But she wasn’t Sarah. That was the problem. “Where is she?” I demanded, and my voice sounded gruff and strange, like it belonged to someone else, someone bigger and tougher and meaner than me. Someone who could get things done.
The cuckoo turned wide, guileless eyes toward me. “I’m right here,” she said. “Take off the charm, and you’ll see. I’m right here.”
“Don’t,” said Annie tightly.
And that was the problem, because I wanted to. I really, really wanted to. It wasn’t telepathic influence. It was panic, pure and simple. Sarah had been gone for so long, and now we finally had her back, only to lose her again. I’d been able to tell this cuckoo wasn’t her because she’d been asleep. She was awake now. She was awake and she was scared and she was willing to push as hard as she had to in order to make us see things her way. If I took the charm off, she would be Sarah. She would shove her way past the protection I’d inherited from my great-grandmother and make sure I never had to miss her again. I wanted that so badly.
But it would all be a lie, and Sarah would still be lost. I shook my head. “I don’t think so,” I said. “You’re going to need to find another patsy.”
Those not-quite-right eyes widened further, into an expression of almost comical surprise. Then they narrowed, her expression becoming one of composed calculation. “If you say so,” she said.
“Hey,” snapped Antimony. “Focus on me. Where the hell is my cousin?”
“Ew,” said the cuckoo, disgust dripping from that single syllable. “Do you actually consider her your cousin? That’s gross. She’s so much more evolutionarily advanced than you are. That’s like me saying a honeybee is my new fiancé. It’s inappropriate. You’re perverts, every single one of you.”
Antimony raised an eyebrow. “So you admit you’re not Sarah.”
“I just wish I hadn’t cut my hair for this gig,” said the cuckoo, with a one-shouldered shrug. “Bangs are so passé. Anyway, it doesn’t matter.”
“Why’s that?” asked Sam warily.
“Because that one,” she nodded toward me, “told me how to get out of this. You might not thank him for that.”
“What are you—” began Antimony.
That was as far as she got before something hit her in the back of the head. She stopped for a moment, expression comically dazed, before she toppled forward, losing her grasp on the gun in the process. Sam yelped. He had a choice in that moment—catch his falling girlfriend or catch the gun—and sadly, he chose wrong, grabbing Antimony before she could hit the floor. The ball of ice that had knocked her down fell, unheeded, to the carpet.
And the cuckoo caught the gun.
“James, what the hell,” snarled Sam, looking over his shoulder toward the stairs, where our second resident sorcerer was presumably standing. James specialized in cold things. James specialized in cold things, and James wasn’t a biological member of the family; he didn’t have the protections against cuckoo influence that the rest of us had inherited.
I didn’t turn. Turning would have meant taking my eyes off the cuckoo, who was now holding Annie’s pistol aimed squarely at my forehead.
“If you move, I shoot,” she said. “If you say anything I don’t like, I shoot. Honestly, I’d shoot anyway, if I didn’t think we might need you later. What she sees in you, I have no idea.”
“Of course you don’t, I’m wearing an anti-telepathy charm.” I winced inwardly. Maybe backtalking the murderous cuckoo who had replaced Sarah was a bad idea.
“This would all be so much easier if you’d take that nasty thing off.”
“I’d rather not, if it’s all the same to you.” The temperature in the room was dropping steadily. I still didn’t dare look behind me, but every hair on Sam’s shoulders was standing on end, and he looked like he was fighting a silent war between staying where he was and serving as possible backup and getting Antimony the hell out of there.
She wasn’t moving. James must have hit her just right to knock her out, or at least daze her for a while. I refused to consider anything worse. Antimony was the best of us or, at least, the most bloody-minded and tenacious. She’d figure this out. I just needed to buy her the time.
And just like that, I knew what I had to do. I took a step backward, away from the cuckoo. She bared her teeth in a snarl.
“Stop where you are, incubus,” she spat. “You’re mine now.”
“Are you all right, Heloise?” James sounded half-drunk, or maybe drugged, like he didn’t fully understand what was going on.
The cuckoo winced. “I’m fine, Jimmy,” she said. “I’m just explaining to Artie here why he needs to come with me.”
“He’ll come with us because we’re on the right side of the fight,” said James. “He’s smart enough to know that. Not like them.” There was pure venom in his voice, and I knew that if I turned, he’d be looking at Annie and Sam, hands full of ice, ready to attack.
I took another step back. “Sam,” I said quietly. “Run.”
Under other circumstances—if Annie hadn’t been taken by surprise, if we’d been able to fight ice with fire, if the cuckoo hadn’t managed to get her hands on a gun—I knew Sam would have argued with me. He’s not family by blood, but he’s still family, thanks to Annie’s fiat, and he knows better than to leave a man behind if there’s any other choice. Right now, there wasn’t a choice. Out of the corner of my eye I saw him tense, nod, and gather Annie even closer to his chest. Then he leapt into the air.
There’s almost nothing as fast as a fūri who has somewhere to be. I’ve watched Verity—who has reflexes that border on preternaturally sharp—throwing knives at Sam while he was in motion, and she’s never come anywhere near hitting him. When Sam wants to get away, he gets away.
His first leap carried him to the banister, one long arm clutching Annie’s unconscious form. He landed easy, grabbing the rail with both feet and his free hand before he leapt again, this time heading up the stairs to the first landing. The cuckoo swore loudly. James hurled a ball of ice after the fleeing fūri. It missed widely enough to become comic, smashing into the wall between two framed family portraits. One of them fell to the ground and shattered.
I didn’t move. The cuckoo still aiming her stolen gun at me made that an easy decision. If she’d been more mammalian . . . for the first time, I found myself wishing that my pheromones could affect a cuckoo. If she’d shot me, I could have swayed her completely over to my side.
Telepathy versus chemically-induced attraction, round one, fight. The cuckoo stood, eyes narrow, gun still aimed at me.