Reserved for the Cat

Her mind shied away from the thought, but she could not escape it. It was the one scenario that actually frightened her. The Masters simply could not permit something like her to exist. An Elemental creature, as powerful as any of them, who could and did walk among them, wielding magic in their world with a skill the equal to any of them? To them she was an abomination, a blasphemy, and they would not rest until she was not just banished, but destroyed.

It was sheer folly to think that they would leave the hunt once they had started it. She had inflicted too much damage on them already, and they would not rest until they had gotten revenge.

It was time to end this, end it while she still had all the advantages. The imposter would die, but her friends would precede her.

By the time Jonathon, Alan, and Thomas returned to the theater, Ninette had awakened from her rest, and was in a better state to tell them what had happened. Thanks to Arthur, the incident had lost its immediacy, and she was able to recite those details that she remembered calmly.

None of them knew what to make of it. “All I can tell you is that he hated me with a terrible passion,” she said rubbing the bridge of her nose as the memory made her head ache a little. “I cannot tell you why, and I do not ever recall having seen him before.”

“Maybe we should see if the mad-house is missing an inmate,” Nigel said, half in jest. But Ninette and Arthur both turned to look at him thoughtfully,

“That might be no bad idea,” Ninette replied slowly. “The strength of that hate, the lack of anything but hate—it indeed felt like that of a madman.”

Nigel regarded both of them soberly, as Arthur nodded. “I suppose there is no harm in making sure,” he said, finally. “Very well then. I’ll send to the police and ask them to make inquiries.”

As the humans discussed just how much it would be prudent to tell the police, Thomas slipped out. There were a few advantages to being trapped in the body of a cat, and this was one. He might not have the nose of a hound, but he could follow a scent-trail, even one as muddled as this one was likely to be. He felt a distinct sense of urgency in this. He could not imagine that this was some random madman who had somehow fixated on Ninette. No, this was linked to the other attacks, and the only way to find out how it was linked was to find the attacker.

Fortunately, the attacker had been kind enough to leave a blood-trail. Faint, but it was there. And it was just as fortunate that he had elected to stagger back to whatever place he deemed safe on foot.

Since his trail took him down back streets and through alleys, Thomas presumed that whatever injuries he had gotten impacting the brick wall had been obvious enough that he did not want to show his damaged self in public.

But this was two long treks across Blackpool in one day, and he was getting very tired indeed by the time the trail ended at the back entrance of a little house with pretensions of grandeur where Thomas’s sharp ears picked up the sound of a woman’s voice raised in a plaintive tone that was not quite a whine.

Thomas quickly leapt the wall and positioned himself where he could hear every word.

“. . . dear, I wish you would go tell the police about those footpads!” said the woman. “Look at your poor face! You might have been—”

“Enough, Mother!” The male voice that answered her was rough with anger. “I am not going to the police, and that is an end to it!” The scent that wafted from the window matched the one Thomas had been following, washed over with the scent of disinfectant. “There is nothing I can tell them; I never saw those ruffians’ faces, they simply manhandled me into a wall and fled when they heard someone coming. I am not inclined to open myself to ridicule because I allowed myself to be caught off-guard by a couple of rough laborers!”

“But, dear—”

“I have made my decision, Mother! Kindly do not fret me with it any further! Now, I am going out. Thank you for your ministrations, and do not trouble yourself to wait up for me.”

For one brief moment, Thomas panicked when he realized that the man was going to be opening the door only a scant foot or two away from his hiding place.

But then he shook his head, because he knew this fellow wasn’t going to do anything except shy a stone at him, perhaps. He was a cat! If a cat could look at a king, then it could certainly lurk with impunity in the shrubbery.

The man opened his own front door, and stalked stiffly out into the street. Thomas gave him a few paces, then followed. But it was with a powerful internal struggle. When he saw the marks on the man’s face that so clearly told that he had slammed into the wall, Thomas had no doubt at all that this was his quarry. And it had taken every bit of his self control to keep from leaping on the man in a fury and making a total ruin of his head with teeth and claws.

He hoped that he would gain some clue as to why the man had attacked Ninette, but all the fellow did was to go to a second-class club and proceed to get drunk. He went at it methodically, as Thomas could tell by watching from the vantage point of a hiding place under a sofa, and he went about it silently. He was scarcely popular, that much was painfully clear. No one greeted him, and he greeted no one. Eventually, he passed out in a stupor, empty glass falling to the rug beside him. One of the club servants picked up the glass but left him where he was. Evidently he was no favorite with them, either.

Finally Thomas left, and made his way back to the theater, stealing rides on the backs of cabs; now that it was dark he could do so without fear of being chased off or exciting any comment. He was experiencing very mixed feelings at the moment, but uppermost was unease. This man was a prig, a buffoon and a fool, but he was not mad. Nor did he correspond to the enraged creature that had attacked Ninette. Yet the scent was the same. There must be more, much more, than met the eye here. He thought about it all the way across town, but could come to no conclusions even as he slipped into the theater and arrived just in time to see the end of Jonathon’s act.

Ninette performed flawlessly; certainly no one out there in the audience had an inkling that she had been attacked earlier that day. He sensed something more from her as well: an awareness of her relationship with the audience that had not been there before. That awareness seemed to spur her to overcome what had happened that afternoon, to transcend it, to perform a kind of alchemy that turned the experience into something good that she could give them. She wasn’t quite managing that—but she was trying, and for that alone she more than deserved the hearty applause she got. Thomas felt irrationally proud.

When she came off the stage, some of the performers and stagehands that knew about the afternoon’s attack came up to her to tell her she had done well; unspoken were the words are you all right? She must have known this, for she thanked them and took the time to make sure they saw her looking completely normal. Thomas gave her extra scrutiny during this. She seemed to be fine; in fact, he sensed that from being frightened she had gone to being angry. This was good; anger was a potent weapon, and by now, she should have learned something of control. He would, of course, make sure of that.

He followed her back to her dressing room, and sensed at that moment a hesitation and a weariness in her when she saw the usual crowd waiting. But he watched as she straightened her back, put on a smile and went in to deal with her admirers.

But she did not have to deal with them for long.

It could not have been a quarter hour later that one of the boys came with a summons from Nigel. Since even her admirers could not take precedence over the theater owner, they let her go with reluctance and cries of protest, and she made a graceful exit. Thomas followed.

He was debating whether he should say something to Nigel about his discovery, but—something stopped him from doing so. That made him pause, and sit for a moment with his tail wrapped around his paws while he considered his reaction, as the rest of the group in their turn discussed their own results. Jonathon had his list of hotel guests on the date in question, and had already compared that to the current register. He already planned to investigate those that were still in residence as well as the employees, and see what his two imps could find out about those who were gone. Very methodical, but this also seemed to Thomas to be perilously slow.

Nigel was tracking down appropriately powerful Earth Masters. He already had the addresses and letters of introduction to three of them. Also productive—and also slow.

He regarded them all through slitted eyes, and took some careful thought as he weighed them in his mind.

That was when it occurred to him: while they all took this seriously, none of the men, not even Nigel, regarded this as a contest they might lose.

None of them has ever lost before, he thought. Nigel and Jonathon I know have faced very perilous creatures, but they have never lost. It has never occurred to them that they can. In their world, the good and chivalrous man always prevails.

Looking at Ninette’s sober face, however, he knew that she, at least, was quite well aware that things could go horribly wrong. Probably Ailse was too. Both of them had come from very different backgrounds than any of the men. Both had been poor, and in Ninette’s case, she was quite well aware, always, that had things gone otherwise she might well have ended up worse than dead, in a terrible existence as a Parisian prostitute.

But the men had all gone to public schools, university, and if their parents had not been wealthy, they had at least been comfortable. By their own efforts, they had achieved respect and prosperity, and no one had ever seriously given them many moments of concern. When Nigel had faced down the worst of the magical creatures he’d dealt with in the past, it had been when he was much younger, and young men are always viscerally convinced of their own immortality.

So there it was, the reason why Thomas’s own instincts were telling him to keep his information to himself for now. There was certainly more to this extraordinarily sane madman than met the eye. If he was dangerous, Thomas wanted to find out in a way that would threaten none of them. Even if he could convince all of them that direct confrontation was a very bad idea, they would still want to spy on the man, and they were simply not going to be very successful at that. Humans were large, and none of these friends was skilled at being unobtrusive. A cat could go anywhere.

Tonight the men put Ninette and Ailse into a cab for the short trip home, and made it clear that Ninette was to take taxis anywhere she needed to go if Nigel was not available to drive her in his motor.

Sensible precaution, and Ninette took it so. Then again, her energy was starting to run low; Thomas could tell from the way she was starting to droop, just a little. He jumped up inside and settled at her feet, and again, the silence between her and Ailse told him a very great deal. She was exhausted, and that was hardly surprising.

It was only when she was tucked into bed and Ailse was out of the room that Thomas jumped up and sat on the foot of it to speak with her. She was trying to read a book, and making heavy going of it, at one and the same time too tired in body and too active in mind to stay focused.

I found your attacker, he said without preamble.

She sat straight up. “You did? But—”

Shh. I did not want to tell the others. There is something exceedingly odd about him. I need to investigate this further, which means I will be out all night. You will be all right, yes?

For answer, she reached under the corner of her mattress and pulled out her revolver.

Good. I very much doubt that anything will happen, but I need to know you are prepared to defend yourself. I intend to share everything I learn with you, Ninette. I do not believe that allowing you to remain ignorant will make you any safer.

She nodded, her expression grimly determined.

I am going to try to find out why he is so deathly enraged with you, why he is obsessed with you, and once we know these things, we can formulate a plan to deal with him.

“That seems a great deal wiser than stalking up to him and asking him why he attacked me,” she said dryly. “I never really saw his face, so I cannot even be a witness as to who it is.”

Police would take a dim view of a witness that never saw her attacker’s face, he agreed. Very well then. Lock the doors and windows, and when I return, I will simply find a comfortable place to wait downstairs until you awaken. A cat, after all, can sleep virtually anywhere. And our landlords know I belong to you and will give me a handsome breakfast of kippers. He jumped down off her bed and up onto the windowsill, and from there out onto the roof. He waited until he saw she had locked the window as he asked, then flicked his tail once in the moonlight.

Au revior, cherie, he said, and began making his way back to street level. He had a taxi—several taxis—to catch.

23

THE way that the club’s servants treated the man that Thomas was following said volumes about his unusual behavior. Servants could be dismissed on the basis of a single complaint. Very often the level of their personal comfort depended on the generosity of the patrons at holidays or when special requests were supplied.

So to be bundled into the cheapest possible cab, with no concern for his dignity and comfort, to have his pockets gone through and used to pay the hack driver in advance, argued for someone who had sunk so low that the servants expected nothing out of him and treated him accordingly. It also argued that even the ruling members of his own club would take the word of a servant over his.

Rather pathetic. And it made his attack on Ninette all the more puzzling. It was as if this was a real-life Doctor Jekyll, though one without the fictional doctor’s better qualities.

Thomas got himself a ride easily enough. The man didn’t even notice a cat getting in with him. Thomas tucked himself up as small as he could though, because the jolting of the poorly sprung cab was slowly knocking him out of his stupor. By the time the cab arrived at his home, he was conscious enough to clamber out, curse the driver, and stagger up to his door. Thomas followed a prudent distance behind and watched to see which lights came on upstairs. He noted, as he had expected, the lights—gaslight, he thought, by the way it increased rather than coming on—in the front upstairs bedroom. The back would overlook the tiny scrap of paved yard suitable only for the maid to do the laundry in, and other similar household chores; neither the lady of the house nor the master would care to have that view out their window. The maid—or maids, if there was more than one—would have the attic. It appeared that the man occupied the room of choice, leaving his mother to climb two sets of stairs instead of one. How chivalrous.

Thomas noted with pleasure that the passage from ground to windowsill was an easy one for a cat. Plenty of places to climb led to a faux-balcony below the windows, and the night was warm enough that—

There. The maid opened the window for the man, her expression of weary resignation clear from here. All Thomas needed to do was to wait.

Wait he did, as the lights were turned down and then off, as the neighborhood quieted further, until he was fairly certain the man was asleep. Then he scrambled nimbly up to the balcony, squeezed through the railing, and leapt up to the windowsill.

And there he was. Thomas expected sottish snoring, but the sound that came from the man made all the hair on his back stand up and his tail puff out like a bottle-brush.

He was whimpering . . . pleading. Then in the next moment, the pleading turned to an animalistic growling so full of hate that Thomas very nearly leaped down to the street again.

Thomas could not make out exactly what the man was saying, but there was something about it that sounded like half of a conversation. And he would dearly, dearly like to have heard the other half.

Then something else put up the hair on his back. The faint scent of magic. But not just any magic. This was not the magic of an Elemental Master. No, oh indeed not. This was the raw, half-tamed power of an Elemental itself.

And it had the scent of blood to it.

This man wasn’t in the throes of a nightmare, he was caught up in a Sending.

Thomas didn’t recognize the scent, so it could have been any of the three Elements not his own. Nevertheless, anyone capable of reasoning would reason it was damned unlikely to be anything other than Earth.

Then the man spoke his first intelligible words: “I am coming.” He moved then, threw off the bedclothes, reached for his clothing. His eyes were still closed; he was obeying his master’s command in his sleep.

For a moment, and a long one, Thomas fought the urge to flee. He wasn’t an Elemental Master anymore, he wasn’t any kind of a magician, he wasn’t even human! He was a cat! What could he do?

But he knew very well what he could do; it was something none of the humans he was in league with could do. He could take his courage in all paws, follow this man, and do it without being seen.

Just so long as he could avoid being detected by other means.

He jumped down to the street to wait, one shadow among many.

Ninette awoke suddenly, her mind preternaturally clear, every sense alert.

Thomas was in trouble.

How she knew this, she could not say; perhaps that encounter with that horrible man had done something to her mind, made it more sensitive or something of the sort. She had noticed it last night when she had awakened in time to warm up for her performance. She had felt things more clearly than ever before, from the stagehands, the other performers, and then, most strongly, from her audience. At first she had been a bit upset and angry, but then she realized that it was not so bad. Feeling how much the audience was enjoying what she did made her think that perhaps this could be useful.

And now she knew without a doubt that Thomas was in trouble. She felt his fear, and she knew that she could use that to find him; it pulled her like the North Pole pulled a compass needle.

She pulled on clothing, the bloomers outfit she wore to go shooting. With her hair under a cap, she would look like a boy, and that should keep her safe enough. She stuffed her pistol into one pocket, bullets into another, money into a third. She went to wake Ailse only to discover that Ailse wasn’t in her own bed.

That made her pause; then she racked her brain trying to think of where her maid could be, and came up with nothing.

“She’s walkin’ out with that lad from the hotel band.”

Ninette turned to see the creature that Nigel called a Brownie looking sideways at her. She didn’t see much of the little fellow, he was shy by nature, and she wasn’t a magician after all. But it made her obscurely ashamed that this fellow knew more about what Ailse was doing and who she was seeing than she did.

“I think they went to th’ pub,” he continued, flushing, “Though I couldn’t tell ye which one.”

Well there was nothing to be done about it. Ailse was gone, Thomas was in trouble and from the growing urgency she felt, there was no time to try and rouse Nigel, Arthur, Jonathon, and Alan. The best she could do was this.

“Thomas is in danger,” she told the Brownie urgently. “Don’t ask me how I know, I just do. When Ailse gets back, tell her that, and tell her to get the rest. Thomas was following the man who attacked me; I do not know what kind of trouble he is in, and it could be something I can solve by walking in and claiming him for mine. I know only that he is frightened and I must go to him.”

The Brownie nodded. “Aye, I can do that, miss.” Then he looked pained. “Wish’t I could come with you. . . .”

But Brownies, so Nigel had told her, were very tied to a place, once they settled into it. Literally tied in many ways; unless Ailse or Ninette were to do something that would offend it, the Brownie was unable to physically leave the building.

“Just tell her. I’m sure she’ll be back soon.” She wouldn’t have gone far, not after that madman had attacked Ninette.

But she must be thinking that Thomas was still here, and that it would be safe enough to leave Ninette with him standing guard. She didn’t know that Thomas was gone.

Ailse could be gone for as much as an hour or even more, and there was not enough time to search through all the pubs within walking distance. This was, after all, an area of boarding houses that catered to entertainers, and even when the barmen had to call “time,” they stayed open, serving food and tea while people sipped from their own flasks or made the beer they had bought before time was called last for an hour.

A jolt of fear passed through her. Thomas was definitely in trouble. There was no time to lose.

She snatched up her keys and ran.

“You are a curious creature,” said the Troll.

Thomas knew it was a Troll, because he could tell, by scent, that it was not human the moment he had surreptitiously entered the house. Here in proximity to it, inside barriers and shielding, things were very clear. The damp-soil scent of Earth power was everywhere, overlaid with the corruption that was the hallmark of the Dark Element. And the unmistakable signs of something very large and very powerful, besides the lesser boggles and simulacra, meant that the powerful one must be a Troll. The first thing that had occurred to him, and with a jolt, was that he had, all unaware, been the one to find their elusive Earth Master, for only an Earth Master would have an Earth Elemental in thrall. There could not be two such in the city.

The second thing that occurred to him was to run.

Unfortunately, he discovered that he could not.

The whole house was bespelled. Things could get in easily, but once inside, the only way to get out was to be let out. He had slipped blithely inside, following his quarry, only to discover that he was trapped.

All right, put a good face on it. Since he could not go back, he decided to go forward. He followed the man, who whimpered a little as he stumbled along the passageway and up the stairs, heading for the next floor. The entire scene was surreal; outwardly, this was the entry, hall, and staircase of a very well-appointed, moderately luxurious, and utterly respectable home. It had all the right touches, from the scenic photographs and paintings on the walls, to the Turkey carpet on the floor, from the elaborately carved balustrade to the latest in electrical lighting. But the aura of dark corruption that hung over everything, and the tortured face of the man climbing the stairs as if he was ascending the Matterhorn, made it feel more like something out of a nightmare.

Thomas followed, knowing that there was no way he could have escaped detection, even if the master of this place hadn’t done anything about him yet. So he acted as if he had intended to be in this position all along. When all else fails, try a bluff. Mind, that particular philosophy had not worked all that well for him in the past.

Then again, that could mean the odds were good for it finally working. Right?

The man paused at an open doorway. Then Thomas got a second shock, when the voice that called out to them was female.

“Come in,” said the voice, and paused. “Both of you.”

The man shambled in. Thomas followed.

And got the third shock, although part of his mind was saying, smugly, This should have occurred to you, you know. He knew the woman lounging like an odalisque on her sumptuous chaise.

It was the real Nina Tchereslavsky.

Or rather, a Troll wearing her shape.

The Troll made a contemptuous gesture at him, and he found himself frozen in place. Which was not quite as bad as it could have been, however, because the Troll’s primary attention was on the man.

“You have failed me,” the Troll said, looking down her pert nose at the man. “You stupid ass. What sort of an idiot attacks someone in broad daylight? With witnesses? Within reach of help?”

The man’s mouth worked, but no sound came out. The Troll’s words, curiously enough, were in good English, with a slightly upper-class accent. Thomas wondered how that came about, if she was supposed to be Russian.

Then again, she was a Troll, and magic was a part of them. He supposed . . .

But wait. There was something else wrong here. Where, exactly, was this creature’s Master?

“Never mind that, I will tell you,” the woman continued with contempt. “A brainless, over-educated, under-schooled fool, who has been certain all of his life that he is entitled to the finer things, yet has never worked to achieve them.”

This did not sound like any Troll that Thomas had ever heard of. Most of them could scarcely manage more than a grunt.

“So, given that you are a brainless, over-educated, under-schooled fool who has just ruined any chance he had of getting near that imposter, what do you think I should do with you?” she continued.

The man stared at her dumbly, and tried to mouth words, but nothing came out.

“Fortunately for all of us, your dear mother does not know you are here. In fact, she does not even know you have left the house. No one knows you are here—” she looked down at Thomas “—except this cat. And I doubt he will be able to go running to the police, or anyone else. So, really, there is nothing to prevent me from doing exactly as I please with you.” She smiled. It was a smile that made Thomas’s tail brush out again.

That was when she changed into her normal form. Yes, she was, indeed, a Troll . . .

Her head brushed the ceiling; she looked now like a crude doll made of gray clay, and she smelled like a combination of sour earth and rotting flesh. She reached forward and embraced the man. It would have been funny, if his face had not been contorted into a silent scream of anguish.

Then came the horrible part. When he had been human and a magician, Thomas had read about Trolls doing this, but he had never thought he was going to see the absorption process up close. Certainly not this close.

With the victim paralyzed and able to move only his eyes, the Troll pressed him into her chest. Into it. Little by little, he sank into the clay, and in a way it was a relief that his face went in first, because at least Thomas didn’t have to look at his expression anymore.

And this could have been still worse, really; in some accounts, a Troll would dismember and partly eat a victim, rather than merely absorbing him. It was said that they grew to like the taste.

But where was the Troll’s master?

Thomas curled his tail tightly around his feet, and pretended to watch with interest, all the while trying to detect a human, any human, anywhere in this house. Well other than the victim.

Nothing.

No, he thought, aghast. But the conclusion was inescapable.

There was no Elemental Master here. There was only—this thing. A horror, a blasphemy, something that should never have been. An Elemental that had been given form and substance on the Material Plane and gotten loose. A creature that did not belong here, turned loose and left to work its will on humans. Any humans.

He thought he knew now where it had gotten its relatively high intelligence and cunning. It must have begun absorbing humans right away, and with that had come more wit, more ability to think. With that, too, had come enough memory to tell her of the dangers of living among humans. So now there was a Troll that could think, plan, and carry out those plans. A Troll that could keep its identity hidden. A Troll with patience.

That last might have been the worst.

Thomas thought quickly, because in a few more moments, the Troll was going to finish absorbing her prey, and then she was going to turn her attention to him.

He cleared his throat as the last of her victim vanished, with a little dry cough of the sort that sometimes preceded a hairball. Very good, he said gravely. He couldn’t manage approval, but at least he could sound serious. No point in wasting him, but no point in allowing him to continue wasting air either.

The Troll reverted to the form of the dancer. Had there even been a real Nina Tchereslavsky? Probably, but judging by the Troll’s looks, she hadn’t been very old when she fell afoul of the creature.

For a moment, she looked puzzled. Then her lips curved in a cruel smile. “Wasting air. I like that. You seem very calm for someone who has just discovered that what he walked into, he cannot again walk out of.”

But what if I don’t want to walk out? Thomas asked, calmly. What if I intended to meet and speak with you?

The Troll’s mouth gaped. “Speak with me? Why?”

Thomas sniffed. I should think that would be obvious. You are clearly more clever than the theater people. You are obviously stronger. You know who they are, but they still do not know where you are, much less what.

“So you—”

I came intending to negotiate with you, yes. It is prudent.

“But you would be deserting your mistress, her friends—”

I am a cat, Thomas replied, hoping against hope that the creature would not look past his words. Cats are by nature selfish.

Because if the troll had any inkling that he was something more than he seemed. . . .

“A good point,” the troll replied, thoughtfully. “So, you think to join the winning side?”

I know the winning side when I see it, Thomas replied.

Fortunately, walking around Blackpool so much had given Ninette a good sense of the city, so she didn’t walk blindly into trouble-spots. Those were not just places where hooligans and thieves lurked, hoping for some drunken toff that could stagger by, be coshed on the head and robbed. And what would happen to a lone girl would be worse still.

She took cabs where she could, ran where she couldn’t, until her sense of danger/fear/danger brought her to a rather posh neighborhood indeed. No flats here, these were all fine townhouses, all built of identical stone, all with identical front façades. From the street, in fact, it could look like one long building, exactly like the front of a government building, for instance. Only when one looked closely could one see the narrow passages dividing building from building.

Her sense of trouble took her to the third from the corner. After a quick look up and down the street, she slipped around to the back, and tried her hand at the door.

It opened at her touch.

Saying a silent prayer that Ailse had returned home at last, that the Brownie had told her that Ninette had gone after Thomas, that Ailse had in turn gone for the men, Ninette slipped inside.

She waited while her eyes adjusted to the light. This should be a kitchen area—and at this time of night, there should be no one in it.

After a moment, she saw that she was right on both counts. That was a relief.

She fumbled the revolver out of her pocket. She had not dared to take it out in public or in the street; she was fairly certain she would have gotten into immense amounts of trouble if anyone had seen it.

She crept across the floor, revolver in hand, and peered through the doorway, while allowing the emotions to come to her. Thomas was definitely here—upstairs somewhere, and afraid for his life. But there were other things too, things that had the same sense to them that the little homunculus had had—not quite living, in fact, with less actual life in them than a house-sparrow, and nothing in the way of emotions—and one thing that actually did have thoughts, feelings, emotions. Very strong ones too, and all . . .nasty. Just brushing against them made her want to throw up.

Thomas was in the same room with the thing.

I must say, Thomas said, looking up at the thing that was calling itself Nina Tchereslavsky, I have heard about you Earth Elementals, but I never heard of one as powerful or as clever as you.

He considered that he was very lucky that cats had no expressions to read. And that the Troll could not actually read thoughts either. “Nor will you,” the Troll said, puffing up a little. “I am unique!”

I can see that. Is it true that you can change shape? I mean, change it to something other than your native form and this one? I had heard that some of the most powerful of Elementals can do that, but I have never seen it. He paused. Truly, I was thinking it must be some kind of myth.

“I can take any form I care to, as long as I have absorbed the original,” the Troll boasted, straightening, the pride evident in its voice. “Watch.”

In truth, Thomas would rather not have watched, but he didn’t have much choice. Watching the Troll shift forms was a very uncomfortable experience. Its body rippled in a stomach-churning manner, and the way the skin and hair seemed to crawl—it was entirely unnerving, and Thomas would have sworn until now that he had unshakeable nerves.

The Troll went through the forms of a dozen different people, all of whom must have been its victims, before Thomas shook his head in mock-admiration. He wasn’t admiring her, of course. What he was doing, after he got a grip on his own discomfort and mastered it, was studying her. When she changed shapes, she changed the clothing as well. So the clothing was a part of her. If you ripped it, would she bleed? Feel pain? He could see how she could counterfeit the living flesh, but how had she managed to learn to duplicate the clothing? Did she always wear this sort of “clothing,” or did she make use of an ordinary person’s wardrobe as well?

Then he realized that she must, because she was a real dancer. She would have changed costumes, changed into practice clothing.

How had she counterfeited being a real human all this time? Elementals generally did not understand humans. If she hadn’t been so evil, he would have been lost in real, not counterfeit, admiration.

That is amazing, he said. Can you take on the form of anything other than a human?

“If I choose,” the Troll replied smugly.

Thomas blinked, and the Troll’s form writhed, thickened, and instead of a human looming over him, there was a bear. It was a black bear, of the sort that often was taken from town to town by traveling entertainers and made to “dance” for thrown coins. In England they were usually not seen outside circuses, but on the Continent, such creatures were sometimes kept by gypsies. It balanced adroitly on its hind legs, looming over him, staring down at him from its tiny, shiny eyes, and growled.

Then it went to all fours, and writhed again, this time taking on the shape of a tiger easily the size of the sofa behind it.

Thomas got up and prowled around the beast, as if he was astonished by it. Amazing, he repeated. And you are, for all intents and purposes, the beast. Correct?

The tiger nodded.

I can see where these forms would be useful, the cat said thoughtfully. If you wanted to hunt someone, but did not want to chance the blame falling on you, all you would need to do would be to get him alone, take on the animal, and—

The tiger made a snickering sound, nodded, and the shape writhed again, and Thomas found himself staring up into the long tusks and whiskered cheeks of a walrus. I cannot imagine how that shape would be useful, he said doubtfully.

The troll returned to the shape of Nina. “Then you have never fallen off a ship in winter,” she said, with an air of superiority. He wondered about that statement. Had she fallen—or had she been pushed? He’d have bet on the latter.

I will take your word for it. Can you become a bird?

“Of course. But—” She frowned more deeply. “I do not care to do so for long. There is only so much thinking so little a head can do.” She made gesture of impatience. “So, why is it you have come to me, cat? Have you no loyalty to your mistress?”

Thomas snorted. I am a cat. When is a cat loyal to anything but his own best interest?

The feral smile that greeted that statement made him shudder. “Ha! Well said. And you wish to be on the winning side in this?”

He looked at her sideways. Let us say that I know where my own best interest lies.

“And what is it that you can do for me, cat?” Nina asked, taking her place on her chaise longue again, and curling up in a rather catlike pose herself. “I have servants. In fact, I have more than I need. You do not have hands, you cannot even do what they do.”

But I can go where they cannot. His keen hearing had detected something. A familiar footstep, coming slowly, cautiously forward.

Ninette! He very nearly leapt to his feet and ran out of the room then, and it was all he could do to keep himself from calling out Ninette’s name. The Troll clearly had no difficulty hearing and understanding his projected thoughts, and he was afraid to warn Ninette lest it should hear. How had she found him? Why was she here? How could he get her to escape? Could she escape?

Say you want to know what your lover is saying about you when you are on stage. I can creep under the seats, or into the private boxes and listen. He began speaking rapidly, hoping to hold the Troll’s attention. I can spy on him, or anyone else, as they sleep. I can find out the secrets of your rivals, I can learn anything you wish to have found out. A cat can go almost anywhere.

She laughed. “So you say. But I can become a cat too, or better still, a rat or a mouse. You say that a cat can go anywhere, but if I need to learn something all that badly, I can go where even a cat cannot, between the walls where no one would even suspect my existence.”

The footsteps had ceased; Thomas could tell that Ninette had stopped just out of sight, at the side of the doorway. Was she listening? Did she understand what she was hearing?

Had she thought to summon help before she came after him?

Oh come now! Thomas reproved. All these other things you have turned yourself into were quite large. It is one thing to make yourself into something human-sized or larger. But to make yourself into a mouse? I believe you are telling me a tale.

Nina reddened slightly with anger. “You doubt my abilities?”

Oh, I am sure you can make yourself into the form of a mouse, but it would have to be a mouse the size of a tiger. He licked his paw and rubbed it nonchalantly across his whiskers. It takes real skill in magic to be able to shrink yourself that way, and I have never actually seen anyone that could do that—outside of a spirit, since they don’t have any material body to begin with and can look like whatever they like.

“You think I don’t have the skill?” Nina shouted. She jumped up from the chaise longue. “I will show you, skill, cat! I will show you skill such as you have never seen!”

There came one of those moments in magic when the world seems to turn itself inside out.

This is because, in many ways, it is doing just that.

No human could have done what the Troll did, because no human had control over Earth magic energies and the Element of Earth that the Greater Elementals themselves did. Few humans could travel to any of the Elemental Planes, and fewer still returned to tell their story. And to tell the truth, Thomas had not really expected that the Troll had that level of skill. He had mostly been taunting it, to keep it from noticing Ninette.

The room suddenly seemed simultaneously far too small, and as large as a cathedral. The air thickened, and grew desert-hot. Thomas could not look at the Troll—not because he didn’t want to. He literally could not look at it. It had become some strange amorphous conglomeration of swirling energy clouds that wrenched at the eyes and felt all wrong, with something vaguely human-shaped in the middle of it. All the senses revolted at what was going on. It was impossible. It should not be. The eyes refused to believe what they were seeing, and then mind shied away from contemplating how the laws of physics were being shattered. The cloud of energies pulsed and vibrated and shuddered.

And the human shape was shrinking.

The more it shrank, the more things felt wrong. The air throbbed with power; power that tasted foul and made Thomas’s stomach heave. There were no names for the colors in that swirling cloud, no names for the fetid scents that wreathed around him, and above all, no names for what the troll was doing.

Thomas wasn’t entirely sure himself.

In theory, what the troll was doing was dividing himself, some of “himself” going back to wherever it was Earth Elementals came from, the rest slowly forming itself into a mouse.

Finally, with a whuff of displaced air, the energies dissipated. The air cleared a trifle. And Thomas looked down.

I told you, the mouse said, smugly.

24

NINETTE froze for a moment at the sound of a voice, then moved forward, inch by cautious inch, sliding her feet along the carpet so as not to make any noise at all. She identified the right door, partly from the fact that it was half open, and partly from the voice—

A female voice, oddly without any accent at all, and—speaking only one side of a conversation—

Then she edged a little nearer and suddenly the second “voice” faded into her head.

Thomas.

What was being said still made no sense to her, though:

I must say, I have heard about you Earth Elementals, but I never heard of one as powerful or as clever as you.

“Nor will you, I am unique!”

I can see that. Is it true that you can change shape? I mean, change it to something other than your native form and this one? I had heard that some of the most powerful of Elementals can do that, but I have never seen it. Truly, I was thinking it must be some kind of myth.

“I can take any form I care to, as long as I have absorbed the original. Watch.”

Thomas was talking to an Earth Elemental? But what kind? The Brownie couldn’t change shape, and what did this have to do with the man who had attacked her?

Surely—surely that man was not somehow connected to the mage that was trying to hurt her and her friends? But his attack had been completely ordinary, the assault on her mind, she was sure, a matter of mere accident. Why suddenly switch from magic to a completely mundane attack?

To throw us off the track? To distract us?

But this Elemental, why was Thomas talking to it?

She felt something, a kind of air-quake, and then there was the sound of completely animalistic growling. She pressed her back flat against the wall, her skin crawling with primitive fear at the sound. Whatever was in there, it was no dog. It said it was changing form—into what?

She lost the next bit of exchange as she fought the urge to turn and run. Thomas was still in there, still frightened, and she could not leave him. She would not leave him. Help would be coming soon, she still had her revolver. Jonathon and Nigel could find her by that, for they had handled it, and could track her by it. “Then you have never fallen off a ship in winter,” the woman said, when the growls faded and the air quaked a few more times. Ninette blinked. What form had she taken?

The whole conversation had an unreal air to it, the same chaotic, disjointed air of a nightmare.

I will take your word for it. Can you become a bird?

“Of course. But—I do not care to do so for long. There is only so much thinking so little a head can do. So, why is it you have come to me, cat? Have you no loyalty to your mistress?”

Why was he talking to her?

For a moment, there was doubt. Then her own good sense told her why. Thomas had thought to spy on this . . . creature. Whatever she was. And she had caught him. He was buying time, trying to find a way out of his predicament by getting her to talk.

I am a cat. When is a cat loyal to anything but his own best interest?

“Ha! Well said. And you wish to be on the winning side in this?”

She felt his revulsion. That alone told her that he was trying to bluff his way out.

Let us say that I know where my own best interest lies.

“And what is it that you can do for me, cat? I have servants. In fact, I have more than I need. You do not have hands, you cannot even do what they do.”

Ninette frowned. An Earth Elemental? Had servants? That made no sense—Elementals did not have servants. Did they?

But I can go where they cannot.

At that moment she felt a surge of excitement from him, excitement and recognition. He knew she was here!

Say you want to know what your lover is saying about you when you are on stage. I can creep under the seats, or into the private boxes and listen. I can spy on him, or anyone else, as they sleep. I can find out the secrets of your rivals, I can learn anything you wish to have found out. A cat can go almost anywhere.

She laughed. “So you say. But I can become a cat too, or better still, a rat or a mouse. You say that a cat can go anywhere, but if I need to learn something all that badly, I can go where even a cat cannot, between the walls where no one would even suspect my existence.”

Oh, come now! Thomas reproved. All these other things you have turned yourself into were quite large. It is one thing to make yourself into something human-sized or larger. But to make yourself into a mouse? I believe you are telling me a tale.

She sensed something from him that she could not read. She concentrated. What was he getting at? And—how could anyone turn into a mouse?

Don’t question it, she scolded herself, feeling the air of danger behind the words. Just listen, and be prepared to act!

“You doubt my abilities?”

Oh, I am sure you can make yourself into the form of a mouse, but it would have to be a mouse the size of a tiger. It takes real skill in magic to be able to shrink yourself that way, and I have never actually seen anyone that could do that—outside of a spirit, since they don’t have any material body to begin with and can look like whatever they like.

“You think I don’t have the skill?” The words were shouted, and angry. Thomas was getting her angry, maybe to keep her from thinking. A mouse, a mouse—had she somehow forgotten that he was a cat? “I will show you, skill, cat! I will show you skill such as you have never seen!”

If the magic before had made an air-quake, this made a kind of reality-quake. Ninette closed her eyes, tried to make herself one with the wall behind her, as the world took itself apart and put itself back together again, all in a moment. And then did it all over again. And again.

She was finding it hard to breathe, Whatever was going on in there, it was like nothing she had ever experienced before.

Terror closed in all around her. She went, hot, then cold, and she wanted nothing more to do than to flee in a panic. Death was all around her, and she could feel it breathing down her neck. She had never, in all her life, been so certain that in the next moment, she might very well die.

She fought the terror, and slowly, with infinite care, pulled the gun from her pocket and cocked the trigger. Thomas was counting on her. She could not let him down.

Finally, with a whuff of displaced air, it stopped. The air cleared a trifle. Ninette sucked in the first full breath in several minutes.

I told you, a new mental voice said, smugly.

And at that moment, Ninette knew what Thomas had been trying for. Yes, he had wanted the woman to become a mouse, if she could. He had thought he could trick her, then kill her.

But she, even in her anger, had called him “cat.”

She had not forgotten what he was!

Ninette stifled the warning shriek in her throat and whipped around the corner of the door, shoving it open with her shoulder, revolver at the ready as she had been taught.

She saw Thomas in mid-leap on what seemed to be a helpless mouse.

Except the mouse wasn’t so helpless. And whatever it really was had been expecting him to do just that.

There was another silent explosion of energies, and Thomas was caught by the neck by something strange, dough-like, smelling of rotting loam.

And Ninette did not even think. As she had been taught, she squeezed off the trigger in quick succession, aiming for the center of—whatever it was.

Six explosions shattered the air in the room. Six bullets, just as she and Ailse had loaded them. Blessed Lead. Cold Iron. Silver.

The gun bucked in her hand, but she brought it back to the target each time, each bullet impacting the thing in front of her, a mere eight feet from her, with a force that drove it back a little. Six bullets. Blessed Lead. Cold Iron. Silver.

It dropped Thomas, who wheezed as he scrambled out of the way, and then scuttled behind her. And—whatever it was—began to scream and dissolve. She couldn’t tell which of her bullets had that effect, but when the gun was empty, she backed up as far as she could, and fumbled more bullets out of her pocket, inserting them into the mechanism without taking her eyes off the thing. The reek of gunpowder filled the room, and a waft of smoke made her eyes water.

It was trying to change shape, only it couldn’t settle on one—horribly, the mass was producing an arm, three legs, half a woman’s face in one spot, a man’s eyes in another. And several mouths, all of them open, all of them screaming—

Keep shooting! Thomas shrieked, terror filling him, filling her—as if she wasn’t panicked enough on her own! But her hands knew what to do, even if her mind was gibbering in inchoate fear. She got the bullets into the chamber, dropping two. She raised the gun. She took aim and squeezed the trigger, and six more explosions shattered the gurgling screams. Blessed Lead. Cold Iron. Silver.

“Where’s the head?” she screamed herself, as her hands fumbled more bullets into the hot chambers. “Where’s the heart?”

There—there! Thomas exclaimed, somehow forcing her to see where he was looking. The spot was between two of the mouths, where the dirt-colored skin seemed thicker and smoother. She took aim. Fired.

Five of the six hit; the sixth went wild as the thing convulsed, and the room somehow rocked without moving at all. A thick wave of fetid air hit her in the chest, and knocked her backwards through the door and into the wall of the hallway, Thomas with her. The thing somehow—

The mind couldn’t grasp what it became—it was simultaneously twenty, thirty, maybe fifty different people and animals, and at the same time, it was a towering mud-doll that was all malice, all malignance, all hatred. She cried out and brought up her arm to shield her face, then flung herself sideways, somehow scooping up Thomas and taking him with her.

The wall where she had been was caved in by the force of the silent explosion, channeled through the doorway.

For one moment, it became very, very quiet.

Then—the howling, the mindless, wordless baying began.

She rolled over, dazed. “What . . .”

Get up! Get up! Thomas shrieked in her mind, his words like ice-picks jabbed into her brain. It’s not over yet! Its servants are loose, and without the Troll to control them, all they want is prey!

Prey—and we’re the prey! She struggled to her feet and lurched down the hall after Thomas.

She stopped at the foot of the stairs as he scrambled upwards. But—

They have us cut off from going down! Up! he urged. She followed after him, revolver still clutched in her hand, the other feeling in her pocket for more cartridges. “Will bullets do any good?” she shouted after him, as from below, she heard the howling come nearer and felt the staircase shake under the pounding of feet.

They’d better, came the grim reply.

They reached the top floor, where the servants would have slept—if the servants had been human and needed sleep. Dust was half an inch thick here, and rose in clouds as they ran for the farthest room. They darted inside the door. The howling continued from the stairwell.

The bedstead! Thomas shouted. Make a barricade across the door!

Fear gave her strength she hadn’t realized that she had. She slammed the door shut, then dragged the iron bedframe across the tiny room. jamming it in place across the door.

The howling was on their floor now, and the floor itself shook with the pounding of feet.

She reloaded the gun. Please tell me you sent for help, Thomas begged.

“I sent for help. I just hope the young man Ailse is seeing is not very fascinating.”

Then there was no time. They were at the door.

Without any preamble, they began pounding on it, trying to break it down. The sturdy old oak resisted their efforts for a long time, and Ninette resisted the temptation to either fire through the door, or burst into tears and throw the gun away. Finally, with a splintering sound, a great fist crashed through a door panel.

Ninette began firing, her back to the window.

It’s too high, Thomas said in despair behind her. It’s straight down to the street. I can’t make a drop like that—

If he couldn’t, neither could she.

She fired and reloaded, fired and reloaded. There seemed no end to the things, or else her bullets were having no effect other than to make them angry. Then her hand closed on the last two bullets.

She swore and loaded them, took careful aim, feeling a helpless despair that made her want to howl. This was it; this was—

There was a human shout from the hall, some incomprehensible tangle of syllables.

As Ninette was again knocked off her feet, something opened in front of her on the other side of what was left of the door.

It was a good thing that she was on the floor, because otherwise she would have been sucked into the yawning black vortex rimmed with fire that pulled in what was left of the door, pulled in the splintered fragments from the floor, tore the ragged curtains from the window, and created a hurricane in the room as it devoured the very air. Thomas yowled like a common cat, claws gouging the floor as the vortex sucked at him too. She grabbed him before he lost his grip, and rolled over with him tucked into the hollow of her stomach, curled around him, covered her head with her arms and waited for it all to end.

She thought it would never end, that she would go mad, or all the air would be sucked out of the world, or that they would both die.

And then . . . it ended.

There was . . . silence.

“Ninette! Ninette!” She rolled over in time to see Jonathon vaulting the iron bedstead, running for her.

“I’m—we’re—all right—” she said, dazed. She looked around for the gun, but it was gone, gone into the void. “I lost the gun.”

Jonathon said something unrepeatable about the gun, and scooped her up, and Thomas with her. “If you ever run off like that again,” he threatened, Nigel and Alan shoving the bedstead out of the way so he could get through the door, “I will—I will spank you! I swear it!”

She began to giggle, first weakly, then hysterically. She hid her head in the folds of his jacket to smother her giggles as he glared down at her.

“. . . and so Thomas leapt on the mouse and killed it,” she finished. “Only that let loose all of the things that pursued us, though I am not sure how.”

Once again, she was tucked up on the chaise longue in Nigel’s office, with a blanket around her feet, and a glass of brandy and water in her hand. Once again, they were all gathered around her, listening to her narrative. And once again, now that the terror was drained out of her, so was the energy. All she really wanted to do was to close her eyes.

This is all conjecture on my part—Thomas began, wearily.

“Conjecture away,” Nigel replied, as Ninette rubbed her aching head and wished her ears would stop popping.

That creature was an Earth Elemental. A Troll. Now I know for a fact it looked like Nina Tchereslavsky, and it was able to take on the shapes of at least a dozen other people as well. I think that it must have been summoned by—and destroyed—an incompetent Elemental Mage. Once it was loose in the world, it decided that it liked living here. It began killing and absorbing people, and with every new person it absorbed, it got a little smarter.

The others all nodded. “The rest follows from that,” Nigel agreed, and swore. “But why we never thought to connect all three ‘enemies’ and realize they were a single one—”

It had gotten very clever, Nigel, the cat said wearily. Clever enough that it almost outwitted me. You are hardly to be faulted.

The men continued to discuss and dissect what had happened, as Ninette leaned her head against the cushions, closed her eyes, and just wished they would leave. Finally they all stopped. She opened her eyes. They were looking at her.

“I just need some rest,” she said faintly. They took the hint, awkwardly apologizing, getting up, and scuttling out the door. Jonathon was the last to leave, with a single meaningful look deep into her eyes.

Finally, blessed silence—or as silent as it ever got in a theater—reigned.

She sighed and closed her eyes.

But she was not going to get any peace quite yet.

Why did you tell them that I was the one that killed the Troll? Thomas demanded.

She opened her eyes to see Thomas’s yellow ones staring at her with accusation.

She groaned. “Killing that—thing—demanded good aim, steady nerves, and a lot of courage. No?” she asked.

True, Thomas agreed. But—

“What knight in shining armor likes to turn up to discover the princess has rescued herself and slain the dragon?” she asked.

But we didn’t! We only—I mean, I only—I was nearly killed. If you hadn’t—”

“Nearly does not count,” she replied and closed her eyes again. “Besides, it was a good plan. It should have worked. It might just as well have. And I wish Monsieur Jonathon to continue to look at me as if I were La Augustine, and not as if I were Jeanne D’Arc. N’cest pas?” She yawned. “Therefore . . . I have . . . lost my sword.”

For now, she barely heard Thomas say. For now.

EPILOGUE

The production of Escape from the Harem was an enormous success. Tickets were sold out for the next two months, and it appeared very much as if they would continue to be sold out well into the next season. The little dancer around whom the production had been staged seemed to have a magical way with her audience; even grown men wept at her solo of despair, and were more than half in love with her as she entreated the wicked sorcerer to help her and melted his heart. No one left the theater without a smile.

Therefore it was with extreme disappointment that two of Blackpool’s leading lights, the very wealthy financier Bascombe Devons and his—well, she was not his wife, but no one was likely to tell his wife that she was with him—companion then, discovered that they were to be crowded into a box with three other couples, none of whom they knew, or particularly wanted to know.

“See here!” the man complained to the usher, “What about that box? I know for a fact no one is in it! We’ve been watching the door for a quarter hour now, and not one person has gone into or out of it!”

“Ah, I’m sorry, sir, but that box is taken,” the usher said apologetically.

“Nonsense! The nameplate says—”

“Sir!” The usher bent a look of reproach on him. “What would you put on it if the party that was taking it didn’t want to be known?”

The financier paused for a moment in his bluster, then grew thoughtful. “You don’t mean to say—royalty?”

“So to speak . . . I shouldn’t say any more.” The usher led them past the unopened door, both the man and his lovely “friend” much more content now, with the knowledge that they would be seated a mere partition away from a crown. As to which crown it might be—English? Some visiting prince? It hardly mattered.

Behind that closed door, Thomas the cat pushed the dish of sardines over to his lovely companion, whose white coat gleamed in the dim light from the theater beyond. Please help yourself, my dear.

The white cat purred and accepted the token. I am so glad you invited me here. I have never seen a performance from a proper seat before.

Thomas smirked. Strangely enough, the Troll had done him a very great favor. It had never occurred to him until that moment that there might be other shape-shifters out there. But once he knew—

A quiet word with the Brownie, a hint to Nigel’s Sylphs, a late-night talk with one of the Salamanders when Jonathon was engaged in trying to master the art of flirtation with Ninette—the Elementals were, on the whole, favorably inclined, and a week after the premier of the production, this proud beauty had turned up. She was, she coyly informed him, the offspring of a were-cat and the Afrit who loved her. An injudicious move on her part had locked her into this form.

Or so she said. The Masters at least vouched for her intent, which was benign, and her magics, which were as white as her coat. That was enough for Thomas.

Then I am happy to share this box with you whenever you wish to grace it with your presence, O Orient Pearl, Thomas said, with supreme satisfaction. And you can rest assured that no one will disturb us here once we have settled in.

Oh—really? she replied archly, purring with promise.

Oh, yes. Really. Thomas settled himself more comfortably. Didn’t you see the plate on the door?

I cannot read the writing of your people, O Troll-slayer. What does it say?

Thomas smiled. Why, O Cloud of Whiteness, I believe you must approve. It says, “Reserved for the Cat.”