Chapter 17 #3
The human child opens her mouth, about to inform the big world about this flagrant breach of Rule One. Skotch—because he’s seen the move used in human media briefly glimpsed from through the crannies of his world—puts a single digit up to his snout and waggles his eyebrows.
The human’s eyes get even wider. It mimics the gesture, finger to its lips.
Nods very solemnly. Accepts, without any question, that a pair of animals hitching a lift on this tram obviously have secret business they’re about.
Becomes, perhaps, a character in some kind of story it likes, just for a moment.
Lulu’s existence makes plain that humans, although they never want to see one, do appreciate stories about Gehirner from time to time.
They manage to get off the red tram. They find where the green tram is going to arrive—it’s all colour coded, which is of limited use to Skotch, but Lulu’s colour vision is literally superhuman so that balances out.
They get on the green tram, and at that point maybe they could just have got to the Chapel by more regular means, but by then Skotch feels like there’s some sort of magic going on.
He’s been plucked out of the regular Little Helper life.
He’s riding the trams like he’s a human and about to go break some stocks or count some ants or whatever it is working humans do.
Lulu is definitely fading by then. Spent most of the journey asleep, and only woke when the tram stopped the third time, suddenly panicking that they had to get off.
They’re still very visible on the road after it moves away, and Skotch has to carry her into the shadows of a roadside grill, a rainwater sluice.
He’d hoped it was one he could lift up or squeeze into, but it’s fixed.
No access to the Gehirner world from there.
That’s where Tybelle finds them.
He hears the bell first. Of course he does.
The bell that only rings when she wants it to.
She’s right above them, sitting on the rim of the grate in plain view.
Then she bends over, presents them with her upside-down face.
And cats don’t actually grin, but there’s more than a hint of Cheshire about Tybelle’s expression right then.
“Fancy running into you here, Herr Washbear,” she says.
She pours herself down until she’s on her paws and facing them.
A handful of rodents come with her, all of them wearing voluminous purple robes, some with pink bows at their necks.
Votaries, a full half-dozen of them. Her Kit Kat Cultists, bound to the personality of their feline overlord.
Skotch guesses that maybe some rats and mice have a whole weird thing for it, to be pinned under the paw of a predator that probably won’t actually eat you.
Safety in the shadow of death. Or maybe it’s a sex thing, Skotch isn’t judging.
Maybe judging a little.
And he can’t run. Or actually he could absolutely run, just bowl the rats over and flee, and maybe get away. And leave one prime pigeon luncheon for Tybelle to tuck into.
He can fight, of course. As noted, raccoons kill cats sometimes.
Only not this tired old raccoon and not this cat, he reckons.
Like he found out last time, they knew what they were doing when they engineered Tybelle to be able to survive in a Gehirner world.
Or, rather, they didn’t, because when they toughened up her genome they thought it was just to keep her safe from the nasty animals.
The ailurophile geneticists didn’t think about the reverse interaction.
Meaning their new Smartkitty 3.0 is more than suited to the role of killer for hire to a bunch of rat gangsters.
“You didn’t see Mooshkins,” Tybelle said, “but she saw you.”
And there had been a couple of cats, on the green line.
They’d been in carriers. And they’d definitely smelled him, but all they’d been able to do was make a bit of fuss over it.
He hadn’t even thought. Certainly hadn’t thought one of them would get on the phone to Tybelle the moment its owner got it home.
“Let me guess,” he says, “Mother Murnau sends her regards.” Putting Lulu behind him, squaring up to her.
Tybelle examines her claws. “Isn’t the pigeon going to fly, leave us to do this one-on-one?” An exaggeratedly wide-eyed look. “Oh no, did something happen to her? Is she grounded? How terribly sad, Herr Washbear. To have the gift of the sky taken from you.”
“Look, I got places to be,” Skotch tells her. “That means I’ve got to go through you, so be it.”
She laughs, and as she laughs she pounces.
That fast, and so much an organic part of the laugh that he barely even reacts.
She hits him hard—they’re comparable, pound for pound, so she brings all the momentum at her disposal and slams him on his back.
He feels her claws prick, shoulders, chest, throat.
Her eyes gleam like the blade of a guillotine.
The rodents, her cult followers, make a quiet chattering sound, like they’re clapping politely at a deft golf stroke.
Skotch dips his ladle in the barrel marked “remaining energy” and it’s empty. Even so, he tenses up as much as he can, about to go for the eyes with his nails. About to bite the paw that pins him. To fight, the mad hissing fight of a raccoon with its back to the wall.
Tybelle laughs and steps back. “You’re no fun, Herr Washbear.
I will chase you down and finish you, and your fat bird too, but not today.
Not when you’re all washed out, Mein Herr, and no bear left in you.
That’s no fun. Killing you now would be far too sad.
It would be almost like work.” Her tail goes up, crooking at the end, a little happy flag.
“I’ll be seeing you, Skotch. Give my regards to Saint Frances. ”