Catopolis

BLACK by Richard Lee Byers

Black cats were disappearing.

Silent was black as midnight from nose to tail, so it might have been prudent to lie low. But he was also one of the Queen’s knights and an initiate in the Mysteries of Bast, so duty and pride alike demanded he investigate.

First he went to ask the dogs. Rude, barbaric creatures, dogs didn’t have one supreme ruler, but Ragged Ear was as important a chieftain as any.

Silent found the pack in a park the humans forsook after sunset. Twenty dogs were foraging, sniffing about the ground and overturning garbage cans to rummage inside.

Silent padded across the street and onto the grass. He made no effort to go unseen, and a long-legged mongrel with spotted fur came stalking out of the gloom.

“Hello, Howler,” Silent said. “I just want to talk to your boss. Can we do it the easy way?”

Howler bared his fangs.

Silent called on the Aspect of Brother Lion and roared like thunder. Howler recoiled, his pungent urine spattering the ground.

“You see?” Silent said. “The easy way is better.”

“I’m not so sure,” rumbled Ragged Ear. Silent turned to see the big Doberman standing in front of a confusion of curved, colored pipes built for human children to climb on and crawl through. Brother Lion’s voice had scared every other dog into keeping its distance, but not the alpha. “I might be willing to go to some trouble to pay you back for your tricks.”

“Do you really want to start up that old fight again?” Silent replied. “What’s the point, when Her Majesty has already taken the prize?”

Ragged Ear snorted. “What do you want, shaman?”

“Black cats are going missing.”

“And you think I deserve the credit?”

“No. Even if you had some reason to hunt blacks and blacks only, you’re not cunning enough to catch so many. But your pack ranges all over the city. Perhaps you’ve noticed something odd.”

“Maybe I have, but why would I tell you?”

“I’ll owe you a favor.”

“I don’t need anything from the likes of you.”

“No? You have white hairs on your muzzle that weren’t there the last time we talked. You’re favoring your right foreleg, and that has tooth marks on it. You’re getting old, and others are starting to challenge you for mastery of the pack. A day may come when you need a charm to help you win one of those duels.”

Ragged Ear cocked his head. “You’d do that?”

“Why not? What do I care which hound is the boss?”

“Well… you know downtown? The part with the narrow brick streets and old, sooty buildings?”

“Of course.”

“It stinks of power. Your kind of power.”

Silent waited a moment. “Is that all you have?”

“Yes. We’re not stupid. We cleared out as soon as we caught the scent.”

“So really, you barely know anything at all.”

The Doberman grinned. “But I did know a little, and you agreed to trade for it.”

“Don’t worry, I’ll keep my end of the deal.” Not with any great enthusiasm, but honor demanded it.

It took two days’ travel to reach the center of the city, and Silent’s paws were sore by the time he arrived. He couldn’t smell anything except the vile, hot spew of the countless cars, trucks, and buses, but then, he wasn’t a dog.

Stained by the shadow of a high-rise, the cathedral looked like a clump of dirty icicles growing upside down. A sort of antimagic, feeble but cold and forbidding, seethed in the pale stone walls.

Silent glowered at the church. Even before Ragged Ear steered him to the district, he’d suspected he was going to end up here, but he’d hoped otherwise.

He bounded up the steps and waited. When a human opened a door, he slipped inside.

The interior of the cathedral was quiet, cool, and dim, the stained glass dull for want of sunlight. The votive candles smelled like rotting flowers. Silent prowled onward, searching for priests. The third one he found wore a silver ring. It had a sort of raised cross on it, but, scrutinized closely, the emblem was also a hammer.

Silent stalked the human, waiting for him to move from the cavernous nave to some secluded area. Then something hissed from overhead.

Silent looked up. Yellow eyes in a black feline face glared down from the choir loft. The priest reached inside his jacket, then staggered and collapsed before he could pull anything out.

Astonished, Silent faltered for an instant, then screeched at his fellow cat. Calling on Sister Cheetah’s Aspect, he raced for the stairs leading upward.

The assassin was gone by the time he reached the loft. But at least the priest was shaking off the effects of the curse. Assisted by people who’d come running when he fell, he clambered to his feet.

Silent jumped on top of the railing enclosing the loft and crouched there waiting for the priest to look up and see him. He was poised to spring for cover if the man reached for his weapon again, but he didn’t. He just gave a tiny nod.

Eventually the priest convinced the other humans that it was safe to let him alone. Then he led Silent down a hallway and stepped inside a room.

Despite everything, this could still be a trap, and Silent followed warily. But the priest, a round, bald man with muddy brown eyes, was alone. He sank down behind a desk in a cluttered little office.

Silent jumped onto a chair. “Do you have the Gift of Siegfried?” he asked. If not, he’d have to expend some of his own power to establish communication.

“We call it the Blessing of Saint Francis,” the man replied, “but yes, I understand you. Strange as it seems, I saw you scare the other cat away. So I suppose I ought to thank you.”

“Thank me by explaining what’s going on. My Queen sent me to look into it.”

The priest blinked. “You’re a black cat yourself. Don’t you know?”

“All I know is that others like me are disappearing. Until I saw the black attack you, I suspected the Inquisition was persecuting our kind as you have in times past.”

The human frowned. “Those who came before me didn’t mean to ‘persecute’ anyone unjustly. They believed they were fighting Satan’s servants. Because, as you probably understand better than I, the Devil gave gifts to all cats, but to blacks most of all, with the promise of even stronger magic if they would bow down before him.”

“Yes,” Silent said, “but what you and those like you have always refused to understand is that very few of us have ever taken the bait.”

“You say that,” the inquisitor replied, “but suddenly there’s a whole little army of black cats with their power to hex and jinx awakened. They’re using it to attack the clergy and others who perform good works. Making people sick and causing accidents. I think that if you hadn’t chased it off, the one that came for me would have given me a heart attack.”

Silent didn’t want to believe what the priest was saying, but he’d just seen proof that at least one black had bartered himself to the Old Serpent. “What’s the Inquisition doing about it?”

The human sighed. “Not much. Maybe you don’t realize, but there really isn’t any such Office anymore. The world has changed, and even the Church doesn’t want to believe in magic, demons, or animals that talk. We in the Society of the Hammer try to continue the work of the witch hunters, but there are only a handful of us. I’m the only one for several states around, and evidently I’m no good at my job, because I haven’t been able to accomplish anything.”

Silent would never have expected to feel sympathy for one of his kindred’s traditional foes, but now he did. A fleeting twinge of it, anyway. “At least you figured out that blacks are going wrong. That puts me farther ahead than I was before.”

“Then you mean to stop what’s going on?”

“Yes. Cats are free to do almost anything they like, but not to give themselves to the Fallen Star. It’s against Her Majesty’s laws.”

“Then maybe,” said the priest, a plea in his tone, “we can work together.”

“I’d like that,” Silent lied, “but unfortunately, no human could keep up with me through the narrow spaces and over the rooftops while I hunt for answers. I’ll come back if it turns out you can help.”

“Well, all right.”

“Meanwhile, can you let me out of the building?”

Once outside, Silent pondered what he’d learned and wished there were more to it. It was good, if also daunting, that he now knew who the enemy was, at least in general terms. But he still didn’t understand how the Old Serpent’s agent was making contact with black cats, how the corruptor could persuade so many to surrender to the wicked side of their natures, or where they were all hiding.

It was three days later that, pacing along a sidewalk, dodging the feet of striding, oblivious humans, he peered down an alley and saw several cats foraging amid the refuse in a row of dumpsters. Two were black. They were reckless to show themselves in broad daylight, but perhaps they hadn’t heard about their fellows disappearing. Felines were the most cultured, sophisticated species in the world, but even so, they had no means of rapid universal communication such as mankind enjoyed.

Silent supposed it was up to him to warn the pair. He started down the alley. Then a yellow tom staggered a step and let out a puzzled meow. He flopped over onto his side in the open pizza box in which he’d been standing.

Over the course of the next several moments, somnolence overtook all the cats. Some jumped out of the dumpsters and tried to bolt, but they couldn’t outrun a danger that was now inside their bellies. Something was wrong with the garbage.

The last of them, a Siamese, collapsed beside the tire of a parked car. Then a door in a brick wall opened, and two men in gray coveralls came out. The garments had ANIMAL CONTROL stenciled on the backs. Silent couldn’t read human language any more than he could speak it without a spell in place, but he’d learned to recognize certain symbols and labels, and this was one of them.

He hadn’t hesitated to invade the cathedral, but he faltered now. Perhaps it was because the Inquisition was mostly a terror in the tales of generations past, while Animal Control still hunted cats every day.

But Silent was Her Majesty’s knight, sworn to protect her subjects, and with luck, Brother Lion’s roar would frighten humans as effectively as it startled dogs. He invoked the Aspect, drew a deep breath, then saw what the men were doing.

Each human moved to pick up one of the blacks, stepping over other slumbering cats to do it. After they collected the pair and carried them around a corner, they came back for the others, but even so, it was obvious which prizes they’d truly wanted to capture.

Silent had hoped to scare them off. Now he would have been happy to hurt them. But he’d seen the “animal shelter,” a gray concrete fortress of a place not far from the cathedral. It wouldn’t be as easy to infiltrate as the church had been. So perhaps there was a cleverer way to handle this situation.

He trotted toward the nearer of the men. He meowed as if hopeful for a petting or a morsel.

The human exchanged glances with his partner. Then he squatted down and crooned, “Here, kitty, kitty, kitty.” There was a smile on his long, narrow face, but he had the malicious eyes of someone who’d rather yank a cat’s tail than stroke its head.

Silent stayed where he was. He didn’t want to appear too unwary, lest it arouse suspicion.

Moving slowly, the human extracted a plastic bag from a pocket. He took a white pellet out of it, and the mouthwatering smell of fish suffused the air. “Here, kitty, kitty, kitty.”

Silent trotted forward and took the oily meat. Even knowing it might be tainted, it was hard not to gobble it down. For cats had many virtues, but self-denial wasn’t chief among them, not even for champions of the realm.

He suffered the human to pick him up and carry him around the corner, then put up a token struggle when his captor sought to stuff him into a cramped steel box. The man did it anyway, clanged the barred door shut, and went back for other prisoners. Silent spat out the fish, then batted it out onto the floor of the cargo bay where it couldn’t tempt him anymore.

After the men gathered and caged all the cats, they shut the back of the truck, and then the vehicle shuddered into motion. Silent lay down in the stuffy, rumbling, rattling darkness and hoped he hadn’t just made a fatally reckless move.

The first several rooms in the animal shelter weren’t as horrible as rumor claimed. They lent credence to the accounts of those animals claiming to have survived imprisonment here, who to some degree refuted the tales of neglect and mutilation. But the man carrying Silent’s box didn’t stop in any of those spaces. He took him through two more doors and into nightmare.

The back room reeked of filth and festering wounds. Some animals bristled, snarled, barked, or hissed when one of their captors appeared. Others cringed to the backs of their tiny cages, and a few didn’t even seem to notice, as if they’d fled deep inside themselves.

The human shook Silent out into a wire cage, one of many stacked in rows. The food and water bowls were empty, and they stayed that way. Silent’s mouth grew dry, and he ignored the discomfort as best he could. At least he was sure his captors wouldn’t let a black cat die of thirst. That wasn’t what this was about.

He asked some of his fellow prisoners what they’d experienced here. Their answers sickened him.

The sun set. Sealed in a room with no windows, he couldn’t see it, but like any black cat, he could feel it, and he was glad. Maybe he shouldn’t have been. Demons and their servants were more powerful at night. But so was he.

The door opened, and the men who’d captured him came back through. The one with the narrow face opened a cage and dragged a dachshund out. The little black dog tried to bite, but its teeth couldn’t penetrate the human’s brown leather work gloves.

The other man, thickset with blond hair sheared very short, jabbed a hypodermic into the dachshund’s flank. In a few moments, its frantic struggles subsided to an almost imperceptible squirming. The man holding it laid it atop a steel table, and his partner set down the needle and picked up a cordless power drill. He pressed the button, and the bit spun and whined.

Silent had no obligation to act, for it was only a dog quivering helpless on the table. If he were as cunning as a magus was supposed to be, he’d wait to learn more before making a move. But he was simply too disgusted.

He called on Brother Tiger and swiped at the door of his cage. It flew open and dangled askew, hanging by one hinge. He leaped out onto the linoleum floor.

The humans pivoted in his direction. He charged them and ripped at the leg of the one with the drill.

His claws cut to the bone, the gashes spaced more widely than seemed possible, because at present he wasn’t just a cat but rather a fusion of cat and tiger. The man screamed and dropped, his blood spurting. The captive animals clamored.

Silent pivoted toward the man with the narrow face. His eyes wide, the human backed away and lifted a pocket pistol.

The gun was a problem. It likely wouldn’t kill Brother Tiger, but it could put a hole in Silent that would kill him when the Aspect departed.

He darted under the table. The human would be waiting to shoot when he reappeared, but at least this way he didn’t have to cover the entire distance running straight at the muzzle of the gun. Instead of charging directly at his foe, he swung left.

He bounded into the open. The pistol banged, and the bullet cracked into the floor beside him.

Silent closed the distance and tore the human’s leg out from underneath him. His foe fell down, and, his arm now shaking, tried again to point the gun. Silent leaped and clawed at his hand, half severing it and knocking the pistol away. The man convulsed.

Silent spun around to check on his other adversary. Still supine, the man was only shivering and twitching. By the looks of it, there was no fight left in either one of them.

Silent stood and panted. It wasn’t difficult to roar like a lion or run like a cheetah. But even for an adept, generating the strength and shadowy semblance of a tiger’s size and weight was a more taxing feat.

The other prisoners begged him to free them. He wanted to, but perhaps it would be better to scout now and come back for them later. He was still considering when the door opened once again.

A slender, raven-haired woman dressed in an Animal Control coverall entered the room, with several black cats padding at her back. The maimed men whined, evidently begging for her help.

When she answered, even a cat could recognize the note of scorn in her voice. She raised her hand, and each man jerked and then lay still. Points of light flew up out of their mouths and into her grasp. She squeezed them together, mashing them into a jelly, which she then licked off her palm and fingers. Now perceiving her true nature, the caged animals cowered.

Her repast complete, the demoness shrank and became a black cat. In heat. The scent of her evoked an instant pang of desire, even though Silent recognized her for what she truly was. It was surely a ploy to addle him, and he struggled to clear his head.

Perhaps she could tell that he was straining, for she laughed at him. “Silent,” she purred. “When I heard what happened in the cathedral, I suspected we’d meet by and by.”

He didn’t like it that she knew his name, but then, he didn’t like anything about this situation. “Who are you, and what are doing here?”

“When I wear this shape, some people call me Barb.” She lifted a paw and unsheathed gleaming claws to display their secondary points. “As for what I’m doing, haven’t you guessed?”

“You’ve taken control of the animal shelter, or at least a part of it, and turned it into a place of torment. You offer the black-cat prisoners a way out, but only if they agree to become what you want them to be.”

“Actually, it’s a little more subtle than that. The prisoners never associate me with captivity and abuse. That’s all done by humans under my control. I’m the shadow that comes in the night offering comfort, hope, and liberation if only the blacks will join me in a war against mankind. And why wouldn’t they? By that time, most of them are only too eager to strike back.”

“But what’s the point?”

“Why, to corrupt souls. To create living weapons, wield them to assail servants of the good and spread misery and despair, and, in time, to pass them along to human warlocks to serve as their familiars. With any luck, to stir up the old mistrust between men and cats all over again.”

“Her Majesty won’t allow that.”

“Your Queen isn’t here, only you, and you can’t stop me. But you can join me.”

“Why would I do that?”

“To save your life.”

“It’s no use keeping your body alive if you kill your spirit to do it.”

“I’m not asking you to lose yourself. I’m asking you to become yourself more fully than ever before. Lucifer’s gift has always been a part of you. Haven’t you ever wondered how it would feel to use it? Imagine the wonderful things you could do if you married that power to the magic you’ve already mastered.”

For a moment, the prospect tempted him, or maybe it was simply the smell of her nether parts, still wafting on the air. He gave his head a shake. “I’m not interested.”

“Why? Because you love the humans? Have you looked around at this horrible place they built? It was a house of misery and death long before I arrived.”

“Maybe so, but for every one that hates us, there are ten who are our friends, and for every cruel deed, a hundred acts of kindness. I suppose I do love them. And even if I didn’t, I love the Queen, and I’ve already pledged her my allegiance.”

Barb sighed. “What a shame. We could have sinned such magnificent sins together.” She glanced around at the cats arrayed behind her, no doubt to order them to attack.

With the enemy blocking the only way out of the room, Silent poised himself to fight as hard and die as well as possible, for die he almost certainly would. The conversation had given him a chance to catch his breath, and he had faith in his own powers, but they couldn’t protect him from a dozen tainted blacks all giving him the Evil Eye at once.

Then inspiration struck. “Wait!” he cried.

Barb turned back around. “Changed your mind?”

“Partly. I won’t just surrender myself. But I will bet myself.” According to feline lore, demons loved to gamble.

Barb’s green eyes narrowed. “What do you have in mind?”

“You and I will fight.

Just you and I. Your stooges will stay out of it. If you render me helpless, then I’ll let you change me as you’ve changed these others. If I win, they revert to what they were.”

“Ridiculous. They gave themselves of their own free will.”

“That’s not the way I see it. You boasted yourself that you tortured and tricked them into it, and that means they deserve another chance.”

“Whether they do or not, you’re proposing to wager one soul while I risk more than twenty. You value yourself too highly.”

“Do I? Does the chance to turn an Adept of Bast come along every day? You want me, demon. Quite a bit. Maybe you shouldn’t have let me know, but it’s too late now.”

Barb glared.

“What’s the matter?” Silent asked. “You’re a champion of Hell. Are you afraid of one lone cat? Don’t you think you can beat me without a bunch of slaves backing you up? I hope the other demons don’t find out. They’ll laugh their tails off.”

“All right,” Barb spat, “it’s a wager.”

“Good. After I kill you, how do I change the other blacks back to normal?”

Barb turned her head. Following the motion, Silent saw a stack of parchments sitting on the floor. It hadn’t been there a moment before.

“Covenants,” the demonic cat said, “sealed with paw print and fang mark, blood and spit. If I die or yield, they’ll catch fire instantly.”

“All right,” Silent said. “Shall we fight outside? There’s more room.”

“As you prefer, magus. Wherever we do it, the outcome will be the same.”

She and her servants led him to an exit, doors opening of their own accord when she neared. Once he was clear of the building, he had to stifle a craven urge to bolt. He wasn’t used to feeling so afraid, but he was certain Barb was the most formidable foe he’d ever fought, and he had no real idea of the extent of her abilities.

For his part, he could do a great many things with spells, but he couldn’t cast them quickly enough to be of use in a duel. He’d have to depend on the Aspects, and accordingly decided to cloak himself in the power of Sister Leopard. She wasn’t as big and strong as Brother Tiger, but she was quicker and more agile.

The procession wound up in a dark self-service parking lot. A couple of cars still sat in their spaces, but most had departed at the end of the workday. Barb’s minions positioned themselves around the perimeter of the space. The gleam of the sickle moon caught in their eyes.

“Is the dueling ground acceptable?” asked Barb.

“It’ll do,” Silent said, widening the distance between them.

“You know, you can yield right now and avoid a lot of pain.”

“Or you can give up right now and not get killed.”

She charged, and as she did, she changed. She swelled big as a lynx, and her fangs and claws glowed like red-hot iron. The flesh around them charred, but it didn’t appear to cause her any distress.

Silent waited until she’d nearly closed, then sprang to the side. He clawed and tore open her shoulder. Her blood burst into flame on contact with the air.

She wheeled and swiped at him. He jerked back, and barbed, smoldering claws missed him by a hair. He leaped, bore her down beneath him, and reached to bite her throat. He supposed her blood would burn his mouth but it couldn’t be helped.

She writhed and blurred beneath him, and suddenly he didn’t have a secure hold on her anymore. Clad in the form of a python, she whipped scaly lengths of herself around him and pulled the loops tight, and now he was the one being gripped. The pressure was painful and relentless.

Barb raised her wedge-shaped head to leer down at him. “Surrender,” she hissed.

He couldn’t reach her with his fangs or fore claws. He groped with his hind paws, found a part of her, and raked hard.

She jerked, and her hold loosened an iota. He heaved with all of Sister Leopard’s might and broke free. Barb swirled around him, seeking to wrap him up again. He struck at her, bashing her head to the side, and sprang away from her sliding, twisting coils.

The jump obliged him to turn his back on her. Just for an instant, but when he spun back around, she was gone.

Had he killed her, and her body then disappeared? No, surely not, that last blow hadn’t hit solidly enough to break her spine. He turned around and around, seeking her in vain. Did she have the power to become invisible? Or had she shrunk into something so tiny it was impossible to spot?

Whatever she’d done, he couldn’t locate her, and his nerves crawled with the certainty that she was stealing closer. Then he noticed the attitude of one of the other cats. It wasn’t looking at him or anything else on the expanse of asphalt with its oil spots and painted lines. It was peering up at the sky. Silent followed its gaze to the winged shape plunging down at him.

He sprang out from underneath, just in time to keep the huge owl’s talons from driving deep into the center of his body. But one claw still tore his hindquarters.

Hissing away the shock of the injury, he whirled, struck, and ripped the owl’s wing. Barb snapped at him with her beak. He recoiled, and his right hind leg almost buckled beneath him.

For what it was worth, he’d hurt Barb, too. She flapped her wings but couldn’t take flight. So she melted into the form of a gigantic, bone-white spider with a ring of lambent scarlet eyes. Silent noticed that the new form didn’t appear wounded. Evidently, whenever she changed shape, the new creature joined the battle fresh and strong.

Silent wished he had some comparable advantage. As he and Barb circled one another, he hobbled, his gashed and bloody leg more painful by the moment.

Still, he managed one more spring, onto the spider’s back. His claws and fangs scratched the thing’s chitin armor, but couldn’t penetrate to the soft parts beneath. Barb whirled, flung him off, and leaped after him. He only barely managed to roll and scramble clear.

Silent let his link to Sister Leopard dissolve. She couldn’t help him prevail against a foe impervious to her natural weapons.

Barb let out a low hiss that somehow conveyed gloating satisfaction. She probably thought he’d let go of Sister Leopard because he was too weak to hold her any longer, and she wasn’t far wrong at that. He was quickly reaching the limits of his strength and could only hope enough remained for one last trick.

He crouched. A mere lamed, gasping cat facing a horror. Barb scuttled at him, and he pretended to try to dodge. She raised a foreleg, whipped it down on top of him, and pinned him to the asphalt. The several horny points on the bottom of the limb dug into his flesh.

“You fought well,” said Barb. “Now give up.”

“No,” he said.

“So stubborn. But I can’t say I mind.” She spread her pincer-like serrated jaws wide and lowered her head. She still wanted to inflict agony and terror, not kill him outright, and so she poised herself to take the first nip with daintiness and deliberation.

It gave Silent time to invoke one final Aspect. If he could.

Calling up Grandfather Saber-tooth was a difficult feat at the best of times, because the great progenitor had departed the world so long ago, and because it was a strain for any vessel to contain his transcendent power. For a terrible moment, nothing happened, but then Silent felt a god-like strength and ferocity exalt him.

He twisted and struck with the enormous teeth that were invisible to most eyes, yet as real as anything in the world. They punched through Barb’s chitin and deep into the juncture of her head and body. He ripped them down through her thorax.

It was all he could manage before Grandfather Saber-tooth’s majesty slipped from his grasp. He fell unconscious without knowing whether he’d succeeded in slaying Barb or not.

But when he woke, the heavy, bitter-smelling mass of her spider body sprawled leaking and motionless on top of him, so that was promising. His hind leg throbbing, he dragged himself out from under her and looked her over. She appeared about as dead as any carcass he’d ever seen.

But even so, he couldn’t quite bring himself to turn his back on her until the other black cats rushed over to him. Their show of gratitude and concern made it plain that their cold malevolence had withered away, or at least dwindled back into nothing more than a seed.

“I’m all right,” Silent panted. “I know a charm that will help my leg. The tricky part is going to be figuring out how to open all those cages back in the shelter before any other humans show up.”