Authors: Amber Benson

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

Cat's Claw (42 page)

BOOK: Cat's Claw

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Then, without warning, time suddenly snapped back into normal speed and I was in control of my body again.

“Clio!” I screamed, my heart thrumming inside my chest as I watched my baby sister being burned alive like a witch.

I started to run into the circle, thinking that maybe I could save them if I could only reverse the spell or pull them out of the light before it consumed them entirely, but Senenmut caught my arm and pulled me back. I struggled against him, hot tears splashing down my face.

“Let me go!”
I screamed, pushing and kicking at him, trying to force him to let me go.

But he held me tight, letting me rip at his skin with my nails. Not flinching as I strained against him.

“No! Please, God, no!” I wailed, covering my face with my hands as I tried to hide from the horrible image of my sister’s face melting like candle wax.

“Clio . . . !”

Her name was a whisper on my lips as I slumped against Senenmut, my head throbbing in time with my pulse.

They were gone—reduced now to nothing more than a pile of ashes for the wind to steal.

I could feel unconsciousness looming over me, my brain wanting to blot out the horror of what I had just seen, but I fought it.

“Calliope,” Senenmut said, whispering into my ear and dragging me away from the brink of the blackness that threatened to consume me.

I shook my head, my brain on fire with what I had just witnessed, the death and destruction that could never be undone.

I heard someone crying—not realizing that that someone was me. My stomach was in my throat, a sense of unreality overwhelming me. Senenmut held me as the sobs stole over my body and white-hot grief seared my brain. All I could think about was my little sister, her face, her smile—

Then a thought came unbidden into my mind, one so true and cutting that it made me catch my breath. I shuddered as it sliced me apart from the inside out.

It should’ve been me.

The sobs consumed me and I shivered in my grief. I had never experienced anything like this before. It was the most horrible feeling in the whole world and it was mine to deal with for the rest of my life.

The fight left me then. It was all I could do just to keep myself from coming unhinged. If Senenmut hadn’t been holding me, I would’ve crumpled to the ground at that moment and never gotten up again.

I was truly defeated.

“Calliope Reaper-Jones, look at me,” Bast called, and there was nothing I could do but comply.

Clio and Jarvis were gone. Not even a trace of their bodies remained within the circle—the wind had seen to that. Grief and resignation squeezed my heart.

But then another thought filled me—this one not so self-destructive—and it was like a match igniting an uncontrollable fire.

Revenge.

My whole brain smoldered with the word. It overtook me, filling my soul with its song until it was all I could do to keep myself from racing into the circle and strangling the Queen of the Cats with my bare hands. I had never wished for the power of Death before—the opposite, even—but now my body crackled with the need to murder the creature that had destroyed the best part of me.

“You fucking bitch,”
I screamed, the words leaping from my mouth, drenched in spittle. I tried to break free from Senenmut’s grasp, but still he held on to me, restricting my need to destroy.

Bast purred as she skulked across the bench, her tail swishing like a scythe behind her. Suddenly, she jumped onto the middle bench—the one with the inscription under the bottom that had creeped the bejesus out of Clio and me when we were little—and sat back on her haunches.

“You have lost, Death’s Daughter,” she purred. “And now you will do what I tell you to or I will rain down more death and destruction on your family.”

At those words, I felt Senenmut’s body tense and—without warning—he let me go. I was so surprised that I just stood there, immobile. Before I could pull myself together, Senenmut had moved beyond me, his body a dark streak as he propelled himself toward the cat.

Bast hissed, raising one of her paws up so I could see the glint of exposed claw. There was another flash of green light, this one directed outside the circle, and before Senenmut could reach her, he was suddenly thrust backward into the air, his body hitting the ground with a sickening
crunch
that would’ve signaled the endgame for any living man.

I raced over to where he lay in the grass, but there was nothing I could do for him. His eyelashes fluttered for a moment, then stopped as a trickle of blood slid down the side of his face. I stood up, livid now, and marched back over to where Bast was sitting, casually licking her paw.

“You can’t do this!”
I cried, rage and frustration filling my body with adrenaline.

“What do you mean I
can’t
? I already have,” Bast purred, pleased with her nasty cat self.

Of course, she was right—but that didn’t mean I wasn’t going to pay her back heartily for her trouble.

“What do you want from me?” I said, my voice emotionless.

Bast lifted one of her back legs and began to smooth the fur on it thoughtfully with her tongue. Her casualness in the face of so much slaughter enraged me.

“Hmmm, what do I want?” she mused as she cleaned herself. “I suppose that what I really want, Calliope Reaper-Jones, is you.”

“Never,” I hissed at her, but she seemed unmoved by my anger.

“I want to be human, and your body is the perfect vehicle for my needs,” she continued quietly.

“Why me? You could have any body you wanted,” I said tersely.

Bast purred even louder.

“I wanted an immortal body, and there are fewer of those lying around than one would think.”

“I won’t give it to you,” I said evenly. “Not ever.”

“Oh, but I think you will,” Bast said, and suddenly I felt two sets of strong arms slipping around me and lifting me off my feet.

I tried to struggle, but it was no use. Whoever had me was much stronger than I was. I threw my head back to see who my captors were and my heart lurched.

I was being held by the last two creatures in the world that I wanted to see right then.

“Fancy meeting you boys here,” I growled through clenched teeth as I stared at the Jackal Brothers in all their loincloth glory.

Neither of them replied to my more-than-hospitable greeting.

“Thank you,” Bast said to the two Egyptian Gods as they walked me across the line demarcating the circle and the real world, unceremoniously dumping me on the bench beside the Queen of the Cats.

“Okay, you win,” I said, stalling for time. “I’ll do what you want, but you have to tell me
why
.”

Bast jumped into my lap, her weight pressing into me as she curled against my thighs, her bright, gold-flecked eyes drilling holes into my brain as she kneaded my pant leg with her paws. My nose began to itch and I sneezed so loudly it almost drowned out the crashing of the waves below us.

“No sneezing,” Bast said, flicking her tail right up under my nose.

Instantly, the urge to blow my brain out my nose was gone. I almost said thank you out of ingrained politeness, but I bit my tongue. I wouldn’t give that bitch a thank-you until Hell froze over.

“You have become quite famous within the supernatural community, Callie—may I call you Callie?” Bast asked sweetly.

I nodded, not trusting my mouth. I was liable to spit at the cat rather than be civil.

“After all the publicity you received when you saved your father’s life, the Minx saw your picture and recognized you as the girl it had seen with Senenmut in Egypt those many centuries ago,” Bast said. “It had been waiting so long to meet Death—and then to discover the girl from Neferura’s tomb was actually Death’s Daughter . . . Well, with your arrival, it knew that the curse against it and its host, Hatshepsut, would soon be invoked and they would be damned forever by my wrath. Its only hope to subvert the curse was to convince you that cats were your mortal enemy—and that you must stay far, far away from me.”

She paused for effect, and it was all I could do not to throttle her right there. I looked over at the Jackal Brothers, who stood just outside the bone powder circle (smart guys), watching us. I knew if I even lifted a
finger
against the cat, they would attack: another reason to remain calm in the face of rage.

“It was only after the Minx had met you that it realized exactly how much power you really possessed. It decided, unbeknownst to Hatshepsut, that you would make an even better host than she had. You were a true immortal, after all, and Hatshepsut was not.”

“But she’s lived all these years—” I said.

“At the behest of Anubis and Bata. In exchange for Senenmut’s eternal soul, she was given the gift of long life—but
never
immortal life.”

“The Minx told you all this?” I asked, surprised.

Bast rubbed her cheek against my leg, marking me with her scent.

“Not in so many words, but it was only inevitable that I would find out its plan, that it would come to me, asking for mercy, and I would pretend to offer it help in its quest. After all, it was my own curse that meant the Minx’s undoing . . . and it was to my brothers that it was beholden.”

Oh, shit.

twenty-seven

“Anubis and Bata are your brothers?”

“Half brothers. Does that surprise you?” Bast purred.

I shook my head. At that point, nothing would’ve surprised me anymore.

“So, that’s why we were sent on that wild-goose chase to Las Vegas,” I said. “That woman in Target was never Hatshepsut.”

“Of course, my stepmother, Nephthys, wouldn’t send you to the
true
Hatshepsut, though she did guide you to the next best thing—”

“Hatshepsut’s
daughter
,” I said, understanding now why Senenmut had felt such a strong pull toward the young woman at the Target.

She was the reincarnation of his daughter.

I wanted to cry all over again. To be so close to someone you once loved and not to be able to connect with her was the worst kind of torture. For the first time, I understood why humanity feared Death so much. It wasn’t the pain or the fear of the unknown that was so terrible. No, it was the eternal loss of those you held dear to your heart that made it unbearable.

Clio filled my thoughts again, tears prickling at my eyes, but I ignored them, focusing my attention back on the creator of all my suffering, silently stoking my rage.

“I told Senenmut his Gods wouldn’t help him,” I said under my breath—and I had been right.

The Gods may have worked in mysterious ways, but they would always do what was best for themselves in the end.

There was one question I needed to ask before we went on, and it concerned someone I loved. I had to know how Daniel fit into the whole scenario.

“So, tell me why you were at the Hall of Death.”

I guess it was more of a command than a question, but Bast didn’t appear offended. Whiskers trembling, she nodded her head, seemingly pleased by my words.

“Your friend Daniel asked me to help him steal his Death Record. Since I was
your
father’s spirit guide, he assumed that he could trust me, that my dislike of the Devil matched his own, and that I would help him in his quest to stage a coup against Hell.”

What?!

“Of course, he made a terrible error in judgment,” Bast continued. “He didn’t know that I had already made a deal with the Devil eons ago. Believe me when I say I will not be some human’s lackey any longer than I can help it.”

It was dizzying how much information was being thrown at me at once.

“Wait a minute. You were the one who had Cerberus sic me on Senenmut, weren’t you?” I asked, the whole plot starting to reveal itself to me as I spoke.

“Yes, when the Minx recognized you for what you are, it saw its opportunity to ditch Hatshepsut and, with her, its tie to my brothers. When Anubis and Bata discovered the Minx’s plan, they came to me, their all-powerful sister, for help.”

“And then
you
saw
your
chance and grabbed it,” I finished for her.

“More like clawed it, my dear,” Bast purred.

Yuck, evil cat witticisms make me want to barf.

“You set Hatshepsut and the Minx up,” I continued. “You figured if I thought they were the bad guys, then of course that would
only
make me trust you more.”

Bast purred.

“Well-done, Callie. You have proved to be a fantastic little detective. But now, can you deduce what will happen next?”

BOOK: Cat's Claw

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