Cat's Claw (38 page)

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Authors: Amber Benson

Tags: #Fantasy, #Contemporary, #Fiction, #General, #Fantasy fiction, #Fiction - Fantasy, #Science Fiction And Fantasy, #Fantasy - Contemporary

BOOK: Cat's Claw
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“We need to leave,” I whispered to Senenmut, fear etched in my voice. “Like, now.”
I slipped my hand into my pocket and pulled out the rubidium clock. I held the cold metal object up to my lips and spoke these words:
“Take me to Hell.”
This wasn’t like taking a wormhole or getting an Egyptian God to transport you back in time. This was a totally different experience. It was like one minute we were in a secret chamber in Neferura’s tomb and the next we were standing in front of the North Gate of Hell.
“Where are we?” Senenmut asked, clutching my hand even harder than before.
“Uhm, well, we’re standing in front of the North Gate that leads into Hell proper,” I replied.
“And what’s
that
?” Senenmut continued, pointing straight ahead of us.
“
That
,” I said nonchalantly, “is Cerberus, the three-headed Guardian of the North Gate of Hell.”
At the sound of his name, the giant three-headed dog turned to look at us. The two dumb heads began to bay happily at my return, but Snarly head only watched us intently with his one large eye.
“Hey, I’m back,” I said. “And I brought a
friend
with me.”
Snarly head only stared.
“This is Senenmut. Senenmut, this is Snarly—I mean, Cerberus.”
Still nothing from Snarly head.
“Well, I guess I’d better be going now that the introductions are over,” I said, smiling nervously at the huge, three-headed beast.
“Where do you think you’re going, Calliope Reaper-Jones?” Snarly head said quietly.
“Well,” I said, thinking, “it’s been a rough twenty-four hours, so I’ll probably just go back to my apartment and take a shower. Relax a little.”
“You will do no such thing!” Snarly head bellowed.
“What are you talking about?” I said, confused. “I brought you Senenmut. We’re even-steven.”
“Check the clock,” Snarly head said.
I froze, my mind slowly coming to the realization that something was dreadfully wrong here—and it had something to do with time. Slowly, I held up the clock so that I could read its face.
“How much time is left?” Senenmut asked me.
The ticker tape of numbers flashed once, twice, then came to a stop. There was only one number left on the face of the clock—and it was not a nice one.
“Zero? How can there be zero hours left? We had plenty of time the last time I checked,” I said, the hand holding the clock beginning to shake. “It’s not possible!”
Then it hit me.
“Oh my God . . .
how long was I unconscious on the floor of Neferura’s burial chamber?!
” I screamed at Senenmut.
He looked bewilderedly back at me.
“I do not know. Four or five hours? Maybe more. I was being chased by Hatshepsut’s guards, so it took me much longer to get back to you than I intended,” he said.
“Oh Jesus,” I moaned, covering my face with my hands. What the hell had I
done
?
“Calliope Reaper-Jones,” Snarly head said, a sad smile curving the edge of his gnarly-looking dog face. “You are now the Guardian of the North Gate of Hell.”
I tried to not to cry as I watched understanding flood Senenmut’s handsome face.
“I am so sorry, Calliope,” he said, touching my arm tenderly. “I did not know.”
I shook my head.
“It’s not your fault,” I said. “Believe me, if anyone did this to me—well, it was me.”
At my words, the two normal heads began to bay, their somber howls faintly resembling a funeral dirge. I felt my hackles rise as their mournful wails froze the marrow right down in my bones. I closed my eyes, trying to squeeze back the burning hot tears that I knew were coming.
Welcome to Hell, Callie.
twenty-four
 
 
“This
better
not be happening on my watch!”
I opened my eyes and my heart leapt, sending the tears that were threatening to overflow only seconds before back into my sinuses.
“Kali, what’re you doing here—” I said, but she turned and glared at me, her dark eyes belying her annoyance at having to be here at all.
My friend—and Hindu Goddess of Death
and
a member of the Board of Death—stood at Cerberus’s flank, her normally placid face contorted into an angry grimace. She was wearing one of her trademark rhinestone-encrusted saris—this one in bloodred—and her long dark hair was pulled into a precise chignon at the nape of her neck. Golden, lotus-shaped earrings fell like elegant dewdrops from her ears, and when she lifted her hand to set it aggressively on her hip, I noticed that she’d glued matching lotus-shaped jewels onto the tips of her French manicure for a little extra bling action.
“Let me take care of this, white girl,” she said, her voice low and controlled, like the hiss of a king cobra snake.
I wasn’t sure if the pissed-off vibe I felt emanating off her was directed at me, or just caused by the situation—but
boy
, did I hope it was the latter. Kali could be a
particularly
vindictive character when something pissed her off, and I had absolutely
no
interest in finding myself on her bad side.
“Cerberus, I’m here on behalf of the Board, so you better listen to what I’m telling you,” Kali said, her right hand forming a fist as she raised it contentiously in Snarly head’s face.
With her honeyed skin, amazing bone structure, and haughty demeanor, Kali pretty much intimidated everyone she came in contact with. Bizarrely, because of our first meeting (I threw a
Vogue
magazine at her head) and the fact that I couldn’t
help
calling her on her shit, she and I had developed a rather contentious, but respectful, friendship: She liked to call me “white girl,” and I liked to treat her with a healthy dose of sarcasm, bordering almost on disdain. Seriously, arguing with a hot-headed Indian Goddess just to see her get her panties all in a bunch was almost as much fun as going to a trunk sale at Saks.
“I won our wager fair and square,” Snarly head said, his one yellow eye fixed steadily on Kali.
The other two “cuter” heads weren’t as calm; they both immediately started in with this really irritating high-pitched keening noise, their tongues lolling unhappily out of their mouths.
“I am
not
here to argue who won what,” Kali said, hand on hip. “So you just calm your big-ass dog-self down.”
Snarly head growled, the sound issuing from low in his throat. Kali reached out her right hand and I watched, enraptured, as the jewels on her fingernails caught the light, reflecting splotches of gold sparkle all around her.
“You just watch who you growl at, stank breath,” Kali said and she smacked Snarly head hard on the top of his nose.
Snarly head reared back in shock—I don’t think anyone had ever
dared
to reprimand him before—and then like a tiny little puppy, he dropped his head and joined his brethren in their high-pitched, whining serenade.
“Don’t you start whining at me, dog,” Kali continued, incensed by Snarly head’s bad attitude. “You had better listen and quit that bad attitude crap before you really piss me off.”
I had spent enough time with the gorgeous—and pigheaded—Goddess to know that when Kali wanted you to do something, you’d better damn well do it—or else there’d be Hell and a half to pay.
“You’ve been the Guardian of the North Gate of Hell for over, like, three millennia and no one’s ever been displeased with your work,” Kali said, breaking into Board of Death-ese. “Because of your near-perfect record, we
are
willing to have your position conferred onto another being . . .
if
that is truly your wish.”
Oh, crap,
I thought as I felt the nails of my Afterlife coffin being hammered in place with Kali’s every word. She hadn’t come to rescue me; she’d come to put the official Board of Death seal of approval on the transfer!
I opened my mouth to protest, but Senenmut—whom I had forgotten was even there—stayed my mouth by putting a warning hand on my shoulder.
“Just wait,”
he whispered in my ear.
“Let it play out.”
I tensed, wanting to do what
I
wanted and ignore his probably good advice. Instead, I took a deep, calming breath and tried to relax.
“Okay,” I said finally, and Senenmut squeezed my shoulder.
I would do what my Egyptian friend said:
I would wait
—even if it went against everything I stood for. I was definitely of the act-before-you-think school of getting yourself in trouble, but I did what he said and kept my mouth shut.
In the end, it wasn’t like there was anything I could
do
about it if Kali decided to sell me out to Cerberus. I had made my own bed and now I was gonna have to lie in it—even if it did smell like wet dog.
“We, of the Board of Death,” Kali continued, looking in my direction now, “will allow you out of your contract, but we will
not
allow you to forfeit your position to a half-human being.”
Yes!
I shrieked inside my brain.
Yes, yes, yes! I was saved! Thank you, half-human blood running in my veins!
Never in my life had I been prouder of my half humanness than I was at that moment. I had always valued the human part of myself above all else, and now I was being rewarded for it—yay, me! Then, suddenly, it dawned on me that
maybe
this half-human thing might’ve saved me from a fate worse than Death, but it wasn’t
really
a compliment. Maybe because I was half-human, the Board of Death didn’t think I was
worthy
of being the Guardian of the North Gate of Hell. Maybe I was some kind of maligned half-breed that no one wanted to trust with any of the important stuff.
With that thought now firmly entrenched in my craw, I didn’t know if I was supposed to be celebrating . . . or slicing my wrists—although I meant it only in a figurative way.
“What I’m saying, stank breath,” Kali said, returning to her normal mode of speech, “is that if you want out,
we
will find someone to replace you. No wager involved.”
The three heads instantly stopped whining as Snarly head rested his monocular gaze back on the Hindu Goddess.
“All you gotta do is say the word, stank breath.”
Snarly head considered his answer for a moment, his fierce, yellow eye never leaving Kali’s face. It was like he expected to find some kind of “catch” in her offer and was quickly trying to weigh every possible outcome to see wherein the deception might lie before he made his decision. The other two heads, more relaxed now that they’d found their escape from eternal toil was still on the table, began to take turns licking their balls.
It was such an incongruous image: Snarly head locked in an intense mental struggle over whether or not to accept Kali’s offer, while his two brother heads blithely took care of their body’s baser needs. Watching the giant, three-headed dog, I was glad that there was only
one
of me to worry about—
and
that I didn’t have any balls to lick.
After what seemed like an eternity, Snarly head blinked, signaling that he had made up his mind.
“We accept the offer.”
Kali nodded.
“Then you’re free to get outta here.”
But the huge, three-headed dog didn’t move a muscle.
“We would like to know who, if not Death’s Daughter, will take over our position?”
“What’s it matter to you?” Kali said, her bitchy side coming out in spades. “You don’t give a damn about the job, stank breath.”
Snarly head sighed.
“It matters to us.”
Kali shrugged her shoulders.
“I guess if you
really
wanna know, stank breath—”
She snapped her fingers.
“Show yourself!”
There was a ripple in the ether around us and suddenly Runt was sitting beside Kali.
“Hi, Dad,” Runt said, her newly born voice as absolutely adorable as the rest of her. She might have only recently learned to talk, but there wasn’t an ounce of insecurity in her words.
“You can talk?” I whispered, feeling like a particularly bad parent because while I’d been traipsing around Las Vegas, Ancient Egypt, and the Afterlife like an itinerant mom, I had neglected to be there to witness her first words.
Argh, it made me want to kick myself!
Runt nodded her head and wagged her tail, proud of her new ability. With her pink halter (the one I had magicked into being for her when we first met) and her dark coat all shiny and soft in the afternoon light, I thought the little hellhound looked so much more like a full-grown dog than a puppy that it made me wanna cry.

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