Cat's Claw (31 page)

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Authors: Amber Benson

Tags: #Fantasy, #Contemporary, #Fiction, #General, #Fantasy fiction, #Fiction - Fantasy, #Science Fiction And Fantasy, #Fantasy - Contemporary

BOOK: Cat's Claw
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“I loved the sea as a boy. My father would take my brother and me to Kem-Ver—the Black Sea in your tongue—and we would watch the slaves building the ships,” Senenmut said wistfully. “Those were some of the happiest times in my life.”
I could empathize with the guy—minus the slaves. There was something about remembering your childhood that made you feel all old and sad inside. Of course, for me, I had only twenty-some years to reflect back on. For Senenmut, his memories straddled thousands of years and the death of his whole world.
Maybe empathy was overrated.
Damn, he just looked so out of place at Sea Verge. He didn’t belong here in this time. He was from a whole other period in history where magic and an open dialogue with one’s Gods still existed. The world was different now, and I had the distinct impression that once the novelty of being free again after thousands of years of bondage wore off, Senenmut would become disillusioned and depressed. This realization made me understand that the kindest thing I could do for the guy was to deliver him to Cerberus—whether we found his lost love or not—and get him into the system of rebirth and death again, so he could let go of his old self for good.
It really is for the best,
I decided gloomily as I reached for the knob on the back door of the main house. Before I could even turn the dumb thing, the door swung open and I nearly fell face-first into the house.
“Hey!” I said as I grabbed onto the nearest thing I could find to steady myself—which just happened to be Jarvis and the doorjamb. “
Hey
, I was just coming to look for you.”
Jarvis stiffened, but continued to let me use his shoulder to steady myself inside the doorway.
“Yes?” he said once I was finally back to a full upright position.
“Just a minute,” I said as I checked to make sure that one of the heels on my boots hadn’t come loose. “All right, sorry about that.”
I reached out and tried to brush some pretend lint off the lapels of Jarvis’s shirt, but he shooed me away.
“Stop that!” he said, looking down at his shirt just to make sure there
wasn’t
really anything on it.
“Look, Jarvis,” I said, hanging my head and looking down at my feet in contrition. “I’m really, really, really sorry that I left you in the Hall of Death and went with Bast all by myself.”
I peeked through my lashes to see if he was buying my apology—which he wasn’t. Instead, he was using the edge of his pince-nez to pick some dirt out from under his nails, barely even deigning to pay attention to me.
“You want a manicure, I’ll get you a manicure,” I said, putting my hands on my hips. “But right now just listen to me for a minute, okay?”
Jarvis sighed and looked up, slipping the pince-nez into his jacket pocket.
“Fine. I suppose I can spare a few moments.”
I gave him a wobbly smile.
“Thank you, Jarvis.”
He shrugged, but at least he was listening finally.
“I want to apologize. It was straight up all my fault. You were helping me out and I totally blew you off,” I said. “And I’m just . . . really, really sorry. I know that saying I won’t do it again means nothing, but I promise you before I do something stupid again, I’m gonna stop, take a minute, and ask myself: What Would Jarvis Do?”
Jarvis cleared his throat.
“You pinched that off the Jesus freaks, didn’t you.”
I nodded.
“Yup, I saw WWJD on a rubber bracelet, and for, like, two seconds I actually thought it
did
stand for ‘What Would Jarvis Do?’—I swear to God I’m not lying.”
I could see the edges of Jarvis’s mouth trying to draw up into a smile, but the little faun was doing everything in his power not to give in and accept my apology.
“Please forgive me?” I begged, but still, Jarvis wouldn’t relent.
“You’re really gonna make me do this, aren’t you?” I sighed.
Jarvis nodded.
“Okay,” I said as I got down on my knee in the doorway and put my hands together in mock prayer. “Please, Jarvis. Please, please,
please
forgive me.”
“This is ridiculous,” Jarvis said, grasping my arm and hauling me back onto my feet. “Stand up.”
“Forgiven?” I asked.
“How can I say no when you’re blocking the doorway like this?” Jarvis said dryly.
“I thought you’d see it my way,” I said. “Now that we’re all made up, I need another favor.”
Jarvis rolled his eyes heavenward.
“Of course you do, my dear. As they say in the animal kingdom: A leopard
never
changes its spots.”
I took the dig willingly. At least I knew Jarvis was back on my side again, thank God.
“I need you to take Senenmut and me to Target.”
“Oh, you
are
slumming it, aren’t you?” Jarvis said, snickering. “Calliope Reaper-Jones shopping the Jaclyn Smith Collection at Target?
This
I have to see. I’ll go get the car.”
He started to head toward the garage, but I stopped him.
“Actually,” I said, loving the fact that Jarvis was wrong about something for a change. “I
think
you mean Kmart when you’re talking Jaclyn Smith, Mr. Smarty-pants. And we’re gonna be needing a wormhole, not a car, so you better get cracking.”
 
 
originally, jarvis had wanted to come with us on our long-lost-love search, but after I told him about my last run-in with Bast, he changed his mind.
“She’s a piece of work, that cat,” Jarvis said as he opened the wormhole for us. “She hates working with your father, even though he does
nothing
but treat her with respect.”
“Maybe she just doesn’t like being controlled,” I offered, but Jarvis only shook his head.
“I think it’s more than that. I think it has nothing to do with being controlled and
everything
to do with power.”
I wasn’t sure what he meant.
“For centuries, humanity worshipped her, made offerings in her name, sacrificed for her blessings,” Jarvis said in explanation. “Now the cult of the cat is over. She has lost most of her power and she blames your father for it. Totally irrational, I know, since he had nothing to do with the death of the Egyptian culture.”
“So why is she working for him, then?” I asked curiously.
“As Death’s spirit guide, she retains some of her previous powers,” Jarvis replied. “Powers that she would’ve lost otherwise.”
“You think she’s gonna use those powers on Daniel?”
Jarvis only shook his head.
“I don’t know,” he said finally. “But one of us must remain behind to make sure that cat doesn’t get into too much mischief here at Sea Verge while your parents are away.”
“I think she’s turned Clio’s head,” I said. “She’s got her watching reality TV and painting her toenails.”
Jarvis sighed and shook his head.
“I don’t think that’s Bast’s doing. Your sister has been behaving very strangely as of late.”
“What do you mean?” I said, even though I already had an inkling as to what he was talking about.
“Your father and I believe that she has been secretly seeing your friend Indra.”
“What?” I squeaked. “And by the way, he is so
not
my friend.”
Okay, let me just preface this by saying that the only experiences I’ve had with Indra were when he was being a total egocentric prick. In fact, during the whole “dad kidnapping” fiasco, he had been a
real
pain in my ass, causing me nothing but strife. He’d been the proud owner of one of the items that the Board of Death had wanted me to retrieve in order to fulfill my tasks and take over my dad’s job. Needless to say, Indra had been anything
but
forthcoming at the time. It wasn’t until
after
I’d saved his butt from the demon Vritra that he’d changed his attitude and gotten a whole lot nicer to be around.
He was one of the few Gods I knew who still liked to keep his hands in the world of human affairs. He had taken on the persona of a noted Bollywood actor and director, winning more acclaim and accord with each new film he conceived. The human world might not have known he was a
real
God, but there were plenty of ladies out there who thought he was the human equivalent.
After we—Daniel, Jarvis, Kali, Runt, Clio, and me—vanquished the demon Vritra, Indra had invited everyone to the premiere of his latest Bollywood spectacular. I hadn’t
seen
Clio talking to him that night, but I’d been pretty preoccupied with the Gopi—Indra’s hard-core female bodyguards, whom I’d resurrected from the dead after Vritra had decimated them—so I wouldn’t have been surprised to find that I’d missed their flirtation.
“Wow, okay,” I said calmly. “Well, you could’ve knocked me over with a feather on that one.”
Jarvis merely pursed his lips and nodded.
“Your father doesn’t think the relationship is appropriate, but he has chosen to remain silent—he doesn’t want to lose another one of his daughters by speaking up.”
Well, that hit me right in the heart. With Thalia in Purgatorial jail and me hiding out in New York, I guess I couldn’t blame my dad for not wanting to alienate Clio.
“Boyfriend or not, I think you’d better keep your eye on her,” I said. “Bast has something up her sleeve and I don’t think it’s gonna be pretty.”
Jarvis nodded his agreement.
And with that, I left my dad’s more-than-capable Executive Assistant to watch Sea Verge . . . and I led Senenmut into the wormhole.
 
 
my feelings about wormholes notwithstanding, the trip to Vegas wasn’t too torturous. That is, no one got queasy or lost or dead, so I considered it pretty much a success.
Jarvis had sent us to the first Target on the list—but had missed by a shrub, the length of one humongous casino, and three plain old city blocks. My new Egyptian friend seemed immediately impressed by all the neon signs that surrounded the casino—especially one sign in particular, which held his attention even when I tapped his arm and tried to get him to follow me down the sidewalk. It advertised “An Evening with Wayne Newton” and showed a picture of the man himself, his wide-lipped smile exposing some of the largest teeth I’d ever seen in a picture—
or
in person, for that matter.
“I know that smile,” Senenmut said, staring at the gaudy signage that blinked on and off like some tentative, silent heartbeat.
“Yeah?” I said.
He took a few steps forward, getting as close to the sign as the sidewalk, and an encircling gate, would let him.
“Yes,” he said, his eyes narrowed. “Teeth like a crocodile.”
“Was that his name in a past life?”
Senenmut shook his head.
“No, that’s just what his teeth looked like.”
“Okay,” I said, not wanting to dredge up bad memories. “Look, we don’t have a ton of time and there are, like, eleven possible Targets in the greater Las Vegas area, so we need to get a move on.”
Senenmut nodded, not wanting to drag his gaze away from Wayne but gently letting me lead him down the sidewalk toward our first destination.
 
 
senenmut was adamant that he would know Hatshepsut when he saw her—regardless of what body she was sporting these days. I was a little skeptical of his ability, but since this was his show, I just kept my mouth shut.
My bald-headed Egyptian friend walked the length of the first Target we entered, his eyes wide with wonder, but nothing love-interest oriented caught his eye.
Now, the store itself was
another
story entirely. It dawned on me as Senenmut stalked the bright red and white aisles of domestic goods and foodstuffs that the man had never seen anything of this conspicuous consumption magnitude before in his life.
Ancient Egypt might’ve had the pyramids, but
we
had strip malls and casinos.
The refrigerated aisles held the most interest for my friend. I vaguely remembered Cerberus saying that Senenmut had been an architect once upon a time, so it only made sense that something all technical and engineering-based would grab his attention. He kept asking me how they made the cold air that circulated inside the cases, but
I
had no idea how refrigeration worked. I promised to get him a book or something on the subject, which only seemed to spark his curiosity, not assuage it.
“She is not here,” he said finally after he’d walked the entire length of the store three times and inhaled the two Butterfingers and one Kit Kat bar I’d bought him at the self-serve checkout stand. Needless to say, he was overjoyed when I introduced him to the water fountain over by the toilets. I almost couldn’t get him to leave it behind. He kept examining how it was connected to the wall, trying to gauge how he could get it off its moorings and take it with him.

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