A Little Rhine Must Fall (4 page)

:Shhhh!:
said the voice in my head.
:Do you want to explain this conversation to your husband?:

Something in my eyes made Bastet scuttle under the bed. Otis often hides under there and coaxing him out is nearly impossible. Even lying on the ground, my arms weren’t long enough to reach him, and if he scooted to one side and I came around to grab him, he could easily avoid me and scoot to the other side. I knew that Bastet was temporarily safe and decided to salvage what little pride I had left and not try to snag her.

“I’m not going to the moon,” I said fiercely.

:You have to:
came the reply. Being under the bed didn’t muffle the mental voice.
:It is foretold:

I rolled my eyes. “Foretold?”

:By the Oracle:
She sounded impressed.

“The Oracle came up with that atrocious poetry?” I sneered. I’d only heard the Oracle mentioned once before. Cecily had told me that the vampires had consulted her on the future. Half of them came away believing that humans needed to be protected at all costs, and the other half thought the vision meant that they didn’t need humans any more. I was a little skeptical on this Oracle’s credibility.

:We loosely translated:
Bastet answered, as if that thoroughly explained the whole thing.

I decided that it was time to be firm. “Bastet, if you don’t tell me everything, from the beginning, leaving nothing out, and explain
what
it is you think I have to do, then I am going to root you out from under that bed and throw you out the front door.” Of course, that would probably be after an hour of chasing her around the house, and perhaps winding up with a few cat scratches and a total loss of dignity, but, so help me, I would do it.

I heard her huff.
:Fine. But we are shocked at your manners. You haven’t even offered us food, and although Otis was kind enough to offer to share his bowl, we can’t believe that
any
feline would enjoy the cardboard you are feeding him:

I smacked the top of the bed and grinned when I heard her jump in surprise. “I will take your food orders,
after
you tell me why you are here.” I tapped a foot impatiently on the ground. “Well? I’m waiting.”

She murmured something that sounded like
:Bint il-homar:

I smacked the side of the bed. “I won’t have that kind of language in my house!” I said virtuously. I had no idea what she had just said, but it sounded inappropriate and rude.

There was a minute of silence and I hoped that she was not coming up with some kind of magic that would destroy my house, or make me grow a second nose. Perhaps I was pushing her too hard, but in my limited experience with supernatural creatures, it seemed that, if you didn’t want to be walked all over, you had to be aggressive and assertive.

A velvet paw tapped my shoulder and I jumped. Bastet was sitting on the bed behind my head, looking smug.
:We will begin at the beginning:
she purred.
:Pay attention. You don’t have a lot of time and we don’t want to have to repeat ourself:

That was rich, coming from someone who had done just about everything they could to avoid telling me what was going on. Why was time always short when someone wanted you to make a dangerous decision?

She tapped me again with a touch of claw.
:The Synod has received a message from the approaching alien ship:

“I know,” I said haughtily. “They are called ‘the Endring’ and want to meet on the moon”

I was tapped again, a little harder and with more claw.
:When the alien arrival was a possible future, each USB species had time to create and feed their fear. Now that the future is here, rational thought will take a second seat to paranoia and desperation. And, like all cornered creatures, they will turn and attack whomever is closest and weakest:
She paused and stared, unblinking, into my eyes.

“Humans,” I said grimly.

:When an alien invasion was a mere possibility, many wanted to hunt all humans to extinction. What do you think they will do now that the aliens are actually here, and have declared themselves hostile?:

“Crap,” I said forcefully. “Crap. Crap. Crap.” I’d been through this once before and I really didn’t want a repeat. Some nights I still woke up in terror after dreaming about the vampire I’d been forced to stake.

:Exactly. That is why we visited the Oracle. Something must be done. The Oracle gave us the prophecy:

If all of Earth’s creatures would avoid their doom,

She of the Rhine must stand on the moon:

“And you think that means that I have to go meet the aliens on the moon.”

:It seems rather obvious:

“And then everything will be hunky-dory, back to normal.” I was skeptical.

:Correct:

“Who is this Oracle?”

:No one knows for sure. She just is. We paid the price and received the answer to our question. Now it is up to you to get to the moon:

“How am I supposed to do that?” I asked. “I’m not on the Synod, and it’s not like I can fly to the moon on my own!”

:Of course you can’t, silly creature. Whoever suggested such a ludicrous idea?
We
are here to help you:

“Oh, joy.”

:No need to get snarky. The Oracle says you need to get to the moon. We will get you to the moon:

“Then what?”

:Then you do whatever it is that you need to do:

“Which is?”

She flicked her tail airily.
:Oh, We’re sure you’ll know what it is when you get there:

“So, you want me to just go to the moon, on a dangerous expedition, and, what, save the day?”

:We’re glad you are grasping this so clearly:

“Me. Piper Cavanaugh. Saving the world from destruction. All on my lonesome.”

:Yes:

“Fighting off the attacking alien hordes.” My tone was getting sharper with each sentence.

Bastet cocked her head to one side. She was a little slow picking up on the sarcasm.
:There might not be
hordes
. There might just be a couple hundred or so:

“Oh, really?” It wasn’t possible to add more acid to my voice. “Just a couple hundred or so? Why didn’t you say so in the first place? If
that’s
all! When do we leave?”

Either Bastet was deliberately ignoring the sarcasm or else she was as dense as a load of bricks.
:We’ll make the arrangements!:
She hopped off the bed and headed for the bedroom door.
:Really, Piper! We are pleased to find you so reasonable:
and with that, she was gone.

Urgh. Why was it so hard to get a straight story out of people? I was just as much in the dark now as I had been before. So, the Oracle wanted me to go to the moon. Why? What was I supposed to do? What
could
I do? Well, I knew the answer to that one. I could die a horribly painful and needless death. And then my poor little daughters would be without a mother. Not to mention the little life that I would be taking right along with me.

Nope. I couldn’t do it. There wasn’t air on the moon. Bastet must have forgotten about that. I needed air to breathe. I wasn’t going anywhere where there was no air. I saw that one movie where the guy was out in space without his suit and all his blood vessels popped and he exploded. Gross. I had a responsibility, as a pregnant woman, to only travel to destinations that had air.

I called Cecily.

“How are you going to breathe on the moon? There’s no air.”

“Hello to you too, and the WAND will take care of that. It’s a package deal with the Zipline.”

“Oh.”

“You sound disappointed.”

“Never mind.”

Cecily sounded concerned. “Is there something going on I should know about?”

“Define ‘should.’” I hedged.

She sighed. “Why don’t you just tell me and I’ll let you know if I needed to know it or not.”

“Bastet wants me to go to the moon!” I blurted out. “But I can’t go to the moon! I’m not invited. It would be rude! You just don’t go places where you’re not invited. Besides,
you’re
going. You just tell me all about it when you get back and it will be just like I went myself.”

There was silence on the other end. Then Cecily spoke slowly, “Am I to understand that you have been talking to the Bast?”

“Talking
to
!” I huffed. “Try being talked
at
! She doesn’t listen! And if she doesn’t stop that telepathic thing in my head I’m going to tie her up in a sack with a bunch of bricks and drown her! Not to mention how Mark is fawning all over her! You’d think he’d never seen a cat before!”

There was a choking sound on the line. “The Bast is at your house?”

“Yeah!” I continued. “Not only is she at my house, she says she’s staying for awhile! Do you have any idea how much of an idiot I am going to look like if someone catches me having a conversation with a
cat
?”

Cecily spoke even slower. “The Bast is at your house.”

“That’s what I said. Are you not listening? What should I do? I can’t go to the moon! I’m pregnant! Besides, it’s not like my Voice works on all beings. What if it doesn’t work on aliens? Then I’m useless! Even if it
did
work, it only works for a couple of minutes. Barely enough time for them to even get back in their spaceship and leave the moon. They’d be back before you could say ‘war of the worlds.’”

Cecily was mimicking a broken record. “The Bast is at your house.”

“Hello! Earth to Cecily. We’re way past that. The Bast is at my house. So what? Are you listening to what I’m saying here?” I was more than a little annoyed. I expected her to tell me that I didn’t need to go to the moon. That even if I
wanted
to go to the moon that I wasn’t allowed. And that the Synod had everything under control and didn’t need any help from their token human.

“Do you know who the Bast is?” Cecily still sounded stunned.

I rolled my eyes. “Yes. She’s Bastet. Egyptian goddess of music and whatchacallit. So?”

“Sooo,” she dragged out the word. “She’s a
goddess
.”

“Soooo?” I echoed sarcastically. “Nobody believes in goddesses anymore.”

“The word ‘goddess’ is a misnomer,” Cecily informed me. “It’s a shorter way of saying ‘phenomenal cosmic power and magical ability.’”

“Sooo?” I was a little less sarcastic this time.

“So, you have a being of immeasurable magical ability
in your house
! Piper! You just don’t mess around with these higher beings! You think
vampires
don’t understand or value humans? Bastet isn’t even
remotely
human! She doesn’t think like a human, she doesn’t
look
like a human, and she sure doesn’t reason or hold to the same values as humans do!”

I was getting angry. “And just what am I supposed to do about it? I told her to leave! She doesn’t want to. Now what?”

Cecily sputtered. “You did
what?
”

“I told her to leave,” I said defensively.

“Piper, Piper, Piper! Please, tell me that you asked her politely,” Cecily was begging.

“Maybe.” I crossed my arms across my chest.

“Look,” Cecily sighed. “I’ve got a call coming in on the other line. Just,” she paused, obviously at a loss for words, “just don’t do anything stupid until we can talk again.”

She hung up while I was still speechless with rage. I never did anything stupid!

Chapter Five:

Prelaunch

When Cecily told me that the meeting with the aliens was the next day, I hadn’t been thinking that I was going along with her. So the date hadn’t really stuck in my head, that’s the problem with ‘fiddle-dee-deeing;’ eventually it
is
tomorrow. Well, not really, it’s always today, but eventually tomorrow is today, if you get my drift.

Anyways, I was peacefully sleeping when I felt velvet being rubbed across my eyelids. I brushed a hand over my face and rolled over and fell instantly back asleep. The next time I woke it felt like wet sandpaper was being rubbed on my ear. I waved another hand over my head and tried to go back to sleep, then four sharp spikes pinched my earlobe, hard!

“Ow!” I sat up in bed.

Bastet was sitting on my pillow, tail lashing.
:Rise and shine:
she said.
:You’ve got a Zipline to catch:

Much to Bastet’s annoyance, we did not leave within the hour. Or even within several hours. When you have two small children you can’t just pack up at a second’s notice and travel to the moon, as compared to all those people
without
small children who can go to the moon whenever they want. I tried to explain to Bastet that astronauts spent
years
training for a moon walk, and didn’t she think she was rushing things a bit?

She was definitely rushing
me
. I locked her out of the bathroom so she wouldn’t sit by the shower door and wait for me like Otis does. It’s cute when he does it. I imagine that he thinks I am being tortured in water and he’s concerned for my safety. At least, he always looks concerned when I come out. It would be way different to have Bastet watching me. Creepy.

Unfortunately, her mental speak wasn’t hampered by the bathroom door.

:Are you done yet?:

“I’ll take as long as I need to take, you stupid furball,” I muttered, safe in the knowledge that she couldn’t hear me over the sound of the shower. I hoped.

:This is ridiculous. Why is it that humans feel the need to immerse themselves in water? Why can’t you bathe yourselves properly with your tongues? True, you do smell bad, but we wonder if you’ve even
tried
to lick yourselves clean. It’s amazing how closed to new ideas you are:

I mumbled a few more derogatory insights into her character and appearance.

:Piper! … Piper, I know you can hear us. We can’t quite make out what you are saying, but no matter. We just wanted to remind you to brush your teeth. Your breath was particularly unpleasant this morning: