Cat Magic

by Whitley Strieber

  The border of the estate was marked by a neglected wire fence, a few posts, and a faded sign warning against trespass. There were blackberry thickets full of human laughter—the gay laughter of men picking berries together, and from the sound having a good time of it.

  Then she crossed a rickety wooden bridge into the outside world. Beyond a mowed field mere was a row of shuttered houses. She remembered their lights darkening down last night, the cloaked people running out, the excited voices, the rustle of feet in dry grass, the snapping hiss of quick-drawn breath.

  They had touched her for luck as she rode by.

  The road went from gravel to asphalt as it passed through the field. Then there was a yellowed wooden sign: Corn Row. Beyond that was a brick street, neatly curbed, overhung by nearly bare trees. There were tall houses set along either side, fanciful Victorians with curved porches and towers and widow’s watches edged by gingerbread. A man with a cap pulled low over his face peered at her from one of the yards. He had something fat and green in his hand. His face was rigid.

  As she picked up speed, she saw him lean far back, raise his arm, and throw the thing. She jammed on the accelerator. The car roared, and at the same moment what he had thrown hit the roof with a thud and a splash.

  She turned on two wheels to Bridge Street. Her car filled with the reek of gasoline. She thought, no, no, not that, they mustn’t set me on fire! More than anything she hated fire. The idea of being consumed by it haunted her nightmares. She prepared to stop and jump.

  For whatever reason the gasoline bomb did not ignite. As she picked up speed again, she saw in her rearview mirror the man dash across the street.

  They must wait there, she thought, just at the edge of the estate, for anyone who dares to come out. No wonder the nearby witches’ houses were shuttered during the day. They must be under virtual siege for their beliefs.

  As she proceeded down Bridge Street toward The Lanes, the peaceful life of the town surrounded her.

  A blue delivery truck from Hiscott’s Drugstore went past, followed by a small school bus full of kids. It turned onto Main Street, heading for the red brick school which took up one side of Church Row. In the distance bells rang. Early yet: 8:30.

  Under the larger trees the melt fell like rain, and Amanda had to turn on her windshield wipers. The stink of the gasoline slowly faded. Amanda kept her speed high; she felt dreadfully exposed in the streets of this town. There was a strong temptation to turn around and go back to the estate. But she could not.

  She did not understand the whole of what she was to do in the town, but she intended to follow Constance’s instructions. Deep within herself, she sensed that she understood very well what she was doing, even though her conscious mind refused to recognize the sense of it.

  Her plan was to go to George’s house, get her things, and get out as quickly as possible. If mat was all that happened, then the visit could be seen as a further test of courage. Maybe the man with the gasoline bomb was really a follower of Constance’s Perhaps that’s why the bomb didn’t ignite.

  “The essence of initiation,” Constance had said, “is the confrontation with the Godfather. To lead people in the ways of the hidden world, we must know death ”

  The shadow of the mower seemed to darken the whole town, Damon in the field of souls. Constance had said that Amanda did not love the Covenstead as much as her own life. But she was here, allowing herself to be acted upon by Constance, delivering herself to whatever new danger her teacher had devised.

  The mower mowed, his scythe whistling.

  She came to the comer of Maple Lane and turned left. Leaves cluttered George’s lawn. No curtains blocked the windows of his house, which were black from the darkness within. His Volvo stood in the driveway. Amanda pulled in beside it, turned off her car, and set the brake. With the shrubs mostly bare the Volks could be seen all the way to the end of the street. It would not take somebody with a gasoline bomb long to discover where she had gone.

  She ran a finger through the oily film on the roof of her car.

  The house was silent. She went up to the front door, tried the handle. The door swung open.

  The front hall was dark, the living room off to the left empty. She went in, intending to cross the dining room and see if George was in the back.

  Halfway to the bedroom she heard Jane Pauley talking about French green beans. George was in the kitchen huddled over the little portable TV, absently stuffing Fritos in his mourn. An R.C. cola stood open on the counter beside him.

  “George?”

  “Oh, Good Lord, Amanda! You scared the hell out of me!” His smile was stiff on his face and he seemed very tired. “I assumed you had gone to live on the estate.”

  “I do think it would be more convenient for me to stay there. I’ll be doing all my work there.”

  His eyes had gone all alight. The suddenness of his movements suggested nothing so much as stifled rage.

  “The estate is really very quiet,” she said carefully.

  “No, Amanda, it’s not quiet. Just last night they had a ritual. Surely you know about it. I was coming up Stone when I saw a naked girl riding a big black horse. Beautiful. She took off across the lawns before I could see her face.” He laughed, and the laughter changed to a wheezing cough.

  How should she respond to him? He seemed to know nothing about her, yet he was supposed to be a witch, too. She decided to be careful. “Constance mentioned that there had been an event last night in the town.”

  “Everybody from here to Morris Plains is talking about it. And you remember Brother Pierce. That beauty. He’s having a conniption. There was a run-in. Some of his people shot this girl’s horse and then got themselves mauled by a flock of trained crows over in the Wiliowbrook ruins. Oh, boy, the whole town’s going crazy! I was looking for some news on the Altoona station but they didn’t mention it. It’s a local sensation, though.”

  It wasn’t like him to chatter. George had not struck her as being any more of a talker than her father, whose specialty was the long silence.

  The sooner she understood the nature of this latest test, the sooner she could go back to the safety of the estate. “Never mind the town, George. I want to know how you’re doing.”

  “Me? Extremely well. My experiment could hardly be going better.”

  “Brother Pierce leaving you alone?”

  “Your friends’ve made sure of that. He’s thoroughly preoccupied with witches now.” He smiled a little.

  “You ought to see what they’ve put up in front of the Tabernacle. In a way it’s funny.”

  Why was George so uneasy? Why was she so scared? “I have a question for you,” she said quickly.

  “Are you my Godfather?”

  “It’s been years since I thought about that. But yes, I am supposed to be responsible for your spiritual well-being.”

  “So you are.” (Known in all the meadows you have mown.)

  “The one and only.” He grinned.

  This test was about death, all right. Her death. Constance had gone too far. “I’ve got a lot of work to do up at the estate. I think I’ll just get my canvases and stuff—”

  “Brother Pierce and his people have erected a stake in front of the Tabernacle. A stake surrounded by piles of wood. It’s a most dramatic display.”

  She could still smell the gasoline fumes.

  “Hardly surprising.”

  “They shot that horse. Beautiful thing. I heard it. I was the first person there after the sheriff. He’s a witch, too, people say.”

  Amanda remembered his fundamentalist deputy. That department must be a tense sort of place. “How horrible, to kill an animal that way.” She kept her voice as steady as she could. She had the sense that if she moved too suddenly, he was going to make a grab for her.

  “I saw it. Fine animal. The poor thing didn’t die right away. I hate to hear a horse scream. Sheriff had to put it out of its misery.”

  She stared into his jack-o’-lantern smile
. Until now she had consoled herself that Raven hadn’t suffered.

  A vision swam up of his whole end, as it had really happened:

  For a few seconds he lay in silence, confused, not understanding what had happened to him. When he realized that the ground was under his side and he was no longer running, he tried to get up. That was when the pain hit, the thrumming, pounding pain that flared from his nose to his neck. When he screamed, laughter replied and a vicious kick to the muzzle. He shrieked through bloody, shattered nose bones.

  He could only see out of one eye. Even so, when he could quiet himself he had looked for her.

  Then he had seen the North Star. And he had begun galloping into great, snowy mountains. The sheriffs shot of mercy had sped him on—

  “Amanda, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to upset you.” He made a clumsy movement toward her.

  “I’m not upset. It’s just that I don’t like cruelty to animals.”

  “Amanda—”

  “George, I have to go now.”

  He laughed sharply, then suddenly stopped “I’m nervous. Sometimes I think Maywell might be hell.”

  “Maybe you have a point.” She wanted to get out of here.

  “Give me your hand, darling.”

  “No, George.”

  “You’re my goddaughter! I want us to be friends.”

  She had to play for time. “What’s troubling you, George?” As she spoke she stepped away from him.

  “Troubling? Nothing at all, I’m fine.”

  “You look terrible.” She took another step back. The point of the test was to go into the cave of Godfather Death and bring back something precious. She was here, and the treasure was the tools of her art.

  “I’ve been working late. And I don’t eat well on my own.” He waved his bottle of cola. “Amanda, I’m awfully glad to see you.”

  How could someone so pitiful be so frightening? “Take it easy, George.”

  “I’m not going to hurt you.”

  “Stay right there, George. Don’t come any closer, please.”

  “Amanda, you don’t understand. I’m offering you a place in immortality.” What was this? It didn’t sound like part of the script. “Immortality! You’ll know the secret of the ages!”

  “George, calm down.”

  He waved his cola. Saliva flew from his mouth. “They might hate me and they might laugh at me and they might destroy my work, but they will never kill my ideas! No, my ideas will go on and on down the halls of time and in the end they will triumph.” He smiled as a marionette smiles. She saw his truth in that smile.

  He had failed, totally and completely, and his failure had driven him crazy.

  Her only thought now was to get away, but he had placed himself between her and the front door. She was forced to try and talk her way out. “George, get hold of yourself. If something’s wrong, you and I can sit down and discuss it like two civilized people. I can help you, George.”

  “You certainly can! You’re young and strong and just the right size!”

  What did he mean?

  When he lunged at her, she managed to make a dash for the door.

  He moved with tailored grace. His long arms came around her neck. Such was the force of his maneuver that the cola bottle slammed into a thousand pieces against the far wall.

  Rape must be on his mind. Just the right size, she thought bitterly. Indeed. She might put up more of a fight than he expected.

  He moved so suddenly, though, that he dragged her right off her feet. “We’re going to the basement now.

  Oh, you idiot, don’t struggle so! Everything’s going to be just fine. You don’t have a thing to worry about.”

  “You bastard! You try to rape me and I’ll kick your balls off.” She would, too.

  “Rape? I’d never do that. I’ve got too much respect for women.”

  “Look, George, you’re—slop pulling at me! Where are you trying to take me?”

  “Basement, dear. My equipment’s down there.”

  She writhed, remembering the room full of cat pictures. The lair of Hades.

  God, this was contrived. He was Hades, and he had surprised her despite her caution, just as in the old myth. He was dragging her down into the netherworld.

  “Come on, quit that kicking. You’re not going to get away from me.”

  “Let me go, George, I’m warning you!” She couldn’t quite get into position to hurt him. If he got her down there, she had failed the test.

  “It’s a gift I’m giving you. You’ll know what it is to die and come back to life Think of it, you’ll know. You’ll be famous, Amanda.”

  It took a few seconds for her to understand what he was planning. When she did, panic overwhelmed her and she screamed. He was about to kill her in his machine! Kill her! This was no game. Constance had literally sent her to her death.

  “It’s not tested! You might murder me!”

  “It works perfectly. It’s safe.”

  “Then why is it in the basement and not in your lab? George, please listen to me. You’ve got to get yourself together.”

  She was babbling and she knew it. Her body, her bones, her young blood, were panic-stricken. She exploded with effort. Twisting, contorting herself, she managed to dig her nails into his cheek. As he reared back she kicked behind her, jamming her heel again and again into his shin, tearing and pulling and twisting.

  And suddenly falling free.

  She stumbled to her feet and rushed to the kitchen door He was not three feet away, snarling, a flap of bloody skin dangling from his nose, plunging toward her.

  Then she was through the door, running as fast as she could around the back of his Volvo, slipping in the wet grass, falling down.

  He leaped on her so hard her breath whistled out of her mouth. Even so she wriggled free of him and managed to stagger to her car. She got in, fumbling frantically with her key. Just as she jammed it into the starter his arm came snaking in the window and his fingers twined her hair.

  “Immortality, you tittle beauty! You’re happy about it! Happy!”

  It hurt so much when he yanked her hair that she saw flashes. But she started the car. With her last bit of strength she engaged reverse and let out the clutch.

  Something pricked her shoulder. When she looked he was withdrawing a syringe. She bellowed, grabbed at her arm. “It’s just scopolamine, Amanda,” he said, his voice full of apology. “It won’t hurt you.”

  She stared in horror at the shoulder. It was as if a warm tropic wave washed over her. In the distance she heard the car ticking over. Quick! You’re too slow!

  She pressed the gas pedal. From far, far away there came kindly laughter. “I’ve got the key, dear I took it out. You can’t drive the car, the engine isn’t even running.”

  What happened to the engine?

  “Let’s go back in the house now.”

  “No-o-o… no thank you…” Was that her voice? So empty, so distant.

  “Come on. Right now.”

  He opened the door. Then his hand was under her elbow.

  “Let’s go, Amanda. We have a lot of work to do ”

  She rose up out of the car even though she didn’t want to. There just didn’t seem to be any way to resist As he took her into the house she cast a sorrowful look back. Then he closed the door and began nudging her down the long hall toward the mudroom.

  “Tom?”

  “What’s that?”

  He was in the game room, lying like a long black python along the back of the couch, his kinked tail switching, his eyes gleaming.

  “Tom, help me! Tom!”

  George looked around. “There’s nobody here but us, dear.” For some reason he could not see the cat.

  Tom kneaded the couch and yawned.

  “Please, Tom, please!”

  “Be careful, honey,” George said, “you have to climb down a ladder.”

  “Oh, a ladder. Please…”

  “That’s it. All the way down, now. Right. You stand the
re. Stand still.”

  She couldn’t move if she wanted to. His voice was the only command she could respond to.

  “Oops, you were swaying. Did you realize that? I had to give you quite a dose of scope, honey. You’ll be out like a light within the minute. Come on, now, hurry along.”

  The Kitten Kate Room again. She didn’t like the Kitten Kate Room. On the ceiling was a picture of a galaxy spiraling through eternity. Superimposed on it was a lean black cat. Black and dangerous and lovely. “Tom, help me!”

  “Cross your wrists in front of you, please. Sorry I don’t have any straps, I know they’d be more comfortable. But I can’t risk you moving in your sleep and wrecking the coils. Also, when you wake up you’re going to be a tad upset, I think, so it’s better this way. Isn’t it better, dear?”

  Dimly, distantly, she felt her wrists and ankles being bound, felt rope swinging round and round her body, felt the world swinging away.

  She dreamed long, vague dreams of the beautiful lady of the mountain, and the Holly King and Raven, and all that new world.

  And Tom… yawning while George killed her.

  The first thing she saw when she was conscious again was the terrible face of the panther in the ceiling.

  “Hello, Amanda. How do you feel?”

  “I’ve got a headache.” She tried to move, realized she was still tied. Her confusion was complete. She was bound down tight, surrounded by shining brown ceramic devices of some kind. She tried again to move, but the ropes held fast.

  “I was killed! You killed me, didn’t you?”

  He put his hand on her face. “We’re going to begin the experiment now, dear. I had to let the drug wear off first. You’ve been asleep all day.”

  The blackest despair covered the little sprig of hope that had started to grow in her. “No! No!”

  “Not so loud, dear. These houses are close together.”

  “Help! Help me!”

  “Hush, now!”

  She heard a buzz, felt the table sway. A terrible tickling swarmed in her chest, centered on her heart.

  “See you in a few minutes. Toodle-oo!”