Maybe she felt his attention. She opened her eyes, and stared right at him. Showed no fear. Just that faint smile, which shifted from sweet to cold, to cruel.
“Your highness,” she rasped mockingly.
“Cat,” whispered Zee. “Miserable Cat. Nothing left but threads.”
Gold glinted again in her eyes, but stronger, brighter. Hot with fury. Grant stiffened, and in two strides I was back at the bed.
“You should have killed me then,” she said, trying to sound threatening, though the effect was little more than an angry, bitter whine. “But you both were too weak.”
I could have said something about mercy. I could have told her that she had been an innocent, and that the formerly possessed should be given a chance to start over. But I looked into those golden eyes, fading even now into dull human brown—glazing over with forgetfulness and confusion—and kept my mouth shut. Mercy, again. Mercy, me.
I snapped my fingers at the boys, and they fled into the shadows. All of them, except Zee. I said to Grant, “Can she harm anyone else?”
“She’s dying,” he said simply. “I can see it all around her. She’s fading. I doubt she’ll last the night.”
I nodded stiffly, sick to my stomach. Sick to death. I was walking away, again, but I wasn’t going to kill in cold blood. Not like this.
I met the old woman’s gaze. “Good-bye.”
“No,” she murmured, brow crinkling with confusion. “Not yet. I didn’t finish. I didn’t finish with you. Wanted to punish…her grandchild. Punish her.”
“You punished yourself,” I replied, and left the hospital room.
Grant and I went to my mother’s apartment on Central Park. Everything was dusty. The white sheets that covered the furniture had turned gray. The windows were filthy. The air was cold and smelled faintly of mildew. But the electricity and water worked—paid for each month by one of the law firms that had overseen my mother’s affairs since her murder.
In the closet I found clothes wrapped in plastic. I found a locked chest full of guns. A box crammed with cash and precious jewels. And in the kitchen cupboards, Spam. Along with two forks.
“I feel like royalty,” Grant said.
I tried to smile. Around us, Raw and Aaz were tumbling along the hardwood floors, tossing Dek and Mal through the air like spears—making the serpentine demons squeal with delight. I looked for Zee. I walked through the apartment, thinking of the last time I had been here with my mother. Wondering if Jean had ever come back.
I felt Zee watching me before I saw him. I stood at the window, gazing out at Central Park. Waiting to hear what he had to say. Knowing part of it already.
“Old Cat dead,” he finally rasped. “Took care of it.”
I had thought he would. I searched myself for regret, and found none. “Did she suffer?”
Zee climbed onto the wide sill. “Not in sleep.”
“And the one who shot her? Who killed Samuel and Lizbet? Ernie?”
An odd glint entered his eyes when I mentioned Ernie’s name, but he shrugged and said, “Different men, different cities. Hired like thugs. Got the scent. Tomorrow, I cut them.”
Cut them, kill them. I had time to think about that, and decide whether there should be another kind of justice. Human laws, human wheels. Evidence could be planted. Police tipped off.
I shot him a hard look. “And the rest of it? You could have warned me in time to save lives.”
He dug his claws into wood beneath him. I noticed other gouge marks, older and just as deep. “Old mother needed you. Needed you in order to…change. Be better. Stronger. Pivotal. No you around, she go on. Never look back. Black Cat get strong and stronger. Children die early. More children after that.”
“She would have done something,” I protested, though a small part of me wondered if that was true. “She would have fought to help those kids.”
“No,” Zee whispered, with utter certainty. “Would have been different. Colder, harder. No good mother. No heart. Seen it happen. Again, again.” He rested a claw upon my hand. “You got heart. Heart from your mother, because your grandmother got heart. Because you shook up her heart. Shook her hard. Made her regret. Regret is sweet if it burns you right.”
“So you’re saying…. all this was to make me go back. To help my grandmother become a better person.” I stared at him. “But she didn’t even remember me. Later, the first time I met her. We were strangers.”
Zee made a slashing motion across his brow. “Waited until lessons took, then cut you out. Better that way. No good remembering future. No good.”
I wanted to argue with that, but stopped myself. If I had met my grandchild while hardly out of my teens, it would have messed me up. It would have been all I thought of. No good remembering the future. Because it stole from the present.
I wrapped my arm around his hard shoulders, and rested my chin on top of his head. I could hear Grant’s cane clicking in the other room, coming closer.
“But we failed,” I said softly, staring at the glittering city lights. “Those kids died.”
Zee held up his clawed hand, splitting his long fingers like a Vulcan from Star Trek. “Live long and prosper.”
I stifled a sharp cough of stunned, incredulous laughter. But mostly, I just wanted to weep. Grant peered into the room. “You okay?”
“No,” I said. “There’s been a lot of death.”
“Lot more you’re not telling me. If I checked your right hand, what would I see?”
I did not want to look. “More of your future cyborg woman.”
“And the rest?”
“I couldn’t save the people I was supposed to.”
Grant leaned against the doorway, studying me. “You’re talking about those kids whom Winifred knew, and who were…targeted. Samuel, Lizbet.”
“Ernie,” I whispered, aching.
Grant frowned. “You feel so much grief when you say his name. I can see it.”
“He’s dead,” I blurted out, wondering why he should look so confused—and then remembered that Grant did not know. I had not told him yet, about going back in time. Seeing those…names…as children. Saving Ernie, at least for a moment. In this time, Ernie had been dead for days now, in my arms.
Unless he was not dead.
“Grant,” I said slowly. “How did we get here? How were we warned to find Winifred?”
His frown deepened. “There was a letter, Maxine.”
The following week in Seattle, I picked Ernie Bernstein up from the airport. It was a rare day, sunny and warm, and I was the only person wearing jeans and a turtleneck. I did not feel the heat.
I saw him coming out of customs: a portly man, shorter than me, his hair silver and tufted. But his eyes were the same. I remembered those eyes.
He stopped when he saw me. Stood stock-still, staring. Drinking me in. I walked up to him, and smiled. Not bothering to hide the fine burn of tears in my eyes.
“I listened,” he said hoarsely. “Even when Winifred called me out of the blue and said I needed to find you, and go in person. Even when she mailed me that scrap of skin and said the Black Cat was back. I waited, and did as you asked.”
Time was a funny thing. I had assumed nothing could change, but it had. I could not explain the paradox that created. Only that moments counted. That it was possible—it was possible, against all odds—to make a difference.
“You did good,” I said.