He left the street and ducked into the nearest alley. The moment he did, rough hands grabbed him.
Stish let out a war cry that would have had every tomcat in Rossburgh on the run, and started lashing out with every claw. His captor swore.
“Come on, man, help me!” he said. Two of the teenagers moved in from the shadows. Stish kicked and scratched at them, still yowling fiercely. He got a good swipe down the face of the one who had picked him up. He let go to clap a hand to his cheek, but the other two got a hold of his legs and tried to hang on. Stish twisted. He raked a claw across the first one’s wrist, and rabbit kicked the other in the neck. He knew he had drawn blood.
“Ow! Goddammit!”
“Dios mio! This little puta!”
One of the men, a swarthy man with sleek black hair, laughed. In no hurry, he swept off his black leather jacket and swept it down over Stish. The cat fought valiantly to free himself, but the man wrapped him up like a burrito. Stish started growling.
“Listen to him,” the man said. “I like one with spirit.”
I’ll give him spirit, Stish thought.
* * *
He kept the warbles and snarls up all the way to their destination. After being carried for blocks on foot, Stish was dumped out of the confines of the jacket into an upended carrier cage that was snapped shut behind him. These people were prepared, Stish thought despairingly, and they knew how to handle cats. Was he going to be used for bait for fighting dogs?
The cage was turned right side down. Stish started throwing himself against the door. Sometimes one could get those plastic cages unlatched by main strength. He meant to try.
“This is so you can see him while we make the other preparations,” the swarthy man said. “Now, hurry up. The moon is full at midnight.”
Stish heard the last word with dismay. He supposed it wasn’t any use thinking the guy was a member of the nature priests, not with the furnishings he was hauling out of a shiny leather suitcase.
They had taken over the break room of one of the local stores, white-painted cinderblock walls and brown-topped formica tables surrounded by brown plastic chairs. The chairs were folded up, all but one of them, in which the first man sat while he instructed the five boys in hanging up a goat’s skull, a poster with a pair of gleaming, slitted red eyes on it, and a red cloth banner with an upside down pentacle painted on it in blood. More goat, Stish decided, after a sniff through the bars of his prison. The suitcase also contained a brass bowl, a dozen brass candlesticks, and several ugly looking daggers, all of which were placed on one of the formica tables.
Another table was placed in the center of the room facing the goat skull.
“No!” a girl’s voice screamed. Stish’s ears perked up. It was Maryetta.
The back door banged open, and the other two men came in, hauling the teenager by her wrists. The boys all stared.
“What are you doing with her?” Justin squeaked, his voice forgetting it had dropped months ago.
The first man leered. “Ya gotta have an altar. It’s gotta be a virgin. You’re a virgin, aren’t you, cutie?”
“Good,” said the first man. “Prepare her.”
“What?” the boys asked.
“Forget it.” He nodded sharply to the other two men. They dragged her across the open table on her back. One of them held her arm flat to the table with one hand while the first man pulled long black strips of cloth out of the capacious suitcase. He tied Maryetta’s wrists and ankles down until she was spreadeagled on the tabletop. “And, since it don’t do honor to the devil not to show him what we brought him…” He whipped a knife out of his pocket and slit her clothes up the front.” He pulled the tatters off her body, and left her naked. The boys gawked at her thin little body, the small round breasts, torn between interest and shame.
“Let me go!” Maryetta screamed. “This is wrong, it’s wrong! Jesus wouldn’t…” The man shook his head, and stuffed the remains of her bra in her mouth.
“You can decide what to do with the virgin later on,” he said, lowering his eyelids suggestively, but even Justin looked sick at the thought. Stish realized there was little chance that either he or the girl would leave that room alive. He had to do something fancy to save Maryetta and himself.
“Aw, come on, Luis,” one of the boys said.
The man smacked him in the face with the back of his hand. “You call me Master, you get it, Reynaldo? The rest of you, too. Now, pay attention.”
The men arranged candlesticks at the corners of the room, on the table underneath the goat’s skull, and in between Maryetta’s legs and arms. They put black candles into each one, and set a bucket-sized cauldron on the floor. It stank of cat blood. Stish growled under his breath. Then they shrugged into black robes. The Master handed the boys each a robe.
“Put ‘em on.” When they protested he showed them his knife. “Put ‘em on! You want to be part of Satan’s Chosen, you have to swear before him, and he don’t take no disciples who don’t show him honor. Got that?”
So this was an elaborate gang induction, one with enough trappings and fearsome rituals that the boys would be reluctant to back away from it. Stish sniffed the air. He knew where he was, within a few buildings. The scent of slightly burned beef stew was on the air. He couldn’t be far from the Salvation Army mission. Colonel Kozlowski and his people would be scouring the area for those who needed their help that night. Could he attract their attention? He had to wait for the right moment, or risk becoming a hasty sacrifice.
The boys donned their robes over their blue jeans and rock T-shirts, shooting looks at one another to see if any of them were willing to admit they looked ridiculous. They were too scared. Maryetta was struggling against her bonds, but she was too afraid to make much of a fuss. Her eyes met Justin’s, and he looked away. Stish hoped that meant there was a flicker of decency left in the boy.
A noise came from outside, the sound of someone walking. Stish set up a screech that sounded like a cross between a crying baby and a tortured soul. One of the men flattened himself against the inside wall next to the door and looked out, a gun suddenly appearing in his hand. The Master came and shook Stish’s cage until he stopped yowling.
“Shut up, you,” he snarled, shoving his face down into the grille. Stish took a swipe at him. He ducked back, easily avoiding the pawful of needles. “You’ll be out of there soon, I swear.”
The second man near the door peered out, then nodded to the leader. The Master turned back to the boys. “Form a circle around the altar. Now!”
The boys shuffled into place. A couple of them were starting to get interested in the proceedings. When the third man lit a big black candle and handed it to the first boy in line he looked avidly around for others to light from it. As soon as all of the tapers were blazing, they shut off the lights. With the flickering flames making the goat skull look like it was moving and the writhing girl on the altar table, the room had been rendered suitably spooky. The three men began to chant nonsense words that sounded impressive in the dark room.
“Homina ominum bedinium polianum Satanus meliantum…”
Stish heard some more noises behind the building. He had little to lose now. He let out a caterwaul that went up and down the scales.
“Goddamit, make him shut up!” the Master commanded.
“We have the sacrifice now,” the second man suggested.
“That’s not the way of Satan’s Chosen,” the Master barked. “You boys, first you repeat after me. ‘I solemnly swear, by my immortal soul, that I will serve Satan with all my body, heart and soul…’”
Eyes glinting in the firelight, the boys followed the litany, which began to detail horrible punishments, both in this world and the next, if they ever betrayed Satan, the Master of the Chosen, his assistants or any member of the group, to anyone as long as they lived on Earth. Bright tears dripping down Ma
ryetta’s face caught the light, but none of the boys were paying attention to her, now. She had gone limp with hopelessness.
“ … By my immortal soul I swear, which will be forfeit if I defy any of my promises to Satan himself!” The Master concluded the oath with his arms in the air, holding a dagger between his hands. The boys repeated his words, staring at the gleaming knife with interest. “Bring the sacrifice. It has to be a pure black animal,” he explained. “No other color is considered fit. You remember that, and no end to the rewards you’ll get!”
The second robed man came for the cage. Stish had been bunched at the end of the container, his muscles tensed, for just that moment. The moment the door was opened, Stish bounded out, using the man’s shoulder for leverage, and hurtled into the room.
“Catch him!” the man shouted. Stish led them all on a chase around the room. He hoped he could make one of them set his robe on fire, but no such luck. With a leap, he landed featherlight on Maryetta’s bare belly and settled into a compact bundle just under her ribcage. It was heaving with fear. He let out a huge purr to try and reassure her, and turned the green lamps of his eyes at the Master, who was coming at him with the knife.
“So, he lands right where he ought to be,” the Master said. “Dumb cat don’t know his own fate.”
He reached for Stish’s scruff.
Stish evaded him. The noises outside were getting more distinct, and he definitely heard car tires crunching very quietly.over the broken concrete and glass in the alley. As the Master was about to order his acolytes to hold the cat still, Stish rose to his feet and dipped his head and forelegs into an elaborate bow.
The man backpedaled a little.
“He’s bewitched,” one of the boys murmured. The Master was quick to take him up on it.
“That’s right. The power of Satan has taken the soul of the black cat. He’s a good sacrifice! His blood will bring you much power!”
But Stish wasn’t finished. He leaped lightly off Maryetta and onto the floor. He approachd the ram’s skull. Stopping before it, he sketched another deep bow, lowering his head and forelegs all the way to the floor.
The Master couldn’t help but gape. Stish knew he had never seen anything like it. His previous sacrifices had never had a chance to help themselves, and the human must be beginning to wonder if he had stumbled onto something really supernatural. The fact that he had not grabbed the cat again and cut his throat meant he was too afraid to mess with forces beyond his comprehension. He had no choice but to let Stish do whatever he wanted.
Stish moved on to the candle in the corner anticlockwise from the skull, and made another obeisance to it. Clockwise was for doing good magic; the opposite was for unmaking. Stish firmly intended that if there was any power beyond him he was going to unmake the influence of these evil men.
“Hurry up, let’s cut him. I want a drink,” the third man complained.
“Shut up,” the Master commanded, his eyes pinned to Stish’s slender back. “Watch him.”
Stish went from corner to corner, bowing. When he got back to the skull, the men made to catch him again. He eluded their grabs, checking with an ear to make sure the outside noises were getting closer. He slipped past the Master to bow to the skull again, then he rose to his hind feet and started to dance.
He had seen enough human dancing to know that ballet came as close as anything to the way cats moved, but that would be too subtle for these characters. He stood on his toes and hopped in a circle, stretching his body to its full length with his forelegs high over his head. Stish danced over to the Master and hopped all the way around him, then glared at him with slitted eyes, as if chiding him for not joining in. The man was just as superstitious as he had surmised. When he began another counterclockwise circuit around the altar, the Master followed him with his arms in the air, hopping in a circle.
“You, too!” he ordered the others. The boys obeyed. The other two men looked skeptical, but even they were impressed by a possessed cat.
Every time they passed the skull, Stish let out a throaty howl. The Master and boys echoed it full-bellied, the men less enthusiastically, until the room was full of howls and shrieks. It was so noisy, in fact, that none of them heard it when the first officer broke the catch of the door and barreled into the room with the spotlight on his machine gun leveled on the robed leaader.
“Hands in the air!” he bellowed. “Oh. They already are.”
* * *
Chief Garcia kept one arm around his daughter’s shoulders as he gave orders to the combined squad and SWAT team as they cleared up the storeroom and bagged all of the evidence. Maryetta was wrapped up in paramedic greens and a mylar blanket.
“I’m not gonna pretend this will keep the gangs out forever,” he explained to the smartly dressed female reporter, who stood at his side with a tape recorder under his nose. “But we stopped the Satan’s Chosen gang from getting a foothold tonight. These boys are going to have to spend some time in a program, but I hope we can keep them from getting involved in another gang. Don’t forget about all those candles,” he ordered. “And someone catch that cat. He’s gonna have to go to Animal Control. There’s something wrong with him.”
Stish, who had been sitting placidly on one of the tables, arched his back in annoyance. Was that all the thanks he got for the performance of the decade? He helped stop the gang, singlepawedly!
“No, Papa!” Maryetta protested, pulling his arm. “That’s Shadow! He saved my life! You can’t send him away.”
“Well, we call him Scout,” Colonel Kozlowski said. “He comes by our mission every day. We rely on him, Chief.. There’s nothing wrong with him. He’s the smartest cat I ever saw. I know his meows anywhere. If it wasn’t for him setting up a racket, I would never have heard them in this building. It’s closed after four. That’s when I called you, and you set up this operation. He’s the reason you caught those criminals.” The reporter turned her attention to him.
Stish preened. Now, that was the kind of recognition he was talking about!
“Well, we can’t let a stray cat go on running around this town without a license,” Garcia said, firmly. “We’re trying to make this a good community, you know.”
“I’ll adopt him, if that’s all it takes, sir,” Kozlowski offered.
“I will, no problem,” another officer said. “I think that’s Puffkin. He comes to visit my grandmother in the nursing home every afternoon.”
“It sounds like he’s a guardian angel to this whole community,” the reporter said, with a little smile. “That’ll make good headlines, chief. Can I get a photograph of you and the cat that saved your daughter’s life?” She signed to the cameraman, who moved in with his apparatus on his shoulder.
Stish knew a good photo op when he saw one. He sauntered up to the police chief and rubbed his cheek and his arched back against the man’s uniform leg. The chief looked down at him and shivered a little bit. Stish could see he was afraid. He rolled on his back and stretched out his paws invitingly, showing his belly and neck.
“Oh, come on, Papa,” Maryetta said, grinning. “You’re not superstitious or anything, are you?”
At last, the chief bent down and petted Stish’s long side. “No, I am not. Once in a while it’s a good thing when a black cat crosses your path.”
Superstition purred.
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Cats Triumphant Page 17
