Claws (9780545469678) (20 page)

E
mma burst through the door and ran down the hallway, with Jack a little in front of her, leading the way. There were a few people in the hall, but no sign of either Helena or the toad faerie. Was that faerie Corbin? Was he using Helena as his own eye-puppet?

Emma felt sick at the thought, but didn't stop running. “Where did they go?” she yelled to Jack.

“I only saw her for a minute,” Jack said. “She was with a faerie and —”

“He took her somewhere, I know it,” Emma interrupted.

“Do you want to hear what they said or not?”

“Sorry.”

“That's better,” Jack said. “He told her the ceremony was going to take a few hours. That they didn't have much time to spend here, but he wanted to see it all with her one last time.”

“That other faerie, Nissa, she said something like that, too,” Emma said. “When she thought I was Helena, she said soon it would be too late to see through my eyes and I was family, and something about Corbin turning me.” Emma stopped. “It almost sounds like —”

“Like they're going to turn your sister into one of them?”

Emma nodded. “But how can they? I thought only cat magic could actually change things. That faerie magic was just an illusion.”

“Maybe they're using some other kind of magic,” Jack said. “If there's enough of it in the Deep Forest to overrun a city, maybe there's enough to turn a human into a faerie.”

Emma caught her breath. “I heard one of the girls on the platform say something about the twenty-seventh floor, that there's a way into the Deep Forest from it. That might be where they went. Help me look for an elevator!”

Emma and Jack darted around corners, but there were no signs anywhere. If you were here, you were supposed to know where you were going.

She slowed, listening carefully. She heard the distant chaos from the ballroom. Then the faint
ding
of an elevator and the scraping of metal as a set of doors slid open.

“This way!” Emma cried, then turned and ran down the hallway toward the sound. There it was, an elevator. Empty. The doors started to close and Emma flung out her arm to stop them, slipping into the compartment with Jack hot on her heels.

Inside there was a panel of numbered buttons. They went from one to twenty-six, but there was no twenty-seven.

“What now?” she asked Jack.

“Now you think of something sneaky and smart,” Jack said.

Emma stared at the buttons a moment longer, then reached out and pressed twenty-six. “Maybe I can find some stairs at the top,” she said, but without much confidence. They probably didn't want just anyone strolling right into the middle of their secret ceremony. Still, there had to be a way to get there.

The button flashed at her and the elevator started moving. Emma watched the digital display change as they passed each floor.

4 . . . 5 . . . 6 . . .

“If we do find her,” Emma said, hesitating, “how am I supposed to get her out again? How are
we
getting out again?”

10 . . . 11 . . . 12 . . .

“With difficulty,” Jack said. “And magic.”

“Thanks. You're a ton of help.”

16 . . . 17 . . . 18 . . .

“This might be a good time for lesson four,” Jack said. “Remember how I said cat magic doesn't work on faeries?”

“Yeah.”

“That might only be true for actual cats. For a human Pride-Heart . . . well, that's different.”

21 . . . 22 . . . 23 . . .

“What? Why didn't you tell me before?” Emma said.

“You weren't ready,” Jack said. He glanced up at her. “You're probably not ready now. But it sounds like your sister's out of time, so you need to use whatever you've got.”

The elevator dinged, and the doors swung open. Jack leaped out, and Emma followed.

The twenty-sixth floor turned out to be the zoo the bouncer had mentioned. Emma stopped and stared. Paths wound their way between floor-to-ceiling Plexiglas cages. Small trees and bushes were set into pots along the path, and somewhere Emma heard the sound of running water.

But the animals inside the cages weren't animals at all. They were crags. She saw five ratters with their tails tied together. They sniffed at her as she walked past, and chattered excitedly. There was a troll sitting among a bunch of rocks and bushes, so still she wasn't sure he was actually alive until he turned his head to follow her with his stony eyes. A large gray wolf paced back and forth, and a lone dwarf reclined in a hammock, counting gold coins. Two merfolk floated in a small pool.

Jack padded beside her, his tail bristling.

“Should we help them?” Emma said.

“And how do you think you can do that?” Jack asked impatiently.

“We can let them out at least.”

Jack spat. “You think they're locked in? The only thing keeping them here is their love for faeries, or gold, or whatever it is the faeries make them see. These crags are just as tied to faeries as humans. The faeries don't need locks. Their pets are happy to stay in their cages. Come on, before someone finds us. Look, there's a door.”

In front of them was a narrow door with a crescent moon painted on it. Emma threw the door open and found herself looking into a small stairwell — with stairs leading up.

She dashed through the door and took the stairs two at a time.

At the top there was another door. She turned the knob without bothering to slow down, slamming the door open with her shoulder — and tumbling out into an open space. The night sky glowed above her and she could see the lights of the city spread all around, blotted out by the darkness of the forest in the distance.

They were on the roof of the high-rise. There was no twenty-seventh floor.

And in front of them stood Nissa and the girl with insect eyes.

“Hello, little cat,” said the faerie. “I wondered how long it would take you to get here. I wanted to thank you for the improvements you made to Jen. She had interesting eyes before, but now they're absolutely fabulous. What other kinds of eyes could you make for Nissa if you stayed here? Since you're not Helena after all, Corbin can't complain if I keep you for myself.”

The door behind Emma slammed shut. Emma spun around and pulled on the handle, but it wouldn't move. Her heart sank.

Jack hissed and spat. “She's
my
Pride-Heart, faerie. And you're going to tell us where to find Helena and the ceremony.”

“Tsk, tsk,”
Nissa said. “Little cats aren't supposed to know about such things.”

Emma looked at the girl. “I'm sorry about your eyes. I'll fix them. I just needed to get away.”

“No!” Jen said. Her hands flew to her face, as though she was shielding herself from Emma. “No, please don't. I want to keep them.”

“But if I don't, you'll be stuck like that forever. You can't really want to live like that for the rest of your life. It's crazy!”

“You don't understand,” Jen said. “I want Lady Nissa to be happy.” She glanced at the faerie and smiled, then fixed her eyes on Emma again just as quickly.

Nissa bared her thorn-teeth at Emma. “I'd rather you didn't ruin her, cat-girl. Unless, of course, you want to take her place . . .”

“You heard Jack,” said Emma to the faerie. “Where's Helena?”

“Oh, no.” Nissa shook her head. “I can't tell you that, I'm afraid. You're going to have to miss the ceremony. I wanted to make sure I found you first. But everyone's looking for you. They'll put you in a nice cage. Or maybe they'll just have you quietly killed. Such a waste! Stay with Nissa. Let Nissa have your eyes. Let yourself love Nissa like a sister. Better than a sister. You can turn yourself into so many wondrous creatures. Bird, fish, cat. You can give me so many ways to see the world.”

“If she's not going to tell you anything, turn her into a mouse,” Jack spat. “Then we can throw her off the roof, or leave her for the others to find. Maybe they'll put her in a nice cage, too.”

Nissa laughed. “You know cats can't change faeries. That's a law almost as old as the forests.”

“Oh, you're right, of course,” Jack purred, his eye half closed. “But she's a Pride-Heart and a human, too. I don't think the same rules apply to her.”

Nissa turned back to Emma. “Corbin told us there was a human Pride-Heart. He's afraid of you, but the others are too wrapped up in their own games to care much,” she said. “But you don't want to fight, do you? I see that in you, cat-girl. Stay with Nissa. You'll be Nissa's favorite.”

Emma saw Jen flinch at that, though the girl didn't take her creepy eyes off Emma. Who was she? Emma wondered. She didn't look much older than Helena. Did she have a family out there somewhere, looking for her? What would they think to see her now, begging Emma not to take away her insect eyes?

“Jen, you don't have to stay here,” she said. “Come back with me. After I find my sister, I'll help you get home.”

“I don't want to! I'm happy here!” Jen screamed, her eyes filling with tears.

Emma stepped toward her, and took her by the arm. “You don't have to do what she says.”

Jen screamed again, and only then did Emma really focus on the girl's face — twisted up with fear and loss and hatred. Too late.

Before Emma could react, Jen barreled into her, crying and hitting and pushing her back — until suddenly there was no more roof under Emma's feet, and she fell from the high-rise, too surprised even to yell out.

CRAG FACT OF THE DAY:

“The crag rock band Crowfood reached new levels of loud by having a harpy as their lead vocalist. Their concerts have been banned in twelve states so far.”

CragWiki.org

E
mma opened her eyes to darkness. She was lying flat on her back, staring up at the night sky. Wet grass brushed her neck, and something small and furry was sitting on her stomach. Emma lifted her head and saw the Toe-Chewer staring back at her, his big bright eyes glinting in the dark.

More cats weighed down her legs, and Cricket was curled up under her arm, her tail tickling Emma's nose. She sat up, pushing them all away.

“What happened? Where am I?”

“In the trailer park,” the Toe-Chewer said. “Chloe saw you fall off the roof. She saved you. Good thing you'd turned her back into a harpy before you went into the club. Good thing your parents aren't here, too.”

The last thing Emma remembered was falling, after she and Jack had —

“Where's Jack?” she said. She looked around, trying to spot his white fur.

“Recovering from what your giant chicken did to me,” Jack said from behind her. “I tried to tell her that we should stay there, that we needed to find a way back in, but she wouldn't listen! And now we're running out of time!”

“Next time I'll leave you on the roof, then,” Chloe called from her perch on the trailer roof. “Anyway, you wouldn't have gotten pinched if you hadn't moved so much. My instincts kick in when small, furry animals are squirming in my talons, all yummy and delicious.”

“Thank you,” Emma told Chloe. “For saving me and Jack.” Her shoulders were aching, probably from where Chloe had dug in her talons to fly her to safety. She must have passed out.

“Everyone needs a harpy on their team,” replied Chloe, but she looked pleased. “It's been a long night. I'm going to grab a nap.” She tucked her head under one of her wings.

“We have to go back in there and find the twenty-seventh floor,” Jack said. “I might have found it if she hadn't swooped in!”

“I don't think we'll find it that way,” Emma said. She rubbed her eyes, trying to think. “We have to get to Helena before they turn her into a faerie. There might be others, too.” She stopped, remembering. “Those girls at the club said something about the twenty-seventh floor connecting to the Deep Forest, but that doesn't make any sense? New Downtown is nowhere near the forest, or Old Downtown.”

“The Deep Forest isn't the same as Old Downtown,” Jack said. “It's somewhere else. The forest over Old Downtown can take you there, if you know where to look, but the Deep Forest goes to other places, too.”

“Is it still a forest, though?” Emma asked. “Some kind of super-extra-magical hidden forest that leads right to Helena?”

“Something like that,” Jack said.

“We don't go there,” Cricket said. “Nothing to hunt. And it's easy to get lost.”

“It can't be that bad,” Emma said. “Can it? Isn't there some kind of magical forest map we could use or something?”

The cats stared at her in that way they had, which said that no matter how much magic she could do, she was still a really strange Pride-Heart.

“So the little cat returns,” a too-sweet voice said from behind her.

Emma turned. The hag was peering at her over the fence separating the two trailers.