A Local Habitation

I WAS STARTING TO FIND MY WAY AROUND. The hall where Colin’s office was located led to a larger hall, which led in turn to a pair of wide double doors that opened on the company lawn. A dozen cats were splayed on the grass, distributed around the door like spokes radiating from a wheel. They lifted their heads when I stepped out, watching my approach. I frowned. They’d come because of Barbara—if Tybalt was to be believed, she’d been the only true Cait Sidhe in Fremont—but they’d stayed for reasons of their own.

That’s the thing about cats: they remember a time when there were true faerie kings for them to look at, not just Kings and Queens of Cats and the imitations we have today. Cats watch from corners and hearths, and they see history happening, and they never forget a minute. Some people say cats are the memory of Faerie, and that as long as there’s one cat that remembers us, Faerie will never die. People say some weird things, but sometimes, there’s truth there that we can’t see. They can say whatever they like about the cats of Faerie; I still say most of them are damned nuisances. And that includes mine.

I crossed the lawn, stepping around cats as I walked toward the main building. They watched me intently, and I paused, frowning. Despite the feline population explosion on the grounds, I hadn’t seen a single cat inside. “You guys have a problem with enclosed spaces?” I asked. They didn’t respond, making no move to either follow or move away. “Right.”

Shaking my head, I went inside.

The emptiness of the main building was even eerier now that I knew what was happening. My footsteps echoed as I walked along the hall, heading toward the cubicle maze. More than anything, I wanted to evacuate the place—send the survivors home, or even back to Shadowed Hills, and figure out who our killer was without hanging around in this giant technological crypt. But that wasn’t going to happen.

Jan and Elliot were in her office with the door open, passing a pencil back and forth as they bent over a set of incomprehensible blueprints. I paused to watch them. Jan raised her head, a silent question in her eyes, and I waved her off, resuming my patrol. She didn’t need to know that her people weren’t obeying the rules. Not unless they refused to listen to me when I told them off for it.

The air-conditioning was off, and the hall lights were low as I walked back into the room where we’d first met the people of ALH. The catwalks were a series of smudges overhead. It looked like the sort of place frequented by brainless blondes in cheap horror movies; considering the number of bodies we’d found in the area, that wasn’t a bad comparison. Fortunately, I’ve never been inclined to wander down dead-end alleys in my underwear. Keeping my footsteps light, I started into the maze.

I can’t move as silently as my mother—another consequence of my mortal blood—but years of practice have taught me a few things about being quiet. I stopped paying attention to where I was putting my feet as my eyes adjusted, concentrating on listening instead.

A faint sound was drifting out of the maze to my left. Typing. I turned.

Following the sound of Gordan working down the rows of cubicles did more to bring home what ALH had lost than every personnel file in the world. The desks were personalized with little touches; small toys, photographs, clusters of dried or dying flowers. A nameplate caught my eye, and I stopped. “Barbara Lynch.” The office we hadn’t been able to find.

“There you are,” I breathed.