Page 8 of A Skirl of Sorcery (The Cat Lady Chronicles #3)

Chapter

Seven

Iwas annoyed with myself for feeling wary when I turned the corner onto my street, but there weren’t any baying neighbours at my gate and there were no signs of carnage, ban-sith related or otherwise. All the same, I quickly went inside to check on all five of my cats, plus Tiddles.

As soon as I opened the front door, they emerged from different doorways with the same insistent miaows that told me they wanted their dinner. I gave in to the inevitable and obliged. Anything for a quiet life.

As soon as they were fed and watered, I climbed the steps to the flat upstairs. The door was closed; if Keres was inside, there was no sign of her. I hesitated before knocking quietly. There was no answer.

I pursed my lips, reminding myself how tired and drawn she had looked.

She needed to rest and I couldn’t allow my uneasy suspicions to get the better of me because I had no hard evidence that she was up to no good.

Although it was wise to be cautious, Trilby’s words and Boris’s grunts had gone some way towards reassuring me and I shouldn’t invent scenarios that hadn’t happened.

I decided to sleep on the matter then speak to Keres the following day. Nevertheless, I’d be keeping my favourite curved dagger close at hand. If she tried anything during the night, I’d be ready for her.

I pushed the matter out of my head and made myself a salad to compensate for the unhealthy pizza I’d eaten earlier, then settled down in my comfiest chair to read. As three of the cats vied for prime position on my lap, I tried not to wonder what Thane was up to.

The cats eventually came to a compromise with She Who Loves Sunbeams curled up on one side and He Who Crunches Bird Bones and He Who Must Sleep on the other side. She Without An Ear was on guard duty, sitting by the window and blinking out at the darkening sky.

Tiddles and He Who Roams Wide had ventured outside.

I’d watched them until they left the garden to make sure they weren’t slinking towards Keres’ flat, but they were too smart for that.

They didn’t once look up in that direction, and He Who Roams Wide only twitched his tail when I told him to keep Tiddles out of trouble.

With every passing purr, feline snore and chapter of my book, I relaxed.

I had been jumping at shadows. Keres wasn’t here through nefarious means; I’d never crossed the ban-sith community and, threats or no, Louise was living proof that they didn’t interfere with assassins no matter what they might sense about us.

I was fulfilling the terms of my favour to Mallory and helping out a woman in need at the same time. There wasn’t a problem.

Or at least there wasn’t until I heard a sudden thud reverberate through the ceiling above.

My house was old and sturdily built. The soundproofing might not be modern but it was surprisingly effective, and it was rare to hear any but the loudest of noises from the flat upstairs even without magical muffling intervention.

I wouldn’t have rented the place out otherwise.

But I had certainly heard that particular noisy thump.

Whatever Keres had done up there, it had been dramatic.

All four cats with me were now standing and staring upwards with various degrees of raised hackles and wide eyes. ‘Everything is fine,’ I soothed.

She Without An Ear swung her head towards me, sending me a look that told me I was a complete idiot; to be fair, she might have been right. I stood up, walked out of my door and up to Keres’ flat.

As far as I could see, nothing had changed in the past few hours. I knocked loudly and, when there was no answer, called, ‘Keres? Are you there? Is everything alright?’

There was no immediate response so I knocked again.

I’d break the door down if I had to, but it had only just been repaired after the trouble with Nick MacTire and it was a rigmarole I didn’t want to go through again.

Besides, Keres deserved her space; for all I knew she was a fan of breakdancing and was having a mini ban-sith rave.

I knocked again, more sharply and insistently. ‘Keres!’ I called. ‘Let me know that you’re okay and I’ll leave you in peace.’

For a few moments, I heard nothing but eventually I was rewarded with the sound of heavy shuffling footsteps. The door creaked open and Keres appeared, swaying alarmingly from side to side. Her skin was ash grey and her eyes were feverishly bright. Shit.

Any lingering doubts that this was a strange ploy to attack me disappeared: Keres was in real trouble. Suddenly Trilby’s words echoed through my mind. They’d called her a sick ban sith. Damn it. I should always pay close attention to Trilby’s choice of words.

‘What’s wrong? What’s happened?’

Keres’ voice was weak and strained, as if she were dragging the words out of her own mouth. ‘I’m fine,’ she whispered. ‘I had a nap and I was a bit woozy when I got up. My legs gave out for a few moments and I fell down. I’ll be fine in a few minutes.’

I doubted that because she looked seriously unwell. ‘Let me get you some water,’ I said. ‘You need to sit down and—’

I didn’t get the chance to finish my sentence. Keres stopped swaying, stared at me unblinkingly then her eyes rolled back in her head and she collapsed into my arms.

Caught unawares I staggered backwards, though it certainly wasn’t her weight that made me unsteady. Although she was a grown woman, she was little more than skin and bones. I hissed under my breath then picked her up, carried her to the bedroom and laid her on the bed.

She was taking shallow, ragged gasps that sounded unhealthy but at least were regular. Her skin felt clammy, and when I pressed my hand to her forehead her eyelids fluttered open then closed again.

I got to work. First I loosened her shirt buttons to make sure her chest wasn’t constricted in any way.

Thinking of Louise, I tilted back her head and checked the inside of her mouth in case she’d been poisoned.

There was no discolouration around her gums; without a blood test I wouldn’t be able to tell if she’d ingested anything lethal.

‘I’m going to check your body for wounds, Keres,’ I said aloud. I had no way of knowing whether she could hear me or not, but I wanted her to know what I was doing. ‘You might have a cut that’s gone septic.’

I ran my hands along her arms and her hands, then unfastened more of her shirt buttons to check her torso and her back. There was nothing but a graze on her knee that appeared to be healing well. Whatever was happening to the ban sith was happening internally. That was not good at all.

I covered her with a blanket and darted out of the flat.

Downstairs, four baleful sets of feline eyes watched me as I ran through my front door and into my spare room to retrieve my small magic chest. My skills were limited to first aid and field surgery but it would take a while to get Keres proper medical help; I had to have something that would help her until I could find a real doctor.

I flicked through the small packets of old magics and reserved spells until I found some feverfew, a general cure-all that was used by Preternaturals in lieu of aspirin or paracetamol.

It was stronger than either of those, though it certainly wouldn’t cure anything serious.

Unfortunately it was all I had, so I scooped it up and prepared to return to Keres.

The cats were in the doorway, bristling with uncharacteristic malevolence. ‘What?’ I asked. ‘You don’t want me to help her? She’s ill – very ill.’

They continued to stare.

I drew in a breath. ‘I know you have a problem with her but none of you will tell me what it is. Right now my biggest problem is that Keres is seriously ill.’

The cats continued to glower, then He Who Crunches Bird Bones reluctantly padded forward and butted my lower leg with his head before presenting me with his left flank.

His whiskers twitched and he glanced up at me.

‘I’m not sure there’s time,’ I said. ‘She’s passed out upstairs.

’ I waved the small packet of magicked herbs. ‘I have to give her this first.’

He Who Crunches Bird Bones hissed softly but I stood my ground. ‘It’s not that I don’t trust you, but none of us need the decaying corpse of a ban sith upstairs. I’ll give her this medicine,’ I promised, ‘and then I’ll do it.’

The cat sighed heavily but moved aside to let me pass. The other three also gave me space. ‘Five minutes,’ I told them. ‘Tops.’

I took the stairs two at a time. Keres was still unconscious, still in the same position.

‘I’ve got some medicine,’ I said aloud. ‘It’s nothing special, only witched feverfew, but it might bring your temperature down to normal and keep you stable for a few hours.

I’ll tip it into your mouth. It tastes nasty, but that’s only temporary. ’

There was no response. I ripped open the packet, gently opened her lips and scattered the contents into her mouth, following it with a drop of water. Thankfully, Keres’ instincts kicked in and she swallowed.

My shoulders sagged with relief when her breathing eased. ‘I’ll be back shortly,’ I promised her before I returned to the cats.

He Who Crunches Bird Bones was already waiting by the front door. ‘Will this give me answers?’ I asked.

He didn’t respond, just presented his left flank again. Fair enough.

I plucked some fur from his body and pinched it between my finger and thumb before dropping it onto my tongue and swallowing. The twisting spasms began shortly afterwards.

When I returned to Keres, it was on four legs rather than two. I was too amped up to wait for the tingling from my transformation to stop and I bounded up the stairs, my temporary tail waving behind me.

I’d barely taken two steps inside the flat when I sensed the shift in atmosphere.

There was nothing specific to put a finger – or claw – on, but there was a deep sense of wrongness, of something evil and nasty taking root and curling its dark ways into every corner of the small flat.

My fur rose and I felt my lips pull back over my teeth.

I had to fight against the snarl that threatened to escape.

It took me a while to compose myself but, when I was calm, I started forward again, my claws scraping faintly against the wooden floorboards.

The closer I got to the bedroom, the greater my sense of foreboding.

Every part of my body was screaming at me to turn tail and flee.

I couldn’t do that, though; I had to see what the cats were seeing.

I entered the bedroom and my whiskers quivered as the faint scent from the feverfew tickled my nostrils. The ban sith’s breathing was more audible through these cat ears and I was aware of every scrape and gurgle from her lungs.

I jumped onto the foot of the bed and stared at her. That was when I knew.

Her arms and legs were just as I’d left them and her eyes were still closed. To all intents and purposes she looked exactly the same as she had a few minutes earlier, but my feline eyes could see far more than my human ones. Now I could see what the cats could, it was impossible to look away.

Keres was enveloped in a dark miasmic cloud, the core of which appeared to be the centre of her chest. At first it was hard to see beyond the malevolent aura that surrounded her, but when I focused on her body I saw more.

Evil had taken hold of her and was growing within her like an invasive tree root.

Gnarly black tendrils were stretching out from her heart, pulsating with every heartbeat.

They started to quiver and bend towards me as if they were sentient and wanted to capture me in the way they’d captured Keres, to insinuate themselves beneath my skin and take root within my veins.

My limbs were rigid with terror. This wasn’t an enemy I could defeat no matter what weapons or skills I used. It would take everything – it would take me. I hissed and then I did the only thing I could do. I ran out of that room as fast as my legs could carry me.