There was no way she and the cats could free the alligator. Bagabond knelt and examined the timbers trapping the beast as she called her friends to help her. She reached out and stroked the alligator's head, calming him with the images she sent. She sensed the creature drifting in and out of consciousness.
The animals arrived at different times. An uneasy peace held as Bagabond directed each according to its abilities. Rats gnawed, a pair of wild dogs provided muscle, the opossums and raccoons carried off small stones. The black and the calico aided Bagabond in controlling the volatile mix of animals. When the smaller debris had been cleared away and timbers and boards shifted or gnawed through, Bagabond began hauling on the alligator. Between her tugging and his struggles, Jack fought his way free. Bagabond ended up with a very tired and bruised alligator across her lap. The black and the calico told the creatures who had helped to leave. The two cats watched as Bagabond rubbed the underside of the alligator's jaw, calming the creature. As she stroked it, the snout and tail began to shorten. The scaly hide became smooth, pale skin. The stubby limbs elongated into arms and legs. In a few minutes, Bagabond was holding the naked, bruised body of the man they had found before. As the change took place, Bagabond realized that at some indefinable point, she could no longer control this creature or read his thoughts. Somehow she had missed the critical division between man and beast.
She got up, lifting the man off her, and walked toward the end of the tunnel. The calico accompanied her. The black stayed beside the man.
Why? Bagabond thought.
Why? the black countered. The work they had just done, as seen through the cat's eyes, played across her mind. The calico looked from one to the other. She had not been invited into this conversation.
Alligator, Bagabond explained, not human. In her mind the alligator became a man.
"Curiosity…" Bagabond spoke aloud for the first time since the rescue operation had commenced.
The black sent a picture of a black cat on its back with paws in the air.
Bagabond sat down beside the man. In a few minutes he began to move. Painfully he sat up. In the dim light filtering from above, he recognized Bagabond as the old woman he had seen the day before.
"Wha' happen? I remember running into a bunch of crazies with guns, and then things get fuzzy." He tried to focus on the crone, who kept splitting into two images. "I think maybe I've got a concussion."
Bagabond shrugged and pointed at the beams from the roof-collapse behind him. By straining his eyes, he could see what looked like hundreds of pawprints on the floor and the walls around the cave-in. In the center of the devastation, Jack also saw the imprint of a monstrous tail.
"Christ, not again." Jack turned back to Bagabond. "When you got here, what did you see?"
She turned partly away from him, still silent. He saw her mouth quirk in a partial smile beneath the stringy hair. Was she mad?
"Merle. What am I going to do?" Jack was almost bowled over by the pair of black paws that struck his chest. "Easy, boy. You're the biggest kitty I've seen since I left the swamps." The black cat's eyes stared into his with an odd intensity. "What is it?"
"He wants to know how you do it." The old woman's voice did not match her appearance. It was young and held a touch of humor. "Be careful. You're spaced, just like you were coming out of Thorazine." She took his arm as he tried to stand.
When he was upright, she said, "You're not going to make it far like that." She began to take off her coat.
"Mon Dieu. Thanks." Feeling his skin flush, Jack shrugged into her green cloth coat and wrapped it around himself. It covered him from neck to knees, but left his arms bare.. from the elbows down.
"Where do you live?" Bagabond gazed at him without expression. Jack appreciated the kindness.
"Downtown. Down on Broadway near the City Hall station. Are we anywhere close to a train?" Jack was not used to being lost, and found that he disliked the feeling intensely.
In answer, Bagabond picked her way to the tunnel entrance. She didn't look back to see if he was following when she turned to the right.
"Your mistress, she is a little strange. No ofense," Jack said to the black cat. It paced him as he trailed the bag lady. The cat looked up at him, sniffed, and twitched his tail. "Who am I to talk, eh?"
Although Jack attempted to keep up with Bagabond, he quickly fell behind. Eventually, at the black's appeal, she returned and helped support the man, pulling his arm across her shoulders.
Jack finally recognized the tunnels as they came into the 57th Street station. He was amazed at the change in Bagabond as they made their way onto the platform. Even though she was still holding him up, the woman seemed to hang off him. She shuffled now instead of striding, and kept her eyes on the ground. Those waiting on the platform gave them plenty of room.
The subway pulled in, the last car covered with unusually bright graffiti. Bagabond hauled Jack toward the vividly decorated car. Jack had time to read some of the more coherent phrases covering the side.
Are you unusual? Did you feel the fire? Are you burning inside?
The flames devour us all, But never let us die; it never ends, forever in flame.
Jack thought some of the phrases changed as he watched, but that had to be an effect of his concussed brain. Bagabond pulled him inside. The doors closed, leaving some very angry transit customers outside.
"Stop?" Bagabond was nothing if not economical with her words, Jack thought.
"City Hall." Jack slumped and rested his head against the back of the seat, closing his eyes as the train rolled downtown. He did not notice that the seat molded itself around his body to support it while he slept. He failed to realize that the doors never again opened until they reached his stop.
The cats were not entirely happy with this subway ride. The calico was flatly terrified. Ears laid back, tail straight and fluffed out, she leaned into Bagabond's side. The black gingerly kneaded the floor of the car. The texture was only partially familiar. He wondered at the heat and the confusing scent all around him.
Bagabond tried to focus on the interior of the dark car. There were no sharp angles here. Dim shapes seemed to change form subtly in her peripheral vision. I've felt nothing like this, she thought, since the acid trip. She extended her consciousness beyond the cats and Jack. She couldn't define the who that she briefly contacted. But she felt the overwhelming comfort, the warmth, and the protectiveness that surrounded them here.
Cautiously she settled back in her seat and stroked the calico.
"This is it," said Jack.
He had recovered sufficiently to lead their small party through the City Hall station, beyond a bewildering succession of maintenance closets, and into another labyrinth of unused tunnels. He'd rigged sections of the passages with lights which he turned on and off as needed as they proceeded toward his home. When he opened the last door, he stood aside and waved Bagabond and the cats inside. He smiled proudly as they stared around the long room.
"Wow, man." Bagabond flinched as she took in the opulent furnishings and decor. The immediate impression was of red velvet and claw-footed divans.
"You are younger than you look. That was my reaction too. Reminded me of Captain Nemo's stateroom…" "20,000 Leagues Under the Sea."
"Yeah, right. You saw it too. One of the first movies I ever saw over to the parish theater." They walked down the crimson-carpeted stairs flanked by gold stanchions and plush velvet ropes. Both cats ran ahead of them, the calico using the Victorian armchairs as hurdles. The electric light was augmented by flickering gas flames that gave the room an atmosphere out of the last century. The black cat trotted over the Persian carpets to the edge of the platform and looked back at the two humans.