Practical Boots (The Torn Book 1) Page 2

  "Besides," she heard herself say, "what would you want with it anyway?"

  "It is mine!" Thunder crept into her father's voice, the anger of a man who hated both explaining himself, and being denied.

  That anger let Cat take a step back, re-centering herself. Not a retreat. Just familiar ground. "Look, Pops, unless you've jacked off all the way across the Torn into a human fertility clinic, I don't see ho—ooooh, wow. Oh wow, what have you done." Her stomach roiled and she stepped back again, pulling the strap of her pack over her shoulder again. "What did you do?"

  He would never explain himself. He never had, not even to those above him in the court, and certainly not to his recalcitrant, unmanageable daughter. But he didn't need to. The rage in his face, the thin wavering line between disgust and self-satisfaction, told her enough. Not everything, but enough.

  He had managed it, somehow. Had succeeded in having his seed carried across the Waste and embedded in some unsuspecting, non-consenting human woman's egg. The child she'd been hoping for was his power play, and he would stop at nothing to acquire it.

  And Cat knew why. Or suspected it, at least. For all the reasons she kept stuffed down deep inside her where she tried not to even think about them, so no one else could come across their probable truth. Few enough of the Torn-born could travel the Waste. Fewer still could be dropped in it, defenseless, and survive. And almost no one became an Artificer, trying.

  But as far as Cat could tell, those who did were like her. Half of the World, half of the Torn. She had been the first Torn-born, half-human child in decades, maybe centuries; those from the Torn who could travel to the World rarely brought their human lovers back. Children were left behind, forgotten, and born with a power their deadbeat parents never knew about.

  Most of those children, Cat suspected, never knew about their power themselves. It didn't take the Waste to trigger it, but it did take either intense need or the knowledge that it could be awakened. World-born Artificers lived a long time and sought each other out, teaching the skill to those whose bloodlines ran strong with the blood of the Torn, although those were fewer and fewer each generation, even in the World, where so many more people lived than in the Torn.

  In the Torn itself, Artificers were beings of almost-legendary status, only half-believed in, like fairy tales within fairy tales. Cat didn't know where her father had found the one who had almost trapped her, but she suspected he'd come from the World, bribed or bargained into a Faustian trap.

  Either way, whether the other Artificer was World-born or Torn, the fact that he was trying to get another child of half-human blood meant Cat's father suspected Cat's heritage may have had something to do with her survival.

  "No." She barely recognized her own voice. "No. Absolutely not. You can't have this—" Sibling. She was carrying her own half-sibling in a frozen container on her back. She knew what kind of father they shared. "It'd be better off dead than with you raising it."

  "Believe me," her father purred, "I intend to shower every honor and every luxury on the coming child. On my beloved heir. It will adore me."

  "Heir? A legitimate heir? After me? How are you even going to—did you get married?" Cat's voice broke. "Who would be stupid enough to marry you? And how do you expect to—" She cut off her own questions. In the World, it would take doctors and hormones and she didn't know what all, to implant an embryo. In the Torn, it would no doubt take the same things, but the healers there had magic instead of science. Given an unethical-enough healer, a woman could probably be impregnated with somebody else's embryo without her ever even knowing it. And children were sufficiently rare in the Torn that even if she had suspicions, she probably wouldn't voice them.

  And Cat's father would never marry somebody smart enough to question it anyway. If he married someone smart, he might struggle to control her, particularly if she had a child to protect. Well, maybe. Her own mother had apparently genuinely fallen for him, but she hadn't stayed, either. Either way, he was a master of manipulation. The only reason Cat had escaped relatively unscathed was his absolute lack of interest in her, but she'd seen how he'd treated everyone else.

  "You may congratulate me," he said with his thin smile. "The Margravine Yylana Alara has recently become my wife, and I her husband."

  "Yylana?" Cat's eyebrows drew down far enough to make her head ache. She remembered the margravine, in the vague way that children remembered adults who had very little to do with their lives. Yylana had been very, very pretty to Cat's half-human way of appreciating beauty, but she'd been considered unfashionable by the court. Her features and figure were too round, and she had, in fact, been dumb as a stump. Cat thought there'd been something lacking about her skill with magic, too, as if she'd been a hedge witch or something else crass, a shifter with only one other shape to command. Even in the Torn, where magic was as common as breathing, there were still powers that were too common.

  The Yylana that Cat remembered would have been overawed and thrilled by attention from the Woodlands Lord of the court, and would never, ever have imagined she was being used as a pawn. Cat doubted she would even be able to recognize when the overtures of friendship from those who wanted to curry favor with Woodlands Lord were false.

  Cat didn't almost feel sorry for Yylana. She absolutely felt sorry for her.

  And she was absolutely not getting any more involved than that.

  "Congratulations." The word, offered stiffly, still somehow pleased her father, which was nice, because the next ones wouldn't. "I'm still not giving you this package."

  "We're in a warded pocket of the Torn," her father murmured. "Your Artifact cannot carry you from this place. How do you propose to stop me from taking it?"

  She still had the backpack in one hand, and her gun in the other. She put the muzzle of the weapon against the carrying compartment of the pack and slid her finger to the trigger, all without taking her gaze from her father's face.

  Genuine shock tightened his features. "You wouldn't."

  "Oh, I definitely would."

  "You would destroy a child? Your own sibling? Before giving it up to its rightful parent?"

  "Absofuckinglutely. There's only one reason I can think of you'd want a half-Torn child and there is no way, no way at all, that I'm letting that happen. Hopefully the poor woman who's waiting for this has other eggs, but even if she doesn't, I guarantee she doesn't want this kid to grow up yours. Don't," she said, her voice sharpening with warning as her father's muscles tensed. "Don't. You can't knock the gun out of my hand faster than I can pull the trigger, Dad. And we both know if you could physically control me with magic you would have a long, long time ago, so don't imagine you can magic up a way out of this. You're going to let me go, and we're going to pretend this never happened."

  Spots of scarlet shone in his cheeks, and cords stood out in his throat. Cat tested the bubble they were in. He couldn't hold them there forever, but he might be able to hold them long enough to make the embryo not-viable anymore. She had no idea, really. It wasn't like she'd ever paid attention to how things like that worked.

  "I will never let that child go," her father said after a long, long time. "I will cross the Waste and search the World and leave a sickly changeling in its place so I might bring it home to the Torn. Is it not better for the mother to lose it now, before it's real to her, than as a living creature she's come to love?"

  "Nope. Not gonna happen." Cat's finger ached on the trigger. She didn't want to pull it. She really didn't want to give the embryo to her father. She searched for a memory, one that barely existed, and pulled it together into words of warning. "I swear on the blood of my birth, Dad. On the blood of my line, and on the blood of my loins, that this kid will never be yours."

  She'd shocked him before, but a quietude came over him now. Shock could carry disbelief; that was gone now. No one swore oaths like that outside of stories, because oaths like that held power. The only sound was that of her own heartbeat, her own breathing, and the creak of mu
scles that could be heard in utter silence. Her father, she thought, had stopped breathing. Stopped everything, while he took in the weight of her promise, turning it, examining it, seeing if there were any gaps he might slither through.

  "You do not wish to end its existence," he said finally.

  "I'd rather not, but I will if I have to."

  His eyes glittered. "And you will give up your own to protect it."

  "My own existence?" Cat's gut clenched. "Yeah, I guess so. But I'll leave behind a hex, old man. One so powerful you'll never get the kid anyway." She didn't know if she could. She knew she would have to.

  "I propose an alternative."

  Cat's eyebrows shot up. Her father's thin smile touched his lips but not his eyes. "Swear your fealty to me, and I will leave the child to its mundane, Worldly life."

  The air rushed from Cat's lungs, leaving her speechless. Her father's smile sharpened. "Do this, child of mine, or I will swear to you that by the blood of my birth, the blood of my line, and the blood of my blade, that I will fight you for this unborn infant every moment of your life, every hour of its life, every day of the endless summer and every month of the eternal winter, every year of—"

  "Yes." The word tore like ice shards in her throat. "Yes. So long as you do not in any way interfere, approach, or interact with this child, for the duration of my life or its, I swear my fealty to you. My powers are yours to command and my skills are at your service. My liege lord."

  "So much, for someone who doesn't even exist yet," he breathed. "Why?"

  "Because what kind of asshole would I be if I let this kid deal with all your shit when I could prevent it?" She might as well have spoken another language. "Because I'm a better freaking person than you are, Dad, that's why. Because I can't let you spend its whole life making it miserable. Because whatever you want from it, I can probably already do and I'm not a child being raised to do whatever you want out of adoration. That kid—potential kid—is an innocent. I'm an adult who's making the choice." A lousy choice, sure, but from her father's expression, Cat didn't think he'd manipulated her into it. She'd made plenty of vows before, all of which ended in his messy death, and he had no particular reason to disbelieve those ones.

  She still meant those older vows, too. It would just take a little longer. And in the meantime, the baby in the frozen box she was carrying would have a chance at a much more normal life than she'd had. "Do you accept my terms?"

  He tilted his head slowly, still staring at her, then spoke clearly. "On my word, I will not interfere with the child you carry with you now, and on the strength of that pledge, accept your oath of fealty for the length of your life or its. Now." His will flexed and the walls of the Torn bubble thinned a little. "I have work for you."

  Cat lifted her eyebrows and the backpack simultaneously. "Not until I've delivered this."

  "A vow of fealty supersedes any human commitments you may have, daughter."

  "You swore not to interfere with the child I'm carrying. Hauling me back to the Torn to do some bullshit Artificer job before I've brought it where it's supposed to be is absolutely interfering."

  Fury slashed her father's face. The walls surrounding them came down, and Cat finally stepped.

  * * *

  The World seemed very loud and terrible when Cat returned to it, and if she hadn't had somewhere to be, she would have flopped down in the midst of it all and reveled in it. The Torn was pastorally quiet; the Waste, oppressively so. The World's noise and smell and vibrancy were so much better. Especially in Los Angeles, where she'd stepped to: the huge dome of blue sky had recently been washed by rain, and mountains were visible far beyond the reach of busy streets filled with hurrying people and so very many cars.

  She'd left New York's grey skies spitting a pathetic attempt at snow less than twenty minutes ago, according to the chunky watch on her wrist. Her father's machinations hadn't delayed her much, in the scope of five hours being the usual shortest transit time between the coasts. Her phone's map app oriented her and she jogged the half block to her destination, showed her ID at the security-laden door, and was sent up to a posh, nice-smelling clinic about thirty-eight floors above the ground.

  The equally posh, nice-smelling white lady behind the front desk looked like she wanted to call security as Cat stomped in, all leather, bad hair, and boots. She relaxed very slightly as Cat said, "Cat Sharp Courier Service," briskly. "Got a delivery for one Grace Law, care of you guys."

  "Oh." The woman's eyes widened. "I'm sorry. We didn't expect you until tomorrow. Wasn't that delivery just put in a couple of hours ago? From New York?"

  "Yep."

  Her eyes widened further. "How'd you get here so fast?"

  Cat put the package on the reception desk, leaned in, and, when the woman leaned in to hear, murmured, "Magic."

  The woman laughed and sat back, equally disappointed and satisfied. "I wish I had that kind of magic. Honestly, Ms. Law is going to be thrilled. She obviously intended to complete her treatment in New York, but—well, you know how things change. The moment was suddenly right—" She broke off, eyebrows drawing down, and pulled herself together. "I'm sorry. I'm sure you're not interested."

  "I'm fascinated," Cat promised, quite honestly, but what the receptionist really meant was that she shouldn't be telling the courier about Ms. Law's personal details. "Is she here? Someone's supposed to pay for this. Someone's supposed to pay a lot for this."

  The receptionist's eyebrows drew down farther yet, threatening her Botox. "She is. She was very sure you would deliver within the hour, although I don't understand—one moment, Ms. Sharp." She rang a bell, waited, then rose and said, "If you'll follow me this way?"

  "Sure. Should I take this?" Cat indicated the little freezer unit.

  "No, that will be taken to the lab. Thank you." The receptionist led her into a private waiting area that was better-appointed than any apartment Cat had ever rented. A slender Asian woman in a sleeveless top that showed off terrific biceps was curled on a couch with a fat novel, half-finished, in her hands. She lifted one finger from against the book's back cover as Cat came in, indicating her awareness of Cat's presence and signaling her intention to keep reading.

  Cat breathed, "'kay," and slipped past a bed made up to match the couch to get a glass of water. Not from a cooler, oh no. From the kitchenette at the window end of the waiting-room-slash-apartment-slash-she-didn't-know-what-to-call-it. From up here the Los Angeles sky seemed to be a cooler shade blue, more disdainful, as if the warmth had been leeched away. The bed lay opposite the couch, with a coffee table between them. A dining table was tucked discreetly into the side of the kitchenette, and a door led to what she assumed was a private bathroom. She doubted all fertility clinics provided this kind of service, but Ms. Law could obviously afford the best.

  She had, after all, hired Cat.

  "Sorry," Grace Law said as Cat finished drinking her water. When she turned back, the woman was putting her book on a coffee table between the bed and the couch, and smiling apologetically. "I was almost at the end of the chapter. I'd heard you were the fastest courier in the country, but I did think I'd have time to finish the book before you got here. Thank you for taking this job. My whole life doesn't exactly revolve around this moment, but…"

  Cat's eyebrows lifted. "But your whole life revolves around this moment?"

  Law's smile went from apologetic to brightly confessional. "Kind of, yeah. The stars aligned, you know? Except I really can't get back to New York right now, so…again, thank you."

  "You paid for the fastest service," Cat said with a shrug. "I'm just doing my job. But can I ask you something?"

  "If it's whether you earned the bonus, the answer is yes." Law picked up a designer purse and extracted a checkbook, of all things. Cat had never personally owned one, although she'd cashed a handful of checks in her life. "To whom shall I make it out?"

  "Cat Sharp Courier Services, or CSCS, or Cat Sharp, or…" Cat did a lot of work through a courier
service, but the right people had learned that she could courier almost anything at inexplicable speed. Jobs like this one came straight to her, through a grapevine that had taken years to grow.

  Law laughed. "I get it." She wrote out a check with a satisfying number of zeros, tore it out of the book, and handed it over. "What did you want to ask?"

  "You're, uh, you're doing this…on your own?" Cat gestured, as if the motion could encompass the entire lack of a male presence in the room.

  "Ah. Yeah, I am. Is it something you're considering?"

  It absolutely was not. Not in that or any other lifetime. Cat felt like a big 'nope!' sign lit up over her head, and was surprised Grace couldn't see it as Cat said, "I've been thinking about it, yeah."

  The other woman's eyes softened. "I'm glad to offer any advice you want. I finally decided I wanted a child more than I wanted to find the perfect guy to have one with. I'd have done it when I was your age, if I'd had the nerve."

  Grace looked like a Hollywood thirty-five to fifty; her skin was plump, her jawline smooth, and her hands unveined. But time didn't move the same in the Torn as it did in the World, and while most people placed Cat in her twenties…well, growing up had taken a long time, on the far side of the Waste.

  Which wasn't exactly something she could say, so she only nodded. "How did you…this is rude, or weird, to ask, and obviously you don't have to answer, but how did you decide on a sperm donor?"

  Law's gaze sparkled suddenly. "Honestly, it was fun. Kind of scary, but also in a way it seemed so much easier than having to live with somebody and their real imperfections, you know? I'd be lying if I didn't say I was looking for hot, smart, and healthy. And tall," she added ruefully. "I'm not very tall."

  "Did you get to choose things like hair color? I mean, like, tell them you only wanted to look at redheads or something?"

  Law's nose wrinkled. "I'm not much of one for redheads, but I could have, if I'd wanted to. No offense!"

  Cat managed a smile around the knot of worry tightening in her stomach. "None taken. So you didn't meet the guys, or anything, or…" She didn't know how to ask if Grace had checked a box for 'elfin, immortal, ambitious, and dangerous' on the fertility clinic biography page.