Cat's Claw

by Amber Benson

  There should’ve been a whole other floor of offices directly above us, not empty sky. This meant that the clear blue sky we were looking at through the glass was either some kind of high-tech 3-D hologram, or it was just a really quality piece of magic.

  My vote was for magic.

  Either way, it was a marvel to behold, the transparent glass allowing a curtain of soft, pale light to trickle down into the hall, melding with the smoky incense from the torches to create a hazy atmosphere that made the Hall feel like a veritable bastion of mystery.

  As the hallway stretched beyond us with no apparent end in sight, I had the impression that our movements were being watched. I wasn’t sure who the culprit was, but I got a funny feeling every time we passed an empty room—like there might really be knights in that armor, ready to slit your throat if you even thought about thinking about touching something.

  I caught Jarvis’s eye, shifted my gaze to one of the suits of armor we passed, and opened my eyes wide, in query. Jarvis instantly caught my meaning and nodded. Okay, so I wasn’t crazy. There was something creepy-crawly about the dormant knights we kept seeing. Suddenly, something clicked inside of my brain and I remembered what Clio had said about how tight the security was in the Hall of Death.

  Those suits of armor weren’t just ornamental decorations like the carpets or tapestries. No, they were the security she had been referring to.

  Big, scary creatures in medieval, hammered metal zoot suits were totally gulp-worthy!

  As I stared at a heavy steel broadsword resting against one of the knights’ hips, I decided that I was definitely going to keep my hands and feet to myself. I so did not want to go head-to-head with something that could cut me up into tiny, little slivers of human flesh with only a couple of chop-chops. Even immortality was a tough sell when your body was in a million pieces that just wouldn’t stick back together, no matter how much superglue you used.

  “Almost there,” Suri promised with a big smile that revealed two rows of tiny corn kernel-like teeth.

  She had turned around to make sure Jarvis and I were right behind her, but something unexpected must’ve caught her eye, because suddenly Jarvis and I were barreling into the back of her stationary form.

  “What the—” I started to say, but before I could get the words out of my mouth, Suri was pushing past me, her eyes blazing. I moved to follow her, but Jarvis grabbed my hand.

  “Stay right there, Mistress Calliope,” he murmured, his voice barely a whisper. I looked over at my friend, but he merely shook his head and indicated for me to watch Suri.

  Together, we stood in the middle of the hall, staring as our guide picked up speed, her body moving with a kind of graceful power I had only seen in animals—specifically giant cats. And I had definitely seen enough National Geographic shows to know what damage lions and tigers could do when they were pissed off.

  We watched as Suri barreled down the long hallway, her legs seeming to grow longer as she ran. Without warning, she veered off course, her body like a missile bound for one of the numerous small reading rooms I’d glimpsed through the curved archways. As she disappeared inside, I yanked Jarvis back to me by the arm, dragging him closer so that I could get a better look at what was going on. He dug in his heels, but I was bigger—I had a good few inches (and not so good pounds) on the little faun—so he had to follow me.

  “I wanna see,” I said, moving us even closer.

  “This is most irresponsible—” Jarvis began, but was cut off abruptly when we were shoved out of the way by two armored knights, broadswords drawn.

  I slammed into one of the walls, but I kept my grip on Jarvis, so he didn’t fall and get trampled by the marauders.

  From my new vantage point by the wall, I was still close enough that I could just peer inside the little reading room. At first, all I saw were the knights’ receding backs, but once they’d joined the fray, I had a pretty good view of what was going down.

  Suri, like some fantabulous Jet Li character come to life, was trying unsuccessfully to subdue the Shade we had seen back in the antechamber. I immediately saw why she was having such a hard time battling the evil thing. It was noncorporeal, so no matter how many times she attacked it, she just slid right through it to the other side.

  One of the armored knights tried to approach the Shade, but Suri held up her hand to stop him. She pointed to the now-defunct knights that had originally been in the room. Both of them were on the ground beside the reading table, their bodies nothing but twisted hunks of scrap metal now. I couldn’t figure out how the Shade could have completed that kind of handiwork without a body, but I didn’t doubt for a second that it had had some hand in the deed.

  Out of the corner of my eye, I caught sight of something long and furry—a tail, I decided—shooting out of the room and down the hall. I tried to follow its progress, but my eyes were quickly drawn back to the reading room by the sound of a loud crash.

  Two more knights had bitten the dust, and now Suri didn’t just look frustrated—she looked pissed. The Shade, on the other hand, didn’t seem at all perturbed by the situation. Instead, it kind of gave off the vibe that this was exactly how it had intended things to go down.

  Suddenly, the Shade turned its head, its attention now on me. I took an involuntary step back, my brain reeling as something cold and probing slid inside it. I gasped, reaching out for Jarvis’s shoulder to steady myself. The world around me disappeared, my vision clouded by flashes of gold and ebony and scarlet. I shut my eyes, but this had no impact on the strange flashes. In fact, it only seemed to make them worse.

  Panicking, I opened my eyes again, hoping that reality had decided to return, but now Jarvis and the Hall of Death were completely gone, replaced by the blurry image of a red folder. And the harder I looked at the folder, the less cohesive it became, more like an afterimage, actually, or the phantom picture you see behind your eyelids when you’ve closed your eyes after a long bout of staring.

  It’s not what you see, but what you don’t.

  The words entered my brain, unbidden.

  I blinked, and without any further adieu, the red folder was gone and I was back in the Hall of Death, furiously clutching Jarvis’s shoulder, my fingers like talons.

  “Hey, Jarvi?” I whispered in the faun’s ear. “Why does this feel like a setup?”

  Jarvis looked at me, askance.

  “What do you mean?”

  I shook my head. “I just have a feeling that this isn’t the main attraction.”

  Jarvis narrowed his eyes.

  “You had a vision.”

  It wasn’t a question.

  I shrugged my shoulders uncertainly.

  “Maybe. I don’t know,” I said as the sound of metal crashing into limestone pervaded the air around us.

  “All right, where shall we find this ‘main attraction,’ as you so succinctly put it?” Jarvis said abruptly.

  I shrugged again. “I don’t know. It was just a feeling I had. How am I supposed to know what the hell it means?”

  Jarvis pursed his lips, not liking it at all when I got whiny on him.

  “What does your gut say?” he said slowly, letting the words hang in the air.

  I shrugged.

  “I don’t know.”

  Jarvis let out a long breath, trying not to lose his patience.

  “Think, Miss Calliope.”

  “Okay, okay. I’m thinking,” I murmured, hoping to get him off my case by at least trying to do what he wanted of me.

  Okay, I thought to myself, what does my gut say?

  I’d never really paid all that much attention to my gut before—unless you counted feeding it when it was hungry, but I was pretty sure that that wasn’t what Jarvis had meant. I inhaled deeply, focusing on the feeling I’d had about the Shade, but after a few moments of careful contemplation, nothing was forthcoming.

  “It’s not working!” I hissed sharply, annoyed by the situation and wishing fervently that I’d just kept my mouth sh
ut about the whole “feeling” thing in the first place.

  Jarvis sighed and took my hands. At his touch, I was flooded by a sense of calm so intense that I nearly started snoring—I was that relaxed.

  “What are you doing?” I asked drowsily, barely able to keep my eyes open.

  “Close your eyes, Mistress Calliope.”

  He didn’t have to ask me twice. I closed my drooping eyelids, the world going black around me.

  “Now,” Jarvis continued. “What do you see?”

  Free from the onslaught of thoughts that usually assailed my brain when I tried to go to sleep, I let my mind wander in the darkness behind my eyelids. Without any heavy lifting on my part, I found myself descending through the darkness until it suddenly gave way to a torrent of pure light so bright and inviting that I let it engulf me.

  When consciousness returned again, I discovered that I wasn’t in my head anymore—and that was when I realized I wasn’t in my body, either!

  I’d left my body only, like, twice before, and I’d ended up right back inside someone else’s body two seconds later, so neither experience had been totally terrifying—especially the first time, when I discovered that the fellow I was inhabiting was a total hottie with a physique so tight it’d made my head spin.

  But this time was different; this time I hadn’t been immediately stuffed back into another person’s body like the meat inside a soul tamale. Instead, I was a floater, completely unfettered from my (or any other) physical form, free to go wherever the heck I wanted without anything or anyone to stop me.

  Enjoying my newfound freedom, I looked around and saw that I was back in the Hall of Death. Part of me wanted to go into the room where Suri and the armored knights were still battling the Shade, but something, some kind of inner voice, drew me away.

  Not here, the voice whispered to me.

  I let it guide me across the Hall to where my body stood immobile; its hands clasped with Jarvis’s, its eyes shut in utter concentration.

  It was weird to see myself from an “outside my body” perspective. I had always thought that my slim frame was too boyish—part of the reason I tried to dress it in as much feminine-looking stuff as possible—but from this side of the looking glass, I realized that maybe I was being too critical of myself. I’d put on a few pounds recently and my butt and boobs were looking markedly rounder than they’d been before. Also, my face was a little fuller, giving my features a less angular look. All in all, I thought I was looking pretty saucy, if I did say so myself.

  Maybe, I decided, I wasn’t such a bad catch, after all. Lose the dog drool ensemble and I was heading into pretty damn near presentable territory.

  Before I could linger too long gawping at myself, the inner voice that had led me away from Suri and the Shade began urging me to continue on.

  This way, the voice said. Hurry.

  Leaving my body and Jarvis behind me, I floated down the main hallway, my eyes scanning each archway and adjoining room as I passed it, waiting for the little voice to tell me what to do next. For a long time there was only radio silence, then as I neared the end of the hallway, the little voice kicked into high gear.

  Turn here. Now, it nearly shrieked.

  I did what it said, even though as far as I could tell, there was no doorway to turn into, only a large tapestry hanging on the wall, portraying a unicorn with a small golden cat sitting serenely at its feet, and to their right was a gallant knight, his head inclined forward in an elegant bow.

  This way!

  The voice goaded me forward and I dubiously complied, but instead of hitting solid limestone like I’d expected, I was surprised to find myself inside a small alcove hidden behind the tapestry.

  Up there, the voice said.

  I looked up and saw metal rungs embedded into the limestone wall, leading upward into darkness. I headed in the voice’s direction, not even pausing to think about what might lie in wait above me.

  Hurry! the voice intoned. Hurry!

  I floated up, past the metal rung ladder, noticing that each separate rung was engraved with a different symbol. I was able to decipher only a couple of them, but those were the easy ones: a unicorn and a serpent. The others were more intricate and abstract, similar to some of the patterns I’d seen in the carpets on the floor of the main hall. I wondered again if the symbols were actually words and decided I would have to ask Jarvis about it the next time we weren’t in the middle of a crisis situation.

  As I reached the top of the ladder, the voice heralded my arrival.

  You’re here! Hurry!

  I had no idea where “here” was, but it definitely wasn’t anyplace I’d ever been before. First of all, it was very dark, with only one tiny overhead light that shone faintly down from right above, barely illuminating the two-foot area where I was hovering. The murky lighting made it hard to see what was around me, but I could sense I was in some kind of corridor. One that was so narrow it could hold only one human-sized body at a time. I couldn’t see how long the corridor stretched in either direction because of the lack of light, but directly in front of me I found row upon of row of neatly filed peach folders.

  Just as I started to peer down at one of the folders to read its label, the row began to shift and I realized that the files were mechanized so that you could call up exactly what folder you needed without having to sort through the whole row by hand.

  The system kind of reminded me of a horizontal version of the setup they had down at my local dry cleaners: totally efficient, but kind of annoying if you went past the item that you wanted. I had seen Mrs. Wu, the owner, flipping back and forth in frustration through the hanging rows of freshly plastic-ed clothing on more than one occasion.

  The row in front of me kept moving, so I floated to my right, hoping that if I changed my proximity to the stack of folders, it would stop flipping. Instantly, the light that had been above me extinguished—and another light directly above my new position flipped on. I looked down to find that I was standing in front of a whole new set of file folders, only these guys were blue, not peach. I wanted to look down and read the label on one of these blue folders since it was still stationary, but I was afraid that if I floated any closer, it would start shifting like the other row had.

  Suddenly, I heard a low pop. I followed the sound with my nonexistent eyes, expecting to see only darkness, but instead one of the weird overhead lights flipped on about fifty feet down the corridor. As I realized what had made the light turn on, my breath caught in my nonexistent throat and I, without meaning to, found myself racing at hyperspeed down the corridor. I wanted to call out, but since I had no mouth, I could do nothing but hover and watch as the handsome, dark-haired man with the ice blue eyes pulled a red file out of the stack in front of him and extracted a thin brown piece of paper from inside it.

  Daniel, my mind screamed, but it was no use. All I could do was watch as he replaced the empty file, looked around to make sure no one had spotted his larceny—Me! I saw it! I wanted to yell out—and then folded the piece of paper, slipping it inside his coat pocket.

  The whole thing took less than a minute, and then the light flipped off again and he was gone. I could only imagine he knew some other secret access point and that was how he’d made his daring entrance and escape, but I was too upset by the encounter to follow him or ask him what exactly he thought he was doing gallivanting around Purgatory when he was supposed to be dead!

  The only thing I could bring myself to do was look down at the file folder he’d replaced. I knew it was the right one because he’d replaced it too quickly and hadn’t gotten it back into its spot properly, causing a corner to stick out where it should have lain flush with the other folders.

  The row of red folders remained silent as I looked down at the label, my heart lurching as I read what it said:

  DANIEL SMITH, THE FORMER DEVIL’S PROTÉGÉ

  I barely had two seconds to digest what the label said before I felt a sharp tug on my soul and I found myself
being dragged, unwillingly, back into my body.

  thirteen

  I gasped for air; my lungs felt like two deflated balloons flopping around painfully inside my chest. It didn’t seem like I’d been gone for very long, but by the frightened look on Jarvis’s face—and the lack of oxygen I’d experienced upon my return—I wasn’t so sure. Either way, I didn’t think there’d be any permanent brain damage, but it definitely made me not want to have a repeat performance anytime soon.

  “Are you all right?” Jarvis said, worry tightening his face, making him look drawn and tired. Even his mustache seemed the worse for wear.

  I nodded, still trying to catch my breath and readjust to having a corporeal form again. We were interrupted by the crash of metal striking solid wall, the sound splitting the air around us. We turned in unison, observing the pained throes of an armored guard as it slid down the limestone wall behind Jarvis and crumpled into a heap at his feet. Two seconds later Suri’s airborne body followed suit, landing with such force that it caromed down the middle of the Oriental-carpeted hall like a skipping stone. The young woman didn’t stay down for long, though. Like a supple marionette, she was instantly back on her feet again, her whole body snapping itself into place as if her limbs were being mysteriously maneuvered by a series of invisible, but interconnected, strings.

  Eyes wild, Suri let out a piercing war cry that made the hairs on the backs of my arms rise, then she leapt back into the fray. I followed her progress, noting that there were now eight armored knights involved in the battle, each of them wielding some kind of massive sword or battle-ax. They handled their weapons with such ease that they might well have been made out of Styrofoam instead of steel.

  The Shade now stood on top of a long table, surrounded by the hulking knights, but being outnumbered nine to one didn’t faze it. I heard another war whoop and watched as Suri did a front handspring, landing only a few feet away from the edge of the tabletop, balled fists straining at her waist the only indication of her extreme agitation.

  Suddenly, I felt the heat of the Shade’s stare on me again and I looked up, my belly churning as its eyes locked onto mine. I felt a tug at my brain and then I was fighting against my own soul as it tried to disconnect from my body and go floating away again.