by Alma Boykin
Joschka sipped his drink and stared into the darkness. The library of Schloss Hohen-Drachenburg had become his lair and refuge for the past three weeks as he shut out more and more of the world. He put his glass down with a snarl. Alcohol didn’t affect him like it did humans—there was no numbing intoxication, no escape from reality. But he was still drinking too much. Adele and Magda both would have fussed at him. Now they were both gone and he didn’t care anymore.
He brooded, wrapped and buried in black anger and pain. Over and over he saw Helmut Eszterházy standing in his office door, expression grim and sad as he broke the hideously bad news. “My lord General, I’m very sorry to have to tell you that . . .” The aging soldier got up from his chair and paced the darkness, trying to forget the moment and the realization that it had been his fault. If he hadn’t been so determined to go in to Headquarters to look over something he would have been with Adele as she drove back from Salzburg. His reactions were much faster, and his strength much greater, than a human’s, especially a sixty-nine-year-old woman, no matter how lively and young she’d seemed. His presence would have saved her—but no, he’d insisted on dealing personally with a trivial matter and she’d died.
As he paced, Joschka heard something scratch on the tall window that looked out over the valley. He ignored it but the sound continued off and on for several minutes. Growing irritated, he went to see what was violating his solitude.
A black cat stood on its hind legs, front paws on the wide outside sill. It scratched on the glass and meowed as if asking to be let in. Joschka’s eyes narrowed as he realized what—or rather who—it was. Neither Eurasian wild cats nor domestic Earth cats could easily stretch their paws almost two meters off the ground to scratch at this glass, nor did most of them sport white scars slashing over a blind eye. “Fuck off,” he growled and shut the curtain. The scratching ceased.
The next night, as soon as full darkness swallowed the Drachental, the jaguar-like black cat returned and scratched on the windowpane. She came back again and again, never leaving Joschka in peace. One night she even managed to perch on the windowsill, mewing quietly when he came to the window. Each time he told the animal off and ignored the scratching—just as he ignored his family’s efforts to pull him out of his world of shadow and fire. The House remained clear of him, although he thought he sensed something from it the fourth time he swore at the black animal that haunted his evenings.
The feline was nothing if not persistent. One night a storm crashed over the mountain, its explosions and flashes matching the Graf of Hohen-Drachenburg’s feelings and mental state. To his surprise, he heard the now familiar scratching during a lull in the storm and looked around to see a very pathetic and drenched animal peering through the window at him. She gave him a pleading look, begging to be let in out of the rain and cold. Joschka almost relented before he remembered who was under the sopping black fur. “No. You’re not ruining my rugs, you furry bastard. Go drown,” and he returned to his seat. The HalfDragon felt guilty but soon quashed the feeling.
At the end of the second week he’d had enough of the animal. That night, when she scratched at the glass, he was ready. He heaved the window open and started to throw a kettle of hot water at the obnoxious beast. But before he could swing his arm the cat jumped past him and into the room, taking partial refuge under the chair that had first been Magda’s, then Adele’s. The man started for the feline, then stopped and shut the window. “All right, stay. See if I care.” The cat said nothing but remained under the chair for the moment.
Joschka regarded the animal with distaste, but decided to ignore its presence, as much as he could ignore sixty kilos of feline. After a few minutes the animal scrambled her front end out from under the chair and relocated to the hearth. She licked some ruffled spots on her fur, then settled down, forefeet curled under her chest and eye closed. The only sounds were wood popping in the fireplace and the intermittent whistle of the animal’s breathing.
“You look silly in that shape. No self respecting cat goes traipsing about without ears and a tail, or with a twisted up leg,” Joschka told the animal when he couldn’t stand the silence anymore. “Why don’t you get prosthetics? They can’t make you look any worse.” He aimed his words to hurt, and the cat twitched in response but didn’t say anything.
“Well? Are you going to tell me why you’ve been harassing me?” Joschka paced, keeping his back to the irritating beast. “Did Eszterházy put you up to it?” No reply came and he turned, glaring at the black shadow basking in front of his fireplace. “Or are you a larger version of Poe’s raven?” At this the cat gave a human-sounding snort of disdain, opening her good eye and giving him a look of pure feline arrogance, as if she could hardly believe he would dare compare her to a mere bird. Joschka realized the problem after a few more minutes of silence: she couldn’t “talk” to him because his shields were up and he wasn’t sensitive enough to animal minds to hear her through them. He locked his shields even harder. If she wanted to traipse around looking like an overgrown alley cat, then fine.
The soldier returned to his chair, determined to pretend the cat was not on his hearth soaking up the heat from his fire. He picked up a book and tried to read. He actually found himself becoming distracted by the work until a bit of motion caught his eye and he looked up to find the cat washing her stomach. Joschka hadn’t seen the animal up close for several years and was puzzled by the white streak running down the length of the cat’s chest and belly. Then he realized that he was seeing the scars left from the Traders’ murder attempt. As if reading his mind, she got up, turned around and then rose on her haunches so he could see a matching cut down her back, over the spine, along with other marks where they had cut off her hide. Then she turned back around, facing him.
His anger surged, aimed at creatures who would skin someone alive for the pleasure of causing her pain. Then Joschka’s target changed, fury redirected to the animal instead of her attackers. “You survived and recovered because the GDF helped you. Where were they when I needed them? Where were you? She’d still be alive if it weren’t for the damn GDF or if you’d gone to help her!”
The cat ducked a little but stared at him reproachfully. “You didn’t even come to the memorial service,” he accused. Now you’re being unfair a tiny voice said from his conscience. She had been at the service but had not tried to approach him because Joschka’s grandson Leopold had told her not to.
“Quit absorbing all my heat,” Joschka ordered the animal as he pretended to return to his book. She complied by standing up, stretching, and walking over to curl up on the hassock between his chair and the sidebar. That was not what he wanted, but the beast didn’t seem to be interested in his wants. “Typical stupid feline,” he muttered.
He couldn’t stand the animal being so close to him. Joschka got up and returned to pacing the library’s shadows. The cat watched him, as if trying to make up her mind about something. “I thought you healers were bound to help those in need.” The lone silver eye gave him the same look that he’d given two centuries worth of slow recruits, suggesting that if he thought for a moment then he’d realize that he already knew the answer to the question he wasn’t quite asking.
“Oh, what the fuck do you care—or Eszterházy and Khan and the others? You don’t know what it’s like. I’ve lost my oldest son and two wives and all you do is tell me how sorry you are! Then you ask when I’m coming back on duty! You have no idea what it feels like, you ice-hearted sociopath,” Joschka hissed. “You’ve never watched someone you love waste away before your eyes as cancer eats her from within despite everything the doctors try. You’ve never gotten a phone call telling you that your son’s been killed in a training accident! Or had the police appear at your office door to inform you that if you hadn’t gone in to work that day, if you’d honored her wishes and retired, your bride would still be alive!”
The animal listened silently. He thought he saw sorrow in her eye, but he turned away, pacing again. Th
en he returned to his chair. The large feline left the hassock and put her paws on the chair arm, sitting up so she could meet his eyes. She opened her mouth as if to meow but no sound emerged. She repeated the motion, still silent.
Joschka snapped. “God damn you!” He grabbed the black throat and squeezed. Taken by surprise, the animal tried to pull back but the HalfDragon’s grip was too strong and he choked the creature without mercy. “You could have saved her! Why? Why didn’t you even try, you arrogant, sadistic bastard? Everything I’ve done for you, as many times as I’ve saved your life, and when I need you the most you abandon me! Never again, you oath-breaking, misbegotten monster,” he snarled, tightening his grip and shaking the cat harder with each word.
She batted at his hands with her paws, digging into the floor with back claws and trying to pull away. Her struggles diminished quickly. The cat’s second eyelid closed and the animal shuddered, weakly pawing Joschka’s arms one last time and then sagged, unmoving. Joschka threw the body toward the wall. His leverage wasn’t good and the limp mass landed only a meter from his chair. He brushed clumps of black fur from his hands, stood, and strode over to the other window, looking out into the starless night. He heard a harsh wheeze behind him and ignored the rattle that followed. After several minutes of thoughtless stillness, Joschka turned back to his unwelcome visitor and gasped.
She had at last returned to her true shape, still sprawled on the floor where he had thrown her, mouth gaping open, eye closed. Rachel’s chest didn’t move and there was no sign of life in her. Joschka approached the body, knelt, and hesitantly touched the woman’s shoulder. There was no response, even when he nudged her with both hand and mind.
Joschka started shaking his head, horror struck. “Dear God no! No, I can’t have! No, not—no!” He grabbed her, scrambling to find her pulse. The marks of his fingers were already appearing on her pale skin and his eyes widened at the sight of how badly he’d hurt her. Her heart beat weakly, but there was not even a faint movement of air through her lips when he held the back of his hand to them.
The desperate man tried mouth-to-mouth resuscitation, praying as he did: Holy Lord, forgive me he pled. Please, please dear God don’t let her die. I didn’t mean to take another life, Father, I didn’t! Please, don’t let me lose her too! She didn’t move, but after a near eternity she started breathing on her own. All the while, her heartbeat remained faint but steady. Joschka picked up the limp form. He didn’t dare call for help, so he held her in his arms as he knelt on the thick rug, one hand keeping her head up and airway open. The HalfDragon prayed and held his friend, terrified by what he’d done.
He had no idea how much time passed before she started coughing and tried to sit up. Thank you blessed God. Relief and guilt in equal measure poured over him and he held the injured Wanderer until she could support herself. Rachel managed to get her knees under her and then leaned forward, hands on the floor and head bowed.
“Rada, I thought you were dead, that I’d—Rada, what have I done?” he cried, slumping over. He heard her move but he didn’t dare look at his victim.
He felt her hand brush his shoulder and tried to shake it off, but failed. “You’ve done nothing, Awful Clawful. And you are right. I should have tried to jump back and seen if there was anything I could have done to save her. I owed both of you that and more, no matter what the price would have been,” Rada admitted, her voice thick and heavy with guilt.
Now Joschka looked up. “No. That would break the Laws—bring even more trouble down on your head. And you’re not a god, Rada. The police said no one could have avoided the crash and that she died instantly, that there was nothing anyone—” His voice trailed off as he heard his own words and faced the truth in them for the first time.
“No more a god than you are, my friend,” and the sorrow and knowledge in her tone, and the compassion in her eye, broke him. For the first time since he’d learned of Adele’s death, Joschka wept. Rachel held him against her shoulder as he cursed the drunk driver and mourned for his loving, lively wife.
When the emotional storm had died down, Rachel stood up and got him a glass of water, then sat back down beside him. The Wanderer didn’t say anything—she was just there, as she’d been for the past thirty years. After another long silence she patted his hand. “You’re still braver than I am, Awful. I’m too scared of the pain to love again.”
The older-looking man took her cool hand. “Don’t say that, Hairball. The joy is so much greater than the sorrow. Don’t ever lock yourself away.”
“Why not? Look at you! How can there be enough joy to counter this,” and she waved her free hand towards him.
“Adele,” and he swallowed hard. “Adele would tell you that you’re wrong. Remember when we were at Klarbach, and . . .” he started reminding his oldest friend about the laughter and the good moments all three of them had shared, even in the middle of a near disaster. Then he went to other memories, eventually turning back to the bright years with Magda when their children were young.
The darkness outside began growing light before he realized what Rachel had done. “You pulled me out of the shadows,” he accused her.
The exhausted and aching woman shook her head. “I tried. You pulled yourself out.” She started to get to her feet. She managed to stand on the second try, then walked toward the window. “Good-bye, my lord General.”
He stopped her. “Rakoji, is there any way you can forgive me?”
She studied him, her face deadly serious. “Yes. If you swear that you will never, ever give in to your fury off the battlefield and that you will never lay hands on a woman in anger—combat excluded.” Rachel knew very well what she was demanding from him and how hard it might be for him—even harder than what he and Rahoul had required of her.
Joschka drew himself up to his full height. “I swear on my honor that I will not let anger rule me, nor will I lay hands on a woman outside of combat.” He felt the rest of the House witnessing his oath and knew that they would take action should he break his word.
The woman bowed her head toward him. “I forgive you, Joschka. This,” she lightly touched her bruised throat, “was a risk your other friends and family and I were willing to take to bring you back,” she told him, giving him a weak smile before turning away. “Open the window, please.”
He did. A huge black cat leapt onto the wide sill, licked the back of his hand, and then jumped down. She trotted off into the pre-dawn silence, the stump of her tail high like a banner as she disappeared.
“Commander Na Gael, General Eszterházy rang me up this morning,” Colonel Khan said at supper the next evening. He was visiting the British headquarters as part of a facilities inspection.
“Oh? Any news from headquarters about—?” she started, and he waved her off but followed it with a wink.
“Your budget? No change, but no cuts, either.” She made a noise that caused the junior officers to smother laughter. Khan ignored the commotion and continued, “General von Hohen-Drachenburg will be coming back from his extended personal leave, so Eszterházy wants to know if you’ll come help Dr. Marceau get everything caught up at Headquarters.” Rahoul sat back, watching her reaction.
She flashed her warped grin. “Unless it’s a direct order, combined with a budget increase, no. I’ve my hands full here, sir.”
“Good, because I don’t care to be informed that a temporary transfer has been made permanent. I detest the extra paperwork.” He glanced down at his salad, then looked up in time to catch her rearranging the scarf around her neck to better hide a fresh bruise.
Later that evening, when he went off duty, Colonel Khan dropped by his friend’s personal quarters. “My God, Rachel, what happened to you?” he demanded, staring at the livid purple and black marks around her throat.
“You and Helmut were correct. He lost his temper and I didn’t dodge fast enough,” the Wanderer told him calmly, as if nothing had happened.
“He tried to kill you, didn’t he?”
Rahoul stared at her in disbelief, arms crossed over his chest. “He hurts you, almost kills you, and you want me to let it drop!”
Rachel got up and paced her cramped quarters, then stopped, leaning against the cool stone of the fireplace mantle. “No harm, no foul, as the Americans say, Rahoul. Mission accomplished without permanent injury and I’m not going to file charges or agree to them if you do, since I deliberately goaded him to the point he was forced to react. Forget you even saw my throat, please.”
The South Asian officer rubbed his forehead, warding off a threatening headache, but gave up protesting. Instead, he walked over and rested his hands on her shoulders, looking into her eye. Some things were not worth fighting, he decided, even though he wanted to hurt the Graf-General very badly just then. “Bah, alright. I don’t like it one bit, but I won’t say anything about what happened, provided it never, ever happens again.”
“Thank you,” she smiled up at him. “It won’t. And you’d better not breathe a word to General Eszterházy about my including ginger beer under ‘lab supplies’.”
Since she hadn’t, Rahoul agreed, and then helped himself to a bottle. “To friends?” he offered, and she tapped his bottle with her own.
“To friends.”
But if Joschka ever lays a hand on you again, Rahoul promised silently behind his shields, I will beat him to a bloody pulp, rank be damned.
August, 2013. “I wonder if they’ve given up,” Helmut Eszterházy half asked his chief of staff.