When the Stars Threw Down Their Spears: The Goblin Wars, Book Three (26 page)

“Oh ho, so it’s a competition, then,” Finn said.

Gil held up his trotter.

“Fair enough.” Finn curled his fingers into a fist. “I’ll use one hand, and one fist. We’ll be even.”

“Wait,” Teagan said. “I want to try it. Show me again.”

“Didn’t you hear what I just told the phooka?” Finn asked. “This move can paralyze you.”

“I’m nearly indestructible right now,” Teagan said. “Remember?”

Finn nodded. “You learn the standing side flip first. Unless you have that down, and nice and high, you shouldn’t even try a flip-switch off the wall. I’ll show you how, then spot you.” He did a standing side flip. “Did you see? Arms and legs tucked and you twist like you’re a whirligig with a pin through your middle.” He did it again. “You’ve noticed the boyo rotates to the left? That’s because he’s right-handed, so turning that way is more natural. You should try that first.” He stood behind her and put his hands on her waist. “Jump when I say jump. You’re going to tuck and rotate, but not until I tell you. Jump!”

Teagan launched herself up, and Finn held her in the air. “Tuck and twist.” He rotated her until he could drop her on her feet.

“Okay. Now I want to try it alone.” She did, and almost landed on her head. She might be indestructible, but Newton’s laws of motion clearly still applied.

“I can’t watch this,” Finn said.

“Nearly indestructible,” Teagan reminded him, and tried again. By the seventh time, her side flip was as good as Gil’s. “Now the wall.”

She ran at the bricks, bounced up, and rotated, staggering only a little more than Gil had on landing.

“I did it!” The spark the lightning had left in her spread through her body.

“Finn didn’t see,” Gil said. “He covered his eyes.”

Finn glared at the phooka. “I was watching through my fingers. Now are we ready to hunt?”

“Oh, yes!” Teagan said.

“Let’s run!” Gil agreed.

“Then let’s take it up a notch. If you’re man enough.”

And Finn ran, not just down the street but jumping up steps and stairs, vaulting over walls, and landing in rolls.

Gil was adapting to the cement and straight lines, using the moves he might have used running and jumping through the forest, adding butterfly twists and flourishes that had Teagan convinced that he was a physical genius, as well as a showoff.

She tried to imitate the phooka because they were nearly the same size, but his movements were almost inhuman, so she followed Finn instead, learning as she went.

Finn would do a trick, and Gil would equal or better it. This wasn’t climbing a rock face, where you needed two hands. It was more about speed and control, and the phooka gained more confidence with each block they traveled.

Finally, Finn left street level, bouncing up a series of not-so-obvious steps, from a decorative fence to an air conditioner to a window balcony and on, all the way to the roof of a building. He wasn’t cheating—he used just one hand. But Gil was left in the street, looking up.

“That’s not fair,” Teagan called up after Finn. In Mag Mell they’d had to climb a tree to save their lives. Gil had clung to the branches and edged out along the limbs, holding on with his one good hand. The phooka was scared of heights.

Finn just held up the fingers of one hand and wiggled them, clearly saying,
I did it one-handed, then, didn’t I?

A car went past, and when Gil turned to watch it without flinching, Teagan realized that he had made enormous progress since this morning, when he had clung to Finn’s hand as they’d passed.
Men are not afraid of cars
. He had been afraid to walk on hard, flat surfaces. Now he was treating the street and the walls around it like a playground.
Because Finn did
. He was measuring all things manly against the Mac Cumhaill, and he wanted desperately to be a man.

“You don’t have to—” Teagan said, but Gil jumped to the top of the fence. The next jump was faster, more confident. Teagan shrugged and followed him. When she reached the rooftop, the phooka was grinning like an idiot, and so was Finn.

“I did it!” Gil laughed. “
I
did.”

“Let’s go, then,” Finn said.

Following Finn, the phooka seemed to lose all fear. He made amazing leaps between buildings, landing and rolling on the roofs. The first time Teagan jumped from the rooftop of one store to the next, clearing the five-foot gap cleanly and rolling, she realized that she hadn’t really had fun since her mother died. Not this much fun.

With enough effort she could learn any sequence of movements, and she had the advantage of never getting tired, so she could keep working on it while Gil and Finn rested or stopped to watch the lightning in the distance.

Seamus in his great white whale was patrolling their neighborhood, so they hunted through the shopping district. There were more people out and about at night than Teagan had ever imagined: bakery workers, security guards, maintenance workers, prostitutes, and cops.

The Dump Dogs would have no trouble finding someone confused or alone here. There were drunks outside of bars, and street people of all ages huddled under doorways and overpasses. She was surprised at how many of them Finn knew. She had spent the last three years in high school; he’d spent them watching over the people of the night. It definitely wasn’t the kind of job Abby had in mind. No dental.

When the sky began to lighten, they started working their way home again.

“Maybe the lawyer found them,” Gil said when they reached the library. “With his
car
.”

Finn touched Teagan’s arm. “Tea. They’re back. Your ghosties, I mean.”

She turned to see two old people, a man and a woman, standing hand in hand under the amber glow of the streetlight in front of the library. The old woman wiggled her fingers at them as if to say hello. The old man had a book tucked under his arm. Teagan didn’t remember if he’d worn glasses before, but there was a pair perched on his nose now.

She knelt down to check her shoelaces.

“Get ready,” she said softly when she stood up.

“What are we doing?” Finn asked.

“We’re going to outrun those two,” Teagan said. “I can do it in this body.”

She hadn’t been able to before. No matter how fast she went, the ghosts had stayed right with her, never seeming to take anything but shuffling steps. And then they’d smile . . . and disappear.

“We’re going to outrun the old people?” Gil tipped his head and studied them. “They don’t look very fast.”

“I think they’re ghosties,” Finn said. “They’ve been following Teagan around.”

“And they’re scary,” Teagan added.

“Old people aren’t scary,” Finn said. “Not even ghostie old people. Are you scared of old phookas, Gil?”

Gil scratched his head. “Phookas don’t get old.”

“Neither does the Mac Cumhaill. Maybe that’s why we’re not afraid of these two.” He waved at them, and the old lady smiled. “She looks familiar.”

“Of course she does. You’ve seen her twice now. Stop encouraging them. Ready?” Teagan stood up. “Now!”

She sprinted past the library gate and down the street, pushing herself to the limit. She ran until she could hear Finn pulling in air in great gasps behind her, and then looked over her shoulder. Gil was running beside Finn, and the old couple was just a few feet behind them, still smiling, still taking their tiny shuffling steps.

Teagan stopped and turned to face them, Gil skidding to a stop beside her, and Finn leaning over with his hands on his knees. The old couple looked at each other and smiled.

“I hate it when you do that,” Teagan said to them. “So just stop, okay? And . . . thank you for saving me from the
sluagh
the other night. But would you please just leave me alone?” She took a step toward them and they were suddenly one step farther away, and then they vanished.

“It’s the dawn,” Finn said. “I promised to get you home, girl.”

The sky
was
rosy as they made their way back up the alley to the Wylltsons’ backyard.

Joe was still motionless, so they crept past him quietly.

“That was good,” Gil whispered. “Now I will sleep.”

“You’re not the only one,” Finn whispered back. “Good night, boyo.”

Raynor looked up when Tea and Finn came in the door. For an instant, Teagan was sure he could smell the ozone clinging to her or see the spark the lightning had left inside.

“Your bike’s all together,” Finn said. “That’s amazing.”

“You can get a lot done when you don’t sleep,” Raynor said. “All it needs is gas. What have you been up to, Tea? Playing with electrons? I should have warned you about that.”

Twenty-four

“W
HAT’S
wrong with Tea?” Donnie asked as she slid into the stretch limo. “She sick or something?”

He’d twisted around to look at her from the front seat. Leo, in his full chauffeur’s uniform, waited until Abby climbed in behind Tea, then shut the door.

“Take a look at her.” Rafe was in the back with Angelo. “You can see what’s wrong. You party, you pay. Know what I’m saying?”

“Shut up, Rafe,” Abby said. “It’s not like that. Could we stop at the Feather?” Abby asked when Leo got back in. “I want coffee.”

Why was everyone shouting this morning? Teagan blinked and felt it in slow motion—her eyelashes swooshing down before her lids banged shut. She had to force herself to pry them open again. Colors were too bright. And shiny things— like people’s faces—had halos. Raynor should
definitely
have warned her about this. Her backpack had seemed almost too heavy to carry out the door. Her biology and psychology books felt like bricks.

I will not experiment with electrons ever again
, she told herself.
Never, ever again. I will stick to safe levels of sizzle. Like kissing Finn
.

Leo pulled up beside the curb outside the Black Feather.

“Don’t get out,” Abby said as he started to open his door.

“It’s a habit,” Leo replied. “You wear the uniform, your body just makes the moves.”

Teagan had given Raynor and Seamus a rundown of the night’s doings before she’d stepped back into her body, explaining about the lightning, about the shadows and Rosehill. Seamus had headed out to park his van close to the cemetery and keep an eye on things, and Mr. Wylltson had gone with him. No one had seen any sign of the Dump Dogs. They could be halfway to New Jersey by now . . . but they probably weren’t. Not if they really were friends of Roisin.

At least Finn had gone to bed before she’d stepped back into her body and felt the full effects of her electron hangover. She wouldn’t want him to see her this way. Not even Abby’s Morning Makeover had helped. Abby had finally given up and called Leo for a ride.

Teagan leaned her head back, closed her eyes, and tried to ignore the Turtles’ talk. Leo was giving Rafe explicit instructions about exactly what he was allowed to say at school that day.

How far away had the shadows really been? They had seemed miles away, years away, but that couldn’t be true. Samhain was coming, when the walls between the worlds grow thin. Was it Mamieo or Raynor who’d told her that? If she was wrong and the doorway opened today, Seamus would see them, and her dad could hold them back with his songs until Raynor arrived.

Abby returned with an armload of coffees.

“Bada-bing!” Rafe said when she handed him a cup. He began to drink, then stopped in mid-slurp as they approached the school. “You know that idea you had, Abby? The one about Leo dropping us off? Probably not so good.” There were news vans parked outside the school, and reporters were interviewing students going in. Of course. She’d have thought of it earlier if her brain had been working. Today was not the day to roll up like a movie star in one of Abby’s uncle’s stretch limos.

Everyone but Leo slid down in their seats as they passed the school.

“I’ll drop you around the corner,” he said. “If anything happens, anything at all, you call me. I’ll get there.”

“Chillax,” Abby said. “I got everybody on a calling tree.”

“Chillax?”
Leo looked at them in the mirror. “You hear that from Jing, Abigail?”

Abby shrugged. “You don’t like it, talk to Zia Sophia.”

“I worry,” Leo said. “Jing was holding up the wall of the building when we went past. Waiting for someone?”

“Of course he was. And don’t worry so much. Anything happens, you’ll get a text saying where to be.
Crap!
”

“What?” Teagan asked. The coffee was actually helping. She could almost look directly at people.

“I left my phone in the bathroom when I gave up on fixing your face. Give me yours, Rafe.”

“Why would I give you my cell phone?”

“Because I need one.” Abby held out her hand.

Leo nodded. Rafe made a face, but he handed his phone over.

Abby’s the first one you dragged home
. That’s what Raynor had said. The Mac Cumhaill,
lhiannon-sídhe
, an angel, and . . . Abby. What other girl in school could call for a limo because her friend needed a ride? Could tell her cousins and boyfriend that Teagan was not human,
and have them believe her?
Or could expect the most expensive lawyer in Chicago show up if she needed him at the police station?

Abby wasn’t normal. She was some kind of . . . Mob princess. Maybe not the kind with money and bodyguards, but definitely the kind with Family connections. Just like she’d always said. Of course, she’d also said that she was psychic, and that God was Italian. Teagan took another sip of coffee.

Leo pulled up to the curb out of sight of the reporters, got out, and came around to open the door for them.

“You guys be careful,” he said, helping Abby to the sidewalk. “All of you.”

“You worry too much,” Abby said. “But thanks for the ride.”

Jing was still leaning against the front of the building when they got there. He wore slacks, a green T-shirt tight enough to show off his biceps, and a matching pair of Oakley shades on his face. Abby would approve of the look, but it made Teagan shiver. Kyle and Isabeau had worn sunglasses to hide their eyes when they bilocated.