It’s possible that, from a standpoint of pure, unadulterated reason, they might even have a point.
But there was more to it than reason. I’d known Molly when she was wearing a training bra. I’d hung out in her tree house with her after she’d come home from high school. She was the daughter of the man I respected most in this world and the woman whom I least wanted to cross. I believed that people in positions of authority and influence, especially those in the role of mentor and teacher, had a mountainous level of responsibility to maintain in order to balance out that influence over less experienced individuals.
But mostly, I couldn’t do it because Molly had been crushing on me since she was about fourteen years old. She was in love with me, or at least thought she was—and I didn’t feel it back. It wouldn’t be fair to her to rip her heart out that way. And I would never, ever forgive myself for hurting her.
“It’s okay,” she almost-whispered. “Really.”
There wasn’t anything much to say. So I reached over, took her hand, and squeezed gently. After a while, I said, “Molly, I don’t think it’s ever going to happen. But if it ever does, the first time damned well isn’t going to be like that. You deserve better. So do I.”
Then I put both hands back on the wheel and kept on driving. I had someone else to pick up before I gave the Redcap my version of a hostage crisis.
* * *
We got to Chez Carpenter around five, and I parked the Munstermobile on the street. It was the single gaudiest object for five miles in every direction, and it blended in with the residential neighborhood about as well as a goose in a crowd of puffer fish. I turned off the engine and listened to it clicking. I didn’t look at the house.
I got out of the car, shut the door, and leaned back against it, still not looking at the house. I didn’t need to. I’d seen it often enough. It was a gorgeous Colonial home, complete with manicured landscaping, a pretty green lawn, and a white picket fence.
The grasshopper got out of the car and came around to stand beside me. “Dad’s at work. The sandcrawler is gone,” Molly noted, nodding toward the driveway where her mother always parked their minivan. “I think Mom was going to take the Jawas trick-or-treating at the Botanic Gardens this afternoon. So the little ones won’t be home.”
Which was Molly’s way of telling me that I didn’t have to face my daughter right now, and I could stop being a coward.
“Just go get him,” I said. “I’ll wait here.”
“Sure,” she said.
Molly went up to the front door and knocked. About two seconds after she did that, something huge slammed against the other side of the door. The heavy door jumped in its frame. Dust fell from the roof over the porch, dislodged by the impact. Molly stiffened and backed away. A second later, there was another thump, and another, and the sound of the frantic scratching of claws on the door. Then more thumping.
I hurriedly crossed the street to stand beside Molly on the lawn, facing the front door.
The door wiggled, then opened unsteadily, as if being manipulated by someone with his hands full. Then the storm door flew open and something grey and shaggy and enormous shot out onto the porch. It cleared the porch railing in a single bound, hurtled across the ground and the little picket fence, and hit me in the chest like a battering ram.
My dog, Mouse, is a temple dog of Tibet, a Foo dog of a powerful supernatural bloodline, though he could have passed for an exceptionally large Tibetan mastiff. Mouse can take on demons and monsters without batting an eye, and he checks in at about two fifty. He knocked me down as easily as a bowling ball does the first pin. And, superdog though he may be, he’s still a dog. Once I was down, he planted his front paws on either side of my head and proceeded to give me slobbery dog kisses on the face and neck and chin, making happy little sounds the whole time.
“Ack!” I said, as I always did. “My lips touched dog lips! Get me some mouthwash! Get me some iodine!” I shoved at his chest, grinning, and managed to lever myself out from underneath him and stand.
That didn’t diminish Mouse’s enthusiasm in the least. He cut loose with a series of joyous barks so loud that they set off a car alarm on a vehicle a hundred feet away. Then he sprinted in a tight circle, came back to my feet, and barked some more. He did that over and over for about a minute, his tail wagging so hard that it sounded like a helicopter might have been passing in the distance, whup-whup-whup-whup-whup.
“All right,” I said. “Enough. Come on, it’s not like I died or anything, boy.”
He quieted, his jaws parted in a canine grin, tail still wagging so hard that it pulled his hindquarters left and right with it. I knelt down and put my arms around him. If I’d been an inch or two shorter, I doubt I could have done it. Damn pooch is huge, and built like a barrel. He laid his chin on my shoulder and panted happily as I hugged him.
“Yeah,” I said quietly. “I missed you, too, buddy.” I nodded toward the house. “Anyone home?”
He tilted his head to one side slightly, one ear cocked at a slightly different angle from the other.
“He says no,” Molly said.
I blinked at her. “First Sherlock, now Dolittle?”
She blushed slightly and looked embarrassed. “It’s just something I picked up. A dog’s thoughts and emotions are a lot more direct and less conflicted than a human’s. It’s easier to listen for them. It isn’t a big deal.”
Mouse came over to greet Molly by walking back and forth against her legs, nearly knocking her down. He stopped and looked fondly up at her, tail wagging, and made a little woofing sound.
“You’re welcome,” she said, and scratched his ears.
“I need your help, boy,” I said. “Bad guys took Butters, Andi, and Justine.”
Mouse shook his head vigorously and half sneezed.
“Mouse thinks Andi should be locked in the garage at night, until she learns not to get abducted.”
“Once we get her back, we’ll start calling her Danger-prone Daphne,” I promised him. “She’s even got the hair for it. You in, Scoob?”
In answer, Mouse hurried to the street, looked both ways, then crossed it to sit down at the back door of the Munstermobile. Then he looked at me, as if asking me why I wasn’t opening it for him.
“Of course he’s in,” Molly translated, smiling.
“Good thing you’re here,” I said. “He’s tough to read.”
Chapter
Thirty-seven
We used the spinning needle in the bowl of water like a compass, driving north to south first, to let us triangulate on our friends’ location. As tracking spells went, this one was a little clumsier than most. We had to pull over the Munstermobile and let the water settle to use it—but hey, nothing’s perfect.
We tracked our friends, and presumably the Redcap and company, to the waterfront. The sun was setting behind us, and had briefly appeared from behind the clouds. The city’s skyline cast deep, cold shadows over us.
“Harry,” Molly said. “You know that this—”
“Is a trap,” I said. “Yep. The Redcap knew exactly what I would do with those bits of hair.”
Molly looked a little relieved. “Okay. Then what’s the plan?”
“Once we are sure where they are,” I said, “I’m going to go in the front door.”
“That’s the plan?”
“I’m going to be very, very noisy,” I said. “Meanwhile, you and Supermutt are going to sneak in the back, all sneaky-like, neutralize any guards that aren’t watching me, and get our crew out.”
“Oh,” Molly said. “Are you sure you don’t want me to be the distraction?”
It was a fair question. Molly’s One-woman Rave spell could get more attention than a crash at an airshow. “The Sidhe know all about veils,” I said. “Mine aren’t good enough to get anywhere near them. Yours are. It’s that simple.”