Episode 143: Catnapped (Delaney)

Delaney lay on the couch, with her feet on the wall – she hoped they left footprints – and her hair dangling onto Kyori’s back.

Kyori sprawled out on the carpet, purring, half asleep.

The only warning Delaney had that someone was coming, was that Kyori’s ears perked up and her purring stopped. A second later, someone knocked on the door.

She and Kyori made eye contact, uncertain. They didn’t usually get visitors, because of all the wards Leonora had up, everywhere.

The book was hidden, at least.

Delaney straightened her skirt and opened the door.

It was the oldest Lavesque. Too old to look as young as he did, unless he practiced nasty killing magic that Delaney hated. They could preach being different from the Caelum all the wanted, but just look at him.

Then again, this was Spence and Spaden’s dad.

He might be here for a reason.

“Can I help you?” she asked.

“Is Leonora home?” he asked her, in the same level tone his brother used in television broadcasts.

Leonora. Of course he wanted Leonora, of course this wasn’t about one of his sons figuring out that she was the only thing they’d ever need and could she please go live with them now and get her future sorted out and be free of the Caelum?

Then again, if this Lavesque looked this young…it wasn’t exactly free, was it.

“She’s working,” Delaney said in an airy tone. “Should I tell her you stopped by?”

Things Delaney wouldn’t do: Tell Leonora anyone stopped by.

“Tell her I’m looking for my family’s book,” the Lavesque requested. “A certain page.”

“Book?” Delaney asked. Her cheeks flushed. She hated herself for blushing, but him wanting the book was the last thing she expected. It was a secret secret, not something anyone should have ever even been able to ask her directly about.

Kyori chuffed in entertainment, from the living room.

The Lavesque tried to peer past Delaney into the house. “Was that a leopard?” he asked, and Kyori padded to the door.

Speaking of secret secrets. Delaney was going to be in so much trouble. And Kyori might have just put herself in danger. She gave the Lavesque her warning-label look.

When they were younger, she and Kyori had invented a bunch of warning labels for the fact that she was a leopard who sometimes lost her temper.

This warning label right now said, Likes to play with food before she eats it.

“You,” the Lavesque said. He needed a warning label too, about knowing too much and probably being arrogant about it, too. “You can understand me,” he accused Kyori.

Delaney stepped between the man and Kyori. “That’s my familiar,” she covered. Good thing Onyx was small, concealed in a pocket.

The man squared his shoulders. “She would be safer under my care. You both would be.”

Oh, look, someone else who thought they should have Delaney. The world was full of people who wanted her. For her own good.

Sorry, Delaney thought. I’m taken, by myself.

The Lavesque’s tone softened. “I know where she comes from, who made her.”

“A spell to make familiars?” Delaney asked, as snide as possible. Delaney knew she was pretty shallow and there wasn’t much she cared about outside her own little world, but she wasn’t letting anyone near Kyori. Ever.

“All familiars are made by a spell. This spell…” The Lavesque’s eyes trailed away from Delaney’s face and down to Kyori’s, with an unexpected grief. “She’s from a human.”

He wasn’t supposed to know that. No one was. Even the court records about Kyori’s case had been sealed, like it never happened, like the world wanted it to be erased from history.

The only reason he’d know, was if he’d been involved in making her.

“I can protect her,” The Lavesque promised. “Both of you. I wouldn’t harm her. She exists, which is unfortunate in a way, but she doesn’t deserve further torment. She isn’t an experiment.”

“Torment?” Kyori growled. She stepped, shoulders down, creeping like she was hunting and not talking, onto the front porch where anyone could see her. If they had binoculars, and just happened to be watching Leonora’s house right at this second in case a secret leopard walked onto the porch.

Paranoia was still better than carelessness.

“They aren’t using you?” he asked, surprised. “Breeding you?” He seemed to answer his own question as he murmured, “You have a mate.”

– Kyori’s tail twitched. “What mate?”

“Don’t listen to him,” Delaney urged.

Kyori walked around him, brushed against his legs. It was something she usually only did to Delaney, unless she wanted to scare Leonora.

“He doesn’t smell like he’s lying,” she told Delaney. There was a secret message there, too; Kyori had memories that stretched much closer to her own birth than human memories. What she was saying, Delaney had a guess, was He doesn’t smell like my memories.

So he wasn’t there in Kyori’s first weeks.

Fine. That didn’t make him a good person. He was too young to be trusted.

“My former wife made you,” he explained. “She made two, you and a male. She wanted to breed you and see if the offspring were sentient. She vanished days after your birth. I assumed the Caelum had been using you this whole time.”

He trailed off. There was a but there, and Delaney wasn’t sure why but she thought it had to do with Kyori’s mate.

All of Kyori’s worries and subtle envy about Delaney’s two boys, and it turned out there was one for her too.

And this man had all of them.

Delaney scowled, at the same time Kyori said, “They’ve been hiding me.”

“Have you had enough exercise?” the man asked Kyori. “Live game?”

So? Kyori was alive, and safe, which she wouldn’t be if a lot of the wrong people got their hands on her.

“Anyway, why do you care?” Delaney asked, before Kyori could answer that.

“Her existence is my own fault, in ways,” the man said. Wow, did he have an ego. “Naomi was jealous of my familiar.” Even bigger than Delaney realized before. “Dissatisfied that her own familiar was weaker and small. I have a black leopard, Jinx. She has three offspring, as well. None are sentient, but you may find them good company for running and swimming.”

He’d bred his familiar, too.

Delaney’s hand moved instinctively toward her pocket, toward a silent promise never to breed Onyx.

“Well,” Delaney said. She felt her face redden as the lie formed on her lips: We don’t have any books here. I’ll let my mom know you stopped by.”

He stepped toward her. “That book is one of the most powerful weapons the Caelum, or anyone, could have. I only need to know about the dolls, nothing more.”

Shoot, she’d seen that spell. She could see in her mind’s eye the creepy drawing of the dolls and the way they flopped across the upper corner of the page.

Nope, she wasn’t giving anyone access to that book. It was hers to guard, and hide. If she died without anyone finding it, then it would die with her, she hoped. She could be buried with it.

“I don’t even know why you think it would be here,” she lied, with enough confidence that the blush didn’t give her away. This was about protecting other people, not about herself. “They lost it years ago.”

“Do you want to be part of the Caelum?” he asked her.

Did anyone, except the top members?

She didn’t say anything, because that question didn’t even deserve an answer.

“Are you safe here?” the Lavesque pressed. “I can promise you a lifetime of protection.”

Yeah, protection where he wanted her. Except… “You’re Spence and Spaden’s dad,” she commented, almost a question except not really because she already knew the answer to that.

“I am,” he confirmed. “I’ve seen you in school.”

What had that horrible woman, the cult leader person, said?

“And you live with the fairies?” she asked him.

“I do. They’re generous.” He looked at Kyori. “A jungle-themed pool.” There was more to that promise, she suspected, like live game and the freedom to range. He looked at Delaney next. “The promise of never having to join the Caelum or any other group. Freedom to be yourself, as long as you aren’t endangering others.”

There were two other promises, which he probably didn’t even know he was making. Both of them started with “sp.”

She looked at Kyori, who twitched her tail yes.

She looked at the man, who waited.

“Can I pack?” she asked.

He looked around the yard, which was empty of anything except bird baths and low shrubs. “I suggest you make it quick,” he advised.

She held the door open, to let him in. Leonora had a way to know anytime someone came to the house, so if he came in then Leonora would know where she was. She might be able to keep the cult leaders from trying to kidnap Spence or Spaden on her behalf.

But he just shook his head. “I’ll wait outside.”

Fine. Guess he didn’t want his sons protected. She made eye contact with Kyori again, and Kyori got the message and stayed out on the porch too. “Five minutes,” Delaney promised both of them.

“Bring the book,” the man requested. “I won’t take it from you but it isn’t safe here.”

Of course he wanted the book. That was his price.

She was incredibly selfish, to let someone else get access to the book. But if it came down to the fairies having it, or Leonora and the Caelum having it, she picked the side she wasn’t one hundred percent certain was evil. At least they had better odds of treating it with kid gloves.

And she’d finally get her boyfriend, future husband, ducks in a row, life.

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