The Dark Yule Read online

  While the vet tech and the owner argued, I pressed my face against the door of the cage, and said, as clearly as I could in the simple language of dogs, “What’s wrong? What’s on you?”

  “It bites, it bites!” was the dog’s only answer. By crouching down low and craning my eyes upward, I could just see the mastiff on the surgical table, gnawing frantically at a front leg that was already bloodied and torn.

  …lost one dog already, and another killed in my own goddamn yard, and now this one here’s gone crazy…The distraught, drunken dog owner’s rant overpowered the meaning of the tech’s soothing speech.

  I summoned my powers, closed my eyes, and reopened them to See That Which Cannot Be Seen. Was I surprised to perceive a small yet loathsome creature of shadow, more mouth than body, with tentacles where there should be limbs, fastened upon the mastiff’s leg by leech-like suckers? I was not. But I was a little taken aback at the darkness that hovered around his owner. It was a black fog, save where small stabs of red could be glimpsed: crimson lightning in a thunderstorm from hell. I noted that with each flash of red the drunkard’s voice pitched a little higher, and a little louder. He was working himself into a frenzy. Meanwhile, his dog whimpered and thrashed, trying to bite at a creature his teeth could not physically meet. It must have been maddening.

  “I will help you,” I told the dog, with my stilted pidgin. His floppy ear perked, and he spared a second to roll his wide eyes my way, searching the cages for whoever had spoken. “Down here!” I called, and his eyes fell upon me.

  Deeply as I dislike dogs, as a Maine Coon (well, half, anyway), they have a trifle more respect for me than for your average cat. Besides, this dog was desperate. He did not waste time.

  “How?” he wanted to know. Before I could answer, though, he yipped in pain and fell back upon his leg, gnawing busily at his own flesh. All the while, the blackness surrounding his master grew thicker.

  “Come down here, break the door, get me out. I will help you,” I told him. When he did not respond, I barked a command: “Quick! Do it now! NOW!”

  The great sin of dogs is obedience. The huge mastiff rolled off the table. Though he landed on the injured leg with a yelp, he did not hesitate: he charged my cage full force.

  WHAM! The thin walls of my collapsible cage shuddered under the impact. The noise became truly deafening as every animal in the room cried out—with fear or with excitement, it scarcely mattered. Both the drunkard and the tech put their hands over their ears.

  I sighed. “Over here!” I said. “Hit the door.” The dog shook his head, clearly a little stunned by the din. “Put your shoulder into it!” I snapped. “Quick, before they stop you! NOW!”

  Again the Mastiff charged, this time directly at the door, and threw his hefty shoulder into it. The latch could not withstand his weight, and the door flew violently open; had I not been crouched at the back, I would have received a face-full of cage. I leapt to the floor and was immediately drooled upon by the foamy-mouthed mastiff, who glared at me with bloodshot eyes.

  “Fix it!” he said. He probably meant to say it fiercely, but the pitiful whine that erupted, and the way he was trembling from tail to snout, undermined the implicit threat.

  In any case I was not looking at him but at the humans in the room. The horror-struck tech had rushed around the table and was a mere tail-length from the mastiff, her hand outstretched to catch his spiked collar. The drunk owner was also veering around the table from the other side; he too, was hurrying, and he too, had his hands raised, but he was coming at the vet tech, not at the dog, and the cloud around him was blacker than sin…

  The tech was closer to me. I sprang at her, all claws unsheathed, and scratched wildly at her legs. She shrieked and retreated, though not much damaged—I was not trying for blood, but for fright. Meanwhile, the dog’s owner had stumbled right past his animal and was still coming for the tech. He started to swing big, horny fists.

  Get your damn hands off my damn dog! The words burst forth with a howl that was not fully human. The hair on my back shivered upright as the darkness surrounding him shrieked in chorus with his words. Into his open, sneering mouth the black fog poured, and into his ears, and into his eyes. I could no longer see the man’s face: I was beginning to wonder if there was any man left to see.

  “Get your human out!” I demanded of the mastiff. He looked up from his incessant chewing, and saw his master charging the bewildered woman. I’ll give him this much credit—the dog didn’t hesitate. Lunging forward, he seized a solid mouthful of faded jeans—and perhaps of his buttocks, too—and hauled backwards.

  Had that mastiff been any other breed, it might never have worked. But while the owner cursed and twisted round to swat at his muzzle, the mastiff dragged him steadily, implacably, back. The drunk, wobbly-legged human proved no match for his massive animal, and he was pulled unceremoniously from the back room and into the hall. Another vet opened the door of an examination room and peered out, just as the receptionist hurried in from the lobby.

  The mastiff released the man and limped around to face him, barking and whining. The man looked from the people staring at him, to the dog whimpering in front of him, and sighed. I watched closely, fascinated by the oily, smoke-like substance that poured forth from his nose and mouth, along with that sigh. The dark substance still clung to his skin, half-obscuring his face, but it was no longer shot through with bloody crimson crackles.

  Yeah, fuck these people, let’s get out of here, the man mumble-sneered. He managed to turn himself around and careen into a Fire Exit, which he opened without appearing to notice the ear-splitting alarm. The mastiff limped after him, and I took this opportunity to trot at the dog’s heels, as if I’d been with them all along.

  They got as far as the corner before the man sat down on the curb. Putting his head in his hands, he began to weep, noisily and apparently without noticing the nervous looks and sideways glances of passerby. The mastiff was the epitome of a fine canine specimen; despite the shadowy creature still suckling on its leg, he bravely shuffled over to his owner, and laid his slobbery-jawed head on the human’s shoulder, drooling all over his shirt in the process. His tail beat the snow-dusted pavement with a reassuring thwap, thwap. The man burst into fresh tears and laid his head against the dog’s own, reaching up one shaking hand to caress the suffering animal’s skull.

  I’m so sorry, boy…the man moaned. I continued to be astonished how clearly I understood him, who was so obviously a dog person. Perhaps he’d been educated by a cat when he was young. I’m so sorry…first Billy’s missing, and Mo gets killed, and now you’re hurting and I can’t even get you to the goddamn vet…

  Oh! Right! This, at least, was a problem I could solve. I practically had to lay my claws across the mastiff’s flank before I could draw his attention, but at last the dog’s eyes shifted my way, though his head remained firmly pressed to his master’s shoulder.

  “Hold still,” I ordered the dog. Thwap went his tail in agreement.

  Luckily, the affected foreleg was the one closest to me. I crouched low in an attempt not to draw the unstable human’s notice, and focused my gaze to See That Which Cannot Be Seen.

  The ugly little beast, with its razor-toothed suckers and tightly-wrapped tentacles, was still oozing and pulsating around the dog’s leg. If anything, it appeared to have grown bigger, even in that brief interim. Impulsively I unsheathed my claws…and then, deliberately, let them subside. Where a dog’s teeth wouldn’t work, a cat’s claws wouldn’t do either. There are Things Which Cannot Be Seen that are primarily material—such as ghouls—and then there are those that aren’t. This was evidently one of the latter.

  I settled even lower, pressing my stomach to the frozen pavement. The creature rolled a triple-pupiled eye in my direction. Its cheeks—I suppose they were cheeks—fluttered yet faster, as if determined to finish the dog before I could finish it. It must have hurt, because even in the process of comforting his master, the mastiff could not rest
rain a long-drawn whine.

  I patted my paws in the little drifts of dirty snow, scratching here and there a Mark with a claw. It was not a full circle, but a small assembly of signs that should protect and empower me. The being watched me with two of its eyes now, its body pulsating even quicker. An open sucker on its back began to twitch and shudder, gnashing the pointed teeth clustered around its rim.

  I took a very, very deep breath. Prepared equally to spring and to flee, I launched into the same incantation I’d tried on the night-gaunt:

  “Iaaaaahhhhhhoooooooorrrrroooooooooowwyeeeoooooooowwwwyeeow!”

  The human startled upright, swearing and knocking his dog’s head off his shoulder. He nearly fell onto his back trying to see what had made that sound. The shadowy entity on the dog’s leg blanched—visibly blanched—and shivered violently. But it did not disappear.

  The human was getting to his feet, as best as he could in his condition and on the slippery pavement. Fully expecting a boot to the head any moment, I looked at the mastiff. He, for his part, looked at his leg, and then at me, and growled. His teeth were stained nearly black, and were easily twice or even three times the size of my own.

  “I will fix it!” I said at once. “But we need to—” Here I stopped: I didn’t know the dog words for ‘force the creature into the material realm.’ Metaphysics had rarely been a feature of my previous conversations with canines.

  Ah, there it was, the expected Go on, get outta here! and vicious kick at my ribs. Fortunately the kick was aimed poorly, and I didn’t even bother to dodge. The human was now so off balance he stumbled into the street. It would be a few moments before he could work up the balance to kick again, or find something to throw.

  Meanwhile, the dog’s growls intensified. Laboriously, the mastiff climbed to three of his feet.

  “I will heal it!” I hastily assured him, switching tactics.

  “Then do it!” the dog snarled, limping forward. Towering overhead, he thrust the afflicted leg at me.

  It wasn’t easy to focus in that fashion, with the foam from the mastiff’s muzzle dripping onto my skull, and his growl rumbling continuously in the background, punctuated only by his master’s swearing. Yet I examined the leg and the nasty thing on it. It occurred to me that, insomuch as we could not bite the hideous little parasite, said parasite could not stop me from reaching the wound.

  With a shudder I buried my face in the being’s insubstantial mass, and delicately licked the bleeding tears all along the mastiff’s forelimb. I could feel the parasite’s presence as a cobwebby, shuddering sensation in my whiskers, but that was all. And while I groomed away the blood, I purred an old cat song, one I’d used before to tranquilize prey.

  The soothing sounds and touch worked their small magics. The bleeding slowed, just as I’d willed it, and so did the mastiff’s panting. When I at last jerked my head away, licking my lips in distaste, the dog gingerly put his paw to the pavement.

  “It still hurts,” he told me. “I can still feel it biting me. But it’s better.” He glanced from the leg to me, the many furry folds of his face even more mournful than before. “You can’t fix it? You can’t get it off?” He paused. “I’ll die, won’t I?”

  My heart, such as it is, melted.

  “I can fix it,” I admitted to the dog. “But I need help. Need time. Meet me later?”

  “When?”

  “Twilight. By the crossroads near Burying Hill.” I told it crisply. “You know it? You will come?”

  The dog looked over at his master, who was hopping around on one foot trying to get his boot off. Presumably, he’d found nothing else to hurl at me. “I’ll come,” he said, and heaved a sigh. “But you better be there, cat. Or else.”

  It was an empty threat, and we both knew it. Though the creature was small, it was busily devouring the dog’s life-force, not to mention driving the mastiff to near-madness. By twilight he would be in no shape to chase me, let alone kill me.

  “I will,” I said.

  An old, smelly boot sailed in my direction. Luckily, the master’s aim was no better the second time. I calmly watched the boot fly overhead and land in the brittle, frosted grass next to me.

  A mother with an over-dressed baby glared at the drunkard from two storefronts over, shouted something, and slammed her way into the shop. I hadn’t understood a word, but my guess was it had been something like, That’s it, I’m calling the cops!

  “You’d better get him out of here,” I told the dog.

  The dog growled under his breath and went to collect his errant master. Meanwhile, I slunk under a parked car, before the mastiff could change his mind. Happily, I discovered that there was a line of parked cars all the way back up the street: in other words, a nice little covered walkway for any cat who desired to travel unseen. As much as I didn’t want to go anywhere near the vet clinic, this road was the fastest way to the graveyard and—rather more importantly—to Dot’s house.

  I did cross the street before I dared to pass the clinic, finding new shelter behind a thick hedge of holly. Peering between the prickly leaves, I checked to see whether the vets had begun the search for me yet.

  As I watched, a battered old car, with exhaust pouring from its rear, pulled into the vet’s tiny parking lot. An old woman with short-cut, salt-and-pepper hair emerged, carrying something in a purple blanket. She was evidently crying, and perhaps that made her careless, for a tail flopped out of the soft, fuzzy folds, to dangle lifelessly by the old woman’s side.

  I did not recognize the human, but I knew that battered tabby tail, with its broken, cock-eyed tip. Cold gripped my guts, a wave of ice that had nothing to do with the frigid winter weather. I sat up and bowed my head, honoring the passing of our elder.

  For a long moment, I paused there, and pondered Tilly’s conversation with me anew. I understood now what she’d meant, when she’d said she had “things to take care of” before Violet returned home—I, too, wished to spare my human the memory of my passing. I’ve never understood the penchant humans have for deathbeds surrounded by loved ones. Far, far better to slip away and be alone, when one at last experiences the ebbing sensation of imminent death.

  The “shock” I’d experienced when Tilly had touched noses with me, and the curious praise she’d bestowed upon me, could be interpreted as a passing of the torch. She’d offered me what was left of her life-essence, so that I could accomplish the task of protecting Kingsport. Her body had grown old, after all, and she’d said herself she didn’t want it to last past Christmas. Yet it was chilling to realize that I was the unwitting instrument of her demise, as well as the cause of an old human’s grief.

  I, too, grieved. True, it was quite likely I’d see Tilly again someday. But when, and how, and would we remember each other? We cats might retain our memories from lifetime to lifetime (although imperfectly), but we claim little control over our reincarnations. Upon death, each cat enters what we call the Lair, a place of darkness and rest, but also of confusion and loss. You might emerge from the Lair in two Earth days, or in two hundred years. You might recall the events of five lifetimes ago with crystal clarity, or you might blink at a kitten you birthed weeks before. Some, like Solar, found their way to the dreamlands; others, like myself, were repeatedly reborn in the same location. Worse, there was a chance one could be lured from the Lair in another form, and not be reborn as a cat at all.

  Once, in Ulthar, I’d conversed with the prized pet cat of a powerful Tibetan lama, and he’d said some humans called that place the “bardo”—though their descriptions of it sounded rather peculiar to me.

  At last, in the midst of my meditations, I saw the female vet tech open the door and peer into the parking lot. When she emerged, her arms wrapped around herself in a vain attempt to keep warm, and started checking under the cars, I knew the search for me had begun. I stole away with all secrecy, grateful for every hedge, fence, and car that obscured my not-insubstantial self from the world. It was already growing dark; there wasn’t
much time left to prepare for the coming exorcism.

  8

  Loathsome

  I collected Dot from her house, a pristinely-preserved colonial that dated back to the 18th century, and which hadn’t been altered in at least two of my lifetimes. Dot’s human had money, but she also had taste and a good heart—hence her adoption of a particularly ugly little kitten from the Kingsport animal shelter. Among us, Dot was the only one who had traveled extensively in this lifetime; even when her human jetted off to London or Paris, Dot accompanied her in a comfortable carrier, and feasted on whatever tasty treats the five-star hotel chefs could concoct.

  Yet despite this envious life of luxury, Dot was happiest when hunting. Hardly a day passed by that she didn’t supplement her delicate diet with a mouse or vole or baby bird. Whole neighborhoods grew quiet when she padded through them. Birds ceased chirping and huddled onto their branches, while rodents held their breath and tried to quiet their tiny, pounding hearts—that is, if they didn’t make a dash for distant holes, which is usually when they met Dot’s claws.

  I’m not a bad hunter myself, but even I bow before the master. Without Dot I never would have made it to the graveyard by twilight, carrying a stunned, plump chickadee carefully between my teeth.

  It was an excruciating journey for us both, the chickadee and me. I salivated constantly, and with each little flutter or tremble longed to bite into the powdery fluff of its body, crunching down to the juicy bits. The bird, for its part, was badly wounded and only half-conscious, yet it must have known that death was imminent. I purred to it as I trotted, in the ancient cat way, soothing it somewhat with the repetitive rhythm.

  We could smell the mastiff long before we saw him: the reek of blood and fear carried a long way on the wind. I wondered what else had smelled him. I wondered what else might be coming.

  The dog had taken refuge from the coming night’s bitter wind in a small stand of evergreens at the edge of a somewhat ramshackle yard, across the street from Burying Hill. Dot and I were careful to keep under dover as we progressed, since we didn’t know what might be watching. We approached the evergreens from behind, and Dot chirped a little greeting as we went, lest we take the terrified dog by surprise.