could have been the death of that woman. Or she–”

He raised a hand. “You seem upset. Oh dear, did I gate you smack into her?”

“Yes!” Over the months I’d taught him about fifteen key words in a register he could handle.

“Oh dear.  Did she scream? No. Did she realize what she was seeing?”

She hadn’t seen me gate, per se. But it had been close. I settled for biting his wrist.

“I should be more careful?”

“Yes!”

“But . . . Here’s an odd question, Eureka. An occasional cat can pick up wavelengths that we can’t, so you just might know this one. Is this lady Th’nashi?”

“YES!” I yowled. Hell with their conspiracy. Then I did a double-take. He was a master sorcerer, but he was a Knightsblood, not a Todeschlagi. How had he guessed?

Pharaoh laughed at my face. “Elementary, my dear catkin. She doesn’t ping quite right to be humani. When we’re trying not to let on that we’re turned on, we leave other  bases uncovered. Other wavelengths. To put it another way, her g’nah looks like the very beginning of a jigsaw puzzle–most of it is ‘missing,’ but there are a few key sections that are exactly where you’d expect them to be–and they were the pieces that were trying their clumsy best to interface with mine. Moreover, that lady’s a’thanila, or I’ll clean your pan. Am I right?”

“Yes,” I admitted.

He smirked. “All in a minute’s work. That’s why I’m a District Sorcerer. Ha! Do the others know?”

“Yes and no.”

“Some do?”

“Yes. Terry, Sasha, Meeze.”

“And she’s not home yet. If she were, she would have Lioned me half to death back there. Caught desiring my off-limits bodaciousness and all.” I was impressed.

Terry poked his head down the stairs. “What is it with you and the cat? Careful with her, she still has stitches.” In actual fact, the sorcerer had plugged in his nice, warm, pain-numbing outer soul as soon as he took me into his arms. I was determined to stay by his side for the evening.

We came up, Pharaoh rubbing the spot behind my ears that only he and Sasha could get. It made me kind of stupid, but I didn’t care.

The cubs and Rita were bringing the food inside, it being a little too cool for the backyard. Not one but two slabs of brown and black amazingness! I licked my chops. No chicken, though. No, no, I was wrong, here it came with Sasha, who scowled at seeing somebody else loving his cat. And all manner of human accoutrements, like potato salad and pickles and (I licked my chops again) olives. They were a little too bitter to actually chew, but I could lick and play with one for hours. The humans found this hilarious for some reason, but screw ‘em. They were happy, I was happy: Ah, bliss.

Everybody sat down, Pharaoh putting his well-stuffed knitting bag under his chair for me, going so far as to hand me an olive and hiss, “Make sure the drool gets on the carpet.” I purred an assent and set to work.

Terry soon turned the conversation to school. He, Sasha, Pharaoh, and Dante had all been to fancy boys’ boarding schools; the cubs had both gone to their local public schools, but those had done a good enough job to get them into Harvard. Lynn had gone to Catholic school, and I got a great deal of amusement out of tracing the holes in her and Terry’s stories as they avoided admitting knowing each other at that age.

It was obvious that Dante had gotten a thorough briefing on the Tarragons, except for the Th’nashi part, and he said so many tactful and careful things about the uses of good school systems like Cambridge’s as to win him points with both them and me. I could see why he’d been picked to be Privy Councillor–he was a very smart man, and when he set himself to the job, could charm your collar off.

Lynn’s metaphorical collar was in tatters. By the end of the meal, she had agreed to be introduced to a couple of Dante’s friends, one of whom had fingers in the pie over at the local high school and the other of whom was an expert on childhood trauma.

“Know anybody good for me?” she quipped.

“But of course. There’s also the tried and true version of increasing your social supports. There’s a lovely hot tub right below our feet, for example–well, no, it’s a few feet thataway. Nothing like communal bathing to foster community and soak out the aches of the day.”

“Lynn has already seen the tub,” said my wicked friend with a playful leer in his voice, but Lynn had by now so recovered herself as to throw something at him. Another olive, which he proffered to me, but I was busy with the bone Joel had slipped me, slurping every available iota of delectable pig fat off with brio. Pharaoh sighed and moved his bag a little bit.

By the end of the evening, Rita was as much as signed up with a network of smart and caring adults and Lynn herself was scheduled to attend Evensong at the local monastery with Dante. I could detect just a little jealousy emanating from Terry over that one, but it wasn’t as if they were going clubbing. Or kissing or something; but I guess it was understandable. My tummy was full of forbidden human scraps, which were giving me an uncomfortable amount of gas, but my private and personal District Sorcerer was stroking my belly, sending little zaps through my gut which broke up the bubbles into something more manageable. Life was good, and our problems were solved, weren’t they?

Except for the Kaiser of Todeschlag, but he was in Germany. All the way on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean. And he could stay there. My dai’yadi was expanding, and I was at peace.

To my surprise, I felt almost normal on Friday morning. At least, it seemed that way in comparison to the previous two days.  Sasha felt my belly and poked with his outer soul and pronounced himself content with my progress. I was able to navigate the stairs with greater comfort, if not quite ease, and so I followed him down for his 6 a.m. omelet and tea, while Terry was still zonked upstairs, and would be for another hour—it was a shame he got to sleep in, as he did mornings better than poor Sasha did.

Six was when the bodyguard changed off, and Bart and Matt yawned their way off to the barracks for more sleep (Bart) and Eamon’s 6:30 hand-to-hand class (Matt), while Devon and Joel showed up to hang out until Terry left and then tail him to school at a discreet distance (Devon) and do basic household chores and mind the fort for the day (Joel).

I was treated to a resumption of my morning half-can of Prairie Picnic along with my taurine-rich kibble, and I noshed while Sasha read email and the boys had an argument about some minor Stricture of the Order over their oatmeal. Morning as usual, and then I heard It.

It was the tiniest scrabble behind the sink, but I recognized it immediately. It was a mouse. At long last, a mouse! The smells I’d detected downstairs when Sasha had first brought me home had been old, and my simple presence had kept them all banished to impossible places, like the attic, for the past several months. We had some–all old houses do–but so long as they remained unseen, left nothing behind, and did no noticeable damage, they were an invisible part of the ecology, and there was nothing for me to do but smell like a cat.

But some little pioneer had once more braved the kitchen! This was more than fair game, and I was very happy. I was a decent mouser. Fred had taught me well, and I burned to impress my humans.

I wished the boys would put a lid on it so I could listen better. I decided to try the international sign language for “Look, there’s a mouse:” I pawed at the door under the sink and meowed until I had eye contact with at least Devon, then repeated the pawing, looking anxious.

Joel said, “Eureka, it’s cat food now. You still have a fresh bowl full.” To Devon: “Bart and Matt got dog food last night, d’ja hear?”

Devon snorted. “Hear? It’s on the official incident report.” He shot Sasha an apprehensive look and muttered, “Abbot nearly bust a gut laughing about it. Said he was glad we had an archimago who appreciated our abilities and expected the best.” Sasha did not make eye contact or show that he’d heard this, but a small spike of amusement went through his outer soul.

Damn it! Of course! My food lived under the sink! In fact, that must be what the rapacious little bastard was after. The nerve! I repressed the urge to roll my eyes at the boys and kept meowing like a good kitty.

Still without looking up, Sasha said, “Open the door for her. She’s got a mouse, I bet.”

Devon was closest and reached over and disengaged the latch, which I was embarrassed to recall was installed after I had failed to resist exploring some fascinating trash during my first couple of weeks. Hoist by my own petard now. I tugged open the door with a paw and sort of waddled inside, still hampered a little by the incision. And aha! Mouse sign galore–a tiny eddy of nibbled fragments of bag, several pellets of poo, and the rank smell everywhere. (Nothing reeks like mice, not even rats, which are cleaner and smarter, if an advanced topic for the average housecat, although the massive Fred had bragged about being able to take them out when he had to.)

I meowed some more and patted the bag, then realized that would only confuse them into getting back onto the cat-wantum-food trail. Maybe better to wait for Pharaoh; I was willing to bet that I’d get results. I sighed and went back to finishing my breakfast.

There it was again! I lunged into the opening under the sink without thinking, banging myself on the doorway and getting a sharp scary pang inside for my trouble. I moaned in a mixture of pain and frustration, and Sasha said in a satisfied tone, “Yup, mouse. C’mere, kitcat.” He scooped me out by my chest, “mm-hmm”-ing at my complaint in sympathy.

“Eureka, you’re not up to this yet. Let’s get the food out of there–well, looky here, gentlemen; in my line of work we call this material evidence–and up on the counter. I’ll bring home one of the big specimen canisters Farley ordered; that ought to do the trick.”

“Mice are perfectly able of getting onto the counter. Shame on you,” I mumbled. He picked up on my unhappiness.

“Best we’re doing for now. No, better yet–” He bundled the bag tight and put it on top of the refrigerator. While he was there he checked the cereal boxes and found nothing.

“Matter of time,” I groused to myself. They latched the cabinet door at Sasha’s insistence that I wasn’t 100% yet and he didn’t want temptation looking me in the eye. I wasn’t sure whether he meant the mouse or the trash; one was probably a good idea and true enough, the other was unfair, and both were infantilizing. I cleaned up the last bits of Prairie Picnic, taking time off to growl warnings toward the sink that used vocabulary that would have grown hair on the Crucio’s bald head had he been there to hear me.

Later, after everybody else had left, Joel cleaned out the cabinet under the sink, tsking at the mouse poo. I supervised, and was ashamed of myself for either sleeping on the job or at best, picking the world’s worst time to go into heat and get sidelined by the surgery. After he was done, we both took a nap in the guard room, only to be awakened by the doorbell. It was the Tarragons, Rita looking eager, Lynn looking sheepish.

“Sasha said that it was all right for Rita to play in your yard. I just wanted to check before I left for the library.”

Great, I could feel Joel thinking. Aloud, he said, “Uh, sure, I guess so. I’ll keep half an eye on her.”

“Terrific!” Lynn’s face lit up. “Rita, you behave yourself, okay?”

“Of course, Mommy.” Rita made little shooing gestures. “Hi, Eureka!” She bent down and petted my head and back with gentle strokes that betrayed that she wasn’t used to animals, or at least to getting to touch them. It was as if she was afraid I would break, which beat the alternative, I suppose, but it was a little annoying. I realized again how spoiled I’d gotten, living among Th’nashi with responsive outer souls which told them almost as feedback how hard and long to pet. Presumably, Rita’s hadn’t grown in yet.

We all watched Lynn hurry down the street at a brisk trundle which was almost a waddle. She probably would have been more comfortable with less weight, I guessed. Still, it was a pity. She looked soft. Then Rita gave Joel a disarming grin that fooled him not a bit.

“You don’t have to watch me. In fact, I’d feel weird if you did. I promise I won’t go anywhere but home to check on mom with the computer.” She sighed in resignation at her own goodness.

“Not to worry. I have my own stuff to do,” he said. “I know what you mean, and I’m not going to do the creepy old man thing. But don’t even think of heading out for the Territories, or I’ll have to come after you. Dr. Van der Linden is serious as a heart attack about that.”

She saluted. “Mind if I just go home and get my drawing stuff?” Joel waved her on. I regretted it when he shut the door, leaving all the brisk shiny beauty of the fall Outdoors on the other side. He went up to grab the laundry; meanwhile, I decided to save myself a trip up the stairs and went back in to check on my mouse.

And stopped dead in my tracks for a timeless split second: The vermin was sitting in the middle of the floor, saucy as you please. I leapt; it leapt; and then it was gone, scrabbling under the cabinets by the door this time, while I cried foul at the top of my lungs and pawed at the crack so hard I stubbed a toe.

“Oh no,” groaned Joel, as he passed with an armful of sheets.

“Oh yes,” I mewed. “And I can hear another one back under the sink. It has an accomplice.”

Joel and I spent the rest of the day alternating between tearing the kitchen apart and drawing a bead on Rita outside with our outer souls. Terry came home right before teatime and suggested siccing Pharaoh on it. Even I knew that this wasn’t in the District Sorcerer’s job description, even without seeing Joel’s look of incredulity, which he wiped off after only a nanosecond–Terry missed it, being too pleased with his own brilliant idea.

“So how long have we had a kiddo?” he asked.

“Since right about lunchtime,” Joel sighed. “Did Sasha really offer us up as a babysitting service, sir?”

Terry winced. “Um, we decided that we want to get to know them better. With the idea of maybe making them vai’ada eventually.” This was a half-truth, “vai’ada” being the opposite of “tseradi”–i.e., humani who were hip to the vampire thing and full members of Contract society, whereas in reality the Tarragons weren’t humani at all, and sooner or later Rita at least would have to reckon with that. But it was good enough for government work for the time being, and Joel nodded.

“But, sir.” He stopped, and checked through his not-very-large personal stock of diplomacy. “But.” He stopped again.

“But there are limits to how far we can take advantage of the Order?” prompted Terry with a half-smile.

Joel looked grateful. “Sir, to be perfectly honest, I don’t like kids. Even though she’s been as good as gold. Today,” he added. Joel had been on the tracking detail a couple of times. He sighed. “Thing is, maybe I’m just bringing my own stuff into it, but the whole thing reminds me of my sister. If she can get rid of my nephew, she does. And he’s turning into a little asswipe, excuse my French. Already had her call me twice to get me to sweet-talk the Lions into letting him coast on some minor stuff, and I told her I’m not doing it any more. He’s becoming an embarrassment.”

Terry sighed, looking grim. “You’re talking to a reformed asswipe. Who wasn’t appropriately supervised. Yeah, I hear ya. And what’s more, I agree. And to be fair, so does Sasha. He’s just a pragmatist who’s been Hippocratic Oathing the situation: First, do no harm. We hadn’t gotten that far, but it’s going to be up to me to sit Lynn down for a talk about the facts of life.”

“Mm,” said Joel. There was a little silence while Terry and I watched him caulk up the mousehole we had finally spotted up under the dish drainer. Then, “Your Grace, may I make a suggestion?”

“Shoot.”

“Maybe Lion Fabrizio can talk to the mom. He’s . . . got . . . a way with people. He can usually get them to do what he wants them to do.”

Terry gave a sincere and hearty laugh. “That’s for damn sure!” He grew quiet, with his I’ve-got-an-idea-smile. “You know, Joel, that’s a great idea. They don’t have a history, and I think Lynn’s even Episcopalian, so the priest thing might work some extra hoodoo. But how do we bring them together?”

“Simple. You have ‘em both over for dinner. You cook, we’ll wait table.”

“No,” Terry disagreed. “I want her to stop being intimidated by the staff issue. Whoever’s on, and I think it should be you and Dev, especially since it’s your idea, will just eat with us like we usually do.” He grinned at the cub in delighted approval. “In fact, I’m pretty sure Dante’s free tonight. Strike while the iron’s hot, I say.” He pulled out his wallet. “Go run out and pick up some ribs and the makings for my special sauce. You can’t have a stick up your ass while you’re eating barbecue; it’ll loosen her up.”

Him too, I hoped. I trotted off to my spot behind the TV for a nap. I didn’t want to miss Dante Fabrizio and barbecue sauce.