Kitty in the Underworld

Chapter 11

IF KUMARBIS was awake, night had fallen. Was this the second night I’d been here, or third? I didn’t know, but the number mattered to me. Counting time seemed important. I’d seen the vampire once, then he slept, and now he was awake. Call it the second night, then. I’d been here two full days, at least. Or was it three?

Two.

The tunnel system in the mine must have been complex. The group was living here, they had separate chambers, they’d built doors and created rooms. There was a place to lock me up, a place for the vampire to sleep. The others must have had rooms as well. They had to be storing food and water somewhere, and using something other than unobtrusive corners of various caves as toilets. Assuming I found a way to break out and avoid my captors, how long would it take me to search the place? How did I find my way out? With my nose. I just had to find the draft of fresh air and follow it. I hoped.

First thing I had to do was figure out how to get past the door. Well, that was easy. Plan A: Wait until someone opened it, then start running, see how far I could get. Satisfying, but probably not effective. I wouldn’t have time to look for my phone in that scenario.

Plan B: Win their trust so they’d let me out of the room and leave me alone to go exploring. On further thought, it might even be easy; I’d just have to start pretending to agree with them. Easy, maybe, but the idea left a sour taste in my mouth. I didn’t want them to think they’d convinced me. Brainwashed me. But if it meant getting out of here … I could turn my mind in circles for hours thinking of this. Hunger had become a dull ache, and lack of food was affecting my thinking. The next time Sakhmet appeared, I’d ask for food.

Once again, steps approached, and the door scraped open. I backed away, because I wasn’t ready and didn’t think about charging until it was too late. Next time for sure, right?

The vampire came in, alone. He shut the door behind him and stood, blocking the way, studying me. Him and me, all alone. I buried a growl.

He might be able to pass for human in poor light, but people would look twice at him and maybe wonder what disease he was suffering from. He was stooped, wizened, his spine was hunched, and his joints were gnarled. Leathery wrinkles covered his face; in anyone else I would have called it sun damage. His appearance wasn’t old so much as worn out. Even flush from his recent feeding, he appeared ashen. He’d seen some hard times. Periods of starvation maybe. Lack of blood wouldn’t kill a vampire right away, but it would cause something like decay. This vampire was decayed.

I wouldn’t get any closer to him than I had to. He approached, and I backed away, keeping the same distance between us. Straightening, I squared my shoulders and lifted my chin. He could smell my anxiety, but I didn’t have to act scared.

“You are strong,” he said, sounding pleased. “I knew you would be.”

“Then why do you think you can force me to do what you want?”

“When you understand, you won’t need to be forced.”

The mangled coin around his neck kept drawing my eye. I wanted to know more, I had so many questions. “How old are you?” I asked on a whim.

He narrowed his gaze, curled his lip. An expression of disdain. “We brought you here to make you understand. To show you—”

“Understand what? Maybe I could understand if you’d actually explain to me what you’re doing.” I should have just shut up and listened. But I was angry. I didn’t like being lectured at.

“You will understand.”

“Yeah, all you have to do is keep saying that, over and over,” I muttered. We could keep this up all day. “Help me understand. You wear one of Roman’s coins. Why?”

“I took it from him.”

“It means you served him—”

He scowled. “I never served him.” He actually sounded offended.

I took a calming breath and tried again. “How do you know him, then?”

“It’s enough that I know how dangerous he is. We must stop him.”

“I agree,” I said. Kumarbis tilted his head as if startled. He must have thought I just argued on principle. “How are you going to do that?”

“It is not your place to ask, only to join the battle.”

That made me think of Antony, and all the other casualties. Kumarbis wasn’t wrong—this was a war, and maybe he’d been fighting it longer than the rest of us, but that didn’t put him in charge.

“That’s just typical vampire superiority garbage,” I said. “You’re a vampire, I’m a werewolf, so you expect me to line up like a good little foot soldier. It’s crap like that that’s got me fighting Roman in the first place. You want my help, treat me like an ally and not cannon fodder. Too many people have already died fighting Roman.”

He stretched his crooked hands and his lips pulled back to show yellowed fangs. He seemed so broken, but ropy muscles flexed under the leathery skin. He was still a vampire, and I couldn’t underestimate his strength. I wondered how hard I’d have to push him before he got physical.

“No one knows Gaius Albinus better than I do.”

I believed him. He’d been around for most of that history. Roman was a bogeyman among vampires, a Machiavellian figure manipulating them and their Families around the world in order to bind them under his own power. The few facts: he was two thousand years old, had been a Roman soldier in Palestine, had traveled across Europe and Asia over the centuries. His followers wore the bronze coins, which had some magic that connected them. Defacing the coins broke the spell. I had spent the last several years trying to identify Roman’s followers, and to find others who knew about him and opposed him. I had my own band of allies. But none of them knew about Kumarbis. What did Kumarbis know that we didn’t?

“What can you tell me about him?” I asked.

“Only that we must stop him. Nothing else is important.”

It was like pulling teeth. Sharp, pointy teeth. I said, “Do you know Marid? Ned Alleyn? Alette, Rick—Ricardo? Do you know they’re trying to stop Roman, too? If no one knows him better than you, they could really use your help. That’s the whole point, we’re supposed to be working together.”

He shook his head. “What they think they know doesn’t matter. I am the only one who can stop Gaius Albinus.”

We had a saying around the radio station: the minute you thought no one else could do your job, it was time to give up that job. “You can’t do it alone,” I said. “You need help.”

“I have everything I need here, now that you are with us.”

“You know so much about Dux Bellorum—even what can stop him—why not just tell me?” I paced, just to be moving. I had to burn the anxious energy somehow, either through moving or through howling. The howling might come in a minute.

“You’ll learn what I know—when you are initiated into our mysteries.”

“I don’t want to be initiated into any mysteries. Sorority rush was bad enough.”

He put his hand on his heart—his dead, still heart—in a strange gesture of calm. Like a saint in a medieval painting. Closing his eyes, he said, “Be comforted, wolf. Regina Luporum. You’ll understand everything, in time.” He turned to tap on the door. One of the others must have been on the other side, to unlock it.

“Wait!” I reached for him as the door cracked open.

He turned back to me, waited as I had asked. But I didn’t know what to say that I hadn’t already said.

“Are you hungry?” he asked, after a pause. “Of course you are. I will have Sakhmet bring you food.”

Then he left, and the door shut behind him.

Maybe it was time to figure out a plan C.

I DIDN’T know any stories about Regina Luporum. About the wolf who adopted and cared for Romulus and Remus. Only that she was there, like any number of nameless mother wolves in any number of stories. Although the mother wolf who adopts Mowgli in Rudyard Kipling’s The Jungle Book is named Raksha. She gets a name. She is the overlooked power, the unnoticed linchpin. The unspoken prologue to every story. I had to give credit to Kumarbis and the others for acknowledging her and giving her some power. But I didn’t have to trust the stories he told about her.

Mythology was filled with queens. A queen of the wolves would only be one in a long line of them. Like Inanna, Queen of Heaven, goddess of sex and war, who was pictured flanked by lions. There’s a story about Inanna traveling to the land of the dead, the underworld, just like most epic heroes seem to do at one time or another. At each of seven gates she is forced to give up an item of clothing, a jewel from her collection. And she arrives at her destination naked, stripped of all wealth and identity at the darkest part of her journey.

She spent three days underground, then she escaped. She was reborn. She reclaimed all that she’d lost. Like all good heroes do.

TIME PASSED strangely. My eyes were getting tired, even my Wolf’s supernatural night vision straining in the dim lamplight for so long. I paced, just to have something to do, just to keep my blood flowing through tired muscles, so when the chance to run came, I’d be ready. Even though pacing made Wolf anxious. She was so close to the surface all the time now, ready to spring forth, to burst free. To defend us, when the time comes.

I was circling the antechamber for what felt like the hundredth time, trying to think. Sakhmet was my best chance for escape. All she had to do was leave the door unlocked the next time she brought me water. I could get her to convince Enkidu to leave the door unlocked. Escape in a way that wouldn’t implicate them. Make it look like I broke out. They already knew it was the right thing to do, I was sure. I didn’t think they were afraid of Kumarbis. So what was stopping them from doing the right thing?

They believed Kumarbis and Zora, believed they could really do what they claimed. And they would keep trying to convince me of the same.

On the other hand, I could beg and threaten. My pack and mate would come looking for me. A dozen raging werewolves, along with the vampires from the Denver Family, would swarm the place, seeking revenge in their effort to rescue me. My allies were ruthless and implacable, and Kumarbis and his cult didn’t have a chance, no matter how powerful they were. Maybe that would convince them to let me go.

I’d try that. Plan C.

The sound of the door scraping on stone was familiar enough that it shouldn’t have made me jump, but it did. Every noise, even a familiar one, meant something was happening, something I couldn’t predict. What amazing new fun interaction did the gang have planned for me this time? The mind boggled.

I was tired of jumping at noises.

I stepped carefully toward the door, watchful and hesitant. The smell of blood and meat filled the air, the sound of wet flesh slurped against the floor, and the door scraped shut again.

He’d promised me food. Right. And here I thought he might actually have meant something my human side would consider food. I crouched to study what Enkidu—this smelled like him—had brought me. Fresh kill, only an hour or so old based on the stickiness of the blood. Large, with a tawny hide: the entire hind leg of a deer, ripped off the rest of the carcass.

Oddly, my next thought was Wolf’s: Enkidu and Sakhmet are good hunters, to be able to bring down deer. I shook that away. Tried to clear my mind. But my mouth was watering. As far as Wolf was concerned, Kumarbis had made good on his word to feed us.

My human side was human enough that I didn’t think I could eat the raw flank of deer in front of me. Not with my flat molars and my modern sensibilities that had grown up on macaroni and cheese out of a box, along with other technological wonders. A rare steak looked appetizing … this was ambiguous. You are weak. Yes, in some ways. In others, no. Hungry, need to eat. I couldn’t argue. Wolf would have no problem eating the flank.

Even if I ate the meat raw with my human mouth, I’d still be feeding Wolf, who was perfectly fine with the idea. Ecstatic, even. At least I hadn’t shifted at the first smell of blood, the first glimpse of the bloody carcass. I still had some control. Should have made me feel better. But they’d known I wouldn’t be able to eat this as a human. If I wanted to eat, I’d have to choose to shift. This was part of the plan.

They didn’t want me, they wanted Wolf.

I curled up on the floor, trying to think while Wolf whined her incessant logic at me.

In the end, I decided that if I was going to do this, it would be my own choice, under my own control. I wasn’t going to shift in a rage-filled panic like I had last time. I could do this calmly, sensibly even. I had a choice. Or I could pretend I did.

I took off my sweater, jeans, panties. Folded them neatly, put them out of the way next to a craggy piece of rock where I could find them again when I was ready. Kneeling, keeping my balance with a hand resting on the stony ground, I breathed steadily, calming myself. I was hungry, and this was the solution to the problem. Made perfect sense.

The Change hurt less when I didn’t fight it, when I let it slide over me like water pouring through a channel. I imagined a cage in my gut where Wolf lived, where she slept behind bars. As I let out my next breath in a long exhale, I imagined the bars disappearing, the cage opening, and Wolf sprang free. In a wave of tingling pinpricks, fur sprouted along my arms and back. My fingers bent into claws, and my muscles spasmed as the bones under them began to change.

Like water … Without a sound, I closed my eyes, arced back my head, and the Change passed over me in a wave—

—when she opens her eyes, she sees the world in a sharp light. The scent of meat fills her. It’s why she’s here.

She pads over to the carcass. Suspicious, she noses it all over, searching for tricks, for proof that this is a trap. But it only smells like good, fresh deer. She noses under the skin and rips into flesh. Settles in to devour as much of the feast as she can, because she doesn’t know when she will eat again. Or if it might unexpectedly vanish. The meat should taste good, but she’s anxious, eating too quickly to enjoy this. She’s alone, here. Cornered. No pack to keep watch with her.

She has almost finished the flesh and starts cracking and gnawing on bones when a noise catches her attention and her ears prick up. In front of her, the door scrapes open. The enemy has come. Her hackles stiffen, fur standing straight up. Her muscles brace. Her claws click against the stone as she backs away.

Their scents reach her, alien and uncertain. Four of them, all different. Her lips curl from her teeth and her throat burrs a growl. They’ve brought more light with them, a glare that fills the space, hurts her eyes. But she can’t look away. Ears flattened, tail straight, she stares at them, challenging. If they try to hurt her, she will mangle them all.

“Oh, she’s beautiful,” says one of them, female, smelling of feline, of musk and desert.

“Dangerous,” mutters another. Male. Another wolf. She hates him.

The group approaches and she backs away, keeping her distance. She can only back so far, and when they corner her, she’ll strike. She will not let them corner her.

Of the other two, one is cold. He smells of carrion without being rotten. She keeps her distance from him. The other, another female—this one smells of prey. Fear, sweat, trembling. Weak, she stands behind the others for protection.

She stares at the prey, and the curl in her lips feels almost like a smile.

“Here,” says the cold one. “We’ll start from here. No need to frighten her.”

For a moment, the door beyond the group stands open. A faint touch of mountain air seeps in, and her nose quivers, taking in the taste of freedom. But the door closes again before she can rally herself to escape.

Too slow, too late. Her muscles are stiff from standing rigid, from spending days locked in this cold, stone-filled space. Her mind burns. The blood of her meal coats her tongue; part of the haunch still remains, but she’s no longer hungry. Now, she wants only to escape. That, or devour the enemies standing before her.

She has to move. Circling back, she paces, following the wall, hoping it will run out, lead her to some wide open space where she can run, but it doesn’t. It loops back to the start, to the enemies and their droning voices. They stand their ground, don’t try to stop her from moving. But she has no path around them without going through them, which seems unwise. So she paces. She can still taste blood and wants more.

On the next loop, she ducks and charges, mouth open. Her claws scrape on the ground, her muscles pump—running feels good. She sees through a haze of anger. The cold one, whose voice has ice and smoke in it. She aims for him.

The wolf steps in her path. She plants her jaw on his raised arm. His skin rips, she tastes his blood. He shoves her back, redirects her, slams her into the cave wall. Pain stings her shoulder. Writhing, she twists out of his grip, falls, finds her feet again.

He braces, arms spread, standing between her and the others. He’s ready to fight. Blood drips down his arm; she tastes drops of it that smear on her tongue. There’s a tang of fear—from the lion, who comes forward and wraps cloth around his arm.

She remembers: traces of poison are everywhere here, imbedded in the walls. They wouldn’t have to rip out each others’ hearts, merely poison each others’ blood with traces of metallic stone.

His teeth are bared; so are hers. She won’t back down from the challenge. Softly, she growls.

Stop. We can’t win.

She stands, legs rigid, panting.

Calm, calm. We must stay calm. We have to wait them out.

The cold one speaks. “We have gathered to raise power, in order to do battle with great evil. We invite Regina Luporum to merge her power with ours. Now, in your truest form, see with your wolf’s eyes what we do here, see the power we have already gathered…”

She glares a challenge at him; the cold one meets her gaze, and her focus tumbles. The world turns to fog, and she cannot look away.

His tone is like singing. This makes her think of howls, of her pack under the full moon’s light, surging pure and ever skyward. But the cold one’s singing is broken and grates on her nerves. At the start, she almost understands what he says. Her two-legged self strains to listen. But as the chant goes on, her head aches, and it becomes meaningless, like everything else about this place. She doesn’t understand, and her other self fades to a distant influence. A murmur in the back of her head urges, listen, listen, remember what they’re saying, we have to understand what they’re saying …

They know things, they have the key to what this is about, but she doesn’t understand.

The others speak, telling their parts of the muddled flood of voices. They are not speaking her language, she is not part of their pack … but she could be … they are letting her in by telling their secrets.

She is so tired.

The haunch of deer is taken away. The cold one and the small human prey leave the room. They are careful to shut the door. But the wolf and lion linger.

She settles, lying with her head resting on her paws. Still watching them, full of confusion.

“Will she be all right?” the lion says.

“She’ll go to sleep soon enough,” the wolf answers.

“That’s not what I mean. What if Kumarbis is wrong and she never joins us?”

“We have to show her that his is the way. That’s all.”

Her ears prick forward, listening. Almost, she understands. Almost, she wishes she can answer them. Let me go, why not just let me go …

But they, too, leave, and she hears the metallic click and slide, and knows it means the door is locked again.

She picks herself up and paces again. The track she walks is familiar. She’s made a clear trail in the dust and grit on the floor. If she paces forever, maybe she can wear out the stone and carve her way to freedom. If she doesn’t wear her claws to stubs first.

She would fall asleep walking if she could.