There it was-a clink of metal against the metal, somewhere beneath the water. The Serval dropped into the pool and dived for the bottom.
The pool was unexpectedly deep, but the water was clear and a street lamp shone overhead like an artificial moon. Mhari could see clearly, but there was no sign of the gun. The pool’s sides were blue and green, painted in swirling stripes to resemble ripples on living water. Mhari was not troubled by color; she saw it, but she cared little about it one way or another. Her eyes were drawn first and foremost to motion. Other than the occasional push of air and water from some of the holes in the smooth wall, there was nothing to see.
She rose to the surface for air.
“Do not-” began the tiger.
Down Mhari went again, not wanting to hear what he might say. Nevertheless, she heard every word-including that which no greatcat should ever have to speak:
Please…
If water was pushed into the pool, surely there must also be a place for it to leave. The Serval paddled around the depths and watched the holes, waiting to see which pulsed with bubbles and which did not.
Yes, there it was-a round opening on the wall near the bottom, just where she’d heard the click of metal. Mhari swam toward it and reached one long, dexterous paw into the hole. She could just touch the gun, but just barely.
Twice she surfaced, and twice dived again, before she was able to ease the weapon from the drain and paw it into the sack the smallcats had hung around her neck. She rose toward the false moon and scrabbled up over the edge of the pool. The heavy sack thudded against her chest as she shook water from her coat.
“I did not mean for him to kill the smallcats,” the tiger said softly.
Mhari stilled in midshake. “You can talk with humans!”
“This human,” he admitted. “How and why, I could not say. Never before has anyone heard me, much less attempted to do as I bid them.”
So the tiger was hunting by proxy. Clever of him. Mhari wondered, briefly, what the tiger’s intended prey might be, but she decided that was none of her affair.
“Tell me of this human.”
The tiger snorted. “So you can hunt him down? No, that cannot be. I need this human.”
That, Mhari could understand. She did not know how she would fare without her Woman. The tiger had finally found a human of his own, and of course he would be solicitous of the man’s welfare.
A querulous mrowl drew her gaze to the top of the stone wall. The smallcats were waiting for her.
And beyond that wall waited a rogue killer.
“Your human is hunting cats,” Mhari said. “He is a rogue, and rogues are dangerous no matter what their kind. If you care nothing for the smallcats, consider this: You could be next. I am sorry for your loss, Great One, but this is what I must do.”
And then she was running for the wall, the tiger’s despairing roar burning in her ears.
Several days passed before the smallcats returned. Mhari was paddling around her pool, diving after the small, bright fish the Woman placed there from time to time. The moon shone full and high overhead. It was difficult not to think of the tiger’s brightly lit moat and the cruelty of a pool-and so much more-lying just beyond his reach.
The Serval climbed from her pool, dropping one of the koi on the stone walk to flop and twitch and die. She would eat it later. Perhaps. Her freeborn sire had taught her that no cat could be certain of a hunt-not certain of a kill and not certain of a safe return.
The smallcats paced impatiently outside the fence. “We found him,” Frank announced. “In a park between here and the zoo.”
“I am ready.”
Mhari listened carefully as the gray queen called to the Woman. It took longer this time to catch her ear and bend her will. There was a party in the house, with laughter and music and the clinking of many glasses. Even a voice as powerful as Minx’s could not easily penetrate the din.
Finally the Woman stumbled out onto the patio, laughing, her arms draped around a human male. A new male, Mhari noted with approval. It was past time for a change.
This one did not seem to fear her as the portly Man had done. He came down the path to Mhari’s gate with the Woman. He even entered the habitat, something no visitor had done before.
The Woman called to her in English and Italian. Mhari came over, dropping to her haunches several paces beyond reach-and just beyond the flagstone she had carefully prepared.
“See, she likes you,” the Woman cooed. “I told you she would. The Serval cats are very particular, and Mhari is a fine judge of character.”
Mhari sat still as the male cautiously advanced, his hand held out so that she could take his scent. No need-the stench of alcohol rolled off him in waves. She waited until he neared the flagstone, then told Minx what to do.
A piercing feline yowl rent the quiet night. The man, startled, pulled up short and stepped directly onto the stone with the tiny cave dug beneath one side. It teetered, he stumbled. Mhari darted away to hide in her rain shelter.
“At least you got to see her close up,” the Woman said, sounding disappointed. “She can be skittish. I doubt she’ll come out until morning now.”
Show him the habitat, thought Mhari.
“But since we’re here, let me show you her garden,” the Woman said. She laughed lightly. “Mhari lives better than most people!”
They walked over to the pool and found the koi, still alive. The Woman exclaimed over its suffering and toed it back into the pool.
Odd behavior, but it provided all the diversion Mhari required. She ran for the gate and slipped out into the moon-bright night.
Other cats joined them in the park. Mhari could hear them in the trees, moving more slowly and less certainly than squirrels. They crept through the underbrush, too-a dozen of them, a score. More.
The man they sought sat huddled at the base of a thick-bodied talltree, his knees drawn up against his chest and his arms wrapped around them. He rocked back and forth, groaning and muttering to himself in no language Mhari could comprehend.
“This is too near the path,” said Smithwicks in a worried tone. He cast a glance toward a nearby lamp post. “And there is too much light. We must not be seen.”
“The human will not move, not even for Minx?”
“I’m good,” the gray cat said grimly, “but even I can’t reach him.”
Mhari tentatively reached out as she had heard Minx do, but she fared no better. On impulse, she reached out to the human in Serval. If he could hear tiger speech, perhaps…
She told him what to do. The smallcats did not seem to hear, much less understand.
But the human heard. He leaped to his feet, looking around wildly. He lurched toward the path, then stumbled back, shielding his eyes from the bright lamplight.
“The light?” he muttered. “Go into the light? But I’m not dead yet… am I?”
“No, move away from the light,” Mhari urged him, still speaking Serval. “Into the jungle.”
She was not certain where that word came from, but it had an electrifying effect on the man. He spun toward the wooded area, eyes narrowed, and dropped to his belly. He began crawling toward the trees, pausing once to bat away a nonexistent swarm of bugs, and twice more to cringe and throw his arms over his head.
Mhari watched him with puzzlement and something approaching pity. Clearly, this human could hear wild-speech-not perfectly, but in small twisted bits. For some reason, his quiet-ears could hear what the domestic cats could not perceive. And if his slow, tortured progress toward the woodland shadows was any indication, he heard and saw other things, too-things wilder and more fearful than a tame-born Serval cat.
Suddenly Mhari understood why the Woman had returned the koi to the pond, to live until it died. A swift, clean death was a blessing. And sometimes, life was no blessing at all. No creature should have to endure the suffering this wild man knew.