Cat's Claw (43 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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The only thing I could see happening next was that Bast would do some weirdo spell and steal my body. God, I had been a patsy from the very beginning, played like the kind of cheap toy accordion you just throw away when it finally goes out of tune.
“Where’s Daniel?” I asked abruptly. “I want to see him before you steal my body.”
“I suppose I can humor you,” Bast purred. “After all, he’s right here.”
She jumped off my lap and onto the ground. She began to cough, her whole body rippling back and forth as she hacked up what appeared to be a hairball, but upon closer inspection proved to be nothing of the kind. It was Daniel’s Shade, all crumpled and pretty gross-looking after hours inside Bast’s stomach.
“Body and soul are one again!” Bast hissed and a ball of bright purple light enveloped the gross, mottled thing that was Daniel’s Shade. There was a flash of lightning and I screamed.
“Daniel!”
His body lay in the grass, naked and wet. I crawled off the bench and kneeled down beside him, cradling his head in my lap.
“Daniel, wake up,” I said, kissing his eyes and his lips, overjoyed that he was in my arms, whole and unharmed.
“Callie,” he moaned softly as he opened his eyes.
I bent down and kissed him again—and this time he responded, albeit weakly, in kind.
“Enough,” Bast said as she prowled in front of us. “Seize them!”
I was ripped away from Daniel by Anubis’s strong arms, while his brother grabbed Daniel, hoisting him onto his feet and throwing a light linen robe over his head to hide his nakedness.
“We will begin the transformation now,” Bast said. “Bring forth the other bodies.”
Anubis’s brother, Bata, sat Daniel down on the farthest bench and walked out of the circle. Daniel was still so haggard that he could barely sit up, so I struggled out of Anubis’s grasp and ran to him.
“He’s too weak,” I cried. “Let me help him.”
Bast swished her tail and Anubis stepped away, letting me take the seat on the bench beside Daniel. I pulled his frail body forward, letting him settle his full weight against me.
“Thank you,” he whispered, closing his eyes wearily as he leaned against my shoulder.
Just as his breathing started to quiet, I heard crashing on the pathway leading from the house. I looked up, wondering what had caused the noise, and then my eyes caught sight of something unimaginable.
Coming toward me—somehow still alive—
were Clio and Jarvis.
I didn’t know if I was imagining things or if I had just completely gone crazy, but if what I was seeing was real, then you could put me in a straitjacket and lock me away forever and I’d be fine with it.
“Get your damn hands off me!” Clio said, her voice sharp with anger as Bata pushed her down the path.
She and Jarvis both looked worse for wear. They were each clothed in the same kind of robe as Daniel—and neither of them seemed very pleased about it.
“Do what the girl says and unhand us,” Jarvis added as he tried to keep pace with Bata’s long strides.
Just hearing their voices was a revelation. I couldn’t believe that I had been given such an amazing second chance. I vowed right then and there to be nicer to both of them for as long as I lived.
“Who was in the circle?” I asked, turning to Bast—although I was pretty sure I already knew the answer to my own question.
“I promised Hatshepsut and the Minx that if they helped me steal your body, I would then bestow them bodies in return,” Bast said, her eyelids half-closed as she watched me. “But I tricked them. Instead of spelling them into real bodies, I created
the illusion
that they had been placed into your friends’ bodies.”
“And then you destroyed them the first chance you got,” I said.
If I hadn’t been so upset, I would’ve realized much sooner that Bast
couldn’t
destroy the real Clio or Jarvis without knowing what their weaknesses were first, since they were both immortal.
Damn, I could be dense sometimes.
“They had to be dealt with. Besides, I had other plans for the bodies,” she purred. “My family has been stripped of its real power for centuries. I think it is high time that we made our return—and Death’s Daughters will be the vessels of that triumph!”
“Callie!” my sister cried as she and Jarvis were thrust unceremoniously into the circle with me.
Clio immediately ran over, grabbing me around the neck and nearly choking the life out of me, and then I felt Jarvis’s arms join Clio’s, so that we were in some kind of weird, three-way “I really missed the crap out of you” hug. I felt the tears pooling behind my eyes and this time I just let them flow.
“I thought you guys were dead,” I whispered, my throat constricted by emotion.
“We thought you were, too,” Clio said as she released me. “Bast got me before you even left, and then once Kali came to get Runt, she went after Jarvis, too. She’s had us down in the cellar with Anubis and Bata ever since.”
Well, at least now I knew that the
real
Clio wasn’t a sucker for Paris Hilton, after all.
Whew!
“They plan on stealing our bodies,” Jarvis said, sitting down on the other side of Daniel and relieving me of some of his deadweight. “Because we’re immortal—and because they think one day you will ascend to the Presidency of Death, Inc.”
“I know,” I said. “I was so stupid not to see it sooner.”
“It’s not your fault, Cal,” Clio said. “Bast fooled all of us—”
Suddenly, we were interrupted by a thunderclap that ricocheted in the air above our heads. We all looked up—except for the comatose Daniel—to see the night sky filled with shooting green waves of power that kind of resembled the aurora borealis on a clear night.
“What in the world—” Jarvis started to say, but another thunderclap drowned out the rest of his words.
I watched as Bast and the Jackal Brothers prostrated themselves on the ground, their faces pressed into the dirt. Another thunderclap rent the air—sending a sizzling buzz into the ether that made my hair stand on end with static electricity—and I saw the large red bird with the midnight-colored beak circling in the air above us.
“Look!” Clio said, pointing at the bird as it made a couple of loops in the air before swooping earthward. Clio and I ducked as the bird shot over our heads and landed on the ground in front of the bone powder circle.
The bird screamed, then thrust itself forward, its feet touching the earth only for a second before it began to transform, its body elongating like Silly Putty into the red-robed form of a statuesque woman, her long black hair cascading down her back.
“Nephthys,”
Jarvis breathed, staring at the beautiful woman that stood erect before us.
Her face was as pale as alabaster, high-arched eyebrows giving her face an almost
surprised
look. She had high cheekbones that looked as sharp as razor blades and pouting, pale pink lips the color of Japanese cherry blossoms. She held a long black staff in her hand that was more armament than walking stick. It was carved out of pure ebony, its asp head so lifelike it might have been a living snake dipped in black paint.
Bast and her brothers were instantly on their feet, approaching the powerful Goddess with what appeared to be tentative caution.
“O great Mother, we did not expect you here or we would have prepared—” Bast purred, but Nephthys only glared at the cat.
“SILENCE!”
Once more I watched as the three siblings prostrated themselves on the ground with reverence and—if I wasn’t completely crazy—with some fear, too.
“We did not mean to offend you, Mother,” Bast said, her cat’s face pressed into the dirt.
Nephthys didn’t reply, only paced vengefully back and forth in front of her three errant children.
“Mother . . . ?” Anubis squeaked, and I almost giggled as I remembered the strong, terrifying voice I was used to hearing issue from his mouth.
Nephthys stopped in front of Bast and the cat cowered before her. She raised her ebony staff, resting it against the back of Bast’s head. I wanted to cheer. Finally, someone was gonna show the goddamned Queen of the Cats who was boss.
“That one will be mine.”
I gawked as Nephthys lifted the staff away from Bast’s head and pointed it at me.
Now Bast’s stepmommy wants to be me? Jeez, what the hell made me such a hot tamale these days?
“Look,” I said, “you guys don’t want to be me. I have a crappy job that I only kind of like, a teeny-tiny apartment, and a wardrobe that could use a lot of bulking up—”
“Silence!” Nephthys said, lifting the staff so that it pointed directly at my heart—not a great sign. I closed my mouth, opting for silence as the wiser choice in the situation.
“I will take that body,” Nephthys said again, lowering her staff and walking toward me.
She reached out a long, bony hand and lifted my chin up with her fingers so that she could look into my eyes. Then, before I knew what was happening, I was being lifted into the air via my face. I struggled against Nephthys, but she was much stronger than me and it was no contest.
“Callie!” Clio screamed, grabbing for my arm, but Anubis and Bata were upon her in an instant, pulling her off the bench and away from me. Jarvis had his hands full keeping Daniel upright and there was nothing he could do to help me anyway.
Nephthys stared deeply into my eyes, her intense black irises like two glowing pools of nothingness. I can’t say that the feeling she engendered inside of me was
terror
, per se, but it was pretty close. Actually, it was more like my whole soul shriveled up at the stark desolation emitting from her fathomless eyes.
I think that describes the experience pretty well.
Now I knew why her children were so frightened of her. She was hands down the scariest Goddess I’d ever come across—and I’d met quite a few of the ladies over the past few months.
“.”
She spat these words in my face. I had no idea what they meant, but I deduced from context that they probably weren’t friendly words of encouragement.
Suddenly, I felt something like fire pierce my sternum and I screamed as searing hot pain shot through my body. Nephthys’s eyes sparkled with excitement as she rammed her staff deeper into my chest, penetrating my heart. I looked down, feeling sick to my stomach at the sight of the great ebony staff protruding from my rib cage.
“Please,”
I groaned as blood began to pour from my mouth, trickling down my chin and onto the ground beneath my swinging feet.
“!”
Nephthys screamed, her head thrown back so that her voice shot up to the heavens.
I felt drowsy as my heart stopped pumping and my feet stilled. All I could do was stare at Nephthys as my body slowly began to shut down.
“Exhale!” Nephthys commanded me, but with my last few ounces of strength, I shook my head.
“Exhale!”
she screamed, thrusting the staff farther into my body.
I couldn’t help myself. I opened my mouth as an unbidden scream of pain escaped my throat. Nephthys smiled, revealing sharp yellow teeth all in a fixed row. Suddenly, her tongue spilled out of her pink mouth, snaking toward me with a barely contained ferocity.
I knew
exactly
where that tongue intended to go, so I tried to shut my lips to fend it off, but she was too quick. I gagged as I felt her tongue, wet and warm, probing inside my mouth with erratic dexterity before slipping slowly down into the inner reaches of my gullet.
I felt something snap inside me, and I was filled with the bizarre sensation of my body being ratcheted into two. Then, as abruptly as it had begun, her tongue receded, pulling itself out of me and sliding back into her mouth.
Nephthys leaned forward, her hot breath sour in my face.
“You are mine.”
She opened her mouth again, and this time I smelled the foul stench of her decaying soul as it burst from her mouth in a wisp of stinking vapor and slid stealthily toward my own lips.
“No!”
Nephthys’s eyes flicked to her right, but she was too late. Senenmut was almost upon her. She tried to pull her staff out of me and use it to defend herself, but Senenmut slammed into her, pinning her to the ground.
I fell backward, her staff still inside me, and as I lay on my back on the ground, my senses became heightened. The stars hanging in the midnight sky above me were brighter than I had ever seen them. I heard the cool hiss of the water below me, only now it seemed to be whispering my name quietly to itself.
“Calliope! The staff!” Senenmut screamed as he thrashed on the ground with Nephthys.
I reached up with both hands, grasping the coolness of the ebony staff. Part of me wanted to just close my eyes and give in to the encroaching oblivion, but I couldn’t do it.

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