Cat's Claw

by Amber Benson

  “And now, for the pièce de résistance: the sunglass counter,” I crooned to myself.

  Some women get their kicks from shoes, others go googlyeyed at the mere mention of Pashmina, but for me the conspicuous consumption item I love above all others is sunglasses. Chanel, Dolce & Gabbana, Chloe, Prada . . . You name the designer and I already love the sunglasses they make.

  In my imagination, I stood at the sunglasses counter, my mouth watering at all the loveliness surrounding me. I smiled at the girl behind the counter and—unlike every other time I’ve been to Barneys—the girl smiled back.

  “I want to try them all,” I said matter-of-factly and the girl nodded.

  “As you wish.”

  And then she began to pull out tray after tray of the most delicious-looking delicacies of the sunglasses variety. As I reached for a huge pair of Fendi shades, I felt a tap on my shoulder—

  “Are you okay, Calliope Reaper-Jones?”

  I blinked, the sunglasses counter at Barneys faded away, and reality settled itself back on my shoulders.

  Senenmut squatted beside me on the floor, concern washing over his features.

  “Yeah,” I said . . . and then I started to cry.

  I don’t know why I turned into a big old crybaby like that. It wasn’t like I even knew I wanted to cry. It just happened. Senenmut wrapped his arms around me and pulled me into his lap.

  “Hush, now,” he whispered in my ear as he stroked my hair. I buried my face in his chest, then pulled away when I remembered how bloody I must be.

  “Do not worry about the blood, little one,” he said and I rested my face back in the crook of his arm.

  It felt so good to be held like that. It was like I was a child again in my father’s arms, being gently rocked to sleep. I hadn’t realized how much gentleness was contained inside Senenmut until that very minute. As he hushed and held me, my eyes roamed the room, each wall of hieroglyphics bleeding into the next as tears blurred my vision. For some reason my gaze lingered on the statue of the man and the girl. I couldn’t tear my eyes away from it—and the more I looked, the more I wondered.

  “Is that you?” I asked in a whisper.

  “Is what me?”

  He followed my gaze to where the statue sat in the corner. He didn’t answer me at first, just stared at the stone effigy.

  “I was the girl’s tutor . . . and her mother’s lover,” he said softly, his eyes shining.

  “You were more than that, weren’t you?” I asked, but it wasn’t really a question. I felt the truth circling me like a ghost.

  “You were her father, too.”

  Senenmut slowly nodded.

  “When Neferura died, it was like a giant hole opened up in my heart that could never be filled,” Senenmut said, his eyes locked on the statue. “But I understood then, as I do now, that such is life. We must be thankful for the time we have together and that is all.”

  It was awful, listening to him talk about the death of his child so bluntly, the grief still raw in his words.

  “Hatshepsut did not understand this,” he continued, swallowing back his pain. “She was utterly destroyed by Neferura’s death. Her mind became filled with rage at the Gods and she swore that she would trick them out of her own death as revenge.”

  Senenmut’s words rang true in my brain and I began to better understand the series of events that had led the two of us to this place and time.

  “At first, she hated anything that reminded her of our daughter—and that included me,” Senenmut continued sadly. “But in time, she allowed me back into her heart. At least, I thought she had . . . until the day she condemned me to death.”

  “She’s not well,” I said, thinking about the frenzied creature that had nearly beaten my face into a pulp.

  “She lost her only child,” Senenmut said, as if that was answer enough.

  Damn it, he was right, even if I didn’t want to admit it. I might not have had any kids myself, but I could imagine what losing a child would be like—and the grief could definitely send you into a spiral of insanity if you let it.

  “I know why she condemned you to death,” I said quietly. “And you’re not going to like it.”

  Senenmut released me and I sat back, my spine against one of the brick walls for support.

  “Please tell me,” Senenmut said, his pain brimming on the surface of his face for all to see.

  I sighed, cleared my throat, swallowed hard . . . I did everything I could think of to forestall the inevitable, and then, when there was nothing left, I spoke:

  “It was because of you and me. Her guard, Mustafa, saw us together and I’m pretty sure he was the one who shot the arrow at us.”

  “That son of a—”

  “Wait—there’s more you should know,” I said, interrupting him. “Mustafa is not a man. He’s a Minx; a mischievous, shape-shifting creature with a really bad attitude—”

  Senenmut opened his mouth to protest, but I held up my hand for him to let me continue.

  “I know all of this because I’ve met Hatshepsut and her Minx before, in my time. She goes by the name ‘Madame Papillon’ now and she’s a noted aura specialist in the magical community. She came to my apartment recently, supposedly sent by my mother and father, to help me learn to control my magical abilities. But I think it was all a lie. I think she actually came to warn me off finding you.”

  “How could she even know that you would be looking for me?” Senenmut asked uncertainly.

  “That’s the part I haven’t figured out yet, but when you said that she wanted revenge on the Gods, that she would cheat them out of her own death, something clicked in my head.”

  Senenmut stared at me. I could tell that he was having a hard time reconciling his version of Hatshepsut with the one I was now painting for him.

  “It makes me think that someone’s set me up,” I said. “That Cerberus was told by someone else to ask me to find you—and for some seriously ulterior motives.”

  “But why—”

  Senenmut’s last words were interrupted by the sounds of voices at the entrance to the tomb.

  “We have to get out of here,” I said, bracing my back against the wall and pushing myself up on to my feet. Senenmut was instantly beside me, his right arm draped around me supportively.

  “This way,” he said, guiding me toward the statue.

  He reached out and pressed something on the top of the statue’s head then put his palm against the bricks. A section of the wall slid open and Senenmut carried me inside, the voices cresting just as the wall slid back into place.

  I tried to look around me, but the darkness was absolute. I felt Senenmut’s hand at my waist, steadying me. But for that slight bit of human contact reminding me of where I was, I could’ve been in outer space.

  “Look,” Senenmut said, his voice a hiss in my ear as he pressed my face forward and I found that I could see again.

  We were in some kind of secret chamber, spying on the entranceway we’d just left behind us through hidden peepholes in the wall. I remembered that Cerberus had said Senenmut was an architect and part of me wondered if he’d built this tomb for his daughter. It seemed like a pretty likely bet since he knew where all the secret chamber hideaways and stuff were hidden.

  “Did you design—” I started to say, but Senenmut shushed me.

  I didn’t try to ask any more questions. Instead, the two of us stood silently against the wall and waited for the drama to unfold.

  It was funny, but I was really starting to like the guy now that there were no more secrets between us. I was glad that Cerberus had sent me to help him. It was wrong that he had been trapped in the Jackal Brothers’ personal torture chamber for all those years, and I was pleased that I had helped to set things right for him again.

  The first person to enter the chamber was the past Senenmut, followed by two guards carrying long spears. One of them shoved him hard in the back with the butt end of his spear, causing Senenmut to trip and fall for
ward onto his knees. He didn’t cry out or whimper; he just picked himself back up and stood in the center of the room, defiant.

  I compared this version of Senenmut to the one that I knew and found them to be of the exact same character. The only difference between them was that this Senenmut looked less hardened by the ravages of suffering. Otherwise, they were practically the same person.

  A few moments passed and then Mustafa entered the room. He looked like one of God’s avenging angels with his right hand clutching a gleaming scimitar and his slick, midnight-hued body blending in with the shadowy darkness of the tomb.

  “Where is the girl?” he asked the other guards, but neither of them had an answer for him. He thought for a moment, then nodded.

  “She must have revived and escaped,” he said and the other guards agreed enthusiastically. “No matter. We have the man we want.”

  “The man you want?” the past Senenmut asked, truly perplexed by his predicament. His yellow cat eyes flicked from one guard to the next before finally landing on Mustafa.

  “Please tell me why I am here.”

  Hatshepsut’s head guard laughed. It was a horrible, cackling sound that started in his belly and overflowed into his throat and mouth like bile. I wanted to cover my ears, but I was too scared to move.

  “Because the Pharaoh Hatshepsut wishes it so,” Mustafa said after the laughter had subsided.

  I silently gasped, surprised that Senenmut had never mentioned that Hatshepsut was one of the great Pharaohs of Egypt. Now all the cross-dressing stuff made total sense.

  It also kind of made me pity her a little bit, too, because I, of all people, knew how hard it was to live a lie. The stress of constantly hiding the truth inside yourself wore away at your nerves, making you a miserable mess and highly susceptible to irrationally blowing up at the most insignificant of causes.

  “Please tell me what I have done,” Senenmut said defensively, but he was answered only by silence.

  “Bring in the priests,” Mustafa intoned, and one of his minions disappeared, only to return with two cowering priests dressed in the same white linen sheath that I had on. They were both older men with shaved heads and long faces—and neither of them looked happy about being there.

  “I am sorry, Senenmut,” one of the priests started to say, but the guard shoved him and he lapsed into silence.

  “I beg of you, please let me speak to Hatshepsut,” Senenmut said, and now I could see fear beginning to overtake him. I don’t think the poor guy had believed any of this was really happening until they’d brought in the priests.

  “Silence!” Mustafa said, raising his scimitar.

  I could feel Senenmut tense beside me. He knew exactly what was going to happen next. The flat of the blade struck Senenmut across the side of the head and he fell to his knees.

  “No,” my Senenmut cried, pushing forward with his hands, trying to open the secret door and save his past self.

  I reached out and grasped his wrist, then slipped my hand into his larger one.

  “You can’t stop it,” I whispered, my voice soft against his cheek. “Fate is fate and you can’t change it. No matter how much you want to. You’ll only make it worse.”

  Suddenly, the tension eased out of Senenmut’s body and he slumped against me, defeated.

  “Please,” the other Senenmut was saying, his eyes large and round as he begged for his life, but the guard only laughed.

  “So has the Pharaoh willed it, so it shall be.”

  He struck Senenmut once more across the side of the head and the past Senenmut fell forward, unconscious. Suddenly, one of the priests rushed up to Senenmut’s prone body, cradling it in his arms.

  “I know what you are!” he screamed at Mustafa. “And for this wickedness that you would perpetrate, I curse you and your Pharaoh. May Bast punish your wickedness and send you screaming into the mouth of Ammut, Eater of Souls, at your judgment day!”

  “You know nothing, stupid priest,” Mustafa said and sliced the priest’s throat wide open with his scimitar. There was a loud hissing sound, and then the ground began to rumble. The shadow of a large cat shot across the far wall of the tomb, causing Mustafa’s minions to shrink in fear.

  A low, melodious voice filled the chamber, and I squeezed Senenmut’s hand, my gut rumbling with nausea at the sight of the priest’s blood soaking into the carefully bricked floor.

  “You have been cursed in my name,” the voice—Bast’s voice—intoned, “and I will be your shadow until the day you meet Death, and then I will be your demise!”

  This sent the minions running in terror from the chamber, leaving only a defiant Mustafa to hold his ground.

  “So be it!” Mustafa screamed at the cat’s shadow, continuing the bloodbath by raising his scimitar high in the air and then slicing it down through the skull of the remaining priest.

  “We need to leave,” I whispered to Senenmut, fear etched in my voice. “Like, now.”

  I slipped my hand into my pocket and pulled out the rubidium clock. I held the cold metal object up to my lips and spoke these words:

  “Take me to Hell.”

  This wasn’t like taking a wormhole or getting an Egyptian God to transport you back in time. This was a totally different experience. It was like one minute we were in a secret chamber in Neferura’s tomb and the next we were standing in front of the North Gate of Hell.

  “Where are we?” Senenmut asked, clutching my hand even harder than before.

  “Uhm, well, we’re standing in front of the North Gate that leads into Hell proper,” I replied.

  “And what’s that?” Senenmut continued, pointing straight ahead of us.

  “That,” I said nonchalantly, “is Cerberus, the three-headed Guardian of the North Gate of Hell.”

  At the sound of his name, the giant three-headed dog turned to look at us. The two dumb heads began to bay happily at my return, but Snarly head only watched us intently with his one large eye.

  “Hey, I’m back,” I said. “And I brought a friend with me.”

  Snarly head only stared.

  “This is Senenmut. Senenmut, this is Snarly—I mean, Cerberus.”

  Still nothing from Snarly head.

  “Well, I guess I’d better be going now that the introductions are over,” I said, smiling nervously at the huge, three-headed beast.

  “Where do you think you’re going, Calliope Reaper-Jones?” Snarly head said quietly.

  “Well,” I said, thinking, “it’s been a rough twenty-four hours, so I’ll probably just go back to my apartment and take a shower. Relax a little.”

  “You will do no such thing!” Snarly head bellowed.

  “What are you talking about?” I said, confused. “I brought you Senenmut. We’re even-steven.”

  “Check the clock,” Snarly head said.

  I froze, my mind slowly coming to the realization that something was dreadfully wrong here—and it had something to do with time. Slowly, I held up the clock so that I could read its face.

  “How much time is left?” Senenmut asked me.

  The ticker tape of numbers flashed once, twice, then came to a stop. There was only one number left on the face of the clock—and it was not a nice one.

  “Zero? How can there be zero hours left? We had plenty of time the last time I checked,” I said, the hand holding the clock beginning to shake. “It’s not possible!”

  Then it hit me.

  “Oh my God . . . how long was I unconscious on the floor of Neferura’s burial chamber?!” I screamed at Senenmut.

  He looked bewilderedly back at me.

  “I do not know. Four or five hours? Maybe more. I was being chased by Hatshepsut’s guards, so it took me much longer to get back to you than I intended,” he said.

  “Oh Jesus,” I moaned, covering my face with my hands. What the hell had I done?

  “Calliope Reaper-Jones,” Snarly head said, a sad smile curving the edge of his gnarly-looking dog face. “You are now the Guardian of
the North Gate of Hell.”

  I tried to not to cry as I watched understanding flood Senenmut’s handsome face.

  “I am so sorry, Calliope,” he said, touching my arm tenderly. “I did not know.”

  I shook my head.

  “It’s not your fault,” I said. “Believe me, if anyone did this to me—well, it was me.”

  At my words, the two normal heads began to bay, their somber howls faintly resembling a funeral dirge. I felt my hackles rise as their mournful wails froze the marrow right down in my bones. I closed my eyes, trying to squeeze back the burning hot tears that I knew were coming.

  Welcome to Hell, Callie.

  twenty-four

  “This better not be happening on my watch!”

  I opened my eyes and my heart leapt, sending the tears that were threatening to overflow only seconds before back into my sinuses.

  “Kali, what’re you doing here—” I said, but she turned and glared at me, her dark eyes belying her annoyance at having to be here at all.

  My friend—and Hindu Goddess of Death and a member of the Board of Death—stood at Cerberus’s flank, her normally placid face contorted into an angry grimace. She was wearing one of her trademark rhinestone-encrusted saris—this one in bloodred—and her long dark hair was pulled into a precise chignon at the nape of her neck. Golden, lotus-shaped earrings fell like elegant dewdrops from her ears, and when she lifted her hand to set it aggressively on her hip, I noticed that she’d glued matching lotus-shaped jewels onto the tips of her French manicure for a little extra bling action.

  “Let me take care of this, white girl,” she said, her voice low and controlled, like the hiss of a king cobra snake.

  I wasn’t sure if the pissed-off vibe I felt emanating off her was directed at me, or just caused by the situation—but boy, did I hope it was the latter. Kali could be a particularly vindictive character when something pissed her off, and I had absolutely no interest in finding myself on her bad side.

  “Cerberus, I’m here on behalf of the Board, so you better listen to what I’m telling you,” Kali said, her right hand forming a fist as she raised it contentiously in Snarly head’s face.