Jesus, she thought.
The moan sounded again. She moved past the box—the cage —and was about to pass another one when she froze. There was a naked child inside, a towhead, with big blue eyes and a quivering lower lip. It was a little girl, and when she saw Meg, she shrieked and threw herself backward, much as Meg had done at the first cage.
“Hey, it’s okay. I won’t hurt you,” Meg said.
The moan again:
“********.”
She raised a hand to the terrified toddler— I’ll be back— and hurried on, past more cages with more children in them. Most of them were fair-haired and blue-eyed, very German. An imprisoned mini Aryan nation. A few of the prisoners were like the first one, almost claylike, but most were like the little towhead.
Then she came to a cage inhabited by what appeared to be a child half carved from wood, but unfinished—arms that ended in stumps, one leg, the torso an approximation of a chest. No sex organs. No eyes.
“********.”
It was the thing that was moaning.
She looked around, pretending to be suspicious that this was all a joke, but the sick thudding of her heart belied her actions. She was believing this.
More moans joined the first. Home. Help.
Their eyes were huge and sorrowful. They were lonely, and homesick, and miserable.
She understood: they were the changeling children, from beyond the Pale. They were the babies who had been put in the beds of the human children taken by the Erl King. The fruits of the Ritter extraction teams.
She thought of the Mexican baby; and Matt; and the child who had been taken tonight. Garriet. What was going on? What was this about? Why was it that these … children could survive on this side of the Pale, but she couldn’t cross it?
She wandered among the cages and cells, seeing more misery and despair, and deep hatred. Her cell phone alarm went off: eight thirty. Sliding it off, she hurried back up the stairs, fully intending to confront Andreas.
As she headed for the birdcage elevator, she saw him striding toward the castle entrance, bundled up in a black overcoat and a white fur hat. She hurried after him; he turned his head, took note of her, and said in English, “Emergency. We’ll have to postpone the meeting.”
“What’s going on?” she asked, not expecting him to tell her.
He frowned, shrugged. “It’s the damnedest thing. Garriet’s mother refused to give our extraction team the changeling. It’s a mess. She’s hysterical.”
“Let me come with you,” Meg said, striding along beside him.
He raised his brows. “You’re a Border guard. This is not anything to do with you.”
“I want to go.”
“You should rest. It was a hard night.”
“Bitte,” she said in German, and he smiled at her quizzically.
“You Americans are so pushy.”
“Assertive,” she corrected him.
He pursed his lips and made an eye sweep of her appearance. “There’s an extra coat in the car. Come on, then.”
*
It was nearly four, and still black out. The Erl King rode only at night. They rolled in a Mercedes through the snowy streets, followed by another navy blue van. Their driver was the texter Meg had passed in the hall.
A single pedestrian fighting against the snow took the time to wave. That there were goblins and ghosties had been accepted by the locals; and that the Ritters were the ones to go to for help was appreciated. Meg was boggled. Why had she never read about any of this? Wasn’t this groundbreaking, earthshaking?
Andreas was in cell phone communication with the leader of the extraction team. Since she could understand German now, she listened carefully. The house was isolated, deep in the forest. The woman was alone with the changeling. She had a gun.
“No, it’s not imperative that the D?monkind survive,” he said. “But the woman … that would cause an incident. Ja …”
After a while, he flicked off the phone and sighed, looking out the window. She studied his profile.