Claws (9780545469678)

by Grinti, Mike; Grinti, Rachel

  “Emma, this isn’t up for debate,” her mom said. “It’s all right to be friends with crags. With some crags. But you have to be careful. They’re not like us. Even if they look almost human, they’re just . . . they’re different. Dangerous.”

  “I thought different makes you special,” Emma said sarcastically. “Remember? When that kid was making fun of me in first grade, you were all,” she mimicked her mom’s voice, “ ‘You’re special, be proud of your heritage, it’s good to be different.’ What happened to that?”

  “I’m sorry you’re having a rough time,” her mom said. Her voice had dropped to a whisper. “But we’re doing this for your sister. It’s probably the only chance we have left.”

  “Yeah. I know,” Emma said. She wiped at her eyes.

  They drove the rest of the way in silence. Her mom stopped by the trailer just long enough to let Emma out, then drove away again. Emma trudged up the metal steps to the front door and threw it open. “Dad?” she called. But he wasn’t in the living room watching TV, or in the kitchen. She was just about to knock on her parents’ bedroom door when the door to her own room creaked open behind her.

  “He’s gone to the forest again,” said a familiar voice. “Trying to talk to more crags. Fool.”

  “Jack!” Emma ran to her bedroom and closed the door.

  Jack jumped onto the bed and faced her, his eye half closed in a sly, satisfied expression. She noticed he’d tracked leaves and dirt all over her blankets. He lifted his paw.

  Below it lay what looked like a small, soft marble, glowing with a dark red light that seemed to pulse.

  She peered at it. “Is that what you were talking about? The Blood thing? It looks like a hair ball.” She’d meant it to be a joke, but her voice didn’t rise above a whisper. The more she stared at it, the deeper the color became, drawing her in. She could see something in it now, dark swirls, like shadows dancing in the firelight.

  “Well, that’s rather insulting,” Jack said. “This is the Heart’s Blood of a pride of cats. It’s the source of their magic. Whoever has it becomes the leader of the pride. Its heart. That’s you. You’re going to be the Pride-Heart.”

  With some effort, Emma pulled her eyes away from the Heart’s Blood. “I don’t remember reading about anything like this on CragWiki. Cats can turn into things, right? Like bigger cats and stuff? Is that what I’ll be able to do?”

  “It does a lot more than that. Enough magic for you to get your sister back. Now pay attention. You’ll have to learn to rule over the rest of your pride. You’ll need them to help you track down your sister.”

  “But I don’t want to rule over anyone,” Emma said. “It doesn’t seem right.”

  “There’s more to it than that. Because a Pride-Heart is the source of a pride’s magic, they want to be ruled. And every cat wants magic. You still want to find your sister, don’t you?”

  “But couldn’t we try to find my sister together, just you and me?”

  “The pride’ll still show up sooner or later, expecting magic. Better to give it to them, right? Anyway, we still wouldn’t be as effective as lots of cats looking for your sister, would we?”

  “No. I guess not,” Emma said. “But if this thing’s so important, how’d you get it?”

  Jack spent a moment cleaning his face. “All you need to know is that the last Pride-Heart is dead. There’s a vacancy and . . . the Heart’s Blood doesn’t respond well to cats like me. Anyway, the Pride-Heart is nearly always a female. This way we both get what we need, so it’s all for the best, isn’t it?”

  “You killed the Pride-Heart?” Emma said quietly. She tried to picture Jack hurting something. It wasn’t a nice thought.

  “Maybe a little,” Jack said dismissively. “But that was before I even met you, so there’s no point in worrying about it now.”

  Emma swallowed and glanced at the Heart’s Blood again. As soon as she looked at it, her gaze seemed to sink into it again. Or was it that everything around it started to seem less real somehow? She didn’t have to wonder why it was called the Heart’s Blood. The red light, the way it pulsed steadily. Even the way Jack described it, with magic flowing from the Pride-Heart to the other cats . . . Blood, the life of the pride, pulsing through them from the Pride-Heart.

  But what if it was too late? What if Helena was already . . .

  “Is it dangerous?” she asked, trying to forget what she’d been thinking.

  Jack just looked at her. If he’d had eyebrows, they would have been raised.

  “Mom and Dad would kill me if they found out I was messing with magic like this,” Emma said. She was stalling, she knew, but she couldn’t help it. “And Mom already doesn’t like you.”

  “Trust me,” Jack said.

  Emma’s heart pounded. She hesitated for a moment, then reached down and picked up the Heart’s Blood. It felt soft and fuzzy, like a peach, and it smelled like a forest after it had rained: heavy and wild and full of darkness. She hadn’t even known darkness could have a smell until that moment. “What do I do with it?”

  “I’ve only seen a cat become Pride-Heart once. She lapped it up like it was water. You could try that. I don’t really think it matters how you do it, though. Tell it what you want, and it’ll know what to do.” His ears flicked up. “But you’d better make it quick. Your pride’s close. They’ll be here any moment now. They’re drawn to the Heart’s Blood.”

  Emma focused on the small marble. It seemed to purr in her hand and the shadow-shapes within it had started to look like cats. They were searching for something. Searching for her.

  “You won’t get another chance,” Jack hissed, and there was hunger in his voice now. “What’s that word you humans are always throwing around like it means something? Love? Don’t you love your sister? Don’t you want to save her? Do it!”

  “She’s my sister. Of course I love her,” Emma said softly. Then, almost without knowing what she was doing, she brought the Heart’s Blood up to her mouth. She tasted the deep, wild darkness on the tip of her tongue. She smelled it as it filled her nose. Heard it like the hiss of a great cat. Time seemed to slow.

  Then the feeling was gone. Emma looked down at her hands. The Heart’s Blood was gone, too.

  Everything sped up again. Her head spun, and an electric tingling filled her nose and mouth.

  “I think I lost it,” Emma said. She stared at her empty hands.

  But the electric smell was growing stronger. No, it was a different smell. The dirty clothes she’d dumped in a laundry bag seemed to reek. Jack stank, too — of dirt and musk and . . . copper? Why did he smell like copper? She smelled the dish-washing liquid in the kitchen, the Chinese takeout in the trash, the mold on the ceiling . . .

  “Well?” Jack asked. “Do you feel it? Do you have the Heart’s Blood inside you?”

  Emma realized she was on the floor. She felt dizzy, sick. Her heart was pounding. “I . . . I don’t know. It’s like smelling is more important than seeing. But I’m okay now. I think . . .”

  There was a strange pulling sensation in her gut that made the room spin, and suddenly she smelled cats outside. There were so many of them the smell nearly choked her. Then came a deafening smash. The trailer shook violently back and forth. Papers and schoolbooks slid across her desk and crashed to the floor. Something shattered in the kitchen.

  Emma felt more than heard the growl outside the trailer, felt it deep in her chest and the pit of her stomach.

  “Jack! Who did you give the Heart’s Blood to?” rumbled a voice. “What did you do with her? Come out here, murderer, or we’ll rip this trailer open to find you!”

  Emma grabbed hold of her bed and pulled herself up onto her feet, then leaned forward to peer out the window. Her heart nearly stopped when she set eyes on the mountain lion pacing outside the trailer, sleek and golden and full of murderous energy. Other huge cats came slinking out the forest and into her yard. Leopards, cheetahs, lynxes, jaguars, panthers, and, right at the back, a small tiger
with an oversized head, sticking-out fur, and big, bright eyes. Only one of the cats was small like Jack, a round-bellied gray with long, tufted ears and a thick patch of fur on his chin like a beard. He sat gazing at her calmly, but she knew, somehow, that the weight of his magic was heavier than any of the others’. There were maybe sixteen cats in all. They sat, or paced, or lay down, but all of them, except the tiger, watched the trailer with a hungry intensity, their tails swishing gently over the grass.

  “They can’t hurt you if you’re the Pride-Heart,” Jack hissed. But even so, his back was arched, and his tail had puffed out to twice its normal size.

  The mountain lion snarled, and Emma stumbled back from the window. Her knees felt weak and she grabbed at her dresser to keep herself upright. What had she gotten herself into? And here she’d been worrying about her mom killing her. She’d be lucky to live so long!

  Then there came a horrible screeching noise. The lion was right outside the window. It held up a massive paw full of wickedly sharp claws and ran them down the side of the trailer. A strip of aluminum peeled away with another screech. The lion was literally going to tear the trailer open to get at them, and there was nothing Emma could do to stop it.

  “I thought you said they needed a Pride-Heart to give them magic!” she shouted at Jack.

  “If they have any magic, it’s coming from you, from the Heart’s Blood inside you. It’s leaking out without you realizing it. Can you feel anything?” Emma nodded dumbly, remembering the pulling sensation in her gut before she smelled the cats. “That means it’s working!” There was excitement in his voice, tinged with something else. Emma was too scared to wonder what it was. “Now get out there and do something. It’s no good if the trailer crashes down on us before they even find out what you are!”

  Emma swallowed hard, then stumbled out of her room. The movement and all the smells around her made her head swim. She was terrified, but for some reason she couldn’t explain she didn’t want to run away. Everything felt unreal. She felt light as air and strong as a rock. She wanted to laugh. She wanted to scream.

  Instead, she raced through the kitchen, nearly tripping over Jack as he darted between her legs. Glass crunched under her shoes. Emma threw open the front door and jumped over the steps onto the concrete walkway. As she ran, she saw Mr. Simbi’s tail disappear into his trailer, heard the door slam shut. She could hear birds high above, the soft swish of wind through the trees. She could smell the grass, the forest, the cats. Their scent seemed familiar to her, somehow comforting, like an old memory at the back of her mind, just out of reach.

  But the way they looked at her wasn’t comforting in the least. They seemed to be sizing her up, as if she were some kind of rodent, at best a brief, bloody amusement. She opened her mouth to speak just as the mountain lion pounced. For a moment she watched it in mid-leap. It looked majestic. Then it slammed into her, sending her flying face-first into the grass.

  Emma rolled over and tried to force air back into her lungs, but two heavy paws planted themselves on her chest. The big cat’s breath was hot on her face, and all Emma could look at were long, pointed teeth. Needle-sharp. Sharper than teeth had any right to be.

  I’m going to die, was all she could think, surprised and certain at the same time.

  “Where is it? Where’s the Heart’s Blood? Why do we have magic if there’s no Pride-Heart?” the mountain lion growled.

  “There has to be a Pride-Heart somewhere,” the strange-eared gray cat said from somewhere nearby. “Since we suddenly have magic again after weeks without it.”

  “But it’s not very strong,” a leopard said. “I can’t even hold my shape!”

  “You could never hold a shape for very long anyway,” the gray cat said, dismissively.

  Then Emma heard Jack’s voice from the metal stairs. “You have your Pride-Heart under your feet, Cricket. You might want to let her up before you accidentally become a Heart-Killer like me and lose all your magic forever.”

  The mountain lion yowled, then in one swift motion pounced on Jack. But something was happening. The lion seemed to ripple, like a reflection in a pool of water, and then shrink. The other cats were shrinking, too, changing from the large, wild cats to the small variety. In the half second it took the lion to reach Jack, it had turned into a wiry ginger female, with only the slightest tinge of lion yellow left in her fur.

  There was a horrible screeching as the two cats fought and scratched and bit.

  “Stop it!” Emma shouted, pushing herself up off the grass.

  To her surprise, the lion called Cricket did stop, her gaze whipping around to stare at Emma. Jack took the opportunity to bite the ginger cat’s ear, nearly tearing it off. Cricket spat and leaped away, then turned to stare at Emma again. “What is this?” she hissed.

  The other cats all stared, too, still and silent except for the small tabby that had been a tiger. He was looking around, confused.

  “Leave Jack alone,” Emma said. She spoke slowly, hoping her voice wasn’t shaking too much. “I . . . I’m your new Pride-Heart, and that means . . . Jack said you have to listen to me.”

  “See? What did I tell you?” Jack laughed. “She was right under your nose the whole time. I gave her the Heart’s Blood so she could find her sister. Aren’t you glad I saved you from being a Heart-Killer like me, Cricket?”

  “The Heart’s Blood was supposed to be mine,” Cricket spat angrily. “And a human can’t be a Pride-Heart. Give it back.”

  “I don’t know if she can,” said the gray cat. Emma glanced at him nervously. He walked over to her and sniffed. “Interesting. Very interesting.”

  “She’s a human, Fat Leon. She can’t be a Pride-Heart,” Cricket insisted. “We can kill her and the Heart-Killer Jack, and put an end to all of this.”

  None of the cats moved.

  “Oh, it’s not so bad being a Heart-Killer,” Jack said. There was a bloody gash on his side. He licked it slowly. “You all depend too much on your precious magic anyway. You’ve forgotten what you can do with just your teeth and claws.”

  “A cat’s not a true cat without magic,” Cricket spat. “Creatures like you don’t deserve to live.” She looked back at Emma. “I don’t know what game you think you’re playing at, human, but you will never be our Pride-Heart. The Heart’s Blood is mine. It’s not even working properly. Bits of magic here and there. Pathetic. The sooner your pet Heart-Killer murders you, the better.”

  Then she turned and leaped over the fence, disappearing into the forest.

  “This is . . . unexpected,” the fat gray cat said to Emma, “but you’re just a kitten, aren’t you? You need to grow up a bit, learn how to use your magic. Maybe then we’ll be back.” He sniffed again, and his tail flicked from side to side once. Then he squeezed through the fence and walked away, casually, like there wasn’t any hurry. Or like he was deep in thought. The other cats glanced at each other uncertainly, then followed him.

  Only Jack remained, and the small tabby with the crazy fur and the large head. “I’ve never met a human Pride-Heart before,” he said in a surprisingly loud voice, bouncing up to her, then away again nervously. “I don’t mind. I bet you’ll be more fun than the last Pride-Heart. She hardly gave me any magic at all!”

  Jack hissed and swiped at the air, and the tabby bounded after the others into the forest.

  Emma sat on the grass. She was shaking all over. For a few moments she didn’t say anything. “Are you okay?” she asked after a while, looking over at Jack.

  He stopped licking his wounds for a moment. “I’ll be fine. I’ve had sparrows put up more of a fight. They tasted better, too.”

  “I thought you said they’d listen to me,” Emma said.

  “I said they will listen to you. And that’s true, they will. You might have to tear them up a little first, that’s all. Nothing to worry about.”

  “Right,” Emma muttered. “Cats don’t worry about anything. Well, it would be nice if you would worry a little more about
telling me when I’m going to be attacked by giant cats. I’ll need to clean up all that glass in the kitchen.” She hesitated, looking at the shredded back of the trailer. “I suppose I’ll have to tell my mom and dad, sooner or later. I can’t keep it a secret if they’re in danger.”

  But she had no idea how she was actually going to use cat magic and a pride to find Helena. She didn’t know where to start.

  Jack went back to licking his wounds. “Let me know when you’re done cleaning,” he said.

  Emma pursed her lips. “Oh, yeah? What’re you going to be doing?”

  “Sleeping,” Jack said. “And once I’m done sleeping, I’m going to teach you cat magic.”

  CRAG FACT OF THE DAY:

  “Crags are usually blamed for the appearance of magic forests, but even crags don’t know why the forests suddenly spring up the way they do. Of course, some of them might know, and just aren’t telling.”

  CragWiki.org

  “Why do you have to teach me in the forest?” Emma asked.

  They stood in Emma’s backyard. She craned her neck, trying to see past the trees. Even in the middle of the day the forest was dim, the trees and bushes pressed close together. She couldn’t see more than a few feet ahead of her. Anything could be hiding out there. There didn’t seem to be any paths, either, no way of knowing which way to go. It wasn’t like the park her family visited when they went camping, which was tended by rangers and had signs everywhere to guide you. “Can’t you just teach me here? Or inside the trailer?”

  “I could. But I won’t. It wouldn’t be right.” Jack paced impatiently. “The forest is a place of magic, which might make this easier. The trailer park has crags in it, but it was still made by humans. Anyway, you’re a Pride-Heart, you shouldn’t be afraid of anything. Do you want to learn cat magic or not?”

  Somehow Emma didn’t think that Jack would care that she’d promised her parents she wouldn’t go into the forest. I shouldn’t care, either. I’m a Pride-Heart now. I bet Cricket wasn’t ever afraid of going into the forest. She took a deep breath and forced herself forward, following Jack. He crawled under the fence. She climbed over it and hesitated a moment in front of the first tree, reaching out and running her fingers over the bark. It felt like a normal tree, nothing magical about it. She pushed aside the branches and stepped past it.