I
woke up four times. Once in the shop, and fell back down into
unconsciousness as the pain came to say hello. Twice in the
hospital, for brief moments; long enough to know that they had me on
a lot of drugs. The fourth time I woke up, I was in a wheelchair, in
a warehouse.
"Hellooooo"
Someone slapped my face, repeatedly, relatively gently. It hurt
anyway, though the pain was fuzzy. Like everything.
In
the background, what sounded like far away, someone else was saying
"What is this guy, the fucking cat whisperer? Must be six or
seven of the damn things outside." That got my attention. I
wrenched my eyes open a little more.
One
of the long-hairs was right up close to me. Too close, sweating too
much. I tried to lean away, without much success. He turned away,
to say "Boss! He's awake!"
Ambrose
Laurent dropped into a chair in front of me. He did not look well.
A few bruises; not what I would have expected if he was lucid that
night, and I wouldn't have expected anything if he hadn't been. So
he didn't fit tidily into my idea of dream states, which probably
shouldn't be a shock. But more importantly, he twitched and ticced
and fidgeted; his smooth-handed routine was lost.
"You
did this. To me."
"Yes."
"So
I wouldn't send your picture to the police."
"Yes.
Not only that. But yes."
"I
sent them. To the police. To the paper. So, you're fucked. Your
girlfriend isn't, yet. I kept those pictures back, just in case she
ever reappears."
They
didn't know where Gina was. Which means they did know who she was.
"You brought me here to tell me this?"
"No.
I brought you here to tell you, then shoot you."
Fuck.
Well, nothing to lose now. "Tell me, Ambrose. Is your master
angry? Is Kether-Kinal?"
He
looked suprised for moment, then chuckled "The Keeper will
forgive me, as soon as you're dead. The Crown... Who can be sure
what the Crown thinks, but the Keeper?"
I
felt, at the time, that I might as well solve a little mystery before
I went out "Since you're in a shoot-and-tell mood, anyway; one
question. Where is the entrance to the ritual cave?"
"Heh.
It's in the graveyard, next to the hosp... The hell?"
That
last because there was suddenly a cat in his lap, looking at him. He
slapped it aside, hard, and one of his goons aimed a kick at it.
I
couldn't help myself; "You shouldn't have hit the cat, Ambrose.
Now you're in really deep shit", and I was laughing. It
hurt; I started coughing as I laughed, then hacking; I spit a little
blood.
He
stood up, grabbed a gun off the table, held it to my shoulder, just
under the shoulder blade, digging in "What the fuck are you
talking about?"; screaming.
So,
I flexed my right hand, and drove my claws into his chest. And then
remembered that I was awake, and it wouldn't work; no claws up here
in the waking world. But he doubled over anyway; I got a look at my
hand. No claws. But then his head snapped up; I saw my eyes
reflected in his, and in that reflection, mine were green, slitted.
Cat eyes.
He
stumbled back, and shot me, in the chest. Again. Again. Then he
collapsed.
Ready
to go, Benjamin? Ulla, in my head.
Am I
dreaming?
No,
Benjamin. You're dying. Shall we be off?
That'd be
lovely.
What
happened next wasn't something I witnessed, but Ulla described it for
me. As Laurent's guard rushed to the body, straining to revive him
or assist him, cats came from hiding all around. Seventeen in all;
they rushed around my body, and lapped at my blood. I was a little
repulsed by that detail, but Ulla assured me that it was a helpful
component of the practice. She was, after all, using those same cats
as a kind of stand-in; a way to catch and reform the core of my
consciousness.
As
you will undoubtedly deduce from the fact that I'm writing about
these things in the past tense, I survived my death. In a fashion,
at least. I regained some semblance of myself on the grassy hills
outside my fortress. Which was now a circle of monoliths.
"I
didn't know you could do that."
I thought
it would be several years at least before I needed to.
"Several.
Years. How long do companions usually last you?"
Six to
twelve hundred years, as I experience time. The last hundred or so,
after they shed their bodies and are ready to start exploring the
deeper realms, are the most fun. But you still have business with
the waking, don't you?
"Damn
right I do. With this Keeper of theirs, at the very least."
