Part 2 (1/2)
”h.e.l.lo, Howler,” Silent said. ”I just want to talk to your boss. Can we do it the easy way?”
Howler bared his fangs.
Silent called on the Aspect of Brother Lion and roared like thunder. Howler recoiled, his pungent urine spattering the ground.
”You see?” Silent said. ”The easy way is better.”
”I'm not so sure,” rumbled Ragged Ear. Silent turned to see the big Doberman standing in front of a confusion of curved, colored pipes built for human children to climb on and crawl through. Brother Lion's voice had scared every other dog into keeping its distance, but not the alpha. ”I might be willing to go to some trouble to pay you back for your tricks.”
”Do you really want to start up that old fight again?” Silent replied. ”What's the point, when Her Majesty has already taken the prize?”
Ragged Ear snorted. ”What do you want, shaman?”
”Black cats are going missing.”
”And you think I deserve the credit?”
”No. Even if you had some reason to hunt blacks and blacks only, you're not cunning enough to catch so many. But your pack ranges all over the city. Perhaps you've noticed something odd.”
”Maybe I have, but why would I tell you?”
”I'll owe you a favor.”
”I don't need anything from the likes of you.”
”No? You have white hairs on your muzzle that weren't there the last time we talked. You're favoring your right foreleg, and that has tooth marks on it. You're getting old, and others are starting to challenge you for mastery of the pack. A day may come when you need a charm to help you win one of those duels.”
Ragged Ear c.o.c.ked his head. ”You'd do that?”
”Why not? What do I care which hound is the boss?”
”Well... you know downtown? The part with the narrow brick streets and old, sooty buildings?”
”Of course.”
”It stinks of power. Your kind of power.”
Silent waited a moment. ”Is that all you have?”
”Yes. We're not stupid. We cleared out as soon as we caught the scent.”
”So really, you barely know anything at all.”
The Doberman grinned. ”But I did know a little, and you agreed to trade for it.”
”Don't worry, I'll keep my end of the deal.” Not with any great enthusiasm, but honor demanded it.
It took two days' travel to reach the center of the city, and Silent's paws were sore by the time he arrived. He couldn't smell anything except the vile, hot spew of the countless cars, trucks, and buses, but then, he wasn't a dog.
Stained by the shadow of a high-rise, the cathedral looked like a clump of dirty icicles growing upside down. A sort of antimagic, feeble but cold and forbidding, seethed in the pale stone walls.
Silent glowered at the church. Even before Ragged Ear steered him to the district, he'd suspected he was going to end up here, but he'd hoped otherwise.
He bounded up the steps and waited. When a human opened a door, he slipped inside.
The interior of the cathedral was quiet, cool, and dim, the stained gla.s.s dull for want of sunlight. The votive candles smelled like rotting flowers. Silent prowled onward, searching for priests. The third one he found wore a silver ring. It had a sort of raised cross on it, but, scrutinized closely, the emblem was also a hammer.
Silent stalked the human, waiting for him to move from the cavernous nave to some secluded area. Then something hissed from overhead.
Silent looked up. Yellow eyes in a black feline face glared down from the choir loft. The priest reached inside his jacket, then staggered and collapsed before he could pull anything out.
Astonished, Silent faltered for an instant, then screeched at his fellow cat. Calling on Sister Cheetah's Aspect, he raced for the stairs leading upward.
The a.s.sa.s.sin was gone by the time he reached the loft. But at least the priest was shaking off the effects of the curse. a.s.sisted by people who'd come running when he fell, he clambered to his feet.
Silent jumped on top of the railing enclosing the loft and crouched there waiting for the priest to look up and see him. He was poised to spring for cover if the man reached for his weapon again, but he didn't. He just gave a tiny nod.
Eventually the priest convinced the other humans that it was safe to let him alone. Then he led Silent down a hallway and stepped inside a room.
Despite everything, this could still be a trap, and Silent followed warily. But the priest, a round, bald man with muddy brown eyes, was alone. He sank down behind a desk in a cluttered little office.
Silent jumped onto a chair. ”Do you have the Gift of Siegfried?” he asked. If not, he'd have to expend some of his own power to establish communication.
”We call it the Blessing of Saint Francis,” the man replied, ”but yes, I understand you. Strange as it seems, I saw you scare the other cat away. So I suppose I ought to thank you.”
”Thank me by explaining what's going on. My Queen sent me to look into it.”
The priest blinked. ”You're a black cat yourself. Don't you know?”
”All I know is that others like me are disappearing. Until I saw the black attack you, I suspected the Inquisition was persecuting our kind as you have in times past.”
The human frowned. ”Those who came before me didn't mean to 'persecute' anyone unjustly. They believed they were fighting Satan's servants. Because, as you probably understand better than I, the Devil gave gifts to all cats, but to blacks most of all, with the promise of even stronger magic if they would bow down before him.”
”Yes,” Silent said, ”but what you and those like you have always refused to understand is that very few of us have ever taken the bait.”
”You say that,” the inquisitor replied, ”but suddenly there's a whole little army of black cats with their power to hex and jinx awakened. They're using it to attack the clergy and others who perform good works. Making people sick and causing accidents. I think that if you hadn't chased it off, the one that came for me would have given me a heart attack.”
Silent didn't want to believe what the priest was saying, but he'd just seen proof that at least one black had bartered himself to the Old Serpent. ”What's the Inquisition doing about it?”
The human sighed. ”Not much. Maybe you don't realize, but there really isn't any such Office anymore. The world has changed, and even the Church doesn't want to believe in magic, demons, or animals that talk. We in the Society of the Hammer try to continue the work of the witch hunters, but there are only a handful of us. I'm the only one for several states around, and evidently I'm no good at my job, because I haven't been able to accomplish anything.”
Silent would never have expected to feel sympathy for one of his kindred's traditional foes, but now he did. A fleeting twinge of it, anyway. ”At least you figured out that blacks are going wrong. That puts me farther ahead than I was before.”
”Then you mean to stop what's going on?”
”Yes. Cats are free to do almost anything they like, but not to give themselves to the Fallen Star. It's against Her Majesty's laws.”
”Then maybe,” said the priest, a plea in his tone, ”we can work together.”
”I'd like that,” Silent lied, ”but unfortunately, no human could keep up with me through the narrow s.p.a.ces and over the rooftops while I hunt for answers. I'll come back if it turns out you can help.”