Catopolis. Part 26

Until the rat struck the knives right beside him, its blood spattered in all directions, drenching him-and the knives got him.

By then I was tearing down the iron stair meant for workers to unjam the knives when necessary, trying not to cry. He was, after all, my Father.

"So pa.s.ses Montuhotep," I murmured aloud, stopping under the metal that was now dripping blue blood. I stayed still again until his gore had soaked the fur down my back, then did the one last thing I needed to do: I found a small, sharp-ended shard of old metal I could carry in my mouth. Thus laden, I got out of there and gave in to my grief.

I had hated and feared him, but he was my Father. And a cat who had in his day made many tremble. A royal tomcat, the likes of which the world would not see again.

Feeling glum, I hurried back back across the awakening city as fast as I could drag my weary body and got back to The Coachlight's windows in time to see that I was... just in time.

Darling Steve. He had worn himself out searching the building top to bottom for me and had finally fallen asleep, all smudges and cobwebs. AnkhesenAkana needed mouth to mouth-and preferably more-body contact to take over his body and had awakened him to try to get him undressed and into bed.

It seemed even ancient Egyptian undead could seethe with frustration. She was trying to make love to a man too sleepy to stay awake and do anything, who was much larger and heavier than she was.

I decided to put her out of her misery by ringing her bell with Father's special code.

And pouncing on her head when she snarlingly opened the door, bounding on from that lofty perch into her lair before she could even pummel me off.

She followed. I did a lot of clawing in the frantic moments that followed and managed to make Jethana Walkingcorpse brain herself against one of the gilded posts of her own bed, hard enough to awaken Steve.

Who stared in bleary astonishment as I rolled across the dazed woman's throat, smearing her with Father's blood-and then, rather awkwardly, p.r.i.c.ked her with the shard, in the midst of the gore.

Whereupon Montuhotep's "blood of many lives" started to mix with that human body's own blood... poisoning the resident AnkhesenAkana.

Inside the now-writhing woman, it started to burn. She wailed helplessly.

"What-?" Steve contributed in astonishment. "What'd you do to her?"

By then, we were both looking at a blood-smeared but quite alive mindless living human woman. Who had seen better days and had a body no longer really suited to the negligee she was-mostly-wearing.

"Let's go," I snarled at my partner. "Get your clothes and everything, and let's get out of here!"

Steve blinked at me, and I sighed, took on human form to start dressing him, and snapped, "Or can you think of some way to make the police believe all of this?"

CAT CALL 911.

by Janny Wurts.

The rumor that proved to be no rumor at all began with a no-account rat. Scamper encountered the creature, lean as a snake, twitching its whiskers over the rim of the dumpster. No one else was abroad in the midnight alley, just behind the respectable shop front housing Cat-A-Combs hair parlor. Madame Persian's haberdashery was locked. The darlings who sparkled in diamond collars never stirred from their penthouse comforts past sundown.

The gleam in the rat's s.h.i.+fty eyes sparked like sulfur as it bared yellow teeth.

"Hey, Copper!" it taunted. "A dark-doing'sss at large in the city again. Made a moussse eat her newbornsss from dessspair. Ssso also, it missled a dog that ssstrayed and drowned in the river."

"f.e.c.kless folk, dogs." Scamper jerked his tail in contempt. Rat's gossip! He dabbed a lick on his orange shoulder and prowled on, supremely dismissive. "Don't have to be puppies to howl and run riot. And mice eat their young in the lean times without any dark-doing's help."

No tip-off had reached the copper-cat dispatcher, back at the police barracks stables. On the hour that Scamper left on patrol, the Chief had been napping, curled on a straw bale, the reports off the streets uneventful enough that no vigilant copper would wake him.

"You'll wissssh you'd lissstened," insisted the rat. "Thessse mice lived in sssugarplum plenty behind the wallsss of the pa.s.sstry ssshop." With a gnas.h.i.+ng of incisors, the creature scuttled. Its last word emerged through the rustle of trash, as it resumed its noisome scavenging. "A nexusss knot'sss forming. My warning'sss the firssst."

"Get flea dipped, pal." Scamper twitched his damp hair, not impressed. Rats lied. The whole sc.u.mbag lot were a furtive breed, naked of tail, and too garrulous for scruples or dignity. Scamper flicked his whiskers forward, alert. Though loath to rely on what might be a hoax, he was a street copper down to the bone, born to patrol the back alleys. No use wis.h.i.+ng such work was the good life, snacking on tuna fish out of a can.

Still, this was not the dockside, and he, dapper fellow, was no rip-eared tom, a.s.signed to a thug's beat in the slums. The sort of people who started dark-doings seldom strayed from the seedier neighborhoods. No hint of dire trouble blew on the wind. The deserted buildings wore nothing but their usual night-time shadow.

"I'll be declawed," Scamper grumbled, "before I ask the Chief to send a back-up squad on a rat-race!"

Scamper loped past the maw of a parking garage and slipped through the short cut under a culvert. Now across the street, he emerged at the pastry shop, but he found no hysterical mice. Only the drunk he had rousted up, earlier, reeling on his inebriated way. The b.u.m shuffled along, a sad, lonely creature in a tattered coat, mumbling admonishments to his reflection in the street side windows. The fellow seemed harmless. Scamper widened his pupils, just to make certain. He engaged the sixth sense, peculiar to cats, and scanned for any latent anomaly.

Nothing emerged. The residue streamed by the homeless man's thoughts spun off maudlin regrets, not one of them vicious or threatening. Unlike some humans, he blamed no one else for the wretchedness of his condition. His sorry nostalgia stayed self-contained, a wistful murk too diffuse to take fire, or fuse into entangling spite.

Copper-cats hunted the streets for such things. Where acres of concrete replaced living trees, the whisk of the wind raised no rustle of twigs and leaves; here, no falling water or meandering brooks erased the filmy detritus of human afterthought. The work fell to cats, to break the ephemeral ribbons before they burned black and became entangled. That insidious wrack was obvious to felines. Yet people themselves seldom noticed the tempests, unreeled in their wake like thrown litter.

Scamper prowled on. Nothing dangerous lurked here! Surely the f.e.c.kless rat led him astray. No human seeking a fight walked abroad, and nothing sp.a.w.ned by a late-going hustler held the pa.s.sion to weave a dark-doing. Nary a trace of wicked intent required a cat scan to chase down and disperse.

"May a plague of fleas chew that rat to perdition!" Scamper huffed, turned left to sweep the back alley that harbored the strip. He stalked past a blinking storefront selling electronic gadgetry and another crammed with tourist novelties.

The recessed doorway beyond sheltered two lovers, breathless with laughter and tender kisses. Contentment lit sparks of delight in their presence. The air danced with showering flurries of gold, wrought by their giggles and happiness. Scamper knew his job. Most agile of his copper colleagues, he pounced on those delectable fragments. Before their s.h.i.+ne faded, he batted that merriment into a tingling wad. The finis.h.i.+ng touch required cat-magic. Scamper swatted the captured billow of joy under his extended claws.

The shreds scattered. Whirling like falling stars, they sank with a glittering flourish into the pavement.

A cat's eye could discern the faint sheen that remained. Taut whiskers could sense the vibration. Whether a starved feral, or a pampered pet on a stroll, every feline would be tempted to roll with abandon, paws in the air. In back-scratching pleasure, they would soak up the run of sweet luck that now welled from the sidewalk. Serendipity, also, would touch the lives of unsuspecting pedestrians. A school child might find an escaped coin and buy candy. Or a weary mother might sigh with relief as her cranky infant changed mood to delight. Here, an artist might stumble on fresh inspiration, or a worried man might soften his heart and take pause to lend help to a beggar.

The wide world was alive with such wonders. Wherever people shed formative thoughts, the curious nature of cats would make sport with the exuberant residue. They knew to play tag with the colorful aspects, and weave them into the manifest world.

When the couple departed, Scamper shoved off, no little bit smug that the rat's doom-and-glooming had given him a false lead.

A woman rushed past, heels clicking as she bustled into the subway. Her fizz of anxiety sent bubbles of energy bouncing off the lit street lamps. Scamper sensed no threatening darkness swirling behind her brisk footsteps. If she resented her job, she did not hate her boss. Though her day had been riddled with disappointments, she did not nurse any poisonous urge to dump her malaise on her coworkers. Her loose discontent would not form a vortex. No quivering, plucked string of entanglement waited to snag into other folks' unresolved angst.

Scamper detected no stirring of havoc that required destruction with claws and teeth. No suspect thrill raised a hump in his back, or bristled him to spitting temper. Nose working, tail high, he rounded the corner, jinked down the side street, and skirted the packing crates discarded behind the herb shop.

The narrow alley ahead enticed with the rich scent of cat-mint. Most of the neighborhood's swaggering toms had dropped in for a heady nip. The randy chorus at the Cat-ATONIC Bar surrounded a svelte Siamese. Amorous loungers watched rivals, slit-eyed, while the husky Maine c.o.o.n named Bouncer licked his claw sheaths, prepared to break up snarling fights. Tempers ran short, in the late summer heat. The sc.r.a.ppier males were on seasonal edge, hot to test their machis...o...b..fore the fur-ripping brawling of autumn.

Scamper licked his sharp teeth. As eager himself for a rambunctious change, he marched past, primed to impress the slinky p.u.s.s.ies who danced at the Cat-a.s.s-Trophy Club. Yet tonight, the stair with the bal.u.s.trade loomed empty. No black beauties or coy little calicoes beckoned him on.

Instead, Scamper found himself knocked on his haunches by cats pelting helter-skelter. Fur on end, the whole kit'n caboodle ran in fear for their lives, darting under the sewer grates or streaking for shelter beneath the parked cars on the side street.

Scamper tensed, primed for uncanny threats. He sighted what appeared as a shadow swooping down on his planted stance. Its wet-blanket force struck him, face on, and bowled him head over tail. Scamper twisted. Agile reflexes brought him back to his feet. Scuffed and furious, he had to acknowledge the filthy rat's warning held substance. A monster-sized dark-doing devoured the strip, with no apparent clue in the vicinity to reveal how the nexus had started.

"Not on my turf!" Scamper snarled, and crouched. He launched into his best fighting leap. Yet his dagger-clawed swipe missed the coiling disturbance. Again, he was caught by surprise as a tendril snaked out of nowhere and clobbered him sideways.

Scamper picked himself up, spitting curses. The dark-doing lurked in the apartments above! No thanks to the rat, for withholding that detail. Such ill-news should have been dispatched in the first place, by way of a reliable messenger. Situations always turned hairball, whenever a rat told the truth!

Already, the invasive clot had grown monstrous. Its creeping shadow obscured half the alley, with Scamper unable to count the number and strength of the entrenched entanglements. He backed, green eyes slitted, dodging as another eruption shot off more strangling threads. The skyline above was choked under the pall. No good news: the least gleam of stars should have made the uncanny stuff shrink. Even the street lamps failed to pierce through the density of this anomaly. At large and expanding at a ferocious pace, the thing crowded the stance of the small, copper tabby who was pledged to serve and protect.

Scamper hissed, stiff-legged and holding his ground. He was no coward! But what could he do? The entanglement si-phoned off color and life. Deep taproots had sunk into the sewers. Other murky tendrils seeped through open windows, invading the tenements above. Hapless sleepers inside were being snared by the web. The blast of their nightmares was sp.a.w.ning fresh wrack, feeding the uncanny problem.

Scamper's nape p.r.i.c.kled. "Doesn't that stink like unburied scat!" He had never seen human beings wreak such an insatiable pall. Though natural fear urged him to turn tail, he flexed his foreclaws and dug in to charge.

"You're not planning to challenge that!" a deep voice admonished, a half-step behind him. "Better to stay safe! A loose grate in the window well opens into the herb shop's bas.e.m.e.nt. My patrons have taken refuge in there. High time that both of us followed them."

Scamper hissed, out of sorts with surprise. "Bouncer! Frag your tail, don't sneak up while I'm on the job!"

The gray Maine c.o.o.n cat wrinkled his white nose and strolled abreast, his usual air of muscular unconcern rattled by trepidation. "Do you know what you're doing, alone in the breach? Whatever that is, no question it's screwed the prosperity of my establishment."

"It could do worse than that." Scamper bared his teeth. "Best scarper, pal. This is copper-cat business and no place for a civilian to be risking his scruff."

Bouncer stretched, flexing twenty-five pounds of pure feline brawn, sleeked beneath a luxurious coat. "You're a runt, by yourself," he pointed out, reasonable.

"Size has nothing to do with superior agility," Scamper declared, fiercely miffed. The Chief might a.s.sign larger toms to the slums. But in a tight sc.r.a.p, sure as fire singed fur, the little cats often scored first. "Scram, friend. Now! Take the refugees and your kitty bar elsewhere until I've unraveled this mess."

Bouncer curled his tail tip, amused. "I've no wish to relocate," he said, more than tactfully tart, "or lose the ambience of the Cat-a.s.s-Trophy Club, if this festering trouble ruins the neighborhood. Howl as you like, that cl.u.s.ter hump's swallowing more real estate for every second we waste in a hissy-fit."

Scamper conceded that unpleasant point. He dared not risk any further delay, or call on the Chief for a backup squad. Late could become never if this dark-doing bloated past reach of containment. Besides, Bouncer's moxie was lion-sized. Every thug dog unleashed in the district slunk out of its way to avoid his punitive claws.

"Survive this," said Scamper, "I'll owe you a leisurely meal at the Catfish Grill."

"My treat, for cold shrimp at the Cater Wall." Bouncer sniffed, still indignant. No copper tabby who defended his digs would be tackling an explosive eruption, alone.

Side by side, the mismatched pair of cats bounded forward, to Scamper's last minute instructions. "Whatever happens, keep your head down! Duck the large tentacles. If you become hooked, fight back and kick as though the murder itself had sunk fangs in your b.o.l.l.o.c.ks! Once I pounce, join the tussle and dig into the entanglement. Snap the binding thread, and bolt for clear air. Don't be trapped as the mess comes unraveled."

The pair sprang in step. Then the web closed upon them. A thrill like electricity tingled their hair. The hungry cold of the dark-doing lashed out, insatiable, to overwhelm them. Scamper flattened, while the larger Maine c.o.o.n leaped over the obstructive shadow. Wind flicked at their tails, to the rasp of feline claws scrabbling against concrete. Bouncer yowled, then wheeled his bulk across Scamper's path in avoidance.

"p.u.s.s.yfoot civilian!" the smaller cat snarled. "Quit trying to protect me."

"So neuter yourself!" Bouncer swore, his fur singed where a razor-edged ribbon had grazed him. "Dead is no use to anyone, pal. I know what my hide's worth! Chief would rag me to mince if he should discover I'd hung your cat-sa.s.s out to dry."

Scamper was left too breathless to argue. Fool heroics more likely would see them both killed, with the Chief at the barracks left none the wiser.

Bouncer kept pace, undeterred by good sense, as Scamper streaked onward, scanning the turmoil and gloom for an opening to attack. His trained experience and swift reflexes-even Bouncer's staunch strength-appeared sorrowfully over faced. The stygian tangle around them now blinded their keen feline eyesight. Its strangling opacity sucked the very sweetness of life from the world. The cats darted ahead by hearing and smell, forced to avoid obstacles by nothing more than the warning flick of a whisker tip.

How deep did this draining disturbance extend? Fear could not grapple the concept. Scamper sprinted, lungs burning. Dodging past coil upon inky coil, he found no safe chance for engagement. Bouncer wheezed, labored, his heavy coat never bred for exertion in summer heat.

We could die here, Scamper realized, cringing with shame. Should he fail to grapple the blight, it would drag a friend down along with him. The moment was lost, to turn back in escape. The dark-doing's tumultuous chaos had swallowed them, blinding all sense of direction.

Hesitation would become no less fatal. Scamper bunched his hindquarters and pounced, snagging the nearest tendril. Teeth closed and claws ripped, to no avail. His grip met no resistance, no taut wrack of spiteful entanglement. He yowled, off-balanced and bashed topsy-turvy as the ruinous maelstrom closed over him. A growl, nearby, bespoke Bouncer's attack. But greater bulk lent no advantage. The dark-doing writhed, its explosive ferocity unfazed by their combined a.s.sault.

Scamper snapped and bit. He lashed with his claws, seeking for the pattern inside the mora.s.s: the hard tie of malice that locked two human beings into mutual hatred. Yet his raking search exposed nothing. No knot existed, to break in release. This mangle of animate thought-stream did not harbor so much as a vicious kink.

Something else was horribly wrong. Claws and teeth sliced only an inchoate emptiness that seared feline instincts with dread. This dark-doing was like no other before. No trained skill, and no trick Scamper knew could unravel the horrible force of it Now desperate, the cats grappled elusive, black lightning. Neither could see how the other one fared. Exhausted and tumbling, Scamper thrashed as a tendril noosed over his chest. It tightened, driving the breath from his body and throttling him dizzy.

Last sensation, he felt Bouncer's teeth on his nape, then a tug, before sliding headlong into darkness.

Scamper woke to the sc.r.a.pe of another cat's tongue rasping across his shut eyelids. He blinked, stirred in protest, shook his aching head. As his bleary vision recovered, he focused on a familiar face.

That worried, green eye, mangled ear, and marmalade nose marked with scars bespoke alley origins and roughneck experience.

"Chief?" Scamper coughed and tried to arise.

The older cat's paw knocked him prostrate. "You bit off more than one copper could chew!" Chief's reprimand granted no grace for excuses. "Good thing that Bouncer dragged you to safety!"

Scamper sucked a deep breath. His ribs hurt. His throat stung. He reeked of singed fur and, more faintly, of the sardines the Chief had been munching before being called to the scene. Collapsed in the gutter between two parked cars, Scamper turned his concern back toward the infested alley. "Has the crisis been tamed?"

"No." The chief perked his good ear, his single eye burning cold emerald. "No copper of mine ventures into a dark-doing alone, far less undertakes the flea-brained idea of involving a noncombatant!"

Still on the sidelines, Bouncer lashed his tail, angered by the dismissal. The tip reeked of garbage, sc.r.a.ped up from the street, which further rumpled his dignity. "No runt-sized shorthair tells me not to fight! Certainly not while that gristly horror invades the strip and threatens my turf!"

Which was the boulder informing the pebble: the Chief winced, mollified, as Scamper bit back that his courageous friend was owed thanks for the rescue. Too upset to dwell on his embarra.s.sing mistake, he added, "What was that thing? I bit the thought-shadow down to the core. Nothing was inside! No strand of hatred between human folks had tangled a knot to be severed."

"There won't be one." The Chief sighed, all at once sounding tired. "The dark-doing that's blighting that alley has nothing to do with two humans linked by active animosity. What idiot idea took you in without back-up?"

"A rat's taunt!" Scamper snapped, which was no less than the irreverent truth.

The s.h.i.+fty critter had lied through its teeth, most likely to lure a copper cat into jeopardy. Now maddened beyond the sting of his sc.r.a.pe, Scamper glared in dead earnest. "What created that shadow? How can it exist? What form of nothing on the green earth could fuel such voracious unpleasantness?"

"You encountered the horror of human despair," the Chief explained, looking fraught. "People who lose all hope can give up their belief that life matters. All by themselves, they can think empty thoughts and punch such a hole in the world."

"Hole in the world?" Scamper blinked, appalled. "Grief like that puts my tail in a pinch, something worse than a roomful of rockers!"

The Chief lowered his bony shoulders into a sorrowful crouch. "People aren't like animals, Scamp. Not as cats, knowing since birth to enjoy every day we are given."

"Dumber than dormice, some human folks," Bouncer observed in agreement. "They'll stare at a squawk box for hours on end. Or yap into phones, before visiting. I've listened. They'll squabble over conflicting ideas! Puts a snarking kink in your whiskers, overhearing their petty gripes."

Scamper furrowed his brow, stunned to disbelief. The tiniest kitten understood how to live! The seasons cued the innate urge to grow, then to hunt, to mature, and to breed. When the time came to play or just bask in the sun, cats knew to indulge in delight.

"Human children don't have our instincts," the Chief lamented, quietly patient. "They think, sure enough! It's their meddling nature. But their prodigious gift of reason gets muddled if they forget to pursue their own joy. When trouble arises, they neglect to give credence to how they feel, from moment to moment. Immersed in the logic of looking for why, quite often they lose their own way." The Chief shook his head. "Worse for them, if they do as they think they ought and stop hearing the dreams inside themselves. The pity is, most of them have no clue, no concept at all, of how powerful those dreams truly are."

"They abandon their fun? How do we fight that?" Never had Scamper felt more hampered by the misfortune of his runt size. With no active tangle of discord to cut, surely a giant was needed. What good could a cat do if a human's own reason squelched pleasure and left them to wallow in misery?

The chief licked a paw, scrubbed at his ripped ear, nerves salved by the comfort of was.h.i.+ng. "To lift this blight will take extreme courage, not to mention a copper of uncommon wit and agility."

Dawn was breaking, gray, above the sodium gleam of the lamps that soon would be extinguished. In that mixed light, Chiefs flame coat shone dull brown. His eye showed a bleak glint as he added, "We haven't much time. Are you up to the fight?"

"I got my behind kicked. That's nothing near dead," Scamper shot back, insulted. He sprang to his feet, quivering with readiness.

Bouncer also rammed erect, bristling. "You're going back?"

The battle-scarred Chief stood up and brushed past. Lean but dauntless, he skittered across the cracked sidewalk. "We must do just that. And fast! If this case of human despair ends by suicide, a blight will be left in the world. Unless we act first, even cat-magic can't mend the extent of the damage."

"Then I'm coming along," Bouncer declared.

The Chiefs screeching argument fell on deaf ears. No better than Scamper, he could not repress the Maine c.o.o.n's obstinate loyalty.

"At your peril, then," the Chief warned, and stalked past the flickering street lamp. His brusque tone continued, plunged into the gloom. "My detectives are fis.h.i.+ng for clues as they can. Let's hope they've found what direction the battle must take."