Cat's Claw

by Amber Benson

  Double shit.

  Clio shook her head. “Sorry. That’s all I know. Not in the loop.” She shrugged.

  Great. Clio was as in the dark about this whole thing as I was, which meant I couldn’t pick her brain for more succulent little details before having to go and interface with the Jarv-meister.

  “Well, you leave me no choice. I guess I’d better go and see Jarvis, then,” I mumbled, not really wanting to but knowing that I had to.

  “Hey, don’t tell anyone that I was the one that told you,” Clio said suddenly as I stood up, my butt sore from my hard metal perch. “I wasn’t supposed to know about it.”

  “Will do, Captain,” I replied, giving Runt a pat on the head before heading for the door. “And thanks for the heads-up.”

  I was almost out the door before I remembered the real reason I’d come to Newport in the first place.

  “Uhm, could you do me a huge favor?” I asked, feeling uncharacteristically annoyed with myself for needing her help. It wasn’t like I was a complete mental reject, or anything. I mean, it was totally within the realm of possibility that I could discover Daniel’s whereabouts without having to use Clio’s phenomenal brain as some kind of human cheat sheet.

  Sometimes I wished I were a little less lazy. Maybe life would be more hospitable to me if I actually applied myself to living it properly.

  “Callie, your wish is my command.” Clio grinned, turning back around from her keyboard and giving me a sisterly wink.

  I swallowed hard, not looking forward to the bevy of questions my “favor” was going to invoke.

  “Can you tell me how I might get a look at someone’s Death Record?” I sort of mumbled, trying to sound as nonchalant as I possibly could.

  Clio stared at me, a slow grin spreading across her face.

  “And by someone, don’t you really mean you want to take a peek at your buddy Daniel’s Death Record?” she shot back at me.

  I could see the look of utter curiosity in her eyes and decided that the best defense was a good offense.

  “Look, I would love to sit here and chat about boys with you—oh, and by the way, who’s the lucky fella?” Clio turned bright red at my words, verifying without any question that she was a smitten lady.

  “I don’t—” she started to protest, but I raised my hand for silence.

  “Like I said . . . I would love to stay and hear all the gory details about your new man,” I continued, not letting her get a word in edgewise, “but, you know, I gotta go deal with being summoned and all, so just let me know when you’ve got that info I needed.”

  I turned and shut the door behind me as fast as I could, leaving a red-faced Clio unable to say another word. Yes, I thought happily, score one for Calliope Reaper-Jones!

  Little did I know then how badly I was gonna get creamed in overtime.

  five

  The house that I grew up in is huge. Seriously, it’s so big that it even has its own name: Sea Verge.

  When I was a little kid, I used to worry about losing my friends and never finding them again when we were playing hide-and-seek inside it. The fear was derived strictly from the fact that my house wasn’t just a house like everyone else’s . . . No, my house was basically its own ecosystem. And since seven- and eight-year-olds aren’t the most astute creatures in the world, with fourteen bedrooms and nine bathrooms alone in the place, you can well imagine why I would be a little freaked-out.

  Just lose one Sally or Mary to the mysterious confines of Sea Verge and no other parent would ever let their kid go and play at your house again.

  As I got older, I spent more summers than not exploring the inner workings of Sea Verge, so that it ceased to be a place that was alien to me. I think my therapist would say I was just confronting my fears, but I’m pretty sure there was no psychology involved in my efforts. In the end, I was just so damn curious about the place that I wanted to know everything I could about it.

  Maybe it did offer some kind of control over my out-of-control life, just knowing the intricacies of the place I grew up in, but after a few summers of intense exploration, I got to the point where I knew every secret doorway, every hidden passage, and every dead end in the place.

  My least favorite part of Sea Verge turned out to be the kitchen.

  It just wasn’t as exciting to me as the rest of the house because it had been completely remodeled when my parents first bought the place. My mother loved to cook, so she’d had the kitchen tricked out with every gizmo and gadget known to modern man, as well as filled the space with so much marble that it reminded me more of a mausoleum than a kitchen—all of which was cool from a culinary perspective, and it did mean that we had the first trash compactor in the neighborhood, but I guess I’ve just never been all that bowled over by flashy kitchen appliances.

  Of course, the kitchen was exactly where I found Jarvis. He was making himself a goat cheese (totally ironic, huh?) and sun-dried tomato pesto sandwich on focaccia bread with a side of ginger and jicama salad that my mother’s chef, Declan, whipped up when he wasn’t feeling particularly moody.

  Seriously, you could always tell what emotional state Declan was in by what you found waiting for you in the refrigerator. Fatty, home-style dishes connoted that one of his notorious black moods was on the horizon, while lighter, healthier fare meant he was in a sunnier state of mind.

  Go figure.

  Anyway, Jarvis seemed so pleased with his artisanal creation that he delicately sliced the sandwich into two equal halves and offered one of them to me. Since I hadn’t eaten anything but a gross-out, rubbery breakfast wrap at the train station, I didn’t comment on how ironic I found it that a faun was eating goat cheese. Instead, I turned my focus to inhaling my half of the delicious-smelling sandwich as quickly as possible.

  “That was scrumptious,” I said as Jarvis handed me a paper napkin and I tidied up the crumbs on my face as best I could. “Anything good to drink in the fridge?”

  I walked over to the Sub-Zero refrigerator-freezer combo that my mother had had special ordered in Nantucket white—to match the white, Shaker-style cabinets and the black-and-white veined marble countertops, of course—and opened the refrigerator side. I found a large pitcher of homemade strawberry lemonade waiting for me on one of the shelves and quickly moved it to the kitchen counter. Next, I took out a slim, translucent glass from one of cabinets and poured myself a taste of the good stuff.

  “You’re like a twelve-year-old boy,” Jarvis said as I greedily gulped down my glass of lemonade, burping loudly when I was finished.

  “Sorry,” I replied, covering my mouth. “God, I was hungry.”

  Jarvis, who was still eating his own sandwich, raised a delicate eyebrow in my direction.

  “You don’t look like you’re starving, Mistress Calli—” He quickly shut his mouth, pained at not being able to use the word “Mistress” in front of my name.

  During his foray as my Executive Assistant, I had forbidden him to call me Mistress anything. Jarvis desperately loved standing on ceremony—I think it made him feel like he was in control of whatever situation he happened to be in—but I refused to let him have his way, insisting he call me Callie, or at worst, Miss Calliope—which only made me sound like a second grade teacher or a Jane Austin heroine. Take your pick.

  “Miss Calliope, I was just going to say how well fed you’re looking these days,” Jarvis began again, giving me a smarmy smile. For a guy who rarely wore pants (why wear pants when you’ve got goat haunches instead of legs!) and was barely four-eleven on a good day, he was a pretty self-assured little devil. Pants or no pants, I guess he knew he could kick my ass any day of the week he wanted.

  I gave him a dirty look, not really meaning it—okay, I meant it a little bit, because everyone knows that there’s always a grain of truth to any snarky comment someone makes. And I had been indulging more than usual in the office kitchen’s assortment of baked goods, so there might well be some merit to what Jarvis was saying . . . but I really
, really hoped not. I so could not afford to gain any weight, or I’d have to go naked. And I meant that literally—I really didn’t have the money to buy anything new if I started splitting the seams on the clothes I already owned.

  Fat comments aside, engaging in a little verbal back-and-forth was old hat when it came to my relationship with Jarvis. I knew when he gave me attitude it was only because he liked me. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have deigned to talk to me at all, the conceited little bitch.

  “The same could be said for you, too, Jarvi,” I said, smiling back at him and showing as much teeth as possible. “I’m surprised Declan hasn’t mistaken you for a rump roast and put you in the oven.”

  “Touché,” he answered, nodding his approval.

  I just have to say now that no matter what I’ve said in the past about Jarvis, he’s a stand-up guy who risked his life to help me. If he hadn’t saved me from the clutches of a would-be baddie, God knows where my family or I would be right now—probably trapped in Purgatory with no means of escape, or worse.

  Jarvis had always been a loyal and efficient Executive Assistant to my dad, but to me, he wasn’t just an employee. To me, he was . . . my friend. A friend who loved to be annoying and give lectures, but a friend nonetheless.

  “So, tell me about this whole summoning thing,” I said nonchalantly as I poured myself another glass of strawberry lemonade.

  Jarvis sighed, pulled a pair of pince-nez from his immaculately tailored navy suit coat pocket—I was pretty sure it was an Armani number, but since I’m not a real menswear nut, I couldn’t be 100 percent certain—and placed them on his hawkish nose. For a faun, Jarvis wasn’t half-bad-looking, I decided. Except for the goat flank, shank, and hooves, he kind of reminded me of a less-laid-back Tom Selleck—especially when he was sporting his Magnum, P.I. mustache, which was for as long as I’d known him.

  “Well, I’m sure you read the notice,” Jarvis began, but I stopped him.

  “What notice?” I said.

  Jarvis sighed again.

  “The notice that was left at your apartment by yours truly,” he said with exasperation, indicating himself.

  “Was it in a red envelope?” I asked, starting to feel a little guilty.

  “Yes,” Jarvis replied warily. “It was in a red envelope. You didn’t throw it away, did you? Oh my Lord, you didn’t!”

  I always hated it when someone had a conversation with you and they didn’t let you contribute . . . especially when they passed Go, collected the two hundred measly bucks, and got to the truth of the matter without your help.

  I also hated the high-pitched—very British-y—tone Jarvis got when he was extremely upset. Total whine city. Seriously.

  “How the hell was I supposed to know it was so important?” I screeched, almost knocking my glass of lemonade over in my agitation. “It was just sitting there for, like, ever.”

  “Do you have no curiosity?!” Jarvis bellowed, the anxious click of his hooves on the wood floor like buckshot. His sharp, intelligent eyes raked mine and I felt so guilty I had to look away. Damn it, why didn’t he just leave me a note or something? I thought angrily.

  “You obviously didn’t see the note I left with it, then, did you?” Jarvis hissed.

  Oops.

  Jarvis stared at me, then shook his head, frustrated.

  “I give up,” he finished, picking up his plate and putting it in the overlarge side of the kitchen sink that was built for scrubbing pots and pans.

  “I repeat,” I said finally, “how was I supposed to know?”

  Jarvis, his back to me as he washed off his plate, said, “You were just supposed to know, or at the very least you were supposed to notice my note and read it.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said softly, feeling like a total heel.

  I had seen the stupid red envelope sitting on my kitchen counter, and, knowing full well that it contained something I did not want to deal with, I had just casually thrown it away after ignoring it for three days first. The note, too, I guessed, had been chucked in the trash as I remembered paying as little attention as possible to the envelope as I slid it into the garbage.

  “Really, I am.”

  Jarvis turned back around to face me, his mouth set.

  “I accept your apology and I know that this was not something you would do on purpose.”

  Shit! I thought guiltily but nodded my head like the penitent I was supposed to be. A mean thought niggled at the back of my mind, making me wonder if Jarvis knew I’d thrown the envelope out on purpose and was just digging in the knife. I decided not to push my luck—let him think I was too dumb to notice he was trying to manipulate me—and just accept my feelings of total and complete guilt as punishment enough for the day.

  “What did the summons say?” I asked tentatively, but Jarvis just shrugged.

  “I don’t know. I didn’t open it.”

  Damn it! The bastard was enjoying this, I thought angrily, noting the hint of a smile that was slowly transforming his face. He knew that I knew that he knew and he was enjoying it!

  “You did this on purpose!” I shrieked as I started pacing back and forth next to the polished marble island that dominated the room. “You were just waiting for this, weren’t you?”

  Jarvis started to giggle and I swear to God I almost decked him.

  “I had a feeling,” he moaned between breaths as the giggling became full-fledged laughter.

  “Oh, you jerk, you knew I would throw it away and you specifically didn’t read it on purpose,” I said, my face turning red with anger. “You. Suck.”

  This only made him laugh harder.

  “So, now what do I do?” I moaned, taking an angry sip of lemonade and nearly choking on it.

  “I guess,” Jarvis said, starting to calm down now, “you go down to Hell and see what the big, three-headed dog wants.”

  “And what if he wants Runt back?” I said angrily.

  This was something that I didn’t want to think about. Runt had become like a part of my family and I had no intention of giving her back now. She may have stayed at Sea Verge with Clio, but that was for purely selfless reasons. I mean, what kind of life would a hellhound pup have trapped in a tiny one-bedroom flat in New York City?

  A miserable one, that’s what.

  Jarvis merely nodded at my question. “I assumed that was the reason for your summoning.”

  Of course, Jarvis had no idea that I owed Cerberus a favor, one that he could collect on at any time, so the thought that I might be summoned for something other than Runt’s future wouldn’t have occurred to him.

  “What do I do?” I asked. “How can I get him to let us keep her?”

  Jarvis shrugged.

  “That’s between you and him . . . and Runt.”

  I looked up, startled.

  “You mean, Runt may actually have a say in this?”

  Jarvis shrugged again, then picked up the pitcher of lemonade and put it back in the refrigerator.

  “From what I understand about hellhounds, it’s the females that you have to worry about,” Jarvis said, beginning one of those lectures he so loved to give. “They are the dominant sex of the species—”

  “But Cerberus is huge. And he has three heads,” I interrupted.

  “Yes, the females may be the smaller of the two due to sexual dimorphism—and they may only have one head—but that doesn’t really matter much these days. The females are the ones in control. They choose a life partner to mate with, then after the young are weaned, they go and hunt while the males look after the children.”

  “Amazing,” I said, liking how the hellhounds did business more and more. “So, why is Cerberus the Guardian of the North Gate of Hell and not his wife?”

  Jarvis shrugged.

  “I assume that the females don’t want to be tied down, so the job of Guardian would be better suited to a male.”

  “Interesting,” I murmured, wondering how best to put Jarvis’s information to use while I was down in Hell.
>
  “How long do I have before I have to go down there?”

  Jarvis looked at his watch.

  “Forty-seven minutes. The summons expires after that, and you could end up in Purgatory for failure to comply with a direct order from a minion of Hell,” Jarvis added quickly.

  “Good thing I came to visit when I did,” I said, curious at the way fate seemed to work these things out.

  “Yes,” Jarvis said, eyeing me like I was some alien creature whose actions he could just not comprehend. “Good thing, as you say.”

  I spent the next forty-three minutes sitting in one of my favorite spots in all the grounds at Sea Verge. It wasn’t overlooking the water, or ensconced in the English rose garden. No, it was a simple little spot, just a small stone chair really, nestled between a pair of spindly pink tulip trees, but it had always felt special to me. Like it was my place.

  Next to the chair was a small stone statue of a little girl kneeling beside a tiny rabbit, her fingers tentatively reaching out to touch the quivering bunny’s flank. I had no idea who the girl was, but she always seemed very sad to me. The idea of forever reaching out to touch something that you could never reach . . . Well, it was just really depressing.

  I guess that was why I liked the spot so much. It reminded me of me a little bit. I was always reaching out to be human but remaining immortal for as long as my dad saw fit to keep me that way.

  I looked out past the water, the sound of its foaming bulk gently crashing against the rocks acting like a lullaby to my frayed nerves. Finally, I turned my attention back to Sea Verge itself.

  The hands of men may have built our house, but its origins were entirely the brainchild of a woman, the shipping heiress Sophia Miles-Stanton. The legend went that she had drawn up the architectural plans herself in a frenzy of creativity one night and just presented them to her architect the way the Goddess Athena had burst fully grown from her father Zeus’s forehead.