Surely when the patrol car came, if it ever did, then he would leave. The uniforms would do their work and go away again, and she would be alone. If she could ignore her ruined apartment, she'd take a long hot shower, pull some bedding together, lock her bedroom door against all possible intruders, and go to sleep. Tomorrow she'd muster the strength to pack what was fit to keep, send everything else to the trash, and… What? Move out? Abandon the city now, at once? Give notice at the studio and move back to Molena Point immediately, where she'd be safe?
Or she could transfer to Seattle, far away from the Bay Area, to work in the firm's new office there. She had not before seriously considered that option.
Watching her, the black cat yawned. "There is such a world, Kate Osborne, a world where all cats speak, a world of subterranean valleys and caverns where jewels are dug from the walls. Diamonds, rubies… Where jewelsmiths are as common as dust. Where do you think that strange work comes from that no one can identify? You know the old Celtic tales, the Irish and Welsh sagas. Do you think that ancient history is all lies because it comes to us in the form of story? Do you really not believe in those worlds, told of again and again throughout history?"
"They are only stories! Folktales! Flights of fancy, anyone knows that. There is no other world; such a thing is not possible." She stared hard at the inky beast. His amber eyes blazed back at her, as hot as the flames of hell.
"The jewels can lead us there," the cat said complacently. "If we can learn where they came from in this world, we can find the way down. A door, a passage down into that lost world." He looked at her intently.
"You are mad," she whispered. "There is no world but this. This world! Here! Now." Snatching at the edge of the table, she tilted it so violently the black tomcat could only leap off. He landed on the buffet. She wanted to throw the table at him. "Leave me alone! She has the jewels! Go to Consuela. Take the jewels. Go find your mythical door. Get out of here. Go to that other world or wherever. But get the hell out of here, I have nothing for you!"
He stood atop the buffet glaring at her, panther-black and as powerful and sinewy as any jungle beast. "What bargain would it take, Kate Osborne, for you to help me find that world and enter it? You have talents that I do not. And the jewels themselves from that world are surely a badge of power…"
"Get out! " She swung around, grabbing the poker.
He stared at her unflinching. "There is a house, Kate Osborne. An old gray Victorian in Pacific Heights, an earthquake-damaged house, closed now and awaiting repairs. Cats live there, cats that do not fit into the dull gardens of the Cat Museum, beautiful, dark-souled cats who were driven out by their tame cousins. Those cats could lead us… or perhaps we will find the door there, in that wrecked dwelling, perhaps-"
"Then go there! Go to your rebel cats! Such beasts should welcome you. Go down to that world and leave me alone." The cat was mad, he was indeed Poe's black beast, as Joe Grey once had once observed. "Go to them," she repeated. "I can't help you."
"They do not want me there. Those cats fear me; they fear my power. They rise like a tide against me."
"So what do you want from me? I can't help you."
"Those beasts come and go freely from that world. Perhaps indeed a portal is there, in that ruined place… I have seen them appear out of the darkness of that house, I have seen their eyes. I have smelled the scent of deep, dank earth on them." His eyes burned with desire. "They drive me out, Kate Osborne. They do not want me in that world."
She watched him, chilled by his words but not understanding.
"Even the dark souls, Kate Osborne, make war among themselves, battles of jealousy and power. If that world has turned dark as I think it has, if the hell beasts now rule there… then only a badge of power can have authority." His yellow eyes gleamed. "I believe the jewels with their symbols of cats wield the power I want. A talisman of authority from that world…"
She shivered, drawing back. The cat was insane, driven by an ego bigger than any lost world-and yet despite her fear of him, his words and his cloying voice strangely quickened her heart. And a little voice deep inside her kept asking, Why are there no public records for McCabe, or for my grandmother or my parents? What are McCabe's oblique references in his journals to some other world?
She shook her head, turning away. She did not want to think about this; she did not want any of this.
But then she turned back, watching the tomcat. "Is she a part of this? Is Consuela part of this insanity? Does she believe in such a world?"
His laugh was cold, teeth bared with derision. "She knows nothing about my true purpose. She has taken the jewels for her lover."
"The man who followed me?"
The cat laughed again, a snarling hiss that gave her goose bumps. "That man is not her lover. Her lover is her partner, as am I. We are three in our ventures. The man who followed you is a pawn, a simple lackey." He watched her appraisingly. "If you want to know about her partner, you must help me."
The cat jerked around as footsteps sounded outside the door in the stairwell.
"Go!" she hissed.
The cat sat unmoving, his smile evil.
Kate was so enraged, so at the end of her temper, that she snatched up the beast by the nape of his bullish neck and his thick black tail and, holding him away from her, she hiked him through to the kitchen. She was sure he'd twist around and slash her-he could shred her arm in an instant.
But he did nothing. He hung limp, watching her and laughing. Laughing. Enraged, she shoved him through the narrow opening, forcing him through with her hand on his rump then closing the window, wedging it again with the butcher knife. Then she went to open the front door. In her last view of Azrael, the tomcat sauntered boldly away into the black night of the rooftops.
22
In the presence of the two officers, Kate was foolishly embarrassed by the shambles of her apartment. Shaken by her encounter with the black tomcat, she felt dull and slow, as if her normal senses were muffled.
Of the two officers, the tall, thin one was young, maybe in his late twenties, with startling blue eyes. He stood in the open door, his smile reserved, appraising her and watchful.
"Mrs. Osborne? I'm Officer Harden. This is Officer Pardue." Harden's instant scan passed beyond her to the destroyed living room, seeming to record every small detail, every break and spill and tear, every gouge and stain.
Officer Pardue was shorter and older, perhaps in his fifties, the lines in his face sculpted into the look of someone with a perpetually sour stomach. His survey of the room seemed more wary, more attuned to watching for a hidden presence, for someone waiting out of sight. When she stepped back for them to enter, Officer Pardue began at once to move through the apartment to clear it, his hand on his gun. Officer Harden remained standing with her, asking questions but sharply alert until Officer Pardue returned. Only then did Harden begin to fill in his report, walking through the rooms with her, then sitting with her at the dining table, avoiding the grease.