used by Constance yet again? Despite his great powers, she had outsmarted him more than once, the cunning devil of a woman.
Had it dared, it would have come here with a sword of fire. But it knew that it had not the right to destroy George Walker unless doing so furthered the overall plan of Constance and the Leannan. Those were always the terms of the spell by which Constance conjured the King of the Cats into a brief earthly life.
The tom entered the lab. At least it could take pleasure in relieving the suffering of the rhesus. Far from being forbidden, this was a required stitch in the weave of the story.
The King of the Cats swept into the laboratory where George Walker sat eating a Stouffer’s pizza in his underwear, his sleeping bag arranged on the floor beside him. George did not even stop chewing as it blew past him and through the closed door into the animal room.
The beast with the raped soul lay on its belly in the bottom of a miserable little cage, its mate crouching beside it. They had been preening one another. Now they slept.
They did not see the air shimmer before them, roiling and flickering. First there was nothing but a fanged grin hanging there, then green eyes above.
To make this kill quick and quiet, the cat needed the dexterity of a human shape, and a silent weapon.
It concentrated, remembering the smelt, the shape, the heft of the human it knew best.
The eyes shattered and re-formed, now hooded with pallid skin, and the lips became those of an old woman, proud and delicate and firm.
Then the whole of the withered old body, quite naked, appeared suddenly in the air, dropped a few feet with a gasp, and stood poised, its fierce, kind face working with the palsy of years, a long, bright needle gleaming between the thumb and forefinger of its right hand.
Because one of this mated pair had been so terribly wronged, both could be blessed with death at the same time. They had earned that very special joy.
It was with the greatest pleasure that the shape of Constance Collier raised the long, sharp knitting needle and drove it deep into the eye of one of the monkeys, then through the heart of the other.
An instant later only the weapon remained to mark her, swift passage, that and the thin streams of blood running to the floor from the bodies of Tess and Gort.
Chapter 7
Without the cat the house was unpleasantly quiet. Small signs of her own past were everywhere, appearing before her like carp in turbid water, rising with their accusatory eyes. Overhead in her bedroom was the light fixture she had bought with three months’ allowance, the roses she had painted on it faded to ugly smudges. On the game room wall there remained a faint streak from the crayon mural she had drawn there when she was ten and home alone, for which infraction her mother had given her the only spanking of her life.
She had hated the path worn across the living room carpet, and she hated it now. There were still holes in the sun porch ceiling where Mother had hung her plants.
Through her adolescence she had heard the tired acts of her parents’ bedroom from this sun porch, sitting out here in the night with her legs tucked up under her, swinging in the porch swing to the creaky rhythm that shook half the house. The only reason she came out here was that not only the squeaking but the groans penetrated her own bedroom.
She had the awful feeling that she had not lived her youth. Where were the passions, the loves? All destroyed, pecked to pieces. But those were no real loves, those paintings. Could she really love? So far she’d had only casual relationships.
It was awful here. She ought to go down to Bixter’s and see if the Pong machine was still there. Of course it wasn’t, but they probably still made their famous creme de menthe soda, and there was always the magazine rack.
She sat listening to the water drip, still trying to work the loss of her portfolio to the back of consciousness and still not having much
Had it dared, it would have come here with a sword of fire. But it knew that it had not the right to destroy George Walker unless doing so furthered the overall plan of Constance and the Leannan. Those were always the terms of the spell by which Constance conjured the King of the Cats into a brief earthly life.
The tom entered the lab. At least it could take pleasure in relieving the suffering of the rhesus. Far from being forbidden, this was a required stitch in the weave of the story.
The King of the Cats swept into the laboratory where George Walker sat eating a Stouffer’s pizza in his underwear, his sleeping bag arranged on the floor beside him. George did not even stop chewing as it blew past him and through the closed door into the animal room.
The beast with the raped soul lay on its belly in the bottom of a miserable little cage, its mate crouching beside it. They had been preening one another. Now they slept.
They did not see the air shimmer before them, roiling and flickering. First there was nothing but a fanged grin hanging there, then green eyes above.
To make this kill quick and quiet, the cat needed the dexterity of a human shape, and a silent weapon.
It concentrated, remembering the smelt, the shape, the heft of the human it knew best.
The eyes shattered and re-formed, now hooded with pallid skin, and the lips became those of an old woman, proud and delicate and firm.
Then the whole of the withered old body, quite naked, appeared suddenly in the air, dropped a few feet with a gasp, and stood poised, its fierce, kind face working with the palsy of years, a long, bright needle gleaming between the thumb and forefinger of its right hand.
Because one of this mated pair had been so terribly wronged, both could be blessed with death at the same time. They had earned that very special joy.
It was with the greatest pleasure that the shape of Constance Collier raised the long, sharp knitting needle and drove it deep into the eye of one of the monkeys, then through the heart of the other.
An instant later only the weapon remained to mark her, swift passage, that and the thin streams of blood running to the floor from the bodies of Tess and Gort.
Chapter 7
Without the cat the house was unpleasantly quiet. Small signs of her own past were everywhere, appearing before her like carp in turbid water, rising with their accusatory eyes. Overhead in her bedroom was the light fixture she had bought with three months’ allowance, the roses she had painted on it faded to ugly smudges. On the game room wall there remained a faint streak from the crayon mural she had drawn there when she was ten and home alone, for which infraction her mother had given her the only spanking of her life.
She had hated the path worn across the living room carpet, and she hated it now. There were still holes in the sun porch ceiling where Mother had hung her plants.
Through her adolescence she had heard the tired acts of her parents’ bedroom from this sun porch, sitting out here in the night with her legs tucked up under her, swinging in the porch swing to the creaky rhythm that shook half the house. The only reason she came out here was that not only the squeaking but the groans penetrated her own bedroom.
She had the awful feeling that she had not lived her youth. Where were the passions, the loves? All destroyed, pecked to pieces. But those were no real loves, those paintings. Could she really love? So far she’d had only casual relationships.
It was awful here. She ought to go down to Bixter’s and see if the Pong machine was still there. Of course it wasn’t, but they probably still made their famous creme de menthe soda, and there was always the magazine rack.
She sat listening to the water drip, still trying to work the loss of her portfolio to the back of consciousness and still not having much
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