"I won't," she breathed. "Trenton . . ."

It was time to go. He could hear a power tool whining at the door. One hand under Lucy, he peered down the drop-off. He was too practical to be afraid of heights, but his stomach clenched as he saw the perfect unmarred water and then looked at his watch. Where's the boat? Feeling his tension, Lucy kicked.

"You got a hot date or something?" Jenks asked, darting in and out of Lucy's reach to make the little girl squeal. "You keep looking at your watch."

"Something like that." The boat wasn't there, but it could be just around the spit of land, and they'd never see it until it was almost on them. "Let's go." Fingers fumbling, he brought out a mountaineer pin. If it worked in friable cliff rock, it would work here. Kneeling, he hammered it into the floor, his strikes mixing with the blows to the outer door in a harsh discord.

"Trent," Ellie tried once more when Lucy, frightened at the rough motion and sound, began to cry again, but he ignored the older woman. It was clear Ellie wanted to hold her one last time, but he was afraid to let her. Here, at the literal brink, she might change her mind. No wonder Ellie hadn't wanted him to touch Lucy. Something had shifted in him when he had. Without warning, he had become witness to something that stretched back through the eons, ties both elastic and enduring, surpassing death, surpassing life. She was his child. It was that simple and that complex.

Head down, he fastened the cord to lower himself to the pin, then the pulley on his harness. It looked too thin. His jaw tightened when Ellie came close, and then he looked up. The noise from the hall was furious, but words needed to be said.

"Thank you," he said simply, hoping she would understand. "If not for you, I would have had to . . ." His words faltered, and understanding broke over him. If Ellie hadn't come in, he might have had to storm the hallway. He would have done what was needed, killing not just the men in the hall, but his last hope of being something he wanted. I think you saved me, he thought, but he couldn't say it.

"You're welcome," she whispered, tears slipping from her as she smiled. Ellie gave them a hug, her breath catching as Lucy squealed happily at the contact. "It would have been messier, perhaps," she said, glancing to the hallway, "but you would have done it."

She didn't understand the narrowness of where he had been balanced, and he turned away, ashamed that he could have failed so easily. Perhaps he owed the Goddess a little more faith. "Thank you, Ellie. Knowing you accept this means more to me than you will ever know. Don't let Ellasbeth silence you. That tradition dies tomorrow."

The older woman, nodded, her sad smile becoming more intense as Lucy grabbed her finger and tried to stick it in her mouth. "I'm still going to hold you to our nine-month agreement. You'd better go. That door isn't going to last much longer." She leaned forward and gave Lucy a kiss on her forehead and disentangled her finger. "Bye, sweet pea. It was good to see you smile."

Jenks's wings were a harsh clatter as he darted back in, his dust edged in red. "Ah, I hate to break this up, but they've got a blowtorch . . ."

Nodding, Trent turned away. Feeling protective of Ellie, he picked his way through the rubble to the edge. Still no boat. Checking his gloves, he winced at his bare feet, and started to descend.

"Be careful!" Ellie said, and he looked up, unable to wave back.

Then the wind hit them, and he looked down to pay attention to what he was doing.

It was shockingly cool, the wind coming up from the water cutting right through his tattered biking tights. The hiss of the specially designed rope was a steady shush-shush as he bounced away from the rock face and found it again. Practice kicked in, and muscle memory took over. Lucy protested at the wind and brighter light, looking as if she was considering crying again.

"Jenks?" Trent called, his legs and arms aching. "How far down is it?"

The pixy dove from somewhere, the cheerful sound of his wings drawing Lucy's attention like a magnet and cutting her whimpering off. "You're about a third of the way," he said, bobbing up and down, his wings making music as he struggled to stay in one spot in the stiff wind.

Trent's brow furrowed. He had asked that the cord be made to the height of the cliff, but it did tend to shrink in the cold.

The sudden ping of shattered rock struck Trent, as he kept one hand on the wire, one on Lucy.

"They're shooting at us!" Jenks shrilled indignantly, looking up and darting sideways as Trent pushed out again, making his swing more erratic.

Angry, Trent pulled Lucy's blanket over her head, making the already fussy baby begin to wail. Faster now, he pushed the lowering mechanism to its limits, starting to shake as two more slugs shattered the rock where he had just been. If he fell, they would both be dead. Was Ellasbeth truly insane?

"Talk to me, Jenks!" he shouted, the cord beginning to hum in the wind. He knew it was because of the distance and how fast he was moving, but he couldn't help but wonder if they might cut the cord. Again he pushed out from the wall, his jaw clenched and his knees flexing to absorb the impact. He looked down, blanching. Almost there, but still too high for his liking. The rocks were wet with spray. There was no beach here, just jagged corners and pounding waves.

"Jenks!" he shouted again, wondering if the pixy had gotten himself killed. Lucy cried and kicked, and he tried to calm himself. She is like a little barometer, he mused as he pulled her blanket back enough so she could see him, and her cries ebbed into angry fussing. She saw Jenks before he heard his wings, and relief spilled into him even as he pushed off and descended another few feet.

"I really like Mrs. Withon," Jenks said as he landed on top of the pulley, a silver dust falling from him as they pushed out and down again.

The rope seemed to give way, and Trent panicked, reaching for it as it spun through the pulley and Jenks darted off. But it had only been Jenks's dust lubricating it, and he frowned when the pixy came back when they hit the wall again, having descended almost three times the usual amount. "How that nice woman ended up with a kid like Ellasbeth is beyond me," Jenks added as if nothing had happened.

"Yeah?" Trent panted, unable to make himself push off again.

Jenks grinned, his wings pinned to his back in the stiff wind. "She just threatened to throw the next man who shoots at you out the window. Megan is awake. She offered to help. God, Trent, what is it with you and women?"

Trent looked down again, smiling past Lucy. Her diaper had gone heavy against him. That drop had been scary. She hadn't cried, though, and he gave her a comforting pat as he pushed away in a series of short hops to reach the end. A wave of something passed through him, chased by panic. Lucy trusted him? She trusted him to keep her safe? God help him, he could not fail her.

Swallowing the emotion back, Trent slowly descended the last few feet. The sound of the surf was loud, and the smell of dead things strong. He exhaled loudly as his bare feet finally touched the spray-wet rock. Knees trembling, he put a hand to the rock face. It was not over, though, and he looked out past the crashing waves. Still no boat.

"Look out!" Jenks shouted, and Trent shied as a weird sort of swallowed sound schluuped through the rising and falling water six feet out.

Scowling, Trent looked up the line. They were shooting at him again, and concerned, he put a hand to the cord to feel it humming from more than the wind. They were coming, not afraid to shoot him dead now that he was on the ground.

"I think you're okay," Jenks said, peering up as three more bullets cut through the water, the closest too far to be a worry. "The angle is wrong. But you got three minutes before they show up, rappelling down your rope." Jenks landed on an outcrop, his hair blowing wildly as he held his wings to his body. "I know you said there was a boat coming to pick us up, but how are you getting out to it? You elves got gills?"

"Something like that." Head down and fingers fumbling from the spray, Trent shimmied out of the harness, leaving only the one that kept Lucy snuggled close to him.

"Seriously!" Jenks said, hovering between him and the wall as he tried to keep out of the wind and away from Lucy's frustrated reach. "You can swim, but what about her?"

"Boat," Trent said shortly, glancing up briefly to see that it still wasn't here. It wasn't a holiday, was it? It would be just like the Goddess to decree that his entire plan, haphazardly implemented and disastrously flawed, would end here at the end with his goal in sight but just out of reach, devolved by a slipped timetable or obscure holiday. A goat. I'll give you a Goddessblessed goat. Just get me out of here alive.

"I don't see no boat," Jenks said, and Trent finally got his tiny knife and lighter from his belt pack. He'd brought it to blow the gum, but it would also burn the rope, and Jenks whistled in appreciation as Trent cut the cord, exposed the flammable core, lit it, and it smoked and burned like a fuse, shaking slightly as it burned upward.

"Nobody is going to make it down here on your rope now!" Jenks said in appreciation. "You just bought yourself ten minutes, you little cookie maker!" Jenks landed on his shoulder, his wings cold on his neck. "Ah, your boat going to be here by then?"

"Yes." Two goats, he thought as he kicked the harness into the water. Crouching with Lucy before him, he inflated the little cockleshell boat using the compressed air that he'd brought to inflate a blown bike tire. In two seconds, one ounce of specially designed plastic became a small boat for one.

"That takes care of Lucy," Jenks said, peering upward again. The bullets had stopped, but they'd start back up the instant they moved from the lee of the cliff. Trent doubted they would shoot at the little boat, so obviously carrying Lucy, but they'd try for him, even if it meant she might dash against the rocks. Maybe he had promised to revisit the custody arrangements too soon. This was insane. He'd gotten her, gotten out of their stronghold. Enough was enough.

"Here you go, sweet pea," he found himself saying as he inexpertly wiggled Lucy out from her sling, the little girl's eyes drooping. The stimulation of wind, water, and motion had begun to take their toll, and she frowned at the sudden cool breeze against her. "You can sleep in the boat," he whispered, tucking her blanket in around her and drawing the thin plastic top over her to protect her from spray.

He felt funny talking to her with Jenks listening, but the pixy only nodded at the care he took, seeming to be satisfied. Perhaps he'd done better than he ever dreamed, bringing Jenks along with him. The pixy was a seasoned parent, and if he deemed the precautions he took adequate, then perhaps he wasn't doing badly.

"I still don't see a boat," Jenks said as Trent carefully picked up the floating basket, wincing as the rocks cut into his feet.

Saying nothing, Trent waded out into the water. One bullet whizzed past him, then another, making Jenks swear and Trent's eyebrows rise. The cold was breathtaking, and the bike suit soaked it up, holding it to him. Six steps put him to his chest, the waves jostling him until he gave up and pushed off, holding Lucy before him. He should have had the engineers fashion a way to tie her to him, he mused as he began to swim, the schluups of the bullets making his jaw clench. If not for the erratic bobbing of the waves, he'd likely be hit by now. It only made him angrier, and he kicked harder, falling into an awkward but effective rhythm. Shove the boat, stroke, stroke-shove the boat, stroke, stroke. Where is the bloody pickup boat!

"Boat?" Trent sputtered when they finally got far enough from the rocky edge so that he wasn't fighting waves coming from both directions.

"Sure! Got it!" Jenks's wings hummed, and Trent started when the smooth shape of the rocking cockleshell boat pulled away from him.

"No!" Trent said, his reaching hand smacking into it to make it rock violently. He panicked, thinking he had gotten Lucy wet, but she didn't make a sound, apparently asleep. "I meant, do you see the pickup boat yet?" he asked as he began to tread water.

Jenks darted off, flying a good five feet above the water to make Trent wonder about sharks. If they had fish that would snack on Jenks, then there would be sharks, eating the fish, right? The cold was beginning to get to him, and he began swimming to generate heat, pushing forward going nowhere. He'd once pulled Rachel out of the frozen Ohio River. She'd been suffering from hypothermia after only a few minutes. He hadn't had an issue with the cold, but he'd been in the water here for at least twice that. The bullets had stopped, and he was thankful. But maybe that only meant they had their own boat out here and didn't want to hit it.

Doubts tugged at him, and his thoughts began to slow. He'd been awake almost three days in a row getting out here, and he'd asked his body to perform far beyond what he had prepared for. Jenks was gone, maybe eaten. He'd brought his daughter out of her safe home and for what? To die a cold and frightening death in the middle of the ocean?

The sound of Jenks's wings brought his head up, and he leaned his body into treading water, the cold seeping into him. He peered up at him, squinting into the sun as the pixy landed on the edge of the cockleshell boat. "No boat," Jenks said, making Trent's heart sink. He'd been a fool. A fool to believe he could do this. The Goddess was laughing at him. He should have promised her more, but doing this without killing anyone had been his greatest sacrifice. Perhaps he should have tried harder not to kill the man with the knife. It had been instinct. Instinct had caused his downfall. He was not enough. He should turn around and take her back to them. He would die, but Lucy would live. Rachel would be furious with him. She was expecting his help, and a feeling of guilt swept through him. Just one more broken promise. He was no better than his father.

"Unless you're talking about that nasty-looking whale-watching boat," Jenks said, his expression pinched as he bobbed on the water and looked into the distance.

Trent's head slipped under as shock stilled his slowly moving legs. "That's the pickup boat!" he sputtered, kicking violently and steadying Lucy.

"That rat trap?" Jenks blinked, his wings turning an embarrassed red. "Oh man, I'm sorry," he said, rising up and looking to the north. "Damn, I'm sorry, Trent. I though you had some sort of fancy-ass speedboat arranged to pick us up. I'll go get them. They can't see you from here. Hang on. I didn't think you'd rely on something as chancy as a whale-watching tour boat!"

"Neither would the Withons," Trent said, his exasperation turning into a weary elation, but Jenks had already zipped off. He should have told Jenks what to look for. Why did he keep treating him like an accessory? The man was more efficient than Quen at thinking on his feet and had more endurance than one of his racehorses.

From inside the tiny boat, Lucy began to cry, scared upon waking up in a rocking, shifting world of color and sound after her bland sterile room at the Withons'. Treading water, Trent looked in the direction that Jenks had gone, hearing a boat but not seeing it. He carefully pulled back the protective cover, using his weight to lean it enough that he could see in.

"Hi," he whispered, and her eyes fastened on him, her momentary confusion at finding him with his hair plastered to his head passing at the sound of his voice. "We're going to be okay, Lucy," he said, and she kicked at him as if disagreeing. "You watch, Jenks is going to get them, and we'll be okay."

A marine horn tooted, and he looked up, waving at the row of people standing at the railing of the two-story whale-watching boat, binoculars all aimed at him. His heart pounded, and he felt a wash of protectiveness pass through him. Lucy's eyes drifted, finding Jenks as the pixy spiraled down, dusting heavily. "I told them you were waterskiing and the boat crashed," he said, darting off his first landing place that was within Lucy's reach.

"Excuse me?" Trent pushed the damp hair from his face.

"Seriously, I told them you misjudged the tides, and your boat drifted off while you were out walkies with your kid," he added, kicking at the air-filled cradle. "You're going to have to explain it from there. I don't know what you're going to tell them about her ears."

Trent frowned, thinking it was a bad story to begin with, but the chugging of the boat's engine was growing loud, and Jenks darted off as helping hands reached over the side of the boat. Some were brown from the sun, others white with age, but he smiled as he accepted them, feeling reborn as they took first Lucy, then himself, dripping from the water.

It was a confused babble of excitement as tourists cooed over Lucy, making her cry until he took her back. The men surrounded Trent, talking of tides and past fishing excursions, and he sniffed, saying as little as he could, accepting the blanket that someone offered him, and then the diaper and cleaning cloths from someone else, cheerfully given from a worn diaper bag. No one remarked upon Lucy's ears, no one asked what they were doing in the water. For the first time, he felt accepted as a person, and the new emotion soaked into him. The difference had to be Lucy.

Finally all the questions were answered, all the women pacified, all the men in a corner still talking of the dangers of being on the water, all the kids distracted by Jenks on the far side of the boat. The sun was warm, and he held his daughter in his arms, both of them in borrowed clothes, both swaddled in blankets against the stiff wind.

Finding no eyes on them, Trent slipped to the lee side of the wind next to the boathouse, settling into the patch of sun with a tired sigh. The soft thrum of the engine worked its way up into him, as he sat with his back to the wall, his feet propped up most ungentlemanly on the seat so he could hold Lucy more securely.

Smiling, he looked down at her sleeping, her soft frown easing as he touched her tiny hand with a single finger, watching the way the wind shifted her fair hair about her pointy ears. "I think we're going to be okay, Lucy," he whispered, and he leaned his head back, eyes shutting against the bright sun, listening to the wind and water, peace and exhaustion working together to ease him into the first good sleep in days.

They would be okay. He believed it to the bottom of his soul. Rescuing Lucy was the easy part. Surviving the next twenty years was going to be a little more chancy. After today, he thought he could do it with help, and now he thought he had the courage to ask for it.

Lucy would give him strength.

BEYOND THE HOLLOWS.

Pet Shop Boys.

I originally wrote "Pet Shop Boys" as one of two possibilities for an anthology. I don't submit to many anthologies, but this group came to me through my agent, impressed with my Dawn Cook titles, and asked me to try my hand at writing about vampires. This was before the dual nature of Kim and Dawn had been revealed, and I was so tickled they asked that my automatic no turned into a yes. I worked up two shorts, trying to get as far away from the Hollows vampire mythology as I could. Under the advice of my agent that "Pet Shop Boys" had the potential to become a series, I retained it to sit in my cabinet until now.

I've long loved the idea of the fey living in a world twin to ours, passing through to snare the unwary when the veil was the thinnest. Bringing vampires into the mix was the icing on the cake.

ONE.

Good luck with the puppy," Cooper called as the boy leaned back against the glass door, the bells ringing as he tried to push it open. It wasn't until the boy's dad lent a hand that the night air slipped in with a dusting of snow and they got outside, their new bundle of yaps and wet spots on the carpet wiggling in the boy's arms.

"And have a merry Christmas," he muttered as the door jingled closed behind them. He didn't like selling dogs and cats when there were strays that needed homes, but the owner, Kay, insisted on always having dogs, and sometimes cats. The Lab pup was the last of the litter, and the shop now felt empty without the soft snuffing and hush of paws on newspaper.

Tired, Cooper rubbed the back of his neck, head bowed as he came around the counter to hang up the six collars the father and boy had been deciding between. Snatching a fold of newspapers, he knelt by the open-topped mesh corral to wad up the used paper and lay new for the next litter. The bubbling of the fish tanks and twittering of finches slowly returned the pet shop into the peaceful haven that had convinced him to work here at minimum wage instead of taking the professor's assistant job he'd turned down three years ago.

Kay might have had something to do with it, though. Sex in jeans with her own money, she seemed to enjoy his company but kept him totally at arm's length. He didn't get it. Every time he was tempted to bag it, she gave him just enough encouragement to stay. God, he was a chump. He didn't want to be thirty and still cleaning up someone else's dog crap.

Grimacing, he rose to throw the papers away, pushing through the sheets of milky plastic that separated the back room from the store. The storage room/office was cold-it had been snowing all day with only the dog people coming in since it had become dark. He was tempted to flick the Closed sign around early, but Kay would give him hell for closing before eight.

It'd give me an excuse to talk to her, he thought as he trashed the papers and grabbed the disinfectant spray. Kay spent most of her time in the back when she was in. Cooper was the one who actually ran the place-except for the dogs. Kay brought them in from some exclusive breeder. The cats were from a local shelter.

The warmth of the store was welcoming as he slipped back through the plastic curtain. A quick spray, and the round kennel was clean, all evidence of the dog erased under the scent of bleach. Cooper straightened with a sigh. Twenty-five and a pet shop geek. He'd swear Kay wasn't gay-the occasional flirting suggested otherwise. Maybe it was him.

The sudden whirling of the birds in their cages brought his head up, and the hair on the back of his neck pricked. Feeling like winter had slipped in under the door, Cooper turned to the big plate-glass windows dark with night and the peaceful falling snow in the streetlight. His eyes widened at the little girl, no more than nine, standing in the middle of the aisle: white tights, little black shoes, and a coat made of black fur. Her vividly red hair was straight under a matching fur hat, and her hands were hidden in a muff.

"Oh! Hi!" Cooper stammered, pitching his voice high as he looked for a parent. "You surprised me! How long have you been in here?" She must have come in while he was in the back, but he hadn't heard the bells ring.

The little girl beamed. "Did I?" she said cheerfully, seeming to think it funny to have scared a grown-up. "May I see the kittens?"

Cooper nodded as he set the spray bottle on a back counter, trying to hide his annoyance. He liked kids, but not when their parents dropped them off as if he was a babysitter-especially fifteen minutes to closing. "Sure, but don't let them out, okay?"

Huffing a sigh of preteen independence, she strode confidently to the multistory cat cage. Crouching, she made a tiny trill of sound, and two gray heads and one black one popped up from the sleeping pile. The kittens fell over themselves to reach her, pressing against the mesh and meowing. "They like me," she said shyly, endearing as she glanced at him with her green eyes.

Cooper stood with his arms over his chest and looked at his watch. He couldn't kick her out. It was cold outside. "Is your mom around, sweetheart?" he asked. There was a discount store across the street, but it was closed. Maybe the bar down the way. The girl seemed as if she was used to being alone.

"I want the black one." She looked up, her hair framing an almost triangular face and lips too red for such a little girl, fingers pushed into the cage as far as she could get them. "She looks like me."

Cooper dropped back a step and smiled. He didn't see the resemblance, but he wasn't nine years old. "You can have her if your mother says it's okay. Why don't you go get her? We close in five minutes."

The girl pulled her hand from the cage and stood, her eyes alight. "I'll trade you for her."

Oh, for crying out loud . . . Cooper glanced at the Open sign and sighed. He'd dealt with children before. "My boss won't let me trade. Is your mother at the bar, honey?" He was getting the oddest vibe from the kid, a weird mix of wealth and abandonment, like a child of privilege raised by a rich drunk, a child never lacking for anything except a constant source of love, forced to take it in overindulgent spurts when sobriety hit.

"I'll trade you." The little girl confidently got to her feet and reached into her muff. "His name is Leonard. He bites, the little brat. I wanted a cat so we could play, but Mama picked a dumb bat. See?"

Cooper's eyes widened when her thin fingers opened to show a mouse-size wad of fur coiled up and its eyes tightly closed. She's got a bat! he thought, images of rabies and needles racing through him. "Oh, sweetheart," he said, swooping to the nearby display stand for a rodent box. "Put it in here. You shouldn't ever play with a bat. Never, ever."

"See! That's what I told Mama!" she said triumphantly as her little white hand dropped the dead or unconscious animal into the box, and Cooper closed it, stifling a shiver as the animal's tiny nails scraped. "She thinks bats are safe 'cause they can fly, but I like cats. They can sneak around even in the day."

Oh my God, Cooper thought, wondering if he should take the little girl in the back to wash her hands. A bat that let you pick it up wasn't healthy. Who the hell was supposed to be watching her? "Honey, do you know your mom's phone number?"

"You want to trade?" she asked, innocent eyes wide.

A chill took him as he patted her head. "If your mother says it's okay. Do you have her cell number?"

From the front of the shop, a feminine clearing of a throat startled him. Snatching his hand from the little girl, he spun to the woman standing just inside the door, arms over her chest and her hip cocked as she looked severely at the little girl.