Page 30 of Catnapped

Darian sighed. “How do you deal with triads, Diana? Do you have some secretarial magic trick that makes them be somewhat saner?”

“You have two divine beings who are fretting over the short lifespan of their wife and child. There is no magic trick to make them saner,” I informed him. “This is just a guess from what I’ve read in the CDC’s files on triads, but shower all three of your parents with affection. That should calm them down for short periods of time. The devilish parent likely needs more attention because the angelic parent should be unashamed of requiring affection from his offspring and wife. So, you should probably corner Belial at some point and do a father-son evening where he gets a chance to just have some time with you. That will rile your other father, as he will want a father-son evening. Then your mother will want a mother-son evening, and once everyone has an evening with you, they’ll probably be good for another month or so with minimal care. Once you have a brother or sister, you will find your parents to be easier to care for.”

Raguel’s laughter chimed. “Her suggestion has merit, Darian.”

“Noted. Thank you for bringing the paperwork, Father. Do try to take advantage of my extended trip away from home to get my mother pregnant. Try for twins or something. With three parents, twins should be doable. You could probably handle triplets with minor difficulties.”

“Did we not give you enough presents for Christmas and your birthday, that you would wish twins or triplets upon us?”

“Daily home visitations to care for the special needs of my parents is more the reason why I’m wishing twins on you. Then the next set can share duties. This is my bid for freedom, old man.”

“That is wishful thinking. We would only seek additional attention from all of our children. Take care with your investigations, and do avoid lifting anything heavy, Diana. You do need to heal, and doing so would hurt.”

“I’ll keep that in mind. Thank you, Raguel.”

The archangel disappeared.

I raised a brow and engaged in a staring contest with Darian. “What, precisely, was that all about?”

“Mom probably freaked out I was not readily accessible, Father probably told Mom about my paperwork request, so Mom made Father handle the paperwork and check on us. Dad is probably making use of his devilish powers to help my plan of having a sibling along, which is why Father left without making even more of a fuss. He likely cheated a little, determined this abandoned lab is safe enough, and wanted to get to the portion of his night where he gets to do unspeakable things to my mother with his devil of an accomplice. If I do get into trouble, he will simply shrug, as he did his best, but I am a troublesome son. Then he’ll suggest to Dad they should have a daughter, because daughters can’t be as much trouble as sons.”

“Maybe he was onto something about you being the target of a kidnapping. But it wouldn’t be a kidnapping, would it? You’d be a willing participant. It’s not a kidnapping if you’re willing. This is something that we go through yearly during training. We’re taught to identify if someone is being trafficked. There are a lot of cases where parents will level a kidnapping accusation against a boyfriend or a girlfriend because they don’t like them. But if the couple is willingly together, it’s not a kidnapping. You’re old enough where your parents can’t stop you from running away with someone.”

“I’m at the stage where I believe they wouldn’t press charges or try to stop me. They might offer you monetary incentives for you to take me off their hands.”

“How much is the son of a triad worth?”

“Good question. We’ll ask Lucifer after we investigate this place. I foresee a lot of time paying back bargains by listening to him spout damned advice before we get to the bottom of this.”

“I just want to know why they couldn’t just rescue my cat for me.”

“Oh, I already figured that out,” Darian replied. “Or I’m pretty sure I have.”

“Tell me.”

“It’s simple. The lab operators are playing at being some god, and the divines are not allowed to interfere when mortals try to break the universal laws. They need mortals to do their dirty work, so they sent us.”

“I don’t like that theory,” I muttered.

“Good. I don’t, either. But it’s the only one that’s making any sense to me, because the fastest way for Lucifer to gain your favor right now is to bring your cat home to you safe and sound—which means he can’t. If he could, he would. But he can’t, so that tells me someone is breaking a universal law, and the only ones allowed to interfere with that are mortals—or beings born naturally with free will. Lucifer was given free will, but he was not born with it, so he cannot act. If anything, Lucifer is the least likely divine of them all to break a universal law, which may very well be why He cast him out of the heavens—not because of Lucifer’s nature, but because He foresaw what His fallen son’s role would truly be.”

“Remind me to bust Lucy’s kneecaps for this later,” I grumbled, getting my camera ready to take hundreds or thousands of pictures. “And if this nonsense gets my cat hurt, I’m going to line up every fucking demon and devil and give them a piece of my mind, and the angels are next!”

“I’m so not warning either of my fathers about this. Just invite me to come along for the ride. Some things can’t be missed.”

Wearing all of our protective gear, including face masks, hair nets, shoe covers, and gloves, we documented every trailer and mobile home in the abandoned community, picking through discarded, rotting property in search of any clues that might help us learn who had stolen my cat and why. Most of the papers had been chewed on by animals, rendering them useless, but a few drawers in decaying desks offered a single name: Kingston Miller. The name meant nothing to me, but Darian grunted every time we stumbled across a receipt or note mentioning him.

“You obviously know something, Darian. I wouldn’t have noticed anything if you’d limited your sounds of disapproval to the first time, but every time a new paper shows up, you get progressively crankier. What’s the deal with this Kingston Miller?”

“Kingston Miller is a lycanthrope who has been attempting to cure the virus. However, since experimenting on lycanthropes is even more illegal than experimenting on cats and dogs, it doesn’t surprise me if he’s trying to figure out a way to treat the lycanthropy virus using pets.”

“But regular animals can’t contract the virus.”

“Well, obviously, the first step would be to make the virus spreadable to cats and dogs then, if that’s his goal.”

My eyes widened. “But wouldn’t that make lycanthropy even more contagious?”

With a worrying shrug, Darian poked through the trailer, which had been ransacked for valuables long before our arrival. He kicked aside rotting clothes in a tiny closet to reveal a cardboard box in decent condition, which he opened with a pocket knife. A metal case caught his attention, and he lifted it out. “Hello. What do we have here?”