Chapter 29
Chapter
Twenty-Nine
Iraised my voice and shouted with all my might. ‘Thane!’
I heard no answer. I heard nothing beyond She Without An Ear’s soft breath and an odd whisper that filtered through the corridor as if there were a light breeze.
My stomach tightened. I drew closer to the wall and pressed my ear against it, cupping it in order to hear better. It didn’t help: I could hear neither Thane nor Thomas.
I stepped away and considered my options.
I could wait for thirty minutes, when presumably the walls would move again, but there was no guarantee that they’d move in my favour – the next wall shift might make matters worse rather than better.
And I couldn’t communicate with Thane or Thomas so I didn’t know what they were planning to do.
If they didn’t stay in the same spot, any plan of mine to stay put could prove pointless.
Although Thane had the Clouded Map, I still had the chalk and the witchlight.
I’d seen enough of the map to have a rough idea of where I was and where I was heading.
Theoretically the centre of the maze wasn’t too far away and it made sense that the monster would be there.
As long as the stone walls hadn’t shifted too dramatically, I reckoned I could at least get close.
She Without An Ear miaowed plaintively and I hugged her closer to my chest. ‘This is all your fault, you know.’ I returned her to my shoulder with a dire warning about what would happen if she jumped off, then turned to the wall next to me and chalked a message on it.
Thane might see it at some point or he might not, but either way I would continue.
I called through the wall one final time in case he could hear me. He was a werewolf; his hearing was far superior to mine. ‘I’ll keep going!’ I yelled. ‘Follow the Clouded Map. If all is well, I’ll meet you at the centre.’ I hesitated, but only for a moment. ‘I love you.’
Then I straightened my shoulders and, with a deep breath, plunged forward.
Although at first it was eerie to walk through the strange silent maze with only a cat for a company, I quickly got used to it.
I was more accustomed to being on my own than having company, and by the time we reached the next turn it felt like I’d put on an old pair of comfortable slippers.
Yes, I was worried about Thane and Thomas – mostly about Thane – but I knew he was more than capable of looking after himself.
He would trust that I was fine and I would trust him in turn.
I spoke my thoughts aloud to She Without An Ear. ‘If we want to head to the centre of the maze, because that’s where the monster is most likely to be, I think we should go that way.’ I pointed to the turn to the left.
She didn’t respond, either because she agreed with my logic or because she was so ashamed of her earlier behaviour that she’d decided to stay quiet. I strongly suspected the former.
I twisted and ducked my head through the gap. I couldn’t sense anything in the darkness that stretched ahead with looming ferocity so I shrugged and pushed forward. I’d taken barely five steps when I felt the tickle of cool air on my cheeks and forehead.
I hesitated and tilted my head to listen.
Uh-oh; that sounded like breathing, albeit from some distance away.
I froze, waiting for the sound of thundering feet to tell me I was under attack but nothing happened.
I could still hear the sound, though, and it definitely resembled breathing, albeit breathing from someone or something with a sixty-a-day habit and a desperate need for some magically enhanced Vicks VapoRub.
I squinted in an attempt to pierce the darkness with my pathetic human eyes. When that didn’t work, I reached for another pinch of Wicker light powder, raised my hand to toss it forward to illuminate the area – then lowered my hand again. Hang on. There was a smarter way to do this.
My best chance of success would be to creep up on the bloodthirsty creature.
I didn’t want it to know that I was seeking it because I would struggle to win a fight against it at close quarters in such a narrow space.
The vampires had failed to bring it down and, despite my many skills, most of the fanged fuckers were far stronger than I would ever be.
I sucked on my bottom lip as I returned the pinch of powder to its bag. There was another way to improve my sight in the dark – and if I became cat my stealthy approach would also have a greater chance of success.
The biggest problem was my bag. Only items that touched my bare skin survived my transformation from human to cat and back again.
Even if I strapped my backpack to my bare back, it was too cumbersome and unwieldy to make the magical shift and I’d lose both it and its contents. It was a gamble worth paying, however.
I placed my witchlight on the ground and rummaged through the bag’s contents, extracting only one object that I tucked into the waistband of my trousers. I also tucked the Wicker powder in the cuff of my sleeve; I had no doubt I would need it.
‘Alright,’ I whispered. ‘She Without An Ear? I need you to listen carefully.’ She purred. That was a good start. ‘With your permission and your fur, I’m going to turn cat. I won’t be able to carry you any more. I won’t be able to control you and I won’t be able to stop you running off.’
She purred even more loudly.
‘If you scarper like before,’ I warned, ‘the chances are that I won’t be able to come after you. If those walls shift and you run ahead, you might get lost forever.’
Her rough tongue lapped delicately at the lobe of my ear.
‘I need you to stay by my side unless I tell you otherwise. I can’t fight you as well as this maze and that damned monster. You have to stay with me.’
She miaowed agreement and strangely, despite her recent performances, I believed her. I reached up and nuzzled her. ‘Did you plan for us to get separated from Thane and Thomas?’ I asked quietly. This time she didn’t answer. I sighed. ‘Why? Why do that?’
Again there was no response. I rubbed the back of my neck then, very carefully, lowered her small furry body to the ground.
She didn’t run off, just angled her head up towards me and waited.
I sighed again, louder this time, then I stopped prevaricating, plucked a small clump of her fur and swallowed it.
The spasms started to rack my body immediately.
As soon as I was on all fours and the trembling had stopped, I looked for She Without An Ear.
She was exactly where I’d last seen her, waiting patiently until I was ready to move.
When my gaze snagged hers, she blinked slowly and I returned the favour.
Then She Without An Ear picked herself up and sauntered away from me.
I paused long enough to peer through the darkness ahead, but despite what I could hear there was nothing to see in the long corridor except for shadows and gloom. I nodded and followed my cat’s swaying tabby tail.
As we padded through the maze for another twenty metres, the heavy breathing seemed to get louder.
It was only when She Without An Ear stopped that I belatedly realised where the sound was coming from – and it wasn’t from this corridor.
The sound was seeping through the stone from the other side of the wall to our left, and the reason I could hear it was because there was a cat-sized gap ahead.
I stiffened, then leapt over She Without An Ear and ran ahead to take a peek. The monster was in there, it had to be, but unless I’d read the Clouded Map completely wrongly this wasn’t the centre of the maze. Even with the magically mobile stone walls, we couldn’t have reached the maze’s heart.
When I thrust my head through the small gap, part of me expected to see nothing.
Contrary to some beliefs, cats can’t see in true dark; there has to be some level of light for feline vision to work.
That was fine in the corridor where my dropped witchlight provided a dim glow, although the light itself was some distance behind me.
I doubted the witchlight would extend any further – but it turned out that it didn’t need to.
The monster was stalking the corridor that ran parallel to this one – and it was holding aloft its own witchlight. Not only that, the damned creature wasn’t alone. Trotting by its side was none other than the handsome silver Maine Coon.
I drew back, my hackles raised. I retained enough of She Without An Ear’s personality traits that my instinct was to launch an immediate attack even though I knew it would almost certainly result in bloody carnage and my own brutal death.
I felt She Without An Ear nudge my flank but I ignored her.
I waited until both the monster and the cat had passed by then stuck my head through the gap and stared after them.
The heavy-footed monster was taking long, ponderous steps and remained oblivious to my gaze, but the Maine Coon was a different matter.
It swung its head around and stared right at me.
I waited for the cat to raise the alarm and alert the monster to my presence but instead he gave me a slow blink not dissimilar to the one that She Without An Ear had graced me with only moments earlier. Then he turned away and continued to pad alongside the monster as if he’d not seen me.
Thoroughly confused and very, very tense, I pushed through the small gap.
She Without An Ear followed. I was afraid that she’d spot the Maine Coon and dart after him with yet another example of the strange wild abandon she’d displayed during every other encounter with the long-haired cat, but she simply gazed after him then turned to me with a questioning look.
I breathed out. We would follow them; of course we would follow them. Sooner or later the right plan and location would present itself. And that was when I would attack.
As much out of feline instinct as anything, I lowered my body and slunk after the pair of them. She Without An Ear stayed behind me as we clung to the walls, where hopefully the monster would be less likely to see me if it turned around.
While the glowing-eyed bastard thumped ahead, we followed down the longest corridor I’d yet encountered. I remained on high alert, watching its every twitch and lumbering step, but even so I was surprised when the monster halted abruptly, turned to the stone wall and howled in anguish.
I froze. So did She Without An Ear. We hunkered down, making ourselves as small as possible, while the monster raised its fists and hammered against the wall. Then it kicked the stone in frustration.
I twitched as I considered. The monster had expected a gap to be there and it was surprised that the walls had moved.
That meant the maze was working against it as much as us.
My whiskers quivered as I thought about the ramifications of that while the Maine Coon bumped the monster’s ankles with his head and batted its foot gently with his paw.
Then suddenly the monster took off again. We followed.
We were moving much faster now as the monster strode ahead.
It reached another gap in the stone and veered right.
We scurried after it. After only five metres it turned left, then right again.
I thought for a moment that we’d lost both it and the cat until I heard its huffing breath around another corner.
I rushed to catch up and relaxed infinitesimally when I swerved through the next gap.
It was still there, still within our sights.
I raised a paw as I prepared to pad after it again but that was when I realised belatedly that the Maine Coon had stopped. Rather than shadowing the monster’s every step, he had stopped by a section of wall as if he’d paused to groom itself. He paused mid-lick and gave me a long look.
I stared. There was another gap: the silver-haired cat was sitting by another cat-sized gap in the stone wall. I swallowed and he winked at me before moving on to re-join the monster.
I glanced at She Without An Ear. From the way her remaining ear was twitching, she was as fascinated by the small hole as I was. As soon as it was safe to do so, I darted forward to look through.
When I saw what was beyond the wall, my feline body went slack. It was Penelope.