Nothing but a cat. All the way back to the forest and the cave, the fang and the claw…
Just a cat.
And you can always trust a cat to be a cat.
The cat blinked. It was bewildered and angry. Its ears went flat. Its eyes flashed green.
It couldn't think. It didn't think. It was instinct that moved it now, something that operated right down at the level of its roaring blood.
It was a cat and there was a twitching squeaky thing and what cats do to twitching squeaking things is this: they leap…
The rat king fought back. Teeth snapped at the cat; it was tangled in fighting rats, and it yowled as it rolled across the floor. More rats poured in, rats that could kill a dog… but now, just for a few seconds, this cat could have brought down a wolf.
It didn't notice the crackling flame as the dropped match set fire to some straw. It ignored the other rats breaking ranks and running. It paid no attention to the thickening smoke.
What it wanted to do was kill things.
Some dark river deep inside had been dammed up over the months. It had spent too much time helpless and fuming while little squeaky people ran around in front of it. It had longed to leap and bite and kill. It had longed to be a proper cat. And now the cat was out of the bag and so much ancestral fight and spite and viciousness was flowing through Maurice's veins that it sparked off his claws.
And as the cat rolled and struggled and bit, a weak little voice right at the back of his tiny brain, cowering out of the way, the last tiny bit of him that was still Maurice and not a blood-crazed maniac said, “Now! Bite here!”
Teeth and claws closed on a lump made up of eight knotted tails, and tore it apart.
The tiny part of what had once been the me of Maurice heard a thought shoot past.
Noooo… ooo… oo… o…
And then it died away, and the room was full of rats, just rats, nothing more than rats, fighting to get out of the way of a furious, spitting, snarling, bloodthirsty cat, catching up on catness. It clawed and bit and ripped and pounced and turned to see a small white rat that had not moved throughout the whole fight. It brought its claws down—
Dangerous Beans screamed.
“Maurice!”
The door rattled, and rattled again as Keith's boot hit the lock for the second time. On the third blow the wood split and burst apart.
There was a wall of fire at the other end of the cellar. The flames were dark and evil, as much thick smoke as fire. The Clan were scrambling in through the grating and spreading out on either side, staring at the flames.
“Oh, no! Come on, there's buckets next door!” said Keith.
“But—” Malicia began.
“We've got to do it! Quickly! This is a big people job!”
The flames hissed and popped. Everywhere, on fire or in the floor beyond the flames, were dead rats. Sometimes there were only bits of dead rats.
“What happened here?” said Darktan.
“Looks like a war, guv,” said Sardines, sniffing the bodies.
“Can we get round it?”
“Too hot, boss. Sorry, but we—isn't that Peaches?”
She was sprawled close to the flames, mumbling to herself and covered in mud. Darktan crouched down. Peaches opened her eyes, blearily.
“Are you all right, Peaches? What's happened to Dangerous Beans?”
Sardines wordlessly tapped Darktan on the shoulder, and pointed.
Coming through the fire, a shadow…
It padded slowly between walls of flame. For a moment the waving air made it look huge, like some monster emerging from a cave, and then it became… just a cat. Smoke poured off its fur. What wasn't smoking was caked with mud. One eye was shut. The cat was leaving a trail of blood and, every few footsteps, it sagged a little.
It had a small bundle of white fur in its mouth.
It reached Darktan and continued past, without a glance. It was growling all the time, under its breath.
“Is that Maurice?” said Sardines.
“That's Dangerous Beans he's carrying!” shouted Darktan. “Stop that cat!” But Maurice had stopped by himself, turned, lay down with his paws in front of him, and looked blearily at the rats.
Then he gently dropped the bundle on the floor. He it once or twice, to see if it would move. He blinked slowly when it didn't. He looked puzzled, in a land of slow-motion way. He opened his mouth to yawn, and smoke came out. Then he put his head down, and died.
The world seemed to Maurice to be full of the ghost light you got before dawn, when it was just bright enough to see things but not bright enough to see colours.
He sat up and washed himself. There were rats and humans running around, very, very slowly. They didn't concern him much. Whatever it was they thought they had to be doing, they were doing it. Other people were rushing about, in a silent, ghostly way, and Maurice was not. This seemed a pretty good arrangement. And his eye didn't hurt and his skin wasn't painful and his paws weren't torn, which was a big improvement on matters as they stood recently.
Now he came to think about it, he wasn't quite sure what had happened recently. Something wretchedly bad, obviously. There was something Maurice-shaped lying beside him, like a three-dimensional shadow. He stared at it, and then turned when in this soundless ghost-world he heard a noise.
There was movement near the wall. A small figure was striding across the floor towards the tiny lump that was Dangerous Beans. It was rat-sized, but it was much more solid than the rest of the rats, and unlike any rat he'd seen before it wore a black robe.
A rat in clothes, he thought. But this one did not belong in a Mr. Bunnsy book. Just poking out from the hood of the robe was the bony nose of a rat skull. And it was carrying a tiny scythe over its shoulder.
The other rats and the humans, who were drifting back and forth with buckets, paid it no attention. Some of them walked right through it. The rat and Maurice seemed to be in a separate world of their own.
It's the Bone Rat, thought Maurice. It's the Grim Squeaker. He's come for Dangerous Beans. After all I've been through? That is not happening! He sprang into the air and landed on the Bone Rat. The little scythe skidded across the floor.
“OK, mister, let's hear you talk—” Maurice began.
“Er…” said Maurice, as the horrible awareness of what he'd done caught up with him.
A hand grabbed him by the back of the neck and lifted him up, higher and higher, and then turned him around. Maurice stopped struggling immediately.
He was being held by another figure, much taller, human size, but with the same style of black robe, a much bigger scythe, and a definite lack of skin around the face. Strictly speaking, there was a considerable lack of face about the face, too. It was just bone.
DESIST FROM ATTACKING MY ASSOCIATE, MAURICE, said Death.
“Yessir, Mr Death, sir! Atoncesir!” said Maurice quickly. “Noproblemsir!”
I HAVEN'T SEEN YOU LATELY, MAURICE.
“No sir,” said Maurice, relaxing slightly. “Been very careful, sir. Looking both ways when I cross the street and everything, sir.”
AND HOW MANY DO YOU HAVE LEFT NOW?
“Six, sir. Six. Six out of nine. Very definitely. Very definitely six lives, sir.”
Death looked surprised.
BUT YOU WERE RUN OVER BY A CART ONLY LAST MONTH, WEREN'T YOU?
“That, sir? Barely grazed me, sir. Got away with hardly a scratch, sir.”
EXACTLY!
“Oh.”
THAT MAKES FIVE LIVES, MAURICE. UP UNTIL TODAY'S ADVENTURE.
“Fair enough, sir. Fair enough.” Maurice swallowed. Oh, well, might as well try. “So let's say I'm left with three, right?”
THREE? I WAS ONLY GOING TO TAKE ONE. YOU CAN'T LOSE MORE THAN ONE LIFE AT A TIME, EVEN IF YOU'RE A CAT. THAT LEAVES YOU FOUR, MAURICE.
“And I say take two, sir,” said Maurice urgently. “Two of mine, and call it quits?”
Death and Maurice looked down at the faint, shadowy outline of Dangerous Beans. Some other rats were standing around him now, picking him up.