Cat People (19 page)

"Him we're still looking for," Brant said.

"Any leads?" said Oliver.

"Not yet, but we'll get him. And when we do, he should be able to answer a lot of questions for us."

"I hope so," Oliver said, but his voice held no conviction.

The detective said his goodbyes and left the office. Alice walked to the window and stared out. Oliver watched her, feeling uncomfortable.

"I think we ought to talk," she said.

He waited.

"About us."

"All right."

OfT in the distance thunder grumbled. The curtains at the window stirred uneasily.

"Storm on the way," Oliver said.

"Things haven't been the same between you and me since Irena came," Alice said.

"It's been ... difficult," Oliver said evasively.

"Are you in love with her?"

Oliver squirmed under the direct questioning. "I don't know, Alice. There's something about Irena. Something I can't define."

"Have you gone to bed with her?"

"No. I feel kind of, well, protective."

"Protective?" Alice repeated. "That girl doesn't need your protection. What she needs is professional help. There's something not right about her."

"That's not fair," he said.

"I'm not trying to be fair. I'm trying to find out where things stand with you and me."

Oliver glanced uneasily at the open office door. "We can't talk here."

"Then let's go somewhere tonight where we
can
talk."

"I don't want to leave Irena alone."

"Then let's go to your place," Alice said. "We've got to have this out, Oliver, and Irena probably ought to be in on it, anyway."

Oliver sighed heavily. "All right. You and I will go to my place, and we'll all talk, if that's what you want. I'm not convinced it's the right time, though."

The rain started at four-thirty in the afternoon. The sky was a deep slate gray, and lights were turned on all over the city.

In her room upstairs in Oliver's house, Irena napped, curled on the bed. A sudden gust of wind blew a spray of rain in through the open window and across her face. She got up and padded across the room to close the window. As she started to turn away a flash of lightning lit the scene outside in stark relief. Irena froze. Crouched in the branches of the tree outside her window was her brother, Paul.

Irena started to back away, but before she had gone two steps Paul sprang from his perch. The window glass exploded inward and Paul dived into the room, landing gracefully on all fours. A lamp was knocked off the dressing table. It lay on its side on the floor and threw distorted shadows across the wall.

Outside the storm gained in fury, whipping the curtains into the room. Thunder crashed like cymbals, and rain drummed on the roof.

Paul Gallier bounced to his feet and moved lightly around Irena. He placed himself between her and the door.

"Hello, little sister."

"Paul, what's happened to you?"

"Many things, most of them bad. You are the only one who can help me now."

"The police are looking for you."

"I know." His eyes pinned her. "Set me free, Irena."

"I don't know what you mean."

"Yes, you do." His voice rose dangerously. "You've got to help me."

"I can't do anything for you, Paul. You're not well."

"You're just like me, Irena. In your heart you know it. By freeing me, you will free your own true spirit. We will make each other free in the same way our father and mother did. They were more to each other than man and wife, you know. They were like us."

"No!" Irena held her hands over her ears. "I won't listen to you. You're lying."

Paul grasped her wrists and pulled her hands down. "It's you who are lying, little sister. Lying to yourself. You think you love this Oliver. You tell yourself you can live a normal life with him. That is the lie, and you know it. All you can bring to your Oliver is death. Come with me, little sister. Join with me so we can both be free and live as we were meant to."

A blinding flash of lightning was followed immediately by the boom of thunder.

"Oliver loves me," Irena said.

"No, he doesn't. He loves the cat. He loves the animal, because he fears it and wants to possess it. He would possess you too, if he could, but you cannot belong to any man. Let your Oliver go to the redheaded woman. They belong together. Your place is with me, little sister. Come close and let me show you."

"No!" Irena wrenched her hands free and backed away from him.

Paul's expression darkened. He dipped suddenly and picked up a dagger-shaped splinter of window glass and came toward her.

"If you will not join me, then we must both die." His eyes were wild as he advanced.

Irena backed away from him until her shoulders hit the wall. Paul moved in quickly. He brought up the shard of glass and pricked her throat. Irena felt the blood trickle down.

"Don't, Paul. Don't do it."

"There is no other way," he said. "This will end the agony for both of us."

She saw that he was completely irrational now. It was no good trying to reason with him.

"All right, Paul," she said, making her voice soft and caressing. "I'll do whatever you want. I'll come with you." She put her arms around him. Paul pressed his body against hers.

Irena kissed him tenderly—his eyes, his cheeks, his mouth. There was a soft clink as the dagger of glass fell from his hand to the carpet.

Paul's hands massaged her back, and they sank slowly together to a kneeling position. He continued to move lower, kissing her breasts through the thin material of her blouse. He stretched out prone, kissing her stomach. He mashed his face into her groin.

Hot little stabs of pleasure shot through Irena'S body. This was wrong, it was sinfully wrong, but she wanted him to do it. Using all the strength of her will, she reached out and picked up the pointed fragment of glass from where it had fallen. She raised it over Paul's head as he continued to nuzzle her. The back of his neck was exposed and vulnerable. One slash and it would be all over. She told herself to strike, but she hesitated for another second.

In that second some animal sense warned Paul. He raised his head and saw the dagger of glass at the instant Irena started to bring it down. He threw up a hand to ward off the blow. The glass sliced through the tender flesh on the inner part of his forearm.

Blood spurted. Paul cried out in pain and surprise. Irena slashed at him again, but he spun out of her reach.

Using the momentary respite, Irena leaped to her feet and ran to the door. Across the room Paul gripped his wounded arm and stared at her. She snatched the key from the inside of the door, slammed the door, and locked it from the outside. Out in the hallway she leaned against the wall, fighting to get her breath. There was no sound from the other side of the door.

Inside the room Paul stared down at the blood flowing from the long, clean cut on his arm. He held the wound to his mouth and sucked on it. The blood ran down his chin, spattering his clothing.

Across the room he saw himself reflected in Irena's mirror. The shape of his eyes had changed. They were slanting now, the irises yellow, the pupils narrowed to vertical slits.

Paul opened his mouth, salty with his own blood, and growled softly. The flesh on his fingers began to split and peel away.

The wind-driven rain washed across the windshield of the pickup truck like a blast from a fire hose. Oliver could safely drive no faster than twenty miles an hour. His knuckles were bloodless as he gripped the steering wheel. Beside him Alice Moore sat leaning tensely forward, trying to peer through the sheet of water that spilled across the glass.

When at last he pulled up at the little house on Burgundy Street, they both leaned back for a moment to let the tension drain away. Then they looked at each other, nodded, and made a dash for the front door.

When they were inside the house Oliver snapped on the lights. They stood dripping rain water in the entranceway.

"I could use a cup of coffee," Oliver said.

"Want me to make it?" Alice offered.

"Thanks. I'll go get some towels."

Alice started for the kitchen. Oliver climbed the stairs and went to the linen closet at the end of the hall. He selected a couple of big bath towels and was starting back toward the stairs when he noticed the seam of light showing under the door to Irena's room. He walked over and rapped lightly.

"Irena? How about a cup of coffee? Alice is downstairs."

There was a shuffling sound from inside the room, but no answering voice. For the first time Oliver saw the key in the outside of the door.

"Irena? Are you all right?"

The crack of light at the bottom of the door blinked out. From inside the room came a crunch that sounded like someone walking over broken glass. Oliver turned the key, pushed open the door, and went in.

"Irena?" Sudden fear was a cold knot in his belly. Quickly he crossed the room to the broken window. Cold rain lashed him in the face.

The door slammed behind him. A key turned.

Oliver whirled. In the darkness of the room he thought he saw something vaguely human crouching in the corner. It growled at him.

Lightning forked into the ground not far away, and the room was floodlit a brilliant white for a fraction of a second.

Paul Gallier hunched naked against the far wall. Or some ghastly parody of Paul Gallier. His lips were drawn back to reveal cruel pointed teeth. The eyes had an inhuman yellow glow. The skin of his face and body was badly wrinkled, and seemed to be peeling away.

The room was plunged back into darkness. Oliver stared hard at the shadowy shape crouching against the far wall. He tried to speak, but found his throat had tightened on him.

"Oliiiver-r-r ..." It began as a semblance of human speech, but ended as the rumbling growl of an animal.

Oliver backed away as the thing that had been Paul Gallier crawled toward him across the glass-littered floor. Its breath came in heavy snorting pants as the thing came nearer.

Lightning blazed again. Any resemblance the thing in the room may have had to Paul Gallier was gone. Six feet away, glaring at Oliver with a jungle hatred, was the black leopard. Its sudden roar was a thundering bellow in the small room.

"Oliver?" Alice's voice called faintly from downstairs. "What's up there?"

Oliver had no time to answer. He backed along the wall, searching frantically for something to use as a weapon against the advancing cat.

The leopard, belly to the floor, slid forward a measured step at a time. A bass growl rumbled in its throat. The heavy black tail switched from side to side, thumping the carpet like a club.

"Oliver?" Alice was closer now, on the stairs.

"The gun, Alice!" he shouted. "Get the rifle out of the bookcase!"

The leopard raised one huge paw. A solid blow from that, Oliver knew, could break his leg. Or his back. His foot bumped against something metallic. He reached down and found the fallen gooseneck lamp. Oliver snatched it up like a drowning man going for a log. It was not much of a weapon for fighting off a man-killing jungle beast, but it was better than his bare hands. He only had to hold the animal off until Alice got back with the rifle.
Only!

The leopard sprang at him. Gripping the flexible neck of the lamp near the shade, Oliver swung the heavy metal base down like a hammer. He caught the leopard on top of the broad skull, surprising it more than he hurt it. With the momentum of its spring gone, the cat retreated a step.

When she heard Oliver's shout, Alice sprinted back down the stairs two and three steps at a time. At the bottom she found the glassed-in bookcase where Oliver had stowed the bolt-action Winchester from the zoo. She seized the handles of the glass doors and jerked on them. Locked.

In a growing panic, she looked around for something she could use to break the glass. She picked up a heavy elephant figurine and threw it at the bookcase, flinching away as the glass shattered. She reached inside, careful to avoid glass splinters, and pulled out the rifle.

Holding the gun before her, she started running back up the stairs, then stopped suddenly.

My God, is it loaded?

Alice levered the bolt back and stared into an empty chamber.

Oh, Goddamn! Where would he keep the ammunition?

Alice tried not to listen to the sounds coming from upstairs as she ran back down to the bookcase.

Please let the bullets be there!

She used the butt of the rifle to knock out the bits of glass that remained in the door frame, and stared inside. There, lying loose on the bottom where Oliver had put them when he unloaded the Winchester, were live steel-jacketed cartridges. Breathing a prayer of thanks, Alice scooped them up and shoved them one at a time into the breech.

Upstairs Oliver continued to do what he could to hold the leopard at bay with the gooseneck lamp. After he connected with the first blow to the head, the cat advanced more warily. As he came within reach, Oliver swung again, aiming for the leopard's tender nose. This time he was not fast enough. With a sudden slash of his paw the leopard hooked the base of the lamp and tore it from Oliver's grasp. It flew through the air and clanked against the far wall.

With no weapon left to him, Oliver scrambled away. The cat, as though wanting to prolong this moment of triumph, came slowly, deliberately after him.

Turning to the bed, Oliver snatched up the blanket and wrapped it around his forearm. When the leopard came for him he raised the padded arm in defense. There was a flash of claws and the blanket was reduced to ribbons.

"Alice!" Oliver cried. Why the devil was she taking so long?

Moving frantically along the walls while the cat padded after him, Oliver overturned any piece of furniture he could move, trying to put obstacles between himself and the beast. The big cat swatted them aside like cardboard toys.

While keeping his attention riveted on the leopard, Oliver could not look where he was going. Inevitably, he found himself backed into a corner. There was nowhere he could go where the leopard could not reach out and gut him. as a last desperate measure he jerked the mattress from the bed Irena had used and held it out before him as a shield.