Dearest Mother of Mine

"Some of them are Darklings, though," I said. "Some of them were on our side."



"You can't tell the difference though, can you?" she said.



"At this age, it's hard." I'd looked at the cupid's wings when they manifested. I knew from experience Nightliss's were ultraviolet since she was a darkling, and Daelissa's were white. But the babies' wings looked shades of gray. "I don't think the Darkling or Brightling aspects emerge until the angels are a little older."



"Somehow, I would convince myself the baby I was taking was a Brightling," she said. "Deluding yourself is the easiest way to rationalize an impossible situation."



"This doesn't even come close to an impossible situation," I said. "I mean, it hurts and disgusts me to have to make the choice, but I realize if I knew Mom was close to death, I'd do it in a heartbeat. In fact, if Kassus doesn't show tonight, I'll do it."



She touched my shoulder. "You sure?"



"Yeah." I patted her hand. "I'll feel worse about the leyworms hating me than I will the baby."



Elyssa wrapped her arms around me, and pressed her face to my chest. We stood like that for some time, simply reveling in the moment. I felt the moment coming to an end and kissed her on the top of the head. She gazed up at me, violet eyes dark with emotion. Her soft lips found mine, lingered for a moment. "Whatever you do, I will always love you, Justin."



"Even if I kick a puppy?"



She laughed. "Shut up." Her hand gripped mine. "Let's eat breakfast. You've done all you can do right now. Ivy said she'd call if she got anything, and Hutchins will notify us when it's go time. And if neither one pans out, we'll resort to baby snatching."



Elyssa's summary made me realize I really didn't have anything else to do until Kassus showed his face somewhere. We made breakfast—pancakes, bacon, and eggs—and sat on the upstairs deck, enjoying the cool morning weather. Even though it was almost Christmas in the normal world, the weather in the pocket dimensions didn't always match up. It suddenly reminded me of my original mission before all this mess had started.



"I wonder if everyone got the invitations to our Christmas party," I said.



Elyssa giggled. "What made you think of that?"



I shrugged. "The weather, I guess."



"We haven't even bought party favors or planned what we're going to cook."



"Wouldn't it be absolutely amazing if I had Ivy and Mom here for Christmas?" I felt moisture building behind my eyes just at the thought of it, and choked up.



"I think you will," she said, hugging me tight. "We're going to make it happen."



"Let's do turkey and dressing," I said. "Oh, and deviled eggs."



Elyssa made a face. "Deviled eggs are gross."



"You know us demon spawn, we like our eggs filled with yellow stuff."



She laughed. "My mom makes really good asparagus casserole. I'll ask her to bring some."



I raised my eyebrows. "You think your parents would really come?"



She cracked her knuckles. "Oh, they'll come all right."



"Bella said she could make arepas and empanadas," I said.



"Never would have thought to have those for Christmas dinner," Elyssa said. "But she is a pretty good cook."



We talked about the dinner, about possible gifts to buy people, and had a few good laughs imagining ridiculous gifts we could buy for Shelton. I wanted to get him a pair of buttless chaps but make out the card so it appeared to be a gift from Bella. Elyssa wanted to buy him a pair of fluffy bunny slippers to wear around the mansion. We were laughing so hard as we one-upped each other with ridiculous gift ideas, I almost didn't hear my phone ring.



I answered when I saw who it was. "Hey, Stacey."



"Hello, my lamb," she said. "Are you in the house somewhere?"



"On the upper porch."



"Ah. Perhaps you would like to see what my friends have accomplished."



I stood up. "Definitely. We'll be right down."



"I'm in the large storage room in the west wing," she said. "I assumed you wouldn't want a mess in the living quarters." She ended the call.



I gobbled down my remaining bacon and wiped my mouth. "Stacey wants to show us something," I told Elyssa.



She picked up her mug of tea and followed. When we reached the storage room, I felt my mouth drop open. A hundred or more cats prowled the room, meowing, stretching, napping, and rubbing against each other. Countless golem rat corpses lay in a pile in the center. Stacey stood near the pile stroking the head of a white cat who curled around her shoulders.



"Ah, there you are," she said, slinking over to us with the grace and sexuality of a panther. "My friends say the house is now clean of vermin." She spat the last word. "I have asked them to remain and keep watch should more of these false creatures attempt subterfuge. Many have agreed. There are plenty of real vermin to eat on the premises, especially in the dungeons."



"Wow, thanks," I said. I scratched the ears of the kitty on her shoulders. "And thank you, too."



The cat meowed, regarding me as royalty might regard a peasant.



"They also kept some alive for your study," she said, pointing to a cage where several of the golem rats wandered in circles as they encountered the cage walls.



"Good thinking," I said, wondering if we could actually glean useful information from them.



I texted Shelton and Bella. Cinder might have been good to ask, but he was still playing babysitter in the nursery.



"I can hack into one of their sparks," Shelton said, making a disgusted face when he saw the pile of fake rat corpses in the room.



Bella reached inside the cage. The rats inside didn't squeak or try to bite, though they sensed the open door and made a break for it. Cats pounced on them before they got far, and returned them to the cage. The dhampyr held up a single squirming rat, her face screwed into a grimace.



"It certainly feels real."



Shelton manned up and took the rat from his girlfriend. We followed him into the war room where he secured the golem rodent to the table with strips of diamond fiber. He took his arcphone, flicked his finger across it a few times, and grunted. "Here's the app." He put the phone next to the rat, and activated the program. "It's gonna take a while, depending on the complexity of the spark."



"As in, let's wait here, or come back in a few hours?" I asked.



He glanced at the readout. "Give me two minutes, and I'll know how complex the spark is."



"I guess it's impossible to know what the 'dead' rats know," I said, making air quotes.



"No spark, no info," Shelton said. "If Lornicus controlled these things with an arcphone like he claims to do with the gray men, then he probably got his information remotely. At least Stacey's pets purged the place."



"They are not pets," she said, eyes flaring.



Shelton waved her off. "Fine, our good and dear feline friends."



The felycan pursed her lips. "Perhaps you'd like some real rats deposited in your bed while you sleep."



Bella made a face. "Maybe I should go back to my room for a few nights."



Stacey burst into laughter.



"Got it," Shelton said a moment later. I peered over his shoulder as he scrolled through a wall of text. "These are pretty simple sparks. Doesn't look like a lot of scripted movements besides evasion and detection."



"Are they remotely controlled?" I asked.



He shook his head. "No, these look automatic. They're programmed to return to a specific location where their information is transferred to an ASE."



"So it's not a live feed?"



"Nope, record and upload." He mapped out the coordinates where they went to upload their data, displaying a location in the wooded area outside the mansion.



"I'll dispatch my friends to take a look," Stacey said, and whispered something to the cat around her neck. It meowed, promptly leapt to the floor, and dashed away.



"Looks like I can tap into the video," Shelton said, projecting an image on his phone above the table so the rest of us could see it. We watched a first-person account of the rat's journey as it ran from the woods, and through a small crack in the house foundation, letting it inside. It ran through a dark area for a while before entering a lit room that looked like the hall outside the kitchen.



Muffled voices sounded. The rat's view turned back and forth, as if searching for the source. It dashed beneath the crack between the floor and the bottom of the door, and into the kitchen.



"Maybe I should get some whipped cream," said the slightly distorted sound of Shelton's voice from the video. "I'll show you how much fun—"



Shelton's face went red. He turned off the projected image picked up the phone. "Pretend you didn't hear that."



Bella burst into laughter.



"How was the whipped cream?" Stacey asked in a sultry voice.



"Not another word," Shelton said. He sighed, put the phone on the table, and projected the image again. "Damned rats."



"I thought that was a kitchen, not a bordello," I said with a snicker.



He gave me a dirty look.



The video resumed, showing a rat's-eye view of the house. The golem rodent tried to enter the war room, but every time it did, it bounced back from the threshold.



"Ah, the repel wards kept it out," Bella said. "Those wards are designed to keep active all-seeing eyes and spy-bots out. I guess the rat's spells were similar enough that it repelled it as well."



"Good news," I said, feeling a profound sense of relief settle over me. "At least this room wasn't compromised."



Shelton rewound the video, showing the rat's day in reverse. When it hit the beginning, I saw a flash of what looked like a face before the video went black. "Wait a minute," I said. "What was that?"