She would have demanded answers, but the smallcats had already quit the tree. Mhari climbed down from her perch and skirted her pool. She waited by the gate until the Woman’s lights winked out, then nosed it open and edged gingerly into the garden. The Woman’s personal garden was small-most of the property had been enclosed for Mhari’s use-but beyond it lay the city.
The smallcats were already padding down the cobble-stoned drive, obviously expecting Mhari to follow. After a moment’s hesitation, she did. In a few loping strides, she pulled up beside Smithwicks and adjusted her pace to his.
“What if we’re seen?” she ventured, gazing out into the well-lit street. “I am not inconspicuous.”
Minx’s snort was loud enough to dislodge a hairball. “No worries. With those long skinny legs and that tiny head, you’ll just be taken for a stray greyhound. There’s a few of them around-the dog track turns out losers to fend for themselves.”
“Shut up, Minx,” hissed Smithwicks. “If we need to scatter, Mhari, just climb a tree. We’ll find you.”
“Not if I find her first.”
Mhari whirled toward the speaker. Sitting on the high stone fence was the largest smallcat she had ever seen. His long, tawny coat made his weight difficult to judge, but Mhari would put him at over twenty-five pounds-only five or ten pounds lighter than she. A handsome creature, too, with a long white ruff that was almost leonine and a pleasantly deep rumble to his voice. There was nothing pleasant about his manner, however, from the turned-back ears to the lashing tail fluffed to impossible size.
The three smallcats hissed and backed off, positioning themselves behind Mhari. She stood her ground as the big tom leaped to the ground and stalked toward her. He circled Mhari as if he desired to examine her from every angle. She thought it prudent to turn to face him. The smallcats, also prudent, retreated to the shadows of a flowering hedge.
“I heard rumors, but I didn’t believe them,” the tom said, addressing the cowering Smithwicks. He flicked a glance at Mhari. “Until now. This foolishness stops here.”
He leaped at Mhari and wrapped his front paws around her neck-a take-down maneuver she had seen smallcats use on each other. Mhari braced her front legs and tipped her head forward, accepting the sting of claws as he slid off. Too late she realized her mistake-this was the result the tom had intended. Now beneath her, he raised powerful hind legs to rake and tear.
But the tom did not know the ways of the Serval. Mhari leaped straight up, and the strike that might have opened her belly fell far short.
The tom adjusted with admirable speed. He rolled and got his feet back beneath him while Mhari was still gaining height. As she fell, she twisted in the air and swiped a pawful of claws at the retreating smallcat-a move she’d learned from watching someone called Derek Jeter on the talking box-and tore the tom’s ear to bloody ribbons.
The moment her paws touched down, she hopped to one side, neatly evading the tom’s running attack. She sped him on his way with a blow from one powerful paw. He stumbled, rolled. Before he could rise again, the three smallcats were upon him, biting and tearing.
“Enough,” Mhari snarled.
They paid her no heed. She stalked over and picked up the gray female by the scruff of the neck, like some recalcitrant kitten. She tossed Minx aside and glared at the gray’s two male companions, who’d left off their attack on the big tom to eye Mhari uncertainly.
“Next?” she said meaningfully.
Smithwicks edged away. “We came to your aid.”
“You fell on a wounded cat like jackals.”
“There is no need to take that tone,” he said reprovingly. “You do not understand all the factors at work. You do not understand the various factions and schools of thought among the city’s cats.”
“Explain, then.”
Frank muttered something about Bast in heat. His tone suggested that comparison to the Goddess was not necessarily a compliment. “We can stand here waiting for dawn and Animal Control, or we can do what needs doing.”
“Well said,” agreed Smithwicks. “Shall we?”
Somehow they managed to get to the zoo without further challenge. They scrambled up the vines draping a tall stone wall.
The scent struck Mhari like a blow. Not just the smell of animals-she’d caught that scent long before the walls of the zoo came into sight-but the lingering stench of too many humans, too much scat for so little territory, too many chemicals meant to clean away the odor of scat. But what struck her most forcefully was the scent of despair.
There were coyotes living wild near the Arizona ranch. One time an old, mangy dog ventured near the Serval’s habitat, probably drawn by the scent of food it could no longer hunt for itself. He’d been caught in an old, forgotten leg trap in the brush outside the habitat. Days had passed before the humans found and killed him. In that time, Mhari had learned of despair and hopelessness. Tonight, she had learned something almost as troubling.
“You smallcats can talk to the humans and bend them to your will,” she ventured, “but the greatcats cannot. That is why they can be kept in zoos.”
“That is true,” Smithwicks said cautiously.
“I cannot do what you do. If I am captured, I will not be able to escape.”
“Minx is very persuasive. She will get you out,” the black-and-white tom assured her. He glared at the little gray female as if daring her to contradict him. “We’ll make sure she does.”
Mhari turned toward the artificial cave in the midst of a steel and glass enclosure. Her nose told her there were lions within. “What of the others? The Great Ones?”
“What of them?” Minx snarled. Her head came up proudly. “For thousands of years, we cats have lived among humans. Our bonds with them have evolved over time. Our civilization is complex and powerful, and far beyond your primitive understanding.
Great Ones. Ha!”
“What Minx meant to say,” said Smithwicks, “was that we honor the Ancestors. They have a place in our hearts and our history. But they are not part of our civilization.”
“And there’s no place for them in the city,” put in Frank.
Except for the zoo.
Suddenly Mhari wanted nothing more than to be done with this. She leaped down from the wall and trotted across the road toward the long, sterile pool surrounding the tiger’s habitat. A foolish thing, since tigers could swim nearly as well as she, and it had little to do with the things that truly kept the great striped cat imprisoned, but no doubt it made the visiting humans feel more secure.
The Serval leaped the low fence and paced along the edge of the moat, looking for a glint of metal under the water. A low rumble, the feline version of a politely cleared throat, drew her attention to the dappled shadows beneath a tree. The tiger sprawled there, watching her with strangely dull, incurious eyes.
“Greetings, little sister,” he said. “How is it that you run free?”
His language fell strangely upon Mhari’s ears, but it was close enough to the Serval speech for her to follow. “A gun was thrown into this pool. I have come to retrieve it.”
“What do you want with such a thing?”
“The man who threw it away has been killing smallcats. They wish to stop him. The gun will help them find him.”
The tiger considered this in silence. “Did the smallcats free you? Is that why you do their bidding?”
Mhari was about to deny this, but found she could not. How would the tiger understand her bond with the Woman? He would see her captivity as no different from his.
She was not entirely certain he would be wrong.
A surge of water rippled through the pool, an artificial tide of some sort. Mhari closed her eyes and listened. Her large ears made subtle twitches and turns as she searched the air for some hint of her metallic prey.