Claws (9780545469678)

by Grinti, Mike; Grinti, Rachel

They lowered her purposefully to the ground and backed off slowly, watching.

  She sprang forward, ready to run as fast as she could, but her tail was caught fast. A sharp pain shot up her body and she landed flat on her face.

  Emma stopped struggling and looked up. She was standing with a group of ratters in the center of a huge U-shaped table, the kind she’d seen in offices on TV. Like every table in the room, it was covered with a mass of computers, and at each keyboard was a ratter. But their tails tied and twisted until they were somehow fused together. It was impossible to tell where one ratter’s tail ended and another began.

  She’d read about this on CragWiki. It was a ratterking, a bunch of ratters tied together that acted as the king of a ratter nest. Hardly any humans had ever even seen one. At least, hardly any humans had seen one and told someone about it afterward.

  All this Emma remembered in the moment before she looked down to see her own tail knotted together with the pink mass of tails. She was part of the ratterking.

  CRAG FACT OF THE DAY:

  “Not much is known about cat magic, as curious researchers have an unfortunate habit of turning into mice.”

  CragWiki.org

  It doesn’t matter, Emma thought, staring at the place where her tail vanished. I’m not really a ratter. All I have to do is turn myself back into a human and then I can get out of here.

  But she didn’t know how. Emma didn’t even know what she’d done to turn herself into a ratter in the first place. She looked around. Most of the ratters that were part of the ratterking were ignoring her, tapping delicately at their keyboards with long pink claws. But the brown-and-white ratter closest to her was watching her, swiveling his head from side to side.

  “Hello, Pride-Heart human-cat,” he said, his voice echoing in her head in a hundred ratter voices. “Now ours, a ratter always. Be calm now, not too much fear. Safe, very safe among friends.”

  She could hear the noise of the ratterking now, chattering away just at the edge of her mind. There were so many voices. It was like a dream she couldn’t quite remember. Or a nightmare, constantly filling her mind with quiet whispers.

  “Gets better with time,” the ratter said in a gentle voice. “Easier. Not so confused and loud.”

  “What do you want from me?” Emma managed to say.

  “Same as you want from us. Secrets. Knowings. We have important work to do.”

  “What work? What use could my secrets be to you?”

  The ratter made a high-pitched chirping noise that Emma knew was laughter. “That would be telling.”

  Emma looked away from him and down at her tail. She took a deep breath to steady herself, then grabbed it with both hands, wrapping her long ratter fingers around it.

  She gripped tight and pulled.

  The pain made her squeak, and her cry was mimicked by the rest of the ratterking. It felt like the skin of her tail had been superglued to the other. She couldn’t pull it free without losing half her skin. Or half her tail. She couldn’t do it; it hurt too much. She let her tail drop and sat back on her haunches.

  “No, no, Pride-Heart human-cat. You have to stay and give up your knowings. Then you’ll be one of us.”

  “I can’t stay here,” Emma said, sniffing. Her eyes burned, but no tears came. “I’m not a ratter, or a cat. I just want to find my sister.”

  “Ah, a sister. What sister is that? Cat or human?” asked another ratter.

  She didn’t want to let them into her head, but if she did maybe they’d help her and let her go . . .

  “Help us search and smell,” the ratter went on. “If she’s hiding we can find her.” He waved at the computers and the ratters working at them. “See? All human secrets belong to us now.”

  “And then you’ll help me get her back?” Emma asked.

  The ratter swiveled his head from side to side again. “Why do anything? The knowing is enough. The knowing is the sweetest part.”

  “No, no,” another ratter insisted. “The sweetest part is when others know we know. Then we have power. All secrets belonging to the ratterking. All knowings. Human, crag, faerie.”

  She smelled something. A secret, sharp and bitter in her nose. Not just a secret. The ratterking knew something it didn’t want to tell her. But she was part of the ratterking now. They couldn’t keep it from her.

  A man had come to the ratterking. He was blindfolded. She couldn’t see him clearly; the ratters’ eyes weren’t good. But they remembered his smell, and it was familiar to her. Her dad.

  “Please, I’m trying to find my daughter,” he’d said.

  And while he was talking, ratters had hacked into Helena’s e-mail and her HangOut page, searching for useful secrets.

  Helena had logged in twice the week after she disappeared, each time from a different library. After that, nothing. No online activity, no e-mail or HangOut, no sign of her at all. Then one quick blip on her HangOut account two months later, using a phone that belonged to some girl Emma didn’t know.

  The girl had posted some photos on her own HangOut page, but they weren’t very interesting. They were shot in some kind of club or party. There were people dressed in fancy clothes, an empty stage, but the pictures were blurry and had been taken down from the HangOut page after just an hour. Emma wondered why. After Helena used the phone, the other girl hadn’t used it again, nor had she used her HangOut account or her e-mail. It was like she’d disappeared, too. Who was she? Had anyone reported her missing?

  And why had the ratters sent her dad away without telling him any of this? Worst of all, they’d kept looking, sniffing out secrets, and had tracked the phone to a building in the heart of New Downtown, a building full of secrets they wanted to uncover — and missing kids were only the smallest of them.

  * * *

  “You already looked for Helena,” Emma said. “You found where she’d used that phone. But why didn’t you tell my dad?”

  “He had no secrets we wanted,” the brown-and-white ratter said. “But you do. You are useful, cat-girl. Help us find more knowings.”

  “I can’t stay here.” Emma felt suddenly desperate. “I’m not a ratter.”

  “But you’re part of the ratterking now,” said the ratter. “Why would you go?”

  “Please,” Emma said. “What if I accidentally turn you into mice?”

  But the ratter just twitched his nose at her. “You can’t even turn back into a girl. Stay. Safe with us.”

  Safe. Safe was everything Jack wasn’t, everything the cats weren’t. Her parents couldn’t keep her safe, just like they couldn’t keep Helena safe. A cat afraid of her own claws . . . No wonder Jack had dragged her here hoping to make her kill something.

  She wasn’t a killer. She wasn’t the Pride-Heart the cats, and Jack, wanted her to be. She wasn’t the old Emma anymore, either. But if she was going to be anything but one of the ratterking’s tails, she needed to figure out what she was, quick.

  “I don’t want to be safe,” Emma said slowly, as if speaking too fast might scare away the feeling growing in her chest. “Safe isn’t going to bring Helena back. Safe is just hiding because I’m scared.”

  “Ah, Helena. Yes, she has interesting secrets . . .”

  But Emma wasn’t listening to the ratter anymore. She was listening to the Heart’s Blood. She closed her eyes, and this time when she thought about turning back into a girl, she imagined herself with claws, with night vision, with a pride. A tough girl with cat magic running through her. A Pride-Heart.

  She could do this.

  This time the magic was there, waiting for her. And the change, when it came, felt like cool water running over her skin. She opened her eyes and looked down at her hands. They were her own human hands with her own beautiful cat’s claws.

  Emma felt herself grin as she looked into the brown-and-white ratter’s shocked face. She took a step back, away from him, then stifled a cry.

  The tail was still there.

  She couldn’t see it at all, cou
ldn’t even feel it with her hands. But somehow it was still there.

  She didn’t want to be here in the ratter tunnels under the forest. She was a Pride-Heart, not just one tail of a ratterking. She wanted to claw off the nose of the brown-and-white ratter. She looked down at the spot where her tail had been, where in her mind it still felt like it was.

  Then she slashed at it with her claws.

  There was a brief, bright flash of pain. It exploded in front of her eyes like a million white stars. But in another moment the pain was gone, and with it, the voices of the ratterking. Her mind was silent except for her own thoughts and a faint electrical crackle behind her eyes.

  For an instant, she felt completely lost. Then she thought, Helena’s alive. And the feeling of loneliness from the lack of ratters chattering away inside her head was swept aside.

  Helena was alive! She was still in the city, in . . .

  Where? The ratterking’s memories were slipping away from her. It was like trying to remember a dream after waking up, but the harder she tried, the more it turned to nothingness.

  “What’s happening?” she demanded of the ratterking. “Why can’t I remember anything? Why can’t I remember why I know Helena’s alive?”

  “We warned you,” the ratterking said. “Not so easy to steal our secrets and knowings.”

  A desperate fear clutched at Emma’s heart. “No, please, you have to tell me. If you know where she is . . . if you know anything about her . . . I can’t lose her again. Please!”

  “Why should we tell you? What can you offer us now?” the ratterking asked.

  “I don’t . . . I . . .” This time the tears did come, but she wasn’t paying any attention to them. The other ratters were gathering around her again. To kill her? To take her away? Maybe if she understood her magic better she could fight them, make the ratter-king tell her what it knew. But magic was what had gotten her turned into a ratter. She had to think. She thought of Fat Leon talking about hunting ratters.

  “I can offer a truce!” Emma said. “No more ratter hunts. I will order my cats to stay away from you. Once I have magic and I get my sister back, maybe I can . . . I don’t know. Promise you a favor.”

  “Interesting,” the ratter with the headset whispered. Emma wasn’t sure if he was talking to her or not. She felt a twinge where her tail had been, even though there was nothing there.

  “Maybe, maybe,” another ratter hissed.

  “We don’t need your truce,” a gray ratter said.

  “If you don’t tell me where my sister is,” Emma forced herself to say, “then when I learn my magic well enough, I’ll have them do nothing but hunt you every chance they get.”

  The ratters surrounding Emma hissed and chattered at this, but the ratterking only tittered. “We’ll take your truce,” it said, “and we’ll take your promise as well.”

  “What do you want?” Emma asked.

  “We want to be there when you find your sister.”

  “I can’t promise that. Anyway, I thought you didn’t leave this place.”

  “You’ll see when the time comes. You won’t have a choice.”

  A shiver ran up Emma’s spine, right from the point where her tail had been. But it was true there was no choice. They had information about Helena; she had to promise them something, even if she didn’t know what it would be. She had to take the chance. She nodded. “Will you tell me where Helena used that phone?” She didn’t let herself say please again.

  The ratterking’s many voices spoke as one. “500 Ocean Avenue. New Downtown.”

  “500 Ocean Avenue,” Emma repeated to herself. 500 Ocean Avenue. I did it. I’m going to find Helena. 500 Ocean Avenue. “Can I leave now?”

  “Emma?” came Jack’s voice from one of the tunnels nearby. “I’ll scratch your ratter eyes out if she’s dead! Human Pride-Hearts aren’t easy to create and I’ve put a lot of effort into this one!”

  “Yes, go,” the ratterking said to Emma. “And take your cats with you. But remember: You are part of the ratterking always . . .”

  Jack appeared suddenly. He darted past the ratters surrounding Emma, then stopped and stared at her, panting. “Good. You’re not dead,” he said. “That should make fighting our way out easier.”

  “We’re not fighting our way out,” Emma said. “They’re letting us go.”

  Fat Leon and the Toe-Chewer came running in after Jack. Instead of fur, the Toe-Chewer looked like he was covered in dried mud, all cracked and broken.

  “What happened?” Emma said.

  He looked at her sheepishly. “When you turned yourself into a ratter, there was a little magic, just for a moment, and I got excited! I tried to turn myself into a troll so I could save you, only then the magic was gone, and . . . well, it didn’t really work.”

  Emma giggled. “It’s not permanent, is it?”

  “He should be able to turn himself back once he has magic again,” Fat Leon said. “Well, maybe he will. But never mind that. What matters is that you managed to turn yourself into a ratter, and that means you do have cat magic, even if you use it like a human.” He sounded almost proud.

  * * *

  It was a long, silent walk back through the sewers. Emma felt tired. Not just sleepy, but drained and empty. When they climbed slowly back into the crag school, Emma was surprised to see that it was still the middle of the night. She felt like they’d spent days down in the sewers, but it must have only been a couple of hours. She could still get home before her parents realized she’d gone out.

  “You had me worried when you turned into a ratter like that,” Jack said. “I knew a little fighting would draw you out, get you to use your magic, but I thought maybe you’d become a lion, or give yourself some better teeth. A bit of extra magic to turn the Toe-Chewer and Fat Leon into something useful, maybe. But a ratter . . .”

  Emma spluttered. “A little fighting? You think all those ratters were a little fighting?” She made herself take a deep breath. “If you ever do something like that again, I’ll pull your whiskers out. One at a time. Then I’ll grind down your claws. And leave you to the ratters.”

  Jack only purred at this. “That’s more like it. Watching you get your precious Helena back is going to be fun, I think. Oh, yes.”

  “Did you find out anything about her?” the Toe-Chewer asked.

  Emma nodded. “She used someone’s phone and the ratters got an address. 500 Ocean Avenue. New Downtown.” She frowned. “There was a photo of a party, a stage . . . No, it’s gone again. Something about secrets.” She shrugged. “I have the address, at least. We’ll go tomorrow morning, as soon as I get some sleep.”

  “Yes, I suppose that’s as good a time as ever,” Jack said softly.

  And for just a moment Emma could just make out the scent of secrets wafting off of him. But then she forgot that, too.

  CRAG FACT OF THE DAY:

  “A harpy’s scream has been known to cause nosebleeds, rupture eardrums, and shatter glass. It can even be heard more than a hundred feet underwater.”

  CragWiki.org

  Emma woke from a deep sleep to the buzzing of her alarm. The bright, golden morning light streaming through her window made her blink. It was time for school. But then she remembered she didn’t have school anymore. She’d been kicked out. Everything that had happened yesterday came flooding back: Matt and the spilled milk, her claws, Helena’s birthday, the cassava cake, the ratters and the ratterking. Jack.

  He’d almost gotten her killed. Maybe he really was everything the others said he was. Maybe she was stupid to trust him. But hadn’t he pushed her to use her magic? Didn’t she finally know where Helena might be? That had to count for something.

  She nudged him with her foot. “Are you awake?”

  “No,” Jack said, not bothering to open his eye.

  “Well, wake up,” she said.

  Jack just yawned and adjusted his position, stretching himself out across her stomach. It was too warm to have a furry creature lying o
n her, but she didn’t kick him off.

  “So what would you have done if the ratters had killed me?” she asked.

  “I’d be very sad,” Jack said, although he didn’t sound particularly sad. “And then I guess I’d have to go and find another human to rescue your sister. Do you think your mom wants to be a Pride-Heart?”

  Emma snorted with laughter in spite of herself. “Do you have any brothers or sisters?” she asked.

  “Of course,” Jack murmured into his paws. “Three brothers, four sisters. It was a large litter. But cats don’t pay much attention to that sort of thing.”

  “Do you ever miss them?”

  “I told you, it’s not the same with cats. All that mattered was that we were in the same pride.”

  “You didn’t answer my question,” Emma said. “Do you miss —” She stopped as a loud scraping sound came from the roof of the trailer. “What is that?”

  Jack jumped down off the bed and paced in front of the door. “How am I supposed to know?”

  “It’s not another attempt to teach me magic, is it?” Emma asked, beginning to panic.

  The roof creaked and the scraping sound came again, like something was walking up there.

  Jack just stared at her, tail flicking back and forth with impatience.

  She was scared. Stop being a baby, she told herself. Whatever it is can’t be worse than the ratters. But thinking about what had happened yesterday only seemed to make it worse. There were scarier crags in the forest than ratters.

  Taking a breath, Emma opened the door and walked out into the kitchen just in time to see her dad trip over Fat Leon as he rushed out the door. Fat Leon screeched and hissed, and her dad yelled, “Didn’t Hanh tell you all to get lost this morning?”

  The phone was ringing, but no one was paying attention to it. Emma wondered who would be calling them anyway, since it had only just gotten hooked up. Emma followed her dad outside, where he was squinting up at the roof, one hand raised to shield his eyes from the sun. He swore in Vietnamese, a word Helena had once translated for her. Emma’s pride had abandoned their usual positions around the trailer and were milling around, looking up to the roof of the trailer with a kind of tense boredom, like they were ready either to kill or nap at any moment.