Promises to Keep (13 page)

Brina opened the front door without a key, and a lanky feline launched itself at her.

She caught the spotted beast in her arms and pulled it to her chest with no concern
for the white and gold fur that stuck to the silk bodice of her dress. The cat looked
up at Jay with pale blue eyes and then looked away, apparently unconcerned.

He reached for it mentally, and received a sense of
New toy? Not in the mood to play now. Dinner? It’s time for dinner. Dinner!

The cat nipped at Brina’s cheek, demanding food. It wasn’t starving, but whatever
routine its meals had been set to had been disrupted, and it was annoyed that Brina
seemed to want to snuggle instead of feeding it
right now!

“I think your cat is hungry,” Jay said.

Food!
it demanded with a plaintive yowl.

I’m working on it!
he replied. The cat’s ears twitched and its tail lashed, as if to say,
I did not give you permission to speak to me
.

“Oh,” Brina said, dropping the cat. “Well, you can feed it. The kitchen is somewhere
around here. I need … to get back to my work.”

She disappeared, leaving Jay alone in the front hall with a cross cat staring at him
with ice-blue eyes.

J
AY TESTED THE
front door. It had no apparent lock but didn’t budge at a casual push.

Well, then
. He would deal with that later, after SingleEarth had some time to work out this
snarl, and Jay had made an attempt to reason with Brina. For now, he had more important
things to do.

The cat’s body was dense and its ears rounded, as if it had some wildcat in it. Hopefully
that would be useful; his connection with Lynx made it easier for him to communicate
with other felines.

Where’s the food?
Jay asked it.

It darted from the room.
Follow!

Funny—the cat and Brina seemed to have a lot in common.

Jay scraped a can of food into a hand-painted porcelain cat bowl, then watched while
the irate feline ate. Once it had finished its meal, he wrestled with it for a few
minutes, gradually getting himself more attuned to its mind and letting it investigate
his. The cat didn’t have a sense of what a witch was, and didn’t care, but it was
willing to tolerate his catness as long as he maintained proper deference.

When Jay inquired what the household was like, he received a mixed bundle of images.

The person who normally gave it food was also somewhat feline. The cat had tried to
talk to her, but Pet’s cat wasn’t allowed to talk back. She was only allowed to act
human, feed the cat, and order the other slaves to clean up and provide playtime.

There was one slave who normally provided the most playtime, but the cat had not seen
him in a while, since the food-giving slave with a cat hidden inside had disappeared.

The cat thought of Brina as two people. One was a love giver. One was evil. The cat
could normally tell quickly which was which, and when
that
Brina was around, the cat ran outside.

Outside?
Jay asked, wondering if there was another exit.

The cat showed him to its cat door, installed in place of one of the panes of a downstairs
window. It was too small for a person, but Lynx might be able to fit through if he
came looking for Jay.

Do you know where the playtime slave is?
Jay asked.

Upstairs
, the cat replied, showing him to a grand staircase. At the top of the stairs was
a landing, and then a locked door.

Key?
Jay asked, trying the doorknob. He was pretty sure the lock here was mundane, not
mystical.

The cat didn’t understand the concept of a key, only of doors opening or closing.

Who normally opens the door?

Images of Brina and Pet answered him.

If I were a key, where would I be?
Jay wondered, making the cat twitch its ears.

First you’re a cat, and now you want to be this key thing?

He had learned from past experience that trying to explain a figure of speech to a
cat was a lost cause, so instead he proposed,
I have a hunting game. If we succeed, I think we may be able to find the playtime
slave. There is an object that the food slave would have used whenever she opened
the door
.

Cat did not help much in the search, instead spending most of the time pouncing at
Jay, putting occasional teeth marks in his pants.

Beyond a well-stocked kitchen and dining room, there was a parlor with elegant furniture
the cat shied away from. It evoked memories of severe reactions from the master of
the house—Lord Daryl, Jay believed. He tried to explain to Cat that Daryl was dead,
and received a haughty response that could best be translated as Duh.

He tried to clarify that Daryl was dead in a way that meant he wouldn’t be walking
around anymore, as opposed to dead in the way of a vampire, but the cat bit him hard
on the leg to close the subject and then decided to fix the problem by climbing the
stairs, standing up with its front paws against
the door, and yowling, screaming, at the top of its lungs,
Open this door!

We need the key
, Jay tried to explain.

What is this key thing you’re obsessed about?
it snapped back.
Leave the key. I don’t care about the key. Tell them to open the door! They don’t
listen to me
.

Tell
them
to open the door?
Jay asked, feeling more than a little stupid.

Yes!
the cat said, adding an angry hiss.

Jay climbed the stairs once more and knocked on the slick wooden door. At first, he
received no response, which in some ways made him feel better. Maybe the door did
open on this side, and he hadn’t been incredibly stupid. At the cat’s demands, he
tried a second time, and was rewarded by rustling on the other side, followed by the
snick
of a lock being turned, followed by …

Need
.

His eyes saw a human being, but his empathy showed nothing but a raw, hungry emptiness.
Jay nearly fell backward as he was struck by the intensity of hunger, thirst, and
exhaustion.

The cat stood on its back legs in order to bump its head against the playtime slave’s
hand, but the human stumbled and nearly fell at the pressure. He was trying to stay
standing, because he wasn’t supposed to fall down, but he was so very tired.

Cat, playtime slave needs food and water
, Jay said.

Needs to play!

Later!
Jay snapped back, making the cat hiss at him again.

Stupid slave
.

The cat stalked off.

“Hello,” Jay said. “Is anyone else up here waiting for something to eat?”

The slave answered with a hoarse voice, “There are others.”

“Go downstairs to the kitchen,” Jay said. “Get yourself something to eat and drink
while I find the others. Can you make it down the stairs on your own?”

The slave hesitated, and then nodded. His mind was so odd, nearly empty. Despite his
awareness of his physical needs—he probably hadn’t eaten since Pet had been thrown
out, more than twenty-four hours ago—he had no inclination to alleviate his own suffering.
He had been able to open the door that would allow him into the kitchen this whole
time, but hadn’t done so until someone had knocked.

Slaves
, Cat told him.
Not human people
.

Everyone is a slave to a cat
, Jay commented.

Every person is a slave to a cat
, Cat agreed,
but these are different. They don’t have people-thoughts anymore. Only slave-thoughts.
They don’t play when they want to play and sleep when they want to sleep. They don’t
want
anything
.

Jay wanted to argue, but Cat was right. His empathy sought impulses and images, wants
and feelings, more than thoughts. These poor creatures didn’t have impulses anymore.
All independent, self-aware thought had been stripped from them.

Humans had enslaved humans, but they had never been able to destroy each other’s minds
and spirits the way a vampiric trainer could. No wonder Rikai had been so certain
a slave couldn’t be unbroken.

Maybe the Shantel elemental knew a way.

Maybe Rikai had been wrong; maybe the elemental even knew a way to destroy the new
Midnight. Looking at these poor, destroyed creatures, Jay’s determination to fight
that sick empire burned even hotter.

First, though, he needed to get out of here. Before he could do that, he needed to
know who
else
knew he was here. If Brina had come for him without mentioning her intent to others
of her kind, Jay could probably kill her without anyone else ever knowing she had
claimed him. If she
had
told someone else in Midnight, however, they might pursue that claim once Brina was
dead—and then, Jay suspected, he would end up in a trainer’s hands.

Against Brina, he was confident of his fighting abilities, but Midnight’s trainers
had been known to take witches who had come to kill them, snap their minds like kindling,
and send them back to kill their own kin. If Jay had to face one of them, he wanted
backup—
not
to be locked in a house with doors that wouldn’t open, and windows that might or
might not break.

It was time to talk to Brina.

A quick search made it clear that Brina wasn’t on the second floor but did reveal
yet another staircase, leading to an elegant set of French doors, which swung open
easily when Jay tried them.

Brina’s studio took his breath away—literally. Jay’s eyes instantly watered in response
to the fumes. He was glad he was hardier than a human.

The entire floor was a single room, with only a few columns
to interrupt the flow. Large windows and skylights, some curtained and some open,
would allow sunlight to stream into the room during the day.

He started to explore but didn’t get far before he found the mistress of the house
sprawled beneath a canvas in a pool of black paint. His first thought was that she
had
recently been suicidal, and it was possible that she may have figured out a more
effective method to use than hanging.

Would he get blamed for that?

If he could get out—

Brina stirred, and some power within or around her assaulted him with a blast of pure
fury and anguish that made his vision blacken and sent him to his hands and knees,
retching.

A second blow made him shake and start to crawl to her side. God, the pain …

Another blast, and he realized the anger he was feeling was being channeled through
Brina, but it wasn’t from her. It was someone, something else. Something powerful.

It hit him again, and he collapsed on top of Brina, who was now whispering softly
to herself. She was only semiconscious at most, and wasn’t speaking English. Jay thought
the words were French, but her thoughts were completely lost behind the power that
was latched on to her, tearing at her, draining her in an effort to preserve itself.

The last time he had tried to help a damsel in distress, it had ended with him dragged
to Brina’s home as a slave. He tried to consider this situation a little more carefully,
but he
couldn’t
consider, couldn’t
think
with so much noise. He fought
to craft a bubble of protective power around them, struggling as each new blow made
his whole body ache.

Please, just make it stop
.

Rage and flames. It took everything he had just to hold on to the shield he had built,
and to Brina, as the magic punched and pulled at them, making the air thick and scalding.
It became impossible to draw a breath. He shuddered as his vision blackened, and his
skin seemed to char, and at last …

He was walking through the black woods again. The brambles were gone, replaced by
ferns and graceful vines with deep purple flowers. Large felines of all colors—white,
tan, russet, brown, and black, solid and spotted—stalked through the forest around
him, their footfalls soundless on the rich brown soil.

A woman was standing before him. Her body was dark like a shadow in night itself,
beyond even the ink-black skin of the Shantel witch, without the white markings.

“Mind-witch.”
When she spoke, her voice was the rustling of the trees and the wind and the flowers.
He needed no introduction to know he was standing before an avatar of the elemental
that had once protected the Shantel.

“Are you the one attacking us now?” he asked.

“Attack you? Never. You freed my
sakkri
from her prison,”
the elemental said.
“And now you’ve called to me to ask for my protection. I am willing to grant it.”

“I called to you?”

“I felt your power. Do you wish me to protect you?”

“How would you protect me?” he asked.

“I will lend you my power. It will keep you safe when the fire withdraws.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Don’t you?”
She looked up as if she heard something.
“I am at battle, and I must return to it. Do you wish to live?”

“Of course I—”

“Then do you accept my aid? I can protect you, or I can end you now and spare your
suffering.”

“What is going on?”

“Choose now, witch. Do you accept my aid?”

He drew an uncertain breath, then said, “I want to live. If your aid is the only way
to do that, then yes, I accept.”

“Very well.”

T
HE HEAT WITHDREW
abruptly, leaving him shivering in Brina’s studio. The deep blackness of the moonless
evening seemed infinitely colder than it had been before.

Beneath him, Brina gasped. Her body was nearly convulsing in its struggles to warm
itself. Her breath came in ragged gasps, and her heart pounded.

Wait … that wasn’t right.