Chapter 8
Something woke me late that night. At first I thought it was the wind, which tapped at the window insistently. I lifted my head and saw that winter had come to the city.
Beyond the window was a tumult of flakes, puffy as popped corn, which heaped themselves upon the stone sill.
I rose and gazed out at Rue des Hirondelles, its quaint and rambling character, which had grown so familiar to me, and which was now made foreign by the drifts growing steadily deeper.
The newspaper box on the corner had vanished, and the gargoyles on the church up the street wore white nightcaps.
I wrapped myself in my robe to watch the snowfall, feeling a twinge of childlike excitement.
I was warm, with a roof over my head and four solid walls, not three.
Winter was no worse than a monster in a storybook: it could frighten but not harm me.
For the first time, the shop felt snug rather than haunted—it helped, I supposed, that there were two floors between me and whoever lurked in the basement.
If they were still there—surely they left sometimes?
I decided to congratulate myself on my decision to accept Yannick’s offer.
It had been a risk, but one had to take risks to get anywhere, I philosophized.
Hadn’t Robin and I taken a risk in opening the shelter, investing his savings and most of my inheritance?
We’d rescued dozens of cats from miserable states, and we hadn’t folded yet.
I trailed my fingertip absently through the condensation on the window, feeling the familiar ache of longing for Robin, like a second heartbeat.
Philosophy was always a meagre comfort, especially in the small hours of the morning.
In the past, I’d told myself that as long as the shelter flourished, I’d always have a piece of Robin.
Now I found myself wondering why I’d taken comfort in this, because what good was a piece?
Was an echo any better than silence if it brought to mind the absence over and over again?
Lost in my ruminations, I leaned my forehead against the cold glass, watching the snow swirl in the wind.
I became aware, slowly, of a scraping sound downstairs.
I turned, then started so violently I hit my shoulder on the window frame.
Banshee sat in the doorway, her mouth open in a silent, unending howl, her fur standing on end and her eyes fiendishly lit by the streetlamp.
When she saw that I was finally giving her my attention after so callously ignoring her desperate cries, she turned and darted into the hall, glancing back at me.
My hands shook and my heart beat rabbit-fast in my ears, but still I paused to pull on some clothes, because the idea of facing whatever was downstairs in my bathrobe felt absurdly inappropriate.
I contemplated remaining in my bedroom, but that seemed worse, somehow.
While I was reasonably certain now that it was a person and not a ghost lurking in the basement, it was a ghost that filled my imagination, gliding upstairs and cornering me in my room, rattling the doorknob and moaning.
I went downstairs.
When I emerged from the dark stairwell into the lesser darkness of the shop, I saw nothing unusual—which was, of course, worse than immediately happening upon some monster.
The front door was closed, the curtains too.
The air, though, had a hint of frost in it, as if it had recently tasted the night outside.
Then I noticed a figure standing by the cages.
Hand trembling, I reached towards the light switch and pushed the button.
It was a woman, her dark hair still speckled with snow.
She wore a red cloak that trailed on the ground, and she had removed one fur-lined glove to pet Thoreau, whom she held in her arms. The scraping sound must have been the cage door opening.
The woman had sharp features that lent her an impish, mischievous look, further emphasized by the dark sweep of her eyeliner and the single mole she had pencilled onto the side of her chin.
I knew instantly that she was like the strange visitors who frequented the basement.
His Majesty perched upon the counter, watching her, the tip of his tail twitching. Banshee, meanwhile, paced by the front door, howling impotently.
“Who are you?” I demanded. “I—we’re closed.”
“Are you,” she said, not looking up from Thoreau as she scratched his chin. The rings she wore flashed in the light. She clucked her tongue at the cat, and his ears perked up. “Much as I’m charmed by your shop—an unusual commodity to trade in, cats—I am not here for you.”
Something told me I did not want to know the answer to my next question. I asked it anyway. “What are you here for?”
“Lock, of course.” Her voice was smoky, her accent Parisian. “I know he’s here. And I know he has his Artefacts with him. Everyone said he was in New York, which delayed me, as did the wards he placed upon this shop to prevent me from finding it. But he couldn’t throw me off the trail forever.”
“Lock,” I murmured. It was not possible. I told myself that I didn’t understand her.
“Havelock Renard, the Witch King,” she continued mercilessly.
“Also called the Shadow-walker, as well as the First Dark Mage—another exaggeration. Magicians have no lords, and all our power is born from darkness. He is not first in anything, except perhaps his ability to make a nuisance of himself.”
We stared at each other in silence for a long moment. Thoreau began to squirm.
I gave a burble of laughter. I couldn’t help it—it was so absurd. The Witch King, in my cat shelter. Where was he, lurking in the litter cupboard? Hiding in the basement?
“Oh,” I murmured, cold dread blanketing me once more. Yes—if he was anywhere, he was in the basement.
“You’re mistaken,” I said.
The woman made no reply. She touched one of the rings on her hand—she wore a great many, heavy bands of silver and pale jewels the colour of dawn, and one of gold on her thumb—and murmured a word.
A light appeared in midair, barely the size of a honeybee, and bobbed lightly up and down.
It fell towards the floor and went out. The woman nodded as if the thing had spoken.
At the sight of the enchantment, I went as still as a deer at the snap of a twig.
All I could see was the hole in the wall of the old shelter.
A small, detached part of me noted that I was almost certainly in shock, and also that I should probably make for the door with all haste.
But the woman was still holding Thoreau, and there were the other cats, only a few of whom were paying us any attention—the bulk slept or groomed themselves, characteristically disdainful of all but their own concerns, even and including an impending magical cataclysm. Clowder was licking her rear end.
“You won’t summon him?” the woman said. “Very well—I’ll do it myself. He does love to complain that I’m too dramatic.”
And she began to tear the place apart.
Thoreau, thankfully, leapt free of her arms, disappearing up the stairs, followed closely by Banshee and His Majesty.
The entire building began to shake, the tables lurching about violently, and several of the cat cages fell to the ground, their occupants yowling.
The windows shattered, taking the warmth with them, and the storm spat a mouthful of snow into the shop.
A tremendous crack formed in the ceiling, raining plaster upon us, and the filing cabinets I had spent a full day reorganizing toppled onto their sides, spilling papers everywhere.
I fell to my knees and began to crawl towards the cats—it was pure instinct; any rational thought had been swallowed by a roiling panic.
If I’d been thinking clearly, I would have launched myself at her, for if I hadn’t guessed it before, I knew now that she was a magician, and clearly bent on shaking the place with her magic until it collapsed to its foundations.
She stood with her palms uplifted and her eyes half-shut, smiling as she murmured something I couldn’t hear, like a saint overcome by religious ecstasy.
I managed to wrench open the door of Clowder’s cage, which had fallen to the floor, and she and the kittens raced for the second story.
I didn’t know that they would be much safer up there, but perhaps the windows had smashed upstairs too, and they could clamber along the rooftops if the place began to cave in.
I got another cage open, and Fant?me, more sensibly, made for the empty windows and the snowy street beyond, as did Lynx.
I tried to open the next cage, which housed an enormous orange cat named Choux, but my fingers were trembling so that I could barely grasp the latch.
Choux, as helpful as cats generally are in emergencies, swatted at my hand.
The trapdoor banged open so violently that even above the creaking and trembling of the shop, I jumped. The door to the back room had come off its hinges and hung leaning against the wall, so I saw it when my mysterious downstairs neighbour made his appearance—though I wished I had not.
It was not a man at all. In fact, it was much closer to the ghost of my nightmares.
What emerged from the trapdoor was more absence than presence, a shift in the shadows that had the rough outline of a figure, and that figure was only somewhat human.
It was too tall, for one thing, all teeth and claws, and it moved with the grace of a panther, trailing shadow that swirled with burning embers.
Never have I seen a thing more otherworldly or horrible.
I would have screamed if shock hadn’t stolen my voice.