Page 38 of Catnapped

“Me, too. I can help carry them.”

“You could, but you won’t. You might injure your chest. You can do the thinking, I’ll handle the manual labor. However, as I’m not an idiot, I won’t try to bar you from feeding the hungry kittens. It’ll be tough enough making sure everybody is fed as it is.”

“I can accept that.”

The Devil waited at our rental, and he had set up a black plastic and mesh pen, which had a covered top to prevent any furry escapees. When I approached, he handed me a pad of paper and several permanent markers in various colors. Aware the Devil didn’t do anything without a good reason, I put his gifts in my pocket.

He announced, “You’ll need these. I have put puppy training pads in your vehicle along with food and water for your queen, and I’ve also provided everything else these feline entities will require while you’re adventuring. My wife has taken the liberty of providing a list of emergency vet clinics in the area so you might choose one.”

I read between the lines: if I knew what was good for me, I would be taking my new murder of kittens to a vet as soon as we finished at the lab. “What will I have to bargain for a full cleaning after we’re done in the lab?”

The Devil gave a sniff. “That will be a gift, for my delicate sensibilities would be sorely offended should you catch some illness from your adventures. As such, I will check in with you when you’re done with your base explorations and abuse my holy fire in amusing fashions. I’ll even make one of my brothers watch, as you should be checked for any complications.”

“I’ll put in a good word with your wife, which should be approximately equal.”

“If you do that, I’ll owe you,” Lucifer complained. “She likes you more than she likes me right now.”

Darlene never failed to amuse me, especially when it came to her hot and cold treatment of her husband, who adored her no matter what her mood happened to be. However, she tried to be reasonable—usually. “You told her she couldn’t have any of the kittens, didn’t you?”

“I did. It’s her fault she’s going to be hungry and cranky in a few days, as I have been banished to the couch. Really, I like you a lot right now, as my cranky and hungry wife shows off her wings and her spots when she goes on a hunt. If I talk about how wretchedly adorable the kittens are where she can hear me, she’ll likely hold out for a week or two, which means she won’t be hiding even a single spot from me.”

“You have a serious obsession with her spots. I’m sure there is a therapist somewhere who can help you with that problem. You could take two and have more immortal kittens running around your house. It’s not like I won’t have extras.”

“Wicked woman, suggesting I should bring two more terrors into my home! I already have two furry terrors, and they always side with my wife. Sometimes, they pretend to like me. But that is only sometimes.”

I crouched and peeked into the carrier, where the momma cat cowered in the back while the kittens, old enough to have their eyes open, rolled over each other in the tight space. Most were pale with colored points, although there were two orange tabbies and one calico. “You can’t have the calico. She’s mine. You can’t have the momma cat, either. She’s also mine.” I considered the wretchedly cute and filthy animals in the carrier. “Can you abuse your holy fire to clean their fur? That would be worth me putting in an almost good word for you while I gush about my new kittens.”

“I appreciate your ruthlessness in negotiations. Yes, this is an acceptable bargain. Do go about your investigative work, children. I will handle caring for your new friends in the meantime. Go ahead and take your time. Go on. Shoo, shoo.”

Darian regarded the Devil with a raised brow before he sighed, set the rest of the carriers down, and headed off in the direction of the shed and greenhouse. “Come on, Diana. It’s going to be a long night unless the first batch of investigators did a better job of cleaning up after themselves.”

The Devil waved as we left. “Have fun storming the castle, kids!”

Ten

“Your mother is a marvel.”

Darian hauled up the trap door, revealing a wide staircase descending deep beneath the ground. His flashlight revealed a landing some thirty feet down, which turned and disappeared into the darkness. “Well, whoever built this meant business. How the hell did they do such a massive concrete pour with nobody catching on?”

“I’m going to bet it has something to do with the several miles of road through the forest we needed to navigate to get here.” I tested the first step, which held up as I expected from concrete. “Despite being aware of the reality of things like this happening from working in the CDC, the reality is not what I was expecting.”

“What were you expecting?”

“Something more along the lines of a warehouse hidden in a busy port, where nobody would notice anything weird coming from the place. That has been the kind of stuff to cross my desk on the way to my bosses. Not a hidden lab deep in the woods hidden beneath some damned garden shed.” I scowled. “And now I’m extra mad at them because of the cats.”

“Mr. Flooferson’s situation angered you, but seeing more than one cat caught up in this mess made it real, which in turn has angered you even more?” Darian guessed.

Damn. Darian must have done some psychology studying—or I had zero ability to hide my state of mind from him. “Something like that. I might also be cranky because my chest aches somewhat.”

“And you probably underwent hormonal adjustments while they were at it, so you’re primed to be cranky. Dad is constantly monitoring Mom, and he warns me when she’s getting an adjustment, so I don’t get into more trouble than I usually do. Apparently, women are gloriously complicated, and I should be aware that this complexity could result in the loss of my fragile life, should I anger the wrong woman at the wrong time.”

I laughed at the thought of one of the Devil’s generals warning his son about the perils of his hormonal mother and other women. To spare him from the details of how my hormones could transform me into an ice-cream binging monster several days of every month, I asked, “Keeping the limitations of your magic in mind, what do we need to find here to get us to our next location?”

“The paperwork and vials we found here will help. For example, I can make a trail that will lead us to other chemicals made in the same batch. Fluids like that don’t tend to count as living beings, much like your cat’s fur. If I can get a list of locations to exclude, my trail would only take us to samples that aren’t in the CDC’s hands. That would stand a good chance of getting us to where we need to go.”

“Could you find someone based on their blood?” I asked. “Like, let’s say I cut myself and left some blood on the ground. Could you use that to find me?”

“I could use it to find another source of the same blood, so if you were having your period and I used your blood to track you, I could find you that way, yes. Or if you cut yourself and left blood somewhere.”