Claws (9780545469678)

by Grinti, Mike; Grinti, Rachel

  “Other harpies are boring,” the harpy said. “They don’t even watch TV or anything. They’re all like, ‘Chloe, why are you doing that?’ and ‘What’s a gnomebot? What’s a bot? I once saw a gnome and he didn’t have metal arms.’ Super. Annoying.”

  “Wait,” Emma said. “You watch Gnomebots?”

  “When I can.” Chloe shrugged. “The reception on the cathedral roof’s pretty good, but I have to watch it on this tiny portable TV. And I can’t see well up close so I have to watch it with these stupid goggles on. It’s easier to watch it from a distance through people’s windows and listen with the portable, but sometimes they don’t have it on or they close the blinds.”

  “I always watch it,” Emma said. “I could keep the blinds up if you promise not to annoy my cats. Or my mom.”

  Chloe grinned, her face lighting up. “Deal! I don’t turn you in; you keep the blinds open when you’re watching Gnomebots.”

  Emma couldn’t help smiling. “I thought the deal was that I didn’t tell about what you wrote all over the wall?” She glanced back at it. The wall read Hclou trec Trols nave fung before cutting off mid-letter. “What’s it supposed to say anyway?”

  “What? What do you mean? I thought most humans could read.” The harpy put her goggles back on and looked at the wall, too. She swore loudly. Emma flinched and covered her ears. Her cats yowled again.

  Chloe hopped along the fence, beating her wings, her talons slicing through some of the links. “All that for nothing! You know how hard it was to get this worthless spray paint?” She stopped and glared at the wall over her shoulder, her head turning almost completely around, like an owl’s. “It was supposed to say ‘Hollow Tree trolls have fungus on their heads.’ ”

  “Oh. Do trolls not like having fungus on their heads?” Emma asked. “I thought they always had things growing on them.”

  “Don’t you know anything about trolls?” the harpy said.

  “Only what I read on CragWiki,” Emma said.

  “Trust me, don’t ever tell a regular troll he has fungus on him. Not unless you can fly away. And don’t tell a wild troll anything, because they’re not nearly as friendly and sane as regular trolls.”

  “Thanks,” Emma said. “I’ll remember that.”

  “Enough talking,” Jack said. “We have ratters to find.”

  “We’re going.” Emma waved to the harpy. “Maybe I’ll see you when Gnomebots is on?”

  “Don’t let the ratters gnaw you to death or anything, cat-girl.” Chloe glanced at the wall again, then shrugged and raised her wings. She jumped off the fence, and her wings flapped until she rose into the air and flew off.

  Emma looked over at her cats. “Ready?”

  “You talk too much,” Fat Leon said. “Let’s go.”

  * * *

  Emma tried the nearest door, but it was locked. She looked back at the row of windows Chloe had pointed out. She’d just have to break one.

  She pressed her face against the farthest window. It had been a classroom once. A cracked chalkboard covered one wall, and a few rusted chairs and desks were strewn around the room. Mold dotted the edges of the window frame.

  “You’re stalling again,” Jack said behind her.

  Before she could talk herself out of it, Emma picked up a large rock and hurled it through the window. The glass shattered with a crash, splinters tinkling as they fell to the floor inside. Emma brushed away the broken shards on the windowsill, then pulled herself up, reached through, and unlocked the window. She crawled into the classroom, then held the window open for her cats. They leaped in after her.

  “We’re in. This way,” Jack said, leading them down the hall.

  Emma glanced through other doors as they passed. Most of the classrooms weren’t in nearly as bad a shape as the one they’d climbed in through, but only half of them seemed to get any regular use.

  There were posters on the walls, but not like the ones at Emma’s school. These posters were all about crags. One was a drawing of a troll — completely bare, all clay and stone and gemstones — wearing a fireman’s helmet and carrying a child from a burning building. “We All Have A Place!” the caption declared. Emma couldn’t remember ever hearing about trolls working as firemen. Another poster showed ratters proudly wearing business suits: “It’s Great To Be Normal!” The artist had left out their massive teeth so they didn’t look as scary as the pictures on CragWiki.

  They came to a stairwell. Thick, gnarled trees had taken root in several places. Emma picked her way carefully down into the school’s basement, and found herself in a large room piled high with old desks and chairs and rotting sports gear. Past the piles of junk were pipes and boilers and electrical boxes overflowing with worn-looking cables that had been patched several times over. Wires ran into the walls and along the ceiling.

  “Here we are,” Jack said. He padded over to the pile of sports junk. “Just on the other side here. You’ll have to do a little digging.”

  Somehow, Emma had imagined that finding Helena would involve less digging through moldy basketballs and more magic. So far the only thing magic had gotten her was being kicked out of school. She flexed her hand again, extending and retracting her claws. It felt natural now. In fact, the thought of not having claws felt unreal. Like thinking about what it would be like to lose an arm.

  She tossed aside bats and balls until she reached a large hole in the wall that led away into the darkness. Thick bundles of black power cables ran from the basement into the tunnel. The ratters must be stealing electricity from the school.

  “I’d feel better about going in here if we could use our magic for real,” Fat Leon said quietly.

  “I’m sorry,” said Emma. “I’m trying.”

  “You might succeed sooner than you think,” Jack purred.

  The tunnel was made of dirt, and was so cramped that Emma had to crawl as she followed Jack. It angled down slightly and turned often. Even with her beginners’ night vision she felt nearly blind, but it was only that there was nothing to see except roots. They were everywhere around her, some growing into the tunnel itself. The air smelled like sewage, and Emma heard a trickle of water over stone, though the ground was mostly dry with just a few puddles of what looked like brackish rainwater.

  The cramped tunnel opened up into a large sewer system. Emma stood and brushed off her jeans.

  “Do the ratters live in the sewers?” she asked, trying to breathe through her sleeve. It didn’t really help. “Doesn’t the smell bother them?”

  “The old sewers just happen to run underneath most of the forest,” Jack said. “We’re probably near Old Downtown.”

  But the smell of sewage and ratter was still overpowering. Helena better appreciate this, Emma thought.

  “But see those cables?” Jack said. “That’s how the ratters feed their machines to get their precious information. They hardly have any magic at all, so they try to make themselves feel better by mastering these little human toys.”

  Emma looked up. Metal hooks had been driven into the wall to hold the power cables up off the floor. There were many more cables than there had been at the entrance to the tunnel.

  “I think this spot’s good enough,” Jack said, stopping suddenly. He glanced back at Emma, then leaped into the air, scrabbled up the wall, and slashed at the cables. They sagged down to the ground.

  Emma gasped. “Jack, what are you doing?”

  “That’s going to make them very angry,” Fat Leon said evenly. He gave Jack a sidelong look.

  “That’s the point.” Jack sat down. He looked as if he were waiting. “They’ll send at least ten ratters. They scout in groups, you know. But you’ll have a better chance fighting them here than in their nest.”

  Emma felt her stomach drop. “Fight ten ratters? But I just wanted to talk to them.”

  “Then you’d better make sure to keep one of them alive to talk to,” Jack said. “You’ll have to use your magic now.”

  A horrible realization
was creeping up on Emma. She could feel it even though she didn’t want to. “You meant to do this the whole time. You lied to me.”

  “I didn’t lie. I thought we were looking for your sister,” the Toe-Chewer said miserably. He gnawed on his front paw. “And I’ll try to help you fight the ratters! But I don’t know if I’ll be much good without magic.”

  “You wouldn’t be much good with magic, either,” Fat Leon said dismissively. “Although I hardly think we should be surprised that a Heart-Killer kept us all in the dark.”

  “Lying is something humans care about,” Jack said to Emma. “But the ratters wouldn’t have talked to you anyway. They don’t like cats much. We’re still going to find out about your sister, but we might just have to claw the information out of them. I’ll be right here to help you.” He crouched low to the ground, muscles tense. “I know you can do it. You just need the right motivation. A Pride-Heart isn’t afraid of a measly pack of ratters.”

  Emma turned as a skittering sound echoed through the tunnels. Her heart began to beat faster. It was the sound of many clawed feet scraping over cement, and it was growing louder.

  CRAG FACT OF THE DAY:

  “Ratters have been popular as spies for hundreds of years due to their excellent hearing and ability to tunnel. Even so, they find the term ‘rat someone out’ very offensive.”

  CragWiki.org

  How long did she have before they came at her? Her heart was really racing now, and her claws on both hands were extended, though she couldn’t remember bringing them out. At least the Heart’s Blood was still a part of her. At least she had her claws, even if she didn’t know how to use cat magic.

  “I’m not going to fight them,” Emma said. “I don’t want to hurt anyone. I just want to talk to them so I can find my sister.” But that was a lie. Something inside her did want to fight, just as she’d wanted to hurt Matt, and that scared her almost as much as the ratters. She’d never felt like that before.

  “What if you turned them into little mice?” the Toe-Chewer suggested. “That doesn’t hurt. At least, I don’t think it does. Then you wouldn’t have to chase them if you didn’t want to.”

  “Changing others against their will is hard,” Fat Leon pointed out. “Much harder than changing yourself, or changing someone that wants to be changed.”

  “Then we could change instead!” The Toe-Chewer bounced excitedly. “We could be the mice, then they’d run right by us.”

  “She can’t do it,” Fat Leon spat. “It’s no use thinking about getting magic from her. She’s never going to be a real Pride-Heart. We need to get out of here right now.”

  “Too late,” said Jack.

  The ratters spewed out of a side tunnel a few yards ahead. They ran on all fours, a mass of fur and teeth and small black eyes. It was impossible to tell how many there were.

  Emma turned and ran. The Toe-Chewer and Fat Leon were right beside her.

  Jack came after them. “Act like a Pride-Heart or die like a human!”he yelled, his voice echoing in the tunnel. “You can beat them.”

  The ratters were almost on top of her. Emma’s foot landed in a puddle and slipped out from under her. She crashed to the floor.

  The ratters at the front of the pack stopped right behind her, but the others kept running: up and over the backs of those that stopped, jumping over Emma and the cats, and cutting off their escape.

  They were surrounded.

  Everything was suddenly very still.

  Now Emma could see there were at least twenty ratters, maybe more. A few stood on their hind legs, their long pink tails held up above their heads. Their noses twitched as they sniffed the air and stared at Emma. A bright blue LED blinked in the darkness: One of the ratters had a small wireless headset taped to his ear.

  “It’s sabotage,” said the ratter with the headset. “Cats. One of them’s changed itself into a human girl, but that’s all. What should we do with them?” He spoke quickly, each word a mix of chirp and bark. It might have been kind of funny if she wasn’t so scared.

  “I’m not a cat,” Emma said, trying to keep her voice steady. “Just because I’m a Pride-Heart doesn’t mean I’m not still human.” I hope.

  The ratter with the headset narrowed his beady eyes at Emma, then at her cats. “If you’re not a cat, you could still be a thief. And if you came here to steal secrets, you won’t be leaving with any of them. Our secrets are our own and no one else’s.” His tail waved back and forth behind his back, like a snake ready to strike.

  Emma could feel the tension in the cats. They were ready to jump at any moment, she knew. Fat Leon’s tail was puffed out to twice its normal size and the Toe-Chewer hissed at the ratters, a small, pathetic sound. No one moved.

  The ratters weren’t sure what to make of her, Emma realized. Her claws were out, ready to strike. She could attack now, surprise them. No. She retracted her claws and held up her hands. “I just want to talk,” she said, hoping she didn’t sound as small and pathetic as the Toe-Chewer had. “I’m looking for someone, and I thought you could help me. I wasn’t going to steal anything.”

  “Thieves always say such things when we find them creeping and slinking, and cats only open their mouths to bite and lie,” said the ratter with the headset.

  The cats were done talking.

  Fat Leon sprang forward and clawed at the leader’s face. Jack leaped at another ratter, hissing and yowling as he scratched and bit. And the Toe-Chewer darted back and forth, swiping at the ratters’ feet.

  But there were too many of them. Emma saw the ratters swarm over the cats, then one of them gripped her arms with its clawed fists, and she felt something hot wrap around her neck. A ratter tail. Her skin burned. Not just where the tail touched her, but all over. It was like being stung by a thousand wasps.

  This was all wrong. Her cats should be hunting down the ratters, not being swatted away like flies. And how dare they attack a Pride-Heart? Emma felt her tears turn to anger, and a surge of something — perhaps confidence or power — flowing through her body. She felt the Heart’s Blood inside her. The magic is here, it said. Use it.

  She had to do something. But all she seemed able to do was scream.

  She screamed as the ratters tugged on her arms.

  She screamed as her cats tugged at the magic inside her.

  She screamed as a ratter bit down on one of her legs . . .

  And then her scream turned into a high-pitched squeaking that went on and on and on . . .

  The tail around Emma’s neck flicked away, releasing her. The rat-hands gripping her arms let her go. She fell to the floor of the tunnel where she curled into a ball. Shaking, she ran a hand over her mouth. It felt . . . fuzzy. She felt her arms, her face, her legs. Then she opened her eyes and looked at her hands.

  She had clawed ratter hands covered with dark brown fur.

  The ratters stared down at her.

  The Toe-Chewer was still hissing as he hung from a ratter’s claws by the scruff of his neck. Fat Leon and Jack had been backed into a corner.

  “Turning yourself into a ratter wasn’t quite what I had in mind,” Jack said. He sounded amused. “But I was right. Look at the progress you’ve made.”

  “Clever cat trick,” whispered the lead ratter. But he seemed uncertain.

  “We’ve never seen a cat turn into one of us before,” one of the other ratters said. “It even smells right. And look at its tail!”

  Emma found herself turning until she faced completely backward and was peering down at her own furry butt. There was the tail, long and pink, stretched out behind her.

  “Cat and human and now ratter. The ratterking will want her secrets,” she heard a ratter say. “Let’s take her to him.” Clawed hands were grabbing her again, gripping her hands and feet and lifting her up above their heads to carry her. She tried to scratch them, but her arms and legs weren’t the same length anymore, her claws not as sharp. She didn’t know how to move in this body. I should have bitten them, she thou
ght, feeling massive front teeth with the tip of her tongue.

  “Why will the ratterking want me?” she tried to say. “What are you going to do with my cats?” But she didn’t know how to talk with her new mouth, and the words came out mumbled and squeaky.

  She didn’t want to be a ratter. She didn’t want to be in the sewers under the forest. What if she never got out of this place? What if she just disappeared like Helena?

  The ratters moved quickly. Emma couldn’t follow all of the twists and turns they made as they scampered through the sewer tunnels. We must be right under Old Downtown now, she thought as they passed through a disused underground parking lot. Eventually they came to a wide basement of gray stone. There, the cables from the tunnel running along the ceiling and snaking every which way over the floor, fed into what looked like a hundred computers. A mass of ratters crouched over the keyboards, their black eyes bright from the glow of flatscreen monitors and flashing LEDs. They glanced at her, pointing and whispering among themselves.

  The ratter with the headset stepped forward. “Do all the members of the ratterking agree?”

  “Of course. They want to find out what she knows. She is of interest,” barked a new voice. “Be quick, before she gets her senses back!”

  Emma turned to catch sight of this new ratter, but as she moved an odd smell caught her attention. It was more than the smell of ratter. It was a mysterious, secret kind of scent, and it was everywhere — on the computers, on the ratters, on the walls, in the cables.

  “Hurry! She smells our secrets,” came the second voice again, urgent and hungry. “Quickly, do it now!”

  Emma felt ratter hands on her tail, rough and unpleasant, twisting it painfully. A shudder ran up her spine. She struggled, but she was held by a ratter on each side and she couldn’t get free. It felt as if they were tying her tail in knots.

  “What are you doing? Get off me!” she yelled. Her words were clearer now, though her voice still wasn’t her own. “Where are my cats? I’ll claw your faces off!”