I wished again Gary was the one driving my cab, partly because I suspected he’d be able to see the monsters. Even if he couldn’t, it didn’t matter, because he wouldn’t think I was crazy, which would be good enough. He also wouldn’t let the meter run up—probably—while I got out to try to deal with both wrecks and spirit animals. My teeth began to hurt from pressing them together so hard. I wished Coyote was there—my coyote, Little Coyote—to tell me what to do, but I couldn’t even concentrate enough to slip into the otherworld. I was going to have to help on my own.

I overpaid the cabby and went into the precinct with my shoulders hunched around my ears. There weren’t that many spirits infesting the precinct building, except near the windows. Too much concrete and too many straight lines, I thought. Cernunnos and his lot hadn’t been overwhelmingly delighted with rigid man-made structures either. Maybe it was something otherworldly creatures had in common. I didn’t care: it was a little relief from the bizarreness outside, and I took what I could get.

“You been on vacation, Joey?”

“What?” I nearly started out of my skin, then wished I didn’t feel like that was a genuine possibility. A friend of mine, Ray, leaned out of a doorway I’d passed. He wasn’t wearing his hat, but I could see the ring where sweat had matted his hair against his head.

“You’re tan. Been on vacation?” Ray was short and bulky and solid, like a human bunker. Explaining to him about my mystically induced tan would’ve been like explaining quantum physics to a hippo. I wasn’t up to either task.

“Got too much sun, anyway.”

“Looks good,” Ray offered, then tilted his head back at the main doors. “It’s balls-busting nuts out there.” He disappeared back into the office, having delivered his piece. I rubbed my breastbone, blinking, then shook my head and went looking for Morrison to see if he’d let me borrow a patrol car until I could rescue Petite or get a rental.

I found Billy instead. He came around a corner like a wrecking ball, nearly bowling me over. I stepped back, flattening myself against the wall, and he lumbered past me, then drew up and turned back with a glare. Sweat rolled down his face, too pink with exertion and the lack of air-conditioning. “You’re not supposed to be here.”

“I don’t have a car, Billy. I need to see if I can borrow one. And Christ, somebody needs to be here. It’s nuts out there.” I twitched my nose, annoyed at my mouth for stealing Ray’s words. At least I’d avoided the balls-busting part.

“Yeah. Look.” Billy curled his fingers around my upper arm and drew me aside, not that there was a great deal of traffic that required avoiding. His voice dropped low enough that I leaned in to hear him better. “I couldn’t talk about this on the phone, Joanie. Whatever’s going on here is upsetting Mel in a big way.”

My stomach tightened up as I looked at Billy’s expanded paunch. “How big?”

“Bad cramps and nerves. The doctor told her to stay on bed rest for a couple days. It’s almost impossible with the rest of the kids, especially with me not being there, but—”

“But she is, isn’t she, Billy?” My voice rose too high and Billy tightened his fingers around my arm. I knotted my right hand into a fist, my left too damaged to curl more than a few centimeters closed. “You want me to go take care of the kids? Is there anybody else with her?”

Relief paled Billy’s face so sharply I thought he must be in pain. “Her Mom’s flying in, but she’s in Arizona and can’t get here until tomorrow. If you could—”

“Yeah.” I cut him off with a sharp movement of my hand. “Of course, Billy. I’ll try to see if there’s anything I can do about—the rest of it, but at least I can take care of the kids and take a load off Mel’s mind. Is there anything I oughta pick up on the way over?”

“Tranquilizers,” he said, only half-kidding. I pulled up the best smile I could.

“For the kids, or for Melinda?”

Billy laughed, startled. “I meant the kids, but it might be more effective to give them to Mel. Look, I’m sorry if I was short with you on the phone—”

I grabbed his hand. “You weren’t. It’s okay. I’ll go take care of them, Billy. Isn’t that what cops are supposed to do? Don’t worry. It’s going to be fine.”

CHAPTER 27

Billy called ahead to let Mel and the kids know I was coming. I stopped for loot on the way over and pulled up their driveway in the borrowed patrol car. I got out and pushed the gate—an actual white picket fence—open and wended my way through the overgrown herb garden that made up the Holliday front yard. It was almost cool under the shade of a couple of enormous birch trees that filtered sunlight down to the ground.

The two oldest kids, Robert and Clara, met me at the front door with serious expressions. I put my bag of loot down on the porch and ruffled Rob’s hair. At eleven, he was starting to have distinct opinions about his own dignity, so when he didn’t duck out from under my hand, I knew things were dire indeed. “Hey, guys. How’s your Mom?”

“Grumpy.” Clara hooked her arm around my hips and leaned on me. “She doesn’t like staying in bed.”

“Me either. Where’s Jacquie and Erik?”

“Taking a nap,” Robert reported. “I told ‘em they had to be extra good ’cause Mom’s sick. Is she gonna be okay, Joanne?”

“Yeah.” I pulled Robert over to my other hip to hug him. “And I’m here to sit on you guys and make sure everybody’s good and take care of your mom if she needs it, okay?”

“We’rebeing good,” Clara insisted. “It’s awful hot. Can we go get some ice cream?”

“Maybe later. How about a drink now? Lemonade?” The kids were so assured it made me feel better.

“Can’t,” Robert said. “There’s a thing in the kitchen.”

So much for feeling better. “A thing?”

“A Thing,” Clara repeated, imbuing the word with a capital letter. “We didn’t want to tell Mom.”

“The doctor said she had to stay in bed,” Robert explained. I smiled a bit.

“Yeah, and a Thing would probably make her get up. You guys are good kids.”

“Yeah,” Robert agreed. I grinned more broadly.

“Modest, too. Okay. Let me go say hi to your mom, and then I’ll come look at this Thing, okay?”

Robert and Clara exchanged glances, considering the proposal, then nodded. “Okay,” Robert said. “Can we set up the water slide on the lawn?”

I pursed my lips. “Let me see if your mom’s up to all that noise, okay? I’ll help you if she is. Otherwise it’ll be Parcheesi or something. Something quiet.” I inevitably lost at Parcheesi, Monopoly, and pretty much every other board game ever played. I blamed it on never learning the rules properly as a child. On the other hand, I could identify more vehicles at a glance than most people could in a lifetime, which was enough of a party trick for me.

The kids exchanged glances again. “You’ve never played Parcheesi with us, have you?” Clara asked. “It’s not quiet.”

I grinned. “We’ll have to make do. Tiptoe in and check on your little brother and sister while I check on your mom.”

“Okay!” They ran off, sounding less like a herd of elephants than I’d ever heard them before. I kicked my sandals off before going to visit Melinda.

The Hollidays’ house was the kind of place I’d always wanted to live in and never had the foggiest idea why I should. It was in a better part of the North Precinct, far enough north that when Billy’d bought it, it’d been unfashionable and comparatively inexpensive. It’d started with four bedrooms and had expanded to six, with hardwood floors scarred from kids and dogs running rampant over them. The backyard was enormous and usually had a croquet set and a badminton net set up. It looked exactly like the kind of place a person would want to raise a herd of children. I couldn’t imagine what I’d do with it, but I coveted it anyway.