Catopolis

I’d done it much better. Steve had been head-over-heels for me as a human and eager for each new session of sweet hot lovemaking before he’d ever known I was a cat who could shapechange. As I said, we’re partners.

Now, however, he’d just have to fend for himself. I had bigger problems. Such as staying alive long enough to warn him about the true nature of Haughty Ms. Walkingcorpse-or anything at all, ever again.

Night was falling, of course.

Providing the right lighting for a lady cat to be chased by her murderous father, far across the city.

At least, I hoped I’d last that long.

The tree was old and gnarled; its branches sagged but held. Squirrel-like I scampered down them, then headed for the ground, well aware that Father would be right behind me.

Flattening himself out ribbon-thin must mean working a magic that made him temporarily boneless, because it certainly slowed him down. When I raced away along the top rail of a fence, he was two backyards behind me.

I had to stay ahead. He needed me trapped in a confined space, or immobilized, to have time to cast his life-stealing. If he could bite the back of my neck, or get a good swipe at me with both sets of front claws, he could manage the maiming he was so infamous for, and I would be paralyzed-and doomed.

Life had suddenly become so simple-and so precious and hard to keep hold of.

So, just how well did he know this city? How well did I?

The difference between those two answers was probably all that was going to keep me alive for long.

He was gaining on me, fast.

I turned a corner, ran out of fence, sprang onto one of those crazy “spiderweb on a pole” backyard laundry racks, and from there plunged deep into the soft soil of a flowerbed, not wanting to bruise anything this early in the chase.

“Early” I hoped, that is. I scrabbled my way onto firmer ground and ran, streaking through a cat door and right up and along the back of a dog that had been waiting outside it to bully some other cat.

The dog barked and twisted furiously, its roaring din nigh deafening, but I doubted it would last more than a swift bark or two against Father. If he bothered to fight it at all.

I raced across several yards, not bothering to try to hide or misdirect by zigging here or zagging there. Right now, just moving quickly was all that was keeping me alive.

Stay near iron barriers, stay near iron…

The dog shrieked in sudden pain, and fell silent. Father.

He was keeping close. Which meant I had to get out of this neighborhood, away from the darkness and the trees that every cat instinctively welcomes and turns to, and into the bright concrete noise of the downtown. Where there would be more cars and people walking; more obstacles.

I darted across a road right in front of a surging taxi. Its front wheel came so close to clipping me that it numbed the end of my tail. There was a littered sidewalk beyond, and one of those two-rows-of-offset-vertical board fences. I went left, toward the busier street.

It was a long way to the corner, and it occurred to me that if Father had caught sight of me and dared to risk himself that much longer in the traffic, he could “cut the corner” diagonally and catch up with me.

So I found an old dented drainpipe with many straps to hook my claws into, and got aloft, fast.

I hadn’t even made it to the lowest window-ledge of the apartments above this shop when I heard a furious scrabbling below. Father’s weight was too much for his claws to hold him in his haste; he was slipping, old paint flaking away in a little cloud. Slipping, but not falling.

I wasted no time in watching or taunting but just got myself along those ledges, leaping from one to the next, and around the corner. Where a handy tree-limb let me ascend to the next row of ledges, which would put me higher than the aging shingle roof of the next building along.

Father was faster than ever. There came the crash of a window being thrown up behind me, and a man’s voice shouting, “It was a cat! And here’s another!”

Father hissed in the man’s face as he raced past-and was startled to find that one human, at least, was just as fast as he was.

The man had been reading a book, and he thrust it hard into Father’s ribs, or tried to. He got Father’s rear instead and slammed it off the ledge into space, the rest of Father following it.

To land heavily atop the store awning below. It was as rotten as most of them, and it tore, but Father wisely kept his claws sheathed, and climbed up out of the small hole, to wade along the dirty canvas.

I made the next shingle roof and paused to snatch my breath and plan my route ahead.

“Daughter!” Father hissed, reaching the end of the awning and seeing he was facing an impossible leap to reach me; he’d have to jump down instead, and find another way up.

“Last life, Father?”

“I only need one,” he snarled, with a testiness that made me think he just might be on his last one, “to take all of yours!”

I turned away without another word, and ran. This was going to be a long night. I hoped.

And so it was. Time and again Father almost caught me, and I just eluded him, until we were on streets I knew well and could stay more than a whisker ahead of him.

Not that Father seemed to be tiring. I was, but he seemed as quick as ever. Which is how he caught me.

I’d been ru

Luckily for me, that’s exactly what he did- crash down.

Through the glass panel, into the humming heart of dozens of flourescent tubes, some of which shattered and made his hair stand on end. He clawed his way along them anyway, dislodging some from their mounts so they went dark. So they were no longer alive and threatening to cook him, but they were now on a slant. And as smooth as ever. His claws shrieked as they scrabbled, but he couldn’t climb toward me.

I turned and headed elsewhere, fast.

Trapped and knowing it, Father let himself fall through a tangle of tinkling tubes-their shards must have been razor-sharp, but pain had never bothered Father-to reach a metal frame beneath them, in the bright white heart of the marquee. He raced along it until he was under the end of the marquee where I was gathering myself for a difficult jump, and he punched his head upward, hard.

Much glass shattered, the end of the marquee fell in and my behind with it, and Father ended up pi

And our minds met.

I had always known Father was insane, but plunging through the dark, swirling storm of his mind was still… an experience. He loved to kill, as well as loving all the other things tomcats do, and truly thought he had been touched and favored by his namesake, Montu, the god of war. He was addicted to the taste of human blood. Not a vampire; he was more like an alcoholic who had to taste strong drink as often as he could. So he clawed or bit every human who came within reach.

He’d been working with AnkhesenAkana for years.

Her, I mean. The Lady, Jethana Throneshuld, though that was just the body she was currently using.

Full working partners. She was some sort of ancient Egyptian undead spirit that he knew no name for, who went on living-I know that’s not the right word, but let it pass-by possessing one living human body after another. Her current body, the unfortunate Jethana, was starting to wear out. The condo scheme had been meant to bring new host bodies within easy reach, but it wasn’t going to work in time. So AnkhesenAkana had decided the body of someone else-my Steve!-would have to do.