Reserved for the Cat

The mind couldn’t grasp what it became—it was simultaneously twenty, thirty, maybe fifty different people and animals, and at the same time, it was a towering mud-doll that was all malice, all malignance, all hatred. She cried out and brought up her arm to shield her face, then flung herself sideways, somehow scooping up Thomas and taking him with her.

The wall where she had been was caved in by the force of the silent explosion, channeled through the doorway.

For one moment, it became very, very quiet.

Then—the howling, the mindless, wordless baying began.

She rolled over, dazed. “What . . .”

Get up! Get up! Thomas shrieked in her mind, his words like ice-picks jabbed into her brain. It’s not over yet! Its servants are loose, and without the Troll to control them, all they want is prey!

Prey—and we’re the prey! She struggled to her feet and lurched down the hall after Thomas.

She stopped at the foot of the stairs as he scrambled upwards. But—

They have us cut off from going down! Up! he urged. She followed after him, revolver still clutched in her hand, the other feeling in her pocket for more cartridges. “Will bullets do any good?” she shouted after him, as from below, she heard the howling come nearer and felt the staircase shake under the pounding of feet.

They’d better, came the grim reply.

They reached the top floor, where the servants would have slept—if the servants had been human and needed sleep. Dust was half an inch thick here, and rose in clouds as they ran for the farthest room. They darted inside the door. The howling continued from the stairwell.

The bedstead! Thomas shouted. Make a barricade across the door!

Fear gave her strength she hadn’t realized that she had. She slammed the door shut, then dragged the iron bedframe across the tiny room. jamming it in place across the door.

The howling was on their floor now, and the floor itself shook with the pounding of feet.

She reloaded the gun. Please tell me you sent for help, Thomas begged.

“I sent for help. I just hope the young man Ailse is seeing is not very fascinating.”

Then there was no time. They were at the door.

Without any preamble, they began pounding on it, trying to break it down. The sturdy old oak resisted their efforts for a long time, and Ninette resisted the temptation to either fire through the door, or burst into tears and throw the gun away. Finally, with a splintering sound, a great fist crashed through a door panel.

Ninette began firing, her back to the window.

It’s too high, Thomas said in despair behind her. It’s straight down to the street. I can’t make a drop like that—

If he couldn’t, neither could she.

She fired and reloaded, fired and reloaded. There seemed no end to the things, or else her bullets were having no effect other than to make them angry. Then her hand closed on the last two bullets.

She swore and loaded them, took careful aim, feeling a helpless despair that made her want to howl. This was it; this was—

There was a human shout from the hall, some incomprehensible tangle of syllables.

As Ninette was again knocked off her feet, something opened in front of her on the other side of what was left of the door.

It was a good thing that she was on the floor, because otherwise she would have been sucked into the yawning black vortex rimmed with fire that pulled in what was left of the door, pulled in the splintered fragments from the floor, tore the ragged curtains from the window, and created a hurricane in the room as it devoured the very air. Thomas yowled like a common cat, claws gouging the floor as the vortex sucked at him too. She grabbed him before he lost his grip, and rolled over with him tucked into the hollow of her stomach, curled around him, covered her head with her arms and waited for it all to end.

She thought it would never end, that she would go mad, or all the air would be sucked out of the world, or that they would both die.

And then . . . it ended.

There was . . . silence.

“Ninette! Ninette!” She rolled over in time to see Jonathon vaulting the iron bedstead, running for her.

“I’m—we’re—all right—” she said, dazed. She looked around for the gun, but it was gone, gone into the void. “I lost the gun.”

Jonathon said something unrepeatable about the gun, and scooped her up, and Thomas with her. “If you ever run off like that again,” he threatened, Nigel and Alan shoving the bedstead out of the way so he could get through the door, “I will—I will spank you! I swear it!”

She began to giggle, first weakly, then hysterically. She hid her head in the folds of his jacket to smother her giggles as he glared down at her.

“. . . and so Thomas leapt on the mouse and killed it,” she finished. “Only that let loose all of the things that pursued us, though I am not sure how.”

Once again, she was tucked up on the chaise longue in Nigel’s office, with a blanket around her feet, and a glass of brandy and water in her hand. Once again, they were all gathered around her, listening to her narrative. And once again, now that the terror was drained out of her, so was the energy. All she really wanted to do was to close her eyes.

This is all conjecture on my part—Thomas began, wearily.

“Conjecture away,” Nigel replied, as Ninette rubbed her aching head and wished her ears would stop popping.

That creature was an Earth Elemental. A Troll. Now I know for a fact it looked like Nina Tchereslavsky, and it was able to take on the shapes of at least a dozen other people as well. I think that it must have been summoned by—and destroyed—an incompetent Elemental Mage. Once it was loose in the world, it decided that it liked living here. It began killing and absorbing people, and with every new person it absorbed, it got a little smarter.

The others all nodded. “The rest follows from that,” Nigel agreed, and swore. “But why we never thought to connect all three ‘enemies’ and realize they were a single one—”

It had gotten very clever, Nigel, the cat said wearily. Clever enough that it almost outwitted me. You are hardly to be faulted.

The men continued to discuss and dissect what had happened, as Ninette leaned her head against the cushions, closed her eyes, and just wished they would leave. Finally they all stopped. She opened her eyes. They were looking at her.

“I just need some rest,” she said faintly. They took the hint, awkwardly apologizing, getting up, and scuttling out the door. Jonathon was the last to leave, with a single meaningful look deep into her eyes.

Finally, blessed silence—or as silent as it ever got in a theater—reigned.

She sighed and closed her eyes.

But she was not going to get any peace quite yet.

Why did you tell them that I was the one that killed the Troll? Thomas demanded.

She opened her eyes to see Thomas’s yellow ones staring at her with accusation.

She groaned. “Killing that—thing—demanded good aim, steady nerves, and a lot of courage. No?” she asked.

True, Thomas agreed. But—

“What knight in shining armor likes to turn up to discover the princess has rescued herself and slain the dragon?” she asked.