“Do I? Does the chance to turn an Adept of Bast come along every day? You want me, demon. Quite a bit. Maybe you shouldn’t have let me know, but it’s too late now.”
Barb glared.
“What’s the matter?” Silent asked. “You’re a champion of Hell. Are you afraid of one lone cat? Don’t you think you can beat me without a bunch of slaves backing you up? I hope the other demons don’t find out. They’ll laugh their tails off.”
“All right,” Barb spat, “it’s a wager.”
“Good. After I kill you, how do I change the other blacks back to normal?”
Barb turned her head. Following the motion, Silent saw a stack of parchments sitting on the floor. It hadn’t been there a moment before.
“Covenants,” the demonic cat said, “sealed with paw print and fang mark, blood and spit. If I die or yield, they’ll catch fire instantly.”
“All right,” Silent said. “Shall we fight outside? There’s more room.”
“As you prefer, magus. Wherever we do it, the outcome will be the same.”
She and her servants led him to an exit, doors opening of their own accord when she neared. Once he was clear of the building, he had to stifle a craven urge to bolt. He wasn’t used to feeling so afraid, but he was certain Barb was the most formidable foe he’d ever fought, and he had no real idea of the extent of her abilities.
For his part, he could do a great many things with spells, but he couldn’t cast them quickly enough to be of use in a duel. He’d have to depend on the Aspects, and accordingly decided to cloak himself in the power of Sister Leopard. She wasn’t as big and strong as Brother Tiger, but she was quicker and more agile.
The procession wound up in a dark self-service parking lot. A couple of cars still sat in their spaces, but most had departed at the end of the workday. Barb’s minions positioned themselves around the perimeter of the space. The gleam of the sickle moon caught in their eyes.
“Is the dueling ground acceptable?” asked Barb.
“It’ll do,” Silent said, widening the distance between them.
“You know, you can yield right now and avoid a lot of pain.”
“Or you can give up right now and not get killed.”
She charged, and as she did, she changed. She swelled big as a lynx, and her fangs and claws glowed like red-hot iron. The flesh around them charred, but it didn’t appear to cause her any distress.
Silent waited until she’d nearly closed, then sprang to the side. He clawed and tore open her shoulder. Her blood burst into flame on contact with the air.
She wheeled and swiped at him. He jerked back, and barbed, smoldering claws missed him by a hair. He leaped, bore her down beneath him, and reached to bite her throat. He supposed her blood would burn his mouth but it couldn’t be helped.
She writhed and blurred beneath him, and suddenly he didn’t have a secure hold on her anymore. Clad in the form of a python, she whipped scaly lengths of herself around him and pulled the loops tight, and now he was the one being gripped. The pressure was painful and relentless.
Barb raised her wedge-shaped head to leer down at him. “Surrender,” she hissed.
He couldn’t reach her with his fangs or fore claws. He groped with his hind paws, found a part of her, and raked hard.
She jerked, and her hold loosened an iota. He heaved with all of Sister Leopard’s might and broke free. Barb swirled around him, seeking to wrap him up again. He struck at her, bashing her head to the side, and sprang away from her sliding, twisting coils.
The jump obliged him to turn his back on her. Just for an instant, but when he spun back around, she was gone.
Had he killed her, and her body then disappeared? No, surely not, that last blow hadn’t hit solidly enough to break her spine. He turned around and around, seeking her in vain. Did she have the power to become invisible? Or had she shrunk into something so tiny it was impossible to spot?
Whatever she’d done, he couldn’t locate her, and his nerves crawled with the certainty that she was stealing closer. Then he noticed the attitude of one of the other cats. It wasn’t looking at him or anything else on the expanse of asphalt with its oil spots and painted lines. It was peering up at the sky. Silent followed its gaze to the winged shape plunging down at him.
He sprang out from underneath, just in time to keep the huge owl’s talons from driving deep into the center of his body. But one claw still tore his hindquarters.
Hissing away the shock of the injury, he whirled, struck, and ripped the owl’s wing. Barb snapped at him with her beak. He recoiled, and his right hind leg almost buckled beneath him.
For what it was worth, he’d hurt Barb, too. She flapped her wings but couldn’t take flight. So she melted into the form of a gigantic, bone-white spider with a ring of lambent scarlet eyes. Silent noticed that the new form didn’t appear wounded. Evidently, whenever she changed shape, the new creature joined the battle fresh and strong.
Silent wished he had some comparable advantage. As he and Barb circled one another, he hobbled, his gashed and bloody leg more painful by the moment.
Still, he managed one more spring, onto the spider’s back. His claws and fangs scratched the thing’s chitin armor, but couldn’t penetrate to the soft parts beneath. Barb whirled, flung him off, and leaped after him. He only barely managed to roll and scramble clear.
Silent let his link to Sister Leopard dissolve. She couldn’t help him prevail against a foe impervious to her natural weapons.
Barb let out a low hiss that somehow conveyed gloating satisfaction. She probably thought he’d let go of Sister Leopard because he was too weak to hold her any longer, and she wasn’t far wrong at that. He was quickly reaching the limits of his strength and could only hope enough remained for one last trick.
He crouched. A mere lamed, gasping cat facing a horror. Barb scuttled at him, and he pretended to try to dodge. She raised a foreleg, whipped it down on top of him, and pinned him to the asphalt. The several horny points on the bottom of the limb dug into his flesh.
“You fought well,” said Barb. “Now give up.”
“No,” he said.
“So stubborn. But I can’t say I mind.” She spread her pincer-like serrated jaws wide and lowered her head. She still wanted to inflict agony and terror, not kill him outright, and so she poised herself to take the first nip with daintiness and deliberation.
It gave Silent time to invoke one final Aspect. If he could.
Calling up Grandfather Saber-tooth was a difficult feat at the best of times, because the great progenitor had departed the world so long ago, and because it was a strain for any vessel to contain his transcendent power. For a terrible moment, nothing happened, but then Silent felt a god-like strength and ferocity exalt him.
He twisted and struck with the enormous teeth that were invisible to most eyes, yet as real as anything in the world. They punched through Barb’s chitin and deep into the juncture of her head and body. He ripped them down through her thorax.
It was all he could manage before Grandfather Saber-tooth’s majesty slipped from his grasp. He fell unconscious without knowing whether he’d succeeded in slaying Barb or not.
But when he woke, the heavy, bitter-smelling mass of her spider body sprawled leaking and motionless on top of him, so that was promising. His hind leg throbbing, he dragged himself out from under her and looked her over. She appeared about as dead as any carcass he’d ever seen.
But even so, he couldn’t quite bring himself to turn his back on her until the other black cats rushed over to him. Their show of gratitude and concern made it plain that their cold malevolence had withered away, or at least dwindled back into nothing more than a seed.
“I’m all right,” Silent panted. “I know a charm that will help my leg. The tricky part is going to be figuring out how to open all those cages back in the shelter before any other humans show up.”