Though my charm should make it hard for anyone inside to see me, I still crept around the door in a low crouch with my finger on Fezzik’s trigger.
It was dark inside, the only light coming from an alarm clock and a computer’s power indicator, but that was enough to see that books and papers were strewn all over the floor. The decorative wooden navigation wheel that was usually mounted on the wall had been hurled into one of the portholes, one of the handles stuck through the shattered glass. Clothing had been pulled out from the built-in dresser and thrown in heaps. In the back, the bedding was rucked up in piles, blankets tangled around pillows.
I didn’t see what I’d feared I would find: Michael’s body.
But I still sensed the magical being. I didn’t see anyone, but this close, there was no mistake.
I crept toward the open cupboard door of the bed nook—I refused to call it a bedroom since the mattress was the only thing inside. Once, I’d teased Michael for sleeping in something smaller than Harry Potter’s cupboard under the stairs. He’d informed me that Harry hadn’t had a view of Puget Sound and had pointed majestically at the tiny porthole that looked at the boat in the next slip, not the water.
The bed was empty. And there wasn’t anything but a storage cabinet underneath it. Michael kept maintenance stuff for the boat under there. It was hard to imagine even a tiny child being able to fit, but I carefully opened the door. It was still stuffed full of maintenance equipment.
Maybe some magical beacon or trap had been left in the boat to fool my senses. Was that possible? I’d never encountered such a thing.
I risked turning on my flashlight app again in case I’d missed someone in the rumpled comforter on the mattress. Nope.
As I backed away, a high-pitched growl came from under the comforter.
A dog? A cat? Neither would explain the magical aura.
I pointed Fezzik at the lump. It moved slightly.
Using the muzzle of the pistol, I nudged the comforter aside.
A feline screech filled the cabin, and fearful green eyes stared straight at me. A large silver cat with black stripes sat amid the tangled bedding. This close, the creature would be able to see through the magic of my charm. It swiped at the comforter, as if it wanted to pull it back over itself. That paw was crazy large for a cat. And was the fur glowing faintly in the dark?
I put away the flashlight. Yes, there was a faint silver glow to the cat’s fur.
“No, you’re not a cat, are you?” I guessed him or her to be fifteen or twenty pounds with a lot of room to grow, if those paws were any indication. “Are you a tiger?”
I’d seen white tigers before. I hadn’t seen silver tigers with glowing fur.
The cat—tiger cub—screeched at me and swiped a paw in the air but didn’t look particularly threatening. I lowered my firearm and gazed around at the mess again, but there was nobody else inside.
“Where are you, Michael?”
The cub screeched again.
“And what am I supposed to do with this cat?”
2
“That notepad on the table is for you,” Michael said. “Happy birthday.”
“A notepad. I bet that’s what you get all your girlfriends.” Girlfriends. The word felt strange coming out of my mouth, maybe because I hadn’t dated anyone since my divorce. Of course, Michael and I weren’t officially dating, but we did talk about my assignments and his projects while eating and before having sex, so that probably fit some definition of the term somewhere.
“I do, but I only put a bow on it if I really care.”
“And a ribbon with curlicues. Very fancy.”
“It didn’t come that way. I used a trick my mom showed me with scissors to make the ribbon curl.”
“Some ancient family secret brought over from Korea, huh?”
“I’m pretty sure she got it off the Home and Garden channel.”
Michael watched with a smirk as I slid the ribbon off and opened the notebook. We were inside his newly acquired yacht, as he called it, and he was giving me a tour. Had given me a tour. It had only taken ten seconds to see everything, including the composting toilet that I vowed never to use, and then he’d flopped down on the bed. The contents of the notebook were far more intriguing than that boat, especially when I flipped to a hand-drawn map and a bunch of instructions for finding The Secret Cave.
“The Secret Cave? That’s not some rendezvous spot you want me to meet you at, is it?” It looked like it was over on the Olympic Peninsula. That was a long trip for a tryst.
“No. You said you needed to find the Kryftok Kobold Clan because they’re harboring a fugitive you’re supposed to take down. I had free time today, so I did some research for you. I’ve done a lot of treasure hunting over there, so I know the area well.”
“You don’t have to look up my marks for me.” But I lowered the notepad, touched that he’d taken the time to do so.
“I know, but it’s your birthday. Care to join me in the love nest for further celebrations?” Michael patted the comforter and gave me his version of bedroom eyes. An impressive feat given that he was reclining in a cupboard, not a bedroom, and that mattress was more suitable for a ten-year-old than a couple of amorous adults.
“Is that what the realtor who bilked you out of your life’s savings called it?” I leaned my hip against the end of the table. It wobbled, threatening to fold down into the wall.
“Silly Val. You buy a boat from a boat trader, not a realtor.”
“Are you sure you didn’t get this from a police auction? It’s named after a Russian submarine.”
“The Kursk? How do you know?”
“I’m a crack researcher too.”
“Does that mean you Googled it on your phone?”
I couldn’t believe he hadn’t. He was far better at finding things than I was. But maybe one didn’t locate magical treasures by Googling them.
“That’s how crack research is done these days,” I informed him, deciding not to point out that the Russian sub had sunk, killing its entire crew. Whoever had named this boat had possessed an odd sense of humor. “You better check the nooks and crannies for leftover smuggled drugs.”
Michael pushed a hand through his straight black hair. “Does all this vitriol for my new home mean I’m going to have to drive us back to your place if I want to get lucky tonight?”
“I don’t know. You haven’t taken off your shirt and rubbed your chest suggestively yet.”
His eyebrows rose. “Would that work?”
“You do have a nice chest.”
His lips curved into a smile, and he patted the bed again. “Ditto.”
I snorted, certain I’d end up hitting my head on the wall—if not the ceiling—but he had gotten me a gift. Besides, he was so proud of his new acquisition that I would feel bad rejecting it tonight. Tomorrow, I would reject it.
The tiger cub screeched, pulling me from my memories. It was just as well. With potential enemies about, this wasn’t the time to lose myself in the past.
“What’s up, kid?” I asked absently, stretching out with my senses to see if the trolls and ogre had moved. They hadn’t. If they were on a boat, they must have dropped anchor. “You thirsty? Hungry?”
The cub rolled onto its side and pawed at its ears. That gave me the opportunity to invade its privacy with my flashlight and learn that it was a female cub.
“Good. I don’t have to call you an it now.”
The next noise was a plaintive mew.
I grabbed one of Michael’s two bowls—his personal bowl and his guest bowl, as he called them—from an overhead cabinet that hadn’t been disturbed by the ransacking and filled it with water from the little sink.
“Here, kid.” I put the bowl on the mattress where it—she—could reach it. The floor might have been better, but the cub seemed to like the bed, and I wasn’t inclined to pick her up and move her. The claws weren’t long yet, but they were there.
“Val?” Julie called, her tone almost as plaintive as the cub’s. “What’s going on?”
“I’m not sure yet, but you can come in.”
I debated if I wanted to turn on the lights to do a better search. If the ogre—or ogres—had come from that boat out there, someone on it might be watching this spot. Though I couldn’t imagine why. If they were the kidnappers, they already had Michael. I wished I knew why. To question him about some treasure he was hunting? To ransom him to his family? To me? If they knew how little money I had in my bank account, they wouldn’t bother. Besides, we’d broken up almost a year earlier. Someone would have had to do a lot of research to link us together.
As Julie walked in, I flipped on the lights. I would risk it. There might be answers here in the mess.
The cub screeched a complaint.
Julie jumped, cracking her head on the low doorjamb. “What was that? Michael got a cat?”
“In a manner of speaking.” I pointed her toward the bed while I picked up papers, looking through them as I stacked them on the table. Several had been ripped and crumpled, and a few were stamped with boot prints. Giant boot prints.
I couldn’t tell if two ogres had been here, but that was my guess. Michael had gotten the best of one, but the other had gotten the best of him. And kidnapped him and carted him off. I hoped that was what had happened, not that he’d been killed and dumped overboard.
“That’s a hella weird cat,” Julie said. “It looks like a tiger cub. A white tiger cub? Do they start out darker and get lighter?”
“I don’t know, but it’s magical. Very magical.” A burlap sack slumped in a corner caught my eye, and I picked it up.
“What does that mean?”
“It’s not from Earth, at least not originally.”
“Oh, I see. It’s a Martian tiger.”
I shook my head, having no interest in explaining the various worlds in the Cosmic Realms or that powerful magical beings could make portals and travel between them. It wasn’t as if I was an expert. Everything I knew had come via trolls, goblins, orcs, and other beings that showed up here after fleeing trouble in their home worlds. Apparently, our populous planet was an excellent place to hide.