Cat's Claw

by Amber Benson

  Senenmut nodded and took another sip of cocoa.

  “This is very good.”

  “Cocoa’s the one thing I’m pretty good at not screwing up,” I replied, pleased that Senenmut liked my little hot chocolate pick-me-up.

  We sipped our drinks in silence, each lost in our own thoughts. It was really nice not to be alone as I waited for Clio and Jarvis to summon Hatshepsut and her Minx.

  Out of nowhere, Senenmut said, “Do you trust Bast?”

  I picked up my cup and drank what was left of my hot chocolate then I stood up to put my cup and saucer into the sink.

  “No, I think she’s up to something—and I also think she’s got some kind of weird hold over Jarvis and my sister.”

  Senenmut nodded.

  “Yes, I think that you are right, only—”

  He paused, thinking.

  “What? Go on,” I said.

  Senenmut shook his head.

  “It may be nothing—” he started to say, but was interrupted by a faint knocking sound. Startled, I turned around to find Clio standing at the window in front of the kitchen sink, gesturing for us to come outside.

  “I think it’s time,” Senenmut finished instead, leaving me to wonder exactly what it was he was going to say before Clio interrupted him.

  As we left the safety of the kitchen—and the comfort of our hot chocolate—my Egyptian friend’s comment about Bast stayed with me, scratching at my brain like an itch that wouldn’t go away.

  twenty-six

  Clio was unusually quiet as Senenmut and I followed her across the grounds toward the cliff’s edge, the roaring of the waves below us like white noise in my head. I guessed everyone was feeling kind of tense, because the usual joking banter Clio and I would’ve fallen into was replaced by silence as we moved toward the benches. I wrapped my arms around myself, my mohair sweater not even pretending to keep me warm. I realized I should’ve grabbed a jacket before we went outside, but I didn’t think anyone would take too kindly to me running back to get one.

  It was already cold out—and the buffeting winds only made it worse, whipping the longer strands of my hair into my face, stuffing my mouth with the foul taste of dog drool and sweat.

  Yuck!

  The only light came from the fullness of the moon, which hung round and distended above us, making me wonder what exactly it was we were about to give birth to by inviting Hatshepsut and her Minx to Sea Verge.

  Even though he was acting kind of weird, I trusted Jarvis implicitly, and since he had signed off on the experiment, I wasn’t worried about biting off more than we could chew. Still, once they did arrive—and under false pretences, mind you—how they heck were we gonna contain them? The Minx in its Mustafa form had already proven to be a wily adversary—and I didn’t know what Hatshepsut would do once she laid eyes on her long-lost lover, Senenmut.

  Things could go to Hell in a handbasket pretty damn quickly if we weren’t careful.

  Senenmut took my hand as we got closer to the cliff’s edge—and my first thought was that he was just being friendly—but when he gave my fingers a metacarpal-crushing squeeze, I had to stifle a yelp. I looked over at him angrily, not sure what game he was playing at, but he merely shook his head, his eyes wide with fear. He indicated with his head, and I followed his gaze. Jarvis and Clio had encircled the benches with a fine white powder that I couldn’t place but guessed was crushed bone.

  “What is it?” I hissed at Senenmut, but he only squeezed my fingers harder to shut me up as Clio turned to see what the trouble was. I flashed her a wide smile, which she seemed to accept.

  “All good,” I said. “Just tripped over myself for a minute there.”

  This got another harsh squeeze from Senenmut, who had slowed his pace down to half speed, pulling me with him as he decelerated.

  “Fine,” I mumbled under my breath. “Don’t tell me what’s going on.”

  But by then, I was starting to feel kind of nervous about the scene that lay ahead of us, too.

  I spied Jarvis standing just within the circle of bone powder over by the cliff’s edge, Bast sitting primly on his shoulder. That was so not a Jarvis move. Still, even with my growing misgivings, I forged ahead, glad that I at least had Senenmut in my corner.

  “What’s with the circle?” I asked Clio as we neared our destination.

  “It’s for the spell, silly girl,” Clio replied.

  Her voice was light, but it worried me that she chose not to turn around and look at me when she spoke. Besides which, what seventeen-year-old girl living in the twenty-first century ever used the term “silly girl” in reference to an older sibling? I would’ve expected that kind of terminology from Jarvis, but Clio? Never—no matter how many Paris Hilton reality shows she decided to watch.

  “I’ve never done a summoning spell before,” I said, “but it seems kind of weird to have to use ground-up bones just to make what amounts to a toll-free long-distance call.”

  Senenmut and I had reached the edge of the circle, but instead of following Clio inside it, we had each made an unconscious decision to stay as far away from the bone meal-covered part of the ground as possible.

  “You have to step inside the circle for the spell to work, Callie,” Clio said, beckoning me forward.

  “I don’t think so,” I replied, my feet staying firmly where they were.

  “Why not, Calliope?” Jarvis said—using my given name again—as he reached up to stroke Bast’s neck. “The spell won’t work if you don’t step into the circle.”

  “Step into the circle,” Clio said, more resolutely.

  “Yes, step into the circle,” Jarvis chimed in.

  “Would you guys please stop with all the repeating,” I groaned. “You’re giving me a headache.”

  Senenmut squeezed my hand again, forcing me to look away from Clio and Jarvis.

  “What?” I hissed, annoyed.

  “Don’t look them in the eye,” he whispered.

  “Why?”

  He sighed.

  “You ask too many questions, Calliope Reaper-Jones. Just . . . don’t do it.”

  “Fine,” I said, exasperated.

  Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Clio lean forward to whisper into Jarvis’s ear.

  “Whatcha talking about?” I asked innocently, and they both quieted down instantly. I waited for one of them to answer me, but neither of them seemed inclined to speak.

  In the end, it was Bast who replied for them.

  “What they say about you is true, Calliope Reaper-Jones,” she purred, her tail swishing wildly against Jarvis’s shoulder.

  “Thanks, I guess,” I said, not sure if that was a compliment but deciding to take it as one anyway.

  “It is not a compliment,” Bast hissed at me, jumping off Jarvis’s shoulder and landing gracefully on the grass, her long, dark tail twitching as she slunk toward me.

  I so do not like that cat, I decided for, like, the millionth time.

  “You are impetuous and impertinent,” Bast continued as she crossed the circle and jumped up onto one of the benches, her brown coat a dusty charcoal in the shadowy moonlight. “And you have no respect for those who are vastly superior to you.”

  “What? Like you?” I snorted. “You’re a cat, lady. You walk on four legs. So go suck on an egg because you’re no more superior to me than you are to anyone else around here.”

  She hissed at me, flashing a set of razor-sharp incisors that glinted pale white in the moonlight.

  “No matter,” Bast said, calm again. “You’ve done exactly what I wanted you to do. And you’ve made the whole thing so much easier than I even expected.

  “To ashes with you!” Bast suddenly hissed at Clio and Jarvis. They both turned to look at me, terrified.

  “What the hell—” I started to say, but my words were cut off by a flash of green light so bright that I had to close my eyes to keep my retinas from being scorched. Even with my eyes closed, I couldn’t escape the terrible roar that filled the
night, nor could I drown out the cacophony of agonized screaming that followed.

  When I found myself able to see again, I discovered that the whole area within the circle was glowing in shades of electric lime. I watched, horrified, as the lime green light enveloped Jarvis and Clio, their bodies flaming a bright shade of purple as the spell Bast had cast began to melt the skin right off their bones.

  I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. It was like being trapped in a bad dream or watching a horror movie in slow motion. You know what’s happening, but you’re utterly helpless to do anything about it. I tried to make my feet move, to run forward and save my sister and my friend, but I was rooted in place, unable to make my body do anything I told it to. It was like the weight of the whole world was pressing down on me, holding me rigidly in place.

  Then, without warning, time suddenly snapped back into normal speed and I was in control of my body again.

  “Clio!” I screamed, my heart thrumming inside my chest as I watched my baby sister being burned alive like a witch.

  I started to run into the circle, thinking that maybe I could save them if I could only reverse the spell or pull them out of the light before it consumed them entirely, but Senenmut caught my arm and pulled me back. I struggled against him, hot tears splashing down my face.

  “Let me go!” I screamed, pushing and kicking at him, trying to force him to let me go.

  But he held me tight, letting me rip at his skin with my nails. Not flinching as I strained against him.

  “No! Please, God, no!” I wailed, covering my face with my hands as I tried to hide from the horrible image of my sister’s face melting like candle wax.

  “Clio . . . !”

  Her name was a whisper on my lips as I slumped against Senenmut, my head throbbing in time with my pulse.

  They were gone—reduced now to nothing more than a pile of ashes for the wind to steal.

  I could feel unconsciousness looming over me, my brain wanting to blot out the horror of what I had just seen, but I fought it.

  “Calliope,” Senenmut said, whispering into my ear and dragging me away from the brink of the blackness that threatened to consume me.

  I shook my head, my brain on fire with what I had just witnessed, the death and destruction that could never be undone.

  I heard someone crying—not realizing that that someone was me. My stomach was in my throat, a sense of unreality overwhelming me. Senenmut held me as the sobs stole over my body and white-hot grief seared my brain. All I could think about was my little sister, her face, her smile—

  Then a thought came unbidden into my mind, one so true and cutting that it made me catch my breath. I shuddered as it sliced me apart from the inside out.

  It should’ve been me.

  It should’ve been me.

  The sobs consumed me and I shivered in my grief. I had never experienced anything like this before. It was the most horrible feeling in the whole world and it was mine to deal with for the rest of my life.

  The fight left me then. It was all I could do just to keep myself from coming unhinged. If Senenmut hadn’t been holding me, I would’ve crumpled to the ground at that moment and never gotten up again.

  I was truly defeated.

  “Calliope Reaper-Jones, look at me,” Bast called, and there was nothing I could do but comply.

  Clio and Jarvis were gone. Not even a trace of their bodies remained within the circle—the wind had seen to that. Grief and resignation squeezed my heart.

  But then another thought filled me—this one not so self-destructive—and it was like a match igniting an uncontrollable fire.

  Revenge.

  My whole brain smoldered with the word. It overtook me, filling my soul with its song until it was all I could do to keep myself from racing into the circle and strangling the Queen of the Cats with my bare hands. I had never wished for the power of Death before—the opposite, even—but now my body crackled with the need to murder the creature that had destroyed the best part of me.

  “You fucking bitch,” I screamed, the words leaping from my mouth, drenched in spittle. I tried to break free from Senenmut’s grasp, but still he held on to me, restricting my need to destroy.

  Bast purred as she skulked across the bench, her tail swishing like a scythe behind her. Suddenly, she jumped onto the middle bench—the one with the inscription under the bottom that had creeped the bejesus out of Clio and me when we were little—and sat back on her haunches.

  “You have lost, Death’s Daughter,” she purred. “And now you will do what I tell you to or I will rain down more death and destruction on your family.”

  At those words, I felt Senenmut’s body tense and—without warning—he let me go. I was so surprised that I just stood there, immobile. Before I could pull myself together, Senenmut had moved beyond me, his body a dark streak as he propelled himself toward the cat.

  Bast hissed, raising one of her paws up so I could see the glint of exposed claw. There was another flash of green light, this one directed outside the circle, and before Senenmut could reach her, he was suddenly thrust backward into the air, his body hitting the ground with a sickening crunch that would’ve signaled the endgame for any living man.

  I raced over to where he lay in the grass, but there was nothing I could do for him. His eyelashes fluttered for a moment, then stopped as a trickle of blood slid down the side of his face. I stood up, livid now, and marched back over to where Bast was sitting, casually licking her paw.

  “You can’t do this!” I cried, rage and frustration filling my body with adrenaline.

  “What do you mean I can’t? I already have,” Bast purred, pleased with her nasty cat self.

  Of course, she was right—but that didn’t mean I wasn’t going to pay her back heartily for her trouble.

  “What do you want from me?” I said, my voice emotionless.

  Bast lifted one of her back legs and began to smooth the fur on it thoughtfully with her tongue. Her casualness in the face of so much slaughter enraged me.

  “Hmmm, what do I want?” she mused as she cleaned herself. “I suppose that what I really want, Calliope Reaper-Jones, is you.”

  “Never,” I hissed at her, but she seemed unmoved by my anger.

  “I want to be human, and your body is the perfect vehicle for my needs,” she continued quietly.

  “Why me? You could have any body you wanted,” I said tersely.

  Bast purred even louder.

  “I wanted an immortal body, and there are fewer of those lying around than one would think.”

  “I won’t give it to you,” I said evenly. “Not ever.”

  “Oh, but I think you will,” Bast said, and suddenly I felt two sets of strong arms slipping around me and lifting me off my feet.

  I tried to struggle, but it was no use. Whoever had me was much stronger than I was. I threw my head back to see who my captors were and my heart lurched.

  I was being held by the last two creatures in the world that I wanted to see right then.

  “Fancy meeting you boys here,” I growled through clenched teeth as I stared at the Jackal Brothers in all their loincloth glory.

  Neither of them replied to my more-than-hospitable greeting.

  “Thank you,” Bast said to the two Egyptian Gods as they walked me across the line demarcating the circle and the real world, unceremoniously dumping me on the bench beside the Queen of the Cats.

  “Okay, you win,” I said, stalling for time. “I’ll do what you want, but you have to tell me why.”

  Bast jumped into my lap, her weight pressing into me as she curled against my thighs, her bright, gold-flecked eyes drilling holes into my brain as she kneaded my pant leg with her paws. My nose began to itch and I sneezed so loudly it almost drowned out the crashing of the waves below us.

  “No sneezing,” Bast said, flicking her tail right up under my nose.

  Instantly, the urge to blow my brain out my nose was gone. I almost said thank you out of ingraine
d politeness, but I bit my tongue. I wouldn’t give that bitch a thank-you until Hell froze over.

  “You have become quite famous within the supernatural community, Callie—may I call you Callie?” Bast asked sweetly.

  I nodded, not trusting my mouth. I was liable to spit at the cat rather than be civil.

  “After all the publicity you received when you saved your father’s life, the Minx saw your picture and recognized you as the girl it had seen with Senenmut in Egypt those many centuries ago,” Bast said. “It had been waiting so long to meet Death—and then to discover the girl from Neferura’s tomb was actually Death’s Daughter . . . Well, with your arrival, it knew that the curse against it and its host, Hatshepsut, would soon be invoked and they would be damned forever by my wrath. Its only hope to subvert the curse was to convince you that cats were your mortal enemy—and that you must stay far, far away from me.”

  She paused for effect, and it was all I could do not to throttle her right there. I looked over at the Jackal Brothers, who stood just outside the bone powder circle (smart guys), watching us. I knew if I even lifted a finger against the cat, they would attack: another reason to remain calm in the face of rage.

  “It was only after the Minx had met you that it realized exactly how much power you really possessed. It decided, unbeknownst to Hatshepsut, that you would make an even better host than she had. You were a true immortal, after all, and Hatshepsut was not.”

  “But she’s lived all these years—” I said.

  “At the behest of Anubis and Bata. In exchange for Senenmut’s eternal soul, she was given the gift of long life—but never immortal life.”

  “The Minx told you all this?” I asked, surprised.

  Bast rubbed her cheek against my leg, marking me with her scent.

  “Not in so many words, but it was only inevitable that I would find out its plan, that it would come to me, asking for mercy, and I would pretend to offer it help in its quest. After all, it was my own curse that meant the Minx’s undoing . . . and it was to my brothers that it was beholden.”

  Oh, shit.

  twenty-seven