by Nick Green
Heart ka-chunking, Tiffany tried to re-summon her Mau claws. She used them so often she forgot they weren’t real, weren’t solid, but just a spooky sort of energy at the fingertips. Closing her eyes she flicked through the rainbow of catras in turn, Ptep, Mandira, Kelotaukhon, Parda, Oshtis and Ailur, until the skin tingled beneath her nails. Geoff was right – she couldn’t sustain such concentration much longer than ten seconds. She stared at him in awe: he’d been climbing on his own claws for minutes.
‘Here’s comfy enough.’ He helped her to the nearest balcony and she fell into it with relief. He sat on the edge dangling his feet.
‘I didn’t count on losing everyone like that,’ he said. ‘We’re a bit stuffed.’
‘Why?’
‘I can’t face Fisher and his gang alone.’
‘But you’re not. Alone, I mean.’
‘Nor am I keen on watching Fisher gut you.’
Tiffany felt sick. Geoff cracked his knuckles.
‘We may need Plan B.’
‘Plan B?’
‘We find our friends,’ said Geoff. ‘We round them up. Get out of the tower and leave Fisher here.’
Tiffany thought her ears must be full of wax.
‘We leave?’
Geoff’s mouth twisted as if tasting something bad.
‘Need to tell you. I didn’t before. Not even Felicity. Knew she’d disapprove.’
Tiffany waited.
‘I explained, didn’t I, how this tower’s rigged up. There’s a detonator. But it needs an electric charge to set it off.’ The blue eyes never blinked. ‘I’m handy enough with electrics. Before you got here, I ran my own cable to a lamp post outside. Years ago I found that you can tap the electricity–’
‘I know, Mrs Powell told me. Geoff, what are you saying?’
‘I’m saying that if we get our friends out, I can plug my cable into the detonator. And the tower implodes with Fisher inside it.’
Her hands went to her mouth.
‘His kids would be buried with him, of course,’ Geoff mused. ‘That’s why I’m reluctant.’
‘Geoff, we couldn’t.’
‘If it’s my last chance to stop Fisher, I will. Better a few children killed here than thirty thousand dead under London.’
She had no answer to that. A hard core of ruthlessness lurked inside Geoff White that she’d never felt from Mrs Powell. Maybe, in such terrible times, that was what you needed. Someone who was prepared to kill in order to stop his enemy.
‘But haven’t Fisher’s kids been taking the dynamite out?’ she said.
‘Only a fraction of it. There’s more than two thousand charges and most are still in place. The tower might not fall as cleanly as it would have, but it’s gonna fall.’
She listened, aghast. So this was where pashki had led her. This was what it meant to live the life her teachers had chosen. A life red in tooth and claw.
‘Let’s find our team,’ said Geoff.
They entered an apartment through the balcony doorway. Geoff led her up to the fifteenth floor, stalking through the undergrowth of explosive cords. They found no-one.
‘Don’t like this.’ Geoff hurried her to the window. They resumed their climb up the outside wall, using the great banner as a scramble-net. Passing each window Tiffany peered in and softly called. Every apartment rang empty. The tower’s summit came within arm’s reach. Geoff eased himself up to peer across the roof.
‘Set.’ He spoke the word savagely, like a curse – one of the Ancient Egyptian oaths that he and Mrs Powell sometimes used. Tiffany joined him at the concrete guardrail, ready to see the worst – or so she thought.
The rooftop was infested with black masks. Surely the entire polecat gang was gathered here. She even recognised some whom she had chased from the building herself. Had they only pretended to flee? Knots of polecats shuffled past the central cabin, manhandling heavy burdens – struggling burdens. A voice shouted feebly, sounding like Susie’s. Tiffany saw a face with a tortoiseshell print: Cecile, hanging limp between her four captors. A writhing Yusuf was thrown to the deck and held down.
She choked on her words. ‘They got them.’
Her horror mounted as she counted her friends. There was Daniel. Olly. Susie with a bleeding nose. Who was missing?
‘Ben’s not there!’
Her spirits nearly rose. Then Geoff shifted out of her line of sight.
Ben sat hunched against the adjacent guardrail, flanked by three polecats. They had tied him up with some rubbery rope. Her Oshtis catra throbbed with dread.
The wind threw a shout.
‘White Cat! Where is the White Cat?’
She looked at Geoff. Was that sadness in his eyes?
‘I know you are here!’ The cry seemed to circle them. ‘Geoff, I can smell you. You are listening. Listen to this.’
She saw him then: gangling, powerful, moving as if made out of scissors. Tiffany bit her thumb. So that was Martin Fisher. She couldn’t let herself be scared of him. For Ben’s sake, she couldn’t.
‘I have your boy here,’ Fisher called. ‘Come out. I will let him live.’
‘Geoff–’ that was Ben, ‘–don’t listen to him!’
‘Jeep.’
The largest of Ben’s guards struck a flame from a lighter.
‘Your boy will be broken in pieces,’ Fisher yelled. ‘Will you leave him as you left me?’
‘What’s he saying?’ Tiffany moaned. ‘What are they doing to him?’
‘Come to me,’ cried Fisher. ‘Take his place. Or hide and watch him die.’
That was all the information she needed. They were going to kill Ben, kill him. Where was Mrs Powell when they needed her? In the name of Anubis, where was she?
‘I’ve got to stop this.’ Tiffany reached up to the guard rail. Geoff pulled her back.
‘Sorry, sweetie. It’s not your time yet.’
Tiffany met his gaze with a horrible déjà vu. Once before she had watched a friend cut down in front of her. Could she bear to see it happen again? Geoff bit his lip.
‘This one’s mine.’
DON’T LET GO
When Ben saw Geoff vault up onto the roof, in his mind he shouted Run, save yourself. But his mouth wouldn’t say it. His mouth belonged to someone who was too afraid to die. He was a coward, a treacherous coward. Geoff strolled nearer, crossing the square gravel plain. Run, save yourself. No, it wasn’t in him. Overcome with shame he couldn’t bear to look at Geoff, and yet he could not wrench his gaze away from his last hope.
‘Hi, Martin. Long time and all that.’
‘A long time,’ said Fisher. ‘A long time. Come along–’ He cocked his head, looming towards Geoff. He was so much taller. ‘You come to save him. That means. He means more to you than I did.’
Geoff shrugged. ‘He’s not a deranged killer.’
Fisher struck him across the face. Geoff went sprawling. Jeep chuckled in Ben’s ear. Thomas and Hannah, pale-faced, watched. The other Cat Kin, pinned down by polecats, looked on with defeated eyes.
‘Not so fast as you were.’ Fisher pulled Geoff to his feet and studied his face almost lovingly. Geoff’s lower lip was swelling. Fisher threw him down again. ‘Now you are mine. Not his. Mine.’
‘Stop,’ Ben croaked.
‘I will drink your blood as the ferret drinks the rabbit’s. I will make myself a rattle from your teeth and your skull. We will be together, Geoff, you and I. You will never leave me again.’
Another cracking blow to the head. Geoff didn’t try to defend himself.
‘Please, Geoff!’ Ben cried. ‘Don’t let him–’
‘You interrupt again,’ Jeep hissed, ‘and bang.’ The flame of his lighter lapped thirstily towards the fuse that he now held in his own fist. ‘Remember the pigeon.’
‘Martin.’ Geoff startled everyone by slipping out of reach. ‘Before you kill me, you let Ben go.’
‘Let him go? No. He will live. He will live with me. They will all live with me and become
like me.’
‘And everyone else has to die?’
‘They betrayed me. You all betrayed me.’
‘And the thousands of innocents you plan to drown? Did they betray you too?’
‘They are human beings,’ said Fisher. He advanced on Geoff, who backed away in circles. The polecats tracked his every movement, a score of heads swivelling together. Ben fumbled at the knots behind his back.
‘So you kill half of London. What then?’ Geoff waved his hand at Fisher’s followers. ‘What happens when you’ve got no humans left to kill? If I was in your gang I’d be getting really worried. What happens when you notice that they’re human too? What happens when you look in the mirror, Martin?’
Fisher lunged. This time Geoff was too slow. He went down.
‘Martin!’ Ben knew his own voice, but had no idea what it would say. ‘Martin, do you think they ever gave up?’
‘Huh?’ Jeep seemed too puzzled to silence him.
‘When do you think they gave up hope?’ Ben worked another knot loose. ‘Martin, your parents. Your real, human parents. The ones who lost you as a child. When do you think they gave up?’
Fisher shook his head as if a gnat had buzzed him. Ben noticed how very still Thomas and Hannah were standing.
‘Did they forget they had a child?’ Ben yelled.
Jeep rattled the shock tube. ‘Shut your yap.’
‘Or do you think,’ Ben plunged on, glancing at Thomas, sensing Hannah’s shifting feet, ‘do you think they’re still out there somewhere? Wondering what happened to you?’
‘Last warning!’ Jeep’s lighter flamed.
Ben yelled, ‘Do they still dream that you come home?’
Jeep lit the banger’s blue touch-paper. He staggered and fell to one knee. Thomas had chopped him, hard, in the neck. Hannah darted forward and plucked the banger, spewing sparks, out of the blasting cap and flung it away. Bang. Jeep roared and his knife flashed. It never reached its target. Ben slipped free of the slack cords and let his inner wildcat take over. His hand jabbed twice, a leopard’s crushing paw, and even before his enemy had crumpled to the floor Ben was spinning clear, scanning the rooftop for Geoff.
But the Geoff he knew was gone. In his place was something terrible. Some furious white-masked human beast that carved the air with shredding blows, piling into Martin Fisher like a natural disaster. Fisher reeled backwards. And there, leaping the guardrail at the edge of the roof, was Tiffany, a sleek black missile aimed straight at the polecats. The vanquished Cat Kin suddenly showed they were not so vanquished after all. Yusuf lashed out at the two pinning him down. Daniel squirmed free of Gary and Dean. And as Kevin arose to crush this alarming rebellion, Tiffany hurtled into him and bowled him off his feet.
For a whole second Ben did not know which way he would go. If Tiffany was fighting Kevin she would need his help. But now Geoff’s ferocious onslaught had burned itself out. Fisher was back on the attack, his bloodied face all snarl, his mink tunic flapping where Mau claws had ripped it to ribbons. To go in that direction was to run into a fire. But sometimes someone came along who could make you do just that. He hadn’t come this far to let Geoff stand alone.
At full sprint down a residential street, Ben could trigger speed cameras (a trick he sometimes played on his French teacher’s car). He crossed the rooftop in a flash. In that instant a savage kick sent Geoff rolling away. Ben felt his hair stand stiff as a brush and he found, to his horror, that instead of leaping on Fisher’s blind side he was skidding to a halt right under his nose. The long fingers sought Ben’s throat.
He had noticed before how the moments before certain death could last – well, a lifetime. And with a lifetime to think, he could have some very bright ideas. Ben knew what to do. He dived under Fisher’s hands, reached through the rips in the mink tunic and plucked out the rag that was nestling within.
Tiffany thought she’d have a chance against the big red-haired youth, so long as she could keep dodging. She feinted and kicked to put him off balance, then scissored with both hands in a Ratbane Lunge. Her mistake. He ensnared her arm in the crook of his elbow and she knew she was in trouble. Not only was the chief polecat well trained, he was taller, heavier and strong enough to fling her down with brutal force. She hit the gravel and lay there, stunned, waiting for the killing blow. It never came. Tiffany peered up through her flickering eyelids. The gang leader stood over her, statue-still. She craned her neck to follow his gaze.
Geoff was huddled in the corner, clutching his ribs. There was Ben, there was Fisher, they were face to face. Ben was backing off, moving like a bullfighter, brandishing a cloth that wriggled in the wind. Such a scrappy thing it was, she might never have noticed it, but for its effect on Martin Fisher. He was spellbound. Tentatively, fearfully, he inched towards it, as a man in the desert dying of thirst might approach a mirage. Yet his eyes blazed at Ben, lasers of hate.
Ben said something. Tiffany couldn’t catch it. Slowly Fisher reached for the rag. Then he seized Ben by the neck and yanked him off his feet. Tiffany heard choking. The rag fluttered. Ben seemed desperate to give it to Fisher, waving it in his face, but Fisher was murderous, blind. The rag slipped from Ben’s fingers. A gust of wind snatched it aloft and off the edge of the roof.
Martin Fisher hurled himself after the scrap of cloth. With arms flung out like useless wings he clawed at the wind, screaming like a fisher no more but like a child in despair. His red-haired henchman stood frozen in shock as he plummeted out of view. Tiffany scrambled to the guard rail. Fisher’s falling shape was the size of a raven… a blackbird… a beetle. His scream sank to a low moan, ending in a sound she had never heard before and hoped never to hear again, for she guessed it was a human body hitting distant paving slabs.
Someone made a strangled noise, halfway between a sob and a laugh. The chief polecat had joined her at the rail. Together they watched the ownerless rag circle downwards. With another cry the tall boy broke away and ran stumbling for the stairs.
Tiffany was still groggy from her battle. It had all happened so fast. Something troubled her, something was wrong. When she realised what it was, her heart fell through her bones. When Fisher had leaped off the building he’d been holding onto Ben.
‘Ben!’ she screamed. And again. And again. There was only blackness below. She was gathering her breath for a wail of grief when she caught one short, strained word:
‘Here.’
She leaned over the edge, sharpening her night-sight. A human shape hung by its fingertips from a balcony wall, three floors below.
‘Ben!’ she yelled again, joyfully. He didn’t answer, nor did he move. His fingers, she saw, had grabbed at bare concrete. It amazed her that his Mau claws worked on it at all. One thing, though, was certain: they wouldn’t work for long.
‘Geoff!’ she shrieked. ‘Geoff, help!’
‘I’m here.’ Geoff bent over the rail. The bristles on his face were crusted with blood but he seemed in one piece. He took in Ben’s plight at a glance.
‘Can’t get to him from here. Down the stairs.’
Between them and the cabin lay the scrum of polecats and Cat Kin, apparently fossilised in mid-brawl.
‘You lot!’ Geoff roared. ‘Clear off!’
The polecat gang scrambled for their lives. Tiffany charged through them before the Cat Kin could get to their feet. She took the stairs in suicidal leaps, knowing already that she was too late. Ben would fall. He would fall and at this height he would break upon the stones, whether he landed on his feet or not. Her own Mau claws never lasted this long, even on soft stuff like wood. Ben’s were no better. Already he had used up his ten seconds… twenty… twenty-five…
He did not move. He did not breathe. Apart from gasping that one word, Here, he made no sound. He did not even think. All his strength, all his being, was pouring into one thing alone.
Ptep – Mandira – Kelotaukhon – Parda – Oshtis – Ailur.
Blue, green, copper, gold, crimson, indigo. The c
at’s eyes flashed in the blackness of his mind, the wheel of catras, spinning. The wheel was a generator, charging up his Mau body with the force it needed to make physical claws. He didn’t feel the ache in his shoulder muscles, the knives of cramp in his fingers. He just kept that wheel turning.
Ptep – Mandira – Kelotaukhon – Parda – Oshtis – Ailur.
A gust of wind made him gently swing. His hands were numb as clay. Copper, gold, crimson, then the wheel of colours juddered. What– what next? His Mau claws boiled away. The concrete skinned his finger pads as he slipped down with a scream.
And then he was dangling. His wrist was clamped in a wrinkled hand. A matching hand joined it and one tremendous tug lifted him up and over the side of the balcony. Flat on his back Ben stared up at a familiar face, too shattered to realise that he had been saved.
‘Hello, Ben,’ said Mrs Powell. ‘You look pleased to see me for a change.’
THE EYE OF RA
I strike quicker than the serpent
even in sleep am I watchful
I am called the Eye of Ra.
From ‘Song of Pasht’, Spell 9, Akhotep, c. 1580 BC
Translation: Matthew Toy.
The sight of those two on the balcony would stay with Tiffany always. Ben’s face was classic, but then, it would be. He hadn’t seen Mrs Powell for over six months, and now this.
‘About time you showed up!’ said Tiffany. Joy had made her cheeky. ‘You picked a fine time to slope off for a nap.’
Mrs Powell stayed poker-faced. ‘I was where I needed to be. You seemed to manage well enough without me. As I suggested you would.’
‘Oh, hang on a sec!’ Putting her pupils to the test was one thing, but risking their lives just to make a point… she wouldn’t do that? Tiffany spluttered and eventually said, ‘But you would have helped, right? If we’d really been in danger?’
Even as she asked the question, she remembered Mrs Powell’s Mau garden, with its Eth-walking posts like spears. Put a foot wrong there and you might be skewered.