This was no dog. Dulcie could feel the kit's heart pounding against her. She could see the beast's stripes now, his black beady eyes, could see the mask across his face. He was bigger than a bulldog and seemed twice as broad, and behind him came four smaller raccoons looking out from behind identical masks, swinging along predatory and bold on their dainty black paws. Five lethal fighting machines. Dulcie and the kit didn't breathe.
The raccoons lurched past not ten feet from them, their raised noses sucking in the lingering smell of enchiladas. Maybe that garlicky confection of meat and chilies and cilantro would hide the smell of cat. Lurching toward the back of the house and the garbage cans, they were soon scrabbling on metal and chittering impatiently, pawing to get the lids off. A lid dropped into the bushes. The can fell, breaking leafy twigs and immediately the raccoons were into it, scrabbling and fighting.
Dulcie led the kit back up the trellis, the kit's long fine fur catching in the thorns with little ripping sounds.
"We're safe now," the kit whispered, edging toward the hole that Joe Grey had opened to the dark attic.
"Hush!" Dulcie said. "They can climb, too. Get yourself inside!" Below them, the sounds of bickering and of claws tearing at Styrofoam gave her the shivers. She imagined the animals devouring enchilada-flavored Styrofoam as if it were candy. But when they finished with the garbage, what would they do next?
Following the kit into the dusty, mouse-scent dark of the attic, she mewed softly for Joe Grey. There was no answer, no movement among the shadows. She heard, from the yard below, the sounds of the raccoons change from gorging garbage to little chirps of curiosity, then heard the beasts coming back, shouldering through the bushes toward the trellis that she and the kit had climbed. Beside her, the kit peered down. "What are they doing? Why…?"
"Be still! They'll climb up here quick as squirrels!" She looked hard at the kit, whose tail was twitching with that devilish, looking-for-trouble rhythm.
"Didn't you ever have to battle raccoons, Kit, when you lived with that traveling band of cats? They're as dangerous as coyotes or bobcats."
"The big cats fought them. I was too little. I always hid. But I'm big now, and you and Joe are big. They wouldn't-"
"Oh wouldn't they?" She turned blazing eyes on the kit. "Have you never seen a cat torn apart by raccoons? Like you would tear apart a little mouse!"
The kit's eyes grew round. She dropped her tail, dropped her ears flat to her head, and backed away from the vent into the deeper shadows of the attic. And Dulcie began to search for something heavy they could push against the vent hole.
11
In the black attic Dulcie raced among hulking furniture, clawing at cartons, searching for a box that she could move, could shove against the hole to block the raccoons' entrance. In the little square of moonlit sky that marked the vent hole, a black shape loomed, and another was coming fast up the trellis. Her nose was filled with the smells of mildew and dust and ancient mouse droppings, as if all the house dirt of generations had been sucked upward into this dank space. Searching, pulling at heavy boxes, she watched the lead raccoon forcing himself through the little vent, could hear the others behind him pushing up the trellis following the scent of cat.
They daren't shout; the Traynors would hear them-she wondered if Elliott heard the raccoons scrabbling up the wall of the house. She attacked another box, straining with claws and teeth to drag it toward the opening. Where was Joe? Cats weren't built to move heavy loads. If she got a grip with her claws and pulled, she pulled her own back feet out from under herself. When she tried pushing with her shoulder, the box might as well be nailed to the floor. Straining, lying on her back, pulling, she mewled when the box gave suddenly, was shoved so hard it nearly ran her over. She rolled away as it rammed against the wall.
"Push, Dulcie. Push now!" Joe hissed. In the darkness behind the box, his white face and chest gleamed. But as they fought the carton toward the opening, the beast pushed through, forcing the box back in their faces. He was a huge animal; he seemed to fill the attic.
"Run, Kit. Run." The three cats flew through the dark, dodging between the legs of stacked furniture.
"Here," Joe hissed. "Down through the crawl door." He shouldered the kit toward a thick slab of plywood lying askew on the rough flooring, a crack of blackness showing at its edge.
"This?" Dulcie said. "We have to move this?" She pawed uselessly at the slab.
"All together. Hook your claws in the edge."
They hooked into the rough splintery plywood and pulled, lunging backward. The slab moved, and moved again. Behind them, the beasts came swaying and lumbering. Pulling again, they jerked the cover aside far enough to free a six-inch hole. As the masked bandit lunged at them, Joe shoved the kit, and they dropped through into blackness.
They landed on hard linoleum, in a little room walled by shelves that smelled of raisins, brown sugar, cereal. Above them in the hole, a masked face peered down, and another. Trapped in the pantry, they watched the raccoons turn, preparing to back down, watched the first one reach a hind foot to grip the nearest shelf.
Leaping, Joe pawed at the pantry door swinging on the knob and turning it. The door flew open, they were through.
"Get your tail through, Kit."
She flicked her fluffy tail away, and Joe flung himself against the door again, slamming it closed.
They heard the raccoons drop, then a terrible thudding racket as they fought among themselves, scrabbling at the door to force it open. The cats fled, searching the kitchen for a place to hide, listening to the latch rattle as if any minute it would give.
The animals charged the door for some moments, then began, apparently, to vent their rage and hunger on the pantry shelves. Cans and boxes fell clattering, cardboard was torn and ripped to the sounds of munching and slurping-five voracious eating machines heralding their entry into Elliot Traynor's cottage, announcing their arrival with enough noise to wake the village.
The Traynor kitchen, even without lights, was a bright room, its cabinets and tile floor creamy pale, its wide bay window over the sink offering a vista of starlight above the massed houseplants. But its pristine counters afforded no shelter. When a door banged, down the hall, the cats fled behind the refrigerator.
Elliott Traynor came running, Vivi close behind him. Peering out, the cats watched the Traynors pause, staring at the closed pantry door where, within, the raccoons were knocking down cans and thudding against the walls. Elliott was dressed in a velvet robe, pajamas, and slippers-and carrying a black automatic. Crouched behind the refrigerator, Dulcie and the kit hunched close to Joe.
Moving to the pantry, Elliott paused for a long minute, listening. When he jerked the door open, Vivi screamed. Two shots rang. At the booming explosion, the cats scorched down the hall, into the living room and underneath the couch.
"He shot them," Dulcie whispered, shocked. As terrified as she'd been of the raccoons, she was appalled that Traynor had killed them. Crouching in the black dusty dark beneath the couch, she pressed against Joe, shivering. "He might have shot us."
"Shhh." Joe's warning hiss was cut off by Vivi's high, nervous giggle.
"My God! Why did you have to shoot them! Look at the mess you made. What on earth are they, what kind of animal would…?" She giggled again. "Oh, it's gory. What are we going to do?"
"Raccoons," Traynor snapped. "Get some garbage bags."
"You had to load with soft-nose."
"Be glad I did. Bullet could go right through these walls, who knows where. Then there'd be hell to pay. Get me the damn bags. Hope to hell the neighbors thought it was a backfire."
"How did they get in?"
Silence-as if Traynor might be pointing above them, to the crawl hole.