Perfect Gravity (Wanted and Wired #2)(67)

“No,” Kellen said. “You don’t let anybody in there but me, little bit.”

“Okay.”

The kitty pushed her head up beneath their clasped hands, almost as if she were insisting on a pet. Only this time her motives were less adorable and more utilitarian.

Kellen guided Angela’s hand to the back of Yoink’s neck. He stroked the soft fur further up, between the ears. It took Angela a couple of seconds to figure out that he was using the cat’s skull as some sort of input device. No wonder he’d worried, back at the Pentarc, that she would be creeped out by Yoink. The interface certainly was…weird. But also not. Figure Kellen to devise a communication system based on comforting touch. How very him.

Yoink went stiff, growling under her breath.

“Easy, sweet girl,” Angela soothed. This wasn’t her thing, this caring for others. Usually she enjoyed the expedience of pushing her own emotional experience onto others and expecting them to follow. Or to react within a predicted response radius. She never reached out, not physically. Not intimately. But this was her kitty. Her companion. Her friend. She needed to flay some habits. “I’m not going to let you get eaten by a sea monster. I swear all the best swears.”

“Do not swear at all, or if thou wilt, swear by thy gracious self.” Kellen’s voice, coming out of the darkness and laying that heavy shit on the night air.

She tore her gaze from the rising kraken to stare at him instead. “Shakespeare? We are in mortal danger, and you spout Shakespeare? What the actual fuck, Kellen?”

“Would Wordsworth wiggle your noodle more?”

“Wiggle my…” She shook her head to clear the nonsense out. The nonsense stayed put. “Has anybody ever told you that you are completely inappropriate?”

It was dark, he was facing the water rather than the car, and she couldn’t see properly, but he might have smiled. Smiled. Right then.

“All the damn time, princess.”

“Look, we’re about to get fucking eaten by the ocean, Mr. Inappropriate. Color me crazy but—”

Yoink broke in, upping the creepy factor by a gazillion. “You two. He says you two bicker like childhood siblings or very old lovers and which is it?”

That drew them both up cold. They said in unison, “Who?”

“Dolphins say the sea monster. The intruder. The does-not-belong-here-you-take-him.” She sneezed. “Dolphins speak strangely. He is on the sub-sea, sub-fish, sub-marine. That one.”

The cat didn’t have a finger to point, but her holo-emitting head lasers rolled out a light grid, like the one before, and put a single blinking dot on it. Ominous, purple, this dot was a hell of a lot closer than any of those others had been, even the mosquito ones. From the grid, it looked like the intruder was about a hundred feet from where the water started, maybe a hundred twenty from the tips of Angela’s toes. And he was talking to her Yoink.

“There was a bridge here,” the cat went on. “He says it is good you stopped the car because the drop is deep and do you have wet dresses. Suits. Do you have wet suits? You cannot wade to his submarine. The drop is deep. The water is cold danger. Do not drink it.”

“Let me get this straight. There is a person out there in a submarine, talking to us, through you?” said Angela.

“Yes. He can communicate over short ranges because the anal openings underestimated dolphins, and I can interpret because I am a fancy cat.”

“You sure are that, little bit. Now these assholes, are they on the submarine, too?” Kellen asked.

Angela wondered if she should compliment his ability to translate digital cat translating digital dolphin. He’d always envied her ease with languages, but this was impressive by anybody’s standards.

“He says he will explain all. He wants…no, definitely no.” Yoink bowed up her back.

“No?”

“No.” Beneath Angela’s hand, Yoink hiss-growled. Her ears flattened. Likely she was beyond soothing at this point, but Angela tried anyway.

The bright dot went away, and Yoink moved, a dark blur of fear and fur. In the next instant, her claws embedded themselves in Angela’s shoulder—ow—points of pain—more ow—trembling in echo of the cat’s own terror. Yoink was still making unholy sounds, and it was all Angela could manage not to do the same. Holy fuck, those claws hurt, but she couldn’t do what instinct told her she must: reach up, grab the cat by her scruff, and yank her off. Logic told her it wouldn’t work anyhow. Yoink’s claws were hooked in deep. They panged at the slightest movement, even breathing.

“Yoink,” Kellen said, his voice firm but not shouty, “that shit command he gave you, don’t you pay it no mind. Listen to my voice. Who’s in charge here?”

“You are, but he wants—”

“Don’t matter. I need you to do a thing for me, okay? Can you slink back into the car and try Garrett on the com? Call us some backup, please, and keep them dolphins in the know? Just keep patching them through on my earpiece, and I’ll take it from here. You can do that, can’t ya?”

Try Garrett? Hadn’t he just said a few minutes ago that they couldn’t get communications in or out of this data hole? How was this supposed to work? Tiny robot radio mosquitoes?

Yoink was still growling, but she did pull her claws back, withdrawing them from Angela’s shoulder. Ow, but definitely not the worst pain Angela had ever endured.