With a tremendous, jerking effort, he flung Turtle from him, tossing her hard against the wall beside them. She should have been smashed, or dazed at best, but her reactions were sharper in her new nature. She braced herself for the strike, used the energy of the blow to fire a run up the wall, thus dissipating rather than absorbing its force. The spirit cat dropped to the ground in a battle crouch, hissing fiercely, her eyes aglow with a light of their own making that would have told any sane witness the nature of the creature he faced.
Bast's Gift did not waste those precious seconds. He continued to punish the killer's head, so ripping forehead and scalp that in two places, thin strips of flesh hung from the bone. Periodically, he scored the back of the hand instinctively raised to defend the remaining eye.
Turtle sprang back into the fray, this time joining the black in going for the vulnerable head.
Francie watched in dread. The attack was definitely affecting their enemy, but he was not defeated. His hands were free, and he was lashing at his small assailants. They were both so positioned as to make difficult targets, but he would not be long in throwing them off and finishing them if he could land a solid blow, as he inevitably must soon do.
She had to stop him! Desperately, the woman groped for some weapon that could put the madman out of the battle, but only Bastet's bronze image came to hand.
She caught up the heavy little statue, suddenly deadly calm. She would have once chance, only one. Her first blow had to fall true, and it must strike with such force that it would bring and keep the big man down. It was pointless to question her ability or the ability of her weapon to accomplish that. She was without any other choice.
In that moment, Francie was filled with knowledge and the strength and control of body to translate it into action. Setting the figurine aside, she flowed to her feet.
The man's functioning eye dilated. He shook his head to clear the blood half blinding it, but the apparition before him still did not resolve itself back into his cowering intended victim. Tall, female, clad in platinum fur, it took a single step toward him.
A cat's whisper-soft paws concealed a defense of no small import, witness the work Francie's two defenders had already wrought on the intruder. Her own claws were something more, every bit as sharp as the animals' but strong and deadly in proportion to her new size. Her arm slashed out, and two scarlet geysers struck the ceiling, pumping wildly from the severed arteries of what had been his throat.
Francie sunk to her knees as the eldritch strength left her again as abruptly as it had come. Two little bodies, both trembling violently, came to her and pressed against her, seeking comfort. Fighting the shaking of her own limbs, she closed them tightly in her arms, whispering that everything was fine now, trying to ascertain all the while that they were indeed both whole.
Do not fear for our charges, Sister. They are unscathed.
The human's head turned to the statue. The shock and horror of those few, ghastly minutes just gone was beginning to grip her, numbing her so that she did not start at the sound of the familiar mental voice.
I must crave pardon, Francine, for possessing you as I did without first seeking your leave, but it was essential that I act at once. Your weapon was inadequate. Had I not seized the offensive, you might have felled him in the end, for your determination would have bought you more than one blow, but you yourself would have been gravely injured, probably to the death, and maybe these valiant ones with you.
"I-am grateful for your help." Francie made herself look at the corpse, at the gaping hole that remained of the throat, and she gripped herself with every shred of will she had left. "What-what about him? Is he being…"
The judging of human souls is not mine, yet I can state that his mind was hopelessly awry. He had no knowledge of wrong, no ability to comprehend the pain of others.
"I hope his judgment will be mild, then," she replied with a genuine charity she had not known she could muster, "milder and more just than I may receive."
She could feel the invisible entity frown. What do you say, Sister?
"You-you've saved me, Lady Bastet, and I'm truly grateful, but it may be only to face another kind of dying."
Francie shivered. "I don't know how I'm going to explain all of this. The police'll see that nothing in here could've made that kind of wound. Even if I claim I don't remember a thing, I'll be in trouble." Her eyes closed. "You must know something of humans, Lady. All it needs is one lawyer, one man or woman looking for notoriety, and I could be in jail or be subjected to an ordeal that'll strip me of everything-job, home, name." There were others to think about beside herself. "Turtle'll be all right. She'll be going back to her new place, but there could be long stretches when I won't be able to take care of Gift. He might be caged somewhere or actually suffer physical as well as emotional neglect." The woman's face, already nearly colorless, turned as white as if she lay dead beside the one the goddess had killed through her. "Lady Bastet, take him! You have to take Gift! The death weapon may be impossible to identify, but not the rest. They might put him down, slaughter him, because he attacked a human, even though it was to defend me. -Please. I know this may not follow the laws or customs ruling you and your charges, but none of what happened here's normal, either. Gift overcame all his terror of strangers to do this for me. You can't let him suffer!"
She took hold of herself before hysteria shattered her completely. "I'm human, and this was a human matter initially. I can work my way through whatever's to come of it, but, please, please, don't let my brave little friend be punished for his love of me!"
You truly believe that will happen, Sister, to you or to him?
Francie's head lowered. "It could happen. It…" She groped for words. "Our society seems more comfortable with victims, statistics, than with successful survivors. It too often punishes them as a result."
Can you imagine that I am unaware of the ways of those among whom my charges must live or that I would intervene only to leave you and yours in a state worse in its way than that from which I saved you? 1 questioned you merely to see if you yourself were aware of your continued peril. Close your eyes, Francine, for you have witnessed too much that is strange already this day.
The human obeyed. There was no sound for what seemed like many minutes, but she did not look again until Bastet told her to do so. The body, the weapon, the blood, all sign of the intrusion and battle, were gone from the bedroom, as she had no doubt they were gone from the living room and the entry window as well. "Thank you," she whispered.
It was a service I was pleased to render, my Sister. Know, too, that I do not call you that in courtesy but in fact, and few there are in all your species' history who have borne that title. Your behavior this night has gained it for you, coupled with your deep and true partnership with my little ones.
"I didn't do anything!" Francie exclaimed. "You were the one who…"
I do not grant kinship for bringing death! the other snapped. You rightly feared what would become of you as a result, and you knew I was possessed of many powers-I surely had given ample proof of that your plea was only for Bast's Gift. That, Francine of the Partners, is the measure of your greatness. "He's done so much for me," she murmured, stroking the black.
Are you still willing to do my work?
"I am, of course," she replied, surprised that the question should be posed.
Then it is time for you to bring a kitten into your life. One has just returned to me who had been so used in her first incarnation that she has lost the power to play or seek. That a kitten should be so crippled is an obscenity before nature and Those who rule her.