A LITTLE BIRD TOLD ME

by Ruby and JoAnn Baca

Rating: R (for violence, child endangerment, language, and sexual situations)

Author’s Note: Origin stories for some original characters in, and background information pertinent to, this story can be found in an earlier collaboration: The Concrete Nest, Parts 1 & 2, originally written for Winterfest Online 2022.

Also, the original character Calabria and her relationship with Joe first appear in The Bride Wore Smith and Wesson, originally written for Winterfest Online.

However, you need not have read those stories to understand the plot of this one.

* * * * *

Catherine and Vincent would think about that day in their own ways later. They both remembered how bright and sunny it was, but also how bitingly clear and cold. It was a fall sun. A sun that warned that if all winters end, then all winters must return.

It was just Catherine and Joe in their office that day. The space was small but functional. A lobby area, a hallway with two offices off it facing each other, and a breakroom in back. Each office had a door of wood and thick frosted glass. They wanted to assure their clients’ privacy. And Catherine was grateful for the door for her own reasons. She’d known Joe for over ten years, and he still did not know about Vincent or the strange world that ran underneath the streets their building sat on.

Calabria bounded into the reception area carrying a rental tux in a bag. Lucy was at the desk and gave her a big smile as she waved her through. Calabria was carrying Joe’s suit for the evening’s activity, accompanying Catherine and Robin to a museum benefit. Catherine was going because Robin wanted to. Calabria had planned to go, too, but work called. She placed the bagged outfit on Joe’s desk.

He made a face. “I’m gonna look like a penguin. Feel like one, too.”

“It’s black-tie, Joey. Wouldn’t want Miss Robin to see you in tatters.” Calabria bit back a smile at that, thinking of what Robin wore Below, and she continued, “A case is keeping me late, else I’d be happy to drink champagne with you tonight. It’s a nice thing you’re doing.”

“Flattery will get you everywhere, Cally.” And they kissed, both rolling their eyes as a phone rang on Joe’s desk, breaking the mood.

Calabria saw Catherine go towards the breakroom and followed her. She knew that with Joe occupied on the phone they could speak more freely.

She thought again of how she had come to know the full Catherine Chandler, instead of just the carefully edited public version. It was shortly after Catherine had resurfaced after over a year – last seen being bundled into a car and presumed dead. She had been placed into protective custody until her story could be checked out. And it was quite a story of remembering no names, saying they were careful to never use them in front of her, and of a few rough interrogations about a ledger, and then of long months in a cell, guessing they had viewed her as a valuable target for ransom.

Calabria fought back a snort at that. There had been no ransom note, and Gabriel was scattered in ashes along with much of his New York outfit. The new DA was looking to make this all go away, and she was just to watch Chandler until the woman was in the clear and could be returned to civilian life, which seemed to consist of recuperating at the brownstone of a family doctor. It didn’t add up, and Calabria didn’t like things that didn’t add up.

She had gone to inspect the basement of the safehouse again. The alcove that once had held coal had a back wall that was bricked. And yet… She knew so many houses this old had tunnels for booze smuggling during Prohibition. She was missing something. She paced the floor, seeing the footprints and cigarette butts of the other agents and officers who had come down here to smoke.

Footprints.

There were no footprints in the alcove. Which meant that someone was sweeping the floor in the alcove, but not touching the rest.

She looked again at that brick wall, thinking that when Chandler excused herself to go to bed, Calabria would usually take up watch in the living room.

You could get to the basement without being seen from the living room.

Calabria decided that Chandler’s story had more holes than a piece of good Swiss. The detective knew that the woman had a reputation as a do-gooder, but she also knew that Chandler came from wealth and perhaps was trying to protect herself from being permanently cut off from it.

When evening came, she said good night to Chandler first, then walked into the living room and turned the TV sound up loud before doubling back into the basement and hiding behind a stack of boxes. The hours ticked by…one, then two…and then there was a creak.

Chandler was coming down the steps, carrying a broom.

Calabria held her breath as the woman walked to the alcove and rapped with the broom on the brick wall. Without a sound, the wall pivoted open and...something stepped out. An impossible thing. A man – a man with a lion’s face and a man’s body.

The being was holding something. A baby. At least six months old.

“Vincent.” It was a desperate whisper from Chandler as she rushed to embrace him and the baby.

“You are well?”

“As best as can be expected. Will she take formula?”

“Yes, and Molly is pregnant and can begin wet nursing soon.”

Chandler nodded, unbuttoning her blouse. The baby happily settled into her arms, placed there by the one called Vincent, and began to nurse.

Calabria couldn’t believe it and took a step back, disturbing a stack of boxes behind her.

Vincent’s head snapped forward. “Is someone there?”

She unholstered her gun and walked forward with it raised. “Everybody be cool. We’re going to all go upstairs and answer some questions.”

“Please!” Chandler held her child closer. “I know I can’t ask you to pretend you saw nothing, but,” she was crying now, “just let me finish feeding her.”

Calabria felt her guts slice open. Thoughts of You can’t cover for this, it has to be reported warred with If you break up this family, the harm won’t just be on them, it will visit you, too, in ways you can’t begin to understand. She felt a roaring in her ears. And almost as if it was some unseen force guiding her movements, she slid her gun back into her holster. “I’ll be waiting upstairs, Miss Chandler. I expect to see you soon.” In disbelief at her own actions, she walked back upstairs into the dark kitchen.

As she sat at the table, she was both surprised and not surprised to see Chandler emerge from the basement sometime later. “I thought you’d take your chance to run.”

“I wanted to, but you took a leap of faith tonight. I think it’s only fair I take one in turn.”

Over two mugs of terrible instant coffee, Calabria learned that the world she thought she understood was only one of many, and that something very secret and wonderful was happening right under her feet. And during that conversation, “Chandler” became “Catherine” to her.

* * *

It was over two mugs of much better coffee that Calabria and Catherine caught up.

“I’m glad you’re doing this. I’m even more glad Robin wants to.”

Catherine smiled, with a wariness behind her smile that hadn’t been there before her ordeal. “Honestly, so am I. There’s a part of me that would be happy if she was content to just be a tunnel child. But she’s my child, so I can’t ask where she got her adventurous streak. If it wasn’t for taking risks, I never would have met…him.”

Calabria smiled at how cautious Catherine still was about mentioning Vincent while Above, even to a Helper. She had been one since that night in the safehouse. “How’s he taking this?”

“As well as can be expected. It’s funny, it took so long for us to tie our lives together because he thought he would keep me trapped with him. But now, I see his struggle to believe that we’ll be safe Above when he’s not there. And I can’t promise him nothing will happen, because he’s a father now. You know how fathers are.”

“No kidding. Well, have a nice time, and take good care of my husband, too, you hear?”

Catherine laughed. “It’s a deal.”

* * *

That evening at the brownstone, Vincent watched his wife and child get ready for the benefit.

“Catherine…” They had wrangled over this for days. Vincent had reluctantly agreed. But that reluctance was giving way to the old fear that licked cold ash in his belly.

She turned from the mirror, one hand in the “stop” position. “I know your concerns. And I do share them. But we can’t keep her Below except for school forever, Vincent. She needs to have the experience of being out and about. And we promised her she could go.”

Robin ran into their bedroom, smiling and twirling in her new dress. “It’s beautiful, Mommy! Do you like it, Daddy?”

Unable to resist her open, happy face, he nodded. “It’s your color, as Grandmother Mary says.”

She ran to him, hugging him. He bent to hug her back, but his gaze remained locked on Catherine’s. “Both of you look lovely tonight.”

Catherine took that as capitulation. Begrudging, perhaps…but he would trust in her decision.

Smiling, she took her daughter by the hand. “We’re being picked up by Uncle Joe. Aunt Cally is working late tonight.”

Robin nodded. “Uncle Joe hates wearing a tuxedo, but he said he’d do it just for me!” She frowned then. “Wish you could come, Daddy.”

“I’ll wait to hear all about it from you. It will be much more fun that way,” he insisted, tugging at one of the strawberry blonde curls framing her face.

Catherine looked out the window from their second-floor bedroom. The brownstone had larger bedrooms, but Vincent liked this corner room the best, as it looked out over the Park on one side. “Joe’s here. Let’s go before he honks and bothers the neighbors.” She gave Vincent a warm hug as she whispered in his ear, “I’ll watch over her, I promise.”

Vincent observed Robin at her mother’s dressing table as she pulled at the curls Catherine’s curling iron had made on either side of her face, mimicking what he had done. They bounced back with a spring and she laughed. She will never flinch from a mirror, Vincent thought, glad it was so, but with a pang at the gulf that would develop by necessity as Robin grew and understood more of why her father hid himself away.

He looked at Catherine, striving to be a woman of both worlds, and raising their daughter to be. He chided himself for trying to talk her out of bringing Robin to the benefit. He couldn’t let their lives be marked by fears of what might happen…even as he tasted anew the bitterness of almost losing Catherine again. She was found. She was found great with child. Your child. And not only did Rolley and Chance find her, they brought her home.

He had to have faith again, faith that Above’s cruelties could not extinguish its goodness, and that Robin deserved to know the wider world her mother came from, a world that was hers, too.

* * *

Sylvia Rivers looked around the museum gallery with a studied indifference, not even drawing her usual pleasure from being the best-looking woman in the room. She had never liked parties until Gabriel had taught her how to enjoy them. She recalled his rasping voice, like the wind when a fire is about to sweep through, whispering in her ear. Just watch them like a cat watches mice, and decide which would be the most fun to play with. It had been good advice, and had made her a wealthy woman. Officially a courier for the organization, she could be counted on for other odd jobs. She was here tonight to check in with Angelo.

She smirked, thinking of him. She was only a few years older than Angelo’s twenty-eight years, but she remembered when they’d met – him a gawky teenager in a private school uniform, and her already formed as Gabriel’s weapon, in a dress of apple green silk. Gabriel had Angelo wait a while in one of the too-large rooms of his too-large mansion outside the city before he came in with her and sat in a chair in the corner.

Gabriel had looked at Angelo like a cat at a mouse, then turned his gaze to her. In a voice drained of all feeling except for a hunger that would never be fed, he told her, “Make a man out of him.” And she’d led Angelo to a small couch and began his lessons under Gabriel’s approving eyes. She remembered Angelo’s fear and uncertainty shorting out under an adolescent boy’s desire. She had him truly then. And knew how to work him towards her ends after that.

Angelo Moreno had marked this evening as another dutiful responsibility to the firm: a junior almost-partner putting in an appearance at the reception to mark the restoration of the museum wing the firm had donated generously to. It was a short-straw assignment for whomever didn’t have the pull yet to beg off, the firm’s representative who would stand beneath the Renaissance paintings of angels frowning at saints being ripped to pieces while jig reels of underemployed actors with trays of seared scallops on endive leaves and flutes of champagne that might be good in another ten years roved through the well-heeled crowd. Angelo was here to glad-hand and hopefully network with the lawyers and bankers and power brokers in the crowd. His jaw tightened in frustration. He had another line of work, his desired one, but that had begun to feel stagnant, too.

He saw Sylvia watching him from across the room. Even the thought of having her in the bathroom after a line of coke didn’t excite him. He had felt himself increasingly floating through life of late.

Until he recognized the child.

The girl looked no more than ten, with strawberry blonde hair and dressed in a simple but expensive dress of cranberry velvet. She was there with her mother, the infamous Catherine Chandler, who had survived multiple attempts on her life and an even more notorious kidnapping that had sent her into semi-seclusion and private practice.

Angelo sipped his champagne and smiled inwardly at the parts of her story that almost no one else in the room knew. Gabriel had called him into the tower one day, and on a bank of monitors played him a tape of something that shouldn’t exist, roaring in a terrible rage and tearing through some of Gabriel’s very unlucky men. On another monitor, Gabriel showed him a small, white room where an unhappy, and very pregnant, woman was standing at the window.

“The woman carries the creature’s child… my child. I will have a child unlike any in the world.”

Angelo had felt an unwelcome wave of fear at that. But he loved Gabriel, the father he wished he’d had instead of his weakling one, and he had merely nodded. Then Gabriel had died, and the tower burned, taking the tape with it.

The organization Gabriel had been part of rolled on, with Angelo marked as useful, but not for the great things Gabriel had groomed him for. And when the pregnant woman resurfaced, she had no baby. Angelo quietly thought it for the best that she’d gotten rid of it. The thing on the tape still haunted him – sometimes in the early morning hours, images of it pressed themselves against his eyelids.

He had not given it another thought when the woman had started being seen a few years later with a young girl. A girl was useless except for bearing a son. If Chandler had found a wealthy sperm donor or overstocked orphanage, that was her affair. But just now the child had looked up at her mother and Angelo’s breath had caught at her eyes.

Cool, gray eyes, like the sea. Like the sea before it devours a ship. Like Gabriel’s.

Angelo centered on those gray eyes. Not that…unholy terror’s eyes, which had been a blue that haunted his dreams. And not Chandler’s, which were mossy. Gray, like his mentor’s, like the cold slate of his mentor’s heart. So…had Gabriel indulged himself? Had he loved the cosmic joke of planting his seed in the scion of a wealthy elitist from the upper crust of New York society? It made the most perverse kind of sense. But why had his mentor not divulged his secret? Perhaps he had planned to, but fate had intervened. Well, now he, Angelo Moreno, would be rapacious in turn: capture Gabriel’s captive’s child. Hold her until he, himself, could impregnate Gabriel’s spawn with his own seed…a melding of fates, indeed.

It had never made sense to him that Gabriel had hinted about the monstrous being with those blue, blue eyes being the child’s biological parent. It only took one look at the thing – that slavering, violent animal – to understand it was not in any way human enough to impregnate a woman. No…Gabriel’s fantasy was just a cover story. It made for a good tale, disguising the uncomfortable truth of a rape and imprisonment. There had still been a few in the upper levels of the organization who would have been uncomfortable with such a reality.

Angelo threw his thoughts back to that day at the tower. Gabriel had always impressed upon him the importance of creating your own legend. And he would love to claim his child was not merely human, but something more.

The thing on the tape frightened him less now.

He could feel the air of the room heavy on his skin. Catherine Chandler had not gotten rid of the child, Gabriel’s child. A daughter, yes, but she was what Gabriel had wanted. She was heir to Gabriel’s empire. And Angelo would honor the last request of the man who had molded him into what he was.

He would have that child.

He would take her and form her as surely as Gabriel had formed him. He would create his own legend in siring a child with Gabriel’s only offspring. She would bear him a son to be proud of.

Angelo walked over to introduce himself. He saw Chandler’s unease at his last name as she placed him – the now-nearing-thirty adult who she had last seen as the somber-looking young man being photographed walking out of the church where his father’s funeral service had been held. He also saw her struggle to not judge him for his father.

How he delighted in her compassion, her not wanting the son to bear the sins of the father. Gabriel had taught him compassion was weakness. And it was Chandler’s greatest weakness. He would play on that fatal weakness to get the quarry he sought.

He smiled down at Robin. “Do you like the paintings?”

Robin smiled. “Yes! I like how in the really old paintings, the angels’ wings are all different colors, like parrots. It’s so beautiful.”

“It is beautiful. It was nice to meet you, Miss…?”

“Robin.” And she held out her hand to shake.

Angelo shook her hand for only an instant, smiling up at her mother and missing the current of disquiet that passed over Robin’s face.

“Have a nice evening, Miss Robin. It was nice to meet you, too, Ms. Chandler.”

Catherine nodded and watched as Angelo wandered over to another clutch of guests.

He made his way to Sylvia. She didn’t miss the change in him. He looked as if he’d been reborn, like a pilgrim who had finally reached the end of an arduous journey to find his faith richly rewarded.

“Gabriel’s child lives.”

“What?” The carefully assembled cool of Syliva’s bearing almost betrayed a tremor.

“I know Gabriel showed you the tape, too.”

She saw no gain in lying. “And so what? It was a trick, a very talented makeup artist. All so Gabriel could spin one hell of a story instead of being another crime lord who knocked up his mistress.”

She had always been impressed by how Chandler had slipped out of trouble for that one. Sylvia knew that Gabriel would have killed her instantly if they hadn’t been lovers. She had figured Chandler’s imprisonment was Gabriel’s punishment for some infraction she didn’t know of and didn’t care about. And she had assumed that Chandler had gotten rid of the pregnancy before resurfacing, sometime after her escape from the tower during the attack that had killed Gabriel. But if she hadn’t? This presented possibilities…

Angelo saw the wheels turning and smiled. “I know you’re here to ask if I need the contents of the deposit box Gabriel left for me. Well, Sylvia, I think I finally do.”

The rest of the evening passed uneventfully for Catherine and Robin. The young girl happily looked at paintings while Catherine caught up with acquaintances from her past life, telling carefully edited bits of her recent life story.

Robin noticed Angelo leaving early, with a woman, and she tried to ignore how it felt like suddenly a weight had been lifted from her. She looked up at a painting of an angel, its wings resplendent in all the colors of the rainbow. She didn’t realize she’d said it aloud until she heard her own voice begging, “Please watch over me.”

Catherine observed Robin’s quietness on the ride back. She chalked it up to her daughter being up later than usual.

Robin gave Joe a peck on the cheek as they stood outside his car about to go into the brownstone. “Thanks for the ride, Uncle Joe.”

“Anytime, kiddo. I’ll tell Aunt Cally you missed her.”

“Thanks!”

And Joe smiled as he watched the two walk up the steps and into their home.

* * *

Inside their brownstone, Robin got ready for bed. When her father came to tuck her in, she happily told him about the reception, the paintings, the food, the soda they had for kids to drink.

“That sounds wonderful. Did you meet any interesting people?”

Robin got quiet for a moment before finally saying, “Yeah, a lot of nice folks that Mom knew and I didn’t. They talked about adult stuff. And…” She thought about not saying anything more.

Her father gently coaxed her, asking, “Was there someone who wasn’t nice?”

“No.” Robin thought about saying she was too tired to talk, but a voice inside urged Tell him.

“There was this guy, Angelo Moreno.” She didn’t notice her father becoming statue still at the mention of the name. “He was nice, and didn’t do anything weird. It’s just that when we shook hands before he went to talk to other people… I…I don’t know. I’m being silly.”

“Perhaps, but tell me.”

Robin took a deep breath, then said, “I got a funny feeling, like something bad was going to happen. Not at the party, but…later.”

Vincent chose his next words very carefully. “Perhaps it was nothing, or perhaps you sensed danger to come. You are my child, and you are the inheritor of my…gifts, including some I may have not wished for you to have.” He could tell she didn’t completely understand, and that sleep was beginning to overtake her. He smiled. “Rest now, all will be well.”

Robin smiled drowsily. “Goodnight, Daddy.”

“Goodnight, Robin.”

  * * *

Vincent turned over the conversation he had planned to have on his walk to Ivy’s. He had been looking forward to his chess match with Calabria. But now he wondered at the wisdom of bringing up to her what Robin had said. Catherine had told him about Angelo, and the little she knew was that he was a young, up-and-coming lawyer with a powerful firm who maybe wasn’t as much of a mover and shaker as he otherwise would have been, thanks to his father being swept up in Gabriel’s activities.

Vincent was uneasy, assuming the apple didn’t fall far from the tree, but it worried him more that Robin might be manifesting his abilities of second sight, and this early, too. It’s nothing. Please let it be nothing. Let my family have the peace it’s sought for so long. Please.

He was still considering bringing up the conversation with Robin to Calabria as he reached the basement of Ivy’s internet cafe. The brownstone had a computer, but a lifetime of caution made him wary enough to want to use a terminal from Ivy’s should it ever be traced.

He smiled as Ivy opened the secret door for him. Even in the dimness of the basement, her green eyes shone. She’d been named for them, Hiedra. Her parents, realizing Franco’s Spain was no place for two aging hippies, had taken her to America when she was two years old. And she grew like the vine she was named for, using the English translation in school, Ivy.

Her parents worked hard, and built a little corner store into a thriving business. They had become Helpers when she was six, and she had learned of Below when she was ten. When her parents retired, she’d sold their store to open the internet cafe. It was a rousing success, and a place for after-hours computer lessons for the children Below, as well as a general hub to leave non-pressing messages and packages for the Tunnel community.

It was also a place where Vincent finally had his mettle tested over a chess game.

That had come about because Ivy had told him about Calabria not coming in as frequently anymore for online chess games now that she’d set up a computer in the apartment she shared with Joe. Vincent had expressed surprise that he didn’t know she played. “She’s great, same killer instinct she brings to her job, she brings to the board.”

Vincent felt a pull to finally take Ivy up on her offer to help him set up an account with a phony address and phone number. “Perhaps she would be interested in playing me. I’m looking for a…challenge.”

Ivy grinned. “Modest to a fault. There’s nobody Below who can beat you, and you’re getting bored.”

Vincent ducked his head with a chuckle. They’d set up an account for him that evening. And the next time Ivy saw Calabria, she told her that if a user calling himself “The Uncommon Reader” wanted to play chess with her, she should take him up on it. Calabria laughed at the screen name Vincent had chosen and said she’d be delighted to.

Calabria had missed touching base with Vincent and Below as much as she had before her marriage. It weighed on her that she knew about them and Joe didn’t. But she also knew that Joe still saw things too much in the easy good/bad divide of the institutions he’d built his career on. She missed Winterfest, and she missed not even being able to accept a candle from Robin, but she didn’t want to collect any more lies to tell Joe than basic necessity required. So she was happy to find this conduit in which to stay in touch.

A game late Friday night into early Saturday had become a way for her to deal with insomnia and to shed some of her work week so she didn’t carry all of it into the weekend. Vincent knew this, which made him feel a touch guilty as he mulled bringing up what Robin had told him to her.

It turned out that he was not the one to bring it up. After beating him in their first game easily, Calabria typed into the instant messenger at the bottom of the screen, “What’s up? I can beat you, but you usually make me work for it.”

Vincent responded, “I’m sorry, my thoughts were elsewhere.” And he told her what Robin had said.

Now Calabria had something to turn over in her mind. But before she could respond, she heard Joe’s voice behind her. A car alarm had woken him up.

After typing “Joe” she quickly closed the window.

Joe tried to play it casual. “Exchanging messages with your secret lover?”

“Very funny. Just playing chess with another night owl.”

“He got a name?”

“Don’t even know if they’re a ‘he,’ just goes by ‘The Uncommon Reader’ – good player.”

Calabria felt safe saying that much, as Joe was mostly teasing. But he loved deeply and fiercely. He had loved Catherine, unrequitedly, which was part of the reason he still hadn’t been told about Vincent and Below. She realized something else in that moment: that was why he was able to work in private practice with Catherine and not ask questions about Robin’s father. A terrible thought came to her. Oh, Joe. Do you think Gabriel raped her when she was his prisoner and she chose to have the baby? And you don’t want to press on wounds by asking?

She had picked up from Ivy that Robin was starting to be old enough to understand the less-kind tunnel gossip about Vincent – that he couldn’t be her father, as it was impossible for him to have fathered a child with a human woman. Calabria bristled at that.

But right now she saw Joe’s curls hanging over his eyes and his chest hair matted from sleep and a hunger awoke in her. She stood up from the computer and grinned wickedly. “Well, if you’re worried about me straying, better prove you’re the best I could get.”

Joe laughed and they chased each other into the bedroom. They made love in eagerness, in hunger, and with need.

Afterwards, as Joe drifted back to sleep, Calabria decided she would just check up on Angelo to be sure. I hope it was nothing, Robin. I want you to stay a kid for a little while more yet.

* * *

Sylvia Rivers ended the phone call. It had been expected…and full of possibilities.

She leaned back in her leather desk chair and stared out the 10^th-floor window of her pied-a -terre. It was nice living here. Gabriel had ensured she was set up well – long before tragedy had struck him. The perks of having been a fixer for him and his associates with tentacles worldwide had been generous and numerous. Even now, picking up work as an independent contractor, she made more than enough to satisfy her needs. But she’d been getting bored. More than bored, if she was honest with herself.

Gazing at the phone, she thought about her recent call. Angelo Moreno, DA’s son and flavor of the month for Gabriel years ago. But Angelo’s timing had been off. Unlike Sylvia, he hadn’t achieved full usefulness to Gabriel before the shit hit the fan. Still, Gabriel had made certain provisions for him, for a future Gabriel hadn’t lived to take advantage of. And now Angelo was calling in his chips.

Angelo’s fixation on the young girl at the gala was growing. That was fine with Sylvia, because she had to admit that her own fixation was blossoming, too. She didn’t care about the girl at all, a pawn useful only as a means to an end. But she would help Angelo, stay close to him in his obsession to grab the child and…what…raise her secretly for years, until he could impregnate her? How short-sighted!

He was missing the true picture. They need not waste five or six years, holding her against her will. All they needed to do was lure the creature to try to rescue her. The payoff there could be immediate.

She smiled languidly. That magnificent beast had featured in her dreams since Gabriel had shown her the video. He was man enough to speak, man enough to challenge Gabriel for love of a child. How could Angleo not believe the beast itself was man enough – human enough – to be the girl’s biological father? But Angelo wanted so badly to believe in the myth he had constructed of Gabriel being the child’s true father, of creating some sort of closed loop by mating with Gabriel’s “daughter,” that he couldn’t see the more realistic option.

But she could. Yes, she very much wanted a mating…just not between Angelo and the child-grown-up. She wanted those heavily muscled arms wrapped around her body, those clawed hands stroking her bare skin, the power between his legs thrusting his seed into her own womb. A child, yes! Now, THAT was the kind of child Gabriel’s remaining associates could utilize.

So, yes, she would assist poor delusional Angelo. For her own ends. To draw the creature to her, to capture him, to bargain a baby in trade for the weak little girl Angelo wanted to kidnap.

Smiling, Sylvia stood and went to her safe to get out the key to the bank box holding what Angelo wanted. It was going to be glorious to watch his face when she turned the tables on him. But until then…she would play along.

* * *

Over the next week, Angelo and Sylvia set to work. Sylvia had a lead on a house in Connecticut. The previous owner recently had died of violent dementia; the upper floor windows were barred and the glass replaced with unbreakable plastic during his mental decline. It would be good enough to hold Robin while they made further arrangements. Angelo hired a “security expert” from his underworld contacts to grab Robin and take her to the house. The man was the kind who, when told what Angelo wanted, only said, “I get paid half up front.”

Angelo was ready to be done with the law firm. The money Gabriel had left him in the bank box would finance a play for the London branch of the organization. Sylvia viewed it as the weakest arm, and thus the one to establish themselves in. They had no idea how public Chandler would go when Robin was taken, but they were counting on the full force of the law not being brought down on them, lest the authorities discover a few things she clearly still wanted hidden.

* * *

After the week of preparations, the plan had hardened into shape. Angelo would go to work as normal on Monday. Sylvia would have their security man grab Robin after school. Angelo would leave work as normal and switch cars in a garage, driving the wrong direction out of the city until he could swap cars again, then drive to the house. They would risk no more than a week in the house before bundling Robin onto a private plane out of the country.

Their treachery excited them; they were the naughty children that Gabriel watched play with each other again. They had an ace now: an heir, a breeder. Sylvia didn’t tell Angelo she hoped Gabriel hadn’t been lying. Because she was excited that the thing on the tape might have been real. Maybe Gabriel had been punishing Chandler for screwing it.

She, ever careful, confirmed with her contact that the Connecticut place was theirs for the next month, even though they would be gone long before the month expired. She celebrated by snorting a line of coke. She felt good, better than she had in a while.

Angelo had been watching her as she placed the call, and stood now that she walked towards him. But she pushed him back onto the couch, unzipping her thousand-dollar pencil skirt as she did so. Angelo smirked and his hands went to his belt. Sylvia closed her eyes and pretended he was the thing on the tape. She was running through the woods, the beast close on her heels. The beast grabbed her, knocking her to the ground, then ripped open her dress, gazing hungrily at her naked body in the moonlight. And then the beast was on her, the heat pouring off his body as he took her, throwing his head back in pleasure as each savage thrust made her cry out. Sylvia screamed as the fire in her belly consumed her.

She wanted that beast.

* * *

That night at Ivy’s, Vincent noticed Calabria seemed preoccupied. Their play was the opposite of the previous week’s – this time it was she who stumbled early. She lost their game in so few moves that he was concerned. “What’s wrong? Something at work?” he typed.

She typed back, “Sorry, my concentration is off. It’s Moreno. I checked him out. Things are a bit hinky in his life story.”

“Is he dangerous?” Vincent’s hackles rose. A threat, after all these years? He steeled himself for having his fears confirmed.

“Robin has good instincts.” Calabria took a moment to collect her thoughts, then typed, “He followed his father’s footsteps but in a bigger way. John went to Fordham for undergrad and law school, a great resume, and one any whip-smart Catholic kid in New York City would be thrilled with. You’d think Angelo would be a shoe-in as a legacy at Fordham, and you’d be right. But instead, Angelo got early entrance into Harvard for college, graduated early, then went to Yale for law school – both very expensive schools, but he had no loans or scholarships. Pretty unusual for a kid with a dad who works for the city, even one with a prestigious job. And he was set to be hired at the most exclusive law firm in the city. But when John Moreno fell from grace, Angelo’s status fell, too. Now he’s working in a nice but definitely second-tier law firm, competing for partner. Word is he’s hungry and angry.”

Vincent stared at the words on the computer screen. John Moreno’s son, being groomed by…someone…for great things. Things which fell apart just when Moreno was exposed in the scandal surrounding Gabriel. It didn’t take much analysis to connect the dots.

John Moreno’s son. Hungry and angry. The last words mocked him from the computer screen.

* * *

On the walk back to the brownstone, Vincent saw Chance pacing outside her and Rolley’s chamber, rocking one of their twins, Estella, to get her back to sleep.

Chance smiled. “Hey, V! What’s up?”

Vincent thought about giving a noncommittal answer, but he remembered that he was no longer alone with his struggles. And Chance saw instantly something was wrong.

“What’s going on? And don’t say ‘nothing’ because we both know that’s not true.”

Vincent did smile some then. “When you take a scavenging patrol out on Monday, could you perhaps establish a…lookout around a certain person?”

Chance looked surprised but she nodded. “You got it, who’s the person?”

And Vincent told her about Angelo, where his office building was, and how he wanted to be wrong, that nothing was amiss…but he knew better.

Chance nodded. “Nobody is gonna mess with Robin while I’m around. I’ll spread the word.”

Vincent clasped her shoulder in thanks and continued back to Catherine and Robin.

* * *

He checked on Robin when he reached the house. She was sound asleep, and Vincent’s heart nearly ached with love for the tiny being that still half held onto a book and flashlight, as she clearly had been reading after bedtime. He smiled, recalling that he’d done the same at her age. Then he walked to the bedroom he shared with Catherine, undressed, and slid under the covers.

She was looking over a file from work. She put it away and turned the nightstand lamp off.

“You look troubled.”

Vincent did not want to burden her yet with what could still be nothing. “It has been a long week.”

She sensed she’d get no more conversation out of him tonight, but she knew she could still help him. She began to kiss and stroke him.

He sighed and wrapped his arms around her, and gently traced the sides of her face, her neck, her shoulders with his claws. They made love with a gentle, practiced rhythm, Catherine muffing her cry into the wall of his shoulder, and Vincent’s low groan of completion making her feel like more than a woman – like a primordial figure of love and desire.

She remembered the early days, after she had been returned to him, with Robin still an infant. How his joy had been tempered by fear that he would lose them both again. How he hadn’t been willing to leave her to even eat. How, when he had nearly fainted from hunger, without thinking, she had brought his great face to her breast and, also without thinking, he had begun to drink. How they truly had found and forgiven each other in that moment. How they would meet in the hollow behind the stained glass in his chamber after that so she could nurse him. Him needing this, her, the stitching together of a childhood marked by abandonment. That he would love her as a man with his body after, her blouse open and her skirts pushed up to her thighs. How she forgave him for not letting her give him this for so long.

She held him tighter in their bed. “I will always be here.”

* * *

Robin watched for her mother from the gates of her school. A woman with grey hair and bowed head slowly walked by, leaning on a cane. The shopping bag she was carrying slipped from her fingers and its contents spilled. As the woman bent down with effort and tried to gather her purchases, Robin’s heart plucked. She was supposed to stay in the schoolyard until her mother came, but the old woman was clearly struggling. How could she just stand there?

Robin darted out, only meaning to assist her and go right back. She ran up to the woman and bent down. “Let me help you.” The woman looked up, and Robin had only a moment to see that her face wasn’t old at all before the woman pressed a cloth on her face.

Not missing a beat, Sylvia put Robin in the backseat of a waiting car and nodded at the driver, Angelo’s man. They drove several blocks to a private health club, where they switched cars and Sylvia ditched her wig and cane. They went from there out of the city, towards the house in Connecticut.

* * *

Chance and her party had been watching Angelo’s building all day. Outside of a lunch meeting, he had not left the building. The late afternoon stretched on. Chance passed a note to a young woman reading tarot cards, a Helper who had set up her table near their lookout.

The Helper, Tanis, took the note to a waiting Vincent, who had tried and failed to quell the building sense of anxiety he’d been feeling all day. He was in the brownstone’s library, in a futile effort to give himself something to do until they could be sure Angelo was or was not dangerous. He read the latest update from Chance: still nothing suspicious.

* * *

It was getting close to when Catherine would pick Robin up from school. Vincent returned to his chore, trying to focus on culling their collection of books and arranging the rest into some semblance of order. He felt the first flicker a short time after that.

Something was wrong. His breath felt metallic. Adrenaline like copper running into his mouth. Catherine. The Bond felt static at first…then blue flame hot with fear galvanized him. He was already standing by the phone, and picked it up before the first ring ended.

“Is she home with you?” Catherine asked without preamble.

Robin?! Was it her that he had felt earlier? Had the sense of unease making him uncomfortable been a harbinger of his daughter’s fear?

“No. What’s happened?” Robin understood how important it was to stay inside the gates of her grade school until someone she knew came to get her. It was safe there. Wasn’t it?

“Mrs. McClaren told me that the last time she saw Robin, she was waiting by the gate for me. When she realized Robin was gone, she thought I’d picked her up. None of the other parents or children I’ve spoken to noticed anything, but it’s chaotic once school is out.”

Vincent could feel the depth of Catherine’s panic, his own rising, twining with hers. “She wouldn’t walk by herself. She knows to wait.”

Catherine replied, “I’ll check the streets between the school and home but… Oh, Vincent…”

“If you don’t find her…we’ll talk of next steps.”

He couldn’t believe how calm he’d sounded when speaking to her, considering his hands were shaking and he had fallen against the wall, his legs barely able to hold him up.

Robin is gone.

* * *

Catherine’s brain recycled those same three words like a mantra, her panic spiking. She had checked; no one had seen Robin.

She went directly to the office from the school, telling Lucy to hold all their calls save from the brownstone, and to start the phone tree to notify all possible Helpers.

Calm. Calm. I have to be calm. Oh god my baby is gone and I…

The panic hit harder than at any time Vincent had ever experienced it through their Bond. It speared his heart, and he felt a corresponding echo, faint but sure, pulsing beneath it – Robin’s own panic, fuzzy and indistinct but definitely there.

He dropped the stack of books he’d been carrying. He would go to Catherine, for that was the strongest connection, and the only one he had a direction for. It didn’t matter that it was daylight Above. It didn’t matter that she was in her office with Joe – unsuspecting Joe, who had no clue what he was about to discover.

He ran hell-for-leather down corridors and around outcroppings and over barriers that other men might have to clamber over. He ran to out-pace his fear, to see Catherine’s face, to bear whatever lay before them.

* * *

The basement of the building where Catherine worked was accessible from the tunnels through a seldom used entry point, one Catherine refused to utilize even though it saved her time from home to office, or from Below. She never wanted to take the chance of anyone accidentally seeing her emerging or disappearing into a space they might otherwise never notice. Especially Joe.

Now Vincent crashed through the entry point, intent only on finding Catherine.

She awaited him, pacing, tears running down her cheeks, sobbing, nearly hysterical. When she saw him, she fell into his arms.

“Robin was taken!” She managed to choke out the words. But saying it aloud was worse than having the phrase running through her head on a continuous loop. It was in the world now. And it was terrifying.

“You know this?” It seemed impossible, given the care they had taken all these years. And who would do it? Some random stranger? No. It was the man they had feared since the night of the museum event. It had to be. But it was incredibly risky, even for someone like Angelo Moreno, to sully his reputation by grabbing a child in broad daylight. And Chance had last reported him still in his office. But if he had accomplices…

“She…she…called out to me! The connection we have… Didn’t you feel it, too?”

“I felt the spike of your fear,” he replied. “But…yes…faintly, below that, there’s the thrum of Robin’s terror. It’s…not localized though. Is your connection?” He was desperate for some hint of how to reach their daughter, and he was amazed that Catherine could feel her better than he could. As an empath, he was used to being the one who had the deepest connection to others’ emotions.

Catherine shook her head.

From upstairs, there was the sound of the door opening. Footsteps. Joe, coming back from picking up a late lunch.

“Hey, Radcliffe, you here? Got your tuna on rye!”

Lucy must have stepped away, as she hadn’t intercepted him. Frantic, Catherine stared at Vincent. “I’ll be right up!” she called, her gaze never leaving his face.

“What do you mean, right up? Where the heck…?” He opened the door to the basement they never used and flipped on the overhead light.

“Holy SHIT!”

To Joe’s credit, he immediately hurtled down the stairs to confront whatever phantasm was holding Catherine. “Get away from her!”

Catherine broke away from Vincent and held up her hands. Joe paused at the bottom of the steps.

Finding a weak smile from the last of her reserves, she sighed. “Joe, I’m afraid I’m about to throw you in the deep end. This is Vincent, my husband. And we don’t have time for more than that, because someone just took Robin.”

Joe blinked. Grasping the banister, he sat down on the steps. “Oh, Jesus Christ, please tell me this is a stroke about to happen.”

Catherine had thought about the ways that Joe might finally be told about Vincent and Below. Now she tried not to imagine what might lie on the other side of him finding out this way.

She told Joe the short version: being found after her attack by Vincent and that he nursed her back to health, being careful to scale back where he kept her to merely a hidden living space under an old building. She finished by saying that she loved Vincent, and that Joe was well within his rights to be furious with her for keeping him a secret…but that Robin had been kidnapped and they had to focus on finding her right now.

Joe didn’t seem to be able to grasp the immediacy of the problem. He appeared dazed. He kept looking from Vincent to Catherine, shaking his head. “I really need a drink,” he mumbled, “now that I know everything.”

Vincent glanced at Catherine. When he turned back to Joe, he said, “Unfortunately, you’re a long way from knowing…everything. But now you know enough to make at least one decision. About me.” He waved one clawed hand in Catherine’s direction then back at himself. “About us.”

“So many things are clicking into place now,” Joe murmured, thinking out loud, his mind a million miles away. “How I missed it all this time…” He shook himself, realizing he needed to respond to the big man’s implied question. “Yeah. You and Radcliffe.” His eyes widened as another piece of the puzzle became clear. “Robin! She’s…?” He looked at Catherine, pointing at Vincent.

“She’s our daughter, yes.” Her eyes misted as she added, “You understand now why Gabriel held me for so long. He knew of Vincent and wanted our child.”

“We realize this is a lot to take in. Too much. And not the way we hoped this situation would one day be explained to you.” Vincent leaned forward. “If you need time, we understand. And…” His gaze swept up to Catherine then reclaimed Joe’s.  “If you can’t accept this and…what came before, when Catherine worked in the DA’s Office…we will understand that, as well, and…arrangements will be made.”

“Arrangements?” Joe had gone from confusion to confusion. His mind was spinning.

“To protect Vincent,” Catherine said.

Joe’s eyes widened. “To protect him…from me?”

“If you can’t keep his secret…our secret, then…yes.” Catherine’s face grew stony, determined.

He snorted. “I’m not your biggest problem here,” he replied. “When Calabria finds out about…all this…well…”

Catherine closed her eyes and sighed. This would be the biggest shock of Joe’s day, she knew. But she was prevented from speaking by a voice coming from the top of the stairs.

“I already know.”

Calabria came down the stairs and put her fingers lightly under Joe’s hanging-open jaw, closing his mouth. She met his eyes and tried not to flinch at the anger and hurt she saw in them.

“When Catherine resurfaced, I was one of the officers they had babysitting her in the safehouse. I surprised her one night in the basement when Vincent brought Robin to see her and…here I am.” She met a glance from Catherine and understood to mention no more of Below than could be helped.

Joe was both furious and heartbroken that two of the women he loved most hadn’t thought he was trustworthy enough to know. Worst yet, he couldn’t help the lick of resentment he felt that they were probably right about that. But now he finally focused on the words that were of most concern, the ones he hadn’t been able to concentrate on in the shock of finding out about Vincent: there was a bigger problem.

Robin.

Joe thought of that sunny face saying “Hi, Uncle Joe!” when Catherine would bring her to the office. He took a deep breath. “Right now, we’ve got a little girl to find.” He speared Calabria with a look. “There will be plenty of time later for me to yell at you until my voice breaks.” And without another word he bounded up the steps.

Calabria sighed. Please let me still have a marriage when this is all over. She and Catherine followed Joe.

Vincent returned to the brownstone, where a party from Below was organizing their search routes. Please let us find her.

* * *

The house was echoing, empty. Robin sat in the only room that was furnished: a bedroom, decked out for a child much younger than she was, as if the person who put it together had no idea of what a girl her age might like. Baby dolls and simple coloring books filled a low shelf. She gazed in disdain at the stack of Little Golden Books on the bedside table, recognizing titles she had read when she was five. The pajamas on the pillow were two sizes too small. And the sheets had cheery cartoon characters from a show she had told her mother was “for babies” when asked if she wanted to watch it.

All of it was brand new. The sheets still had that inky smell; they hadn’t even been washed. Everything was likely purchased by a person going into Macy’s and just grabbing the first thing they saw, not caring about the price or the person they were for.

Nothing in this room had a story.

It was then that Robin felt her first wave of fear that maybe her parents weren’t going to find her. How could they, when she was in this room of new things? There wasn’t the “Ladyhawke” novelization that Chance had read to her over and over when she was little, to the point that it was only held together now by black thread. There wasn’t Eric’s old stuffed iguana her mother had got him on a trip to the Museum of Natural History. He’d lovingly cleaned and patched it and given it to her for her fifth birthday. There wasn’t the little jar of coins from foreign countries she and her father had collected from the fountains on their night walks in the park.

She went over to the window. It overlooked a small backyard and a fence, had bars on the outside, and the glass had been replaced by some kind of plastic that she couldn’t break. She knew this because she’d tried, almost immediately after the door to the room was closed and locked.

There was a small TV in one corner, but she couldn’t get it to work. She had tried that, too, to see if word of her kidnapping had become public, but the knobs were missing.

She saw that the small bathroom had pipes, which meant the car trip to this place had taken hours, if they were willing to risk that. There would be no help coming from them. Robin tried to be brave, but she was worried about her dad trying to find her, and how her mom would be able to keep him from coming Above to search for her. She tried hard to think of some way to get a message or a signal out, but she was coming up empty. So far.

Not that she wouldn’t keep trying. She walked over to the bookcase, where the coloring books were held up by two bookends in the shape of horses. They were heavy, creamy marble. She picked one up. It might do.

* * *

The hours stretched by, the day fading into evening. And finally there was a sound at the door.

A key turned in the lock. Robin tensed, one of the bookends in her hand. She stood so that the door would block the sight of her when opened.

A man called out, “Robin? It’s time for dinner.”

She felt his hesitation as he gazed around the small room.

“This isn’t the time for hide-and-seek. Come on, I have a burger and fries from McDonald’s for you.”

She frowned. She much preferred the big, juicy burgers Adan prepared to what passed for food from a fast-food restaurant. He was a Helper, and she loved going to his Palestinian cafe for a juicy lamb burger with fried jalapeno slices. And his fries were crispy on the outside and so tender on the inside, and sprinkled with za’atar. She always wanted more than she took.

Still, she needed to eat.

But only if her plan didn’t work.

The man took two steps into the room. With one more, his knee would be even with the marble bookend in her hands. She held her breath.

He took that step.

With all her strength, she swung the bookend and slammed it into his knee, just like Jamie had taught her in self-defense class. You use what you have, you hit to injure, and you run when you can.

The crunch was scary, but she sucked up her fear and jumped over him once he’d collapsed to the floor. She was through the open door and down the stairs, running as fast as she could toward where she remembered the front door was. Suddenly, a strange man tackled her. She fell hard, the breath knocked out of her.

“Hold on there, wildcat,” the man grunted, as with effort he wrestled her flailing limbs.

The man whose knee she had hurt, Angelo, hobbled down to them. “Get her back to her room.” He winced. “And get me a doctor.” He glared down at Robin. “You, young lady, need to learn manners. No supper for you.” His gaze shifted to the other man. “Lock her in.”

Obediently, the other man pulled her up by one arm and dragged her, but he didn’t escape bruised shins where she kicked him as hard as she could several times as he hauled her upstairs again. He threw her roughly to the floor of the bedroom and pulled the door closed.

She heard the snick of the lock. She hadn’t paid much attention to the lock when she had been brought into the room the first time, but listening to the lock turn now, she did. And she smiled. Jamie wasn’t the only one whose lessons Robin had absorbed. Mouse had shown her many ways to get into places she was meant to stay out of…she just needed something to act as a lock pick.

* * *

Sylvia had watched Robin’s escape attempt from the kitchen, and how she struggled as she was dragged up the stairs, kicking all the way. Definitely has spirit. Could be rather useful when she’s older. She opened the freezer and filled a dish towel with ice, taking it over to Angelo, who had collapsed into an easy chair. Silently, she handed the bundle to him.

She smirked as Angelo nurse his hurt leg. The girl had moxie, which Sylvia could respect. She made a mental note to enter Robin’s room with care.

“Listen, Angelo…she’s scared and vulnerable right now. Rather than bully her, why not let me smother her in honey?”

Angleo’s eyes narrow. “What?”

“I’ll be the carrot, since you’re obviously the stick. To cajole her into cooperating, or at least into calming down.” She walked to the sideboard after draining the contents of her glass and refilled it – strictly with iced tea, considering she needed to be at the top of her game. The fact that she’d poured it from a whiskey bottle was just for effect. Men could be so easily duped.

“I can’t believe you drink that rotgut,” Angelo growled, eschewing her bottle of cheap whiskey for the top shelf brand he preferred.

“There’s no accounting for taste,” she murmured.

* * *

Robin was slumped over, sitting on the floor with her back to the locked door. Angry tears fell from her eyes, which she dashed away with quick slaps. This was no time to feel sorry for herself. Momma always said to keep your wits about you when bad things happened. The time for falling apart was after everything was over. But…it was hard. She felt so alone.

A tentative knock sounded behind her. She sat up straight, alert for signs the door would be pushed open again.

“Robin? Sweetheart?”

It was a woman’s voice. Robin relaxed the slightest bit.

“Angelo can be so bossy, I know. I’m so sorry.”

Robin didn’t respond.

“Are you OK? Did he hurt you? I’m Sylvia, by the way.”

She wanted to keep quiet, but something in the woman’s – Sylvia’s – voice sounded so kind. “I’m OK. I just wanna go home.” It made her lower lip tremble to admit that last part. She was scared.

“I don’t know what’s going on,” Sylvia said. “I’ll try to find out. Meanwhile, I’ve got dinner heating up. Shall I bring you some when it’s ready?”

Her stomach growled. She’d missed lunch, and the man she’d hit had withheld the burger and fries he’d promised. William always told her to take every opportunity presented to eat. “Y-y-yes.” Remembering her manners, she added, “Yes, please.”

“OK. And…” Sylvia’s voice dropped to a whisper, “we won’t tell Angelo, the big meanie.”

Robin smiled. “OK.”

She heard the tell-tale click and stood back from the opening door, tense. But it was just the woman, Sylvia, with a tray with soup and crackers. She frowned. Something about the lady seemed familiar, but Robin couldn’t place her.

It was nothing special, but it was food. Robin ate while Sylvia looked on.

She took a chance.

“I want to go home.”

“I know, baby, but Angelo told me your dad really wants to see you.”

Robin got very still. Her dad didn’t know Angelo. In fact, nobody knew she had a father.

Sylvia baited the hook. “Gabriel misses his baby very much.”

Robin nearly hurled the tray across the room, but caught herself in time. “Gabriel is not my daddy, and anyway, he’s dead.”

“That’s what the papers say, but he escaped, and he’s been waiting to see you again.”

Robin pushed the tray away. “I’m not hungry anymore.”

Sylvia shrugged. “Okay, sweetie, but you want something else, just knock on the door, okay?”

Robin said nothing as Sylvia picked up the tray and left, locking the door behind her.

Robin really wanted to cry and scream. Gabriel was not her father. Gabriel had died when the tower had burned. But a building fear that he might have escaped gave her a renewed sense of urgency to escape.

She searched her room again. One of the dolls was dressed in frills and held a parasol. She carefully tore the fragile fabric for the wires holding the parasol open. When she guessed two hours had gone by, she tried the lock the way Mouse had shown her. There was a soft click. She risked opening the door a sliver.

No one seemed to be on this floor, but there were sounds coming from downstairs. She tiptoed out of the room. With little ability to outrun the guard, she knew her best chance was to somehow get out of the house without being seen. She checked the windows in the other rooms on the floor. They also had bars. Finding a flight of stairs to the attic, she crept up them, and there found a small window without bars. She slipped out of it and carefully climbed onto the roof.

Now what?

She saw the gutters and followed them to the long drainage pipe that ran down the side of house. She remembered the courage that had let her dive from some of the ledges around the falls that even the older kids shied away from, and the talking-to she’d gotten from her parents about that. Her parents. Her love for them sparked that same courage, and she used it to ever so carefully shimmy down the pipe.

The moment her feet touched the ground, she ran. It was an easy leap over the picket fence around the property. Instinctively, she headed for the woods that surrounded the property.

Initially, she had thought of following the road that led to the house, but she wasn’t sure how many people Angelo had working for him. And she was truly scared of letting anyone else know about her father and Below. So she ran into the woods, stopping only when the trees got too thick to see the fields and the road easily.

* * *

From the kitchen window, Sylvia watched Robin flee into the woods. Good. She knew the girl would lead her to her father. She had told Robin that story and made sure she’d had something to eat so that she would have the incentive and the fuel to run. Sylvia had counted on Robin’s fear that the story might be true. She figured the girl would keep to the woods until she found and followed the train tracks back to the city.

It was time to make a phone call, but first she needed to tidy up.

Sylvia headed to the kitchen table where she’d left her purse, took a small gun out of it, then walked into the living room, where Angelo and the security man – Ned? Ted? well, it didn’t matter anymore – were listlessly watching some game on television. She raised the gun. The pop-pop of the shots was barely louder than the sound of the TV set.

* * *

Robin dove into a thicket of blueberry bushes, which seemed like the best hiding place while she caught her breath. Finally, she risked a look back to where she had run from. There wasn’t anyone searching for her…yet. While allowing herself a minute to calm her rapid breathing and racing heart, she made a plan. Don’t panic. You’re free now. Find a road or train tracks, something to follow. Even when she did, she knew to parallel it while at least twenty paces inside the tree line. That would provide quick hiding should she hear a car or people searching.

She looked around with trepidation. The woods were more like parkland than forest. She could see easily through the trees. There wasn’t a lot of cover. Still…getting farther away from the house where she’d been held captive was her best – her only – option. Find safety first, then figure out where she was, THEN notify a Helper. That list had been drummed into her since she could remember.

Shivering in the cool air, she moved carefully from beneath the bushes, then scrambled towards what looked like a path farther inside the tree line. Perhaps she could make better time if she used it now, when no one was yet following her. A path meant a parking lot or road nearby. Maybe there would be an emergency phone in the parking area.

* * *

Sylvia took one more look around the house, mentally crossing off a checklist. Once sure she was leaving only bodies, not fingerprints, she walked out, abandoning the house with the front door wide open. The house rental had been made under Catherine Chandler’s name, ensuring a dead end once the authorities got involved.

The tracker she’d placed inside the hem of Robin’s clothing ensured she needn’t panic. The child was far from any help yet. She got into her vehicle and turned on the ignition, humming as she drove to the closest business with a telephone booth.

The receiver was picked up, and a tense voice answered, “Yes?”

It was the woman. Sylvia wanted the man. “Tell him I want to speak to him.”

Catherine, confused, asked, “Who?”

Chuckling, Sylvia responded, “You know who. Your man. That big, strong one with the face of a big cat. Now, Chandler.”

Catherine felt her breath still. But they had searched all evening and night and found no trace of Robin. Or of Angelo, who had finally left his office but had been clever enough to switch cars and lose his tail of Chance and Tanis.

She had a choice to make. She found her iron. “Let me speak to my daughter first.”

“You don’t make the rules here, honey. Let me speak to him or you can forget ever seeing your kid again.”

Catherine couldn’t bear it, and Vincent was watching her struggle to hold herself together. She handed him the phone with a shaking hand. “A woman wants to talk to you.”

He had heard the other side of the conversation. Without preamble, he spoke. “I am here,” Vincent said into the receiver.

Sylvia felt her toes curl in her shoes. “Damn, what a voice. I can see why Chandler spread her legs for you.”

Vincent reached into his mind to pull together a calm he absolutely did not feel. “Did you call merely to be vulgar, or do you wish to discuss Robin’s immediate return?”

Sylvia grinned in the phone booth. This thing had to be absolutely fantastic in bed. “All business, huh? Well…what is your name?”

“My name has nothing to do with the return of Robin.”

“Your daughter?” Sylvia baited him. “She is yours, right? I’m going to feel really dumb if I just have the bastard Chandler popped out after Gabriel banged her one time, maybe at one of his parties.”

There was a growl, and Sylvia felt elemental fear and power all the way at the other end of the line. She had to have him.

“Easy, kitty. I don’t want money. I want something more valuable.”

“And what is that?”

“To find that out, you can meet me at Gabriel’s old mansion. Chandler knows the address.”

“And Robin will be there?”

“I make the rules, honey. Remember that. At the mansion, 11:30. Tomorrow night, of course. I know how nocturnal cats are.” She laughed and hung up.

* * *

Robin risked a few hours of sleep and woke when she could feel sun on her eyelids. The small meal of soup and crackers felt a very long time ago and she walked on heavy legs to the tree line. It was still meadows and falling down farmhouses. She continued on, her stomach beginning to cramp and her head aching, finally spotting a faded-looking strip of stores next to a fast-food restaurant. She decided to risk a little dumpster diving.

As she walked up to the dumpster, a voice stopped her.

“Hello, Robin.”

The woman was waiting by a car. She had a small gun pointed at Robin. Robin’s heart sank.

“I gave you a little present before you ran, in case I needed to find you again.”

Robin would not cry, but she knew her strength to duck and run had gone.

The woman walked toward her. “Now, I know you’re hungry, so we’re going to go inside and have breakfast. There is a nice woman working the counter. If you make any trouble, I will shoot her in the head. And then shoot you. Do we understand each other?”

Robin nodded and began walking in front of Slyvia, who tucked the gun into a pocket of her long overcoat.

Sylvia ordered for both of them. Robin knew the woman would make good on her threat to kill the cashier, so she sat quietly and ate her biscuit and drank her juice, although the food felt like glue in her mouth. But she refused to completely give up just yet.

When Sylvia finished, she got up and ushered Robin out of the restaurant. By the car, she spoke again. “Now we’re going back to the city to meet your big, strong daddy. And you’re going to be a good girl and put these on.”

Sylvia handed over a pair of handcuffs, and Robin mutely put them on. She lay on the floor of the backseat as the woman told her to, and only started to cry when Sylvia taped her mouth shut and covered her with a blanket. She let herself have some tears, but she practiced breathing through her nose the way Lena had taught her to when she had been demonstrating breathing exercises to her class Below, showing the children how to conserve air in case of a cave-in.

She made herself think. She could tell by the way the woman had turned out of the parking lot that they were on their way back to the city. Robin opened her mind to the bond she was beginning to understand she shared with her parents. I am alive, I am coming back to the city, please find me, please…

* * *

A shadow entered the room first, hesitant but looming.

She could feel her insides begin to melt in anticipation.

The shadow resolved into a tall cloaked figure. A cowl was pulled up over his head; he held it closed near his mouth, so that only glittering eyes met the sweep of her flashlight.

“I was beginning to wonder if you didn’t love your daughter as much as I thought,” she murmured.

“Where is she?” The voice was gravel and grit, harsh, indicative of wrath, not resignation.

“I will keep my end of the bargain, don’t worry. She’s safe…and far from here. So come closer, and show me how much you want her back.” Sylvia set down the flashlight and opened her coat to reveal herself to him. She knew she was stunning – the best breasts money could buy, a flat stomach no woman who had had a child could hope to regain, curves at the hips leading to a backside other men had salivated over. “Come here.”

She shrugged off her coat and lay on the couch she had salvaged. Her memory of the fumbling young Mr. Moreno she had coupled with on it to entertain Gabriel would soon be supplanted by the glorious fuck she had dreamed of with this…beast of a man.

Vincent stood where he was. “You are as sick as your mentor,” he growled. “I could crush your windpipe with little effort.”

“And then your little Robin would sing no more. So cut the crap and get over here. I’ve done a lot to earn this, and I intend to enjoy every minute of it. And it had better be enjoyable, if you want to see your daughter again. I want the full experience. Hours of your best service, please.” She began to stroke her breasts, which she knew enticed men beyond their ability to resist her.

Still, he didn’t come closer.

Impatient, she sat up. “I’ll tie you down and mount you if you don’t cooperate. One way or another, you are getting me pregnant. Why not do it in a way that’s much more pleasurable for both of us? I’m sure Ms. Chandler told you to do whatever I asked. Anything to get your precious daughter back.”

Sylvia rose and sauntered toward Vincent. With nimble fingers, she loosened his cape and tugged it off his shoulders. She ignored his glare, concentrating on undoing the belt around his waist, then the suede ties of his tunic. She noted his harsh intake of breath whenever her fingers stroked him. This was going to be more fun than she had even imagined, slowly disrobing this magnificent specimen.

His tunic loosened, she slid it down his arms and off. How many layers did this outfit have? She realized his thick knitted sweater would have to be pulled over his head, and she needed his cooperation for that. But he was like a mannequin, unresisting and uncooperative at one time. Well, she was sure the candy inside was worth the unwrapping.

Tugging the sweater, she got it untucked. She began hauling it upwards, ready to instruct him to raise his arms, when a sound from beyond the room interrupted her.

“You bastard! I told you to come alone.”

“I am as interested in keeping my word to someone like you as I am with giving you a child to destroy.”

Sylvia moved to grab her coat and run but Vincent’s arms were around her like steel bands.

“Where is my daughter?”

She smirked and said nothing.

He pressed harder.

A flicker of pain crossed Sylvia’s face, but her wicked smile grew. “Why don’t you rape it out of me, make me beg for more?”

Calabria came into the room. “There was a guard, second floor. I did a sweep – no one else. I don’t think she’s here, Vince.” She crossed to where Sylvia had tossed her coat, made a production of folding it neatly, and handed it to her. Vincent released her so she could put it back on.

Sylvia made no move to do so, standing there, proudly naked, in front of them. “Of course she isn’t. And either I get a baby from this magnificent creature or you never see her again.” She stared defiance at Calabria. “You’ve got nothing to hold me on, because this is still an unofficial investigation, isn’t it?”

Calabria didn’t react, and Sylvia pressed her upper hand. “Besides, if you’re thinking about bringing me in for trespassing, won’t I have a story to tell your colleagues?”

Calabria knew Sylvia wasn’t bluffing, and held her peace.

“I will not father a child with you.” Vincent was firm. “Neither will I let you leave here without knowing where my daughter is.”

Sylvia mocked him with a harsh laugh and began to put her coat on, but again found her arms locked tightly to her body. Calabria was behind her before she could squirm away, snapping handcuffs on her so tightly the bones of her wrists protested.

“Lady, I suspect that you killed two people in a house in Connecticut. We tracked you to it, I’ve got tire tracks at the scene matching a car registered to you, and I just found a gun in the pocket of your overcoat that very likely is the murder weapon.”

She slipped the coat over Sylvia’s shoulders and pushed her past Vincent, who turned to gather his clothing, aiming for the door.

“I’m feeling like taking a drive to the state line. Once I cross it, I will hand you over to some cops who are very interested in your whereabouts as a person of interest in those crimes. You tell them whatever crazy story you want to, but I’m thinking they won’t care too much about yet another sighting of a New York urban legend.”

At the door, she stopped and turned Sylvia to face her.

“Here is where you bargain for your life. You tell Vincent what he wants to know. We will drive to the state line and stop just shy of it. I’ll call Ms. Chandler, and if she confirms that Robin has been found safe, I will let you out of the car, drive back to my loving husband, and forget you ever existed.”

Sylvia scowled.

“Best deal you’re gonna get.” Calabria narrowed her eyes and glared at the captive woman. “Tick tock.”

“You’re bluffing.”

Calabria barked a laugh. “You don’t know me very well, or you’d know I never bluff. Off we go to Connecticut.”

She nodded to Vincent, who took one of Sylvia’s arms as she took the other.

“Okay, okay.” Sylvia dug in her heels. She turned to Vincent and murmured directions. He nodded once to Calabria and disappeared.

Calabria wrestled Sylvia to her car and shoved her into the back seat, using a set of leg cuffs to further restrain her movement.

She wondered if she should be enjoying herself so much, in light of all that had happened.

* * *

Vincent ran like his feet had wings to the tunnel junction underneath the mansion, where Catherine waited.

“She said Robin is in the basement of a place called The Silver Star.”

They moved quickly to the nearest exit point for that location, caution for once be damned. Catherine did emerge before him, giving the space a sweeping look. At first glance, the club’s basement was empty of people, only crowded with boxes and dusty glassware. Later they would determine that the place had been closed for over a year, but at that moment they had no idea what…or who…lay above them.

She whispered, “Robin?”

“Who’s there?” a small, very tired, very frightened voice asked.

Catherine almost fell to her knees with relief. “Oh baby, it’s me.”

“Mommy!”

Catherine and Vincent ran towards the sound of Robin’s voice, not caring about the noise they made knocking over anything in their way.

Robin was tied to a paint-splattered mannequin which incongruously sported a pair of silver angel wings over its shoulders. Vincent slit Robin’s bonds with his claws and she threw herself into his arms. Catherine covered her daughter’s body with her own, and they all held each other, crying and laughing with relief.

“I knew you’d find me!”

“Always, baby,” Catherine said, her voice a fierce whisper. “And now let’s get you out of here.”

As they exited the club’s basement, they found that Rolley and Chance had arrived with Cullen and a small detail. They sported an array of tools and weapons, as if ready for anything.

Chance grinned. “You get your baby girl home. We’ll close up the access panel as best we can, and put a false fall of rocks a few yards away when you’re clear. Just in case you set off a silent alarm or something, they won’t trace you to Below.”

Already, Vincent was moving towards home, with Robin holding him tightly as he carried her.

Catherine smiled to see Rolley diligently sweeping up their footprints inside the dusty basement. But there would be time for thanks later. She turned and ran to keep pace with Vincent, adrenaline still coursing through her.

“We’re not out of the woods yet, but at least we’re together.”

Vincent nodded at her words. Whatever happened, whatever came…they would be together for it.

* * *

It surprised Sylvia more than it should have that Calabria was true to her word. Once the policewoman had made the call to learn that Robin was safe, she had let her go…just short of the state line, as promised.

But once Calabria’s car had faded into the distance, and before Sylvia could do more than make an emergency call to a contact within the organization, a police car rolled into view. Apparently, a woman standing in a rest area wearing only a coat and handcuffs had provoked some good citizen into calling 911.

She sat in the back seat while one of the cops called her situation in, already concocting her cover story for when the questions began back at the station. She wasn’t worried. She hadn’t broken any laws, after all – or none that these policemen would know about.

The cop put the receiver back on the cruiser’s radio. “We’re to take her to the small airport outside Fielding to hand her over to an agent. She’s federal.”

Sylvia’s ears pricked up. That hadn’t taken long. The organization looks after its own. She smirked. She was going to be extracted by whomever they were driving to meet. There’d be other games to play, other attempts to make. She would have the Beast, one way or another.

Her eyes grew dreamy, thinking of their son…and it would be a son…raised as a being of pure will and strength. She imagined, on his 18th birthday, presenting him with Robin to mate with. A sibling pair of demigods making another. She anticipated sitting in a chair like Gabriel’s, watching her son take his half-sister by a great fireplace, Robin’s body unable to resist the calling of her own kind – her son, with his mother’s black hair and his father’s face, roaring as his seed filled Robin while she screamed his name.

Yes, there would be time for that.

She was handed to the waiting agent with a cursory glance at badges and paperwork. The agent was a young woman with short hair, clipped almost to a buzzcut and bleached a pearly white. She thanked the officers and put Sylvia in the back of her car. Then the cops drove away. Sylvia watched the cruiser disappearing back into the horizon.

Sylvia turned to face the front again. “That was quick. I take it the organization needs me for something?”

The young woman didn’t answer.

Sylvia shifted in the backseat. “We can stop worrying about appearances and get me out of these things.” She gestured to her handcuffs.

The young woman didn’t answer.

Sylvia frowned as the woman started her car and reversed field, heading out of the airport. She was heading to the marshy lands outside the fences.

Sylvia felt her first note of fear. “Look, I screwed up, but the higher ups will want to hear about this. I’ve got a plan.”

The young woman still didn’t answer. She turned down an old service road.

Sylvia fought back an instinctive need to beg and reached for cool anger instead. “You think you’re pretty slick, huh? Well, one day you’re going to fuck up, too, and you’ll be needing a favor. Why not bank it now?”

The young woman stopped the car and turned to Sylvia with a gun in her hand. “We’re going for a walk. Out.”

Sylvia found the last of her bravado. “The hell we are. You’ll have to drag me to wherever you’re thinking of dumping me.”

The woman nodded. “Fair enough.”

She fired two shots into Sylvia’s chest.

The woman made her flight 30 minutes later.

* * *

When Calabria got home, she found Joe sitting dejectedly, clicking the TV remote from one channel to another. He didn’t acknowledge her until she took the remote from his hand and turned the TV off.

“Spit it out, Joey, and let’s get past this.” She sat beside him on the couch and attempted to throw an arm around his shoulders, but he shrugged it off.

Gazing down at his hands, he murmured, “I can’t believe you’d keep something like this a secret from me.” He looked at her for the first time, accusation in his eyes. “For years.”

She wasn’t having any of him trying to impose guilt on her. “Your work-wife kept the secret for even longer, so don’t try to throw a pity party at home.” Her voice softened as she added, “It’s because we both admire your convictions so much.”

Confusion lit his liquid brown eyes. “What the hell are you…?”

“You’re an officer of the court. And yes, I know both Catherine and I swore to uphold the law, too…but we are entirely pragmatic. You’re more…by the book. Which, frankly, makes you a better person than either of us.” She smiled tiredly. “We didn’t want to put you in the position you now find yourself in. I assume you have surmised the situations in which Vincent did what he had to do to protect those he loves.”

“Oh, HELL, yeah.” Joe closed his eyes and shook his head. “It all makes so much sense now.”

She sat back against the couch. “So…now you have a decision to make. And so do Cathy and I.”

He opened his eyes and stared at her with suspicion. “Is that an ultimatum?”

“No.” She shrugged. “But it will change many things, depending on what your conscience requires of you.”

Sighing, he nodded. “If I can’t keep Vincent’s secret…if I can’t overlook the many legal issues, the likely crimes…”

She nodded in turn. “I’ll have to resign. Which I’d do in a heartbeat, if you want me to.” She held up one hand to forestall any argument. “I can get plenty of work in the private sector, so no harm, no foul…and no hard feelings between us, I promise.”

“Okay…” He was waiting for the other shoe to drop, and when it came, it was more like a giant boot.

“As for Cathy, she will…disappear. She won’t turn Vincent in to the authorities. Now, she has the means, as you know – she doesn’t need to work, she’s got her Daddy’s big bucks to soften her landing. But…the partnership…that will be gone. I’m sure she’ll stay in touch, but she will ensure you won’t ever know where Vincent and she are.”

“And Robin?”

He knew the answer before she added, “Her, too.”

He stood and picked up his empty beer bottle, taking it into the kitchen. She rose to follow him. “She will understand. It’s what she expects you to do, because she knows how honorable you are, how seriously you take your oath.”

“She’s already making plans?” His voice choked a bit over the last word.

“Actually, contingencies have been in place for years. It’s just a matter of moving forward on them. And it’ll happen fast.” Calabria leaned against the kitchen counter and shrugged. “We may have already seen the last of them. But…”

“But if I promise that I’ll keep her secrets…”

“She’ll stay. And you’ll be brought into the other secrets, as much or as little as you wish.”

“Because there’s more?”

“Oh, hells, yeah. A ton.”

Joe sighed and looked into Calabria’s eyes. He could lose himself forever in them if he wasn’t careful. He thought hard about what to do next… what to say, even. He suspected that if he told the authorities what he now knew, he would lose her. She said she’d merely retire from the force, but Joe understood what that would cost her, too. And he knew that it wouldn’t, it couldn’t, be the same between them ever again if Catherine disappeared with Robin.

Robin. He felt his heart clench at not getting to see her grow up, not getting to see her walk the stage at her graduation. What would become of her now? Would she try to re-enter the world as an adult as her mother had? More likely, she’d be a permanent exile. Due to him.

Joe sighed again. He took one of Calabria’s hands.

“Before anything is decided, I’d like to meet with all of them. Maybe we can have dinner together.”

Calabria smiled, gentle and tired. She had been through the wringer these past few days herself. She stroked Joe’s face with her other hand. “That can be arranged. I know this great place, Adan’s, where they have the best lamb burgers.”

* * *

The table had been set in Adan’s basement, and Adan himself had served them. Joe and Robin fought for the last of the fries, with Joe mock-grumpily letting the girl grab them. The look of triumph on her face made everyone smile.

Other than that, it had been an uncomfortable meal, filled with stilted conversation and long silences. Joe’s resentment had been almost palpable to the others. Calabria was ignoring his attitude, but Catherine had tried too hard to smooth things over, with little success. Vincent, unable to find common ground with the man his wife had worked with for well over a decade, subsided into silence. Robin, uncertain why her daddy and her uncle hadn’t become immediate best friends, wondered if it had something to do with her breaking the rules and getting kidnapped.

Nobody was happy by the time dessert was served – cannolis that Calabria had bought at Joe’s favorite Italian bakery. Joe snuck a look at his watch as he poked dispiritedly at his cannoli. She caught the motion.

“Sheesh, husband of mine. Surely you can miss one game.”

He blushed.

Catherine asked, “What game?”

He gave his cannoli another poke. “Knicks at Celtics. Game started a few minutes ago.”

Vincent shook his head. “I really thought they’d have a shot this year, but it’s not looking good.”

Joe looked up, surprised. “You a Knicks fan?”

Vincent nodded.

“Well, they got a weak spot at point guard,” he said, reasoning with Vincent.

“True, but the team has a couple of all-stars.”

“But with those bad trades…”

Catherine and Calabria looked at each other and smiled. Who would have thought?

And it turned out that by the end of dinner – even though they had missed the Knicks game – Joe and Vincent had bonded in the only way Joe could bond with Vincent, but it was an important way, and the key to Joe deciding that Vincent was an okay guy, and that some secrets were worth bending a few rules for, despite his wife thinking he was too stiff to bend at all.